THE RED ROOM

By H. G. Wells

"It's your own choosing, " said the man with the withered arm once more. 

I heard the faint sound of a stick and a shambling step on the flags inthe passage outside. The door creaked on its hinges as a second old manentered, more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first. Hesupported himself by the help of a crutch, his eyes were covered bya shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from hisdecaying yellow teeth. He made straight for an armchair on the oppositeside of the table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough. The man withthe withered hand gave the newcomer a short glance of positive dislike;the old woman took no notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyesfixed steadily on the fire. 

"I said--it's your own choosing, " said the man with the withered hand, when the coughing had ceased for a while. 

"It's my own choosing, " I answered. 

The man with the shade became aware of my presence for the first time, and threw his head back for a moment, and sidewise, to see me. I caughta momentary glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then hebegan to cough and splutter again. 

"Why don't you drink?" said the man with the withered arm, pushing thebeer toward him. The man with the shade poured out a glassful with ashaking hand, that splashed half as much again on the deal table. Amonstrous shadow of him crouched upon the wall, and mocked his actionas he poured and drank. I must confess I had scarcely expected thesegrotesque custodians. There is, to my mind, something inhuman insenility, something crouching and atavistic; the human qualities seemto drop from old people insensibly day by day. The three of them made mefeel uncomfortable with their gaunt silences, their bent carriage, their evident unfriendliness to me and to one another. And that night, perhaps, I was in the mood for uncomfortable impressions. I resolved toget away from their vague fore-shadowings of the evil things upstairs. 

"If, " said I, "you will show me to this haunted room of yours, I willmake myself comfortable there. "

The old man with the cough jerked his head back so suddenly that itstartled me, and shot another glance of his red eyes at me from out ofthe darkness under the shade, but no one answered me. I waited a minute, glancing from one to the other. The old woman stared like a dead body, glaring into the fire with lack-lustre eyes. 

"If, " I said, a little louder, "if you will show me to this haunted roomof yours, I will relieve v you from the task of entertaining me. "

"There's a candle on the slab outside the door, " said the man with thewithered hand, looking at my feet as he addressed me. "But if you go tothe Red Room to-night--"

"This night of all nights!" said the old woman, softly. 

"--You go alone. "

"Very well, " I answered, shortly, "and which way do I go?"

"You go along the passage for a bit, " said he, nodding his head on hisshoulder at the door, "until you come to a spiral staircase; and on thesecond landing is a door covered with green baize. Go through that, anddown the long corridor to the end, and the Red Room is on your left upthe steps. "

"Have I got that right?" I said, and repeated his directions. 

He corrected me in one particular. 

"And you are really going?" said the man with the shade, looking at meagain for the third time with that queer, unnatural tilting of the face. 

"This night of all nights!" whispered the old woman. 

"It is what I came for, " I said, and moved toward the door. As I did so, the old man with the shade rose and staggered round the table, so as tobe closer to the others and to the fire. At the door I turned andlooked at them, and saw they were all close together, dark against thefirelight, staring at me over their shoulders, with an intent expressionon their ancient faces. 

"Good-night, " I said, setting the door open.. "It's your own choosing, "said the man with the withered arm. 

I left the door wide open until the candle was well alight, and then Ishut them in, and walked down the chilly, echoing passage. 

I must confess that the oddness of these three old pensioners inwhose charge her ladyship had left the castle, and the deep-toned, old-fashioned furniture of the housekeeper's room, in which theyforegathered, had affected me curiously in spite of my effort to keepmyself at a matter-of-fact phase. They seemed to belong to another age, an older age, an age when things spiritual were indeed to be feared, when common sense was uncommon, an age when omens and witches werecredible, and ghosts beyond denying. Their very existence, thought I, isspectral; the cut of their clothing, fashions born in dead brains; theornaments and conveniences in the room about them even are ghostly--thethoughts of vanished men, which still haunt rather than participate inthe world of to-day. And the passage I was in, long and shadowy, witha film of moisture glistening on the wall, was as gaunt and cold as athing that is dead and rigid. But with an effort I sent such thoughtsto the right-about. The long, drafty subterranean passage was chilly anddusty, and my candle flared and made the shadows cower and quiver. Theechoes rang up and down the spiral staircase, and a shadow came sweepingup after me, and another fled before me into the darkness overhead. Icame to the wide landing and stopped there for a moment listening to arustling that I fancied I heard creeping behind me, and then, satisfiedof the absolute silence, pushed open the unwilling baize-covered doorand stood in the silent corridor. 

