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The Premature Burial by Edgar Allan Poe · Audiobooks & Scary Stories

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  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this reading, which comes from a
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  Speaker 1: work in the public domain, the premature Burial Edgar Allan Poe.
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  Speaker 1: There are certain themes of which the interest is all absorbing,
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  Speaker 1: but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of
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  Speaker 1: legitimate fiction. These the mere romanticist must eschuw if you
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  Speaker 1: do not wish to offend or to disgust. They are
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  Speaker 1: with propriety handled only when the severity and majesty of
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  Speaker 1: truth sanctify and sustain them. We thrill, for example, with
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  Speaker 1: the most intense of pleasurable pain, over the accounts of
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  Speaker 1: the passage of the Beresina, of the earthquake at Lisbon,
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  Speaker 1: of the plague at London, of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew,
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  Speaker 1: or of the stifling of the hundred and twenty three
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  Speaker 1: prisoners in the black hole at Calcutta. But in these
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  Speaker 1: accounts it is the fact, it is the reality. It
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  Speaker 1: is the history which excites as inventions. We should regard
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  Speaker 1: them with simple abhorrence. I have mentioned some few of
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  Speaker 1: the more prominent and august calamities on record. But in
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  Speaker 1: these it is the extent, not less than the character
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  Speaker 1: of the calamity which so vividly impresses the fancy. I
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  Speaker 1: need not remind the reader that from the long and
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  Speaker 1: weird catalog of human miseries I might have selected many
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  Speaker 1: individual instances more replete with essential suffering than any of
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  Speaker 1: these vast generalities of disaster. The true wretchedness, indeed, the
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  Speaker 1: ultimate woe, is particular not diffuse that the ghastly extremes
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  Speaker 1: of agony are endured by man the unit, and never
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  Speaker 1: by man the mass. For this, let us thank a
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  Speaker 1: merciful God. To be buried while alive is beyond question.
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  Speaker 1: The most terrific of these extremes, which has ever fallen
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  Speaker 1: to the lot of mere mortality, that it has frequently,
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  Speaker 1: very frequently so fallen, will scarcely be denied by those
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  Speaker 1: who think the boundaries which divide life from death are
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  Speaker 1: at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the
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  Speaker 1: one ends and where the other begins. We know that
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  Speaker 1: there are diseases in which occur total cessation of all
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  Speaker 1: the apparent functions of vitality, and yet in which these
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  Speaker 1: cessations are merely suspensions, properly so called, they are only
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  Speaker 1: temporary pauses in the incomprehensible mechanism. A certain period elapses,
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  Speaker 1: and some unseen mysterious principle again sets in motion the
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  Speaker 1: magic pinions and the wizard wheels. The silver cord was
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  Speaker 1: not forever loosed, nor the golden bowl irreparably broken, but
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  Speaker 1: where meantime was the soul Apart, however, from the inevitable
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  Speaker 1: conclusion a priori, that such causes must produce such effects,
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  Speaker 1: that the well known occurrence of such cases of suspended
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  Speaker 1: animation must naturally give rise now and then to premature interments.
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  Speaker 1: Apart from this consideration, we have the direct testimony of
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  Speaker 1: medical and ordinary experience to prove that a vast number
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  Speaker 1: of such interments have actually taken place. I might refer
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  Speaker 1: at once, if necessary, to a hundred well authenticated instances.
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  Speaker 1: One of very remarkable character, and of which the circumstances
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  Speaker 1: may be fresh in the memory of some of my
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  Speaker 1: readers occurred not very long ago in the neighboring city
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  Speaker 1: of Baltimore, where it occasioned a painful, intense, and widely
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  Speaker 1: extended excitement. The wife of one of the most respectable citizens,
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  Speaker 1: a lawyer of eminence and a member of Congress, was
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  Speaker 1: seized with a sudden and unaccountable illness which completely baffled
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  Speaker 1: the skill of her physicians. After much suffering, she died,
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  Speaker 1: or was supposed to die. No one suspected, indeed, or
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  Speaker 1: had reason to suspect, that she was not actually dead.
