CHAPTER V
“I quite forgot,” said he, giving me no time to put a question, “I quite forgot to borrow a needle and thread whilst on the earth. Probably you yourself have learnt the art of mending.”
“Well,” I replied, “I am not yet reduced to tatters, though I possess but one garment.”
“Where is Vestné?” he continued.
“She has gone to take part in some theatricals, I think.”
“Where?”
“Do not ask me. Your relatives and friends are legion, and quite beyond my understanding.”
“Have you seen many of them?” he asked.
“Very few.”
“Then you have still no friend but Vestné?”
I laughed.
“I was not aware that she was my friend.”
“But,” said he, whimsically, “Vestné is very charming.”
“Maybe, to those who understand her—I do not.”
“And yet she moves on far straighter lines than the women on earth.”
“That may be again. But here the straight lines and the crooked are so intertwined one cannot distinguish either.”
He shook his head.
“Genius,” he remarked, “you are looking ill.”
“Then send me a doctor, or prescribe some medicine.”
“Do you think you could possibly prescribe for yourself?” he queried.
“By all means. I need change of scene—to be more exact, change of surroundings.”
“And where would you go in such a case?”
“Back to my own land.”
“The earth?”
“I hardly think so.”
The faintest smile crossed his lips.
“You are ready at last to forsake your charge for freedom?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I never yet forsook anything that really belonged to me.”
“You are as faithful as a dog,” he laughed. “Another womanly characteristic.”
To this I made no answer.
“Why do you not answer?” he broke in at length. “I think you are growing dull.”
“I had better be dull than coarse,” I replied.
“Would your answer necessitate coarseness?”
“Perhaps not. But I am looking farther than my answer, to your reply.”
“My replies are never coarse, unless badly translated.”
“Then you should employ a good interpreter.”
“It is impossible to find one. As you know yourself, there is not a more maligned Spirit in existence than I.”
“How is the book going on?” I asked, interrupting him suddenly.
“What book? Oh, yours. Well, it has kept me laughing for the last six months.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes. I never believed before that any woman could be such a complete fool, and my experience has been pretty great.”
“One fool makes many,” I commented.
“Well, perhaps so,” he went on thoughtfully. “And the more the merrier. But tell me, what have you been doing of late? I have left you here long enough to become well acquainted with the place.”
“I have done absolutely nothing except live a profitless existence.”
“Then you have done as much as most people do, but they thrive on it as a rule, and you, as I say, look ill.”
“This afternoon we visited some of your prisons.”
“Were they in good order?”
“Oh, excellent! But such a gloomy foundation has on the whole rather a dispiriting effect.”
“It depends on the principle,” he observed gravely.
“Oh! all things depend on that,” I said.
“Which did you visit?” he asked.
“I was taken to see some women, who, had they been on the earth, would have been termed mad.”
He gave me a sharp sidelong glance.
“Perhaps they were mad,” he surmised.
“I think not. With all the appearance of madness they were sane. Saner than they ever were on earth.”
“Come, come, that is putting it rather strongly.”
“I think not. They had been brought to recognise their sin.”
“Yes. But that is the only thing they recognised. They ought to cultivate a broader mind.”
I looked across at him.
“Plucritus,” said I, “if you were placed in a cell ten feet high and fifteen square, would you yourself find much room for cultivation of anything?”
For one moment his lips came together in a thin, cruel line, then he got up, laughing, stretching out his arms as if tired of the discussion.
“If I were placed in a cell of the dimensions you mention I should burst the walls, even though they were of iron.”
I looked at him as he began walking back and forwards through the room and did not doubt the strength of which he spoke.
Then suddenly he lighted on theParadise Lostwhich I had thrown away.
“Have you been reading that rot?” he asked carelessly.
“Well, yes, and I’ve fallen into the error common to all people.”
“That of liking Satan best,” he joined in, laughing.
“Decidedly. But at every other line I find myself stopping to consider how a man of such ability as Milton could ever come to be so deluded in his ideas of God.”
“He was like Solomon. His wives led away his heart. Three such were far too many for an ascetic. They helped to turn his brain. Yet it is strange,” he continued, smiling, “that he should come to form such a fine conception of the Devil and underrate the Godhead.”
