He heard them moving
about, long after he had got into bed. Sometimes they would glide up
to the bed and bend over him, and though he could never see their
eyes, he could feel they were fixed mockingly on him. Once he saw the
door of his wardrobe slowly open, and a white something with a
dreadful face--half human and half animal--steal slyly out and
disappear in the wall opposite. And once when he put out his hand to
feel for the matches, they were gently thrust into his palm, whilst
the walls of the room shook with laughter.
Kelson was equally tormented, though the phenomena took rather a
different form. Alone in his bedroom at night, the shape of the room
would frequently change; either the walls and ceiling would recede,
and recede, until they assumed the proportions of some vast chamber,
full of gloom and strange shadows; or they would slowly, very slowly,
close in upon him, as if it were their intention to crush him to
death. A feeling of suffocation would come over him, and he would
gasp, choke, beat the air with his arms, be at the verge of losing
consciousness, when there would be a loud, mocking laugh--and the
walls and ceiling would be in their proper places again. At other
times he would see strange figures on the wall--numbers of circles,
that would keep on revolving in the most bewildering fashion. Then,
suddenly, they would leave the wall and slowly approach him,
increasing in circumference; and the same thing would happen, as
happened with the wall and ceiling; he would undergo the whole
sensation of asphyxiation, and be on the brink of swooning, when there
would be a loud peal of evil, satirical laughter, and the circles
would instantly disappear.
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