IV
INITIATION
A few years ago, on a Black Sea steamer heading for the Caucasus, Ifell into conversation with an American. He mentioned that he was onhis way to the Baku oilfields, and I replied that I was going up intothe mountains. He looked at me questioningly a moment. "Your firsttrip?" he asked with interest. I said it was. A conversation followed;it was continued the next day, and renewed the following day, until weparted company at Batoum. I don't know why he talked so freely to me inparticular. Normally, he was a taciturn, silent man. We had been fellowtravellers from Marseilles, but after Constantinople we had the boatpretty much to ourselves. What struck me about him was his vehement,almost passionate, love of natural beauty--in seas and woods and sky,but above all in mountains. It was like a religion in him. His taciturnmanner hid deep poetic feeling.
And he told me it had not always been so with him. A kind of friendshipsprang up between us. He was a New York business man--buying andselling exchange between banks--but was English born. He had gone outthirty years before, and become naturalised. His talk was exceedingly"American," slangy, and almost Western. He said he had roughed it inthe West for a year or two first. But what he chiefly talked about wasmountains. He said it was in the mountains an unusual experience hadcome to him that had opened his eyes to many things, but principally tothe beauty that was now everything to him, and to the--insignificanceof death.
He knew the Caucasus well where I was going. I think that was why hewas interested in me and my journey. "Up there," he said, "you'll feelthings--and maybe find out things you never knew before."
"What kind of things?" I asked.
"Why, for one," he replied with emotion and enthusiasm in his voice,"that living and dying ain't either of them of much account. That ifyou know Beauty, I mean, and Beauty is in your life, you live on in itand with it for others--even when you're dead."
The conversation that followed is too long to give here, but it led tohis telling me the experience in his own life that had opened his eyesto the truth of what he said. "Beauty is imperishable," he declared,"and if you live with it, why, you're imperishable too!"
The story, as he told it verbally in his curious language, remainsvividly in my memory. But he had written it down, too, he said. And hegave me the written account, with the remark that I was free to hand iton to others if I "felt that way." He called it "Initiation." It runsas follows.
1
In my own family this happened, for Arthur was my nephew. And a remoteAlpine valley was the place. It didn't seem to me in the least suitablefor such occurrences, except that it was Catholic, and the "Church," Iunderstand--at least, scholars who ought to know have told me so--hassubtle Pagan origins incorporated unwittingly in its observations ofcertain Saints' Days, as well as in certain ceremonials. All thiskind of thing is Dutch to me, a form of poetry or superstition, forI am interested chiefly in the buying and selling of exchange, withan office in New York City, just off Wall Street, and only come toEurope now occasionally for a holiday. I like to see the dear old mustycities, and go to the Opera, and take a motor run through Shakespeare'scountry or round the Lakes, get in touch again with London and Parisat the Ritz Hotels--and then back again to the greatest city on earth,where for years now I've been making a good thing out of it. Reptonand Cambridge, long since forgotten, had their uses. They were allright enough at the time. But I'm now "on the make," with a good fatpartnership, and have left all that truck behind me.
My half-brother, however--he was my senior and got the cream of thefamily wholesale chemical works--has stuck to the trade in the OldCountry, and is making probably as much as I am. He approved my takingthe chance that offered, and is only sore now because his son, Arthur,is on the stupid side. He agreed that finance suited my temperament farbetter than drugs and chemicals, though he warned me that all Americanfinance was speculative and therefore dangerous. "Arthur is gettingon," he said in his last letter, "and will some day take the director'splace you would be in now had you cared to stay. But he's a plodder,rather." That meant, I knew, that Arthur was a fool. Business, at anyrate, was not suited to his temperament. Five years ago, when I camehome with a month's holiday to be used in working up connections inEnglish banking circles, I saw the boy. He was fifteen years of age atthe time, a delicate youth, with an artist's dreams in his big blueeyes, if my memory goes for anything, but with a tangle of yellow hairand features of classical beauty that would have made half the younggirls of my New York set in love with him, and a choice of heiresses athis disposal when he wanted them.
I have a clear recollection of my nephew then. He struck me ashaving grit and character, but as being wrongly placed. He had hisgrandfather's tastes. He ought to have been, like him, a great scholar,a poet, an editor of marvellous old writings in new editions. Icouldn't get much out of the boy, except that he "liked the chemicalbusiness fairly," and meant to please his father by "knowing itthoroughly" so as to qualify later for his directorship. But I havenever forgotten the evening when I caught him in the hall, staring upat his grandfather's picture, with a kind of light about his face, andthe big blue eyes all rapt and tender (almost as if he had been crying)and replying, when I asked him what was up: "_That_ was worth livingfor. He brought Beauty back into the world!"
"Yes," I said, "I guess that's right enough. He did. But there was nomoney in it to speak of."
The boy looked at me and smiled. He twigged somehow or other that deepdown in me, somewhere below the money-making instinct, a poet, but adumb poet, lay in hiding. "You know what I mean," he said. "It's in youtoo."
