Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (71 page)

It
is
astonishing
what
thoughts,
and
how
trivial
ones
at
that,
start up
in
the
mind
as
it
meets
an
unusual
shock
or
crisis,
for
at
this
moment,
when
an
unearthly
acceptance
and
a
vehement
incredulity clashed
together,
the
one
definite
impression
I
could
recognise
was— that
youthful
appearance.
This
flashed
over
me
even
as
the
faces
of both
withdrew,
and
it
was
not
the
visage
of
a
possible
de
Frasne,
dead these
thirty
years
and
more,
that
made
my
flesh
creep,
but
the
unquestionable
assurance
that
Mantravers,
whom
I
knew
to
be
over
sixty, looked
hardly
forty.
The
amazing
fact
that
he
had
"disappeared"
foi an
interval
of
four
years
seemed
left
out
of
account
at
this
instant;
it was
the
uncanny
air
of
having
missed
decay
for
a
generation
that leaped
back
into
my
mind
with
horror.
Then,
before
I
knew
what my
shaking
legs
were
doing,
they
had
taken
me
automatically
into
the hall,
and
the
front
door
closed
behind
me
with
a
bang.
Standing
there in
the
semi-darkness,
it
was
all
I
could
do
to
hold
myself
together,
and I
mean
my
"self"
precisely,
for
at
first
everything
I
was
accustomed
to hold
on
to
in
a
time
of
stress
seemed
wavering
like
a
jelly
that
must any
instant
dissolve.
To
hold
myself
steady,
to
keep
control,
was
what occupied
my
mind
in
that
first
moment
of
entering
the
hall;
there
was no
room
in
me
for
anything
but
this
tremendous
effort;
and
in
making it,
a
cold
perspiration
burst
out
all
over
my
skin.
I
only
recall
that
the exhilaration
had
left
me
entirely,
while
the
depression
had
greatly intensified.
The
curiosity,
if
of
rather
an
icy
kind,
remained,
but
it
was fed
by
a
lowering
vitality.

The
house,
as
I
went
in,
was
very
still,
no
sound
audible.
It
was
also dark,
all
outlines
heavily
draped,
no
edges
visible.
I
stood
stock-still, shivering
and
afraid,
even
unable,
to
move.
I
could
not
stir
a
foot. There
was
a
queer
sense
that
everything
had
stopped
moving
the instant
I
came
in,
that
a
crowd
had
rushed
into
hiding,
that
my
arrival was
anticipated
by
a
fraction
of
a
second;
but
this,
I
knew,
was
due to
imagination
only.
Actually,
nothing
but
emptiness
and
vacancy surrounded
me.
The
gloom
concealed
no
living
thing.

An
unoccupied,
unfurnished
house
at
the
best
of
times
is
a
ghostly, even
a
hostile,
place,
but
this
particular
one,
wrapped
in
the
wintry dusk,
turned
the
perspiration
cold
against
my
skin.
The
conviction that
upstairs,
perhaps
even
now
watching
me,
was
a
man
who
had been
"dead"
four
years,
a
companion
with
him
who
had
left
the world
by
suicide
long
before
him,
that
this
awful
pair,
hidden
among the
untenanted
rooms
above,
stood
waiting
to
look
me
in
the
eyes, perchance
to
touch
me,
ask
me
questions,
reveal
their
knowledge
and their
presence—this
all
gave
me
a
sensation
of
dread
and
horror
that paralysed
my
muscles.
I
stood
there
as
though
turned
into
stone,
while the
echoes
from
the
banging
door
rolled
on
through
the
series
of
unoccupied
halls
and
chambers,
then
died
away
into
a
silence
that
was even
worse.
Had
I
seen
Mantravers
at
that
moment,
heard
his
desccnding
step,
or
caught
the
sound
of
his
voice
calling
me
by
name, I
believe
my
heart
must
have
stopped
dead.
Already
it
was
beating like
a
troubled
engine,
my
breathing
difficult
as
well.
Afraid
to
go
forward,
afraid
to
turn
back
and
go
out,
my
shaking
body,
leaning
for support
against
the
wall,
stood
where
it
was,
my
powers
of
self-control gone
all
to
pieces.