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  Speaker 1: She presented all the ordinary appearances of death. The face
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  Speaker 1: assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline, The lips were
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  Speaker 1: of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lustreless. There
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  Speaker 1: was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased for three days. The
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  Speaker 1: body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a
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  Speaker 1: stony rigidity. The funeral, in short, was hastened on account
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  Speaker 1: of the rapid advance of what was supposed to be decomposition.
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  Speaker 1: The lady was deposited in her family vault, which for
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  Speaker 1: three subsequent years was undisturbed. At the expiration of this term,
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  Speaker 1: it was opened for the reception of a sarcophagus, but
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  Speaker 1: alas how fearful, a shock awaited the husband, who personally
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  Speaker 1: threw open the door. As its portal swung outwardly back,
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  Speaker 1: some white apparelled object fell, rattling within his arms. It
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  Speaker 1: was the skeleton of his wife in her yet unmolded shroud.
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  Speaker 1: A careful investigation rendered it evident that she had revived
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  Speaker 1: within two days after her entument that her struggles within
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  Speaker 1: the coffin had caused it to fall from a ledge
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  Speaker 1: or shelf to the floor, where it was so broken
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  Speaker 1: as to permit her escape. A lamp, which had been
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  Speaker 1: accidentally left full of oil within the tomb was found empty.
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  Speaker 1: It might have been exhausted, however, by evaporation. On the
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  Speaker 1: uttermost of the steps which led down into the dread
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  Speaker 1: chamber was a large fragment of the coffin, with which
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  Speaker 1: it seemed that she had endeavored to arrest attention by
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  Speaker 1: striking the iron door. While thus occupied, she probably swooned
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  Speaker 1: or possibly died through sheer terror, and in failing her
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  Speaker 1: shroud became entangled in some iron work which projected interiorly.
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  Speaker 1: Thus she remained, and thus she rotted erect. In the
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  Speaker 1: year eighteen ten, a case of living inhumation happened in France,
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  Speaker 1: attended with circumstances which go far to warrant the assertion
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  Speaker 1: that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. The heroine of
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  Speaker 1: the story was a mademoiselle Victory Laforcade, a young girl
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  Speaker 1: of illustrious family, of wealth and of great personal beauty.
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  Speaker 1: Among her numerous suitors was Julian Bassoet, a poor literature
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  Speaker 1: or journalist of Paris. His talents and general amiability had
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  Speaker 1: recommended him to the notice of the heiress by whom
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  Speaker 1: he seems to have been truly beloved, But her pride
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  Speaker 1: of birth decided her finally to reject him and to
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  Speaker 1: wed a monsieur Ronnelle, a banker and a diplomatist of
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  Speaker 1: some eminence. After marriage, however, this gentleman neglected and perhaps
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  Speaker 1: even more positively ill treated her. Having passed with him
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  Speaker 1: some wretched years, she died, at least, her condition so
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  Speaker 1: closely resembled death as to deceive every one who saw her.
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  Speaker 1: She was buried not in a vault, but in an
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  Speaker 1: ordinary grave in the village of her nativity. Filled with
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  Speaker 1: despair and still inflamed by the memory of a profound attachment,
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  Speaker 1: the lover journeys from the capital to the remote province
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  Speaker 1: in which the village lies, with the romantic purpose of
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  Speaker 1: disinterring the corpse and possessing himself of its luxuriant tresses.
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  Speaker 1: He reaches the grave at midnight. He unearths the coffin,
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  Speaker 1: opens it, and is in the act of detaching the
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  Speaker 1: hair when he is arrested by the unclosing of the
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  Speaker 1: beloved eyes. In fact, the lady had been buried alive,
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  Speaker 1: vitality had not altogether departed, and she was aroused by
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  Speaker 1: the caresses of her lover from the lethargy which had
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  Speaker 1: been mistaken for death. He bore her frantically to his
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  Speaker 1: lodgings in the village. He employed certain powerful restoratives suggested
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  Speaker 1: by no little medical learning. In fine she revived, She
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  Speaker 1: recognized her preserver. She remained with him until, by slow degrees,
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  Speaker 1: she fully recovered her original health. Her woman's heart was
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  Speaker 1: not adamant, and this last lesson of love sufficed to
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  Speaker 1: soften it. She bestowed it upon Bassoert. She returned no
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  Speaker 1: more to her husband, but concealing from him her resurrection,
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  Speaker 1: fled with her lover to America. Twenty years afterward, the
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  Speaker 1: two returned to France in the persuasion that time had
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  Speaker 1: so greatly altered the lady's appearance that her friends would
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  Speaker 1: be unable to recognize her. They were mistaken, however, for
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  Speaker 1: at the first meeting, Monsieur Renel did actually recognize and
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  Speaker 1: make claim to his wife. This claim she resisted, and
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  Speaker 1: a judicial tribunal sustained her in her resistance, deciding that
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the peculiar circumstances, with the long lapse of years, had
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  Speaker 1: extinguished not only equitably but legally the authority of the husband.