“He was prejudiced in his favour,” I replied.
“The Devil’s favour?”
“No. The Godhead’s.”
“I see. It’s a bad thing to be prejudiced—it can get one into hobbles. Are you sleepy?”
“By no means.”
“Then suppose you come with me. We can spend the night in visiting some prisoners, for, like all my visits, this is of short duration.”
Now visiting prisoners was of all things least pleasant to me. I remembered my terrible experience of the afternoon and also its results on myself. Moreover, I knew that I should find no relaxation afterwards from the misery it engendered. But I had no excuse beyond my own personal feelings, and such things were unrecognised here, so I followed him with a grim, stony feeling rising within me, caused by solitude and imprisonment.
He passed his arm through mine.
“It is really quite a pleasure to meet you once more,” he declared as we went towards the gloomy doorway. “Because though you may not think it, I miss you greatly on the earth.”
“Can you find no one to fill my place?” I suggested drily.
“No one. Absolutely no one. I look round and invite people in, but they won’t come.”
“Have you the right of invitation?”
“No. But I take it.”
“Then they see through the deception.”
“Fiddlesticks! They’re as blind as Milton.”
We were now in the passage leading from the doorway to the cells. But I noticed when we came to the end of it a low doorway which had before escaped me.
Plucritus opened it and we walked out into the moonlight. Never before had I been so impressed by the beauty of these grounds. Chilly winter moonlight it was, which brought with it a certain peace and quietness, even to me.
We strolled along from path to path, and all was solitude and shadow as we went. At last we came to a bridge which spanned a large expanse of water. I had noticed this bridge before, and had often stood upon it, but in the middle was an iron gate, which had been always locked.
Vestné had told me this water separated their estate from that of a neighbouring kinsman, and I had seen that the grounds beyond were very similar, as were also the spires and turrets which I at times perceived among the trees.
Plucritus opened the gate easily, and when we had gone through shut it carefully.
“These are the grounds of a near relative and friend of mine,” he explained. “When we planned our houses we arranged our dungeons so that he should take one class of prisoners and I the other. We have passages leading underground, very beautifully decorated, but I thought we would come as we have done, because this is a scene and a time I like.”
Similar terraces led us to the palace, and as we drew near we heard sounds of revelry and music coming from its lighted halls. Many doors and windows stood wide open, so that we could clearly hear the noise within.
“Now look here,” said I, standing at the bottom of a flight of steps. “I hope you still remember my apparel. If I go in there in this state I must be given a few minutes first in which to prepare myself for an all-round onslaught.”
Plucritus stood still and laughed.
“You’re a confounded nuisance,” cried he. “I would say a ‘damned’ nuisance, but the critics would pronounce me ‘forcibly feeble.’”
“Beware of the critics,” I advised. “They are like children sitting in the market-place.”
“How so?”
“They are never right. Nothing pleases them.”
“You never tried them with butter and sugar mixed.”
“Indeed I did.”
“No, you introduced vinegar.”
“Pardon me, vinegar is the correct thing. It is good for the chest.”
“It isn’t a case of what’sgoodfor them. It’s what theylike.”
“I see. But certainly butter and sugar and vinegar are the correct thing.”
“Offer them sackcloth.”
“Indeed, I have done so, and fine linen into the bargain.”
“Well?”
“Oh, well, they returned the linen with thanks, mistaking it for calico, and the sackcloth they sent back with rude remarks.”
“Did they mistake it for anything?”
“Yes. I believe they thought the rude remarks were clever ones. But that is pardonable. It is often difficult to ascend to sackcloth, even when one can descend to ermine.”
“Well, let us go together. You will notice I have accommodated my raiment to yours.”
“You still wear armour,” I went on, looking at the simple robe he now wore.
“It is impossible to get rid of it at so short a notice, but it is unseen. Come.”
And so we came to the entrance. This place perhaps belongs to the brother of whom Vestné had spoken, for many servants in rich livery thronged the halls, which otherwise just now were empty.
