The Red Room | Page 4

upon me. I stood watching the minute hand of my
watch creep 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 had

sprung back to its place. "By Jove," said I aloud, recovering from my
surprise, "that draft's a strong one;" and taking the matchbox from^he
table, I walked across the room in a leisurely manner to relight the
corner again. My first match would not strike, and as I succeeded with
the second, something seemed to blink on the wall before me. I turned
my head involuntarily and saw that the two candles on the little table
by the 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 the right
sconce of one of the mirrors wink and go right out, and almost
immediately its companion followed it. The flames vanished as if the
wick had been suddenly nipped between a finger and thumb, leaving
the wick neither glowing nor smoking, but black. While I stood gaping
the candle at the foot of the bed went out, and the shadows seemed to
take another step toward me.
"This won't do!" said I, and first one and then another candle on the
mantelshelf followed.
"What's up?" I cried, with a queer high note getting into my voice
somehow. At that the candle on the corner of the wardrobe went out,
and the one I had relit in the alcove followed.
"Steady on!" I said, "those candles are wanted," speaking with a
half-hysterical facetiousness, and scratching away at a match the while,
"for the mantel candlesticks." My hands trembled so much that twice I
missed the rough paper of the matchbox. As the mantel emerged from
darkness again, two candles in the remoter end of the room were
eclipsed. But with the same match I also relit the larger mirror candles,
and those on the floor near the doorway, so that for the moment I
seemed to gain on the extinctions. But then in a noiseless volley there
vanished four lights at once in different corners of the room, and I
struck another match in quivering haste, and stood hesitating whither to
take it.
As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the two

candles on the table. With a cry of terror I dashed at the alcove, then
into the corner and then into the window, relighting three as two more
vanished by the fireplace, and then, perceiving a better way, I dropped
matches on the iron-bound deedbox in the corner, and caught up the
bedroom candlestick. With this I avoided the delay of striking matches,
but for all that the steady process of extinction went on, and the
shadows 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 almost
frantic with the horror of the coming darkness, and my self-possession
deserted me. I leaped panting from candle to candle in a vain struggle
against that remorseless advance.
I bruised myself in the thigh against the table, I sent a chair headlong, I
stumbled and fell and whisked the cloth from the table in my 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 of my sudden
movement, and immediately the two remaining candles followed. But
there was light still in the room, a red light, that streamed across the
ceiling and staved off the shadows from me. The fire! Of course I could
still thrust my candle between the bars and relight it.
I turned to where the flames were still dancing between the glowing
coals and splashing red reflections upon the furniture; made two steps
toward the grate, and incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished,
the glow vanished, the reflections rushed together and disappeared, and
as I thrust the candle between the bars darkness closed upon me like the
shutting of an eye, wrapped about me in a stifling embrace, sealed my
vision, and crushed the last vestiges of self-possession from my brain.
And it was not only palpable darkness, but intolerable terror. The
candle fell from my hands. I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust
that ponderous blackness away from me, and lifting up my voice,
screamed with all my might, once, twice, thrice. Then I think I must
have staggered to my feet.