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  Speaker 1: The chirogical Journal of Leipsic, a periodical of high authority
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  Speaker 1: and merit, which some American bookseller would do well to
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  Speaker 1: translate and republish, records in a late number of very
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  Speaker 1: distressing event of the character in question, an officer of artillery,
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  Speaker 1: a man of gigantic stature and of robust health, being
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  Speaker 1: thrown from an unmanageable horse, received a very severe contusion
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  Speaker 1: upon the head, which rendered him insensible at once. The
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  Speaker 1: skull was slightly fractured, but no immediate danger was apprehended.
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  Speaker 1: Trepanning was accomplished successfully, he was bled, and many other
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  Speaker 1: of the ordinary means of relief were adopted. Gradually, However,
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  Speaker 1: he fell into a more and more hopeless state of stupor,
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  Speaker 1: and finally it was thought that he died. The weather
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  Speaker 1: was warm, and he was buried with indecent haste in
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  Speaker 1: one of the public cemeteries. His funeral took place on Thursday.
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  Speaker 1: On the Sunday following the grounds of the cemetery were,
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  Speaker 1: as usual much thronged with visitors, and about noon an
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  Speaker 1: intense excitement was created by the declaration of a peasant that,
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  Speaker 1: while sitting upon the grave of the officer, he had
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  Speaker 1: distinctly felt a commotion of the earth, as if occasioned
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  Speaker 1: by some one struggling beneath. At first, little attention was
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  Speaker 1: paid to the man's asseveration, but his evident terror and
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  Speaker 1: the dogged obstinacy with which he persisted in his story
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  Speaker 1: had at length their natural effect upon the crowd. Spades
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  Speaker 1: were hurriedly procured, and the grave, which was shamefully shallow,
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  Speaker 1: was in a few minutes so far thrown open that
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  Speaker 1: the head of its occupant appeared. He was then seemingly dead,
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  Speaker 1: but he sat nearly erect within his coffin, the lid
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  Speaker 1: of which in his furious struggles he had partially uplifted.
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  Speaker 1: He was forthwith conveyed to the nearest hospital, and there
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  Speaker 1: pronounced to be still living, although in an asphetic condition.
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  Speaker 1: After some hours he revived, recognized individuals of his acquaintance,
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  Speaker 1: and in broken sentences, spoke of his agonies in the grave.
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  Speaker 1: From what he related it was clear that he must
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  Speaker 1: have been conscious of life for more than an hour
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  Speaker 1: while inhumed, before lapsing into insensibility. The grave was carelessly
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  Speaker 1: and loosely filled with an exceedingly porous soil, and thus
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  Speaker 1: some air was necessarily admitted. He heard the footsteps of
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  Speaker 1: the crowd overhead, and endeavored to make himself heard in turn.
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  Speaker 1: It was the tumult within the grounds of the cemetery,
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  Speaker 1: he said, which appeared to awaken him from a deep sleep.
