Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  Moreover, with this eerie discovery came also the further knowledge that a vast multitude of others, again, with pallid faces and yearning eyes, with arms outstretched and groping feet, were searching everywhere for the way of entrance that he himself had found so easily. All about him, he felt, were people by the hundred, by the thousand, seeking with a kind of restless fever for the narrow trail that led down into the valley, longing with an intensity that heat upon his soul in a million waves, for the rest, the calm silence of the place — but most of all for its strange, deep, and unalterable peace.

  He, alone of all these, had found the Entrance; he, and one other.

  For out of this singular conviction grew another even more singular: his brother Mark was also somewhere in this valley with him. Mark, too, was wandering like himself in and out among its intricate dim turns. He had said but a short time ago, “I wish Mark were here!” Mark was here. And it was precisely then — while he stood still a moment, trying to face these overwhelming obsessions and deal with them — that the figure of a man, moving swiftly through the trees, passed him with a great gliding stride, and with averted face. Stephen started horribly, catching his breath. In an instant the man was gone again, swallowed up by the crowding pines.

  With a quick movement of pursuit and a cry that should make the man turn, he sprang forward — but stopped again almost the same moment, realizing that the extraordinary speed at which the man had shot past him rendered pursuit out of the question. He had been going downhill into the valley, by this time he was already far, far ahead. But in that momentary glimpse of him he had seen enough to know. The face was turned away, and the shadows under the trees were heavy, but the figure was beyond question the figure of — his brother Mark.

  It was his brother, yet not his brother. It was Mark — but Mark altered. And the alteration was in some way — awful; just as the silent speed at which he had moved — the impossible speed in so dense a forest — was likewise awful. Then, still shaking inwardly with the suddenness of it all, Stephen realized that when he called aloud he had uttered certain definite words. And these words now came back to him —

  “Mark, Mark! Don’t go yet! Don’t go — without me!”

  Before, however, he could act, a most curious and unaccountable sensation of deadly faintness and pain came upon him, without cause, without explanation, so that he dropped backwards in momentary collapse, and but for the closeness of the tree stems would have fallen full length to the ground. From the center of the heart it came, spreading thence throughout his whole being like a swift and dreadful fever. All the muscles of his body relaxed; icy perspiration burst forth upon his skin; the pulses of life seemed suddenly reduced to the threshold beyond which they stop. There was a thick, rushing sound in his ears and his mind went utterly blank.

  These were the sensations of death by suffocation. He knew this as certainly as though another doctor stood by his side and labeled each spasm, explained each successive sinking of the vital flame. He was passing through the last throes of a dying man. And then into his mind, thus deliberately left blank, rushed at lightning speed a whole series of the pictures of his past life. Even while his breath failed, he saw his thirty-five years pictorially, successively, yet in some queer fashion at once, pass through the lighted chambers of his brain. In this way, it is said, they pass through the brain of a drowning man during the last seconds before death.

  Childhood rose about him with its scenes, figures, voices; the Kentish lawns where he had played with Mark in stained overalls; the summerhouse where they had tea, the hay-fields where they romped. The scent of lime and walnut, of garden pinks, and roses by the tumbled rockery came back to his nostrils.... He heard the voices of grown-ups in the distance... faint barking of dogs... the carriage wheels upon the gravel drive... and then the sharp summons from the opened window— “Time to come in now! Time to come in...!”

  Time to come in now. It all drove before him as of yesterday on the scented winds of childhood’s summer days.... He heard his brother’s voice — dreadfully faint and far away — calling him by name in the shrill accents of the boy: “Stevie — I say, you might shut up... and play properly...”

  And then followed the panorama of the thirty years, all the chief events drawn in steellike lines of white and black, vivid in sunshine, alive — right down to the present moment with the portentous dark shadow of his terrible Decision closing the series like a cloud.

  Yes, like a smothering black cloud that blocked the way. There was nothing visible beyond it. There, for him, life ceased —

  Only, as he gazed with inward-turned eyes that could not close even if they would, he saw to his amazement that the black cloud suddenly opened, and into a space of clear light there swam the vision, radiant as morning, of that dark young Eastern face — the face that held for him all the beauty in the world. The eyes instantly found his own, and smiled. Behind her, moreover, and beyond, before the moving vapors closed upon it, he saw a long vista of brilliance, crowded with pictures he could but half discern — as though, in spite of himself and his Decision, life continued — as though, too, it continued with her.

  And instantly, with the sight and thought of her, the consuming faintness passed; strength returned to his body with the glow of life; the pain went; the pictures vanished; the cloud was no more. In his blood the pulses of life once again beat strong, and the blackness left his soul. The smile of those beloved eyes had been charged with the invitation to live. Although his determination remained unshaken, there shone behind it the joy of this potent magic: life with her....

