Page:Andreyev - A Dilemma (Brown, 1910).djvu/94

86 and no sound issues therefrom, no voice. At the same time you are conscious that precisely there, behind the silent door, your fate is being decided.

I approach the mirror. . . Hang a mirror. Hang one!

I do not remember what happened afterward, until the arrival of the court authorities and the police. I asked what hour it was, and was told it was nine o'clock. For a long time I found it difficult to realize that only two hours had elapsed since my return home, and only three since the murder of Alexis.

I ask your forgiveness, gentlemen experts, for treating of a moment so important from your standpoint, of the terrible state following the murder, in such general and indefinite terms. That, however, is all I remember and all that I can express by means of the human tongue. It is impossible for me to express in human language the terror I experienced in that brief space of time. Aside from this, I cannot vouch for the actuality of that which so vaguely