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Speaker 1: Caterpillars by E. F. Benson. I saw a month or

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two ago in an Italian paper that the Villa Cascana

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in which I once stayed had been pulled down, and

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that a manufactory of some sort was in process of

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erection at sight. There is therefore no longer any reason

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for refraining from writing of those things which I myself

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saw or imagined I saw in a certain room and

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on a certain landing of the villa in question, nor

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from mentioning the circumstances which followed, which may or may not,

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according to the opinion of the reader, throw some light

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on or be somehow connected with this experience. The Villa

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

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Yet if it were standing now, nothing in the world

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I used a phrase in its literal sense would induce

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me to set foot in it again, for I believe

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it to have been haunted in a very terrible and

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practical manner. Most ghosts, when all is said and done,

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do not do much harm. They may perhaps terrify, but

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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,

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and had they made their visit in a very slightly

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different manner, I do not suppose I should have got

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over it any more than Arthur Inglis did. The house

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stood on an alex clad hill, not far from the

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Sestri di Levante on the Italian Riviera, looking out over

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the iridescent blues of that enchanted sea, while behind it

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rose the pale green chestnut woods that climb up the

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hillsides till they give place to the pines that black,

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in contrast with them, crown the slopes all round. At

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the garden in the luxuriance of mid spring, bloomed and

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was fragrant, and the scent of magnolia and rose borne

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on the salt freshness of the winds from the sea

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flowed like a stream through the cool vaulted rooms. On

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the ground floor, a broad pillared loggia ran round three

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sides of the house, the top of which formed a

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balcony for certain rooms of the first floor. The main staircase,

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broadened of gray marble steps, led up from the hall

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to the landing. Outside these rooms, which were three in number,

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

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The latter was unoccupied, the sitting rooms were in use.

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From these the main staircase was continued to the second floor,

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where were situated certain bedrooms, one of which I occupied,

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while from the other side of the first floor landing,

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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

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artist had his bedroom and studio. Thus the landing outside

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my bedroom at the top of the house commanded both

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the landing of the first floor and also the steps

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that led to England room Jim Stanley and his wife. Finally,

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whose guest I was occupied rooms in another wing of

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the house, where also were the servants quarters. I arrived

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just in time for lunch on a brilliant noon of

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mid May. The garden was shouting with color and fragrance,

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and not less delightful after my broiling walk up from

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the marina. Should have been the coming from the reverberating

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heat and blaze of the day into the marble coolness

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of the villa. Only the reader has my bare word

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for this, and nothing more. The moment I set foot

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

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

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I remember that when I saw letters waiting for me

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on the table in the hall, I felt certain that

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the explanation was here. I was convinced that there was

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bad news of some sort for me. Yet when I

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opened them, I found no such explanation of my premonition.

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My correspondence all reeked of prosperity. Yet clear miscarriage of

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a presentiment did not dissipate my uneasiness in that cool,

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

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to mention this, because to the general view, it may

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explain that, though I am, as a rule so excellent

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a sleep, or that the extinction of my light on

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getting into bed is apparently contemporaneous with being called on

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the following morning, I slept very badly on my first

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night at the Villa Cascana. It may also explain the

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fact that when I did sleep, if it was indeed

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in sleep that I saw what I thought I saw,

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I dreamed in a very vivid and original manner. Original,

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that is to say, in the sense that something that,

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as far as I knew, had never previously entered into

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my consciousness usurped it then. But since in addition to

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this evil premonition, certain words and events occurring during the

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rest of the day might have suggested something of what

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I thought happened that night, it will be well to

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relate them after lunch. Then I went round the house

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with Missus Stanley, and during our tour she referred, it

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is true to the unoccupied bedroom on the first floor,

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which opened out of the room where we had lunched.

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We left that unoccupied, she said, because Jim and I

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have a charming bedroom and dressing room, as you saw

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in the wing, and if we used it ourselves, we

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should have to turn the dining room into a dressing

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room and have our meals downstairs. As it is, however,

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we have our little flat there. Arthur Inglis has his

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little flat in the other passage. And I remembered our

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Tyke extraordinary that you once said that the higher up

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you were in a house, the better you were pleased.

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So I put you at the top of the house

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instead of giving you that room. It is true that

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a doubt, vague as my uneasy premonition, crossed my mind

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at this I did not see why Missus Stanley should

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have explained all this if there had been not been

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more to explain. I allow therefore that the thought that

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there was something to explain about the unoccupied bedroom was

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momentarily present to my mind. The second thing that may

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have borne on my dream was this. At dinner, the

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conversation turned for a moment on ghosts. Anglis, with the

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certainty of conviction, expressed his belief that anybody who could

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possibly believe in the existence of supernatural phenomena was unworthy

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of the name of an ass The subject instantly dropped.

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As far as I can recollect, nothing else occurred or

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was said that could bear on what follows. We all

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went to bed rather early, and personally I yawned my

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way upstairs, feeling hideously sleepy. My room was rather hot,

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and I threw all the windows wide, and from without

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poured in the white light of the moon and the

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love song of many nightingales. I undressed quickly and got

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into bed. But though I had felt so sleepy before,

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I now felt extremely wide awake. But I was quite

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content to be awake. I did not toss or turn.

