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WILLIAM WILSON

What say of it? what say of CONSCIENCE grim,

That spectre in my path?

—Chamberlayne’s Pharronida.

Let me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. The fair

page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real

appellation. This has been already too much an object for the

scorn—for the horror—for the detestation of my race. To the

uttermost regions of the globe have not the indignant winds

bruited its unparalleled infamy? Oh, outcast of all outcasts most

abandoned!—to the earth art thou not forever dead? to its honors,

to its flowers, to its golden aspirations?—and a cloud, dense,

dismal, and limitless, does it not hang eternally between thy

hopes and heaven?

I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody a record of my

later years of unspeakable misery, and unpardonable crime. This

epoch—these later years—took unto themselves a sudden elevation

in turpitude, whose origin alone it is my present purpose to

assign. Men usually grow base by degrees. From me, in an instant,

all virtue dropped bodily as a mantle. From comparatively trivial

wickedness I passed, with the stride of a giant, into more than

the enormities of an Elah-Gabalus. What chance—what one event

brought this evil thing to pass, bear with me while I relate.

Death approaches; and the shadow which foreruns him has thrown a

softening influence over my spirit. I long, in passing through

the dim valley, for the sympathy—I had nearly said for the

pity—of my fellow men. I would fain have them believe that I have

been, in some measure, the slave of circumstances beyond human

control. I would wish them to seek out for me, in the details I

am about to give, some little oasis of fatality amid a wilderness

of error. I would have them allow—what they cannot refrain from

allowing—that, although temptation may have erewhile existed as

great, man was never thus, at least, tempted before—certainly,

never thus fell. And is it therefore that he has never thus

suffered? Have I not indeed been living in a dream? And am I not

now dying a victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest

of all sublunary visions?

I am the descendant of a race whose imaginative and easily

excitable temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable;

and, in my earliest infancy, I gave evidence of having fully

inherited the family character. As I advanced in years it was

more strongly developed; becoming, for many reasons, a cause of

serious disquietude to my friends, and of positive injury to

myself. I grew self-willed, addicted to the wildest caprices, and

a prey to the most ungovernable passions. Weak-minded, and beset

with constitutional infirmities akin to my own, my parents could

do but little to check the evil propensities which distinguished

me. Some feeble and ill-directed efforts resulted in complete

failure on their part, and, of course, in total triumph on mine.

Thenceforward my voice was a household law; and at an age when

few children have abandoned their leading-strings, I was left to

the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but name, the

master of my own actions.

My earliest recollections of a school-life, are connected with a

large, rambling, Elizabethan house, in a misty-looking village of

England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees,

and where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth, it

was a dream-like and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old

town. At this moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness

of its deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its

thousand shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable delight,

at the deep hollow note of the church-bell, breaking, each hour,

with sullen and sudden roar, upon the stillness of the dusky

atmosphere in which the fretted Gothic steeple lay imbedded and

asleep.

It gives me, perhaps, as much of pleasure as I can now in any

manner experience, to dwell upon minute recollections of the

school and its concerns. Steeped in misery as I am—misery, alas!

only too real—I shall be pardoned for seeking relief, however

slight and temporary, in the weakness of a few rambling details.

These, moreover, utterly trivial, and even ridiculous in

themselves, assume, to my fancy, adventitious importance, as

connected with a period and a locality when and where I recognise

the first ambiguous monitions of the destiny which afterwards so

fully overshadowed me. Let me then remember.

The house, I have said, was old and irregular. The grounds were

extensive, and a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of

mortar and broken glass, encompassed the whole. This prison-like

rampart formed the limit of our domain; beyond it we saw but

thrice a week—once every Saturday afternoon, when, attended by

two ushers, we were permitted to take brief walks in a body

through some of the neighbouring fields—and twice during Sunday,

when we were paraded in the same formal manner to the morning and

evening service in the one church of the village. Of this church

the principal of our school was pastor. With how deep a spirit of

wonder and perplexity was I wont to regard him from our remote

pew in the gallery, as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended

the pulpit! This reverend man, with countenance so demurely

benign, with robes so glossy and so clerically flowing, with wig

so minutely powdered, so rigid and so vast,—-could this be he

who, of late, with sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments,

administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian laws of the academy?

Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous for solution!

At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more ponderous gate.

It was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with

jagged iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe did it inspire!

It was never opened save for the three periodical egressions and

ingressions already mentioned; then, in every creak of its mighty

hinges, we found a plenitude of mystery—a world of matter for

solemn remark, or for more solemn meditation.

