DAWN found them there, and the risen sun laid its beams on the rough
floor of the bungalow, before either of the men was conscious of the
passage of time. Bernald, vaguely trying to define his own state in
retrospect, could only phrase it: “I floated ... floated. ...”
The gist of fact at the core of the extraordinary experience was
simply that John Pellerin, twenty-five years earlier, had voluntarily
disappeared, causing the rumour of his death to be reported to an
inattentive world; and that now he had come back to see what that world
had made of him.
“You’ll hardly believe it of me; I hardly believe it of myself; but I
went away in a rage of disappointment, of wounded pride--no, vanity!
I don’t know which cut deepest--the sneers or the silence--but between
them, there wasn’t an inch of me that wasn’t raw. I had just the one
thing in me: the message, the cry, the revelation. But nobody saw and
nobody listened. Nobody wanted what I had to give. I was like a poor
devil of a tramp looking for shelter on a bitter night, in a town with
every door bolted and all the windows dark. And suddenly I felt that the
easiest thing would be to lie down and go to sleep in the snow. Perhaps
I’d a vague notion that if they found me there at daylight, frozen
stiff, the pathetic spectacle might produce a reaction, a feeling of
remorse. ... So I took care to be found! Well, a good many thousand
people die every day on the face of the globe; and I soon discovered
that I was simply one of the thousands; and when I made that discovery
I really died--and stayed dead a year or two. ... When I came to life
again I was off on the under side of the world, in regions unaware of
what we know as ‘the public.’ Have you any notion how it shifts the
point of view to wake under new constellations? I advise any who’s been
in love with a woman under Cassiopeia to go and think about her under
the Southern Cross. ... It’s the only way to tell the pivotal truths
from the others. ... I didn’t believe in my theory any less--there was
my triumph and my vindication! It held out, resisted, measured itself
with the stars. But I didn’t care a snap of my finger whether anybody
else believed in it, or even knew it had been formulated. It escaped out
of my books--my poor still-born books--like Psyche from the chrysalis
and soared away into the blue, and lived there. I knew then how it frees
an idea to be ignored; how apprehension circumscribes and deforms it.
... Once I’d learned that, it was easy enough to turn to and shift
for myself. I was sure now that my idea would live: the good ones are
self-supporting. I had to learn to be so; and I tried my hand at a
number of things ... adventurous, menial, commercial. ... It’s not a bad
thing for a man to have to live his life--and we nearly all manage to
dodge it. Our first round with the Sphinx may strike something out of
us--a book or a picture or a symphony; and we’re amazed at our feat,
and go on letting that first work breed others, as some animal forms
reproduce each other without renewed fertilization. So there we are,
committed to our first guess at the riddle; and our works look as like
as successive impressions of the same plate, each with the lines a
little fainter; whereas they ought to be--if we touch earth between
times--as different from each other as those other creatures--jellyfish,
aren’t they, of a kind?--where successive generations produce new forms,
and it takes a zoologist to see the hidden likeness. ...
“Well, I proved my first guess, off there in the wilds, and it lived,
and grew, and took care of itself. And I said ‘Some day it will make
itself heard; but by that time my atoms will have waltzed into a new
pattern.’ Then, in Cashmere one day, I met a fellow in a caravan, with
a dog-eared book in his pocket. He said he never stirred without
it--wanted to know where I’d been, never to have heard of it. It was _my
guess_--in its twentieth edition! ... The globe spun round at that, and
all of a sudden I was under the old stars. That’s the way it happens
when the ballast of vanity shifts! I’d lived a third of a life
out there, unconscious of human opinion--because I supposed it was
unconscious of _me_. But now--now! Oh, it was different. I wanted to
know what they said. ... Not exactly that, either: I wanted to know
_what I’d made them say_. There’s a difference. ... And here I am,” said
John Pellerin, with a pull at his pipe.
