by Algernon Blackwood
Sept. 4. - I have hunted all over
London for rooms suited to my income - £120 a year - and have at last found
them. Two rooms, without modern conveniences, it is true, and in an old,
ramshackle building, but within a stone’s throw of P - Place and in an eminently
respectable street. The rent is only £25 a year. I had begun to despair when at
last I found them by chance. The chance was a mere chance, and unworthy of
record. I had to sign a lease for a year, and I did so willingly. The furniture
from our old place in Hampshire, which has been stored so long, will just suit
them.
Oct.
1. - Here I am in my two rooms, in the centre of London, and not far from the
offices of the periodicals, where occasionally I dispose of an article or two.
The building is at the end of a cul-de-sac. The alley is well paved and clean,
and lined chiefly with the backs of sedate and institutional-looking buildings.
There is a stable in it. My own house is dignified with the title of “Chambers “.
I feel as if one day the honour must prove too much for it, and it will swell
with pride - and fall asunder. It is very old. The floor of my sitting-room has
valleys and low hills on it, and the top of the door slants away from the
ceiling with a glorious disregard of what is usual. They must have quarrelled -
fifty years ago - and have been going apart ever since.
Oct.
2. - My landlady is old and thin, with a faded, dusty face. She is
uncommunicative. The few words she utters seem to cost her pain. Probably her
lungs are half choked with dust. She keeps my rooms as free from this commodity
as possible, and has the assistance of a strong girl who brings up the
breakfast and lights the fire. As I have said already, she is not
communicative. In reply to pleasant efforts on my part she informed me briefly
that I was the only occupant of the house at present. My rooms had not been
occupied for some years. There had been other gentlemen upstairs, but they had
left.
She
never looks straight at me when she speaks, but fixes her dim eyes on my middle
waistcoat button, till I get nervous and begin to think it isn’t on straight,
or is the wrong sort of button altogether.
Oct.
8. - My week’s book is nicely kept, and so far is reasonable. Milk and sugar
7d., bread 6d., butter 8d., marmalade 6d., eggs 1s. 8d., laundress 2s. 9d., oil
6d., attendance 5s.; total 12s. 2d.
The
landlady has a son who, she told me, is “somethink on a homnibus”. He comes
occasionally to see her. I think he drinks, for he talks very loud, regardless
of the hour of the day or night, and tumbles about over the furniture
downstairs.
All
the morning I sit indoors writing - articles; verses for the comic papers; a
novel I’ve been “at” for three years, and concerning which I have dreams; a
children’s book, in which the imagination has free rein; and another book which
is to last as long as myself, since it is an honest record of my soul’s advance
or retreat in the struggle of life. Besides these, I keep a book of poems which
I use as a safety valve, and concerning which I have no dreams whatsoever.
Between the lot I am always occupied. In the afternoons I generally try to take
a walk for my health’s sake, through Regent’s Park, into Kensington Gardens, or
farther afield to Hampstead Heath.
Oct.
10. - Everything went wrong to-day. I have two eggs for breakfast. This morning
one of them was bad. I rang the bell for Emily. When she came in I was reading
the paper, and, without looking up, I said, “Egg’s bad.”
“Oh,
is it, sir? “ she said; “I’ll get another one,” and went out, taking the egg
with her. I waited my breakfast for her return, which was in five minutes. She
put the new egg on the table and went away. But, when I looked down, I saw that
she had taken away the good egg and left the bad one - all green and yellow -
in the slop basin. I rang again. “You’ve taken the wrong egg,” I said.
“Oh!
“ she exclaimed; “I thought the one I took down didn’t smell so very bad.” In
due time she returned with the good egg, and I resumed my breakfast with two
eggs, but less appetite. It was all very trivial, to be sure, but so stupid
that I felt annoyed. The character of that egg influenced everything I did. I
wrote a bad article, and tore it up. I got a bad headache. I used bad words -
to myself. Everything was bad, so I “chucked” work and went for a long walk. I
dined at a cheap chop-house on my way back, and reached home about nine o’clock.
Rain was just beginning to fall as I came in, and the wind was rising. It
promised an ugly night. The alley looked dismal and dreary, and the hall of the
house, as I passed through it, felt chilly as a tomb. It was the first stormy
night I had experienced in my new quarters. The draughts were awful. They came
criss-cross, met in the middle of the room, and formed eddies and whirlpools
and cold silent currents that almost lifted the hair of my head. I stuffed up
the sashes of the windows with neckties and odd socks, and sat over the smoky
fire to keep warm. First I tried to write, but found it too cold. My hand
turned to ice on the paper.
What
tricks the wind did play with the old place! It came rushing up the forsaken
alley with a sound like the feet of a hurrying crowd of people who stopped
suddenly at the door. I felt as if a lot of curious folk had arranged
themselves just outside and were staring up at my windows. Then they took to
their heels again and fled whispering and laughing down the lane, only,
however, to return with the next gust of wind and repeat their impertinence. On
the other side of my room a single square window opens into a sort of shaft, or
well, that measures about six feet across to the back wall of another house.
Down this funnel the wind dropped, and puffed and shouted. Such noises I never
heard before. Between these two entertainments I sat over the fire in a
great-coat, listening to the deep booming in the chimney. It was like being in
a ship at sea, and I almost looked for the floor to rise in undulations and
rock to and fro.
Oct.
12. - I wish I were not quite so lonely - and so poor. And yet I love both my
loneliness and my poverty. The former makes me appreciate the companionship of
the wind and rain, while the latter preserves my liver and prevents me wasting
time in dancing attendance upon women. Poor, ill-dressed men are not acceptable
“attendants”.
My
parents are dead, and my only sister is - no, not dead exactly, but married to
a very rich man. They travel most of the time, he to find his health, she to
lose herself. Through sheer neglect on her part she has long passed out of my
life. The door closed when, after an absolute silence of five years, she sent
me a cheque for £50 at Christmas. It was signed by her husband! I returned it
to her in a thousand pieces and in an unstamped envelope. So at least I had the
satisfaction of knowing that it cost her something! She wrote back with a broad
quill pen that covered a whole page with three lines, “You are evidently as
cracked as ever, and rude and ungrateful into the bargain.” It had always been
my special terror lest the insanity of my father’s family should leap across
the generations and appear in me. This thought haunted me, and she knew it. So
after this little exchange of civilities the door slammed, never to open again.
