lf Spinoza was telling the truth, I reflected with a smile, then I am to die this night to the accompaniment of these moans. What a gruesome thought!
I lit a match . . . A violent gust of wind raced across the roof. The quiet moaning turned to a ferocious roar. Somewhere down below a half-loose shutter started banging, and the damper began whining plaintivcly for help . . .
Pity the poor devils, I thought, without a roof over their heads on a night like this.
The moment was to prove inopportune, however, for reflections of that kind. When the sulphur of my match flared up with a blue flame and I looked round the room, an unexpected, a terrifying spectacle met my cyes . .. Oh, why didn't thatgustofwind blow out my match? Then perhaps I should have secn nothing and my hair would not have stood on end. I gave a wild cry, took a step back- wards towards the door, and filled with terror, amazement and despair, closed my eyes . . .
In the centre of the room stood a coffin.
The blue flame did not last long, but I had time to make out the coffin's main features ... I saw its richly shimmering pink brocade, I saw the gold-embroidered cross on its lid. There are certain things, my friends, which imprint thcmselves on one's memory, evcn when one has glimpsed them but for a single moment. So it was with that coffin. I saw it but for a second, yet I recall it in the most minute detail. It was a coffin made for a person of medium height, and judging by the pink colour, for a young girl. The expensive silk brocadc, the feet, the bronze handles - all these suggested that the deceased came from a wealthy family.
I rushed headlong from my room, not stopping to think or con- sider but experiencing only unutterable fear, and flew downstairs. The staircase and corridors were in darkness, I kept tripping over my coat-tails, and how I avoided tumbling head-over-heels down the stairs and breaking my neck, I shall never know. Finding myself in the street, l leant up against a wet lamp-post and tried to recover my composure. My heart was thumping horribly and I had a tight feeling across the chest . . .'
One of the listeners turned up the lamp and moved her chair closer to the narrator, who continued:
'I would not have been so taken aback if I had discovered in my room a fire, a thief or a mad dog ... I would not have been so taken aback if the ceiling had come down, the floor had collapsed or the walls had caved in ... All th.it is natural and comprehensible. But how could a coffin have turned up in my room? Where had it come from? How had an expensive coffin, evidently made for a young girl of noble birth, found its way into the miserable room of a minor civil servant? Was the coffin empty or was it - occupied? And who was this she, this rich young aristocrat who had quitted life so prema- turely and paid me this dread, disturbing visit? It was a tantalising mystery!
If it's not a case of the supernatural, the thought flashed through my mind, then there's foul play involved.
I became lost in conjecture. My door had been locked while I was out, and only my very close friends knew where I kept the key. But the coffin certainly hadn't been left by friends. Then it was also conceivable that the undertakers had delivered the coffin to me in error. They might have muddled up the names, mistaken the floor number or the door, and taken the coffin to the wrong place. But who ever heard of Moscow undertakers leaving a room without being paid, or at least waiting for a tip?
The spirits foretold my death, I thought. Perhaps they've already set about providing me with a coffin, too?
I am not a believer in spiritualism, my friends, nor was I then, but such a coincidence is enough to plunge even a philosopher into a mood of mysticism.
But all this is absurd, I decided, and I'm being as cowardly as a schoolboy. It was an optical illusion-no more than that! On my way home I was in such a gloomy state of mind that it's hardly surprising my overv.:rought nerves thought they saw a coffin . . . Of course, an optical illusion! What else could it be?
The rain was lashing my face, and the wind kept tugging angrily at my hat and coat-tails ... I was wet through and chilled to the bone. I would have to find shelter - but where? To go back home would mean running the risk of seeing the coffin again, and that was a spectacle beyond my powers of endurance. Not seeing a single living soul or hearing a single human sound around me, left alone in the company ofa coffin which perhaps contained a dead body, I might easily lose my reason. But to remain on the street in the cold and pouring rain was equally impossible.
I decided to go and spend the night with my friend Lugubrovitch (who, as you know, was later to shoot himself). He lived in a block of furnished rooms belonging to the merchant Skeletoff - the ones on the corner of Deadman's Passage.'
Spektroff wiped away the beads of cold perspiration that had
gathered on his pallid brow, and with a deep sigh continued:
'I did not find my friend at home. After knocking on his door and deciding he must be out, I felt for his key on the lintel, unlocked the door and went in. I flung my wet coat on the floor, and feeling my way to the sofa, sat down to recuperate. It was very dark . . . The wind droned mournfully in the ventilator. Behind the stove a cricket chirped over and over again its monotonous song. The Kremlin bells had begun to ring for Christmas morning communion. Hastily I struck a match. But its light did not dispel my gloomy mood; on the contrary. A dreadful, unutterable terror seized me again . . . I cried out, staggered backwards, and rushed blindly from the apartment . ..
In my friend's room I had seen the same as in my own - a coffin!
My friend's coffin was almost twice as large as mine, and its subfusc upholstery gave it a peculiarly gloomy appearance. How had it got there? That it was an optical illusion now seemed quite certain - there couldn't be a coffin in every room! I was obviously suffering from a nervous disorder, from hallucinations. Wherever I now went, I would see before me the dreadful dwelling-place of death. In other words I was going mad, I was suffering from a kind of "cof- finomania", and the cause ofmy derangement was not hard to find: I had only to recall the spiritualist seance and the words ofSpinoza . . .
I'm going mad! I thought to myself with terror, clutching my head. Oh my God! What am I to do?!
My head was splitting and my knees shaking . . . The rain was pouring down in buckets, the wind was piercing right through me, and I had neither coat nor hat. To go back to the apartment for them was impossible, beyond my powers of endurance . . . Fear gripped me firmly in her cold embrace. My hair was standing on end and cold perspiration streamed down my face, even though I believed that the coffin was only an hallucination.'
'What was I to do?' Spektroffcontinued. 'I was going mad and in danger of catching a violent cold. Fortunately I remembered that not far from Deadman's Passage lived my good friend Kryptin, a recently qualified doctor, who had also been at the seance with me that night. I hurried round to his place. This was before he married his merchant heiress, and he was still living on the fourth floor ofa house belong- ing to state counsellor Nekropolsky.
At Kryptin's my nerves were fated to undergo yet another ordeal. As I was climbing to the fourth floor, I heard above me a terrible din of running footsteps and slamming doors.
"Help!" I heard a soul-piercing cry. "Help! Porter!"
And a moment later a dark figure in a coat and battered top-hat came hurtling down the stairs towards me ...
"Kryptin!" I exclaimed, recognising my friend. "Is that you, Kryp- tin? Whatever's wrong?"