On both
sides the roughly planed boards were stout and resistive. I slipped my
arm onto my chest to raise it over my head. There I discovered in the
top plank a knot in the wood which yielded slightly at my pressure.
Working laboriously, I finally succeeded in driving out this knot, and
on passing my finger through the hole I found that the earth was wet and
clayey. But that availed me little. I even regretted having removed the
knot, vaguely dreading the irruption of the mold. A second experiment
occupied me for a while. I tapped all over the coffin to ascertain if
perhaps there were any vacuum outside. But the sound was everywhere
the same. At last, as I was slightly kicking the foot of the coffin, I
fancied that it gave out a clearer echoing noise, but that might merely
be produced by the sonority of the wood.
At any rate, I began to press against the boards with my arms and my
closed fists. In the same way, too, I used my knees, my back and my feet
without eliciting even a creak from the wood. I strained with all my
strength, indeed, with so desperate an effort of my whole frame, that my
bruised bones seemed breaking. But nothing moved, and I became insane.
Until that moment I had held delirium at bay.
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