Short Stories 1895-1926

by Walter De la Mare

  ‘What were they like?’ said he anxiously.

  ‘All white,’ said I laughing.

  ‘Ah! don’t giggle, my boy!’ said he. ‘I see, you are yet in your veal. Drunkenness and women are the whole duty of the twenties. I am not drunk.’ (His manner defied incredulity.) ‘One minute’s silence, my boy. I must see the end of this. The place is black under the pines, and soon the moon will be swallowed up by the drift. Two minutes!’ Whereupon he rolled back his pupils, and with white blind eyes stood gently swaying to and fro in a yellow ribbon of sunlight. Through the green of the trees I could see the unrhythmic flutter of my aunt’s lavender ribbons. Patiently, and with some alarm, I awaited the return of Uncle’s pupils. Presently they again revolved, and returned to their normal position. Trouble is brewing,’ said he, blinking at the sun, ‘but yet he stalks on inscrutable.’ He heaved a prodigious sigh, and clutched at my wrist. ‘My heart will knuckle under some day,’ said he. ‘Feel that!’ He placed my hand upon a piston-rod just above his watch fob. Blue had mingled with the red in his face. I deemed it better to be dumb. ‘You see, my boy,’ he continued in an asthmatic voice, ‘if your aunt knew of these things, it would be farewell to quiet. She would never cease to worry. Besides, your aunt is not fanciful. Why should she be?’ he asked himself strenuously.

  ‘Can I be of any help?’ said I. ‘I have skimmed a few medical books. I know a chap in Guy’s. I might, you know —’

  ‘Medical books be damned!’ said my uncle. This I took to be a reassuring symptom. ‘I am not a monstrosity,’ he added irritably; ‘my carcase is my own. Hang it! I’ll tell you, Edmond. Let me tell you all from the beginning; the burden grows irksome upon my back. Only the night shares it with me. He is on his trackless travels even now, and I am not there to see. Scoff if you please, but do not preach. Sit down, my boy; your aunt is good for ten minutes.’

  His gravity astonished me even more than his eccentricity. I sat down at the foot of an apple tree and leaned my back against its whitewashed trunk. My uncle did likewise.

  ‘I remember,’ said he, wrinkling his lids, ‘I remember a dream frequently dreamed when I was about six or seven years old; I used to wake wet and shaking. It was a simple dream of an interminable path between walls of white smooth stone. By that way one might walk to eternity, or space, or infinity. You understand?’

  I nodded my head.

  ‘Remember, my boy, I find it hard work to prose – I would sooner be watching. The dream never came back to me after I was twelve years old, but since then I have had other dreams, as false to the Ten Commandments. I have seen things which Nature would spit out of her mouth. Yet each one has been threaded, each has been one of an interminable sequence. There’s a theory written under the letter D in a little book I used to keep when I first entered the bank, “A Theory concerning Dreams Expressed Algebraically” – the result of mental flatulency. So far you are clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ said I.

  ‘Well, last autumn, towards the end of October, a time of strong winds, I was troubled with many sleepless nights. Being retired from the bank I could not occupy my mind with mental arithmetic, so, having no dry goods to carry in my head, I simply gave unlimited rope to my thoughts. Now I wear the halter. On 5th November, Guy Fawkes’ Day (I remember that your aunt complained of a strong smell of gunpowder in the bedroom), at a quarter to two, by St Simon’s clock, I was lying flat upon my back and wide awake. My eyes were naturally attracted by the white circle of light thrown by the gas globe upon the ceiling. Your aunt will not sleep without a glimmer of light in the room. Without danger of lying I may say that I was thinking absolutely of nothing. It is a vulgar but discredited practice. However, let it be agreed that whatever thoughts I had lay between my retina and the end of my optic nerve. Theory is easier than science. Suddenly, as I watched idly, a little figure – a tiny insect-like figure crawled in at the left of my eye, and slowly traversing a small segment of the luminous disc upon the ceiling crawled out at the right. In my astonishment my lids blinked rapidly, my eyes moved of their own volition in an odd, perplexing manner. Please to mark that it was precisely at that moment when I discovered that my eyes had tricked me. Perhaps they had revolted from the uncommon and disagreeable fixity of sleeplessness and had revolved upon their axes inward. Perhaps I do not know the reason. Whatever it may have been, I know now that I had been looking under the bows of my eyebones into my skull. In all likelihood the grey circle of light which I had seen was the natural stored light of my eyes glowing in the darkness. If this was so, I had mistaken the personal, perhaps imaginary, light of my eye for the actual light of the gas-globe. It’s not science, but it’s common sense. Such, I say, were my conclusions some time subsequently, after many nights’ experience. Try as I pleased in my wakefulness, the creature would not walk again upon the ceiling, for the very excellent reason that in my excitement and ignorance I was looking in exactly the opposite direction. But invisible, unfelt, undreamed, there it was, there it had always been, and there it will be until – Heaven knows.’