“Come along,” said Plucritus. “It’s all I can do to keep my face straight passing through here, there’s so much mockery and unreal sham about it.”
“Cruelty and humiliation,” I criticised.
“Now, don’t preach, Genius. Considering I have had the kindness to descend to your level in the matter of dress, you might descend to mine in the matter of feeling.”
“You must know,” he continued, “that my kinsman has a very fine theatre here, which it has cost years to build. It has been constructed on the latest and most approved methods, and is at the height of comfort, convenience and luxury.”
“I can quite believe you,” I affirmed.
“My kinsman is very fond of acting, so are we all. Only we never act a play more than once of twice. After that we leave it to be studied and rehearsed by our slaves, and they eventually carry it to the earth and let mortals make what use of it they can.”
“Then,” said I, “according to your version the stage is damned prior to the outset.”
“Be careful,” he rejoined. “If you use bad language they’ll turn you out.... It is prohibited along with smoking and drinking.”
The sounds of music led us to the theatre of which he spoke. It was fitted up to the greatest perfection, and evidently for private audiences.
As we entered there was the general buzz which usually accompanies the orchestra before the curtain rises, but almost immediately after there was silence, and the lights were centred only on the stage behind the rising curtain.
The scene that followed was one of great beauty, and the play itself clever and brilliant, often amusing. I discovered that Vestné took the leading part, though it was some time before I recognised her.
When the curtain fell I waited with interest for the next act, but it never came. I found out later that they rarely gave more than one act each night; the rest of the time was left for what they termed “varieties.”
But if I had been asked to translate the word “varieties,” I should certainly have rendered it as “tragedies,” since to me they were most painful.
Plucritus had gone near the front and sat down, beckoning me to a seat next him.
There were many sitting there besides ourselves, a brilliant company both as to beauty and display.
“Now watch carefully,” said Plucritus, leaning back. “You may learn something, and you may be interested. But do not go to the absurd length of tears like Deborah when she went to see ‘The Only Way.’”
“I will endeavour to restrain myself,” I declared. “The sight of your cheerful countenance will act as an antidote, I have no doubt.”
Just then there walked on the boards a woman. She was dressed very simply, even prettily, which struck me as being a great concession. No sound of applause greeted her, but she came to the front and prepared to sing. I noticed that Vestné was prepared to accompany the song, which appeared to me a most condescending kindness on her part.
She played a few bars and the song began.
It was one of the most beautiful I had ever heard, and contained human pathos, sadness, and at times even mirth. Besides, she rendered it with beautiful expression, such as could only come from one whose whole soul was in the work. I waited till the end, and then after the first spell had passed I looked round, expecting the applause which never came. She stood still too, probably expecting the same thing. But at last, amidst the indifferent silence, someone called out, “That was insipid, and every other note was wrong.” Hereupon followed a chorus of laughing assent, and among the general hubbub she withdrew.
I gazed about with an indignation I found it hard to restrain, till at last my eyes lighted on Plucritus. He was sitting watching me, an amused smile on his face.
“Why don’t you get up and say ‘It’s a lie’?” he whispered.
“I believe,” said I, “the only reason is that I lack moral courage. It can be nothing else.” Whereat he burst out laughing, and one or two of those near us turned to see who it was.
“You there, Plucritus? Why do you laugh?” called one.
“Oh! I have a very amusing companion, who says the lady should be recalled and asked to sing again.”
“Yes, we have sent to ask her. One trial does not make a complete failure.”
Gradually there was silence, and in the midst of it the singer returned. I do not think she recognised anything about her. Her whole mind seemed bent upon her task; she scarce appeared to recognise her previous failure, except perhaps in the first line, when for one second her voice seemed about to break.
The song was different from the other. It was extremely simple, and whatever beauty it contained was derived from its simplicity. In the last lines I noticed again that her voice trembled, and silence fell once more.
Presently there came another voice from another part of the room, “Utterly absurd!” and another, “I had hardly the patience to listen to the end!” and another, “Does this creature imagine our understanding to be no higher than her own?”
Amid this laughter and these taunts she withdrew again. But not for long. I think they must have sent again for her, because she soon returned. And this time I could tell the laughter and contempt had had effect.
