HOW MR. JENNINGS MET HIS COMPANION.
The faint glow of the west, the pomp of the then lonely woods of
Richmond, were before us, behind and about us the darkening room, and on
the stony face or the sufferer—for the character of his face, though
still gentle and sweet, was changed—rested that dim, odd glow which
seems to descend and produce, where it touches, lights, sudden though
faint, which are lost, almost without gradation, in darkness. The
silence, too, was utter; not a distant wheel, or bark, or whistle from
without; and within the depressing stillness of an invalid bachelor’s
house.
I guessed well the nature, though not even vaguely the particulars of
the revelations I was about to receive, from that fixed face of
suffering that so oddly flushed stood out, like a portrait of
Schalken’s, before its background of darkness.
“It began,” he said, “on the 15th of October, three years and eleven
weeks ago, and two days—I keep very accurate count, for every day is
torment. If I leave anywhere a chasm in my narrative tell me.
“About four years ago I began a work, which had cost me very much
thought and reading. It was upon the religious metaphysics of the
ancients.”
“I know,” said I; “the actual religion of educated and thinking
paganism, quite apart from symbolic worship? A wide and very interesting
field.”
“Yes; but not good for the mind—the Christian mind, I mean. Paganism
is all bound together in essential unity, and, with evil sympathy, their
religion involves their art, and both their manners, and the subject is
a degrading fascination and the nemesis sure. God forgive me!
“I wrote a great deal; I wrote late at night. I was always thinking on
the subject, walking about, wherever I was, everywhere. It thoroughly
infected me. You are to remember that all the material ideas connected
with it were more or less of the beautiful, the subject itself
delightfully interesting, and I, then, without a care.”
He sighed heavily.
“I believe that every one who sets about writing in earnest does his
work, as a friend of mine phrased it, _on_ something—tea, or coffee, or
tobacco. I suppose there is a material waste that must be hourly
supplied in such occupations, or that we should grow too abstracted,
and the mind, as it were, pass out of the body, unless it were reminded
often of the connection by actual sensation. At all events, I felt the
want, and I supplied it. Tea was my companion—at first the ordinary
black tea, made in the usual way, not too strong: but I drank a good
deal, and increased its strength as I went on. I never experienced an
uncomfortable symptom from it. I began to take a little green tea. I
found the effect pleasanter, it cleared and intensified the power of
thought so. I had come to take it frequently, but not stronger than one
might take it for pleasure. I wrote a great deal out here, it was so
quiet, and in this room. I used to sit up very late, and it became a
habit with me to sip my tea—green tea—every now and then as my work
proceeded. I had a little kettle on my table, that swung over a lamp,
and made tea two or three times between eleven o’clock and two or three
in the morning, my hours of going to bed. I used to go into town every
day. I was not a monk, and, although I spent an hour or two in a
library, hunting up authorities and looking out lights upon my theme, I
was in no morbid state as far as I can judge. I met my friends pretty
much as usual, and enjoyed their society, and, on the whole, existence
had never been, I think, so pleasant before.
“I had met with a man who had some odd old books, German editions in
mediæval Latin, and I was only too happy to be permitted access to them.
This obliging person’s books were in the City, a very out-of-the-way
part of it. I had rather out-stayed my intended hour, and, on coming
out, seeing no cab near, I was tempted to get into the omnibus which
used to drive past this house. It was darker than this by the time the
’bus had reached an old house, you may have remarked, with four poplars
at each side of the door, and there the last passenger but myself got
out. We drove along rather faster. It was twilight now. I leaned back in
my corner next the door ruminating pleasantly.
“The interior of the omnibus was nearly dark. I had observed in the
corner opposite to me at the other side, and at the end next the horses,
two small circular reflections, as it seemed to me of a reddish light.
They were about two inches apart, and about the size of those small
brass buttons that yachting men used to put upon their jackets. I began
to speculate, as listless men will, upon this trifle, as it seemed. From
what centre did that faint but deep red light come, and from what—glass
beads, buttons, toy decorations—was it reflected? We were lumbering
along gently, having nearly a mile still to go. I had not solved the
puzzle, and it became in another minute more odd, for these two
luminous points, with a sudden jerk, descended nearer the floor, keeping
still their relative distance and horizontal position, and then, as
suddenly, they rose to the level of the seat on which I was sitting, and
I saw them no more.
“My curiosity was now really excited, and, before I had time to think, I
saw again these two dull lamps, again together near the floor; again
they disappeared, and again in their old corner I saw them.
“So, keeping my eyes upon them, I edged quietly up my own side, towards
the end at which I still saw these tiny discs of red.
“There was very little light in the ’bus. It was nearly dark. I leaned
forward to aid my endeavour to discover what these little circles really
were. They shifted their position a little as I did so. I began now to
perceive an outline of something black, and I soon saw with tolerable
distinctness the outline of a small black monkey, pushing its face
forward in mimicry to meet mine; those were its eyes, and I now dimly
saw its teeth grinning at me.
“I drew back, not knowing whether it might not meditate a spring. I
fancied that one of the passengers had forgot this ugly pet, and wishing
to ascertain something of its temper, though not caring to trust my
fingers to it, I poked my umbrella softly towards it. It remained
immovable—up to it—_through_ it! For through it, and back and forward,
it passed, without the slightest resistance.
“I can’t, in the least, convey to you the kind of horror that I felt.
When I had ascertained that the thing was an illusion, as I then
supposed, there came a misgiving about myself and a terror that
fascinated me in impotence to remove my gaze from the eyes of the brute
for some moments. As I looked, it made a little skip back, quite into
the corner, and I, in a panic, found myself at the door, having put my
head out, drawing deep breaths of the outer air, and staring at the
lights and trees we were passing, too glad to reassure myself of
reality.
“I stopped the ’bus and got out. I perceived the man look oddly at me as
I paid him. I daresay there was something unusual in my looks and
manner, for I had never felt so strangely before.”