CHAPTER XXXIVSPECTRALIA
“AS we sailed off, Blastemo entertained us with stories of the groups of islands that lay near at hand, and especially of one that lay away off to the north nearer the sunset than Coxuria and the other islands of religion. It was the place of ghosts, where the supernatural can have things to itself without the intrusion of sceptical worldliness and common-sense. It lies almost within the ring of mist that encircles the archipelago, and it is dominated by twilight when it is not midnight. The inhabitants have an invincible fear and hatred of the sun, and especially the rising sun; and if he ever dares to show his shameless face without a cloud they raise a dust that makes him like the eye of a drunkard. In order to avoid the impudence of his glances most of them used to live, and one section of them still lives, in cellars underground, sleeping there by day, and following their avocations out-of-doors by night. Mariners in that region land fearlessly when the sun shines, but avoid its shores during times of cloud and darkness, lest they should be taken for spirits and bodily enshrined for the purposes of worship. To be retained either as a resident or as an object of investigation or reverence was a fate to be shuddered at, for it was considered one of the worst wards for lunatic exiles. Hither were deported all who were incurably persuaded that they and they alone had direct communication with the other world. There was something uncanny about the conduct of everyone who found his way thither; in his eye shone the gleam of insanity, a reflection from the baleful light of hell.
“Another feature of the island, as of all the theopathic group, was its rank sectarianism. Almost every man was his own sect. There was a rough classification of them by travellers into ‘antiquated ghost-seers’ and ‘modern ghost-seers’; but none would acknowledge allegiance to any classification. They all believed in spirits, or disembodied beings, who visited their island; beyond that resemblance ceased. Most of the older Spectralians, however, believed only in ghosts of ancient lineage, who had the stately ways of olden times, who seldom condescended to speak or communicate their thoughts, and who looked mutely piteous or minatory on their appearance for a few seconds and then vanished. The more recent exiles, having had a tinge of modern science, laughed at these fantastic monstrosities of a primitive age and insisted on the logical outcome of supernaturalism. Every human being had a ghost, and when death thrust it out of its body it hung about its old locality and tried to make itself manifest, now to one sense, again to another, but most frequently to hearing. It had been a custom of former spirits to address themselves chiefly to the eye; but that was in the silent old times when men preferred striking and acting to speaking. Now that the tongue had become the chief organ of action, it would be obviously absurd for the world of spirits not to adapt itself to the new ways; and so it was now to the ear that they addressed themselves, and seldom to the eye. And, whereas they had been ridiculously limited by ghostly conventions and could appear only in solemn guise at midnight by tombs and in abandoned chambers of castles or in rooms where murder had been done, now they were free to make themselves heard when and where they pleased, or rather when and where their corporeal clients and patrons pleased. There had evidently been a great war of liberation in the region of ghosts, a sort of French Revolution, that had thrown off the shackles of old and absurd convention from their limbs, if such a mode of speech were permissible. Now there was infinite variety in the world of the disembodied as in the world of common things. They all kept shop, as it were, and were ready to serve any who approached them in the due and proper way.
“There was in fact a small section of these modernists who prided themselves on their superior modernity and held that they could take a spirit out of its living body as easily as a pea out of its pod; for, they said, there are really two spirits in every human body, the detachable and the undetachable; the former it is that expatiates, the world over, in dreams and holds communion with worlds whereof the senses know nothing; the other is the workaday spirit that with observation and reason carries out the practical functions of daily life. They plumed themselves upon having thus solved all the problems of existence, that have puzzled mankind so long, by this simple device of two labels or classifications for the contents of the human body or vessel. They were even proud that the rest of the archipelago counted them no less mad than the other Spectralians, whom they scorned; it was the true sign of superiority in mental power, wisdom, and modernity to be called mad by other men.
