Will not the sensations be multiplied by--unbearable! I would swear at the thought, if I had anything to swear by! To be transmuted into the sensoria of forty different nasty carrion crows, besides two or three foxes, and a large black beetle! I'll run away, just like anybody else....

if anybody existed.

Come, Bran! ...............
'Bran! where are you; unlucky inseparable sensation of mine?
Picking up a dinner already off these dead soldiers?
Well, the pity is that this foolish contradictory taste of mine, while it makes me hungry, forbids me to follow your example.

Why am I to take lessons from my soldier-phantasms, and not from my canine one?
Illogical! Bran! Bran!' and he went out and whistled in vain for the dog.
'Bran! unhappy phantom, who will not vanish by night or day, lying on my chest even in dreams; and who would not even let me vanish, and solve the problem--though I don't believe there is any--why did you drag me out of the sea there at Ostia?
Why did you not let me become a whole shoal of crabs?
How did you know, or I either, that they may not be very jolly fellows, and not in the least troubled with philosophic doubts ?....

But perhaps there were no crabs, but only phantasms of crabs....