The Magicians

by J. B. Priestley

  “That is well said.” This was from Marot, and coming from that bleak presence, as if from some Alpine height, it was a handsome compliment.

  “I tell you—he is nice man,” cried Perperek. “And so unhappy—all tick-tock. I think we tell him some things.”

  “Unhappy?” Ravenstreet frowned at him. “I don’t think so, you know. A bit lost at the moment—I don’t mean because of you three but because of other things—but that’s all, I fancy.”

  Perperek did not trouble to reply but merely shook his head, before cutting for himself an uncommonly thick slice of Bel Paese.

  “One of us might prove to you that you are wrong there, Ravenstreet,” said Wayland gently.

  “Surely if a man says he isn’t unhappy, you can’t prove he’s wrong,” Ravenstreet protested.

  “You can if you give him some standard of com­parison that he accepts——”

  “But how——?”

  “Oh—it’s quite easily done. Later perhaps.”

  “Painless?” Ravenstreet gave it a touch of derision.

  “Probably not,” said Wayland dryly. “That’s a risk you’d have to take. But forgive us again if we discuss you at your own dinner-table as if you weren’t here. It’s rather urgent.” He looked at the other two. “You appreciate the problem? Is our meeting with him accident or not? If not, does it merely go a little way—that having escaped we have this place at once for further discussions? Just that, nothing else.”

  “That is my view, as you know,” said Marot. “I ask for caution in this matter.”

  “And I incline to think that it doesn’t merely go a little way,” Wayland continued in his quiet even tone. “It might go a long way. Some help may have been given here. One of the great challenges may be along this line. I feel it is.”

  “I too,” cried Perperek. “I feel it strong while I am cooking the dinner—and we talk a little—something, nothing. But then I feel it.”

  “Reply to the countermove this afternoon, you think, Perperek?” said Wayland.

  “Yes—yes—yes. I say so when you first go speak to him—you remember, Marot, I say it then?”

  “Yes, you did. And you may be right,” said Marot slowly. “And I may be too cautious. But suppose something else—that it is an extension of the counter­move—the second barrel of the gun being fired—what then?”

  “I have had most—something—what?—contact, eh?” said Perperek. “I risk it. I say some small things. Then I wait.”

  “We ought to come to a decision here and now.” Wayland looked from one to the other. “But you must agree, Marot.”

  Marot hesitated. Then he did a curious thing, which Ravenstreet was never to forget. Very slowly, like a battleship bringing its great forward guns into action, he turned his head and stared at Ravenstreet. The light was none too good now, the thunder clouds having climbed from the West to hang over the house, darkening the windows. Ravenstreet did not look away but met the challenge of these eyes, a luminous grey in that light. Ravenstreet had the feeling that his mind was being stripped, down to a level beyond his own consciousness. He didn’t move, didn’t speak. It seemed as if the world waited in silence, as if time stopped. Ravenstreet felt himself reduced to a mere spark of being. He existed, that was all.

  “Pardon!” said Marot, with a bleak smile as he broke the spell. He nodded to the other two. “It is for you to do this, Wayland, tonight if possible, while Perperek and I have some conference.”

  “A little way, just enough,” said Wayland. He looked at Ravenstreet, smiling again now. “If you don’t object.”

  “I told you, when I said I didn’t want to interfere, that naturally I’m curious, particularly as I can’t make head or tail of what you’ve been saying. What about some coffee?”

  “I have him.” And as Perperek rose, lilac-coloured light glared through the windows, the rain began drumming, and then the thunder rolled. Ravenstreet, feeling rather shaky, although as a rule his nerves were good, lit some candles and went in search of brandy and cigars. Half-an-hour later, he and Wayland settled down in the small study. The storm had gone but it was still raining heavily, making a not unpleasant sound among the leaves close to the open window. The hour after dinner, the familiar little room where he often sat when alone, the rain outside, together created an intimate atmosphere and Ravenstreet felt more at ease than he had done in the dining-room.

