Then he sought to live in seclusion, to become absorbed in himself, and
in solitude to suffer, having full, steadfast consciousness of his
impending doom. Yet, as in his life and his daily surroundings, all
remained the same as formerly, it seemed absurd to imagine that it
could be otherwise, or that he, Semenoff, would no longer exist as at
the present. The thought of death, which at first had made so deep a
wound, grew less poignant; the soul oppressed found freedom. Moments of
complete forgetfulness became more and more frequent, and life once
again lay before him, rich in colour, in movement, in sound.
It was only at night-time, when alone, that he was haunted by the sense
of a black abyss. After he had put out the lamp, something devoid of
form or features rose up slowly above him in the gloom, and whispered,
"Sh ... sh ... sh!" without ceasing, while to this whispering another
voice, as from within him, made hideous answer. Then he felt that he
was gradually becoming part of this murmuring and this abysmal chaos.
His life in it seemed as a faint, flickering flame that might at any
moment fade for ever. Then he decided to keep a lamp burning in his
room throughout the night. In the light, the strange whisperings
ceased, the darkness vanished; nor had he the impression of being
poised above a yawning abyss, because light made him conscious of a
thousand trivial and ordinary details in his life; the chairs, the
light, the inkstand, his own feet, an unfinished letter, an ikon,
with its lamp that he had never lighted, boots that he had forgotten to
put outside the door, and many other everyday things that surrounded
him.
Yet, even then, he could hear whisperings that came from the corners of
the room which the light of the lamp did not reach, and again the black
gulf yawned to receive him. He was afraid to look into the darkness, or
even to think of it, for then, in a moment, dreadful gloom surrounded
him, veiling the lamp, hiding the world as with a cold, dense mist from
his view. It was this that tortured, that appalled him. He felt as if
he must cry like a child, or beat his head against the wall. But as the
days went past, and Semenoff drew nearer to death, he grew more used to
such impressions. They only became stronger and more awful if by a word
or a gesture, by the sight of a funeral or of a graveyard, he was
reminded that he, too, must die. Anxious to avoid such warnings, he
never went into any street that led to the cemetery, nor ever slept on
his back with hands folded across his breast.