Three John Silence Stories
Page 14
impressed.Perhaps, too," he continued, gently explanatory, "it was this stirringof my imagination that caused other impressions; for, as I walked back,the spell of the place began to steal over me in a dozen ways, thoughall intelligible ways. But there were other things I could not accountfor in the least, even then."
"Incidents, you mean?"
"Hardly incidents, I think. A lot of vivid sensations crowded themselvesupon my mind and I could trace them to no causes. It was just aftersunset and the tumbled old buildings traced magical outlines against anopalescent sky of gold and red. The dusk was running down the twistedstreets. All round the hill the plain pressed in like a dim sea, itslevel rising with the darkness. The spell of this kind of scene, youknow, can be very moving, and it was so that night. Yet I felt that whatcame to me had nothing directly to do with the mystery and wonder of thescene."
"Not merely the subtle transformations of the spirit that come withbeauty," put in the doctor, noticing his hesitation.
"Exactly," Vezin went on, duly encouraged and no longer so fearful ofour smiles at his expense. "The impressions came from somewhere else.For instance, down the busy main street where men and women werebustling home from work, shopping at stalls and barrows, idly gossipingin groups, and all the rest of it, I saw that I aroused no interest andthat no one turned to stare at me as a foreigner and stranger. I wasutterly ignored, and my presence among them excited no special interestor attention.
"And then, quite suddenly, it dawned upon me with conviction that allthe time this indifference and inattention were merely feigned.Everybody as a matter of fact was watching me closely. Every movement Imade was known and observed. Ignoring me was all a pretence--anelaborate pretence."
He paused a moment and looked at us to see if we were smiling, and thencontinued, reassured--
"It is useless to ask me how I noticed this, because I simply cannotexplain it. But the discovery gave me something of a shock. Before I gotback to the inn, however, another curious thing rose up strongly in mymind and forced my recognition of it as true. And this, too, I may aswell say at once, was equally inexplicable to me. I mean I can only giveyou the fact, as fact it was to me."
The little man left his chair and stood on the mat before the fire. Hisdiffidence lessened from now onwards, as he lost himself again in themagic of the old adventure. His eyes shone a little already as hetalked.
"Well," he went on, his soft voice rising somewhat with his excitement,"I was in a shop when it came to me first--though the idea must havebeen at work for a long time subconsciously to appear in so complete aform all at once. I was buying socks, I think," he laughed, "andstruggling with my dreadful French, when it struck me that the woman inthe shop did not care two pins whether I bought anything or not. She wasindifferent whether she made a sale or did not make a sale. She was onlypretending to sell.
"This sounds a very small and fanciful incident to build upon whatfollows. But really it was not small. I mean it was the spark that litthe line of powder and ran along to the big blaze in my mind.
"For the whole town, I suddenly realised, was something other than I sofar saw it. The real activities and interests of the people wereelsewhere and otherwise than appeared. Their true lives lay somewhereout of sight behind the scenes. Their busy-ness was but the outwardsemblance that masked their actual purposes. They bought and sold, andate and drank, and walked about the streets, yet all the while the mainstream of their existence lay somewhere beyond my ken, underground, insecret places. In the shops and at the stalls they did not care whetherI purchased their articles or not; at the inn, they were indifferent tomy staying or going; their life lay remote from my own, springing fromhidden, mysterious sources, coursing out of sight, unknown. It was all agreat elaborate pretence, assumed possibly for my benefit, or possiblyfor purposes of their own. But the main current of their energies ranelsewhere. I almost felt as an unwelcome foreign substance might beexpected to feel when it has found its way into the human system and thewhole body organises itself to eject it or to absorb it. The town wasdoing this very thing to me.
"This bizarre notion presented itself forcibly to my mind as I walkedhome to the inn, and I began busily to wonder wherein the true life ofthis town could lie and what were the actual interests and activities ofits hidden life.
