Thirty Strange StoriesWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science
Thirty Strange Stories
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Fantasy fiction, English; Science fiction, English; Short stories, English
At last, despairing of further sleep, I sat up in bed and looked about
me. A chill twilight rendered the whole chamber visible. It was spacious
and well-furnished, better furnished than any room I had ever slept in
before. A candle and matches became dimly visible upon a little pedestal
in a recess. I threw back the bedclothes, and, shivering with the
rawness of the early morning, albeit it was summer-time, I got out and
lit the candle. Then, trembling horribly, so that the extinguisher
rattled on its spike, I tottered to the glass and saw—_Elvesham’s face_!
It was none the less horrible because I had already dimly feared as
much. He had already seemed physically weak and pitiful to me, but seen
now, dressed only in a coarse flannel nightdress that fell apart and
showed the stringy neck, seen now as my own body, I cannot describe its
desolate decrepitude. The hollow cheeks, the straggling tail of dirty
grey hair, the rheumy bleared eyes, the quivering, shrivelled lips, the
lower displaying a gleam of the pink interior lining, and those horrible
dark gums showing. You who are mind and body together, at your natural
years, cannot imagine what this fiendish imprisonment meant to me. To be
young and full of the desire and energy of youth, and to be caught, and
presently to be crushed in this tottering ruin of a body....
But I wander from the course of my story. For some time I must have been
stunned at this change that had come upon me. It was daylight when I did
so far gather myself together as to think. In some inexplicable way I
had been changed, though how, short of magic, the thing had been done, I
could not say. And as I thought, the diabolical ingenuity of Elvesham
came home to me. It seemed plain to me that as I found myself in his, so
he must be in possession of _my_ body, of my strength, that is, and my
future. But how to prove it? Then, as I thought, the thing became so
incredible, even to me, that my mind reeled, and I had to pinch myself,
to feel my toothless gums, to see myself in the glass, and touch the
things about me, before I could steady myself to face the facts again.
Was all life hallucination? Was I indeed Elvesham, and he me? Had I been
dreaming of Eden overnight? Was there any Eden? But if I was Elvesham, I
should remember where I was on the previous morning, the name of the
town in which I lived, what happened before the dream began. I struggled
with my thoughts. I recalled the queer doubleness of my memories
overnight. But now my mind was clear. Not the ghost of any memories but
those proper to Eden could I raise.
“This way lies insanity!” I cried in my piping voice. I staggered to my
feet, dragged my feeble, heavy limbs to the washhand-stand, and plunged
my grey head into a basin of cold water. Then, towelling myself, I tried
again. It was no good. I felt beyond all question that I was indeed
Eden, not Elvesham. But Eden in Elvesham’s body.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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