The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham (adapted), H. G. Wells
The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham (adapted)
H. G. Wells
Category: Short Stories
Genres: Science fiction,Horror,Psychological fiction
Level 60:50 h22.3 mb
Edward Eden is a young medical student with a good future. One day he meets an old man named Egbert Elvesham. The old man says he wants Eden to inherit his money because he has no family. After they spend an evening together, strange things happen. When Eden wakes up the next day, he makes a shocking discovery: he is no longer in his own body. This is an adapted version of the story, simplified to A2 level.

The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham

[adapted]

by
H. G. Wells

The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham (adapted)

I write this story, not thinking it will be believed, but, if possible, to help the next victim escape. He, perhaps, may be helped by my bad luck. My own case, I know, is without hope, and I am now in some way ready to face what will happen to me.

My name is Edward George Eden. I was born at Trentham, in Staffordshire, my father working in the gardens there. I lost my mother when I was three years old, and my father when I was five, my uncle, George Eden, then adopted me as his own son. He was a single man, self-taught, and well-known in Birmingham as a hard-working reporter; he educated me well, made my wish to do well in life strong, and when he died, which happened four years ago, left me all his money, about five hundred pounds after all costs were paid. I was then eighteen. He advised me in his will to spend the money on finishing my education. I had already chosen to be a doctor, and because of his generosity after his death and my good luck in a scholarship competition, I became a medical student at University College, London. At the beginning of my story I lived at 11A University Street in a small upstairs room, very poorly furnished and cold and windy, overlooking the back of Shoolbred’s buildings. I used this little room both to live in and sleep in, because I was very careful to make my money last to the very last shilling.

I was taking a pair of shoes to be fixed at a shop in the Tottenham Court Road when I first met the little old man with the yellow face, and my life has now become so mixed up with him. He was standing on the edge of the pavement, and staring at the number on the door as if not sure, as I opened it. His eyes — they were dull grey eyes, and red under the eyelids — looked at my face, and his face immediately took on a look of wrinkled friendliness.

“You come,” he said, “just at the right time. I had forgotten the number of your house. How are you, Mr. Eden?”

I was a little surprised at his too friendly way of speaking to me, because I had never seen the man before. I was a little angry, too, at his seeing me with my boots under my arm. He noticed that I was not friendly.

“Wonder who I am, eh? A friend, I promise you. I have seen you before, but you haven’t seen me. Is there a place where I can talk to you?”

I paused. The poor look of my room upstairs was not something to tell every stranger. “Perhaps,” I said, “we might walk down the street. I, sadly, cannot — ” My hand movement showed the sentence before I said it.

“The very thing,” he said, and turned this way, and then that. “The street? Which way shall we go?” I slipped on my boots in the hallway. “Look here!” he said suddenly; “this business of mine is a long, mixed-up thing. Come and have lunch with me, Mr. Eden. I’m an old man, a very old man, and not good at explaining things, and with my thin voice and the noise of the traffic — ”

He put a skinny hand that tried to make me agree and that shook a little on my arm.

I was not too old for an old man to buy me lunch. Yet at the same time I was not very pleased by this sudden invitation. “I would rather—” I began. “But I would rather,” he said, stopping me, “and a little politeness should be given to my grey hair.”

And so I agreed, and went with him.

He took me to Blavitiski’s; I had to walk slowly to match his steps; and over a lunch I had never had before, he avoided my main question, and I looked more closely at his appearance. His clean-shaven face was thin and wrinkled, his thin, dry lips hung over a set of false teeth, and his white hair was thin and rather long; he seemed small to me, — though indeed, most people seemed small to me, — and his shoulders were rounded and bent. And while watching him, I could not help noticing that he was also looking at me, moving his eyes, with a strange look of greed in them, over me, from my broad shoulders to my suntanned hands, and up to my freckled face again. “And now,” he said, as we lit our cigarettes, “I must tell you about the business we have to do.”

