Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  Instinctively I moved across the room and drew the curtain back. I saw the stars; I saw the dark line of mountains; the odours of forest and meadow came in with sweetness; I heard the tinkling of the little stream — yet all contained somehow in the message of her turning head and shoulders.

  There was no sound, there was no spoken word, but the language was one and unmistakable. And as I came slowly again towards the fire Julius stood over her, uttering in silence the same stupendous thing. The sense of my own inclusion in it was amazing. He smiled down into her lifted face. These two, myself a vital link between them, smiled across the centuries at one another. We formed — I noticed then — with the fire and the open window into space — a circle.

  To say that I grasped some spiritual import in these movements of our bodies, realising that they acted out an inevitable meaning, is as true as my convinced belief can make it. It is also true that in this, my later report of the event, that meaning is no longer clear to me. I cannot recover the point of view that discerned in our very positions a message of some older day. The significance of attitude and gesture then were clear to me; the translation of this three-dimensional language I have lost again. A man upon his knees, two arms outstretched to clasp, a head bowed down, a pointing finger — these are interpretable gestures and attitudes that need no spoken words. Similarly, following some forgotten wisdom, our related movements held a ceremonial import that, by way of acceptance or refusal, helped or hindered the advance of the elemental powers then invoked. In some marvellous fashion one consciousness was shared amongst us all. We worked with a living Nature, and a living Nature worked actively with us, and it was attitude, movement, gestures, rather than words, that assisted the alliance.

  Then Julius took the hand that lay nearest to him, while the other she lifted to place within my own. And a light breeze came through the open window at that moment, touched the embers of the glowing logs, and blew them into flame. I felt our hands tighten as that slight increase of heat and air passed into us. For in that passing breeze was the eternal wind which is the breath of God, and in that flame upon the hearth was the fire which burns in suns and lights the heart in men and women....

  There came with unexpected suddenness, then, a moment of very poignant human significance — because of the great perspective against which it rose. She sat erect; she gazed into his face and mine; in her eyes burned an expression of beseeching love and sacrifice, but a love and sacrifice far older than this present world on which her body lay. Her arms stretched out and opened, she raised her lips, and, while I looked aside, she kissed him softly. I turned away from that embrace, aware in my heart that it was a half-divined farewell... and when I looked back again the little scene was over.

  He bent slightly down, releasing the hand he held, and signifying by a gesture that I should do the same. Her body relaxed a little; she sank deeper into the chair; she sighed. I realised that he was assisting her into that artificial slumber which would lead to the full release of the subconscious self whose slow approach she already half divined. Stooping above her, he gently touched the hypnogenic points above the eyes and behind the ears. It was the oldest memories he 60ught. She offered them quite willingly.

  “Sleep!” he said soothingly, command and tenderness mingled in the voice. “Sleep... and remember!” With the right hand he made slow, longitudinal passes before her face. “Sleep, and recover what you... knew! We need your guidance.”

  Her body swayed a little before it settled; her feet stretched nearer to the fire; her respiration rapidly diminished, becoming deep and regular; with the movement of her bosom the band of black velvet rose and fell about the neck, her hands lay folded in her lap. And, as I watched, my own personal sensations of quite nameless joy and anguish passed into a curious abandonment of self that merged me too completely in the solemnity of worship to leave room for pain. Hand in hand with the earthly darkness came in to us that Night of Time which neither sleeps nor dies, and like a remembered dream up stole our inextinguishable Past.

  “Sleep!” he repeated, lower than before.

  Cold, indeed, touched my heart, but with it came a promise of some deep spiritual sweetness, rich with the comfort of that life which is both abundant and universal. The valley and the sky, stars, mountains, forests, running water, all that lay outside of ourselves in Nature everywhere, came with incredible appeal into my soul. Confining barriers crumbled, melted into air; the imprisoned human forces leaped forth to meet the powers that “inanimate” Nature holds. I knew the drive of tireless wind, the rush of irresistible fire. It seemed a state in which we all joined hands, a state of glory that justified the bravest hopes, annihilating doubt and disbelief.

  She slept. And in myself something supremely sure, supremely calm, looked on and watched.

  “It helps,” Julius murmured in my ear, referring to the sleep; “it makes it easier for her. She will remember now... and guide.”

  He moved to her right side, I to her left. Between the fire and the open window we formed then — a line.

  Along a line there is neither tension nor resistance. It was the primitive, ultimate figure.

  CHAPTER XXX

  A RUSH of air ran softly round the walls and roof, then dropped away into silence. There was this increased activity outside. A roar next sounded in the chimney, high up rather; a block of peat fell with a sudden crash into the grate, sending a shower of sparks to find the outer air. Behind us the pine boards cracked with miniature, sharp reports.

  Julius continued the longitudinal passes, and “Mrs. LeVallon” passed with every minute into deeper and more complete somnambulism. It was a natural, willing process. He merely made it easier for her. She sank slowly into the deep subconscious region where all the memories of the soul lie stored for use.

