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

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He felt happier, strangely comforted. The wings of memory and phantasy, withdrawing softly, left a soothed feeling in his heart. In that region of creative imagination known as the 'Crack' he always found peace and at least a measure of joy. Until sleep should come to captain his forces, he deliberately turned the current of his thoughts to the work he was about to take up in London. Nixie, Joan, Dick—all helped him. His will erected an iron barrier against the insidious attacks of sadness—the disease which strikes at the roots of effort. He would dream his dreams, but also, he would do his work. . . .

The shadows thickened about the house, crowding from the heart of winter. The fire died down. The room lay still. It was between one and two o'clock in the morning, when silence in the country is a real silence, and the darkness weighs. Chasing Smoke and Mrs. Tompkyns down the winding corridors of dream—Paul slept.

A faint sound in the room a little later made him stir in his sleep and smile. His lips moved, as though in that land of dreams where he wandered some one spoke to him and he answered. Then the sound was repeated, and he woke with a start, sat up in bed, and stared hard into the darkness.