What Was it?

"What Was It?" is a chilling novella by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, a master of Gothic fiction. Published in 1872, the story unfolds as a series of eerie occurrences plague a group of people in a quiet household. The narrative centers around an unseen, otherworldly entity that induces terror and mystery, leaving the characters—and readers—grappling with the nature of fear, the supernatural, and the inexplicable. Le Fanu's skillful blend of atmosphere, suspense, and psychological depth invites contemplation on the boundaries between reality and the unknown, making it a compelling exploration of ghostly phenomena.

• Novel

								
It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence that I approached the
strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I purpose
detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared
to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all
such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief.
I have, after mature consideration, resolved to narrate, in as simple
and straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed
under my observation, in the month of July last, and which, in the
annals of the mysteries of physical science, are wholly unparalleled.

I live at No. -- Twenty-sixth Street, in New York. The house is in some
respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years the
reputation of being haunted. The house is very spacious. A hall of noble
size leads to a large spiral staircase winding through its centre, while
the various apartments are of imposing dimensions. It was built some
fifteen or twenty years since by Mr. A----, the well-known New York
merchant, who five years ago threw the commercial world into convulsions
by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr. A----, as every one knows, escaped to
Europe, and died not long after, of a broken heart. Almost immediately
after the news of his decease reached this country and was verified,
the report spread in Twenty-sixth Street that No. -- was haunted. Legal
measures had dispossessed the widow of its former owner, and it was
inhabited merely by a care-taker and his wife, placed there by the
house-agent into whose hands it had passed for purposes of renting or
sale. These people declared that they were troubled with unnatural
noises. Doors were opened without any visible agency. The remnants of
furniture scattered through the various rooms were, during the night,
piled one upon the other by unknown hands. Invisible feet passed up and
down the stairs in broad daylight, accompanied by the rustle of unseen
silk dresses, and the gliding of viewless hands along the massive
balusters. The care-taker and his wife declared they would live there no
longer. The house-agent laughed, dismissed them, and put others in their
place. The noises and supernatural manifestations continued. The
neighborhood caught up the story, and the house remained untenanted for
three years. Several persons negotiated for it; but, somehow, always
before the bargain was closed they heard the unpleasant rumors and
declined to treat any further.

It was in this state of things that my landlady, who at that time kept a
boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished to move farther up
town, conceived the bold idea of renting No. -- Twenty-sixth Street.
Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of
boarders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she
had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which
she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid persons--a
sea-captain and a returned Californian, who immediately gave notice that
they would leave--all of Mrs. Moffat's guests declared that they would
accompany her in her incursion into the abode of spirits.

Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were charmed with
our new residence.

Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No. -- than we began
to expect the ghosts. We absolutely awaited their advent with eagerness.
Our dinner conversation was supernatural. I found myself a person of
immense importance, it having leaked out that I was tolerably well
versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once written a story
the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or wainscot panel
happened to warp when we were assembled in the large drawing-room, there
was an instant silence, and every one was prepared for an immediate
clanking of chains and a spectral form.

After a month of psychological excitement, it was with the utmost
dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge that nothing in the
remotest degree approaching the supernatural had manifested itself.

Things were in this state when an incident took place so awful and
inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly reels at the bare
memory of the occurrence. It was the tenth of July. After dinner was
over I repaired, with my friend Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my
evening pipe. Independent of certain mental sympathies which existed
between the doctor and myself, we were linked together by a vice. We
both smoked opium. We knew each other's secret and respected it. We
enjoyed together that wonderful expansion of thought, that marvellous
intensifying of the perceptive faculties, that boundless feeling of
existence when we seem to have points of contact with the whole
universe--in short, that unimaginable spiritual bliss, which I would not
surrender for a throne, and which I hope you, reader, will never--never
taste.

On the evening in question, the tenth of July, the doctor and myself
drifted into an unusually metaphysical mood. We lit our large
meerschaums, filled with fine Turkish tobacco, in the core of which
burned a little black nut of opium, that, like the nut in the fairy
tale, held within its narrow limits wonders beyond the reach of kings;
we paced to and fro, conversing. A strange perversity dominated the
currents of our thoughts. They would not flow through the sun-lit
channels into which we strove to divert them. For some unaccountable
reason, they constantly diverged into dark and lonesome beds, where a
continual gloom brooded. It was in vain that, after our old fashion, we
flung ourselves on the shores of the East, and talked of its gay
bazaars, of the splendors of the time of Haroun, of harems and golden
palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of our talk,
and expanded, like the one the fisherman released from the copper
vessel, until they blotted everything bright from our vision.
Insensibly, we yielded to the occult force that swayed us, and indulged
in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the proneness of the
human mind to mysticism, and the almost universal love of the terrible,
when Hammond suddenly said to me, "What do you consider to be the
greatest element of terror?"

The question puzzled me. That many things were terrible, I knew. But it
now struck me, for the first time, that there must be one great and
ruling embodiment of fear--a King of Terrors, to which all others must
succumb. What might it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe
its existence?

"I confess, Hammond," I replied to my friend, "I never considered the
subject before. That there must be one Something more terrible than any
other thing, I feel. I cannot attempt, however, even the most vague
definition."

"I am somewhat like you, Harry," he answered. "I feel my capacity to
experience a terror greater than anything yet conceived by the human

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