I heard the crash it made, and, with it, the falling from the walls of my heart
of many little bits of china with their own peculiar value - rare china, some
of it, that only needed dusting. The same walls, too, carried mirrors in which
I used sometimes to see reflected the misty lawns of childhood, the daisy
chains, the wind-torn blossoms scattered through the orchard by warm rains, the
robbers’ cave in the long walk, and the hidden store of apples in the hayloft.
She was my inseparable companion then - but, when the door slammed, the mirrors
cracked across their entire length, and the visions they held vanished for
ever. Now I am quite alone. At forty-one cannot begin all over again to build
up careful friendships, and all others are comparatively worthless.
Oct.
14. - My bedroom is 10 by 10. It is below the level of the front room, and a
step leads down into it. Both rooms are very quiet on calm nights, for there is
no traffic down this forsaken alley-way. In spite of the occasional larks of
the wind, it is a most sheltered strip. At its upper end, below my windows, all
the cats of the neighbourhood congregate as soon as darkness gathers. They lie
undisturbed on the long ledge of a blind window of the opposite building, for
after the postman has come and gone at 9.30, no footsteps ever dare to
interrupt their sinister conclave, no step but my own, or sometimes the
unsteady footfall of the son who “is something on a homnibus”.
Oct.
15. - I dined at an “A.B.C.” shop on poached eggs and coffee, and then went for
a stroll round the outer edge of Regent’s Park. It was ten o’clock when I got
home. I counted no less than thirteen cats, all of a dark colour, crouching
under the lee side of the alley walls. It was a cold night, and the stars shone
like points of ice in a blue-black sky. The cats turned their heads and stared
at me in silence as I passed. An odd sensation of shyness took possession of me
under the glare of so many pairs of unblinking eyes. As I fumbled with the
latch-key they jumped noiselessly down and pressed against my legs, as if
anxious to be let in. But I slammed the door in their faces and ran quickly
upstairs. The front room, as I entered to grope for the matches, felt as cold
as a stone vault, and the air held an unusual dampness.
Oct.
17. - For several days I have been working on a ponderous article that allows
no play for the fancy. My imagination requires a judicious rein; I am afraid to
let it loose, for it carries me sometimes into appalling places beyond the
stars and beneath the world. No one realises the danger more than I do. But
what a foolish thing to write here - for there is no one to know, no one to
realize! My mind of late has held unusual thoughts, thoughts I have never had
before, about medicines and drugs and the treatment of strange illnesses. I
cannot imagine their source. At no time in my life have I dwelt upon such ideas
now constantly throng my brain. I have had no exercise lately, for the weather
has been shocking; and all my afternoons have been spent in the reading-room of
the British Museum, where I have a reader’s ticket.
I
have made an unpleasant discovery: there are rats in the house. At night from
my bed I have heard them scampering across the hills and valleys of the front
room, and my sleep has been a good deal disturbed in consequence.
Oct.
19. - The landlady, I find, has a little boy with her, probably her son’s
child. In fine weather he plays in the alley, and draws a wooden cart over the
cobbles. One of the wheels is off, and it makes a most distracting noise. After
putting up with it as long as possible, I found it was getting on my nerves,
and I could not write. So I rang the bell. Emily answered it.
“Emily,
will you ask the little fellow to make less noise? It’s impossible to work.”
The
girl went downstairs, and soon afterwards the child was called in by the
kitchen door. I felt rather a brute for spoiling his play. In a few minutes,
however, the noise began again, and I felt that he was the brute. He dragged
the broken toy with a string over the stones till the rattling noise jarred
every nerve in my body. It became unbearable, and I rang the bell a second
time.
“That
noise must be put a stop to!” I said to the girl, with decision.
“Yes,
sir,” she grinned, “I know; but one of the wheels is off. The men in the stable
offered to mend it for ‘im, but he wouldn’t let them. He says he likes it that
way.”
“I
can’t help what he likes. The noise must stop. I can’t write.”
“Yes,
sir; I’ll tell Mrs. Monson.”
The
noise stopped for the day then.
Oct.
23. - Every day for the past week that cart has rattled over the stones, till I
have come to think of it as a huge carrier’s van with four wheels and two
horses; and every morning I have been obliged to ring the bell and have it
stopped. The last time Mrs. Monson herself came up, and said she was sorry I
had been annoyed; the sounds should not occur again. With rare discursiveness
she went on to ask if I was comfortable, and how I liked the rooms. I replied
cautiously. I mentioned the rats. She said they were mice. I spoke of the
draughts. She said, “Yes, it were a draughty ‘ouse.” I referred to the cats,
and she said they had been as long as she could remember. By way of conclusion,
she informed me that the house was over two hundred years old, and that the
last gentleman who had occupied my rooms was a painter who “‘ad real Jimmy
Bueys and Raffles ‘anging all hover the walls”. It took me some moments to discern
that Cimabue and Raphael were in the woman’s mind.
Oct.
24. - Last night the son who is “something on a homnibus” came in. He had
evidently been drinking, for I heard loud and angry voices below in the kitchen
long after I had gone to bed. Once, too, I caught the singular words rising up
to me through the floor, “Burning from top to bottom is the only thing that’ll
ever make this ‘ouse right.” I knocked on the floor, and the voices ceased
suddenly, though later I again heard their clamour in my dreams.
These
rooms are very quiet, almost too quiet sometimes. On windless nights they are
silent as the grave, and the house might be miles in the country. The roar of
London’s traffic reaches me only in heavy, distant vibrations. It holds an
ominous note sometimes, like that of an approaching army, or an immense
tidal-wave very far away thundering in the night.
Oct.
27. - Mrs. Monson, though admirably silent, is a foolish, fussy woman. She does
such stupid things. In dusting the room she puts all my things in the wrong
places. The ash-trays, which should be on the writing-table, she sets in a
silly row on the mantelpiece. The pen-tray, which should be beside the
inkstand, she hides away cleverly among the books on my reading-desk. My gloves
she arranges daily in idiotic array upon a half-filled bookshelf, and I always
have to rearrange them on the low table by the door. She places my armchair at
impossible angles between the fire and the light, and the tablecloth - the one
with Trinity Hall stains - she puts on the table in such a fashion that when I
look at it I feel as if my tie and all my clothes were on crooked and awry. She
exasperates me. Her very silence and meekness are irritating. Sometimes I feel
inclined to throw the inkstand at her, just to bring an expression into her
watery eyes and a squeak from those colourless lips. Dear me! What violent
expressions I am making use of! How very foolish of me! And yet it almost seems
as if the words were not my own, but had been spoken into my ear - I mean, I
never make use of such terms naturally.
