I had often wondered how it is with a man when he closes his life to this world. Looking upon the struggling efforts of a dying man to retain his hold upon his body, I had often wondered whether his sliding to unconsciousness was like the dissolving of the mind to sleep in this life.
That death was not like sleep was at such times patent enough—it was patent enough that it was the antithesis of sleep. Sleep is peaceful; death is convulsed—sleep is rest; death is separation.
That which I here following read in the book as it lay open upon the man's knees seemed in a way dark, broken, indistinct with a certain grim obscurity; yet if I read truly therein I distinguished this great difference between death and sleep: Sleep is the cessation of consciousness from an interior life to exterior thought; death is the cessation of
consciousness from the exterior mind to an interior life.
When Sandy Graff opened his eyes once more, it was to find himself again within the sheltering arms of the Refuge. That awakening was almost to a full and clear consciousness. It was with no confusion of thought and but little confusion of sight, except for a white mist that seemed to blur the things he saw.
He knew, instantly and vividly, where he was. Instantly and vividly everything found its fit place in his mind—the long rows of cots; the bald, garishly white walls, cold and unbeautiful in their immaculate cleanliness; the range of curtainless windows looking out upon the chill, thin gray of the winter day. He was not surprised to find himself in the Refuge; it did not seem strange to him, and he did not wonder. He dimly remembered stumbling through the snow-drifts and then falling asleep, overpowered by an irresistible and leaden drowsiness. But just where it was he fell, he could not recall.
He saw with dim sight that three or four people were gathered about his bed. Two of them were rubbing his legs and feet, but he could not feel them. It was
this senselessness of feeling that first brought the jarring of the truth to him. The house-steward stood near by, and Sandy turned his face weakly toward him. "Mr. Jackson," said he, faintly, "I think I'm going to die."