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Caterpillars by E. F. Benson. I saw a month or two ago

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in an Italian paper that the Villa
Cascana in which I once stayed had been

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pulled down, and that a manufactory
of some sort was in process of erection

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at sight. There is therefore no
longer any reason for refraining from writing of

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those things which I myself saw or
imagined I saw in a certain room and

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on a certain landing of the villa
in question, nor from mentioning the circumstances

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which followed, which may or may
not, according to the opinion of the

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reader, throw some light on or
be somehow connected with this experience. The

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Villa Cascana was, in all ways
but one a perfectly delightful house. Yet

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if it were standing now, nothing
in the world I used a phrase in

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its literal sense would induce me to
set footet at again, for I believe

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it to have been haunted in a
very terrible and practical manner. Most ghosts,

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when all is said and done,
do not do much harm. They

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may perhaps terrify, but the person
whom they visit usually gets over their visitation.

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They may, on the other hand, be entirely friendly and beneficent,

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but the appearances in the Villa Cascana
were not beneficent, and had they made

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their visit in a very slightly different
manner, I do not suppose I should

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have got over it anymore than Arthur
Inglis did. The house stood on an

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islex clad hill, not far from
Thencestry de Lavante, on the Italian Riviera,

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looking out over the iridescent blues of
that enchanted sea, while behind it

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rose the pale green chestnut woods that
climb up the hillsides till they give place

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to the pines that black, in
contrast with them, crown the slopes all

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round. At the garden in the
luxuriance of mid spring, bloomed and was

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fragrant, and the scent of magnolia
and rose borne on the salt freshness of

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the winds from the sea flowed like
a stream through the cool vaulted rooms.

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On the ground floor, a broad
pillared loggia ran round three sides of the

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house, the top of which formed
a balcony for certain rooms of the first

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floor. The main staircase, broad
and of gray marble, steps, led

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up from the hall to the landing. Outside these rooms, which were three

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in number, namely two big sitting
rooms and a bedroom arranged on suite.

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The ladder was unoccupied, the sitting
rooms were in use. From these the

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main staircase was continued to the second
floor, where were situated certain bedrooms,

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one of which I occupied, while
from the other side of the first floor

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landing, some half dozen steps led
to another suite of rooms, where,

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at the time I am speaking of
Arthur Inglis, the artist had his bedroom

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in studio. Thus the landing outside
my bedroom at the top of the house

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commanded both the landing of the first
floor and also the steps that led to

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England room Jim Stanley and his wife. Finally, whose guest I was occupied

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rooms in another wing of the house, where also were the servants quarters.

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I arrived just in time for lunch
on a brilliant noon of mid May.

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The garden was shouting with color and
fragrance, and not less delightful after my

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broiling walk up from the marina should
have been the coming from the reverberating heat

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and blaze of the day into the
marble coolness of the villa. Only the

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reader has my bare word for this
and nothing more. The moment I set

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foot into the house, I felt
that something was wrong. This feeling,

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I may say, was quite vague, though very strong. And I remember

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that when I saw letters waiting for
me on the table in the hall,

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I felt certain that the explanation was
here. I was convinced that there was

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bad news of some sort for me. Yet when I opened them, I

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found no such explanation of my premonition. My correspondence all reeked of prosperity.

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Yet this clear miscarriage of a presentiment
did not dissipate my uneasiness in that cool,

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fragrant house. There was something wrong. I am at pains to mention

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this, because to the general view, it may explain that, though I

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am as a rule so excellent asleep, or that the extinction of my light

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on getting into bed is apparently contemporaneous
with being called on the following morning,

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I slept very badly on my first
night at the Villicuskana. It may also

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explain the fact that when I did
sleep, if it was indeed in sleep

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that I saw what I thought I
saw, I dreamed in a very vivid

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and original manner. Original, that
is to say, in the sense that

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something that, as far as I
knew, had never previously entered into my

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consciousness. Usurped it then. But
since in addition to this evil premonition,

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certain words and events occurring during the
rest of the day might have suggested something

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of what I thought happened that night, it will be well to relate them

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after lunch. Then I went round
the house with Missus Stanley, and during

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our tour she referred, it is
true to the unoccupied bedroom on the first

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floor, which opened out of the
room where we had lunched. We left

