'Twixt Dog and Wolf (Valancourt Classics) Read online

  ‘Ah! That I can’t say. Possibly for eternity. If so it can’t be helped.’

  ‘But look here, look here,’ said Gribble. ‘Tha—that’s a—absurd, you know. L—look here, I just want to ask a question——’

  No voice replied.

  IV—A Possibility

  It is an uncanny thing to have to grope your way into a cave, almost bent double, till you think the long mouth will never come to an end, and yet you must go on and on. For your spine feels so broken that you could not move backwards, and to turn round is a thing impossible.

  Worse is to creep upon your belly along the entrance to a prehistoric fort of unhewn stones, and fancy that one of these huge slabs may dislodge and pin you there for ever.

  But even this is not so bad as to be obliged to push forward in a smooth iron cylinder, which compresses arms and shoulders, back and chest, as a chicken is compressed in its egg. To know, too, that you must get through and emerge into the light—you cannot see the light, for your chin is bent upon your breast-bone—or abandon all hope! Yet this is just what the spirit of the dying man experienced, struggling and struggling to free itself from the body.

  ‘I can quite understand,’ it said to itself, ‘the commiseration of the people who are standing round the bed (I would to Heaven I could get my head out, and then I should see them!). If they would only direct it to the proper quarter—— But it does seem absurd that they should give all their attention to the miserable shell that holds me in this manner, whereas of me myself they take no heed whatever. But I suppose not even my toes are sticking out the other end. Ugh! it’s stifling. I’m jammed; there’s no doubt about it. Come! one more wriggle. I believe I go back two inches for every one I get forward. It’s the not being able to see ahead which is the worst part. Ugh! Courage! By—Jove!—I am getting—I’m out!

  ‘And now, forsooth, they are going into tears and sobs! Was the like of it ever seen?

  ‘I’m all in a sweat. But, by Heaven! as I said before, to be through with such a business! It was worth while for the mere pleasure of knowing that one was through.

  ‘And the extraordinary lightness one feels!’ the disembodied spirit went on presently. ‘I feel as if I could fly out of the window straight away into space; though, of course, I know that’s an impossibility.’

  Yet, albeit the spirit remained in the death-chamber and close to its body, as it was bound to do; the mere sensation of utter immateriality, of a condition fitting one to fly clear away into space, was so intoxicating that it was not dull a moment.

  It took no note of the flight of time, and a day or two passed over its disembodied head.

  ‘Now my time is coming,’ it found itself saying, with renewed assurance, one morning. ‘I am beginning to move. I feel ten times as light and unsubstantial as I did even when I first got free from my fleshly envelope. What are these shapes moving about? What was that hammering noise I heard a while ago? I’m . . . . no longer in a room . . . . I’ve a notion that the sun is shining and a bird singing somewhere . . . . Is it the sun or the moon that I am under? I could almost fancy that I heard a tremendous shriek, such as I should have given if I saw a ghost . . . . But I cannot pay attention to such things . . . . now I’m growing lighter . . . . more spiritualised. . . . . My time is . . . . coming.’

  But that was the last thought which passed through the—brain?—no; mind, shall I say?—of the disembodied spirit. For by now it had sucked out all the vital essence that remained in the corpse which it had left. And then it ceased to be.

  V—The Professor

  The Professor sat gazing into his fire, a fire of glowing peat overlaid with logs, according to his special predilection. ‘It is just the fire I like,’ he said; ‘and I can afford to treat myself to what I like now.’

  A glow of self-satisfaction would have been inevitable in the circumstances, even to an Englishman. But this was a Scottish Professor, and the satisfaction was increased many times. ‘And not only wood,’ he went on to himself, ‘but old ship’s timber.’

  In truth, it was a sight to see how the flames sprang up and talked and cackled and burned, now white, now red, now blue, now green, like the changing lights of a harbour; a thing to mark how the smoke pitched and plunged before it made its way up the wide chimney. Each flame seemed to the man who gazed into the fire to nod a nod of recognition, and to speak with a voice meant for his ear alone.

