* * * * *

I thought to myself: If now a wave from the Deep has washed over this
planetary ship of earth, and I, who alone happened to be in the extreme
bows, am the sole survivor of that crew?... What then, my God, shall I
do?

* * * * *

I felt, I felt, that in this townlet, save the water-gnats of Norway,
was no living thing; that the hum and the savour of Eternity filled, and
wrapped, and embalmed it.

The houses are mostly of wood, some of them fairly large, with a
_porte-cochère_ leading into a semi-circular yard, around which the
building stands, very steep-roofed, and shingled, in view of the heavy
snow-masses of winter. Glancing into one open casement near the ground,
I saw an aged woman, stout and capped, lie on her face before a very
large porcelain stove; but I paced on without stoppage, traversed
several streets, and came out, as it became dark, upon a piece of
grass-land leading downward to a mountain-gorge. It was some distance
along this gorge that I found myself sitting the next morning: and how,
and in what trance, I passed that whole blank night is obliterated from
my consciousness. When I looked about with the return of light I saw
majestic fir-grown mountains on either hand, almost meeting overhead at
some points, deeply shading the mossy gorge. I rose, and careless of
direction, went still onward, and walked and walked for hours,
unconscious of hunger; there was a profusion of wild
mountain-strawberries, very tiny, which must grow almost into winter, a
few of which I ate; there were blue gentianellas, and