Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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The room was filled with a soft presence, once silvery and fragrant, but now draped with the newly woven shadows that rendered it invisible. The invasion was irresistible. His heart ached. He knew quite well that his own soul, too, was being measured for its garment of shadow—garment that, unlike ordinary clothes, fits better and closer with every year. He was in that dangerous mood when such measurements are made only too easily, and the lassitude of grief accepts the trying-on with a kind of soft, almost pleasurable, acquiescence—when, sharply and suddenly, a sound was audible outside the window that instantly galvanised him into a state of resistance. The night, hitherto still as the grave, sighed in response to a rising wind. And through his being at the same moment ran the answering little Wind of Inspiration some one had taught him to find always when he sought it.

And the sound brought comfort. It was as though an invisible hand had reached down inside him and touched the source of joy!