“They despise the ancient ghost-seers for their old-fashioned ways and the funny old castles and rickety houses they build for their friends and clients from the other world. To think of going to the expense of putting up tumble-down buildings in order to woo spirits into them, a kind of ghost-trap, is to them the most laughable of proceedings; but the old fellows never lose faith in their creaky ghost eelpots, and go about as solemnly as ever they did making the walls of their castles chinky, the passages draughty, the rooms full of dark corners, and the halls like vaults for the dead. It is amusing to see them loosening the footboards of the corridors and stairs in order that they may creak and start and flap as soon as the shadows fall. They always hang old tapestries and sheets at odd draughty corners to rustle and lift in the blackness of the night; and they put a rooster handy outside of every cobwebby old castle they erect to give the word when their clients should be off. For themselves, they spend most of their nights there. The early part they pass in reading the most ghostly and blood-curdling books they can find in the archipelago and stuff into the dirty old libraries. These are the religious literature and litanies of the ghosts. It is a proper rule in every faith that the worshipper should get his mind into the due receptive and inspired attitude before attempting to approach the shrine; only thus can they see and hear the objects of their worship. Hours do they consume in reading the pious literature of ghosts, and then every nerve is on the alert, and every sense awake for the footfalls of their friends from the other world. The passages begin to creak, the tapestries to flop and rustle, the doors, that they have left ajar for their clients, to slam. They know that the spirits of the mighty dead are then approaching them; their eyes flame out of their heads; and with a gleam like lightning the expected apparition flashes over the line of their vision.
“The modernists smile at these preparations and precautions, and declare that nothing of these manifest themselves, but only the shadow of the watcher himself in some passing starlit or moonlit space. They know that the true modern spirit cares for none of these things; he has been brought up in the midst of the best medical science, and avoids draughty old buildings as bad for colds and rheumatism and full of the microbes of countless diseases; he has advanced with the ages, and asks for nothing better than the simplest modern appliances; he has learned, as a modern should, telegraphy and telepathy, and all he needs is a table to rap on, or a planchette or slate to write on; that is his whole outfit, as becomes an occupant of an immaterial world; he has the electricity in his own system to work the thing; but if he has got to materialise, he does like the lights turned down; for modern gas and oil lamps are very trying for a poor old spirit’s eyes, that have been accustomed to the dim, ethereal spaces. It is all right when he can remain unseen and merely let his mind out in rap language, though that is a rather slow way of communication for beings that move and act as quickly as thought; but to doff his old habits and his invisible form makes a ghost as shy as for a human being to appear naked in broad daylight. It is no wonder that spirits insist that the lights be down, when they are asked to appear to the eyes of the initiated. As for the worldly and sceptical, they will never have the privilege of seeing anyone or even hearing anyone from the world of spirits till they abandon their scoffing, faithless ways. Faith is a prime essential of all communion with the immaterial world. The gross senses of the worldling can never see or hear what his more refined neighbours catch from the spirit-sphere. It is only Spectralia that ghosts will ever favour with their countenance. Now and again they appear to men and women of peculiar natures in other islands in order to have them deported to their favourite isle; they are heard of no more after the exile, having followed their clients. But, if those they address lose faith in them and remain with their fellow-countrymen, the ghosts cease to appear to them.