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  Speaker 1: But no sooner was he awake than he became fully
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  Speaker 1: aware of the awful horrors of his position. This patient,
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  Speaker 1: it is recorded, was doing well and seemed to be
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  Speaker 1: in a fair way of ultimate recovery, but fell a
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  Speaker 1: victim to the quackries of medical experiment. The galvanic battery
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  Speaker 1: was applied, and he suddenly expired in one of those
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  Speaker 1: ecstatic pains errexisms which occasionally it superinduces. The mention of
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  Speaker 1: the galvanic battery nevertheless recalls to my memory a well
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  Speaker 1: known and very extraordinary case in point, where its action
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  Speaker 1: proved the means of restoring to animation a young attorney
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  Speaker 1: of London, who had been interred for two days. This
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  Speaker 1: occurred in eighteen thirty one, and created at the time
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  Speaker 1: a very profound sensation wherever it was made the subject
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  Speaker 1: of converse. The patient, mister Edward Stapleton, had died apparently
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  Speaker 1: of typhus fever, accompanied with some anomaloust symptoms, which had
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  Speaker 1: excited the curiosity of his medical attendants. Upon his seeming decease,
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  Speaker 1: his friends were requested to sanction a post mortem examination,
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  Speaker 1: but declined to permit it. As often happens when such
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  Speaker 1: refusals are made, the practitioners resolved to disinter the body
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  Speaker 1: and dissect it at leisure in private. Arrangements were easily
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  Speaker 1: affected with some of the numerous cores of body snatchers
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  Speaker 1: with which London abounds, and upon and the third night
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  Speaker 1: after the funeral, the supposed corpse was unearthed from a
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  Speaker 1: grave eight feet deep and deposited in the opening chamber
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  Speaker 1: of one of the private hospitals. An incision of some
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  Speaker 1: extent had been actually made in the abdomen when the
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  Speaker 1: fresh and undicayed appearance of the subject suggested an application
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  Speaker 1: of the battery. One experiment succeeded another, and the customary
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  Speaker 1: effects supervened, with nothing to characterize them in any respect,
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  Speaker 1: except upon one or two occasions a more than ordinary
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  Speaker 1: degree of lifelikeness in the convulsive action. It grew late,
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  Speaker 1: the day was about to dawn, and it was thought
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  Speaker 1: expedient at length to proceed at once to the dissection.
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  Speaker 1: A student, however, was especially desirous of testing a theory
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  Speaker 1: of his own, and insisted upon applying the battery to
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  Speaker 1: one of the pectoral muscles. A rough gash was made
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  Speaker 1: and a wire hastily brought in contact. When the patient,
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  Speaker 1: with a hurried but quite unconvulsive movement, arose from the table,
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  Speaker 1: stepped into the middle of the floor, gave about him
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  Speaker 1: uneasily for a few seconds, and then spoke. What he
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  Speaker 1: said was unintelligible, but words were uttered, the syllabification was distinct.
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  Speaker 1: Having spoken, he fell heavily to the floor. For some moments,
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  Speaker 1: all were paralyzed with awe, but the urgency of the
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  Speaker 1: case soon restored them their presence of mind. It was
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  Speaker 1: seen that mister Stapleton was alive, although in a swoon.
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  Speaker 1: Upon exhibition of ether, he revived and was rapidly restored
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  Speaker 1: to health and to the society of his friends, from whom, however,
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  Speaker 1: all knowledge of his resuscitation was withheld until a relapse
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  Speaker 1: was no longer to be apprehended. Their wonder, their rapturous astonishment,
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  Speaker 1: may be conceived. The most thrilling peculiarity of this incident, nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: is involved in what mister s himself asserts. He declares
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  Speaker 1: that at no period was he altogether insensible, that dully
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  Speaker 1: and confusedly, he was aware of everything which happened to him,
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  Speaker 1: from the moment in which he was pronounced dead by
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  Speaker 1: his physicians to that in which he fell swooning to
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  Speaker 1: the floor of the hospital. I am alive. Were the
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  Speaker 1: uncomprehended words, which, upon recognizing the locality of the dissecting room,
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  Speaker 1: he had endeavored in his extremity to utter. It were
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  Speaker 1: an easy matter to multiply such histories as these, But
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  Speaker 1: I forbear for indeed, we have no need of such
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  Speaker 1: to establish the fact that premature interments occur when we reflect,
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  Speaker 1: how very rarely from the nature of the case, we
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  Speaker 1: have it in our power to detect them. We must
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  Speaker 1: admit that they may frequently occur without our cognizance. Scarcely
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  Speaker 1: in truth is a graveyard ever encroached upon for any
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  Speaker 1: purpose to any great extent that skeletons are not found
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  Speaker 1: in postures which suggest the most fearful of suspicions. Fearful
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  Speaker 1: indeed the suspicion, but more fearful the doom. It may
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  Speaker 1: be asserted, without hesitation that no event is so terribly
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  Speaker 1: well adapted to inspire this supp freeness of bodily and
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  Speaker 1: of mental distress, as is burial before death, the unendurable
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  Speaker 1: oppression of the lungs, the stifling fumes from the damp earth,
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  Speaker 1: the clinging to the death garments, the rigid embrace of
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  Speaker 1: the narrow house, the blackness of the absolute night, the
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  Speaker 1: silence like a sea that overwhelms, the unseen but palpable
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  Speaker 1: presence of the conqueror worm. These things, with the thoughts
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  Speaker 1: of the air and grass above, with memory of dear
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  Speaker 1: friends who would fly to save us if but informed
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  Speaker 1: of our fate, and with consciousness that of this fate,
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  Speaker 1: they can never be informed that our hopeless portion is
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  Speaker 1: that of the really dead. These considerations, I say, carry
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  Speaker 1: into the heart which still palpitates a degree of appalling
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  Speaker 1: and intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must recoil.
