The Algernon Blackwood Collection

by Algernon Blackwood

  The stream of time went backwards as I gazed, or, rather, it stopped flowing altogether and held steady in a sea that had no motion. I sought the familiar points in her, plunging below the surface with each separate one to find what I— remembered. The eyes, wide open in the somnambulistic lucidity, were no longer of a nondescript mild grey, but shone with the splendour I had already half surprised in them before; the poise of the neck, the set of the shoulders beneath the white linen of her simple nightdress, had subtly, marvellously changed. She stood in challenge to a different world. It seemed to me that I saw the Soul of her, attended by the retinue of memories, experience, knowledge of all its past, summed up sublimely in a single moment. She was superb.

  The outward physical change was, possibly, of the slightest, yet wore just that touch of significant alteration which conveyed authority. The tall, lithe figure moved with an imperial air; she raised her arm towards the open window; she spoke. The voice was very quiet, but it held new depth, sonority and accent. She had not seen me yet where I stood in the shadows by the wall, for Julius screened me somewhat, but I experienced that familiar clutch of dread upon the heart that once before — ages and ages ago — had overwhelmed me. Memory poured back upon my own soul too.

  “Concerighe,” she uttered, looking full at Julius while her hand pointed towards the moonlit valley. “They stand ready. The air is breaking and the fire burns. Then where is he? I called him.”

  And Julius, looking from her face to mine, answered softly: “He is beside you — close. He is ready with us too. But the appointed time — the Equinox — is not quite yet.”

  The pointing hand sank slowly to her side. She turned her face towards me and she — saw. The gaze fell full upon my own, the stately head inclined a little. We both advanced; she took my outstretched hand, and at the touch a shock as of wind and fire seemed to drive against me with almost physical violence. I heard her voice.

  “Silvatela — we meet — again!” Her eyes ran over in a smile of recognition as the old familiar name came floating to me through the little room. But for the firm clasp of her hand I should have dropped, for there was a sudden weakness in my knees, and my senses reeled a moment. “We meet again,” she repeated, while her splendid gaze held mine, “yet to you it is a dream. Memory in you lies unawakened still. And the fault is ours.”

  She turned to Julius; she took his hand too; we stood linked together thus; and she smiled into her husband’s eyes. “His memory,” she said, “is dim. He has forgotten that we wronged him. Yet forgiveness is in his soul that only half remembers.” And the man who was her husband of Today said low in answer: “He forgives and he will help us now. His love forgives. The delay we caused his soul he may forget, but to the Law there is no forgetting possible. We must — we shall — repay.”

  The clasp of our hands strengthened; we stood there linked together by the chain of love both past and present that knows neither injustice nor forgetting.

  Then, with the words, as also with the clasping hands that joined us into one, some pent up barrier broke down within my soul, and a flood of light burst over me within that made all things for a moment clear. There came a singular commotion of the moonlit air outside the window, as if the tide that brimmed the valley overflowed and poured about us in the room. I stood transfixed and speechless before the certainty that Nature, in the guise of two great elements, flooded in and shared our passionate moment of recognition. A blinding confusion of times and places struggled for possession of me. For a tempest of memories surged past, driven tumultuously by sheeted flame and rushing wind. The inner hurricane lasted but a second. It rose, it fell, it passed away. I was aware that I saw down into deep, prodigious depths as into a pool of water, crystal clear; veil lifted after veil; memory revived.

  I shuddered; for it seemed my present self slipped out of sight while this more ancient consciousness usurped its place. My little modern confidence collapsed; the mind that doubts and criticises, but never knows, fell back into its smaller role. The sum-total that was Me remembered and took command. And realising myself part of a living universe, I answered her:

  “With love and sympathy,” I uttered in no uncertain tones, “and with complete forgiveness too.”

  In that little bedroom of a mountain chalet, lit by the moon and candle-light, we stood together, our bodies joined by the clasp of hands, and our ancient souls united in a single purpose.

  I looked into the eyes of this great woman, imperially altered in her outward aspect, magnificent in the towering soul of her; I looked at Julius, stately as some hierophantic figure who mastered Nature by comprehending her; I felt their hands, his own firm and steady, hers clasping softly, tenderly, yet with an equal strength; and I realised that I stood thus between them, not merely in this isolated mountain valley, but in the full tide of life whose source rose in the fountains of an immemorial past, Nature and human-nature linked together in a relationship that was a practical reality. Our three comrade-souls were reunited in an act of restitution; sharing, or about to share, a ceremony that had cosmic meaning.

  And the beauty of the woman stole upon my heart, bringing the loveliness of the universe, while Julius brought its strength.

  “This time,” I said aloud, “you shall not fail. I am with you both in sympathy, forgiveness, — love.”

  Their hands increased the pressure on my own.

  Her eyes held mine as she replied: “This duty that we owe to Nature and to you — so long — so long ago.”

  “To me?” I faltered.

  With shining eyes, and a smile divinely tender, she answered: “Love shall repay. We have delayed you by our deep mistake.”