  My uncle patted his brow, eyes, and cheeks with his bandana handkerchief, and (in a manner not unlike that of the black cat) gazed up at the patches of blue between the green boughs. ‘The boom of that bee seemed to make the scent of the blossoms stronger, didn’t it?’ said he, with his handkerchief poised on the top of his head.

  ‘What happened then?’ said I.

  ‘Upon the next night,’ continued my uncle, ‘as I purposely lay in the same position, I fancy that I almost fell asleep. So it seemed, although all the time I could hear your aunt snoring – ’twas time reckoned by a dream-clock. There was the circle of light; there was the gas-globe, the venetian blind, the embroidered watch-holder. But almost imperceptibly the light circle was becoming blurred at the circumference; it still possessed the same shiver, but now there were faint marks upon it, permanent stains in its whitest places; it was not without shadows. I gripped the bed-clothes and strangled my thoughts. And again, again, Edmond, the tiny figure walked out of the east into the west. I watched. The dim shapes in the centre moved and trembled, but took no nameable form. Again I saw the transit of the figure, but now it toiled more slowly. Soon the circumference seemed to widen. The figure took bulk and distinction. At the base of the disc a flatness became discernible encompassed by a huge bow of grey (my skull, perhaps) lightening and deepening into white and pink. A white thread suddenly crept out of the obscurity at the base, crept and wriggled between masses of black (masses like flour seen through a microscope). Presently the black masses caught colour and motion. Sudden glaring spots pricked my eye, and slow-moving blotches writhed into being with a dull pain as though my eyeballs were bringing them forth. Then I perceived slender lines and tassels of elegant grace and wide expanses of smooth, restful green, lit by jewels and trills and spears of yellow light. I seemed to be striving rather to remember than to see. If I am not deceived, albeit my eyes watched the process with curiosity, yet I clearly foresaw the result. The dimness and distortion fell away like smoke. And now, I was looking at a white, caked, trampled path, over which a black-green army of trees stood sentinel. I was round-eyed at gorgeous birds on the wing, and flowers waxen, gaudy and gleaming. My boy, there are none such here. There huge monsters wallowed in heat, and unimaginable wee things leapt and scrambled and minced from bough to bough. The whole air shook with their chirrup and purr and drone; the baked earth sweated a dry scent. Monstrous bat-winged insects speckled profusely the black boughs. Honey scent whetted the tongue and the tartness of resinous bark cried out from beneath the honey scent. Deep in the lazy foetid green of the underwood sparkled quick eyes, and smooth, glossy skins shimmered. There was an atmosphere of ages over the place, and a distressing suggestion that all upon which my eyes looked was of me and in me – my own creatures and creations. But this I know, that myself magnified the scene. The heavy sky, the trees, and all the living things, were a picture painted on a pin’s head. God knows more than a German philosopher. So, t
oo, my dear boy, as in a dream of Job, a figure naked and familiar (although his face was turned from me) stalked upon the trampled path. And that figure of a man brought me very near to the terror of my babyhood’s dream. I turned to your aunt for comfort, and could not see her. Nor did I awake. Then the awful thought clawed me that I was alive and awake, and with that thought the vision was blinded (so sudden was its going). Then followed a slow easy movement of my eyes, and immediately I was looking upon your aunt’s face, bland and young in sleep. I hid my face in her sweet laces, and like any dipsomaniac sobbed loudly. ‘Why, John,’ said your aunt sleepily, ‘you’ve had a bad dream!’ Again my uncle paused. ‘This wholesome cleanliness of air is admirable,’ he added under his breath, sniffing the evening.

