Creeps by Night: Chills and Thrills

Clarimonde is sitting at her window and spinning. Threads — long, thin, infinitely fine threads. She seems to be making some fabric — I don’t know just what it is to be. And I can’t understand how she can make the network without tangling or tearing the delicate fabric. There are wonderful patterns in her work — patterns full of fabulous monsters and curious grotesques.

For that matter — but what am I writing? The fact of the matter is that I can’t even see what it is she is spinning: the threads are much too fine. And yet I can’t help feeling that her work must be exactly as I see it — when I close my eyes. Exactly. A huge network peopled with many creatures — fabulous monsters, and curious grotesques...

Thursday, March 17

I find myself in a strange state of agitation. I no longer talk to any one; I hardly even say good morning to Madame Dubonnet or the porter. I hardly take time to eat; I only want to sit at the window and play with her. It’s an exacting game. Truly it is.

And I have a premonition that to-morrow something must happen.

Friday, March 18

Yes, yes. Something must happen to-day... I tell myself — oh, yes, I talk aloud, just to hear my own voice — that it is just for that that I am here. But the worst of it is that I am afraid. And this fear that what has happened to my predecessors in this room may also happen to me is curiously mingled with my other fear — the fear of Clarimonde. I can hardly keep them apart.

I am afraid. I would like to scream.

6 P.M.

Let me put down a few words quickly, and then get into my hat and coat.

By the time five o’clock came, my strength was gone. Oh, I know now for certain that it must have something to do with this sixth hour of the next to the last day of the week... Now I can no longer laugh at the fraud with which I duped the Commissioner. I sat on my chair and stayed there only by exerting my will power to the utmost. But this thing drew me, almost pulled me to the window. I had to play with Clarimonde — and then again there rose that terrible fear of the window. I saw them hanging there — the Swiss traveling salesman, a large fellow with a thick neck and a gray stubble beard. And the lanky acrobat and the stocky, powerful police sergeant. I saw all three of them, one after another and then all three together, hanging from the same hook with open mouths and with tongues lolling far out. And then I saw myself among them.

Oh, this fear! I felt I was as much afraid of the window-sash and the terrible hook as I was of Clarimonde. May she forgive me for it, but that’s the truth: in my ignominious fear I always confused her image with that of the three who hanged there, dragging their legs heavily on the floor.

But the truth is that I never felt for an instant any desire or inclination to hang myself: I wasn’t even afraid I would do it. No — I was afraid only of the window itself — and of Clarimonde — and of something terrible, something uncertain and unpredictable that was now to come. I had the pathetic irresistible longing to get up and go to the window. And I had to do it...

Then the telephone rang. I grabbed the receiver and before I could hear a word I myself cried into the mouthpiece: “Come! Come at once!”

It was just as if my unearthly yell had instantly chased all the shadows into the farthest cracks of the floor. I became composed immediately. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and drank a glass of water. Then I considered what I ought to tell the Commissioner when he came. Finally I went to the window, greeted Clarimonde, and smiled.

And Clarimonde greeted me and smiled.

Five minutes later the Commissioner was here. I told him that I had finally struck the root of the whole affair; if he would only refrain from questioning me to-day, I would certainly be able to make some remarkable disclosures in the very near future. The queer part of it was that while I was lying to him I was at the same time fully convinced in my own mind that I was telling the truth. And I still feel that that is the truth — against my better judgment.

He probably noticed the unusual condition of my temper, especially when I apologized for screaming into the telephone and tried to explain — and failed to find any plausible reason for my agitation. He suggested very amiably that I need not take undue consideration of him: he was always at my service — that was his duty. He would rather make a dozen useless trips over here than to let me wait for him once when I really needed him. Then he invited me to go out with him to-night, suggesting that that might help distract me — it wasn’t a good thing to be alone all the time. I have accepted his invitation, although I think it will be difficult to go out: I don’t like to leave this room.

Saturday, March 19