Page:Poet Lore, volume 4, 1892.djvu/473

 labyrinth of corridors,—this was as difficult an experiment as it was original.

“Well, let us wait till the adroit magician thinks fit to release us from the prison,” was my resolution; and I quietly walked up and down the four corridors until I found myself again at the point whence I had started. At times I would stop and listen; but I heard nothing but the wind, which finally became silent, and a mysterious stillness, interrupted only by the hollow echo of my steps, spread all over the corridors.

At first I was entirely quiet; but after about half an hour had passed, I began to be a little impatient. Several times I shouted my friend’s name; but in answer I merely heard an echo of my own voice.

Walking through the corridors at a constantly growing pace, I warmed myself a little; I felt the cold the more acutely when I slackened my pace or stopped. I had to walk faster and faster. In the true sense of the word I ran through all the corridors, stopping at that point where I supposed the door was by which I had entered. For a while I searched for the door; but the cold drove me on. My anxiety increased. It seemed to me that I had been wandering through the corridors fully three hours. Every minute was almost an hour to me. I stamped, clapped, and shouted; but the stillness was unbroken. And whenever I stopped, the mysterious cold forced me on. Again I ran; I felt that my blood boiled, that the sweat was running down my face; but a mysterious power urged me on. I saw nothing before me but a dark corridor, seemingly growing narrower, and I began to doubt whether all this were real. But immediately I remembered that I saw the castle illuminated, that I spoke to the porter, and heard the music; in a word, that all this must be a reality and yet I could not comprehend why I heard only the hollow echo of my own steps and words, as though I were in an uninhabited palace. Thus, I thought, thus fares a man who, staggering from one error into another, is in vain looking for firm ground,—thus arises the chaos of divergent notions and ideas which usually precedes that awful state of mind known as—insanity.