Thus stood matters when I awoke to consciousness: and this was the fatal journal of the interval--interval so long as measured by my fierce calendar of delirium--so brief measured by the huge circuit of events which it embraced, and their mightiness for evil. Wrath, wrath immeasurable, unimaginable, unmitigable, burned at my heart like a cancer. The worst had come. And the thing which kills a man for action--the living in two climates at once--a torrid and a frigid zone--of hope and fear--that was past. Weak--suppose I were for the moment: I felt that a day or two might bring back my strength. No miserable tremors of hope _now_ shook my nerves: if they shook from that inevitable rocking of the waters that follows a storm, so much might be pardoned to the infirmity of a nature that could not lay aside its fleshly necessities, nor altogether forego its homage to 'these frail elements,' but which by inspiration already lived within a region where no voices were heard but the spiritual voices of transcendent passions--of 'Wrongs unrevenged, and insults unredress'd.' Six days from that time I was well--well and strong. I rose from bed; I bathed; I dressed; dressed as if I were a bridegroom. And that _was_ in fact a great day in my life. I was to see Agnes. Oh! yes: permission had been obtained from the lordly minister that I should see my wife. Is it possible? Can such condescensions exist? Yes: solicitations from ladies, eloquent notes wet with ducal tears, these had won from the thrice-radiant secretary, redolent of roseate attar, a countersign to some order or other, by which I--yes I--under license of a fop, and supervision of a jailer--was to see and for a time to converse with my own wife.