The picture was a copy--my father had it made--of the presentationportrait given to Baliol, and "the grandfather" was celebrated in hisday for the translations he made of Anacreon and Sappho, of Homer, too,if I remember rightly, as well as for a number of classical studiesand essays that he wrote. A lot of stuff like that he did, and made aname at it too. His _Lives of the Gods_ went into six editions. Theysaid--the big critics of his day--that he was "a poet who wrote nopoetry, yet lived it passionately in the spirit of old-world, classicalBeauty," and I know he was a wonderful fellow in his way and made thedons and schoolmasters all sit up. We're proud of him all right. Aftertwenty-five years of successful "exchange" in New York City, I confessI am unable to appreciate all that, feeling more in touch with thecommercial and financial spirit of the age, progress, development andthe rest. But, still, I'm not ashamed of the classical old boy, whoseems to have been a good deal of a Pagan, judging by the records wehave kept. However, Arthur peering up at that picture in the dusk, hiseyes half moist with emotion, and his voice gone positively shaky, is athing I never have forgotten. He stimulated my curiosity uncommonly. Itstirred something deep down in me that I hardly cared to acknowledge onWall Street--something burning.
And the next time I saw him was in the summer of 1910, when I cameto Europe for a two months' look around--my wife at Newport with thechildren--and hearing that he was in Switzerland, learning a bit ofFrench to help him in the business, I made a point of dropping in uponhim just to see how he was shaping generally and what new kinks hismind had taken on. There was something in Arthur I never could quiteforget. Whenever his face came into my mind I began to think. A kind oflonging came over me--a desire for Beauty, I guess, it was. It made medream.
I found him at an English tutor's--a lively old dog, with a fondnessfor the cheap native wines, and a financial interest in the touristdevelopment of the village. The boys learnt French in the mornings,possibly, but for the rest of the day were free to amuse themselvesexactly as they pleased and without a trace of supervision--providedthe parents footed the bills without demur.
This suited everybody all round; and as long as the boys came home withan accent and a vocabulary, all was well. For myself, having learnedin New York to attend strictly to my own business--exchange betweendifferent countries with a profit--I did not deem it necessary toexchange letters and opinions with my brother--with no chance of profitanywhere. But I got to know Arthur,
and had a queer experience of myown into the bargain. Oh, there was profit in it for me. I'm drawingbig dividends to this day on the investment.
I put up at the best hotel in the village, a one-horse show, differingfrom the other inns only in the prices charged for a lot of cheapdecoration in the dining-room, and went up to surprise my nephew witha call the first thing after dinner. The tutor's house stood some wayback from the narrow street, among fields where there were more flowersthan grass, and backed by a forest of fine old timber that stretchedup several thousand feet to the snow. The snow at least was visible,peeping out far overhead just where the dark line of forest stopped;but in reality, I suppose, that was an effect of foreshortening,and whole valleys and pastures intervened between the trees and thesnow-fields. The sunset, long since out of the valley, still shoneon those white ridges, where the peaks stuck up like the teeth of agigantic saw. I guess it meant five or six hours' good climbing to getup to them--and nothing to do when you got there. Switzerland, anyway,seemed a poor country, with its little bit of watch-making, sour wines,and every square yard hanging upstairs at an angle of 60 degrees usedfor hay. Picture postcards, chocolate and cheap tourists kept it goingapparently, but I dare say it was all right enough to learn Frenchin--and cheap as Hoboken to live in!
Arthur was out; I just left a card and wrote on it that I would be verypleased if he cared to step down to take luncheon with me at my hotelnext day. Having nothing better to do, I strolled homewards by way ofthe forest.
Now what came over me in that bit of dark pine forest is more than Ican quite explain, but I think it must have been due to the height--thevillage was 4,000 feet above sea-level--and the effect of the rarefiedair upon my circulation. The nearest thing to it in my experience isrye whisky, the queer touch of wildness, of self-confidence, a kindof whooping rapture and the reckless sensation of being a tin god ofsorts that comes from a lot of alcohol--a memory, please understand,of years before, when I thought it a grand thing to own the earth andpaint the old town red. I seemed to walk on air, and there was a smellabout those trees that made me suddenly--well, that took my mind cleanout of its accustomed rut. It was just too lovely and wonderful for meto describe it. I had got well into the forest and lost my way a bit.The smell of an old-world garden wasn't in it. It smelt to me as ifsome one had just that minute turned out the earth all fresh and new.There was moss and tannin, a hint of burning, something between smokeand incense, say, and a fine clean odour of pitch-pine bark when thesun gets on it after rain--and a flavour of the sea thrown in for luck.That was the first I noticed, for I had never smelt anything half sogood since my camping days on the coast of Maine. And I stood still toenjoy it. I threw away my cigar for fear of mixing things and spoilingit. "If that could be bottled," I said to myself, "it'd sell for twodollars a pint in every city in the Union!"
And it was just then, while standing and breathing it in, that I gotthe queer feeling of some one watching me. I kept quite still. Some onewas moving near me. The sweat went trickling down my back. A kind ofchildhood thrill got hold of me.
It was very dark. I was not afraid exactly, but I was a stranger inthese parts and knew nothing about the habits of the mountain peasants.There might be tough customers lurking around after dark on the chanceof striking some guy of a tourist with money in his pockets. Yet,somehow, that wasn't the kind of feeling that came to me at all, for,though I had a pocket Browning at my hip, the notion of getting at itdid not even occur to me. The sensation was new--a kind of lifting,exciting sensation that made my heart swell out with exhilaration.There was happiness in it. A cloud that _weighed_ seemed to roll off mymind, same as that light-hearted mood when the office door is lockedand I'm off on a two months' holiday--with gaiety and irresponsibilityat the back of it. It was invigorating. I felt youth sweep over me.
