In a Glass Darkly Read Online Free PDF Page A

movements of the beast. It crept swiftly along the wall, at
exactly my pace.
    "Where the wall ends, near the turn of the road, it came down, and with
a wiry spring or two brought itself close to my feet, and continued to
keep up with me, as I quickened my pace. It was at my left side, so
close to my leg that I felt every moment as if I should tread upon it.
    "The road was quite deserted and silent, and it was darker every moment.
I stopped dismayed and bewildered, turning as I did so, the other way—I
mean, towards this house, away from which I had been walking. When I
stood still, the monkey drew back to a distance of, I suppose, about
five or six yards, and remained stationary, watching me.
    "I had been more agitated than I have said. I had read, of course, as
everyone has, something about 'spectral illusions,' as you physicians
term the phenomena of such cases. I considered my situation, and looked
my misfortune in the face.
    "These affections, I had read, are sometimes transitory and sometimes
obstinate. I had read of cases in which the appearance, at first
harmless, had, step by step, degenerated into something direful and
insupportable, and ended by wearing its victim out. Still as I stood
there, but for my bestial companion, quite alone, I tried to comfort
myself by repeating again and again the assurance, 'the thing is purely
disease, a well-known physical affection, as distinctly as small-pox or
neuralgia. Doctors are all agreed on that, philosophy demonstrates it. I
must not be a fool. I've been sitting up too late, and I daresay my
digestion is quite wrong, and, with God's help, I shall be all right,
and this is but a symptom of nervous dyspepsia.' Did I believe all this?
Not one word of it, no more than any other miserable being ever did who
is once seized and riveted in this satanic captivity. Against my
convictions, I might say my knowledge, I was simply bullying myself into
a false courage.
    "I now walked homeward. I had only a few hundred yards to go. I had
forced myself into a sort of resignation, but I had not got over the
sickening shock and the flurry of the first certainty of my misfortune.
    "I made up my mind to pass the night at home. The brute moved close
beside me, and I fancied there was the sort of anxious drawing toward
the house, which one sees in tired horses or dogs, sometimes as they
come toward home.
    "I was afraid to go into town, I was afraid of any one's seeing and
recognizing me. I was conscious of an irrepressible agitation in my
manner. Also, I was afraid of any violent change in my habits, such as
going to a place of amusement, or walking from home in order to fatigue
myself. At the hall door it waited till I mounted the steps, and when
the door was opened entered with me.
    "I drank no tea that night. I got cigars and some brandy and water. My
idea was that I should act upon my material system, and by living for a
while in sensation apart from thought, send myself forcibly, as it were,
into a new groove. I came up here to this drawing-room. I sat just here.
The monkey then got upon a small table that then stood
there
. It
looked dazed and languid. An irrepressible uneasiness as to its
movements kept my eyes always upon it. Its eyes were half closed, but I
could see them glow. It was looking steadily at me. In all situations,
at all hours, it is awake and looking at me. That never changes.
    "I shall not continue in detail my narrative of this particular night. I
shall describe, rather, the phenomena of the first year, which never
varied, essentially. I shall describe the monkey as it appeared in
daylight. In the dark, as you shall presently hear, there are
peculiarities. It is a small monkey, perfectly black. It had only one
peculiarity—a character of malignity—unfathomable malignity. During
the first year it looked sullen and sick. But this character of intense
malice and vigilance was always underlying that surly languor. During
all that time it acted as if on a plan of giving me