I was not satisfied. I knew that I was getting well fast, that there was no need to keep me in bed, and I felt curious as to the reason of my still being kept so close a prisoner. So I found an opportunity when I had been left, as they thought, asleep, to remove the bandage from my eyes with my left hand. My sight seemed as good as ever, but the skin round about my right eye seemed to be tightly drawn. The window-blinds were down, and as evening was coming on there was only light enough to distinguish dimly the objects in the room by the help of the flickering flame of the fire. I got out of bed and walked to the toilet-table, but the looking-glass had been taken away; to the mantelpiece, with the same result. I grew impatient, angry, and rather anxious. There was a hand-glass in my dressing-bag, if I could only find that; I remembered that I had left it in the dressing-room. I dashed into the room, and as that, too, was darkened, I turned to draw up the blind. By that movement I came face to face with a sight so appalling that, of all the misfortunes my accident has ever brought upon me, none, I think, has given me a shock for the first moment so horrible. I saw before me the figure of a man with the face of a devil.
The right eyebrow, the right side of the moustache were gone, and the hair as far as the back of the right ear. The whole of this side of the face, from forehead to chin, was a puckered drawn mass of blackened shrivelled skin, distorted into grotesque seams and furrows. The right end of the eye and the right corner of the mouth were drawn up, giving to the whole face a sinister and evil expression.
After a few moments' contemplation of my new self, I turned away from the glass, feeling sick with disgust and horror. In the first shock of my discovery, no reflection that I was looking upon the fearful sight at its worst, and that the healing work was still going on underneath the scarred and desiccated skin, came to console me.
My back turned upon my own image, my stupefaction gave place to rapid thought. I saw in a moment that the old course of my life was at one blow broken up, that I must begin again as if I had been born that day. I must go away, not only from my own friends, but from the chance of coming in contact with them again. I must leave England. Also, since if I were to make my resolution known I should be inundated with kindly meant dissuasions, I must breathe no hint of my intention until I was quite able to carry it into execution. I was sure that no one but the doctor, and perhaps Edgar, had seen my face in its present condition, and that no description could give to others any idea of its appearance. I felt that my bodily health and strength were all that they had ever been, and that nothing but the wish to keep the knowledge of my disfigurement from me as long as possible had prompted the doctor's orders to me to remain in bed and to retain the bandages. It now, too, occurred to me that delay might bring some slight modification of my hideousness, and I resolved to let nature do what little she could, and not to set out on my travels until the mask which now covered one-half my face had fallen off, and disclosed whatever fresh horrors might be underneath. Then I would, without letting any one see my face, start for some German Spa for the benefit of my health; before I had been away three months I should be forgotten, and free to wend my way wherever I pleased. This idea, to a man to whom life had begun to present something like a deadlock, was not without charm. Society was a bore, love a delusion; now was the chance to find out what else there was worth learning in life.
I heard Edgar's voice in the distance, and had only time to rush back to bed, put on the bandages round my face, and turn on my side as if asleep, before he came into the room.
CHAPTER III
As I heard Edgar creaking softly about the room, giving the impression, even as I lay with my eyes shut, unable to observe his elaborate movements, of great weight trying to be light, my heart smote me at the thought of deceiving him with the rest. 'The elephant,' it had been a joke between ourselves for me to call him; and like a great elephant he was, huge, intelligent, gentle, not without a certain massive beauty, with keen feelings of loyalty, and a long slow-smouldering memory, with inclinations towards a laborious and somewhat painful sportiveness. Rebel against his sententious homilies as I occasionally might, he was a good old fellow, and I was fond of him. I moved a little to show him I was awake, and then said: