ABSTRACT

How long I endured this suspension of the vital faculties I cannot tell. The next impression on my sensorium, subsequent to those I have described, was a sort of external / twitching and violence that seemed to persecute me. It was an importunity from which I felt desirous to escape; I longed to be undisturbed and at rest. The intruder on my quiet would not leave me; and I at length roused myself, as if to put away my cause of molestation. My thoughts were all confounded and obscure; I knew not where, I could scarcely be said to know who, I was. A little more effort brought with it a further capacity of perception; I saw before me, what was now the chief object of my mortal aversion, the figure of Bethlem Gabor. It was some time longer, before I became aware that he had been employed in taking up my apparently lifeless corpse, placing it on a stone-bench in the side of the cave, and chaining it to the wall. He observed the motions that indicated in me returning life: he remarked the stare of my glassy and rayless eyes; he now spoke with a stern and unpitying voice – ‘There is food; there is light; eat!’ Having thus said, he left me.