_THE MANUSCRIPT_
Two gentlemen sat chatting together one evening.
Their daily business was to occupy themselves with literature. At the
present moment they were engaged in drinking whisky,--an occupation
both agreeable and useful,--and in chatting about books, the theater,
women and many other things. Finally they came around to that
inexhaustible subject for conversation, the mysterious life of the
soul, the hidden things, the Unknown, that theme for which Shakespeare
has given us an oft-quoted and oft-abused device, which one of them,
Mr. X., now used to point his remarks. Raising his glass, he looked at
himself meditatively in a mirror opposite, and, in a good imitation of
the manner of his favourite actor, he quoted:
"There are more things in heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in thy philosophy, Horatio."
Mr. Y. arranged a fresh glass for himself, and answered:
"I believe it. I believe also that it is given but to a few chosen
ones to see these things. It never fell to my lot, I know. Fortunately
for me, perhaps. For,--at least so it appears to me,--these chosen
ones appear on closer investigation to be individuals of an abnormal
condition of brain. As far as I personally am concerned, I know of
nothing more strange than the usual logical and natural sequence of
events on our globe. I confess things do sometimes happen outside of
this orderly sequence; but for the cold-blooded and thoughtful person
the Strange, the apparently Inexplicable, usually turns out to be a
sum of Chance, that Chance we will never be quite clever enough to
fully take into our calculations.
"As an instance I would like to tell you the story of what happened
several years back to a friend of mine, a young French writer. He had
a good, sincere mind, but he had also a strong leaning toward
mysticism,--something which was just then in danger of becoming as
much of a fashion in France as it is here now. The event of which I am
about to tell you threw him into what was almost a delirium, which
came near to robbing him of his normal intelligence, and therefore
came near to robbing French readers of a few excellent books.
"This was the way it happened:
"It was about ten years back, and I was spending the spring and summer
in Paris. I had a room with the family of a _concierge_ on the left
bank, rue de Vaugirard, near the Luxembourg Gardens.
"A few steps from my modest domicile lived my friend Lucien F. We had
become acquainted through a chain of circumstances which do not belong
to this story, but these circumstances had made firm friends of us, a
friendship which was a source of great pleasure and also of assistance
to me in my study of Paris conditions. This friendship also enabled me
to enjoy better and cheaper whisky than one can usually meet with in
the city by the Seine, a real good 'Jameson Highland.'
"Lucien F. had already published several books which had aroused
attention through the oddity of their themes, and their gratifying
success had made it possible for him to establish himself in a
comfortably furnished bachelor apartment on the corner of the rue de
Vaugirard and the rue de Condé.
"The apartment had a corridor and three rooms; a dining room, a
bedroom, and a charming study with an inclosed balcony, the three
windows of which,--a large one in the center and two smaller ones at
the side,--sent a flood of light in over the great writing table which
filled nearly the entire balcony. Inside the room, near the balcony,
stood a divan covered with a bearskin rug. Upon this divan I spent
many of my hours in Paris, occupied in the smoking of my friend's
excellent cigars, and the sampling of his superlatively good whisky.
At the same time I could lie staring up at the tops of the trees in
the Luxembourg Gardens, while Lucien worked at his desk. For, unlike
most writers, he could work best when he was not alone.
"If I remained away several days, he would invariably ring my bell
early some morning, and drag me out of bed with the remark: 'The
whisky is ready. I can't write if you are not there.'
"During the particular days of which I shall tell you, he was engaged
in the writing of a fantastic novelette, 'The Force of the Wind,' a
work which interested him greatly, and which he would interrupt
unwillingly at intervals to furnish copy for the well-known newspaper
that numbered him among the members of its staff. His books were
printed by the same house that did the printing for the paper.