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  Speaker 1: We know of nothing so agonizing upon Earth, we can
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  Speaker 1: dream of nothing half so hideous in the realms of
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the nethermost hell. And thus all narratives upon this topic
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: have an interest profound, an interest, nevertheless, which, through the
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  Speaker 1: sacred awe of the topic itself, very properly and very
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  Speaker 1: peculiarly depends upon our conviction of the truth of the
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  Speaker 1: matter narrated. What I have now to tell is of
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  Speaker 1: my own actual knowledge, of my own positive and personal experience.
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  Speaker 1: For several years I have been subject to attacks of
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  Speaker 1: the singular disorder, which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: in default of a more definitive title. Although both the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: immediate and the predisposing causes, and even the actual diagnosis
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  Speaker 1: of this disease are still mysterious, its obvious and apparent
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: character is sufficiently well understood. Its variation seem to be
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  Speaker 1: chiefly of degree. Sometimes the patient lies for a day only,
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  Speaker 1: or even for a shorter period. In a species of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: exaggerated lethargy. He is senseless and externally motionless, but the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: pulsation of the heart is still faintly perceptible. Some traces
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  Speaker 1: of warmth remain, a slight color lingers within the center
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  Speaker 1: of the cheek, and upon application of a mirror to
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  Speaker 1: the lips, we can detect a torpid, unequal and vacillating
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  Speaker 1: action of the lungs. Then again, the duration of the
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: trance is for weeks, even for months. While the closest
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: scrutiny and the most rigorous medical tests fail to establish
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: any material distinction between the state of the sufferer and
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: what we conceive of absolute death, very usually he is
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: saved from premature interments solely by the knowledge of his
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: friends that he has been previously subject to catalepsy, by
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the consequent suspicion excited, and above all by the non
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: appearance of decay. The advances of the malady are luckily gradual.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: The first manifestations, although marked, are unequivocal. The fits grow
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: successively more and more distinctive, and endure each for a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: longer term than the preceding. In this lies the principal
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: security from inhumation. The unfortunate, whose first attack should be
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: of the extreme character which is occasionally seen, would almost
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  Speaker 1: inevitably be consigned alive to the tomb. My own case
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: differed in no important particular from those mentioned in medical books,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: sometimes without any apparent cause, I sank little by little
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  Speaker 1: into a condition of semi syncope or half swoon. And
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: in this condition, without pain, without ability to stir, or
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  Speaker 1: strictly speaking, to think, but with a dull, lethargic consciousness
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  Speaker 1: of life and of the presence of those who surrounded
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  Speaker 1: my bed, I remained until the crisis of the disease
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: restored me suddenly to perfect sensation. At other times I
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: was quickly and impetuously smitten. I grew sick and numb,
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  Speaker 1: and chilly and dizzy, and so fell prostrate at once.