  “May I ask a question or two first?” said Ravenstreet.

  “I can’t pledge myself to answer them fully,” Wayland replied. “There might be too much to explain.”

  “Fair enough! But you might give me some idea of what you think you’re doing. After all, you allowed me to overhear that rum argument you had at the dinner-table, and naturally I’m curious now.”

  “If I tell you what we’re doing,” said Wayland smiling, “then you will tell me either that you don’t believe me or that we are deceiving ourselves. Then we argue, and the evening vanishes. Nothing will have been gained, much lost. I say this reluctantly, Raven­street,” he continued earnestly. “At some other time, if you wish it, I’ll spend whole days instructing you in our beliefs, the ancient wisdom. But now, with your permission, it’s I who must ask the questions.”

  “But if I knew more, I might be able to answer your questions——”

  “It doesn’t follow, my friend.” Wayland smiled again. He had a pleasant smile that at once illuminated his darkish, seamed and rather withered face, taking years off it. Ravenstreet had wanted to ask a question about their ages. He felt almost certain now that they might even be in their eighties. Magicians?

  “Perperek gave me a few facts about you.” Then he added, with a grin. “He also said you were magicians.”

  “Then I had better say the same thing, even though Perperek has always been the humorist of our group. So let us say we are three old magicians. There you are, Ravenstreet.” His tone was playful.

  “I’ll accept that—with some reservations.” Raven­street kept it light too. “You certainly knew—or guessed—what I was thinking at dinner, didn’t you? And Perperek worked the same trick—if it is a trick—when we were together in the kitchen. Is this part of the magic?” He waited a moment for a reply, but not receiving one, he continued: “And I must confess that when Marot was staring at me, at the end of dinner, I felt I was being taken to pieces and that every piece was being given a thorough examination—a most curious and alarming experience.”

  “He has that power. It requires long training. And I assure you it cannot be derived from any set of non­sensical beliefs.”

  “But magicians?” Ravenstreet laughed. “Come, come, Wayland —we’re all friends here, I hope, so it’s not necessary to——”

  But the other cut in sharply: “Perperek was trying to amuse you. Of course we don’t call ourselves magicians. We’re not working along those lines at all. We happen to have acquired some of the old tricks perhaps——” And Wayland shrugged away the rest of the sentence, leaving the last three words of it in mid-air.

  Ravenstreet looked and sounded dubious. “Too mysterious for me. What old tricks?”

  Wayland stared at him for a moment, rather as Marot had done, but then glanced at the window and gave a cry of astonishment. “Snow in July? Surely not!”

  “Impossible!”

  “See for yourself, then, Ravenstreet.”

  He had to, of course. And there it was. The whirling semi-­darkness of a heavy snowfall, with white flakes everywhere, and the ground covered already and the upper sides of branches already whitened. And what was really more remarkable was that he found at once in the scene all the enchantment he remembered from childhood, as if the fairy-tale world had returned. There seemed to be more warmth, promise and beauty in this glimpse of snowy darkness than there had been in all the wide panorama of his life during these last years. He cried out not so much with astonishment as with joy. He turned to look at Wayland, who was sitting there smiling at him. He knew then something was wro
ng. The merest glance through the window confirmed it. Not a trace of snow; the end of a thunderstorm on a July night, darkening rain noisy among the leaves; his own world again, promising nothing. He sat down heavily, a melancholy ageing man.

  “Very brilliant,” he said dully. “I congratulate you. I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”

  “It’s an old trick, snow through the window in summer, or a glimpse of a summer’s day in mid-winter. The medieval wizards are on record performing it. That’s why I chose it as a possible demonstration.”

  “Yes, very effective. No more doubts about your being magicians, Wayland. You notice I don’t sound very cheerful. Do you know why?”

  “Certainly,” replied Wayland. “You don’t like being back in your own mind again. Too bleak. Even the snow was better.”

