Is it strange, then, that he should say what is strange? Why,
there would be nothing to wonder at if his mind collapsed on the spot.
Now it is just this that he himself fears. In the midst of the first
tremendous outburst, he checks himself suddenly with the exclamation 'O,
fie!' (cf. the precisely similar use of this interjection, II. ii. 617).
He must not let himself feel: he has to live. He must not let his heart
break in pieces ('hold' means 'hold together'), his muscles turn into
those of a trembling old man, his brain dissolve--as they threaten in an
instant to do. For, if they do, how can he--_remember_? He goes on
reiterating this 'remember' (the 'word' of the Ghost). He is, literally,
afraid that he will _forget_--that his mind will lose the message
entrusted to it. Instinctively, then, he feels that, if he _is_ to
remember, he must wipe from his memory everything it already contains;
and the image of his past life rises before him, of all his joy in
thought and observation and the stores they have accumulated in his
memory. All that is done with for ever: nothing is to remain for him on
the 'table' but the command, 'remember me.' He swears it; 'yes, by
heaven!' That done, suddenly the repressed passion breaks out, and, most
characteristically, he thinks _first_ of his mother; then of his uncle,
the smooth-spoken scoundrel who has just been smiling on him and calling
him 'son.
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