She sang again, and every line was steeped in a bitter and absorbing passion. Whether there was any beauty in it I could hardly say. At the end, however, she was met with stony silence; none took the trouble to make the slightest observation. Suddenly the orchestra struck up some wonderful soft dance music, and with a step as light as foam on water she tripped off the stage. At this they clapped and laughed.
“She missed her vocation. She should have been a ballet girl,” Plucritus said to me. Then he rose quickly. “Come with me,” he went on, “I had nearly forgotten I brought you here as an observer; come quickly.”
I remember we went out at a door on the side near the stage. It led down a lighted corridor which was empty and rather cold. From this we went down a darker passage with one light burning at the end, and along the passage were low doors at frequent intervals.
He stopped before one of these and opened it and went in, I following. The door closed behind us, and I found we were in a cell very similar to those I had visited earlier with Vestné.
The same ghostly light flickered along the wall and shone beside the altar. The woman who had sung knelt beside it, her arms stretched across it, her face buried against the hard board.
“Come away,” I whispered to him.
“No. She’s too far gone to notice us much. We will stay awhile.”
I noticed that on her shoulder a blue bruise had risen, and I wondered how she had come by it. After a while she got up and began walking very, very slowly about the cell, and every now and again she drew her hand across her brow as if trying to move something away.
At last she noticed us standing there, but whether she ever realised that we were other than forms conjured by her imagination I cannot tell.
She pressed both hands to her side and her breath came in thick gasps.
“I’ve been asleep,” she whispered, “and I dreamt. Yes, it was all a dream. But it keeps coming, coming, and will not go.”
She shuddered.
“When shall I awake?” she cried piteously. “When shall I learn the truth? When will the day come? They say I can’t do it,” she went on, whispering again; “and they always say the same.”
“Well, perhaps you can’t,” suggested Plucritus, softly. “You have never succeeded yet, as you know.”
She looked across and moved towards him.
“Don’t say that,” she still whispered with a half-choking sob.
“You must try again,” he urged.
“Sir, is it easy to try again?”
“I don’t know,” he answered indifferently. “You seem to have a gift that way, therefore it must be.”
“I don’t know either,” she murmured wearily.
“Give it up,” he insinuated. “Seeing that you can’t do it, it is the only sensible course left.”
“Icando it, you fool!” she cried impetuously. “I can, I can—or rather I could.” And her voice dropped again, and from walking about she had come to a dead stand.
“How did you come by that bruise?” I asked, longing to get away, and hoping at least to change the conversation.
“I—someone struck at me as I came away,” she replied. “And yet I don’t know why—I did my best, and never meant to offend anyone. But it was all a dream—a horrible dream. Everything was upside down.”
And then she left us, and stumbled back to the altar, and burst into such a horrible fit of sobbing as I had never heard before.
“We’ll go now,” said Plucritus.
When we were outside he laughed.
“That is one of my favourite—patients,” he said.
“And cruelty is your favourite medicine,” I sneered.
“I have known the day when you yourself were cruel,” he broke in.
“Never, except under extreme provocation—and in a just cause.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Each excuses his own actions,” he remarked, and by this we were back again in the theatre.
There was a great deal of noise going on, and someone called as we entered, in an exquisitely clear and modulated voice,—
“Statesman number three from the left-hand corridor wanted.”
A silence followed this, and at last from the left wing of the stage a gentleman appeared. So far as I knew I had never seen him before, and Plucritus, who sat beside me, explained that he had lived a hundred years ago, when the great European War was in progress.
The one who had called for him sat in the centre of the theatre, and round him were grouped many spirits, Vestné being at his right hand.
“That is my brother-in-law,” said Plucritus, “and we really get on excellently well. Some day I will introduce you to him, and there is no doubt you will form a great admiration for each other.”
“We will leave the future to speak for itself,” I observed drily.
“My brother-in-law is very talented,” continued he; “but he is of such a modest nature that he has never yet allowed himself to be called by the name of Genius.”
“Indeed!” I laughed. “What is his particular gift?”
“He has none in particular. They all belong to him.”
