It was curious, too, the way the feeling first got into him at all, here in the full swing of laughter, music, light-heartedness, for it came as a vague suggestion: ‘I’ve forgotten something — something I meant to do — something of importance. What in the world was it, now?’ And he thought hard, searching vainly through his mind; then dismissed it as the dancing caught his attention. It came back a little later again, during a passage of long-winded talk that bored him and set his atten¬tion free once more, but came more strongly this time, insisting on an answer. What could it have been that he had overlooked, left undone, omitted to see to? It went on nibbling at the sub¬conscious part of him. Several times this happened, this dismissal and return, till at last the thing declared itself more plainly — and he felt bothered, troubled, distinctly uneasy.
He was wanted somewhere. There was somewhere else he ought to be. That describes it best, perhaps. Some engage¬ment of moment had entirely slipped his memory — an engage¬ment that involved another person, too. But where, what, with whom? And at length, this vague uneasiness amounted to positive discomfort, so that he felt unable to enjoy the piece — and left abruptly. Like a man to whom comes suddenly the horrible idea that the match he lit his cigarette with and flung into the waste-paper basket on leaving was not really out — a sort of panic distress — he jumped into a taxi-cab and hurried to his flat: to find everything in order, of course; no smoke, no fire, no smell of burning.
But his evening was spoilt. He sat smoking in his armchair at home — this business man of forty, practical in mind, of character some called stolid — cursing himself for an imaginative fool. It was now too late to go back to the theatre; the club bored him; he spent an hour with the evening papers, dipping into books, sipping a long cool drink; doing odds and ends about the flat; ‘I’ll go to bed early for a change,’ he laughed, but really all the time fighting — yes, deliberately fighting — this strange attack of uneasiness that so insidiously grew upwards, outwards from the buried depths of him that sought so strenuously to deny it. It never occurred to him that he was ill. He was not ill. His health was thunderingly good. He was robust as a coal-heaver.
The flat was roomy, high up on the top floor, yet in a busy part of town, so that the roar of traffic mounted round it like a sea. Through the open windows came the fresh night air of June. He had never noticed before how sweet the London night air could be, and that not all the smoke and dust could smother a certain touch of wild fragrance that tinctured it with perfume — yes, almost perfume — as of the country. He swallowed a draught of it as he stood there, staring out across the tangled world of roofs and chimney-pots. He saw the procession of the clouds; he saw the stars; he saw the moon¬light falling in a shower of silver spears upon the slates and wires and steeples. And something in him quickened — some¬thing that had never stirred before.
He turned with a horrid start, for the uneasiness had of a sud¬den leaped within him like an animal. There was some one in the flat.
Instantly, with action, even this slight action, the fancy vanished; but, all the same, he switched on the electric lights and made a search. For it seemed to him that some one had crept up close behind him while he stood there watching the Night — some one, moreover, whose silent presence fingered with unerring touch both this new thing that had quickened in his hear and that sense of original deep uneasiness. He was amazed at himself, angry; indignant that he could be thus foolishly upset over nothing, yet at the same time profoundly distressed at this vehement growth of a new thing in his well-ordered personality. Growth? He dismissed the word the moment it occurred to him. But it had occurred to him. It stayed. While he searched the empty flat, the long passages, the gloomy bedroom at the end, the little hail where he kept his overcoats and golf sticks — it stayed. Growth! It was oddly disquieting. Growth, to him, involved — though he neither acknowledged nor recognised the truth perhaps-¬some kind of undesirable changeableness, instability, unbalance.
Yet, singular as it all was, he realised that the uneasiness and the sudden appreciation of Beauty that was so new to him had both entered by the same door into his being. When he came back to the front room he noticed that he was perspiring. There were little drops of moisture on his forehead. And down his spine ran positively chills — little, faint quivers of cold. He was shivering.
He lit his big meerschaum pipe, and left the lights all burning. The feeling that there was something he had overlooked, forgotten, left undone, had vanished. Whatever the original cause of this absurd uneasiness might be — he called it absurd on purpose, because he now realised in the depths of him that it was really more vital then he cared about — it was much nearer to discovery than before. It dodged about just below the threshold of discovery. It was as dose as that. Any moment he would know what it was: he would remember. Yes, he would remember. Meanwhile, he was in the right place. No desire to go elsewhere afflicted him, as in the theatre. Here was the place, here in the flat.
And then it was, with a kind of sudden burst and rush — it seemed to him the only way to phrase it — memory gave up her dead.
At first he only caught her peeping round the corner at him, drawing aside a corner of an enormous curtain, as it were; striving for more complete entrance as though the mass of it were difficult to move. But he understood; he knew; he recognised. It was enough for that. An entrance into his being — heart, mind, soul — was being attempted, and the entrance, because of his stolid temperament, was difficult of accomplishment. There was effort, strain. Something in him had first to be opened up, widened, made soft and ready as by an operation, before full entrance could be effected. This much he grasped, though for the life of him he could not have put it into words. Also, he knew who it was that sought an entrance. Deliberately from himself he withheld the name. But he knew, as surely as though Straughan stood in the room and faced him with a knife, saying, ‘Let me in, let me in. I wish you to know I’m here. I’m clearing a way...! You recall our promise...?’
