nd heard no more....

* * * * *

I woke in a sweat the next morning, moist all over, my whole body
bathed in dampness. The fever had laid violent hands on me. At first I
had no clear idea of what had happened to me; I looked about me in
amazement, felt a complete transformation of my being, absolutely
failed to recognize myself again. I felt along my own arms and down my
legs, was struck with astonishment that the window was where it was,
and not in the opposite wall; and I could hear the tramp of the horses'
feet in the yard below as if it came from above me. I felt rather sick,
too--qualmish.

My hair clung wet and cold about my forehead. I raised myself on my
elbow and looked at the pillow; damp hair lay on it, too, in patches.
My feet had swelled up in my shoes during the night, but they caused me
no pain, only I could not move my toes much, they were too stiff.

As the afternoon closed in, and it had already begun to grow a little
dusk, I got up out of bed and commenced to move about the room a
little. I felt my way with short, careful steps, taking care to keep my
balance and spare my feet as much as possible. I did not suffer much,
and I did not cry; neither was I, taking all into consideration, sad.
On the contrary, I was blissfully content. It did not strike me just
then that anything could be otherwise than it was.

Then I went out.

The only thing that troubled me a little, in spite of the nausea that
the thought of food inspired in me, was hunger. I commenced to be
sensible of a shameless appetite again; a ravenous lust of food, which
grew steadily worse and worse. It gnawed unmercifully in my breast;
carrying on a silent, mysterious work in there. It was as if a score of
diminutive gnome-like insects set their heads on one side and gnawed
for a little, then laid their heads on the other side and gnawed a
little more, then lay quite still for a moment's space, and then began
afresh, boring noiselessly in, and without any haste, and left empty
spaces everywhere after them as they went on....

I was not ill, but faint; I broke into a sweat. I thought of going to
the market-place to rest a while, but the way was long and wearisome;
at last I had almost reached it. I stood at the corner of the market
and Market Street; the sweat ran down into my eyes and blinded me, and
I had just stopped in order to wipe it away a little. I did not notice
the place I was standing in; in fa