David Hine, Strange Embrace
The Ebony Mirror
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Black draperies shut out my gloomy study—from the rest of the shadowy world outside. Shutting out the moon, the lurid stars and the people-less countryside—against the brooding memory of Evil.
The year had been a year of terror, the black wings of the Pestilence spreading everywhere home and abroad. The cunning stars, wearing their aspects of ill will—evident to me and among others, had arrived at the seven hundred and ninety-fourth year when, at the entrance of Aries, the planet Jupiter is conjoined with the red ring of the terrible Saturnus.
This peculiar spirit of the skies, without any doubt couldn’t be mistaken, making itself manifest, not only in the physical orb of the earth—but in the troubled souls, imaginations, and meditations of my agitated collection of African masks and priceless statues.
Over a bottle of red Chian wine, amidst the hazy smoke of my Tangiers hookah—within the walls of my humble House of Usher abode, I sat, at night, in my dark study which had no entrance except for a huge oak door with a dozen sturdy locks.
I gazed into my Ebony Mirror—the one fashioned by the artisan Corinnos, and, being of rare workmanship, was guiding me that dark and stormy night into regions of the unknown. Black draperies shrouded the gloomy room, shutting out from my view the memory of Evil they could not be so excluded.
There were things out there around me about of which I can offer no distinct account. Things both material and spiritual—things that provoked an evil heaviness in the atmosphere. Giving me a sense of suffocation and anxiety.
But above all, that terrible state of existence when my nervous system and senses were keenly living and awake too much in the present—made to be aware of something that made my powers of thought lie dormant and helpless.
A dead weight hung upon me—it clung to my arms and legs. It hung down from the household furniture. Weighing down the glass from which I drank—making everything depressed and borne down except for the flames of the candelabra which illumined our study.
I sat there in the gloom—surrounded by my collection of rare expensive African masks and statues—which usually gave me a sense of calm and beauty. But now rearing up themselves in tall slender lines of light and shadow cast on the walls—even they seemed burdened, smoldering in thought, they thus remaining all pallid and motionless like I’d never seen them do.
The Ebony Mirror with its shiny polished luster sitting there on the round table before me—had the same pallor of his my countenance. And beneath the unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of his its African companions—I felt as if I were among the Living Dead. The mood of Anacreon and madness seemed to haunt the night—the purple wine reminding me of blood.
For a moment there in the mirror in my study—I thought I saw the shadowy image of young Zoilus. Dead, like so many of my former friends, hauntingly there before me, raised up from the dead, standing full length up from his coffin as he lay, enshrouded. As if he were the genius and the demon of some séance scene.
Zoilus bore no expression of happiness or joy—instead his countenance, distorted with the plague, and his eyes, in which Death had but half been extinguished by the fire of the pestilence, seemed to take an interest in me that night among my masks and statues.
The erect Ivory Coast statues, the rare Iberian artwork, the Congolese moody masks—they all seemed to come to life as if awakened by Zoilus there among us in the Ebony Mirror. I could feel their eyes opening—focused on the departed one who was once my friend.
All these Living Undead gazes were upon me, forcing me to perceive the bitterness of their expression—and gazing down steadily into the depths of the Ebony Mirror, I heard songs and saw shadows like echoes rolling from far away into my study. Sinking into the shadows and sable draperies of the chamber, becoming weak, and then undistinguishable, and so slowly fading away.
But then, from among those sable draperies where the sounds of the dearly departed had receded—there came forth a dark and undefined Shadow. A Shadow like the moon when low in heaven—a Shadow neither of man nor of God, nor of any familiar thing.
And it came into my study—quivering awhile among the draperies of the room, then at length receding into the Ebony Mirror with its full view of me, my masks and statues, my study full of books. But the shadow was vague and formless—indefinite with neither God of Greece, nor God of Chaldaea, nor any Egyptian God.
And the Shadow rested inside the Ebony Mirror—while the room bent down over it, bending under the dark doorway, under the arch of the entablature of the door, and didn’t move, and didn’t speak a word, but instead sat there stationary and remained.
And all my African masks and statues seemed to become nervous and agitated—much more than the mere shadow of the young Zoilus once enshrouded there in the Mirror. And so I sat there as other Shadows came in from among the draperies, daring not to stare at them steadily, but casting down my eyes, and gazing instead continuously into the depths of the Ebony Mirror.
I could hear HooDoo VooDoo drums in the background—as if my masks and statues were trying to communicate with the Thing there in the Ebony Mirror before me. And so, at length, I began speaking to it in low words, asking of the Shadow its dwelling and its reason for visiting me.
And the Shadow answered, "I am SHADOW, and my dwelling is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal."
And then I jumped up from my chair in horror—standing trembling in horror, shuddering and aghast. For the tones in the voice of the Shadow were not the tones of any one Being—but of a multitude of beings, all of them varying in their cadences from syllable to syllable.
Their words falling on my ears—were the words of the well-remembered and familiar accents of many thousands of departed friends. Not just my friends—but all the dearly departed ones of others. Trapped there momentarily and ever so briefly—within the shadowy confines of the devilish Ebony Mirror.