The extensive enclosure was irregular in form, having many

capacious recesses. Of these, three or four of the largest

constituted the play-ground. It was level, and covered with fine

hard gravel. I well remember it had no trees, nor benches, nor

anything similar within it. Of course it was in the rear of the

house. In front lay a small parterre, planted with box and other

shrubs, but through this sacred division we passed only upon rare

occasions indeed—such as a first advent to school or final

departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent or friend having

called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the Christmas or

Midsummer holidays.

But the house!—how quaint an old building was this!—to me how

veritably a palace of enchantment! There was really no end to its

windings—to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was difficult,

at any given time, to say with certainty upon which of its two

stories one happened to be. From each room to every other there

were sure to be found three or four steps either in ascent or

descent. Then the lateral branches were

innumerable—inconceivable—and so returning in upon themselves,

that our most exact ideas in regard to the whole mansion were not

very far different from those with which we pondered upon

infinity. During the five years of my residence here, I was never

able to ascertain with precision, in what remote locality lay the

little sleeping apartment assigned to myself and some eighteen or

twenty other scholars.

The school-room was the largest in the house—I could not help

thinking, in the world. It was very long, narrow, and dismally

low, with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. In a

remote and terror-inspiring angle was a square enclosure of eight

or ten feet, comprising the sanctum, “during hours,” of our

principal, the Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid structure,

with massy door, sooner than open which in the absence of the

“Dominie,” we would all have willingly perished by the _peine

forte et dure_. In other angles were two other similar boxes, far

less reverenced, indeed, but still greatly matters of awe. One of

these was the pulpit of the “classical” usher, one of the

“English and mathematical.” Interspersed about the room, crossing

and recrossing in endless irregularity, were innumerable benches

and desks, black, ancient, and time-worn, piled desperately with

much-bethumbed books, and so beseamed with initial letters, names

at full length, grotesque figures, and other multiplied efforts

of the knife, as to have entirely lost what little of original

form might have been their portion in days long departed. A huge

bucket with water stood at one extremity of the room, and a clock

of stupendous dimensions at the other.

Encompassed by the massy walls of this venerable academy, I

passed, yet not in tedium or disgust, the years of the third

lustrum of my life. The teeming brain of childhood requires no

external world of incident to occupy or amuse it; and the

apparently dismal monotony of a school was replete with more

intense excitement than my riper youth has derived from luxury,

or my full manhood from crime. Yet I must believe that my first

mental development had in it much of the uncommon—even much of

the outré. Upon mankind at large the events of very early

existence rarely leave in mature age any definite impression. All

is gray shadow—a weak and irregular remembrance—an indistinct

regathering of feeble pleasures and phantasmagoric pains. With me

this is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the energy of

a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as vivid, as

deep, and as durable as the exergues of the Carthaginian

medals.

Yet in fact—in the fact of the world’s view—how little was there

to remember! The morning’s awakening, the nightly summons to bed;

the connings, the recitations; the periodical half-holidays, and

perambulations; the play-ground, with its broils, its pastimes,

its intrigues;—these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, were

made to involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich

incident, an universe of varied emotion, of excitement the most

passionate and spirit-stirring. “_Oh, le bon temps, que ce siècle

de fer!_”

In truth, the ardor, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness of my

disposition, soon rendered me a marked character among my

schoolmates, and by slow, but natural gradations, gave me an

ascendancy over all not greatly older than myself;—over all with

a single exception. This exception was found in the person of a

scholar, who, although no relation, bore the same Christian and

surname as myself;—a circumstance, in fact, little remarkable;

for, notwithstanding a noble descent, mine was one of those

everyday appellations which seem, by prescriptive right, to have

been, time out of mind, the common property of the mob. In this

narrative I have therefore designated myself as William Wilson,—a

fictitious title not very dissimilar to the real. My namesake

alone, of those who in school phraseology constituted “our set,”

presumed to compete with me in the studies of the class—in the

sports and broils of the play-ground—to refuse implicit belief in

my assertions, and submission to my will—indeed, to interfere

with my arbitrary dictation in any respect whatsoever. If there

is on earth a supreme and unqualified despotism, it is the

despotism of a master-mind in boyhood over the less energetic

spirits of its companions.

Wilson’s rebellion was to me a source of the greatest

embarrassment; the more so as, in spite of the bravado with which

in public I made a point of treating him and his pretensions, I

secretly felt that I feared him, and could not help thinking the

equality which he maintained so easily with myself, a proof of

his true superiority; since not to be overcome cost me a

perpetual struggle. Yet this superiority—even this equality—was

in truth acknowledged by no one but myself; our associates, by

some unaccountable blindness, seemed not even to suspect it.