  Ravenstreet sat up. “My God, Wayland, that’s better than your bit of hypnotism—or whatever it was. This really could be magic—and where it’s wanted too. Tell me something, then I’ll stop asking questions. What did Perperek mean by tick-tock—something about a wrong view of time, he said?”

  Wayland smiled. “Tick-tock is one of Perperek’s favourite shorthand terms, useful in any language. He uses it to describe the belief that time as it passes is destroying everything or, if you prefer it, hurrying us all down a steep track to oblivion——”

  “A belief from which I’m suffering,” said Ravenstreet.

  “From which you’re undoubtedly suffering, along with some other millions of busy, important, influen­tial men, who may now be pushing their families, friends and neighbours down the road the bees and ants went.”

  “That’s altogether too fantastic, Wayland.”

  “I don’t ask you to believe it. Remember what I said earlier, when you insisted upon asking some questions.”

  Ravenstreet, his eyes narrowed, regarded him thoughtfully. “I’m not going to argue,” he began slowly. “But naturally I overheard what you all said at dinner, and I want to get things straight, as I think you see them. And this should help you as well as me. I turn up this afternoon, just after your hotel has been pulverised by an aircraft that crashed. I think that was an accident. You don’t, obviously, and you can point out, fairly enough, that you’d moved yourselves and your bags out of the hotel, as if you knew something might happen. Anyhow, I turn up, and immediately you come across and begin talking. That wasn’t accidental, I take it?”

  “Not at all. Quite deliberate on my part.”

  “Now let me see if I have this next bit right, re­membering what you said at dinner. My turning up might simply mean that you’re being helped a little—by who or what I can’t imagine—because I immediately ask you to stay here, a move that might at least save you time and trouble. And I’ll admit I don’t know why I did it—a sudden impulse, although I’m not an im­pulsive type. But—you don’t mind this, Wayland?”

  “Please go on.”

  “But it might go further than that, in your view. I might have more to offer—might be able to tell you something you want to know, though I can’t think what—though of course I don’t know what you think you’re doing. On the other hand—and I get this again from what you said at dinner—my appearance might repre­sent a cunning move by the other side, whoever or whatever they might be, something even trickier than somehow aiming a pilotless plane at you. And that’s the risk you had to take. Have I got it right, Wayland?”

  “More or less—yes. And I must congratulate you. For a man who knows nothing about these things, you have been unusually quick and intelligent.”

  “Don’t congratulate me too soon,” said Ravenstreet, rather grimly. “Because I must confess I don’t believe a word of it. I don’t mean you’re deceiving me. But I think you’re deceiving yourselves. It isn’t that kind of world, nothing like it.”

  “So you imagine.” Wayland was quite unruffled. “But the world in which such things couldn’t happen is merely the world you’ve constructed for yourself. And you don’t even like it.”

  “True, but I think I’d like yours even less. I don’t pretend to have thought much about these things. I’m a fairly simple-minded engineer and industrialist——”

  “Who doesn’t know where he is,” said Wayland calmly, “what he ought to do, or even if life’s worth living——”

  “I’ll admit it.”

  “I must warn you that whether you think life worth living or not, you will have to live it. There’s no escape, no oblivion round the corner. Time isn’t destroying you, but neither can you destroy it. Life must be lived, but of course you can decide on what level you will live it. That is, if you know enough and are prepared to make the right effort. Our chief trouble now is that we don’t know enough and only make wrong efforts. The results might soon be dis­astrous. Which may be one reason why three eccentric elderly men are here together at Broxley Manor, thanks to the kindness of Sir Charles Ravenstreet. And now, please,” Wayland went on, in a rather sharper tone, “it is my turn to ask questions. Quite simple questions. Tell me first something about yourself.”

