“Precisely,” continued Mr. Skale, bringing him back to reality, “precisely. And now, before I tell you more, you will forgive my asking you one or two personal questions, I’m sure. We must build securely as we go, leaving nothing to chance. The grandeur and importance of my experiments demand it. Afterwards,” and his expression changed to a sudden softness in a way that was characteristic of the man, “you must feel free to put similar questions to me, as personal and direct as you please. I wish to establish a perfect frankness between us at the start.”
“Thank you, Mr. Skale. Of course—er—should anything occur to me to ask—” A momentary bewilderment, caused by the great visage so close to his own, prevented the completion of the sentence.
“As to your beliefs, for instance,” the clergyman resumed abruptly, “your religious beliefs, I mean. I must be sure of you on that ground. What are you?”
“Nothing—I think,” Spinrobin replied without hesitation, remembering how his soul had bounced its way among the various creeds since Cambridge, and arrived at its present state of Belief in Everything, yet without any definite label. “Nothing in particular. Nominally, though—a Christian.”
“You believe in a God?”
“A Supreme Intelligence, most certainly,” was the emphatic reply.
“And spirits?”
Spinrobin hesitated. He was a very honest soul.
“Other life, let me put it,” the clergyman helped him; “other beings besides ourselves?”
“I have often felt—wondered, rather,” he answered carefully, “whether there might not be other systems of evolution besides humanity. Such extraordinary Forces come blundering into one’s life sometimes, and one can’t help wondering where they come from. I have never formulated any definite beliefs, however—”
“Your world is not a blind chaos, I mean?” Mr. Skale put gravely to him, as though questioning a child.
“No, no, indeed. There’s order and system—”
“In which you personally count for something of value?” asked the other quickly.
“I like to think so,” was the apologetic reply. “There’s something that includes me somewhere in a purpose of very great importance—only, of course, I’ve got to do my part, and—”
“Good,” Mr. Skale interrupted him. “And now,” he asked softly, after a moment’s pause, leaning forward, “what about death? Are you afraid of death?”
Spinrobin started visibly. He began to wonder where this extraordinary catechism was going to lead. But he answered at once: he had thought out these things and knew where he stood.
“Only of its possible pain,” he said, smiling into the bearded visage before him. “And an immense curiosity, of course—”
“It does not mean extinction for you—going out like the flame of a candle, for instance?”
“I have never been able to believe that, Mr. Skale. I continue somewhere and somehow—forever.”
The cross-examination puzzled him more and more, and through it, for the first time, he began to feel dimly, ran a certain strain of something not quite right, not permissible in the biggest sense. It was not the questions themselves that produced this odd and rather disquieting impression, but the fact that Mr. Skale was preparing the ground with such extraordinary thoroughness. This conversation was the first swell, as it were, rolling mysteriously in upon him from the ocean in whose deeps the great Experiment lay buried. Forces, tidal in strength, oceanic in volume, shrouded it just now, but he already felt them. They reached him through the person of the clergyman. It was these forces playing through his personality that Spinrobin had been aware of the first moment they met on the station platform, and had “sensed” even more strongly during the walk home across the mountains.
Behind the play of these darker impressions, as yet only vague and ambiguous, there ran in and out among his thoughts the vein of something much sweeter. Miriam, with her large grey eyes and silvery voice, was continually peeping in upon his mind. He wondered where she was and what she was doing in the big, lonely house. He wished she could have been in the room to hear his answers and approve them. He felt incomplete without her. Already he thought of her as the melody to which he was the accompaniment, two things that ought not to be separated.
“My point is,” Mr. Skale continued, “that, apart from ordinary human ties, and so forth, you have no intrinsic terror of death—of losing your present body?”
“No, no,” was the reply, more faintly given than the rest. “I love my life, but—but—” he looked about him in some confusion for the right words, still thinking of Miriam—"but I look forward, Mr. Skale; I look forward.” He dropped back into the depths of his armchair and puffed swiftly at the end of his extinguished cigarette, oblivious of the fact that no smoke came.