Indeed, his competition, his resistance, and especially his

impertinent and dogged interference with my purposes, were not

more pointed than private. He appeared to be destitute alike of

the ambition which urged, and of the passionate energy of mind

which enabled me to excel. In his rivalry he might have been

supposed actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart,

astonish, or mortify myself; although there were times when I

could not help observing, with a feeling made up of wonder,

abasement, and pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his

insults, or his contradictions, a certain most inappropriate, and

assuredly most unwelcome affectionateness of manner. I could only

conceive this singular behavior to arise from a consummate

self-conceit assuming the vulgar airs of patronage and

protection.

Perhaps it was this latter trait in Wilson’s conduct, conjoined

with our identity of name, and the mere accident of our having

entered the school upon the same day, which set afloat the notion

that we were brothers, among the senior classes in the academy.

These do not usually inquire with much strictness into the

affairs of their juniors. I have before said, or should have

said, that Wilson was not, in the most remote degree, connected

with my family. But assuredly if we had been brothers we must

have been twins; for, after leaving Dr. Bransby’s, I casually

learned that my namesake was born on the nineteenth of January,

1813—and this is a somewhat remarkable coincidence; for the day

is precisely that of my own nativity.

It may seem strange that in spite of the continual anxiety

occasioned me by the rivalry of Wilson, and his intolerable

spirit of contradiction, I could not bring myself to hate him

altogether. We had, to be sure, nearly every day a quarrel in

which, yielding me publicly the palm of victory, he, in some

manner, contrived to make me feel that it was he who had deserved

it; yet a sense of pride on my part, and a veritable dignity on

his own, kept us always upon what are called “speaking terms,”

while there were many points of strong congeniality in our

tempers, operating to awake me in a sentiment which our position

alone, perhaps, prevented from ripening into friendship. It is

difficult, indeed, to define, or even to describe, my real

feelings towards him. They formed a motley and heterogeneous

admixture;—some petulant animosity, which was not yet hatred,

some esteem, more respect, much fear, with a world of uneasy

curiosity. To the moralist it will be unnecessary to say, in

addition, that Wilson and myself were the most inseparable of

companions.

It was no doubt the anomalous state of affairs existing between

us, which turned all my attacks upon him, (and they were many,

either open or covert) into the channel of banter or practical

joke (giving pain while assuming the aspect of mere fun) rather

than into a more serious and determined hostility. But my

endeavours on this head were by no means uniformly successful,

even when my plans were the most wittily concocted; for my

namesake had much about him, in character, of that unassuming and

quiet austerity which, while enjoying the poignancy of its own

jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself, and absolutely refuses

to be laughed at. I could find, indeed, but one vulnerable point,

and that, lying in a personal peculiarity, arising, perhaps, from

constitutional disease, would have been spared by any antagonist

less at his wit’s end than myself;—my rival had a weakness in the

faucal or guttural organs, which precluded him from raising his

voice at any time above a very low whisper. Of this defect I did

not fail to take what poor advantage lay in my power.

Wilson’s retaliations in kind were many; and there was one form

of his practical wit that disturbed me beyond measure. How his

sagacity first discovered at all that so petty a thing would vex

me, is a question I never could solve; but, having discovered, he

habitually practised the annoyance. I had always felt aversion to

my uncourtly patronymic, and its very common, if not plebeian

praenomen. The words were venom in my ears; and when, upon the

day of my arrival, a second William Wilson came also to the

academy, I felt angry with him for bearing the name, and doubly

disgusted with the name because a stranger bore it, who would be

the cause of its twofold repetition, who would be constantly in

my presence, and whose concerns, in the ordinary routine of the

school business, must inevitably, on account of the detestable

coincidence, be often confounded with my own.

The feeling of vexation thus engendered grew stronger with every

circumstance tending to show resemblance, moral or physical,

between my rival and myself. I had not then discovered the

remarkable fact that we were of the same age; but I saw that we

were of the same height, and I perceived that we were even

singularly alike in general contour of person and outline of

feature. I was galled, too, by the rumor touching a relationship,

which had grown current in the upper forms. In a word, nothing

could more seriously disturb me, (although I scrupulously

concealed such disturbance,) than any allusion to a similarity of

mind, person, or condition existing between us. But, in truth, I

had no reason to believe that (with the exception of the matter

of relationship, and in the case of Wilson himself,) this

similarity had ever been made a subject of comment, or even

observed at all by our schoolfellows. That he observed it in all

its bearings, and as fixedly as I, was apparent; but that he

could discover in such circumstances so fruitful a field of

annoyance, can only be attributed, as I said before, to his more

than ordinary penetration.