  With a strong effort, at length he recovered himself and continued on his way. More or less familiar, of course, with the psychology of vision, he dimly understood that his experiences had been in some measure subjective — within himself. To find the line of demarcation, however, was beyond him. That Mark had wandered out to fight his own battle upon the mountains, and so come into this same valley, was well within the bounds of coincidence. But the nameless and dreadful alteration discerned in that swift moment of his passing — that remained inexplicable. Only he no longer thought about it. The glory of that sweet vision had bewildered him beyond any possibility of reason or analysis.

  His watch told him that the hour was past five o’clock — ten minutes past, to be exact. He still had several hours before reaching the country he was familiar with nearer home. Following the trail at an increased pace, he presently saw patches of meadow glimmering between the thinning trees, and knew that the bottom of the valley was at last in sight.

  “And Mark, God bless him, is down there too — somewhere!” he exclaimed aloud. “I shall surely find him.” For, strange to say, nothing could have persuaded him that his twin was not wandering among the shadows of this peaceful and haunted valley with himself, and — that he would shortly find him.

  XII

  And a few minutes later he passed from the forest as through an open door and found himself before a farmhouse standing in a patch of bright green meadow against the mountainside. He was in need both of food and information.

  The châlet, less lumbering and picturesque than those found in the Alps, had, nevertheless, the appearance of being exceedingly ancient. It was not toylike — as the Jura châlets sometimes are. Solidly built, its balcony and overhanging roof supported by immense beams of deeply stained wood, it stood so that the back walls merged into the mountain slope behind, and the arms of pine, spruce and fir seemed stretched out to include it among their shadows. A last ray of sunshine, dipping between two far summits overhead, touched it with pale gold, bringing out the rich beauty of the heavily-dyed beams. Though no one was visible at the moment, and no smoke rose from the shingled chimney, it had the appearance of being occupied, and Stephen approached it with the caution due to the first evidence of humanity he had come across since he entered the valley.

  Under the shadow of the broad balcony roof he noticed that the door, like that of a stable, was in two parts, and, wondering
rather to find it closed, he knocked firmly upon the upper half. Under the pressure of a second knock this upper half yielded slightly, though without opening. The lower half, however, evidently barred and bolted, remained unmoved.

  The third time he knocked with more force than he intended, and the knock sounded loud and clamorous as a summons. From within, as though great spaces stretched beyond, came a murmur of voices, faint and muffled, and then almost immediately — the footsteps of someone coming softly up to open.

  But, instead of the heavy brown door opening, there came a voice. He heard it, petrified with amazement. For it was a voice he knew — hushed, soft, lingering. His heart, hammering atrociously, seemed to leave its place, and cut his breath away.

  “Stephen!” it murmured, calling him by name, “what are you doing here so soon? And what is it that you want?”

  The knowledge that only this dark door separated him from her, at first bereft him of all power of speech or movement; and the possible significance of her words escaped him. Through the sweet confusion that turned his spirit faint he only remembered, flashlike, that she and her father were indeed to have left the hotel that very morning. After that his thought stopped dead.

  Then, also flashlike, swept back upon him the memory of the figure that had passed him with averted face — and, with it, the clear conviction that at this moment Mark, too, was somewhere in this very valley, even close beside him. More: Mark was in this chalet — with her.

  The torrent of speech that instantly crowded to his lips was almost too thick for utterance.

  “Open, open, open!” was all he heard intelligibly from the throng of words that poured out. He raised his hands to push and force; but her reply again stopped him.

  “Even if I open — you may not enter yet,” came the whisper through the door. And this time he could almost have sworn that it sounded within himself rather than without.

  “I must enter,” he cried. “Open to me, I say!”

  “But you are trembling—”

  “Open to me, O my life! Open to me!”

  “But your heart — it is shaking.”

  “Because you — you are so near,” came in passionate, stammering tones. “Because you stand there beside me!” And then, before she could answer, or his will control the words, he had added: “And because Mark —— my brother — is in there — with you—”

  “Hush, hush!” came the soft, astonishing reply. “He is in here, true; but he is not with me. And it is for my sake that he has come — for my sake and for yours. My soul, alas! has led him to the gates...”

  But Stephen’s emotions had reached the breaking-point, and the necessity for action was upon him like a storm. He drew back a pace so as to fling himself better against the closed door, when to his utter surprise, it moved. The upper half swung slowly outwards, and he — saw.

  He was aware of a vast room, with closely shuttered windows, that seemed to stretch beyond the walls into the wooded mountainside, thronged with moving figures, like forms of life gently gliding to and fro in some huge darkened tank; and there, framed against this opening —— the girl herself. She stood, visible to the waist, radiant in the solitary beam of sunshine that reached the chalet, smiling down wondrously into his face with the same exquisite beauty in her eyes that he had seen before in the vision of the cloud: with, too, that supreme invitation in them — the invitation to live.

  The loveliness blinded him. He could see the down upon her little dark cheeks where the sunlight kissed them; there was the cloud of hair upon her neck where his lips had lain; there, too, the dear, slight breast that not twenty-four hours ago had known the pressure of his arms. And, once again, driven forward by the love that triumphed over all obstacles, real or artificial, he advanced headlong with outstretched arms to take her.

