The Beetle | Page 5

be at home, and have gone to bed, leaving the blind up,
and the window open. I placed my ear to the crevice. How still it was!
Beyond doubt, the place was empty.
I decided to push the window up another inch or two, so as to enable
me to reconnoitre. If anyone caught me in the act, then there would be
an opportunity to describe the circumstances, and to explain how I was
just on the point of giving the alarm. Only, I must go carefully. In such
damp weather it was probable that the sash would creak.
Not a bit of it. It moved as readily and as noiselessly as if it had been
oiled. This silence of the sash so emboldened me that I raised it more
than I intended. In fact, as far as it would go. Not by a sound did it
betray me. Bending over the sill I put my head and half my body into
the room. But I was no forwarder. I could see nothing. Not a thing. For
all I could tell the room might be unfurnished. Indeed, the likelihood of
such an explanation began to occur to me. I might have chanced upon

an empty house. In the darkness there was nothing to suggest the
contrary. What was I to do?
Well, if the house was empty, in such a plight as mine I might be said
to have a moral, if not a legal, right, to its bare shelter. Who, with a
heart in his bosom, would deny it me? Hardly the most punctilious
landlord. Raising myself by means of the sill I slipped my legs into the
room.
The moment I did so I became conscious that, at any rate, the room was
not entirely unfurnished. The floor was carpeted. I have had my feet on
some good carpets in my time; I know what carpets are; but never did I
stand upon a softer one than that. It reminded me, somehow, even then,
of the turf in Richmond Park,--it caressed my instep, and sprang
beneath my tread. To my poor, travel-worn feet, it was luxury after the
puddly, uneven road. Should I, now I had ascertained that--the room
was, at least, partially furnished, beat a retreat? Or should I push my
researches further? It would have been rapture to have thrown off my
clothes, and to have sunk down, on the carpet, then and there, to sleep.
But,--I was so hungry; so famine-goaded; what would I not have given
to have lighted on something good to eat!
I moved a step or two forward, gingerly, reaching out with my hands,
lest I struck, unawares, against some unseen thing. When I had taken
three or four such steps, without encountering an obstacle, or, indeed,
anything at all, I began, all at once, to wish I had not seen the house;
that I had passed it by; that I had not come through the window; that I
were safely out of it again. I became, on a sudden, aware, that
something was with me in the room. There was nothing, ostensible, to
lead me to such a conviction; it may be that my faculties were
unnaturally keen; but, all at once, I knew that there was something
there. What was more, I had a horrible persuasion that, though unseeing,
I was seen; that my every movement was being watched.
What it was that was with me I could not tell; I could not even guess. It
was as though something in my mental organisation had been stricken
by a sudden paralysis. It may seem childish to use such language; but I
was overwrought, played out; physically speaking, at my last counter;

and, in an instant, without the slightest warning, I was conscious of a
very curious sensation, the like of which I had never felt before, and the
like of which I pray that I never may feel again,--a sensation of panic
fear. I remained rooted to the spot on which I stood, not daring to move,
fearing to draw my breath. I felt that the presence will me in the room
was something strange, something evil.
I do not know how long I stood there, spell-bound, but certainly for
some considerable space of time. By degrees, as nothing moved,
nothing was seen, nothing was heard, and nothing happened, I made an
effort to better play the man. I knew that, at the moment, I played the
cur. And endeavoured to ask myself of what it was I was afraid. I was
shivering at my own imaginings. What could be in the room, to have
suffered me to open the window and to enter unopposed? Whatever it
was, was surely to the full as great a coward as I was, or