His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of myself, lay both in

words and in actions; and most admirably did he play his part. My

dress it was an easy matter to copy; my gait and general manner

were, without difficulty, appropriated; in spite of his

constitutional defect, even my voice did not escape him. My

louder tones were, of course, unattempted, but then the key—it

was identical; _and his singular whisper, it grew the very echo

of my own_.

How greatly this most exquisite portraiture harassed me, (for it

could not justly be termed a caricature,) I will not now venture

to describe. I had but one consolation—in the fact that the

imitation, apparently, was noticed by myself alone, and that I

had to endure only the knowing and strangely sarcastic smiles of

my namesake himself. Satisfied with having produced in my bosom

the intended effect, he seemed to chuckle in secret over the

sting he had inflicted, and was characteristically disregardful

of the public applause which the success of his witty endeavours

might have so easily elicited. That the school, indeed, did not

feel his design, perceive its accomplishment, and participate in

his sneer, was, for many anxious months, a riddle I could not

resolve. Perhaps the gradation of his copy rendered it not so

readily perceptible; or, more possibly, I owed my security to the

master air of the copyist, who, disdaining the letter, (which in

a painting is all the obtuse can see,) gave but the full spirit

of his original for my individual contemplation and chagrin.

I have already more than once spoken of the disgusting air of

patronage which he assumed toward me, and of his frequent

officious interference with my will. This interference often took

the ungracious character of advice; advice not openly given, but

hinted or insinuated. I received it with a repugnance which

gained strength as I grew in years. Yet, at this distant day, let

me do him the simple justice to acknowledge that I can recall no

occasion when the suggestions of my rival were on the side of

those errors or follies so usual to his immature age and seeming

inexperience; that his moral sense, at least, if not his general

talents and worldly wisdom, was far keener than my own; and that

I might, to-day, have been a better, and thus a happier man, had

I less frequently rejected the counsels embodied in those meaning

whispers which I then but too cordially hated and too bitterly

despised.

As it was, I at length grew restive in the extreme under his

distasteful supervision, and daily resented more and more openly

what I considered his intolerable arrogance. I have said that, in

the first years of our connexion as schoolmates, my feelings in

regard to him might have been easily ripened into friendship;

but, in the latter months of my residence at the academy,

although the intrusion of his ordinary manner had, beyond doubt,

in some measure, abated, my sentiments, in nearly similar

proportion, partook very much of positive hatred. Upon one

occasion he saw this, I think, and afterwards avoided, or made a

show of avoiding me.

It was about the same period, if I remember aright, that, in an

altercation of violence with him, in which he was more than

usually thrown off his guard, and spoke and acted with an

openness of demeanor rather foreign to his nature, I discovered,

or fancied I discovered, in his accent, his air, and general

appearance, a something which first startled, and then deeply

interested me, by bringing to mind dim visions of my earliest

infancy—wild, confused and thronging memories of a time when

memory herself was yet unborn. I cannot better describe the

sensation which oppressed me than by saying that I could with

difficulty shake off the belief of my having been acquainted with

the being who stood before me, at some epoch very long ago—some

point of the past even infinitely remote. The delusion, however,

faded rapidly as it came; and I mention it at all but to define

the day of the last conversation I there held with my singular

namesake.

The huge old house, with its countless subdivisions, had several

large chambers communicating with each other, where slept the

greater number of the students. There were, however, (as must

necessarily happen in a building so awkwardly planned,) many

little nooks or recesses, the odds and ends of the structure; and

these the economic ingenuity of Dr. Bransby had also fitted up as

dormitories; although, being the merest closets, they were

capable of accommodating but a single individual. One of these

small apartments was occupied by Wilson.

One night, about the close of my fifth year at the school, and

immediately after the altercation just mentioned, finding every

one wrapped in sleep, I arose from bed, and, lamp in hand, stole

through a wilderness of narrow passages from my own bedroom to

that of my rival. I had long been plotting one of those

ill-natured pieces of practical wit at his expense in which I had

hitherto been so uniformly unsuccessful. It was my intention,

now, to put my scheme in operation, and I resolved to make him

feel the whole extent of the malice with which I was imbued.

