The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Volume I Part 39

TO GEORGE M. GOULD

1889.

DEAR GOULD,--I feel like a white granular ma.s.s of amorphous crystals--my formula appears to be isomeric with Spasmotoxin. My aurochloride precipitates into beautiful prismatic needles. My Platinochloride develops octohedron crystals,--with a fine blue fluorescence. My physiological action is not indifferent. One millionth of a grain injected under the skin of a frog produced instantaneous death accompanied by an orange blossom odour. The heart stopped in systole. A base--L_3 H_9 NG_4--offers a.n.a.logous reaction to phosmotinigstic acid. Yours with best regards,

PHOSMOLYODIC LAFCADIO HEARN.

GOULD,--"Concerning zombis, tell me all about them."

HEARN,--"In order to relate you that which you desire, it will be necessary first to explain the difference in the idea of the supernatural as existing in the savage and in the civilized mind. Now, I remember a very strange thing...."

GOULD,--"I'll be back in a minute." (_Strides across the street._)

Violent agitation in the peripheral centres of Hearn, together with considerable acute anguish, owing to disintegration of cerebral tissue consequent upon the sudden arrest of nerve-force in discharge. (See Grant Allen on cause of pain, "Physiological aesthetics.")

Gould, suddenly reappearing:--"Go on with that old story, now."

(Resurrection of cerebral agitation in the ganglionic centres and intercorrelate cerebral fibres of Hearn. After desperate and painful research, the broken threads of memories and impulses are found again, and peripherally conjointed, and the wounded narrative proceeds, limping grievously.)

HEARN,--"As I was observing, I recollect one very curious instance of emotional and fantastic--"

GOULD,--"Yes, I'll be out in a moment--" (_Disappears through a door._)

--Brutal confusion established in the visual, auditory, gustatory, and olfactory ganglia of Hearn;--general quivering and strain of all the mnemonic current lines, and then a sense of inquisitorial torture going on in various brain-chambers, where the vital forces, suddenly arrested, flow back in a deluge and set all ideas afloat in drowning agony. Slow recovery as from concussion of the cerebellum.

ENTER GOULD,--"Now proceed with that story of yours."

HEARN,--pacifying the fury of the ganglionic centres with the most extreme possible difficulty, timidly observes,--

"But you don't care to hear it?"

GOULD,--moving with inconceivable rapidity, dynamically overcharged,--

"Of course, I do: I'm just dying to hear it."

Hearn, running after him, skipping preliminaries in the anguish of "hope deferred which maketh the heart sick,"--

"Well, it was in the Rue du Bois Morier,--one of the steepest and strangest streets in the world, full of fantastic gables, and the shadows of--"

GOULD,--"Yes, I'll be out in a minute." (_Vanishes through a shop entrance._)

(Inexpressible chaos and bewilderment of impulses afferent and efferent,--electrical collisions in the ganglia,--unspeakable combustion of tissue in the intercorrelating fibres,--paralysis of conflicting emotions,--unutterable anguish: coma followed by acute mania in the person of Hearn.)

GOULD,--emerging, "Well, go on with that old yarn...."

But Hearn is being already conveyed by two large Philadelphia Policemen to the Penn. Lunatic Asylum for Uncurables.

Astonishment of Gould.

TO GEORGE M. GOULD

1889.

GOULD,--Just after I wrote you last night, something began to whiffle quite soundlessly round my head: I saw only a shadow, and I turned down the gas,--remembering that he who extinguisheth his light so that insects may not perish therein, shall, according to the book of Laotse, obtain longer life and remission of sins. Then it struck me with its wings so heavily that I knew it was a bat,--for no bird could fly so silently; and I turned up the gas again,--full. There it was!--very large,--circling round and round the ceiling so swiftly that I felt dizzy trying to turn to keep it in sight,--and as noiselessly as its own shadow above it. I could not tell which was the shadow and which the life,--until both came together at last upon a ledge, and made a little peak-shouldered devilish thing with strangely twisted ears.

All at once I remembered an experience in Martinique one summer evening.

We were at Grand Anse,--friend Arnoux and I,--supping in a little room opening over a low garden full of banana-trees, to the black beach of the sea; and the great Voice thundered so we could scarcely hear ourselves speak; and the candle in the verrine fluttered like something afraid. Then right over my head a bat began to circle, with never a sound. Arnoux exclaimed: "_Mais, mon cher, regarde cette sacree bete--ah--c'est drole!_" By the look of his face I knew _drole_ meant "weird." He struck it down with his napkin and it disappeared; but a moment later came back again, and flew round as before. Again he hit it and drove it away; but it always came flitting back. Then we all laughed;--and Pierre, the host, tickling my ear with his beard, cried out,--"_C'est ta maitresse a Saint-Pierre--elle est morte,--elle vient te chercher._" And I looked so serious that Arnoux burst into a laugh as loud as the surf outside.

Now when I saw that bat, I thought it was "weird,"--_drole_ as the other. I even found myself wondering, Who it could be? I thought it might be Clemence, about whose death I received news in my last letter.

