from my hand and arm, and, as it were, through them, seemed to
possess and envelop my whole person. Face, hair, eyes, bosom, limbs,
every portion of my body was locked in an awful embrace which, like
the vortex of a whirlpool, drew me irresistibly towards the picture.
I felt the hideous impulse clinging over me and sucking me forwards
into the wall. I strove in vain to resist it. My efforts were
more futile than the flutter of gossamer wings. And then there
rushed upon my mind the consciousness that all we had been told
about the haunted rooms was true; that a strong delusion had been
cast over us; that all this brilliant throng of modern ladies and
gentlemen were fiends masquerading, prepared beforehand for our coming;
that all the beauty and splendor of our surroundings were mere glamor;
and that in reality the rooms were those we had seen in the daytime,
filled with lumber and rot and vermin. As I realised all this,
and was thrilled with the certainty of it, a sudden access of strength
came to me, and I was impelled, as a last desperate effort, to turn
my back on the awful fresco, and at least to save my face from coming
into contact with it and being glued to its surface. With a shriek
of anguish I wrenched myself round and fell prostrate on the ground,
face downwards, with my back to the wall, feeling as though the
flesh had been torn from my hand and arm. Whether I was saved or
not I knew not. My whole being was over-powered by the realisation
of the deception to which I had succumbed. I had looked for something
so different,--darkness, vacant, deserted rooms, and perhaps a tall,
white, empty canvas in a frame, against which I should have been
on my guard. Who could have anticipated or suspected this cheerful
welcome, these entertaining literati, these innocent-looking frescoes?
Who could have foreseen so deadly a horror in such a guise? Was
I doomed? Should I, too, be sucked in and absorbed, and perhaps
C. after me, knowing nothing of my fate? I had no voice; I could