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intensified, almost to the verge of craziness. He was as lacking in
restraint as a silly woman. He would weep for hours together, and I
verily believe that to the very end this spoiled child of life thought
his weak tears in some way efficacious. And I would sit in the
darkness unable to keep my mind off him by reason of his
importunities. He ate more than I did, and it was in vain I pointed
out that our only chance of life was to stop in the house until the
Martians had done with their pit, that in that long patience a time
might presently come when we should need food. He ate and drank
impulsively in heavy meals at long intervals. He slept little.
As the days wore on, his utter carelessness of any consideration so
intensified our distress and danger that I had, much as I loathed
doing it, to resort to threats, and at last to blows. That brought him
to reason for a time. But he was one of those weak creatures, void of
pride, timorous, anaemic, hateful souls, full of shifty cunning, who
face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves.
It is disagreeable for me to recall and write these things, but I
set them down that my story may lack nothing. Those who have escaped
the dark and terrible aspects of life will find my brutality, my flash
of rage in our final tragedy, easy enough to blame; for they know what
is wrong as well as any, but not what is possible to tortured men. But
those who have been under the shadow, who have gone down at last to
elemental things, will have a wider charity.
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