Philip Van Doren Stern (ed)

by Travelers In Time

  "But," I said, "what about Musset and Baudelaire?"

  My guide seemed astonished. "Musset?" he said. "I have never heard of a writer called Musset."

  "Alfred de Musset," I suggested.

  "There is a Secretary of the French Embassy here by that name, but as far as we know he has never written anything. As for Baudelaire, his hymns, psalms, and meditations are fervent and pious, and deserve respect, but they are so ultra-devotional and so full of technical theology and the jargon of the sacristy, that they would certainly find no public here. Cardinal Byron, it is true, admires them greatly, and has even published a translation of some of the hymns. No, we have little use for the goody-goody milk-and-water idealism here. All that would never go down in the country of Miss Austen." . "But," I objected, "surely Miss Austen was a great artist."

  "Certainly, certainly, as great as the Pyramids, but artist is hardly the word. It is true she created the whole world, but she looked at the universe through the distorted lens of her lurid and monstrous imagination. She dipped her pen into the waters of Tartarus, so that she invests a page boy with the personality of a Hannibal, and lends satanic proportions to the meanest of her rogues. Yet what she saw she described with such minute accuracy and with such wealth of detail, and abundance and even redundance of description, that the critics have almost universally acclaimed her as the founder of the great realistic-naturalistic English novel, whereas if they would only think more carefully they would see that Miss Austen is the last of the great romantic poets, the lineal descendant of Pope and Cowper, and the kindred spirit and rival of that most flamboyant of all the romantics, Crabbe."

  "And Russian literature?" I asked. "Has that had any influence here?"

  "Ever since the Russian Republic and the United States of Russia were called into being by the Emperor Alexander I in 1819, Russian art and literature practically came to an end. Politics and business engrossed the minds of the rising generation there, and, as General John Bright, that dashing cavalry soldier, so well put it: 'The Russians are completely inartistic. They are a nation of shopkeepers.' "

  "But are not we fighting the Russians in the Crimea now?" I asked.

  "We are fighting in the Crimea, but not against the Russians. They are our Allies and we are fighting the Turks. The Emperor Constan-tine has arranged with our Foreign Secretary, Feargus O'Connor, that Russia is to have Constantinople, we are to take Egypt, and the French are to have Syria. As for Palestine, it is possible that the Jews may be allowed to go there. Ever since their expulsion from England, twenty years ago, they have greatly complained of having nowhere to live."

  Just at that moment an open carriage drove by drawn by four white horses with postilions and outriders. Inside the carriage a magnificent BARING: THE ALTERNATIVE

  Englishman with a long black beard bowed to the populace, who cheered. I asked who it was.

  "That is the King of Greece, once better known as Lord Elcho. He is here on a visit. The Greeks just now are very popular, as we are fighting the Turks."

  We had passed the Houses of Parliament and had reached the doors of what I took to be a large theatre.

  "Here," said my guide, "I must leave you. I must go to rehearsal."

  "One moment," I said. "There is one name we have not mentioned connected with the world of literature: that of Charles Dickens. Are his works popular?"

  My guide was convulsed with laughter.

  "That," he said, "is a really good joke. Charles Dickens a writer!"

  "But------ " I said.

  "My dear sir," he answered, "you surely are not going to argue the point with me. I am Charles Dickens, and your humble servant, an actor by profession, and if you would like to see me play Paul Pry tonight I can give you an order for a box, and supper and some grilled bones afterwards."

  I was about to answer something when I once again felt dizzy, and when I recovered consciousness again I was sitting in my rooms. I was alone this time, and the time by the clock was 1.16.1 had been asleep for a minute.

  Visitors from Out of Time

  $»> cj»» £fe>

  From Four-in-Hand, by J. B. Priestley, reprinted by permission of A. D. Peters & W. N. Roughead.

