He turned from the window to look at the dark little room, groped his
way to the chest of drawers, and lighted a candle. Its flame
sputtered, then settled and burned unwaveringly. Here in London the
nights seemed as stuffy as the days; there was no life or freshness,
no movement of the air; it was as if the warm breath of the crowd rose
upward and nothing less than a balloon would allow one to escape from
its taint. But he noticed that even at this slight elevation he had
got free from the noise of the traffic. It would continue--a crashing
roar--for hours, and yet it was now scarcely perceptible. Listening
attentively he heard it--just a crackling murmur, a curious muffled
rhythm, as of drums beaten by an army of drummers marching far away.
When he got into bed and blew out his candle, the rectangle of the
window became brighter. After a little while he fancied that he could
distinguish two or three stars shining very faintly in the patch of
sky above the sashes; and again thinking of remoteness, immensity,
infinity, he experienced a curious physical sensation of contracting
bulk, as though all his body had grown and was steadily growing
smaller. Very strong this sensation, and, unless one wrestled with it
firmly, translating itself in the mental sphere as a vaguely
distressful notion that one was nothing but a tiny insect at war with
the entire universe.
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