Pagina 604 di 896

It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and

the other gaolers moving about, who would have been well enough

as to appearance in the ordinary exercise of their functions,

looked so extravagantly coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers

and blooming daughters who were there--with the apparitions of

the coquette, the young beauty, and the mature woman delicately

bred--that the inversion of all experience and likelihood which

the scene of shadows presented, was heightened to its utmost.

Surely, ghosts all. Surely, the long unreal ride some progress of

disease that had brought him to these gloomy shades!