Phantastes, A Faerie Romance
Page 20At length she was for a moment almost entirely obscured. When she shone
out again, with a brilliancy increased by the contrast, I saw plainly
on the path before me--from around which at this spot the trees receded,
leaving a small space of green sward--the shadow of a large hand, with
knotty joints and protuberances here and there. Especially I remarked,
even in the midst of my fear, the bulbous points of the fingers. I
looked hurriedly all around, but could see nothing from which such
a shadow should fall. Now, however, that I had a direction, however
undetermined, in which to project my apprehension, the very sense of
danger and need of action overcame that stifling which is the worst
property of fear. I reflected in a moment, that if this were indeed a
shadow, it was useless to look for the object that cast it in any other
direction than between the shadow and the moon. I looked, and peered,
that kind, not even an ash-tree in the neighbourhood. Still the shadow
remained; not steady, but moving to and fro, and once I saw the fingers
close, and grind themselves close, like the claws of a wild animal, as
if in uncontrollable longing for some anticipated prey. There seemed
but one mode left of discovering the substance of this shadow. I went
forward boldly, though with an inward shudder which I would not heed, to
the spot where the shadow lay, threw myself on the ground, laid my head
within the form of the hand, and turned my eyes towards the moon Good
heavens! what did I see? I wonder that ever I arose, and that the very
shadow of the hand did not hold me where I lay until fear had frozen my
brain. I saw the strangest figure; vague, shadowy, almost transparent,
in the central parts, and gradually deepening in substance towards the
as fell from the hand, through the awful fingers of which I now saw the
moon. The hand was uplifted in the attitude of a paw about to strike
its prey. But the face, which throbbed with fluctuating and pulsatory
visibility--not from changes in the light it reflected, but from changes
in its own conditions of reflecting power, the alterations being from
within, not from without--it was horrible. I do not know how to describe
it. It caused a new sensation. Just as one cannot translate a horrible
odour, or a ghastly pain, or a fearful sound, into words, so I cannot
describe this new form of awful hideousness. I can only try to describe
something that is not it, but seems somewhat parallel to it; or at least
is suggested by it. It reminded me of what I had heard of vampires; for
the face resembled that of a corpse more than anything else I can
not suggesting any life as the source of the motion. The features were
rather handsome than otherwise, except the mouth, which had scarcely a
curve in it. The lips were of equal thickness; but the thickness was
not at all remarkable, even although they looked slightly swollen. They
seemed fixedly open, but were not wide apart. Of course I did not REMARK
these lineaments at the time: I was too horrified for that. I noted them
afterwards, when the form returned on my inward sight with a vividness
too intense to admit of my doubting the accuracy of the reflex. But the
most awful of the features were the eyes. These were alive, yet not with
life.