The effect was scarcely what I expected, for the moonlight, coming in bythe great window on the grand staircase, picked out everything in vividblack shadow or reticulated silvery illumination. Everything seemed inits proper position; the house might have been deserted on the yesterdayinstead of twelve months ago. There were candles in the sockets ofthe sconces, and whatever dust had gathered on the carpets or upon thepolished flooring was distributed so evenly as to be invisible in mycandlelight. A waiting stillness was over everything. I was about toadvance, and stopped abruptly. A bronze group stood upon the landinghidden from me by a corner of the wall; but its shadow fell withmarvelous distinctness upon the white paneling, and gave me theimpression of some one crouching to waylay me. The thing jumped uponmy attention suddenly. I stood rigid for half a moment, perhaps. Then, with my hand in the pocket that held the revolver, I advanced, onlyto discover a Ganymede and Eagle, glistening in the moonlight. Thatincident for a time restored my nerve, and a dim porcelain Chinaman on abuhl table, whose head rocked as I passed, scarcely startled me. 

The door of the Red Room and the steps up to it were in a shadowycorner. I moved my candle from side to side in order to see clearly thenature of the recess in which I stood, before opening the door. Here itwas, thought I, that my predecessor was found, and the memory ofthat story gave me a sudden twinge of apprehension. I glanced over myshoulder at the black Ganymede in the moonlight, and opened the doorof the Red Room rather hastily, with my face half turned to the pallidsilence of the corridor. 

I entered, closed the door behind me at once, turned the key I foundin the lock within, and stood with the candle held aloft surveying thescene of my vigil, the great Red Room of Lorraine Castle, in which theyoung Duke had died; or rather in which he had begun his dying, forhe had opened the door and fallen headlong down the steps I had justascended. That had been the end of his vigil, of his gallant attempt toconquer the ghostly tradition of the place, and never, I thought, hadapoplexy better served the ends of superstition. There were otherand older stories that clung to the room, back to the half-incrediblebeginning of it all, the tale of a timid wife and the tragic end thatcame to her husband's jest of frightening her. And looking round thathuge shadowy room with its black window bays, its recesses and alcoves, its dusty brown-red hangings and dark gigantic furniture, one couldwell understand the legends that had sprouted in its black corners, itsgerminating darknesses. My candle was a little tongue of light in thevastness of the chamber; its rays failed to pierce to the oppositeend of the room, and left an ocean of dull red mystery and suggestion, sentinel shadows and watching darknesses beyond its island of light. Andthe stillness of desolation brooded over it all. 

I must confess some impalpable quality of that ancient room disturbedme. I tried to fight the feeling down. I resolved to make a systematicexamination of the place, and so, by leaving nothing to the imagination, dispel the fanciful suggestions of the obscurity before they obtaineda hold upon me. After satisfying myself of the fastening of the door, Ibegan to walk round the room, peering round each article of furniture, tucking up the valances of the bed and opening its curtains wide. Inone place there was a distinct echo to my footsteps, the noises I madeseemed so little that they enhanced rather than broke the silence of theplace. I pulled up the blinds and examined the fastenings of the severalwindows. Attracted by the fall of a particle of dust, I leaned forwardand looked up the blackness of the wide chimney. Then, trying topreserve my scientific attitude of mind, I walked round and begantapping the oak paneling for any secret opening, but I desisted beforereaching the alcove. I saw my face in a mirror--white. 