“I must tell you, then, that I am an old man, a very old man.” He paused for a moment. “And it happens that I have money that I must soon be leaving, and I have no child to leave it to.” I thought of the trick, and decided I would watch out for any sign of my five hundred pounds. He went on to talk more about his loneliness, and the trouble he had to find a good way to give his money. “I have thought about this plan and that plan, charities, institutions, scholarships, and libraries, and I have come to this conclusion at last,” — he looked hard at my face, — “that I will find some young man, ambitious, good, and poor, healthy in body and healthy in mind, and, in short, make him my heir, give him all that I have.” He repeated, “Give him all that I have. So that he will suddenly be lifted out of all the trouble and struggle in which he has been raised, to freedom and influence.”

I tried to seem not interested. Clearly pretending, I said, “And you want my help, maybe help from my work, to find that person.”

He smiled, and looked at me over his cigarette, and I laughed at his quiet showing of my pretending to be modest.

“What a career such a man might have!” he said. “It makes me feel jealous to think how I have saved up what another man may spend — ”

“But there are conditions, of course, things he must do. He must, for instance, take my name. You cannot expect everything without giving something back. And I must look into all the details of his life before I can accept him. He must be healthy. I must know his family history, how his parents and grandparents died, and have the most careful checks made into his private behavior.”

This changed my secret congratulations a little.

“And do I understand,” I said, “that I — ”

“Yes,” he said, almost angrily. “You. You.”

I did not say a word. My imagination was running wild, my natural doubt could not change its excitement. There was not a bit of thanks in my mind — I did not know what to say or how to say it. “But why me especially?” I said at last.

He had happened to hear about me from Professor Haslar; he said I was a typical, good and sensible young man, and he wanted, as much as possible, to leave his money where health and honesty were sure.

That was my first meeting with the little old man. He was secret about himself; he would not give his name yet, he said, and after I had answered his questions, he left me at the Blavitiski gate. I noticed that he took out a handful of gold coins from his pocket when he had to pay for the lunch. His insisting on good health was strange. As we had agreed I applied that day for a life insurance policy in the Loyal Insurance Company for a large amount, and I was fully examined by the doctors of that company in the next week. Even that did not satisfy him, and he said I must be examined again by the great Doctor Henderson.

It was Friday in the week of Whitsun before he made a decision. He called me down, quite late in the evening, — it was nearly nine, — from studying hard chemistry equations for my preliminary science exam. He was standing in the hall under the weak gas lamp, and his face was a strange mix of shadows. He seemed more bent than when I first saw him, and his cheeks had sunk in a little.

His voice shook with feeling. “Everything is all right, Mr. Eden,” he said. “Everything is very, very good. And this night, more than any other, you must eat dinner with me and celebrate your — new position.” He was stopped by a cough. “You won’t have long to wait, too,” he said, wiping his lips with his cloth, and holding my hand with his long thin claw that was free. “Surely not very long to wait.”

We went into the street and called a cab. I remember every detail of that drive clearly, the fast, easy motion, the clear difference between gas and oil and electric light, the crowds of people in the streets, the place in Regent Street where we went, and the very fine dinner we were served there. I was uneasy at first because of the well-dressed waiter’s looks at my rough clothes, bothered by the stones in the olives, but as the champagne warmed me, my confidence came back. At first the old man talked of himself. He had already told me his name in the cab; he was Egbert Elvesham, the great thinker, whose name I had known since I was a boy at school.

It seemed unbelievable to me that this man, whose clever mind had so early ruled mine, this great idea, should suddenly appear as this weak, familiar old figure. I suppose every young fellow who has suddenly found himself among famous people has felt something of my disappointment. He told me now of the future that the weak streams of his life would soon run dry and leave me houses, book rights, investments; I had never guessed that philosophers were so rich. He watched me drink and eat with a little envy. “What energy for living you have!” he said; and then with a sigh, a sigh of relief I thought it might be, “it will not be long.”