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  Speaker 1: Then for weeks all was void and black and silent,
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  Speaker 1: and nothing became the universe. Total annihilation could be no more.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: From these latter attacks. I awoke, however, with a gradation
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: slow in proportion to the suddenness of the seizure. Just
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: as the day dawns to the friendless and houseless beggar
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  Speaker 1: who roams the streets throughout the long desolate winter night,
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  Speaker 1: just so tardily, just so wearily, just so cheerily, came
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  Speaker 1: back the light of the soul to me. Apart from
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: the tendency to trance, however, my general health appeared to
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: be good. Nor could I perceive that it was at
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: all affected by the one prevalent malady, unless indeed, an
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: idiosyncrasy in my ordinary sleep may be looked upon as superinduced.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Upon awaking from slumber, I could never gain at once
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  Speaker 1: thorough possession of my senses, and always remained for many
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: minutes in much bewilderment and perplexity. The mental faculties in general,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: but the memory in especial, being in a condition of
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: absolute obeyance. In all that I endured, there was no
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: physical suffering, but of moral distress and infinitude. My fancy
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  Speaker 1: grew charnel. I talked of worms, of tombs and epitaphs.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I was lost in reveries of death, and the idea
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: of premature burial held continual possession of my brain. The
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: ghastly danger to which I was subjected haunted me day
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and night. In the former the torture of meditation was excessive.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: In the latter supreme, when the grim darkness overspread the earth,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: then with every horror of thought, I shook, shook as
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the quivering plumes upon the hearse. When nature could endure
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: wakefulness no longer, it was with a struggle that I
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: consented to sleep. For I shuddered to reflect that upon
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: awaking I might find myself the tenant of a grave,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: And when finally I sank into slumber, it was only
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: to rush at once into a world of phantasms, above which,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: with vast sable overshadowing wing, hovered predominant the one sepulchral
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: idea from the innumerable images of gloom, which thus oppressed
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: me in dreams, I select for record, but a solitary vision, methought.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I was immersed in a cataleptic trance of more than
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: usual duration and profundity. Suddenly there there came an icy
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: hand upon my forehead, and an impatient, gibbering voice whispered
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the word arise within my ear. I sat erect. The
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: darkness was total. I could not see the figure of
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: him who had aroused me. I could call to mind
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: neither the period at which I had fallen into the trance,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: nor the locality in which I then lay. While I
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: remained motionless and busied in endeavors to collect my thought,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the cold hand grasped me fiercely by the wrist, shaking
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: it petulantly, while the gibbering voice said again, arise. Did
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I not bid thee arise, and who I demanded art
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: thou I have no name in the regions which I inhabit,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: replied the voice mournfully. I was mortal, but am fiend.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I was merciless, but am pitiful. Thou dost feel that
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: I shudder, my teeth chatter as I speak. Yet it
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: is not with the chilliness of the night, of the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: night without end. But this hideousness is insufferable. How canst
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: thou tranquility sleep? I cannot rest for the cry of
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: these great agonies, These sights are more than I can bear.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Get THEE up, Come with me into the outer night,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: and let me unfold to thee the graves. Is not
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: this a spectacle of woe? Behold, I looked, and the
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: unseen figure, which still grasped me by the wrist, had
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: caused to be thrown open the graves of all mankind,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and from each issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: so that I could see into the innermost recesses, and
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: their view the shrouded bodies in their sad and solemn
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: slumbers with the worm. But alas, the real sleepers were
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: fewer by many millions than those who slumbered, not at all,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and there was a feeble struggling, and there was a
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: general sad unrest, And from out the depths of the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: countless pits there came a melancholy rustling from the garments
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: of the buried and of those who seemed tranquility to repose.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I saw that a vast number had changed in a
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: greater or less degree the rigid and uneasy position in
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: which they had originally been entunbed. And the voice again
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: said to me, as I gazed, is it not, Oh,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: is it not a pitiful sight? But before I could
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: find words to reply, the figure had ceased to grasp
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: my wrist. The phosphoric lights expired, and the graves were
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: closed with a sudden violence, while from out them arose
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: a tumult of despairing cries, saying, again, is it not,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Oh God, is it not a very pitiful sight? Fantasies
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: such as these, presenting themselves at night, extended their terrific
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: influence far into my waking hours. My nerves became thoroughly unstrung,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: and I fell a prey to perpetual horror. I hesitated
