“THE TERROR THAT FLIETH BY NIGHT”
The Terror that Flieth by Night—’Gene Wilson in the Dark
Silence—How He Fought off Insanity—Childhood Fears—The
Cat in the Garret—The Blind and the Deaf at the Dark
Railroad Station—A Georgia Experience.
The sense of utter helplessness and the heart chill which envelop a deaf
person suddenly plunged into darkness are indescribable. For example, of
course, I know perfectly well that the darkness does not of itself carry
evil or extra danger; I have come through it repeatedly without harm,
yet in spite of all that I can think or do I invariably experience an
instant of paralyzing fear. Persons who have never known perfect hearing
do not feel the full terror, I think, but there is tragedy in the sudden
withdrawal of light for those who have gradually, perhaps imperceptibly,
come to substitute eyes for ears. They may recover their mental poise
after a moment of mental struggle but for a brief space, before they can
adjust the mind, they will come close to insanity. I can assure you that
at such a time the moments are hours.
I know of at least one deaf man, a farmer, who will vouch for the truth
of my statements, though you with good ears may contend that it is
fantastic to be so affected. ’Gene Wilson had come to depend on his wife
and children as interpreters in his communications with others. Many a
deaf person has lost the habit of listening, of paying close attention,
through his perfect confidence in the family interpreter. In any case,
many men of middle-age are inclined to shirk the responsibility of
effort if they can find some one willing to assume it. The deaf man
loses his _will to hear_ if not his actual hearing, the man of middle
years thus is inviting old age; both by effort could extend the “years
of grace.” ’Gene Wilson had sent a car load of potatoes to the city and
had followed to sell them, with his wife and little girl. During the
crowded noon hour he attempted to cross Broadway at Forty-second Street.
A policeman stood on guard to direct the traffic, but ’Gene did not
understand the signals. He tried to run across just as a big car started
uptown—of course the policeman shouted, but ’Gene could not hear him.
The driver could not stop in time and the deaf man was smashed to the
ground, where he lay stunned and bleeding. There was the usual call for
an ambulance, and ’Gene was hurried to a hospital. The deaf do not cry
out when injured or frightened; probably they lose the habit of this
form of expression since they do not hear others use it. Instead there
comes a whirling, a roaring of the head and a sort of mild paralysis of
the brain, but when this clears away it leaves the mind most acute and
active. ’Gene Wilson lay in this half-dazed condition, conscious only of
a fearful pounding at his brain. The doctors questioned him, but he did
not hear. They finally put him down as idiotic or at least half-insane.
Several deaf friends have told me how this label was attached to them
when they met with accidents while among strangers. One can scarcely
blame hurried, over-worked hospital doctors and nurses for paying scant
attention to such cases, and the afflicted must suffer.
So they bandaged poor ’Gene’s head in such a way that his eyes were
covered. What difference could seeing make to a half-wit? How were those
doctors to know how much more the blessed sunshine meant to this deaf
man than it could possibly mean to them? And then ’Gene’s mind suddenly
cleared. His head was racked by pain and the roaring still sounded in
his ears, but he remembered back to the moment before the accident—and
now he found himself suddenly helpless, in the darkness. He forgot the
usual caution of the deaf and shouted! The nurses came running and tried
to make him understand, but a new terror possessed him. He tore at the
bandages which covered his eyes, but strong hands held him back; he
fought with all his power, lying there in the darkness and the silence,
but how were the nurses to understand that he was only fighting for the
sunshine? None of their explanations pacified him, so they strapped his
arms securely to the bed and held him a prisoner. Who knows what their
report might have been?
’Gene Wilson tells me that a full thousand years of torment were crowded
for him in the next half-hour. He thinks that Dante missed one act
in his description of life in the infernal regions! ’Gene says that
frightful shapes stepped out of the shadows and seemed to lead him along
a lonely road, up close to a great house with transparent sides through
which he could look upon the grotesque shapes which dwelt therein.
Part of his mind seemed to know that it was the home of insanity.
