Человек, который смеется / The Man Who Laughs. Уровень 4

He fancied that the birds pursued him, that the dead man had undone his chain and was perhaps hurrying behind him, and no doubt the gibbet itself was descending the hill, running after the dead man; he feared to see these things if he turned his head.

When he had recovered his breath he resumed his flight. He no longer felt hunger nor cold – he felt fear. One instinct had given place to another. To escape was now his whole thought – to escape from what? From everything. On all sides life seemed to enclose him like a horrible wall.

He was running. He ran on for an indefinite time.

All at once he stopped. He was ashamed of running away. He drew himself up, stamped his foot, and, with head erect, looked round. There was no longer hill, nor gibbet, nor flights of crows. The child pursued his way: he now no longer ran but walked.

The child had run quite a quarter of a league, and walked another quarter, when suddenly he felt the craving of hunger. A thought occurred to him forcibly – that he must eat.

But what to eat, where to eat, how to eat?

He felt his pockets mechanically, they were empty. Then he quickened his steps, without knowing whither he was going. He hastened towards a possible shelter. However, in that plain of snow there was nothing like a roof. There had never been a human habitation on the tableland. It was at the foot of the cliff.

The child found his way as best he could. He continued to advance, but although the muscles of his thighs seemed to be of steel, he began to tire.

Instinctively he inclined eastwards. Sharp stones had wounded his heels.

He recognized nothing. He was crossing the plain of Portland from south to north. It is probable that the band with which he had come, to avoid meeting anyone, had crossed it from east to west. It was impossible for him to recognize the road.

On the plain of Portland there are, here and there, raised strips of land. The wandering child reached one of these points and stopped on it.

He tried to see around him. Before him, in place of a horizon, was a vast livid opacity.

He saw some distance off a descent, and at the foot of the descent, among shapeless conformations of rock, blurred by the mist, what seemed to be either a sandbank. It was evident he must pass that way. He had, in fact, arrived at the Isthmus of Portland, a part which is called Chess Hill.

He began to descend the side of the plateau. The descent was difficult and rough.