When, in due course of time, Bergan came partially¹ to himself, he found that he was lying on his own bed, with the twilight² shadows gathering³ duskily in its hangings. But his mind was too dull and confused to trouble itself with the question how he came there, notwithstanding that his ears seemed still to retain the sound of low voices, and his limbs the pressure of careful hands. Scarcely had he unclosed his heavy eyes, ere he was glad to shut them again, and to sink anew into slumber⁵.

But this time, it was not, as before, a profound stupor⁶, a deaf, blind, torpid⁷, state of nothingness. Though it lasted some hours, he never quite lost an oppressive sense of overhanging trouble, imperfectly as its nature was apprehended⁹. Moreover, he was harassed¹⁰ by dreams of that most trying character, wherein varying images revolve¹¹ around one fixed¹² idea; combining the misery¹³ of continual change with that of ceaseless iteration into one intolerable horror.

Breaking, at length, from the teasing spell of these phantasms, he saw that it was past midnight. Through the opposite window, he beheld¹⁴ a pale, waning¹⁵ moon, and, by its light, a gray, dimly-outlined landscape,—a faint and lifeless

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