I laughed again.
We were interrupted by his calling to us.
“Plucritus,” he exclaimed, “you might at least have the kindness to keep that conversation at a lower pitch.”
“I was describing your character to a friend.”
“A friend?” he queried, looking round; and then rather unexpectedly he left his seat and came to us.
There were two things that impressed me about him—the extreme sweetness and yet hardness of his face. In some ways he appeared no older than a youth not yet turned twenty, in others he resembled a man hardened beyond even the degree to which men can attain.
“You are Genius?” he remarked lightly, and I noticed that his voice corresponded to his face. “Vestné says you are dull over there for lack of company; you should visit me, I am never dull.”
“This is Vestasian,” said Plucritus, “who, to quote my favourite earthly poet, Dryden, is—
‘A man so various that he seems to be,Not one but all mankind’s epitome.’”
“Look at that man over there,” interposed Vestasian, gazing towards the stage. “He comes in aptly for the second part of the quotation:—
‘Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,All things by starts and nothing long.’”
‘Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,All things by starts and nothing long.’”
‘Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,All things by starts and nothing long.’”
‘Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
All things by starts and nothing long.’”
“Genius himself can fill up the third part of the text,” put in Plucritus:—
“‘For in the course of one revolving moonHe’s statesman, chemist, fiddler and buffoon.’”
“Dryden is honoured,” said Vestasian and that sweet, even voice of his. “But then he deserves it. But, Genius,” he continued, “you must come with me—the greatest stranger and the honoured guest.”
“What am I to do?” queried Plucritus.
“Find someone else,” returned the other.
For a second they looked at one another, and Plucritus turned to me.
“I find I shall not be able to stay very much longer. When I go, will you return with me or stay here?”
“Just as you like,” I answered. “Either place is as acceptable to me.”
“That means you will stay,” Vestasian declared. “I take it as a compliment.”
And he led the way to where he had been sitting.
Vestné rose as we approached.
“You may take my place,” she said graciously. “I must see my husband. I don’t believe he’s had any supper, and he’s comesucha long way.”
So we sat down, and she went to him, and as long as I was in the room they remained together and seemed more than usually content in each other’s society.
But to return to the man upon the stage. Whilst Vestasian spoke to me he had been sitting waiting there.
“What is his name?” I asked.
“We never disclose names,” Vestasian answered. “They all go by numbers. It is less complicated in the long run.”
“And less complimentary too,” I added.
“Well, so it may be. But then we never pay compliments; they are too broad.”
Then he addressed himself to the man.
“Would you be kind enough to defend your own policy?” he said.
“He never had a policy,” cried someone in the audience.
“He must have had a policy,” shouted someone else.
“Not at all. He belongs to that class of animal called ‘Mammal.’”
“Well, what has that to do with it?”
“Everything. He has no backbone.”
“Hs-sch. If you’re not careful he will round on you. You’re betraying ignorance.”
“No matter. I said it out of kindness to give him an opening. But he’s missed it.”
“What is his policy?”
“The destruction of fleas.”
“Are they not an Irish importation?”
“Oh, no. Lace and poplins come from there. It is a revival.”
“What of? Potatoes?”
“Ask him.”
“He doesn’t know. He was a Foreign Secretary.”
“But Ireland belongs to that section.”
“Your dates are wrong. This is a hundred years ago.”
“Why, that’s the time when it was united!”
“Certainly. Ask him.”
“Ask him what?”
“If he’s gone to sleep or lost his tongue.”
“He has done neither.”
“What ails him then?”
“He cannot speak.”
“Why?”
“There’s no gallery.”
“But he is ambitious.”
“What has that to do with it?”
“He can ascend to the roof.”
“What of his head?”
“He hasn’t got one.”
“Yes, he has.”
“Indeed not.”
“Prove it.”
“His brains are in a glass case in the British Museum, labelled ‘Obsolete.’”
“What is his policy?”
“The extermination of fleas.”
“He’s a humbug.”
“That’s a dangerous kind of flea.”
“Is he a War Advocate?”
“It just depends.”
“Upon what?”
“How he feels.”
