THORWALD PUZZLED.
“I fear,” continued Thorwald, “that I am wearying you with this long
talk.”
We assured him we were enjoying it too much to think of being tired, and
hoped he would not stop. But he said he had some duties to attend to,
and would take us to his room and leave us by ourselves for a while.
As soon as we were alone the doctor looked at me with a smile and said:
“Why did you act so queerly when I spoke of Mona?”
“Why did you speak so?” I asked in reply. “And how could you tell
Thorwald we found one inhabitant on the moon?”
“Did you want to have me tell him a falsehood?”
“Of course not. I tried to catch your eye and keep you from saying any
thing on the subject till we could consult in regard to it. If we are
going to color our narrative in order to make it more marvelous we must
at least make our stories agree.”
“My friend,” said the doctor, “I am now confirmed in my suspicion that
your brain was affected by your fall from the moon.”
I saw by this time that I need not hesitate further to tell the doctor
the truth. I disliked the task, but I saw it would not be safe to leave
him any longer in ignorance of his condition. There as no telling what
other preposterous tales he might invent. So I said to him gently:
“Doctor, your last remark makes it easier for me to tell you that the
first words you said to me on this vessel showed me that you were not
right. I kept it from our new friends here, and I thought I had better
tell you how you are, so you can be a little cautious. You talk all
right on most subjects, but you will do well to avoid the moon as a
topic of conversation. If the others ask any more questions about the
moon, you can just let me answer them.”
I said all this seriously enough, but the doctor laughed boisterously as
he answered:
“Well, if this isn’t a joke. You think I am crazy, and I know you are
crazy, and I can prove it. I will just ask you one question, which
please answer truthfully. Don’t you remember Mona?”
“Oh, there is Mona again! Don’t you see that only proves your own
madness? No, I don’t remember Mona, and you don’t either.”
“I must say,” returned the doctor, “I never expected to see you get over
your infatuation so quickly.”
“What direction did my infatuation, as you call it, take?”
“Marriage, I should say.”
“Now you interest me,” I returned, “and you must tell me more. Is
this Mona of yours the sole resident of the moon, of whom you spoke to
Thorwald?”
“Certainly she is, but you surely must be out of your head to call her
my Mona--I want no stronger proof.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Why, because but yesterday you scarce wanted to have me speak to her.
You tried to keep your jealousy from me, but there was not room enough
in all the moon to hide it.”
“This is very laughable,” I exclaimed.
“You did not think so then. But let me try to bring it all back to you
by another question. Don’t you remember her voice?”
“Most truly I do not. Why, what was the matter with her voice? Was
it loud and harsh, or was it squeaky? I cannot imagine anything very
pleasant in the way of a voice in such a wild and withered home as the
moon would make.”
“True,” answered the doctor, “as to the outside, but you forget our
visit to the interior.”
“There it is again,” said I. “Now, Doctor, the sooner you get rid of
these strange notions the better So tell me your recollections of our
stay in the moon, and I will let you know where you are wrong.”
“Very well. You remember, of course, when we found ourselves rushing
away from the earth so swiftly.”
“Yes, and then we remained shut up in the car day after day, more dead
than alive I think, until, fortunately, we were spilled out upon this
more favored globe.”
“You seem to be sincere,” said the doctor, “but if you are, then you
forget the most interesting part of our experience. Just as we were
about to be overwhelmed with our troubles we heard exquisite music,
which we soon found proceeded from a lovely maiden. You fell desperately
in love with her at first sight and never recovered till you were
plunged in the ocean of Mars. You insisted on following her nod, and she
led us at once through a narrow path down into the center of the moon.
Here, in her quiet home, we taught her to sing in our language--her only
speech was song--and the first words she used were to say she loved me.
She did not understand what the words meant, of course, but you looked
as if you wished I had been blown away before Mona had discovered us.
After that I helped you in your wooing all I could, but although your
passion increased every day your suit did not seem to prosper. One day I
expressed the wish that I had some of the things we had left in the car,
whereupon she led us out to the surface again, where we arrived just in
time to be thrown upon this planet. Here we are, you and I, all safe,
but where is poor Mona?”
“I am sure it would take a wise man to answer that question,” I replied.
