Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (193 page)

How
should
I
tell
that
which
was
happening
to
me
as
I
trod
forward;
my
face
as
impassive
as
theirs,
my
brow
as
calm?
The
reaction
to extreme
events
is
in
the
spine
or
the
pit
of
the
stomach,
but
the
action is
elsewhere,
and
is
in
an
organ
uncharted
yet
by
man.

I
trod
with
them,
free
to
all
appearance
as
a
man
can
be,
and
yet bound
by
fetters
which
had
been
forged
through
long
years
by
myself for
myself.

We
halted,
and
I
looked
again
on
the
bossed
and
monumental
door which
stood
in
my
memory
almost
as
a
living
thing.
It
was
as
it
had been
formerly.
A
black
gape,
little
more
than
a
foot
wide,
yawned from
the
top
to
the
bottom.
I
noticed
the
rough
herbage
sprouting grossly
among
pebbles
at
its
foot,
and
the
overhanging
jut
of
harsh stone
that
crowned
or
frowned
from
its
top.
And
then
I
looked
at them.

His
gaze
was
bent
on
me,
massive
as
the
stone
itself. "Go
in,"
he
said.

I
looked
at
her,
and
although
her
lips
said
nothing
her
eyes,
gleaming
whitely
in
the
moonlight,
commanded
as
sternly
as
her
husband's voice.

"Go
in,"
he
said
harshly,
"as
we
went
in,
and
get
out,
if
you
can,
as we
got
out."

He
reached
a
monstrous
hand
to
my
shoulder;
but,
at
my
motion
to put
it
aside,
he
let
it
fall;
and
instead
his
hand
took
hold
of
the
great knob.
I
cast
one
look
at
the
vast,
white
moon;
at
the
steady
blue spaces
about
it;
at
the
tumbled
sparkle
that
was
the
world;
and,
without
a
word,
I
squeezed
through
the
narrow
aperture.

I
turned
and
looked
back.
I
had
one
glimpse
of
a
black
form
set
in a
dull
radiance.
Then
the
door
closed
on
me
with
a
clang
that
echoed and
echoed
and
echoed
in
my
ears
long
after
its
cause
had
ceased.

1 1

It
was
dark
where
I
was.

It
was
a
darkness
such
as
I
had
never
experienced.
The
blackness about
me
was
solid
as
ebony.
It
was
impenetrable
to
thought
itself.

It
flooded
my
brain
so
that
the
blindness
within
me
was
as
desperate
as
that
without.
I
could
not
keep
my
eyes
open;
for,
being
open, they
saw
the
darkness.
I
dared
not
close
them;
for,
being
closed,
I became
that
darkness
myself.
.
.
.

And
at
every
moment,
from
the
right
hand
and
the
left,
from
before me
and
from
behind
me,
I
imagined
things.
Darknesses
that
could move,
silences
that
could
touch.
.
.
.

I
dared
not
realise
my
speculations,
and
yet,
in
lightning
hints,
my mind
leaped
at
and
fled
from
thoughts
that
were
inexpressible
except as
shivers.
My
flesh
twitched
and
crept,
and
I
shrank
from
nothing,
as though
it
could
extend
a
claw;
as
though
it
could
clutch
me
with
an iron
fist.
.
.
.