And then a strange and new knowledge overwhelmed him: He was all people. In some unutterable fashion he was all people and they were he; by the identity of their emotions they were one, and he was one with them. And this was the oneness that linked man to man, in life or death. Yet even with this knowledge, this identification with others, this obliteration of self, another knowledge swept through him too, banishing all fear and doubt and loss: He now knew too the inexpressible value and importance of himself. He must assert himself; he was propelled to do something, to devise means of action by and through which he could convince those who lived aboveground of the death-like quality of their lives.

He did not think these things; he felt them through images. While lying prone on his face in the dark on the cold dirt floor, with waves of song battering at the cliffs of his consciousness, he knew that at some time in the near future he would rise up from this underground, walk forth and say something to everybody. He did not know what he would say or how; but he had no doubt that he would soon forsake this haven and emerge again. He could not question what he felt, for he was it and it was he.

VII

How long he lay in sleep he did not know, but he slept more profoundly than men sleep from physiological fatigue. During the entire time not one portion of his body moved and his flesh was icy to the touch, his palms sweaty. The church singing had stopped and in the silence and darkness that followed he really did not exist as a personality; his emotional state had reached a high point in its tensity and had suspended. As though for purposes of renewal, he had for a time gone back into the insensible world out of which life had originally sprung, and, before he could live again, hope or plan again, a regrouping of his faculties into a new personality structure would be necessary. It was an organic pause, such as one takes in breathing. During the past turbulent hours he had endured experiences which were like sucking his lungs full of air; but now, having drained the life-fostering oxygen from the air, he was expelling the residue of poison, leaving the tiny air sacs deflated, ready to be refilled.