argus-eyed control of three persons: the master of the house and
two assistants. This time Dr. von Schrenck appointed as assistants
the lively nerve-specialist and myself. And we obliged him--though
privately I doubted my fitness for the office. I felt lax and
benevolent, and inclined to regard the supervision as a formality. I
am not at home in the rôle of misdoubting observer; it embarrasses me,
it is repugnant to my humanity. You cannot expect a man to turn you
his good side when you take his bad one for granted. This youth now
girding up his loins to perform marvels--why should I dash his spirits
by showing him I suspected him of preparing to take me in? I am a
sceptic, but I want something to happen. Yet might not that be the most
fundamental and extreme form of scepticism? Perhaps I, in my laxity and
benevolence, was the most unbelieving of all?--But no more, for the
moment. Make your toilet, young man, I will watch you.
The Baron showed us the black, one-piece tricot affair in which Willy
was to cover himself from neck to ankle. He urged us to subject it
to a careful scrutiny, to feel it all over. He laid great stress
on a critical attitude. A garment, of cotton tricot. Very good. No
sign of deception about that; and Willy drew it on over his tanned,
boyish body. As he did so I caught a shy and solemn look he cast at my
colleague, the blonde lady nerve-specialist, who blithely regarded the
ceiling. But in nothing but the tricot the chap would freeze, that was
humanly plain; so they gave him a dressing-gown besides, a comfortable
old wadded kimono of the Baron’s, which likewise we conscientiously
examined, pockets, lining, and all. A good-natured old dressing-gown.
Good. But it had one curious feature: the Baron explained it to us. It
was trimmed all over with ribbons, on the sleeves, the seams, the hem,
sewed on everywhere. And these ribbons had been treated with a luminous
preparation so that you would be able to see the outline of Willy’s
figure even by a dim light and easily keep it in your eye. That seemed
a sensible precaution. More luminous ribbon went like a diadem about
his head; he stuck his feet into an old pair of Turkish slippers. They
completed the preparations. Or no. For when he stood arrayed he opened
his jaws very wide, like a lion, as though to swallow us. I gasped;
until it was explained to me that this was a matter of controlling the
mouth cavity. The deuce! And I had been within an ace of forgetting the
mouth cavity. He already had one gold tooth in it, to the honour of his
trade. For the rest, it was an irreproachable mouth cavity. We saw it
as far down as the glottis. In God’s name, enough. We returned to the
other room.
A chorus of friendly shouts welcomed us. The old hands hailed their
Willy in his professional disguise. It was a merry masquerade, and
Willy himself, in his talar and priestly bands, laughed too, in
good-natured embarrassment. _Allons, mes enfants!_ The company trooped
into the laboratory and our host shut the door behind us.
Things were looking serious. Unnatural events were to take place in
this strange room that was like a photographic studio even down to the
objects to distract the children’s minds with. I confess to a little
faint-heartedness, an inner resistance, a doubt whether I, personally,
was a suitable candidate for the enterprise. But now the conductor of
the experiment, all unsolicited, entrusted me with the control of the
medium, Willy’s landlady, Frau P., acting as the second control; and
began at once to instruct me in the technique. And technique it was, in
all seriousness, very thorough and gratifying indeed. I sat opposite to
the young man, with my chair close to his, his two knees between mine.
I held both his hands and my assistant both his wrists. Nobody could
deny--and I was far from doing so--that Willy was in safe arrest; we
sat and looked idiotically at each other, while the rest of the company
took their places chattering.
We were grouped in front of the curtain, in an irregular circle,
three-quarters closed. At one end sat the medium, with us “controls,”
and at the other the master of the house. Not all those present found
a place in this circle; two or three people had to move back into a
second row, where they stood or sat as they liked. Among them was the
sporting zoology professor, who to my astonishment had armed himself
with an accordion. It appeared that he was a skilled performer on this
instrument, in demand for excursions and summer evening garden-parties,
and particularly welcome in such gatherings as the present one, for a
medium needs music, almost continuous music, for his demonstrations--a
temperamental requirement which it would be foolish not to gratify.
