His Excellency was ringing his bell in his own room.
People began to run.

Here and there, in the shadows upon the walls, lamps flared up--there were not enough of them to give light, but there were enough to cast shadows.

The shadows appeared everywhere; they rose in the corners, they stretched across the ceiling; tremulously clinging to each and every elevation, they covered the walls.

And it was hard to understand where all these innumerable, deformed silent shadows--voiceless souls of voiceless objects--had been before.
A deep, trembling voice said something loudly.

Then the doctor was hastily summoned by telephone; the dignitary was collapsing.