Oct.
30. - I have been here a month. The place does not agree with me, I think. My
headaches are more frequent and violent, and my nerves are a perpetual source
of discomfort and annoyance.
I
have conceived a great dislike for Mrs. Monson, a feeling I am certain she
reciprocates. Somehow, the impression comes frequently to me that there are
goings on in this house of which I know nothing, and which she is careful to
hide from me.
Last
night her son slept in the house, and this morning as I was standing at the
window I saw him go out. He glanced up and caught my eye. It was a loutish
figure and a singularly repulsive face that I saw, and he gave me the benefit
of a very unpleasant leer. At least, so I imagined. Evidently I am getting
absurdly sensitive to trifles, and I suppose it is my disordered nerves making
themselves felt. In the British Museum this afternoon I noticed several people
at the readers’ table staring at me and watching every movement I made.
Whenever I looked up from my books I found their eyes upon me. It seemed to me
unnecessary and unpleasant, and I left earlier than was my custom. When I
reached the door I threw back a last look into the room, and saw every head at
the table turned in my direction. It annoyed me very much, and yet I know it is
foolish to take note of such things. When I am well they pass me by. I must get
more regular exercise. Of late I have had next to none.
Nov.
2. - The utter stillness of this house is beginning to oppress me. I wish there
were other fellows living upstairs. No footsteps ever sound overhead, and no
tread ever passes my door to go up the next flight of stairs. I am beginning to
feel some curiosity to go up myself and see what the upper rooms are like. I
feel lonely here and isolated, swept into a deserted corner of the world and
forgotten... Once I actually caught myself gazing into the long, cracked
mirrors, trying to see the sunlight dancing beneath the trees in the orchard.
But only deep shadows seemed to congregate there now, and I soon desisted.
It
has been very dark all day, and no wind stirring. The fogs have begun. I had to
use a reading-lamp all this morning. There was no cart to be heard to-day. I
actually missed it. This morning, in the gloom and silence, I think I could
almost have welcomed it. After all, the sound is a very human one, and this
empty house at the end of the alley holds other noises that are not quite so
satisfactory.
I
have never once seen a policeman in the lane, and the postmen always hurry out
with no evidence of a desire to loiter.
10
p.m. - As I write this I hear no sound but the deep murmur of the distant
traffic and the low sighing of the wind. The two sounds melt into one another.
Now and again a cat raises its shrill, uncanny cry upon the darkness. The cats
are always there under my windows when the darkness falls. The wind is dropping
into the funnel with a noise like the sudden sweeping of immense distant wings.
It is a dreary night. I feel lost and forgotten.
Nov.
3 - From my windows I can see arrivals. When anyone comes to the door I can
just see the hat and shoulders and the hand on the bell. Only two fellows have
been to see me since I came here two months ago. Both of them I saw from the
window before they came tip, and heard their voices asking if I was in. Neither
of them ever came back.
I
have finished the ponderous article. On reading it through, however, I was
dissatisfied with it, and drew my pencil through almost every page. There were
strange expressions and ideas in it that I could not explain, and viewed with
amazement, not to say alarm. They did not sound like my very own, and I could
not remember having written them. Can it be that my memory is beginning to be
affected?
My
pens are never to be found. That stupid old woman puts them in a different
place each day. I must give her due credit for finding so many new hiding
places; such ingenuity is wonderful. I have told her repeatedly, but she always
says, “I’ll speak to Emily, sir.” Emily always says, “I’ll tell Mrs. Monson,
sir.” Their foolishness makes me irritable and scatters all my thoughts. I
should like to stick the lost pens into them and turn them out, blind-eyed, to
be scratched and mauled by those thousand hungry cats. Whew! What a ghastly
thought! Where in the world did it come from? Such an idea is no more my own
than it is the policeman’s. Yet I felt I had to write it. It was like a voice
singing in my head, and my pen wouldn’t stop till the last word was finished.
What ridiculous nonsense! I must and will restrain myself. I must take more
regular exercise; my nerves and liver plague me horribly.
Nov.
4. - I attended a curious lecture in the French quarter on “Death”, but the
room was so hot and I was so weary that I fell asleep. The only part I heard,
however, touched my imagination vividly. Speaking of suicides, the lecturer
said that self-murder was no escape from the miseries of the present, but only
a preparation of greater sorrow for the future. Suicides, he declared, cannot
shirk their responsibilities so easily. They must return to take up life
exactly where they laid it so violently down, but with the added pain and
punishment of their weakness. Many of them wander the earth in unspeakable
misery till they can reclothe themselves in the body of someone else -
generally a lunatic, or weak-minded person, who cannot resist the hideous
obsession. This is their only means of escape. Surely a weird and horrible
idea! I wish I had slept all the time and not heard it at all. My mind is
morbid enough without such ghastly fancies. Such mischievous propaganda should
be stopped by the police. I’ll write to the Times and suggest it. Good idea!
I
walked home through Greek Street, Soho, and imagined that a hundred years had
slipped back into place and De Quincey was still there, haunting the night with
invocations to his “just, subtle, and mighty” drug. His vast dreams seemed to
hover not very far away. Once started in my brain, the pictures refused to go
away; and I saw him sleeping in that cold, tenantless mansion with the strange
little waif who was afraid of its ghosts, both together in the shadows under a
single horseman’s cloak; or wandering in the companionship of the spectral
Anne; or, later still, on his way to the eternal rendezvous at the foot of
Great Titchfield Street, the rendezvous she never was able to keep. What an
unutterable gloom, what an untold horror of sorrow and suffering comes over me
as I try to realise something of what that man - boy he then was - must have
taken into his lonely heart.
As
I came up the alley I saw a light in the top window, and a head and shoulders
thrown in an exaggerated shadow upon the blind. I wondered what the son could
be doing up there at such an hour.
Nov.
5. - This morning, while writing, someone came up the creaking stairs and
knocked cautiously at my door. Thinking it was the landlady, I said, “Come in!”
The knock was repeated, and I cried louder, “Come in, come in!” But no one
turned the handle, and I continued my writing with a vexed “Well, stay out,
then!” under my breath. Went on writing? I tried to, but my thoughts had
suddenly dried up at their source. I could not set down a single word. It was a
dark, yellow-fog morning, and there was little enough inspiration in the air as
it was, but that stupid woman standing just outside my door waiting to be told
again to come in roused a spirit of vexation that filled my head to the
exclusion of all else. At last I jumped up and opened the door myself.
