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Speaker 1: A phantom toe. I am not a superstitious man, far

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from it. But despite all my efforts to the contrary,

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I could not help thinking directly I had taken a

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survey of my chamber that I should never quit it

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without going through a strange adventure. There was something in

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its immense size, heaviness and gloom that seemed to annihilate,

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at one blow all my resolute skepticism as regards supernatural visitations.

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It appeared to me totally impossible to go into that

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room and disbelieve in ghosts. The fact is I had

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incautiously partaken at supper of that favorite Dutch dish, sauer Kraut,

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and I suppose it had disagreed with me and put

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strange fancies into my head. Be this as it may,

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I only know that after parting with my friend the night,

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I gradually worked myself up into such a state of

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fidgettiness that at last I wasn't sure whether I hadn't

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become a ghost myself. Supposing ruminated, I supposing the landlord

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himself should be a practical robber and should have taken

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the lock and bolt from off this door for the

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purpose of entering here in the dead of the night,

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abstracting all my property and perhaps murdering me. I thought

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the dog had a very cut throat air about him. Now,

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I had never had any such idea until that moment,

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for my host was a fat all Dutchmen are fat,

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stupid looking fellow who I don't believe had sense enough

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to understand what a robbery or murder meant. But somehow

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or other, whenever we have anything really to annoy us,

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and it certainly was not pleasant to go to bed

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in a strange place without being able to fasten one's door,

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we are sure to aggravate it by myriads of chimeras

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of our own brain. So on the present occasion, in

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the midst of a thousand disagreeable reveries, some of the

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most wild absurdity, it jumped very gloomily into bed, having

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first put out my candle for total darkness was far

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preferable to its flickering ghostly light, which transformed rather than

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revealed objects, and soon fell asleep, perfectly tired out with

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my day's riding. How long I lay asleep, I don't know,

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but I suddenly awoke from a disagreeable dream of cut throats,

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ghosts and long winding passages in a haunted inn. An

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indescribable feeling such as I never before experienced, hung upon me.

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It seemed as if every nerve in my body had

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a hundred spirits tickling it. And this was accompanied by

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so great a heat that, inwardly cursing mine host's sour

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kraut and wondering how the dutch Men could endure such poison,

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I was forced to sit up in bed to cool myself.

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The whole of the room was profoundly dark, excepting at

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one place, where the moonlight, falling through a crevice in

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the shutters, through a straight line of about an inch

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or so thick upon the floor, clear, sharp, and intensely

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brilliant against the darkness. I leave you to conceive my

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horror when, upon looking at this said line of light,

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I saw there a naked human toe, nothing more. For

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the first instant I thought the vision must be some

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effect of moonlight. Then that I was only half awake

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and could not see distinctly. So I rubbed my eyes

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two or three times and looked again. Still there was

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the accursed thing, plain, distinct, immovable, marble like in its

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fixedness and rigidity, but in everything else horribly human. I

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am not an easily frightened man, no one who has

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traveled so much and seen so much, and been exposed

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to so many dangers as I can be. But there

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was something so mysterious and unusual in the appearance of

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this single toe that for a short time I could

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not think what to be at, so I did nothing

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but stare at it in a state of utter bewilderment.

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At length, however, as the toe did not vanish under

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my steady gaze, I thought I might as well change

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my tactics, and, remembering that all midnight invaders, be they thieves, ghosts,

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or devils, dislike nothing so much as a good noise,

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I shouted out in a loud voice, Who's there? The

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toe immediately disappeared in the darkness. Almost simultaneously with my words,

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I leaped out of bed and rushed toward the place

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where I had beheld the strange appearance. The next instant,

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I ran against something and felt an iron grip round

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my body. After this, I have no distinct recollection of

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what occurred, excepting that a fearful struggle ensued between me

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and my unseen opponent. That every now and then we

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were violently hurled to the floor, from which we always

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rose again in an instant, locked in a deadly embrace,

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that we tugged and strained and pulled and pushed I

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in the convulsive and frantic energy of a fight for life.

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He For by this time I had discovered that the

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intruder was a human being, actuated by some passion of

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which I was ignorant. That we whirled round and round,

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cheek to cheek, and arm to arm in fierce contest,

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until the room appeared to whiz round with us, and

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that at least a dozen people, my fellow traveler among them, roused,

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I suppose by our repeated falls, came pouring into the

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room with lights and showed me struggling with a man

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having nothing on but a shirt, whose long tangled hair

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and wild, unsettled eyes told me he was insane. And then,

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for the first time I became aware that I had

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received in the conflict several gashes from a knife, which

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my opponent still held in his hand. To conclude my

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story in a few words, for I dare say, all

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of you, by this time are getting very tired. It

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turned out that my midnight visitor was a madman who

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was being conveyed to a lunatic asylum at the Hague,

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and that he and his caper had been obliged to

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stop at Delphi on their way. The poor fellow had

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contrived during the night to escape from his keeper, who

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had carelessly forgotten to lock the door of his chamber,

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and with that irresistible desire to shed blood peculiar to

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many insane people, had possessed himself of a pocket knife

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belonging to the man who had charge of him. Entered

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my room, which was most likely the only one in

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the house unfastened, and was probably meditating the fatal stroke

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when I saw his toe in the moonlight, the rest

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of his body being hidden in the shade. After this

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terrible freak of his he was watched with much greater strictness,

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But I ought to observe as some excuse for the

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keeper's negligence, that this was the first act of violence

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he had ever attempted, and of a phantom toe