I asked where we were going. The laughter and
conversation increased. I was answered, but in a jargon I found quite
incomprehensible. Another question.
"'Who under heaven were these people?'
"I stood up and staggered. I must have appeared drunk, for I was
greeted with howls and cheers, an inferno of cries and laughter; and
the red-faced man stood up also and clung to me, and brought his queer
face close up to mine. The girl also clung to me. Then it occurred to
me, this was the crisis of a nightmare; in a moment these phantasmal
restraints would burst, and I should find myself peacefully--where?
"I remember what seemed a prolonged struggle among laughter and sighs
and affectionate clingings, and I got at last out at the door and
down the steps. I found myself weakly turning about on my heels on an
excessively dusty road. Just ahead of me the coach rolled off into the
future stretches of the road, the postilion wound his horn, and the
clouds of dust rose up behind the wheels.
"And I was in an open place in the cool of evening. A grey-blue sky
above, with the faintest glitter of first stars! I was alone. The past
was a mystery; my future unexplored, full of the unimaginable; the
ultimate future of course like my past.
"Such was my beginning--the event of my life, in the shadow of which I
live and by virtue of which, though I know every road and house of the
world, I yet am homeless.
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