H. G. Wells - "The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham" - 1896

🎧 H.G. Wells - "The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham" (1896) 🕰️🕯️

A dark tale of identity, deception, and a chilling exchange of lives! 🌌✨ Edward Eden, a young and impoverished student, is offered the chance of a lifetime by the wealthy and enigmatic Mr. Elvesham: to inherit his fortune in exchange for becoming his heir. 💼💰 But when Eden wakes up the next morning, he discovers the horrifying truth—his body has been swapped with that of the old man. 🪞👴Trapped in a withering body, Eden realizes he has been betrayed into a living nightmare. Haunted by the loss of his youth and powerless to reverse the sinister exchange, he spirals toward a tragic end. 🌒⚰️H.G. Wells masterfully weaves themes of greed, mortality, and the fragility of self into this gripping Gothic narrative. Both thought-provoking and deeply unsettling, it asks: What would you sacrifice for wealth, and how far would someone go to escape death? 💭⏳A chilling exploration of ambition and the price of another man’s life. 🕯️🖤

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
H. G. Wells, The Story of the Late Mister Elsham,
published in eighteen ninety six. I set this story down,
not expecting it will be believed, but if possible, to
prepare a way of escape for the next victim. He
perhaps may profit by my misfortune. My own case, I know,

(00:23):
is hopeless, and I am now in some measure prepared
to meet my fate. My name is Edward George Eden.
I was born at Trentam in Staffordshire, my father being
employed in the gardens there. I lost my mother when
I was three years old, and my father when I
was five. My uncle, George Eden, then adopting me as

(00:45):
his own son. He was a single man, self educated
and well known in Birmingham as an enterprising journalist. He
educated me generously, fired my ambition to succeed in the world,
and at his death, which happened four years ago, left
me his entire fortune, a matter of about five hundred
pounds after all outgoing charges were paid. I was then eighteen.

(01:10):
He advised me in his will to expend the money
in completing my education. I had already chosen the profession
of medicine, and through his posthumous generosity and my good
fortune in a scholarship competition. I became a medical student
at University College London. At the time of the beginning
of my story, I lodged at eleven a University Street,

(01:31):
in a little upper room, very shabbily furnished and drafty,
overlooking the back of Sholbred's premises. I used this little
room both to live in and sleep in, because I
was anxious to eke out my means to the very
last shillingsworth. I was taking a pair of shoes to
be mended at a shop in the Tottenham Court Road
when I first encountered the little old man with the

(01:53):
yellow face, with whom my life has now become so
inextricably entangled. He was standing on the curb and staring
at the number on the door in a doubtful way.
As I opened it, his eyes, they were dull, gray
eyes and reddish under the rims, fell to my face,
and his countenance immediately assumed an expression of corrugated amiability.

(02:16):
You come, he said, apt to the moment I had
forgotten the number of your house. How do you do,
mister Eden. I was a little astonished at his familiar address,
for I had never set eyes on the man before.
I was a little annoyed too at his catching me
with my boots under my arm. He noticed my lack

(02:38):
of cordiality. Wonder who the deuce I am? Eh, a friend.
Let me assure you I have seen you before, though
you haven't seen me. Is there anywhere where I can
talk to you? I hesitated. The shabbiness of my room
upstairs was not a matter for every stranger. Perhaps, said I.

(03:02):
We might walk down the street. I'm unfortunately prevented my gesture,
explained the sentence before I had spoken it. The very
thing he said, and faced this way, and then that
the street. Which way shall we go? I slipped my
boots down in the passage. Look here, he said abruptly.

(03:26):
This business of mine is a rigmarole. Come and lunch
with me, mister Eden. I'm an old man, a very
old man, and not good at explanations. And what with
my piping voice and the clatter of the traffic, he
laid a persuasive, skinny hand that trembled a little upon
my arm. I was not so old that an old

(03:47):
man might not treat me to a lunch. Yet at
the same time I was not altogether pleased by this
abrupt invitation. I had rather, I began, But I had rather,
he said, me up, and a certain civility is surely
due to my gray hairs, And so I consented and
went with him. He took me to Blavitiski's. I had

(04:11):
to walk slowly to accommodate myself to his paces, and
over such a lunch as I had never tasted before,
he fended off my leading question, and I took a
better note of his appearance. His clean shaven face was
lean and wrinkled. His shriveled lips fell over a set
of false teeth, and his white hair was thin and
rather long. He seemed small to me, though indeed most