Faces peered at him through the windows; some stared in a stupor of
melancholy, others showed grinning deviltry or hateful sneering, and
all were waiting to welcome him! And all around poor ’Gene were kindly
souls eager to help him and to draw him away from the awful place, but
he could not make them understand that he was not insane—only deaf.
“You may believe it or not,” says ’Gene, going on with his story, “but
as I stood there struggling to get rid of those shapes at my sides my
mind searched for a strong, sane picture which should counteract the
spell of the evil ones. Suddenly there came to me the Twenty-third
Psalm, which as a boy I had committed to memory. It had been lying
forgotten at the back of my mind, but at that awful moment it returned
complete and distinct. I lay there quietly, repeating the words over and
over.
“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in
green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my
soul; He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort
me.”
I told ’Gene that here was evidence of the subconscious mind throwing up
something which had been buried deep into it years before.
“I know nothing about that,” said he; “but as I lay there repeating
those words over and over a great peace came to me. The shapes at my
side disappeared, and I could walk away from that frightful place. Then
I felt a hand on my head which somehow I recognized, and another smaller
hand caught at my thumb. They loosened those hateful bandages and let
in the light. Then I saw—as I seemed to know I should—my wife sitting
beside me, and the little girl holding my hand.”
I could assure ’Gene that I completely believed his story, for I have
also felt the strong emotions and imaginings which stir the deaf at
such times. Always the head noises grow louder when light is withdrawn
from our hearing eyes, and the voices which go with subjective hearing
become more pronounced. Probably the deaf are more sensitive to
subconscious thought than are those who hear well; we are deprived of
much of the sound which stimulates many trains of conscious thought.
Also we deaf must naturally deal with the past where most subconscious
thought is buried. I believe that the deaf hold very closely to memories
and associations of childhood—our long, quiet hours of reflection are
largely filled with remembering the most vivid impressions we have
received.
Perhaps this accounts for some of the terror which the darkness brings.
Many of us remember the horrible shapes which peopled the black night
around our beds, and lurked in shadowy corners, often emerging to
dance grotesquely in the moonlight. When I was the “boy” on a New
England farm there was only one room in the house which was reasonably
warm in Winter, but at eight o’clock the old farmer would point with
unmistakable significance to the tall clock in the corner, and there
was nothing for me to do but to rush through the cold parlor, up the
colder stairs into the still colder attic, where my bed was in the
shadow of the great central chimney. Needless to say, I undressed in
bed. Then down under the covers I lay and trembled at the snap of the
frost. Once a piece of plaster fell from the unfinished wall above me
and struck my shoulder; again “Malty,” the gray cat, crawled in through
a hole in the roof and sprang upon my bed, striking terror to my soul,
though she really came as an old friend. The appearance of this unknown
crawling thing on my bed inspired a frenzy of fear—but I knew that
it would do me no good to scream or call for help. My aunt was deaf,
while my uncle slept like the proverbial log; both log and deaf ear
are alike, unresponsive to sound. Also, I realized that the journey
downstairs with my story would have been unprofitable (and freezing!).
I should have been sent back with a scolding and perhaps a blow. My
own little children sometimes waken in the night with some of these
vague terrors, and I have known them to run through the dark to their
mother’s bed, where they are always taken in. My old folks were not
cruel or even consciously unkind; they merely lived in an arid region
where understanding and imagination could not come. They knew nothing
of ghosts and goblins, so why should a child fear them? Darkness was
really a good thing, if one didn’t waste lamp oil. So I lay alone with
the terrors until sleep banished them. I could not see that they must be
futile, since such an unsubstantial foe as sleep could master them.
Of course, thousands of grey-haired persons can recall just such
terrifying childhood situations. Usually as we grow older the memories
fade away, though they are never entirely lost; they are probably
waiting in the subconsciousness for darkness and a worried mind to bring
them forth. They are clearer to the deaf, and nearer to the surface of
consciousness; hence they are more easily roused to play their strange
tricks upon us. It seems strange to me that novelists have rather
neglected this strong emotion of fear, and it is particularly remarkable
that they have seemed to slight the mighty struggle to overcome it,
which all deaf people know.