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that unoccupied, she said, because
Jim and I have a charming bedroom and

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dressing room, as you saw in
the wing, and if we used it

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ourselves, we should have to turn
the dining room into a dressing room and

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have our meals downstairs. As it
is, however, we have our little

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flat there. Arthur Inglis has his
little flat in the other passage. And

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I remembered, arty extraordinary that you
once said that the higher up you were

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in a house, the better you
were pleased. So I put you at

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the top of the house instead of
giving you that room. It is true

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that a doubt, vague as my
uneasy premonition, crossed my mind at this

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I did not see why Missus Stanley
should have explained all this if there had

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been not been more to explain,
I allow therefore that the thought that there

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was something to explain about the unoccupied
bedroom was momentarily present to my mind.

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The second thing that may have borne
on my dream was this. At dinner,

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the conversation turned for a moment on
ghosts. English, with the certainty

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of conviction, expressed his belief that
anybody who could possibly believe in the existence

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of supernatural phenomena was unworthy of the
name of an ass. The subject instantly

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dropped. As far as I can
recollect, nothing else occurred or was said

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that could bear on what follows.
We all went to bed rather early,

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and personally I yawned my way upstairs, feeling hideously sleepy. My room was

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rather hot, and I threw all
the windows wide, and from without poured

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in the white light of the moon
and the love song of many nightingales.

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I undressed quickly and got into bed. But though I had felt so sleepy

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before, I now felt extremely wide
awake. But I was quite content to

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be awake. I did not toss
or turn. I felt perfectly happy listening

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to the song and seeing the light. Then it is possible I may have

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gone to sleep, and what follows
may have been a dream. I thought,

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anyhow, that after a time,
the nightingales ceased singing, and the

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moon sank. I thought also that
if for some unexplained reason, I was

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going to lie awake all night,
I might as well read. And I

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remembered that I had left a book
in which I was interested in the dining

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room on the first floor. So
I got out of bed, lit a

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candle, and went downstairs. I
went into the room, saw on a

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side table the book I had come
to look for, and then simultaneously saw

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that the door into the unoccupied bedroom
was open. A curious gray light,

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not of dawn nor of moonshine,
came out of it, and I looked

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in the bed stood just opposite the
door, a big four poster hung with

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tapestry at the head. Then I
saw that the grayish light of the bedroom

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came from the bed, or rather
what was on the bed, for it

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was covered with great caterpillars a foot
or more in length, which crawled over

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it. They were faintly luminous,
and it was the light from them that

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showed me the room. Instead of
the sucker feet of ordinary caterpillars. They

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had rows of pincers like crabs,
and they moved by grasping what they lay

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on with their pincers and then sliding
their bodies forward. In color, these

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dreadful insects were yellowish gray, and
they were covered with irregular lumps and swellings.

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There must have been hundreds of them, for they formed a sort of

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writhing, crawling pyramid on the bed. Occasionally one fell off onto the floor

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with a soft, fleshy thud,
and though the floor was of hard concrete,

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it yielded to the pincer feet as
if it had been putty, and

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crawling back, the caterpillar would mount
onto the bed again to rejoin its fearful

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companions. They appeared to have no
faces, so to speak, but at

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one of them there was a mouth
that opened sideways and respiration. Then as

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I looked, it seemed to me
that they all suddenly became conscious of my

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presence. All the mouths, at
any rate, were turned in my direction,

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and next moment they began dropping off
the bed with those soft fleshy thuds

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onto the floor and wriggling towards me. For a second a paralysis as of

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a dream was on me. But
the next I was running upstairs again to

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my room, and I remember feeling
the cold of the marble steps on my

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bare feet. I rushed into my
bedroom and slammed the door behind me,

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and then I was certainly wide awake. Now I found myself standing by my

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bed, with a sweat of terror
pouring from me. The noise of the

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bang door still rang in my ears. But as would have been more usual

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if this had been mere nightmare,
the terror that had been mine when I

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saw those foul beasts crawling about the
bed or dropping softly onto the floor,

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did not cease then awake. Now, if dream before I did not at

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all recover from the horror of dream, it did not seem to me that

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I had dreamed. And until dawn
I sat or stood, not daring to

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lie down, thinking that every rustle
or movement that I heard was the approach

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of the caterpillars to them, and
the clawse that bit into the cement the

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wood of the door was child's play. Steele would not keep them out.

