The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2Poe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American; Short stories
Her woman’s heart was not
adamant, and this last lesson of love sufficed to soften it. She
bestowed it upon Bossuet. She returned no more to her husband,
but, concealing from him her resurrection, fled with her lover to
America. Twenty years afterward, the two returned to France, in
the persuasion that time had so greatly altered the lady’s
appearance that her friends would be unable to recognize her.
They were mistaken, however, for, at the first meeting, Monsieur
Renelle did actually recognize and make claim to his wife. This
claim she resisted, and a judicial tribunal sustained her in her
resistance, deciding that the peculiar circumstances, with the
long lapse of years, had extinguished, not only equitably, but
legally, the authority of the husband.
The “Chirurgical Journal” of Leipsic, a periodical of high
authority and merit, which some American bookseller would do well
to translate and republish, records in a late number a very
distressing event of the character in question.
An officer of artillery, a man of gigantic stature and of robust
health, being thrown from an unmanageable horse, received a very
severe contusion upon the head, which rendered him insensible at
once; the skull was slightly fractured, but no immediate danger
was apprehended. Trepanning was accomplished successfully. He was
bled, and many other of the ordinary means of relief were
adopted. Gradually, however, he fell into a more and more
hopeless state of stupor, and, finally, it was thought that he
died.
The weather was warm, and he was buried with indecent haste in
one of the public cemeteries. His funeral took place on Thursday.
On the Sunday following, the grounds of the cemetery were, as
usual, much thronged with visitors, and about noon an intense
excitement was created by the declaration of a peasant that,
while sitting upon the grave of the officer, he had distinctly
felt a commotion of the earth, as if occasioned by some one
struggling beneath. At first little attention was paid to the
man’s asseveration; but his evident terror, and the dogged
obstinacy with which he persisted in his story, had at length
their natural effect upon the crowd. Spades were hurriedly
procured, and the grave, which was shamefully shallow, was in a
few minutes so far thrown open that the head of its occupant
appeared. He was then seemingly dead; but he sat nearly erect
within his coffin, the lid of which, in his furious struggles, he
had partially uplifted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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