Chapter 1

This day, January 20, 1909, I have decided to set my story down in
writing. Dangerous and terrifying the task! But I must perform it. For
day after tomorrow I shall be dead. Day after tomorrow.... Just two
days! And death from old age! Of this I am as certain as a man can be
of anything. What, then, have I to lose by speaking?

Speak I must!

That much I owe to the unsuspecting men and women who are to survive
me. They are in danger; and I must warn them.... Day after tomorrow I
shall be safe. Day after tomorrow I shall be dead.... And this is my
testament and last will, written in my own hand! To all men and women,
my brothers and my sisters, I bequeath--a Secret, _the_ Secret. May my
death serve as a warning to them, one and all! Such is my last will and
testament....

Now I am quite in my right mind--let there be no doubt of that. I am
sound, absolutely sound, in mind and, for that matter, in body. I have
never known what it means to be sick. But I am old, old beyond human
experience of age. How old, I wonder? Eighty? A hundred? Make it a
hundred and fifty! It really doesn’t matter. I have nothing to decide
the question. You might find my birth certificate, papers I may have
written, people who may have known me. Such things would not help. Not
even my own sensations give me any accurate impression of my actual
age. I have been old for such a very few days! I have had no time to
grow accustomed to the sudden change. There is no comparison, either,
between my absorption of the centuries and ordinary old age--this last,
indeed, has never been mine. I became what I am instantaneously, one
may say.

I am cold, inside here, in my blood, in my flesh, in my bones. And
tired, horribly, unendurably tired, with a fatigue that sleep cannot
alleviate! My arms and legs are heavy and my joints are stiff. My teeth
are chattering. I cannot bring them together on my food. I struggle to
stand erect; but my shoulders stoop inexorably. I am hard of hearing.
My eyes are dim. And these infirmities are the more excruciating
because they each are new. No living man, I am sure, has ever been
quite as miserable as I.

But it will all be over in two days! Forty-eight hours! Two thousand
eight hundred and forty-eight minutes! What is a matter of two days?
The prospect fills my heart with hopefulness; though death, in itself,
is a terrible thing, far more terrible than living men imagine. That I
know, as no one else knows. But I am ready! The life I am leading has
ceased to be anything resembling life.

So then, I am in my right mind. My head is clear. Furthermore, I am
about to die. Two considerations, these, that should dispel all doubt
as to my veracity. A man does not lie when he stands on the threshold
of Eternity! So I beg of you who find this little book of mine, of
all you who read this story of my Adventure--in the name of your
God, if you have one, do not doubt me! I am not spinning you a yarn,
nor telling you a tale for an idle hour. A great danger hangs over
you, over your son, your daughter, your wife, your dear ones! Do not
scorn my warning, therefore! Do not shrug your shoulders, or tap your
forehead! I am not a lunatic! And death is standing near you! Do not
laugh, either. But read, understand, believe--and, then--do as your
best judgment dictates.

Forgive me if I write with a trembling hand. The words may seem faint,
almost illegible, at times. I found a pencil lying in a gutter on the
roadside. Its point is dulled, and it is too short for my stiffened
fingers. And this paper--from a funeral register--is not of the best.
Its broad black border leaves very little space and compels me to cramp
my lines. A broad black border! How inconvenient! Yet how appropriate!
This funeral page is perchance the best for such a story as mine!

Here I begin. And again I beg of you; doubt me not, but read,
understand, believe!