"Often, as I lay in my favorite position on the divan, the bell would
ring and we would be honored by a visit from the printer's boy
Adolphe, a little fellow in a blue blouse, the true type of Paris
gamin. Adolphe rejoiced in a broken nose, a pair of crafty eyes, and
had his fists always full of manuscripts which he treated with a
carelessness that would have driven a literary novice to despair. The
long rolls of yellow paper would hang out of his trousers pockets as
if ready to fall apart at his next movement. And the disrespectful
manner in which he crammed my friend Lucien's scarcely dried essay
into the breast of his blouse would have certainly called forth
remarks from a journalist of more self-conceit.
"But his eyes were so full of sly cunning, and there was such an
atmosphere of Paris about the stocky little fourteen-year-old chap,
that we would often keep him longer with us, and treat him to a glass
of anisette to hear his opinion of the writers whose work he handled.
He was an amusing cross between a tricky little Paris gamin and a real
child, and he hit off the characteristics of the various writers with
as keen a touch of actuality as he could put into his stories of how
many centimes he had won that morning at 'craps' from his friend
Pierre. Pierre was another employee of the printing house, Adolphe's
comrade in his study of the mysteries of Paris streets, and now his
rival. They were both in love with the same girl, the fifteen-year-old
daughter of the keeper of 'La Prunelle' Café, and her favor was often
the prize of the morning's game.
"Now and then this rivalry between the two young Parisians would drop
into a hand-to-hand fight. I myself was witness to such a skirmish one
day, in front of 'La Prunelle.' The rivals pulled each other's hair
mightily while the manuscripts flew about over the pavement, and
Virginie, in her short skirts, stood at the door of the café and
laughed until she seemed about to shake to pieces.
"Pierre was the strongest, and Adolphe came off with a bloody nose. He
gathered up his manuscripts in grim silence and left the battlefield
and the still laughing Virginie with an expression of deep anger on
his wounded face.
"The following day, when I teased him a little because of his defeat,
he smiled a sly smile and remarked:
"'Yes, but I won a franc from him, the big stupid animal. And so it
was I, after all, who took Virginie out that evening. We went to the
Café "Néant," where I let them put me in the coffin and pretend to be
decaying, to amuse her. She thought it was lots of fun.'
"One morning Lucien had come for me as usual, put me on the divan, and
seated himself at his writing table. He was just putting the last
words to his novel, and the table was entirely covered with the
scattered leaves, closely written. I could just see his neck as he sat
there, a thin-sinewed, expressive neck. He bent over his work, blind
and deaf for anything else. I lay there and gazed out over the tops of
the trees in the park up into the blue summer sky. The window on the
left side of the desk stood wide open, for it was a warm and sultry
day. I sipped my whisky slowly. The air was heavy, and thunder
threatened in the distance. After a little while the clouds gathered
together, heavy, low-hanging, copper-hued, real thunder clouds, and
the trees in the park rustled softly. The air was stifling, and lay
heavy as lead on my breast.
"'Lucien!'
"Lucien did not hear or see anything, his pen flew over the paper.
"I fell back lazily on my divan.
"Then suddenly, there was a mighty tumult. A strong gust of wind swept
through the street, bending the trees in the gardens quite out of my
horizon. With a crash the right-hand window in the balcony flew wide
open, and like a cyclone, the wind swept through, clearing the table
in an instant of all the loose sheets of paper that had lain scattered
about it.
"'The devil! Why don't you shut the window!' I cried, springing up
from the sofa.
"'Spare your energy, it's too late,' said Lucien with a gentle mockery
in his soft voice. 'Look there!'--he pointed out into the street,
where his sheets of paper went swirling about in the heavy air like
white doves.
"A second later came the rain, a veritable cloud-burst. We shut the
windows and gave ourselves up to melancholy thoughts about the lost
manuscript, the recovery of which now seemed utterly hopeless.
"'That's one thousand francs, at least, that the wind has robbed me
of,' sighed Lucien. 'Well, _elfin_, that doesn't matter so much. But
do you know anything more tiresome than to work over the same subject
a second time? I can't think of doing it. It would fairly make me sick
to try it.'
