Chapter 11

There is--or there was, now many years ago, and a few years also it was
still extant--a chamber, which when I think of, it seems to me like
entering a deep recess of my own consciousness, a deep cave of my
nature; so much have I thought of it and its inmate, through a
considerable period of my life. After I had seen it long in fancy, then
I saw it in reality, with my waking eyes; and questioned with myself
whether I was really awake.

Not that it was a picturesque or stately chamber; not in the least. It
was dim, dim as a melancholy mood; so dim, to come to particulars,
that, till you were accustomed to that twilight medium, the print of a
book looked all blurred; a pin was an indistinguishable object; the
face of your familiar friend, or your dearest beloved one, would be
unrecognizable across it, and the figures, so warm and radiant with
life and heart, would seem like the faint gray shadows of our thoughts,
brooding in age over youthful images of joy and love. Nevertheless, the
chamber, though so difficult to see across, was small. You detected
that it was within very narrow boundaries, though you could not
precisely see them; only you felt yourself shut in, compressed,
impeded, in the deep centre of something; and you longed for a breath
of fresh air. Some articles of furniture there seemed to be; but in
this dim medium, to which we are unaccustomed, it is not well to try to
make out what they were, or anything else--now at least--about the
chamber. Only one thing; small as the light was, it was rather
wonderful how there came to be any; for no windows were apparent; no
communication with the outward day. [Endnote: 1.]

Looking into this chamber, in fancy it is some time before we who come
out of the broad sunny daylight of the world discover that it has an
inmate. Yes, there is some one within, but where? We know it; but do
not precisely see him, only a presence is impressed upon us. It is in
that corner; no, not there; only a heap of darkness and an old antique
coffer, that, as we look closely at it, seems to be made of carved
wood. Ah! he is in that other dim corner; and now that we steal close
to him, we see him; a young man, pale, flung upon a sort of mattress-
couch. He seems in alarm at something or other. He trembles, he
listens, as if for voices. It must be a great peril, indeed, that can
haunt him thus and make him feel afraid in such a seclusion as you feel
this to be; but there he is, tremulous, and so pale that really his
face is almost visible in the gloomy twilight. How came he here? Who is
he? What does he tremble at? In this duskiness we cannot tell. Only
that he is a young man, in a state of nervous excitement and alarm,
looking about him, starting to his feet, sometimes standing