The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 3Poe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 3
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American
“For many minutes,” continued the latter, “my sole sentiment—my
sole feeling—was that of darkness and nonentity, with the
consciousness of death. At length there seemed to pass a violent
and sudden shock through my soul, as if of electricity. With it
came the sense of elasticity and of light. This latter I felt—not
saw. In an instant I seemed to rise from the ground. But I had no
bodily, no visible, audible, or palpable presence. The crowd had
departed. The tumult had ceased. The city was in comparative
repose. Beneath me lay my corpse, with the arrow in my temple,
the whole head greatly swollen and disfigured. But all these
things I felt—not saw. I took interest in nothing. Even the
corpse seemed a matter in which I had no concern. Volition I had
none, but appeared to be impelled into motion, and flitted
buoyantly out of the city, retracing the circuitous path by which
I had entered it. When I had attained that point of the ravine in
the mountains at which I had encountered the hyena, I again
experienced a shock as of a galvanic battery; the sense of
weight, of volition, of substance, returned. I became my original
self, and bent my steps eagerly homeward—but the past had not
lost the vividness of the real—and not now, even for an instant,
can I compel my understanding to regard it as a dream.”
“Nor was it,” said Templeton, with an air of deep solemnity, “yet
it would be difficult to say how otherwise it should be termed.
Let us suppose only, that the soul of the man of to-day is upon
the verge of some stupendous psychal discoveries. Let us content
ourselves with this supposition. For the rest I have some
explanation to make. Here is a watercolor drawing, which I should
have shown you before, but which an unaccountable sentiment of
horror has hitherto prevented me from showing.”
We looked at the picture which he presented. I saw nothing in it
of an extraordinary character, but its effect upon Bedloe was
prodigious. He nearly fainted as he gazed. And yet it was but a
miniature portrait—a miraculously accurate one, to be sure—of his
own very remarkable features. At least this was my thought as I
regarded it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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