and called me, and even entreated, and I had withstood and refused.  All the evil I had done came back, and spread itself out before my eyes; and I loathed it, yet knew that I had chosen it, and that it would be with me forever.  I saw it all in the twinkling of an eye, in a moment, while I stood there, and all men with me, in the horror of awful thought.  Then it ceased as it had come, instantaneously, and the noise and the laughter, and the quarrels and cries, and all the commotion of this new bewildering place, in a moment began again.  I had seen no one while this strange paroxysm lasted.  When it disappeared, I came to myself, emerging as from a dream, and looked into the face of the man whose words, not careless like mine, had brought it upon us.  Our eyes met, and his were surrounded by curves and lines of anguish which were terrible to see.

‘Well,’ he said with a short laugh, which was forced and harsh, ’how do you like it? that is what happens when—­If it came often, who could endure it?’ He was not like the rest.  There was no sneer upon his face, no gibe at my simplicity.  Even now, when all had recovered, he was still quivering with something that looked like a nobler pain.  His face was very grave, the lines deeply drawn in it; and he seemed to be seeking no amusement or distraction, nor to take any part in the noise and tumult which was going on around.

‘Do you know what that cry meant?’ he said.  ’Did you hear that cry?  It was some one who saw—­even here once in a long time, they say, it can be seen—­’

‘What can be seen?’

He shook his head, looking at me with a meaning which I could not interpret.  It was beyond the range of my thoughts.  I came to know after, or I never could have made this record.  But on that subject he said no more.  He turned the way I was going, though it mattered nothing what way I went, for all were the same to me.  ‘You are one of the new-comers?’ he said; ‘you have not been long here—­’

‘Tell me,’ I cried, ’what you mean by here.  Where are we?  How can one tell who has fallen—­he knows not whence or where?  What is this place?  I have never seen anything like it.  It seems to me that I hate it already, though I know not what it is.’

He shook his head once more.  ‘You will hate it more and more,’ he said; ‘but of these dreadful streets you will never be free, unless—­’ And here he stopped again.

’Unless—­what?  If it is possible, I will be free of them, and that before long.’

He smiled at me faintly, as we smile at children, but not with derision.

’How shall you do that?  Between this miserable world and all others, there is a great gulf fixed.  It is full of all the bitterness and tears that come from all the universe.  These drop from them, but stagnate here.  We, you perceive, have no tears, not even at moments—­’ Then, ’You will soon be accustomed to all this,’ he said.  ’You will fall into the way.  Perhaps you