“What
do you want, and why in the world don’t you come in?” I cried out. But the
words dropped into empty air. There was no one there. The fog poured up the
dingy staircase in deep yellow coils, but there was no sign of a human being
anywhere.
I
slammed the door, with imprecations upon the house and its noises, and went
back to my work. A few minutes later Emily came in with a letter.
“Were
you or Mrs. Monson outside a few minutes ago knocking at my door?”
“No,
sir.”
“Are
you sure?”
“Mrs.
Monson’s gone to market, and there’s no one but me and the child in the ‘ole ‘ouse,
and I’ve been washing the dishes for the last hour, sir.”
I
fancied the girl’s face turned a shade paler. She fidgeted towards the door
with a glance over her shoulder.
“Wait,
Emily,” I said, and then told her what I had heard. She stared stupidly at me,
though her eyes shifted now and then over the articles in the room.
“Who
was it?” I asked when I had come to the end.
“Mrs.
Monson says it’s honly mice,” she said, as if repeating a learned lesson.
“Mice!”
I exclaimed; “It’s nothing of the sort. Someone was feeling about outside my
door. Who was it? Is the son in the house?”
Her
whole manner changed suddenly, and she became earnest instead of evasive. She
seemed anxious to tell the truth.
“Oh
no, sir; there’s no one in the house at all but you and me and the child, and
there couldn’t ‘ave been nobody at your door. As for them knocks - “ She
stopped abruptly, as though she had said too much.
“Well,
what about the knocks?” I said more gently.
“Of
course,” she stammered, “the knocks isn’t mice, nor the footsteps neither, but
then - “ Again she came to a full halt.
“Anything
wrong with the house?”
“Lor’,
no, sir; the drains is splendid!”
“I
don’t mean drains, girl. I mean, did anything - anything bad ever happen here?”
She flushed up to the roots of her hair, and then turned suddenly pale again.
She was obviously in considerable distress, and there was something she was
anxious, yet afraid to tell - some forbidden thing she was not allowed to mention.
“I
don’t mind what it was, only I should like to know,” I said encouragingly.
Raising
her frightened eyes to my face, she began to blurt out something about “that
which ‘appened once to a gentleman that lived hupstairs”, when a shrill voice
calling her name sounded below.
“Emily,
Emily!” It was the returning landlady, and the girl tumbled downstairs as if
pulled backwards by a rope, leaving me full of conjectures as to what in the
world could have happened to a gentleman upstairs that could in so curious a
manner affect my ears downstairs.
Nov.
10. - I have done capital work; have finished the ponderous article and had it
accepted for the Review, and another one ordered. I feel well and cheerful, and
have had regular exercise and good sleep; no headaches, no nerves, no liver!
Those pills the chemist recommended are wonderful. I can watch the child
playing with his cart and feel no annoyance; sometimes I almost feel inclined
to join him. Even the grey-faced landlady rouses pity in me; I am sorry for her:
so worn, so weary, so oddly put together, just like the building. She looks as
if she had once suffered some shock of terror, and was momentarily dreading
another. When I spoke to her today very gently about not putting the pens in
the ash-tray and the gloves on the hook-shelf she raised her faint eyes to mine
for the first time, and said with the ghost of a smile, “I’ll try and remember,
sir.” I felt inclined to pat her on the back and say, “Come, cheer up and be
jolly. Life’s not so bad after all.” Oh! I am much better. There’s nothing like
open air and success and good sleep. They build up as if by magic the portions
of the heart eaten down by despair and unsatisfied yearnings. Even to the cats
I feel friendly. When I came in at eleven o’clock to-night they followed me to
the door in a stream, and I stooped down to stroke the one nearest to me. Bah!
The brute hissed and spat, and struck at me with her paws. The claw caught my
hand and drew blood in a thin line. The others danced sideways into the darkness,
screeching, as though I had done them an injury. I believe these cats really
hate me. Perhaps they are only waiting to be reinforced. Then they will attack
me. Ha, ha! In spite of the momentary annoyance, this fancy sent me laughing
upstairs to my room.
The
fire was out, and the room seemed unusually cold. As I groped my way over to
the mantelpiece to find the matches I realised all at once that there was
another person standing beside me in the darkness. I could, of course, see
nothing, but my fingers, feeling along the ledge, came into forcible contact
with something that was at once withdrawn. It was cold and moist. I could have
sworn it was somebody’s hand. My flesh began to creep instantly. “Who’s that?”
I exclaimed in a loud voice.
My
voice dropped into the silence like a pebble into a deep well. There was no
answer, but at the same moment I heard someone moving away from me across the
room in the direction of the door. It was a confused sort of footstep, and the
sound of garments brushing the furniture on the way. The same second my hand
stumbled upon the match-box, and I struck a light. I expected to see Mrs.
Monson, or Emily, or perhaps the son who is something on an omnibus. But the
flare of the gas-jet illumined an empty room; there was not a sign of a person
anywhere. I felt the hair stir upon my head, and instinctively I backed up
against the wall, lest something should approach me from behind. I was
distinctly alarmed. But the next minute I recovered myself. The door was open
on to the landing, and I crossed the room, not without some inward trepidation,
and went out. The light from the room fell upon the stairs, but there was no
one to be seen anywhere, nor was there any sound on the creaking wooden
staircase to indicate a departing creature. I was in the act of turning to go
in again when a sound overhead caught my ear. It was a very faint sound, not
unlike the sigh of wind; yet it could not have been the wind, for the night was
still as the grave. Though it was not repeated, I resolved to go upstairs and
see for myself what it all meant. Two senses had been affected - touch and
hearing - and I could not believe that I had been deceived. So, with a lighted
candle, I went stealthily forth on my unpleasant journey into the upper regions
of this queer little old house.
On
the first landing there was only one door, and it was locked. On the second
there was also only one door, but when I turned the handle it opened. There
came forth to meet me the chill musty air that is characteristic of a long
unoccupied room. With it there came an indescribable odour. I use the adjective
advisedly. Though very faint, diluted as it were, it was nevertheless an odour
that made my gorge rise. I had never smelt anything like it before, and I
cannot describe it. The room was small and square, close under the roof, with a
sloping ceiling and two tiny windows. It was cold as the grave, without a shred
of carpet or a stick of furniture. The icy atmosphere and the nameless odour
combined to make the room abominable to me, and, after lingering a moment to
see that it contained no cupboards or corners into which a person might have
crept for concealment, I made haste to shut the door, and went downstairs again
to bed. Evidently I had been deceived after all as to the noise.