(04:33):
people seemed small to me, and his shoulders were rounded
and bent, and watching him, I could not help but
observe that he too was taking note of me, running
his eyes with a curious touch of greed in them,
over me, from my broad shoulders to my son tanned hands,
and up to my freckled face again. And now, said he,

(04:53):
as we lit our cigarettes, I must tell you of
the business in hand. I must tell you then that
I am an old man, a very old man. He
paused momentarily, and it happens that I have money that
I must presently be leaving, and never a child have
I to leave it to. I thought of the confidence trick,

(05:14):
and resolved I would be on the alert for the
vestiges of my five hundred pounds. He proceeded to enlarge
on his loneliness and the trouble he had to find
a proper disposition of his money. I have weighed this
plan and that plan, charities, institutions, and scholarships and libraries,
and I have come to this conclusion at last, he

(05:36):
fixed his eyes on my face, that I will find
some young fellow, ambitious, pure minded, and poor, healthy in
body and healthy in mind, and in short make him
my heir. Give him all that I have, he repeated,
Give him all that I have, so that he will
suddenly be lifted out of all the trouble and struggle

(05:57):
in which his sympathies have been educated to freedom and influence.
I tried to seem disinterested with a transparent hypocrisy, I said,
and you want my help, My professional services may be
to find that person. He smiled and looked at me
over his cigarette, and I laughed at his quiet exposure

(06:18):
of my modest pretense, what a career such a man
might have, He said. It fills me with envy to
think how I have accumulated that another man may spend.
But there are conditions, of course, burdens to be imposed.
He must, for instance, take my name. You cannot expect

(06:41):
everything without some return. And I must go into all
the circumstances of his life before I can accept him.
He must be sound. I must know his heredity, how
his parents and grandparents died, have the strictest inquiries made
into his private morals. This modified my secret congratulations a little.

(07:03):
And do I understand? Said I that I yes, He said,
almost fiercely. You you, I answered, never a word. My
imagination was dancing wildly. My innate skepticism was useless to
modify its transports. There was not a particle of gratitude

(07:24):
in my mind. I did not know what to say,
nor how to say it. But why me in particular?
I said, At last he had chanced to hear of
me from Professor Haslar. He said, as a typically sound,
insane young man, and he wished as far as possible
to leave his money where health and integrity were assured.

(07:47):
That was my first meeting with the little old man.
He was mysterious about himself. He would not give his
name yet, he said, And after I had answered some
questions of his, he left me at the Blavitiski portal.
I noticed that he drew a handful of gold coins
from his pocket when it came to paying for the lunch.

(08:07):
His insistence upon bodily health was curious. In accordance with
an arrangement we had made, I applied that day for
a life policy in the Loyal Insurance Company for a
large sum, and I was exhaustively overhauled by the medical
advisers of that company in the subsequent week. Even that
did not satisfy him, and he insisted I must be

(08:27):
re examined by the great doctor Henderson. It was Friday
in whitsun week before he came to a decision. He
called me down quite late in the evening, nearly nine.
It was from cramming chemical equations for my preliminary scientific examination.
He was standing in the passage under the feeble gas lamp,

(08:48):
and his face was a grotesque interplay of shadows. He
seemed more bowed than when I had first seen him,
and his cheeks had sunk in a little his voice
shook with an Everything is satisfactory, mister Eden, he said,
everything is quite quite satisfactory, and this night, of all nights,

(09:10):
you must dine with me and celebrate your accession. He
was interrupted by a cough. You won't have long to wait, either,
he said, wiping his handkerchief across his lips and gripping
my hand with his long bony claw that was disengaged. Certainly,
not very long to wait. We went into the street

(09:31):
and called a cab. I remember every incident of that
drive vividly, the swift, easy motion, the vivid contrast of
gas and oil and electric light, the crowds of people
in the streets, the place in Regent Street to which
we went, and the sumptuous dinner we were served with there.
I was disconcerted at first by the well dressed waiter's

(09:52):
glances at my rough clothes, bothered by the stones of
the olives. But as the champagne warmed my blood, my
confidence revived. At first the old man talked of himself.
He had already told me his name in the cab.
He was Egbert Elvesham, the great philosopher, whose name I
had known since I was a lad at school. It

