VOA · American Stories
Advanced · C1learner speed11:202017-03-24public domain
American Stories presents adapted works of American literature — Twain, Poe, O. Henry and more — read slowly and clearly. Narrative English is harder than news English: longer sentences, richer vocabulary, and dialogue, which makes these episodes excellent advanced dictation practice.
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01William Wilson, part three.
02You remember that in the last part of my story, I told of my experiences in my first school.
03I spoke of my early meetings with a boy who looked and behaved as I did, whose name was even the same as mine, William Wilson.
04I told of the night when I went to Wilson's room with a plan to hurt him.
05What I saw that night so frightened me that I left the room and the school forever.
06As I stood looking down at his sleeping form and face, I might have been looking at myself in a looking-glass.
07It was not like this, surely not like this, that he appeared in the daytime.
08The same name, the same face, the same body, the same day of coming to school, and then his use of my way of walking, my manner of speaking.
09Was it in truth humanly possible that what I now saw was the result, and the result only, of his continued efforts to be like me?
10Afraid, I left the old school and never entered it again.
11After some months at home doing nothing, I went to study at the famous school called Eton.
12I had partly forgotten my days at the other school, or at least my feelings about those days had changed.
13The truth, the terrible truth, of what had happened there, was gone.
14Now I doubted what I remembered.
15Now I called the subject into my mind only to smile at the strength of the strange ideas and thoughts I had once had.
16My life at Eton did not change this view.
17The fool's life into which I carelessly threw myself washed away everything that was valuable in my past.
18I do not wish, however, to tell here the story of my wrongdoing.
19Wrongdoing which went against every law of the school and escaped the watchful eyes of all the teachers.
20Three years of this had passed, and I had grown much larger in body and smaller in soul.
21Three years of wrongdoing had made me evil.
22One night I asked a group of friends who were as evil as I to come to a secret meeting in my room.
23We met at a late hour.
24There was strong drink, and there were games of cards, loud talking until the new day began appearing in the east.
25Warm with the wine and with the games of chance, I was raising my glass to drink in honor of some especially evil idea when I heard the voice of a servant outside the room.
26He said that someone had asked to speak with me in another room.
27I was delighted.
28A few steps brought me into the hall of the building.
29In this room no light was hanging, but I could see the form of a young man about my own height, wearing clothes like those I myself was wearing.
30His face I could not see.
31When I had entered, he came quickly up to me, and taking me by the arm, he said softly in my ear, William Wilson.
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