So much Bernald retained of his companion’s actual narrative; the rest
was swept away under the tide of wonder that rose and submerged him as
Pellerin--at some indefinitely later stage of their talk--picked up his
manuscript and began to read. Bernald sat opposite, his elbows propped
on the table, his eyes fixed on the swaying waters outside, from which
the moon gradually faded, leaving them to make a denser blackness in the
night. As Pellerin read, this density of blackness--which never for a
moment seemed inert or unalive--was attenuated by imperceptible degrees,
till a greyish pallour replaced it; then the pallour breathed and
brightened, and suddenly dawn was on the sea.
Something of the same nature went on in the young man’s mind while he
watched and listened. He was conscious of a gradually withdrawing light,
of an interval of obscurity full of the stir of invisible forces, and
then of the victorious flush of day. And as the light rose, he saw how
far he had travelled and what wonders the night had prepared. Pellerin
had been right in saying that his first idea had survived, had borne the
test of time; but he had given his hearer no hint of the extent to which
it had been enlarged and modified, of the fresh implications it now
unfolded. In a brief flash of retrospection Bernald saw the earlier
books dwindle and fall into their place as mere precursors of this
fuller revelation; then, with a leap of helpless rage, he pictured
Howland Wade’s pink hands on the new treasure, and his prophetic feet
upon the lecture platform.
V
“IT won’t do--oh, he let him down as gently as possible; but it appears
it simply won’t do.”
Doctor Bob imparted the ineluctable fact to Bernald while the two men,
accidentally meeting at their club a few nights later, sat together over
the dinner they had immediately agreed to consume in company.
Bernald had left Portchester the morning after his strange discovery,
and he and Bob Wade had not seen each other since. And now Bernald,
moved by an irresistible instinct of postponement, had waited for his
companion to bring up Winterman’s name, and had even executed several
conversational diversions in the hope of delaying its mention. For how
could one talk of Winterman with the thought of Pellerin swelling one’s
breast?
“Yes; the very day Howland got back from Kenosha I brought the
manuscript to town, and got him to read it. And yesterday evening I
nailed him, and dragged an answer out of him.”
“Then Howland hasn’t seen Winterman yet?”
“No. He said: ‘Before you let him loose on me I’ll go over the stuff,
and see if it’s at all worth while.’”
Bernald drew a freer breath. “And he found it wasn’t?”
“Between ourselves, he found it was of no account at all. Queer, isn’t
it, when the _man_ ... but of course literature’s another proposition.
Howland says it’s one of the cases where an idea might seem original and
striking if one didn’t happen to be able to trace its descent. And this
is straight out of bosh--by Pellerin. ... Yes: Pellerin. It seems that
everything in the article that isn’t pure nonsense is just Pellerinism.
Howland thinks poor Winterman must have been tremendously struck by
Pellerin’s writings, and have lived too much out of the world to know
that they’ve become the text-books of modern thought. Otherwise, of
course, he’d have taken more trouble to disguise his plagiarisms.”
“I see,” Bernald mused. “Yet you say there _is_ an original element?”
“Yes; but unluckily it’s no good.”
“It’s not--conceivably--in any sense a development of Pellerin’s idea: a
logical step farther?”
“_Logical?_ Howland says it’s twaddle at white heat.”
Bernald sat silent, divided between the fierce satisfaction of seeing
the Interpreter rush upon his fate, and the despair of knowing that the
state of mind he represented was indestructible. Then both emotions were
swept away on a wave of pure joy, as he reflected that now, at last,
Howland Wade had given him back John Pellerin.
The possession was one he did not mean to part with lightly; and the
dread of its being torn from him constrained him to extraordinary
precautions.
“You’ve told Winterman, I suppose? How did he take it?”
“Why, unexpectedly, as he does most things. You can never tell which way
he’ll jump. I thought he’d take a high tone, or else laugh it off; but
he did neither. He seemed awfully cast down. I wished myself well out
of the job when I saw how cut up he was.” Bernald thrilled at the words.
Pellerin had shared his pang, then--the “old woe of the world” at the
perpetuity of human dulness!
“But what did he say to the charge of plagiarism--if you made it?”
“Oh, I told him straight out what Howland said. I thought it fairer. And
his answer to that was the rummest part of all.”
“What was it?” Bernald questioned, with a tremor.
“He said: ‘That’s queer, for I’ve never read Pellerin.’”