There were two big mirrors in the room, each with a pair of sconcesbearing candles, and on the mantelshelf, too, were candles in chinacandle-sticks. All these I lit one after the other. The fire waslaid--an unexpected consideration from the old housekeeper--and I litit, to keep down any disposition to shiver, and when it was burningwell I stood round with my back to it and regarded the room again. Ihad pulled up a chintz-covered armchair and a table to form a kind ofbarricade before me. On this lay my revolver, ready to hand. My preciseexamination had done me a little good, but J still found the remoterdarkness of the place and its perfect stillness too stimulating for theimagination. The echoing of the stir and crackling of the fire was * nosort of comfort to me. The shadow in the alcove at the end of theroom began to display that undefinable quality of a presence, that oddsuggestion of a lurking living thing that comes so easily in silenceand solitude. And to reassure myself, I walked with a candle into itand satisfied myself that there was nothing tangible there. I stood thatcandle upon the floor of the alcove and left it in that position. 

By this time I was in a state of considerable nervous tension, althoughto my reason there was no adequate cause for my condition. My mind, however, was perfectly clear. I postulated quite unreservedly thatnothing supernatural could happen, and to pass the time I beganstringing some rhymes together, Ingoldsby fashion, concerning theoriginal legend of the place. A few I spoke aloud, but the echoes werenot pleasant* For the same reason I also abandoned, after a time, aconversation with myself upon the impossibility of ghosts and haunting. My mind reverted to the three old and distorted people downstairs, and Itried to keep it upon that topic. 

The sombre reds and grays of the room troubled me; even with its sevencandles the place was merely dim. The light in the alcove flaring ina draft, and the fire flickering, kept the shadows and penumbraperpetually shifting and stirring in a noiseless flighty dance. Casting# about for a remedy, I recalled the wax candles I had seen in thecorridor, and, with a slight effort, carrying a candle and leaving thedoor open, I walked out into the moonlight, and presently returned withas many as ten. These I put in the various knick-knacks of china withwhich the room was sparsely adorned, and lit and placed them wherethe shadows had lain deepest, some on the floor, some in the windowrecesses, arranging and rearranging them until at last my seventeencandles were so placed that not an inch of the room but had the directlight of at least one of them. It occurred to me that when the ghostcame I could warn him not to trip over them. The room was now quitebrightly illuminated. There was something very cheering and reassuringin these little silent streaming flames, and to notice their steadydiminution of length offered me an occupation and gave me a reassuringsense of the passage of time. 

Even with that, however, the brooding expectation of the vigil weighedheavily enough upon me. I stood watching the minute hand of my watchcreep towards midnight. 

Then something happened in the alcove. I did not see the candle go out, I simply turned and saw that the darkness was there, as one might start#and see the unexpected presence of a stranger. The black shadow hadsprung back to its place. "By Jove, " said I aloud, recovering from mysurprise, "that draft's a strong one;" and taking the matchbox from^hetable, I walked across the room in a leisurely manner to relight thecorner again. My first match would not strike, and as I succeeded withthe second, something seemed to blink on the wall before me. I turned myhead involuntarily and saw that the two candles on the little table bythe fireplace were extinguished. I rose at once to my feet. 

"Odd, " I said. "Did I do that myself in a flash of absent-mindedness?"

I walked back, relit one, and as I did so I saw the candle in theright sconce of one of the mirrors wink and go right out, and almostimmediately its companion followed it. The flames vanished as if thewick had been suddenly nipped between a finger and thumb, leaving thewick neither glowing nor smoking, but black. While I stood gaping thecandle at the foot of the bed went out, and the shadows seemed to takeanother step toward me. 

"This won't do!" said I, and first one and then another candle on themantelshelf followed. 

"What's up?" I cried, with a queer high note getting into my voicesomehow. At that the candle on the corner of the wardrobe went out, andthe one I had relit in the alcove followed. 

"Steady on!" I said, "those candles are wanted, " speaking with ahalf-hysterical facetiousness, and scratching away at a match thewhile, "for the mantel candlesticks. " My hands trembled so much thattwice I missed the rough paper of the matchbox. As the mantel emergedfrom darkness again, two candles in the remoter end of the room wereeclipsed. But with the same match I also relit the larger mirrorcandles, and those on the floor near the doorway, so that for the momentI seemed to gain on the extinctions. But then in a noiseless volleythere vanished four lights at once in different corners of the room, andI struck another match in quivering haste, and stood hesitating whitherto take it. 

