Passage

He stirred heavily and opened his eyelids halfway, with difficulty; the head was a mountain of lead whose weight the slender branch of the neck, without the pillow's support, could not bear. His throat was burning, as if a hand were driving a needle into his tissues and scratching him, without order but hard, relentless. He stirred heavily, he wanted to spit out that raw bitterness he had drunk at night, full of dregs and unstrained, he wanted to spit it out...