Tales of the Wonder Club Volume I Part 10

Edith!' but my voice went forth from me weak, like a voice in the distance. Nevertheless, my cry was answered. I heard Edith's voice within the garden calling out my name, but in very feeble tones. My ears were too grossly clogged with flesh to hear distinctly spiritual sounds. I was aware of Edith's presence. She shook the garden gate with her hands and spoke to me through the bars, but I saw no form. I heard only her voice.

"'Come to me,' she said, in what appeared a suppressed whisper. 'Oh, what is this, Charles? Why cannot you come?'

"Then the same unknown voice that had addressed me before spoke again, 'Spirit to spirit--flesh to fles.h.!.+' and I felt myself whirled back from the garden gate as by a whirlwind, and I awoke."

"The dream is strange," I observed. "Have you many such dreams?" I asked.

"Up to the present time, thank goodness, no; but who knows if to-night I shall be able to dream at all?"

"You will sleep all the sounder if you don't. Dreams always come when the sleep is disturbed," said I.

"Doctor, would you rob me of all I have to live for by your drugs?" he exclaimed.

"I should be sorry," I replied, "if my drugs have the unfortunate effect of robbing you of pleasant dreams; but it is my first duty as a medical man to remedy the physical ills of my patients."

"Well, no more drugs for me, that's all," he said, positively. "The next article of food I take that tastes in the slightest degree of physic I shall certainly throw away."

"In that case," I replied, "if there is no way of administering medicine to you, this must be my last visit. It is useless calling on a patient who refuses to be cured."

"Well, doctor," he said, "I shall be sorry to lose you, as your conversation serves to cheer my waking death. Of course, I can't expect you to put yourself out of the way to come here for nothing; but if at any time you are not better employed, just drop in as a friend."

"Well," I said, "I should not like to drop an acquaintance so interesting. But, the subject of medicine apart, you really must take a little more nutriment than you do."

This was what was really the matter with him. The body was worn away through insufficient diet, till the patient was in a state bordering on starvation; and this had been for a long time persisted in, as the invalid found a morbid delight in those vivid dreams peculiar to all people who practise long fasting; and so loth was he to give up his beloved dreamland, that he was ready to sacrifice life itself.

We chatted together for some time longer, and he related to me many of his dreams, which were all of a most extraordinary character. At length I got up to go, saying I would call on the morrow, and entered the parlour where the parents of the young man were seated. They asked me how my patient progressed. I told them he wanted plenty of nutriment, and, without ordering further medicine, I told them to give him plenty of mutton broth, beef tea, and other nutritious things, and to put them as close to his bed as possible, that the smell of the savoury food might awaken his appet.i.te.

They promised to comply with my request, and I quitted the house. I had one or two other cases to attend to after that, which interested me in a much less degree, after which I returned home, and committed to paper the leading peculiarities of the cases of Charles and Edith.

In the course of the morrow I called again upon Charles. I thought he looked better. There was certainly a change in him since my first visit.

"Well," I asked, "and how did you sleep last night?"

"Oh, doctor!" he answered, "such a dream!"

"Well, come, what was it?"

"I thought," he began, "that I was again in search of that garden gate that I have before alluded to, but when I came in sight of it it was no longer distinct and tangible as on the preceding night, but misty in outline, and as I approached it seemed to recede and grew more misty, as if I saw it through a fog. The fog grew more and more dense, like an immense black cloud, and I saw nothing. Then the cloud seemed to solidify, and it turned to a solid wall of stone, and I found myself suddenly enclosed within what looked like the courtyard of a prison. I looked out for some loophole, but all attempt at escape appeared impossible. My eye soon caught an inscription on the wall, which ran thus, 'The boundary of the body.'

"'What,' I said, within myself, 'can my spirit no longer soar into those blissful realms it was wont formerly to revel in? Must I tamely submit to this imprisonment without one effort? No,' I said; 'never will I basely give in thus.' And, noticing a wide c.h.i.n.k between the stones, I placed the tip of my foot in. I soon found another notch for my fingers.

