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肩書を与える: The Fearsome Touch of Death
Author: Robert E. Howard
* A 事業／計画（する） Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0607981h.html
Language: English
Date first 地位，任命するd:  Oct 2006
Most 最近の update: Sept 2017

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The Fearsome Touch of Death

by

Robert E. Howard

First published in Weird Tales, February 1930
Also published as "The Touch Of Death"

As long as midnight cloaks the earth
With 影をつくる／尾行するs grim and stark,
God save us from the Judas kiss
Of a dead man in the dark.

OLD ADAM FARREL lay dead in the house wherein he had lived alone for the last twenty years. A silent, churlish recluse, in his life he had known no friends, and only two men had watched his passing.

Dr. Stein rose and ちらりと見ることd out the window into the 集会 dusk.

"You think you can spend the night here, then?" he asked his companion.

This man, Falred by 指名する, assented.

"Yes, certainly. I guess it's up to me."

"Rather a useless and 原始の custom, sitting up with the dead," commented the doctor, 準備するing to 出発／死, "but I suppose in ありふれた decency we will have to 屈服する to 優先. Maybe I can find someone who'll come over here and help you with your 徹夜."

Falred shrugged his shoulders. "I 疑問 it. Farrel wasn't liked—wasn't known by many people. I scarcely knew him myself, but I don't mind sitting up with the 死体."

Dr. Stein was 除去するing his rubber gloves and Falred watched the 過程 with an 利益／興味 that almost 量d to fascination. A slight, involuntary shudder shook him at the memory of touching these gloves—悪賢い, 冷淡な, clammy things, like the touch of death.

"You may get lonely tonight, if I don't find anyone," the doctor 発言／述べるd as he opened the door. "Not superstitious, are you?"

Falred laughed. "Scarcely. To tell the truth, from what I hear of Farrel's disposition, I'd rather be watching his 死体 than have been his guest in life."

The door の近くにd and Falred took up his 徹夜. He seated himself in the only 議長，司会を務める the room 誇るd, ちらりと見ることd casually at the formless, sheeted 本体，大部分／ばら積みの on the bed opposite him, and began to read by the light of the 薄暗い lamp which stood on the rough （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する.

Outside, the 不明瞭 gathered 速く, and finally Falred laid 負かす／撃墜する his magazine to 残り／休憩（する） his 注目する，もくろむs. He looked again at the 形態／調整 which had, in life, been the form of Adam Farrel, wondering what quirk in the human nature made the sight of a 死体 not so unpleasant, but such an 反対する of 恐れる to man. Unthinking ignorance, seeing in dead things a 思い出の品 of death to come, he decided lazily, and began idly 熟視する／熟考するing as to what life had held for this grim and crabbed old man, who had neither 親族s nor friends, and who had seldom left the house wherein he had died. The usual tales of miser-hoarded wealth had 蓄積するd, but Falred felt so little 利益／興味 in the whole 事柄 that it was not even necessary for him to 打ち勝つ any 誘惑 to prey about the house for possible hidden treasure.

He returned to his reading with a shrug. The 仕事 was more boresome than he had thought. After a while he was aware that every time he looked up from his magazine and his 注目する，もくろむs fell upon the bed with its grim occupant, he started involuntarily as if he had, for an instant, forgotten the presence of the dead man and was unpleasantly reminded of the fact. The start was slight and 直感的に, but he felt almost 怒り／怒るd at himself. He realized, for the first time, the utter and deadening silence which enwrapped the house—a silence 明らかに 株d by the night, for no sound （機の）カム through the window. Adam Farrel lived as far apart from his neighbors as possible, and there was no other house within 審理，公聴会 distance.