I stood there, wondering what on earth was coming on me, and halfexpecting that any moment some one would come out of the darkness andshow himself; and as I held my breath and made no movement at all thequeer sensation grew stronger. I believe I even resisted a temptationto kick up my heels and dance, to let out a flying shout as a manwith liquor in him does. Instead of this, however, I just kept deadstill. The wood was black as ink all round me, too black to see thetree-trunks separately, except far below where the village lights cameup twinkling between them, and the only way I kept the path was by thesoft feel of the pine-needles that were thicker than a Brussels carpet.But nothing happened, and no one stirred. The idea that I was beingwatched remained, only there was no sound anywhere except the roar offalling water that filled the entire valley. Yet some one was veryclose to me in the darkness.
I can't say how long I might have stood there, but I guess it was thebest part of ten minutes, and I remember it struck me that I had runup against a pocket of extra-rarefied air that had a lot of oxygen init--oxygen or something similar--and that was the cause of my elation.The idea was nonsense, I have no doubt; but for the moment it halfexplained the thing to me. I realised it was all _natural_ enough, atany rate--and so moved on. It took a longish time to reach the edgeof the wood, and a footpath led me--oh, it was quite a walk, I tellyou--into the village street again. I was both glad and sorry to getthere. I kept myself busy thinking the whole thing over again. Whatcaught me all of a heap was that million-dollar sense of beauty, youth,and happiness. Never in my born days had I felt anything to touch it.And it hadn't cost a cent!
Well, I was sitting there enjoying my smoke and trying to puzzle itall out, and the hall was pretty full of people smoking and talkingand reading papers, and so forth, when all of a sudden I looked up andcaught my breath with such a jerk that I actually bit my tongue. Therewas grandfather in front of my chair! I looked into his eyes. I saw himas clear and solid as the porter standing behind his desk across thelounge, and it gave me a touch of cold all down the back that I needn'tforget unless I want to. He was looking into my face, and he had a capin his hand, and he was speaking to me. It was my grandfather's picturecome to life, only much thinner and younger and a kind of light in hiseyes like fire.
"I beg your pardon, but you _are_--Uncle Jim, aren't you?"
And then, with another jump of my nerves, I understood.
"You, Arthur! Well, I'm jiggered. So it is. Take a chair, boy. I'mright glad you found me. Shake! Sit down." And I shook his hand andpushed a chair up for him. I was never so surprised in my life. Thelast time I set eyes on him he was a boy. Now he was a young man, andthe very image of his ancestor.
He sat down, fingering his cap. He wouldn't have a drink and hewouldn't smoke. "All right," I said, "let's talk then. I've lots totell you and I've lots to hear. How are you, boy?"
He didn't answer at first. He eyed me up and down. He hesitated. He wasas handsome as a young Greek god.
"I say, Uncle Jim," he began presently, "it _was_ you--just now--in thewood--wasn't it?" It made me start, that question put so quietly.
"I _have_ just come through that wood up there," I answered, pointingin the direction as well as I could remember, "if that's what you mean.But why? _You_ weren't there, were you?" It gave me a queer sort offeeling to hear him say it. What in the name of heaven did he mean?
He sat back in his chair with a sigh of relief.
"Oh, that's all right then," he said, "if it _was_ you. Did you see,"he asked suddenly; "did you see--anything?"
"Not a thing," I told him honestly. "It was far too dark." I laughed.I fancied I twigged his meaning. But I was not the sort of uncle tocome prying on him. Life must be dull enough, I remembered, in thismountain village.
But he didn't understand my laugh. He didn't mean what I meant.
And there came a pause between us. I discovered that we were talkingdifferent lingoes. I leaned over towards him.
"Look here, Arthur," I said in a lower voice, "what is it, and what doyou mean? I'm all right, you know, and you needn't be afraid of tellingme. What d'you mean by--did I see anything?"
We looked each other squarely in the eye. He saw he could trust me,
andI saw--well, a whole lot of things, perhaps, but I felt chiefly that heliked me and would tell me things later, all in his own good time. Iliked him all the better for that too.
"I only meant," he answered slowly, "whether you really_saw_--anything?"
"No," I said straight, "I didn't see a thing, but, by the gods, I_felt_ something."
He started. I started too. An astonishing big look came swimming overhis fair, handsome face. His eyes seemed all lit up. He looked as ifhe'd just made a cool million in wheat or cotton.
"I knew--you were that sort," he whispered. "Though I hardly rememberedwhat you looked like."
"Then what on earth was it?" I asked.
His reply staggered me a bit. "It was just that," he said--"the Earth!"
And then, just when things were getting interesting and promising adividend, he shut up like a clam. He wouldn't say another word. Heasked after my family and business, my health, what kind of crossingI'd had, and all the rest of the common stock. It fairly bowled meover. And I couldn't change him either.
I suppose in America we get pretty free and easy, and don't quiteunderstand reserve. But this young man of half my age kept me in myplace as easily as I might have kept a nervous customer quiet in myown office. He just refused to take me on. He was polite and cool anddistant as you please, and when I got pressing sometimes he simplypretended he didn't understand. I could no more get him back again tothe subject of the wood than a customer could have gotten me to tellhim about the prospects of exchange being cheap or dear--when I didn'tknow myself but wouldn't let him see I didn't know. He was charming, hewas delightful, enthusiastic and even affectionate; downright glad tosee me, too, and to chin with me--but I couldn't draw him worth a cent.And in the end I gave up trying.
And the moment I gave up trying he let down a little--but only a verylittle.
"You'll stay here some time, Uncle Jim, won't you?"
