doorlocked as usual. Then I half dressed and went out on to the landing, myhilarity better under control, and proceeded to go downstairs. I wishedto record my sensations. I stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth so asnot to scream aloud and communicate my hysterics to the entirehousehold."
"And the presence of this--this--?"
"It was hanging about me all the time," said Pender, "but for the momentit seemed to have withdrawn. Probably, too, my laughter killed all otheremotions."
"And how long did you take getting downstairs?"
"I was just coming to that. I see you know all my 'symptoms' in advance,as it were; for, of course, I thought I should never get to the bottom.Each step seemed to take five minutes, and crossing the narrow hall atthe foot of the stairs--well, I could have sworn it was half an hour'sjourney had not my watch certified that it was a few seconds. Yet Iwalked fast and tried to push on. It was no good. I walked apparentlywithout advancing, and at that rate it would have taken me a week to getdown Putney Hill."
"An experimental dose radically alters the scale of time and spacesometimes--"
"But, when at last I got into my study and lit the gas, the change camehorridly, and sudden as a flash of lightning. It was like a douche oficy water, and in the middle of this storm of laughter--"
"Yes; what?" asked the doctor, leaning forward and peering into hiseyes.
"--I was overwhelmed with terror," said Pender, lowering his reedyvoice at the mere recollection of it.
He paused a moment and mopped his forehead. The scared, hunted look inhis eyes now dominated the whole face. Yet, all the time, the corners ofhis mouth hinted of possible laughter as though the recollection of thatmerriment still amused him. The combination of fear and laughter in hisface was very curious, and lent great conviction to his story; it alsolent a bizarre expression of horror to his gestures.
"Terror, was it?" repeated the doctor soothingly.
"Yes, terror; for, though the Thing that woke me seemed to have gone,the memory of it still frightened me, and I collapsed into a chair. ThenI locked the door and tried to reason with myself, but the drug made mymovements so prolonged that it took me five minutes to reach the door,and another five to get back to the chair again. The laughter, too, keptbubbling up inside me--great wholesome laughter that shook me like gustsof wind--so that even my terror almost made me laugh. Oh, but I may tellyou, Dr. Silence, it was altogether vile, that mixture of fear andlaughter, altogether vile!
"Then, all at once, the things in the room again presented their funnyside to me and set me off laughing more furiously than ever. Thebookcase was ludicrous, the arm-chair a perfect clown, the way the clocklooked at me on the mantelpiece too comic for words; the arrangement ofpapers and inkstand on the desk tickled me till I roared and shook andheld my sides and the tears streamed down my cheeks. And that footstool!Oh, that absurd footstool!"
He lay back in his chair, laughing to himself and holding up his handsat the thought of it, and at the sight of him Dr. Silence laughed, too.
"Go on, please," he said, "I quite understand. I know something myselfof the hashish laughter."
The author pulled himself together and resumed, his face growing quicklygrave again.
"So, you see, side by side with this extravagant, apparently causelessmerriment, there was also an extravagant, apparently causeless terror.The drug produced the laughter, I knew; but what brought in the terror Icould not imagine. Everywhere behind the fun lay the fear. It was terrormasked by cap and bells; and I became the playground for two opposingemotions, armed and fighting to the death. Gradually, then, theimpression grew in me that this fear was caused by the invasion--so youcalled it just now--of the 'person' who had wakened me: she was utterlyevil; inimical to my soul, or at least to all in me that wished forgood. There I stood, sweating and trembling, laughing at everything inthe room, yet all the while with this white terror mastering my heart.And this creature was putting--putting her--"
He hesitated again, using his handkerchief freely.
"Putting what?"
"--putting ideas into my mind," he went on glancing nervously about theroom. "Actually tapping my thought-stream so as to switch off the usualcurrent and inject her own. How mad that sounds! I know it, but it'strue. It's the only way I can express it. Moreover, while the operationterrified me, the skill with which it was accomplished filled me afreshwith laughter at the clumsiness of men by comparison. Our ignorant,bungling methods of teaching the minds of others, of inculcating ideas,and so on, overwhelmed me with laughter when I understood this superiorand diabolical method. Yet my laughter seemed hollow and ghastly, andideas of evil and tragedy trod close upon the heels of the comic. Oh,doctor, I tell you again, it was unnerving!"
