Decoud continues to sway between the horrors of society and the horrors of subjective solitude. A moment ago he was ready to die a thousand deaths rather than trust himself to the dangerous illusions of society; now he has reversed himself. Note that he locates the price of a societal death not in the physical agony (much more prolonged and severe than a drowning) but in "self-contempt," for submitting himself to the realm of illusions he knows are false. Note also that the narrator now downgrades his skepticism to an "affectation," though on that score too the text has had many reversals.