There was no one near, so, finding higher up another c.h.i.n.k, I put the other foot in that, and after considerable difficulty and danger, succeeded in reaching the top of the wall. I found that the prison was built on a high rock in the middle of the sea, and guarded by demon sentinels.

"I looked out into the distance. There was nothing but sea and sky, and that, too, seemed so blended together as to appear all one element. In whatever direction I chanced to gaze, all was vast, infinite, indefinable.

"'Yonder must be the realms of the spirit,' I muttered to myself, as I lolled upon the summit of the prison wall. The words I uttered fell upon the ear of a demon sentinel below, armed with a long halberd. He raised the alarm, and I was forced to descend from my perch. Finding myself once more in the prison yard, I heard rapid footsteps behind me, and the jingling of keys. I turned round suddenly and beheld the jailor.

"'What is this place?' I asked, somewhat sternly, 'and why am I here?'

"'This building,' answered the jailor, 'is called _the prison-house of flesh_, and the reason you are here is that you belong to "our sort."'

"I groaned, and followed the jailor, who led me below into some horrid cell, where the daylight scarce entered. He turned the key upon me and I awoke."

"Dear me," said I, "that was a very disagreeable dream. There was nothing about Miss Edith in that," I said, smiling wickedly.

"No," he said, savagely, "and whose face do you think the jailor's was in my dream?"

"I have no idea," I replied.

"Why, _yours_, doctor!" said the young man, suddenly starting up with extreme energy, and darting a look of ferocity towards me.

"Yes, doctor, you are my jailor; it is you who have closed my spirit up in its prison-house of flesh, so that it can no longer soar together in the company of the higher intelligences. It is you who have driven me back again to earth and made me an equal of such minds as your own.

_You_ have robbed me of the only woman I ever loved in my life, _you_----"

"Stay, young man, one moment," I said, "and calm yourself. Is this your grat.i.tude for the relic I brought you yesterday? If I, as you say, have robbed you of one of your lives, don't I offer you another which to a young man of your age and position is a state of existence that I can't say how many would _envy_, and which, after all, is doing nothing more than my duty as a medical man. Then, as to robbing you of the lady you love, haven't I the power of making you acquainted with her some day in the flesh, if all goes well, and I succeeded in curing you both?"

"If such a meeting should take place, do you think," he said, "that we should experience in the same intense degree those chaste joys of love, as if we were in the spirit, when our souls, unfettered from any particle of clay, are raised to that sublime pitch that we are enabled to understand the profound and lofty discourse of angels and become ourselves for the time a part of the heavenly bodies?"

"My dear young man," I observed, "life is short. If the paradise you are in the habit of entering in your dreams be indeed that place where all good souls hope to go after death, you have but to wait for a few years----"

"Wait a few years!" he exclaimed, impatiently, "when every minute spent away from _her_ appears a century! It's very plain _you_ are not in love."

"In the meantime," I said, "content yourself with a life of flesh like any other rational mortal."

He began to reflect upon my words, so I thought I would improve the opportunity, and, if possible, try and make him turn human, so I observed,

"I shall not be here to-morrow; I am going to visit Miss Edith. Shall I take her any message?"

"Oh, yes, doctor, certainly, by all means; that is, I'll write. Give me some paper, pen and ink."

Having handed him these materials, he sat up in bed and penned an epistle to his lady-love in the flesh, which he sealed and handed to me.

I a.s.sured him of its safety in my hands, and took my leave of him for some days, hoping to find him more reconciled to humanity on my return.

Having given the parents of Charles further instructions with regard to their son, I took my departure, and shortly afterwards taking the stage, was _en route_ for my friend's country seat, where I arrived early the next morning.

"And how is our patient?" I asked, as I shook hands with my friend at the threshold.

"I fancy she sleeps sounder, doctor," he replied. "We are not so often disturbed by her talking in her sleep."

"Good," said I; "her nerves will be getting a little stronger. Can I see her?"

"Oh, yes; walk straight to her room."

As I entered, my patient was sitting up in bed, reading.

"Ah!" said I, after the customary salutations, "we are better this morning, eh?"

"Oh, doctor, is that you? I am glad you have come."