Even the modernists acknowledge that spirits have but limited means of communication; they prefer two or three methods and will have no others. A story is told over the archipelago of a Swoonarian inventor who had noticed this and had thought out plans for opening a clear highway into the spirit-world. One was to erect a vacuum tube up through the atmosphere of the earth and to catch the ghosts in gossamer nets at the bottom of it as they were sucked down. Another was to have a megaphone with an enormous mouth stretching above the clouds and its terrestrial end in a vast magnifying hall that would turn the poor ghost whispers into clear, intelligible sounds. A third was to utilise their rapping propensities; he proposed to have a great musical instrument with keys placed in position underneath their favourite tables, where the spirits loved to rap out their answers to questions; a little training would soon develop in them the power of earthly harmony, and, as they struck the keys, the Spectralians would have the most divine ghost music. A modification of this would provide a method for spirits to express applause when they approved of earthly performers and speakers; a series of fans or clapboards were to work round a freely moving axle and to come in contact with the soft, flat surface as they spun round, so that they would produce a sound like the clapping of hands; as the spirits rapped on the keyboard, the vanes whirled round, and the effect of tumultuous applause was produced. Still another modification was intended to use spirit force for human purposes; their rapping power was to be concentrated on engines that would drives mills and looms and the other machines of Spectralian factories. He had a great windmill too that was to be blown round by the breath of spirits; and an automatic spirit reporter that would record whatever was done or said in spirit-land. Another line his inventions took was to provide bodies that would invite wandering souls into them. A third set of inventions was intended to relieve the over-population of the Spectralian atmosphere; he was convinced that the region was uncomfortably crowded, because all the ghosts of the archipelago flocked thither, and there were no sanitary arrangements for making ghost life endurable; so he proposed by one of his new machines to take a census of the spirits in and around Spectralia, and then to send his automatic spirit-emigration Propaganda amongst them in order to induce large numbers of them to seek other and more wholesome spheres.
“After long years of work on these, he came across a wealthy and enthusiastic Spectralian, whom he convinced of the fortune that lay in his machines. The two shipped the cargo of notions and landed safely in Spectralia. But before they could be put out on the market there was a ghost riot one night; what were the poor spirits to do for a living if all their functions were to be appropriated or concentrated by these vile inventions? Half of them would be thrown out of the employment they had been accustomed to, and how were they to learn all these new-fangled notions? It was too much for ghost nature to bear, and the machinery was smashed to pieces in a single night; and the spirits formed themselves into a trades-union for keeping such agitators and inventors far from the shores of Spectralia; it was said that the Swoonarian and his patron fled before the indignation of the mob of ghosts that pursued them, and the last that was seen of them they were on their knees uttering mad cries of alternate prayer and threat to their unseen tormentors.
“Another story told the adventures of a missionary from Aleofane, who was sent to convert Spectralians to the true faith. After long and enthusiastic labour in preaching and praying he found on examination that he was no further forward than when he landed. The Spectralians were as unconvinced as before; and on inquiry he was told that as long as the spirits were unconverted their clients would adhere to their old faith. So the missionary set himself to the work of converting the ghosts, promising himself that, this done, the whole island would go over to his religion. At first they could not understand a word that he said; and he learned their rap language. Then they refused to listen patiently to his homilies and litanies; he had no sooner called them up and launched into his eloquence than they had dispersed like leaves before a gale. He tried to get at the bottom of this universal reluctance on their part to hear him out; and he discovered that they were a good deal more primitive than savages or children; their education had been completely neglected; they could never tell anybody anything that was not known to everybody before; they indulged in the dreariest platitudes and the most obvious truisms, and they thought that it was more than spirit could bear to hear lengthy sermons on the obvious poured broadside into them. He assumed that his truths were too high for them to understand, and never realised that he was doing nothing more than pouring water into the ocean. It was true that their education had been wretchedly neglected; the most elementary truths of science were unknown to them. He set himself first to their tuition in the use of reason before attempting to convert them again. Alas! his task was an endless one. As with savages, after teaching any simple and primal principle, he found he had to begin teaching it to them over again. He did not weary of his burden; for he knew that he had the great prize before him of converting a whole nation. He grew a white-haired old man before he could get them beyond such elementary truths as two and two are four, and he died at his task, a martyr to the platitudinarianism of spirits.
“We were steaming along under the lee of Spectralia, the night fast lowering upon us, as Blastemo held us spellbound by these stories. A crash and a quiver of the ship cut short his narrative, and we rushed on deck. The engines stopped, and peering over the side in the struggling moonlight we could see one or two dark objects rise and fall on the gleaming wake. We lowered a boat, and soon had two dripping figures upon the deck. We anchored and attended to their necessities; and by the morning they had so far recovered as to be able to give an account of themselves.
