When he recovered, the glorious vision had vanished. He was in
darkness. He doubted whether it was not a dream that had passed before
his sleeping fancy; but gradually his scattered thoughts returned, and
with them came remembrance. Yes! he had looked once again upon the
gorgeous splendour of nature! Once again his eyes had trembled
beneath their veiled lids, at the sun's radiance, and sought repose in
the soft verdure of the olive-tree, or the gentle swell of undulating
waves. Oh, that he were a mariner, exposed upon those waves to the
worst fury of storm and tempest; or a very wretch, loathsome with
disease, plague-stricken, and his body one leprous contagion from
crown to sole, hunted forth to gasp out the remnant of infectious life
beneath those verdant trees, so he might shun the destiny upon whose
edge he tottered!
Vain thoughts like these would steal over his mind from time to time,
in spite of himself; but they scarcely moved it from that stupor into
which it had sunk, and which kept him, during the whole night, like
one who had been drugged with opium. He was equally insensible to the
calls of hunger and of thirst, though the third day was now commencing
since even a drop of water had passed his lips. He remained on the
ground, sometimes sitting, sometimes lying; at intervals, sleeping
heavily; and when not sleeping, silently brooding over what was to
come, or talking aloud, in disordered speech, of his wrongs, of his
friends, of his home, and of those he loved, with a confused mingling
of all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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