The Bright Messenger by Algernon Blackwood
CHAPTER VII
The following days it seemed to both Fillery and Devonham that theirdiscussion of the first night had been pitched in too intense, tooserious a key. Their patient was so commonplace again, so ordinary. Hemade himself quite at home, seemed contented and uncurious, taking itfor granted he had come to stay for ever, apparently.
Apart from his strange beauty, his size, virility and a generalimpression he conveyed of immense energies he was too easy-going tomake use of, he might have passed for a peasant, a countryman towhom city life was new; but an educated, or at least half-educated,countryman. He was so big, yet never gauche. He was neither stupidnor ill-informed; the garden interested him, he knew much about thetrees and flowers, birds and insects too. He discussed the weather,prevailing wind, moisture, prospects of change and so forth with ajudgment based on what seemed a natural, instinctive knowledge. Thegardener looked on him with obvious respect.
"Such nice manners and such a steady eye," Mrs. Soames, the matron,mentioned, too, approvingly to Devonham. "But a lot in him he doesn'tunderstand himself, unless I'm wrong. Not much the matter with hisnerves, anyhow. Once he's married--unless I'm much mistaken--eh, sir?"
He was quiet, talking little, and spent the morning over the booksFillery had placed purposely in his sitting-room, books on simplephysics, natural history and astronomy. It was the latter that absorbedhim most; he pored over them by the hour.
Fillery explained the situation so far as he thought wise. The youngman was honesty and simple innocence, but only vaguely interested inthe life of the great city he now experienced for the first time. Hehad in his luggage a copy of the Will by which Mason had left himeverything, and he was pleased to know himself well provided for. OfMason, however, he had only a dim, uncertain, almost an impersonalmemory, as of someone encountered in a dream.
"I suppose something's happened to me," he said to Fillery, hislanguage normal and quite ordinary again. He spoke with a slightforeign accent. "There was somebody, of course, who looked after me andlived with me, but I can't remember who or where it was. I was veryhappy," he added, "and yet ... I miss something."
Dr. Fillery, remembering his promise, did not press him.
"It will all come back by degrees," he remarked in a sympathetic tone."In the meantime, you must make yourself at home here with us, for aslong as you like. You are quite free in every way. I want you to behappy here."
"I live with you always," was the reply. "There are things I want totell you, ask you too." He paused, looking thoughtful. "There wassomeone I told all to once."
"Come to me with everything. I'll help you always, so far as I can." Heplaced a hand upon his knee.
"There are feelings, big feelings I cannot reach quite, but that makeme feel different"--he smiled beautifully--"from--others." Quick aslightning he had changed the sentence at the last word, substituting"others" for "you." Had he been aware of a slight uneasy emotion inhis listener's heart? It had hardly betrayed itself by any visiblesign, yet he had instantly divined its presence. Such evidences of asubtle, intimate, understanding were not lacking. Yet Fillery admirablyrestrained himself.
"There are bright places I have lost," he went on frankly, no sign ofshy reserve in him. "I feel confused, lost somewhere, as if I didn'tbelong here. I feel"--he used an odd word--"doubled." His face shaded alittle.
"Big overpowering London is bound to affect you," put in Fillery,who had noticed the rapid discernment, "after living among woods andmountains, as you have lived, for years. All will come right in alittle time; we must settle down a bit first----"
"Woods and mountains," repeated the other, in a half-dreamy voice,his eyes betraying an effort to follow thought elsewhere. "Of course,yes--woods and mountains and hot living sunlight--and the winds----"
His companion shifted the conversation a little. He suggested a line ofreading and study.... They talked also of such ordinary but necessarythings as providing a wardrobe, of food, exercise, companionship ofhis own age, and so forth--all the commonplace details of ordinarydaily life, in fact. The exchange betrayed nothing of interest, nothingunusual. They mentioned theatres, music, painting, and, beyond thenatural curiosity of youth that was ignorant of these, no detail wasrevealed that need have attracted the attention of anybody, neitherof doctor, psychologist, nor student of human nature. With the singleexception that the past years had been obliterated from memory, thoughmuch that had been acquired in them remained, there was not noticeablepeculiarity of any sort. Both language and point of view were normal.
This was obviously LeVallon. The "N. H." personality scarcely cast ashadow even. Yet "N. H.," the doctor was quick to see, lay ready andwaiting just below the surface. There was no doubt in _his_ mind whichwas the central self and which its transient projection, the secondarypersonality. Again, as he sat and talked, he had the odd impressionthat someone with bright tidings ran swiftly past his life, perhapstowards it.
