raining down upon me, and my body struggling upon the ground; and yet it
seemed to me that I was lying outside upon the ground, and above me the
pale sky which never brightened at the touch of the sun. And I thought
that dull, persistent cloud wavered and broke for an instant, and that I
saw behind a glimpse of that blue which is heaven when we are on the
earth--the blue sky--which is nowhere to be seen but in the mortal life;
which is heaven enough, which is delight enough, for those who can look
up to it, and feel themselves in the land of hope. It might be but a
dream: in this strange world who could tell what was vision and what was
true?
The next thing I remember was, that I found myself lying on the floor of
a great room full of people, with every kind of disease and deformity,
some pale with sickness, some with fresh wounds, the lame, and the
maimed, and the miserable. They lay round me in every attitude of pain,
many with sores, some bleeding, with broken limbs, but all struggling,
some on hands and knees, dragging themselves up from the ground to stare
at me. They roused in my mind a loathing and sense of disgust which it
is impossible to express. I could scarcely tolerate the thought that
I--I! should be forced to remain a moment in this lazar-house. The
feeling with which I had regarded the miserable creature who shared the
corner of the wall with me, and who had cursed me for being sorry for
him, had altogether gone out of my mind. I called out, to whom I know
not, adjuring some one to open the door and set me free; but my cry was
answered only by a shout from my companions in trouble. ‘Who do you
think will let you out?’ ‘Who is going to help you more than the rest.’
My whole body was racked with pain; I could not move from the floor, on
which I lay. I had to put up with the stares of the curious, and the
mockeries and remarks on me of whoever chose to criticise. Among them
was the lame man whom I had seen thrust in by the two officers who had
taken me from the gate. He was the first to gibe. ‘But for him they
would never have seen me,’ he said. ‘I should have been well by this
time in the fresh air.’--‘It is his turn now,’ said another. I turned my
head as well as I could and spoke to them all.
‘I am a stranger here,’ I cried. ‘They have made my brain burn with
their experiments. Will nobody help me? It is no fault of mine, it is
their fault. If I am to be left here uncared for, I shall die.’
At this a sort of dreadful chuckle ran round the place. ‘If that is what
you are afraid of, you will not die,’ somebody said, touching me on my
head in a way which gave me intolerable pain. ‘Don’t touch me,’ I cried.
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ said the other, and pushed me again upon the
throbbing brain. So far as my sensations went, there were no coverings
at all, neither skull nor skin upon the intolerable throbbing of my
head, which had been exposed to the curiosity of the crowd, and every
touch was agony; but my cry brought no guardian, nor any defence or
soothing. I dragged myself into a corner after a time, from which some
other wretch had been rolled out in the course of a quarrel; and as I
found that silence was the only policy, I kept silent, with rage
consuming my heart.
Presently I discovered by means of the new arrivals which kept coming
in, hurled into the midst of us without thought or question, that this
was the common fate of all who were repulsive to the sight, or who had
any weakness or imperfection which offended the eyes, of the population.
They were tossed in among us, not to be healed, or for repose or safety,
but to be out of sight, that they might not disgust or annoy those who
were more fortunate, to whom no injury had happened; and because in
their sickness and imperfection they were of no use in the studies of
the place, and disturbed the good order of the streets. And there they
lay one above another, a mass of bruised and broken creatures, most of
them suffering from injuries which they had sustained in what would have
been called in other regions the service of the State. They had served
like myself as objects of experiments. They had fallen from heights
where they had been placed, in illustration of some theory. They had
been tortured or twisted to give satisfaction to some question. And
then, that the consequences of these proceedings might offend no one’s
eyes, they were flung into this receptacle, to be released if chance or
strength enabled them to push their way out when others were brought in,
or when their importunate knocking wearied some watchman, and brought
him angry and threatening to hear what was wanted. The sound of this
knocking against the door, and of the cries that accompanied it, and
the rush towards the opening when any one was brought in, caused a
hideous continuous noise and scuffle which was agony to my brain. Every
one pushed before the other; there was an endless rising and falling as
in the changes of a feverish dream, each man as he got strength to
struggle forward himself, thrusting back his neighbours, and those who
were nearest to the door beating upon it without cease, like the beating
of a drum without cadence or measure, sometimes a dozen passionate hands
together, making a horrible din and riot. As I lay unable to join in
that struggle, and moved by rage unspeakable towards all who could, I
reflected strangely that I had never heard when outside this horrible
continual appeal of the suffering. In the streets of the city, as I now
reflected, quiet reigned. I had even made comparisons on my first
entrance, in the moment of pleasant anticipation which came over me, of
the happy stillness here, with the horror and tumult of that place of
unrule which I had left.
