A score of times was this torment repeated.

The sense of personal agency forbidding me to sleep grew so strong that I waited in angry dread for that shock which aroused me; I felt myself haunted by a malevolent power, and rebelled against its cruelty.
Through the night no one visited me.

At eight in the morning a knock sounded at the door, and there entered the waiter, carrying a tray with my ordinary breakfast.

"The Signore is not well ?" he remarked, standing to gaze at me.

I replied that I was not quite well; would he give me the milk, and remove from my sight as quickly as possible all the other things on the tray.