The swift messenger was certainly not LeVallon. LeVallon, indeed, wasbut a shadow cast before this glad, bright visitant. Thus he felt,at any rate. LeVallon was an empty simulacrum left behind while "N.H." rested, or was active upon other things, things natural to him,elsewhere. LeVallon was an arm, a limb, a feeler that "N. H." thrustout. At Charing Cross, for instance, for a brief moment only, "N.H." had peered across his shoulder, then withdrawn again. In the carhad sat by his side LeVallon. The being he now chatted with was alsoLeVallon only.
But in his own heart, deep down, hidden yet eager to break loose, layhis own deeper self that burned within him. This, the important partof him, yearned towards "N. H." And up rose the strange symbol thatalways appeared when his deepest, perhaps his subliminal self wasstirred. That lost radiant valley in the haunted Caucasus shone closeand brimming over ... with light, with flowers, with splendid winds andfire, symbols of a vaster, grander, happier life, though perhaps a lifenot yet within the range of normal human consciousness.... The fierysymbol flashed and passed.
Curious thoughts and pictures rose flaming in his mind, persistentideas that bore no possible relation to his intellectual, reasoninglife. Passing across the background of his brain, as with waves ofheat and colour, they were correlated somewhere with harmonious sound.Music, that is, came with them, as though inspiration brought its ownsound with it that made singing natural. They haunted him, these vague,pleasurable phantasmagoria that were connected, he felt sure, withmusic, as with childhood's lost imaginings. For a long time he searchedin vain for their source and origin. Then, suddenly, he remembered.He heard his father's gruff, humorous voice: "There's not a scrap ofevidence, of course...." And, sharply, vividly, the buried memory gaveup its dead. His childish question went crashing through the air: "Arewe the only beings in the world?"
"Nothing is ever lost," he reminded himself with a smile that Devonhamassuredly never saw. "Every seed must bear its fruit in time."
And emotion surged through him from the remorseless records of hisunderself. The childhood's love, with its correlative of deep, absolutebelief, returned upon him, linked on somehow to that old familiarsymbol he knew to mean his awakening subconscious being--a floweringCaucasian vale of sun and wind. A belief, he realized, especially abelief of childhood, remains for ever inexpugnable, eternal, prolificseed of future harvests.
The unstable in him betrayed its ineradicable, dangerous streak. Thererose upon him in a cloud strange notions that inflamed imaginationsweetly. Later reading, indeed, had laid flesh upon the skeleton ofthe boyish notion, though derived in the first instance he certainlyknew not whence. The literature and tradition of the East, he recalled,peopled the elements with conscious life, to which the world'sfairy-tales--remnant of lost knowledge possibly--added nerves and heartand blood. In all human bodies, at any rate, dwelt not necessarilyalways human spirits, human souls....
He checked himself with a smile he would have liked to call a chuckle,but that yet held some inexplicable happiness at its heart. Hisrugged, eager face, its expression bitten deeply by experience, turnedcurious
He checked himself again, as the rich, ancient notion flitted acrosshis stirring memory.
"Delightful, picturesque conceptions of the planet's young, fairignorance!" he reminded himself, smiling as before.
Whereupon rose, bursting through his momentary dream, with full-fledgedpower, the great hope of his own reasoned, scientific Dream--thatman is greater than he knows, and that the progress of the Race wasdemonstrable.
For, to the subliminal powers of an awakened Race these Nature Beingswith their special faculties, must lie open and accessible. Thehuman and the non-human could unite! Nature must come back into thehearts of men and win them again to simple, natural life with love,with joy, with naked beauty. Death and disease must vanish, hope andpurity return. The Race must develop, grow, become in the true sense_universal_. It could know God!
The vision flashed upon him with extraordinary conviction, so that heforgot for the moment how securely he belonged to the unstable. Thesmile of happiness spread, as it were, over his entire being. He glowedand pulsed with its delicious inward fire. Light filled his being foran instant--an instant of intoxicating belief and certainty and vision.The instant inspiration of a dream went lost and vanished. He had drawnupon childhood and legendary reading for the substance of a moment'shappiness. He shook himself, so to speak. He remembered his patientsand his duties, his colleague too....
