Then rushed upon me
      a thousand memories of Ligeia—and then came back upon my heart,
      with the turbulent violence of a flood, the whole of that
      unutterable woe with which I had regarded her thus enshrouded. The night waned; and still, with a bosom full of bitter thoughts
      of the one only and supremely beloved, I remained gazing upon the
      body of Rowena. It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for I
      had taken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but very
      distinct, startled me from my revery. I _felt_ that it came from
      the bed of ebony—the bed of death. I listened in an agony of
      superstitious terror—but there was no repetition of the sound. I
      strained my vision to detect any motion in the corpse—but there
      was not the slightest perceptible. Yet I could not have been
      deceived. I had heard the noise, however faint, and my soul was
      awakened within me. I resolutely and perseveringly kept my
      attention riveted upon the body. Many minutes elapsed before any
      circumstance occurred tending to throw light upon the mystery. At
      length it became evident that a slight, a very feeble, and barely
      noticeable tinge of color had flushed up within the cheeks, and
      along the sunken small veins of the eyelids. Through a species of
      unutterable horror and awe, for which the language of mortality
      has no sufficiently energetic expression, I felt my heart cease
      to beat, my limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a sense of duty
      finally operated to restore my self-possession. I could no longer
      doubt that we had been precipitate in our preparations—that
      Rowena still lived. It was necessary that some immediate exertion
      be made; yet the turret was altogether apart from the portion of
      the abbey tenanted by the servants—there were none within call—I
      had no means of summoning them to my aid without leaving the room
      for many minutes—and this I could not venture to do. I therefore
      struggled alone in my endeavors to call back the spirit ill
      hovering. In a short period it was certain, however, that a
      relapse had taken place; the color disappeared from both eyelid
      and cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble; the
      lips became doubly shrivelled and pinched up in the ghastly
      expression of death; a repulsive clamminess and coldness
      overspread rapidly the surface of the body; and all the usual
      rigorous illness immediately supervened. I fell back with a
      shudder upon the couch from which I had been so startlingly
      aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate waking visions of
      Ligeia. An hour thus elapsed when (could it be possible?) I was a second
      time aware of some vague sound issuing from the region of the
      bed. I listened—in extremity of horror. The sound came again—it
      was a sigh. Rushing to the corpse, I saw—distinctly saw—a tremor
      upon the lips. In a minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a
      bright line of the pearly teeth. Amazement now struggled in my
      bosom with the profound awe which had hitherto reigned there
      alone. I felt that my vision grew dim, that my reason wandered;
      and it was only by a violent effort that I at length succeeded in
      nerving myself to the task which duty thus once more had pointed
      out. There was now a partial glow upon the forehead and upon the
      cheek and throat; a perceptible warmth pervaded the whole frame;
      there was even a slight pulsation at the heart. The lady lived;
      and with redoubled ardor I betook myself to the task of
      restoration. I chafed and bathed the temples and the hands, and
      used every exertion which experience, and no little medical
      reading, could suggest. But in vain. Suddenly, the color fled,
      the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the expression of the
      dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body took upon
      itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense rigidity,
      the sunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of that
      which has been, for many days, a tenant of the tomb. And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia—and again, (what marvel
      that I shudder while I write? ), again there reached my ears a low
      sob from the region of the ebony bed. But why shall I minutely
      detail the unspeakable horrors of that night? Why shall I pause
      to relate how, time after time, until near the period of the gray
      dawn, this hideous drama of revivification was repeated; how each
      terrific relapse was only into a sterner and apparently more
      irredeemable death; how each agony wore the aspect of a struggle
      with some invisible foe; and how each struggle was succeeded by I
      know not what of wild change in the personal appearance of the
      corpse? Let me hurry to a conclusion. The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she who
      had been dead, once again stirred—and now more vigorously than
      hitherto, although arousing from a dissolution more appalling in
      its utter hopelessness than any. I had long ceased to struggle or
      to move, and remained sitting rigidly upon the ottoman, a
      helpless prey to a whirl of violent emotions, of which extreme
      awe was perhaps the least terrible, the least consuming. The
      corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now more vigorously than before. The hues of life flushed up with unwonted energy into the
      countenance—the limbs relaxed—and, save that the eyelids were yet
      pressed heavily together, and that the bandages and draperies of
      the grave still imparted their charnel character to the figure, I
      might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off, utterly,
      the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not, even then,
      altogether adopted, I could at least doubt no longer, when,
      arising from the bed, tottering, with feeble steps, with closed
      eyes, and with the manner of one bewildered in a dream, the thing
      that was enshrouded advanced boldly and palpably into the middle
      of the apartment. I trembled not—I stirred not—for a crowd of unutterable fancies
      connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor of the figure,
      rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed—had chilled me
      into stone. I stirred not—but gazed upon the apparition. There
      was a mad disorder in my thoughts—a tumult unappeasable. Could
      it, indeed, be the living Rowena who confronted me? Could it
      indeed be Rowena at all—the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady
      Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine? Why, why should I doubt it? The
      bandage lay heavily about the mouth—but then might it not be the
      mouth of the breathing Lady of Tremaine?