"That's my idea," I said, "if I can see you, and you can show me roundsome."
He laughed with pleasure. "Oh, rather. I've got lots of time. Afterthree in the afternoon I'm free till--any time you like. There's a lotto see," he added.
"Come along to-morrow then," I said. "If you can't take lunch, perhapsyou can come just afterwards. You'll find me waiting for you--righthere."
"I'll come at three," he replied, and we said good-night.
2
He turned up sharp at three, and I liked his punctuality. I saw himcome swinging down the dusty road; tall, deep-chested, his broadshoulders a trifle high, and his head set proudly. He looked like ayoung chap in training, a thoroughbred, every inch of him. At the sametime there was a touch of something a little too refined and delicatefor a man, I thought. That was the poetic, scholarly vein in him, Iguess--grandfather cropping out. This time he wore no cap. His thicklight hair, not brushed back like the London shop-boys, but parted onthe side, yet untidy for all that, suited him exactly and gave him atouch of wildness.
"Well," he asked, "what would you like to do, Uncle Jim? I'm at yourservice, and I've got the whole afternoon till supper at seven-thirty."I told him I'd like to go through that wood. "All right," he said,"come along. I'll show you." He gave me one quick glance, but said nomore. "I'd like to see if I feel anything this time," I explained."We'll locate the very spot, maybe." He nodded.
"You know where I mean, don't you?" I asked, "because you saw methere?" He just said yes, and then we started.
It was hot, and air was scarce. I remember that we went uphill,and that I realised there was considerable difference in our ages.We crossed some fields first--smothered in flowers so thick that Iwondered how much grass the cows got out of it!--and then came to asprinkling of fine young larches that looked as soft as velvet. Therewas no path, just a wild mountain side. I had very little breath onthe steep zigzags, but Arthur talked easily--and talked mighty well,too: the light and shade, the colouring, and the effect of all thiswilderness of lonely beauty on the mind. He kept all this suppressedat home in business. It was safety valves. I twigged _that_. It wasthe artist in him talking. He seemed to think there was nothing in theworld but Beauty--with a big B all the time. And the odd thing was hetook for granted that I felt the same. It was cute of him to flatterme that way. "Daulis and the lone Cephissian vale," I heard; and a fewmoments later--with a sort of reverence in his voice like worship--hecalled out a great singing name: "_Astarte!_"
"Day is her face, and midnight is her hair, And morning hours are but the golden stair By which she climbs to Night."
It was here first that a queer change began to grow upon me too.
"Steady on, boy! I've forgotten all my classics ages ago," I cried.
He turned and gazed down on me, his big eyes glowing, and not a sign ofperspiration on his skin.
"That's nothing," he exclaimed in his musical, deep voice. "You knowit, or you'd never have felt things in this wood last night; and youwouldn't have wanted to come out with me _now_!"
"How?" I gasped. "How's that?"
"You've come," he continued quietly, "to the only valley inthis artificial country that has atmosphere. This valley is_alive_--especially this end of it. There's superstition here, thankGod! Even the peasants know things."
I stared at him. "See here, Arthur," I objected. "I'm not a Cath. And Idon't know a thing--at least it's all dead in me and forgotten--aboutpoetry or classics or your gods and pan--pantheism--in spite ofgrandfather----"
His face turned like a dream face.
"Hush!" he said quickly. "Don't mention _him_. There's a bit of him inyou as well as in me, and it was here, you know, he wrote----"
I didn't hear the rest of what he said. A creep came over me. Iremembered that this ancestor of ours lived for years in the isolationof some Swiss forest where he claimed--he used that setting for hiswriting--he had found the exiled gods, their ghosts, their beauty,their eternal essences--or something astonishing of that sort. I hadclean forgotten it till this moment. It all rushed back upon me, amemory of my boyhood.
And, as I say, a creep came over me--something as near to awe asever could be. The sunshine on that field of yellow daisies and blueforget-me-nots turned pale. That warm valley wind had a touch of snowin it. And, ashamed and frightened of my baby mood, I looked at Arthur,meaning to choke him off with all this rubbish--and then saw somethingin his eyes that scared me stiff.
I admit it. What's the use? There was an expression on his fine bigface that made my blood go curdled. I got cold feet right there. Itmastered me. In him, behind him, near him--blest if I know which,_through_ him probably--came an enormous thing that turned meinsignificant. It downed me utterly.
It was over in a second, the flash of a wing. I recovered instantly. Nomere boy should come these muzzy tricks on me, scholar or no scholar.For the change in me was on the increase, and I shrank.
"See here, Arthur," I said plainly once again, "I don't know what yourgame is, but--there's something queer up here I don't quite get at. I'monly a business man, with classics and poetry all gone dry in me twentyyears ago and more----"
He looked at me so strangely that I stopped, confused.
"But, Uncle Jim," he said as quietly as though we talked tobaccobrands, "you needn't be alarmed. It's natural you should feel theplace. You and I belong to it. We've both got _him_ in us. You're justas proud of him as I am, only in a different way." And then he added,with a touch of disappointment: "I thought you'd like it. You weren'tafraid last night. You felt the beauty _then_."
Flattery is a darned subtle thing at any time. To see him standingover me in that superior way and talking down at my poor businessmind--well, it just came over me that I was laying my cards on thetable a bit too early. After so many years of city life----!
