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He began to talk to himself. "Two hundred and
three years! " he said to himself over and over again,
laughing stupidly. "Then I am two hundred and
thirty-three years old! The oldest inhabitant. Surely
they haven't reversed the tendency of our time and
gone back to the rule of the oldest. My claims are
indisputable. Mumble, mumble. I remember the Bulgarian
atrocities as though it was yesterday. 'Tis a
great age! Ha ha!" He was surprised at first to
hear himself laughing, and then laughed again deliberately
and louder. Then he realised that he was
behaving foolishly. "Steady," he said. "Steady!"
His pacing became more regular. "This new
world," he said. "I don't understand it. _Why? . . .
But it is all why!_"
"I suppose they can fly and do all sorts of things
Let me try and remember just how it began."
He was surprised at first to find how vague the
memories of his first thirty years had become. He
remembered fragments, for the most part trivial
moments, things of no great importance that he had
observed. His boyhood seemed the most accessible
at first, he recalled school books and certain lessons
in mensuration. Then he revived the more salient
features of his life, memories of the wife long since
dead, her magic influence now gone beyond corruption,
of his rivals and friends and betrayers, of the
swift decision of this issue and that, and then of his ,
last years of misery, of fluctuating resolves, and at last
of his strenuous studies. In a little while he perceived
he had it all again; dim perhaps, like metal long laid
aside, but in no way defective or injured, capable of
re-polishing. And the hue of it was a deepening misery.
Was it worth re-polishing? By a miracle he had
been lifted out of a life that had become intolerable.
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