When my thoughts reached this point I was answered by the voice of some
one on a level with myself, lying helpless like me on the floor of the
lazar-house. ‘They have taken their precautions,’ he said; ‘if they will
not endure the sight of suffering, how should they hear the sound of it?
Every cry is silenced there.’
‘I wish they could be silenced within too,’ I cried savagely; ‘I would
make them dumb had I the power.’
‘The spirit of the place is in you,’ said the other voice.
‘And not in you?’ I said, raising my head, though every movement was
agony; but this pretence of superiority was more than I could bear.
The other made no answer for a moment: then he said faintly, ‘If it is
so, it is but for greater misery.’
And then his voice died away, and the hubbub of beating, and crying, and
cursing, and groaning filled all the echoes. They cried, but no one
listened to them. They thundered on the door, but in vain. They
aggravated all their pangs in that mad struggle to get free. After a
while my companion, whoever he was, spoke again.
‘They would rather,’ he said, ‘lie on the roadside to be kicked and
trodden on, as we have seen; though to see that made you miserable.’
‘Made me miserable! You mock me,’ I said. ‘Why should a man be miserable
save for suffering of his own?’
‘You thought otherwise once,’ my neighbour said.
And then I remembered the wretch in the corner of the wall in the other
town, who had cursed me for pitying him. I cursed myself now for that
folly. Pity him! was he not better off than I? ‘I wish,’ I cried, ‘that
I could crush them into nothing, and be rid of this infernal noise they
make!’
‘The spirit of the place has entered into you,’ said that voice.
I raised my arm to strike him; but my hand fell on the stone floor
instead, and sent a jar of new pain all through my battered frame. And
then I mastered my rage, and lay still, for I knew there was no way but
this of recovering my strength,--the strength with which, when I got it
back, I would annihilate that reproachful voice, and crush the life out
of those groaning fools, whose cries and impotent struggles I could not
endure. And we lay a long time without moving, with always that tumult
raging in our ears. At last there came into my mind a longing to hear
spoken words again. I said, ‘Are you still there?’
‘I shall be here,’ he said, ‘till I am able to begin again.’
‘To begin! Is there here, then, either beginning or ending? Go on: speak
to me: it makes me a little forget my pain.’
‘I have a fire in my heart,’ he said; ‘I must begin and begin--till
perhaps I find the way.’
‘What way?’ I cried, feverish and eager; for though I despised him, yet
it made me wonder to think that he should speak riddles which I could
not understand.
He answered very faintly, ‘I do not know.’ The fool! then it was only
folly, as from the first I knew it was. I felt then that I could treat
him roughly, after the fashion of the place--which he said had got into
me. ‘Poor wretch!’ I said, ‘you have hopes, have you? Where have you
come from? You might have learned better before now.’
‘I have come,’ he said, ‘from where we met before. I have come by the
valley of gold. I have worked in the mines. I have served in the troops
of those who are masters there. I have lived in this town of tyrants,
and lain in this lazar-house before. Everything has happened to me, more
and worse than you dream of.’
‘And still you go on? I would dash my head against the wall and die.’
