It is hard to forget repulsive things. I remember yet how I ran off from
school once when I was a boy, and then, pretty late at night, concluded
to climb into the window of my father’s office and sleep on a lounge,
because I had a delicacy about going home and getting thrashed. As I lay
on the lounge and my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I fancied I
could see a long, dusky, shapeless thing stretched upon the floor. A
cold shiver went through me. I turned my face to the wall. That did not
answer. I was afraid that the thing would creep over and seize me in the
dark. I turned back and stared at it for minutes and minutes—they seemed
hours. It appeared to me that the lagging moonlight never, never would
get to it. I turned to the wall and counted twenty, to pass the feverish
time away. I looked—the pale square was nearer. I turned again and
counted fifty—it was almost touching it. With desperate will I turned
again and counted one hundred, and faced about, all in a tremble. A
white human hand lay in the moonlight! Such an awful sinking at the
heart—such a sudden gasp for breath. I felt—I cannot tell _what_ I felt.
When I recovered strength enough, I faced the wall again. But no boy
could have remained so, with that mysterious hand behind him. I counted
again, and looked—the most of a naked arm was exposed. I put my hands
over my eyes and counted until I could stand it no longer, and then—the
pallid face of a man was there, with the corners of the mouth drawn
down, and the eyes fixed and glassy in death! I raised to a sitting
posture and glowered on the corpse till the light crept down the bare
breast,—line by line—inch by inch—past the nipple,—and then it disclosed
a ghastly stab!
I went away from there. I do not say that I went away in any sort of a
hurry, but I simply went——that is sufficient. I went out at the window,
and I carried the sash along with me. I did not need the sash, but it
was handier to take it than it was to leave it, and so I took it. I was
not scared, but I was considerably agitated.
When I reached home, they whipped me, but I enjoyed it. It seemed
perfectly delightful. That man had been stabbed near the office that
afternoon, and they carried him in there to doctor him, but he only
lived an hour. I have slept in the same room with him often, since
then—in my dreams.