"If I'm lost, I am lost, I don't care! Shall I put the sock on ?" he suddenly wondered, "it will get dustier still and the traces will be gone." But no sooner had he put it on than he pulled it off again in loathing and horror.

He pulled it off, but reflecting that he had no other socks, he picked it up and put it on again--and again he laughed.
"That's all conventional, that's all relative, merely a way of looking at it," he thought in a flash, but only on the top surface of his mind, while he was shuddering all over, "there, I've got it on! I have finished by getting it on!" But his laughter was quickly followed by despair.
"No, it's too much for me..." he thought.

His legs shook.

"From fear," he muttered.

His head swam and ached with fever.