I did not think for a moment it was Gould. Only some very poor simple soul would avail itself of so humble a vehicle for apparition.... Then it looked so much like something d.a.m.ned as it moved about, that I felt ashamed of thinking it could be Clemence,--the best kind of old souls, Clemence!--My _blanchisseuse_. It was not easy to catch the bat without hurting it. I argued that if it was anybody I knew it could not be afraid of me. It sat on the mirror. It went under the table. It flattened under the trunk and feigned death. Then I caught it in my hat; and it revealed its plain nature by burying its teeth in my finger; and it would not let go,--and it squeaked and chippered like a ghost. I was almost mad enough to hurt it; but I tried to caress its head, which felt soft and nice. But it showed all its teeth and looked too ugly, and there was a musky smell of h.e.l.l about it--so that I knew, if it were anybody, the place with a capital "P" where it came from. I put it in a box. To-night I am going to let it go.

With love to you, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO GEORGE M. GOULD

1889.

MY MOST DEAR GOULD,--I am really quite lonesome for you, and am reflecting how much more lonesome I shall be in some outrageous equatorial country where I shall not see you any more;--also it seems to me perfectly and inexplainably atrocious to know that some day or other there will be no Gould at 119 S. 17th St. That I should cease to make a shadow some day seems quite natural, because Hearn is only a bubble anyhow ("the earth hath bubbles"),--but you, hating mysteries and seeing and feeling and knowing everything,--you have no right ever to die at all. And I can't help doubting whether you will. You have almost made me believe what you do not believe yourself,--that there are souls. I haven't any, I know; but I think you have,--something electrical and luminous inside you that will walk about and see things always. Are you really--what I see of you--only an envelope of something subtler and perpetual? Because if you are, I might want you to pa.s.s down some day southward,--over the blue zone and the volcanic peaks like a little wind,--and flutter through the palm-plumes under the all-purifying sun,--and reach down through old roots to the bones of me, and try to raise me up.

"Ruth" maketh progress; but I had to murder the "Mother of G.o.d." Anyhow the simile would have had a Catholic idolatrousness about it, so that I don't regret it.--I send a clipping I found in the trunk, to make you laugh: the "Femmes Arabes" of Dr. Perron furnished me the facts.--Mrs.

Gould moveth or reposeth in serenity,--Jakey fulfilleth with becoming dignity the duties devolved upon him. I have consumed one plug of "Quaker City;" but as the smoke spires up, the spiritual-sensualism of "Ruth" becometh manifest.

There has been some rain almost worthy of the tropics,--and much darkness. And I can understand better why the ancients of Yucatan, accustomed to the charm of real physical light (about which you Northerners know nothing), put no fire into their h.e.l.l, but darkness only, as woe enough for tropical souls to bear!

I hope you are having a glorious, joyous journeying, and remain,

Lovingly yours, HEARN.

TO ----

1889.

I am very sorry your trip was a chilly and rainy one. As for me, I have been s.h.i.+vering here, and have got to get South somewhere soon,--if only till I can get back to the tropics. I am sorry to confess it; but the tropical Circe bewitches me again--I must go back to her.

I had such a queer dream last night. A great, warm garden with high clipped hedges,--much higher than a man,--and a sort of pleasant country-house, with steps leading into the garden,--and everywhere, even on the steps, hampers and baskets. Krehbiel was there,--he told me he was going to Europe never to come back. And you were there, too, all in black silk--sheathed in it; you were also going away somewhere; and I was packing for you, getting things ready. Everybody was saying nice things: one did not seem to hear,--really one never hears voices in dreams,--but one feels the words, tones and all, as if they pa.s.sed unspoken--just the soul or will of them only--out of one brain into another. I can't remember what anybody said precisely: what I recollect best is the sensation that everybody was going, and that I was to stay all alone in the place, or anywhere I pleased; and it was getting dark.

Then I woke up, and said: "Well, I really must see her." I suppose dreams mean nothing: but interpreted by the contrary, as is a custom, it would mean the reverse--that I am going away somewhere,--which I don't yet know.

Always and in all things yours, LAFCADIO HEARN.

P. S. Oh!--you spoke about Philadelphia.... Is it possible you have never seen it? Is it possible you have never seen Fairmount Park?

Believe me, then, that it is the most beautiful place of the whole civilized world on any sunny, tepid summer day. Your Central Park is a cabbage-garden by comparison: F. Pk. is fifteen miles long, by about eight or ten broad. But the size is nothing. It is the beauty of the woods and their vistas, the long drives by the river, the glimpse of statuary and fountains from delightful terraces, the knolls commanding the whole circle of the horizon, the vast garden and lawn s.p.a.ces, the shadowed alleys where 100,000 people make scarcely any more sound than a swarm of bees,--and over it all such a soft, sweet dreamy light. (When you go to see it, be sure to choose a sunny, _warm_ day.) Thousands of thousands of carriages file by, each with a pair of lovers in it.

Everybody in the park seems to be making love to somebody. Love is so much the atmosphere of the place,--a part of the light and calm and perfume--that you feel as if drenched with it, permeated by it, mesmerized. And if you are all alone, you will look about you once in a while, wondering that somebody else is not beside you.... But I forgot that I am not writing to a stupid man, like myself.

L. H.