XI
H. S. H.
In the mountain Club Hut, to which he had escaped after weeks of gaietyin the capital, Delane, young travelling Englishman, sat alone, andlistened to the wind that beat the pines with violence. The firelightdanced over the bare stone floor and raftered ceiling, giving the rooman air of movement, and though the solid walls held steady against thewild spring hurricane, the cannonading of the wind seemed to threatenthe foundations. For the mountain shook, the forest roared, and theshadows had a way of running everywhere as though the little buildingtrembled. Delane watched and listened. He piled the logs on. From timeto time he glanced nervously over his shoulder, restless, half uneasy,as a burst of spray from the branches dashed against the window, or agust of unusual vehemence shook the door. Over-wearied with his longday's climb among impossible conditions, he now realised, in thismountain refuge, his utter loneliness; for his mind gave birth to thatunwelcome symptom of true loneliness--that he was not, after all,alone. Continually he heard steps and voices in the storm. Anotherwanderer, another climber out of season like himself, would presentlyarrive, and sleep was out of the question until first he heard thatknocking on the door. Almost--he expected some one.
He went for the tenth time to the little window. He peered forth intothe thick darkness of the dropping night, shading his eyes against thestreaming pane to screen the firelight in an attempt to see if anotherclimber--perhaps a climber in distress--were visible. The surroundingswere desolate and savage, well named the Devil's Saddle. Black-facedprecipices, streaked with melting snow, rose towering to the north,where the heights were hidden in seas of vapour; waterfalls poured intoabysses on two sides; a wall of impenetrable forest pressed up from thesouth; and the dangerous ridge he had climbed all day slid off wickedlyinto a sky of surging cloud. But no human figure was, of course,distinguishable, for both the lateness of the hour and the elementalfury of the night rendered it most unlikely. He turned away with astart, as the tempest delivered a blow with massive impact against hisvery face. Then, clearing the remnants of his frugal supper from thetable, he hung his soaking clothes at a new angle before the fire,made sure the door was fastened on the inside, climbed into the bunkwhere white pillows and thick Austrian blankets looked so inviting, andprepared finally for sleep.
"I must be over-tired," he sighed, after half an hour's weary tossing,and went back to make up the sinking fire. Wood is plentiful in theseclimbers' huts; he heaped it on. But this time he lit the little oillamp as well, realising--though unwilling to acknowledge it--that itwas not over-fatigue that banished sleep, but this unwelcome sense ofexpecting some one, of being not quite alone. For the feeling persistedand increased. He drew the wooden bench close up to the fire, turnedthe lamp as high as it would go, and wished unaccountably for themorning. Light was a very pleasant thing; and darkness now, for thefirst time since childhood, troubled him. It was outside; but it mightso easily come in and swamp, obliterate, extinguish. The darknessseemed a positive thing. Already, somehow, it was established in hismind--this sense of enormous, aggressive darkness that veiled anundesirable hint of personality. Some shadow from the peaks or fromthe forest, immense and threatening, pervaded all his thought. "Thiscan't be entirely nerves," he whispered to himself. "I'm not so tiredas all that!" And he made the fire roar. He shivered and drew closer tothe blaze. "I'm out of condition; that's part of it," he realised, andremembered with loathing the weeks of luxurious indulgence just behindhim.
For Delane had rather wasted his year of educational travel. Straightfrom Oxford, and well supplied with money, he had first saturatedhis mind in the latest Continental thought--the science of France,the metaphysics and philosophy of Germany--and had then been caughtaside by the gaiety of capitals where the lights are not turned out atmidnight by a Sunday School police. He had been surfeited, physically,emotionally, and intellectually, till his mind and body longed hungrilyfor simple living again and simple teaching--above all, the latter. TheRoad of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom--for certain temperaments(as Blake forgot to add), of which Delane was one. For there was stuffin the youth, and the reaction had set in with violent abruptness. Hissystem rebelled. He cut loose energetically from all soft delights,and craved for severity, pure air, solitude and hardship. Clean andsimple conditions he must have without delay, and the tonic of physicalbattling. It was too early in the year to climb seriously, for the snowwas still dangerous and the weather wild, but he had chosen this mostisolated of all the mountain huts in order to make sure of solitude,and had come, without guide or companion, for a week's strenuous lifein wild surroundings, and to take stock of himself with a view to fullrecovery.
