"All right. See where that leaves us! At the time you received this
vision, Miss Blake is lying here in a deep trance, unconscious; and your
wife is dead. Which of these incredible sources of information do you
prefer? It's a matter of indifference to me. Either way my entire
reasoned conception of the universe topples in ruins!"
"But surely," I protested, "it might have come to me from Miss Blake, as
you suggest, without our having to descend to a belief in spirit
communication? Let's rule that out, too!"
"As you please," smiled Doctor Askew, pretty grimly. "If you find it
easier to believe your vision came from Miss Blake, do so by all means!
Personally, I've no choice. I can accept the one explanation quite as
readily as the other. Which means, that as a thinking being I can accept
neither! Both are--absurd. So I can go no further--unless by a sheer act
of faith. I'm baffled, you see--in my own field; completely baffled.
That's what it comes to. And I find it all devilishly annoying and
inconvenient. Don't you?"
I did not reply. For a time I mused, drearily enough, turning many
comfortless things over in my mind. Then I drew from my pocket the three
sheets scribbled by Susan's hand, before it had responded to Doctor
Askew's insistent suggestions.
"Doctor," I asked, handing him the scribbled pages, "in view of all
I've told you, doesn't what Miss Blake has written here strike you as
significant? You see," I added, while he glanced through them, "how
strongly her repressed feelings are in revolt against me--against the
tyranny of my love for her. Doesn't it seem improbable, then, to say the
least of it, that my vision could have come from that direction?"
He was reading the pages through again, more slowly. "Jimmy?" he queried
to himself. "Oh, yes--Jimmy's the boy you spoke of. I see--I see." He
looked up, and I did my best to smile.
"That's a bitter dose of truth for me, doctor; but thank God it came in
this way--came in time!"
Except for the punctuation, which I have roughly supplied, the three
pages read as follows:
"A net. No means of escape from it. To escape--somehow. Jimmy---- Only
wretchedness for Ambo--for us both. How can he care! Insufferably
self-satisfied; childishly blind. I won't--I won't--not after this. No
escape from it--my net. But the inner net--Ambo's--binding him, too.
Some way out. A dead hand killing things. My own father. How he killed
and killed--always--more than he knew. Blind. Never felt that before as
part of me--of me. Wrong way round though--it enfolds--smothers. I'm
tangled there--part of it--forever and ever. Setebos--God of my
father--Setebos knows. Oh, how could I dream myself free of it like
others--how could I! A net--all a net--no breaking it. Poor Ambo--and
his love too--a net. It shan't hold me. I'll gnaw through--mouselike. I
must. Fatal for Ambo now if it holds me. Fatal--Setebos--Jimmy will----"
"Hum," said Doctor Askew quietly.
"That doesn't help me much," I complained.
"No," he responded; "but I can't see that all this has any bearing on
the possible source of your vision."
"I only thought that perhaps this revelation of a repressed inner revolt
against me----"
"Yes, I see. But there's no reasoning about the unthinkable. I've
already said I can make nothing of your vision--nothing I'm yet prepared
to believe." He handed the three sheets back to me with these words:
"But I'm afraid your interpretation of this thing is correct. It's a
little puzzling in spots--curious, eh, the references to
Setebos?--still, if I were you, Mr. Hunt, I should quietly withdraw from
a lost cause. It'll mean less trouble all round in the end." He shook
his head impatiently. "These sexual muddles--it's better to see 'em out
frankly! They're always the devil, anyway! What silly mechanisms we
are--how Nature makes puppet-fools of us! That lovely child there--she
admires you and wants to love you, because you love her. Why shouldn't
she? What could be a happier arrangement--now? You've had your share of
marital misfortune, I should say. But Nature doesn't give a damn for
happy arrangements! God knows what she's after, I don't! But just at
present she seems to be loading the dice for Jimmy--for Jimmy, who
perhaps isn't even interested in the game! Well, such--for our misery or
amusement--is life! And my cigarettes are gone.... How about yours----?"