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Page 1 of 11929 · PDF PAGE 47
…, for me, with the cre- mation of the body. I was infinitely glad that he had di- rected this to be done. But for him, end and beginning seemed to have no meaning. Through it all I seemed to hear the real Arthur's thought. Though all this is I, yet it is only an accident of me; I stand behind it all, im- mune, eternal. It must not be supposed that this in any way de- tracted from the intensity of the suffering. Rather it added to it. To be loathsome is less than to be linked to loathsomeness. To plunge into impurity is to become deadened to d…
1929 · PDF PAGE 26
…the nature and limit of my powers. The result, in a sense, was nil. For one thing, these powers kept on breaking out in a new place. I seemed to do all I did by perception of minute differences; but then it seemed as if I had all sorts of different apparatus. One down, tother come on, said Professor Blair. Those who have never made scientific experiments cannot conceive how numerous and subtle are the sources of error, even in the simplest matters. In so ob- scure and novel a field of research no result is trustwor- thy until it has been v…
1929 · PDF PAGE 45
…, age upon age of fear and loneliness and shame. About midnight there appeared a grey ocean of bowels below the falling soul. This ocean seemed to be limitless. It fell headlong into it, and the splash awak- ened it to a new consciousness of things. This sea, though infinitely cold, was boiling like tu- bercles. Itself a more or less homogeneous slime, the stench of which is beyond all human conception (human language is singularly deficient in words that describe smell and taste; we always refer our sensations to things generally known)2 it co…
1929 · PDF PAGE 39
…teeth of a damned soul. III The demon-shape, which I now clearly recognized as that which had figured in my last dream at Cam- bridge, seemed to gulp. At that instant a convulsion shook the dying man and a coughing eructation took the demon. Instantly the whole theory dawned on me, that this demon was an imaginary personification of the disease. Now at once I understood demonology, from Bodin and Weirus to the moderns, without a flaw. But was it imaginary or was it real? Real enough to swal- low up the sane thought! At that instant the …
1929 · PDF PAGE 38
…pon that fodder. And yet, though the sensorium of Arthur was abso- lutely unimpaired, indeed hyperaesthetic, his conscious- ness of pain seemed to depend upon the opening of the mouth. As it closed in mastication, oblivion fell upon him like a thunderbolt. A merciful oblivion? Oh! what a mas- ter stroke of cruelty! Again and again he woke from nothing to a hell of agony, of pure ecstasy of agony, until he understood that this would continue for all his
1929 · PDF PAGE 41
…r stood immune from all, behind it, unimpaired, memory and reason ever more acute as ever new and ghastlier experience informed them. It seemed to me as if some mystic state were su- per-added to the torment; for while he was not, em- phatically not, this tortured mass of consciousness, yet that was he. There are always at least two of us! The one who feels and the one who knows are not radically one person. This double personality is enormously ac- centuated at death. Another point was that the time-sense, which with men is usually so reliable…
1929 · PDF PAGE 32
…nown him to complain of his health. In six years he had not had as much as a headache. I told him my dream when we were in bed, and he seemed unusually grave, as if he understood where I had failed in its interpretation. In the morning he was feverish; I made him stay in bed and sent for the doctor. The same afternoon I learnt that Arthur was seriously ill, had been ill, indeed, for months. The doctor called it Bright's disease. VIII I said the last of the dreams. For the next year we travelled, and tried various treatments. My powers re- m…
1929 · PDF PAGE 13
…, had been bribed, and also promised advancement, and (above all) re- moval from the hated Island, should they connive at our escape. It seemed that the Government had still use for its first strategist. The eclipse was due some ten weeks ahead, and needed neither bribe nor promise. The diffi- culty was to ensure the presence of Bertrand as sentinel in our corridor, Rolland at the ring-fence, and Monet at the outposts. The chances against such a combination at the eclipse were infinitesimal, 99,487,306,294,236,873,489 to 1. It would have been …
1929 · PDF PAGE 27
