He
was not conscious of speaking them, yet he seemed to hear them. He
looked at the blackness. And again it surely moved. Again he surely
saw it gathering itself together, and towering up as a wave towers.
His sensation was absolutely one of nightmare. And exactly as in a
nightmare a man feels that he is no longer fully himself, has no
longer the power to do any manly or effective thing, so Artois felt
now.
It seemed to him that he was nothing, and yet that he was hated. He
turned and looked behind him, moved by a fierce desire for relief. He
had not the courage to persist in confronting that blackness which
took a form, which came upon him, which would surely overwhelm him.
In the distance he saw a pallor, where the face of the night looked
into the palace from the sea. And he heard the distant water. Still
the little waves were entering the deserted chambers, only to seek an
exit which they could never find. Their ceaseless determination was
horrible to him, because it suggested to him the ceaseless
determination of those other waves of black hatred, one following
another, from some hidden centre of energy that was inexhaustible.
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