Book: A Strange Story, Volume 3.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> A Strange Story, Volume 3.
In that marvellous penetration with which the Vision endowed me, I
perceived that in this mind, though in energy far superior to many; though
retaining, from memories of the former existence, the relics of a culture
wide and in some things profound; though sharpened and quickened into
formidable, if desultory, force whenever it schemed or aimed at the animal
self-conservation which now made its master--impulse or instinct; and
though among the reminiscences of its state before its change were arts
which I could not comprehend, but which I felt were dark and terrible,
lending to a will never checked by remorse arms that no healthful
philosophy has placed in the arsenal of disciplined genius; though the
mind in itself had an ally in a body as perfect in strength and elasticity
as man can take from the favour of nature,--still, I say, I felt that the
mind wanted the something without which men never could found cities,
frame laws, bind together, beautify, exalt the elements of this world, by
creeds that habitually subject them to a reference to another. The ant
and the bee and the beaver congregate and construct; but they do not
improve. Man improves because the future impels onward that which is not
found in the ant, the bee, and the beaver,--that which was gone from the
being before me.
I shrank appalled into myself, covered my face with my hands, and groaned
aloud: "Have I ever then doubted that soul is distinct from mind?"
A hand here again touched my forehead, the light in the lamp was
extinguished, I became insensible; and when I recovered I found myself
back in the room in which I had first conversed with Sir Philip Derval,
and seated, as before, on the sofa, by his side.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
My recollections of all which I have just attempted to describe were
distinct and vivid; except with respect to time, it seemed to me as if
many hours must have elapsed since I had entered the museum with
Margrave; but the clock on the mantelpiece met my eyes as I turned them
wistfully round the room; and I was indeed amazed to perceive that five
minutes had sufficed for all which it has taken me so long to narrate, and
which in their transit had hurried me through ideas and emotions so remote
from anterior experience.
To my astonishment now succeeded shame and indignation,--shame that I, who
had scoffed at the possibility of the comparatively credible influences of
mesmeric action, should have been so helpless a puppet under the hand of
the slight fellow-man beside me, and so morbidly impressed by
phantasmagorieal illusions; indignation that, by some fumes which had
special potency over the brain, I had thus been, as it were, conjured out
of my senses; and looking full into the calm face at my side, I said, with
a smile to which I sought to convey disdain,--
"I congratulate you, Sir Philip Derval, on having learned in your travels
in the East so expert a familiarity with the tricks of its jugglers."
"The East has a proverb," answered Sir Philip, quietly, "that the juggler
may learn much from the dervish, but the dervish can learn nothing from
the juggler. You will pardon me, however, for the effect produced on you
for a few minutes, whatever the cause of it may be, since it may serve to
guard your whole life from calamities, to which it might otherwise have
been exposed. And however you may consider that which you have just
experienced to be a mere optical illusion, or the figment of a brain
super-excited by the fumes of a vapour, look within yourself, and tell me
if you do not feel an inward and unanswerable conviction that there is
more reason to shun and to fear the creature you left asleep under the
dead jaws of the giant serpent, than there would be in the serpent itself,
could hunger again move its coils, and venom again arm its fangs."
I was silent, for I could not deny that that conviction had come to me.
"Henceforth, when you recover from the confusion or anger which now
disturbs your impressions, you will be prepared to listen to my
explanations and my recital in a spirit far different from that with which
you would have received them before you were subjected to the experiment,
which, allow me to remind you, you invited and defied. You will now, I
trust, be fitted to become my confidant and my assistant; you will advise
with me how, for the sake of humanity, we should act together against the
incarnate lie, the anomalous prodigy which glides through the crowd in the
image of joyous beauty. For the present I quit you. I have an
engagement, on worldly affairs, in the town this night. I am staying at
L----, which I shall leave for Derval Court tomorrow evening. Come to me
there the day after to-morrow, at any hour that may suit you the best.
Adieu!"
Here Sir Philip Derval rose and left the room. I made no effort to
detain him. My mind was too occupied in striving to recompose itself and
account for the phenomena that had scared it, and for the strength of the
impressions it still retained.
I sought to find natural and accountable causes for effects so abnormal.
Lord Bacon suggests that the ointments with which witches anointed
themselves might have had the effect of stopping the pores and congesting
the rain, and thus impressing the sleep of the unhappy dupes of their own
imagination with dreams so vivid that, on waking, they were firmly
convinced that they had been borne through the air to the Sabbat.
I remember also having heard a distinguished French traveller--whose
veracity was unquestionable--say, that he had witnessed extraordinary
effects produced on the sensorium by certain fumigations used by an
African pretender to magic. A person, of however healthy a brain;
subjected to the influence of these fumigations, was induced to believe
that he saw the most frightful apparitions.
However extraordinary such effects, they were not incredible,--not at
variance with our notions of the known laws of nature. And to the vapour
or the odours which a powder applied to a lamp had called forth, I was,
therefore, prepared to ascribe properties similar to those which Bacon's
conjecture ascribed to the witches' ointment, and the French traveller to
the fumigations of the African conjuror.
