The Pit and The Pendulum

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There was another interval of utter insensibility; it was brief for, upon again lapsing into life there had been no perceptible descent in the pendulum. But it might have been long; for I knew there were demons who took note of my swoon, and who could have arrested the vibration at pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt very - oh, inexpressibly sick and weak, as if through long inanition. Even amid the agonies of that period, the human nature craved food. With painful effort I outstretched my left arm as far as my bonds permitted, and took possession of the small remnant which had been spared me by the rats. As I put a portion of it within my lips, there rushed to my mind a half formed thought of joy - of hope. Yet what business had I with hope? It was, as I say, a half formed thought - man had many such which are never completed. I felt that it was of joy - of hope; but I felt also that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to perfect - to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile - an idiot.

     The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my length. I saw that the crescent was designed to cress the region of the heart. It would fray the serge of my robe - it would return and repeat its operations - again - and again. Notwithstanding its terrifically wide sweep (some thirty feet or more) and the hissing vigour of its descent, sufficient to sunder these very walls of iron, still the fraying of my robe would be all that, for several minutes, it would accomplish. And at this thought I paused. I dared not go farther than this reflection. I dwelt upon it with a pertinacity of attention - as if, in so dwelling, I could arrest here the decent of the steel. I forced myself to ponder upon the sound of the crescent as it should pass across the garment - upon the peculiar thrilling sensation which the friction of cloth produces on the nerves. I pondered upon all this frivolity until my teeth were on edge.