Thus I dreamed that my wife was expecting me somewhere--at Guerande, I
believe--and that I was going to join her by rail. As we passed
through a tunnel a deafening roll thundered over our head, and a sudden
subsidence blocked up both issues of the tunnel, leaving our train
intact in the center. We were walled up by blocks of rock in the heart
of a mountain. Then a long and fearful agony commenced. No assistance
could possibly reach us; even with powerful engines and incessant labor
it would take a month to clear the tunnel. We were prisoners there with
no outlet, and so our death was only a question of time.
My fancy had often dwelt on that hideous drama and had constantly varied
the details and touches. My actors were men, women and children; their
number increased to hundreds, and they were ever furnishing me with new
incidents. There were some provisions in the train, but these were soon
exhausted, and the hungry passengers, if they did not actually devour
human flesh, at least fought furiously over the last piece of bread.
Sometimes an aged man was driven back with blows and slowly perished; a
mother struggled like a she-wolf to keep three or four mouthfuls for her
child. In my own compartment a bride and bridegroom were dying, clasped
in each other's arms in mute despair.
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