Professor G. with his concertina added variety to a programme which
would otherwise have been furnished only by a music-box that played one
single and not even very pleasing tune.
The room was still lighted by ordinary white electricity, by which the
Baron put the finishing touches to his arrangements. A little table
stood in our circle, not precisely in the middle, rather nearer to our
host than to the medium, from whom it was some five feet distant. The
Baron measured the distance with a yardstick, and then placed several
objects upon it: a lamp in a red shade, the table-bell, a plate of
flour, a little slate and piece of chalk. A sizable wastepaper-basket
stood upside-down by the table, with a music-box on it; not the one
that was to play (that stood on a shelf behind the Baron’s chair), but
a smaller affair on which Herr Willy’s powers were to be displayed.
The typewriter the Baron set somewhere on the carpet near himself;
then he strewed felt rings about the floor within the circle. They
were luminous, like the ribbons on Willy’s clothes, and to one or two
of them was attached a longish, luminous string. Furthermore, all the
larger objects, so far as was practicable, the waste-paper-basket, the
music-box, the table-bell, were marked with luminous ribbons as well.
These ribbons were the Baron’s own invention, he rather prided himself
on them and used them in profusion.... The light went out.
But it was turned on again; for Willy, sitting there in my arrest and
still in his waking senses, had remembered something. “The pins, Herr
Baron,” he said. He referred, did this honourable youth, to another
precautionary measure which had been overlooked. The Baron bestuck the
sleeves and skirt of the velvet dressing-gown with pins that had thick,
white, illuminated heads. Others of the same kind already stuck in the
curtains, right and left of the opening, so that every movement in
their folds must betray itself. Once more the white light was turned
off. The only illumination now was a dark red shimmer from the shrouded
ceiling light, and from the little lamp on the table, which was
likewise shaded. For the unadjusted eye rather a scanty illumination.
But the Baron assured us that it was the best he could do. His utmost
efforts had not succeeded in securing a greater toleration for light.
“I struggle,” he said, “for every ray, but this is all I can get, up
to now.” However, Willy himself gave out light; so did the felt rings,
the bands on the other objects, and the pins in the curtains. After
all, the field of operations was visible; and after a little while the
top of the table seemed really quite well lighted. We were asked for a
little silence, in which the music-box performed its single number, a
clear and childish tune with a brief recurring melody and a tinkling
accompaniment. We waited. I in particular waited, with Willy’s hands in
mine, neither too tight nor too loose.
Suddenly, after two or three minutes, he shivered. A shudder ran
through him, and his arms, taking mine along, began to perform pumping
and thrusting motions. His breath came short and thick.
“Trance,” announced my experienced assistant.
So the chap had fallen into a trance under my hands! I had never
observed this state before, and gave it my profoundest attention,
convinced as I am that it is a condition of the most far-reaching
implications. While it lasts, Willy’s ego is divided into two symbolic
persons, for the purposes of his dream-performance, a male and a
female. He calls them Erwin and Minna. Childishness. Hocus-pocus.
Nobody takes Erwin and Minna seriously; but for the sake of the
business in hand we are fain to humour the whim: from now on we ignore
Willy’s existence and stick to these two, who have a simple way of
making clear which is which. Erwin is a lout. He manifests himself by
the vigour with which Willy lays about him, but seldom does anything
worth seeing; leaving the serious business to his milder and more
efficient sister. My assistant thought it was Minna who was now shaking
us and pumping with our arms.
“Is Minna there?” asked the Baron.
Yes, she was there. I receive one quick, firm pressure of Willy’s hand;
that is Minna’s way of saying yes. For no there is a sideways motion of
the hands and torso, to and fro. Moreover, the somnambulist will speak
to the controls; his voice is a quick, loud, thick-tongued whisper,
with a certain intensity in it.
The Baron greets Minna. “Good-evening, Minna. There are good friends
here, most of them you know, a few are new, but you don’t mind that, do
you?”
A to-and-fro movement in denial.
“Today the control is a very sympathetic man, full of the most cordial
interest in you and your powers. I hope you will show him something
nice.”
A squeeze of my hand, a short forward thrust of Willy’s torso. Yes, she
promises--absurdly enough, one involuntarily says “she.”