“They were the superintendents or presidents of the Spectralian ghost markets; so Blastemo interpreted for us. There had been reported to them, as the sun set, a strange appearance on the horizon. It had become too dim for them to make it out by the time they had reached the beach; but as its mass of lights grew in size and brilliancy and a singular throb seemed to come through the air from it, they could form no other conclusion than that it was an influx of emigrants from the more distant regions of spirits. As it approached, they could see it move on the face of the waters, and they knew that it was a ghost ship; for they could perceive dark flights of spirits gleam in its lights and hurry it on as they spun through the night behind it, and they could hear the multitudinous beat of their wings in the air. None but they were officially authorised to welcome ghostly immigrants into the island; it was their duty to meet the spectral fleet before it touched the land, and they rushed for fallas, as they seemed to see it about to pass their island. From a promontory that would most easily intercept it they swung their paddles towards it; and their hearts were gladdened as they found themselves right across the track it was making. The next they knew was that they were floundering in the water and it had passed them. They shouted; but, faint as they were, they thought that their cries would make little impression. The elfin ship stopped, however; the throb of the winged host ceased; and they were hoisted by the strange spirits on board.
“We asked them what they wanted to do with the new arrival of ghosts when they got them. The answer came; they would dispose of them in the market of souls. Each division of the people, the antiques and the moderns, had a market of its own, and that was why the two officials rushed, each to his own boat, to secure the cargo of ghosts, and why each ventured into such danger to secure his prize. They did not know for certain whether the new arrivals were spirits of the olden time or modern spirits; but each had good reason to think that they were ghosts of his own special affinity. The man of the dead-soul market was pretty sure that the cargo was for him; for none but ancient spirits would arrive at midnight with such appalling sounds, in such sable robes, and with such flash of lightnings. The president of the living-soul market was as sure that they were for him; for only modern ghosts could arrive in such novel circumstances, and in all the panoply of modern science. It was with difficulty that we could keep the two from blows; they wrangled furiously, and hurled insult and vituperation at each other with manifest effect. At last we had to get them into separate compartments that they might not do each other bodily harm.
“Alone with us each calmed down into comparative tranquillity, and we were able to get a fair and rational account of the two markets out of the chaos of their mutual misrepresentation. After collating notes of the scene with each we came to the conclusion that the two markets were at opposite ends of the island, and that they belonged to the two great sects of the people, the antiques and the modernists. At stated times there were great ghost fairs to which the inhabitants crowded that they might be able to exchange familiars or traffic the spirit that had become too commonplace to them for one that might give them more exquisite shocks of supernatural surprise and alarm.
“The goblin-shop, as the modernist called the market of dead souls, was evidently the place where ghosts of the olden type were bought and sold. It was situated, like the catacombs, underground, and above it lay old graveyards, ancient ruins, castles, chapels, and shrines where the goods traded in might squeak and gibber and disport themselves for the edification of the purchasing public; these dilapidated old cages were a kind of ghost menagerie, or, as the modernist sneered, the goblin kennels; in them the spirits were penned during the ghost fairs, and the intending purchasers wandered round and listened to the whistling, moaning winds through the crevices and tried to get the sensation of being startled by the ghost rustle and speech or by the apparitions that came and went within the dark pens. The traffickers went in twos and threes around; for they dared not trust themselves alone in the presence of these uneasy supernatural beings. Every one of these strange creatures had either committed murder or suicide or been present at such a deed; nor could he ever find rest night or day. It was only in the deepest darkness that he was able to make himself manifest to his clients; as soon as the first streak of dawn touched the horizon he vanished like a dream, and not even the faintest smell of sulphur remained during the day where he had paced by night.
