It mingled in every feverish dream, became the embodiment of
every vision. I measured the periods of its recurrence by the clock
that stands in the corner of our room. I counted the tickings of its
silence, and I counted the tickings of its continuance. Every swing of
the pendulum became a distinct period of existence. Minutes, hours,
were nothing. Forty-four tickings, I said, and that bow, wow! will be
heard again! Fifteen tickings, I said, and it will cease; and so I
went on until the hours seemed to spread out into a boundless ocean of
time. That dog somehow became mixed up with that old family clock that
stood in the corner. I heard him scratching and climbing up among the
weights, writhing and twisting his way among the machinery, till
there, looking out through the face of that old family clock, distinct
and palpable as the sun at noonday, or the moon in a cloudless night,
I saw the ogre head of that dog; his great glassy, fishy eyes, his
half drooping, half erect ears, his slavering jaws, and as he gazed in
a stupid meaningless stare upon me, uttered his everlasting bow, wow!
Tell me that the room was dark; that not a ray of light penetrated the
closed doors or the curtained windows. What of that? That dog's head,
I repeat, was there; I saw it, if I ever saw the sun, the moon or the
bright stars.
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