And all day long as he climbed the desolate, unsafe ridge, hismind--good, wholesome, natural symptom--had reverted to his childhooddays, to the solid worldly wisdom of his church-going father, andto the early teaching (oh, how sweet and refreshing in its literalspirit!) at his mother's knee. Now, as he watched the blazing logs,it came back to him again with redoubled force; the simple, precious,old-world stories of heaven and hell, of a paternal Deity, and of adaring, subtle, personal devil----
The interruption to his thoughts came with startling suddenness, as theroaring night descended against the windows with a thundering violencethat shook the walls and sucked the flame half-way up the wide stonechimney. The oil lamp flickered and went out. Darkness invaded theroom for a second, and Delane sprang from his bench, thinking the wetsnow had loosened far above and was about to sweep the hut into thedepths. And he was still standing, trembling and uncertain, in themiddle of the room, when a deep and sighing hush followed sharp uponthe elemental outburst, and in the hush, like a whisper after thunder,he heard a curious steady sound that, at first, he thought must be afootstep by the door. It was then instantly repeated. But it was nota step. It was some one knocking on the heavy oaken panels--a firm,authoritative sound, as though the new arrival had the right to enterand was already impatient at the delay.
The Englishman recovered himself instantly, realising with keen reliefthe new arrival--at last.
"Another climber like myself, of course," he said, "or perhaps the manwho comes to prepare the hut for others. The season has begun." And hewent over quickly, without a further qualm, to unbolt the door.
"Forgive!" he exclaimed in German, as he threw it wide, "I was halfasleep before the fire. It is a terrible night. Come in to food andshelter, for both are here, and you shall share such supper as Ipossess."
And a tall, cloaked figure passed him swiftly with a gust of angrywind from the impenetrable blackness of the world beyond. On thethreshold, for a second, his outline stood full in the blaze offirelight with the sheet of darkness behind it, stately, erect,commanding, his cloak torn fiercely by the wind, but the face hidden bya low-brimmed hat; and an instant later the door shut with resoundingclamour upon the hurricane, and the two men turned to confront oneanother in the little room.
Delane then realised two things sharply, both of them fleetingimpressions, but acutely vivid: First, that the outside darkness seemedto have entered and established itself between him and the new arrival;and, secondly, that the stranger's face was difficult to focus forclear sight, although the covering hat was now removed. There was ablur upon it somewhere. And this the Englishman ascribed partly tothe flickering effect of firelight, and partly to the lightning glareof the man's masterful and terrific eyes, which made his own sightwaver in some curious fashion as he gazed upon him. These impressions,however, were but momentary and passing, due doubtless to the conditionof his nerves and to the semi-shock of the dramatic, even theatricalentrance. Delane's senses, in this wild setting, were guilty ofexaggeration. For now, while helping the man remove his cloak, speakingnaturally of shelter, food, and the savage weather, he lost this firstdistortion and his mind recovered sane proportion. The stranger, afterall, though striking, was not of appearance so uncommon as to causealarm; the light and the low doorway had touched his stature withillusion. He dwindled. And the great eyes, upon calmer subse
quentinspection, lost their original fierce lightning. The enteringdarkness, moreover, was but an effect of the upheaving night behind himas he strode across the threshold. The closed door proved it.
And yet, as Delane continued his quieter examination, there remained,he saw, the startling quality which had caused that first magnifying inhis mind. His senses, while reporting accurately, insisted upon thisarresting and uncommon touch: there was, about this late wanderer ofthe night, some evasive, lofty strangeness that set him utterly apartfrom ordinary men.
The Englishman examined him searchingly, surreptitiously, but with atouch of passionate curiosity he could not in the least account fornor explain. There were contradictions of perplexing character abouthim. For the first presentment had been of splendid youth, while onthe face, though vigorous and gloriously handsome, he now discernedthe stamp of tremendous age. It was worn and tired. While radiantwith strength and health and power, it wore as well this certainsignature of deep exhaustion that great experience rather than physicalexperience brings. Moreover, he discovered in it, in some way he couldnot hope to describe, man, woman, and child. There was a big, sadearnestness about it, yet a touch of humour too; patience, tenderness,and sweetness held the mouth; and behind the high pale foreheadintellect sat enthroned and watchful. In it were both love and hatred,longing and despair; an expression of being ever on the defensive, yethugely mutinous; an air both hunted and beseeching; great knowledge andgreat woe.