“The antiquist expressed the greatest scorn of the new-fangled rubbish traded off on poor humanity in the demon pigsty, as he usually called the market of living souls. But the modernist waxed eloquent on the miracles wrought by the spirits bought in his institution. His goods were not the frequenters of tombs or mouldy fragments of buildings; they were willing to talk to their clients by the light of day and in the most comfortable surroundings; they were human and humane in every respect; they liked the society of living men and women, especially if these were commonplace and preferred information on topics that had no mystery about them; they delighted in communications on the obvious, and would rather talk to clients who wanted to hear of what they knew already; they did not care for tombs and ghostly surroundings; though, if people insisted on getting a sight of them, they preferred a dim light; they were shy; for they were unable to procure in spirit-land the phantasms of the garments that they had worn upon earth to clothe their nakedness. Still better, they sold in their market many a phantasm of the living which could tell its clients their own thoughts, and communicate facts that they were certain to find out by common observation within a few minutes or hours. They sold dream-stuff that would supply the sleeping client with warnings as to the future so that when the future arrived he would recognise it. In their market they had practitioners who could draw souls like teeth, and, after polishing them clean of diseases, put them back again. They had others, each of whom could send his detachable soul down the throat of a patient like a chimney-sweep, and, after cleaning the system, draw it back again. There was not a disease in man but had its origin in the imagination or detachable soul; and what was the use of medicine or surgery, when all a man had to do in order to be cured was to get this free soul taken out of him and sent to the practitioners in the market or to borrow the free soul of a practitioner for a few hours or days as the case might need? He could go on for years, if we liked, telling us the miracles and wonders done by their spirit-therapeutics in their market of living souls. No less marvellous was the consolation afforded to the bereaved when they were able to come and converse with the souls of the departed. For a small fee they could call up any spirit they pleased, and get it to write on slates or give in rap language answers to any questions they might ask, provided the questions did not touch on its actual state or destiny and related to facts well known to all present. The spirits they dealt in would give no satisfaction to the profanely curious or impertinent.
“We suggested that most of these phenomena could be explained by natural causes; and in each case the Spectralian broke into rage at the suggestion, and when he had calmed down told us of the fate of a missionary from Figlefia, who had come to convert them to naturalism. They found that he addressed himself especially to the women, and most of all to the good-looking women; but when he began to smile at their creed and covertly sneer at it and attack it the women waited for a dark night and, aided by the spirits of their dead ancestors, they spoiled his smirking beauty for him and gave him such a scare that in his madness and terror he ran into the waves and drowned himself. Each of them pointed out to us a rocky islet off the coast, and told us the story of it, evidently as a warning to us against our unseemly unbelief. It was called Astralia, and contained a miserable sect that had attempted to explain all the phenomena of their markets by the swarming-off of astral bodies like invisible hoops from them. They also professed to have found a new means of consulting the souls of distant wise men; they could write their questions on any slip of common paper and put it in a cupboard, and down from the ceiling would flutter the answer, which was so unintelligibly wise as to puzzle men for years. These poor creatures were at once exiled and were dying of starvation; for, though they were eager for material food, they professed to subsist on nothing but spiritual sustenance, and were wasting away in this pretended astral-exhalation process.
“After the two rivals had been put on shore and we were steaming off on our course, two packets were found in the bunks they had occupied. Moist and limp, they were dried; and when opened they were found to contain placards and advertisements of the goods to be traded off in their respective markets at the next great ghost-fair. Blastemo translated a few for us, both from the dead-soul packet and from the live-soul packet. ‘For sale, the ghost of a knight walled up in the bastion of an old castle four hundred years ago; warranted to walk in armour every stormy night that has not too much moon, and to produce the most appalling clank as he moves along the corridors or through the locked doors.’ ‘For immediate sale on the lowest terms, a genuine old-fashioned spirit, that cannot bear the crowing of a cock or the least streak of light on the horizon; supposed to be the perpetrator of a mysterious murder that took place some centuries ago; the sound of gnashing teeth and of the drawing of swords is distinctly heard as he paces along, and the echo of a loud sigh as he vanishes.... The owner is clearing out of his present premises, because his physicians have recommended him a more bracing alpine climate that is quite unsuited to his family ghost.’ ‘To be sold by auction without reserve, one of the finest collections of antique spirits ever made in this island; they belong to a splendid ruin in one of the most picturesque and dismal localities of the country; every one of them has either perpetrated a murder or been the victim of cruel assassination; the rooms to which they are confined have the marks of bloody footsteps all over them, and, where these are dim, they can be easily renewed at small expense; one of them is headless and carries in his arms something that has been identified by the best experts as a head; another bears the form of a young girl, all covered with blood, the supposed victim, and vanishes with a heart-breaking sigh. The late owner died childless, and has joined his own collection of midnight walkers. The heirs live in a distant part of the island in a castle already well provided with spirits, and are willing to treat with intending purchasers on easy terms extending over a number of years. Cards of midnight inspection to be obtained from the auctioneer in the market.’ ‘Wanted, for a dilapidated mansion newly built, a ghost of harmless propensities but awe-striking habits. He must be at least three centuries old, and have all the favourite traits of blood-curdling apparitions. No upstarts of recent introduction need apply.’
