One comely figure alone gave me a little joy. It was soft and slim and graceful, with a smell of fern and morning in its hair, though that hair was lustreless and balled up in ugly lumps, with strips of thin metal in it. They called it nurse and sister. It was the first moving thing I saw when my eyes opened on my limited and enclosed surroundings. My heart beat quicker, a flash of thin joy came up in me. I had seen something similar before somewhere; it reminded me, I mean, of something I had known elsewhere; though but a shabby, lifeless, clumsy copy of this other glorious thing. Though not real, it stirred this faint memory of reality, so that I caught at the skirts of moonlight, stars and flowers reflected in a forest pool where my companion played for long periods of happiness between our work. The perfume and the eyes did that. I watched it for a bit, as it moved away, came close and looked at me. When the eyes met mine, a wave of life, but of little life, surged faintly through me.
They were dim and pitiful, these eyes; mournful, unlit, unseeing. The stars had set in them; dull shadows crowded. They were so small. They were hungry too. They were unsatisfied. For some minutes it puzzled me, then I understood. That was the word — unsatisfied. Ah, but I could alter that! I could comfort, help, at any rate. My strength, though horribly clipped and blocked, could manage a little thing like that! My smaller rhythms I could put into it.
The eyes, the smile, the whole soft comely bundle, so pitifully hungry and unsatisfied, I rose and seized, pressing it close inside my own great arms, and burying it all against my breast. I crushed it, but very gently, as I might crush a sapling. My lips were amid the ferny hair. I breathed upon it willingly, glad to help.
It was a poor unfinished thing, I felt at once, soft and yielding where it should have been resilient and elastic as fresh turf; the perfume had no body, it faded instantly; there was so little life in it.
But, as I held it in my big embrace, smothering its hunger as best I could within my wave of being, this bundle, this poor pitiful bundle, screamed and struggled to get free. It bit and scratched and uttered sounds like those squeaks the less swift creatures make when the swifter overtake them.
I was too surprised to keep it to me; I relaxed my hold. The instant I did so the figure, thus released, stood upright like a young birch the wind sets free. The figure looked alive. The hair fell loose, untidily, the puny face wore colour, the eyes had fire in them. I saw that fire. It was a message. Memory stirred faintly in me.
“Ah!” I cried. “I’ve helped you anyhow a little!”
The scene that followed filled me with such trouble and bewilderment that I cannot recall exactly what occurred. The figure seemed to spit at me, yet not with grace and invitation. There was no sign of gratitude. I was entirely misunderstood, it seemed. Bells rang, as the figure rushed to the door and flung it open. It called aloud; similar, though quite lifeless figures came in answer and filled the room. A doctor — Devonham, they called him — followed them. I was most carefully examined in a dozen curious ways that tickled my skin a little so that I smiled. But I lay quite still and silent, watching the whole performance with a confusion in my being that baffled my comprehending what was going on. Most of the figures were frightened.
Then the doctor gave place to Fillery, whose name has rhythm.
To him I spoke at once:
“I wished to comfort and revive her,” I told him. “She is so starved. I was most gentle. She brings a message only.”
He made no reply, but gazed at me with the corners of his mouth both twitching, and in his eyes — ah, his eyes had more of the sun in them — a flash of something that had known fire, at least, if it had not kept it.
“My God! I worship thee,” I murmured at the glimpse of the Power I must own as Master and creator of my being. “Even when thou art playful, I adore thee and obey.”
Then four other figures, shaped like the doctor but wholly mechanical, a mere blind weight operating through them, held my arms and legs. Not the least desire to move was in me luckily. I say “luckily,” because, had I wished it, I could have flung them through the roof, blown down the little walls, caught up a dozen figures in my arms, and rushed forth with them towards the Powers of Fire and Wind to which I belonged.