‘When will you learn,’ he said, with a strange tone in his voice, which,
though no one had been listening to us, made a sudden silence for a
moment--it was so strange: it moved me like that glimmer of the blue sky
in my dream, and roused all the sufferers round with an
expectation--though I know not what. The cries stopped, the hands beat
no longer. I think all the miserable crowd were still, and turned to
where he lay. ‘When will you learn--that you have died, and can die no
more?’
There was a shout of fury all round me. ‘Is that all you have to say?’
the crowd burst forth: and I think they rushed upon him and killed him:
for I heard no more: until the hubbub began again more wild than ever,
with furious hands beating, beating, against the locked door.
After a while I began to feel my strength come back. I raised my head. I
sat up. I began to see the faces of those around me, and the groups
into which they gathered; the noise was no longer so insupportable--my
racked nerves were regaining health. It was with a mixture of pleasure
and despair that I became conscious of this. I had been through many
deaths; but I did not die, perhaps could not, as that man had said. I
looked about for him, to see if he had contradicted his own theory. But
he was not dead. He was lying close to me, covered with wounds; but he
opened his eyes, and something like a smile came upon his lips. A
smile--I had heard laughter, and seen ridicule and derision, but this I
had not seen. I could not bear it. To seize him and shake the little
remaining life out of him was my impulse. But neither did I obey that.
Again he reminded me of my dream--was it a dream?--of the opening in the
clouds. From that moment I tried to shelter him, and as I grew stronger
and stronger, and pushed my way to the door, I dragged him along with
me. How long the struggle was I cannot tell, or how often I was
balked--or how many darted through before me when the door was opened.
But I did not let him go; and at the last, for now I was as strong as
before--stronger than most about me--I got out into the air and brought
him with me. Into the air! it was an atmosphere so still and motionless
that there was no feeling of life in it, as I have said; but the change
seemed to me happiness for the moment. It was freedom. The noise of the
struggle was over, the horrible sights were left behind. My spirit
sprang up as if I had been born into new life. It had the same effect, I
suppose, upon my companion, though he was much weaker than I, for he
rose to his feet at once with almost a leap of eagerness, and turned
instantaneously towards the other side of the city.
‘Not that way,’ I said; ‘come with me and rest.’
‘No rest--no rest--my rest is to go on;’ and then he turned towards me
and smiled and said ‘Thanks’--looking into my face. What a word to
hear! I had not heard it since---- A rush of strange and sweet and
dreadful thoughts came into my mind. I shrank and trembled, and let go
his arm, which I had been holding. But when I left that hold I seemed to
fall back into depths of blank pain and longing. I put out my hand again
and caught him. ‘I will go,’ I said, ‘where you go.’
A pair of the officials of the place passed as I spoke. They looked at
me with a threatening glance, and half paused, but then passed on. It
was I now who hurried my companion along. I recollected him now. He was
a man who had met me in the streets of the other city when I was still
ignorant, who had convulsed me with the utterance of that name which, in
all this world where we were, is never named but for punishment,--the
name which I had named once more in the great hall in the midst of my
torture, so that all who heard me were transfixed with that suffering
too. He had been haggard then, but he was more haggard now. His features
were sharp with continual pain, his eyes were wild with weakness and
trouble, though there was a meaning in them which went to my heart. It
seemed to me that in his touch there was a certain help, though he was
weak and tottered, and every moment seemed full of suffering. Hope
sprang up in my mind--the hope that where he was so eager to go there
would be something better, a life more liveable than in this place. In
every new place there is new hope. I was not worn out of that human
impulse. I forgot the nightmare which had crushed me before--the
horrible sense that from myself there was no escape--and holding fast to
his arm, I hurried on with him, not heeding where. We went aside into
less frequented streets, that we might escape observation. I seemed to
myself the guide, though I was the follower. A great faith in this man
sprang up in my breast. I was ready to go with him wherever he went,
anywhere--anywhere must be better than this. Thus I pushed him on,
holding by his arm, till we reached the very outmost limits of the city.