  ‘It is a grand thing,’ he thought, ‘to have imagination in small things as in great . . . .

  ‘And now that I have an established position, and an audience secured to me, I shall revolutionise history. Nobody—I am not wrong—nobody has understood how history ought to be written or to be taught. Carlyle’[6] (he called him ‘Car-r-lyle’) ‘had visions of it—he was a Scot, too—but he was too erratic. Michelet[7] had fine ideas, but he was radically unsound. But with learning and imagination . . . .

  ‘A bit of ship’s wood now.’ As he spoke, a flame of exquisite turquoise shot out of the log. ‘A mere bit of ship’s wood.’

  And the Professor beheld a wonderful procession marching before the eye of his mind. He saw vast rivers—so large that the Thames and the Seine and the Rhine were no better than small tributary streams to them. On these great waters were sailing what seemed at first but logs of wood. A second view showed them to be hollowed in the centre; and hairy, skin-clad men and women were inside them, bent low, manœuvring uncouth paddles.

  Then, with a swift turn of thought, he saw a great battle going on hard by where is now the Port of Suez. Arrows were flying through the air. The ships were level in the centre, with high stems and sterns, and square-rigged. How heavy hung those sails in the scorching air! On some of the ships fought black Lybians, their shaggy locks bound with fillets of gold. There were red Egyptians naked to the loins, girt with white cloths, and blue and green beads in their hair. There were hardy, wild-looking Siculi, and Achæans who had collars of gold and silver . . . .

  Nay, behold! these ships all passed out of sight, and there was to be seen but a single merchant galley, and it was navigating in a cold sea, hung round with fog. The sailors shuddered as they plied the oar or trimmed the sail, and told each other dreadful stories of the land of the Cimmerians, whither they were bound. Only one keen-eyed Greek stood at the prow, and would not turn back. Now, lo! the foggy sea was full of floating things! Were they jelly-fish? But how hard and how bitter cold!

  A sluggish sea, and almost stagnant, which we may believe girds in and encloses the whole world. For here the light of the setting sun lingers on till sunrise, bright enough to dim the light of the stars. More than that, it is asserted that the sound of his rising is to be heard, and the form of the God and the glory round his head may be seen. Only thus far, and here rumour seems truth, does the world extend.

  Yet now out of this same brumous sea came a shout. And behold, one after another advanced from out of the mist the long-boats, the dragon ships of the Northmen, spinning under the sweeping oars. Their sails were square, and of many colours—some blue, some yellow, some red. The gunwales were low in the water; round shields hung about them.

  A sea-ward from the low misty land has sighted them. He is the Scylding’s warden, and he holds sea-ward there at earth’s end that no foe may come into the Danish land. Now he calls out to the approaching keels:—

  ‘What arm-bearing men be ye, in byrnies clad, who thus come in your foaming keels over the water-ways, over the sea-deeps hither?’

  And they answer—nay, I know not what, for this vision, too, faded away. The sea logs sent up now only yellow flames, which coloured the dense smoke which hung over them. And a new and unbidden image now rose out of the smother. It was the face of a young girl—golden-haired and tender-eyed; more beautiful to behold, even than superb Egyptians or stately Greeks, or the all-conquering men of the North. So thought the Professor like
wise.

  The gentle eyes lifted their soft lids and looked straight into the eyes of the man and smiled a recognition. And the mouth—or was it only the eyes that spoke?—uttered a single word.

  ‘Choose,’ said the girl.

  And the Professor chose.

  The face was gone. The flames whispered a little while, asking what the unbidden image could mean. Then they stopped whispering. The smoke ceased mounting up the wide chimney. The ashes glowed for a time; till their glow left them, and with gentle patterings they fell cold into the cold grate.

  But the Professor was colder still.

