Hume stared at the speaker, as if he had been a spectre; which, apparently, he was more than half disposed to believe that he was.
“Lawrence! Edwin Lawrence! Is it a living man, some demoniacal likeness, or is it a ghost? My God! is it a ghost?”
Again Lawrence laughed. He went closer to the bewildered doctor; his eyes flaming, his manner growing wilder as he continued speaking.
“A ghost, Hume, write it down a ghost! I wonder if I could cheat myself into believing I’m a ghost? Hume, you’re an authority on madness. Look at me; do you think I’m mad? It’s a question I’ve been putting to myself since—she began to be humorous. I see things—I hear things—like the men who’ve been—thirsty. There’s a face which looks into mine—a face all cut and slashed and sliced into ribbons; and, as the blood streams down the cheek-bones, which are laid all bare, its teeth grin at me, inside the torn and broken jaws, and it says, ‘After all I’ve done, this is the end!’ I strike at it, with both my fists, where the eyeballs ought to be, but I can’t knock it away; it won’t go, it keeps on being there. I can’t sleep, though I’d give all the world to. I’m afraid to try, because, when I shut my eyes, I see it plainer. The blood gets on my hands; the taste gets into my mouth; the idiot words get on my brain, ‘After all I’ve done, this is the end!’ I can’t get away from the face and the words; whatever I do, wherever I go, they’re there. I seem to carry them with me. I’ve been drinking, but I can’t drink enough to shut them out; I can’t get drunk. And, Hume, do you think I’m mad? I hope I am. For while I’m being tortured she laughs; she keeps laughing all the time. It’s her notion of a jest. I hope that it’s but a madman’s fancy, what I see and hear; and that, when I get my reason back again, they’ll go—the face and the words. You’re a scientific man. Tell me if I’m mad.”
Hume turned towards me. His countenance was pasty-hued.
“What devil’s trick is this?”
Lawrence answered, in his own fashion, as if the question had been addressed to him.
“That’s what it is—a devil’s trick! Hers! The Goddess’s! She’s a demon! I’ll—I’ll tell you how it was done. She’s got me—by the throat; bought me—body and soul. But I don’t care, I’ll be even. She shan’t do all the scoring; I will play a hand, although, directly afterwards, she drags me down to hell with her. Let her drag! I’m in hell already. It can’t be worse—where she has sprung from.”
Taking Hume by the shoulder with one hand, with the other he pointed to the door which was at the end of the passage. He was dreadful to look at. As he himself said, he already looked as if he were suffering the torments of the damned.
“She’s in there—behind that door. But although she is in there she’s with me here. She’s always with me, wherever I am; she, the face, and the words. You think I’m romancing, passing off on you the coinage of a madman’s brain. I would it were so. I wish that they were lies of my own invention, a maniac’s imaginings. Come with me; judge for yourself. You shall see her. I will show you how the devil’s trick was done.”