I did not become insensible, but I was dead to surrounding objects, dead to the present, dead to the future.

The past, the terrible, the inexorable past, was upon me, trampling me, grinding me with iron heel, into the dust of the grave.

I could not move, for its nightmare weight crushed me.

I could not see, for its blackness shrouded me; nor hear, for its shrieks deafened me.

Had I remained long in that awful condition, I should have become a maniac.
"Gabriella!" said a voice, which at any other moment would have wakened a thrill of rapture, "Gabriella, speak,--look up.