(10:14):
seemed incredible to me that this man, whose intelligence had
so early dominated mine, this great abstraction, should suddenly realize
itself as this decrepit familiar figure. I dare say, every
young fellow who has suddenly fallen among celebrities has felt
something of my disappointment. He told me now of the future,

(10:34):
that the feeble streams of his life would presently leave
dry for me houses, copyrights, investments. I had never suspected
that philosophers were so rich. He watched me drink and
eat with a touch of envy. What a capacity for
living you have, he said, and then with a sigh,
a sigh of relief. I could have thought it. It

(10:56):
will not be long, I said I, my head swimming
now with champagne. I have a future, perhaps of a passing,
agreeable sort. Thanks to you, I shall now have the
honor of your name. But you have a past, such
a past as is worth all my future. He shook

(11:17):
his head and smiled, as I thought, with half sad
appreciation of my flattering admiration. That future, he said, would you,
in truth change it? The waiter came with liqueurs. You
will not perhaps mind taking my name, taking my position
but would you indeed willingly take my years with your achievements,

(11:39):
said I gallantly. He smiled again. Cummel both, he said
to the waiter, and turned his attention to a little
paper packet he had taken from his pocket. This hour,
said he, This after dinner hour is the hour of
small things. Here is a scrap of my unpublished wisdom.

(12:00):
He opened the packet with his shaking yellow fingers, and
showed a little pinkish powder on the paper. This, said he, Well,
you must guess what it is. But Cummel, put but
a dash of this powder in it is Himmel. His
large grayish eyes watched mine with an inscrutable expression. It

(12:22):
was a bit of a shock to me to find
this great teacher gave his mind to the flavor of liqueurs. However,
I feigned an interest in his weakness, for I was
drunk enough for such small sycophancy. He parted the powder
between the little glasses, and, rising suddenly, with a strange,
unexpected dignity, held out his hand towards me. I imitated

(12:45):
his action, and the glasses rang to a quick succession,
said he, and raised his glass towards his lips. Not
that I said hastily, not that he paused with there
at the level of his chin, and his eyes blazing
into mine. To a long life, said I. He hesitated

(13:10):
to a long life, said he, with a sudden bark
of laughter, and with eyes fixed on one another, we
tilted the little glasses. His eyes looked straight into mine,
And as I drained the stuff off, I felt a
curiously intense sensation. The first touch of it set my
brain in a furious tumult. I seemed to feel an
actual physical stirring in my skull, and a seething humming

(13:32):
filled my ears. I did not notice the flavor in
my mouth, the aroma that filled my throat. I saw
only the gray intensity of his gaze that burnt into mine.
The draft, the mental confusion, the noise and stirring in
my head seemed to last an interminable time. Curious, vague
impressions of half forgotten things danced and vanished on the

(13:55):
edge of my consciousness. At last, he broke the spell
with a sudden, explosive sigh. He put down his glass. Well,
he said, it's glorious, said I, though I had not
tasted the stuff. My head was spinning. I sat down

(14:16):
my brain was chaos. Then my perception grew clear and minute,
as though I saw things in a concave mirror. His
manner seemed to have changed into something nervous and hasty.
He pulled out his watch and grimaced at it. Eleven
seven and to night. I must seven twenty five waterloo,

(14:38):
I must go at once. He called for the bill
and struggled with his coat. Officious waiters came to our assistance.
In another moment, I was wishing him good bye over
the apron of a cab, and still with an absurd
feeling of minute distinctness, as though how can I express it?
I not only saw, but felt through an inverted opera glass.

(15:02):
That's stuff, he said. He put his hand to his forehead.
I ought not to have given it to you. It
will make your head split tomorrow. Wait a minute. Here
he handed me out a little flat thing like a
sedlet's powder. Take that in water as you are going
to bed. The other thing was a drug. Not till

(15:25):
you're ready to go to bed. Mind, it will clear
your head. That's all. One more shake, futuris, I gripped
his shriveled claw. Good Bye, he said, and by the
droop of his eyelids. I judged he too, was a
little under the influence of that brain twisting cordial. He

(15:47):
recollected something else with a start felt in his breast pocket,
and produced another packet, this time a cylinder the size
and shape of a shaving stick. Here, said he, I'd
almost forgotten. Don't open this until I come tomorrow, but
take it now. It was so heavy that I well

