Certainly I do remember finding myself in a coach, but at
the startled moment when my conscious life began, it appeared to me
that I had never been anywhere in my life but sitting in the coach. A
certain intellectual _horror vacuum_ may have evoked that mental image
of an entering of the coach, but even then I wholly fail to fill in
the life and place from which I came. All behind that strange misty
entering on the coach-steps is grey, empty mist-land.
"It was a large, smooth-rolling coach, most like a commodious omnibus,
and full of a most jovial company. I sat half-way along one of the two
lengthy seats, and opposite me was a red-faced man, with large shiny
eyes and greasy hair. On one side of me was a jolly country girl of
about twenty-five, on the other a thin, dry-looking man. There was an
incessant din of conversation and singing; we were leaning towards one
another, and saying what jolly fellows we were, we should never part.
A bottle was always going round, and every now and then the postilion
blew his horn; six horses clattered in front, the dust rolled off
behind. I remember myself in a strange state of excitement.
"It was afternoon when I began to think. Actually, at that time I knew
I had no memory, but I dared not face the fact. I strove to evade
thought by being one of the company.
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