Delane gave up the search, aware that something unalterably splendidstood before him. Solemnity and beauty swept him too. His was neverthe grotesque assumption that man must be the highest being in theuniverse, nor that a thing is a miracle merely because it has neverhappened before. He groped, while explanation and analysis both halted."A great teacher," thought fluttered through him, "or a mighty rebel!A distinguished personality beyond all question! Who can he be?" Therewas something regal that put respect upon his imagination instantly.And he remembered the legend of the country-side that Ludwig of Bavariawas said to be about when nights were very wild. He wondered. Intohis speech and manner crept unawares an attitude of deference thatwas almost reverence, and with it--whence came this other quality?--asearching pity.
"You must be wearied out," he said respectfully, busying himself aboutthe room, "as well as cold and wet. This fire will dry you, sir, andmeanwhile I will prepare quickly such food as there is, if you willeat it." For the other carried no knapsack, nor was he clothed for theseverity of mountain travel.
"I have already eaten," said the stranger courteously, "and, with mythanks to you, I am neither wet nor tired. The afflictions that I bearare of another kind, though ones that you shall more easily, I am sure,relieve."
He spoke as a man whose words set troops in action, and Delane glancedat him, deeply moved by the surprising phrase, yet hardly marvellingthat it should be so. He found no ready answer. But there was evidentlyquestion in his look, for the other continued, and this time with asmile that betrayed sheer winning beauty as of a tender woman:
"I saw the light and came to it. It is unusual--at this time."
His voice was resonant, yet not deep. There was a ringing quality aboutit that the bare room emphasised. It charmed the young Englishmaninexplicably. Also, it woke in him a sense of infinite pathos.
"You are a climber, sir, like myself," Delane resumed, lifting his eyesa moment uneasily from the coffee he brewed over a corner of the fire."You know this neighbourhood, perhaps? Better, at any rate, than I canknow it?" His German halted rather. He chose his words with difficulty.There was uncommon trouble in his mind.
"I know all wild and desolate places," replied the other, in perfectEnglish, but with a wintry mournfulness in his voice and eyes, "for Ifeel at home in them, and their stern companionship my nature craves assolace. But, unlike yourself, I am no climber."
"The heights have no attraction for you?" asked Delane, as he mingledsteaming milk and coffee in the wooden bowl, marvelling what broughthim then so high above the valleys. "It is their difficulty anddanger that fascinate me always. I find the loneliness of the summitsintoxicating in a sense."
And, regardless of refusal, he set the bread and meat before him, theapple and the tiny packet of salt, then turned away to place the coffeepot beside the fire again. But as he did so a singular gesture of theother caught his eyes. Before touching bowl or plate, the stranger tookthe fruit and brushed his lips with it. He kissed it, then set it onthe ground and crushed it into pulp beneath his heel. And, seeing this,the young Englishman knew something dreadfully arrested in his mind,for, as he looked away, pretending the act was unobserved, a thingof ice and darkness moved past him through the room, so that the pottrembled in his hand, rattling sharply against the hearthstone where hestooped. He could only interpret it as an act of madness, and the mythof the sad, drowned monarch wandering through this enchanted region,pressed into him again unsought and urgent. It was a full minute beforehe had control of his heart and hand again.
The bowl was half emptied, and the man was smiling--this time the smileof a child who implores the comfort of enveloping and understandingarms.
"I am a wanderer rather than a climber," he was saying, as though therehad been no interval, "for, though the lonely summits suit me well,I now find in them only--terror. My feet lose their sureness, and myhead its steady balance. I prefer the hidden gorges of these mountains,and the shadows of the covering forests. My days"--his voice drew theloneliness of uttermost space into its piteous accents--"are passed indarkness. I can never climb again."