"And, now that my eyes were partly opened, I noticed other things toothat puzzled me, first of which, I think, was the extraordinary silenceof the whole place. Positively, the town was muffled. Although thestreets were paved with cobbles the people moved about silently, softly,with padded feet, like cats. Nothing made noise. All was hushed,subdued, muted. The very voices were quiet, low-pitched like purring.Nothing clamorous, vehement or emphatic seemed able to live in thedrowsy atmosphere of soft dreaming that soothed this little hill-towninto its sleep. It was like the woman at the inn--an outward reposescreening intense inner activity and purpose.
"Yet there was no sign of lethargy or sluggishness anywhere about it.The people were active and alert. Only a magical and uncanny softnesslay over them all like a spell."
Vezin passed his hand across his eyes for a moment as though the memoryhad become very vivid. His voice had run off into a whisper so that weheard the last part with difficulty. He was telling a true thingobviously, yet something that he both liked and hated telling.
"I went back to the inn," he continued presently in a louder voice, "anddined. I felt a new strange world about me. My old world of realityreceded. Here, whether I liked it or no, was something new andincomprehensible. I regretted having left the train so impulsively. Anadventure was upon me, and I loathed adventures as foreign to my nature.Moreover, this was the beginning apparently of an adventure somewheredeep within me, in a region I could not check or measure, and a feelingof alarm mingled itself with my wonder--alarm for the stability of whatI had for forty years recognised as my 'personality.'
"I went upstairs to bed, my mind teeming with thoughts that were unusualto me, and of rather a haunting description. By way of relief I keptthinking of that nice, prosaic noisy train and all those wholesome,blustering passengers. I almost wished I were with them again. But mydreams took me elsewhere. I dreamed of cats, and soft-moving creatures,and the silence of life in a dim muffled world beyond the senses."
II
Vezin stayed on from day to day, indefinitely, much longer than he hadintended. He felt in a kind of dazed, somnolent condition. He didnothing in particular, but the place fascinated him and he could notdecide to leave. Decisions were always very difficult for him and hesometimes wondered how he had ever brought himself to the point ofleaving the train. It seemed as though some one else must have arrangedit for him, and once or twice his thoughts ran to the swarthy Frenchmanwho had sat opposite. If only he could have understood that longsentence ending so strangely with "_a cause du sommeil et a cause deschats_." He wondered what it all meant.
Meanwhile the hushed softness of the town held him prisoner and hesought in his muddling, gentle way to find out where the mystery lay,and what it was all about. But his limited French and his constitutionalhatred of active investigation made it hard for him to buttonholeanybody and ask questions. He was content to observe, and watch, andremain negative.
The weather held on calm and hazy, and this just suited him. He wanderedabout the town till he knew every street and alley. The people sufferedhim to come and go without let or hindrance, though it became clearer tohim every day that he was never free himself from observation. The townwatched him as a cat watches a mouse. And he got no nearer to findingout what they were all so busy with or where the main stream of theiractivities lay. This remained hidden. The people were as soft andmysterious as cats.
But that he was continually under observation became more evident fromday to day.
For instance, when he strolled to the end of the town and entered alittle green public garden beneath the ramparts and seated himself uponone of the empty benches in the sun, he was quite alone--at first. Notanother seat was occupied; the little park was
empty, the pathsdeserted. Yet, within ten minutes of his coming, there must have beenfully twenty persons scattered about him, some strolling aimlessly alongthe gravel walks, staring at the flowers, and others seated on thewooden benches enjoying the sun like himself. None of them appeared totake any notice of him; yet he understood quite well they had all comethere to watch. They kept him under close observation. In the streetthey had seemed busy enough, hurrying upon various errands; yet thesewere suddenly all forgotten and they had nothing to do but loll and lazein the sun, their duties unremembered. Five minutes after he left, thegarden was again deserted, the seats vacant. But in the crowded streetit was the same thing again; he was never alone. He was ever in theirthoughts.
By degrees, too, he began to see how it was he was so cleverly watched,yet without the appearance of it. The people did nothing _directly_.They behaved