Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/37

  the vistas between which should have been ethereal, but, because of this succulent, sickly yellow light, were too material; and the aroma, which should have been dank, no doubt, but elusive, was a physical stench. Ach! a witch-fire would have burned in that place like a fat pine torch; one would have scorched one's hands near a feu-follet; there was a ponderosity to this place of ghosts. Can you conceive a fat ghost, Doctor—a fat, unclean ghost, who has clanked around, dragging his ball and chain until the sweat pours down his fat face—a malodorous sweat—a sweat that physically offends while it frightens? Once in my youth, in Leipsic, I went into the anatomical laboratory, and there was on the table a fat subject—a woman—and she still wore some gold-washed rings and had some baubles in her ears of too mean value to appeal to the cupidity of whoever had fetched her there. Br'r'r'rgh! She was pathetic, of course, but I was not old enough to feel that then. I can never forget [ 21 ]