I went into my room and drew the curtains, but there was little to notice.  My window opened into the courtyard, all I could see was the warm grey of quickening sky.  So I pulled the curtains again, and have written of this day.

8 May.—­I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too diffuse.  But now I am glad that I went into detail from the first, for there is something so strange about this place and all in it that I cannot but feel uneasy.  I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had never come.  It may be that this strange night existence is telling on me, but would that that were all!  If there were any one to talk to I could bear it, but there is no one.  I have only the Count to speak with, and he—­I fear I am myself the only living soul within the place.  Let me be prosaic so far as facts can be.  It will help me to bear up, and imagination must not run riot with me.  If it does I am lost.  Let me say at once how I stand, or seem to.

I only slept a few hours when I went to bed, and feeling that I could not sleep any more, got up.  I had hung my shaving glass by the window, and was just beginning to shave.  Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard the Count’s voice saying to me, “Good morning.”  I started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me.  In starting I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment.  Having answered the Count’s salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been mistaken.  This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder.  But there was no reflection of him in the mirror!  The whole room behind me was displayed, but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself.

This was startling, and coming on the top of so many strange things, was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I always have when the Count is near.  But at the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin.  I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster.  When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat.  I drew away and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix.  It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.

“Take care,” he said, “take care how you cut yourself.  It is more dangerous that you think in this country.”  Then seizing the shaving glass, he went on, “And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief.  It is a foul bauble of man’s vanity.  Away with it!” And opening the window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below.  Then he withdrew without a word.  It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or the bottom of the shaving pot, which is fortunately of metal.