Having reached his closet, I noiselessly entered, leaving the

lamp, with a shade over it, on the outside. I advanced a step,

and listened to the sound of his tranquil breathing. Assured of

his being asleep, I returned, took the light, and with it again

approached the bed. Close curtains were around it, which, in the

prosecution of my plan, I slowly and quietly withdrew, when the

bright rays fell vividly upon the sleeper, and my eyes, at the

same moment, upon his countenance. I looked;—and a numbness, an

iciness of feeling instantly pervaded my frame. My breast heaved,

my knees tottered, my whole spirit became possessed with an

objectless yet intolerable horror. Gasping for breath, I lowered

the lamp in still nearer proximity to the face. Were these—these

the lineaments of William Wilson? I saw, indeed, that they were

his, but I shook as if with a fit of the ague in fancying they

were not. What was there about them to confound me in this

manner? I gazed;—while my brain reeled with a multitude of

incoherent thoughts. Not thus he appeared—assuredly not thus—in

the vivacity of his waking hours. The same name! the same contour

of person! the same day of arrival at the academy! And then his

dogged and meaningless imitation of my gait, my voice, my habits,

and my manner! Was it, in truth, within the bounds of human

possibility, that what I now saw was the result, merely, of the

habitual practice of this sarcastic imitation? Awe-stricken, and

with a creeping shudder, I extinguished the lamp, passed silently

from the chamber, and left, at once, the halls of that old

academy, never to enter them again.

After a lapse of some months, spent at home in mere idleness, I

found myself a student at Eton. The brief interval had been

sufficient to enfeeble my remembrance of the events at Dr.

Bransby’s, or at least to effect a material change in the nature

of the feelings with which I remembered them. The truth—the

tragedy—of the drama was no more. I could now find room to doubt

the evidence of my senses; and seldom called up the subject at

all but with wonder at extent of human credulity, and a smile at

the vivid force of the imagination which I hereditarily

possessed. Neither was this species of scepticism likely to be

diminished by the character of the life I led at Eton. The vortex

of thoughtless folly into which I there so immediately and so

recklessly plunged, washed away all but the froth of my past

hours, engulfed at once every solid or serious impression, and

left to memory only the veriest levities of a former existence.

I do not wish, however, to trace the course of my miserable

profligacy here—a profligacy which set at defiance the laws,

while it eluded the vigilance of the institution. Three years of

folly, passed without profit, had but given me rooted habits of

vice, and added, in a somewhat unusual degree, to my bodily

stature, when, after a week of soulless dissipation, I invited a

small party of the most dissolute students to a secret carousal

in my chambers. We met at a late hour of the night; for our

debaucheries were to be faithfully protracted until morning. The

wine flowed freely, and there were not wanting other and perhaps

more dangerous seductions; so that the gray dawn had already

faintly appeared in the east, while our delirious extravagance

was at its height. Madly flushed with cards and intoxication, I

was in the act of insisting upon a toast of more than wonted

profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted by the

violent, although partial unclosing of the door of the apartment,

and by the eager voice of a servant from without. He said that

some person, apparently in great haste, demanded to speak with me

in the hall.

Wildly excited with wine, the unexpected interruption rather

delighted than surprised me. I staggered forward at once, and a

few steps brought me to the vestibule of the building. In this

low and small room there hung no lamp; and now no light at all

was admitted, save that of the exceedingly feeble dawn which made

its way through the semi-circular window. As I put my foot over

the threshold, I became aware of the figure of a youth about my

own height, and habited in a white kerseymere morning frock, cut

in the novel fashion of the one I myself wore at the moment. This

the faint light enabled me to perceive; but the features of his

face I could not distinguish. Upon my entering he strode

hurriedly up to me, and, seizing me by the arm with a gesture of

petulant impatience, whispered the words “William Wilson!” in my

ear.

I grew perfectly sober in an instant.

There was that in the manner of the stranger, and in the

tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as he held it between my

eyes and the light, which filled me with unqualified amazement;

but it was not this which had so violently moved me. It was the

pregnancy of solemn admonition in the singular, low, hissing

utterance; and, above all, it was the character, the tone, the

key, of those few, simple, and familiar, yet whispered syllables,

which came with a thousand thronging memories of bygone days, and

struck upon my soul with the shock of a galvanic battery. Ere I

could recover the use of my senses he was gone.

