XII
But Egholm was not asleep; only lying quite still, with wide-open eyes.
His trouble was that going to bed only made him wakeful, however sleepy he might have been while undressing. It generally took him a couple of hours to get to sleep, and during that time his eyes seemed to acquire a power of inward vision. The experiences of the day lifted their coffin lid and swarmed out from his brain-cells as terrifying apparitions in the dark.
True, it might happen at times, as now to-day, that they also appeared in the daytime, but then he could ward them off as long as he kept on talking and talking incessantly.
But at night! They laughed at him in horrid wise, lifted the wrappings from their skulls, and blinked at him with empty eye-sockets. He was theirs.
Nevertheless, he had developed a certain method in his madness; they could not take him by surprise now, as they had done at first.
To-day, he had struck Anna three times in the face—no light blows either, for he could feel his knuckles slightly tender still—well and good, then to-night the result would be that he found Anna exchanged for Clara Steen, the child with the deep eyes, the splendid Clara of youth, the beloved little maiden in the gold frame.
In a gold frame—yes, an oval gold frame.
Here again was one of those ridiculous things that could, given the opportunity and a suitable mood, make a man laugh himself crooked.