In
the night I had a foolish but very vivid dream. I dreamed that the landlady and
another person, dark and not properly visible, entered my room on all fours,
followed by a horde of immense cats. They attacked me as I lay in bed, and
murdered me, and then dragged my body upstairs and deposited it on the floor of
that cold little square room under the roof.
Nov.
11. - Since my talk with Emily - the unfinished talk - I have hardly once set
eyes on her. Mrs. Monson now attends wholly to my wants. As usual, she does
everything exactly as I don’t like it done. It is all too utterly trivial to
mention, but it is exceedingly irritating. Like small doses of morphine often
repeated, she has finally a cumulative effect.
Nov.
12. - This morning I woke early, and came into the front room to get a book,
meaning to read in bed till it was time to get tip. Emily was laying the fire.
“Good
morning!” I said cheerfully. “Mind you make a good fire. It’s very cold.” The
girl turned and showed me a startled face. It was not Emily at all!
“Where’s
Emily? “ I exclaimed. “You mean the girl as was ‘ere before me?”
“Has
Emily left?”
“I
came on the 6th,” she replied sullenly, “and she’d gone then.”
I
got my book and went back to bed. Emily must have been sent away almost
immediately after our conversation. This reflection kept coming between me and
the printed page. I was glad when it was time to get up. Such prompt energy,
such merciless decision, seemed to argue something of importance - to somebody.
Nov.
13. - The wound inflicted by the cat’s claw has swollen, and causes me
annoyance and some pain. It throbs and itches. I’m afraid my blood must be in
poor condition, or it would have healed by now. I opened it with a penknife
soaked in an antiseptic solution, and cleansed it thoroughly. I have heard
unpleasant stories of the results of wounds inflicted by cats.
Nov.
14. - In spite of the curious effect this house certainly exercises upon my
nerves, I like it. It is lonely and deserted in the very heart of London, but
it is also for that reason quiet to work in. I wonder why it is so cheap. Some
people might be suspicious, but I did not even ask the reason. No answer is
better than a lie. If only I could remove the cats from the outside and the
rats from the inside. I feel that I shall grow accustomed more and more to its
peculiarities, and shall die here. Ah, that expression reads queerly and gives
a wrong impression: I meant live and die here. I shall renew the lease from
year to year till one of us crumbles to pieces. From present indications the
building will be the first to go.
Nov.
16. - It is abominable the way my nerves go up and down with me - and rather
discouraging. This morning I woke to find my clothes scattered about the room,
and a cane chair overturned beside the bed. My coat and waistcoat looked just
as if they had been tried on by someone in the night. I had horribly vivid
dreams, too, in which someone covering his face with his hands kept coming
close up to me, crying out as if in pain. “Where can I find covering? Oh, who
will clothe me?” How silly, and yet it frightened me a little. It was so
dreadfully real. It is now over a year since I last walked in my sleep and woke
up with such a shock on the cold pavement of Earl’s Court Road, where I then
lived. I thought I was cured, but evidently not. This discovery has rather a
disquieting effect upon me. Tonight I shall resort to the old trick of tying my
toe to the bed-post.
Nov.
17. - Last night I was again troubled by most oppressive dreams. Someone seemed
to be moving in the night up and down my room, sometimes passing into the front
room, and then returning to stand beside the bed and stare intently down upon
me. I was being watched by this person all night long. I never actually awoke,
though I was often very near it. I suppose it was a nightmare from indigestion,
for this morning I have one of my old vile headaches. Yet all my clothes lay
about the floor when I awoke, where they had evidently been flung (had I so
tossed them?) during the dark hours, and my trousers trailed over the step into
the front room. Worse than this, though - I fancied I noticed about the room in
the morning that strange, fetid odour. Though very faint, its mere suggestion
is foul and nauseating. What in the world can it be, I wonder?... In future I
shall lock my door.
Nov.
26. - I have accomplished a lot of good work during this past week, and have
also managed to get regular exercise. I have felt well and in an equable state
of mind. Only two things have occurred to disturb my equanimity. The first is
trivial in itself, and no doubt to be easily explained. The upper window where
I saw the light on the night of November 4, with the shadow of a large head and
shoulders upon the blind, is one of the windows in the square room under the
roof. In reality it has no blind at all!
Here
is the other thing. I was coming home last night in a fresh fall of snow about
eleven o’clock, my umbrella low down over my head. Half-way up the alley, where
the snow was wholly untrodden, I saw a man’s legs in front of me. The umbrella
hid the rest of his figure, but on raising it I saw that he was tall and broad
and was walking, as I was, towards the door of my house. He could not have been
four feet ahead of me. I had thought the alley was empty when I entered it, but
might of course have been mistaken very easily.
A
sudden gust of wind compelled me to lower the umbrella, and when I raised it
again, not half a minute later, there was no longer any man to be seen. With a
few more steps I reached the door. It was closed as usual. I then noticed with
a sudden sensation of dismay that the surface of the freshly fallen snow was
unbroken. My own foot-marks were the only ones to be seen anywhere, and though
I retraced my way to tile point where I had first seen the man, I could find no
slightest impression of any other boots. Feeling creepy and uncomfortable, I
went upstairs, and was glad to get into bed.
Nov.
28. - With the fastening of my bedroom door the disturbances ceased. I am
convinced that I walked in my sleep. Probably I untied my toe and then tied it
up again. The fancied security of the locked door would alone have been enough
to restore sleep to my troubled spirit and enable me to rest quietly.
Last
night, however, the annoyance was suddenly renewed another and more aggressive
form. I woke in the darkness with the impression that someone was standing
outside my bedroom door listening. As I became more awake the impression grew
into positive knowledge. Though there was no appreciable sound of moving or
breathing, I was so convinced of the propinquity of a listener that I crept out
of bed and approached the door. As I did so there came faintly from the next
room the unmistakable sound of someone retreating stealthily across the floor.
