As I put my foot over the threshold, I
became aware of the figure of a youth about my own height, and habited
in a white kerseymere morning frock, cut in the novel fashion of the
one I myself wore at the moment. This the faint light enabled me to
perceive; but the features of his face I could not distinguish. Upon
my entering he strode hurriedly up to me, and, seizing me by. the
arm with a gesture of petulant impatience, whispered the words
"William Wilson!" in my ear.
I grew perfectly sober in an instant.
There was that in the manner of the stranger, and in the tremulous
shake of his uplifted finger, as he held it between my eyes and the
light, which filled me with unqualified amazement; but it was not this
which had so violently moved me. It was the pregnancy of solemn
admonition in the singular, low, hissing utterance; and, above all, it
was the character, the tone, the key, of those few, simple, and
familiar, yet whispered syllables, which came with a thousand
thronging memories of bygone days, and struck upon my soul with the
shock of a galvanic battery.
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