“And now let me show you, Doctor, how wrong you are. If you will only
try to exercise a little of that good judgment for which you are noted,
you will be convinced that this is only a pretty little fairy tale which
has somehow taken possession of a corner of your brain. Now that the
fairy is gone you must try to forget the rest. Just think how unlikely
the whole story is. Think of a delicate girl living in such surroundings
as we found there; and then, how could we exist down in the center of
the moon?”
“Why, don’t you remember Mona told us the water and atmosphere had
all run down there, making it the only habitable part of the decaying
globe?”
“Oh, that’s only one of your scientific notions, probably as true as the
others that we have disproved. Too much science has turned your head,
and I will prove it to you again by showing you how impossible is
the part which I play in your romance. I will tell you now, what you
doubtless do not know, that I am engaged to be married to the best woman
in all the earth, excepting your own good wife, of course.”
“Is that a fact?” asked the doctor. “And do you love her?”
“To be sure I do. I love her very dearly, and if I ever see her again I
shall tell her so in a manner to make her understand it.”
“Why, doesn’t she understand it now?”
“Yes, I think so, but she thought I didn’t show heart enough in my
wooing.”
“Well, if she could see you with Mona she would learn that you have
plenty of heart when the right one appears to make it spring into life.”
“You speak as if you thought I did not love Margaret. You do not know
her. Why, I wouldn’t once look at another woman anywhere, not even in
Mars, and most certainly not in that puckered-up old world that we have
just left, happily for us.”
“Do you know what I think about you?” asked the doctor.
“No.”
“I think you have an exceedingly poor memory. First, you forgot Margaret
as soon as the voice of that fair singer fell on your ear, and now you
have forgotten the singer again the moment we have lost her. I await
with much interest your first introduction to a daughter of Mars.”
“You will be disappointed,” said I, “if you think I shall be more than
civil to her.”
“If she be handsome and can turn a tune moderately well, I shall be
willing to wager a fair young planet against the moon that you will
propose to her in a week.”
“I have done nothing to give you so poor an opinion of me. It is only
your own diseased imagination, and I do not seem to be curing it very
fast. I suppose, because your mind is naturally so strong, it is the
more difficult to destroy such an hallucination as has taken possession
of you.”
“I would give it up,” said the doctor. “The story is all true, and not
a work of my imagination. Isn’t it more reasonable to believe that you
could forget the circumstances I have related than that I could invent
such a tale?”
“Oh, I never could forget it if I had been false to Margaret. You do not
know me. If your vagaries had taken any other direction I might possibly
be brought to think you were right.”
By this time we both began to realize that the conversation was not
proving a great success in the way we had hoped, and so, after some
pleasant words and a hearty laugh over the situation, we found our
way to the deck again. Here there were various things to attract our
attention, different members of the crew being eager to show us about.
The doctor asked some question in regard to the system of steering the
vessel, and when one of the men had taken him back toward the stern to
explain the point, I found Thorwald and quietly explained to him the
mental condition of my companion.
“The doctor is all right,” I said, “on every subject but one. His head
must have been injured a little in his fall, and he imagines and asserts
with positiveness that we found a young woman in the moon, the last of
her race--a ridiculous idea, is it not?”
“And did you find any inhabitants at all?” asked Thorwald.
“Certainly not. No one could live in such a place. It is indeed
marvelous how we existed long enough to get here. The doctor calls this
creature of his brain Mona, says she was a great beauty, and plainly
intimates that I was rather too attentive to her. You will see what a
convincing proof this is of his unsound condition when I tell you I am
engaged to the best woman on the earth, and so of course could not show
any marked preference for another. I have told you about the doctor
so that you may pass over unnoticed any allusion he makes to these
subjects.”
Thorwald thanked me and said he would be careful not to embarrass us in
the matter. And so I flattered myself that in the future Thorwald and
I would sympathize with each other in commiserating the doctor. But I
afterward learned that the doctor, about this time, had also sought an
interview with Thorwald and had confided the following secret to him:
“My friend,” said he, “is a fine young fellow, but his head must have
been injured in his fall. He has entirely forgotten the best of our
experience in the moon. Queer, too, for he fell in love with the only
and last inhabitant of that globe, a beautiful, sweet-voiced maiden
named Mona, who never talked but she sang.”
Thorwald then made the doctor tell him the whole story, and at the close
he promised he would not pay much attention to anything I might say on
the subject in future conversation.
So it was quite a puzzle to Thorwald to tell which of his visitors from
the earth was of unsettled mind and which in his normal condition. He
decided to hold the question open and wait for further evidence.