(16:07):
nigh dropped it all rea, said I, and he grinned
at me through the cab window as the cabman flicked
his horse into wakefulness. It was a white packet he
had given me, with red seals at either end and
along its edge. If this isn't money, said I, it's
platinum or lead. I stuck it with elaborate care into

(16:29):
my pocket, and with a whirling brain, walked home through
the Regent Street loiterers and the dark back streets beyond
Portland Road. I remember the sensations of that walk, very vividly,
strange as they were. I was still so far myself
that I could notice my strange mental state and wonder
whether this stuff I had had was opium, a drug

(16:49):
beyond my experience. It is hard now to describe the
peculiarity of my mental strangeness. Mental doubling vaguely expresses it.
As I was walking up Regent Street, I found in
my mind a queer persuasion that it was Waterloo Station,
and had an odd impulse to get into the Polytechnic,
as a man might get into a train. I put

(17:11):
a knuckle in my eye, and it was Regent Street.
How can I express it? You see a skillful actor
looking quietly at you. He pulls a grimace and lo
another person. Is it too extravagant if I tell you that?
It seemed to me as if Regent Street had for
the moment done that. Then, being persuaded it was Regent

(17:33):
Street again, I was oddly muddled about some fantastic reminiscences
that cropped up thirty years ago, thought I it was
here that I quarreled with my brother. Then I burst
out laughing, to the astonishment and encouragement of a group
of night prowlers. Thirty years ago. I did not exist,
and never in my life had I boasted a brother.

(17:55):
The stuff was surely liquid folly for the poignant regret
for that lost brother's still clung to me. Along Portland roade.
The madness took another turn. I began to recall vanished
shops and to compare the street with what it used
to be. Confused, troubled thinking is comprehensible enough after the
drink I had taken. But what puzzled me were these

(18:18):
curiously vivid phantasm memories that had crept into my mind.
And not only the memories that had crept in, but
also the memories that had slipped out. I stopped opposite
Stephen's the Natural History Dealers, and cudgeled my brains to
think what he had to do with me. A bus
went by and sounded exactly like the rumbling of a train.

(18:40):
I seemed to be dipping into some dark, remote pit
for the recollection, of course, said I. At last he
has promised me three frogs tomorrow. Odd, I should have forgotten.
Do they still show children dissolving views? In those I remember,
one view would begin like a faint ghost and grow
announced another. In just that way, it seemed to me

(19:04):
that a ghostly set of new sensations was struggling with
those of my ordinary self. I went on through Euston
Road to Tottenham Court Road, puzzled and a little frightened
and scarcely noticed the unusual way I was taking. For
commonly I used to cut through the intervening network of
back streets. I turned into University Street to discover that

(19:25):
I had forgotten my number. Only by a strong effort
did I recall eleven A, and even then it seemed
to me that it was a thing some forgotten person
had told me. I tried to steady my mind by
recalling the incidents of the dinner, and for the life
of me, I could conjure up no picture of my
host's face. I saw him only as a shadowy outline,

(19:46):
as one might see one's self reflected in a window
through which one was looking in his place. However, I
had a curious exterior vision of myself sitting at a table, flushed,
bright eyed, and talkative. I must take this other, powder,
said I. This is getting impossible. I tried the wrong

(20:07):
side of the hall for my candle and the matches,
and had a doubt of which landing my room might
be on. I'm drunk, I said, that's certain, and blundered
needlessly on the staircase to sustain the proposition. At the
first glance, my room seemed unfamiliar what rot I said

(20:27):
and stared about me. I seemed to bring myself back
by the effort, and the odd phantasmal quality passed into
the concrete familiar. There was the old glass still with
my notes on the albumen stuck in the corner of
the frame, my old every day suit of clothes pitched
about the floor. And yet it was not so real.
After all. I felt an idiotic persuasion trying to creep

(20:52):
into my mind, as it were that I was in
a railway carriage, in a train just stopping. That I
was peering out of the window at some unknown station.
I gripped the bed rail firmly to reassure myself. It's clairvoyance, perhaps,
I said, I must write to the Psychical Research Society.