"We were in a sad mood that morning. When we went out to breakfast at
about two o'clock, we looked about for some traces of the lost
manuscript.
"There was nothing to be seen. It had vanished completely, whirled off
to all four corners of the earth probably, this manuscript from which
Lucien had expected so much. Truly it was 'The Force of the Wind.'"
* * * * *
"Now comes the strange part of the story. One morning, two weeks
later, Lucien stood in the door of my little room, pale as a ghost. He
had a bundle of printer's proofs in his hand, and held them out to me
without a word.
"I looked at it and read:
"'"The Force of the Wind," by Lucien F.'
"It was a good bundle of proofs, the entire first proofs of Lucien's
novel, that novel the manuscript of which we had seen blown out of the
balcony window and whirled away by the winds.
"'My dear man,' I exclaimed, as I handed him back the proofs. 'You
_have_ been industrious indeed, to write your entire novel over again
in so short a time--and to have proofs already----'
"Lucien did not answer. He stood silent, staring at me with a weird
look in his otherwise so sensible eyes. After a moment he stammered:
"'I did not write the novel over again. I have not touched a pen since
the day the manuscript blew out of the window.'
"'Are you a sleep-walker, Lucien?'
"'Why do you ask?'
"'Why, that would be the only natural explanation. They say we can do
a great many things in sleep, of which we know nothing when we wake.
I've heard queer stories of that. Men have committed murders in their
sleep. It happens quite often that sleep-walkers write letters in a
handwriting they do not recognize when awake.'
"'I have never been a sleep-walker,' answered Lucien.
"'Oh, you never can tell,' I remarked. 'Would you rather explain it as
magic? Or as the work of fairies? Or do you believe in ghosts? Your
muse has fascinated you, you mystic!' And I laughed and trilled a line
from 'The Mascot,' which we had seen the evening before at the Lyric.
"But my merriment did not seem to strike an answering note in Lucien.
He turned from me in silence, and with an offended expression took his
hat and his proofs, and--humorist and skeptic as he was ordinarily, he
parted from me with the words, uttered in a theatrical tone:
"'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in thy
philosophy.'
"He turned on his heel and left the room.
"To be candid, I was unpleasantly affected by the little scene. I
could not for an instant doubt Lucien's honesty,--he was so pale, so
frightened almost--so touching in the alarm and excitement of his
soul. Of course the only explanation that I could see was that he had
written his novel in a sleep-walking state.
"For certainly no printer could set up type from a manuscript that did
not exist,--to say nothing of printing it and sending out proofs.
"Several days passed, but Lucien did not come near me. I went to his
place once or twice, but the door was locked. Had the devil carried
him off bodily? Or had this strange and inexplicable occurrence robbed
him of his sanity, and robbed me of his friendship and his excellent
whisky?
"After three useless attempts to find him at home, and after writing
him a letter which he did not answer, I gave up Lucien without any
further attempt to understand his enigmatical behavior. A short time
after, I left for my home without having seen or heard anything more
of him.
"Months passed. I remained at home, and one evening when, during the
course of a gay party, the conversation came around to the subject of
mysticism and occult occurrences, I dished up my story of the
enigmatical manuscript. The Unknown, the Occult, was the rage just
then, and my story was received with great applause and called forth
numerous quotations as to 'more things in heaven and earth.' I came to
think so much of it myself that I wrote it out and sent it to
Professor Flammarion, who was just then making a study of the Unknown,
which he preserved in his later book 'L'Inconnu.'
"The occupying myself with the story brought my mind around again to
memories of Lucien. One day, I saw a notice in _Le Figaro_ to the
effect that his book, 'The Force of the Wind,' had appeared in a
second large edition, and had aroused much attention, particularly in
spiritualistic circles. I seemed to see him again before me, with his
long nervous neck, which was so expressive. The vision of this neck
rose up before me whenever I drank the same sort of whisky that I had
drunk so often with him, and the longing to hear something more of my
lost friend came over me. I sat down one evening when in a sentimental
mood, and wrote to him, asking him to tell me something of himself and
to send me his book.