  It seemed that everything was in abeyance in myself, except the central fact that this experience was true. The rest of existence fell away, clipped off as by a pair of mighty shears. Both fire and wind seemed actively about me; yet not unnaturally. There was this heat and lift, but there was nothing frantic. The native forces in me were raised to their ultimate capacity, though never for a moment beyond the limit that high emotion might achieve. Nature accomplished the abnormal, possibly, but still according to law and what was — or had been once — comprehensible.

  The passes grew slower, with longer intervals between; Mrs. LeVallon lay motionless, the lips slightly parted, the skin preternaturally pale, the eyelids tightly closed.

  “Hush!” whispered Julius, as I made an involuntary movement, “it is still the normal sleep, and she may easily awake. Let no sound disturb her. It must go gradually.” He spoke without once removing his gaze from her face. “Be ready to write what you hear,” he added, “and help by ‘thinking’ fire and wind — in my direction.”

  A long-drawn sigh was audible, accompanied by the slightest possible convulsive movement of the reclining body.

  “She sinks deeper,” he whispered, ceasing the passes for a moment. “The consciousness is already below the deep-dream stage. Soon she will wake into the interior lucidity when her Self of To-day will touch the parent source behind. They are already with her: they light — and lift — her soul. She will remember all her past, and will direct us.”

  I made no answer; I asked no questions; I stood and watched, willingly sympathetic, yet incapable of action. The curious scene held something of tragedy and grandeur. There was triumph in it. The sense of Nature working with us increased, yet we ourselves comparatively unimportant. The earth, the sky, the universe took part and were involved in our act of restitution. It was beyond all experience. It was also — at times — intolerable.

  The body settled deeper into the chair; the crackling of the wicker making sharp reports in the stillness. The pallor of the face increased; the cheeks sank in, the framework of the eyes stood out; imperceptibly the features began to re-arrange themselves upon another, greater scale, most visible, perhaps, in the strong, delicate contours of th
e mouth and jaw. Upon Julius, too, as he stood beside her, came down some indefinable change that set him elsewhere and otherwise. His dignity, his deep solicitous tenderness, and at the same time a hint of power that emanated more and more from his whole person, rendered him in some intangible fashion remote and inaccessible. I watched him with growing wonder.

  For over the room as well a change came stealing. In the shadows beyond the fringe of lamplight, perspective altered. The room ran off in distances that yet just escaped the eye: I felt the change, though it was so real that the breath caught in me each time I sought to focus it. Space spread and opened on all sides, above, below, while so naturally that it was never actually unaccountable. Wood seemed replaced by stone, as though the solidity of our material surroundings deepened. I was aware of granite columns, corridors of massive build, gigantic pylons towering to the sky. The atmosphere of an ancient temple grew about my heart, and long-forgotten things came with a crowding of half familiar detail that insisted upon recognition. It was an early memory, I knew, yet not the earliest....

  “Be ready.” I heard the low voice of Julius. “She is about to wake — within,” and he moved a little closer to her, while I took up my position by the table by the lamp. The paper lay before me. With fingers that trembled I lifted the pencil, waiting. The hands of the sleeping woman raised themselves feebly, then fell back upon the arms of the chair. It seemed she tried to make signs but could not quite complete them. The expression on the face betrayed great internal effort.

  “Where are you?” Julius asked in a steady but very gentle tone.

  The answer came at once, with slight intervals between the words:

  “In a building... among mountains....”

  “Are you alone?”

  “No... not alone,” spoken with a faint smile, the eyes still tightly closed.

  “Who, then, is with you?”

  “You... and he,” after a momentary hesitation.

  “And who am I?”

  The face showed slight confusion; there was a gesture as though she felt about her in the air to find him.

  “I do not know... quite,” came the halting answer. “But you — both — are mine... and very near to me. Or else you own me. All three are so close I cannot see ourselves apart... quite.”

  “She is confused between two memories,” Julius whispered to me. “The true regression of memory has not yet begun. The present still obscures her consciousness.”

  “It is coming,” she said instantly, aware of his lightest whisper.

  “All in due time,” he soothed her in a tender tone; “there is no hurry. Nor is there anything to fear—”

  “I am not afraid. I am... happy. I feel safe.” She paused a moment, then added: “But I must go deeper... further down. I am too near the surface still.”

  He made a few slow passes at some distance from her face, and I saw the eyelids flutter as though about to lift. She sighed deeply. She composed herself as into yet deeper sleep.

  “Ah! I see better now,” she murmured. “I am sinking... sinking...”

  He waited for several minutes and then resumed the questioning.

  “Now tell me who you are,” he enjoined.

  She faintly shook her head. Her lips trembled, as though she tried to utter several names and then abandoned all. The effort seemed beyond her. The perplexed expression on the face with the shut eyes was movingly pathetic, so that I longed to help her, though I knew not how.

  “Thank you,” she murmured instantly, with a gentle smile in my direction. Our thoughts, then, already found each other!

  “Tell me who you are,” Julius repeated firmly. “It is not the name I ask.”

  She answered distinctly, with a smile:

  “A mother. I am soon to be a mother and give birth.”

  He glanced at me significantly. There was both joy and sadness in his eyes. But it was not this disclosure that he sought. She was still entangled in the personality of To-day. It was far older layers of memory and experience that he wished to read. “Once she gets free from this,” he whispered, “it will go with leaps and bounds, whole centuries at a time.” And again I knew “by the smile hovering round the lips that she had heard and understood.

