The Door of the Unreal by Gerald Biss

Author:Gerald Biss
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: History - General History, Horror, History, General
ISBN: 9781150511455
Publisher: General Books LLC
Published: 2009-12-14T08:00:00+00:00

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A few minutes later the door opened abruptly; and in came the saturnine old professor, crossing the room with his long characteristic stride, his strange eyes, under their shaggy, slanting brows, fixing upon each one of us in turn none too kindly, and looking through us half-suspiciously. I took his hand, with the long pointed fingers, and gripped it with apparent heartiness, looking him back straight in the eyes.

“I have availed myself of your kind invitation to come and have a scientific chat with you, Professor,” I said: “and I trust that I have not come at an inconvenient time.”

Professor Wolff mastered his disinclination with an effort, and did his best to welcome me.

“I am delighted to meet anyone interested in my subjects,” he replied. “It is so rare in Sussex. Come into my room; and leave these young people to discuss the sort of things that interest them.”

He took me into the library, which looked as though it had not been dusted since his arrival. It was both musty and dusty, with the furniture all awry, odd tables of all periods collected from various parts of the house and piled with open books, bundles of notes, specimens, and all the paraphernalia of a student and a bookworm.

A small fire smouldered on the hearth, and he stirred it impatiently and threw a couple of big logs on before throwing himself down on a big sofa and curling himself up like a dog, with his legs half under him, in one corner, motioning to me to seat myself, as he drew up a great grey fur rug over the lower part of his long body.

He was a most wonderful man, unpleasant as he was personally and abhorrent physically; and he had a rare and marvellous brain. I shall never forget that hour with him, sitting opposite to him, fascinated not only by his ceaseless talk upon recondite subjects which were obviously everyday commonplaces to him, but by his extraordinary personality, which, above all things, I had come to study: and the only thing was that the one warred with the other and divided my attention, while he watched me the whole time intently, yet withal furtively and with shifty eyes, as I listened to the rough, guttural sentences pouring from him like a scientific avalanche.

I can hardly say whether I was glad or sorry when Dorothy tapped on the door and nervously announced that tea was ready. It broke the spell but I had accomplished the real object of my visit, and my last lingering doubt—if any there had been—had vanished as to the inwardness of the strange genius, with whom I had sat in such close proximity all alone in the fading light—a weird experience in the twentieth century for one who knew the horrible truth the whole time.

“Come,” he said abruptly, as though the spell had been broken, “we must go back to your friends as they will be anxious to be leaving before the light entirely departs.”

The drawing-room was bright and cheerful, a pleasant contrast, which I welcomed with every fibre of my body.

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