Anyway, I pulled myself together. "I was only kidding you, boy," Ilaughed. "I feel this beauty just as much as you do. Only, I guess,you're more accustomed to it than I am. Come on now," I added withenergy, getting upon my feet, "let's push on and see the wood. I wantto find that place again."
He pulled me with a hand of iron, laughing as he did so. Gee! I wishedI had his teeth, as well as the muscles in his arm. Yet I felt younger,somehow, too--youth flowed more and more into my veins. I had forgottenhow sweet the winds and woods and flowers could be. Something melted inme. For it was Spring, and the whole world was singing like a dream.Beauty was creeping over me. I don't know. I began to feel all big andtender and open to a thousand wonderful sensations. The thought ofstreets and houses seemed like death....
We went on again, not talking much; my breath got shorter and shorter,and he kept looking about him as though he expected something. But wepassed no living soul, not even a peasant; there were no chalets, nocattle, no cattle shelters even. And then I realised that the valleylay at our feet in haze and that we had been climbing at least acouple of hours. "Why, last night I got home in twenty minutes at theoutside," I said. He shook his head, smiling. "It seemed like that," hereplied, "but you really took much longer. It was long after ten when Ifound you in the hall." I reflected a moment. "Now I come to think ofit, you're right, Arthur. Seems curious, though, somehow." He lookedclosely at me. "I followed you all the way," he said.
"You followed me!"
"And you went at a good pace too. It was your feelings that made itseem so short--you were singing to yourself and happy as a dancingfaun. We kept close behind you for a long way."
I think it was "we" he said, but for some reason or other I didn't careto ask.
"Maybe," I answered shortly, trying uncomfortably to recall whatparticular capers I had cut. "I guess that's right." And then I addedsomething about the loneliness, and how deserted all this slope ofmountain was. And he explained that the peasants were afraid of it andcalled it No Man's Land. From one year's end to another no human footwent up or down it; the hay was never cut; no cattle grazed along thesplendid pastures; no chalet had even been built within a mile of thewood we slowly made for. "They're superstitious," he told me. "It wasjust the same a hundred years ago when _he_ discovered it--there was alittle natural cave on the edge of the forest where he used to sleepsometimes--I'll show it to you presently--but for generations thisentire mountain-side has been undisturbed. You'll never meet a livingsoul in any part of it." He stopped and pointed above us to where thepine wood hung in mid-air, like a dim blue carpet. "It's just the placefor Them, you see."
And a thrill of power went smashing through me. I can't describeit. It drenched me like a waterfall. I thought of Greece--Mount Idaand a thousand songs! Something in me--it was like the click of ashutter--announced that the "change" was suddenly complete. I wasanother man; or rather a deeper part of me took command. My verylanguage showed it.
The calm of halcyon weather lay over all. Overhead the peaks rose clearas crystal; below us the village lay in a bluish smudge of smoke andhaze, as though a great finger had rubbed them softly into the earth.Absolute loneliness fell upon me like a clap. From the world of humanbeings we seemed quite shut off. And there began to steal over me againthe strange elation of the night before.... We found ourselves almostat once against the edge of the wood.
It rose in front of us, a big wall of splendid trees, motionless as ifcut out of dark green metal, the branches hanging stiff, and the crowdof trunks lost in the blue dimness underneath. I shaded my eyes withone hand, trying to peer into the solemn gloom. The contrast betweenthe brilliant sunshine on the pastures and this region of heavy shadowsblurred my sight.
"It's like the entrance to another world," I whispered.
"It is," said Arthur, watching me. "We will go in. You shall pluckasphodel...."
And, before I knew it, he had me by the hand. We were advancing. Weleft the light behind us. The cool air dropped upon me like a sheet.There was a temple silence. The sun ran down behind the sky, leaving amarvellous blue radiance everywhere. Nothing stirred. But through thestillness there rose power, power that has no name, power that hides atthe foundations somewhere--foundations that are changeless, invisible,everlasting. What do I mean? My mind grew to the dimensions of aplanet. We were among the roots of life--whence issues that _one thing_in infinite guise that seeks so many temporary names from the proteanminds of men.
"You shall pluck asphodel in the meadows this side of Erebus," Arthurwas chanting. "Hermes himself, the Psychopomp, shall lead, and Malahideshall welcome us."
Malahide...!
To hear him use that name, the name of our scholar-ancestor, now deadand buried close upon a century--the way he half chanted it--gave methe goose-flesh. I stopped against a tree-stem, thinking of escape. Nowords came to me at the moment, for I didn't know what to say; but, onturning to find the bright green slopes just left behind, I saw onlya crowd of trees and shadows hanging thick as a curtain--as though wehad walked a mile. And it was a shock. The way out was lost. The treesclosed up behind us like a tide.
"It's all right," said Arthur; "just keep an open mind and a heartalive with love. It has a shattering effect at first, but that willpass." He saw I was afraid, for I shrank visibly enough. He stoodbeside me in his grey flannel suit, with his brilliant eyes and hisgreat shock of hair, looking more like a column of light than a humanbeing. "It's all quite right and natural," he repeated; "we have passedthe gateway, and Hecate, who presides over gateways, will let us outagain. Do not make discord by feeling fear. This is a pine wood, andpines are the oldest, simplest trees; they are true primitives. Theyare an open channel; and in a pine wood where no human life has everbeen you shall often find gateways where Hecate is kind to such as us."
