rtrait he had bought, and which he had
completely forgotten. The bright moonbeams, streaming into the room,
partially illuminated the picture, and gave it a strange air of reality.
By the clear cold light Tchartkoff set to work to examine and clean his
purchase. When the coat of dust and filth that incrusted it was removed,
he hung the picture upon the wall, and, retiring to look at it, was more
than ever astounded at its extraordinary character and power. The
countenance seemed lighted up by the fierce and glittering eyes, which
looked out of the picture so wonderfully, and assumed, as it seemed to
him, such strange and varied and terrible expression, that he at last
involuntarily turned away his own, unable to support the gaze of the old
Asiatic. Then came into his mind a story he had once heard from his
professor, of a certain portrait of the famous Leonardo da Vinci, at
which the great master worked for many years, still counting it
unfinished, and which, nevertheless, according to Vasari, was
universally considered the most perfect and finished production of art.
But the most exquisitely finished part of it were the eyes, which
excited the wonder of all contemporaries; even the minute and almost
invisible veins were exactly rendered and put upon the canvass. But
here, on the other hand, in the portrait before him, there was something
strange and horrid. This was not art: the eyes absolutely destroyed the
harmony of the portrait. They were living, they were human eyes! They
seemed to have been cut out of a living man's face and stuck in the
picture. Instead of admiration, the portrait inspired a painful feeling
of oppression; the beholder was seized with a sort of waking nightmare,
weighing upon and overwhelming him like a moral and mysterious incubus.

Shaking off this feeling, Tchartkoff again approached the portrait, and
forced himself to gaze steadily upon its eyes. They were still fixed
upon him. He changed his place; the eyes followed him. To whatever part
of the room he removed, he met their deep malignant glance. They seemed
animated with the unnatural sort of life one might expect to find in the
eyes of a corpse, newly recalled to existence by the spell of some
potent sorcerer. In spite of his better reason, which reproached him for
his weakness, Tchartkoff felt an inexplicable impression, which made him
unwilling to remain alone in the room. He retired softly from the
portrait, turned his eyes in a differen