THE THIRD STAGE.
“I see, Dr. Hesselius, that you don’t lose one word of my statement. I
need not ask you to listen specially to what I am now going to tell you.
They talk of the optic nerves, and of spectral illusions, as if the
organ of sight was the only point assailable by the influences that have
fastened upon me—I know better. For two years in my direful case that
limitation prevailed. But as food is taken in softly at the lips, and
then brought under the teeth, as the tip of the little finger caught in
a mill crank will draw in the hand, and the arm, and the whole body, so
the miserable mortal who has been once caught firmly by the end of the
finest fibre of his nerve, is drawn in and in, by the enormous machinery
of hell, until he is as I am. Yes, Doctor, as _I_ am, for while I talk
to you, and implore relief, I feel that my prayer is for the impossible,
and my pleading with the inexorable.”
I endeavoured to calm his visibly increasing agitation, and told him
that he must not despair.
While we talked the night had overtaken us. The filmy moonlight was wide
over the scene which the window commanded, and I said:
“Perhaps you would prefer having candles. This light, you know, is odd.
I should wish you, as much as possible, under your usual conditions
while I make my diagnosis, shall I call it—otherwise I don’t care.”
“All lights are the same to me,” he said: “except when I read or write,
I care not if night were perpetual. I am going to tell you what happened
about a year ago. The thing began to speak to me.”
“Speak! How do you mean—speak as a man does, do you mean?”
“Yes; speak in words and consecutive sentences, with perfect coherence
and articulation; but there is a peculiarity. It is not like the tone of
a human voice. It is not by my ears it reaches me—it comes like a
singing through my head.
“This faculty, the power of speaking to me, will be my undoing. It won’t
let me pray, it interrupts me with dreadful blasphemies. I dare not go
on, I could not. Oh! Doctor, can the skill, and thought, and prayers of
man avail me nothing!”
“You must promise me, my dear sir, not to trouble yourself with
unnecessarily exciting thoughts; confine yourself strictly to the
narrative of _facts_; and recollect, above all, that even if the thing
that infests you be as you seem to suppose, a reality with an actual
independent life and will, yet it can have no power to hurt you, unless
it be given from above: its access to your senses depends mainly upon
your physical condition—this is, under God, your comfort and reliance:
we are all alike environed. It is only that in your case, the
‘_paries_,’ the veil of the flesh, the screen, is a little out of
repair, and sights and sounds are transmitted. We must enter on a new
course, sir—be encouraged. I’ll give to-night to the careful
consideration of the whole case.”
“You are very good, sir; you think it worth trying, you don’t give me
quite up; but, sir, you don’t know, it is gaining such an influence
over me: it orders me about, it is such a tyrant, and I’m growing so
helpless. May God deliver me!”
“It orders you about—of course you mean by speech?”
“Yes, yes; it is always urging me to crimes, to injure others, or
myself. You see, Doctor, the situation is urgent, it is indeed. When I
was in Shropshire, a few weeks ago” (Mr. Jennings was speaking rapidly
and trembling now, holding my arm with one hand, and looking in my
face), “I went out one day with a party of friends for a walk: my
persecutor, I tell you, was with me at the time. I lagged behind the
rest: the country near the Dee, you know, is beautiful. Our path
happened to lie near a coal mine, and at the verge of the wood is a
perpendicular shaft, they say, a hundred and fifty feet deep. My niece
had remained behind with me—she knows, of course, nothing of the
nature of my sufferings. She knew, however, that I had been ill, and was
low, and she remained to prevent my being quite alone. As we loitered
slowly on together the brute that accompanied me was urging me to throw
myself down the shaft. I tell you now—oh, sir, think of it!—the one
consideration that saved me from that hideous death was the fear lest
the shock of witnessing the occurrence should be too much for the poor
girl. I asked her to go on and take her walk with her friends, saying
that I could go no further. She made excuses, and the more I urged her
the firmer she became. She looked doubtful and frightened. I suppose
there was something in my looks or manner that alarmed her; but she
would not go, and that literally saved me. You had no idea, sir, that a
living man could be made so abject a slave of Satan,” he said, with a
ghastly groan and a shudder.
There was a pause here, and I said, “You were preserved nevertheless. It
was the act of God. You are in his hands and in the power of no other
being: be therefore confident for the future.”