I am afraid of everything, except of death. Strictly
speaking, I have a strange sensation as if it were not that I am
afraid, but as if fear dwelt in me, as a separate being,--and I
tremble; I cannot bear darkness now. In the evening I go out and walk
in the streets, lighted by electric lamps, until I am thoroughly
tired. If I met anybody I knew, I should escape, if to the other end
of the world; but crowds have become a necessity to me. When the
streets are getting empty I feel terrified. The thought of night fills
me with nameless fear. And how long they seem, these nights!
I have continually a metallic taste in my mouth. I felt it for the
first time that night when I came home and found Kromitzki waiting
for me; the second time I felt it when Pani Celina told me the "great
news." What a day! I had gone to ask how Aniela was, when the doctor
had seen her for the second time. There was not the slightest
suspicion in my mind; I did not understand anything even when Pani
Celina said: "The doctor says that those are purely nervous symptoms,
and have nothing to do with her state."
Seeing that I did not understand, she said, with a certain
uneasiness:--
"I must tell you the great news."
And she told me the "great news." When I heard it I felt the metallic
taste in my mouth, and a cold sensation in my brain, exactly as I had
felt that evening I met Kromitzki unexpectedly.
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