hard for me to look at them, and I was anxious to leave them.
“I just want to take a glance into the engine-room, and then off!” I said.
They were asking me questions: What voltage should be used for the initial spark, how much ballast water was needed in the tank aft. As if a phonograph were somewhere within me, I was giving quick and precise answers but I , my inner self, was busy with its own thoughts.
In the narrow passage gray unifs were passing, gray faces and for a second, one face with its hair low over the forehead, eyes gazing from deep beneath it—it was that same man . I understood: they had come and there was no escape from it for me; only minutes remained, a few dozens of minutes. … An infinitesimal, molecular quiver of my whole body. This did not cease to the very end—it was as if an enormous motor were placed under the very foundation of my body which was so light that the walls, partitions, cables, beams, lights—everything was quivering. …