He rose from his chair and went to the open window again, the strange fear slowly passing. The cool air fanned his cheeks. Beauty, till now, had scarcely ever brushed the surface of his soul. He had never troubled his head about it. It passed him by, indifferent; and he had ever loathed the mouthy prating of it on others’ lips. He was practical; beauty was for dreamers, for women, for men who had means and leisure. He had not exactly scorned it; rather it had never touched his life, to sweeten, cheer, uplift. Artists for him were like monks — another sex almost, useless beings who never helped the world go round. He was for action always, work, activity, achievement — as he saw them. He remembered Straughan vaguely — Straughan, the ever impecunious, friend of his youth, always talking of colour, sound — mysterious, ineffective things. He even forgot what they had quarrelled about, if they had quarrelled at all even; or why they had gone apart all these years ago. And, certainly, he had forgotten any promise. Memory, as yet, only peeped round the corner of that huge curtain at him, tentatively, suggestively yet — he was obliged to admit it — somewhat winningly. He was conscious of this gentle, sweet seductiveness that now replaced his fear.
And, as he stood now at the open window, peering over huge London, Beauty came close and smote him between the eyes. She came blindingly, with her train of stars and douds and perfumes. Night, mysterious, myriad-eyed, and flaming across her sea of haunted shadows, invaded his heart and shook him with her immemorial wonder and delight. He found no words, of course, to dothe the new, unwonted sensations. He only knew that all his former dread, uneasiness, distress, and with them this idea of ‘growth’ that had seemed so repugnant to him, were merged, swept up, and gathered magnificently home into a wave of Beauty that enveloped him. ‘See it ... and understand,’ ran a secret inner whisper across his mind. He saw. He understood....
He went back and turned the lights out. Then he took his place again at that open window, drinking in the night. He saw a new world; a species of intoxication held him. He sighed ... as his
thoughts blundered for expression among words and sentences that knew him not. But the delight was there, the wonder, the mystery. He watched, with heart al¬ternately tightening and expanding, the transfiguring play of moon and shadow over the sea of buildings. He saw the dance of the hurrying clouds, the open patches into outer space, the veiling and unveiling of that ancient silvery face; and he caught strange whispers of the hierophantic, sacerdotal Power that had echoed down the world since Time began and dropped strange magic phrases into every poet’s heart since first ‘God dawned on Chaos’ — the Beauty of the Night....
A long time passed — it may have been one hour, it may have been three — when at length he turned away and went slowly to his bedroom. A deep peace lay over him. Something quite new and blessed had crept into his life and thought. He could not quite understand it all. He only knew that it uplifted. There was no longer the least sign of affliction or distress. Even the inevitable reaction that, of course, set in could not destroy that.
And then, as he lay in bed, nearing the borderland of sleep, suddenly and without any obvious suggestion to bring it, he remembered another thing. He remembered the promise. Memory got past the big curtain for an instant, and showed her face. She looked into his eyes. It must have been a dozen years ago when Straughan and he had made that foolish, solemn promise that whoever died first should show himself, if possible, to the other.
He had utterly forgotten it — till now. But Straughan had not forgotten it. The letter came three weeks later, from India. That very evening Straughan had died — at nine o’clock. And he had come back — in the Beauty that he loved.
SAND
I
As Felix Henriot came through the streets that January night the fog was stifling, but when he reached his little flat upon the top floor there came a sound of wind. Wind was stirring about the world. It blew against his windows, but at first so faintly that he hardly noticed it. Then, with an abrupt rise and fall like a wailing voice that sought to claim attention, it called him. He peered through the window into the blurred darkness, listening.
There is no cry in the world like that of the homeless wind. A vague excitement, scarcely to be analysed, ran through his blood. The curtain of fog waved momentarily aside. Henriot fancied a star peeped down at him.
“It will change things a bit — at last,” he sighed, settling back into his chair. “It will bring movement!”
Already something in himself had changed. A restlessness, as of that wandering wind, woke in his heart — the desire to be off and away. Other things could rouse this wildness too: falling water, the singing of a bird, an odour of wood-fire, a glimpse of winding road. But the cry of wind, always searching, questioning, travelling the world’s great routes, remained ever the master-touch. High longing took his mood in hand. Mid seven millions he felt suddenly — lonely.
“I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
He murmured the words over softly to himself. The emotion that produced Innisfree passed strongly through him. He too would be over the hills and far away. He craved movement, change, adventure — somewhere far from shops and crowds and motor-’busses. For a week the fog had stifled London. This wind brought life.
Where should he go? Desire was long; his purse was short.
