1 00:00:00,360 --> 00:00:07,040 A wireless message by Ambrose Pierce. In the summer of eighteen ninety six, 2 00:00:07,559 --> 00:00:13,599 mister William Holt, a wealthy manufacturer of Chicago, was living temporarily in a 3 00:00:13,679 --> 00:00:18,320 little town of central New York, the name of which the writer's memory has 4 00:00:18,399 --> 00:00:24,760 not retained. Mister Holt had had trouble with his wife, from whom he 5 00:00:24,839 --> 00:00:30,280 had been parted a year before. Whether the trouble was anything more serious than 6 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:37,119 incompatibility of temperament, he is probably the only living person that knows he is 7 00:00:37,159 --> 00:00:43,000 not addicted to the vice of confidences. Yet he has related the incident herein 8 00:00:43,079 --> 00:00:49,079 set down to at least one person without exacting a pledge of secrecy. He 9 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:54,240 is now living in Europe. One evening he left the house of a brother 10 00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:59,479 whom he was visiting for a stroll in the country. It may be assumed, 11 00:00:59,799 --> 00:01:03,120 whatever the value of the assumption and connection with what is said, that 12 00:01:03,239 --> 00:01:11,760 his mind was occupied with reflections on his domestic infelicities and the distressing changes that 13 00:01:11,799 --> 00:01:15,920 they had wrought in his life. Whatever may have been his thoughts, they 14 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:21,719 so possessed him that he observed neither the lapse of time, nor whither his 15 00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:26,359 feet were carrying him. He knew only that he was passing far beyond the 16 00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:32,280 town limits and was traversing a lonely region by a road that bore no resemblance 17 00:01:32,319 --> 00:01:37,200 to the one by which he had left the village. In brief, he 18 00:01:37,319 --> 00:01:42,680 was lost. Realizing his mischance, he smiled, Central New York is not 19 00:01:42,719 --> 00:01:48,599 a region of perils, nor does one long remain lost in it. He 20 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:53,319 turned about and went back the way he had come. Before he had gone 21 00:01:53,359 --> 00:01:57,239 far, he observed that the landscape was growing more distinct, was brightening. 22 00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:04,079 Everything was so fused with a soft red glow in which he saw his shadow 23 00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:08,199 projected in the road before him. The moon is rising, he said to 24 00:02:08,319 --> 00:02:13,400 himself. Then he remembered that it was about the time of the new moon, 25 00:02:13,919 --> 00:02:16,919 and if that trixy orb was in one of its stages of visibility, 26 00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:24,039 it had set long before. He stopped and faced about, seeking the source 27 00:02:24,199 --> 00:02:30,319 of the rapidly broadening light. As he did so, his shadow turned and 28 00:02:30,479 --> 00:02:35,120 lay along the road in front of him. As before, the light still 29 00:02:35,159 --> 00:02:42,879 came from behind him. That was surprising, he could not understand. Again, 30 00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:47,599 he turned and again, facing successively each point of the horizon. Always 31 00:02:47,639 --> 00:02:54,039 the shadow was before always the light behind, and still and awful. Red 32 00:02:55,319 --> 00:03:00,719 Holt was astonished. Dumbfounded is the word he used in telling it, yet 33 00:03:00,759 --> 00:03:07,680 seems to have retained a certain intelligent curiosity. To test the intensity of the 34 00:03:07,759 --> 00:03:10,400 light, whose nature and cause he could not determine, he took out his 35 00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:15,800 watch to see if he could make out the figures on the dial. They 36 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:21,199 were plainly visible, and the hands indicated the hour of eleven o'clock and twenty 37 00:03:21,199 --> 00:03:27,879 five minutes. At that moment, the mysterious illumination suddenly flared to an intensity, 38 00:03:28,439 --> 00:03:34,520 an almost blinding splendor, flushing the entire sky, extinguishing the stars, 39 00:03:34,560 --> 00:03:39,879 and throwing the monstrous shadow of himself and toward the landscape. In that unearthly 40 00:03:39,919 --> 00:03:45,439 illumination, he saw near him, but apparently in the air, at considerable 41 00:03:45,439 --> 00:03:50,960 elevation, the figure of his wife, clad in her night clothing and holding 42 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:54,879 to her breast the figure of his child. Her eyes were fixed upon him 43 00:03:54,960 --> 00:04:02,039 with an expression which he afterward professed himself unable to aim or describe further than 44 00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:09,599 it was not of this life. The flare was momentary, followed by black 45 00:04:09,680 --> 00:04:15,199 darkness, in which, however the apparition still showed white and motionless. Then 46 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:20,800 by insensible degrees it faded and vanished like a bright image on the retina after 47 00:04:20,839 --> 00:04:27,680 the closing of the eyes. A peculiarity of the apparition, hardly noted at 48 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:32,040 the time, but afterward recalled, was that it showed only the upper half 49 00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:39,240 of the woman's figure. Nothing was seen below the waist. The sudden darkness 50 00:04:39,319 --> 00:04:45,920 was comparative, not absolute, for gradually all objects of his environment became again 51 00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:50,519 visible. In the dawn of the morning, Holt found himself entering the village 52 00:04:50,519 --> 00:04:56,399 at a point opposite to that which he had left it. He soon arrived 53 00:04:56,399 --> 00:05:00,879 at the house of his brother, who hardly knew him. He was wild 54 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:05,800 eyed, haggard, and gray as a rat. Almost incoherently, he related 55 00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:12,000 his night's experience. Go to bed, my poor fellow, said his brother, 56 00:05:12,680 --> 00:05:18,240 and wait we shall hear more of this. An hour later came the 57 00:05:18,279 --> 00:05:25,600 predestined telegram. Holt's dwelling in one of the suburbs of Chicago had been destroyed 58 00:05:25,639 --> 00:05:30,079 by fire. Her escape cut off by the flames, his wife had appeared 59 00:05:30,240 --> 00:05:35,839 in an upper window, her child in her arms. There she had stood 60 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:42,600 motionless, apparently dazed, just as the fireman arrived at the latter. The 61 00:05:42,680 --> 00:05:47,439 floor gave way, and she was seen no more. The moment of this 62 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:57,759 culminating horror was eleven o'clock and twenty five minutes standard time, the end of 63 00:05:58,399 --> 00:06:00,480 a wireless message by Ambrose Bierce.