  Mr. Stent erry s Tale

  By J. B. PRIESTLEY

  "AND THANK YOU," SAID THE LANDLADY, WITH THE MECHANICAL CHEER-

  fulness of her kind. She pushed across the counter one shilling and four coppers, which all contrived to get wet on the journey. "Yes, it's quiet enough. Sort of weather to bring them in too, though it's a bit early yet for our lot. Who's in the Private Bar?" She craned her fat little neck, peered across the other side, and then returned, looking very confidential. "Only one. But he's one of our reg'lars. A bit too reg'lar, if you ask me, Mr. Strenberry is."

  I put down my glass, and glanced out, through the open door. All I could see was a piece of wet road. The rain was falling now with that precision which suggests it will go on for ever. It was darker too. "And who is Mr. Strenberry?" I enquired, merely for want of something better to do. It did not matter to me who Mr. Strenberry was.

  The landlady leaned forward a little. "He's the schoolmaster from ^lown the road," she replied, in a delighted whisper. "Been here— oh, lemme see—it must be four years, might be five. Came from London here. Yes, that's where he came from, London. Sydenham, near the Crystal Palace, that's his home. I know because he's told me so himself, and I've a sister that's lived near there these twenty years."

  I said nothing. There did not seem to be anything to say. The fact that the local schoolmaster came from Sydenham left me as uninterested as it found me. So I merely nodded, took another sip, and filled a pipe.

  The landlady glanced at me with a faint reproach in her silly prominent eyes. "And he's queer is Mr. Strenberry," she added, with something like defiance. "Oh yes, he's queer enough. Clever, y'know—in a sort of way, book-learning and all that, if you follow my meanin'—but, well—he's queer."

  "In what way is he queer?" It was the least I could do.

  She put her hand up to her mouth. "His wife left him. That's about two years ago. Took their little boy with her too. Gone to stay with relations, it was given out, but we all knew. She left him all right. Just walked out one fine morning and the little boy with her. Nice little boy, too, he was. He lives alone now, Mr. Strenberry. And a nice mess, too, I'll be bound. Just look at his clothes. He won't be schoolmaster-ing here much longer neither. He's been given a few warnings, that I do know. And you can't blame 'em, can you?"

  I replied, with the melancholy resignation that was expected of me, that I could not blame them. Clearly, Mr. Strenberry, with his nice mess, his clothes, his general queerness, would not do.

  The landlady shook her head and tightened her lips. "It's the same old trouble now. Taking too much. I don't say getting drunk—because, as far as I can see, he doesn't—but still, taking too much, too reg'lar with it. A lot o' people, temperancers and that sort," she went on, bitterly, "think we want to push it down customers' throats. All lies. I never knew anybody that kept a decent house that didn't want people to go steady with it. I've dropped a few hints to Mr. Strenberry, but he takes no notice. And what can you do? If he's quiet, behaves himself, and wants it, he's got to have it, hasn't he? We can't stop him. However, I don't want to say too much. And anyhow it isn't just what he takes that makes him queer. It's the way he goes on, and what he says—when he feels like saying anything, and that's not often."

  "You mean, he talks queerly?" I said, casually. Perhaps a man of ideas, Mr. Strenberry.

  "He might go a week, he might go a fortnight, and not a word-except 'Good evening' or 'Thank you,' for he's always the gentleman in here, I must say—will you get out of him. Some of the lively ones try to draw him out a bit, pull his leg as you might say—but not a word. Then, all of a sudden, he'll let himself go, talk your head off.

  And you never heard such stuff. I don't say I've heard much of it myself because I haven't the time to listen to it and I can't be both
ered with it, but some of the other customers have told me. If you ask me, it's a bit of a shame, the way they go on, because it's getting to be

  a case of---- " And here she tapped her forehead significantly. "Mind

  you, it may have been his queemess that started all his troubles, his wife leaving him and all that. There's several that knows him better than I do will tell you that. Brought it all on himself, they say. But it does seem a pity, doesn't it?"

  She looked at me mournfully for about a second and a half, then became brisk and cheerful again. "He's in there now," she added, and bustled away to the other side of the bar, where two carters were demanding half-pints.

