Mystery fiction; Race relations -- Fiction; Southern States -- Fiction
And as he slept there took place about him a drama that would have set
his heart beating with excitement could he have witnessed it. The house
was silent; the city clock had tolled the midnight hour, when Gerald
came into the room, bearing a shaded lamp. The sleeper lay on his back,
locked in the slumber of exhaustion. The visitor, moving with the
noiselessness of a shadow, glided to the opposite side of the bed, and,
placing the lamp on a chair, slowly turned up the flame and tilted the
shade. In an instant the strong profile of the sleeper flashed upon the
wall. With suppressed excitement Gerald unwrapped a sheet of cardboard,
and standing it on the mantel received upon it the shadow. As if by a
supreme effort, he controlled himself and traced the profile on his
paper. Lifting it from the mantel he studied it for a moment intently
and then replaced it. The shadow filled the tracing. Taking it slowly
from its position he passed from the room. Fortunately his distraction
was too great for him to notice the face of Virdow, or to perceive it in
the deep gloom of the little room as he passed out.
The German waited a few moments; no sound came back from the broad
carpeted stair; taking the forgotten lamp, he followed him silently.
Passing out into the shrubbery, he made his way to the side of the
conservatory and looked in. Gerald had placed the two profiles, one on
each side of the mirror, and with a duplex glass was studying his own in
connection with them. He stood musing, and then, as if forgetting his
occupation, he let the hand-glass crash upon the floor, tossed his arms
in an abandonment of emotion, and, covering his face with his hands,
suddenly threw himself across the bed.
Virdow was distressed and perplexed. He read the story in the pantomime,
but what could he do? No human sympathy could comfort such a grief, nor
could he betray his knowledge of the secret he had surreptitiously
obtained. He paced up and down outside until presently the moving shadow
of the occupant of the room fell upon his path. He saw him then take
from a box a little pill and put it in his mouth, and he knew that the
troubles of life, its doubts, distress and loneliness, would be
forgotten for hours.
Forgotten? Who knows? Oh, mystery of creation; that invisible
intelligence that vanishes in sleep and in death; gone on its voyage of
discovery, appalling in its possibilities; but yet how useless, since it
must return with no memory of its experience!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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