Yet, as I heard it, it was neither the tread of a man nor a regular footstep,
but rather, it seemed to me, a confused sort of crawling, almost as of someone
on his hands and knees. I unlocked the door in less than a second, and passed
quickly into the front room, and I could feel, as by the subtlest imaginable
vibrations upon my nerves, that the spot I was standing in had just that
instant been vacated! The Listener had moved; he was now behind the other door,
standing in the passage. Yet this door was also closed. I moved swiftly, and as
silently as possible, across the floor, and turned the handle. A cold rush of
air met me from the passage and sent shiver after shiver down my back. There
was no one in the doorway; there was no one on the little landing; there was no
one moving down the staircase. Yet I had been so quick that this midnight
Listener could not be very far away, and I felt that if I persevered I should
eventually come face to face with him. And the courage that came so opportunely
to overcome my nervousness and horror seemed born of the unwelcome conviction
that it was somehow necessary for my safety as well as my sanity that I should
find this intruder and force his secret from him. For was it not the intent
action of his mind upon my own, in concentrated listening, that had awakened me
with such a vivid realisation of his presence?
Advancing
across the narrow landing, I peered down into the well of the little house.
There was nothing to be seen; no one was moving in the darkness. How cold the
oilcloth was to my bare feet.
I
cannot say what it was that suddenly drew my eyes upwards. I only know that,
without apparent reason, I looked up and saw a person about half-way up the
next turn of the stairs, leaning forward over the balustrade and staring
straight into my face. It was a man. He appeared to be clinging to the rail
rather than standing on the stairs. The gloom made it impossible to see much
beyond the general outline, but the head and shoulders were seemingly enormous,
and stood sharply silhouetted against the skylight in the roof immediately
above. The idea flashed into my brain in a moment that I was looking into the
visage of something monstrous. The huge skull, the mane-like hair, the
wide-humped shoulders, suggested, in a way I did not pause to analyse, that
which was scarcely human; and for some seconds, fascinated by horror, I
returned the gaze and stared into the dark, inscrutable countenance above me,
without knowing exactly where I was or what I was doing.
Then
I realised in quite a new way that I was face to face with the secret midnight
Listener, and I steeled myself as best I could for what was about to come.
The
source of the rash courage that came to me at this awful moment will ever be to
me an inexplicable mystery. Though shivering with fear, and my forehead wet
with an unholy dew, I resolved to advance. Twenty questions leaped to my lips:
What are you? What do you want? Why do you listen and watch? Why do you come
into my room? But none of them found articulate utterance.
I
began forthwith to climb the stairs, and with the first signs of my advance he
drew himself back into the shadows and began to move. He retreated as swiftly
as I advanced. I heard the sound of his crawling motion a few steps ahead of
me, ever maintaining the same distance. When I reached the landing he was
half-way up the next flight, and when I was half-way up the next flight he had
already arrived at the top landing. I then heard him open the door of the
little square room under the roof and go in. Immediately, though the door did
not close after him, the sound of his moving entirely ceased.
At
this moment I longed for a light, or a stick, or any weapon whatsoever; but I
had none of these things, and it was impossible to go back. So I marched
steadily up the rest of the stairs, and in less than a minute found myself
standing in the gloom face to face with the door through which this creature
had just entered.
For
a moment I hesitated. The door was about half-way open, and the Listener was
standing evidently in his favourite attitude just behind it - listening. To
search through that dark room for him seemed hopeless; to enter the same small
space where he was seemed horrible. The very idea filled me with loathing, and
I almost decided to turn back.
It
is strange at such times how trivial things impinge on the consciousness with a
shock as of something important and immense. Something - it may have been a
beetle or a mouse - scuttled over the bare boards behind me. The door moved a
quarter of an inch, closing. My decision came back with a sudden rush, as it
were, and thrusting out a foot, I kicked the door so that it swung sharply back
to its full extent, and permitted me to walk forward slowly into the aperture
of profound blackness beyond. What a queer soft sound my bare feet made on the
boards! how the blood sang and buzzed in my head!
I
was inside. The darkness closed over me, hiding even the windows. I began to
grope my way round the walls in a thorough search; but in order to prevent all
possibility of the other’s escape, I first of all closcd the door.
There
we were, we two, shut in together between four walls, within a few feet of one
another. But with what, with whom, was I thus momentarily imprisoned? A new
light flashed suddenly over the affair with a swift, illuminating brilliance -
and I knew I was a fool, an utter fool! I was wide awake at last, and the
horror was evaporating. My cursed nerves again; a dream, a nightmare, and the
old result - walking in my sleep. The figure was a dream-figure. Many a time
before had the actors in my dreams stood before me for some moments after I was
awake... There was a chance match in my pyjamas’ pocket, and I struck it on the
wall. The room was utterly empty. It held not even a shadow. I went quickly
down to bed, cursing my wretched nerves and my foolish, vivid dreams. But as
soon as ever I was asleep again, the same uncouth figure of a man crept back to
my bedside, and bending over me with his immense head close to my ear, whispered
repeatedly in my dreams, “I want your body; I want its covering. I’m waiting
for it, and listening always.” Words scarcely less foolish than the dream.
But
I wonder what that queer odour was up in the square room. I noticed it again,
and stronger than ever before, and it seemed to be also in my bedroom when I
woke this morning.
Nov.
29. - Slowly, as moonbeams rise over a misty sea in June, the thought is
entering my mind that my nerves and somnambulistic dreams do not adequately
account for the influence this house exercises upon me. It holds me as with a
fine, invisible net. I cannot escape if I would. It draws me, and it means to
keep me.
Nov.
30. - The post this morning brought me a letter from Aden, forwarded from my
old rooms in Earl’s Court. It was from Chapter, my former Trinity chum, who is
on his way home from the East, and asks for my address. I sent it to him at the
hotel he mentioned, “to await arrival”.
As
I have already said, my windows command a view of the alley, and I can see an
arrival without difficulty. This morning, while I was busy writing, the sound
of footsteps coming up the alley filled me with a sense of vague alarm that I
could in no way account for. I went over to the window, and saw a man standing
below waiting for the door to be opened. His shoulders were broad, his top-hat
glossy, and his overcoat fitted beautifully round the collar. All this I could
see, but no more. Presently the door was opened, and the shock to my nerves was
unmistakable when I heard a man’s voice ask, “Is Mr. - still here?” mentioning
my name. I could not catch the answer, but it could only have been in the
affirmative, for the man entered the hall and the door shut to behind him. But
I waited in vain for the sound of his steps on the stairs. There was no sound
of any kind. It seemed to me so strange that I opened my door and looked out.
