recovering when a voice said,

'Keep still!'

There was a quality in the voice which I cannot describe. Not only
an accent of command, but a something malicious, a something
saturnine. It was a little guttural, though whether it was a man
speaking I could not have positively said; but I had no doubt it
was a foreigner. It was the most disagreeable voice I had ever
heard, and it had on me the most disagreeable effect; for when it
said, 'Keep still!' I kept still. It was as though there was
nothing else for me to do.

'Turn round!'

I turned round, mechanically, like an automaton. Such passivity
was worse than undignified, it was galling; I knew that well. I
resented it with secret rage. But in that room, in that presence,
I was invertebrate.

When I turned I found myself confronting someone who was lying in
bed. At the head of the bed was a shelf. On the shelf was a small
lamp which gave the most brilliant light I had ever seen. It
caught me full in the eyes, having on me such a blinding effect
that for some seconds I could see nothing. Throughout the whole of
that strange interview I cannot affirm that I saw clearly; the
dazzling glare caused dancing specks to obscure my vision. Yet,
after an interval of time, I did see something; and what I did see
I had rather have left unseen.