In the absence of all possibility of escape, it became a morbid and
haunting wish with me to know my exact locality. That it could be no
great distance from the city of New York, if not within its limits, I
felt assured, from the expedition with which my transit from the ship
had been effected.
During the first three weeks of my confinement the deep silence that
prevailed about me had led me to adopt the opinion that I was the
occupant of a _maison de sante_. I had once driven past one on Staten
Island, where a friend of my father's--about whose condition he came to
inquire personally--had been immured for years. I did not alight with
him when he left the carriage to make these inquiries, but I perfectly
remembered the old gray stone building, with its ancient elms, and the
impression of gloom and awe it had left on my mind. But this idea was
presently dispelled.
I was awakened one morning, in the fourth week of my sojourn in
captivity, by the sound of chimes long familiar to my ear, the duplicate
of which I had not supposed to be in existence. At first I feared it was
some mirage of the ear, so to speak, instead of eye, that reflected back
that fairy melody, which had rung its accompaniment to my whole
childhood and youth; but, when, after the lapse of seven days, it was
repeated, I became convinced that its reality was unquestionable, and
that neither impatience nor indignation had so impaired my senses as to
reproduce those sounds through the medium of a fevered imagination.
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