Falred shook himself as if to rid his mind of unsavory 憶測s, and went 支援する to his reading. A sudden 浮浪者 gust of 勝利，勝つd whipped through the window, in which the light in the lamp flickered and went out suddenly. Falred, 悪口を言う／悪態ing softly, groped in the 不明瞭 for matches, 燃やすing his fingers on the lamp chimney. He struck a match, relighted the lamp, and ちらりと見ることing over at the bed, got a horrible mental 揺さぶる. Adam Farrel's 直面する 星／主役にするd blindly at him, the dead 注目する，もくろむs wide and blank, でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れるd in the gnarled gray features. Even as Falred instinctively shuddered, his 推論する／理由 explained the 明らかな 現象: the sheet that covered the 死体 had been carelessly thrown across the 直面する and the sudden puff of 勝利，勝つd had disarranged and flung it aside.

Yet there was something grisly about the thing, something fearsomely suggestive—as if, in the cloaking dark, a dead 手渡す had flung aside the sheet, just as if the 死体 were about to rise...

Falred, an imaginative man, shrugged his shoulders at these 恐ろしい thoughts and crossed the room to 取って代わる the sheet. The dead 注目する，もくろむs seemed to 星／主役にする malevolently, with an evilness that transcended the dead man's churlishness in life. The workings of a vivid imagination, Falred knew, and he re-covered the gray 直面する, 縮むing as his 手渡す chanced to touch the 冷淡な flesh —悪賢い and clammy, the touch of death. He shuddered with the natural revulsion of the living for the dead, and went 支援する to his 議長，司会を務める and magazine.

At last, growing sleepy, he lay 負かす／撃墜する upon a couch which, by some strange whim of the 初めの owner, formed part of the room's scant furnishings, and composed himself for slumber. He decided to leave the light 燃やすing, telling himself that it was in 一致 with the usual custom of leaving lights 燃やすing for the dead; for he was not willing to 収容する／認める to himself that already he was conscious of a dislike for lying in the 不明瞭 with the 死体. He dozed, awoke with a start and looked at the sheeted form of the bed. Silence 統治するd over the house, and outside it was very dark.

The hour was approaching midnight, with its …を伴ってing eerie 支配 over the human mind. Falred ちらりと見ることd again at the bed where the 団体／死体 lay and 設立する the sight of the sheeted 反対する most repellent. A fantastic idea had birth in his mind, and grew, that beneath the sheet, the mere lifeless 団体／死体 had become a strange, monstrous thing, a hideous, conscious 存在, that watched him with 注目する，もくろむs which 燃やすd through the fabric of the cloth. This thought—a mere fantasy, of course—he explained to himself by the legends of vampires, undead ghosts and such like—the fearsome せいにするs with which the living have cloaked the dead for countless ages, since 原始の man first 認めるd in death something horrid and apart from life. Man 恐れるd death, thought Falred, and some of this 恐れる of death took 持つ／拘留する on the dead so that they, too, were 恐れるd. And the sight of the dead engendered grisly thoughts, gave rise to 薄暗い 恐れるs of hereditary memory, lurking 支援する in the dark corners of the brain.

At any 率, that silent, hidden thing was getting on his 神経s. He thought of 暴露するing the 直面する, on the 原則 that familiarity 産む／飼育するs contempt. The sight of the features, 静める and still in death, would banish, he thought, all such wild conjectures as were haunting him in spite of himself. But the thought of those dead 注目する，もくろむs 星／主役にするing in the lamplight was intolerable; so at last he blew out the light and lay 負かす／撃墜する. This 恐れる had been stealing upon him so insidiously and 徐々に that he had not been aware of its growth.

With the 消滅させるing of the light, however, and the blotting out of the sight of the 死体, things assumed their true character and 割合s, and Falred fell asleep almost 即時に, on his lips a faint smile for his previous folly.

He awakened suddenly. How long he had been asleep he did not know. He sat up, his pulse 続けざまに猛撃するing frantically, the 冷淡な sweat beading his forehead. He knew 即時に where he was, remembered the other occupant of the room. But what had awakened him? A dream—yes, now he remembered—a hideous dream in which the dead man had risen from the bed and stalked stiffly across the room with 注目する，もくろむs of 解雇する／砲火／射撃 and a horrid leer frozen on his gray lips. Falred had seemed to 嘘（をつく） motionless, helpless; then as the 死体 reached a gnarled and horrible 手渡す, he had awakened.

