Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  The voice of the fur-merchant came in domineeringly.

  “Of course. I have made this trip so often, I know. St. Petersburg to Paris, a few weeks on the Riviera, then back by Constantinople and the Crimea. It is nothing. I remember last year—” He pushed a large pearl pin more deeply into his speckled tie and began a story that proved chiefly how luxuriously he traveled. His eyes tried to draw the whole end of the table into his circle, but while the Armenian listened politely, with smiles and bows, Dr. Stahl turned to the Irishman again. It Vas the year of Halley’s comet and he began talking interestingly about it.

  “… Three o’clock in the morning — any morning, yes — is the best time,” the doctor concluded, “and I’ll have you called. You must see it through my telescope. End of this week, say, after we leave Catania and turn eastwards…”

  And at this instant, following a roar of laughter from the Captain’s table, came one of those abrupt pauses that sometimes catch an entire room at once. All voices hushed. Even the merchant, setting down his champagne glass, fell silent. One heard only the beating of the steamer’s screw, the rush of water below the port-holes, the soft scuffle of the stewards’ feet. The conclusion of the doctor’s inconsiderable sentence was sharply audible all over the room —

  “… crossing the Ionian Sea toward the Isles of Greece.”

  It rang across the pause, and at the same moment O’Malley caught the eyes of the big stranger lifted suddenly and fixed upon the speaker’s face as though the words had summoned him.

  They shifted the same instant to his own, then dropped again to his plate. Again the clatter of conversation drowned the room as before; the merchant resumed his self-description in terms of gold; the doctor discussed the gases of the comet’s tail. But the swift-blooded Irishman felt himself caught away strangely and suddenly into another world. Out of the abyss of the subconscious there rose a gesture prophetic and immense. The trivial phrase and that intercepted look opened a great door of wonder in his heart. In a second he grew “absent-minded.” Or, rather, something touched a button and the whole machinery of his personality shifted round noiselessly and instantaneously, presenting an immediate new facet to the world. His normal, puny self-consciousness slipped a moment into the majestic calm of some far larger state that the stranger also knew. The Universe lies in every human heart, and he plunged into that archetypal world that stands so close behind all sensible appearances. He could neither explain nor attempt to explain, but he sailed away into some giant swimming mood of beauty wherein steamer, passengers, talk, faded utterly, the stranger and his son remaining alone real and vital. He had seen; he could never forget. Chance prepared the setting, but immense powers had rushed in and availed themselves of it. Something deeply buried had flamed from the stranger’s eyes and beckoned to him. The fire ran from the big man to himself and was gone.

  “The Isles of Greece—” The words were simple enough, yet it seemed to O’Malley that the look they summoned to the stranger’s eyes ensouled them, transfiguring them with the significance of vital clues. They touched the fringe of a mystery, magnificent and remote — some transcendent psychical drama in the ‘life of this man whose “bigness” and whose “loneliness that must be whispered” were also in their way other vital clues. Moreover, remembering his first sight of these two upon the upper deck a few hours before, he understood that his own spirit, by virtue of its peculiar and primitive yearnings, was involved in the same mystery and included in the same hidden passion.

  The little incident illustrates admirably O’Malley’s idiosyncrasy of “seeing whole.” In a lightning flash his inner sense had associated the words and the glance, divining that the one had caused the other. That pause provided the opportunity…. If Imagination, then it was creative imagination; if true, it was assuredly spiritual insight of a rare quality.

  He became aware that the twinkling eyes of his neighbor were observing him keenly. For some moments evidently he had been absent-mindedly staring down the table. He turned quickly and looked at the doctor with frankness. This time it was impossible to avoid speech of some kind.

  “Following those lights that do mislead the morn?” asked Dr. Stahl slyly. “Your thoughts have been traveling. You’ve heard none of my last remarks!”

  Under the clamor of the merchant’s voice O’Malley replied in a lowered tone:

  “I was watching those two half-way down the table opposite. They interest you as well, I see.” It was not a challenge exactly; if the tone was aggressive, it was merely that he felt the subject was one on which they would differ, and he scented an approaching discussion. The doctor’s reply, indicating agreement, surprised him a good deal.

  “They do; they interest me greatly.” There was no trace of fight in the voice. “That should cause you no surprise.”

  “Me — they simply fascinate,” said O’Malley, always easily drawn. “What is it? What do you see about them that is unusual? Do you, too, see them ‘big’?” The doctor did not answer at once, and O’Malley added, “The father’s a tremendous fellow, but it’s not that—”

  “Partly, though,” said the other, “partly, I think.”

  “What else, then?” The fur-merchant, still talking, prevented their being overheard. “What is it marks them off so from the rest?”

  “Of all people you should see,” smiled the doctor quietly. “If a man of your imagination sees nothing, what shall a poor exact mind like myself see?” He eyed him keenly a moment. “You really mean that you detect nothing?”

