Phantastes, A Faerie Romance - Page 20/147

At length she was for a moment almost entirely obscured. When she shone

out again, with a brilliancy increased by the contrast, I saw plainly

on the path before me--from around which at this spot the trees receded,

leaving a small space of green sward--the shadow of a large hand, with

knotty joints and protuberances here and there. Especially I remarked,

even in the midst of my fear, the bulbous points of the fingers. I

looked hurriedly all around, but could see nothing from which such

a shadow should fall. Now, however, that I had a direction, however

undetermined, in which to project my apprehension, the very sense of

danger and need of action overcame that stifling which is the worst

property of fear. I reflected in a moment, that if this were indeed a

shadow, it was useless to look for the object that cast it in any other

direction than between the shadow and the moon. I looked, and peered,

and intensified my vision, all to no purpose. I could see nothing of

that kind, not even an ash-tree in the neighbourhood. Still the shadow

remained; not steady, but moving to and fro, and once I saw the fingers

close, and grind themselves close, like the claws of a wild animal, as

if in uncontrollable longing for some anticipated prey. There seemed

but one mode left of discovering the substance of this shadow. I went

forward boldly, though with an inward shudder which I would not heed, to

the spot where the shadow lay, threw myself on the ground, laid my head

within the form of the hand, and turned my eyes towards the moon Good

heavens! what did I see? I wonder that ever I arose, and that the very

shadow of the hand did not hold me where I lay until fear had frozen my

brain. I saw the strangest figure; vague, shadowy, almost transparent,

in the central parts, and gradually deepening in substance towards the

outside, until it ended in extremities capable of casting such a shadow

as fell from the hand, through the awful fingers of which I now saw the

moon. The hand was uplifted in the attitude of a paw about to strike

its prey. But the face, which throbbed with fluctuating and pulsatory

visibility--not from changes in the light it reflected, but from changes

in its own conditions of reflecting power, the alterations being from

within, not from without--it was horrible. I do not know how to describe

it. It caused a new sensation. Just as one cannot translate a horrible

odour, or a ghastly pain, or a fearful sound, into words, so I cannot

describe this new form of awful hideousness. I can only try to describe

something that is not it, but seems somewhat parallel to it; or at least

is suggested by it. It reminded me of what I had heard of vampires; for

the face resembled that of a corpse more than anything else I can

think of; especially when I can conceive such a face in motion, but

not suggesting any life as the source of the motion. The features were

rather handsome than otherwise, except the mouth, which had scarcely a

curve in it. The lips were of equal thickness; but the thickness was

not at all remarkable, even although they looked slightly swollen. They

seemed fixedly open, but were not wide apart. Of course I did not REMARK

these lineaments at the time: I was too horrified for that. I noted them

afterwards, when the form returned on my inward sight with a vividness

too intense to admit of my doubting the accuracy of the reflex. But the

most awful of the features were the eyes. These were alive, yet not with

life.