  VI—Blaubeuren

  At Blaubeuren, in Swabia, is the deepest pool in the world; so profound that no one has yet sounded the bottom of it. And it is also the bluest water to be met with anywhere; so blue that it rivals the deepest colour of the summer sky.

  What wonder, therefore, that the reflection of Vega, that bright star, should have mistaken the element in which it found itself, and have supposed that this blue was really the infinite blue of heaven; and, by consequence, that itself was not a reflection at all, but one of the shining orbs of the firmament.

  ‘How,’ it said to itself, looking at Vega, ‘that fellow looks up at me from below! How he envies me the immeasurable height at which I am placed, and my eternal circuit through the ether.’

  And in these thoughts it floated serenely on through the unfathomable azure deep.

  But when ten minutes had gone by, Vega, looking towards the earth, saw only the slumbering pine-woods of the Vosges, and no longer looked at its reflection in the well of Blaubeuren.

  And the reflection of Vega, which had supposed itself a star, had not yet discovered that it was not one, for it was non-existent.

  VII—The Lover

  She ceased speaking, and Hope, which up to that moment had stood at his side, spread wide her wings, and, without a cry, leapt into the air. In a minute more she had diminished to a speck, and the next moment was gone.

  Then he heard loud discordant laughter in his ears, like the laughter of fiends, and knew that he was falling through space. The mocking laughs seemed to rain down upon him, as pebbles might rain down upon one descending a mine. But his fall was far deeper. For through the centuries he fell ever down and down, with no vision of the place where he must strike the ground, to his instant destruction; nor yet with any power to gaze upward; not even toward the demon shapes who were watching from above, and of whom the laughter still pattered down upon his head.

  Then behold, his fall was ended! But in lieu of striking upon the bottom of the abyss, he found that wings had grown upon him during the years of his descent, and he could fly. With some sense of power, some hope of liberty, he stretched those wings.

  But ah! It was only in a brown subterraneous world that he could move onward. For ever did he beat his wings and continued his low flight in the same brown world where nothing was visible except a kind of dim shadows of the things he had known and cared for in that other life. So girt round with twilight and dun shapes he journeyed on and on in level flight.

  Meanwhile, the minute hand upon his watch had made three jerks.

  VIII—The Manikins

  ‘O Maro! What island is that which lies thus beautifully suspense between the opal water and the pearly sky?’

  ‘We are making for it,’ answered my guide.

  Indeed, we bent our course straight thither. As much it resembles flying, I deem, as sailing the passing over that element which in Limbo they call ‘the sea.’

  ‘How like to England it is after all,’ I sighed. (However great may be your love of travel, you love it less when there can be no travelling back.) Umbrageous, grass-grown was the land which momentarily rose clearer from its silver setting; full of shadowy oaks and lordly elms. I heard a lark carolling, and caught the distant clangour of church bells. Yet there were foreign growths mingling with these homely ones, from, it seemed to me, all parts of the world. Eucalyptus I saw, and palms. On one hand a Wellingtonia Gigantea[8] pointed to the skies.

  And now we landed. It was another home. The islanders spoke English, save a certain proportion who talked in Scottish of a kind I could not understand. Was it not a new and better England? The men I thought were taller, more manly, braver, purer than I had seen them elsewhere; the women nobler, truer, more beautiful. ‘I shall soon get to know and love these people,’ I said to myself, ‘for see with what a companion I come hither. The greater these are, the more will they reverence this Puissant Shade: and me for his sake they will cherish.’

  I own it was no small delight to me to find that in this world poverty and its deformities hardly were. I caught scarce a glimpse of rags and dirt. Vulgar toil, too, had hid itself away. Maybe I was a thought amazed to find the doings of these men and women so much like the doings of the leisured class down below. The men shot, fished, rode, played the games of golf and tennis. The women shopped and danced and gossiped and drank tea of the afternoon; though of reason all these things took a larger meaning in that diviner air, among a higher type of English men and women.

