* * * * *
When I regained consciousness it was a winter twilight, and the room
was cold. I was alone in the doctor’s study and the machinery in the
house was stilled.... I went to the eastern window and saw that the
twilight was not the twilight of the dawn. I I must have slept all
day.... As I turned back I saw a folded paper on the table, and read,
in the doctor’s hand:
“In six hours you have passed through all the thoughts, all the wills,
and all the passions known to devils, men, or angels. You must now
sleep deeply or you die. I have put the lever on the rhythm of the
world, which is Sleep.
“In twelve hours I shall stop it, and you will wake.
“Then you had better go home and seek your finite sleep, or I have
known men lose their mind.”
* * * * *
I staggered out into the street, and sought my room. My head was still
dizzy, my brain felt tired, and my soul was sere. I felt like an old
man; and yet my heart was still half-drunk with sleep, and enamoured
with it, entranced with that profound slumber of the world to which all
consciousness comes as a sorrow.
The night was intensely cold; the stars were like blue fires; a heavy
ox-sledge went by me, creaking in the snow. It was a fine night for the
river. I suddenly remembered that it must be the night for the skating
party, and my engagement with Althea. And with her there came a memory
of that love that I had felt for her, sublimated, as it had been,
beyond all earthly love.
I hurried back to my room; and as I lit the lamp I saw a note addressed
to me, in her handwriting, lying on my study table. I opened it; all it
contained was in two phrases:
“Good-by; forgive me.
“ALTHEA.”
I knew not what to think; but my heart worked quicker than my brain. It
led me to Althea’s house; the old lady with whom she lived told me that
she had already started for the skating party. Already? I did not dare
to ask with whom. It was a breach of custom that augured darkly, her
not waiting for me, her escort.
On my way to the river I took the street by the house of Materialismus.
They were not there. The old warehouse was dark in all its windows. I
went in; the crazy wooden building was trembling with the Power; but
all was dark and silent but the slow beating of the Power on the Murder
pulse.
I snatched up the Spanish dagger where it still lay on the table, and
rushed out of that devil’s workshop and along the silent street to the
river. Far up the stream I could already make out a rosy glow, the
fires and lanterns of the skating party. I had no skates, but ran out
upon the river in a straight line, just skirting the brink of the falls
where the full flood maned itself and arched downward, steady, to its
dissolution in the mist. I came to the place of pleasure, marked out by
gay lines of paper lanterns; the people spoke to me, and some laughed,
as I threaded my way through them; but I heeded not; they swerving and
darting about me, like so many butterflies, I keeping to my line. By
the time I had traversed the illuminated enclosure I had seen all who
were in it. Althea was not among them.
I reached the farthest lantern, and looked out. The white river
stretched broad away under the black sky, faintly mirroring large,
solemn stars. It took a moment for my eyes, dazzled by the tawdry
light, to get used to the quiet starlight; but then I fancied that I
saw two figures, skating side by side, far up the river. They were well
over to the eastern shore, skating up stream; a mile or more above them
the road to A---- crossed the river, in a long covered bridge.
I knew that they were making for that road, where the doctor doubtless
had a sleigh in waiting. By crossing diagonally, I could, perhaps, cut
them off.
“Lend me your skates,” I said to a friend who had come up and stood
looking at me curiously. Before he well understood, I had torn them off
his feet and fitted them to my own; and I remember that to save time
I cut his ankle-strap off with the Spanish knife. A moment more and I
was speeding up the silent river, with no light but the stars, and no
guide but the two figures that were slowly creeping up in the shadow of
the shore. I laughed aloud; I knew this German beau was no match for me
in speed or strength. I did not throw the knife away, for I meant more
silent and more certain punishment than a naked blow could give. The
Murder motive still was in my brain.
I do not know when they first knew that I was coming. But I soon saw
them hurrying, as if from fear; at least her strokes were feeble, and
he seemed to be urging, or dragging her on. By the side of the river,
hitched to the last post of the bridge, I could see a single horse and
sleigh.
But I shouted with delight, for I was already almost even with them,
and could easily dash across to the shore while they were landing. I
kept to my straight line; I was now below the last pier of the bridge;
and then I heard a laugh from him, answering my shout. Between me and
the bank was a long open channel of rippling dark water, leading up and
down, many miles, from beneath the last section of the bridge.
They had reached the shore, and he was dragging her, half reluctant, up
the bank. In a minute, and he would have reached his horse.
I put the knife between my teeth and plunged in. In a few strokes of
swimming I was across; but the ice was shelving on the other side, and
brittle; and the strong stream had a tendency to drag me under. I got
my elbows on the edge of ice, and it broke. Again I got my arms upon
the shelving ice; it broke again. I heard a wild cry from Althea--I
cursed him--and I knew no more.
* * * * *
When I next knew life, it was spring; and I saw the lilac buds leafing
by my window in the garden. I had been saved by the others--some of
them had followed me up the river--unconscious, they told me, the
dagger still clinched in my hand.
Althea I have never seen again. First I heard that she had married him;
but then, after some years, came a rumor that she had not married him.
Her father lost his fortune in a vain search for her, and died. After
many years, she returned, alone. She lives, her beauty faded, in the
old place.