"'And with that a troop of horsemen, horses and men mad with living
fear, came with a level rush towards the spot where I sat, faint
with woe. And I sprang up, and bounded to meet them, throwing my
arms aloft and shouting, as one who would turn a herd. And like a
wave of the rising tide before a swift wind, a wave that sweeps on
and breaks not, they came hard-buffeting over my head. Ah! that was
a torrent indeed!--a thunderous succession of solid billows, alive,
hurled along by the hurricane-fear in the heart of them! For one
moment only I felt and knew what I lay beneath, and then for a time
there was nothing.--I woke in silence, and thought I was dying, that
I had all but passed across the invisible line between, and in a
moment there would be for evermore nothing and nothing. Then
followed again an empty space as it seemed. And now I am dead and
gone, I said, and shall wander no more. And with that came the agony
of hell, for, lo, still _I_ THOUGHT! And I said to myself, Alas! O
God! for, notwithstanding I no more see or hear or taste or smell or
touch, and my body hath dropped from me, still am I Ahasuerus, the
Wanderer, and must go on and on and on, blind and deaf, through the
unutterable wastes that know not the senses of man--nevermore to
find rest! Alas! death is not death, seeing he slayeth but the
leathern bottle, and spilleth not the wine of life upon the earth.
Alas! alas! for I cannot die! And with that a finger twitched, and I
shouted aloud for joy: I was yet in the body! And I sprang to my
feet jubilant, and, lame and bruised and broken-armed, tottered away
after Death, who yet might hold the secret of eternal repose. I was
alive, but yet there was hope, for Death was yet before me! I was
alive, but I had not died, and who could tell but I might yet find
the lovely night that hath neither clouds nor stars! I had not
passed into the land of the dead and found myself yet living! The
wise men of my nation in the city of the Almains might yet be wise!