The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham - H G Wells

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Story of the Late Mister Elvesham by H. G. Wells.
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, is hopeless, and I am
now in some measure prepared to meet my fate. My

(00:23):
name is Edward George Eden. I was born in Trenham
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 his own son. He was a
single man, self educated and well known in Birmingham as

(00:43):
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. He advised me in
his will to expend the money in completing my education.

(01:05):
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, in a little upper room,
very shabbily furnished and drafty, overlooking the back of Shulby's premises.

(01:26):
I used this little room both to live in and
sleep in, because I was anxious to eke out my
miens to the very last shillingsworth. I was taking a
pair of shoes to be mended at a shop in
the Troddendam Court Road when I first encountered the little
old man with the 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

(01:47):
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. 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

(02:09):
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 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

(02:30):
for every stranger. Perhaps, said I. We might walk down
the street. I am unfortunately prevented my gesture, explained the
sentence before I had spoken it. The very thing he said,
and face 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. This business of

(02:51):
mine is rigmarole. Come in lunch with me, mister Eden.
I am 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 man might not
treat me to lunch. Yet at the same time I
was not altogether pleased by this abrupt invasion. I had rather,

(03:14):
I began. But I had rather, he said, catching 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 Blovitsky's. I had to walk slowly to accommodate
myself to his paces, and over such a lunch as
I had never tasted before, and fend it off my
leading question, and I took a better note of his appearance.

(03:36):
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 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

(03:57):
touch of greet in them, over me, from my broad
shoulder to my son tanned hands, and up to my
freckled face again. And now said he, as we let
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,

(04:18):
and never a child have I to leave it to.
I thought of the confidence trick, 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 the 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

(04:39):
conclusion at last, he 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

(04:59):
the true and struggle in which his sympathies have been
educated to freedom and influence. I tried the scene, disinterested,
with a transparent hypocrisy. I said, and you want my help,
my professional services, maybe to find that person. He smiled
and looked at me over his cigarette, and I laughed
at his quiet exposure of my modest pretense. What a

(05:21):
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 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

(05:43):
his heredity, how his parents and grandparents died, have the
strictest inquiries made into his private morals. This modified my
secret congratulations a little. 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

(06:06):
skepticism was useless to modify its transports. There was not
a particle of gratitude 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 Hasler. He said,
as a typically sound and sane young man, And he
wished as far as possible to leave his money where

(06:28):
health and integrity were assured. 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 answered some questions of his, he left me
at the Blovitsky Portal. I noticed that he drew a
handful of gold coins from his pocket when it came
to paying for the lunch. His insistence upon bodily health

(06:49):
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 re examined by the great
doctor Henderson. It was Friday and Whitson, a week before

(07:10):
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, 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 a little. His voice shook with emotion.

(07:32):
Everything is satisfactory, mister Eden, he said, everything is quite
quite satisfactory, and this night, of all nights, you must
dine with me and celebrate your ascension. He was interrupted
by a cough. You won't have to wait long, either,
he said, wiping his handkerchief across his lips and gripping
my hand with his long bony claw that was disengaged. Certainly,

(07:53):
not very long to wait. We went into the street
and called a cab. I remember every incident of that
dry vividly, the swift, easy motion, the vivid contrast of
gas in 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 waiters

(08:15):
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
seemed incredible to me that this man, whose intelligence had

(08:37):
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, the future,
that the feeble streams of his life would presently leave
dry for me houses, copyrights, investments. I had never suspected

(08:59):
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
will not be long, aye, said I, my head swimming
now with the champagne. I have a future, perhaps of
a passing, agreeable sort. Thanks to you, I shall now

(09:21):
have the honor of your name. But you have a past.
Such a past is worth all my future. He shook
his head and smiled, as I thought, with a half
sad appreciation of my flattering admiration. That future, he said,
would you, in truth change it? The waiter came with
the course, you will not perhaps mind taking my name,

(09:42):
taking my position, But would you indeed, willingly take my
years with your achievements, 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 did he. This after dinner
hour is the hour of small things. Here is a

(10:04):
scrap of my unpublished wisdom. 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 Cumelle, put but a dash of
this powder in it is Heimel. His large grayish eyes
watched mine with an inscrutable expression. It was a bit

(10:26):
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 his action,
and the glasses rang to a quick succession, said he,

(10:49):
and raised his glass towards his lips. Not that, I said, hastily,
not that. He paused, with a liqueur at the level
of his chin, and his eyes blazing into mine. To
a long life, said I. He hesitated to a long life,
said he, with a sudden bark of laughter, and with
eyes fixed on one another, we tilted the little glasses.

(11:12):
His eyes looked straight into mine, and as I drained
the stuff off, I felt a curious, 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 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

(11:33):
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 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,

(11:56):
though I had not tasted the stuff. My head was spinning.
I sat down. My brain was in 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, I must go at once.