He took my hand--he must have felt mine trembling, but his own wascool and strong and felt like silver--and led me forward into thedepths of a wood that seemed to me quite endless. It felt endless,that is to say. I don't know what came over me. Fear slipped away, andelation took its place.... As we advanced over ground that seemedlevel, or slightly undulating, I saw bright pools of sunshine hereand there upon the forest floor. Great shafts of light dropped inslantingly between the trunks. There was movement everywhere, though Inever could see what moved. A delicious, scented air stirred throughthe lower branches. Running water sang not very far away. FiguresI did not actually see; yet there were limbs and flowing draperiesand flying hair from time to time, ever just beyond the pools ofsunlight.... Surprise went from me too. I was on air. The atmosphereof dream came round me, but a dream of something just hovering outsidethe world I knew--a dream wrought in gold and silver, with shiningeyes, with graceful beckoning hands, and with voices that rang likebells of music.... And the pools of light grew larger, merging oneinto another, until a delicate soft light shone equably throughoutthe entire forest. Into this zone of light we passed together. Thensomething fell abruptly at our feet, as though thrown down ... twomarvellous, shining sprays of blossom such as I had never seen in allmy days before!
"Asphodel!" cried my companion, stooping to pick them up and handingone to me. I took it from him with a delight I could not understand."Keep it," he murmured; "it is the sign that we are welcome. ForMalahide has dropped these on our path."
And at the use of that ancestral name it seemed that a spirit passedbefore my face and the hair of my head stood up. There was a senseof violent, unhappy contrast. A composite picture presented itself,then rushed away. What was it? My youth in England, music and poetryat Cambridge and my passionate love of Greek that lasted two terms atmost, when Malahide's great books formed part of the curriculum. Overagainst this, then, the drag and smother of solid worldly business,the sordid weight of modern ugliness, the bitterness of an ambitious,over-striving life. And abruptly--beyond both pictures--a shining,marvellous Beauty that scattered stars beneath my feet and scarvedthe universe with gold. All this flashed before me with the utteranceof that old family name. An alternative sprang up. There seemed someradical, elemental choice presented to me--to what I used to call mysoul. My soul could take or leave it as it pleased....
I looked at Arthur moving beside me like a shaft of light. What hadcome over me? How had our walk and talk and mood, our quite rece
nteveryday and ordinary view, our normal relationship with the things ofthe world--how had it all slipped into this? So insensibly, so easily,so naturally!
"Was it worth while?"
The question--_I_ didn't ask it--jumped up in me of its own accord.Was "what" worth while? Why, my present life of commonplace andgrubbing toil, of course; my city existence, with its meagre,unremunerative ambitions. Ah, it was this new Beauty calling me, thisshining dream that lay beyond the two pictures I have mentioned.... Idid not argue it, even to myself. But I understood. There was a radicalchange in me. The buried poet, too long hidden, rushed into the airlike some great singing bird.
I glanced again at Arthur moving along lightly by my side, halfdancing almost in his brimming happiness. "Wait till you see Them,"I heard him singing. "Wait till you hear the call of Artemis and thefootsteps of her flying nymphs. Wait till Orion thunders overhead andSelene, crowned with the crescent moon, drives up the zenith in herwhite-horsed chariot. The choice will be beyond all question then...!"
A great silent bird, with soft brown plumage, whirred across our path,pausing an instant as though to peep, then disappearing with a mutedsound into an eddy of the wind it made. The big trees hid it. It wasan owl. The same moment I heard a rush of liquid song come pouringthrough the forest with a gush of almost human notes, and a pairof glossy wings flashed past us, swerving upwards to find the opensky--blue-black, pointed wings.
"His favourites!" exclaimed my companion with clear joy in his voice."They all are here! Athene's bird, Procne and Philomela too! Theowl--the swallow--and the nightingale! Tereus and Itys are not faraway." And the entire forest, as he said it, stirred with movement,as though that great bird's quiet wings had waked the sea of ancientshadows. There were voices too--ringing, laughing voices, as though hiswords woke echoes that had been listening for it. For I heard sweetsinging in the distance. The names he had used perplexed me. Yet evenI, stranger as I was to such refined delights, could not mistake thepassion of the nightingale and the dart of the eager swallow. That wildburst of music, that curve of swift escape, were unmistakable.
And I struck a stalwart tree-stem with my open hand, feeling the needof hearing, touching, sensing it. My link with known, remembered thingswas breaking. I craved the satisfaction of the commonplace. I got thatsatisfaction; but I got something more as well. For the trunk wasround and smooth and comely. It was no dead thing I struck. Somehow itbrushed me into intercourse with inanimate Nature. And next the desirecame to hear my voice--my own familiar, high-pitched voice with thetwang and accent the New World climate brings, so-called American:
"Exchange Place, Noo York City. I'm in that business, buying andselling of exchange between the banks of two civilised countries, oneof them stoopid and old-fashioned, the other leading all creation...!"
It was an effort; but I made it firmly. It sounded odd, remote, unreal.
"Sunlit woods and a wind among the branches", followed close and sweetupon my words. But who, in the name of Wall Street, said it?
"England's buying gold," I tried again. "We've had a private wire. Cutin quick. First National is selling!"
Great-faced Hephaestus, how ridiculous! It was like saying, "I'll takeyour scalp unless you give me meat." It was barbaric, savage, centuriesago. Again there came another voice that caught up my own and turned itinto common syntax. Some heady beauty of the Earth rose about me like acloud.
"Hark! Night comes, with the dusk upon her eyelids. She brings thosedreams that every dew-drop holds at dawn. Daughter of Thanatos andHypnos...!"