  “We shall undo the wrong we worked upon you,” I heard Julius say. “We stole the channel of your body. And we failed.”

  “My love and sympathy are yours,” I repeated, as we drew closer still together. “I bear you no ill-will....”

  And then she continued gravely, but ever with that solemn beauty lighting up her face:

  “Oh, Silvatela, it seems so small a thing in the long, long journey of our souls. We were too ambitious only. The elemental Powers we tried to summon through your vacated body are still unhoused. The fault was not yours; it was our ambition and our faithlessness. I loved you to your undoing — you sacrificed yourself so willingly, loving me, alas, too well. The failure came. Instead of becoming as the gods, we bear this burden of a mighty debt. We owe it both to you and to the universe. Fear took us at the final moment — and you returned too soon — robbed of the high teaching that was yours by right, your progress delayed thereby, your memory clouded now....”

  “My development took another turning,” I said, hardly knowing whence the knowledge came to me, “no more than that. It was for love of you that I returned too soon — the fault, was mine. It was for the best — there has been no real delay.” But there mingled in me a memory both clouded and unclouded. There was a confusion beyond me to unravel. I only knew our love was marvellous, although the fuller motives remained entangled. “It is all forgiven,” I murmured.

  “Your forgiveness,” she answered softly, “is of perfect love. We loved each other then — nor have we quite forgotten now. This time, at least, we shall ensure success. The Powers stand ready, waiting; we are united; we shall act as one. At the Equinox we shall restore the balance; and memory and knowledge shall be yours a hundredfold at last.”

  The voice of Julius interrupted, though so low it was scarcely audible:

  “I offer myself. It is just and right, not otherwise. The risk must be all mine. Once accomplished” — he turned to me with power in his face — “we shall provide you with the privilege you lost through us. Our error will then be fully expiated and the equilibrium restored. It is an expiation and a sacrifice. Nature in this valley works with us now, and behind it is the universe — all, all aware....”

  It seemed to me she leaped at him across the space between us. Our hands released. Perhaps, with the breaking of our physical co
ntact, some measure of receptiveness went out of me, or it may have been the suddenness of the unexpected action that confused me. I no longer fully understood. Some bright clear flame of comprehension wavered, dimmed, went out in me. Even the words that passed between them then I did not properly catch. I saw that she clasped him round the neck while she uttered vehement words that he resisted, turning aside as with passionate refusal. It was — this, at least, I grasped before the return of reason in me broke our amazing union and left confusion in the place of harmony — that each one sought to take the risk upon himself, herself. The channel of evocation — a human system — I dimly saw, was the offering each one burned to make. The risk, in some uncomprehended way, was grave. And I stepped forward, though but half understanding what it was I did. I offered, to the best of my memory and belief — offered myself as a channel, even as I had offered or permitted long ago in love for her.

  For I had discerned the truth, and knew deep suffering, nor cared what happened to me. It was the older Self in her that gave me love, while her self of Today

  — the upper self — loved Julius. Mine was the old subconscious love unrecognised by her normal self; the love of the daily, normal self was his.

  The look upon their faces stopped me. They moved up closer, taking my hands again. The moonlight fell in a silver pool upon the wooden flooring just between us; it clothed her white-clad figure with its radiance; it shone reflected in the eyes of Julius. I heard the tinkling of the little stream outside, beginning its long journey to an earthly sea. The nearer pine trees rustled. And her voice came with this moonlight, wind and water, as though the quiet night became articulate.

  “So great is your forgiveness, so deep our ancient love,” she murmured. And while she said it, both he and she together made the mightiest gesture I have ever seen upon small human outlines — a gesture of resignation and refusal that yet conveyed power as though a forest swayed or some great sea rolled back its flood. There was this sublime suggestion in the wordless utterance by which they made me know my offering was impossible. For Nature behind both of them said also No....

  Then, with a quiet motion that seemed gliding rather than the taking of actual steps, her figure withdrew slowly towards the door. Her face turned from me as when the moon slips down behind a cloud. Erect and stately, as though a marble statue passed from my sight by some interior motion of its own, her figure entered the zone of shadow just beyond the door. The sound of her feet upon the boards was scarcely audible. The narrow passage took her. She was gone.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  ..................

  I STOOD ALONE WITH JULIUS, Nature alive and stirring strangely, as with aggressive power, just beyond the narrow window-sill on which he leaned.

  “You understand,” he murmured, “and you remember too — at last.”

  I made no reply. There are moments when extraordinary emotions, beyond expression either of tears or laughter, move the heart as with the glory of another world. And one of these was certainly upon me now. I knew things that I did not understand. A pageant of incomparable knowledge went past me, yet, as it were, just out of reach. The memories that offered themselves were too enormous — and too different — to be grasped intelligently by the mind.

  And yet one thing I realised clearly: that the elemental powers of Nature already existing in every man and woman in small degree, could know an increase, an intensification, which, directed rightly, might exalt humanity. The consciousness of those olden days knew direct access to Nature. And the method, for which no terms exist Today in any spoken language, was that feeling-with which is adoration, and that desiring sympathy which is worship. The script of Nature wrote it clear. To read it was to act it out. The audacity of their fire-stealing ambition in the past I understood, and so forgave. My memory, further than this, refused to clear....