  I looked at my uncle uneasily. ‘More of a nightmare than a dream,’ said I.

  ‘It’s getting chilly for your aunt,’ he replied. Then, after spying through the trunks upon the old lady, he came close to me, and, on tiptoe, whispered this in my ear: ‘In eight months that wee creature has walked through centuries. Would dreams be so vile and consistent? Would I, the manager of a bank, cry like any girl at night if every living thing, every tree, rock and cloud of the world in my skull were not of mine own image? That mote of a man – although he will never turn and show his face to me, try as I may to peer round – that mote of a man is me – me, your uncle. Quick, she’s stirring.’

  I hastened at his heels to my chair. My aunt woke from her nap, a little peevish. She complained of the dampness. But my uncle, giving her tongue no opportunity to wag nor her mood to fester, taught me how to snare a woman into smiling. Quick to profit, he wrapped a knitted shawl of gaudy wool about my aunt’s shoulders, lifted her from the ground with a prodigious puff and a coy scream from the little lady, and trotted away with her into the house. I followed with two basket chairs.

  Of course I entitled my uncle’s fable Nerves. Eccentric would be far too polite a word with which to tell the truth if I were so minded. But as I was brushing my hair, I came to the conclusion that it would be undesirable to betray my uncle’s confidence to any, least of all to a physician. If his nerves were the progenitors of his visions, a dose or two of valerian might timely teach them their duty. If he was mad, no finical physician could better his condition, and a strait waistcoat would probably kill my aunt. Thus it will be seen that I laughed. Like Sarah, I was afterwards reproved. It surprised me how that in the past odd trifling actions and movements of my uncle must have escaped my attention. For instance, during dinner, as he was poising a wine-glass and testing the colour of his claret in the light of the lamp, he shut his eyes quick, and laid down the glass in confusion. When offering my aunt some tapioca pudding, his smiling pupils suddenly disappeared; he dived under the table, presumably for his napkin. Not only; but also now and again he would mutter a few words, or swear perhaps, or twist his fingers, thereby greatly discomposing a timid, colourless parlourmaid. Such accidents, or their like, must have frequently happened before. To all these drolleries, however, my aunt paid no attention, but nibbled serenely and smiled placidly. When dinner was over, my uncle and I took a turn in the garden. We chatted in a desultory fashion, but it was apparent that only my uncle’s tongue was with me; his thoughts were busy with his dreams. At last he began anxiously to question me regarding his behaviour at dinner. I told the truth.

  ‘My dear boy,’ he answered bitterly, ‘I have tried to look on the tragedy as a farce, but it is useless. I am getting into clammier bog each step I take. My eyes refuse to obey me. I want above all things to spend my life watching. The climax is speeding to a conclusion. I have spied upon the gambols of my hairy ancestry – perhaps Darwin! – and each godless ape was in mine own image. Each transmigration of my eternal – think on’t, my boy – eternal self has passed before my eyes, is now. This brood of creatures, of which I am the god and maker, are multiplying like worms in offal; cities teem with ugly and deformed, with lame and vile. Every thought of the past takes human shape. Here one incites to lewdness, here one taints the air with foulness. Here a white-clad, meagre creature struggles and pants for the light. And ever goes that one mite of a man, stalking unheeding and alone under sun and moon. Through sleep and waking, its horrid minuteness, its awful remoteness troubles my skin; I grow sick. I remember Farquharson, the cashier, took hysteria. (Too much life, my boy.) We twitted him and embroidered him a sunbonnet. A sunbonnet! See this!’

  My uncle stopped dead upon the gravel with his face towards the garden. I seemed to feel the slow revolution of his eyes.