Nothing, meanwhile, occurred to arouse interest or attention. LeVallonwas quite docile, ordinary; he needed no watching; he slept well, atewell, spent his leisure with his books and in the garden. He complainedoften of the lack of sunlight, and sometimes he might be seen takingsome deep breaths of air into his lungs by the open window or on thebalcony. The phases of the moon, too, interested him, and he askedonce when the full moon would come and then, when Devonham told him,he corrected the date the latter gave, proving him two hours wrong.But, on the whole, there seemed little to differentiate him from theusual young man whose physique had developed in advance of his mentalfaculties; his knowledge in some respects certainly was backward, as inthe case of arrested development. He seemed an intelligent countryman,but an unusually intelligent countryman, though all the time anotherunder-intelligence shone brightly, betraying itself in remarks andjudgments oddly phrased.
Dr. Fillery took him, during the following day or two, to concerts,theatres, cinemas. He enjoyed them all. Yet in the theatres he wasinclined to let his attention wander. The degree of alertness variedoddly. His critical standard, moreover, was curiously exacting; hedemanded the real creative interpretation of a part, and was quick todetect a lack of inspiration, of fine technique, of true conception ina player. Reasons he failed to give, and argument seemed impossible tohim, but if voice or gesture or imaginative touch failed anywhere, helost interest in the performer from that moment.
"He has poor breath," he remarked. "He only imitates. He is outside."Or, "She pretends. She does not feel and know. Feeling--the feelingthat comes of fire--she has not felt."
"She does not understand her part, you mean?" suggested Fillery.
"She does not burn with it," was the reply.
At concerts he behaved individually too. They bored as well as puzzledhim; the music hardly stirred him. He showed signs of distress atanything classical, though Wagner, Debussy, the Russians, moved him andproduced excitement.
"He," was his remark, with emphasis, "has _heard_. He gives me freedom.I could fly and go away. He sets me free ..." and then he would say nomore, not even in reply to questions. He could not define the freedomhe referred to, nor could he say where he could go away _to_. Buthis face lit up, he smiled his delightful smile, he looked happy."Stars," he added once in a tone of interest, in reply to repeatedquestions, "stars, wind, fire, away from _this!_"--he tapped his headand breast--"I feel more alive and real."
"It's real and true, that music? That's what you feel?"
"It's beyond this," he replied, again tapping his body. "_They haveheard._"
The cinema interested him more. Yet its limits seemed to perplex himmore than its wonder thrilled him. He accepted it as a simple, natural,universal thing.
"They stay always on the sheet," he observed with evident surprise."And I hear nothing. They do not even sing. Sound and movement gotogether!"
"The speaking will come," explained Fillery. "Those are picturesmerely."
"I understand. Yet sound is natural, isn't it? They ought to be heard."
"Speech," agreed his companion, "is natural, but singing isn't."
"Are they not alive enough to sing?" was the reply, spoken to himselfrather than to his neighbour, who was so attentive to his leastresponse. "Do they only sing when"--Fillery heard it and felt somethingleap within him--"when they are paid or have an audience?" he finishedthe sentence quickly.
"No one sings naturally of their own accord--not in cities, at anyrate," was the reply.
LeVallon laughed, as though he understood at once.
"There is no sun and wind," he murmured. "Of course. They cannot."
It was the cinemas that provided most material for observation, Filleryfound. There was in a cinema performance something that excited hiscompanion, but excited him more than the doctor felt he was justifiedin encouraging. Obviously the other side of him, the "N. H." aspect,came up to breathe under the stimulus of the rapid, world-embracing,space-and-time destroying pictures on the screen. Concerts did notstimulate him, it seemed, but rather puzzled him. He remained whollythe commonplace LeVallon--with one exception: he drew involved patternson the edge of his programmes, patterns of a very complicated yetaccurate kind, as though he almost saw the sounds that poured intohis ears. And these ornamented programmes Dr. Fillery preserved.Sound--music--seemed to belong to his interpretation of movement. Aboutthe cinema, however, there seemed something almost familiar, somethinghe already knew and understood, the sound belonging to movement onlylacking.
Apart from these small incidents, LeVallon showed nothing unusual,nothing that a yokel untaught yet of natural intelligence might nothave shown. His language, perhaps, was singular, but, having beeneducated by one mind only, and in a region of lonely forests andmountains, remote from civilized life, there was nothing inexplicablein the odd words he chose, nor in the peculiar--if subtle andpenetrating--phrases that he used. Invariably he recognized thespontaneous, creative power as distinguished from the derivative thatmerely imitated.
He found ways of expressing himself almost immediately, both in speechand writing, however, and with a perfection far beyond the reach of ahalf-educated country lad; and this swift aptitude was puzzling untilits explanation suddenly was laid bare. He absorbed, his companionrealized at last, as by telepathy, the content of his own, of Fillery'smind, acquiring the latter's mood, language, ideas, as though the twoformed one being.