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But with the sweet and noble return
of day, the horror vanished. The

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whisper of wind became benignant again.
The nameless fear, whatever it was,

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was smoothed out and terrified me no
longer. Dawn broke hewless at first,

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then it grew dove colored. Then
the flaming pageant of light spread over the

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sky. The admirable rule of the
house was that everybody had breakfast where and

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when he pleased, And in consequence, it was not till lunch time that

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I met any of the other members
of our party, since I had breakfast

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on my balcony and wrote letters and
other things till lunch. In fact,

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I got down to that meal rather
late, after the other three had begun.

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Between my knife and fork there was
a small pill box of cardboard,

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and as I sat down, English
spoke, Do look at that? He

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said, since you are interested in
natural history. I found it crawling on

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my counterpane last night, and I
don't know what it is. I think

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that before I opened the pill box
I expected something of the sort which I

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found in it. Inside, anyhow, was a small caterpillar, grayish yellow

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in color, with curious bumps,
and it crescences on its rings. It

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was extremely active and hurried round the
box this way, and that its feet

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were unlike the feet of any caterpillar
I ever saw. They were like the

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pincers of a crab. I looked
and shut the lid down again. No,

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I don't know it, I said, but it looks rather unwholesome.

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What are you going to do with
it? Oh, I shall keep it,

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said English. It has begun the
spin. I want to see what

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sort of a walth it turns into. I opened the box again and saw

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that these hurrying movements were indeed the
beginning of the spinning of the web of

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its cocoon. Then English spoke again. It has got funny feet too,

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he said, They are like crabs
pincers. What's the Latin for crab?

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Oh? Yes, cancer, So
in case it is unique, let's christen

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it cancer English census. Then something
happened in my brain, some momentary piecing

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together of all that I had seen
or dreamed. Something in his words seemed

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to me to throw light on it
all, and my own intense horror at

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the experience of the night before linked
itself onto what he had just said.

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In effect, I took the box
and threw it caterpillar and all out of

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the window. There was a gravel
path just outside, and beyond it a

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fountain playing into a basin. The
box fell onto the middle of this,

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English laughed. So the students of
the occult don't like solid facts, he

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said, my poor caterpillar. The
talk went off again at once, on

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to other subjects. And I have
only given in detail as it happened,

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these trivialities, in order to be
sure myself that I have recorded everything that

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could have borne on occult subjects,
or on the subject of caterpillars. But

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at the moment when I threw the
pill box into the fountain, I lost

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my head. My own excuses that, as is probably plain, the tenant

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of it was in miniature exactly what
I had seen crowded onto the bed in

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the unoccupied room. And though this
translation of those phantoms into flesh and blood

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or whatever it is that caterpillars are
made of, ought perhaps to have relieved

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the horror of the night, as
a matter of fact, it did nothing

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of the kind. It only made
the crawling pyramid that covered the bed in

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the unoccupied room more hideously real.
After lunch we spent a lazy hour to

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strolling about the garden or sitting in
the loggia. And it must have been

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about four o'clock when Stanley and I
started off the bathe down the path that

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led by the fountain into which I
had thrown the pillbox. The water was

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shallow and clear, and at the
bottom of it I saw its white remains.

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The water had disintegrated the cardboard,
and it had become no more than

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a few strips and shreds of sod
and paper. The center of the fountain

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was a marble Italian cupid, which
squirted the water out of a wine skin

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held under its arm, and crawling
up its leg. Was the caterpillar,

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strange and scarcely credible, as it
seemed, it must have survived the falling

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to bits of its prison and made
its way to shore. And there was

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out of arm's reach, weaving and
waving this way and that as it evolved

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its cocoon. Then as I looked
at it, it seemed to me again

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that like the caterpillar I had seen
last night, it saw me, and,

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breaking out of the threads that surrounded
it, it crawled down the marble

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leg of the cupid and began swimming
like a snake across the water of the

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fountain towards me. It came with
extraordinary speed. The fact of a caterpillar

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being able to swim was new to
me, and in another moment was crawling

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up the marble lip of the basin. Just then English joined us, wh

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it is an old cancer ingleciensis.
Again, he said, catching sight of