He glanced at his books, letters, newspapers. They had no interest now. Instead he listened. The panorama of other journeys rolled in colour through the little room, flying on one another’s heels. Henriot enjoyed this remembered essence of his travels more than the travels themselves. The crying wind brought so many voices, all of them seductive:
There was a soft crashing of waves upon the Black Sea shores, where the huge Caucasus beckoned in the sky beyond; a rustling in the umbrella pines and cactus at Marseilles, whence magic steamers start about the world like flying dreams. He heard the plash of fountains upon Mount Ida’s slopes, and the whisper of the tamarisk on Marathon. It was dawn once more upon the Ionian Sea, and he smelt the perfume of the Cyclades. Blue-veiled islands melted in the sunshine, and across the dewy lawns of Tempe, moistened by the spray of many waterfalls, he saw — Great Heavens above! — the dancing of white forms ... or was it only mist the sunshine painted against Pelion?... “Methought, among the lawns together, we wandered underneath the young grey dawn. And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind....”
And then, into his stuffy room, slipped the singing perfume of a wall-flower on a ruined tower, and with it the sweetness of hot ivy. He heard the “yellow bees in the ivy bloom.” Wind whipped over the open hills — this very wind that laboured drearily through the London fog.
And — he was caught. The darkness melted from the city. The fog whisked off into an azure sky. The roar of traffic turned into booming of the sea. There was a whistling among cordage, and the floor swayed to and fro. He saw a sailor touch his cap and pocket the two-franc piece. The syren hooted — ominous sound that had started him on many a journey of adventure — and the roar of London became mere insignificant clatter of a child’s toy carriages.
He loved that syren’s call; there was something deep and pitiless in it. It drew the wanderers forth from cities everywhere: “Leave your known world behind you, and come with me for better or for worse! The anchor is up; it is too late to change. Only — beware! You shall know curious things — and alone!”
Henriot stirred uneasily in his chair. He turned with sudden energy to the shelf of guide-books, maps and time-tables — possessions he most valued in the whole room. He was a happy-go-lucky, adventure-loving soul, careless of common standards, athirst ever for the new and strange.
“That’s the best of having a cheap flat,” he laughed, “and no ties in the world. I can turn the key and disappear. No one cares or knows — no one but the thieving caretaker. And he’s long ago found out that there’s nothing here worth taking!”
There followed then no lengthy indecision. Preparation was even shorter still. He was always ready for a move, and his sojourn in cities was but breathing-space while he gathered pennies for further wanderings. An enormous kit-bag — sack-shaped, very worn and dirty — emerged speedily from the bottom of a cupboard in the wall. It was of limitless capacity. The key and padlock rattled in its depths. Cigarette ashes covered everything while he stuffed it full of ancient, indescribable garments. And his voice, singing of those “yellow bees in the ivy bloom,” mingled with the crying of the rising wind about his windows. His restlessness had disappeared by magic.
This time, however, there could be no haunted Pelion, nor shady groves of Tempe, for he lived in sophisticated times when money markets regulated movement sternly. Travelling was only for the rich; mere wanderers must pig it. He remembered instead an opportune invitation to the Desert. “Objective” invitation, his genial hosts had called it, knowing his hatred of convention. And Helouan danced into letters of brilliance upon the inner map of his mind. For Egypt had ever held his spirit in thrall, though as yet he had tried in vain to touch the great buried soul of her. The excavators, the Egyptologists, the archaeologists most of all, plastered her grey ancient face with labels like hotel advertisements on travellers’ portmanteaux. They told where she had come from last, but nothing of what she dreamed and thought and loved. The heart of Egypt lay beneath the sand, and the trifling robbery of little details that poked forth from tombs and temples brought no true revelation of her stupendous spiritual splendour. Henriot, in his youth, had searched and dived among what material he could find, believing once — or half believing — that the ceremonial of that ancient system veiled a weight of symbol that was reflected from genuine supersensual knowledge. The rituals, now taken literally, and so pityingly explained away, had once been genuine pathways of approach. But never yet, and least of all in his previous visits to Egypt itself, had he discovered one single person, worthy of speec
h, who caught at his idea. “Curious,” they said, then turned away — to go on digging in the sand. Sand smothered her world to-day. Excavators discovered skeletons. Museums everywhere stored them — grinning, literal relics that told nothing.
But now, while he packed and sang, these hopes of enthusiastic younger days stirred again — because the emotion that gave them birth was real and true in him. Through the morning mists upon the Nile an old pyramid bowed hugely at him across London roofs: “Come,” he heard its awful whisper beneath the ceiling, “I have things to show you, and to tell.” He saw the flock of them sailing the Desert like weird grey solemn ships that make no earthly port. And he imagined them as one: multiple expressions of some single unearthly portent they adumbrated in mighty form — dead symbols of some spiritual conception long vanished from the world.
“I mustn’t dream like this,” he laughed, “or I shall get absent-minded and pack fire-tongs instead of boots. It looks like a jumble sale already!” And he stood on a heap of things to wedge them down still tighter.
But the pictures would not cease. He saw the kites circling high in the blue air. A couple of white vultures flapped lazily away over shining miles. Felucca sails, like giant wings emerging from the ground, curved towards him from the Nile. The palm-trees dropped long shadows over Memphis. He felt the delicious, drenching heat, and the Khamasin, that over-wind from Nubia, brushed his very cheeks. In the little gardens the mish-mish was in bloom.... He smelt the Desert ... grey sepulchre of cancelled cycles.... The stillness of her interminable reaches dropped down upon old London....
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 439