I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again he had removed the glass. I tried to speak, but though he inclined his head he seemed unable to hear me. On this he put his finger to his lips, and, after viewing me a while with an expression of pity and astonishment, he went softly out.
During the greater portion of the day my condition was one of stupor. Yet there were intervals when my mind was somewhat active. In these intervals I questioned myself, and I became acutely sensible of the indescribable feeling of horror that was upon me, and at such times I beheld, painted upon the gloom of the shelf on which I lay, the strange face that had gazed at me out of the hand-glass, and again and again I saw that head of a woman whose snow-white hair lay in long thick tresses about her shoulders and upon the rude bolster, though a portion of it was looped up and fastened in coils on the top of the head by hairpins, whose dark eyes were weak and without light, whose cheeks were hollow, and the skin of them and of her brow finely lined with innumerable wrinkles, whilst the whole countenance was rendered wild and repulsive by the lengths of white sticking-plaister that striped her temple.
Thrice during that day I was visited by the young Frenchman, who, on each occasion, brought me soup and some red wine. He was accompanied on his third visit by the great fat man, his uncle, and by a short man with an immense moustache and several days’ growth of beard—a fierce-looking man, with dark knitted eyebrows, and gleaming black eyes with the savage stare of a gipsy in their intent regard. He was swathed in a coarse coat of pilot cloth, the skirts of which descended to his heels, and on his head was a fur cap which he did not remove as he stood viewing me.
They watched Alphonse feed me; I was scarcely conscious of their presence, and even if I heeded them, which I doubt, their inspection caused me no uneasiness, so languid were my faculties, so sick even unto death did I feel, so profoundly bewildered was I by the questions I asked myself, and by the blackness which lay upon the face of my mind when I turned my gaze inwards and searched it.
The fat man, Regnier, addressed Alphonse, who nodded and said to me: ‘Well, madame, have you yet thought of your name?’
I answered, ‘No.’
‘And you cannot positively tell me that you are English?’
‘I am speaking English; I speak no other tongue; I am English, then.’
‘No,’ he exclaimed, smiling, ‘you might be American. And you say you do not speak any other language than English? How can you tell? You may have forgotten other languages in which you could converse. For example: you might be a German who speaks English excellently; and now by some caprice of the intellect you forget your German, and express yourself in English. I am not a doctor,’ he added, wagging his head, ‘but I know a thing or two.’