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Speaker 1: A wireless message by Ambrose Pierce. In the summer of

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eighteen ninety six, mister William Holt, a wealthy manufacturer of Chicago,

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was living temporarily in a little town of central New York,

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the name of which the writer's memory has not retained.

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Mister Holt had had trouble with his wife, from whom

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he had been parted a year before. Whether the trouble

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was anything more serious than incompatibility of temperament, he is

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probably the only living person that knows he is not

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addicted to the vice of confidences. Yet he has related

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the incident herein set down to at least one person

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without exacting a pledge of secrecy. He is now living

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in Europe. One evening he left the house of a

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brother whom he was visiting for a stroll in the country.

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It may be assumed, whatever the value of the assumption

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and connection with what is said, that his mind was

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occupied with reflections on his domestic infelicities and the distressing

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changes that they had wrought in his life. Whatever may

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have been his thoughts, they so possessed him that he

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observed neither the lapse of time, nor whither his feet

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were carrying him. He knew only that he was passing

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far beyond the town limits and was traversing a lonely

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region by a road that bore no resemblance to the

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one by which he had left the village. In brief,

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he was lost. Realizing his mischance, he smiled, Central New

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York is not a region of perils, nor does one

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long remain lost in it. He turned about and went

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back the way he had come. Before he had gone far,

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he observed that the landscape was growing more distinct, was brightening.

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Everything was so fused with a soft red glow in

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which he saw his shadow projected in the road before him.

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The moon is rising, he said to himself. Then he

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remembered that it was about the time of the new moon,

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and if that trixy orb was in one of its

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stages of visibility, it had set long before. He stopped

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and faced about, seeking the source of the rapidly broadening light.

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As he did so, his shadow turned and lay along

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the road in front of him. As before, the light

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still came from behind him. That was surprising, he could

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not understand. Again, he turned and again, facing successively each

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point of the horizon. Always the shadow was before always

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the light behind, and still and awful. Red Holt was astonished.

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Dumbfounded is the word he used in telling it, yet

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seems to have retained a certain intelligent curiosity. To test

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the intensity of the light, whose nature and cause he

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could not determine, he took out his watch to see

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if he could make out the figures on the dial.

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They were plainly visible, and the hands indicated the hour

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of eleven o'clock and twenty five minutes. At that moment,

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the mysterious illumination suddenly flared to an intensity, an almost

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blinding splendor, flushing the entire sky, extinguishing the stars, and

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throwing the monstrous shadow of himself and toward the landscape.

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In that unearthly illumination, he saw near him, but apparently

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in the air, at considerable elevation, the figure of his wife,

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clad in her night clothing and holding to her breast

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the figure of his child. Her eyes were fixed upon

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him with an expression which he afterward professed himself unable

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to aim or describe further than it was not of

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this life. The flare was momentary, followed by black darkness,

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in which, however the apparition still showed white and motionless.

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Then by insensible degrees it faded and vanished like a

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bright image on the retina after the closing of the eyes.

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A peculiarity of the apparition, hardly noted at the time,

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but afterward recalled, was that it showed only the upper

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half of the woman's figure. Nothing was seen below the waist.

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The sudden darkness was comparative, not absolute, for gradually all

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objects of his environment became again visible. In the dawn

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of the morning, Holt found himself entering the village at

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a point opposite to that which he had left it.

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He soon arrived at the house of his brother, who

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hardly knew him. He was wild eyed, haggard, and gray

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as a rat. Almost incoherently, he related his night's experience.

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Go to bed, my poor fellow, said his brother, and

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wait we shall hear more of this. An hour later

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came the predestined telegram. Holt's dwelling in one of the

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suburbs of Chicago had been destroyed by fire. Her escape

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cut off by the flames, his wife had appeared in

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an upper window, her child in her arms. There she

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had stood motionless, apparently dazed, just as the fireman arrived

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at the latter. The floor gave way, and she was

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seen no more. The moment of this culminating horror was

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eleven o'clock and twenty five minutes standard time, the end

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of a wireless message by Ambrose Bierce.