“Yes,” I said, my head was swimming now with champagne; “I have a future perhaps — of a rather pleasant kind, thanks to you. I will now have the honour of your name. But you have a past. Such a past that is worth all my future.”

He shook his head and smiled, as I thought, with a little sad thanks for my too kind praise. “That future,” he said, “would you really change it?” The waiter came with drinks. “You will perhaps not mind taking my name, taking my position, but would you really — gladly — take my years?”

“With what you have done,” said I politely.

He smiled again. “Kummel — both,” he said to the waiter, and looked at a small paper packet he had taken from his pocket. “This hour,” he said, “this after-dinner hour is the time of small things. Here is a small piece of my not published wisdom.” He opened the packet with his shaking yellow fingers, and showed a little pink powder on the paper. “This,” he said — “well, you must guess what it is. But Kummel — just put a little of this powder in it — is Himmel.”

His large grey eyes watched my eyes with a look I could not understand.

It was a bit of a shock to me to find this great teacher paid attention to the taste of sweet strong drinks. However, I pretended to be interested in his weakness, for I was drunk enough for such small flattery.

He divided the powder between the little glasses, and, rising suddenly, with a strange, unexpected, serious look, held out his hand towards me. I copied what he did, and the glasses made a ringing sound. “To a quick succession,” he said, and raised his glass towards his lips.

“Not that,” I said quickly. “Not that.”

He stopped with the drink at the level of his chin, and his eyes staring into mine.

“To a long life,” I said. He hesitated. “To a long life,” he said, with a sudden short laugh, and with our eyes fixed on each other we tipped the little glasses. His eyes looked straight into mine, and as I drank it all, I felt a strangely strong feeling. The first taste of it made my brain feel very wild and mixed up; I seemed to feel a real moving inside my head, and a loud buzzing filled my ears. I did not notice the taste in my mouth, the smell that filled my throat; I saw only the grey strength of his stare that burned into mine. The drink, the confusion in my mind, the noise and moving in my head, seemed to last an endless time. Strange, unclear ideas of half-forgotten things danced and disappeared at the edge of my mind. At last he broke the spell. With a sudden loud sigh he put down his glass.

“Well?” he said.

“It’s great,” I said, but I had not tasted the drink.

My head was spinning. I sat down. My mind was a mess. Then my sight became clear and very sharp as though I saw things in a curved mirror. His manner seemed to have changed into something nervous and quick. He pulled out his watch and made a face at it. “Eleven-seven! And to-night I must — Seven-twenty-five. Waterloo! I must go at once.” He called for the bill, and struggled with his coat. Busy waiters came to help us. In another moment I was wishing him good-bye, over the cover of a cab, and still with a strange feeling of very small, clear detail, as though — how can I say it? — I not only saw but felt through an upside-down opera-glass.

“That stuff,” he said. He put his hand to his forehead. “I should not have given it to you. It will give you a bad headache tomorrow. Wait a minute. Here.” He handed me a little flat thing like a fizzy powder. “Take that in water as you are going to bed. The other thing was a drug. Not until you’re ready to go to bed, remember. It will clear your head. That’s all. One more shake — Futurus!”

I held his dried-up hand. “Good-bye,” he said, and from the way his eyelids hung down I thought he also was a little affected by that head-spinning drink.

He suddenly remembered something else, put his hand in the inside pocket of his coat, and took out another package, this time a tube the size and shape of a shaving stick. “Here,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten. Don’t open this until I come tomorrow — but take it now.”

It was so heavy that I almost dropped it. “All right!” I said, and he smiled at me through the cab window as the driver tapped his horse to wake it up. It was a white package he had given me, with red seals at each end and along its edge. “If this isn’t money,” I said, “it’s platinum or lead.”