(12:20):
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 upper glass. That's stuff, he said,

(12:40):
putting 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 sedette's powder. Take that
in water as you are going to bed. The other
thing was a drug. Not till you are 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,

(13:05):
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 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

(13:26):
was so heavy that I well nigh dropped it, all right,
said I, and he grinned at me through the cab
window as a 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, are lead? I stuck
it with elaborate care into my pocket, and with a
whirling brain, walked home through the Regent Street loiterers and

(13:48):
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 what that The stuff
I had had was opium, a drug beyond my experience.
It is hard now to describe the peculiarity of my
mental strangeness. Mental doubling vaguely expresses it. As I was

(14:11):
walking up Regent Street, I found in my mind a
queer persuasion that it was Waterloo Station, and I had
an odd impulse to get into the Polytechnic as a
man might get into a train. I put 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.

(14:32):
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 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.

(14:54):
Thirty years ago. I did not exist, and never in
my life have I boasted a brother. The uugh was
shurely liquid folly for the poignant regret for that lost
brother still clung to me. Along Portland Road, the madness
took another turn. I began to recall vanished shops and
to compare the street to what it used to be. Confused,
trouble thinking is comprehensible enough after the drink I had taken.

(15:17):
But what puzzled me were these 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 coageled my brains to think what he had to
do with me. A bus went by and sounded exactly
like the rumbling of a train. I seemed to be

(15:37):
dipping into some dark, remote pit for recollection. Of course,
said I. At last he has promised me three frogs tomorrow.
Odd I should have forgotten. Did they still show children
dissolving views? In those I remember, one view would begin
like a faint ghost and grow an oust another. In
just that way, it seemed to me that a ghostly
set of new sensations was struggling with those of my

(15:59):
ordinary self. I went on through Euston Road to tottam
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 in the University street to discover that I had
forgotten my number. Only by a strong effort did I
recall eleven A, and even then it seemed to me

(16:21):
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, 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,

(16:44):
and talkative. I must take this other, powder, said I.
This is getting impossible. I tried the wrong 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, and stared

(17:07):
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 album, and 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 into my mind,

(17:29):
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. I put
the ROLEU on my dressing table, sat on my bed,
and began to take off my boots. It was as

(17:50):
if a picture of my present sensation 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 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 a pillow up

(18:12):
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 every one knows
that a dismal emotional dream from which 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.

(18:35):
I lay with my head motionless on my pillow, expecting
that my feelings of strangest and terror would pass away,
and then I should then doze off to sleep again.
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

(18:58):
stared with my eyes just over the bed clothes. It
came to my mind that some one had entered the
room to rob me of my ruleau of money. But
after lying for some moments, breathing regularly to simulate sleep.
I realized that 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 and

(19:20):
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 darkness 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
bed turned round, yonder should be the book shelves, and
something shrouded and pallid rose there something that would not

(19:43):
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 bedclothes and thrust my leg out of bed instead
of coming out of my truckle bed. Upon the floor,
I found my foot scarcely reached the edge of the moun.
I made another step, as it were, and sat up

(20:03):
on the edge of the bed. By the side of
my bed should be a candle and matches. Upon the
broken chair. I put out my hand and touched nothing.
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

(20:24):
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
overnight circumstances, and 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

(20:44):
coolness to my flushed face of my pillow. I felt
a sudden distrust. Was that last night or the night before?
At any rate? This room was strange to me, and
I could not imagine how I got into it. The dim,
pallid outline was growing 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

(21:05):
through the blind. I stood up and was surprised by
a curious feeling of weakness and unsteadiness. 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.

(21:27):
By chance, I took hold of the tassel, and with
the click of a spring, the blind ran up. I
found myself looking out upon a scene that was altogether
strange to me. The night was overcast, and through the
fossilent gray of the heap 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 hills in the distance, a

(21:51):
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. There were little

(22:11):
cut glass bottles and a brush upon it. There was
also a queer little object, horseshoe shaped. 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 specters of its furnishings
came out of the darkness. There was a huge curtain bed,

(22:33):
and the fireplace at its foot had a large white mantle,
was 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 was inclined to imagine. There was
still some hiatus in my memory, as a consequence of
my draft of that strange liquor, that I had come
into my inheritance, perhaps and suddenly lost my recollection of everything.

(22:56):
Since my good fortune had been announced. Perhaps if I
waited a little, things would become clear to me again.
Yet my dinner with old Elbsham 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. Then it occurred a thing

(23:17):
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 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

(23:40):
ran one hand over the other and felt loose folds
of skin, the bony laxity of age. Surely, 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

(24:02):
tips ran on the flaccid surface of an even row
of shriveled gums. I was sick with dismay and disgust.
I felt then a passionate desire to see myself, to
realize at once in its full horror of the ghastly
change that had come upon me. I tottered to the
mantle and felt along it for matches. As I did so,

(24:22):
a barking cough sprang up in my throat. And I
clutched the thick flannel night dress I found about me.
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.

