te
leading into the cemetery, the coffin was dropped on the ground with a
bang, and--the rest was a blank. Nothing, nothing came back to me. At
first I was inclined to attribute my memory to a dream. 'Absurd!' I said
to myself. 'Such things cannot have occurred. I am in bed; I know I am!'
Then I endeavoured to move my arms to feel the counterpane; I could not;
my arms were bound, tightly bound to my side. A cold sweat burst out all
over me. Good God! was it true? I tried again; and the same thing
happened--I could not stir. Again and again I tried, straining and
tugging at my sides till the muscles on my arms were on the verge of
bursting, and I had to desist through utter exhaustion. I lay still and
listened to the beating of my heart. Then, I clenched my toes and tried
to kick. I could not; my feet were ruthlessly fastened together.

"Death garments! A winding-sheet! I could feel it clinging to me all
over. It compressed the air in my lungs, it retarded the circulation,
and gave me the most excruciating cramp, and pins and needles. My
sufferings were so acute that I groaned, and, on attempting to stretch
my jaws, found that they were encased in tight, clammy bandages. By
prodigious efforts I eventually managed to gain a certain amount of
liberty for my head, and this gave me the consolation that if I could do
nothing else I could at least howl--howl! How utterly futile, for who,
in God's name, would hear me? The thought of all there was above me, of
all the piles of earth and grass--for the idea that I was not actually
buried never entered my mind--filled me with the most abject sorrow and
despair. The utter helplessness of my position came home to me with
damning force. Rescue was absolutely out of the question, because the
only persons, who knew where I was, believed me dead. To my friends and
relations, my fate would ever remain a mystery. The knowledge that they
would, at once, have come to my assistance, had I only been able to
communicate with them, was cruel in the extreme; and tears of
mortification poured down my cheeks when I realised how blissfully
unconscious they were of my fate. The most vivid and alluring visions of
home, of my parents, and brothers, and sisters, flitted tantalisingly
before me. I saw them all sitting on their accustomary seats, in the
parlour, my father smoking his meerschaum, my mother knitting, my eldest
sister describing an opera she had been to that afternoon, my youngest
sister li