I stuck it with great care into my pocket, and with a spinning head walked home through the people standing around on Regent Street and the dark side streets past Portland Road. I remember the feelings of that walk very clearly, even though they were strange. I was still myself enough that I could notice my strange state of mind, and wonder whether this stuff I had taken was opium — a drug I had never used before. It is hard now to describe how strange my mind was — “double mind” says it only a little. As I was walking up Regent Street I found in my mind a strange idea that it was Waterloo Station, and had a sudden wish to go into the Polytechnic as a man might get into a train. I rubbed my eye with a knuckle, and it was Regent Street.

How can I say it? You see a skilled actor looking quietly at you, he pulls a funny face, and then — another person. Is it too strange if I tell you that it seemed to me that Regent Street had, for a moment, done that? Then, being sure it was Regent Street again, I was strangely confused about some strange memories that came up. “Thirty years ago,” thought I, “it was here that I argued with my brother.” Then I burst out laughing, to the surprise and encouragement of a group of people out at night. Thirty years ago I did not exist, and never in my life had I had a brother. The stuff was surely liquid foolishness, for the deep regret for that lost brother still stayed with me. Along Portland Road the crazy feeling changed again.

I began to remember shops that were gone, and to compare the street with how it used to be. Confused, troubled thinking is easy to understand after the drink I had taken, but what confused me were these strangely clear dream-like memories that had come into my mind, and not only the memories that had come in, but also the memories that had gone away. I stopped across from Stevens’, the natural history shop, and tried hard to think what he had to do with me. A bus went by, and sounded exactly like the noise of a train. It seemed I was reaching into some dark, far pit for the memory. “Of course,” said I, at last, “he has promised me three frogs to-morrow. Strange that I should have forgotten.”

Do they still show children pictures that fade into each other? In those I remember one picture would begin like a faint ghost, and grow and push out another. In just that way it seemed to me that a ghostly set of new feelings was fighting with those of my ordinary self.

I went on through Euston Road to Tottenham Court Road, confused, and a little frightened, and hardly noticed the strange route I was taking, for usually I used to go through the maze of back streets between them. I turned into University Street, and found that I had forgotten my number. Only with a strong effort did I remember 11A, and even then it seemed to me that it was something some forgotten person had told me. I tried to calm my mind by remembering the events of the dinner, and no matter how hard I tried I could not remember my host’s face; I saw him only as a dark outline, like one might see oneself reflected in a window one was looking through. In his place, however, I had a strange outside view of myself, sitting at a table, red in the face, bright-eyed, and talkative.

“I must take this other powder,” I said. “This is getting impossible.”

I looked on the wrong side of the hall for my candle and the matches, and was not sure which floor my room might be on. “I’m drunk,” I said, “that’s certain,” and stumbled for no reason on the stairs to prove it.

At first look my room seemed strange. “What nonsense!” I said, and looked around me. I seemed to bring myself back by trying, and the strange dream-like feeling changed into the real and familiar. There was the old mirror still, with my notes on the egg whites stuck in the corner of the frame, my old everyday suit of clothes thrown about the floor. And yet it was not so real after all. I felt a silly feeling trying to come into my mind, in a way, that I was in a train carriage just stopping, that I was looking out of the window at some station I did not know. I held the bed-rail tightly to make myself feel sure. “It’s seeing things not in front of me, perhaps,” I said. “I must write to the Psychical Research Society.”

I put the roll of coins on my dressing table, sat on my bed, and began to take off my boots. It felt as if a picture of how I felt now was painted over another picture that was trying to show through. “Curse it!” said I; “I am losing my mind, or am I in two places at once?” Half undressed, I put the powder into a glass and drank it all. It bubbled, and became a bright yellow-brown colour. Before I was in bed my mind was already calm. I felt the pillow on my cheek, and then I must have fallen asleep.