Could I? I felt that I could. The sight of the true fire, small though it was, in the comely figure’s and the doctor’s eyes, had set me in touch again with my home and origin. This touch I had somehow lost; I had been “ill,” with what they called nervous disorder and injured reason. The lost touch was now restored. But, luckily, as I said, there was no desire in me to set free these other figures, to help them in any way, after the reception my first kindly effort had experienced. I lay quite still, held by these four grotesque and puny mechanisms. The comely one, with the others similar to her, had withdrawn. I felt very kindly towards them all, but especially towards the doctor, Fillery, who had shown that he knew my deity and origin. None of them were worth much trouble, anyhow. I felt that too. A mild, sweet-toned contempt was in me.
“Dangerous,” was a word I caught them whispering as they went. I laughed a little. The four faces over me made odd grimaces, tightening their lips, and gripping my legs and arms with greater effort. The doctor — Fillery — noticed it.
“Easy, remember,” he addressed the four. “There’s really no need to hold. It won’t recur.” I nodded. We understood one another. And, with a smile at me, he left the room, saying he would come back after a short interval. A link with my source, a brother as it were, went with him. I was lonely....
I began to hum songs to myself, little fragments of a great natural music I had once known but lost, and I noticed that the four figures, as I sang, relaxed their grip of my limbs considerably. To tell the truth, I forgot that they were holding me; their grip, anyhow, was but a thread I could snap without the smallest effort. The songs were happiness in me. Upon free leaping rhythms I careered with an exhilarating rush of liberty; all about space I soared and sank; I was picked up, flung far, riding the crest of immense waves of orderly vibration that delighted me. I let myself go a bit, let my voice out, I mean. No effort accompanied my singing. It was automatic, like breathing almost. It was natural to me. These rhythmical sounds and the patterns that they wove in space were the outlines of forms it was my work to build. This expressed my nature. Only my power was blocked and stifled in this confining body. The fire and air which were my tools I could not control. I have forgotten — forgotten —— !
“Got a voice, ain’t he?” observed one of the figures admiringly.
“Lunies can do ‘most anything they have a mind to.”
“Grand Opera isn’t it.”
“Yes,” mentioned the fourth, “but he’ll lift the roof off presently. We’d better stop him before there’s any trouble.”
I stopped of myself, however: their remarks interested me. Also while I had been singing, although I called it humming only, they had gradually let go of me, and were now sitting down on my bed and staring with quite pleasant faces. All their dim eight eyes were fixed on me. Their forms were not built well.
“Where did you get that from, Guv’nor?” asked the one who had spoken first. “Can you give me the name of it?”
The sound of his own voice was like the scratching of a pin after the enormous rhythm that now ceased.
“Ain’t printed, is it?” he went on, as I stared, not understanding what he meant. “I’ve got a sister at the Halls,” he explained. “She’d make a hit with that kind of thing. Gave me quite a twist inside to hear it,” he added, turning to the others.
The others agreed solemnly with dull stupid faces. I lay and listened to their talk. I longed to help them. I had forgotten how.
“A bit churchy, I thought it,” said one. “But, I confess, it stirred me up.”
“Churchy or not, it’s the stuff,” insisted the first.
“Oh, it’s the stuff to give ‘em, right enough.” And they looked at me admiringly again. “Where did you get it, if I may ask?” replied Number One in a more resp
ectful tone. His face looked quite polite. The lips stretched, showing yellow teeth. It was his smile. But his eyes were a little more real. Oh, where was my fire? I could have built the outline better so that he was real and might express far more. I have forgotten —— !
“I hear it,” I told him, “because I’m in it. It’s all about me. It never stops. It’s what we build with — —”
Number One seemed greatly interested.
“Hear it, do you? Why, that’s odd now. You see” — he looked at his companions apologetically, as though he knew they would not believe him— “my father was like that. He heard his music, he always used to say, but we laughed at him. He was a composer by trade. Oh, his stuff was printed too. Of course,” he added, “there’s musical talent in the family,” as though that explained everything. He turned to me again. “Give us a little more, Mister — if you don’t object, that is,” he added. And his face was soft as he said it. “Only gentle like — if you don’t mind.”
