Before You Begin

Before you begin.

A private's uneasy recollection carries us into a deserted chateau near Is-sur-Tille, where an old village story shadows a single closed bedroom. Roylston Markham's tale turns on the distance between what a witness remembers and what a room can prove.

First published in the April 1923 issue of Weird Tales, the story keeps its original continuous form here: no internal chapter headings have been added. The illustrations follow three separate moments rather than retelling the narrative in sections. The gallery offers faces, places, objects, and connections to help orient the reader. Their captions describe what the pictures show, while the account itself remains the measure of what can be known.