I woke up suddenly out of a dream of strange animals, and found myself lying on my back. Probably everyone knows that sad, upsetting dream from which one gets away, awake indeed, but strangely afraid. There was a strange taste in my mouth, a tired feeling in my arms and legs, a feeling that my skin was uncomfortable. I lay with my head still on my pillow, expecting that my feeling of strangeness and fear would go away, and that I would then doze off again to sleep. But instead of that, my strange feelings increased. At first I could see nothing wrong about me. There was a faint light in the room, so faint that it was almost darkness, and the furniture stood out in it as unclear patches of complete darkness. I stared with my eyes just over the bedclothes.

I thought that someone had come into the room to steal my roll of money, but after lying for a few moments, breathing evenly to pretend to be asleep, I realised this was not real. Still, the worried feeling that something was wrong held on to me. With an effort I raised my head from the pillow, and looked around me into the dark. I could not understand what it was. I looked at the dark shapes around me, the darker and lighter places that showed curtains, table, fireplace, bookshelves, and so on. Then I began to notice something strange in the shapes in the darkness. Had the bed turned round? Over there should be the bookshelves, and something covered and pale stood there, something that did not look like the bookshelves, no matter how I looked at it. It was far too big to be my shirt thrown on a chair.

Getting over a childish fear, I threw back the covers and stuck my leg out of bed. Instead of getting out of my low bed onto the floor, I found my foot could hardly reach the edge of the mattress. I took another step, in a way, and sat up on the edge of the bed. By the side of my bed there should be the candle, and the matches on the broken chair. I put out my hand and touched — nothing. I moved my hand in the dark, and it hit some heavy hanging, soft and thick, which made a rustling sound when I touched it. I took hold of this and pulled it; it seemed to be a curtain hanging over the head of my bed.

I was now completely awake, and starting to realize that I was in a strange room. I was confused. I tried to remember the things from last night, and I found them now, strangely enough, clear in my mind: the supper, my getting the small packages, my wondering whether I was drunk, my slow undressing, the cool feeling of my pillow on my hot face. I felt a sudden doubt. Was that last night, or the night before? Anyway, this room was strange to me, and I could not imagine how I had got into it.

The faint, pale shape was getting paler, and I saw it was a window, with the dark shape of an oval mirror against the weak light of the dawn that came through the blind. I stood up, and was surprised by a strange feeling of weakness and shakiness. With shaking hands held out, I walked slowly towards the window, still getting a bruise on the knee from a chair on the way. I felt around the glass, which was large, with fine metal candle holders, to find the blind cord. I could not find any. By accident I took hold of the tassel, and with the click of a spring the blind went up.

I found myself looking out at a scene that was very strange to me. The night was cloudy, and through the fluffy grey of the piled clouds a faint half-light of dawn came through. Just at the edge of the sky the cloud cover had a dark red rim. Below, everything was dark and unclear, dim hills in the distance, a shapeless mass of buildings rising up into points, trees like spilled ink, and below the window a pattern of black bushes and light grey paths. It was so strange that for the moment I thought I was still dreaming. I felt the dressing table; it seemed to be made of some polished wood, and was rather fancy — there were small glass bottles and a brush upon it. There was also a strange little object, it felt horse-shoe shaped, with smooth, hard bumps, lying in a saucer. I could find no matches or candlestick.

I turned my eyes to the room again. Now the blind was up, faint shapes of its furniture came out of the darkness. There was a very big bed with curtains, and the fireplace at the foot of the bed had a big white mantelpiece with a bit of the shine of marble.

I leaned against the dressing table, shut my eyes and opened them again, and tried to think. The whole thing was far too real to be a dream. I felt there was still some gap in my memory, because I had drunk that strange drink; that perhaps I had received my inheritance, and suddenly lost my memory of everything since my good luck had been told to me. Perhaps if I waited a little, things would be clearer to me again. Yet my dinner with old Elvesham was now very clear and recent. The champagne, the watching waiters, the powder, and the drinks — I was sure it all happened a few hours ago.

