age. Their edges were brittle, breaking off in powdery fragments. A few starbursts of gray mold mottled the edges of the pages, but the fungus did not appear to have made further inroads.
Carefully she opened the book. On the flyleaf pasted to the inside front cover was a heavy horizontal smear of ink. Something had been written there—an inscription or a signature, perhaps—and then blacked out. Once she got a replacement light fixture for her UV lamp, she might be able to fluoresce the hidden writing.
She turned past the flyleaf. Handwritten notes stretched neatly across the unlined paper. The entries, neither signed nor dated, were written in a neat, scholarly hand, with ornate Victorian flourishes. She estimated there were sixty pages in all. The early pages were missing, having fallen out or been torn loose, and the diary now began in the middle of a sentence.
— of my strange dreams lately. Dreams of blood. More precisely of women’s blood rushing out from between their legs and bathing my bare hands. Ghastly images. I wake in a fever. I shiver as though with ague. What is worst of all, the women all have the same face. It is Kitty's face. She haunts me.
Elaborate diction, rendered in meticulous copperplate, though with a paucity of punctuation. The writer seemed averse to commas, perhaps a sign of a racing mind.
I have taken to drink in the evenings. Without a touch of spirits, sleep eludes me. I fear to sleep, fear the dreams. The women who are Kitty with their bleeding female parts. It must be the onset of cerebral disease. I see a dread prevision of myself in a lunatic asylum, a jabbering maniac. This I fear above all.
Kitty is to blame. I feel certain of it. She infected my soul, planted an evil germ. Perhaps it is her revenge on me, her curse. But this too is madness.
The dreams have not visited me for some time but now they start again. It is because of the incident last Friday. The fallen woman in the street. She so much resembled Kitty from afar. I was certain it was she. Only when I drew near did I apprehend my mistake.
Yet how could I have been so self-deceived? Kitty is no whore. Whatever else she may be, she is above suspicion in that respect.
Dare not sleep. Perambulate all night. In my rooms at first, but later in the streets. Thrice I've been accosted by harlots. Each time I was briefly persuaded the woman’s face was Kitty's.
Perhaps I should not have broken off with her. Perhaps I should have proceeded with arrangements. She would now be my bride, and I would not be hounded by phantoms and phantasies.
Can not rid myself of these horrors. They harry me incessantly. There is a permanent shudder in my blood, a finger of ice running always along my spine. I live with a perpetual smothering anguish. I fear the night. I endure the day.
Wisp has noted my condition. The fool believes I merely need to quicken my circulation with activities outside the school. He has no inkling of my nocturnal torments.
Difficult to maintain mental concentration on my classes. As always surrounded by fools. Despicable creatures. People speak of the innocence of children but it is not innocence, rather it is the bovine blankness of stockyard animals. I hate them all, their oily faces, their pink hands. They plague me, squealing for the sow’s teats.
He had nicknames for the children.
Vole was especially stupid today, fumbling through his Virgil like an illiterate farm boy. Weed and Splotch did no better. Arma virumque cano— Splotch thought it was something about a dog. Cano not canis you blind fool. Weasel got it right but I cannot abide his obsequious fawning as if to translate a few verses ex tempore would earn my eternal gratitude. I did not make Feeble translate at all, there’s no point, even the sport of seeing him fail has grown tedious.
He was a schoolteacher, obviously. All his students seemed to be male. An all-boys school?
The headmaster was the man
Carefully she opened the book. On the flyleaf pasted to the inside front cover was a heavy horizontal smear of ink. Something had been written there—an inscription or a signature, perhaps—and then blacked out. Once she got a replacement light fixture for her UV lamp, she might be able to fluoresce the hidden writing.
She turned past the flyleaf. Handwritten notes stretched neatly across the unlined paper. The entries, neither signed nor dated, were written in a neat, scholarly hand, with ornate Victorian flourishes. She estimated there were sixty pages in all. The early pages were missing, having fallen out or been torn loose, and the diary now began in the middle of a sentence.
— of my strange dreams lately. Dreams of blood. More precisely of women’s blood rushing out from between their legs and bathing my bare hands. Ghastly images. I wake in a fever. I shiver as though with ague. What is worst of all, the women all have the same face. It is Kitty's face. She haunts me.
Elaborate diction, rendered in meticulous copperplate, though with a paucity of punctuation. The writer seemed averse to commas, perhaps a sign of a racing mind.
I have taken to drink in the evenings. Without a touch of spirits, sleep eludes me. I fear to sleep, fear the dreams. The women who are Kitty with their bleeding female parts. It must be the onset of cerebral disease. I see a dread prevision of myself in a lunatic asylum, a jabbering maniac. This I fear above all.
Kitty is to blame. I feel certain of it. She infected my soul, planted an evil germ. Perhaps it is her revenge on me, her curse. But this too is madness.
The dreams have not visited me for some time but now they start again. It is because of the incident last Friday. The fallen woman in the street. She so much resembled Kitty from afar. I was certain it was she. Only when I drew near did I apprehend my mistake.
Yet how could I have been so self-deceived? Kitty is no whore. Whatever else she may be, she is above suspicion in that respect.
Dare not sleep. Perambulate all night. In my rooms at first, but later in the streets. Thrice I've been accosted by harlots. Each time I was briefly persuaded the woman’s face was Kitty's.
Perhaps I should not have broken off with her. Perhaps I should have proceeded with arrangements. She would now be my bride, and I would not be hounded by phantoms and phantasies.
Can not rid myself of these horrors. They harry me incessantly. There is a permanent shudder in my blood, a finger of ice running always along my spine. I live with a perpetual smothering anguish. I fear the night. I endure the day.
Wisp has noted my condition. The fool believes I merely need to quicken my circulation with activities outside the school. He has no inkling of my nocturnal torments.
Difficult to maintain mental concentration on my classes. As always surrounded by fools. Despicable creatures. People speak of the innocence of children but it is not innocence, rather it is the bovine blankness of stockyard animals. I hate them all, their oily faces, their pink hands. They plague me, squealing for the sow’s teats.
He had nicknames for the children.
Vole was especially stupid today, fumbling through his Virgil like an illiterate farm boy. Weed and Splotch did no better. Arma virumque cano— Splotch thought it was something about a dog. Cano not canis you blind fool. Weasel got it right but I cannot abide his obsequious fawning as if to translate a few verses ex tempore would earn my eternal gratitude. I did not make Feeble translate at all, there’s no point, even the sport of seeing him fail has grown tedious.
He was a schoolteacher, obviously. All his students seemed to be male. An all-boys school?
The headmaster was the man
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