  “A certain distinction, yes; a certain aloofness from others. Isolated, they seem in a way; rather a splendid isolation I should call it—”

  And then he stopped abruptly. It was most curious, but he was aware that unwittingly in this way he had stumbled upon the truth, aware at the same time that he resented discussing it with his companion — because it meant at the same time discussing himself or something in himself he wished to hide. His entire mood shifted again with completeness and rapidity. He could not help it. It seemed suddenly as though he had been telling the doctor secrets about himself, secrets moreover he would not treat sympathetically. The doctor had been “at him,” so to speak, searching the depths of him with a probing acuteness the casual language had disguised.

  “What are they, do you suppose: Finns, Russians, Norwegians, or what?” the doctor asked. And the other replied briefly that he guessed they might be Russians perhaps, South Russians. His tone was different. He wished to avoid further discussion. At the first opportunity he neatly changed the conversation.

  It was curious, the way proof came to him. Something in himself, wild as the desert, something to do with that love of primitive life he discussed only with the few who were intimately sympathetic toward it, this something in his soul was so akin to a similar passion in these strangers that to talk of it was to betray himself as well as them.

  Further, he resented Dr. Stahl’s interest in them, because he felt it was critical and scientific. Not far behind hid the analysis that would lay them bare, leading to their destruction. A profound instinctive sense of self-preservation had been stirred within him.

  Already, mysteriously guided by secret affinities, he had ranged himself on the side of the strangers.

  CHAPTER V

  “Mythology contains the history of the archetypal world. It comprehends

  Past, Present, and Future.” — NOVALIS, Flower Pollen, Translated by U.C.B.

  In this way there came between these two the slight barrier of a forbidden subject that grew because neither destroyed it. O’Malley had erected it; Dr. Stahl respected it. Neither referred again for a time to the big Russian and his son.

  In his written account O’Malley, who was certainly no constructive literary craftsman, left out apparently countless little confirmatory details. By word of mouth he made me feel at once that this mystery existed, however; and to weld the two together is a difficult task. There nevertheless was this something about the Russian and his boy that exci
ted deep curiosity, accompanied by an aversion on the part of the other passengers that isolated them; also, there was this competition on the part of the two friends to solve it, from opposing motives.

  Had either of the strangers fallen seasick, the advantage would have been easily with Dr. Stahl — professionally, but since they remained well, and the doctor was in constant demand by the other passengers, it was the Irishman who won the first move and came to close quarters by making a personal acquaintance. His strong desire helped matters of course; for he noticed with indignation that these two, quiet and inoffensive as they were and with no salient cause of offence, were yet rejected by the main body of passengers. They seemed to possess a quality that somehow insulated them from approach, sending them effectually “to Coventry,” and in a small steamer where the travelers settle down into a kind of big family life, this isolation was unpleasantly noticeable.

  It stood out in numerous little details that only a keen observer closely watching could have taken into account. Small advances, travelers’ courtesies, and the like that ordinarily should have led to conversation, in their case led to nothing. The other passengers invariably moved away after a few moments, politely excusing themselves, as it were, from further intercourse. And although at first the sight of this stirred in him an instinct of revolt that was almost anger, he soon felt that the couple not merely failed to invite, but even emanated some definite atmosphere that repelled. And each time he witnessed these little scenes, there grew more strongly in him the original picture he had formed of them as beings rejected and alone, hunted by humanity as a whole, seeking escape from loneliness into a place of refuge that they knew of, definitely at last en route.

  Only an imaginative mind, thus concentrated upon them, could have divined all this; yet to O’Malley it seemed plain as the day. With the certitude, moreover, came the feeling, ever stronger, that the refuge they sought would prove to be also the refuge he himself sought, the difference being that whereas they knew, he still hesitated.

  Yet, in spite of this secret sympathy, imagined or discovered, he found it no easy matter to approach the big man for speech. For a day and a half he merely watched; attraction so strong excited caution; he paused, waiting. His attention, however, was so keen that he seemed always to know where they were and what they were doing. By instinct he was aware in what part of the ship they would be found — for the most part leaning over the rail alone in the bows, staring down at the churned water together by the screws, pacing the after-deck in the dusk or early morning when no one was about, or hidden away in some corner of the upper deck, side by side, gazing at sea and sky. Their method of walking, too, made it easy to single them out from the rest — a free, swaying movement of the limbs, a swing of the shoulders, a gait that was lumbering, almost clumsy, half defiant, yet at the same time graceful, and curiously rapid. The body moved along swiftly for all its air of blundering — a motion which was a counterpart of that elusive appearance of great bulk, and equally difficult of exact determination. An air went with them of being ridiculously confined by the narrow little decks.

  Thus it was that Genoa had been made and the ship was already half way on to Naples before the opportunity for closer acquaintance presented itself. Rather, O’Malley, unable longer to resist, forced it. It seemed, too, inevitable as sunrise.

  Rain had followed the mistral and the sea was rough. A rich land-taste came about the ship like the smell of wet oaks when wind sweeps their leaves after a sousing shower. In the hour before dinner, the decks slippery with moisture, only one or two wrapped-up passengers in deck-chairs below the awning, O’Malley, following a sure inner lead, came out of the stuffy smoking-room into the air. It was already dark and the drive of mist-like rain somewhat obscured his vision after the glare. Only for a moment though — for almost the first thing he saw was the Russian and his boy moving in front of him toward the aft compasses. Like a single figure, huge and shadowy, they passed into the darkness beyond with a speed that seemed as usual out of proportion to their actual stride. They lumbered rapidly away. O’Malley caught that final swing of the man’s great shoulders as they disappeared, and, leaving the covered deck, he made straight after them. And though neither gave any sign that they had seen him, he felt that they were aware of his coming — and even invited him.

