Tales of the Wonder Club Volume I Part 6

I was puzzled by this last speech of his. Was the brain really affected?

Had I to do with a case of insanity? I studied his physiognomy for some time in silence. He would have been called decidedly handsome; and yet that is not the word. I should rather say beautiful, but the complexion was pallid and the face dreadfully emaciated. The forehead was ample, but half-eclipsed by a ma.s.s of rich, chestnut hair that hung over his head in disordered waves. The nose was Grecian; the mouth and chin cla.s.sic; the eyes were large, dark, and l.u.s.trous, with an expression most unusual and indescribable.

If I may use the expression, he seemed to look through you and beyond you into s.p.a.ce. The expression was quite unlike the vacant stare of the maniac, for the look abounded with superior intelligence, but yet it was not that sort of intelligence which men get by mixing in the world. His look had something _unearthly_ in it--something of another world. I could not altogether bring myself to believe that he was mad. He would certainly have been called so by the world at large, which calls everything madness that does not come within its own narrow circle. His madness was that his faculties were too acute, his nervous system too sensitive. When he looked at me he seemed to read my inmost thoughts and answer them all with his eyes before I had time to open my mouth to give utterance to them.

I tried to reason with him, tried to show him that very good health was compatible with the most exalted thoughts, etc. But he always had an answer ready, and that, too, before the words were half out of my mouth.

He was a perfect study, and I took immense interest in him. He, in turn, grew more docile and confiding, and after some five or six visits we were the best of friends.

I have said that he slept much and was given much to talking in his sleep. It was on my third visit that I had some experience of this. We were in the midst of an animated discussion, when he suddenly went off into a most profound slumber; more suddenly than I had ever before known anyone to fall asleep, and so resembling death that for some time I thought him dead. At length his lips began to move, and for more than an hour he kept up a conversation with someone in his dream, part of which conversation I committed to paper.

"What!" he exclaimed, "this is the spot appointed, and no one near. This is the trysting tree, yonder the blue mountains, here the rocks. It is past the hour. Oh, where is she? Will she not come? Must I return to that darkness mortals call life without seeing her, without hearing one word? Oh, Edith! shake off these bonds of flesh but for one hour, if, indeed, you also have a life of clay like me, and are not all spirit.

Can you not spare me _one_ hour? Ah! footsteps! A bush crackles. Edith, Edith! how glad I am you have come at last. I was afraid you had been prevented. Why are you so late? What do I see--tears? Tell me what has happened. Does your father know of our meetings? But how should he? Are we not in the spirit? Come, tell me all."

Here a pause ensued, as if the lady he was addressing was speaking, during which time the expression of his face changed several times; first from one of deep tenderness, next, to that of profound melancholy.

He sighed, then again a bright smile illumined his countenance.

Occasionally a slight frown would cloud his brow for an instant, and his countenance bore a look of determination. At length he spoke again in earnest tones.

"Come what may, I will never leave you. Have I not sworn? Are you not mine to all eternity? We may never meet in the flesh; but what of that.

Are we not happier thus? Unshackled from that fearful darkness that wars against our spirits? Oh, that we may ever live thus! Would that we could become all spirit."

Another pause ensued, and after some minutes he resumed.

"And how can your father's paltry caprices affect us--whilst we are in the spirit, how can the weapons of the flesh attack us?"

A pause, and then he said, "True, as you say, we are not always in the spirit, and then of course we must be subject to---- But what is it you fear, Edith?"

Again a pause.

"Do you know," he began again, "that that is the very thought that has been pa.s.sing through my mind for some time past. Oh, horrible! If one of us or both should get entirely cured, so that the doors of the flesh should close upon us for ever, our spiritual life desert us, without even the prospect of meeting in the fles.h.!.+" Here he groaned deeply. "How long will this last, this dream of bliss? It began but a year ago. If we could only escape altogether from our earthly bodies! but I feel that is impossible as yet; while I speak I feel attracted again towards clay. I am unable to resist; I feel myself torn away. I am going--going.

Farewell, Edith."

The next moment he awoke. I folded up the paper on which I had been writing and placed it in my pocket; then turned to my patient. I have not given here one half of the conversation, I was unable to follow him with my pen the greater part of the time, for at times he would speak very rapidly, at other times sink his voice so low that I could not catch all he uttered.

"I am here again, then," he muttered to himself, with a groan. "When will this end?"

"You have had pleasant dreams, I hope," said I with a smile.

He looked at me suspiciously, and said, "You have heard me? Then you know all!"

"What?" I asked.

"Why, all about that----"

"I know nothing," I replied. "It is true you talked in your sleep; you have been dreaming."

