sort of universal impersonal
consciousness, no more attached to himself than to the beings he saw
about him, or to that particular being which was his former self,--in
which he chose to reside, merely because he required a bodily evidence
of some sort in order to be alive--and there was no particular reason
why he should not be alive. He therefore did not cease to live, but a
straw might have turned the balance to the side of death.

It was certainly true that, so far as it could be said that there was
any link between him and humanity, it lay in the existence of the little
boy beyond the water. But it would have been precisely the same if
little Walter Crowdie had died. He did not wish to see the child, for he
had no wishes at all. Life being what it was, it would be very much
better if the child were to die at once. Since it happened to be alive,
he forced his double to work for it. It was no longer any particular
child so far as he himself was concerned. It belonged to his double,
which seemed to be attached to it in an unaccountable way and did not
complain at being driven to labour for it.

At certain moments, when he seemed to have got rid of his double
altogether for a time, a question presented itself to his real self. The
question was the great and old one--What was it for? And to what was it
tending? Then the people he saw in the streets appeared to him to be
very small, like ants, running hither and thither upon the ant-hill and
about it, moved by something which they could not understand, but which
made them do certain things with an appearance of logical sequence, just
as he forced his double to work for little Walter Crowdie from morning
till night. So the people ran about anxiously, or strolled lazily
through the hours, careful or careless, as the case might be, but quite
unconscious that they were of no consequence and of no use, and that it
was quite immaterial whether they were alive or dead. Most of them
thought that they cared a good deal for life on the whole, and that it
held a multitude of pleasant and interesting things to be liked and
sought, and an equal number of unpleasant and dangerous things to be
avoided; all of which things had no real existence whatever, as the
impersonal consciousness of Paul Griggs was well aware. He watched the
people curiously, as though they merely existed to perform tricks for
his benefit. But they did not amuse him, for nothing could amuse him,
nor interest him