But again--who said the words? It surely was not Arthur, my nephewArthur, of To-day, learning French in a Swiss mountain village! Ifelt--well, what did I feel? In the name of the Stock Exchange and WallStreet, what was the cash surrender of amazing feelings?
3
And, turning to look at him, I made a discovery. I don't know how totell it quite; such shadowy marvels have never been my line of goods.He looked several things at once--taller, slighter, sweeter, butchiefly--it sounds so crazy when I write it down--grander is the word,I think. And all spread out with some power that flowed like Springwhen it pours upon a landscape. Eternally young and glorious--young,I mean, in the sense of a field of flowers in the Spring looks young;and glorious in the sense the sky looks glorious at dawn or sunset.Something big shone through him like a storm, something that wouldgo on for ever just as the Earth goes on, always renewing itself,something of gigantic life that in the human sense could never age atall--something the old gods had. But the figure, so far as there wasany figure at all, was that old family picture come to life. Our greatancestor and Arthur were one being, and that one being was vaster thana million people. Yet it was Malahide I saw....
"They laid me in the earth I loved," he said in a strange, thrillingvoice like running wind and water, "and I found eternal life. I livenow for ever in Their divine existence. I share the life that changesyet can never pass away."
I felt myself rising like a cloud as he said it. A roaring beautycaptured me completely. If I could tell it in honest newspaperlanguage--the common language used in flats and offices--why, Iguess I could patent a new meaning in ordinary words, a new power ofexpression, the thing that all the churches and poets and thinkers havebeen trying to say since the world began. I caught on to a fact so fineand simple that it knocked me silly to think I'd never realised itbefore. I had read it, yes; but now I _knew_ it. The Earth, the wholebustling universe, was nothing after all but a visible production ofeternal, living Powers--spiritual powers, mind you--that just happenedto include the particular little type of strutting creature we calledmankind. And these Powers, as seen in Nature, were the gods. It was ourrefusal of their grand appeal, so wild and sweet and beautiful, thatcaused "evil." It was this barrier between ourselves and the rest of ...
My thoughts and feelings swept away upon the rising flood as the"figure" came upon me like a shaft of moonlight, melting the lastremnant of opposition that was in me. I took my brain, my reason,chucking them aside for the futile little mechanism I suddenly sawthem to be. In place of them came--oh, God, I hate to say it, foronly nursery talk can get within a mile of it, and yet what I need issomething simpler even than the words that children use. Under one armI carried a whole forest breathing in the wind, and beneath the othera hundred meadows full of singing streams with golden marigolds andblue forget-me-nots along their banks. Upon my back and shoulders laythe clouded hills with dew and moonlight in their brimmed, capacioushollows. Thick in my hair hung the unaging powers that are stars andsunlight; though the sun was far away, it sweetened the currents ofmy blood with liquid gold. Breast and throat and face, as I advanced,met all the rivers of the world and all the winds of heaven, theirstrength and swiftness melting into me as light melts into everythingit touches. And into my eyes passed all the radiant colours that weavethe cloth of Nature as she takes the sun.
And this "figure," pouring upon me like a burst of moonlight, spoke:
"They all are in you--air, and fire, and water...."
"And I--my feet stand--on the _Earth_," my own voice interrupted, deeppower lifting through the sound of it.
"The Earth!" He laughed gigantically. He spread. He seemed everywhereabout me. He seemed a race of men. My life swam forth in waves of someimmense sensation that issued from the mountain and the forest, thenreturned to them again. I reeled. I clutched at something in me thatwas slipping beyond control, slipping down a bank towards a deep, darkriver flowing at my feet. A shadowy boat appeared, a still more shadowyoutline at the helm. I was in the act of stepping into it. For the treeI caught at was only air. I couldn't stop myself. I tried to scream.
"You have plucked asphodel," sang the voice beside me, "and you shallpluck more...."
I slipped and slipped, the speed increasing horribly. Then somethingcaught, as though a cog held fast and stopped me. I remembered mybusiness in New York City.
"Arthur!" I yelled. "Arthur!" I shouted again as hard as I could shout.There was frantic terror in me. I
felt as though I should never getback to myself again. Death!
The answer came in his normal voice: "Keep close to me. I know theway...."
The scenery dwindled suddenly; the trees came back. I was walking inthe forest beside my nephew, and the moonlight lay in patches andlittle shafts of silver. The crests of the pines just murmured in awind that scarcely stirred, and through an opening on our right I sawthe deep valley clasped about the twinkling village lights. Toweringin splendour the spectral snowfields hung upon the sky, huge summitsguarding them. And Arthur took my arm--oh, solidly enough this time.Thank heaven, he asked no questions of me.
"There's a smell of myrrh," he whispered, "and we are very near theundying, ancient things."
I said something about the resin from the trees, but he took no notice.
"It enclosed its body in an egg of myrrh," he went on, smiling downat me; "then, setting it on fire, rose from the ashes with its liferenewed. Once every five hundred years, you see----"
"What did?" I cried, feeling that loss of self stealing over me again.And his answer came like a blow between the eyes:
"The Phoenix. They called it a bird, but, of course, the true ..."
"But my life's insured in that," I cried, for he had named the companythat took large yearly premiums from me; "and I pay ..."