“The attitude of a brave man,” said the clergyman with approval. Then, looking straight into the secretary’s blue eyes, he added with increased gravity: “And therefore it would not be immoral of me to expose you to an experiment in which the penalty of a slip would be—death? Or you would not shrink from it yourself, provided the knowledge to be obtained seemed worth while?”
“That’s right, sir—Mr. Skale, I mean; that’s right,” came the answer after an imperceptible pause.
The result of the talk seemed to satisfy the clergyman. “You must think my questions very peculiar,” he said, the sternness of his face relaxing a little, “but it was necessary to understand your exact position before proceeding further. The gravity of my undertaking demands it. However, you must not let my words alarm you.” He waited a moment, reflecting deeply. “You must regard them, if you will, as a kind of test,” he resumed, searching his companion’s face with eagle eyes, “the beginning of a series of tests in which your attitude to Miriam and hers to you, so far as that goes, was the first.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Skale,” was his inadequate rejoinder; for the moment the name of the girl was introduced his thoughts instantly wandered out to find her. The way the clergyman pronounced it increased its power, too, for no name he uttered sounded ordinary. There seemed a curious mingling in the resonant cavity of his great mouth of the fundamental note and the overtones.
“Yes, you have the kind of courage that is necessary,” Mr. Skale was saying, half to himself, “the modesty that forgets self, and the unworldly attitude that is essential. With your help I may encompass success; and I consider myself wonderfully fortunate to have found you, wonderfully fortunate….”
“I’m glad,” murmured Spinrobin, thinking that so far he had not learned anything very definite about his duties, or what it was he had to do to earn so substantial a salary. Truth to tell, he did not bother much about that part of it. He was conscious only of three main desires: to pass the unknown tests, to learn the nature of Mr. Skale’s discovery, with the experiment involved, and—to be with Miriam as much as possible. The whole affair was so unusual that he had already lost the common standards of judging. He let the sliding platform take him where it would, and he flattered himself that he was not fool enough to mistake originality for insanity. The clergyman, dreamer and enthusiast though he might be, was as sane as other men, saner than most.
“I hope to lead you little by little to what I have in view,” Mr. Skale went on, “so that at the end of our trial month you will have learned enough to enable you to form a decision, yet not enough to—to use my knowledge should you choose to return to the world.”
It was very frank, but the secretary did not feel offended. He accepted the explanation as perfectly reasonable. In his mind he knew full well what his choice would be. This was the supreme adventure he had been so long a-seeking. No ordinary obstacle could prevent his accepting it.
II
There came a pause of some length, in which Spinrobin found nothing particular to say. The lamp gurgled; the coals fell softly into the fender. Then suddenly Mr. Skale rose and stood with his back to the grate. He gazed down upon the small figure in the chair. He towered there,
a kindly giant, enthusiasm burning in his eyes like lamps. His voice was very deep, his manner more solemn than before when he spoke.
“So far, so good,” he said, “and now, with your permission, Mr. Spinrobin, I should like to go a step further. I should like to take—your note.”
“My note?” exclaimed the other, thinking he had not heard correctly.
“Your sound, yes,” repeated the clergyman.
“My sound!” piped the little man, vastly puzzled, his voice shrill with excitement. He dodged about in the depths of his big leather chair, as though movement might bring explanation.
Mr. Skale watched him calmly. “I want to get the vibrations of your voice, and then see what pattern they produce in the sand,” he said.
“Oh, in the sand, yes; quite so,” replied the secretary. He remembered how the vibrations of an elastic membrane can throw dry sand, loosely scattered upon its surface, into various floral and geometrical figures. Chladni’s figures, he seemed to remember, they were called after their discoverer. But Mr. Skale’s purpose in the main, of course, escaped him.
“You don’t object?”
“On the contrary, I am greatly interested.” He stood up on the mat beside his employer.