Bernald drew a deep breath of ecstasy. “Well--and I suppose you believed
him?”
“I believed him, because I know him. But the public won’t--the critics
won’t. And if it’s a pure coincidence it’s just as bad for him as if it
were a straight steal--isn’t it?”
Bernald sighed his acquiescence.
“It bothers me awfully,” Wade continued, knitting his kindly brows,
“because I could see what a blow it was to him. He’s got to earn his
living, and I don’t suppose he knows how to do anything else. At his
age it’s hard to start fresh. I put that to Howland--asked him if
there wasn’t a chance he might do better if he only had a little
encouragement. I can’t help feeling he’s got the essential thing in him.
But of course I’m no judge when it comes to books. And Howland says it
would be cruel to give him any hope.” Wade paused, turned his wineglass
about under a meditative stare, and then leaned across the table toward
Bernald. “Look here--do you know what I’ve proposed to Winterman? That
he should come to town with me to-morrow and go in the evening to hear
Howland lecture to the Uplift Club. They’re to meet at Mrs. Beecher
Bain’s, and Howland is to repeat the lecture that he gave the other day
before the Pellerin Society at Kenosha. It will give Winterman a chance
to get some notion of what Pellerin _was:_ he’ll get it much straighter
from Howland than if he tried to plough through Pellerin’s books. And
then afterward--as if accidentally--I thought I might bring him and
Howland together. If Howland could only see him and hear him talk,
there’s no knowing what might come of it. He couldn’t help feeling the
man’s force, as we do; and he might give him a pointer--tell him what
line to take. Anyhow, it would please Winterman, and take the edge off
his disappointment. I saw that as soon as I proposed it.”
“Some one who’s never heard of Pellerin?”
Mrs. Beecher Bain, large, smiling, diffuse, reached out parenthetically
from the incoming throng on her threshold to waylay Bernald with the
question as he was about to move past her in the wake of his companion.
“Oh, keep straight on, Mr. Winterman!” she interrupted herself to call
after the latter. “Into the back drawing-room, please! And remember,
you’re to sit next to me--in the corner on the left, close under the
platform.”
She renewed her interrogative clutch on Bernald’s sleeve. “Most curious!
Doctor Wade has been telling me all about him--how remarkable you all
think him. And it’s actually true that he’s never heard of Pellerin?
Of course as soon as Doctor Wade told me _that_, I said ‘Bring him!’
It will be so extraordinarily interesting to watch the first
impression.--Yes, do follow him, dear Mr. Bernald, and be sure that you
and he secure the seats next to me. Of course Alice Fosdick insists on
being with us. She was wild with excitement when I told her she was to
meet some one who’d never heard of Pellerin!”
On the indulgent lips of Mrs. Beecher Bain conjecture speedily passed
into affirmation; and as Bernald’s companion, broad and shaggy in his
visibly new evening clothes, moved down the length of the crowded rooms,
he was already, to the ladies drawing aside their skirts to let him
pass, the interesting Huron of the fable.
How far he was aware of the character ascribed to him it was impossible
for Bernald to discover. He was as unconscious as a tree or a cloud, and
his observer had never known any one so alive to human contacts and yet
so secure from them. But the scene was playing such a lively tune on
Bernald’s own sensibilities that for the moment he could not adjust
himself to the probable effect it produced on his companion. The young
man, of late, had made but rare appearances in the group of which Mrs.
Beecher Bain was one of the most indefatigable hostesses, and the Uplift
Club the chief medium of expression. To a critic, obliged by his trade
to cultivate convictions, it was the essence of luxury to leave them at
home in his hours of ease; and Bernald gave his preference to circles in
which less finality of judgment prevailed, and it was consequently less
embarrassing to be caught without an opinion.
But in his fresher days he had known the spell of the Uplift Club and
the thrill of moving among the Emancipated; and he felt an odd sense
of rejuvenation as he looked at the rows of faces packed about the
embowered platform from which Howland Wade was presently to hand down
the eternal verities. Many of these countenances belonged to the
old days, when the gospel of Pellerin was unknown, and it required
considerable intellectual courage to avow one’s acceptance of the very
doctrines he had since demolished. The latter moral revolution seemed to
have been accepted as submissively as a change in hair-dressing; and it
even struck Bernald that, in the case of many of the assembled ladies,
their convictions were rather newer than their clothes.