"Your life's insured in _this_," he said quietly, waving his arms toindicate the Earth. "Your love of Nature and your sympathy with it makeyou safe." He gazed at me. There was a marvellous expression in hiseyes. I understood why poets talked of stars and flowers in a humanface. But behind the face crept back another look as well. There grewabout his figure an indeterminate extension. The outline of Malahideagain stirred through his own. A pale, delicate hand reached out totake my own. And something broke in me.
I was conscious of two things--a burst of joy that meant losing myselfentirely, and a rush of terror that meant staying as I was, a small,painful, struggling item of individual life. Another spray of thatawful asphodel fell fluttering through the air in front of my face. Itrested on the earth against my feet. And Arthur--this weirdly changingArthur--stooped to pick it for me. I kicked it with my foot beyond hisreach ... then turned and ran as though the Furies of that ancientworld were after me. I ran for my very life. How I escaped from thatthick wood without banging my body to bits against the trees I can'texplain. I ran from something I desired and yet feared. I leaped alongin a succession of flying bounds. Each tree I passed turned of itsown accord and flung after me until the entire forest followed. ButI got out. I reached the open. Upon the sloping field in the full,clear light of the moon I collapsed in a panting heap. The Earth drewback with a great shuddering sigh behind me. There was this strange,tumultuous sound upon the night. I lay beneath the open heavens thatwere full of moonlight. I was myself--but there were tears in me.Beauty too high for understanding had slipped between my fingers. I hadlost Malahide. I had lost the gods of Earth.... Yet I had seen ... andfelt. I had not lost all. Something remained that I could never loseagain....
I don't know how it happened exactly, but presently I heard Arthursaying: "You'll catch your death of cold if you lie on that soakinggrass," and felt his hand seize mine to pull me to my feet.
"I feel safer on earth," I believe I answered. And then he said: "Yes,but it's such a stupid way to die--a chill!"
4
I got up then, and we went downhill together towards the villagelights. I danced--oh, I admit it--I sang as well. There was a floodof joy and power about me that beat anything I'd ever felt before. Ididn't think or hesitate; there was no self-consciousness; I just letit rip for all there was, and if there had been ten thousand peoplethere in front of me, I could have made them feel it too. That was thekind of feeling--power and confidence and a sort of raging happiness.I think I know what it was too. I say this soberly, with reverence ...all wool and no fading. There was a bit of God in me, God's power thatdrives the Earth and pours through Nature--the imperishable Beautyexpressed in those old-world nature-deities!
And the fear I'd felt was nothing but the little tickling pointof losing my ordinary two-cent self, the dread of letting go, theshrinking before the plunge--what a fellow feels when he's falling inlove, and hesitates, and tries to think it out and hold back, and isafraid to let the enormous tide flow in and drown him.
Oh, yes, I began to think it over a bit as we raced down themountain-side that glorious night. I've read some in my day; my brain'sall right; I've heard of dual personality and subliminal uprush andconversion--no new line of goods, all that. But somehow these stuntsof the psychologists and philosophers didn't cut any ice with me justthen, because I'd _experienced_ what they merely _explained_. Andexplanation was just a bargain sale. The best things can't be explainedat all. There's no real value in a bargain sale.
Arthur had trouble to keep up with me. We were running due east, andthe Earth was turning, therefore, with us. We all three ran togetherat _her_ pace--terrific! The moonlight danced along the summits, andthe snow-fields flew like spreading robes, and the forests everywhere,far and near, hung watching us and booming like a thousand organs.There were uncaged winds about; you could hear them whistling among theprecipices. But the great thing that I knew was--Beauty, a beauty ofthe common old familiar Earth, and a beauty that's stayed with me eversince, and given me joy and strength and a source of power and delightI'd never guessed existed before.
* * * * *
As we dropped lower into the thicker air of the valley I sobered down.Gradually the ecstasy passed from me. We slowed up a bit. The lightsand the houses and the sight of the hotel where people were dancing ina stuffy ballroom, all this put blotting-paper on something that hadbeen flowing.
Now you'll think this an odd thing too--but when we reached the villagestreet, I just took Arthur's hand and shook it and said good-night andwent up to bed and slept like a two-year-old till morning. And fromthat day to this I've never set eyes on the boy again.
Perhaps it's difficult to explain, and perhaps it isn't. I can explainit to myself in two lines--I was afraid to see him. I was afraid hemight "explain." I was afraid he might explain "away." I just left anote--he never replied to it--and went off by a morning train. Canyou understand that? Because if you can't you haven't understoodthis account I've tried to give of the experience Arthur gave me.Well--anyway--I'll just let it go at that.
Arthur's a director now in his father's wholesale chemical business,and I--well, I'm doing better than ever in the buying and selling ofexchange between banks in New York City as before.
But when I said I was still drawing dividends on my Swiss investment,I meant it. And it's not "scenery." Everybody gets a thrill from"scenery." It's a darned sight more than that. It's those littlewayward patches of blue on a cloudy day; those blue pools in the skyjust above Trinity Church steeple when I pass out of Wall Street intoLower Broadway; it's the rustle of the sea-wind among the Batterytrees; the wash of the waves when the Ferry's starting for StatenIsland, and the glint of the sun far down the Bay, or dropping a bit ofpearl into the old East River. And sometimes it's the strip of cloudin the west above the Jersey shore of the Hudson, the first star, thesickle of the new moon behind the masts and shipping. But usually it'ssomething nearer, bigger, simpler than all or any of these. It's justthe certainty that, when I hurry along the hard stone pavements frombank to bank, I'm walking on the--Earth. It's just that--_the Earth_!
Day and Night Stories Page 4