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

struggling into thought; then a brief re-sinking into non-entity; then
a sudden recovery. At length the slight quivering of an eyelid, and
immediately thereupon, an electric shock of a terror, deadly and
indefinite, which sends the blood in torrents from the temples to
the heart. And now the first positive effort to think. And now the
first endeavor to remember. And now a partial and evanescent
success. And now the memory has so far regained its dominion, that, in
some measure, I am cognizant of my state. I feel that I am not awaking
from ordinary sleep. I recollect that I have been subject to
catalepsy. And now, at last, as if by the rush of an ocean, my
shuddering spirit is overwhelmed by the one grim Danger- by the one
spectral and ever-prevalent idea.
For some minutes after this fancy possessed me, I remained without
motion. And why? I could not summon courage to move. I dared not
make the effort which was to satisfy me of my fate- and yet there
was something at my heart which whispered me it was sure. Despair-
such as no other species of wretchedness ever calls into being-
despair alone urged me, after long irresolution, to uplift the heavy
lids of my eyes. I uplifted them. It was dark- all dark. I knew that
the fit was over. I knew that the crisis of my disorder had long
passed. I knew that I had now fully recovered the use of my visual
faculties- and yet it was dark- all dark- the intense and utter
raylessness of the Night that endureth for evermore.
I endeavored to shriek-, and my lips and my parched tongue moved
convulsively together in the attempt- but no voice issued from the
cavernous lungs, which oppressed as if by the weight of some incumbent
mountain, gasped and palpitated, with the heart, at every elaborate
and struggling inspiration.
The movement of the jaws, in this effort to cry aloud, showed me
that they were bound up, as is usual with the dead. I felt, too,
that I lay upon some hard substance, and by something similar my sides
were, also, closely compressed. So far, I had not ventured to stir any
of my limbs- but now I violently threw up my arms, which had been
lying at length, with the wrists crossed. They struck a solid wooden
substance, which extended above my person at an elevation of not
more than six inches from my face. I could no longer doubt that I
reposed within a coffin at last.
And now, amid all my infinite miseries, came sweetly the cherub
Hope- for I thought of my precautions. I writhed, and made spasmodic
exertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I felt my wrists
for the bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now the Comforter
fled for ever, and a still sterner Despair reigned triumphant; for I
could not help perceiving the absence of the paddings which I had so
carefully prepared- and then, too, there came suddenly to my
nostrils the strong peculiar odor of moist earth. The conclusion was
irresistible. I was not within the vault. I had fallen into a trance
while absent from home-while among strangers- when, or how, I could
not remember- and it was they who had buried me as a dog- nailed up in
some common coffin- and thrust deep, deep, and for ever, into some
ordinary and nameless grave.