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I felt perfectly happy listening to the song and seeing

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the light. Then it is possible I may have gone

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

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I thought, anyhow, that after a time, the nightingales ceased singing,

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and the moon sank. I thought also that if for

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some unexplained reason, I was going to lie awake all night,

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I might as well read. And I remembered that I

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had left a book in which I was interested in

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the dining room on the first floor. So I got

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out of bed, lit a candle, and went downstairs. I

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went into the room, saw on a side table the

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book I had come to look for, and then simultaneously

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saw that the door into the unoccupied bedroom was open.

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A curious gray light, not of dawn nor of moonshine,

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came out of it, and I looked in the bed

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stood just opposite the door, a big four poster hung

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with tapestry at the head. Then I saw that the

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grayish light of the bedroom came from the bed, or

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rather from what was on the bed, for it was

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covered with great caterpillars a foot or more in length,

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which crawled over it. They were faintly luminous, and it

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was the light from them that showed me the room,

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instead of the sucker feet of ordinary caterpillars. They had

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rows of pincers, like crabs, and they moved by grasping

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what they lay on with their pincers and then sliding

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their bodies forward. In color, these dreadful insects were yellowish gray,

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and they were covered with irregular lumps and swellings. There

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must have been hundreds of them, for they formed a

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sort of writhing, crawling pyramid on the bed. Occasionally one

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fell off onto the floor with a soft, fleshy thud,

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and though the floor was of hard concrete, it yielded

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to the pincer feet as if it had been putty,

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and crawling back, the caterpillar would mount onto the bed

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again to rejoin its fearful companions. They appeared to have

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no faces, so to speak, but at one of them

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there was a mouth that opened sideways and respiration. Then

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as I looked, it seemed to me that they all

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suddenly became conscious of my presence. All the mouths, at

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any rate, were turned in my direction, and next moment

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they began dropping off the bed with those soft fleshy

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thuds onto the floor and wriggling towards me. For a second,

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a paralysis as of a dream was on me. But

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the next I was running upstairs again to my room,

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and I remember feeling the cold of the marble steps

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on my bare feet. I rushed into my bedroom and

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slammed the door behind me, and then I was certainly

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wide awake. Now I found myself standing by my bed,

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with a sweat of terror pouring from me. The noise

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of the banged door still rang in my ears. But

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as would have been more usual if this had been

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mere nightmare, the terror that had been mine when I

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saw those foul beasts crawling about the bed or dropping

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softly onto the floor, did not cease then awake. Now,

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if dreamed before, I did not at all recover from

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the horror of dream. It did not seem to me

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that I had dreamed. And until dawn I sat or stood,

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not daring to lie down, thinking that every rustle or

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movement that I heard was the approach of the caterpillars

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to them, and the claws that bit into the cement.

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The wood of the door was child's play. Steel would

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not keep them out. But with the sweet and noble

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return of day, the horror vanished. The whisper of wind

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became benignant again, the nameless fear. Whatever it was was

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smoothed out and terrified me no longer. Dawn broke hewless

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at first, then it grew dove colored. Then the flaming

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pageant of light spread over the sky. The admirable rule

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of the house was that everybody had breakfast where and

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when he pleased, And in consequence, it was not till

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lunch time that I met any of the other members

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of our party, since I had breakfast on my balcony

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and wrote letters and other things till lunch. In fact,

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I got down to that meal rather late, after the

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other three had begun. Between my knife and fork there

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was a small pill box of cardboard, and as I

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sat down, English spoke, Do look at that, he said,

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since you are interested in natural history. I found it

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crawling on my counterpane last night, and I don't know

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what it is. I think that before I opened the

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pill box I expected something of the sort which I

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

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yellow in color, with curious bumps and increscences on its rings.

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It was extremely active and hurried round the box this way,

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and that its feet were unlike the feet of any caterpillar.

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I ever saw. They were like the pincers of a crab.

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I looked and shut the lid down again. No, I

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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

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shall keep it, said Inglis. It has begun to spin.

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I want to see what sort of a mooth it

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turns into. I opened the box again and saw that

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these hurrying movements were indeed the beginning of the spinning

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of the web of its cocoon. Then English spoke again.

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It has got funny feet too, he said, They are

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like crabs pincers. What's the Latin for crab? Oh? Yes, cancer?

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

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English senses. Then something happened to my brain, some momentary

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piecing together of all that I had seen or dreamed.

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Something in his words seemed to me to throw light

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on it all, and my own intense horror at the

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experience of the night before linked itself onto what he

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had just said. In in fact, I took the box

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and threw it, caterpillar and all out of the window.

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There was a gravel path just outside, and beyond it

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a fountain playing into a basin. The box fell onto

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the middle of this English laughed. So the students of

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the occult don't like solid facts, he said, my poor caterpillar.

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The talk went off again at once onto other subjects.