Although this event failed not of a vivid effect upon my

disordered imagination, yet was it evanescent as vivid. For some

weeks, indeed, I busied myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped

in a cloud of morbid speculation. I did not pretend to disguise

from my perception the identity of the singular individual who

thus perseveringly interfered with my affairs, and harassed me

with his insinuated counsel. But who and what was this

Wilson?—and whence came he?—and what were his purposes? Upon

neither of these points could I be satisfied; merely

ascertaining, in regard to him, that a sudden accident in his

family had caused his removal from Dr. Bransby’s academy on the

afternoon of the day in which I myself had eloped. But in a brief

period I ceased to think upon the subject; my attention being all

absorbed in a contemplated departure for Oxford. Thither I soon

went; the uncalculating vanity of my parents furnishing me with

an outfit and annual establishment, which would enable me to

indulge at will in the luxury already so dear to my heart,—to vie

in profuseness of expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the

wealthiest earldoms in Great Britain.

Excited by such appliances to vice, my constitutional temperament

broke forth with redoubled ardor, and I spurned even the common

restraints of decency in the mad infatuation of my revels. But it

were absurd to pause in the detail of my extravagance. Let it

suffice, that among spendthrifts I out-Heroded Herod, and that,

giving name to a multitude of novel follies, I added no brief

appendix to the long catalogue of vices then usual in the most

dissolute university of Europe.

It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so

utterly fallen from the gentlemanly estate, as to seek

acquaintance with the vilest arts of the gambler by profession,

and, having become an adept in his despicable science, to

practise it habitually as a means of increasing my already

enormous income at the expense of the weak-minded among my

fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the fact. And the very

enormity of this offence against all manly and honourable

sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the sole reason

of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed, among

my most abandoned associates, would not rather have disputed the

clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspected of such

courses, the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson—the

noblest and most liberal commoner at Oxford—him whose follies

(said his parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled

fancy—whose errors but inimitable whim—whose darkest vice but a

careless and dashing extravagance?

I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when

there came to the university a young parvenu nobleman,

Glendinning—rich, said report, as Herodes Atticus—his riches,

too, as easily acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and,

of course, marked him as a fitting subject for my skill. I

frequently engaged him in play, and contrived, with the gambler’s

usual art, to let him win considerable sums, the more effectually

to entangle him in my snares. At length, my schemes being ripe, I

met him (with the full intention that this meeting should be

final and decisive) at the chambers of a fellow-commoner, (Mr.

Preston,) equally intimate with both, but who, to do him justice,

entertained not even a remote suspicion of my design. To give to

this a better coloring, I had contrived to have assembled a party

of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful that the

introduction of cards should appear accidental, and originate in

the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a

vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary

upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how

any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim.

We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at

length effected the manoeuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole

antagonist. The game, too, was my favorite écarté! The rest of

the company, interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned

their own cards, and were standing around us as spectators. The

parvenu, who had been induced by my artifices in the early part

of the evening, to drink deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played,

with a wild nervousness of manner for which his intoxication, I

thought, might partially, but could not altogether account. In a

very short period he had become my debtor to a large amount,

when, having taken a long draught of port, he did precisely what

I had been coolly anticipating—he proposed to double our already

extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of reluctance, and

not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him into some

angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance, did I

finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how entirely

the prey was in my toils: in less than an hour he had quadrupled

his debt. For some time his countenance had been losing the

florid tinge lent it by the wine; but now, to my astonishment, I

perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say to

my astonishment. Glendinning had been represented to my eager

inquiries as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he had as

yet lost, although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed,

very seriously annoy, much less so violently affect him. That he

was overcome by the wine just swallowed, was the idea which most

readily presented itself; and, rather with a view to the

preservation of my own character in the eyes of my associates,

than from any less interested motive, I was about to insist,

peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of the play, when some

expressions at my elbow from among the company, and an

ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of Glendinning,

gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin under

circumstances which, rendering him an object for the pity of all,

should have protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend.

What now might have been my conduct it is difficult to say. The

pitiable condition of my dupe had thrown an air of embarrassed

gloom over all; and, for some moments, a profound silence was

maintained, during which I could not help feeling my cheeks

tingle with the many burning glances of scorn or reproach cast

upon me by the less abandoned of the party. I will even own that

an intolerable weight of anxiety was for a brief instant lifted

from my bosom by the sudden and extraordinary interruption which

ensued. The wide, heavy folding doors of the apartment were all

at once thrown open, to their full extent, with a vigorous and

rushing impetuosity that extinguished, as if by magic, every

candle in the room. Their light, in dying, enabled us just to

perceive that a stranger had entered, about my own height, and

closely muffled in a cloak. The darkness, however, was now total;

and we could only feel that he was standing in our midst. Before

any one of us could recover from the extreme astonishment into

which this rudeness had thrown all, we heard the voice of the

intruder.