“I wish to make quite sure,” the clergyman added gravely, “that your voice, your note, is what I think it is—accurately in harmony with mine and Miriam’s and Mrs. Mawle’s. The pattern it makes will help to prove this.”
The secretary bowed in perplexed silence, while Mr. Skale crossed the room and took a violin from its case. The golden varnish of its ribs and back gleamed in the lamplight, and when the clergyman drew the bow across the strings to tune it, smooth, mellow sounds, soft and resonant as bells, filled the room. Evidently he knew how to handle the instrument. The notes died away in a murmur.
“A Guarnerius,” he explained, “and a perfect pedigree specimen; it has the most sensitive structure imaginable, and carries vibrations almost like a human nerve. For instance, while I speak,” he added, laying the violin upon his companion’s hand, “you will feel the vibrations of my voice run through the wood into your palm.”
“I do,” said Spinrobin. It trembled like a living thing.
“Now,” continued Mr. Skale, after a pause, “what I first want is to receive the vibrations of your own voice in the same way—into my very pulses. Kindly read aloud steadily while I hold it. Stop reading when I make a sign. I’ll nod, so that the vibrations of my voice won’t interfere.” And he handed a notebook to him with quotations entered neatly in his own handwriting, selected evidently with a purpose, and all dealing with sound, music, as organized sound, and names. Spinrobin read aloud; the first quotation from Meredith he recognized, but the others, and the last one, discussing names, were new to him:—
“But listen in the thought; so may there come
Conception of a newly-added chord,
Commanding space beyond where ear has home.
“Everything that the sun shines upon sings or can be made to sing, and can be heard to sing. Gases, impalpable powders, and woolen stuffs, in common with other non-conductors of sound, give forth notes of different pitches when played upon by an intermittent beam of white light. Colored stuffs will sing in lights of different colors, but refuse to sing in others. The polarization of light being now accomplished, light and sound are known to be alike. Flames have a modulated voice and can be made to sing a definite melody. Wood, stone, metal, skins, fibers, membranes, every rapidly vibrating substance, all have in them the potentialities of musical sound.
“Radium receives its energy from, and responds to, radiations which traverse all space—as piano strings respond to sounds in unison with their notes. Space is all a-quiver with waves of radiant energy. We vibrate in sympathy with a few strings here and there—with the tiny X-rays, actinic rays, light waves, heat waves, and the huge electromagnetic waves of Hertz and Marconi; but there are great spaces, numberless radiations, to which we are stone deaf. Some day, a thousand years hence, we shall know the full sweep of this magnificent harmony.
“Everything in nature has its name, and he who has the power to call a thing by its proper name can make it subservient to his will; for its proper name is not the arbitrary name given to it by man, but the expression of the totality of its powers and attributes, because the powers and attributes of each Being are intimately connected with its means of expression, and between both exists the most exact proportion in regard to measure, time, and condition.”
The meaning of the four quotations, as he read them, plunged down into him and touched inner chords very close to his own beliefs. Something of his own soul, therefore, passed into his voice as he read. He read, that is to say, with authority.
A nod from Mr. Skale stopped him just as he was beginning a fifth passage. Raising the vibrating instrument to his ear, the clergyman first listened a moment intently. Then he quickly had it under his chin, beard flowing over it like water, and the bow singing across the strings. The note he played—he drew it out with that whipping motion of the bow only possible to a loving expert—was soft and beautiful, long drawn out with a sweet singing quality. He took it on the G string with the second finger—in the “fourth position.” It thrilled through him, Spinrobin declares, most curiously and delightfully. It made him happy to hear it. It was very similar to the singing vibrations he had experienced when Miriam gazed into his eyes and spoke his name.
“Thank you,” said Mr. Skale, and laid the violin down again. “I’ve got the note. You’re E flat.”
“E flat!” gasped Spinrobin, not sure whether he was pleased or disappointed.