But, as I came to that conclusion, I was seized with an intense curiosity
to examine for myself those chemical agencies with which Sir Philip Derval
appeared so familiar; to test the contents in that mysterious casket of
steel. I also felt a curiosity no less eager, but more, in spite of
myself, intermingled with fear, to learn all that Sir Philip had to
communicate of the past history of Margrave. I could but suppose that the
young man must indeed be a terrible criminal, for a person of years so
grave, and station so high, to intimate accusations so vaguely dark, and
to use means so extraordinary, in order to enlist my imagination rather
than my reason against a youth in whom there appeared none of the signs
which suspicion interprets into guilt.
While thus musing, I lifted my eyes and saw Margrave himself there at
the threshold of the ballroom,--there, where Sir Philip had first pointed
him out as the criminal he had come to L---- to seek and disarm; and
now, as then, Margrave was the radiant centre of a joyous group. Not the
young boy-god Iacchus, amidst his nymphs, could, in Grecian frieze or
picture, have seemed more the type of the sportive, hilarious vitality of
sensuous nature. He must have passed unobserved by me, in my
preoccupation of thought, from the museum and across the room in which I
sat; and now there was as little trace in that animated countenance of the
terror it had exhibited at Sir Philip's approach, as of the change it had
undergone in my trance or my fantasy.
But he caught sight of me, left his young companions, came gayly to my
side.
"Did you not ask me to go with you into that museum about half an hour
ago, or did I dream that I went with you?"
"Yes; you went with me into that museum."
"Then pray what dull theme did you select to set me asleep there?"
I looked hard at him, and made no reply. Somewhat to my relief, I now
heard my host's voice,--
"Why, Fenwick, what has become of Sir Philip Derval?"
"He has left; he had business." And, as I spoke, again I looked hard on
Margrave.
His countenance now showed a change; not surprise, not dismay, but rather
a play of the lip, a flash of the eye, that indicated complacency,--even
triumph.
"So! Sir Philip Derval! He is in L----; he has been here to-night? So!
as I expected."
"Did you expect it?" said our host. "No one else did. Who could have
told you?"
"The movements of men so distinguished need never take us by surprise. I
knew he was in Paris the other day. It is natural eno' that he should
come here. I was prepared for his coming."
Margrave here turned away towards the window, which he threw open and
looked out.
"There is a storm in the air," said he, as he continued to gaze into the
night.
Was it possible that Margrave was so wholly unconscious of what had passed
in the museum as to include in oblivion even the remembrance of Sir Philip
Derval's presence before he had been rendered insensible, or laid asleep?
Was it now only for the first time that he learned of Sir Philip's arrival
in L----, and visit to that house? Was there any intimation of menace in
his words and his aspect?
I felt that the trouble of my thoughts communicated itself to my
countenance and manner; and, longing for solitude and fresh air, I quitted
the house. When I found myself in the street I turned round and saw
Margrave still standing at the open window, but he did not appear to
notice me; his eyes seemed fixed abstractedly on space.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
I walked on slowly and with the downcast brow of a man absorbed in
meditation. I had gained the broad place in which the main streets of the
town converged, when I was overtaken by a violent storm of rain. I
sought shelter under the dark archway of that entrance to the district of
Abbey Hill which was still called Monk's Gate. The shadow within the arch
was so deep that I was not aware that I had a companion till I beard my
own name, close at my side. I recognized the voice before I could
distinguish the form of Sir Philip Derval.
"The storm will soon be over," said he, quietly. "I saw it coming on in
time. I fear you neglected the first warning of those sable clouds, and
must be already drenched."
I made no reply, but moved involuntarily away towards the mouth of the
arch.
"I see that you cherish a grudge against me!" resumed Sir Philip. "Are
you, then, by nature vindictive?"
Somewhat softened by the friendly tone of this reproach, I answered, half
in jest, half in earnest,--
"You must own, Sir Philip, that I have some little reason for the
uncharitable anger your question imputes to me. But I can forgive you, on
one condition."
"What is that?"
"The possession for half an hour of that mysterious steel casket which you
carry about with you, and full permission to analyze and test its
contents."
"Your analysis of the contents," returned Sir Philip, dryly, "would leave
you as ignorant as before of the uses to which they can be applied; but I
will own to you frankly, that it is my intention to select some confidant
among men of science, to whom I may safely communicate the wonderful
properties which certain essences in that casket possess. I invite your
acquaintance, nay, your friendship, in the hope that I may find such a
confidant in you. But the casket contains other combinations, which, if
wasted, could not be resupplied,--at least by any process which the great
Master from whom I received them placed within reach of my knowledge. In
this they resemble the diamond; when the chemist has found that the
diamond affords no other substance by its combustion than pure
carbonic-acid gas, and that the only chemical difference between the
costliest diamond and a lump of pure charcoal is a proportion of hydrogen
less than 1/100000 part of the weight of the substance, can the chemist
make you a diamond?