“Well then, Minna, do your best.”
And a general conversation begins. It has to begin, the medium exacts
it. “Talk,” he babbles in my ear, and I pass the word on. The company
have formed a chain and are sitting hand in hand. This may be a vestige
of spiritualistic parlour games, it may be an organic necessity. Hard
to tell. Anyway, Willy insists on it, and keeps whispering us to keep
the chain firm. My neighbour on the left is in touch with me too, his
right hand rests on my shoulder and arm. We talk into the darkness,
saying anything that comes into our heads, scarcely knowing to whom. It
is not easy. The subject-matter dwindles, the forced conversation keeps
breaking off or dying away, for our real attention is not upon it. But
we are warned against watching too eagerly for phenomena. Our leader
recommends a hovering attitude, a mood of suspension, which may be
evoked by the music that now mingles with our loud, artificial voices.
The zoology professor has struck up behind us on his concertina,
wheezing out a brisk succession of lively marches. His resources are
apparently endless; and when he falters, the music-box takes up the
strain with its tinkling little tune.
A fantastic setting. It is not hard to see why science, which sets
store by exact values, is at home in the dry, objective air of the
laboratory and used to purely abstract work with apparatus and prepared
subjects, should feel put off with this all too human kind of
experimentation. It is the same with the layman. He has come keyed up
to a suggestive atmosphere and a mood of consecration and mystery. He
is disappointed to find himself in a situation which probably disgusts
him both intellectually and æsthetically, suggesting as it does the
mawkish revival methods of the Salvation Army. This impression is
strengthened by the shouts with which the audience keeps encouraging
the medium--or, rather, the officiating Minna: “Hullo, Minna, are you
there? Buck up, show us what you can do! Get on with it, Minna!” The
one mystical thing about the situation--and that not in any spiritual
sense, but with reference to organic mysteries, primitive and affecting
at once--is the medium himself, as he tosses and threshes with his
arms, whispering in quick groans and pants: he is the primary object
of my curiosity. His condition and actions quite strikingly and
unmistakably remind me of the act of parturition. The head is now
thrown far back, now it sinks on my shoulder or on our hands, which are
so wet with perspiration that I constantly need to renew my grip. His
efforts come at intervals, like throes; the pauses between are times
of complete rest and inaccessibility, during which he sleeps, the head
drooping sideways on the chest, and assembles new powers. This is deep
trance, from which he rouses himself to resume his procreative labour.
A masculine lying-in, in a reddish darkness, amid chatter and shoutings
and jazz. It was like nothing else in the world. I reflected that
it would have been quite worth seeing even if nothing else were
to happen. And really it looked as though nothing else would. The
“child” did not come. Nothing supernatural felt inclined to show
itself. True, some of our audience, in their eagerness to see things,
anticipated them. Two of the illuminated pins had come out of Willy’s
dressing-gown, though they had been stuck in deep and firmly. They lay
on the floor, one of them rather far off him. The eager said they had
been taken; but it was quite possible if not probable that Willy’s
writhings had forced them out. But then, what about the two lighted
rings which had lain immediately in front of the curtain? They had
originally been visible in all their circumference, not partly hidden
by the hangings; but in the course of the last few minutes their
position had changed, you could see only about a third of them now;
either the curtain had moved forward or the rings back, while the next
time you looked, see, they were once more entirely visible, free of
the curtain and not beneath it. And that was a manifestation. A poor,
uncertain one, but it had to suffice. And had I not felt the breath of
cooler air the medium exhaled--that always heralded new phenomena? No,
to be frank, I should have welcomed any breath of cooler air, but I had
noticed nothing of the sort.
And time passes. It is hard to judge how much has passed already;
perhaps three-quarters of an hour. Evidently the medium is having a
hard time. They ask if this is the case, but he denies it and goes
on struggling. They ask if everything is in order, and the answer is
yes. But I don’t believe him. Privately I take on myself the blame for
our lack of success. From the first I had doubted whether my nature
would be helpful to the good Willy at his work; and now I am certain
that there in his beyond he shares my doubts. He denies it, of course;
that is the merest politeness--however odd it may sound to speak of
somnambulistic politeness. So far as I can observe, it is by no means
impossible that civilized and personal considerations have a hampering
effect in this condition; nor did Willy absolutely deny that this was
so. He said in a whisper: “Do you want the phenomena to come faster?”