And then a thing happened so small and yet so terrible to me that I still shiver when I think of that moment. I spoke aloud. I said, “How did I get here?”… And the voice was not my own.

It was not my own, it was thin, my speech was unclear, the sound from the bones of my face was different. Then, to calm myself, I ran one hand over the other, and felt loose folds of skin, the bony looseness of age. “Surely,” I said, in that horrible voice that was somehow in my throat, “surely this thing is a dream!” Almost as quickly as if I did it without thinking, I pushed my fingers into my mouth. My teeth had gone. My finger-tips moved over the soft surface of an even row of shrunken gums. I felt sick with shock and disgust.

I felt then a strong wish to see myself, to understand at once in all its horror the terrible change that had happened to me. I walked unsteadily to the mantelpiece, and felt along it to find matches. As I did so, a harsh cough started in my throat, and I held tightly the thick flannel nightdress I found around me. There were no matches there, and I suddenly knew that my hands and feet were cold. Sniffing and coughing, perhaps crying a little, I felt my way back to bed. “It is surely a dream,” I whispered to myself as I climbed back, “surely a dream.” It was an old man’s repetition. I pulled the bedclothes over my shoulders, over my ears, I pushed my thin, old hand under the pillow, and decided to calm myself to sleep. Of course it was a dream. In the morning the dream would be over, and I would wake up strong and full of energy again, back to my youth and studies. I shut my eyes, breathed regularly, and, finding myself still awake, began to count slowly the powers of three.

But the thing I wanted would not come. I could not get to sleep. And the strong feeling that the change that had happened to me was real and could not be stopped grew slowly. Soon I found myself with my eyes wide open, the powers of three forgotten, and my skinny fingers on my dried-up gums, I was, in fact, suddenly and all at once, an old man. I had, in some way I could not explain, fallen through my life and come to old age, in some way I had been cheated out of all the best of my life, of love, of struggle, of strength, and hope. I pressed myself into the pillow and tried to make myself believe that seeing things like this was possible. Slowly, steadily, the dawn grew clearer.

At last, giving up trying to sleep more, I sat up in bed and looked about me. A cold early light made the whole room visible. It was large and well furnished, better furnished than any room I had ever slept in before. I could just see a candle and matches on a small stand in a small space in the wall. I threw back the blankets, and, shivering with the cold of the early morning, even though it was summer-time, I got out and lit the candle. Then, shaking badly, so that the candle extinguisher rattled on its holder, I walked unsteadily to the mirror and saw — Elvesham’s face! It was still terrible, even though I had already been a little afraid of it.

He had already seemed weak and sad to me, but seen now, dressed only in a rough flannel nightdress that fell open and showed the thin neck, seen now as my own body, I cannot say how terribly old and weak it was. The sunken cheeks, the thin tail of dirty grey hair, the watery, dim eyes, the shaking, dried-up lips, the lower showing a little of the pink inside, and those horrible dark gums showing. You who are mind and body together, at your natural years, cannot imagine what this cruel prison meant to me. To be young and full of the strong wish and energy of youth, and to be caught, and soon to be crushed in this shaking ruin of a body…

But I go off from the path of my story. For some time I must have been shocked at this change that had come upon me. It was daylight when I was calm enough to think. In some way I could not explain, I had been changed, though how, except by magic, the thing had been done, I could not say. And as I thought, the evil cleverness of Elvesham became clear to me. It seemed clear to me that as I found myself in his, so he must be in control of my body, of my strength, that is, and my future.

But how to prove it? Then, as I thought, the thing became so hard to believe, even to me, that I felt dizzy, and I had to pinch myself, to feel my toothless gums, to see myself in the mirror, and touch the things around me, before I could calm myself to face the facts again. Was all life only a dream? Was I really Elvesham, and was he me? Had I been dreaming of Eden overnight? Was there any Eden? But if I was Elvesham, I should remember where I was on the morning before, the name of the town where I lived, what happened before the dream began. I had trouble with my thoughts. I remembered the strange double feeling of my memories overnight. But now my mind was clear. I could not bring up even the smallest trace of any memories except those that belonged to Eden.

