Difficult to describe my next conscious sensations, when I found I was
not in the bed! I have never described them before. You will understand
why I've never described them to my wife. I meant never to describe them
to anyone. But as you came all the way from London, Mr Myers, and seem
to understand all this sort of thing, I've made up my mind to tell you
for what it's worth. Yes, what you say about the difficulty of sticking
to the exact truth is quite correct. I feel it. Still, I don't think I
over-flatter myself in saying that I am a more than ordinarily truthful
man.
Well, I was looking at the bed. I was not in the bed. I can't be
precisely sure where I was standing, but I think it was between the two
windows, half behind the crimson curtains. Anyhow, I must have been near
the windows, or I couldn't have seen the foot of the bed and the couch
that is there. I could most distinctly hear Cauldon Church clock, more
than two miles away, strike two. I was cold. Margaret was leaning over
the bed, and staring at a face that lay on the pillows. At first it did
not occur to me that this face on the pillows was my face. I had to
reason out that fact. When I had reasoned it out I tried to speak to
Margaret and tell her that she was making a mistake, gazing at that
thing there on the pillows, and that the real one was standing in the
cold by the windows. I could not speak. Then I tried to attract her
attention in other ways; but I could do nothing. Once she turned
sharply, as if startled, and looked straight at me. I strove more
frantically than ever to make signs to her; but no, I could not.
Seemingly she did not see.