(21:12):
I put the rouleau on my dressing table, sat on
my bed, and began to take off my boots. It
was as if the picture of my present sensations was
painted over some other picture that was trying to show
through curse. It said, I, My wits are going? Or
am I in two places? At once? Half undressed? I

(21:32):
tossed the powder into a glass and drank it off
it effervest and became a fluorescent amber color. Before I
was in bed, my mind was already tranquilized. I felt
the pillow at my cheek, and thereupon I must have
fallen asleep. I awoke abruptly out of a dream of
strange beasts, and found myself lying on my back. Probably

(21:57):
every one knows that dismal emotional dream from which wi
one escapes awake, indeed, but strangely cowed. There was a
curious taste in my mouth, a tired feeling in my limbs,
a sense of cutaneous discomfort. I lay with my head
motionless on my pillow, expecting that my feeling of strangeness
and terror would pass away, and that I should then

(22:18):
doze off again to sleep. But instead of that, my
uncanny sensations increased. At first, I could perceive nothing wrong
about me. There was a faint light in the room,
so faint that it was the very next thing to darkness,
and the furniture stood out in it as vague blots
of absolute darkness. I stared with my eyes just over

(22:40):
the bedclothes. It came into my mind that some one
had entered the room to rob me of my rouleau
of money. But after lying for some moments, breathing regularly
to simulate sleep. I realized this was mere fancy. Nevertheless,
the uneasy assurance of something wrong kept fast hold of me.
With an effort, I raised my head from the pillow

(23:03):
and peered about me at the dark What it was
I could not conceive. I looked at the dim shapes
around me, the greater and lesser darknesses that indicated curtains, table, fireplace,
book shelves, and so forth. Then I began to perceive
something unfamiliar in the forms of the darkness. Had the

(23:24):
bed turned round, yonder should be the book shelves, and
something shrouded and pallid rose there something that would not
answer to the book shelves. However, I looked at it.
It was far too big to be my shirt thrown
on a chair. Overcoming a childish terror, I threw back
the bed clothes and thrust my leg out of bed

(23:45):
instead of coming out of my truckle bed. Upon the floor,
I found my foot scarcely reached the edge of the mattress.
I made another step, as it were, and sat up
on the edge of the bed. By the side of
my bed should be the candle and the mast upon
the broken chair. I put out my hand and touched nothing.

(24:07):
I waved my hand in the darkness, and it came
against some heavy hanging, soft and thick in texture, which
gave a rustling noise at my touch. I grasped this
and pulled it. It appeared to be a curtain suspended
over the head of my bed. I was now thoroughly
awake and beginning to realize that I was in a
strange room. I was puzzled. I tried to recall the

(24:30):
overnight circumstances, and I found them now curiously enough vivid
in my memory. The supper, my reception of the little packages,
my wonder whether I was intoxicated, my slow undressing, the
coolness to my flushed face of my pillow. I felt
a sudden distrust. Was that last night or the night before?

(24:52):
At any rate? This room was strange to me, and
I could not imagine how I had got into it.
The dim pallid outline was grown owing paler, and I
perceived it was a window with the dark shape of
an oval toilet glass. Against the weak intimation of the
dawn that filtered through the blind. I stood up and
was surprised by a curious feeling of weakness and unsteadiness.

(25:16):
With trembling hands outstretched, I walked slowly towards the window,
getting nevertheless a bruise on the knee from a chair
by the way. I fumbled round the glass, which was large,
with handsome brass sconces to find the blind cord. I
could not find any. By chance, I took hold of
the tassel, and with the click of a spring, the

(25:37):
blind ran up. I found myself looking out upon a
scene that was altogether strange to me. The night was overcast,
and through the floculent gray of the heaped clouds, there
filtered a faint half light of dawn. Just at the
edge of the sky, the cloud canopy had a blood
red rim. Below, everything was dark and indistinct dim hill

(26:00):
in the distance, a vague mass of buildings running up
into pinnacles, trees like spilt ink, and below the window
a tracery of black bushes and pale gray paths. It
was so unfamiliar that for the moment I thought myself
still dreaming. I felt the toilet table. It appeared to
be made of some polished wood, and was rather elaborately furnished.