Some years ago I planned to visit a New England town to attend a college
celebration. I had never been in this particular locality before, but
I supposed I should find a large town with full hotel accommodations,
so I took a night train. At about eleven I alighted at the railroad
station, and, to my astonishment, found myself in complete darkness.
The train made but a brief stop; it hurried off like a living thing,
glad to escape from the lonely place. I watched the last glimmer of its
rear light disappear around a distant curve, and then I was completely
wrapped in a dense, inky blackness, through which I could feel the moist
fingers of a thick, creeping fog. They seemed to clutch at my face and
throat. For an instant the old wild terror seized me, and then there
came an impulse to rush through the blackness desperately—anywhere—to
escape the clinging things which seemed to be reaching for me. But I
stood still, and finally there came to me a sort of amused sense of
adventure—I remembered the night in the hotel when I wandered about the
dark passage and ran into a drunken man. The fight sobered him, and as
he led me back to my room he thanked me, for he said that his wife was
waiting up for him.
Now my first thought was to locate the railroad station. That would at
least prove a starting point; but I had absolutely no idea in which
direction to start, for I could not even tell whether any buildings at
all were near. The last light on the train had traveled east, but I had
turned around several times since I watched it out of sight. I dared
not call out; I remembered the deaf man who was shot and nearly killed
under similar circumstances. Being lost in the darkness, he called for
help, not knowing that he was near a farmhouse. The farmer heard him and
pointed a gun from the window, calling:
“What do you want? Stand still or I’ll fire!”
The deaf man continued to advance; the farmer fired at random and shot
him down. I knew better than to call out in the darkness. I did not even
dare walk freely about, for I know of a man who in the darkness about a
railroad station ran into a mowing-machine; another became entangled in
a roll of barbed wire. These incidents stayed in my mind quite vividly,
and I will confess that I got down on my hands and knees and crawled
carefully in what I hoped was the direction of the station. Foot by foot
I crept along, and at last I came up against what I took to be a picket
fence. Then a dull light began to glow down the track. The midnight
freight rumbled by, and its headlight showed the station behind me. I
had crossed the road in my travels, and now I slowly recrossed it. With
arms outstretched, I ran into the building. I carefully groped my way
around it, much as a blind man would have felt his way along a wall.
But he would travel with greater confidence, trusting to his ears to
warn him of approaching danger. I passed one corner and proceeded to the
other side, but suddenly there came to me a feeling that _someone was
near me in the dark_! I cannot describe the uncanny, “crawly” sensation
which envelops a deaf person when he senses an unseen presence. I
suffered acutely until I actually ran into a man who also seemed to be
feeling his way along the wall. He told me afterward that he had spoken
to me several times, but, of course, I did not answer. Happily he had no
pistol or he would have fired. As it was, each clutched the throat of
the other, and we struggled like two wild animals. I had the stronger
grip, and I think I know the vulnerable point in the throat. At any
rate, his hand dropped, and I knew from the quiver inside his throat
that he was gasping for breath.
Then I told him who I was and what was my trouble. After a little
fumbling I got my hearing device into working order and held up the
mouthpiece to his month. At first he thought it was a pistol, but I
reassured him, and he told me his story. Like myself, he had come on
the late train, expecting to find a town, and a good hotel near the
station. And it happened that he was nearly blind; he retained only part
of the sight in one eye. He told me that he had heard me walking about
in the dark and had called loudly. There we were—a man nearly blind and
a deaf man, stranded in this lonely place. If ever two human beings had
need of each other, we were the men, yet a moment before both of us were
ready to fight when co-operation was the only possible hope for us. This
is not unlike the larger struggles that go on in the world.
We agreed to graft the blind man’s ears upon my eyes, and together we
made our way slowly along the road. Our hope was to start up some dog
at a farmhouse, rouse the family by any means, and plead for lodging.
