The Beetle, Richard Marsh [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

I told myself that it was impossible that I could have been such a simpleton as to have been mistaken on such a question as gender⁠—was heightened by the self-evident fact that, very recently, he had been engaged in some pitched battle; some hand to hand, and, probably, discreditable encounter, from which he had borne away uncomfortable proofs of his opponent’s prowess. His antagonist could hardly have been a chivalrous fighter, for his countenance was marked by a dozen different scratches which seemed to suggest that the weapons used had been someone’s fingernails. It was, perhaps, because the heat of the battle was still in his veins that he was in such a state of excitement. He seemed to be almost overwhelmed by the strength of his own feelings. His eyes seemed literally to flame with fire. The muscles of his face were working as if they were wholly beyond his own control. When he spoke his accent was markedly foreign; the words rushed from his lips in an inarticulate torrent; he kept repeating the same thing over and over again in a fashion which was not a little suggestive of insanity.

“So you’re not dead!⁠—you’re not dead:⁠—you’re alive!⁠—you’re alive! Well⁠—how does it feel to be dead? I ask you!⁠—Is it not good to be dead? To keep dead is better⁠—it is the best of all! To have made an end of all things, to cease to strive and to cease to weep, to cease to want and to cease to have, to cease to annoy and to cease to long, to no more care⁠—no!⁠—not for anything, to put from you the curse of life⁠—forever!⁠—is that not the best? Oh yes!⁠—I tell you!⁠—do I not know? But for you such knowledge is not yet. For you there is the return to life, the coming out of death⁠—you shall live on!⁠—for me!⁠—Live on!”

He made a movement with his hand, and, directly he did so, it happened as on the previous evening, that a metamorphosis took place in the very abysses of my being. I woke from my torpor, as he put it, I came out of death, and was alive again. I was far, yet, from being my own man; I realised that he exercised on me a degree of mesmeric force which I had never dreamed that one creature could exercise on another; but, at least, I was no longer in doubt as to whether I was or was not dead. I knew I was alive.

He lay, watching me, as if he was reading the thoughts which occupied my brain⁠—and, for all I know, he was.

“Robert Holt, you are a thief.”

“I am not.”

My own voice, as I heard it, startled me⁠—it was so long since it had sounded in my ears.

“You are a thief! Only thieves come through windows⁠—did you not come through the window?” I was still⁠—what would my contradiction have availed me? “But it is well that you came through the window⁠—well you are a thief⁠—well for me! for me! It is you that I am wanting⁠—at the happy moment you have dropped yourself into my hands⁠—in the nick of time. For you are my slave⁠—at my beck and call⁠—my familiar spirit, to do with as I will⁠—you know this⁠—eh?”

I did know it, and the knowledge of my impotence was terrible. I felt that if I could only get away from him; only release myself from the bonds with which he had bound me about; only remove myself from the horrible glamour of his near neighbourhood; only get one or two square meals and have an opportunity of recovering from the enervating stress of mental and bodily fatigue;⁠—I felt that then I might be something like his match, and that, a second time, he would endeavour in vain to bring me within the compass of his magic. But, as it was, I was conscious that I was helpless, and the consciousness was agony. He persisted in reiterating his former falsehood.

“I say you are a thief!⁠—a thief, Robert Holt, a thief! You came through a window for your own pleasure, now you will go through a window for mine⁠—not this window, but another.” Where the jest lay I did not perceive; but it tickled him, for a grating sound came from his throat which was meant for laughter. “This time it is as a thief that you will go⁠—oh yes, be sure.”

He paused, as it seemed, to transfix me with his gaze. His unblinking eyes never for an instant quitted my face. With what a frightful fascination they constrained me⁠—and how I loathed them!

When he spoke again there was a new intonation in his speech⁠—something bitter, cruel, unrelenting.

“Do you know Paul Lessingham?”

He pronounced the name as if he hated it⁠—and yet as if he loved to have it on his tongue.

“What Paul Lessingham?”

“There is only one Paul Lessingham! The Paul Lessingham⁠—the great Paul Lessingham!”

He shrieked, rather than said this, with an outburst of rage so frenzied that I thought, for the moment, that he was going to spring on me and rend me. I shook all over. I do not doubt that, as I replied, my voice was sufficiently tremulous.

“All the world knows Paul Lessingham⁠—the politician⁠—the statesman.”

As he glared at me his eyes dilated. I still stood in expectation of a physical assault. But, for the present, he contented himself with words.

“Tonight you are going through his window like a thief!”

I had no inkling of his meaning⁠—and, apparently, judging from his next words, I looked something of the bewilderment I felt.

“You do not understand?⁠—no!⁠—it is simple!⁠—what could be simpler? I say that tonight⁠—tonight!⁠—you are going through his window like a thief. You came through my window⁠—why not through the window of Paul Lessingham, the politician⁠—the statesman.”

He repeated my words as if in mockery. I am⁠—I make it my boast!⁠—of that great multitude which regards Paul Lessingham as the greatest living force in practical politics; and which looks to him, with confidence, to carry through that great work of constitutional and