  “Katya!” he cried, never thinking how passing strange it was that he knew her name at all, much more the endearing and shortened form of it. “Katya!”

  But the young girl held up her little brown hand against him with a gesture that was more strong to restrain than any number of bolted doors.

  “Not here,” she murmured, with her grave smile, while behind the words he caught in that darkened room the alternate hush and sighing as of a thousand sleepers. “Not here! You cannot see him now; for these are the Reception Halls of Death and here I stand in the Vestibule of the Beyond. Our way... your way and mine... lies farther yet... traced there since the beginning of the world... together...”

  In quaintly broken English it was spoken, but his mind remembers the singular words in their more perfect form. Even this, however, came later. At the moment he only felt the twofold wave of love surge through him with a tide of power that threatened to break him asunder: he must hold her to his heart; he must come instantly to his brother’s side, meet his eyes, have speech with him. The desire to enter that great darkened room and force a path through the dimly gliding forms to his brother became irresistible, while tearing upon its heels came like a fever of joy the meaning of the words she had just uttered, and especially of that last word:

  “Together!”

  Then, for an instant, all the forces in his being turned negative so that his will refused to act. The excess of feeling numbed him. A flying interval of knowledge, calm and certain, came to him. The exaltation of spirit which produced the pictures of all this spiritual clairvoyance moved a stage higher, and he realized that he witnessed an order of things pertaining to the world of eternal causes rather than of temporary effects. Someone had lifted the Veil.

  With a feeling that he could only wait and let things take their extraordinary course, he stood still. For an instant, even less, he must have hidden his eyes in his hand, for when, a moment later, he again looked up, he saw that the half of the swinging door which had been open, was now closed. He stood alone upon the balcony. And the sunshine had faded entirely from the scene.

  It was here, it seems, that the last vestige of self-control disappeared. He flung himself against the door; and the door met his assault like a wall of solid rock. Crying aloud alternately the names of his two loved ones, he turned, scarcely knowing what he did, and ran into the meadow. Dusk was about the chalet, drawing the encircling forests closer. Soon the true darkness would stalk down the slopes. The walls of the valley reared, it seemed, up to heaven.

  Still calling, he ran about the walls, searching wildly for a way of entrance, his mind charged with bewildering fragments of what he had heard: “The Reception Halls of Death”— “The Vestibule of the Beyond.”

  — — “You cannot see him now”— “Our way lies farther — and together...!” And, on the far side of the châlet, by the corner that touched the trees, he suddenly stopped, feeling his gaze drawn upwards, and there, pressed close against the windowpane of an upper room, saw that someone was peering down upon him.

  With a sensation of freezing terror he realized that he was staring straight into the eyes of his brother Mark. Bent a little forward with the effort to look down, the face, pale and motionless, gazed into his own, but without the least sign of recognition. Not a feature moved: and although but a few feet separated the brothers, the face wore the dim, misty appearance of great distance. It was like the face of a man called suddenly from deep sleep — dazed, perplexed; nay, more — frightened and horribly distraught.

  What Stephen read upon it, however, in that first moment of sight, was the signature of the great, eternal question men have asked since the beginning of time, yet never heard the answer. And into the heart of the twin the pain of it plunged like a sword.

  “Mark!” he stammered, in that low voice the valley seemed to exact; “Mark! Is that really you?” Tears swam already in his eyes, and yearning in a hood choked his utterance.

  And Mark, with a dreadful, steady stare that still held no touch of recognition, gazed down upon him from the closed window of that upper chamber, motionless, unblinking as an image of stone. It was almost like an imitation figure of himself — only with the e
ffect of some added alteration. For alteration certainly there was — awful and unknown alteration — though Stephen was utterly unable to detect wherein it lay. And he remembered how the figure had passed him in the woods with averted face.

  He made then, it seems, some violent sign or other, in response to which his brother at last moved — slowly opening the window. He leaned forward, stooping with lowered head and shoulders over the sill, while Stephen ran up against the wall beneath and craned up towards him. The two faces drew close; their eyes met clean and straight. Then the lips of Mark moved, and the distraught look half vanished within the borders of a little smile of puzzled and affectionate wonder.

  “Stevie, old fellow,” issued a tiny, faraway voice; “but where are you? I see you — so dimly?”

  It was like a voice crying faintly down half-a-mile of distance. He shuddered to hear it.

  “I’m here, Mark — close to you,” he whispered.

  “I hear your voice, I feel your presence,” came the reply like a man talking in his sleep, “but I see you — as through a glass darkly. And I want to see you all clear, and close—”

  “But you! Where are you?” interrupted Stephen, with anguish.

  “Alone; quite alone — over here. And it’s cold, oh, so cold!” The words came gently, half veiling a complaint. The wind caught them and ran round the walls towards the forest, wailing as it went.

  “But how did you come, how did you come?” Stephen raised himself on tiptoe to catch the answer. But there was no answer. The face receded a little, and as it did so the wind, passing up the walls again, stirred the hair on the forehead. Stephen saw it move. He thought, too, the head moved with it, shaking slightly to and fro.