His Descent into Madness

At first, he started talking to himself. He was trying to talk to others around him, but since they didn’t appear to hear him he went on talking to himself. Then he tried to talk to them about talking to himself, but they still didn’t seem to hear him, so he talked to himself about talking to himself. Occasionally the others would hear him. Though they heard him talking to himself, a sense of propriety stopped them from indicating to him that they heard him, they didn’t want him to be embarrassed having been heard talking to himself. So they pretended not to hear him; and he, believing that they didn’t hear him, went on talking to himself though he had been trying to talk to them all along.