  Ravenstreet lit a pipe, giving himself time to think. “I’m in my middle fifties, as you can probably see,” he began slowly. “I was trained as an electrical engineer. I joined a small firm that prospered and then amalgamated with several others. My boss, Frank Crewe, was both a brilliant inventive fellow and a fine industrialist. He and I enjoyed working together. Finally, I married his daughter, who died a few years ago. We had no children. It wasn’t a very successful marriage. After Crewe died, I became Managing Director. The com­pany rapidly expanded during the War. Among other things, I helped to design a new electrical unit for submarines, for which I was knighted at the end of the War. At the last Board meeting, just recently, another man was made Managing Director. I resigned from the Board and then sold out my stock, which leaves me a fairly rich man with nothing to do. I don’t like this, I’ll admit. I’m feeling bored, stale, disappointed, perhaps rather bitter. Not a good example of the way life ought to be lived, Wayland, I’ll grant you that. But there it is.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “The chief facts. I’ve met some men recently who have an idea I might join them in an enterprise they have in mind, quite a new field to me. Nothing’s been decided yet. This seems to interest you.” For he had noticed a certain quickening in the other man.

  “It does. What is this new enterprise, please?”

  Ravenstreet took out his pipe and stared at it for a moment, “I don’t think that’s a fair question, Wayland, if you don’t mind my saying so. If it were my show, I’d tell you all about it. But it isn’t. And I gave my word not to talk about it. I know you’re magicians,” and he smiled broadly, “not business men or journalists. But talk soon gets around. No, Wayland, I’m sorry.”

  “I could give you my promise that I would only mention this new enterprise to Marot and Perperek—and only then if I thought it really necessary—and that none of us would talk about it. And I can assure you we have trained ourselves to keep silent, to avoid chatter.”

  “I can believe that,” said Ravenstreet, who could. “But I still don’t think it’s good enough. Sorry!”

  “Very well. Then do something else, which would not involve you in breaking your word, Ravenstreet. Please describe one of these men you have met recently. If there is a leader, describe him. How did he strike you? What did he say—about himself, his aims, his views of life?”

  Ravenstreet thought this over. After some con­sideration he found himself not merely willing but eager to describe his meeting with Mervil, whose name, however, he did not mention. As soon as he began remembering that evening, much of the talk came back to him, though he was careful to say nothing about Sepman’s drug. Wayland listened very carefully, occasionally throwing in a question or asking Raven­street to repeat something.

  “And that is all,” Wayland said finally. “Except of course any discussion you had concerning the new enterprise. One question about that—no, I’m not asking yo
u to break your word. But there is something I must know. Could this new enterprise affect the lives of many, many people?”

  “I think I can answer that. Yes—millions, if it should be successful.”

  Wayland rose. “Thank you. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll talk to the other two for a few minutes. And there’s something I’d like you to do for me while I’m gone. Don’t think about this business at all. Begin to think about your own life. Explore the past. That might be useful when I return.”

  But he did not return. To Ravenstreet’s surprise, it was Marot who came in. “I have come in Wayland’s place,” he announced gravely.

  “To do what? That sounds offensive but it isn’t meant to be.”

  “I do not take it so. Yes, I have a purpose. To persuade you, by an example, that your view of life is wrong and ours is right.”

  “More magic?”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. But we think we may need some help from you. If you think we are fooling our­selves, you will refuse that help. But this time it is not a little trick with snow. This is more serious. I wish to show you some part of your life. You have been thinking about it, Wayland says——?”

  “I tried to do what he asked me to do.”

  “Then continue, please. Think of an important time, when you perhaps came to some important decision. Don’t trouble about me. Imagine I am not here. You are alone—with your life. Now then, please!”

  Suddenly Ravenstreet had to laugh, not long and hard but noisily enough to disturb and then anger the old Frenchman, who sat erect, his gaunt frame towering above the chair back, and glared down at Ravenstreet, who was lolling at ease. “I’m sorry, Marot. I shouldn’t have done that. But suddenly the whole thing seemed so ridiculous. I know it’s not funny to you, but——”

  “It will not be funny to you either,” cried Marot. “You will see. I ask you again—think of some important time, some important decision you once made——”