Here he stood still for a moment, turning upon me, and took me by the
hands.
‘Friend,’ he said, ‘before you were born into the pleasant earth I had
come here. I have gone all the weary round. Listen to one who knows: all
is harder, harder, as you go on. You are stirred to go on by the
restlessness in your heart, and each new place you come to the spirit of
that place enters into you. You are better here than you will be farther
on. You were better where you were at first, or even in the mines than
here. Come no farther. Stay--unless----’ but here his voice gave way.
He looked at me with anxiety in his eyes, and said no more.
‘Then why,’ I cried, ‘do you go on? Why do you not stay?’
He shook his head, and his eyes grew more and more soft. ‘I am going,’
he said, and his voice shook again. ‘I am going--to try--the most awful
and the most dangerous journey----’ His voice died away altogether, and
he only looked at me to say the rest.
‘A journey? Where?’
I can tell no man what his eyes said. I understood, I cannot tell how;
and with trembling all my limbs seemed to drop out of joint and my face
grow moist with terror. I could not speak any more than he, but with my
lips shaped, How? The awful thought made a tremor in the very air
around. He shook his head slowly as he looked at me--his eyes, all
circled with deep lines, looking out of caves of anguish and anxiety;
and then I remembered how he had said, and I had scoffed at him, that
the way he sought was one he did not know. I had dropped his hands in my
fear; and yet to leave him seemed dragging the heart out of my breast,
for none but he had spoken to me like a brother--had taken my hand and
thanked me. I looked out across the plain, and the roads seemed tranquil
and still. There was a coolness in the air. It looked like evening, as
if somewhere in those far distances there might be a place where a weary
soul might rest. And I looked behind me, and thought what I had
suffered, and remembered the lazar-house and the voices that cried and
the hands that beat against the door; and also the horrible quiet of the
room in which I lived, and the eyes which looked in at me and turned my
gaze upon myself. Then I rushed after him, for he had turned to go on
upon his way; and caught at his clothes, crying--‘Behold me, behold me!
I will go too!’
He reached me his hand and went on without a word; and I with terror
crept after him, treading in his steps, following like his shadow. What
it was to walk with another, and follow, and be at one, is more than I
can tell; but likewise my heart failed me for fear, for dread of what
we might encounter, and of hearing that name, or entering that presence,
which was more terrible than all torture. I wondered how it could be
that one should willingly face _that_ which racked the soul, and how he
had learned that it was possible, and where he had heard of the way. And
as we went on I said no word--for he began to seem to me a being of
another kind, a figure full of awe; and I followed as one might follow a
ghost. Where would he go? Were we not fixed here for ever, where our lot
had been cast? and there were still many other great cities where there
might be much to see, and something to distract the mind, and where it
might be more possible to live than it had proved in the other places.
There might be no tyrants there, nor cruelty, nor horrible noises, nor
dreadful silence. Towards the right hand, across the plain, there seemed
to rise out of the gray distance a cluster of towers and roofs like
another habitable place--and who could tell that something better might
not be there? Surely everything could not turn to torture and misery. I
dragged on behind him, with all these thoughts hurrying through my mind.
He was going--I dare to say it now, though I did not dare then--to seek
out a way to God; to try, if it was possible, to find the road that led
back--that road which had been open once to all. But for me, I trembled
at the thought of that road. I feared the name, which was as the
plunging of a sword into my inmost parts. All things could be borne but
that. I dared not even think upon that name. To feel my hand in another
man’s hand was much, but to be led into that awful presence, by awful
ways, which none knew--how could I bear it? My spirits failed me, and my
strength. My hand became loose in his hand: he grasped me still, but my
hold failed, and ever with slower and slower steps I followed, while he
seemed to acquire strength with every winding of the way. At length he
said to me, looking back upon me, ‘I cannot stop: but your heart fails
you. Shall I loose my hand and let you go?’