(26:22):
There were little cut glass bottles and a brush upon it.
There was also a queer little object, horseshoe shape. It
felt with smooth, hard projections, lying in a saucer. I
could find no matches nor candlestick. I turned my eyes
to the room again. Now the blind was up. Faint

(26:42):
specters of its furnishing came out of the darkness. There
was a huge curtained bed, and the fireplace at its
foot had a large white mantle with something of the
shimmer of marble. I leant against the toilet table, shut
my eyes and opened them again, and tried to think.
The whole thing was far too real for dreaming. I

(27:04):
was inclined to imagine. There was still some hiatus in
my memory, as a consequence of my draft of that
strange liqueur, that I had come into my inheritance, perhaps
and suddenly lost my recollection of everything, since my good
fortune had been announced. Perhaps if I waited a little
things would be clearer to me again. Yet my dinner

(27:24):
with old Elvesham was now singularly vivid and recent. The champagne,
the observant waiters, the powder, and the liqueurs. I could
have staked my soul. It all happened a few hours ago,
and then occurred a thing so trivial and yet so
terrible to me that I shivered now to think of
that moment. I spoke aloud. I said, how the devil

(27:47):
did I get here? And the voice was not my own?
It was not my own, It was thin, the articulation
was slurred. The resonance of my facial bones was different. Then,
to reassure myself, I ran one hand over the other
and felt loose folds of skin, the bony laxity of age. Surely,

(28:09):
I said, in that horrible voice that had somehow established
itself in my throat. Surely this thing is a dream.
Almost as quickly as if I did it involuntarily, I
thrust my fingers into my mouth. My teeth had gone.
My finger tips ran on the flaxed surface of an
even row of shriveled gums. I was sick with dismay

(28:32):
and disgust. I felt then a passionate desire to see myself,
to realize at once, in its full horror, the ghastly
change that had come upon me. I tottered to the
mantle and felt along it for matches. As I did so,
a barking cough sprang up in my throat, and I
clutched the thick flannel night dress I found about me.

(28:55):
There were no matches there, and I suddenly realized that
my extremities were cold, sniffing and coughing, whimpering a little, perhaps,
I fumbled back to bed. It is surely a dream,
I whispered to myself as I clambered back. Surely a dream.
It was a senile repetition. I pulled the bedclothes over

(29:16):
my shoulders, over my ears. I thrust my withered hand
under the pillow, and determined to compose myself to sleep.
Of course it was a dream. In the morning, the
dream would be over, and I should wake up, strong
and vigorous again to my youth and studies. I shut
my eyes, breathed regularly, and, finding myself wakeful, began to

(29:38):
count slowly through the powers of three. But the thing
I desired would not come. I could not get to sleep,
and the persuasion of the inexorable reality of the change
that had happened to me grew steadily. Presently I found
myself with my eyes wide open, the powers of three forgotten,
and my skinny fingers upon my shriveled gums. I was, indeed,

(30:02):
suddenly and abruptly an old man. I had, in some
unaccountable manner, fallen through my life and come to old age.
In some way, I had been cheated of all the
best of my life, of love, of struggle, of strength
and hope. I groveled into the pillow and tried to
persuade myself that such hallucination was possible. Imperceptibly, Steadily the

(30:26):
dawn grew clearer. At last, despairing of further sleep, I
sat up in bed and looked about me. A chill
twilight rendered the whole chamber visible. It was spacious and
well furnished, better furnished than any room I had ever
slept in before. A candle and matches became dimly visible

(30:47):
upon a little pedestal. In a recess, I threw back
the bedclothes, and, shivering with the rawness of the early morning,
albeit it was summer time, I got out and lit
the candle. Then, trembling horribly so that the extinguisher rattled
on its spike, I tottered to the glass and saw
Elsham's face. It was none the less horrible, because I

(31:10):
had already dimly feared as much he had already seemed
physically weak and pitiful to me. But seen now dressed
only in a coarse flannel night dress that fell apart
and showed the stringy neck. Seen now as my own body,
I cannot describe its desolate decrepitude, the hollow cheeks, the
straggling tail of dirty gray hair, the roomy, bleared eyes,

(31:33):
the quivering, shriveled lips, the lower displaying a gleam of
the pink interior lining, and those horrible dark gums showing you,
who are mind and body together at your natural years.
Cannot imagine what this fiendish imprisonment meant to me, to
be young and full of the desire and energy of youth,
and to be caught and presently to be crushed in

