as it had been in her last illness was reflected in the glass peering over my shoulder i sprang up and confronted her t � she was gone and now the sorrows of satan i am shivering with cold and i feel a chill on my forehead � mechanically i have soaked a handkerchief with perfume from one of the silver bottles on the dressing table and have passed it across my temples to help me recover from this sick sensation to recover � how foolish of me seeing i am about to die i do not believe in ghosts � yet i could have sworn my mother was actually present just now � of course it was an delusion of my own feverish brain the strong scent on my handkerchief reminds me of i can see the shop where i bought this particular perfume and the well dressed doll of a man who served me with his little moustache and his french manner of conveying a speechless personal compliment while making out a bill laughing at this recollection i see my face in the glass � my eyes flash into vivid lustre and the near my lips come and go giving my expression an sweetness yet in a few hours this loveliness will be destroyed � and in a few days the worms will where the smile is now an idea has come upon me that perhaps i ought to say a prayer it would be � but conventional to die one ought to a few words to the church and yet to kneel down with clasped hands and tell an selfish paid community called a church that i am going to kill myself for the sake of love and love s despair and that therefore i humbly its forgiveness for the act seems absurd � as absurd as to tell the same thing to a non deity i suppose the do not think what a strange their advanced theories put the human mind in at the hour of death they forget that on the brink of the grave thoughts come that will not be and that cannot be appeased by a learned however i will not pray � it would seem to myself cowardly that i who have never said my prayers since i was a child should run over them now in a foolish o the sorrows of satan attempt to satisfy the powers invisible � i could out of sheer association appeal to mr s besides i do not believe in the powers invisible at all � i feel that once outside this life the rest as hamlet said is silence i have been staring and in a sort of at the little poison in my hand it is quite empty now i have swallowed every drop of the liquid it contained � i took it quickly as one takes medicine without allowing myself another moment of time for thought or hesitation it tasted and burning on my tongue � but at present i am not conscious of any strange or painful result i shall watch my face in the mirror and trace the of death � this will be at any rate a new sensation not without interest my mother is here � here with me in this room she is moving about making wild gestures with her hands and trying to speak she looks as she did when she was dying � only more alive more i have followed her up and down but am unable to touch her � she my grasp i have called her mother mother but no sound issues from her white lips her face is so appalling that i was seized with a of terror a moment ago and fell on my knees before her imploring her to leave me � and then she paused in her gliding to and fro and � smiled what a hideous smile it was i think i lost consciousness for i found myself lying on the ground a sharp and terrible pain running through me made me spring to my feet and i bit my lips till they lest i should scream aloud with the agony i suffered and so alarm the house when the passed i saw my mother standing quite near to me watching me with a strange expression of wonder and remorse i past her and back to this chair where i now sit i am calmer now and i am able to realize that the sorrows of satan she is only the phantom of my own brain � that fancy she is here while she is dead torture indescribable has made of me a moaning helpless creature for the past few minutes truly that was deadly � the pain is horrible horrible it has left me quivering in every limb and in every nerve looking at my face in the glass i see that it has already altered it is drawn and livid � all the fresh rose tint of my lips has gone � my eyes there are dull blue marks at the comers of my mouth and in the hollows of my temples and i observe a curious quick in the veins of my throat be my torment what it will now there is no remedy � and i am resolved to sit here and study my own features to the end the whose name is death must surely be near ready to gather my long hair in his skeleton hand like a of ripe corn my poor beautiful hair � how i have loved its glistening and brushed it and it round my fingers and how soon it will lie like a weed in the a devouring fire is in my brain and body � i am burning with heat and with thirst � i have drunk deep draughts of cold water but this has not relieved me the sun in upon me like an open 