He spoke this time, indeed, as a man whose nerve was gone for ever. Itwas pitiable almost to tears. And Delane, unable to explain the amazingcontradictions, felt recklessly, furiously drawn to this trappedwanderer with the mien of a king yet the air and speech sometimes of awoman and sometimes of an outcast child.
"Ah, then you have known accidents," Delane replied with outercalmness, as he lit his pipe, trying in vain to keep his hand as steadyas his voice. "You have been in one perhaps. The effect, I have beentold, is----"
The power and sweetness in that resonant voice took his breath away ashe heard it break in upon his own uncertain accents:
"I have--fallen," the stranger replied impressively, as the rain andwind wailed past the building mournfully, "yet a fall that was no partof any accident. For it was no common fall," the man added with amagnificent gesture of disdain, "while yet it broke my heart in two."He stooped a little as he uttered the next words with a crying pathosthat an outcast woman might have used. "I am," he said, "engulfed inintolerable loneliness. I can never climb again."
With a shiver impossible to control, half of terror, half of pity,Delane moved a step nearer to the marvellous stranger. The spirit ofLudwig, exiled and distraught, had gripped his soul with a weakeningterror; but now sheer beauty lifted him above all personal shrinking.There seemed some echo of lost divinity, worn, wild yet grandiose,through which this significant language strained towards a personalmessage--for himself.
"In loneliness?" he faltered, sympathy rising in a flood.
"For my Kingdom that is lost to me for ever," met him in deep,throbbing tones that set the air on fire. "For my imperial ancientheights that jealousy took from me----"
The stranger paused, with an indescribable air of broken dignity andpain.
Outside the tempest paused a moment before the awful elemental crashthat followed. A bellowing of many winds descended like artilleryupon the world. A burst of smoke rushed from the fireplace about themboth, shrouding the stranger momentarily in a flying veil. And Delanestood up, uncomfortable in his very bones. "What can it be?" he askedhimself sharply. "Who is this being that he should use such language?"He watched alarm chase pity, aware that the conversation held somethingbeyond experience. But the pity returned in greater and ever greaterflood. And love surged through him too. It was significant, heremembered afterwards, that he felt it incumbent upon himself to stand.Curious, too, how the thought of that mad, drowned monarch hauntedmemory with s
uch persistence. Some vast emotion that he could not namedrove out his subsequent words. The smoke had cleared, and a strange,high stillness held the world. The rain streamed down in torrents,isolating these two somehow from the haunts of men. And the Englishmanstared then into a countenance grown mighty with woe and loneliness.There stood darkly in it this incommunicable magnificence of pain thatmingled awe with the pity he had felt. The kingly eyes looked clearinto his own, completing his subjugation out of time. "I would followyou," ran his thought upon its knees, "follow you with obedience forever and ever, even into a last damnation. For you are sublime. Youshall come again into your Kingdom, if my own small worship----"
Then blackness sponged the reckless thought away. He spoke in its placea more guarded, careful thing:
"I am aware," he faltered, yet conscious that he bowed, "of standingbefore a Great One of some world unknown to me. Who he may be I havebut the privilege of wondering. He has spoken darkly of a Kingdom thatis lost. Yet he is still, I see, a Monarch." And he lowered his headand shoulders involuntarily.
For an instant, then, as he said it, the eyes before him flashed theiroriginal terrific lightnings. The darkness of the common world fadedbefore the entrance of an Outer Darkness. From gulfs of terror at hisfeet rose shadows out of the night of time, and a passionate anguish asof sudden madness seized his heart and shook it.
He listened breathlessly for the words that followed. It seemed somewind of unutterable despair passed in the breath from those non-humanlips:
"I am still a Monarch, yes; but my Kingdom is taken from me, for Ihave no single subject. Lost in a loneliness that lies out of spaceand time, I am become a throneless Ruler, and my hopelessness is morethan I can bear." The beseeching pathos of the voice tore him in two.The Deity himself, it seemed, stood there accused of jealousy, of sinand cruelty. The stranger rose. The power about him brought the pictureof a planet, throned in mid-heaven and poised beyond assault. "Nototherwise," boomed the startling words as though an avalanche foundsyllables, "could I now show myself to--you."