“Yes, keep it down a bit,” another put in, looking anxiously in the direction of the closed door. He patted the air with his open palm, slowly, carefully, as though he patted an animal that might rise and fly at him.
I hummed again for them, but this time with my lips closed. The waves of rhythm caught me up and away. I soared and flew and dropped and rose again upon their huge coloured crests. Curtains and sheets of quiet flame in palest gold flared shimmering through the sound, while winds that were full of hurricanes and cyclones swept down to lift the fire and dance with it in spirals. The perfume of great flowers rose. There were flowers everywhere, and stars shone through it all like showers of gold. Ah! I began to remember something. It was flowers and stars as well as human forms we worked to build....
But I kept the fire from leaping into actual flame; the mighty winds I held back. Even thus pent and checked, their powerful volume made the atmosphere shake and pulse about us. Only I could not control them now.... With an effort I came back, came down, as it were, and saw the funny little faces staring at me with opened eyes and mouths, and yellow teeth, pale gums, their skins gone whitish, their figures rigid with their tense emotion. They were so poorly made, the patterns so imperfect. The new respect in their manner was marked plainly. Suddenly all four turned together towards the door. I stopped. The doctor had returned. But it was Fillery again. I liked the feel of him.
“He wanted to sing, sir, so we let him. It seemed to relieve him a bit,” they explained quickly and with an air of helpless apology.
“Good, good,” said the doctor. “Quite good. Any normal expression that brings relief is good.” He dismissed them. They went out, casting back at me expressions of puzzled thanks and interest. The door closed behind them. The doctor seated himself beside me and took my hand. I liked his touch. His hand was alive, at any rate, although within my own it felt rather like a dying branch or bunch of leaves I grasped. The life, if thin, was real.
“Where’s the rest of it?” I asked him, meaning the music. “I used to have it all. It’s left me, gone away. What’s cut it off?”
“You’re not cut off really,” he said gently. “You can always get into it again when you really need it.” He gazed at me steadily for a minute, then said in his quiet voice — a full, nice tone with wind through a forest running in it: “Mason.... Dr. Mason....”
He said no more, but watched me. The name stirred something in me I could not get at quite. I could not reach down to it. I was troubled by a memory I could not seize.
“Mason,” I repeated, returning his strong gaze. “What — who — was Mason? And where?” I connected the name with a sense of liberty, also with great winds and pools of fire, with great figures of golden skin and radiant faces, with music, too, the music that had left me.
“You’ve forgotten for the moment,” came the deep running voice I liked. “He looked after you for twenty years. He gave his life for you. He loved you. He loved your mother. Your father was his friend.”
“Has he gone — gone back?”
“He’s dead.”
“I can get after him though,” I said, for the name touched me with a sense of lost companionship I wanted, though the reference to my father and mother left me cold. “I can easily catch him up. When I move with my wind and fire, the fastest things stand still.” My own speed, once I was free again, I knew outpaced easily the swiftest bird, outpaced light itself.
“Yes,” agreed the doctor; “only he doesn’t want that now. You can always catch him up when the time comes. Besides, he’s waiting for you anyhow.”
I knew that was true. I sank back comforted upon the stuffy pillows and lay silent. This tinkling chatter wearied me. It was like trickling wind. I wanted the flood of hurricanes, the pulse of storms. My building, shaping powers, my great companions — oh! where were they?
“He taught you himself, taught you all you know,” I heard the tinkling go on again, “but he kept you away from life, thinking it was best. He was afraid for you, afraid for others too. He kept you in the woods and mountains where, as he believed, you could alone express yourself and so be happy. A hundred times, in babyhood and early childhood, you nearly died. He nursed you back to life. His own life he renounced. Now he is dead. He has left you all his money.”
He paused. I said no word. Faint memories passed through my mind, but nothing I could hold and seize. The money I did not understand at all, except that it was necessary.
