My feet must have instinctively brought me back to the site of my old home, for I had no clear idea of returning thither.

It was no more homelike to me than any other spot in this city of a strange generation, nor were its inmates less utterly and necessarily strangers than all the other men and women now on the earth.

Had the door of the house been locked, I should have been reminded by its resistance that I had no object in entering, and turned away, but it yielded to my hand, and advancing with uncertain steps through the hall, I entered one of the apartments opening from it.

Throwing myself into a chair, I covered my burning eyeballs with my hands to shut out the horror of strangeness.

My mental confusion was so intense as to produce actual nausea.