No one was anywhere to be seen. I walked across the narrow landing, and looked
through the window that commands the whole length of the alley. There was no
sign of a human being, coming or going. The lane was deserted. Then I
deliberately walked downstairs into the kitchen, and asked the grey-faced
landlady if a gentleman had just that minute called for me.
The
answer, given with an odd, weary sort of smile, was “No!”
Dec.
1. - I feel genuinely alarmed and uneasy over the state of my nerves. Dreams
are dreams, but never before have I had dreams in broad daylight.
I
am looking forward very much to Chapter’s arrival. He is a capital fellow,
vigorous, healthy, with no nerves, and even less imagination; and he has £2,000
a year into the bargain. Periodically he makes me offers - the last was to
travel round the world with him as secretary, which was a delicate way of
paying my expenses and giving me some pocket-money - offers, however, which I
invariably decline. I prefer to keep his friendship. Women could not come
between us; money might - therefore I give it no opportunity. Chapter always
laughed at what he called my “fancies”, being himself possessed only of that
thin-blooded quality of imagination which is ever associated with the
prosaic-minded man. Yet, if taunted with this obvious lack, his wrath is deeply
stirred. His psychology is that of the crass materialist - always a rather
funny article. It will afford me genuine relief, none the less, to hear the
cold judgment his mind will have to pass upon the story of this house as I
shall have it to tell.
Dec.
2. - The strangest part of it all I have not referred to in this brief diary.
Truth to tell, I have been afraid to set it down in black and white. I have
kept it in the background of my thoughts, preventing it as far as possible from
taking shape. In spite of my efforts, however, it has continued to grow
stronger.
Now
that I come to face the issue squarely it is harder to express than I imagined.
Like a half-remembered melody that trips in the head but vanishes the moment
you try to sing it, these thoughts form a group in the background of my mind,
behind my mind, as it were, and refuse to come forward. They are crouching ready
to spring, but the actual leap never takes place. In these rooms, except when
my mind is strongly concentrated on my own work, I find myself suddenly dealing
in thoughts and ideas that are not my own! New, strange conceptions, wholly
foreign to my temperament, are for ever cropping up in my head. What precisely
they are is of no particular importance. The point is that they are entirely
apart from the channel in which my thoughts have hitherto been accustomed to
flow. Especially they come when my mind is at rest, unoccupied; when I’m
dreaming over the fire, or sitting with a book which fails to hold my
attention. Then these thoughts which are not mine spring into life and make me
feel exceedingly uncomfortable. Sometimes they are so strong that I almost feel
as if someone were in the room beside me, thinking aloud.
Evidently
my nerves and liver are shockingly out of order. I must work harder and take
more vigorous exercise. The horrid thoughts never come when my mind is much
occupied. But they are always there - waiting and as it were alive.
What
I have attempted to describe above came first upon me gradually after I had
been some days in the house, and then grew steadily in strength. The other
strange thing has come to me only twice in all these weeks. It appals me. It is
the consciousness of the propinquity of some deadly and loathsome disease. It
comes over me like a wave of fever heat, and then passes off, leaving me cold
and trembling. The air seems for a few seconds to become tainted. So
penetrating and convincing is the thought of this sickness, that on both
occasions my brain has turned momentarily dizzy, and through my mind, like
flames of white heat, have flashed the ominous names of all the dangerous
illnesses I know. I can no more explain these visitations than I can fly, yet I
know there is no dreaming about the clammy skin and palpitating heart which
they always leave as witnesses of their brief visit.
Most
strongly of all was I aware of this nearness of a mortal sickness when, on the
night of the 28th, I went upstairs in pursuit of the listening figure. When we
were shut in together in that little square room under the roof, I felt that I
was face to face with the actual essence of this invisible and malignant
disease. Such a feeling never entered my heart before, and I pray to God it
never may again.
There!
Now I have confessed. I have given some expression at least to the feelings
that so far I have been afraid to see in my own writing. For - since I can no
longer deceive myself - the experiences of that night (28th) were no more a
dream than my daily breakfast is a dream; and the trivial entry in this diary
by which I sought to explain away an occurrence that caused me unutterable
horror was due solely to my desire not to acknowledge in words what I really
felt and believed to be true. The increase that would have accrued to my horror
by so doing might have been more than I could stand.
Dec.
3. - I wish Chapter would come. My facts are all ready marshalled, and I can
see his cool, grey eyes fixed incredulously on my face as I relate them: the
knocking at my door, the well-dressed caller, the light in the upper window and
the shadow upon the blind, the man who preceded me in the snow, the scattering
of my clothes at night, Emily’s arrested confession, the landlady’s suspicious
reticence, the midnight listener on the stairs, and those awful subsequent
words in my sleep; and above all, and hardest to tell, the presence of the
abominable sickness, and the stream of thoughts and ideas that are not my own.
I
can see Chapter’s face, and I can almost hear his deliberate words, “You’ve
been at the tea again, and underfeeding, I expect, as usual. Better see my
nerve doctor, and then come with me to the south of France.” For this fellow,
who knows nothing of disordered liver or high-strung nerves, goes regularly to
a great nerve specialist with the periodical belief that his nervous system is
beginning to decay.
Dec.
5. - Ever since the incident of the Listener, I have kept a night-light burning
in my bedroom, and my sleep has been undisturbed. Last night, however, I was
subjected to a far worse annoyance. I woke suddenly, and saw a man in front of
the dressing-table regarding himself in the mirror. The door was locked, as
usual. I knew at once it was the Listener, and the blood turned to ice in my
veins. Such a wave of horror and dread swept over me that it seemed to turn me
rigid in the bed, and I could neither move nor speak. I noted, however, that
the odour I so abhorred was strong in the room.
The
man seemed to be tall and broad. He was stooping forward over the mirror. His
back was turned to me, but in the glass I saw the reflection of a huge head and
face illumined fitfully by the flicker of the night-light. The spectral grey of
very early morning stealing in round the edges of the curtains lent an
additional horror to the picture, for it fell upon hair that was tawny and
mane-like, hanging loosely about a face whose swollen, rugose features bore the
once seen never forgotten leonine expression of - I dare not write down that
awful word. But, by way of corroborative proof, I saw in the faint mingling of
the two lights that there were several bronze-coloured blotches on the cheeks
which the man was evidently examining with great care in the glass. The lips
were pale and very thick and large. One hand I could not see, but the other
rested on the ivory back of my hair-brush. Its muscles were strangely
contracted, the fingers thin to emaciation, the back of the hand closely
puckered up. It was like a big grey spider crouching to spring, or the claw of
a great bird.