“He thought at first that you could not possibly live to manhood. To his surprise you survived everything — illness, accident, disaster of every sort and kind. Then, as you grew up, he realized his mistake. Instead of keeping you away from life, he ought to have introduced you to it and explained it — as I and Devonham are now trying to do. You could not live for ever alone in woods and mountains; when he was gone there would be no one to look after you and guide you.”
The trickling of wind went on and on. I hardly listened to it. He did it for his own pleasure, I suppose. It pleased and soothed him possibly. Yet I remembered every syllable. It was a small detail to keep fresh when my real memory covered the whole planet.
“Before he died, he recognized his mistake and faced the position boldly. It was some years before the end; he was hale and hearty still, yet the end, he knew, was in sight. While the power was still strong in him, therefore, he did the only thing left to him to do. He used his great powers. He used suggestion. He hypnotized you, telling you to forget — from the moment of his death, but not before — forget everything —— It was only partially successful.”
The door opened, the comely figure glanced in, then vanished.
“She wants more help from me,” I interrupted the monotonous tinkling instantly, for pity stirred in me again as I saw her eager, hungry and unsatisfied little eyes. “Call her back. I feel quite willing. It is one of the lower forms we made. I can improve it.”
Dr. Fillery, as he was called, looked at me steadily, his mouth twitching at the corners as before, a flash of fire flitting through his eyes. The fire made me like and trust him; the twitching, too, I liked, for it meant he knew how absurd he was. Yet he was bigger than the other figures.
“You can’t do that,” he said, “you mustn’t,” and then laughed outright. “It isn’t done, you know — here.”
“Why not, sir?” I asked, using the terms the figures used. “I feel like that.”
“Of course, you do. But all you feel can’t be expressed except at the proper times and places. The consent of the other party always is involved,” he went on slowly, “when it’s a question of expressing — anything you feel.”
This puzzled me, because in this particular instance the other party had asked me with her eyes to comfort her. I told him this. He laughed still more. Caught by the sound — it was just like wind passing among tall grasses on a mountain ridge — I forgot what he was talking about for the moment. The sound carried me away towards my own rhythms.
“You’ve got such amazing insight,” he went on ti
nkling to himself, for I heard, although I did not listen. “You read the heart too easily, too quickly. You must learn to hide your knowledge.” The laughter which ran with the words then ended, and I came back to the last thing I had definitely listened to— “express, expressing,” was the phrase he used.
“You told me that self-expression is the purpose for which I’m here —— ?”
“I believe it is,” he agreed, more solemnly.
“Only sometimes, then?”
“Exactly. If that expression involves another in pain or trouble or discomfort — —”
“Ah! I have to choose, you mean. I have to know first what the other feels about it.”
I began to understand better. It was a game. And all games delighted me.
“You may put it roughly so, yes,” he explained, “you’re very quick. I’ll give you a rule to guide you,” he went on. I listened with an effort; this tinkling soon wearied me; I could not think long or much; my way, it seemed, was feeling. “Ask yourself always how what you do will affect another,” Dr. Fillery concluded. “That’s a safe rule for you.”
“That is of children,” I observed. We stared at each other a moment. “Both sides keep it?” I asked.
“Childish,” he agreed, “it certainly is. Both sides, yes, keep it.”
I sighed, and the sigh seemed to rise from my very feet, passing through my whole being. He looked at me most kindly then, asking why I sighed.
“I used to be free,” I told him. “This is not liberty. And why are we not all free together?”
“It is liberty for two instead of only for one,” he said, “and so, in the long run, liberty for all.”
“So that’s where they are,” I remarked, but to myself and not to him. “Not further than that.” For what I had once known, but now, it seemed, forgotten, was far beyond such a foolish little game. We had lived without such tiny tricks. We lived openly and unafraid. We worked in harmony. We lived. Yes — but who was “we”? That was the part I had forgotten.
“It’s the growth and development of civilization,” I heard the little drift of wind go whistling thinly, “and it won’t take you long to become quite civilized at this rate, more civilized, indeed, than most — with your swift intelligence and lightning insight.”
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 230