Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

The third night after this was to be the crisis -- the turning-point between Life and Death. Mr Davis came again to pass it by the bedside of the sufferer. Ruth was there, constant and still, intent upon watching the symptoms, and acting according to them, in obedience to Mr Davis's directions. She had never left the room. Every sense had been strained in watching -- every power of thought or judgment had been kept on the full stretch. Now that Mr Davis came and took her place, and that the room was quiet for the night, she became oppressed with heaviness, which yet did not tend to sleep. She could not remember the present time, or where she was.

All times of her earliest youth -- the days of her childhood -- were in her memory with a minuteness and fulness of detail which was miserable; for all along she felt that she had no real grasp on the scenes that were passing through her mind -- that, somehow, they were long gone by, and gone by for ever -- and yet she could not remember who she was now, nor where she was, and whether she had now any interests in life to take the place of those which she was conscious had passed away, although their remembrance filled her mind with painful acuteness. Her head lay on her arms, and they rested on the table. Every now and then she opened her eyes, and saw the large room, handsomely furnished with articles that were each one incongruous with the other, as if bought at sales.