questioned the sleep-waker
again:

"Do you still feel pain in the breast, M. Valdemar?"

The answer now was immediate, but even less audible than before: "No
pain--I am dying."

I did not think it advisable to disturb him farther just then, and
nothing more was said or done until the arrival of Dr. F--, who came a
little before sunrise, and expressed unbounded astonishment at finding
the patient still alive. After feeling the pulse and applying a mirror
to the lips, he requested me to speak to the sleep-waker again. I did
so, saying:

"M. Valdemar, do you still sleep?"

As before, some minutes elapsed ere a reply was made; and during the
interval the dying man seemed to be collecting his energies to speak.
At my fourth repetition of the question, he said very faintly, almost
inaudibly:

"Yes; still asleep--dying."

It was now the opinion, or rather the wish, of the physicians, that
M. Valdemar should be suffered to remain undisturbed in his present
apparently tranquil condition, until death should supervene--and this,
it was generally agreed, must now take place within a few minutes. I
concluded, however, to speak to him once more, and merely repeated my
previous question.

While I spoke, there came a marked change over the countenance of
the sleep-waker. The eyes rolled themselves slowly open, the pupils
disappearing upwardly; the skin generally assumed a cadaverous hue,
resembling not so much parchment as white paper; and the circular hectic
spots which, hitherto, had been strongly defined in the centre of each
cheek, went out at once. I use this expression, because the
suddenness of their departure put me in mind of nothing so much as the
extinguishment of a candle by a puff of the breath. The upper lip,
at the same time, writhed itself away from the teeth, which it had
previously covered completely; while the lower jaw fell with an audible
jerk, leaving the mouth widely extended, and disclosing in full view the
swollen and blackened tongue. I presume that no member of the party
then present had been unaccustomed to death-bed horrors; but so hideous
beyond conception was the appearance of M. Valdemar at this moment, that
there was a general shrinking back from the region of the bed.

I now feel that I have reached a point of this narrative at which every
reader will be startled into positive disbelief. It is my business,
however, simply to proceed.

There was no longer the faintest sign of vitality in