Decoud lost all
belief in the reality of his action past and to come. On the fifth day
an immense melancholy descended upon him palpably. He resolved not to
give himself up to these people in Sulaco, who had beset him, unreal and
terrible, like jibbering and obscene spectres. He saw himself struggling
feebly in their midst, and Antonia, gigantic and lovely like an
allegorical statue, looking on with scornful eyes at his weakness.
Not a living being, not a speck of distant sail, appeared within
the range of his vision; and, as if to escape from this solitude,
he absorbed himself in his melancholy. The vague consciousness of a
misdirected life given up to impulses whose memory left a bitter taste
in his mouth was the first moral sentiment of his manhood. But at the
same time he felt no remorse. What should he regret? He had recognized
no other virtue than intelligence, and had erected passions into duties.
Both his intelligence and his passion were swallowed up easily in this
great unbroken solitude of waiting without faith. Sleeplessness had
robbed his will of all energy, for he had not slept seven hours in the
seven days.
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