Upon one
      occasion he saw this, I think, and afterwards avoided, or made a
      show of avoiding me. It was about the same period, if I remember aright, that, in an
      altercation of violence with him, in which he was more than
      usually thrown off his guard, and spoke and acted with an
      openness of demeanor rather foreign to his nature, I discovered,
      or fancied I discovered, in his accent, his air, and general
      appearance, a something which first startled, and then deeply
      interested me, by bringing to mind dim visions of my earliest
      infancy—wild, confused and thronging memories of a time when
      memory herself was yet unborn. I cannot better describe the
      sensation which oppressed me than by saying that I could with
      difficulty shake off the belief of my having been acquainted with
      the being who stood before me, at some epoch very long ago—some
      point of the past even infinitely remote. The delusion, however,
      faded rapidly as it came; and I mention it at all but to define
      the day of the last conversation I there held with my singular
      namesake. The huge old house, with its countless subdivisions, had several
      large chambers communicating with each other, where slept the
      greater number of the students. There were, however, (as must
      necessarily happen in a building so awkwardly planned,) many
      little nooks or recesses, the odds and ends of the structure; and
      these the economic ingenuity of Dr. Bransby had also fitted up as
      dormitories; although, being the merest closets, they were
      capable of accommodating but a single individual. One of these
      small apartments was occupied by Wilson. One night, about the close of my fifth year at the school, and
      immediately after the altercation just mentioned, finding every
      one wrapped in sleep, I arose from bed, and, lamp in hand, stole
      through a wilderness of narrow passages from my own bedroom to
      that of my rival. I had long been plotting one of those
      ill-natured pieces of practical wit at his expense in which I had
      hitherto been so uniformly unsuccessful. It was my intention,
      now, to put my scheme in operation, and I resolved to make him
      feel the whole extent of the malice with which I was imbued. Having reached his closet, I noiselessly entered, leaving the
      lamp, with a shade over it, on the outside. I advanced a step,
      and listened to the sound of his tranquil breathing. Assured of
      his being asleep, I returned, took the light, and with it again
      approached the bed. Close curtains were around it, which, in the
      prosecution of my plan, I slowly and quietly withdrew, when the
      bright rays fell vividly upon the sleeper, and my eyes, at the
      same moment, upon his countenance. I looked;—and a numbness, an
      iciness of feeling instantly pervaded my frame. My breast heaved,
      my knees tottered, my whole spirit became possessed with an
      objectless yet intolerable horror. Gasping for breath, I lowered
      the lamp in still nearer proximity to the face. Were these—these
      the lineaments of William Wilson? I saw, indeed, that they were
      his, but I shook as if with a fit of the ague in fancying they
      were not. What was there about them to confound me in this
      manner? I gazed;—while my brain reeled with a multitude of
      incoherent thoughts. Not thus he appeared—assuredly not thus—in
      the vivacity of his waking hours. The same name! the same contour
      of person! the same day of arrival at the academy! And then his
      dogged and meaningless imitation of my gait, my voice, my habits,
      and my manner! Was it, in truth, within the bounds of human
      possibility, that what I now saw was the result, merely, of the
      habitual practice of this sarcastic imitation? Awe-stricken, and
      with a creeping shudder, I extinguished the lamp, passed silently
      from the chamber, and left, at once, the halls of that old
      academy, never to enter them again. After a lapse of some months, spent at home in mere idleness, I
      found myself a student at Eton. The brief interval had been
      sufficient to enfeeble my remembrance of the events at Dr.
      Bransby’s, or at least to effect a material change in the nature
      of the feelings with which I remembered them. The truth—the
      tragedy—of the drama was no more. I could now find room to doubt
      the evidence of my senses; and seldom called up the subject at
      all but with wonder at extent of human credulity, and a smile at
      the vivid force of the imagination which I hereditarily
      possessed. Neither was this species of scepticism likely to be
      diminished by the character of the life I led at Eton. The vortex
      of thoughtless folly into which I there so immediately and so
      recklessly plunged, washed away all but the froth of my past
      hours, engulfed at once every solid or serious impression, and
      left to memory only the veriest levities of a former existence. I do not wish, however, to trace the course of my miserable
      profligacy here—a profligacy which set at defiance the laws,
      while it eluded the vigilance of the institution. Three years of
      folly, passed without profit, had but given me rooted habits of
      vice, and added, in a somewhat unusual degree, to my bodily
      stature, when, after a week of soulless dissipation, I invited a
      small party of the most dissolute students to a secret carousal
      in my chambers. We met at a late hour of the night; for our
      debaucheries were to be faithfully protracted until morning. The
      wine flowed freely, and there were not wanting other and perhaps
      more dangerous seductions; so that the gray dawn had already
      faintly appeared in the east, while our delirious extravagance
      was at its height. Madly flushed with cards and intoxication, I
      was in the act of insisting upon a toast of more than wonted
      profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted by the
      violent, although partial unclosing of the door of the apartment,
      and by the eager voice of a servant from without. He said that
      some person, apparently in great haste, demanded to speak with me
      in the hall. Wildly excited with wine, the unexpected interruption rather
      delighted than surprised me. I staggered forward at once, and a
      few steps brought me to the vestibule of the building. In this
      low and small room there hung no lamp; and now no light at all
      was admitted, save that of the exceedingly feeble dawn which made
      its way through the semi-circular window.