  I went to the outer door and stood there a moment, watching the persistent rain. It looked as if I should not be able to make a move for at least half an hour. So I ordered another drink and asked the landlady to serve it in the Private Bar, where Mr. Strenberry was hiding his queemess. Then I followed her and took a seat near the window, only a few feet away from Mr. Strenberry.

  He was sitting there behind a nearly empty glass, with an unlighted stump of cigarette drooping from a comer of his mouth. Everything about him was drooping. He was a tall, slack, straggling sort of fellow; his thin greying hair fell forward in front; his nose was long, with something pendulous about its reddened tip; his moustache drooped wearily; and even his chin fell away, as if in despair. His eye had that boiled look common to all persevering topers.

  "Miserable day," I told him.

  "It is," he said. "Rotten day." He had a high-pitched but slightly husky voice, and I imagined that its characteristic tone would probably be querulous.

  There was silence then, or at least nothing but the sound of the rain outside and the murmur of voices from the bar. I stared at the Highlanders and the hunting men who, from various parts of the room, invited you to try somebody's whisky and somebody else's port.

  "Got a match?" said Mr. Strenberry, after fumbling in his pockets.

  I handed him my matchbox and took the opportunity of moving a little nearer. It was obvious that that stump of cigarette would not last him more than half a minute, so I offered him my cigarette case too.

  "Very quiet in here," I remarked.

  "For once," he replied, a kind of weak sneer lighting up his face. "Lucky for us too. There are more fools in this town than in most, and they all come in here. Lot of loud-mouthed idiots. I won't talk to 'em, won't waste my breath on 'em. They think there's something wrong with me here. They would." He carefully drained his glass, set it down, then pushed it away.

  I hastened to finish my glass of bitter. Then I made a pretence of examining the weather. "Looks as if I shall have to keep under cover for another quarter of an hour or so," I said carelessly. "I'm going to have another drink. Won't you join me?"

  After a little vague humming and spluttering, he said he would, and thanked me. He asked for a double whisky and a small soda.

  "And so you find the people here very stupid?" I said, after we had taken toll of our fresh supply of drink. "They often are in these small towns."

  "All idiots," he muttered. "Not a man with an educated mind amongst them. But then—education! It's a farce, that's all it is, a farce. I come in here—I must go somewhere, you know—and I sit in a corner and say nothing. I know what they're beginning to think. Oh, I've seen them—nudging, you know, giving each other the wink. I don't care. One time I would have cared. Now I don't. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters, really."

  I objected mildly to this pessimism.

  "I know," he went on, looking at me sombrely. "You needn't tell me. I can see you're an intelligent man, so it's different. But you can't argue with me, and I'll tell you why. You see, you don't know what I know. Oh, I don't care if they do think I'm queer. I am queer. And so would you be if you'd seen what I've seen. They wouldn't because they wouldn't have the sense. . . ." His voice trailed away. He shrugged his thin sloping shoulders. His face took on a certain obstinate look that you often see on the faces of weak men. Evidently he thought he had said too much.

  I was curious now. "I don't see what you mean," I began. "No doubt you've had unpleasant experiences, but then most of us have at some time or other." I looked at him expectantly.

  "I don't mean that," he said, raising his voice and adding a touch of scorn. "This is different. You wouldn't understand, unless I told you it all. Even then you mightn't. It's difficult. Oh, what's the use!" He finished his whisky in one quick gulp. "Well, I wish you'd tell me."

  Doubtfully, mournfully, he examined my face, then he stared about the room, pulling his straggling and drooping moustache. "Could I have another cigarette?" he asked, finally. When he had lit it, he blew out a cloud of smoke, then looked at me again.

  "I've seen something nobody else has seen," said Mr. Strenberry. "I've seen the end of it all, all this," he waved a hand and gave a bitter little laugh, "building houses, factories, education, public health, churches, drinking in pubs, getting children, walking in fields, everything, every mortal blessed thing. That's what I've seen, a glimpse anyhow. Finish! Finish! The End!"

  "It sounds like doomsday," I told him.