‘I am afraid; I am afraid!’ I cried.
‘And I too am afraid; but it is better to suffer more and to escape than
to suffer less and to remain.’
‘Has it ever been known that one escaped? No one has ever escaped. This
is our place,’ I said, ‘there is no other world.’
‘There are other worlds--there is a world where every way leads to One
who loves us still.’
I cried out with a great cry of misery and scorn. ‘There is no love!’ I
said.
He stood still for a moment and turned and looked at me. His eyes seemed
to melt my soul. A great cloud passed over them, as in the pleasant
earth a cloud will sweep across the moon; and then the light came out
and looked at me again. For neither did he know. Where he was going all
might end in despair and double and double pain. But if it were
possible that at the end there should be found that for which he longed,
upon which his heart was set! He said with a faltering voice--‘Among all
whom I have questioned and seen there was but one who found the way. But
if one has found it, so may I. If you will not come, yet let me go.’
‘They will tear you limb from limb--they will burn you in the endless
fires,’ I said. But what is it to be torn limb from limb, or burned with
fire? There came upon his face a smile, and in my heart even I laughed
to scorn what I had said.
‘If I were dragged every nerve apart, and every thought turned into a
fiery dart--and that is so,’ he said; ‘yet will I go, if but, perhaps, I
may see Love at the end.’
‘There is no love!’ I cried again, with a sharp and bitter cry; and the
echo seemed to come back and back from every side, No love! no love!
till the man who was my friend faltered and stumbled like a drunken
man; but afterwards he recovered strength and resumed his way.
And thus once more we went on. On the right hand was that city, growing
ever clearer, with noble towers rising up to the sky, and battlements
and lofty roofs, and behind a yellow clearness, as of a golden sunset.
My heart drew me there; it sprang up in my breast and sang in my ears,
Come, and Come. Myself invited me to this new place as to a home. The
others were wretched, but this will be happy: delights and pleasures
will be there. And before us the way grew dark with storms, and there
grew visible among the mists a black line of mountains, perpendicular
cliffs, and awful precipices, which seemed to bar the way. I turned from
that line of gloomy heights, and gazed along the path to where the
towers stood up against the sky. And presently my hand dropped by my
side, that had been held in my companion’s hand; and I saw him no more.
I went on to the city of the evening light. Ever and ever, as I
proceeded on my way, the sense of haste and restless impatience grew
upon me, so that I felt myself incapable of remaining long in a place,
and my desire grew stronger to hasten on and on; but when I entered the
gates of the city this longing vanished from my mind. There seemed some
great festival or public holiday going on there. The streets were full
of pleasure-parties, and in every open place (of which there were many)
were bands of dancers, and music playing; and the houses about were hung
with tapestries and embroideries and garlands of flowers. A load seemed
to be taken from my spirit when I saw all this--for a whole population
does not rejoice in such a way without some cause. And to think that,
after all I had found a place in which I might live and forget the
misery and pain which I had known, and all that was behind me, was
delightful to my soul. It seemed to me that all the dancers were
beautiful and young, their steps went gaily to the music, their faces
were bright with smiles. Here and there was a master of the feast, who
arranged the dances and guided the musicians, yet seemed to have a look
and smile for new-comers too. One of these came forward to meet me, and
received me with a welcome, and showed me a vacant place at a table, on
which were beautiful fruits piled up in baskets, and all the provisions
for a meal. ‘You were expected, you perceive,’ he said. A delightful
sense of well-being came into my mind. I sat down in the sweetness of
ease after fatigue, of refreshment after weariness, of pleasant sounds
and sights after the arid way. I said to myself that my past experiences
had been a mistake, that this was where I ought to have come from the
first, that life here would be happy, and that all intruding thoughts
must soon vanish and die away.