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