I held my breath and kept utterly still, inwardly and outwardly, for
fear, I suppose, that the creature would become conscious of my
presence; but the distress I felt went far deeper than the mere sense of
personal safety, or the fact of watching something so incredibly active
and real. I became keenly aware of the dreadful psychic calamity it
involved. The realisation that Sangree lay confined in that narrow space
with this species of monstrous projection of himself--that he was
wrapped there in the cataleptic sleep, all unconscious that this thing
was masquerading with his own life and energies--added a distressing
touch of horror to the scene. In all the cases of John Silence--and they
were many and often terrible--no other psychic affliction has ever,
before or since, impressed me so convincingly with the pathetic
impermanence of the human personality, with its fluid nature, and with
the alarming possibilities of its transformations.
"Come," he whispered, after we had watched for some minutes the frantic
efforts to escape from the circle of thought and will that held it
prisoner, "come a little farther away while I release it.
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