It got late, so you returned home. You left the diary and promised to return soon. The next day, the room is just as you left it with the diary facing face-up, as before. You continue to translate.

February 02, 1802

I write here in the early morning, when the moon is at her highest and shining her lustre down upon the snow, glinting like faery dust. There is some wonder at the scene and I cannot help myself; I feel like a child, sitting up by my window, curled in a chair with a blanket round my shoulders as if sleepless, restless before a first day of school. Those days––needless to say, I think, as I can feel the first prickling of hair on my chin under my hand––are long behind me.

In truth, I’ve been well-disturbed. Last night, I went to my washing basin to shave my face, as I know I had delayed it too long already. After wetting my cheeks, I picked up the razor and looked into the glass. I was not looking back. Rather, no one, nothing was looking back: I seemed to be caught in a mist of sorts, blurring my face so severely I extraneously wiped at the mirror to try and remove what must have been condensation. Nothing budged except the dark shadow that had become my features. 

This perturbation sent me first to a fit of trembling; I dropped my razor into the basin (where it still lies) and backed from the room, nearly tripping over the end of my skirt. As I perched on the side of the mattress, cupping my elbows in my palms, I held myself lest I fall and shatter like china. I thought I must be cold, not thinking myself so invalid as to become wrought with shivers over nothing, so I forced myself to re-dress in my night wear and settle under my modest duvet. When I could not shake the tension from my muscles, I emerged to pace round the room, as though that would expend all my energy; it did, of course, and I stopped in the middle of my rug.

Then I heard it; or, I bade attention to what I didn’t hear, the void any man is sensible to hear during such an hour. The silence was gone. Instead, in that room where nothing moved, I could hear a low sound; I hear it still, as I write, and I find it is difficult to find words to describe the tone. It has the timbre of something energetic and humming, but the pitch is too low for anything of the sort; it warbles and fades in a constant crescendo, decrescendo, swelling like the tides of an ocean. At times, it ebbs in one ear entirely: other times it switches, but it does not fade completely. When I lit my candle as light to write, I found that the faint hum of the flame burning, melting wax, is most comparable; somehow, it is enough, just barely enough, to mute the sound in my mind.

What is this? What must this trick be? I am not a man who appreciates a puzzle or a gimmick––I have never been quite cunning enough––and I find myself stalemated at the ultimate trickster’s newest foil. I do not know the workings of God just as I do not know the workings of Satan; this is known to me as it is known to all and I daren’t deny nor try to be the one to prove the holy words wrong: so I must come not to suffer in this ignorance, but to accept it and to pardon myself for being disturbed as I was. I know not what this sound is nor what it means––just as I do not know or understand why my face is effaced from any looking-glass. This is His will: to deceive myself otherwise is to forget myself. 

Perhaps this trial unfolding in my bosom is directed, self-pityingly, at myself, for the sin of vanity requires I shave. I renounce this and accept my presentation as thus inadequate. Perhaps, too, I am simply not accustomed to this confounded sound echoing in my ears: this I admit and resolve myself to overcome as every day passes.

Personal meditation under the Lord’s moon has eased my spirits enough. I feel as though I could return to my bed and sleep. I shall send a prayer of thanks that His goodness has sheltered me from overwhelming woe this morning by reminding me of my nescience. It has comforted me much.

Ere I wake, I shall be a more devout man.

Amen.