“Has he exterminated anything?”
“He says he has.”
“What is that?”
“Himself.”
“Did he put himself out?”
“He did his best.”
“And failed?”
“Oh, no—succeeded.”
“He’s a clever man.”
“Ask him to sing the National Anthem.”
“Which one?”
“The English, to be sure. There is no other nation.”
“But he’s an Im—Im—Im—imperialist. Ho—there, waiter! Whisky—Soda—Rum—Gin—and pure beer.”
“Why do you need it?”
“To drink the toast.”
“No more?”
“To wash the word out of my throat, it stuck there.”
“You’ll get drunk.”
“Why not? I’m loyal.”
“What’s his policy?”
“A walk over.”
“It’s old-fashioned.”
“A fight over then.”
“Never heard of it before.”
“A knock over, if it suits you better.”
“Is he a Radical?”
“Oh, no. Why do you ask?”
“I thought the policy a new one.”
“It’s as old as Adam.”
“Is he?”
“No. He’s older. He generated the policy. So he must be the elder.”
“Then we come back to the old argument—he’s a Mammal.”
“A fossil, you mean.”
“There’s not much difference.”
“Let him speak.”
Suddenly, in the midst of all this babel and laughter, absolute silence prevailed.
But still the man sat in the chair. “Sir,” said Vestasian, “would you be kind enough to explain why you are sitting there?”
“He can’t get up.”
“Why?”
“He apes the elder Pitt.”
But as they seemed about to begin the same incessant laughter again, Vestasian whispered to me,—
“You look tired, Genius. We will go away and visit more interesting specimens.”
Thus saying he rose and led me out—the others still remaining so intent upon these sallies that they scarcely noticed that we went.
“Have you guessed the riddle?” he asked when we were outside in the corridor through which Plucritus had first guided me.
“What riddle?”
“The riddle concerning that man?”
“As to his identity?”
He laughed.
“Oh, no. His identity is immaterial.”
“I think I understand you,” I observed. “But I do not yet understand the treatment.”
“Think about it. Here is his cell.”
The door was open and we looked in. It was no different from all the rest—bare walls and floor and the rude altar—but the light was absent. Just at that moment a yell of scarce-restrained delight was heard, and looking up the corridor we saw the man returning, accompanied on either side by devils, leaping, skipping and gesticulating.
He was subjected to great indignities by them, and they appeared the more enraged because he took no particular notice of them. He came to the cell as if guided there by something, since he himself seemed dazed and hopeless. He stumbled in and fell toward the altar, resting his arms against it, for indeed, by a terrible truth they did not understand, it was the only resting-place for any of them.
After the first few minutes spent there he got up and clenched his hands.
“It can’t be true,” he muttered. “There’s no sense in it.”
Vestasian laughed.
“Come away,” he urged me. “He’s perfectly right. There is no sense in it.”
From there he led the way up a staircase. It was plain and ordinarily built in stone, drearily cold and comfortless.
“I will not detain you very long,” he said, “for to-morrow I understand Plucritus takes you to the city, and you will need some rest and preparation.”
We came out upon a long stone passage, and I noticed the doors were numbered like the cells below.
He opened the first one and walked in.
The cells were somewhat larger than the others, but not much. Here stood a man in the centre of the floor, his hands pressed against his forehead.
By his side were pen and ink and paper on a table, and a plain, straight-backed wooden chair stood beside it.
After a while he sat down and drew the pen and paper to him.
He began to write, and wrote steadily for some time. Then the speed began to slacken, till at last he stopped. He made one more attempt to continue, but evidently he recognised it as hopeless. He put the pen down and got up. Again he stood in the middle of the floor, holding both temples as if trying to force something back that would not stay.
After some time so spent he again sat down, and again began at the same even, quick rate. But the same result followed and once more he got up. I noticed the same thing with him that I had noticed in the man and woman down below: which was, that his breath came in thick, heavy gasps, as if he were suffering extreme pain.
“It has gone—quite gone,” he groaned.
And he sat down and cried as miserably as any lost child might have done.
Vestasian took up one of the papers and glanced at it. He put it down and smiled.