John Silence sat with his head thrust forward to catch every word of thestory which the other continued to pour out in nervous, jerky sentencesand lowered voice.
"You saw nothing--no one--all this time?" he asked.
"Not with my eyes. There was no visual hallucination. But in my mindthere began to grow the vivid picture of a woman--large, dark-skinned,with white teeth and masculine features, and one eye--the left--sodrooping as to appear almost closed. Oh, such a face--!"
"A face you would recognise again?"
Pender laughed dreadfully.
"I wish I could forget it," he whispered, "I only wish I could forgetit!" Then he sat forward in his chair suddenly, and grasped the doctor'shand with an emotional gesture.
"I _must_ tell you how grateful I am for your patience and sympathy," hecried, with a tremor in his voice, "and--that you do not think me mad. Ihave told no one else a quarter of all this, and the mere freedom ofspeech--the relief of sharing my affliction with another--has helped mealready more than I can possibly say."
Dr. Silence pressed his hand and looked steadily into the frightenedeyes. His voice was very gentle when he replied.
"Your case, you know, is very singular, but of absorbing interest tome," he said, "for it threatens, not your physical existence but thetemple of your psychical existence--the inner life. Your mind wouldnot be permanently affected here and now, in this world; but in theexistence after the body is left behind, you might wake up with yourspirit so twisted, so distorted, so befouled, that you would be_spiritually insane_--a far more radical condition than merely beinginsane here."
There came a strange hush over the room, and between the two men sittingthere facing one another.
"Do you really mean--Good Lord!" stammered the author as soon as hecould find his tongue.
"What I mean in detail will keep till a little later, and I need onlysay now that I should not have spoken in this way unless I were quitepositive of being able to help you. Oh, there's no doubt as to that,believe me. In the first place, I am very familiar with the workings ofthis extraordinary drug, this drug which has had the chance effect ofopening you up to the forces of another region; and, in the second, Ihave a firm belief in the reality of supersensuous occurrences as wellas considerable knowledge of psychic processes acquired by long andpainful experiment. The rest is, or should be, merely sympathetictreatment and practical application. The hashish has partially openedanother world to you by increasing your rate of psychical vibration, andthus rendering you abnormally sensitive. Ancient forces attached to thishouse have attacked you. For the moment I am only puzzled as to theirprecise nature; for were they of an ordinary character, I should myselfbe psychic enough to feel them. Yet I am conscious of feeling nothing asyet. But now, please continue, Mr. Pender, and tell me the rest of yourwonderful story; and when you have finished, I will talk about the meansof cure."
Pender shifted his chair a little closer to the friendly doctor and thenwent on in the same nervous voice with his narrative.
"After making some notes of my impressions I finally got upstairs againto bed. It was four o'clock in the morning. I laughed all the way up--atthe grotesque banisters, the droll physiognomy of the staircase window,the burlesque grouping of the furniture, and the memory of thatoutrageous footstool
in the room below; but nothing more happened toalarm or disturb me, and I woke late in the morning after a dreamlesssleep, none the worse for my experiment except for a slight headache anda coldness of the extremities due to lowered circulation."
"Fear gone, too?" asked the doctor.
"I seemed to have forgotten it, or at least ascribed it to merenervousness. Its reality had gone, anyhow for the time, and all that dayI wrote and wrote and wrote. My sense of laughter seemed wonderfullyquickened and my characters acted without effort out of the heart oftrue humour. I was exceedingly pleased with this result of myexperiment. But when the stenographer had taken her departure and I cameto read over the pages she had typed out, I recalled her sudden glancesof surprise and the odd way she had looked up at
Three John Silence Stories Page 3