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: to ride, or to walk, or to indulge in any
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: exercise that would carry me from home. In fact, I
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: no longer dared trust myself out of the immediate presence
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: of those who were aware of my proneness to catalepsy,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: lest falling into one of my usual fits, I should
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: be buried before, for my real condition could be ascertained.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I doubted the care the fidelity of my dearest friends.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I dreaded that in some trance of more than customary duration,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: they might be prevailed upon to regard me as irrecoverable.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I even went so far as to fear that as
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: I occasioned much trouble, they might be glad to consider
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: any very protracted attack as sufficient excuse for getting rid
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: of me altogether. It was in vain they endeavored to
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: reassure me by the most solemn promises. I exacted the
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: most sacred oaths that under no circumstances they would bury
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: me until decomposition had so materially advanced as to render
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: farther preservation impossible, and even then my mortal terrors would
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: listen to no reason, would accept no consolation. I entered
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: into a series of elaborate precautions. Among other things, I
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: had the family vault so remodeled as to admit of
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: being readily open from within. The slightest pressure upon a
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: long lever that extended far into to the tomb would
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: cause the iron portal to fly back. There were arrangements
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: also for the free admission of air and light, and
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: convenient receptacles for food and water within immediate reach of
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: the coffin intended for my reception. This coffin was warmly
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and softly padded, and was provided with a lid fashioned
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: upon the principle of the vault door, with the addition
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: of spring, so contrived that the feeblest movement of the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: body would be sufficient to set it at liberty. Besides
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: all this, there was suspended from the roof of the
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: tomb a large bell, the rope of which it was
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: designed should extend through a hole in the coffin, and
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: so be fastened to one of the hands of the corpse.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: But alas what avails the vigilance against the destiny of man,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: not even these well contrived securities sufficed to save from
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: the uttermost agonies of living inhumation, a wretch to these
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: agonies for doomed. There arrived an epoch, as often before
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: there had arrived, in which I found myself emerging from
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: total unconsciousness into the first feeble and definite sense of existence. Slowly,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: with a tortoise gradation approached the faint gray dawn of
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the cycle day, a torpid uneasiness, an apathetic endurance of
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: dull pain, no care, no hope, no effort. Then, after
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: a long interval, a ringing in the years, then after
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: a lapse still longer, a prickling or tingling sensation in
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the extremities, than a seemingly eternal period of pleasurable quiescence,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: during which the awakening feelings are struggling into thought. Then
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a brief re sinking into nonentity, then a sudden recovery
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: at length, the slight quivering of an eyelid, and immediately
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: thereupon an electric shock of a terror, deadly and indefinite,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: which sends the blood in torrents from the temples to
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the heart. And now the first positive effort to think,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and now the first endeavor to remember, and now a
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: partial and evanescent success. And now the memory has so
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: far regained its dominion that in some measure I am
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: cognizant of my state. I feel that I am not
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: awaking from ordinary sleep. I recollect that I have been
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: subject to catalepsy, and now, at last, as if by
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the rush of an ocean, my shuddering spirit is overwhelmed
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: by the one grim danger, by the one spectral and
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: ever prevalent idea. For some minutes after this fancy possessed me,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I remained without motion. And why I could not summon
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: courage to move, I dared not make the effort which
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: was to satisfy me of my fate. And yet there
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: was something at my heart which whispered me. It was
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: sure despair, such as no other species of wretchedness ever
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: calls into being. Despair alone urged me, after long irresolution
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: to uplift the heavy lids of my eyes. I uplifted them.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: It was dark, all dark. I knew that the fit
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: was over. I knew that the crisis of my disorder
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: had long passed. I knew that I had now fully
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: recovered the use of my visual faculties. And yet it
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: was dark, all dark, the intense and utter raylessness of
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the night that endureth for evermore. I endeavored to shriek,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: and my lips and my parched tongue moved convulsively together
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: in the attempt, But no voice issued from the cavernous lungs,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: which oppressed, as if by the weight of some incumbent mountain.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Gasped and palpitated with the heart at every elaborate and
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: struggling inspiration. The movement of the jaws in this effort
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: to cry aloud showed me that they were bound up,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: as is usual with the dead. I felt, too, that