  I remember that we talked together for a space; and it was longer than I realised at the time, for before we separated the moon was down behind the ridges and the valley lay in a single blue-black shadow. There was confusion on my heart and mind. The self in me that asked and answered seemed half of Today and half of Yesterday.

  “She remembered,” Julius said below his breath yet with deep delight; “she recognised us both. In the morning she will have again forgotten, for she knows not how to bring the experiences of deep sleep over into her upper consciousness.”

  “She said ‘they waited.’ There are — others — in this valley?” It was more a statement to myself than a question, but he answered it:

  “Everywhere and always there are others. But just now in this valley they are near to us and active. I have sent out the call.”

  “You have sent out the call,” I repeated without surprise and yet with darkened meaning. “Yes, I knew — I was aware of it.” My older consciousness was sinking down again.

  “By worship,” he interrupted, “the worship of many weeks. We have worshipped and felt-with, intensifying the link already established by those who lived before us here. Your attitude is also worship. Together we shall command an effective summons that cannot fail. Already they are aware of us, and at the Equinox their powers will come close — closer than love or hunger.”

  “In ourselves,” I muttered. “Aware of their activities in ourselves!”

  And my mouth went suddenly dry as I heard his quiet answer:

  “We shall feel their immense activities in ourselves as they return to their appointed places whence we first evoked them. Through one of our three bodies they must pass — the bodiless ones.” A silence fell between us. The blood beat audibly in my ears like drums.

  “They need a body — again?” I whispered.

  He bowed his head. “The channel, as before,” he whispered with deep intensity, “of a human organism — a brain, a mind, a body.” And, seeing perhaps that I stared with a bewilderment half fear and half refusal, he added quietly, “In the raw, they are too vast for human use, their naked, glassy essence impossible to hold. They must mingle first with our own smaller powers that are akin to them, and thus take on that restraint which enables the human will to harness their colossal strength. Alone I could not accomplish this, but with the three of us, merged by our love into a single unit ”

  “But the risk — you both spoke of?” I asked it impatiently, yet it was only a thick whisper that I heard.

  There was a little pause before he answered me.

  “There are two risks,” he said with utmost gravity in his voice and face. “The descent of such powers may cause a shattering of the one on whom they first arrive — he is the sacrifice. My death — any consequent delay — • might thus be the expiation I offer in the act of their release. That is the first, the lesser risk.”

  He paused, then added: “But I shall not fail.”

  “And — should you!” My voice had dwindled horribly.

  “The Powers, once summoned, would — automatically — seek another channel: the channel for their return — in case I failed. That is the second and the greater risk.”

  “Your wife?” The words came out with such difficulty that they were scarcely audible. But Julius heard them.

  He shook his head. “For herself there is no danger,” he answered. “My love of today, and yours of yesterday protect her. Nor has it anything to do with you,” he added, seeing the touch of fear that flashed from my eyes beyond my power to conceal it. “The Powers, deprived of my control in the case of my collapse beneath the strain, would follow the law of their own beings automatically. They would seek the easiest channel they could find. They would follow the line of least resistance.”

  And, realising that it was the other human occupant of the house he meant, I experienced a curious sensation of pity and relief; and with a hint of grandeur in my thought, I knew with what fine pathetic willingness, with what wholehearted simplicity of devotion, this faithful “younger soul” would offer himself to help in so big a purpose — if he understood.

  It was with an appalling shock
that I reahsed my mistake. Julius, watching me closely, divined my instant thought. He made a gesture of dissent. To my complete amazement, I saw him shake his head.

  “An empty and deserted organism, as yours was at the time we used it for our evocation,” he said slowly; “an organism unable to offer resistance owing to its being unoccupied — that is the channel, if it were available, which they would take. When the soul is out — or not yet — in.”

  We gazed fixedly at one another for a time I could not measure. I knew his awful meaning. For to me, in that first moment of comprehension, it seemed too terrible, too incredible for belief. I staggered over to the open window. Julius came after me and laid his hand upon my shoulder.

  “The body is but the instrument,” I heard him murmur; “the vehicle of the soul that uses it. Only at the moment of birth does a soul move in to take possession. The parents provide it, helpless and ignorant as to who eventually shall take command. And if this thing happened — though the risk is small ”

  I turned and faced him as he stopped.

  “A monster!”

  “An elemental being, a child of the elements ”

  “Non-human?” I gasped.

  “Nature and human-nature linked,” he replied with curious reverence. “A cosmic being born in a human body. Only I shall not fail.”

  And before I could find another word to utter, or even acknowledge the quick pressure of his hand upon my own, I heard his step upon the passage boards, and found myself alone again. I stood by the open window, gazing into the deep, star-lit sky above this mountain valley on our little, friendly Earth, prey to emotions that derived from another, but forgotten planet — emotions, therefore, that no “earthly” words can attempt to fathom or describe....