I had no memory, no hope, no sorrow; nothing but a dim consciousness of a pleasurable and tranquil being.

Gradually, however, the delusion vanished.

I was sensible of still wearing the fetters of the flesh, yet they galled no longer; the burden was lifted from my heart, it beat happily and calmly, as in childhood.

As the stronger influences of my opiate (for I had really swallowed nothing more, as the druggist, suspecting from the incoherence of my language, that I was meditating some fearful purpose, furnished me with a harmless, though not ineffective draught) passed off, the events of the past came back to me.

It was like the slow lifting of a curtain from a picture of which I was a mere spectator, about which I could reason calmly, and trace dispassionately its light and shadow.