“This has been going on for a very long time,” he said. “If he would only use breadth of mind and forget things there would be some hope for him.”
“What else is there to think about?” I asked.
“Nothing.” And he walked to the door, and after we had gone out locked it once more.
From there he went on to the next cell. I was surprised on entering to find it much higher and larger than any of the rest had been. A sculptor stood beside a block of marble, and he was transforming it into a very beautiful piece of work. He worked at marvellous speed, or at least so it appeared to me, but time there is often deceptive.
His pleasure and absorption were very evident, as indeed were mine, for his sure touch and exact precision were well worth watching.
He had built up a marvellous statue, but as he stood back, with all an artist’s keen criticism, to view the work, it suddenly vanished more quickly than it had come, and left only the spiritless stone. I turned at last to look at him. He was staring at it with a heartbreaking look of fear and dull despair. He went towards it and passed his trembling hands over the surface. Then he came back, and I heard the same heavy gasps, which seemed somehow as if they sent their pain into everything around.
“I—I—it’s all a dream,” he muttered huskily, passing his hand before his eyes. “But it keeps coming, and the more beautiful I make it, the quicker it fades away.”
“It’s your imagination,” suggested Vestasian. “There’s no beauty in it, or if there was, try again. This time you may be more successful.”
But he sat down and shook his head.
“When I awake,” he said, “I’ll try again. I am tired, and the dream is too, too real. It has been going on all the night, and the night is one endless spell of blackness and false, fierce hope.”
“Will you give up?” asked Vestasian, softly.
He looked up queerly and then gave a sharp cry, half sob, half sigh. “Oh, God! God! I would if only I could. But it neither goes nor stays, even like this ghastly flame that haunts me always.”
“I think,” he went on in the curious voice of one half sleeping, “that if that light were gone I should be better; it never shines as clearly as when the work has gone. At other times it flickers round the cell like some pale torch upon a funeral bier.”
“Here is the altar,” said Vestasian, suddenly moving to it. “Can you make no use of this?”
“It is an unnecessary table for which I find no use,” he answered testily, “except sometimes to hold my tools. I do not understand it.”
Vestasian went to the door and I followed him out.
In the passage he smiled.
“What do you think of them, Genius?” he questioned.
“I think they are poor misguided wretches.”
“Do you think we treat them cruelly?”
“I don’t know,” I replied thoughtfully. “To me it seems the essence of torture.”
He laughed.
“I think you are really beginning to learn,” he declared. “A short time ago you would have denounced us wholesale. But even the Devil is not quite so black as he is painted.”
“I think he is much blacker,” I retorted. “But I am beginning to doubt his existence.”
“It is the first time you have been down here?”
“Undoubtedly. What acquaintance I have had with any of your people has been upon the earth.”
“And there they appear slightly different from here,” he observed thoughtfully. “But then you know we are much maligned and caricatured.”
“Why don’t you put a stop to it?” I inquired.
He raised his eyebrows.
“The clergy do that for us,” he returned.
“They rarely mention you,” I commented.
“We are out of fashion. The inferior power generally is. They are so absorbed in worshipping the Trinity that they ignore us altogether. Besides, humanity is tender, it has to be coaxed with love.” He spoke softly, but underlying the tone there was a sneer as cruel as it was true.
I remember the next cell we visited was that of a little man who, when we entered, was writing.
“He is a poet—or rather was,” whispered my companion. “Watch him, as he is interesting. He is, or rather was, a Frenchman, who by his books kicked over their religion like a footstool.”
After a while the poet stopped and jumped up. He was a funny little creature, even at the best of times.
“It’s happened again,” he exclaimed. “I’m mad to attempt it—no one will read it as it is.”
Then he saw us and came forward precipitately.
“Sir,” he said, catching hold of Vestasian by the arm, “just come and look.”
He went forward.
“Well?” Vestasian asked.
“Is there not something missed out?”
“Where?”
“On this page.”
“No—nothing.”
Hereupon he turned to me and caught my arm quite sharply.
“Sir,” he gasped breathlessly, “look carefully, and tell me is there not an empty space here?”
“Where?” said I, looking.
