lighting up of the theatre in which was
to be exhibited the monotonous tableau of horror, which made my nights
insupportable, my attention invariably became, I know not why, fixed
upon the windows opposite the foot of my bed; and, uniformly with the
same effect, a sense of dreadful anticipation always took slow but sure
possession of me. I became somehow conscious of a sort of horrid but
undefined preparation going forward in some unknown quarter, and by some
unknown agency, for my torment; and, after an interval, which always
seemed to me of the same length, a picture suddenly flew up to the
window, where it remained fixed, as if by an electrical attraction, and
my discipline of horror then commenced, to last perhaps for hours. The
picture thus mysteriously glued to the window-panes, was the portrait of
an old man, in a crimson flowered silk dressing-gown, the folds of which
I could now describe, with a countenance embodying a strange mixture of
intellect, sensuality, and power, but withal sinister and full of
malignant omen. His nose was hooked, like the beak of a vulture; his
eyes large, grey, and prominent, and lighted up with a more than mortal
cruelty and coldness. These features were surmounted by a crimson velvet
cap, the hair that peeped from under which was white with age, while the
eyebrows retained their original blackness. Well I remember every line,
hue, and shadow of that stony countenance, and well I may! The gaze of
this hellish visage was fixed upon me, and mine returned it with the
inexplicable fascination of nightmare, for what appeared to me to be
hours of agony. At last----

The cock he crew, away then flew

the fiend who had enslaved me through the awful watches of the night;
and, harassed and nervous, I rose to the duties of the day.

I had--I can't say exactly why, but it may have been from the exquisite
anguish and profound impressions of unearthly horror, with which this
strange phantasmagoria was associated--an insurmountable antipathy to
describing the exact nature of my nightly troubles to my friend and
comrade. Generally, however, I told him that I was haunted by abominable
dreams; and, true to the imputed materialism of medicine, we put our
heads together to dispel my horrors, not by exorcism, but by a tonic.

I will do this tonic justice, and frankly admit that the accursed
portrait began to intermit its visits under its influence. What of that?
Was this singular apparition--as ful