...a soft, irregular sound of footfalls on the
stairs! They were slow, hesitant, uncertain, as of something that did
not see its way; to my disordered reason all the more terrifying for
that, as the approach of some blind and mindless malevolence to which is
no appeal. I even thought that I must have left the hall lamp burning
and the groping of this creature proved it a monster of the night. This
was foolish and inconsistent with my previous dread of the light, but
what would you have? Fear has no brains; it is an idiot. The dismal
witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are
unrelated. We know this well, we who have passed into the Realm of
Terror, who skulk in eternal dusk among the scenes of our former lives,
invisible even to ourselves, and one another, yet hiding forlorn in
lonely places; yearning for speech with our loved ones, yet dumb, and as
fearful of them as they of us. Sometimes the disability is removed, the
law suspended: by the deathless power of love or hate we break the
spell -- we are seen by those whom we would warn, console, or punish.
What form we seem to them to bear we know not; we know only that we
terrify even those whom we most wish to comfort, and from whom we most
crave tenderness and sympathy.
Ambrose Bierce
Image source.
0 comments:
Post a Comment