(31:54):
this tottering ruin of a body. But I wander from
the course of my story for some time. I must
have been stunned at this change that had come upon me.
It was daylight when I did so far gather myself
together as to think in some inexplicable way I had
been changed. Though how short of magic the thing had

(32:15):
been done, I could not say. And as I thought,
the diabolical ingenuity of Elvesham came home to me. It
seemed plain to me that as I found myself in his,
so he must be in possession of my body, of
my strength, that is, and my future. But how to
prove it? Then? As I thought, the thing became so

(32:38):
incredible even to me that my mind reeled, and I
had to pinch myself to feel my toothless gums, to
see myself in the glass and touch the things about me,
before I could steady myself to face the facts again?
Was all life hallucination? Was I indeed Elvesham? And he me?

(32:58):
Had I been dreaming of Eden? Overnight? Was there any Eden?
But if I was Elvesham, I should remember where I
was on the previous morning, the name of the town
in which I lived, what happened before the dream began?
I struggled with my thoughts. I recalled the queer doubleness
of my memories overnight. But now my mind was clear,

(33:21):
not the ghost of any memories, but those proper to Eden.
Could I raise this way lies insanity? I cried in
my piping voice. I staggered to my feet, dragged my feeble,
heavy limbs to the washhand stand, and plunged my gray
head into a basin of cold water. Then, toweling myself,

(33:43):
I tried again. It was no good. I felt beyond
all question that I was indeed Eden, not Elvesham, but
Eden in Elvesham's body. Had I been a man of
any other age, I might have given myself up to
my fate as wee enchanted. But in these skeptical days
miracles do not pass current. Here was some trick of psychology.

(34:08):
What a drug and a steady stare could do. A
drug and a steady stare or some similar treatment could
surely undo men have lost their memories before. But to
exchange memories as one does umbrellas, I laughed alas not
a healthy laugh, but a wheezing, senile titter. I could

(34:32):
have fancied Old Elvesham, laughing at my plight, and a
gust of petulant anger, unusual to me, swept across my feelings.
I began dressing eagerly in the clothes I found lying
about on the floor, and only realized when I was
dressed that it was an evening suit I had assumed.
I opened the wardrobe and found some more ordinary clothes,

(34:53):
a pair of plaid trousers and an old fashioned dressing gown.
I put a venerable smoking cap on my venerable head, and,
coughing a little from my exertions, tottered out upon the landing.
It was then perhaps a quarter to six, and the
blinds were closely drawn, and the house quite silent. The

(35:13):
landing was a spacious one. A broad, richly carpeted staircase
went down into the darkness of the hall below, and
before me a door. Ajar showed me a writing desk,
a revolving bookcase, the back of a study chair, and
a fine array of bound books shelf upon shelf my study.
I mumbled and walked across the landing. Then, at the

(35:36):
sound of my voice, a thought struck me, and I
went back to the bedroom and put in the set
of false teeth. They slipped in with the ease of
old habit. That's better, said I, gnashing them, and so
returned to the study. The drawers of the writing desk
were locked. Its revolving top was also locked. I could

(35:57):
see no indications of the keys, and there were none
in the pockets of my trousers. I shuffled back at
once to the bedroom and went through the dress suit
and afterwards the pockets of all the garments I could find.
I was very eager, and one might have imagined that
burglars had been at work to see my room. When
I had done, not only were there no keys to

(36:20):
be found, but not a coin nor a scrap of paper,
save only the receipded bill of the overnight dinner. A
curious weariness asserted itself. I sat down and stared at
the garments flung here and there, their pockets turned inside out.
My first frenzy had already flickered out. Every moment I

(36:41):
was beginning to realize the immense intelligence of the plans
of my enemy, to see more and more clearly the
hopelessness of my position. With an effort, I rose and hurried,
hobbling into the study again. On the staircase was a housemaid,
pulling up the blinds. She stared, I think at the
expression of my face. I shut the door of the

(37:04):
study behind me, and, seizing a poker, began an attack
upon the desk. That is how they found me. The
cover of the desk was split, the lock smashed, the
letters torn out of the pigeon holes, and tossed about
the room. In my senile rage. I had flung about
the pens and other such light stationery, and overturned the ink. Moreover,

(37:28):
a large vase upon the mantle had got broken. I
do not know how I could find no check book,
no money, no indications of the slightest use for the
recovery of my body. I was battering madly at the
drawers when the butler, backed by two women servants, intruded
upon me. That simply is the story of my change.

