Death chamber

“ The most careless cannot move along the chamber of death without being affected by the awful presence of the King of Terrors. The holy quiet that ought to cha [20] racterise a funeral procession is too frequently destroyed by the empty pomp and heartlessness which attend it; but in the death-chamber there is nothing of this; the very atmosphere seems impregnated with the stillness of the time when there was no life in the broad earth, and when only "God moved on the face of the waters." ”

“ The woman took her hand, and led her through a long range of chambers hewn from the solid rock, against which the house was built; and the affrighted girl almost closed her eyes to shut out the view of the skeletons, monsters, and strange forms which seemed to gibber and grin at her as she passed along. They reached a spacious chamber, and she was left alone in utter darkness for some moments. A silence like that of death prevailed; she dared not move, for fancy pictured a deep abyss at her feet, down which one step, nay a single breath, might plunge her. ”

“ But my fervour gradually weakened, and I fell insensibly into a reverie. That chamber bore no semblance to a chamber of death. In lieu of the fœtid and cadaverous odours which I had been accustomed to breathe during such funereal vigils, a languorous vapour of Oriental perfume—I know not what amorous odour of woman—softly floated through the tepid air. That pale light seemed rather a twilight gloom contrived for voluptuous pleasure, than a substitute for the yellow-flickering watch-tapers which shine by the side of corpses. ”

“ It would seem impossible for any one to escape from the Death-Chamber. But there is a story of one man who refused to stay, and who, under the very eyes of his keepers, without any privacy or apparatus, manufactured the poison with which he ended his life; for that is almost the only way you can end your stay in the Death-Chamber.
The man’s crime, his history, does not affect this story, but his personality does. He was the quietest man of all; and men who are waiting death are usually quiet men. ”

“ The death chamber should be a place of the utmost quiet, a place of peace and of prayer, for at that time, and for three and one-half days after the last breath, the spirit is passing through a Gethsemane and needs all the assistance that can be given. The value of the life that has just been passed depends greatly upon conditions which then prevail about the body ”

“ Then I thought of her, lying alone, so near me, so quiet under the white sheet. She was dead; she would not wake or move. But suppose she did move? Suppose she turned back the sheet and got up, and walked across the floor and turned the door-handle?
As I thought it, I heard—plainly, unmistakably heard—the door of the chamber of death open slowly—I heard slow steps in the passage, slow, heavy steps—I heard the touch of hands on my door outside, uncertain hands, that felt for the latch. ”

“ We skirted the smoking volcano and at length stood before the narrow fissure, half-hidden by a gigantic boulder, through which I had emerged from the burial-chamber.
We had borrowed a couple of lanterns from the ship and Bard carried a pick-axe while I shouldered a spade. We left our tools at the entrance and lit our lamps. Then I led the way into the passage. At the end I found the solid masonry of the table hanging down into the passage. A steady heave swung it round and there, above our heads, was the black square opening of the death-chamber. ”

“ She seems to have left a very curious will. I deal with only two details in it. One was that the chamber in which she lived and died was for ever to be left untouched and undisturbed, but unlocked, or the disturber would be cursed with instant blindness and ultimately death. The second was that she was to be buried in the vault in the yew avenue that she had specially made for her remains; that she was to be dressed in her usual clothes and bonnet, and that she must be placed in a tightly-sealed glass coffin, so as to be visible to any intruder. ”

“ Anything, 205everything is better than existence in the Death-Chamber.
During the night, if you have lain awake, and one has been known to be so foolish, you may have felt a very slight vibration, perhaps it is imagination; perhaps it is the dynamo. If you have slept, and do not hear the death-watch draw down the curtains in front of all the cells when the night outside turns gray, you will surely be awakened by the noise of many feet. It is the priests who have entered. Their ordinary shoes on the flagging of the corridor sound like thunder, thunder moving away. ”

“ During this period the spirit of the deceased is supposed to be still inhabiting the house, and a tablet or shrine is set up in the death chamber before which food and flowers are renewed daily. Visitors are expected to make obeisance to the dead. ”

“ The further extremity of the place was involved in a profound darkness which could not be dissipated by feeble rays of the lamp.
'Here,' said the Dead Man, addressing his prisoner—'you will be kept in confinement for the rest of your life—a confinement varied only by different modes of torture which I shall apply to you, from time to time. This dungeon is called the Chamber of Death—for what reason you will ere long find out. It is built directly under the sewers of the city, which accounts for the liquid filth that oozes through the ceiling. ”

“ Oh, the years in the Death-Chamber! The loneliness, the quiet. Hell must be a quiet place.
When at last it is drawing to a close, when the Governor has refused to interfere, the officials proceed in this manner: On Saturday the “fortunate one” on stepping from his bath is ordered into a new cell—the one next to the 199“little door” leading to the execution chamber. Here he receives everything new: new bedding, new clothes from head to foot, and then his knick-knacks, pipe, tobacco, boxes, books, and the packages of letters from home, ragged and blurred from reading and rereading ”

“ Then we entered the dim and dreadful chamber where she lay locked up in death and where, asking after a little to be left alone with her, I remained for half an hour. Death had made her, had kept her beautiful ”

“ When death has actually occurred I would strongly advocate that those who have loved and nursed the dead may prepare the body for the last resting-place. It can be gently washed and attired in the clean night-dress, and the hands can be crossed on the breast. Someone who can be trusted—not a mere hireling—should be present when the last measurements are taken; then the room should be at once turned into a mortuary chamber, the bed hung with white, candles lighted head and foot, which should not go out until the funeral day, and fresh{226} flowers should be kept there ”

