The Re-Creation of Brian Kent | Page 7

the man at the window could see the river. The trees
that lined the bank opposite the town were mere ghostly shadows
against the gloomy masses of the low hills that rose from the water's
edge, indistinct, mysterious, and unreal, into the threatening sky. The
higher mountains that reared their crests beyond the hills were invisible.
The stream itself swept sullenly through the night,--a resistless flood of
dismal power, as if, turbid with wrecked souls, with the lost hopes and
ruined dreams of men, it was fit only to bear vessels freighted with
sorrow, misfortune, and despair.
The manner of the man at the window was as if some woeful spirit of
the melancholy scene were calling him. With head bowed, and face
turned a little to one side, he listened intently as one listens to voices
that are muffled and indistinct. He pressed his face close to the glass,
and with straining eyes tried to see more clearly the ghostly trees, the
sombre hills, and the gloomy river. Three times he turned from the
window to pace to and fro in the darkened room, and every time his
steps brought him again to the casement, as if in obedience to some
insistent voice that summoned him. The fourth time, he turned from the
window more quickly, with a gesture of assenting decision.
The crackling snap of a match broke the dead stillness. The sudden
flare of light stabbed the darkness. As he applied the tiny, wavering

flame to the wick of a lamp that stood on the cheap, old- fashioned
bureau, the man's hand shook until the chimney rattled against the wire
standards of the burner. Turning quickly from the lighted lamp, the
man sprang again to the window to jerk down the tattered, old shade.
Facing about, he stood with his back to the wall, searching the room
with wide, fearful eyes. His fists were clenched. His chest rose and fell
heavily with his labored breathing. His face worked with emotion. With
trembling limbs and twitching muscles, he crouched like some
desperate creature at bay.
But, save for the wretched man himself, there was in that shabby,
dingy-papered, dirty-carpeted, poorly furnished apartment no living
thing.
Suddenly, the man laughed;--and it was the reckless, despairing
laughter of a soul that feels itself slipping over the brink of an abyss.
With hurried step and outstretched hands, he crossed the room to snatch
a bottle of whisky from its place beside the lamp on the bureau. With
trembling eagerness, he poured a water tumbler half- full of the red
liquor. As one dying of thirst, he drank. Drawing a deep breath, and
shaking his head with a wry smile, he spoke in hoarse confidence to the
image of himself in the dingy mirror: "They nearly had me, that time."
Again, he poured, and drank.
The whisky steadied him for the moment, and with bottle and glass still
in hand, he regarded himself in the mirror with critical interest.
Had he stood erect, with the vigor that should have been his by right of
his years, the man would have measured just short of six feet; but his
shoulders--naturally well set--sagged with the weariness of excessive
physical indulgence; while the sunken chest, the emaciated limbs, and
the dejected posture of his misused body made him in appearance, at
least, a wretched weakling. His clothing--of good material and well
tailored--was disgustingly soiled and neglected;--the shoes thickly
coated with dried mud, and the once-white shirt, slovenly unfastened at
the throat, without collar or tie. The face which looked back from the
mirror to the man was, without question, the countenance of a

gentleman; but the broad forehead under the unkempt red-brown hair
was furrowed with anxiety; the unshaven cheeks were lined and sunken;
the finely shaped, sensitive mouth drooped with nervous weakness; and
the blue, well-placed eyes were bloodshot and glittering with the light
of near-insanity.
The poor creature looked at the hideous image of his ruined self as if
fascinated with the horror of that which had been somehow wrought.
Slowly, as one in a trance, he went closer, and, without moving his
gaze from the mirror, placed the bottle and tumbler upon the bureau. As
if compelled by those burning eyes that stared so fixedly at him, he
leaned forward still closer to the glass. Then, as he looked, the distorted
features twitched and worked grotesquely with uncontrollable emotions,
while the quivering lips formed words that were not even whispered.
With trembling fingers he felt the unshaven cheeks and touched the
unkempt hair questioningly. Suddenly, as if to shut out the horror of
that which he saw in the mirror, the man hid his face in his hands, and
with a sobbing, inarticulate cry sank to the floor.
Silently, with pitiless force, the river