"Call it a dream, if you like," he said. "I exist but in such dreams, and my waking life is to me but a nightmare."

"Pooh! pooh!" I said. "You must not take such a morbid view of things.

Your brain at present is in a state of fever. We cannot expect always to be well. I'll give you a composing draught, and in time I hope----"

"Throw physic to the dogs," he replied, quoting from his favourite author. "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?"

"Perhaps," said I, "I might manage to do that as well, if you will bide by my instructions."

"Look here, doctor," he said, at length, "I shall be very happy to see you whenever you come, to talk with you as a friend, as long as I remain upon earth, but I refuse point blank to take any of your medicine, so I don't deceive you."

I tried to expostulate; but how can one reason with a man who wants to die, and try to persuade him to take physic, itself nauseous, but to bring him back to the life which he despises? My task was a difficult one, but I bethought me of a plan. I pretended to humour him, and took my leave, saying I would call again shortly.

On leaving the sick-room I entered the parlour, where the parents of the invalid awaited me, to hear my opinion of the case. I told them that the patient's nerves were in a most sensitive state; I had heard him talk much in his sleep; that the brain wanted repose. I told them that he had refused to take any of my medicine because he was tired of his life and did not wish to prolong it.

I then wrote out a prescription, which I told them to get made up at the chemist's. It was a composing draught which I desired them to administer in a tumbler of water, likewise pouring in some sweet syrup to hide the nauseous taste. Whenever he complained of thirst this medicine was to be given him. In this manner he would be forced to take my medicines, and might recover in spite of himself.

Before leaving the house I inquired of Charles' mother if she were aware of any love affair of her son's that might have sown the first seeds of this illness. She replied in the negative, but that she was aware that he often mentioned a lady's name in his sleep--the name "Edith."

She a.s.sured me that there was not a single young lady of her acquaintance who bore that name; that she was at a loss to conceive how he could have made the acquaintance of any lady for the last two years without her knowing it, as he had led such a very retired life since he had left the university. Truly, he might have made her acquaintance whilst at Oxford, but, then, he had never shown any symptoms of his present malady for long after.

I left the house, giving them all the hope I could, and promised to call again on the morrow. The morrow arrived, and I called again. My draught had been administered, and I thought that my patient was a degree less nervous. Whether it was my fancy or what, I know not, but it seemed to me that the invalid suspected I had been tampering with him. He said nothing, but I thought I read it in his eyes.

"How did you sleep last night?" I asked.

"Well," he replied; "but somehow I fancy that my dreams last night were less vivid."

"Not a bad sign," I observed. "Dreaming is a bad thing--sign of a disordered stomach."

"Some dreams--not all," he replied.

"No, not all; but those very vivid dreams that you allude to all proceed from a bad digestion or over-heated brain."

"Then, you set down all dreams to some physical cause?"

"Certainly," said I; "though the character of the dream will be shaped according to our waking thoughts."

"Well, yes," he replied, "generally it is so. I myself once used to have those sort of dreams. But have you never met with a patient who lived two separate existences, whose spirit during sleep wandered into those realms allotted to it; returning upon waking to the body, there to drag out a wretched existence in the world, among the hum of men, and pa.s.s his melancholy hours longing for the night, when his spirit would be again set free from its prison, to wander unrestrained through those realms of s.p.a.ce untrodden by mortal foot?"

"Never," I replied; "and if I were to meet with a man who imagined he pa.s.sed two different existences, what proof have I that his dreams are nothing more than imagination? What proof have I that he _really does_ live two separate lives?"

"Proof such as you would desire to have I admit is difficult; but let us suppose a case. What would you say if, in the course of a life-time's experience, you were to find some few, very rare, cases of men as I describe, who believe, as you would say, that their spirit during sleep leaves the body and revels in a world of its own. That you were to read of some few other cases of the same sort that have occurred now and then at rare intervals since the world began, and that the written description of that abode unknown to mortal tread, were to tally in every particular with the descriptions you yourself received from some of your patients?"

"Well," I replied, "I should say, either that my patients had been reading these old legends until their brains were turned, or that it was a malady, and, like all other maladies, was manifested by certain special symptoms. Hence the similarity of the descriptions."

"I knew that would be your reply," he observed. "Doctor, doctor," he continued, shaking his head, "you have a great deal to learn."

"Have you, then," I enquired, "ever met with a man of that sort?"

"I know _one_. What should you say, doctor, if I myself was one of those men?"

"You! I should say that your imagination deluded you, that your present ill state of health is sufficient to account for any freak of the brain, however eccentric."

"Deluded mortal," he muttered. "Alas! by what circuitous paths do men persistently seek for error, when the high road of Truth lies ever before their eyes."