“The live-soul-market advertisements were as definite in their terms; the few that Blastemo translated were these: ‘For sale, the spirit of a wise man just deceased, accustomed to daylight seances, and highly trained in rap language and slate-writing. He would be a valuable adjunct to a household that has no library, or one that from want of education or eyepower is unable to consult a library. His knowledge is encyclopedic, although his powers of observation are limited. The daily intercourse with his spirit would be an education in itself. His children and heirs have no further need of his instructions.’ ‘Offered for sale, the spirit of a successful thought-therapeutist, who when alive could cure any disease without the intervention of any material medium or medicine or even the proximity of the patient. He had simply to think the disease away, and it was gone. His spirit, now being free of all bodily trammels, is even more potent than before. In fact, it is more than likely that the possessor of it will secure immunity from all sickness, if not from death itself. It would be a perfect mine of wealth for a medical practitioner. Terms easy.’ ‘Wanted, to hire out for short periods, the detachable spirit of a great sage who lives in a distant part of the world; well accustomed to sending occult answers to occult messages, and to all the recognised methods of occult communication and intercourse; would be especially suited for the entertainment and instruction of select companies in the evening; terms on application; a reduction for a series of parties or entertainments.’ ‘To sell by auction at the great fair, a famous troupe of table-tipping spirits, the finest collection ever offered to the community. Have been employed in drawing-room entertainments. Might be utilised in large hotels or mansions in removing large tables from room to room, or in large factories instead of elevators.’ ‘Wanted, immediately, for a bed-rid invalid, a spirit-companion, who can enter into all his tastes and humour all his fancies, converse with him without irritability or caprice, and materialise in the cold hours of the night and dematerialise when the patient is too hot. A high salary for a thoroughly competent spirit.’ ‘Wanted, by a genius, a spirit-amanuensis, who could inspire his hand when it lags on the paper, and fire his imagination at all times. One accustomed to dream suggestion preferred. No eccentrics need apply.’ ‘To be auctioned without reserve, the finest collection of detachable spirits that this island has ever seen. For Spectralians who wish to study human nature in all its variety this affords a grand opportunity of acquiring specimens of every kind and type of spirit. A guarantee given with every individual sold that he will stand by the purchaser for any fixed period agreed on and allow him to look microscopically into his inner mechanism.’ ‘Wanted, for a small and unhealthy country village, a thought-therapeutic, who could, if he wished, reside at a distance and project his spirit whenever a patient needed his power. One who has had much practice in hysterics and hypochondria, the prevailing diseases of the village, preferred.’
“Whether it was from inadvertence or design that our Spectralians left their packets we were unable to discover. We counted them of so little value that we never thought of putting ourselves to any trouble to send them after their owners. Besides, we inclined to the belief that they had been abandoned on board deliberately and for missionary purposes. The twinkle in Blastemo’s eye as he read them seemed to us to imply that this was not the first time he had had the experience; that, in fact, it was a policy of the Spectralians to litter the archipelago with their placards and advertisements. At any rate, we took no trouble to return them; they were, on the contrary, used for menial purposes that did not fulfil their high mission.”