Page 340 - the-idiot

second they stood face to face.
Suddenly the prince caught the man by the shoulder and
twisted him round towards the light, so that he might see
his face more clearly.
Rogojin’s eyes flashed, and a smile of insanity distorted
his countenance. His right hand was raised, and something
glittered in it. The prince did not think of trying to stop it.
All he could remember afterwards was that he seemed to
have called out:
‘Parfen! I won’t believe it.’
Next moment something appeared to burst open be-
fore him: a wonderful inner light illuminated his soul. This
lasted perhaps half a second, yet he distinctly remembered
hearing the beginning of the wail, the strange, dreadful
wail, which burst from his lips of its own accord, and which
no effort of will on his part could suppress.
Next moment he was absolutely unconscious; black
darkness blotted out everything.
He had fallen in an epileptic fit.
. . . . . . .
As is well known, these fits occur instantaneously. The
face, especially the eyes, become terribly disfigured, con-
vulsions seize the limbs, a terrible cry breaks from the
sufferer, a wail from which everything human seems to be
blotted out, so that it is impossible to believe that the man
who has just fallen is the same who emitted the dreadful
cry. It seems more as though some other being, inside the
stricken one, had cried. Many people have borne witness
to this impression; and many cannot behold an epileptic fit