(24:43):
It was a senile repetition. I pulled the bed clothes
over 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 vigorously in my youth and studies. I shut my eyes,

(25:03):
breathed regularly, and, finding myself wakeful, began to 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

(25:26):
indeed 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,

(25:48):
Steadily the 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 in matches became dimly
visible upon a little pedestal in a recess, I threw

(26:09):
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 Elvisham's face. It was none the less horrible,
because I had already dimly feared as much he had
already seen physically weak and pitiful to me, But seen

(26:32):
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, the quivering, shriveled lips, the lower displaying a
gleam of the pink interior lining, and those horrible dark

(26:55):
gums showing you, who were in mind and body together
at your natural years. Could not imagine what this fiendish
imprisonment meant to me. To be young and full of
desire and energy of youth, and to be caught and
presently to be crushed in this tottering ruin of a body.
But I wandered from the course of my story for
some time. I must have been stunned at this change

(27:16):
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 been done, I could not say.
And as I thought, the diabolical ingenuity of Elbosham came
home to me It seemed plain to me that as
I found myself in his, so he must be in

(27:38):
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 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

(27:59):
to face the fact again? Was all life hallucination? Was
I indeed Elvisham? And he me? Had I been dreaming
of Eden over night? Was there any Eden? But if
I was Elvisham, 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

(28:20):
with my thoughts. I recalled the queer doubleness of my
memories over night, But now my mind was clear, not
the ghost of any memories, but those of proper eating.
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 wash hand stand, and plunged my

(28:40):
gray head into a basin of cold water, then telling myself,
I tried again. It was no good. I felt beyond
all question that I was indeed Eden, not Elvisham, 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 one enchanted. But in these skeptical days

(29:01):
miracles do not pass current. Here was some trick of psychology.
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 hearty laugh, but a wheezing scene. I'll titter. I

(29:24):
could have fancied old Elbowsham, 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, a pair of plaid trousers and an old

(29:45):
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 in
the house quite silent. The 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

(30:08):
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 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,

(30:29):
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 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,

(30:49):
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 be found, but not
a coin nor a scrap of paper, save only the
receded bill of the overnight. 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

(31:09):
had already flickered out. Every moment I was beginning to
realize the immense intelligence of the plans of my enemy
to seem 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 study behind me, and,

(31:32):
seizing a poker, began an attack upon the desk. That
is how they found me. The cover of the desk
was split, the locks smashed, the letters torn out of
the pigeon holes, and tossed about the room. In my
scenile rage, I had flung about the pins and other
such light stationary and overturned the ink. Moreover, a large
vase upon the mantel had got broken. I did not

(31:54):
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. No one
will believe my frantic assertions. I am treated as one demented,

(32:15):
and even at this moment I am under restraint. But
I am sane, absolutely sane, And to prove it, I
have set 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 the style or
method of the story he has been reading. I am
a young man locked away in an old man's body,

(32:36):
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 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

(32:59):
the oddest questions. Naturally I weep and cry out and
have paroxysms of despair. I have no money and no
check book. 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,

(33:21):
that there is no bank in this town. And then
I have an account in some part of London. It
seems that Elbosham kept the name of a solicitor secret
from all his household. I can ascertain nothing. Elsham 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

(33:41):
brooding upon psychology, dreams of the personal identity. Indeed, two
days ago I was a healthy youngster, with all my
life before me. Now I am a furious old man,
unkempt and desperate and miserable, prowling about a great luxurious,
strange house watch, feared and avoided as a lunatic by

(34:02):
every one about me, And in London is Elvisham beginning
life again in a vigorous body, with all the accumulated
knowledge and wisdom of three score and ten. He has
stolen my life. What has happened? I do not clearly know.
In the study or volumes of manuscript notes referring chiefly
to the psychology of memory, in parts of what may

(34:22):
be either calculations or ciphers and 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 accumulations that
makes up his personality, from this old, withered brain of
his to mine, and similarly that he has transferred mine

(34:43):
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 from matter. One desperate experiment
I am about to try. I sit writing here before

(35:05):
putting the matter to issue. This morning, with the help
of a table knight 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 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

(35:28):
probably poison. I can understand Ellisham placing poison in my way,
and I should be sure that it was his intention
to so get rid of the only living witness against him.
Were it not for his 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
is aged, and then again, throwing that aside, he will

(35:51):
assume some other victim's youth and strength. When one remembers
his heartlessness, it 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 Elisham's desk ends. His

(36:14):
dead body 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 as minute characters. There remain only two curious
facts to record. Indisputably, there was some connection between Eden
and Elvesham, since a whole of Elisham's property was bequeathed

(36:37):
to the young man, but he never inherited. When Elisham
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
of Gower Street and Euston Road. So that the only
human being who could have thrown light upon this fantastic

(36:57):
narrative is beyond the reach of questions. Without further comment,
I leave this extraordinary matter to the reader's individual judgment.
End of the Story of the Late Mister Ellisham by H. G.
Wells