hem. He draws his feet out of the sand, he tries
to retrace his steps, he turns back, he sinks in more deeply than
before. The sand is up to his ankles, he tears himself free from it
and flings himself to the left, the sand reaches to mid-leg, he flings
himself to the right, the sand comes up to his knees. Then, with
indescribable terror, he recognizes the fact that he is caught in a
quicksand, and that he has beneath him that frightful medium in which
neither man can walk nor fish can swim. He flings away his burden, if he
have one, he lightens himself, like a ship in distress; it is too late,
the sand is above his knees.

He shouts, he waves his hat, or his handkerchief, the sand continually
gains on him; if the beach is deserted, if the land is too far away, if
the bank of sand is too ill-famed, there is no hero in the neighborhood,
all is over, he is condemned to be engulfed. He is condemned to that
terrible interment, long, infallible, implacable, which it is impossible
to either retard or hasten, which lasts for hours, which will not come
to an end, which seizes you erect, free, in the flush of health, which
drags you down by the feet, which, at every effort that you attempt, at
every shout that you utter, draws you a little lower, which has the air
of punishing you for your resistance by a redoubled grasp, which forces
a man to return slowly to earth, while leaving him time to survey the
horizon, the trees, the verdant country, the smoke of the villages on
the plain, the sails of the ships on the sea, the birds which fly
and sing, the sun and the sky. This engulfment is the sepulchre which
assumes a tide, and which mounts from the depths of the earth towards
a living man. Each minute is an inexorable layer-out of the dead. The
wretched man tries to sit down, to lie down, to climb; every movement
that he makes buries him deeper; he straightens himself up, he sinks; he
feels that he is being swallowed up; he shrieks, implores, cries to the
clouds, wrings his hands, grows desperate. Behold him in the sand up
to his belly, the sand reaches to his breast, he is only a bust now.
He uplifts his hands, utters furious groans, clenches his nails on the
beach, tries to cling fast to that ashes, supports himself on his elbows
in order to raise himself from that soft sheath, and sobs frantically;
the sand mounts higher. The sand has reached his shoulders, the sand
reaches to his throat; only his face is visible now. His mouth