One of the most interesting examples of this facility of adaptation was
actually, in the person of Miss Alice Fosdick, brushing his elbow with
exotic amulets, and enveloping him in Arabian odours, as she leaned
forward to murmur her sympathetic sense of the situation. Miss Fosdick,
who was one of the most advanced exponents of Pellerinism, had large
eyes and a plaintive mouth, and Bernald had always fancied that she
might have been pretty if she had not been perpetually explaining
things.
“Yes, I know--Isabella Bain told me all about him. (He can’t hear us,
can he?) And I wonder if you realize how remarkably interesting it is
that we should have such an opportunity _now_--I mean the opportunity to
see the impression of Pellerinism on a perfectly fresh mind. (You
must introduce him as soon as the lecture’s over.) I explained that to
Isabella as soon as she showed me Doctor Wade’s note. Of course you see
why, don’t you?” Bernald made a faint motion of acquiescence, which she
instantly swept aside. “At least I think I can _make you see why_.
(If you’re sure he can’t hear?) Why, it’s just this--Pellerinism is in
danger of becoming a truism. Oh, it’s an awful thing to say! But then
I’m not afraid of saying awful things! I rather believe it’s my mission.
What I mean is, that we’re getting into the way of taking Pellerin for
granted--as we do the air we breathe. We don’t sufficiently lead our
_conscious life_ in him--we’re gradually letting him become subliminal.”
She swayed closer to the young man, and he saw that she was making a
graceful attempt to throw her explanatory net over his companion, who,
evading Mrs. Bain’s hospitable signal, had cautiously wedged himself
into a seat between Bernald and the wall.
“_Did_ you hear what I was saying, Mr. Winterman? (Yes, I know who you
are, of course!) Oh, well, I don’t really mind if you did. I was talking
about you--about you and Pellerin. I was explaining to Mr. Bernald that
what we need at this very minute is a Pellerin revival; and we need
some one like you--to whom his message comes as a wonderful new
interpretation of life--to lead the revival, and rouse us out of our
apathy. ...
“You see,” she went on winningly, “it’s not only the big public
that needs it (of course _their_ Pellerin isn’t ours!) It’s we, his
disciples, his interpreters, who discovered him and gave him to the
world--we, the Chosen People, the Custodians of the Sacred Books, as
Howland Wade calls us--it’s _we_, who are in perpetual danger of sinking
back into the old stagnant ideals, and practising the Seven Deadly
Virtues; it’s _we_ who need to count our mercies, and realize anew what
he’s done for us, and what we ought to do for him! And it’s for that
reason that I urged Mr. Wade to speak here, in the very inner sanctuary
of Pellerinism, exactly as he would speak to the uninitiated--to repeat,
simply, his Kenosha lecture, ‘What Pellerinism means’; and we ought all,
I think, to listen to him with the hearts of little children--just as
_you_ will, Mr. Winterman--as if he were telling us new things, and
we--”
“Alice, _dear_--” Mrs. Bain murmured with a deprecating gesture;
and Howland Wade, emerging between the palms, took the centre of the
platform.
A pang of commiseration shot through Bernald as he saw him there, so
innocent and so exposed. His plump pulpy body, which made his evening
dress fall into intimate and wrapper-like folds, was like a wide surface
spread to the shafts of irony; and the mild ripples of his voice
seemed to enlarge the vulnerable area as he leaned forward, poised on
confidential finger-tips, to say persuasively: “Let me try to tell you
what Pellerinism means.”
Bernald moved restlessly in his seat. He had the obscure sense of being
a party to something not wholly honourable. He ought not to have come;
he ought not to have let his companion come. Yet how could he have done
otherwise? John Pellerin’s secret was his own. As long as he chose
to remain John Winterman it was no one’s business to gainsay him; and
Bernald’s scruples were really justifiable only in respect of his own
presence on the scene. But even in this connection he ceased to feel
them as soon as Howland Wade began to speak.