The discovery startled the doctor. Yet what startled him still morewas the further discovery, made a little later, that he himself could,on occasions, become so identified with his patient that the slightestshade of thought or feeling rose spontaneously in his own mind too.
He remained, otherwise, almost entirely "LeVallon"; and, after a fullreport made to Devonham, and the detailed discussion thereon thatfollowed, Dr. Fillery had no evidence to contradict the latter's
"Let us wait and see what happens when 'N. H.' appears and _does_something," Fillery was content to reply.
"If," answered Devonham, with sceptical emphasis, "it ever does appear."
"You think it won't?" asked Fillery.
"With proper treatment," said Devonham decisively, "I see no reasonwhy 'N. H.' should not become happily merged in the parent self--inLeVallon, and a permanent cure result."
He put his glasses straight and stared at his chief, as much as to say"You promised."
"Perhaps," said Fillery. "But, in my judgment, 'LeVallon' is too slightto count at all. I believe the whole, real, parent Self is 'N. H.,'and the only life LeVallon has at all is that which peeps up throughhim--from 'N. H.'"
Fillery returned his serious look.
"If 'N. H.' is the real self, and I am right," he added slowly, "you,Paul, will have to revise your whole position."
"I shall," returned Devonham. "But--you will allow this--it is a lot toexpect. I see no reason to believe in anything more than a subconsciousmind of unusual content, and possibly of unusual powers and extent," headded with reluctance.
"It is," said Fillery significantly, "a lot to expect--as you said justnow. I grant you that. Yet I feel it possible that----" he hesitated.
Devonham looked uncomfortable. He fidgeted. He did not like the pause.A sense of exasperation rose in him, as though he knew something ofwhat was coming.
"Paul," went on his chief abruptly in a tone that dropped instinctivelyto a lower key--almost a touch of awe lay behind it--"you admit nodeity, I know, but you admit purpose, design, intelligence."
"Well," replied the other patiently, long experience having taught himiron restraint, "it's a blundering, imperfect system, inadequatelyorganized--if you care to call that intelligence. It's of an extremelyintricate complexity. I admit that. Deity I consider an unnecessaryassumption."
"The love and hate of atoms alone bowls you over," was the unexpectedcomment. "The word 'Laws' explains nothing. A machine obeys the laws,but intelligence conceived that machine--and a man repairs and keepsit going. Who--what--keeps the daisy going, the crystal, the creativethought in the imagination? An egg becomes a leaf-eating caterpillar,which in turn becomes a honey-eating butterfly with wings. A yolk turnsinto feathers. Is that accomplished without intelligence?"
"Ask our new patient," interrupted Devonham, wiping his glasses withunnecessary thoroughness.
"Which?"
Devonham startled, looked up without his glasses. It seemed thequestion made him uneasy. Putting the glasses on suddenly, he stared athis chief.
"I see what you mean, Edward," he said earnestly, his interest deeplycaptured. "Be careful. We know nothing, remember, nothing of life.Don't jump ahead like this or take your dreams for reality. We have ourduty--in a case like this."
Fillery smiled, as though to convey that he remembered his promise.
"Humanity," he replied, "is a very small section of the universe.Compared to the minuter forms of life, which _may_ be quite asimportant, if not more so, the human section is even negligible;while, compared to the possibility of greater forms----" He broke offabruptly. "As you say, Paul, we know nothing of life after all, do we?Nothing, less than nothing! We observe and classify a few results,that's all. We must beware of narrow prejudice, at any rate--you and I."
His eyes lost their light, his speech dried up, his ideas, dreams,speculations returned to him unrewarded, unexpressed. With natures inwhom the subconscious never stirred, natures through whom its magicalfires cast no faintest upward gleam, intercourse was ever sterile,unproductive. Such natures had no background. Even a fact, with them,was detached from its true big life, its full significance, its divinepotentialities!...
"We must beware of prejudice," he repeated quietly. "We seek truthonly."
"We must beware," replied Devonham, as he shrugged his shoulders,"of suggestion--of auto-suggestion above all. We must rememberhow repressed desires dramatize themselves--especially," he addedsignificantly, "when aided by imagination. We seek only facts." On hisface appeared swiftly, before it vanished again, an expression of keenanxiety, almost of affliction, yet tempered, as it were, by surpriseand wonder, by pity possibly, and certainly by affection.