“Thank’ee, sir.”
And he turned, and rolled towards the door.
Again my eyes, which wanted to go to the clock, didn’t go to the clock. They went instead to the shapeless, enormous, indefinable back. They went with that enveloping oilskin which was wrapped about it like some foul, greeny-yellow mist, went with it until that back had got to the door; until it had passed through the door, and had gone out of actual sight; until it was down the stairs and out into the courtyard, and under Dr. Johnson’s arch, and into Middle Temple Lane, and out into the Strand, and from the Strand...
That’s a bloody silly thing to say. But that’s what my eyes did...
And then, with a jerk, I got myself back to myself. I howled for Bascombe. I howled for a hat and a coat. And a taxi. Loudest of all for a taxi.
I looked at the clock, and the clock said ten twenty-five.
By the time I got there I should have lost an hour out of my life. An hour with Claire; a whole hour with the mind of Claire, that beautiful, tender, caressing, sword-like mind; a whole hour with the white body of Claire, with that glorious strong, lovely, maddening body... An hour! Sixty jeweled minutes which never could I have again, not even should Claire and I live to be as old as the world itself...
And I should have hurt Claire — not that she wouldn’t understand — but have hurt her with a hurt that would last for at least one hour; and to hurt Claire for the seventeenth part of a half second was to stab myself through with flaming, jagged spears of pain...
I heard Bascombe running. I heard him go out, leaving the oak open. I heard his old feet flapping down the stone stairs, and out again onto the cobbles of the court. He was getting my taxi. Good old Bascombe!
I went over to the door and struggled into a coat, flipped open my hat and rammed it on... And then I suddenly felt — I’m sorry I can’t describe this any better — a summons. A command from behind me. It was one of those sensations totally inexplicable but nevertheless impossible of obtaining anything else but obedience from him who feels it.
I turned. I saw my writing table, and the pool which the reading lamp made in the dusk of the low room. Arid on my writing table I saw the telephone. Beside it was that wicker basket... I thought: Damn; he’s forgotten the thing!
I went over to the table... Of course, I must phone Claire and explain. That would save her, when she knew how quickly I would be with her, perhaps ten minutes of her hurt.
I lifted the receiver and got that damn silly lumpiness in my throat... But this time it was worse, so that I dropped that phone as if it had been red hot. Actually dropped it, I mean, so that it fell sprawled on the carpet. Sprawled, with its black, stupid mouth uttering silly cackles...
I was going to stoop to pick it up. I believe I began to stoop. Began to — but I didn’t finish...
Suddenly I had a vision. A vision which, even to me who all my life have seen things with interior as well as exterior eyes, was so clear as to make me think that this sight was actual physical sight. I saw, in front of me, so near that with half out-stretched arms I could have caught her, Claire. Claire as most of all I loved to see her. Claire as Claire. With nothing to hide her loveliness but those softly rippling waves of that black, black hair, which never would I let her shear...
A great pain came to me then. A sharp, stabbing pain, which sent its hot spears through me. I gasped. I can hear even now that strange not-me sound with which that gasp rang, in those ears which were mine...
And then she wasn’t there. Not for either inward or outward eyes to see. But her presence remained; so surely, so certainly, that one half of my brain seemed to know that could I but turn in some direction impossible to man, so, surely, would I see what before I had seen.
And then, as suddenly as he had left me, that dire and terrible God whose name is Commonsense returned to me. I stooped again to the fallen telephone. I picked it up and set it upon the table. I replaced the receiver, and cut short the mundane cackling. I knew that speak into its black mouth I couldn’t. Better go to her quickly... quickly... quickly...
I turned, and the skirt of the light coat into which I had crammed myself flew up with the speed of my turning. Flew up and brushed against the basket...
It was only the ghost of a creaking sound, so slight as to appear disembodied. But in my present state, it was enough. Ah oath tore itself out of my throat. Tore itself savagely, and savagely fled into the dimness of the room’s corners. I struck out behind me with my left hand. I can still feel, on the left side of my fist, the impression of the wicker...
With a squeaking, rattling, bumping little thud, the thing slid off the table and fell to the carpet.
I meant to go on to the door. I wanted to go on to the door. But I turned round. The basket was lying open. I could see that upon the farther side from me the lid had come away from the rest. A force which was not mine moved my legs. I took a step forward. I stood looking down.
And I looked at the face of Claire... The face of Claire — and the head of Claire and the hair of Claire. The hair of Claire lay spread out in a dusky, misty, glistening cloud upon my gray carpet. And from the head of Claire there came small and dull and sluggish dark streaks to stain my gray carpet...
The Spider
by Hanns Heinz Ewers
Translated by Walter F. Kohn
When Richard Bracquemont, medical student, decided to move into Room No. 7 of the little Hotel Stevens at 6 Rue Alfred Stevens, three people had already hanged themselves from the window-sash of the room on three successive Fridays.
The first was a Swiss traveling salesman. His body was not discovered until Saturday evening; but the physician established the fact that death must have come between five and six o’clock on Friday afternoon. The body hung suspended from a strong hook which had been driven into the window-sash, and which ordinarily served for hanging clothes. The window was closed, and the dead man had used the curtain cord as a rope. Since the window was rather low, his legs dragged on the ground almost to his knees. The suicide must consequently have exercised considerable will power in carrying out his intention. It was further established that he was married and the father of four children; that he unquestionably had an adequate and steady income; and that he was of a cheerful disposition, and well contented in life. Neither a will nor anything in writing that might give a clue to the cause of the suicide was found; nor had he ever intimated leanings toward suicide to any of his friends or acquaintances.
The second case was not very different. The actor Karl Krause, who was employed at the nearby Cirque Medrano as a lightning bicycle artiste, engaged Room No. 7 two days after the first suicide. When he failed to appear at the performance the following Friday evening, the manager of the theater sent an usher to the little hotel. The usher found the actor hanged from the window-sash in the unlocked room, in identically the same circumstances that had attended the suicide of the Swiss traveling salesman. This second suicide seemed no less puzzling than the first: the actor was popular, drew a very large salary, was only twenty-five years old, and seemed to enjoy life to the utmost. Again, nothing was left in writing, nor were there any other clues that might help solve the mystery. The actor was survived only by an aged mother, to whom he used to send three hundred marks for her support promptly on the first of each month.
For Madame Dubonnet, who owned the cheap little hotel, and whose clientele was made up almost exclusively of the actors of the nearby vaudevilles of Montmartre, this second suicide had very distressing consequences. Already several of her guests had moved out, and other regular customers had failed to come back. She appealed to the Commissioner of the IXth Ward, whom she knew well, and he promised to do everything in his power to help her. So he not only pushed his investigation of reasons for the suicides with considerable zeal, but he also placed at her disposal a police officer who took up his residence in the mysterious room.