“Gentlemen,” he said, in a low, distinct, and

never-to-be-forgotten whisper which thrilled to the very marrow

of my bones, “Gentlemen, I make no apology for this behaviour,

because in thus behaving, I am but fulfilling a duty. You are,

beyond doubt, uninformed of the true character of the person who

has to-night won at écarté a large sum of money from Lord

Glendinning. I will therefore put you upon an expeditious and

decisive plan of obtaining this very necessary information.

Please to examine, at your leisure, the inner linings of the cuff

of his left sleeve, and the several little packages which may be

found in the somewhat capacious pockets of his embroidered

morning wrapper.”

While he spoke, so profound was the stillness that one might have

heard a pin drop upon the floor. In ceasing, he departed at once,

and as abruptly as he had entered. Can I—shall I describe my

sensations? Must I say that I felt all the horrors of the damned?

Most assuredly I had little time given for reflection. Many hands

roughly seized me upon the spot, and lights were immediately

reprocured. A search ensued. In the lining of my sleeve were

found all the court cards essential in écarté, and, in the

pockets of my wrapper, a number of packs, facsimiles of those

used at our sittings, with the single exception that mine were of

the species called, technically, arrondees; the honours being

slightly convex at the ends, the lower cards slightly convex at

the sides. In this disposition, the dupe who cuts, as customary,

at the length of the pack, will invariably find that he cuts his

antagonist an honor; while the gambler, cutting at the breadth,

will, as certainly, cut nothing for his victim which may count in

the records of the game.

Any burst of indignation upon this discovery would have affected

me less than the silent contempt, or the sarcastic composure,

with which it was received.

“Mr. Wilson,” said our host, stooping to remove from beneath his

feet an exceedingly luxurious cloak of rare furs, “Mr. Wilson,

this is your property.” (The weather was cold; and, upon quitting

my own room, I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper,

putting it off upon reaching the scene of play.) “I presume it is

supererogatory to seek here (eyeing the folds of the garment with

a bitter smile) for any farther evidence of your skill. Indeed,

we have had enough. You will see the necessity, I hope, of

quitting Oxford—at all events, of quitting instantly my

chambers.”

Abased, humbled to the dust as I then was, it is probable that I

should have resented this galling language by immediate personal

violence, had not my whole attention been at the moment arrested

by a fact of the most startling character. The cloak which I had

worn was of a rare description of fur; how rare, how

extravagantly costly, I shall not venture to say. Its fashion,

too, was of my own fantastic invention; for I was fastidious to

an absurd degree of coxcombry, in matters of this frivolous

nature. When, therefore, Mr. Preston reached me that which he had

picked up upon the floor, and near the folding doors of the

apartment, it was with an astonishment nearly bordering upon

terror, that I perceived my own already hanging on my arm, (where

I had no doubt unwittingly placed it,) and that the one presented

me was but its exact counterpart in every, in even the minutest

possible particular. The singular being who had so disastrously

exposed me, had been muffled, I remembered, in a cloak; and none

had been worn at all by any of the members of our party with the

exception of myself. Retaining some presence of mind, I took the

one offered me by Preston; placed it, unnoticed, over my own;

left the apartment with a resolute scowl of defiance; and, next

morning ere dawn of day, commenced a hurried journey from Oxford

to the continent, in a perfect agony of horror and of shame.

I fled in vain. My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation,

and proved, indeed, that the exercise of its mysterious dominion

had as yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I had

fresh evidence of the detestable interest taken by this Wilson in

my concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no relief.

Villain!—at Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an

officiousness, stepped he in between me and my ambition! At

Vienna, too—at Berlin—and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not

bitter cause to curse him within my heart? From his inscrutable

tyranny did I at length flee, panic-stricken, as from a

pestilence; and to the very ends of the earth I fled in vain.

And again, and again, in secret communion with my own spirit,

would I demand the questions “Who is he?—whence came he?—and what

are his objects?” But no answer was there found. And then I

scrutinized, with a minute scrutiny, the forms, and the methods,

and the leading traits of his impertinent supervision. But even

here there was very little upon which to base a conjecture. It

was noticeable, indeed, that, in no one of the multiplied

instances in which he had of late crossed my path, had he so

crossed it except to frustrate those schemes, or to disturb those

actions, which, if fully carried out, might have resulted in

bitter mischief. Poor justification this, in truth, for an

authority so imperiously assumed! Poor indemnity for natural

rights of self-agency so pertinaciously, so insultingly denied!