  ‘I see a huge city of granite,’ he grunted; ‘I see lean spires of metal and hazardous towers, frowning upon the blackness of their shadows. White lights stare out of narrow window-slits: a black cloud breathes smoke in the streets. There is no wind, yet a wind sits still upon the city. The air smells like copper. Every sound rings as it were upon metal. There is a glow – a glow of outer darkness – a glow imagined by straining eyes. The city is a bubble with clamour and tumult rising thin and yellow in the lean streets like dust in a loampit. The city is walled as with a finger-ring. The sky is dumb with listeners. Far down, as the crow sees ears of wheat, I see that mote of a man in his black clothes, now lit by flaming jets, now hid in thick darkness. Every street breeds creatures. They swarm gabbling, and walk like ants in the sun. Their faces are fierce and wary, with malevolent lips. Each mouths to each, and points and stares. On I walk, imperturbable and stark. But I know, oh, my boy, I know the alphabet of their vile whispering and gapings and gesticulations. The air quivers with the flight of black winged shapes. Each foot-tap of that sure figure upon the granite is ticking his hour away.’ My uncle turned and took my hand. ‘And this, Edmond, this is the man of business who purchased his game in the city, and vied with all in the excellence of his claret. The man who courted your aunt, begot hale and whole children, who sits in his pew and is respected. That beneath my skull should lurk such monstrous things! You are my godchild, Edmond. Actions are mere sediment, and words – froth, froth. Let the thoughts be clean, my boy; the thoughts must be clean; thoughts make the man. You may never at any time be of ill repute, and yet be a blackguard. Every thought, black or white, lives for ever, and to life there is no end.’

  ‘Look here, Uncle,’ said I, ‘it’s serious, you know, you must come to town and see Jenkinson, the brain man. A change of air, sir.’

  ‘Do you smell sulphur?’ said my uncle.

  I tittered and was alarmed.

  Subsequently I looked up my uncle’s man, and had an earnest chat with him, telling him nothing save that my uncle was indisposed and needed attention. Moreover, I did my best to prevail upon my uncle to sleep by himself for a few nights. I thought it safer. But (poor old gentlman!) he seemed to have an unrighteous horror of loneliness. ‘Only to be able,’ said he, ‘only to be able to touch her hand. No sceptic doctors, my boy, let me die wholesomely,’ he replied to my earnest entreaties that he should see a physician. I determined to obey him.

  The next day he seemed to have recovered his usual excellent spirits, and although he sometimes fell away into vacancy, his condition in the light of my experience was undoubtedly different from that of many months past. ‘I have an idea that I gossipped a good deal of nonsense in the garden yesterday,’ said he, buttonholing me after breakfast. ‘The sun was hot, very hot. Between ourselves? – that’s all right. I had a better night; no nightmares. Eh! E – ay?’ In a flash he hid his eyes with his sleeve. ‘Er – bless the midges! Come into the garden, my boy,’ said he, and forthwith denied his denial.

  On Wednesday afternoons when my aunt was upon her parish-visiting, and also at any time that we might snatch, my uncle and I would steal away into the woods or conceal ourselves in a crazy, musty summer-house near the gooseberry bushes. There we would sit for hours together while he narrated to me the doings and adventures of the fantastic creatures which he professed to see. I acted foolishly, perhaps, in consenting to his absurdities, but who would have done otherwise? The c
harm of his narrations was irresistible. To listen to him as he sat there, with his white eyes, his ragged straw hat upon his head, in the midst of the summer, was fine. Sometimes he would return to the experience of past dreams; sometimes he would look in upon his world, and tell me what he saw there. Whatever he affected to see, moreover, he made me see too. For even, perhaps, gave he not every detail, yet myself by his seeds could raise my own crop of visions of an exact likeness to his. This, too, he was ever at pains to insist upon – that the many beings, the uncouth cities, all that which he had described to me possessed an atmosphere of himself, an intellectual colouring peculiarly his own. He was the unwitting creator, but responsible for his creations. How mad a theory it seems! This, too: ‘I see that the end is coming; he treads solitary paths. O that he would flee, and seek for hiding! And the scattered thousands come round about him; they sneak upon his footsteps; they net him in on every side. He passes through villages (which I think I have seen in dreams). The people mock in the streets, and the dogs bark. He journeys through cities that are familiar and yet unknown to me. Danger hides under every leaf. There is a clangour in the air of terror and disaster.’ My uncle would carry me away with his enthusiasm, and I would grow with him as eager as a boy, and though it was easy to see that his sickness was serious and that the consequences might be dire, yet with the gentleness of a mother and the intuition of a child he kissed away my aunt’s occasional anxieties. He kept the mellow roundness of his cheeks, the vigour of his voice; he neither advertised his pain nor trumpeted his woes. He consistently reviled the doctors. If his perpetual hilarity was sometimes maudlin, he never turned tail or lacked a pun to the end.