A strange
uncertainty about directing myself in the simplest actions, overcame
my mind. Sometimes, I stopped short, hesitating in spite of myself at
the slightest obstacles in my path. Sometimes, I grew confused without
any cause, about the direction in which I was proceeding, and fancied
I was going back to the fishing village.. The sight that I had
witnessed, seemed to be affecting me physically, far more than
mentally. As I dragged myself on my weary way along the coast, there
was always the same painful vacancy in my thoughts: there seemed to be
no power in them yet, of realising Mannion's appalling death.
By the time I arrived at this village, my strength was so utterly
exhausted, that the people at the inn were obliged to help me
upstairs. Even now, after some hours' rest, the mere exertion of
dipping my pen in the ink begins to be a labour and a pain to me.
There is a strange fluttering at my heart; my recollections are
growing confused again--I can write no more.
23rd.--The frightful scene that I witnessed yesterday still holds the
same disastrous influence over me. I have vainly endeavoured to think,
not of Mannion's death, but of the free prospect which that death has
opened to my view. Waking or sleeping, it is as if some fatality kept
all my faculties imprisoned within the black walls of the chasm. I saw
the livid, bleeding hands flying past them again, in my dreams, last
night. And now, while the morning is clear and the breeze is fresh, no
repose, no change comes to my thoughts.
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