r, which was just now longer than usual,
was evenly parted in the middle, like a girl's, and, combed out
straight, fell down to his shoulders on either side. All this care
and neatness of dress made the contrast of his face stand out the
more strikingly. Its pallor was ghastly: no other word conveys the
idea of it. His lips kept asunder, as we see them sometimes in
persons prostrated by long illness, and the nether one quivered
incessantly, as did the smaller facial muscles near the mouth. His
eyes were sunken and surrounded by livid circles, but they themselves
seemed consuming with the dry and thirsty fire of fever: hot, red,
staring, they glided ever to and fro with a snake-like motion, as
uncertain, wild, and painful, in their unresting search, as those of
a wounded and captive hawk. The same restlessness, approaching in
violence the ceaseless spasmodic habit of a confirmed Chorea,
betrayed itself in all his movements, particularly in a way he had of
glancing over his shoulder with a stealthy look of apprehension, and
the frequent starts and shivers that interrupted him when talking.
His voice also was changed, and in every way he gave evidence not
only of disease of mind and body, but of a nervous system shattered
almost beyond hope of reaction and recovery. Trembling for him, I
rose and attempted to speak with him aside, but he waived me off,
saying, with that sickly smile which I had never before seen him
wear,--

"No, Ned,--you must not interrupt me to-night, neither you nor the
rest,--for I am very weak and nervous and ill, and just now need all
my strength for my picture, which, as it has cost me labor and
pain,--much pain,--I wish to show in its best light. Macbeth's
terror--it means more than it did the other night, Ned--but"--

Here he murmured an inarticulate word or two, recovering himself
almost instantly, however, and resuming in a stronger voice,--

"Macbeth's doom is my picture. You will wonder I preferred the solid
wall to canvas, perhaps,--but so did the genuine old artists. Lippo
Lippi, and Giotto, and--why, Orcagna painted on graveyard walls; and
I can almost fancy, sometimes, that this room is a vault, a tomb, a
dungeon, where they torture people. Turn to the place, good Mac,
Shakespeare's tragedy of 'Macbeth,' Act Third, Scene Fourth, and read
the scene to us, as you know how to read; I will manage the
accompaniments."

As he spoke, he touched the salver with a lighted match, so that a
blu