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I lay upon some hard substance, and by something similar,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: my sides were also closely compressed. So far I had
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: not ventured to stir any of my limbs. But now
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I violently threw up my arms, which had been lying
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: at length with the wrists crossed. They struck a solid,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: wooden substance which extended above my person, at an elevation
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: of not more than six inches from my face. I
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: could no longer doubt that I reposed within a coffin.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: At last, and now amid all my infinite miseries, came
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: sweetly the cherub hope. For I thought of my precautions.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I writhed and made spasmodic exertions to force open the lid.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: It would not move. I felt my wrists for the
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: bell rope. It was not to be found. And now
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the comforter fled forever, and a still sterner despair reign triumphant,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: for I could not help perceiving the absence of the
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: paddings which I had so carefully prepared. And then too,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: there came suddenly to my nostrils the strong, peculiar odor
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: of moist earth. The conclusion was irresistible. I was not
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: within the vault. I had fallen into a trance while
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: absent from home, while among strangers, when or how I
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: could not remember. And it was they who had buried
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: me as a dog, nailed up in some common coffin,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and thrust deep, deep, and forever into some ordinary and
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: nameless grave. As this awful conviction forced it self thus
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: into the innermost chambers of my soul, I once again
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: struggled to cry aloud, And in this second endeavor I succeeded.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: A long, wild and continuous shriek or yell of agony
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: resounded through the realms of the subterranean night. Hillo, Hillo,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: there said a gruff voice in reply, What the devil's
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the matter? Now? Said a second get out? Oh that,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: said a third, What do you mean by yowling in
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: that air kind of style? Like a Cattymount set a fourth,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: and hereupon I was seized and shaken without ceremony for
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: several minutes by a junto of very rough looking individuals.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: They did not arouse me from my slumber, for I
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: was wide awake when I screamed, But they restored me
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: to the full possession of my memory. This adventure occurred
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: near Richmond, in Virginia. Accompanied by a friend, I had
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: proceeded upon a gunning expedition some miles down the banks
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: of the James River. Night approached and we were overtaken
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: by a storm. The cabin of a small sloop, lying
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: at anchor in the stream and laden with garden mold,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: afforded us the only available shelter. We made the best
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: of it and passed the night on board. I slept
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: in one of the only two berths in the vessel,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: and the berths of a sloop of sixty or twenty
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: tons need scarcely be described. That which I occupied had
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: no bedding of any kind. Its extreme width was eighteen inches,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: the distance of its bottom from the deck overhead was
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: precisely the same. I found it a matter of exceeding
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: difficulty to squeeze myself in Nevertheless, I slept soundly, and
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the whole of my vision, for it was no dream
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and no nightmare, arose naturally from the circumstances of my position,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: from my ordinary bias of thought, and from the difficulty
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: to which I have alluded of collecting my senses, and
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: especially of regaining my memory for a long time after
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: awaking from slumber. The men who shook me were the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: crew of the sloop, and some laborers engaged to unload it.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: From the load itself came the earthly smell. The bandage
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: about the jaws was a silk handkerchief in which I
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: had bound up my head in default of my customary nightcap.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: The tortures endured, however, were indubitably quite equal for the
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: time to those of actual sepulture. They were fearfully, they
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: were inconceivably hideous, but out of evil preceded good. For
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: their very excess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: My soul acquired tone, acquired temper. I went abroad, I
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: took vigorous exercise, I breathed the free air of heaven.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I thought upon other subjects than death. I discarded my
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: medical books buck and I burned I read no night thoughts,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: no fustion about churchyards, no bugaboo tales such as this.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: In short, I became a new man and lived a
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: man's life. From that memorable night, I dismissed forever my
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: charnel apprehensions, and with them vanished the cataleptic disorder of
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: which perhaps they had been less the consequence than the cause.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: There are moments when, even to the sober eye of reason,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: the world of our sad humanity may assume the semblance
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: of a hell. But the imagination of man is no
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: car this to explore with impunity its every cavern alas
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: altogether fanciful. But like the demons in whose company Afrasiab
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: made his voyage down the Oxus, they must sleep, or
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: they will devour us. They must be suffered to slumber,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: or we perish.