In spite of
his growing conviction, he had cherished a lingering hope that it
was all a dream, and the feeling did not entirely vanish until he
had really seen for himself. Then his dismay was overwhelming.
A broad deck, still wet from its morning scrubbing and lined with
steamer chairs, lay in front of him. A limitless, oily sea
stretched out before his bewildered eyes; he touched the rail with
his hands to verify his vision. The strangeness of it was uncanny.
He felt as if he were walking in his sleep. He realized that a
great fragment had suddenly dropped out of his life's pattern, and
it was intensely disquieting to think of all it might have carried
with it.
He began to pace the deck mechanically, falling in with the other
early risers who were out for a breath of morning air, striving to
adjust himself to this new state of affairs. But even though the
solid reality of his surroundings soon brought him back more
nearly to a normal state of mind, he felt an ever-present
expectancy of some new shock, some new and abrupt transition that
might yet bring him back to his starting-point. But this obsession
gradually left him, as the brisk sea breeze brought him to a
proper perspective and braced him to face the full consequences of
his long, restless night's orgy.
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