At last; the
blessed day came when he enjoyed his first sleep, and when the
doctor began, for the first time, to talk of the future with
hope. Even then, however, the same terrible peculiarity marked
his light dreams which had previously shown itself in his fierce
delirium. From the faintly uttered, broken phrases which dropped
from him when he slept, as from the wild words which burst from
him when his senses were deranged, the one sad discovery
inevitably resulted--that his mind was still haunted, day and
night, hour after hour, by the figure in the yellow mask.
As his bodily health improved, the doctor in attendance on him
grew more and more anxious as to the state of his mind. There was
no appearance of any positive derangement of intellect, but there
was a mental depression--an unaltering, invincible prostration,
produced by his absolute belief in the reality of the dreadful
vision that he had seen at the masked ball--which suggested to
the physician the gravest doubts about the case. He saw with
dismay that the patient showed no anxiety, as he got stronger,
except on one subject. He was eagerly desirous of seeing Nanina
every day by his bedside; but, as soon as he was assured that his
wish should be faithfully complied with, he seemed to care for
nothing more. Even when they proposed, in the hope of rousing him
to an exhibition of something like pleasure, that the girl should
read to him for an hour every day out of one of his favorite
books, he only showed a languid satisfaction.
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