“Here.”
“No, I see nothing.”
Then he sat down and laughed—a horrible, shrill laugh.
“I’m mad or dreaming.”
“Perhaps both,” declared Vestasian. “The page is quite complete.”
“Yes, yes,” he broke in eagerly. “It’s all right now. It’s quite clear. Here, get away and let me go on.”
And he pushed us both back irritably.
He went on again for some time, but at last down went the pen. He slammed his hand over the leaf and gave an excited whine. Then he lifted his hand ever so slightly and peered under it, just like a schoolboy who has caught a fly.
“It’s gone again,” he shouted, jumping up. “And I don’t know what it is. It keeps going, and when it’s gone it isn’t there. And no one will take it as it is, nor read it, nor—nor anything.”
“Oh, yes, they will, you’re a good writer,” said Vestasian.
At this he burst out laughing again.
“It’s that flame—that feeble, flickering light,” he cried harshly. “I believe it blots the sense out. Take it away, take it away.”
“But you would be left in darkness.”
He shivered.
“No—no, leave it. Take it away—leave it. It’s always dark, whether or not. It’s always night—and I’m always dreaming the same unnatural dream.”
He crept straight up to me cunningly and quietly.
“Did you say there was nothing left out?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
Then he ran to the table and caught the papers up, and returning thrust them into my hand.
“Take it, and tell them if they’ll get me out of here—I’ll—I’ll—”
He burst into the most terrible sobs.
“Say it’s there because I know it’s there,” he cried. “Tell them it’s there because you saw it.”
But the papers were scarcely in my fingers than they were drawn out invisibly and replaced upon the table, and he himself was drawn towards it too.
Suddenly, with a terrible effort, he stopped crying.
“When I cry it burns a hole in the paper and spoils the sense—ha! ha! There it is again! Clean out! ha! ha!”
Again he jumped up and began chasing the light about the room, but it flickered about unsteadily till suddenly it rose above the altar; and he, finding it beyond him, knelt down and cried again.
We left him, and when we were outside, and the heavy, inhuman bolts drawn, Vestasian turned to me.
“Genius,” he said, “why did you speak so thoughtlessly?”
“I spoke from genuine conviction. He said there was part omitted on each page, and I saw nothing wanting.”
“Did you not?” he asked meditatively.
“No. Whatever was wanting lay with him. You yourself saw nothing amiss.”
“I am privileged to lie—or rather to speak the truth on another principle.”
“I see. But, if you know, what was this thing of which he spoke?”
My companion did not answer for some time. Then he said,—
“I leave it to you to find out. I like if possible to make people think—or rather Spirits. Mankind is deeply philosophical without—”
Just then a bell began to toll. It was the most terribly drear sound I had ever heard.
“Come this way,” Vestasian said. And he led me to a balcony by a short flight of steps.
From this we looked down through a kind of grating, and saw beneath us the most gloomy sight I yet had witnessed.
It seemed as if from this particular spot one saw the whole of the gloomy cells and prisons stretching out and down on either side farther than the eye could pierce into the darkness. They ranged side by side in even order, and by the door of each flowed the black river, gurgling as it passed. Every door had its particular number shining in vivid red, whilst arches like those which form the crypts of churches spanned and linked the whole. And from here one saw within the hidden walls into each secret cell, where the naked soul, bereft of every false covering, saw itself as it really was and could not understand. But now the bell had ceased, and, as it were, moved by one impulse every wretched soul flung itself down upon the floor beside the altar.
“Oh, God! remove the darkness. Give us light! Light! More Light!”
And one general cry ascended, one universal cry of bitterness, which died down into still more bitter silence.
As they knelt the light came—the lurid glow of hell—rising like sulphur fumes about the pillars.
Each as they felt its presence rose and turned towards the doors, and they raised their hands above their heads, and now no sound fell on the ear.
It was simply the dream-light of unreality, nothing of purity lived in it.
Presently, as a dark curtain drawn across the scene, came blackness, blotting them out for ever.
What happened to each, or what his lot, or when his term of prison life was over, who can tell? Those who keep the books of Hell and Heaven alone know.