“This way leads to madness!” I cried in my high voice. I stumbled to my feet, dragged my weak, heavy arms and legs to the washstand, and put my grey head into a bowl of cold water. Then, drying myself with a towel, I tried again. It was no good. I was completely sure that I was truly Eden, not Elvesham. But Eden in Elvesham’s body!

If I had been a man of another time, I might have accepted my fate like one under a spell. But in these doubtful days miracles are not believed. This was some trick of the mind. What a drug and a fixed look could do, a drug and a fixed look, or something like that, could surely undo. Men have lost their memories before. But to swap memories as people swap umbrellas! I laughed. Sadly! not a healthy laugh, but a wheezing, old giggle. I could imagine old Elvesham laughing at my trouble, and a sudden, childish anger, unusual to me, went through my feelings. I began dressing eagerly in the clothes I found lying about on the floor, and only realised when I was dressed that it was an evening suit I had put on. I opened the wardrobe and found some more ordinary clothes, a pair of checked trousers, and an old-style dressing-gown. I put a very old smoking-cap on my very old head, and, coughing a little from my efforts, wobbled out upon the landing.

It was then, perhaps, a quarter to six, and the blinds were pulled down tight and the house quite silent. The landing was a large one, a wide staircase with a thick carpet went down into the dark hall below, and in front of me a half-open door showed me a writing desk, a bookcase that could turn, the back of a desk chair, and a fine lot of books in covers, shelf after shelf.

“My study,” I said quietly, and walked across the top of the stairs. Then, when I heard my own voice, I had an idea, and I went back to the bedroom and put in the set of false teeth. They went in easily, as before. “That’s better,” I said, biting them together, and then went back to the study.

The drawers of the writing-desk were locked. Its top that turns was also locked. I could see no sign of the keys, and there were none in the pockets of my pants. I went back at once to the bedroom, and looked through the dress suit, and then the pockets of all the clothes I could find. I was very eager, and one might have thought that thieves had been there, to see my room when I was done. There were no keys to be found, not a coin, nor a small piece of paper — only the paid bill for last night’s dinner.

A strange tiredness came over me. I sat down and stared at the clothes thrown here and there, their pockets turned inside out. My first panic had already faded. Every moment I began to understand the great cleverness of the plans of my enemy, to see more and more clearly how hopeless my situation was. With an effort I got up and hurried, limping, into the study again. On the staircase was a housemaid pulling up the blinds. She stared, I think, at the look on my face. I shut the door of the study behind me, and, grabbing a poker, began to attack the desk.

That is how they found me. The cover of the desk was broken, the lock was broken, the letters were pulled out of the little boxes, and thrown around the room. In my old anger I had thrown around the pens and other such light office things, and spilled the ink. Also, a large vase on the shelf over the fireplace was broken — I do not know how. I could find no check book, no money, no signs of any use to get back my body. I was hitting the drawers madly, when the butler, with two women servants behind him, came in on me.

That is simply the story of my change. No one will believe my wild claims. I am treated as someone mad, and even at this moment I am being kept under control. But I am sane, completely sane, and to prove it I have sat down to write this story in every small detail as the things happened to me. I ask the reader if there is any sign of madness in the style or way of the story he has been reading. I am a young man locked away in an old man’s body. But the plain fact is unbelievable to everyone. Of course I look mad to those who will not believe this, of course I do not know the names of my secretaries, of the doctors who come to see me, of my servants and neighbours, of this town (wherever it is) where I find myself. Of course I lose myself in my own house, and suffer troubles of every kind. Of course I ask the strangest questions. Of course I weep and cry out, and have fits of deep sadness.