  "And that's what it was," cried Mr. Strenberry, his face lighting up

  strangely. "Anyhow, that's what it amounted to. I can't think about

  anything else. And you couldn't either, if you'd been there. I've gone

  back to it, thought about it, thought round and round it, oh, thou-

  sands of times! Do you know Opperton Heath? You do? Well, that's

  where it happened, nearly three years ago. That's all, three years ago.

  I'd gone up there for a walk and to have a look at the birds. I used to

  be very interested in birds—my God, I've dropped that now—and

  there are one or two rare kinds up on the Heath there. You know

  what it's like—lonely. I hadn't met a soul all afternoon. That's the

  worst of it. If there'd only been somebody else there- "

  He broke off, took up his smouldering cigarette, put it down again and stared in front of him. I kept quiet, afraid that a chance word might suddenly shut him up altogether.

  "It was a warm afternoon," he said, beginning again as abruptly as he had stopped, "and I was lying on the grass, smoking. I remember I was wondering whether to hurry back and get home in time for tea or to stay where I was and not bother about tea. And I wish to God I'd decided to go back, before it happened. But I didn't. There I was, warm, a bit drowsy, just looking at the Heath. Not a soul in sight. Very quiet. If I could write poetry, I'd write a poem about the Heath as I saw it then, before the thing happened. It's all I would write too. The last five minutes there." He broke off again, and I believe there were tears in his eyes. He looked a figure of maudlin self-pity, but nevertheless it may have been the lost peace and beauty of the world that conjured up those tears. I did not know then. I do not know now.

  "Then I saw something," said Mr. Strenbeny. "It was a sort of disturbance in the air, not fifty yards from where I was. I didn't take much notice at first, because you get that flickering on a warm day up there. But this went on. I can't describe it properly, not to make you see it. But in a minute or two, you couldn't help noticing it. Like a thin revolving column of air. A waterspout made of air, if you see what I mean? And there was something dark, something solid, in the centre of it. I thought it must have something to do with a meteor. I got up and went closer, cautiously, you know, taking no chances. It didn't seem to be affecting anything else. There was no wind or anything. Everything was as quiet as it was before. But this column of air was more definite now, though I can't exactly explain how it came to look so definite. But you knew it was there all right, like seeing one piece of glass against another piece. Only there was movement in this, and faster than the fastest piece of machinery you ever set eyes on. And that dark thing in the centre was solider every second. I went closer still. And then the movement inside the column—like a glassy sort of pillar it was, though that
doesn't quite give you the idea—stopped, though there was still a flickering and whirling on the outside. I could see that dark thing plainly now. It was a man—a sort of man."

  Mr. Strenberry shut his eyes, put his hands up to them, and leaned forward on his elbows. In the quiet that followed, I could hear two fellows laughing in the bar outside. They were shouting something about a litter of pigs.

  "He was a lightish greeny-blue in colour, this man," Mr. Strenberry continued, "and the same all over. He'd no clothes on, but I got the idea that he'd a very tough skin, leathery, y'know. It shone a bit too. He'd no hair on him at all, and didn't look as if he'd shaved it all off but as if he'd never had any. He was bigger than me, bigger than you, but no giant. I should say he was about the size and figure of one of your big heavyweight boxers—except for his head. He'd a tremendous head—and of course as bald as an egg—and a wonderful face. I can see it now. It was flatfish, like some of the faces of the Egyptian statues in the British Museum, but what you noticed the minute you saw it, were the eyes. They were more like a beautiful woman's eyes than a man's, very big and soft, y'know, but bigger and softer than any woman's eyes—and such a colour, a kind of dark purple. Full of intelligence too. Blazing with it, I knew that at once. In fact, I could see that this man was as far above me as I am above a Hottentot. More highly developed, y'know. I'm not saying this because of what I learned afterwards. I saw it at once. You couldn't mistake it. This greeny-blue hairless man knew a million things we'd never heard of, and you could see it in his eyes. Well, there he was, and he stared at me and I stared at him."