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the beast, What a tearing hurry
it is in We were standing side by

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side on the path, and when
the caterpillar had advanced to within about a

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yard of us, it stopped and
began waving again, as if in doubt

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as to the direction in which it
should go. Then it appeared to make

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up its mind and crawled onto English's
shoe. It likes me best, he

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said, But I don't really know
that I like it. And as it

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won't drowned, I think perhaps he
shook it off his shoe onto the gravel

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path and trod on it all afternoon
the air got heavier and heavier, with

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a sirocco that was, without doubt
coming up from the south. And that

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night again I went up to bed
feeling very sleepy, but below my drowsiness,

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so to speak, there was the
consciousness stronger than before, that there

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was something wrong in the house,
that something dangerous was close at hand.

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But I fell asleep at once,
and how long or I do not know

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either woke or dreamed. I awoke, feeling that I must get up at

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once, or I should be too
late. Then dreaming or awake, I

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00:16:10,559 --> 00:16:12,879
lay and fought this fear, telling
myself that I was but the prey of

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my own nerves, disordered by sirocco
or whatnot, and at the same time,

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quite clearly knowing in another part of
my mind, so to speak,

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that every moment's delay added to the
danger. At last, this second feeling

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became irresistible, and I put on
coat and trousers and went out of my

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room onto the landing. And then
I saw that I had already delayed too

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long, and that I was now
too late. The whole of the landing

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of the first floor below was invisible
under the swarm of caterpillars that crawled there.

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The folding doors into the sitting room
from which opened the bedroom where I

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had seen them last night, were
shut, but they were squeezing through the

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cracks of it, and dropping one
by one through the keyhole, elongating themselves

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into mere string as they passed,
and growing fat and lumpy again. On

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emerging, some as if exploring,
were nosing about the steps into the passage

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at the end of which were English's
rooms. Others were crawling on the lowest

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steps of the staircase that led up
to where I stood. The landing,

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however, was completely covered with them. I was cut off and of the

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frozen horror that seized me when I
saw that I can give no idea in

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words. Then at last a general
movement began to take place, and they

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grew thicker on the steps that led
to English's room. Gradually, like some

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hideous tide of flesh, they advanced
along the passage, and I saw,

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the foremost visible by the pale,
gray luminousness that came from them, reach

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his door again and again. I
tried to shout and warn him, and

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terror all the time that they would
turn at the sound of my voice and

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mount my stair instead. But for
all my efforts, I felt that no

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sound came from my throat. They
crawled along the hinge crack of his door,

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passing through as they had done before, and still I stood there,

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making impotent efforts to shout to him, to bid him escape while there was

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time. At last a passage was
completely empty. They had all gone,

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00:18:04,799 --> 00:18:07,759
and at that moment I was conscious
for the first time of the cold of

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00:18:07,799 --> 00:18:12,359
the marble landing on which I stood
barefooted. The dawn was just beginning to

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break in the eastern sky. Six
months after I met missus Stanley in a

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country house in England. We talked
to many subjects, and at last she

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00:18:22,039 --> 00:18:26,279
said, I don't think i've seen
you since I got that dreadful news about

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00:18:26,359 --> 00:18:30,240
Arthur English a month ago. I
haven't heard, said I. No,

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00:18:32,119 --> 00:18:34,880
he's got cancer. They don't even
advise an operation, for there is no

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hope of a cure. He has
riddled with it, the doctors say.

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Now, during all these six months, I do not think a day had

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passed on which I had not had
in my mind the dreams or whatever you

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00:18:47,480 --> 00:18:52,319
like to call them, which I
had seen in the villa Quskana. It

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00:18:52,440 --> 00:18:56,200
is awful, is it not?
She continued, And I feel I can't

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help feeling that he may have caught
it at the villa, I asked.

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00:19:00,839 --> 00:19:07,160
She looked at me in blank surprise. Why did you say that? She

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00:19:07,279 --> 00:19:12,440
asked? How did you know?
Then? She told me in the unoccupied

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bedroom, a year before there had
been a fatal case of cancer. She

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had, of course taken the best
advice and been told that the utmost dictates

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of prudence would be obeyed as long
as she did not put anybody to sleep

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in the room, which had also
been thoroughly disinfected and newly whitewashed and painted.

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But end of caterpillars