"--and henceforth his soul is believed to be knit up in a manner with
the stone. If it breaks, it is an evil omen for him; they say that
thunder has struck the stone and that he who owns it will soon die--"
No use. His eyes kept wondering over the mass of print. He laid "The
Golden Bough" aside, and leaned back. From somewhere to the east,
the thunder still throbbed faintly. But the familiar leather of the
easy-chair imparted a sense of security and detachment.
Suppose, just as an intellectual exercise, you tried to analyze it in
terms of sorcery.
The dragon would be a clear case of sympathetic magic. Mrs. Gunnison
animated it by operating on the photographs. And if you hypothesized a
bull-roarer, or the recording of one, it would provide a neat magical
explanation for the wind last night and the storm and wind today--both
associated with Mrs. Sawtelle. And then the similar sound in his
dream--He wrinkled his nose in distaste.
He could hear Tansy calling Totem from the back porch, rattling his
little tin pan.
Put today's self-injurious acts in another category. The obsidian
knife. The razor blade. The cranky saucepan. The carpet tack. The match
that he had let burn his fingers a few minutes ago.
Perhaps the razor blade had been charmed, like the enchanted sword or
ax which wounds the person who wields it. Perhaps someone had stolen
the blood-smeared obsidian knife and dropped it in water, so the wound
would keep flowing. That was a well-established superstition.
A dog was trotting along the sidewalk out in front. He could distinctly
hear the _clop-clop_ of paws.
Tansy was still calling Totem.
Perhaps a sorcerer had commanded him to destroy himself by inches--or
millimeters, considering the razor blade. That would explain all the
self-injurious acts at one swoop. The flat voice in the dream had
ordered him to do it.
The dog had turned up the drive. His claws made a grating sound on the
concrete.
The tarot-card diagrams scribbled by Mrs. Sawtelle would figure as some
magical control mechanism. The stick figure of the man and the truck
had grim implications if interpreted in the light of his irrational
fear of automobile accidents.
It really didn't sound so much like a dog. Probably the neighbor's boy
dragging home by jerks some indeterminate bulky object. The neighbor's
boy devoted all his spare time to collecting old metal.
"Totem! Totem!" Followed by the sound of the back door closing.
Finally, that very trite "sense of a presence" just behind him. Taller
than himself, hands poised to grab. Only whenever you looked over your
shoulder, it dodged. Something like that had figured in the dream--the
source, perhaps, of the flat voice. And in that case--
His patience snapped. An intellectual exercise, all right! For morons!
He stubbed out his cigarette.
* * * * *
"Well, I've done my duty. That cat can sing for his supper." Tansy sat
on the arm of the chair and put her hand on Norman's shoulder. "How are
things going at college?"
He smiled up at her. He had been afraid of that question.
"Not so good," he replied lightly.
"The chairmanship?"