I had also been forced to notice that my tormentor, for a very

long period of time, (while scrupulously and with miraculous

dexterity maintaining his whim of an identity of apparel with

myself,) had so contrived it, in the execution of his varied

interference with my will, that I saw not, at any moment, the

features of his face. Be Wilson what he might, this, at least,

was but the veriest of affectation, or of folly. Could he, for an

instant, have supposed that, in my admonisher at Eton—in the

destroyer of my honor at Oxford,—in him who thwarted my ambition

at Rome, my revenge at Paris, my passionate love at Naples, or

what he falsely termed my avarice in Egypt,—that in this, my

arch-enemy and evil genius, could fail to recognise the William

Wilson of my school boy days,—the namesake, the companion, the

rival,—the hated and dreaded rival at Dr. Bransby’s?

Impossible!—But let me hasten to the last eventful scene of the

drama.

Thus far I had succumbed supinely to this imperious domination.

The sentiment of deep awe with which I habitually regarded the

elevated character, the majestic wisdom, the apparent

omnipresence and omnipotence of Wilson, added to a feeling of

even terror, with which certain other traits in his nature and

assumptions inspired me, had operated, hitherto, to impress me

with an idea of my own utter weakness and helplessness, and to

suggest an implicit, although bitterly reluctant submission to

his arbitrary will. But, of late days, I had given myself up

entirely to wine; and its maddening influence upon my hereditary

temper rendered me more and more impatient of control. I began to

murmur,—to hesitate,—to resist. And was it only fancy which

induced me to believe that, with the increase of my own firmness,

that of my tormentor underwent a proportional diminution? Be this

as it may, I now began to feel the inspiration of a burning hope,

and at length nurtured in my secret thoughts a stern and

desperate resolution that I would submit no longer to be

enslaved.

It was at Rome, during the Carnival of 18—, that I attended a

masquerade in the palazzo of the Neapolitan Duke Di Broglio. I

had indulged more freely than usual in the excesses of the

wine-table; and now the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded

rooms irritated me beyond endurance. The difficulty, too, of

forcing my way through the mazes of the company contributed not a

little to the ruffling of my temper; for I was anxiously seeking,

(let me not say with what unworthy motive) the young, the gay,

the beautiful wife of the aged and doting Di Broglio. With a too

unscrupulous confidence she had previously communicated to me the

secret of the costume in which she would be habited, and now,

having caught a glimpse of her person, I was hurrying to make my

way into her presence. At this moment I felt a light hand placed

upon my shoulder, and that ever-remembered, low, damnable

whisper within my ear.

In an absolute phrenzy of wrath, I turned at once upon him who

had thus interrupted me, and seized him violently by the collar.

He was attired, as I had expected, in a costume altogether

similar to my own; wearing a Spanish cloak of blue velvet, begirt

about the waist with a crimson belt sustaining a rapier. A mask

of black silk entirely covered his face.

“Scoundrel!” I said, in a voice husky with rage, while every

syllable I uttered seemed as new fuel to my fury, “scoundrel!

impostor! accursed villain! you shall not—you shall not dog me

unto death! Follow me, or I stab you where you stand!”—and I

broke my way from the ball-room into a small ante-chamber

adjoining, dragging him unresistingly with me as I went.

Upon entering, I thrust him furiously from me. He staggered

against the wall, while I closed the door with an oath, and

commanded him to draw. He hesitated but for an instant; then,

with a slight sigh, drew in silence, and put himself upon his

defence.

The contest was brief indeed. I was frantic with every species of

wild excitement, and felt within my single arm the energy and

power of a multitude. In a few seconds I forced him by sheer

strength against the wainscoting, and thus, getting him at mercy,

plunged my sword, with brute ferocity, repeatedly through and

through his bosom.

At that instant some person tried the latch of the door. I

hastened to prevent an intrusion, and then immediately returned

to my dying antagonist. But what human language can adequately

portray that astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the

spectacle then presented to view? The brief moment in which I

averted my eyes had been sufficient to produce, apparently, a

material change in the arrangements at the upper or farther end

of the room. A large mirror,—so at first it seemed to me in my

confusion—now stood where none had been perceptible before; and,

as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but

with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me

with a feeble and tottering gait.

Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist—it was

Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of his

dissolution. His mask and cloak lay, where he had thrown them,

upon the floor. Not a thread in all his raiment—not a line in all

the marked and singular lineaments of his face which was not,

even in the most absolute identity, mine own!

It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could

have fancied that I myself was speaking while he said:

_“You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou

also dead—dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst

thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine

own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.”_