Automatically, he stepped out of the elevator, and found his way through the corridor to his door. Automatically, he unlocked the door, passed it, locked it behind him. But then, of a sudden, his strength deserted him, his sensations rushed upon him, and overpowered him. He dropped upon the first chair he came to, and sat there, all huddled up, and staring blindly, like a drunken man. Indeed, it was not unlike a drunken man that he felt. He felt deathly sick. He felt an oppression upon his lungs, and had to labor hard for his breath. His head sagged forward heavily upon his chest; his brain went spinning furiously round and round. His ears rang. A blackish, half-opaque mist hung before his eyes, in which the objects about him swam dimly, bewilderingly, to and fro. The house seemed to be rocking on its foundations. In his breast--something--a lump, big and hot, like a coal of fire--was struggling frantically, in spasmodic leaps, as if to break away, and get outside. At one instant he thought it would choke him; it had sprung up into his throat. Again, he thought it would rend his very bone and flesh asunder, with such force it dashed itself against the walls that shut it in. Then, for another instant, it fell back, and was quiet; but then he thought it would burn him up, with its intense, angry heat. Liquid fire went circling through his veins, scalding them, and causing the uttermost parts of his body to throb and tingle. So, for it may have been a half hour, he sat there upon that chair, limp, motionless, like one stricken impotent and senseless by too much wine. In the end, however, all at once, as if stung, he sprang up, and began striding wildly, with unsteady gait, back and forth across his floor. He moaned aloud. Sometimes he would wring his hands together. Sometimes he would press them to his temples. By and by he began to talk to himself. His voice was husky, his articulation indistinct. His words came in spurts. A spectator would certainly have put him down for drunk.