THE FACE THAT CAME IN DREAMS.
Virdow was not a scientist in the strict sense of the term. He had been
a fairly good musician in youth and had advanced somewhat in art. He was
one of those modern scientists, who are not walled in by past
conclusions, but who, like Morse, leap forward from a vantage point and
build back to connect with old results. Early in life he had studied the
laws of vibration, until it seemed revealed to him that all forms, all
fancies, were born of it. Gradually as his beautiful demonstrations were
made and all art co-ordinated upon this law, he saw in dreams a
fulfillment of his hopes that in his age, in his life, might bloom the
fairest flower of science, a mind memory opened to mortal consciousness.
Dreaming further along the lines of Wagner, it had come to him that the
key to this hidden, dumb and sleeping record of the mind was vibration;
that the strains of music which summon beautiful dreams to the minds of
men were magic wands lifting the vision of this past; not its immediate
past, but the past of ages; for in the brain of the subtle German was
firmly fixed the belief that the minds of men were in their last
analysis one and indivisible, and older than the molecules of physical
creation.
He held triumphantly that "then shall you see clearly," was but one way
of saying "then shall you remember."
To this man the mind picture which Gerald had drawn, the church, with
its tragic figures, came as a reward of generations of labor. He had
followed many a false trail and failed in hospital and asylum. In Gerald
he hoped for a sound, active brain, combined with the faculty of
expression in many languages and the finer power of art; an organism
sufficiently delicate to carry into that viewless vinculum between body
and soul, vibrations, rhymes and co-ordinations delicate enough to touch
a new consciousness and return its reply through organized form. He had
found these conditions perfect, and he felt that if failure was the
result, while still firmly fixed in his belief, never again would
opportunity of equal merit present itself. If in Gerald his theory
failed of demonstration, the mind's past would be, in his lifetime,
locked to his mortal consciousness. In brief he had formed the
conditions so long sought and upon these his life's hope was staked.
Much of this he stated as they sat in the wing-room. Gerald lay upon the
divan when he began talking, lost in abstraction, but as the theory of
the German was gradually unfolded Edward saw him fix his bright eye upon
the speaker, saw him becoming restless and excited. When the explanation
ended he was walking the floor.
"Experiments with frogs," he said, abruptly; "accidents to the human
brain and vivisection have proved the separateness of memory and
consciousness. But I shall do better; I shall give to the world a
complete picture descended from parent to child--an inherited brain
picture of which the mind is thoroughly conscious." His listeners waited
in breathless suspense; both knew to what he referred. "But," he added,
shaking his head, "that does not carry us out of the material world."
His ready knowledge of this subject and its quick grasp of the
proposition astonished Virdow beyond expression.
"Go on," he said, simply.
"When that fusion of mind and matter occurs," said Gerald, positively;
"when the consciousness is put in touch with the mind's unconscious
memory there will be no pictures seen, no records read; we shall simply
broaden out, comprehend, understand, grasp, know! That is all! It will
not come to the world, but to individuals, and, lastly, it has already
come! Every so called original thought that dawns upon a human, every
intuitive conception of the truth, marks the point where mind yielded
something of a memory to human consciousness."
The professor moved uneasily in his seat; both he and Edward were
overwhelmed with the surprise of the demonstration that behind the sad
environment of this being dwelt a keen, logical mind. The speaker paused
and smiled; his attention was not upon his company.
"So," he said, softly, "come the song into the mind of the poet, so the
harmonies to the singer and so the combination of colors to the artist;
so the rounded periods of oratory and so the conception that makes
invention possible. No facts appear, because facts are the results of
laws, the proofs of truths. The mind-memory carries none of these; it
carries laws and the truth which interprets it all; and when men can
hold their consciousness to the touch of mind without a falling apart,
they will stand upon the plane of their Creator, because they will then
be fully conscious of the eternal laws and in harmony with them."
"And you," said Virdow, greatly affected, "have you ever felt the union
of consciousness and mind-memory?"
"Yes," he replied; "what I have said is the truth; for it came from an
inner consciousness without previous determination and intention. I am
right, and you know I am right!" Virdow shook his head.
"I have hoped," he said, gently, "that in this mind-memory dwelt
pictures. We shall see, we shall see." Gerald turned away impatiently
and threw himself upon his couch. Presently in the silence which ensued
rose the solemn measure of Mendelssohn's heart-beat march from Edward's
violin. The strange, sad, depressing harmony filled the room; even
Virdow felt its wonderful power and sat mute and disturbed. Suddenly he
happened to gaze toward Gerald. He lay with ashen face and rigid eyes
fixed upon the ceiling, to all appearances a corpse. Virdow bounded
forward and snatched the bow from Edward's hand.
"Stop!" he cried; "for his sake stop, or you will kill him!"
They dragged the inanimate form to the window and bathed the face. A low
moan escaped the young man, and then a gleam of intelligence came into
his eyes. He tried to speak, but without success; an expression of
surprise and distress came upon his face as he rose to his feet. For a
moment he stood gasping, but presently his breath came normally.
"Temporary aphasia," he said, in a low tone. Going to the easel he drew
rapidly the picture of a woman kneeling above the prostrate form of
another, and stood contemplating it in silence. Edward and Virdow came
to his side, the latter pale with excitement. Gerald did not notice
them. Only the back of the kneeling woman was shown, but the face of the
other was distinct, calm and beautiful. It was the girl in the small
picture.
"That face--that face," he whispered. "Alas! I see it only as my
ancestors saw it." He resumed his lounge dejectedly.
"You have seen it before, then?" said Virdow, earnestly.
"Before! In my dreams from childhood! It is a face associated with me
always. In the night, when the wind blows, I hear a voice calling
Gerald, and this vision comes. Shall I tell you a secret--" His voice
had become lower and now was inaudible. Placing his hand upon the white
wrist, Virdow said:
"He sleeps; it is well. Come away, my young friend; I have learned much,
but the experience might have been dearly bought. Sometime I will
explain." Noiselessly they withdrew to Edward's room. Edward was
depressed.
"You have gained, but not I," he said. "The back of the kneeling woman
was toward him."
"Wait," said Virdow; "all things cannot be learned in a night. We do not
know who witnessed that scene."