Although we had hundreds of facts any one of which seemed capable of overthrowing all accepted theories of the means of communication between mind and mind, we had nothing, absolutely nothing, which we could use as the basis of a new theory. It is naturally impossible to give even an outline of the course of our research. Twenty-eight closely written notebooks referring to this first period are at the dis- posal of my executors. III In the middle of the day, in my third year, my father was dangerously ill. I bicycled over to Peterborough at onc…
1929 · PDF PAGE 31
…t my thought? I could only stammer that I did not know. Incidentally he complained of fa- tigue, and the listlessness, which before had seemed nothing to me, assumed a ghastly shape. There was something in him that was not he! The indifference had appeared transitory; I now became aware of it as con- stant and increasing. I was at this time twenty-three years old. You wonder that I write with such serious atti- tude of mind. I sometimes think that I have never had any thoughts of my own; that I have always been read- ing the thoughts of anothe…
1929 · PDF PAGE 43
…is death. I rose with ashen cheeks. I stammered: He is dead. The male nurse bent over the body. Yes! he echoed, he is dead. And it seemed as if the whole Uni- verse gathered itself into one ghastly laugh of hate and horror, Dead! V I resumed my seat. I felt that I must know that all was well, that death had ended all. Woe to humanity! The consciousness of Arthur was more alive than ever. It was the black fear of falling, a dumb ecstasy of changeless fear. There were no waves upon that sea of shame, no troubling of those accursed waters …
1929 · PDF PAGE 9
…ith a sense of almost personal triumph. He began to like Duguesclin, and to believe in him. His wrong had been hideous; if his vengeance seemed excessive and even indiscriminate, was not he a Frenchman? Frenchmen do these things! And after all Frenchmen were men. Bevan felt a great glow of benevolence; he re- membered that he was not only a man, but a Chris- tian. He determined to set the stranger at his ease. Your story interests me intensely, said he. I sym- pathise deeply with you in your wrongs and in your suf- ferings. I am heartily tha…
1929 · PDF PAGE 3
…oss to reply. Stay, cried the other. What if I told you my story? There is no one here but ourselves. He glared menacingly at Bevan, seemed to seek to read his soul. Are you a man to be trusted? he barked, and broke off short. At another time Bevan would most certainly have declined to become the confidant of a stranger; but here the solitude, the heat, not a little boredom induced by the previous manner of his companion, and even a cer- tain mistrust of how he might take a refusal, combined to elicit a favourable reply. Stately as an oak…
1929 · PDF PAGE 42
… body on the bed were very short. Each pang of torture or suspense was born, rose to its crest, and died to be reborn again through what seemed countless aeons. Still more was this the case in the process of his as- similation by the demon. The coma of the dying man was a phenomenon altogether out of Time. The condi- tions of digestion were new to Arthur, he had no rea- son to suppose, no data from which to calculate the dis- tance of, an end. It is impossible to do more than sketch this process; as he was absorbed, so did his consciousness…
1929 · PDF PAGE 21
…oly things, she snapped suddenly, taking the sketch from his nerveless hand, and replacing it rev- erently in the portfolio. The action seemed to decide her.
1929 · PDF PAGE 36
…Servetus would have turned pitiful had he heard it, so perfectly did it express quintessence of damnation. Now then my husband's thought seemed to have changed places with the other. It was below, within, withdrawn. said to myself, He is dead! Then came Ar- thur's thought, I had better pretend to be mad. It will save her, perhaps; and it will be a change. I shall pre- tend I have killed her with an axe. Damn it! I hope she is not listening. I was now thoroughly awake, and told the driver to get home quickly. I hope she is killed in the mot…
1929 · PDF PAGE 6
…his spade. A trifle, indeed. What do you know of what pris- oners think of trifles? The man went raving mad, and for no other reason. It seemed to him that such de- tailed refinement of cruelty was a final proof of the in- nate and inherent devilishness of the universe. Insanity is the logical consequence of such a faith. No, sir, I will spare you the description. Bevan thought that there had already been too much description, and in his complacent English way surmised that Duguesclin was exaggerating, as he was aware that Frenchmen did. But h…
1929 · PDF PAGE 10
… to elude the guards, make for the coast, capture a boat, and put to sea. Do you understand? Do you get the idea? Bevan replied that it seemed to him the only possi- ble plan. A man like Dodu, pursued Duguesclin, takes noth- ing for granted. He leaves no precaution untaken; in his plans, if chance be an element, it is an element whose