Well? And what then? Silence. Did he want a pause? Still silence. Then
he began to kick with his feet; the Baron counted. Fifteen times. A
fifteen-minute pause, then. Good. We stop, temporarily.
The medium is given time to come to before the light is turned on.
He made wonderful preparations: scraping motions of hand and arm at
his side, which, in his fancy at least, served to draw in the organic
forces which had been sent out but not yet manifested. He woke in a
series of starts and blinked stupidly at the light. We betook ourselves
into the next room.
Cigarettes were lighted. Willy smoked too, sitting on the sofa in
his costume. The position was discussed. It was far from being
discouraging. A temporary hitch. The need of rest was not unusual.
An absolutely negative sitting occurred very seldom with our Willy.
Nothing was lost. Willy’s foster-mother diverted us with tales of their
domestic experiences. They would probably have to move into another
apartment. People objected to the uncalled-for things that were always
happening, wherever Willy was: spontaneous phenomena, signs and
wonders. Fists knocked on the walls. Hands did things nobody told them
to. A spook had showed itself most unexpectedly at the dining-room
door. The cook had seen it, and fled with a shriek. All that was to
the good. However, as for us we had so far drawn a blank. The young
clinician took a new measurement with his blood-pressure apparatus, for
purposes of comparison, and discussed its result with Dr. von Schrenck.
Fifteen minutes. The Baron signed for the renewal of the sitting.
I felt sure that Willy had contrived the pause in order to get the
control changed, and so I insisted on giving up my office. But our
host would not hear to it. No, no. We must not give way to all Minna’s
little whims. For the sake of the impression I should get, it was
necessary I should have the medium in my personal charge. But I might
take the second place, Frau P.’s, and give the first to someone else,
either Herr Reicher or Herr von K. Better Herr von K. “Come on, Herr
von K. You always manage to get it out of her.”
Von K. was the Polish painter, the man with the gruff and hearty
voice. He was a direct and vigorous character and the medium’s
favourite control. When a session seemed likely to be a failure,
they always called on him. He held Willy’s hands and encouraged him
with a geniality of which he alone possessed the secret; and almost
always something happened. “_Grüss’ Gott, Minna!_ Old friends together
again, that’s fine, I think, and surely you think the same? You do,
eh? Right-oh--but listen to me, not so hard! You’ll pull my shoulder
out. Minna, is that the way you love me?” Like that. Willy requires
this sort of thing, and almost always responds to it. Soon after the
red light went on again, he had fallen into the magnetic trance. The
music-box rippled, the concertina took its turn. The lying-in went on.
My position was awkward, bent over as I was, without anything to lean
on; but I clutched Willy’s wrists oblivious of all else, and was shaken
by his wrestling. He pulls us to and fro, he pumps and trembles, tosses
and writhes, whispers with foaming lips: “Talk, talk!” “The chain,
the chain!” “The chain,” repeats the devoted von K. “Surely my Minna
may ask that the circle be properly closed!” The longer we sit, the
harder we have to try to keep the dwindling conversation going. The
Baron encourages us. “Talk, gentlemen. Professor G., you are going
to sleep. Herr Mann, are you talking?” “Yes, Baron, I am talking as
hard as I can.” The audience pulls itself together and utters the
sheerest twaddle into the dark. Reicher, the actor, helps himself out
with a sonorous “_Rhabarber, Rhabarber!_” The music is painful. We are
weary to tears of the music-box’s one tinkling little tune, but when
the concertina sets in, with wheezing and puffing, then we want the
harmless tinkling back again. If it is hard for Willy, it is not easy
for us. Almost another hour has passed since the intermission. My back
aches, but I ignore it. The medium starts out of deep trance. He gives
a violent jerk, and seems to be trying to expel something by means of
lurches and lunges. “Brava, Minna,” von K. cajoles her. “You’re on
the way, we can all see that. You’ve only to take hold, it will be
wonderful, I’ll like you twice as much.” In vain. Not a sign. Even Herr
von K.’s blandishments are without result. Resignation glides into all
our hearts. For my part, I feel I have no luck with the mysteries.