Finally, far down the road I saw a moving light. I judged it to be a
lantern in the hand of a farmer going to the barn for a last look at the
cattle before retiring. I know that New England habit. So I called and
the blind man listened. The light stopped moving at my call, and a big
voice roared back:
“What do you want at this time of night?”
I explained as best I could, but it was hard to convince that farmer.
“Too thin! I’ve heard such tales before! Stop where you are till I come
back.”
The lantern moved back to the house, and we waited in the road. Soon
three lights appeared and moved towards us. That farmer had called
up his son and the hired man, and as they moved down the road in our
direction I thought of “The Night Watch”—a fine picture I had seen
at an exhibition. The farmer carried a shotgun, the boy had an old
musket, and the hired man brandished a pitchfork. When we came within
range of the lantern, the farmer ordered us to hold up our hands while
we explained; the hired man meanwhile advanced with his pitchfork
extended as if to throw half a haycock on a wagon. These men could not
be blamed for their caution, for, as we later learned, thieves had been
busy in the neighborhood. We finally convinced the belligerents that
we were harmless. The farmer left us under the guard of the hired man
while he went to his barn and harnessed a horse. Then he carried us to
the distant town, where we routed out a sleepy landlord and ended our
adventure. But the farmer gave us a bit of homely advice.
“If I was a deaf man, or if I had only half an eye, I’d stay at home
when night comes.”
“But in that case you would miss a good deal of life—many adventures,
and many new friends.”
“Well, maybe that’s so; I hadn’t thought of that.”
He departed shaking his head over the advantages of adventurous blood,
but I think he possessed a dash of it himself.
A friend of mine tells a Georgia experience of deafness and darkness.
Long after dark he reached the small town where he was to spend the
night. However black true “pitch” may be, there never was anything
darker than that portion of the atmosphere which surrounded the railroad
station as this deaf man stepped off the train. Finally a light appeared
from behind the station. It proved to be a dim lantern in the hands of a
colored man so black that his face seemed to make a shadow in the dark.
Conversation with the deaf regarding details is not satisfactory under
such conditions. The colored man held his lantern up near to his face
and talked, but his mouth was too large and open to make lip-reading
easy. The deaf man did finally grasp the fact that this agent of the
night represented the leading hotel in town. So, under his guidance my
friend found his way to an old closed carriage. The colored man hung his
lantern on a spring, roused his sleepy mule, and off they started over a
succession of humps and mud holes. Finally, after one tremendous bump,
the lonely lantern went out and the carriage halted. The deaf man could
distinguish ahead only two luminous spots of light; they were the eyes
of the mule, who, instead of running as a horse might have done, merely
looked reproachfully at his driver. The colored man had no matches, but
he drove on through the blackness, placidly trusting to the mule for
guidance. Now there are times in the life of every deaf man when he
must either aspire to philosophy or retire into insanity. My friend,
inside of that rickety carriage, smiled at the thought which entered
his mind. Ages before one of his stone age ancestors had crouched far
back on his bed of leaves, shrinking in terror at the evil spirits which
the darkness was hiding. Here he was in the silent darkness after all
the long ages, but he was serene in soul because hundreds of years of
artificial light had brought to him their message of courage and faith.
The “hotel” proved to be an old-fashioned Southern mansion, rambling
and shaky, fronted by large unpainted columns which sagged a bit,
with windows that rattled and big echoing halls in which old memories
congregated. My friend was tired, and after a light supper he asked
to be taken to his room. The landlord, a grave and dignified man, who
limped a little from a wound received at Gettysburg, took up a lighted
candle and led the way to a big corner room at the back of the house on
the first floor. He put the candle and the matches down on the bureau
and then pulled out a revolver, which he placed beside the candle.
“We have been having a little trouble with some of our niggers,” he
said. “They steal. Keep your windows fastened, and put your watch and
money under your pillow. If anyone should get in, fire first and inquire
afterward. That is our plan. Good-night.”