(37:50):
No one will believe my frantic assertions. I am treated
as one demented, and even at this moment I am
under restraint. But I am saying absolutely sane, and to
prove it, I have sat down to write this story
minutely as the things happen to me. I appeal to
the reader whether there is any trace of insanity in

(38:11):
the style or method of the story he has been reading.
I am a young man locked away in an old
man's body, but the clear fact is incredible to every one. Naturally,
I appear demented to those who will not believe this. Naturally,
I do not know the names of my secretaries, of
the doctors who come to see me, of my servants

(38:32):
and neighbors. Of this town, wherever it is where I
find myself. Naturally I lose myself in my own house
and suffer inconveniences of every sort. Naturally I ask the
oddest questions. Naturally I weep and cry out, and have
paroxysms of despair. I have no money and no check book.

(38:55):
The bank will not recognize my signature, for I suppose that,
allowing for the feeble muscles I now have, my handwriting
is still Eden's. These people about me will not let
me go to the bank personally. It seems, indeed, that
there is no bank in this town, and that I
have an account in some part of London. It seems

(39:17):
that Elvesham kept the name of his solicitor's secret from
all his household. I can ascertain nothing. Elvesham was, of course,
a profound student of mental science, and all my declarations
of the facts of the case merely confirm the theory
that my insanity is the outcome of overmuch brooding upon psychology,

(39:37):
dreams of the personal identity. Indeed, two days ago I
was a healthy youngster, with all life before me. Now
I am a furious old man, unkempt and desperate and miserable,
prowling about a great, luxurious, strange house, watched, feared, and
avoided as a lunatic by every one about me. And

(39:58):
in London is Elvi beginning life again in a vigorous body,
and with all the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of threescore
and ten. He has stolen my life. What has happened?
I do not clearly know. In the study are volumes
of manuscript notes referring chiefly to the psychology of memory,

(40:19):
and parts of what may be either calculations or ciphers
in symbols absolutely strange to me. In some passages there
are indications that he was also occupied with the philosophy
of mathematics. I take it he has transferred the whole
of his memories, the accumulation that makes up his personality,
from this old, withered brain of his to mine, and

(40:40):
similarly that he has transferred mind to his discarded tenement. Practically,
that is, he has changed bodies. But how such a
change may be possible is without the range of my philosophy.
I have been a materialist for all my thinking life.
But here suddenly is a clear case of man's detachability

(41:01):
from matter. One desperate experiment I am about to try.
I sit writing here before putting the matter to issue.
This morning, with the help of a table knife that
I had secreted at breakfast, I succeeded in breaking open
a fairly obvious secret drawer. In this wrecked writing desk,
I discovered nothing save a little green glass file containing

(41:24):
a white powder. Round the neck of the file was
a label, and thereon was written this one word release.
This may be is most probably poison. I can understand
Elvesham placing poison in my way, and I should be
sure that it was his intention so to get rid
of the only living witness against him. Were it not

(41:44):
for this careful concealment, the man has practically solved the
problem of immortality, save for the spite of chance. He
will live in my body until it has aged, and
then again, throwing that aside, he will assume some other
victim's youth and strength. When one remembers his heartlessness, it

(42:04):
is terrible to think of the ever growing experience that
how long has he been leaping from body to body?
But I tire of writing. The powder appears to be
soluble in water. The taste is not unpleasant. There the
narrative found upon mister Elsham's desk ends. His dead body

(42:26):
lay between the desk and the chair, the latter had
been pushed back, probably by his last convulsions. The story
was written in pencil and in a crazy hand, quite
unlike his usual minute characters. There remain only two curious
facts to record. Indisputably, there was some connection between Eden

(42:47):
and Elvesham, since the whole of Elsham's property was bequeathed
to the young man, but he never inherited. When Elvesham
committed suicide, Eden was strangely enough, already dead twenty four
hours before. He had been knocked down by a cab
and killed instantly at the crowded crossing at the intersection

(43:07):
of Gower Street and Euston Road, So that the only
human being who could have thrown light upon this fantastic
narrative is beyond the reach of questions. Without further comment,
I leave this extraordinary matter to the reader's individual judgment.