As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the twocandles on the table. With a cry of terror I dashed at the alcove, theninto the corner and then into the window, relighting three as two morevanished by the fireplace, and then, perceiving a better way, I droppedmatches on the iron-bound deedbox in the corner, and caught up thebedroom candlestick. With this I avoided the delay of striking matches, but for all that the steady process of extinction went on, and theshadows I feared and fought against returned, and crept in upon me, first a step gained on this side of me, then on that. I was now almostfrantic with the horror of the coming darkness, and my self-possessiondeserted me. I leaped panting from candle to candle in a vain struggleagainst that remorseless advance. 

I bruised myself in the thigh against the table, I sent a chairheadlong, I stumbled and fell and whisked the cloth from the table inmy fall. My candle rolled away from me and I snatched another as I rose. Abruptly this was blown out as I swung it off the table by the wind ofmy sudden movement, and immediately the two remaining candles followed. But there was light still in the room, a red light, that streamed acrossthe ceiling and staved off the shadows from me. The fire! Of course Icould still thrust my candle between the bars and relight it. 

I turned to where the flames were still dancing between the glowingcoals and splashing red reflections upon the furniture; made two stepstoward the grate, and incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished, the glow vanished, the reflections rushed together and disappeared, andas I thrust the candle between the bars darkness closed upon me like theshutting of an eye, wrapped about me in a stifling embrace, sealed myvision, and crushed the last vestiges of self-possession from my brain. And it was not only palpable darkness, but intolerable terror. Thecandle fell from my hands. I flung out my arms in a vain effort tothrust that ponderous blackness away from me, and lifting up my voice, screamed with all my might, once, twice, thrice. Then I think I musthave staggered to my feet. I know I thought suddenly of the moonlitcorridor, and with my head bowed and my arms over my face, made astumbling run for the door. 

But I had forgotten the exact position of the door, and I struck myselfheavily against the corner of the bed. I staggered back, turned, and waseither struck or struck myself against some other bulky furnishing. Ihave a vague memory of battering myself thus to and fro in the darkness, of a heavy blow at last upon my forehead, of a horrible sensationof falling that lasted an age, of my last frantic effort to keep myfooting, and then I remember no more. 

I opened my eyes in daylight. My head was roughly bandaged, and the manwith the withered hand was watching my face. I looked about me tryingto remember what had happened, and for a space I could not recollect. I rolled my eyes into the corner and saw the old woman, no longerabstracted, no longer terrible, pouring out some drops of medicinefrom a little blue phial into a glass. "Where am I?" I said. "I seem toremember you, and yet I can not remember who you are. "

They told me then, and I heard of the haunted Red Room as one who bearsa tale. "We found you at dawn, " said he, "and there was blood on yourforehead and lips. "

I wondered that I had ever disliked him. The three of them in thedaylight seemed commonplace old folk enough. The man with the greenshade had his head bent as one who sleeps. 

It was very slowly I recovered the memory of my experience. "Youbelieve now, " said the old man with the withered hand, "that the room ishaunted?" He spoke no longer as one who greets an intruder, but as onewho condoles with a friend. 

"Yes, " said I, "the room is haunted. "

"And you have seen it. And we who have been here all our lives havenever set eyes upon it. Because we have never dared. Tell us, is ittruly the old earl who--"

"No, " said I, "it is not. "

"I told you so, " said the old lady, with the glass in her hand. "It ishis poor young countess who was frightened--"

"It is not, " I said. "There is neither ghost of earl nor ghost ofcountess in that room; there is no ghost there at all, but worse, farworse, something impalpable--"

"Well?" they said. 

"The worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal men, " said I; "andthat is, in all its nakedness--'Fear!' Fear that will not have lightnor sound, that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens andoverwhelms. It followed me through the corridor, it fought against me inthe room--"

I stopped abruptly. There was an interval of silence. My hand went up tomy bandages. "The candles went out one after another, and I fled--"

Then the man with the shade lifted his face sideways to see me andspoke. 

"That is it, " said he. "I knew that was it. A Power of Darkness. To putsuch a curse upon a home! It lurks there always. You can feel it evenin the daytime, even of a bright summer's day, in the hangings, in thecurtains, keeping behind you however you face about. In the dusk itcreeps in the corridor and follows you, so that you dare not turn. It iseven as you say. Fear itself is in that room. Black Fear.... And thereit will be... So long as this house of sin endures. "