  They were not proud, neither, but seemed to invite me to be of their company. Of the men many had the look and bearing of officers and gentlemen. I was introduced to one young fellow called, as I think, ‘Little Freddy,’ who seemed to be a favourite with all, as indeed he had a taking open countenance, candour and innocence personified, one might have said.

  I did not therefore need the countenance of my guide. But I confess my first surprise came from discovering how few there seemed to have had previous acquaintance with him. All spoke of him with reverence when I whispered who my companion was. But if I may use the phrase, they rather shuffled away from a personal introduction.

  ‘Is it indeed Maro?’ they would say with no small unction. ‘Ah, ah,’ and no more did I get from them than that. Perhaps one would go on to ask me if we had not once met at Lady Betty Bessborough’s, or some such matter.

  The Master on his side stood apart and seemed to have no greater wish to mingle with these groups than they had to see him among them. And for a brief space this seemed to me almost pitiful in him. I longed to bring about an approach ’twixt him and them.

  Full of these thoughts I turned and caught in his eye a smile which were I speaking of one less mighty I should call quizzical. At first I could not but muse what this should mean. At first only: very soon I understood it well enough. . . . .

  My Mighty Guide approached me. ‘And now,’ said he, ‘I must leave you here, and glad am I that I quit you while in such brave company.’

  ‘Do not go! O! for the great God’s sake do not leave me here,’ I cried.

  ‘What, what is it?’ he answered, still with that set smile. ‘An hour ago you thought that I . . . .’ And while he spoke he was still moving as if to depart.

  I could not let him finish. ’Twas a thing too serious, too horrible.

  ‘You know what it is,’ I replied, my eyes starting, my hair bristling on the crown of my head. ‘You know what it is’ (my voice shook). ‘They, they are not alive. They are but dummies, manikins, with a semblance of vitality. Things ingeniously contrived by some cunning mechanician to go through the postures of men and women, and deceive me for one short hour. O! I cannot live with such as these!’

  And I turned my eyes to where, on the lawn hard by, a very gallant-looking colonel, excellently dressed, was talking to two charming-looking women. ‘Every moment that I continue to look at them fills me with fresh terror.’ And in my fear I caught hold of the mantle of the Shade. Whereupon the expression of his face changed, and very kindly and gently he sought to comfort me.

  ‘You are indeed more unhappy or happier than most,’ he said, ‘in that you have found out so quickly the mechanic contrivance by which these islanders here are made. Many have spent days and months, nay years with
them blindly content. But now I tell you this for your comfort. These beings, who fill you with so much terror, are not the only indwellers of the land. If you can win your way through them you will come to another race who live apart, and hold not like these easy commerce with the first-come. You have read of those other men and women. I deem it unlucky to pronounce their names here: for the names are ever taken in vain—as mine is. Of the beings themselves these of the outer zone know as much as you have seen they know of me. Therefore take this only from me, that of a surety, if thou penetrate farther from the coast thou shalt find the Colonel and his son and his niece; thou shalt find the Foundling and the Vicar and the Uncle and all the rest of the goodly society who have planted and watered in this island and made the land what it is.’

  And therewith the August Shadow beckoned thrice with his hand as if to urge me forward. And when I looked again he was gone.

  IX—The Black Mass

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, more and more. Why did the clock-bell keep on striking?

  But, ah! why did the moon, the gibbous moon which I had just seen set behind the towers of the Trocadero, begin to rise again from the west? Who else has ever seen a moon rise slowly from the west? Would I had never seen it nor the shadows that it threw!

  Without doubt the front of Notre Dame, before which I stood, was wondrously lit up by its beams. All the shadows behind its countless images, its pinnacles, its gargoyles, frets, and capitals were not black but blue: yea, and they moved and flickered like little blue flames. So strange a sight I never beheld. More, it was impossible to say that the solid stonework itself was steady and not rather like some vast and noiseless beacon-fire flickering and changing in its bright white flames and its blue; once on a while the white and blue would be shot with streaks of yellow and of red. I looked spell-bound and could not turn my head away.