| | 1 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Pit and the Pendulum  | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I was sick — sick unto death with that long agony; and when
they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that
my senses were leaving me. The sentence — the dread sentence of
death — was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears.
After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in
one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of
revolution — perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr
of a mill-wheel. This only for a brief period; for presently I
heard no more. Yet, for a while, I saw; but with how terrible an
exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed judges. They
appeared to me white — whiter than the sheet upon which I trace
these words — and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the
intensity of their expression
of firmness — of immoveable
resolution — of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the
decrees of what to me was Fate, were still issuing from those lips.
I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the
syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no sound succeeded.
I saw, too, for a few moments of delirious horror, the soft and
nearly imperceptible waving of the sable draperies which enwrapped
the walls of the apartment. And then my vision fell upon the seven
tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the aspect of
charity, and seemed white slender angels who would save me; but
then, all at once, there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit,
and I felt every fibre in my frame thrill as if I had touched the
wire of a galvanic battery, while the angel forms became
meaningless spectres, with heads of flame, and I saw that from them
there would be no help. And there stole into my fancy, like a rich
musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the
grave. The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long
before it attained full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at
length properly to feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges
vanished, as if magically, from before me; the tall candles sank
into nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of
darkness supervened; all sensation appeared swallowed up in that
mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and
stillness, and night were the universe. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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