Can Such Things Be? · Chapter
The Other Lodgers explained
Colonel Levering recounts a harrowing night at the Breathitt House in Atlanta, a dilapidated former hotel and hospital.
What happens
Colonel Levering recounts a harrowing night at the Breathitt House in Atlanta, a dilapidated former hotel and hospital. After falling asleep in a room, he awakens to find it filled with the corpses of former patients. The night-clerk, who appears to be a ghost, and a mysterious caretaker reveal the building's grim history, leaving Levering terrified.
Free preview opens on this chapter — companions, themes, and character notes appear beside the text.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book — this chapter sits in Falling action.
- Setup
- Breaking point
- Aftermath
- Closing
This passage marks the dramatic climax because it presents the emotional and psychological peak of the narrato…
Full beat labels and climax notes unlock in the reader.
Follow the arc while readingThemes in this chapter
- Death and the Supernatural
The chapter centers on the protagonist's encounter with a room full of corpses and a ghostly night-clerk, blending death with supernatural horror.
- Isolation and Terror
The protagonist's solitary experience in the dead-room and his inability to move or cry out highlight the terror of isolation.
Characters to notice
- Col. J. C. McArdle
The narrator and protagonist who experiences the supernatural events at the Breathitt House.
Key passages
“This is not a hotel. It used to be; afterward it was a hospital. Now it is unoccupied, awaiting a tenant. The room that you mention was the dead-room—there were always plenty of dead.”
The building was once a hotel, then a hospital, and is now vacant; the room in question was used to store corpses.
The caretaker explains the building's history and the room's purpose.
“The fellow that you call the night-clerk used to be that, but later he booked the patients as they were brought in. I don’t understand his being here. He has been dead a few weeks.”
The man the protagonist thought was the night-clerk had actually worked as a hospital registrar and has been dead for weeks.
The caretaker reveals the night-clerk's true identity as a ghost.