“That’s your sound, yes. You’re E flat—just as I thought, just as I hoped. You fit in exactly. It seems too good to be true!” His voice began to boom again, as it always did when he was moved. He was striding about, very alert, very masterful, pushing the furniture out of his way, his eyes more luminous than ever. “It’s magnificent.” He stopped abruptly and looked at the secretary with a gaze so enveloping that Spinrobin for an instant lost his bearings altogether. “It means, my dear Spinrobin,” he said slowly, with a touch of solemnity that woke an involuntary shiver deep in his listener’s being, “that you are destined to play a part, and an important part, in one of the grandest experiments ever dreamed of by the heart of man. For the first time since my researches began twenty years ago I now see the end in sight.”
“Mr. Skale—that is something—indeed,” was all the little man could find to say.
There was no reason he could point to why the words should have produced a sense of chill about his heart. It was only that he felt again the huge groundswell of this vast unknown experiment surging against him, lifting him from his feet—as a man might feel the Atlantic swells rise with him towards the stars before they engulfed him forever. It seemed getting a trifle out of hand, this adventure. Yet it was what he had always longed for, and his courage must hold firm. Besides, Miriam was involved in it with him. What could he ask better than to risk his insignificant personality in some gigantic, mad attempt to plumb the Unknown, with that slender, little pale-faced Beauty by his side? The wave of Mr. Skale’s enthusiasm swept him away deliciously.
“And now,” he cried, “we’ll get your Pattern too. I no longer have any doubts, but none the less it will be a satisfaction to us both to see it. It must, I’m sure, harmonies with ours; it must!”
He opened a cupboard drawer and produced a thin sheet of glass, upon which he next poured some finely powdered sand out of a paper bag. It rattled, dry and faint, upon the smooth, hard surface. And while he did this, he talked rapidly, boomingly, with immense enthusiasm.
“All sounds,” he said, half to himself, half to the astonished secretary, “create their own patterns. Sound builds; sound destroys; and invisible sound-vibrations affect concrete matter. For all sounds produce forms—the forms that correspond to them, as you shall now see. Within every form lies the silent sound that first called it into view—into visible shape�
�into being. Forms, shapes, bodies are the vibratory activities of sound made visible.”
“My goodness!” exclaimed Spinrobin, who was listening like a man in a dream, but who caught the violence of the clergyman’s idea none the less.
“Forms and bodies are—solidified Sound,” cried the clergyman in italics.
“You say something extraordinary,” exclaimed the commonplace Spinrobin in his shrill voice. “Marvelous!” Vaguely he seemed to remember that Schelling had called architecture “frozen music.”
Mr. Skale turned and looked at him as a god might look at an insect—that he loved.
“Sound, Mr. Spinrobin,” he said, with a sudden and effective lowering of his booming voice, “is the original divine impulsion behind nature—communicated to language. It is—creative!”
Then, leaving the secretary with this nut of condensed knowledge to crack as best he could, the clergyman went to the end of the room in three strides. He busied himself for a moment with something upon the wall; then he suddenly turned, his great face aglow, his huge form erect, fixing his burning eyes upon his distracted companion.
“In the Beginning,” he boomed solemnly, in tones of profound conviction, “was—the Word.” He paused a moment, and then continued, his voice filling the room to the very ceiling. “At the Word of God—at the thunder of the Voice of God, worlds leaped into being!” Again he paused. “Sound,” he went on, the whole force of his great personality in the phrase, “was the primordial, creative energy. A sound can call a form into existence. Forms are the Sound-Figures of archetypal forces—the Word made Flesh.” He stopped, and moved with great soft strides about the room.
Spinrobin caught the words full in the face. For a space he could not measure—considerably less than a second, probably—the consciousness of something unutterably immense, unutterably flaming, rushed tumultuously through his mind, with wings that bore his imagination to a place where light was—dazzling, white beyond words. He felt himself tossed up to Heaven on the waves of a great sea, as the body of strange belief behind the clergyman’s words poured through him…. For somewhere, behind the incoherence of the passionate language, burned the blaze of a true thought at white heat—could he but grasp it through the stammering utterance.
The Algernon Blackwood Collection Page 47