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But the bed-clothes weighed upon him like a mountain; throwing

them off, he endeavoured to compose himself to sleep; hardly had

he closed his eyes when he awoke with a start, as if he had been

roused by a blow, and he felt that the pain and fever had

increased. He endeavoured to find the cause of his sufferings in

the heat of the weather, the wine, and the debauch in which he

had just been engaged; but one idea involuntarily mingled itself

with all his reflections, an idea at which he had been laughing

all the evening with his companions, as it was easier to make it

a subject of raillery than to drive it away,-the idea of the

plague.