Methought I
      was immersed in a cataleptic trance of more than usual duration
      and profundity. Suddenly there came an icy hand upon my forehead,
      and an impatient, gibbering voice whispered the word “Arise!”
      within my ear. I sat erect. The darkness was total. I could not see the figure
      of him who had aroused me. I could call to mind neither the
      period at which I had fallen into the trance, nor the locality in
      which I then lay. While I remained motionless, and busied in
      endeavors to collect my thought, the cold hand grasped me
      fiercely by the wrist, shaking it petulantly, while the gibbering
      voice said again:

      “Arise! did I not bid thee arise?”

      “And who,” I demanded, “art thou?”

      “I have no name in the regions which I inhabit,” replied the
      voice, mournfully; “I was mortal, but am fiend. I was merciless,
      but am pitiful. Thou dost feel that I shudder. My teeth chatter
      as I speak, yet it is not with the chilliness of the night—of the
      night without end. But this hideousness is insufferable. How
      canst thou tranquilly sleep? I cannot rest for the cry of these
      great agonies. These sights are more than I can bear. Get thee
      up! Come with me into the outer Night, and let me unfold to thee
      the graves. Is not this a spectacle of woe?—Behold!”

      I looked; and the unseen figure, which still grasped me by the
      wrist, had caused to be thrown open the graves of all mankind;
      and from each issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay; so
      that I could see into the innermost recesses, and there view the
      shrouded bodies in their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm. But alas! the real sleepers were fewer, by many millions, than
      those who slumbered not at all; and there was a feeble
      struggling; and there was a general sad unrest; and from out the
      depths of the countless pits there came a melancholy rustling
      from the garments of the buried. And of those who seemed
      tranquilly to repose, I saw that a vast number had changed, in a
      greater or less degree, the rigid and uneasy position in which
      they had originally been entombed. And the voice again said to me
      as I 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 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.