THE GREAT SILENCE
Percy Darrow sat quite calmly, though a little hungrily, through the first
of the two hours of the Great Silence. As it fell, he looked at his watch;
then went on reading. Strangely terrified faces flitted by the open door
of his little room. About seven o'clock Darrow, struck by a sudden idea,
arose, walked down the corridor outside, and quite deliberately set to
work to force the light door. As has been intimated, either by direct
order of McCarthy or because of some vagueness of the orders, the young
man had been confined, not in the jail proper, but in one of the living
apartments of the wing.
Few realize how important a role sound plays in what might be called the
defensives of our every-day life. Sight is important, to be sure, but it
is more often corroborative than not; it is more often used to identify
the source of the alarm that has been communicated through other channels.
When we are told of the hero--or the villain--that he stood "with every
sense alert", our mental picture, in spite of the phrasing, is that of a
man listening intently for the first intimations of what may threaten.
So it is in prison. The warders can, of necessity, remain within actual
view of but a few of the prisoners a small proportion of the time. But
through those massive and silent corridors sound stands watch-dog for
them. The minute scratch of a file, the vibrations attendant on the most
cautious attempts against the stone structure, the most muffled footfall
reports to the jailer that mischief is afoot. Instantly he is on the spot
to corroborate by his other faculties the warnings of the watch-dog of the
senses.
Now the watch-dog was asleep. Percy Darrow reflected that, were it not for
the terror of these unexplainable hours, the prisoners within or their
friends without could assail their confines boldly and formidably, even
with dynamite, and none would be the wiser if only none happened to be
within actual visual range of the operations. He himself quite coolly used
the iron side piece to his bed as a battering-ram to break the locks of
the door. Then he walked down the long corridor and out through the police
station, bowing politely to the bewildered officers. The latter did not
attempt to stop him.
The people in the streets were, for the most part, either standing
stock-still, or moving slowly forward in a groping sort of fashion.
Darrow, for the second time, noticed how analogous to the deprivation of
sight was the total deprivation of hearing and feeling vibration.
Traffic was at a standstill. People's faces were bewildered, for the most
part; though here and there one showed contorted with the hysteria of
fright, or exalted with some other, probably religious, emotion. The same
impression of ghostliness came to Darrow here as in the Atlas Building.
Visual causes were not producing their wonted aural effect.
On the street corner a peanut vender's little whistle sent aloft bravely
its jet of steam; the bells on a ragpicker's cart swung merrily back and
forth on their strap; a big truck, whose driver was either undaunted or
drunk, banged and clattered and rattled over the rough cobbles of a side
street--but no sound came from any one of them.
This complete severance of one cause and effect was sufficient to
discredit all natural laws. No other cause and effect was certain.
Everywhere people were touching things to see if they were solid, or wet,
or soft, or hard, as the case might be. Even Darrow felt, absurdly enough,
that it would not be greatly serious to jump off the top of any building
into the street.
Darrow swung confidently enough down the street. He was the only person,
with the exception of the drunken truck driver, who moved forward at a
natural and easy gait. The effect was startling. Darrow seemed to be the
only real human being of the lot. All the rest were phantasmagoric.
But as he proceeded down-town the spell was beginning to break. People
were communicating with one another by means of pencil and paper. Darrow
was amused, on crossing the park, to see against the lighted windows on
Newspaper Row the silhouetted forms of activity. Evidently, the newspaper
men were already at work on this fresh story.
Near the corner of the park Darrow saw standing a policeman of his varied
acquaintance. The scientist walked up to this man, who was standing in the
typical vacant uncertainty, smiled agreeably, clapped him on the back, and
shook his hand. The patrolman grasped Darrow's hand, but the look of
groping uncertainty deepened on his face.
Darrow slipped his note-book from his pocket, and scribbled a few lines,
which he showed to the officer. The latter read, inwardly digested for a
moment, and smiled.
"Keep your hair on," ran Darrow's screed. "This will pass in a few
minutes, and it won't hurt you, anyway. Don't look like all these other
dubs."
He stood there companionably by the patrolman. They looked about them. All
at once, with this touch of normal, unafraid, human companionship, the
weird horror of the situation fell away. Darrow and his companion were
seeing humanity disjointed from its accustomed habit, as one looks on a
stage full of men hypnotized into belief of an absurdity.
Where the blotting out of electricity had been tragic, this, as soon as
its utter harmlessness was realized, became comic. All about through the
park men were meeting the situation according to the limited ideas
developed by a crustacean life of absolute dependence on the shell of
artificial environment. A considerable number of all sorts had fallen on
their knees and were praying. One fat man in evening dress, with a silk
hat and a large diamond stud showing between the lapels of a fur-lined
coat, was particularly fervent. By force of habit Darrow remarked on this
individual.
"I'll bet he hasn't been to church since he was a kid," he observed, of
course inaudibly.
The policeman caught the direction of his look, however, and grinned with
understanding.
Some stood frozen to one spot, their faces agonized, as a man would stand
still were the earth likely to yawn anywhere. Darrow would have liked to
reassure these, for their eyes expressed a frantic terror. One red-faced
individual with white side-whiskers, looking exactly like the comic-paper
caricatures of the trusts, had evidently refused to accept any arbitrary
dictates of natural forces. Probably he had never accepted any dictates of
any kind. He was going from one taxicab to another, trying to command a
driver to take him somewhere, talking vehemently and authoritatively, his
face getting more and more purple with anger. The taxicab drivers merely
stared at him stupidly.
"That old boy's kept his nerve," Darrow remarked, of course inaudibly, to
his companion. "But he'll die of apoplexy if he doesn't watch out."
Again the policeman caught the direction of Darrow's glance, and grinned
in understanding. He reached his huge gloved hand for the young man's
pencil and paper, on which he wrote the name of a man high in railroad
circles, and grinned again with evident relish.
At this moment an entirely self-possessed young man swung across the
street. He surveyed the two men sharply a moment, then approached,
producing a sheaf of yellow paper as he did so.
"Professor Darrow?" he wrote.
Darrow nodded.
The young man pointed to himself, then to the Despatch Building.
"Cause?" he wrote, and waved his hand.
Darrow shook his head.
"Dangerous?"
Darrow shook his head again.
The reporter was about to add another question, when Darrow reached for
the paper. It was thrust eagerly into his hand. Darrow consulted his
watch.
"If," he wrote, "you will wait here four minutes, I'll give you an
interview."
The reporter read this, and nodded.
"You're on!" he added to the written dialogue. Then he produced a
cigarette, lighted it, and joined the other two men in their amused
survey of the public's performances.
During the four minutes that ensued Darrow examined the reporter
speculatively. Finally his eye lighted up with recollection.