how a Joyce had come to settle in Leningrad. THE
Leningrad. He compared his perceptions of the two.

Thus his mind vomited what his body could not, passing time in words,
until he started to feel dizzy again and another rush of anguish folded
over him. He endured it, and with almost unselfish reserve except for
the thought, again, that it was too much. Any one of the things he had
felt in the past months, heightened now by nearness, might have been
bearable singly, or even in bunches of two and three. But all at once
and one after another was like an endless trap, with no escape from the
steady flow of consciousness. But for sleep, which of late had become
a fickle and untrustworthy ally.

Unbroken flow of consciousness. Perhaps that was what Joyce had been
after (he suspected the thought was not original). Certainly his
self-endowed character Stephen had been trapped, feeling rare moments
of freedom and longing for the sky, but always coming back to himself
in a dirty world. More trapped in the human shell than in Dublin. Did
he ever truly fly? Certainly the rambling phrases were incoherent.....

And so at long length his thoughts become more natural and sleep came
back to him, and shutting his eyesmind and heart, he passed through a
thick black night without dream.

*

The next morning after some time alone and a second examination, he
returned to his rooms. Someone had extinguished the candle for him but
it was still there, the igniter beside it. He resisted the urge to
contact Mandlik and ask him how many hours, or had they yet been
discovered. There was no reason, he knew, to go looking for a fight.
It would come to him. He had had time to work things through, and
believed he now possessed a clearer understanding.

The first few moments in that place were difficult, for all his renewed
spirit of resolve. To be left here in this state, weakened and
sick..... He still feared for the future, which he knew stalked him
inexorably. At stake, no more and no less than his spiritual life and
death. It was no use trying to prepare himself against all
contingencies. If his wife was not there, or was dead or
unaccounted-for, a part of himself would die forever, and the tiny
flame of faith to which he clung would be lost beyond recall. Even now
it flickered feebly in that dark place, shivered by the cold winds of
doubt.

He mastered his trepid nature as best he could, and stayed there. He
lay