a diagnosis of death contd...
' 'The house was furnished, just as he had lived in it. It was
a rather gloomy dwelling for one who was neither a recluse nor a
student, and I think it gave something of its character to me -
perhaps some of its former occupant's character; for always I felt
in it a certain melancholy that was not in my natural disposition,
nor, I think, due to loneliness. I had no servants that slept in
the house, but I have always been, as you know, rather fond of my
own society, being much addicted to reading, though little to study.
Whatever was the cause, the effect was dejection and a sense of
impending evil; this was especially so in Dr. Mannering's study,
although that room was the lightest and most airy in the house.
The doctor's life-size portrait in oil hung in that room, and seemed
completely to dominate it. There was nothing unusual in the picture;
the man was evidently rather good looking, about fifty years old,
with iron-grey hair, a smooth-shaven face and dark, serious eyes.
Something in the picture always drew and held my attention. The
man's appearance became familiar to me, and rather "haunted"
me.
'One evening I was passing through this room to my bedroom, with
a lamp - there is no gas in Meridian. I stopped as usual before
the portrait, which seemed in the lamplight to have a new expression,
not easily named, but distinctly uncanny. It interested but did
not disturb me. I moved the lamp from one side to the other and
observed the effects of the altered light. While so engaged I felt
an impulse to turn round. As I did so I saw a man moving across
the room directly toward me! As soon as he came near enough for
the lamplight to illuminate the face I saw that it was Dr. Mannering
himself; it was as if the portrait were walking!
'"I beg your pardon," I said, somewhat coldly, "but
if you knocked I did not hear."
'He passed me, within an arm's length, lifted his right forefinger,
as in warning, and without a word went on out of the room, though
I observed his exit no more than I had observed his entrance.
'Of course, I need not tell you that this was what you will call
a hallucination and I call an apparition. That room had only two
doors, of which one was locked; the other led into a bedroom, from
which there was no exit. My feeling on realizing this is not an
important part of the incident.
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