... taking form from nothing....
At first it could hardly be said to exist at all ... something
more tenuous than a shadow ... as transparent as glass ... all the
particulars of the chair visible through it--covering, head-rest,
arms and back ... something formless, colorless ... a sort of pallid
luminousness hazy in outline, changing in texture, suggesting the vague
fluorescence in a Gessler tube....
Yet something, nevertheless, something more certainly real than the
image I had seen shortly before--the image of myself refracted through
the lens ... something material, tangible, ponderable ... as I could
sense, as I could feel, as I knew with a conviction that excluded all
doubt ... something living, perhaps!
Living, certainly! Yes, something alive; for now, inside the tissue,
inside the substance of this luminous something, I thought I could see
... I could see ... I could see with absolute distinctness ... a sort
of web, a veritable network of veins and nerves ... outlined in light
... in light brighter than the light of the thing itself ... and along
those nerves and through those veins, rushing, streaming, leaping in
regular pulsations, a phosphorescent liquid ... all coming from one
center ... and that center ... a heart!
I could see ... but the testimony of my eyes was nothing ... my
senses, my feelings, my very consciousness ... told me, convinced me,
assured me, that that shadow was alive.... Of its life I had the same
perception that I had of my own life. I could feel the beating of that
heart, as I could feel the beating of my own heart; and I could feel,
the streaming of that phosphorescent blood in those arteries of light
as I could feel my own red blood in my own arteries of flesh.... Then
at last I knew....
I knew that that Something, that that Presence, that that Being was
taking form, not from nothing, but from me. Not only was it from me; it
was my very very Self.
From the depths of my weakness and of my agony, from the abyss of
mortal terror in which my consciousness and my intelligence had been
engulfed, that one persuasion rose--a clear, clear comprehension of
all that had been explained, suggested, threatened in words that had
hitherto seemed so obscure to me....
Yes, that Shadow there was I, that Shadow sitting in the chair
before me, that Shadow of pallid light that was already losing its
transparency!
* * * * * * * * *
I lost my hold on the wisp of sentience to which I had been clinging.
Weakness overcame me. Sight faded from my eyes, and hearing from my
ears. A black opaque veil descended over me, enshrouding me, burying
me. I became as one dying, dying ... dead.
* * * * * * * * *
Later, I know not how much later, but after, I think, a long, long
time, I came to myself again.
And when I came to myself again, all the life that I had lived before
I sank into that deathly slumber, seemed to have receded into a past
infinitely, eternally remote, a past more ancient than all the ages.
A pair of cold hands was pressing on my temples. I could feel drops of
water trickling down my face. They came from a wet handkerchief that
had been drawn tight across my brow. I knew that the Count François was
standing in front of me, and that he was working to bring me back to
consciousness.
A sigh forced its way through my lips. My eyes opened. I stretched my
fingers that had gripped the two arms of my chair....
The count removed his hands from my temples.
He wiped my forehead dry.
He went away.
Then I saw....