我搬到了紧邻百老汇的一所大房子，在我来之前这所历史悠久的房子的楼上已经闲置了好几年。这所房子长久布满着灰尘和蜘蛛网，显得安静和孤独。第一天晚上上楼来到我的住处，似乎感觉是在坟墓和洞悉死亡的秘密这间徘徊。我人生当中第一次因为迷信，而被恐惧笼罩着；当我躲到楼梯黑暗的角落里，被看不见的蜘蛛网像丝织品一样挂附在脸上，我就像碰到了鬼魂一样吓得浑身发抖。
I took a large room, far up Broadway, in a huge old building whose upper stories had been wholly unoccupied for years until I came. the place had long been given up dust and cobwebs, to solitude and silence. I seemed groping among the tombs and invading the privacy
of the dead, that first night I climbed up to my quarters. For the first time in my life a superstitious dread came over me; and as I turned a dark angle of the stairway and invisible cobweb swung its slazy woof in my face and clung there, I shuddered as one who had encountered a phantom.
