[_At a table a little apart from the rest there sits the Man. His white, dishevelled head is bowed upon his arms, and he maintains this attitude unchanged until the moment, towards the close of the Act, when he rises and speaks for the last time. Like the drunkards, he is very poorly clad._ [_In another corner of the room there stands the motionless figure of the Being in Grey. In the Beings hand a fast-expiring candle (its flame now grown thin and blue) is flickering heavily, as at one moment it droops downwards over the edge of the candlestick, and at another darts upwards into a fine point as it casts gleams of a lurid, deathlike hue over the statuesque face and chin of the Being._] ~Dialogue of the Drunkards.~~ O my God, my God! See how the room is heaving about! I can scarcely keep an eye fixed upon anything at all! It is shivering as though with ague--ceiling, tables, floor, and walls! It is as though we were at sea! Hark! Do you hear that strange sound--a sound as of iron wheels being rattled, or of great stones rolling down a hillside--showers of stones as thick as raindrops? Pooh! That sound is in your own ears. 'Tis the blood makes it. My blood too is playing me strange pranks, for it has turned all thick and black, and smells of _vodka_. It will scarce pass through the veins now, and when it draws near to the heart it dams itself up, and refuses to flow at all. I can see lightning flashing, lightning flashing! And I can see great funeral-piles, with men burning on them! I can smell the horrid smell of their roasting flesh I I can see black shadows dancing round them! Hi, shadows! Let me come and dance with you awhile! O my God, my God! I must have another dram. Who will join me? No one? Then a curse upon you all! I will drink alone. See! A lovely woman is kissing me on the lips! She smells of musk, and her teeth are like a crocodile's I Ugh! She will bite me, she will bite me! Away, harridan! I am no harridan. I am only an old serpent with young, and have been watching little serpents crawl out of my womb this hour past, or more. See the little devils, how they wriggle about! Hi, you! Do not you dare to tread upon my serpent brood! Where are you off to? Who is that going away? Sit down again. You make the whole room shake with your tread. No, I dare not stay; I dare not sit down again. Nor I. When I sit down I feel the horrors coming over me. Over me too. Let me pass, I say! [_A number of the drunkards rise, and go surging towards the entrance-ladder--overturning some of the tables during their staggering progress._] See what that monster is doing! For two hours past it has been trying to climb on to my lap, only it cannot succeed. I keep driving it away, yet it always returns. At what sort of a game is it playing? I feel as though a swarm of cockroaches were buzzing about, and nesting in my skull.