"These, then, the more potent, but also the more perilous of the casket's
contents, shall be explored by no science, submitted to no test. They are
the keys to masked doors in the ramparts of Nature, which no mortal can
pass through without rousing dread sentries never seen upon this side her
wall. The powers they confer are secrets locked in my breast, to be lost
in my grave; as the casket which lies on my breast shall not be
transferred to the hands of another, till all the rest of my earthly
possessions pass away with my last breath in life and my first in
eternity."
"Sir Philip Derval," said I, struggling against the appeals to fancy or to
awe, made in words so strange, uttered in a tone of earnest conviction,
and heard amidst the glare of the lightning, the howl of the winds, and
the roll of the thunder,--"Sir Philip Derval, you accost me in a language
which, but for my experience of the powers at your command, I should hear
with the contempt that is due to the vaunts of a mountebank, or the pity
we give to the morbid beliefs of his dupe. As it is, I decline the
confidence with which you would favour me, subject to the conditions which
it seems you would impose. My profession abandons to quacks all drugs
which may not be analyzed, all secrets which may not be fearlessly told.
I cannot visit you at Derval Court. I cannot trust myself, voluntarily,
again in the power of a man, who has arts of which I may not examine the
nature, by which he can impose on my imagination and steal away my
reason."
"Reflect well before you decide," said Sir Philip, with a solemnity that
was stern. "If you refuse to be warned and to be armed by me, your reason
and your imagination will alike be subjected to influences which I can
only explain by telling you that there is truth in those immemorial
legends which depose to the existence of magic."
"Magic!"
"There is magic of two kinds,--the dark and evil, appertaining to
witchcraft or necromancy; the pure and beneficent, which is but
philosophy, applied to certain mysteries in Nature remote from the beaten
tracks of science, but which deepened the wisdom of ancient sages, and can
yet unriddle the myths of departed races."
"Sir Philip," I said, with impatient and angry interruption, "if you think
that a jargon of this kind be worthy a man of your acquirements and
station, it is at least a waste of time to address it to me. I am led to
conclude that you desire to make use of me for some purpose which I have a
right to suppose honest and blameless, because all you know of me is, that
I rendered to your relation services which can not lower my character in
your eyes. If your object be, as you have intimated, to aid you in
exposing and disabling man whose antecedents have been those of guilt, and
who threatens with danger the society which receives him, you must give me
proofs that are not reducible to magic; and you must prepossess me against
the person you accuse, not by powders and fumes that disorder the brain,
but by substantial statements, such as justify one man in condemning
another. And, since you have thought fit to convince me that there are
chemical means at your disposal, by which the imagination can be so
affected as to accept, temporarily, illusions for realities, so I again
demand, and now still more decidedly than before, that while you address
yourself to my reason, whether to explain your object or to vindicate your
charges against a man whom I have admitted to my acquaintance, you will
divest yourself of all means and agencies to warp my judgment so illicit
and fraudulent as those which you own yourself to possess. Let the
casket, with all its contents, be transferred to my hands, and pledge me
your word that, in giving that casket, you reserve to yourself no other
means by which chemistry can be abused to those influences over physical
organization, which ignorance or imposture may ascribe to--magic."
"I accept no conditions for my confidence, though I think the better ofyou
for attempting to make them. If I live, you will seek me yourself, and
implore my aid. Meanwhile, listen to me, and--"
"No; I prefer the rain and the thunder to the whispers that steal to my
ear in the dark from one of whom I have reason to beware."
So saying, I stepped forth, and at that moment the lightning flashed
through the arch, and brought into full view the face of the man beside
me. Seen by that glare, it was pale as the face of a corpse, but its
expression was compassionate and serene.
I hesitated, for the expression of that hueless countenance touched me; it
was not the face which inspires distrust or fear.
"Come," said I, gently; "grant my demand. The casket--"
"It is no scruple of distrust that now makes that demand; it is a
curiosity which in itself is a fearful tempter. Did you now possess what
at this moment you desire, how bitterly you would repent!"
"Do you still refuse my demand?"
"I refuse."
"If then you really need me, it is you who will repent."
I passed from the arch into the open space. The rain had passed, the
thunder was more distant. I looked back when I had gained the opposite
side of the way, at the angle of a street which led to my own house. As I
did so, again the skies lightened, but the flash was comparatively slight
and evanescent; it did not penetrate the gloom of the arch; it did not
bring the form of Sir Philip into view; but, just under the base of the
outer buttress to the gateway, I descried the outline of a dark figure,
cowering down, huddled up for shelter, the outline so indistinct, and so
soon lost to sight as the flash faded, that I could not distinguish if it
were man or brute. If it were some chance passer-by, who had sought
refuge from the rain, and overheard any part of our strange talk, "the
listener," thought I with a half-smile, "must have been mightily
perplexed."