  As he drew close a roll of the vessel brought them almost into each other’s arms, and the boy, half hidden beneath his parent’s flowing cloak, looked up at once and smiled. The saloon light fell dimly upon his face. The Irishman saw that friendly smile of welcome, and lurched forward with the roll of the deck. They brought up against the bulwarks, and the big man put out an arm to steady him. They all three laughed together. At close quarters, as usual again, the impression of bulk had disappeared.

  And then, at first, utterly unlike real life, they said — nothing. The boy moved round and stood close to his side so that he found himself placed between them, all three leaning forward over the rails watching the phosphorescence of the foam-streaked Mediterranean.

  Dusk lay over the sea; the shores of Italy not near enough to be visible; the mist, the hour, the loneliness of the deserted decks, and something else that was nameless, shut them in, these three, in a little world of their own. A sentence or two rose in O’Malley’s mind, but without finding utterance, for he felt that no spoken words were necessary. He was accepted without more ado. A deep natural sympathy existed between them, recognized intuitively from that moment of first mutual inspection at Marseilles. It was instinctive, almost as with animals. The action of the boy in coming round to his side, unhindered by the father, was the symbol of utter confidence and welcome.

  There came, then, one of those splendid and significant moments that occasionally, for some, burst into life, flooding all barriers, breaking down as with a flaming light the thousand erections of shadow that close one in. Something imprisoned in himself swept outwards, rising like a wave, bringing an expansion of life that “explained.” It vanished, of course, instantly again, but not before he had caught a flying remnant that lit the broken puzzles of his heart and left things clearer. Before thought, and therefore words, could overtake, it was gone; but there remained at least this glimpse. The fire had flashed a light down subterranean passages of his being and made visible for a passing second some clue to his buried primitive yearnings. He partly understood.

  Standing there between these two this thing came over him with a degree of intelligibility scarcely captured by his words. The man’s qualities — his quietness, peace, slowness, silence — betrayed somehow that his inner life dwelt in a region vast and simple, shaping even his exterior presentment with its own huge characteristics, a region wherein the distress of the modern world’s vulgar, futile strife could not exist — more, could never have existed. The Irishman, who had never realized exactly why the life of Today to him was dreadful, now understood it in the presence of this simple being with his atmosphere of stately power. He was like a child, but a child of some pre-existence utterly primitive and utterly forgotten; of no particular age, but of some state that antedates all ages; simple in some noble, concentrated sense that was prodigious, almost terrific. To stand thus beside him was to stand beside a mighty silent fire, steadily glowing, a fire that fed all lesser flames, because itself close to the central source of fire. He felt warmed, lighted, vivified — made whole. The presence of this stranger took him at a single gulp, as it were, straight into Nature — a Nature that was alive. The man was part of her. Never before had he stood so close and intimate. Cities and civilization fled away like transient dreams, ashamed. The sun and moon and stars moved up and touched him.

  This word of lightning explanation, at least, came to him as he breathed the other’s atmosphere and presence. The region where this man’s spirit fed was at the center, whereas today men were active with a scattered, superficial cleverness, at the periphery. He even understood that his giant gait and movements were small outer evidences of this inner fact, wholly in ke
eping. That blundering stupidity, half glorious, half pathetic, with which he moved among his fellows was a physical expression of this psychic fact that his spirit had never learned the skilful tricks taught by civilization to lesser men. It was, in a way, awe-inspiring, for he was now at last driving back full speed for his own region and — escape.

  O’Malley knew himself caught, swept off his feet, momentarily driving with him….

  The singular deep satisfaction of it, standing there with these two in the first moment, he describes as an entirely new sensation in his life — an awareness that he was “complete.” The boy touched his side and he let an arm steal round to shelter him. The huge, bearded parent rose in his massiveness against his other shoulder, hemming him in. For a second he knew a swift and curious alarm, passing however almost at once into the thrill of a rare happiness. In that moment, it was not the passengers or the temper of Today who rejected them; it was they who rejected the world: because they knew another and superior one — more, they were in it.

  Then, without turning, the big man spoke, the words in heavy accented English coming out laboriously and with slow, exceeding difficulty as though utterance was a supreme effort.

  “You … come … with … us?” It was like stammering almost. Still more was it like essential inarticulateness struggling into an utterance foreign to it — unsuited. The voice was a deep and windy bass, merging with the noise of the sea below.

  “I’m going to the Caucasus,” O’Malley replied; “up into the old, old mountains, to — see things — to look about — to search—” He really wanted to say much more, but the words lay dead or beyond reach.

  The big man nodded slowly. The boy listened.

  “And yourself — ?” asked the Irishman, hardly knowing why he faltered and trembled.