“ Here it remains for some six or seven minutes, during which time the chamber is charged with carbonic acid gas, and a spray of chloroform is pumped in, which the dogs immediately inhale. This process of bringing about all that is needed is not strangulation or suffocation, but is essentially a death sleep. There are also two smaller chambers presented to the Home by Dr. Richardson, constructed on similar principles, intended for use when a dog has to be destroyed at once.
LETHAL CHAMBER AND CREMATORIUM.
Exactly opposite the Lethal Chamber is the Crematorium. ”

“ In the most secret chamber of the spirit of him who believes himself convinced that death puts an end to his personal consciousness, his memory, for ever, and all unknown to him perhaps, there lurks a shadow, a vague shadow, a shadow of shadow, of uncertainty, and while he says within himself, "Well, let us live this life that passes away, for there is no other!" the silence of this secret chamber speaks to him and murmurs, "Who knows!..." ”

“ According to the present usage, as soon as the semblance of death appears, the chamber is deserted, by friends, relatives, and physicians, and the apparently dead, though frequently living, body is committed to the management of an ignorant or unfeeling nurse, whose care extends no further than laying the limbs straight, and securing her accustomed perquisites. ”

“ I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break; and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter—the Eternity they have entered—where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness. ”

“ The small urn containing the parental ashes may be taken by migratory man into the new world or the old, always preserved as the most sacred relic of the family.
How much more beautiful and better would it not be to have the remains of our kin near at hand, in the house. Only then we would be reminded of them every day. Every building could be made to contain a mortuary chamber. Then we would know our dead shielded from the elements. ”

“ The uproar was resumed with tenfold energy. However much my heart might revolt from it, there was no other course open than to go into the room where the dead body lay. In the condition of one who is driven to the last stage of desperation, I walked, with as much fortitude as I could command, into that chamber. God of Heaven! I had no sooner reached the threshold than I started back with affright. I will not dwell upon that horrible scene; I will not minutely detail the agony I endured. The corpse sat upright! I drew the chamber-door quickly after me and staggered into the next apartment. ”

“ That dark dawn can have little familiarised your persecutors with your features. For the brazier, I will bring to-morrow the wherewithal to screen it; yet methinks, once warmed, you’ll need but little artificial heat in this subterranean chamber. It were wise to kindle no taper but on urgent need. For the rest, you are buried here as inviolate as in a tomb. No one of the household nor the near neighbourhood would so much as come near the place: it hath an evil reputation with the foolish. But that need not concern you. ”

“ By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The moonbeams came through two deep and narrow windows and showed a spacious chamber richly furnished in an antique fashion. From one lattice the shadow of the diamond panes was thrown upon the floor; the ghostly light through the other swept upon a bed, falling between the heavy silken curtains and illuminating the face of a young man. But how quietly the slumberer lay! how pale his features! And how like a shroud the sheet was wound about his frame! Yes, it was a corpse in its burial clothes. ”

“ KING.
Your own mirror will not reflect them—it lessens you, limits you, makes you look small and insignificant. But could you see yourself mirrored in my own mind, how grand would you appear! In my own heart you are no longer the daily individual which you think you are—you are verily my second self.
SUDARSHANA.
Oh, do show me for an instant how to see with your eyes! Is there nothing at all like darkness to you? I am afraid when I think of this. This darkness which is to me real and strong as death—is this simply nothing to you? ”

“ Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought,
And fetched the seventh plate of graven lead
Out of the secret chamber, found a place,
Pressing with finger on the deeper dints,
And spoke, as 'twere his mouth proclaiming first,
"I am the Resurrection and the Life." ”

“ Now, if it be true, as Mr Grant Allen supposed, that the shape of the circular tumulus was determined by the cinerary urn around which it was piled, while the form of the long barrow depended on the subjacent chambered tomb—the underground home or palace of the dead person [652] —we begin to see a glimmer of light. For the subterranean chamber, being intended to hold an uncremated corpse, would be roughly adapted to the form of the human body. In like manner, when inhumation was again enforced, there would be an unconscious return to the use of the long mound. ”

“ The outline of the building is a pleasing one, and the architecture is of such a character that it resembles a church more closely than a place where any mechanical operation is carried on. The grounds of the company are entered from Delavan Avenue by a spacious roadway, running to a porch and then passing around the building to the door of the mortuary chamber, on the east side. Those who accompany the body alight at the porch, and pass thence into the auditorium. The body itself is removed from the hearse at the door of the mortuary chamber. ”

“ She tears her hair violently, stoops down over the body, kisses it, calls it by name, and sways from side to side, all the time shrieking at the top of her voice. Other mourners arrive, all in black. On the threshold of the chamber they stop, raise their hands towards the heavens, and cry three times with all their might the name of the dead. ”

“ The house, which is borrowed, and to which the ghost has adjourned, is wretchedly small and miserable; when we opened the chamber, in which were fifty people with no light but one tallow candle at the end, we tumbled over the bed of the child to whom the ghost comes, and whom they are murdering by inches in such insufferable heat and stench. ”

“ On the four corners of the great black pall were sprigs of immortelles, and at the head of the casket, a wreath of orange blossoms. The floor of the chamber was of slabs of white marble, skillfully laid and joined together.
At the side of the room, upon a low couch, lay the skeleton of a human being; the grinning skull was turned upon one side, with its yawning, eyeless sockets turned toward the casket in the center of the chamber. ”

“ In a few moments I faced the iron door of the torture chamber. As the heavy door creaked backward on its rusty hinges, the gleam of the flickering candles cast fitful, menacing shadows on the dreaded coffin in the center of the chamber. The sight filled me with renewed horror and I was seized with a fierce desire for freedom. But the futile struggle that I essayed was immediately frustrated by my guards, whose strength far exceeded mine. I was roughly thrown into the instrument of torture, from which the lid had been removed. ”