XXXI
... taking form from nothing....
At first it could hardly be said to exist at all ... something more tenuous than a shadow ... as transparent as glass ... all the particulars of the chair visible through it—covering, head-rest, arms and back ... something formless, colorless ... a sort of pallid luminousness hazy in outline, changing in texture, suggesting the vague fluorescence in a Gessler tube....
Yet something, nevertheless, something more certainly real than the image I had seen shortly before—the image of myself refracted through the lens ... something material, tangible, ponderable ... as I could sense, as I could feel, as I knew with a conviction that excluded all doubt ... something living, perhaps!
Living, certainly! Yes, something alive; for now, inside the tissue, inside the substance of this luminous something, I thought I could see ... I could see ... I could see with absolute distinctness ... a sort of web, a veritable network of veins and nerves ... outlined in light ... in light brighter than the light of the thing itself ... and along those nerves and through those veins, rushing, streaming, leaping in regular pulsations, a phosphorescent liquid ... all coming from one center ... and that center ... a heart!
I could see ... but the testimony of my eyes was nothing ... my senses, my feelings, my very consciousness ... told me, convinced me, assured me, that that shadow was alive.... Of its life I had the same perception that I had of my own life. I could feel the beating of that heart, as I could feel the beating of my own heart; and I could feel, the streaming of that phosphorescent blood in those arteries of light as I could feel my own red blood in my own arteries of flesh.... Then at last I knew....
I knew that that Something, that that Presence, that that Being was taking form, not from nothing, but from me. Not only was it from me; it was my very very Self.
From the depths of my weakness and of my agony, from the abyss of mortal terror in which my consciousness and my intelligence had been engulfed, that one persuasion rose—a clear, clear comprehension of all that had been explained, suggested, threatened in words that had hitherto seemed so obscure to me....
Yes, that Shadow there was I, that Shadow sitting in the chair before me, that Shadow of pallid light that was already losing its transparency!
* * * * * * * * *
I lost my hold on the wisp of sentience to which I had been clinging. Weakness overcame me. Sight faded from my eyes, and hearing from my ears. A black opaque veil descended over me, enshrouding me, burying me. I became as one dying, dying ... dead.
* * * * * * * * *
Later, I know not how much later, but after, I think, a long, long time, I came to myself again.
And when I came to myself again, all the life that I had lived before I sank into that deathly slumber, seemed to have receded into a past infinitely, eternally remote, a past more ancient than all the ages.
A pair of cold hands was pressing on my temples. I could feel drops of water trickling down my face. They came from a wet handkerchief that had been drawn tight across my brow. I knew that the Count François was standing in front of me, and that he was working to bring me back to consciousness.
A sigh forced its way through my lips. My eyes opened. I stretched my fingers that had gripped the two arms of my chair....
The count removed his hands from my temples.
He wiped my forehead dry.
He went away.
Then I saw....
I saw, in the chair opposite me, seated, a Man.
A Man like me, exactly like me, like me to the last detail: myself.
I looked at him, and I was not sure whether he or I were I. And I was not sure whether we were two men, or one man in two persons. I raised—how painfully!—an arm; and I succeeded in raising it because now it had become as light as gauze. I raised an arm, I say, to see whether the other Man, the other I, would be forced, by what I did, to do the same, to raise an arm that is, the arm that I raised. But no! I moved: and he did not. So then ... there were two of us: I and a Man: two different men, separate, distinct Beings.
Distinct, separate, and yet, unquestionably, two parts of one whole, a single whole; and all my flesh, all my wasted rarefied substance cried out desiringly toward that other flesh, that other substance that had been torn from me, “exteriorized” from me.
Another Man: a Man, and not a shadow, and not a ghost! No spectral trappings; no sheets, no shrouds! Clothes! A riding suit, exactly like my riding suit. I looked at the clothes I was wearing. I had just bought them new. Now they were old, worn out, threadbare.... As old, as worn, as threadbare as I myself!
Alas! Alas! Why, why am I writing still? I know that you who read will not believe.... But I tell you I am not insane! Would a madman talk as I talk? Another thing: I am about to die; and a man does not cross the threshold of Eternity with falsehood on his lips.... Two good reasons for not doubting my veracity....
Alas! Alas! I know ... I know ... why should I go on ...?
* * * * * * * * *
Nevertheless....