He is condemned to that appalling burial, long, infallible,
implacable, and impossible to slacken or to hasten, which endures for
hours, which seizes you erect, free, and in full health, and which
draws you by the feet, which at every effort that you make, at every
shout you utter, drags you a little deeper, sinking you slowly into
the earth while you look upon the horizon, the sails of the ships upon
the sea, the birds flying and singing, the sunshine and the sky. The
victim attempts to sit down, to lie down, to creep; every movement he
makes inters him; he straightens up, he sinks in; he feels that he is
being swallowed. He howls, implores, cries to the clouds, despairs.

Behold him waist deep in the sand. The sand reaches his breast; he is
now only a bust. He raises his arm, utters furious groans, clutches
the beach with his nails, would hold by that straw, leans upon his
elbows to pull himself out of this soft sheath, sobs frenziedly; the
sand rises. The sand reaches his shoulders; the sand reaches his neck;
the face alone is visible now. The mouth cries, the sand fills it;
silence. The eyes still gaze, the sand shuts them; night. Now the
forehead decreases, a little hair flutters above the sand; a hand
comes to the surface of the beach, moves, and shakes, and disappears.
It is the earth-drowning man. The earth filled with the ocean becomes
a trap. It presents itself like a plain, and opens like a wave.

Could anything more graphically describe the progress of a young man,
from the first cup of wine to the last?


"ONCE AGAIN."