Braun did not let him finish.
"A day!… Twenty days, fifty, as long as you like. As long as you are in this country you shall stay in our house: and I hope you will stay for a long time. It is an honor and a great happiness for us."
Christophe was overwhelmed by his kind words. He flung himself into
Braun's arms.
"My dear Christophe, my dear Christophe!" said Braun…. "He is weeping…. Well, well what is it?… Anna! Anna!… Quick, he has fainted…."
Christophe had collapsed in his host's arms. He had succumbed to the fainting fit which had been imminent for several hours.
When he opened his eyes again he was lying in a great bed. A smell of wet earth came up through the open window. Braun was bending over him.
"Forgive me," murmured Christophe, trying to get up.
"He is dying of hunger!" cried Braun.
The woman went out and returned with a cup and gave him to drink. Braun held his head. Christophe was restored to life: but his exhaustion was stronger than his hunger: hardly was his head laid back on the pillow than he went to sleep. Braun and his wife watched over him: then, seeing that he only needed rest, they left him.
He fell into the sort of sleep that seems to last for years, a heavy crushing sleep, dropping like a piece of lead to the bottom of a lake. In such a sleep a man is a prey to his accumulated weariness and the monstrous hallucinations which are forever prowling at the gates of his will. He tried to wake up, burning, broken, lost in the impenetrable darkness: he heard the clocks striking the half hours: he could not breathe, or think, or move: he was bound and gagged like a man flung into water to drown: he tried to struggle, but only sank down again.—Dawn came at length, the tardy gray dawn of a rainy day. The intolerable heat that consumed him grew less: but his body was pinned under the weight of a mountain. He woke up. It was a terrible awakening.