I also suffered from
cold and dreaded lest I should succumb to the mortal numbness of
those who fall asleep in the snow, never to wake again. Still, while
unceasingly realizing the necessity of remaining calm, I felt maddening
blasts sweep through my brain, and to quiet my senses I exhorted myself
to patience, trying to remember the circumstances of my burial. Probably
the ground had been bought for five years, and this would be against my
chances of self-deliverance, for I remembered having noticed at Nantes
that in the trenches of the common graves one end of the last lowered
coffins protruded into the next open cavity, in which case I should only
have had to break through one plank. But if I were in a separate hole,
filled up above me with earth, the obstacles would prove too great. Had
I not been told that the dead were buried six feet deep in Paris? How
was I to get through the enormous mass of soil above me? Even if I
succeeded in slitting the lid of my bier open the mold would drift in
like fine sand and fill my mouth and eyes. That would be death again, a
ghastly death, like drowning in mud.
However, I began to feel the planks carefully. The coffin was roomy,
and I found that I was able to move my arms with tolerable ease.
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