He was still in his room, he thought, but no longer in his chair.
Instead, he stood in the very center of the floor, or at least poised
somewhere above it, for he could see at a glance, without turning, all
that the room contained. He directed his attention--for it was this,
rather than sight, through which he perceived--to the piano, the
chiffonier, the chairs, the two doors, the curtained windows; and
finally, with scarcely even a touch of surprise, to himself still sunk
in the chair before the fire. He regarded himself with pleased
interest, remembering even in that instant that he had never before
seen himself with closed eyes....
All in the room was extraordinarily vivid and clear-cut. It was true
that the firelight still wavered and sank again in billows of soft
color about the shadowed walls, but the changing light was no more an
interruption to the action of that steady medium through which he
perceived than the movement of summer clouds across the full sunlight.
It was at that moment that he understood that he saw no longer with
eyes, but with that faculty of perception to which sight is only
analogous--that faculty which underlies and is common to all the
senses alike.
His reasoning powers, too, at this moment, seemed to have gone from
him like a husk. He did not argue or deduce; simply he understood.
And, in a flash, simultaneous with the whole vision, he perceived that
he was behind all the slow processes of the world, by which this is
added to that, and a conclusion drawn; by which light travels, and
sounds resolve themselves and emotions run their course. He had
reached, he thought, the ultimate secret.... It was This that lay
behind everything.
Now it is impossible to set down, except progressively, all this sum
of experiences that occupied for him one interminable instant. Neither
did he remember afterwards the order in which they presented
themselves; for it seemed to him that there was no order; all was
simultaneous.
But he understood plainly by intuition that all was open to him.
Space no longer existed for him; nothing, to his perception, separated
this from that. He was able, he saw, without stirring from his
attitude to see in an instant any place or person towards which he
chose to exercise his attention. It seemed a marvelously simple point,
this--that space was little more than an illusion; that it was, after
all, nothing else but a translation into rather coarse terms of what
may be called "differences." "Here" and "There" were but relative
terms; certainly they corresponded to facts, but they were not those
facts themselves.... And since he now stood behind them he saw them on
their inner side, as a man standing in the interior of a globe may be
said to be equally present to every point upon its surface.
The fascination of the thought was enormous; and, like a child who
begins to take notice and to learn the laws of extension and distance,
so he began to learn their reverse. He saw, he thought (as he had seen
once before, only, this time, without the sense of movement), the
interior of the lighted drawing room at home, and his mother nodding
in her chair; he directed his attention to Maggie, and perceived her
passing across the landing toward the head of the stairs with a candle
in her hand. It was this sight that brought him to a further
discovery, to the effect that time also was of very nearly no
importance either; for he perceived that by bending his attention upon
her he could restrain her, so to speak, in her movement. There she
stood, one foot outstretched, the candle flame leaning motionless
backward; and he knew too that it was not she who was thus restrained,
but that it was the intensity and directness of his thought that
fixed, so to say, in terms of eternity, that instant of time....
So it went on; or, rather, so it was with him. He pleased himself by
contemplating the London streets outside, the darkness of the garden
in some square, the interior of the Oratory where a few figures
kneeled--all seen beyond the movements of light and shadow in this
clear invisible radiance that was to his perception as common light to
common eyes. The world of which he had had experience--for he found
himself unable to see that which he had never experienced--lay before
his will like a movable map: this or that person or place had but to
be desired, and it was present.
And then came the return; and the Horror....
He began in this way.
He understood that he wished to awake, or, rather, to be reunited with
the body that lay there in deep sleep before the fire. He observed it
for a moment or two, interested and pleased, the face sunk a little on
the hand, the feet lightly crossed on the fender. He looked at his own
profile, the straight nose, the parted lips through which the breath
came evenly. He attempted even to touch the face, wondering with
gentle pleasure what would be the result....
Then, suddenly, an impulse came to him to enter the body, and with the
impulse the process, it seemed, began.
That process was not unlike that of falling asleep. In an instant
perception was gone; the lighted room was gone, and that obedient
world which he had contemplated just now. Yet self-consciousness for a
while remained; he still had the power of perceiving his own
personality, though this dwindled every moment down to that same gulf
of nothingness through which he had found his way.
But at the very instant in which consciousness was passing there met
him an emotion so fierce and overwhelming that he recoiled in terror
back from the body once more and earth-perceptions; and a panic seized
him.
It was such a panic as seizes a child who, fearfully courageous, has
stolen at night from his room, and turning in half-simulated terror
finds the door fast against him, or is aware of a malignant presence
come suddenly into being, standing between himself and the safety of
his own bed.
On the one side his fear drove him onwards; on the other a Horror
faced him. He dared not recoil, for he understood where security lay;
he longed, like the child screaming in the dark and beating his hands,
to get back to the warmth and safety of bed; yet there stood before
him a Presence, or at the least an Emotion of some kind, so hostile,
so terrible, that he dared not penetrate it. It was not that an actual
restraint lay upon him: he knew, that is, that the door was open; yet
it needed an effort of the will of which his paralysis of terror
rendered him incapable....
The tension became intolerable.
"O God ... God ... God...." he cried.
And in an instant the threshold was vacated; the swift rush asserted
itself, and the space was passed.
* * * * *
Laurie sat up abruptly in his chair.