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Esther Vandeveer. “My Other Self”
Esther Vandeveer. “My Other Self”
Rockridge County News (Lexington, Virginia) 38:23 (September 20 1917)
via Library of Virginia / Virginia Chronicle : link
entirety below —
- I live alone with my servants, a woman cook and a housemaid. I am fifty years old, tall for a woman and with grizzly gray hair. I wear glasses, and as I have trouble with one eye the glass before that eye is colored a light amber.
- These details are necessary to an understanding of an incident I am about to relate.
- One afternoon — or rather evening, for the day was fading — I went home after shopping, opened the front door with my latchkey and went upstairs to my room. The door was open, and a woman was standing before the mirror of the bureau powdering her face. I saw her reflection in the glass, and what was my astonishment to see myself. If I had any doubt the woman was I, it was dispelled by seeing that one of a pair of glasses she wore was colored and was amber.
- While I was gazing at her she suddenly caught sight of me, and her face took on the same expression as mine. She was apparently as much astonished at seeing me as I was at seeing her. Indeed, she caught at the bureau for support. I felt very much like catching at something for support myself, but it occurred to me that I had better keep a grip on myself and retain my faculties that I might find out what this strange occurrence meant. Nevertheless I will admit that 1 was obliged to make a great effort to do so.
- “Who are you?” I stammered.
- “Who are you?” asked the other, looking ready to faint.
- “I am Wilhelmina Buntling.”
- “No, no, no!” gasped the woman. “You cannot be. I am Wilhelmina Buntling. Go away! Do. please, go away!”
- I strained my eyes to discover some want of resemblance between the woman and myself. It was shortly before the time for lighting the lamps, and of course I could not distinguish minor parts as well as if I had seen her at noonday, but she was my height and build, had the same grizzly gray hair as I, with two short curls on each temple. But more convincing than all else was the amber colored glass before her left eye. And yet I doubt if this was more staggering than the fact that the woman seemed to be even more appalled at seeing me than I was at seeing her.
- The first explanation that occurred to me was that I had been stricken with some brain trouble. But I had been feeling as well up to the very moment I saw this strange reflection of myself as I had ever felt in my life. And notwithstanding its appearance I now felt myself to be in a perfectly normal condition. I was conscious also that this woman was not a shade, but a person of flesh and blood. Perhaps it was this consciousness that enabled me to get my first grip on myself. I began to throw off the idea that I had brain trouble or disordered vision or anything of a physical nature that would cause me to see a double me. The woman’s actions in that case should be an exact duplicate of mine. They were not. Her motions were not in unison with mine, though they were similar to mine.
- Next came a suspicion that my double was playing me. As soon as I got control of my faculties I began to see that her actions were not altogether spontaneous. There was something forced in them. In other words, I realized that she was acting a part. At least I suspected she was. I had no theory as to what would induce her to do this. It simply seemed to me that she did it.
- By this time I was in a condition to ask questions.
- "When did you come here?” I asked.
- “I came here about half an hour ago.”
- “Where from?”
- “I had been — shopping.”
- She hesitated before speaking the last word. It seemed to me that she was deliberating what answer to make to my question. But I had been shopping myself, and the reply tended to disconcert me. However, by this time the woman had recovered some of her equanimity and seemed to me to be bracing herself for an examination. It suddenly flashed upon me that her appearance in my house was for a purpose. Quickly withdrawing, I stepped back into the hall and. pulling the door after me, locked it.
- Whatever had been the woman’s object — if indeed she were a real woman and had an object — she was a prisoner, for there was but one door to my bedroom, and there was no means for her escape. I staggered to the telephone and, calling a friend, told my story, somewhat incoherently, it is true, but managed to make her understand me. She came right over and after satisfying herself that I was of sound body and mind advised me to send for the police.
- Well, the upshot of the matter was that the woman had seen me buying jewelry, of which I am fond, though I seldom decorate myself with it, and, noticing our similar personal appearance, decided to get herself up like me, impersonate me to the servants and myself if necessary and get away with some of my valuables. Her wearing a glass like the one I wore certainly put a finish on her makeup. When I came home she had all my jewels, but, hearing me come in, attempted the game I have described.
- In a way her idea was quite a clever one, and she certainly almost succeeded in making me believe that something had jarred my brain, and for several days after I was haunted by a most disagreeable feeling of unrealness.
31 July 2024