He strove to pierce the gloom, but the room was all blackness and all without was so dark that no gleam of light （機の）カム through the window. He reached a shaking 手渡す toward the lamp, then recoiled as if from a hidden serpent. Sitting here in the dark with a fiendish 死体 was bad enough, but he dared not light the lamp, for 恐れる that his 推論する／理由 would be 消すd out like a candle at what he might see. Horror, stark and unreasoning, had 十分な 所有／入手 of his soul; he no longer questioned the 直感的に 恐れるs that rose in him. All those legends he had heard （機の）カム 支援する to him and brought a belief in them. Death was a hideous thing, a brain-粉々にするing horror, imbuing lifeless men with a horrid malevolence. Adam Farrel in his life had been 簡単に a churlish but 害のない man; now he was a terror, a monster, a fiend lurking in the 影をつくる／尾行するs of 恐れる, ready to leap on mankind with talons dipped 深い in death and insanity.

Falred sat there, his 血 氷点の, and fought out his silent 戦う／戦い. Faint glimmerings of 推論する／理由 had begun to touch his fright when a soft, stealthy sound again froze him. He did not 認める it as the whisper of the night 勝利，勝つd across the windowsill. His frenzied fancy knew it only as the tread of death and horror. He sprang from the couch, then stood 決めかねて. Escape was in his mind but he was too dazed to even try to 明確に表す a 計画（する） of escape. Even his sense of direction was gone. 恐れる had so stultified his mind that he was not able to think consciously. The blackness spread in long waves about him and its 不明瞭 and 無効の entered into his brain. His 動議s, such as they were, were 直感的に. He seemed shackled with mighty chains and his 四肢s 答える／応じるd sluggishly, like an imbecile's.

A terrible horror grew up in him and 後部d its grisly 形態／調整, that the dead man was behind him, was stealing upon him from the 後部. He no longer thought of lighting the lamp; he no longer thought of anything. 恐れる filled his whole 存在; there was room for nothing else.

He 支援するd slowly away in the 不明瞭, 手渡すs behind him, instinctively feeling the way. With a terrific 成果／努力 he partly shook the 粘着するing もやs of horror from him, and, the 冷淡な sweat clammy upon his 団体／死体, strove to orient himself. He could see nothing, but the bed was across the room, in 前線 of him. He was 支援 away from it. There was where the dead man was lying, によれば all 支配するs of nature; if the thing were, as he felt, behind him, then the old tales were true: death did implant in lifeless 団体／死体s an unearthly 活気／アニメーション, and dead men did roam the 影をつくる／尾行するs to work their 恐ろしい and evil will upon the sons of men. Then—広大な／多数の／重要な God!—what was man but a wailing 幼児, lost in the night and beset by frightful things from the 黒人／ボイコット abysses and the terrible unknown 無効のs of space and time? These 結論s he did not reach by any 推論する／理由ing 過程; they leaped 十分な-grown into his terror-dazed brain. He worked his way slowly backward, groping, 粘着するing to the thought that the dead man must be in 前線 of him.

Then his 支援する-flung 手渡すs 遭遇（する）d something—something 悪賢い, 冷淡な and clammy—like the touch of death. A 叫び声をあげる shook the echoes, followed by the 衝突，墜落 of a 落ちるing 団体／死体.

The next morning they who （機の）カム to the house of death 設立する two 死体s in the room. Adam Farrel's sheeted 団体／死体 lay motionless upon the bed, and across the room lay the 団体／死体 of Falred, beneath the shelf where Dr. Stein had absent-mindedly left his gloves—rubber gloves, 悪賢い and clammy to the touch of a 手渡す groping in the dark—a 手渡す of one 逃げるing his own 恐れる—rubber gloves, 悪賢い and clammy and 冷淡な, like the touch of death.

THE END

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