The
full realisation that I was alone in the room with this nameless creature,
almost within arm’s reach of him, overcame me to such a degree that, when he
suddenly turned and regarded me with small beady eyes, wholly out of proportion
to the grandeur of their massive setting, I sat bolt upright in bed, uttered a
loud cry, and then fell back in a dead swoon of terror upon the bed.
Dec.
5. - When I came to this morning, the first thing I noticed was that my clothes
were strewn all over the floor... I find it difficult to put my thoughts
together, and have sudden accesses of violent trembling. I determined that I
would go at once to Chapter’s hotel and find out when he is expected. I cannot
refer to what happened in the night; it is too awful, and I have to keep my
thoughts rigorously away from it. I feel light-headed and queer, couldn’t eat
any breakfast, and have twice vomited with blood. While dressing to go out, a
hansom rattled up noisily over the cobbles, and a minute later the door opened,
and to my great joy in walked the very subject of my thoughts.
The
sight of his strong face and quiet eyes had an immediate effect upon me, and I
grew calmer again. His very handshake was a sort of tonic. But, as I listened
eagerly to the deep tones of his reassuring voice, and the visions of the
night-time paled a little, I began to realise how very hard it was going to be
to tell him my wild intangible tale. Some men radiate an animal vigour that
destroys the delicate woof of a vision and effectually prevents its reconstruction.
Chapter was one of these men.
We
talked of incidents that had filled the interval since we last met, and he told
me something of his travels. He talked and I listened. But, so full was I of
the horrid thing I had to tell, that I made a poor listener. I was for ever
watching my opportunity to leap in and explode it all under his nose.
Before
very long, however, it was borne in upon me that he too was merely talking for
time. He too held something of importance in the background of his mind, something
too weighty to let fall till the right moment presented itself. So that during
the whole of the first half-hour we were both waiting for the psychological
moment in which properly to release our respective bombs; and the intensity of
our minds’ action set up opposing forces that merely sufficed to hold one
another in check - and nothing more. As soon as I realised this, therefore, I
resolved to yield. I renounced for the time my purpose of telling my story, and
had the satisfaction of seeing that his mind, released from the restraint of my
own, at once began to make preparations for the discharge of its momentous
burden. The talk grew less and less magnetic; the interest waned; the
descriptions of his travels became less alive. There were pauses between his
sentences. Presently he repeated himself. His words clothed no living thoughts.
The pauses grew longer. Then the interest dwindled altogether and went out like
a candle in the wind. His voice ceased, and he looked up squarely into my face
with serious and anxious eyes.
The
psychological moment had come at last! “I say - “ he began, and then stopped
short.
I
made an unconscious gesture of encouragement, but said no word. I dreaded the
impending disclosure exceedingly. A dark shadow seemed to precede it.
“I
say,” he blurted out at last, “what in the world made you ever come to this
place - to these rooms, I mean?”
“They’re
cheap, for one thing,” I began, “and central and - “
“They’re
too cheap,” he interrupted. “Didn’t you ask what made ‘em so cheap?”
“It
never occurred to me at the time.” There was a pause in which he avoided my
eyes.
“For
God’s sake, go on, man, and tell it!” I cried, for the suspense was getting
more than I could stand in my nervous condition.
“This
was where Blount lived so long,” he said quietly, “and where he - died. You
know, in the old days I often used to come here and see him, and do what I
could to alleviate his - “ He stuck fast again.
“Well!”
I said with a great effort. “Please go on - faster.”
“But,”
Chapter went on, turning his face to the window with a perceptible shiver, “he
finally got so terrible I simply couldn’t stand it, though I always thought I
could stand anything. It got on my nerves and made me dream, and haunted me day
and night.”
I
stared at him, and said nothing. I had never heard of Blount in my life, and
didn’t know what he was talking about. But, all the same, I was trembling, and
my mouth had become strangely dry.
“This
is the first time I’ve been back here since,” he said almost in a whisper, “and,
‘pon my word, it gives me the creeps. I swear it isn’t fit for a man to live
in. I never saw you look so bad, old man.”
“I’ve
got it for a year,” I jerked out, with a forced laugh; “signed the lease and
all. I thought it was rather a bargain.”
Chapter
shuddered, and buttoned his overcoat up to his neck. Then he spoke in a low
voice, looking occasionally behind him as though he thought someone was
listening. I too could have sworn someone else was in the room with us.
“He
did it himself, you know, and no one blamed him a bit; his sufferings were
awful. For the last two years he used to wear a veil when he went out, and even
then it was always in a closed carriage. Even the attendant who had nursed him
for so long was at length obliged to leave. The extremities of both the lower
limbs were gone, dropped off, and he moved about the ground on all fours with a
sort of crawling motion. The odour, too, was...”
I
was obliged to interrupt him here. I could hear no more details of that sort.
My skin was moist, I felt hot and cold by turns, for at last I was beginning to
understand.
“Poor
devil,” Chapter went on; “I used to keep my eyes closed as much as possible. He
always begged to be allowed to take his veil off, and asked if I minded very
much. I used to stand by the open window. He never touched me, though. He
rented the whole house. Nothing would induce him to leave it.”
“Did
he occupy - these very rooms?”
“No.
He had the little room on the top floor, the square one just under the roof. He
preferred it because it was dark. These rooms were too near the ground, and he
was afraid people might see him through the windows. A crowd had been known to
follow him up to the very door, and then stand below the windows in the hope of
catching a glimpse of his face.”
“But
there were hospitals.”
“He
wouldn’t go near one, and they didn’t like to force him. You know, they say it’s
not contagious, so there was nothing to prevent his staying here if he wanted
to. He spent all his time reading medical books, about drugs and so on. His
head and face were something appalling, just like a lion’s.”
I
held up my hand to arrest further description. “He was a burden to the world,
and he knew it. One night I suppose he realised it too keenly to wish to live.
He had the free use of drugs - and in the morning he was found dead on the
floor. Two years ago, that was, and they said then he had still several years
to live.”
“Then,
in Heaven’s name!” I cried, unable to bear the suspense any longer, “tell me
what it was he had, and be quick about it.”
“I
thought you knew!” he exclaimed, with genuine surprise. “I thought you knew!”
He leaned forward and our eyes met. In a scarcely audible whisper I caught the
words his lips seemed almost afraid to utter:
“He
was a leper.”
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