But I was not tired from want of sleep, and it would not come to me. I lay
a while gazing into the darkness, this dense mass of gloom that had no
bottom--my thoughts could not fathom it.

It seemed beyond all measure dense to me, and I felt its presence oppress
me. I closed my eyes, commenced to sing under my breath, and tossed to and
fro, in order to distract myself, but to no purpose. The darkness had
taken possession of my thoughts and left me not a moment in peace.
Supposing I were myself to be absorbed in darkness; made one with it?

I raise myself up in bed and fling out my arms. My nervous condition has
got the upper hand of me, and nothing availed, no matter how much I tried
to work against it. There I sat, a prey to the most singular fantasies,
listening to myself crooning lullabies, sweating with the exertion of
striving to hush myself to rest. I peered into the gloom, and I never in
all the days of my life felt such darkness. There was no doubt that I
found myself here, in face of a peculiar kind of darkness; a desperate
element to which no one had hitherto paid attention. The most ludicrous
thoughts busied me, and everything made me afraid.

A little hole in the wall at the head of my bed occupies me greatly--a
nail hole. I find the marks in the wall--I feel it, blow into it, and try
to guess its depth. That was no innocent hole--not at all. It was a
downright intricate and mysterious hole, which I must guard against!
Possessed by the thought of this hole, entirely beside myself with
curiosity and fear, I get out of bed and seize hold of my penknife in
order to gauge its depth, and convince myself that it does not reach right
into the next wall.

I lay down once more to try and fall asleep, but in reality to wrestle