"Edgar Allan Poe - The Premature Burial" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

gazed:
"Is it not- oh! is it not a pitiful sight?"- but, before I could
find words to reply, the figure had ceased to grasp my wrist, the
phosphoric lights expired, and the graves were closed with a sudden
violence, while from out them arose a tumult of despairing cries,
saying again: "Is it not- O, God, is it not a very pitiful sight?"
Phantasies such as these, presenting themselves at night, extended
their terrific influence far into my waking hours. My nerves became
thoroughly unstrung, and I fell a prey to perpetual horror. I
hesitated to ride, or to walk, or to indulge in any exercise that
would carry me from home. In fact, I no longer dared trust myself
out of the immediate presence of those who were aware of my
proneness to catalepsy, lest, falling into one of my usual fits, I
should be buried before my real condition could be ascertained. I
doubted the care, the fidelity of my dearest friends. I dreaded
that, in some trance of more than customary duration, they might be
prevailed upon to regard me as irrecoverable. I even went so far as to
fear that, as I occasioned much trouble, they might be glad to
consider any very protracted attack as sufficient excuse for getting
rid of me altogether. It was in vain they endeavored to reassure me by
the most solemn promises. I exacted the most sacred oaths, that
under no circumstances they would bury me until decomposition had so
materially advanced as to render farther preservation impossible. And,
even then, my mortal terrors would listen to no reason- would accept
no consolation. I entered into a series of elaborate precautions.
Among other things, I had the family vault so remodelled as to admit
of being readily opened from within. The slightest pressure upon a
long lever that extended far into the tomb would cause the iron portal
to fly back. There were arrangements also for the free admission of
air and light, and convenient receptacles for food and water, within
immediate reach of the coffin intended for my reception. This coffin
was warmly and softly padded, and was provided with a lid, fashioned
upon the principle of the vault-door, with the addition of springs
so contrived that the feeblest movement of the body would be
sufficient to set it at liberty. Besides all this, there was suspended
from the roof of the tomb, a large bell, the rope of which, it was
designed, should extend through a hole in the coffin, and so be
fastened to one of the hands of the corpse. But, alas? what avails the
vigilance against the Destiny of man? Not even these well-contrived
securities sufficed to save from the uttermost agonies of living
inhumation, a wretch to these agonies foredoomed!
There arrived an epoch- as often before there had arrived- in
which I found myself emerging from total unconsciousness into the
first feeble and indefinite sense of existence. Slowly- with a
tortoise gradation- approached the faint gray dawn of the psychal day.
A torpid uneasiness. An apathetic endurance of dull pain. No care-
no hope- no effort. Then, after a long interval, a ringing in the
ears; then, after a lapse still longer, a prickling or tingling
sensation in the extremities; then a seemingly eternal period of
pleasurable quiescence, during which the awakening feelings are