Delane was trembling horribly. He felt the next words slip off histongue unconsciously. The shattering truth had dawned upon his soul atlast.
"Then the light you saw, and came to----?" he whispered.
"Was the light in your heart that guided me," came the answer, sweet,beguiling as the music in a woman's tones, "the light of your instant,brief desire that held love in it." He made an opening movement withhis arms as he continued, smiling like stars in summer. "For yousummoned me; summoned me by your dear and precious belief: how dear,how precious, none can know but I who stand before you."
His figure drew up with an imperial air of proud dominion. His feetwere set among the constellations. The opening movement of his armscontinued slowly. And the music in his tones seemed merged in distantthunder.
"For your single, brief belief," he smiled with the grandeur of acondescending Emperor, "shall give my vanished Kingdom back to me."
And with an air of native majesty he held his hand out--to be kissed.
The black hurricane of night, the terror of frozen peaks, the yawninghorror of the great abyss outside--all three crowded into theEnglishman's mind with a slashing impact that blocked delivery ofany word or action. It was not that he refused, it was not that hewithdrew, but that Life stood paralysed and rigid. The flow stoppeddead for the first time since he had left his mother's womb. The Godin him was turned to stone and rendered ineffective. For an appallinginstant God was _not_.
He realised the stupendous moment. Before him, drinking his little soulout merely by his Presence, stood one whose habit of mind, not alonehis external accidents, was imperial with black prerogative before thefirst man drew the breath of life. August procedure was native to hisinner process of existence. The stars and confines of the universeowned his sway before he fell, to trifle away the dreary littlecenturies by haunting the minds of feeble men and women, by hidinghimself in nursery cupboards, and by grinning with stained gargoylesfrom the roofs of city churches....
And the lad's life stammered, flickered, threatened to go out beforethe enveloping terror of the revelation.
"I called to you ... but called to you in play," thought whisperedsomewhere deep below the level of any speech, yet not so low that theaudacious sound of it did not crash above the elements outside; "for... till now ... you have been to me but a ... coated bogy ... that mybrain disowned with laughter ... and my heart thought picturesque. Ifyou are here ... _alive_! May God forgive me for my ..."
It seemed as though tears--the tears of love and profoundcommiseration--drowned the very seed of thought itself.
A sound stopped him that was like a collapse in heaven. Some crashing,as of a ruined world, passed splintering through his little timidheart. He did not yield, but he understood--with an understanding whichseemed the delicate first sign of yielding--the seductiveness of evil,the sweet delight of surrendering the Will with utter recklessnessto those swelling forces which disintegrate the heroic soul in man.He remembered. It was true. In the reaction from excess he _had_definitely called upon his childhood's teaching with a passing momentof genuine belief. And now that yearning of a fraction of a second boreits awful fruit. The luscious Capitals where he had rioted passed ina coloured stream before his eyes; the Wine, the Woman, and the Songstood there before him, clothed in that Power which lies insinuatinglydisguised behind their little passing show of innocence. Their glamourdonned this domino of regal and virile grandeur. He felt entangledbeyond recovery. The idea of God seemed sterile and without reality.The one real thing, the one desirable thing, the one possible, strongand beautiful thing--was to bend his head and kiss those imperialfingers. He moved noiselessly towards the Hand. He raised his own totake it and lift it towards his mouth----
When there rose in his mind with startling vividness a small, softpicture of a child's nursery, a picture of a little boy, kneeling inscanty night-gown with pink upturned soles, and asking ridiculous,audacious things of a shining Figure seated on a summer cloud above thekitchen-garden walnut tree.
The tiny symbol flashed and went its way, yet not before it had litthe entire world with glory. For there came an absolutely routingpower with it. In that half-forgotten instant's craving for the simpleteaching of his childhood days, Belief had conjured with two immensetraditions. This was the second of them. The appearance of the one hadinevitably produced the passage of its opposite....
And the Hand that floated in the air before him to be kissed sankslowly down below the possible level of his lips. He shrank away.Though laughter tempted something in his brain, there still clungabout his heart the first aching, pitying terror. But size retreated,dwindling somehow as it went. The wind and rain obliterated every othersound; yet in that bare, unfurnished room of a climber's mountain hut,there was a silence, above the roar, that drank in everything and brokethe back of speech. In opposition to this masquerading splendour Delanehad set up a personal, paternal Deity.