  “Pass deeper; pass beyond,” he continued, with more authority in the tone. “Drive through — sink down into what lies so far behind.”

  A considerable interval passed before she spoke again, ten minutes at the lowest reckoning, and possibly much longer. I watched her intently, but with an afflicting anxiety at my heart. The body lay so still and calm, it was like the immobility of death, except that once or twice the forehead puckered in a little frown and the compression of the lips told of the prolonged internal effort. The grander aspect of her features came for moments flittingly, but did not as yet establish itself to stay. She was still confused with the mind and knowledge of To-day. At length a little movement showed itself; she changed the angle of her head in an effort to look up and speak; a scarcely perceptible shudder ran down the length of her stretched limbs. “I cannot,” she murmured, as though glancing at her husband with closed eyelids. “Something blocks the way. I cannot see. It’s too thickly crowded... crowded.”

  “Describe it, and pass on,” urged Julius patiently. There was unalterable decision in his quiet voice. And in her tone a change was also noticeable. I was profoundly moved; only with a great effort I controlled myself.

  “They crowd so eagerly about me,” — the choice of words seemed no longer quite “Mrs. Le Vallon’s”— “with little arms outstretched and pleading eyes. They seek to enter, they implore...”

  “Who are they?”

  “The Returning Souls.” The love and passion in her voice brought near, as in a picture, the host of reincarnating souls eager to find a body for their development in the world. They besieged her, clamouring for birth — for a body.

  “Your thoughts invite them,” replied Julius, “but you have the power to decide.” And then he asked more sternly: “Has any entered yet?”

  It was unspeakably moving — this mother willing to serve with anguish the purpose of advancing souls. Yet this was all of To-day. It was not the thing he sought. The general purpose must stand aside for the particular. There was an error to be set right first. She had to seek its origin among the ages infinitely far away. The guidance Julius sought lay in the long ago. But the safety of the little unborn body troubled him, it seemed.

  “As yet,” she murmured, “none. The little body of the boy is empty... though besieged.”

  “By whom besieged?” he asked more loudly. “Who hinders?”

  The little body of the boy! And it was then a further change came suddenly, both in her face and voice, and in the voice of Julius too.

  That larger expression of some forgotten grandeur passed into her features, and she half sat up in the chair; there was a stiffening of the frame; resistance, power, an attitude of authority, replaced the former limpness. The moment was, for me, electrifying. Ice and fire moved upon my skin.

  She opened her lips to speak, but no words were audible.

  “Look close — and tell me,” came from Julius gravely.

  She made an effort, then shrank back a little, this time raising one arm as though to protect herself from something coming, then sharply dropping it again over the heart and body.

  “I cannot see,” she murmured, slightly frowning; “they stand so close and... are... so splendid. They are too great... to see.”

  “Who — what — are they?” he insisted. He took her hand in his. I saw her smile.

  The simple words were marvellously impressive. Depths of untold memory stirred within me as I heard.

  “Powers... we knew... so long ago.”

  Some ancient thing in me opened an eye and saw. The Powers we evoked came seeking an entrance, brought nearer b y our invitation, They came from, the silent valley; they were close about the building. But only through a human channel could they emerge from the spheres where they belo
nged.

  “Describe them, and pass on,” I heard Julius say, and there came a pause then that I thought would never end. The look of power rolled back upon her face. She spoke with joy, with a kind of happiness as though she welcomed them.

  “They rush and shine.... They flood the distance like a sea, and yet stand close against my heart and blood. They are clothed in wind and fire. I see the diadems of flame ascending and descending. Their breath is all the winds. There is such roaring. I see mountains of wind and fire... advancing... nearer... nearer.... We used them — we invited... long, long ago.... And so they... come again about us...”

  His following command appalled me:

  “Keep them back. You must protect the vacant body from invasion.”

  And then he added in tones that seemed to make the very air vibrate, although the voice but whispered, “You must direct them — towards me.”

  He moved to a new position, so that we formed a triangle again. Dimly at the time I understood. The circle signified the union which, having received, enclosed the mighty forces. Only it enclosed too much; the danger of misdirection had appeared. The triangle, her body forming the apex towards the open night, aimed at controlling the immense arrival by lessening the entry. Another thing stood out, too, with crystal clearness — at the time: the elemental Powers sought the easiest channel, the channel of least resistance, the body still unoccupied: whereas Julius offered — himself. The risk must be his and his alone. There was — in those few steps he took across the dim-lit room — a sense of tremendous, if sinister, drama that swept my heart with both tenderness and terror. The significance of his changed position was staggering.

  I watched the sleeper closely. The lips grew more compressed, and the fingers of both hands clenched themselves upon the dark dress on her lap. I saw the muscles of the altering face contract with effort; the whole framework of the body became more rigid. Then, after several minutes, followed a gradual relaxation, as she sank back again into her original position, “They retire ...” she murmured with a sigh. “They retire... into darkness a little. But they still... wait and hover. I hear the rush of their great passing.... I see the distant shine of fire... still.”