I shall go on as before, granting the possibility of all sorts of
things; but I shall have seen nothing. Well, so much the worse for me.
Dyed-in-the-wool materialists have spent evenings here. So have open
enemies, protesting that the whole thing was a trick. So have irascible
physicists with their insistence on the laws of nature. And one and
all have come and seen and gone away with their so-called scepticism
shaken. Whereas my scepticism, which by comparison with theirs is
belief, a faith in nothing and everything--what name shall I give
it?--will have proved essentially unproductive, nihilistic. A slight,
unmistakable bitterness comes over me. Well, anyhow, the impressions of
the evening have been worth taking away.
Our host tries a last expedient. He takes a high tone, and speaks:
“Now, Minna, let’s be fair. We have been sitting here over two hours,
you cannot say we have been impatient. But everything has its limits.
We’ll give you another five or ten minutes, and then if nothing happens
we will call a halt, and these gentlemen will go home and some of
them will certainly think that you can do nothing. They will have no
faith in your powers and they will say so, and the sceptics will be
pleased.”--“No, no,” says von K., and seconds the Baron while seeming
to contradict him. “No, Herr Baron, don’t talk like that--isn’t she
just on the point of doing it? She knows best what she is about, does
my Minna; she puts out her little arm, and when she has stretched it
far enough--eh, what did you say? Want the music stopped? What did you
say, Minna darling?”
The medium has interrupted him in a whisper. The music is still, we are
all still. There comes again, in a painful stammer: “The handkerchief!”
“The handkerchief,” repeats Herr von K. authoritatively. “She knows
just what she is about; she is going to do it for us, is my little
Minna!”
“By all means,” says the Baron. “If that’s all, here is the
handkerchief.” He takes a large fresh one out of his pocket, holds it
by one corner, and drops it on the floor near the table, where it lies,
a white gleam in the twilight. We all lean over and stare at it.
“Push the table further back,” Willy whispers. His face is lying on his
hands. Is that right? “No, not that way.” He cannot see, but in his
dream he knows what is going on, and that something is not as he would
have it. Impatiently, just as though he saw, he tells the Baron what
to do. He wants the table further over, first somewhat to the left and
then nearer to our host. There. That is right. There is now more space
between the table and the handkerchief. “The circle,” whispers Willy;
we squeeze each other’s hands. “Talk,” he whispers, and we hasten to
comply. I begin to utter some nonsense to my neighbour the Pole, I
have turned my head and begun to speak, when I hear somebody say, with
artificial calm: “It’s coming.” I jerk my head round.
You know the place in _Lohengrin_, in the first act, after Else’s
prayer, when the chorus begins in unison: “_Seht! Welch seltsam
Wunder!_” It was just like that. The handkerchief had got up. It rose
from the floor. Before all our eyes, with a swift, assured, vital,
almost beautiful movement it rose out of the shadow into the rays of
light, which coloured it reddish; I say rose, but rose is not the word.
It was not that it was wafted up, empty and fluttering. Rather it
was taken and lifted, there was an active agency in it, like a hand,
you could see the outline of the knuckles, from which it hung down
in folds; it was manipulated from the inside, by some living thing,
compressed, shaken, made to change its shape, in the two or three
seconds during which it was held up in the lamplight. Then, moving with
the same quiet assurance it returned to the floor.
It was not possible--but it happened. May lightning strike me if I
lie. Before my uncorrupted eyes, which would have been just as ready
to see nothing, in case nothing had been there, it happened. Indeed,
it presently happened again. Scarcely had the handkerchief reached the
floor when it came back up again into the light, this time faster than
before; plainly and unmistakably we saw something clutching it from
within, the members of something that held it--it looked to be narrower
than a human hand, more like a claw. Down, and up again, for the third
time up. The handkerchief was violently shaken by the something inside
it, and tossed toward the table, with a poor aim, for it hung by one
corner and then fell to the floor.