"I thought of you, perhaps," cried the voice of self-defence, "but Idid not call to you with real belief. And, by the name of God, I didnot summon you. For your sweetness, as your power, sickens me; and yourhand is black with the curses of all the mothers in the world, whoseprayers and tears----"
He stopped dead, overwhelmed by the cruelty of his reckless utterance.
And the Other moved towards him slowly. It was like the summit of somepeaked and terrible height that moved. He spoke. He changed appallingly.
"But _I_ claim," he roared, "your heart. I claim you by that instant ofbelief you felt. For by that alone you shall restore to me my vanishedKingdom. You shall worship me."
In the countenance was a sudden awful power; but behind the stupefyingroar there was weakness in the voice as of an imploring and beseechingchild. Again, deep love and searching pity seared the Englishman'sheart as he replied in the gentlest accents he could find to master:
"And I claim _you_," he said, "by my understanding sympathy, and by mysorrow for your God-forsaken loneli
ness, and by my love. For no Kingdombuilt on hate can stand against the love you would deny----"
Words failed him then, as he saw the majesty fade slowly from theface, grown small and shadowy. One last expression of desperate energyin the eyes struck lightnings from the smoky air, as with an abandonedmovement of the entire figure, he drew back, it seemed, towards thedoor behind him.
Delane moved slowly after him, opening his arms. Tenderness and bigcompassion flung wide the gates of love within him. He found strangelanguage, too, although actual, spoken words did not produce themfurther than his entrails where they had their birth.
"Toys in the world are plentiful, Sire, and you may have them for yourmasterpiece of play. But you must seek them where they still survive;in the churches, and in isolated lands where thought lies unawakened.For they are the children's blocks of make-believe whose palaces, likeyour once tremendous kingdom, have no true existence for the thinkingmind."
And he stretched his hands towards him with the gesture of one whosought to help and save, then paused as he realised that his armsenclosed sheer blackness, with the emptiness of wind and driving rain.
For the door of the hut stood open, and Delane balanced on thethreshold, facing the sheet of night above the abyss. He heard thewaterfalls in the valley far below. The forest flapped and tossedits myriad branches. Cold draughts swept down from spectral fieldsof melting snow above; and the blackness turned momentarily intothe semblance of towers and bastions of thick beaten gloom. Aboveone soaring turret, then, a space of sky appeared, swept naked by aviolent, lost wind--an opening of purple into limitless distance. Forone second, amid the vapours, it was visible, empty and untenanted.The next, there sailed across its small diameter a falling Star. Withan air of slow and endless leisure, yet at the same time with terrificspeed, it dived behind the ragged curtain of the clouds, and the spaceclosed up again. Blackness returned upon the heavens.
And through this blackness, plunging into that abyss of woe whencehe had momentarily risen, the figure of the marvellous strangermelted utterly away. Delane, for a fleeting second, was aware of theearnestness in the sad, imploring countenance; of its sweetness andits power so strangely mingled; of it mysterious grandeur; and of itspathetic childishness. But, already, it was sunk into interminabledistance. A star that would be baleful, yet was merely glorious, passedon its endless wandering among the teeming systems of the universe.Behind the fixed and steady stars, secure in their appointed places, itset. It vanished into the pit of unknown emptiness. It was gone.
"God help you!" sighed across the sea of wailing branches, echoing downthe dark abyss below. "God give you rest at last!"
For he saw a princely, nay, an imperial Being, homeless for ever,and for ever wandering, hunted as by keen remorseless winds about auniverse that held no corner for his feet, his majesty unworshipped,his reign a mockery, his Court unfurnished, and his courtiers mereshadows of deep space....
And a thin, grey dawn, stealing up behind clearing summits in theeast, crept then against the windows of the mountain hut. It broughtwith it a treacherous, sharp air that made the sleeper draw anotherblanket near to shelter him from the sudden cold. For the fire had diedout, and an icy draught sucked steadily beneath the doorway.
Day and Night Stories Page 11