__________________
Black draperies shut out my gloomy study—from the rest of the shadowy world outside. Shutting out the moon, the lurid stars and the people-less countryside—against the brooding memory of Evil.
The year had been a year of terror, the black wings of the Pestilence spreading everywhere home and abroad. The cunning stars, wearing their aspects of ill will—evident to me and among others, had arrived at the seven hundred and ninety-fourth year when, at the entrance of Aries, the planet Jupiter is conjoined with the red ring of the terrible Saturnus.
This peculiar spirit of the skies, without any doubt couldn’t be mistaken, making itself manifest, not only in the physical orb of the earth—but in the troubled souls, imaginations, and meditations of my agitated collection of African masks and priceless statues.
Over a bottle of red Chian wine, amidst the hazy smoke of my Tangiers hookah—within the walls of my humble House of Usher abode, I sat, at night, in my dark study which had no entrance except for a huge oak door with a dozen sturdy locks.
I gazed into my Ebony Mirror—the one fashioned by the artisan Corinnos, and, being of rare workmanship, was guiding me that dark and stormy night into regions of the unknown. Black draperies shrouded the gloomy room, shutting out from my view the memory of Evil they could not be so excluded.
There were things out there around me about of which I can offer no distinct account. Things both material and spiritual—things that provoked an evil heaviness in the atmosphere. Giving me a sense of suffocation and anxiety.
But above all, that terrible state of existence when my nervous system and senses were keenly living and awake too much in the present—made to be aware of something that made my powers of thought lie dormant and helpless.
A dead weight hung upon me—it clung to my arms and legs. It hung down from the household furniture. Weighing down the glass from which I drank—making everything depressed and borne down except for the flames of the candelabra which illumined our study.
I sat there in the gloom—surrounded by my collection of rare expensive African masks and statues—which usually gave me a sense of calm and beauty. But now rearing up themselves in tall slender lines of light and shadow cast on the walls—even they seemed burdened, smoldering in thought, they thus remaining all pallid and motionless like I’d never seen them do.
The Ebony Mirror with its shiny polished luster sitting there on the round table before me—had the same pallor of his my countenance. And beneath the unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of his its African companions—I felt as if I were among the Living Dead. The mood of Anacreon and madness seemed to haunt the night—the purple wine reminding me of blood.
For a moment there in the mirror in my study—I thought I saw the shadowy image of young Zoilus. Dead, like so many of my former friends, hauntingly there before me, raised up from the dead, standing full length up from his coffin as he lay, enshrouded. As if he were the genius and the demon of some séance scene.
Zoilus bore no expression of happiness or joy—instead his countenance, distorted with the plague, and his eyes, in which Death had but half been extinguished by the fire of the pestilence, seemed to take an interest in me that night among my masks and statues.
The erect Ivory Coast statues, the rare Iberian artwork, the Congolese moody masks—they all seemed to come to life as if awakened by Zoilus there among us in the Ebony Mirror. I could feel their eyes opening—focused on the departed one who was once my friend.
All these Living Undead gazes were upon me, forcing me to perceive the bitterness of their expression—and gazing down steadily into the depths of the Ebony Mirror, I heard songs and saw shadows like echoes rolling from far away into my study. Sinking into the shadows and sable draperies of the chamber, becoming weak, and then undistinguishable, and so slowly fading away.
But then, from among those sable draperies where the sounds of the dearly departed had receded—there came forth a dark and undefined Shadow. A Shadow like the moon when low in heaven—a Shadow neither of man nor of God, nor of any familiar thing.
And it came into my study—quivering awhile among the draperies of the room, then at length receding into the Ebony Mirror with its full view of me, my masks and statues, my study full of books. But the shadow was vague and formless—indefinite with neither God of Greece, nor God of Chaldaea, nor any Egyptian God.
And the Shadow rested inside the Ebony Mirror—while the room bent down over it, bending under the dark doorway, under the arch of the entablature of the door, and didn’t move, and didn’t speak a word, but instead sat there stationary and remained.
And all my African masks and statues seemed to become nervous and agitated—much more than the mere shadow of the young Zoilus once enshrouded there in the Mirror. And so I sat there as other Shadows came in from among the draperies, daring not to stare at them steadily, but casting down my eyes, and gazing instead continuously into the depths of the Ebony Mirror.
I could hear HooDoo VooDoo drums in the background—as if my masks and statues were trying to communicate with the Thing there in the Ebony Mirror before me. And so, at length, I began speaking to it in low words, asking of the Shadow its dwelling and its reason for visiting me.
And the Shadow answered, "I am SHADOW, and my dwelling is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal."
And then I jumped up from my chair in horror—standing trembling in horror, shuddering and aghast. For the tones in the voice of the Shadow were not the tones of any one Being—but of a multitude of beings, all of them varying in their cadences from syllable to syllable.
Their words falling on my ears—were the words of the well-remembered and familiar accents of many thousands of departed friends. Not just my friends—but all the dearly departed ones of others. Trapped there momentarily and ever so briefly—within the shadowy confines of the devilish Ebony Mirror.
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