The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain / Одержимый, или Сделка с призраком. Книга для чтения на английском языке

An awful survey, in a lonely and remote part of an empty old pile of building, on a winter night, with the loud wind going by upon its journey of mystery – whence or whither, no man knowing since the world began – and the stars, in unimaginable millions, glittering through it, from eternal space, where the world’s bulk is as a grain, and its hoary age is infancy.

“Look upon me!” said the Spectre. “I am he, neglected in my youth, and miserably poor, who strove and suffered, and still strove and suffered, until I hewed out knowledge from the mine where it was buried, and made rugged steps thereof, for my worn feet to rest and rise on.

”

“I AM that man,” returned the Chemist.

“No mother’s self-denying love,” pursued the Phantom, “no father’s counsel, aided ME. A stranger came into my father’s place when I was but a child, and I was easily an alien from my mother’s heart. My parents, at the best, were of that sort whose care soon ends, and whose duty is soon done; who cast their offspring loose, early, as birds do theirs; and, if they do well, claim the merit; and, if ill, the pity.

”

It paused, and seemed to tempt and goad him with its look, and with the manner of its speech, and with its smile.

“I am he,” pursued the Phantom, “who, in this struggle upward, found a friend. I made him – won him – bound him to me! We worked together, side by side. All the love and confidence that in my earlier youth had had no outlet, and found no expression, I bestowed on him.

”

“Not all,” said Redlaw, hoarsely.

“No, not all,” returned the Phantom. “I had a sister.”

The haunted man, with his head resting on his hands, replied “I had!” The Phantom, with an evil smile, drew closer to the chair, and resting its chin upon its folded hands, its folded hands upon the back, and looking down into his face with searching eyes, that seemed instinct with fire, went on:

“Such glimpses of the light of home as I had ever known, had streamed from her.

How young she was, how fair, how loving! I took her to the first poor roof that I was master of, and made it rich. She came into the darkness of my life, and made it bright. – She is before me!”

“I saw her, in the fire, but now. I hear her in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night,” returned the haunted man.

“DID he love her?” said the Phantom, echoing his contemplative tone. “I think he did, once. I am sure he did.