This deaf man hardly knows how to fire a modern revolver. It is
doubtful if he could come anywhere near to a barn door in sunlight, to
say nothing of the inky blackness which encompassed that house. However,
he obediently put his valuables under the pillow, placed the big
revolver carefully on the chair beside his bed, blew out the light and
retired. In such a situation it seems to me that keen, quick ears would
have been a misfortune. And this deaf man, being philosophical as well
as very weary, fell asleep before he could fully realize the surrounding
conditions.
How long he slept he cannot now tell, but he suddenly woke with a start
and sat up in bed, _knowing_ that someone was within a few feet of
him. I know that both the blind and the deaf have a curious faculty
of divining the presence of others in the silence of the darkness. My
friend knew that somewhere in the silent darkness human beings were
going through some stealthy performance. He reached for the revolver,
_but the chair upon which he had placed it was not there_! As quietly
as possible he groped his way to the bureau and found the matches. _But
it was impossible to light them._ He scratched at least a dozen until
they broke in two, but they would not ignite. The candle was in his
hand, but the light within, which he craved, could not be produced.
Alone in the silent blackness, a numb terror fell upon the heart of
the deaf man. He was as helpless as his remote ancestor, shrinking
into his primeval black cave. He was even in a worse situation, for
the cave man had hearing with which to note the approach of his enemy.
The modern man would not know how near was the lurking enemy until he
felt the clutching hand. He dared not cry out or grope for help through
that rambling house—the landlord had stipulated that questions be
asked _afterward_! Finally, urged on by that mysterious instinct of
the deaf, he groped his way along the hall until he reached the corner
window. This he opened, and he stood there waiting for the terror to
reveal itself. Suddenly he perceived that someone had passed close to
him through the outside darkness—he even felt a slight movement of air
as something passed by; he thought a human hand was laid on the window
sill for an instant. With eyes strained to the limit of tension and ears
quickened a little by terror, the deaf man realized that a door near
him had gently opened. Then came a dim sound and the air waves of a
struggle, and the deaf man knew that someone was creeping back past him
through the darkness. As startling as would have been a nail driven into
his heart came the thud and the shock of a quick blow on the side of the
house nearest him—a low, stifled cry penetrated even his dull ears.
Then off again crept a human form, feeling its way along the house.
No, the deaf man did not dream all this. It all happened just as I
relate it. Out in that silent blackness a tragedy had been enacted.
After a time the deaf man cautiously put his hand out of the window
down toward the place where that quick blow had fallen. His reaching
fingers slowly crept down past the sill to the wooden post upon which
the house was built. There they encountered a soft, warm, sticky smear,
which coated the top of the post. The fingers did not dare to close. The
horror-stricken, lonely man held his right hand rigid and suffered one
of those crises when either philosophy or insanity must come to the aid
of the deaf. He determined to keep his mind clear. Finally he became
aware that light was coming; off in the east a crimson streak appeared
along the sky; the wind was blowing the mists away. Little by little
the light gained. The man looked at his hand, and, as he had feared,
it showed a red stain. The light grew, and he finally gained courage
to look out of the window. The post was covered with blood. There was
still visible the mark of a blow of an axe. Just back from the corner
was a small house, within which a rooster was crowing—half a dozen hens
were on their way out for the day’s wanderings. In the door of a small
cook-house in the backyard a fat colored woman was picking a Plymouth
Rock chicken. The deaf man glanced once more at the house post and saw
on the ground beside it the head of a rooster!
It was a thoughtful man who washed his hands and looked about the room.
The revolver still lay on the chair where he had placed it; he had
evidently put his hand out on the wrong side of the bed. There was the
candle and there were the matches—untouched; near at hand was a _box of
toothpicks_, half of them broken in pieces, with scratches on the box.
Later the deaf man sat out in the gallery, watching the sun rise, his
mind busy with strange matters as he waited for breakfast. At length the
landlord appeared.
“I hope, sir, you rested well. I feared you might be disturbed. We
wanted to give you a taste of fried chicken, Georgia style, so the
nigger killed one this morning. I hope it did not disturb you, sir.”