Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (219 page)
Read Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) Online
Authors: Travelers In Time
Then,
as
I
looked,
the
mist,
or
smoke,
or
cloud,
or
whatever
one may
call
it,
seemed
to
coalesce
and
solidify
at
two
points
quite
close together,
and
I
was
aware,
with
a
thjill
of
interest
rather
than
of
fear, that
these
were
two
eyes
looking
out
into
the
room.
A
vague
outline of
a
head
I
could
see—a
woman's
by
the
hair,
but
this
was
very shadowy.
Only
the
eyes
were
quite
distinct;
such
eyes—dark,
luminous, filled
with
some
passionate
emotion,
fury
or
horror,
I
could
not
say which.
Never
have
I
seen
eyes
which
were
so
full
of
intense,
vivid life.
They
were
not
fixed
upon
me,
but
stared
out
into
the
room.
Then
as
I
sat
erect,
passed
my
hand
over
my
brow,
and
made
a
strong conscious
effort
to
pull
myself
together,
the
dim
head
faded
into
the general
opacity,
the
mirror
slowly
cleared,
and
there
were
the
red curtains
once
again.
A
sceptic
would
say,
no
doubt,
that
I
had
dropped
asleep
over my
figures,
and
that
my
experience
was
a
dream.
As
a
matter
of
fact, I
was
never
more
vividly
awake
in
my
life.
I
was
able
to
argue
about it
even
as
I
looked
at
it,
and
to
tell
myself
that
it
was
a
subjective impression—a
chimera
of
the
nerves—begotten
by
worry
and
insomnia.
But
why
this
particular
shape?
And
who
is
the
woman,
and what
is
the
dreadful
emotion
which
I
read
in
those
wonderful brown
eyes?
They
come
between
me
and
my
work.
For
the
first
time I
have
done
less
than
the
daily
tally
which
I
had
marked
out.
Perhaps that
is
why
I
have
had
no
abnormal
sensations
to-night.
To-morrow I
must
wake
up,
come
what
may.
January
11.
All
well,
and
good
progress
with
my
work.
I
wind
the
net,
coil
after coil,
round
that
bulky
body.
But
the
last
smile
may
remain
with him
if
my
own
nerves
break
over
it.
The
mirror
would
seem
to
be
a sort
of
barometer
which
marks
my
brain
pressure.
Each
night
I
have observed
that
it
had
clouded
before
I
reached
the
end
of
my
task.
Dr.
Sinclair
(who
is,
it
seems,
a
bit
of
a
psychologist)
was
so interested
in
my
account
that
he
came
round
this
evening
to
have a
look
at
the
minor.
I
had
observed
that
something
was
scribbled in
crabbed
old
characters
upon
the
metal
work
at
the
back.
He examined
this
with
a
lens,
but
could
make
nothing
of
it.
"Sane.
X. Pal."
was
his
final
reading
of
it,
but
that
did
not
bring
us
any
further. He
advised
me
to
put
it
away
into
another
room;
but,
after
all, whatever
I
may
see
in
it
is,
by
his
own
account,
only
a
symptom. It
is
in
the
cause
that
the
danger
lies.
The
twenty
ledgers—not
the silver
mirror—should
be
packed
away
if
I
could
only
do
it.
I'm
at
the eighth
now,
so
I
progress.
