reminiscences. I conceived the
event to be ominous of disaster; and so it proved. I recognized, in the
woman who admitted us, that execrable being who had already so deeply
injured my family, and to whose infernal machinations I unhesitatingly
ascribed the idiocy and death of my dearly beloved sister. She gazed
earnestly upon me, and seemed to recognize me. This discovery caused me
the greatest uneasiness. I hated the sight of the woman; I loathed her; I
shuddered when I was in her presence; and a vague, undefinable feeling
took possession of me, which seemed to suggest that she was something more
than mortal. I know not what evils I anticipated from this discovery. I
predicted, however, nothing so awful, nothing so horrible, as what
actually befell me.

I took the earliest opportunity of speaking alone with this woman.

"My good woman," I said to her, "I shall not suffer you to remain here at
night."

"Why not, sir?" she asked.

"There are certain insuperable objections, the nature of which you may
probably surmise."

"Indeed, I do not."

"Then your memory is short."

"I do not understand you, sir."

"It is not of any consequence."

After some further altercation, she consented to submit to the terms
dictated to her.

On the following day, my friend Hoffmeister returned to Berlin, where he
had some business to transact, on which depended much of his future
happiness. He promised to pay me another visit in the course of a week or
ten days.

I spent the first three or four days very comfortably, though I was still
very nervous, and in a weak state of health. On the morning of the fifth
day, the old woman (who had by some means discovered my profession) asked
me if I required a subject for the purpose of dissection. This was what I
had long been seeking for, but my efforts to obtain one had hitherto been
fruitless. I asked the sex, and she informed me it was a male. I was
delighted with the offer, and at once acquiesced in the terms. Toward
nightfall it was arranged that the corpse should be conveyed to the
castle.

I know not from what cause, but, during the whole of the day, I was in a
very abstracted and desponding state of mind, and began to regret that I
had agreed to take the body through the mediation of the old woman, whom I
almost conceived to be in league with Beelzebub himself.

The day had been exceedingly sultry, and toward evening the sky became
overcast with huge masses of dark clouds. The