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And I have only given in detail as they happen,

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these trivialities, in order to be sure myself that I

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have recorded everything that could have borne on occult subjects,

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or on the subject of caterpillars. But at the moment

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when I threw the pill box into the fountain, I

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lost my head. My only excuse is that, as is

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probably plain, the tenant of it was in miniature exactly

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what I had seen crowded onto the bed in the

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unoccupied room. And though this translation of those phantoms into

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flesh and blood or whatever it is that caterpillars are

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made of, ought perhaps to have relieved the horror of

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

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of the kind. It only made the crawling pyramid that

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covered the bed in the unoccupied room more hideously real.

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After lunch we spent a lazy hour two strolling about

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the garden or sitting in the loggia. And it must

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have been about four o'clock when Stanley, and I started

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off the bathe down the path that led by the

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fountain into which I had thrown the pill box. The

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water was shallow and clear, and at the bottom of

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it I saw its white remains. The water had disintegrated

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the cardboard, and it had become no more than a

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few strips and shreds of sod and paper. The center

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of the fountain was a marble Italian cupid, which squirted

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the water out of a wine skin held under its arm,

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and crawling up its leg was the caterpillar, strange and

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scarcely credible, as it seemed, it must have survived the

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falling to bits of its prison and made its way

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to shore. And there it was out of arm's reach,

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weaving and waving this way and that as it evolved

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its cocoon. Then as I looked at it, it seemed

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to me again that like the caterpillar I had seen

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last night, it saw me, and, breaking out of the

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threads that surrounded it, it crawled down the marble leg

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of the cupid and began swimming like a snake across

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the water of the fountain towards me. It came with

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extraordinary speed, the fact of a caterpillar. Being able to

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swim was new to me, and in another moment was

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crawling up the marble lip of the basin. Just then

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English joined us, why if it is an old cancer ingleciensis? Again,

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he said, catching sight of the beast, what a tearing

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hurry it is in We were standing side by side

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on the path, and when the caterpillar had advanced to

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within about a yard of us, it stopped and began

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waving again, as if in doubt as to the direction

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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

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me best, he said, But I don't really know that

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I like it. And as it won't drown, I think

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perhaps He shook it off his shoe onto the gravel

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path and trod on it all afternoon the air got

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heavier and heavier, with a sirocco that was, without doubt

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coming up from the south. And that night again I

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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,

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that there was something wrong in the house, that something

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dangerous was close at hand. But I fell asleep at

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once and how long after I do not know either

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woke or dreamed. I awoke feeling that I must get

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up at once, or I should be too late. Then,

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dreaming or awake, I lay and fought this sphere, telling

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myself that I was but the prey of my own nerves,

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disordered by sirocco or what not, and at the same time,

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quite clearly knowing in another part of my mind, so

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to speak, that every moment's delay added to the danger.

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At last, this second feeling became irresistible, and I put

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on coat and trousers and went out of my room

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on to the landing. And then I saw that I

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had already delayed too long, and that I was now

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too late. The whole of the landing of the first

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floor below was invisible under the swarm of caterpillars that

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crawled there. The folding doors into the sitting room from

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which opened the bedroom where I had seen them last night,

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were shut, but they were squeezing through the cracks of it,

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and dropping one by one through the keyhole, elongating themselves

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into mere string as they passed, and growing fat and

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lumpy again. On emerging, some as if exploring, were nosing

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about the steps into the passage at the end of

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which were Inglis's rooms. Others were crawling on the lowest

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

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The landing, however, was completely covered with them. I was

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cut off, and of the frozen horror that seized me

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when I saw that I can give no idea in words.

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Then at last a general movement began to take place,

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and they grew thicker on the steps that led to

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Ingliss's room. Gradually, like some hideous tide of flesh, they

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advanced along the passage, and I saw, the foremost visible

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

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his door. Again and again. I tried to shout and

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warn him in teror all the time that they would

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turn at the sound of my voice and mount my

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stare instead. But for all my efforts, I felt that

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no sound came from my throat. They crawled along the

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hingecrack of his door, passing through as they had done before,

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and still I stood there, making impotent efforts to shout

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to him, to bid him escape while there was time.

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

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and at that moment I was conscious for the first

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time of the cold of the marble landing on which

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I stood barefooted. The dawn was just beginning to break

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in the eastern sky. Six months after I met missus

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Stanley in a country house in England. We talked on

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many subjects, and at last she said, I don't think

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i've seen you since I got that dreadful news about

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Arthur Ingliss a month ago. I haven't heard, said I. No,

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he's got cancer. They don't even advise an operation, for

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there is no hope of a cure. He is riddled

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with it. The doctors say. Now, during all these six months,

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I do not think a day had passed on which

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I had not had in my mind the dreams or

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whatever you like to call them, which I had seen

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in the villa Kascana. It is awful, is it not,

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she continued, And I feel I can't help feeling that

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

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She looked at me in blank surprise. Why did you

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say that, she asked, How did you know? Then she

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told me in the unoccupied bedroom, a year before there

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had been a fatal case of cancer. She had, of course,

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taken the best advice, and been told that the utmost

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dictates of prudence would be obeyed as long as she

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did not put anybody to sleep in the room, which

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had also been thoroughly disinfected and newly whitewashed and painted,

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but and of caterpillars.