"A week later I received the little book and the following letter
which I have here in my pocket. It is somewhat crumpled, for I have
read it several times. But no matter. I will read it to you now, if
you will pardon my awkward translating of the French original.
"Here it is:
"DEAR FRIEND:
"Many thanks for your letter. Here is the book. I have to thank you
also that you did not lay my behavior of your last days in Paris up
against me. It must have seemed strange to you. I will try to explain
it.
"I have been nervous from childhood. The fact that most of my books
have treated of fantastic subjects,--somewhat in the manner of Edgar
Allan Poe--has made me more susceptible for all that world which lies
beyond and about the world of every-day life. I have sought
after,--and yet feared--the mystical; cool and lucid as I can be at
times, I have always had an inclination for the enigmatical, the
Unknown.
"But the first thing that ever happened in my life that I could not
explain or understand was the affair of the manuscript. You remember
the day I stood in your room? I must have looked the picture of
misery. The affair had played more havoc with my nerves than you can
very well understand. Your mockery hurt me, and yet under all I felt
ashamed of my own thoughts concerning this foolish occurrence. I could
not explain the phenomenon, and I shivered at the things that it
suggested to me. In this condition, which lasted several weeks, I
could not bear to see you or anyone else, and I was impolite enough
even to leave your letter unanswered.
"The book appeared and made a hit, since that sort of thing was the
center of interest just then. But almost a month passed before I could
arouse myself from that condition of fear and--I had almost said,
softening of the brain--which prevented my enjoyment of my success.
"Then the explanation came. Thanks to this occurrence I know now that
I shall never again be in danger of being 'haunted.'
"And I know now that Chance can bring about stranger happenings than
can any fancied visitations from the spirit world. Here you have the
story of this 'mystic' occurrence, which came near endangering my
sanity, and which turns out to be a chance combination of a gust of
wind, a sudden downpour of rain, and the strange elements in the
character of our little friend Adolphe the printer's boy.
"You remember that funny little chap with the crafty eye, his talent
for gambling, and his admiration for the girl of 'La Prunelle'? A
queer little mixture this child who has himself alone to look to for
livelihood and care, the typical race of the Paris streets, the
modified gamin from 'Les Miserables.'
"About a month after the appearance of my book I lay on the divan one
day,--your favorite place, you remember?--and lost myself in idle
reasonings on the same old subject that never left my mind day or
night, when the bell rang and Adolphe appeared, to call for the essay
on 'Le Boulevarde.' There was an unusually nervous gleam in his eyes
that day. I gave him an anisette and tried to find out what his
trouble was. I did find it out, and I found out a good deal more
besides.
"Thanks to his good fortune as a gambler, Virginie came to look upon
him with favor. Pierre was quite out of the race and Adolphe's
affection was reciprocated as much as his heart could desire. But with
his good fortune in love came all the suffering, all the torture, the
suspicions that tear the hearts of us men when we set our hopes upon a
woman's truth. Young as he was he went through them all, and now he
was torturing himself with the thought that she did not really love
him and was only pretending, while she gave her heart to another.
Perhaps he was right--why not?
"I talked to Adolphe as man to man, and managed to bring back a gleam
of his usual jollity and sly humor. He took another glass of anisette,
and said suddenly:
"'M. Lucien--I did something----'
"'Did what?' I asked.
"'Something I should have told you long ago--it was wrong, and you've
always been so nice to me----'
"You remember the day, two months ago, when we had such a sudden wind
and rain storm, a regular cloud-burst? I was down here in this
neighborhood fetching manuscripts from M. Labouchère and M. Laroy. I
was to have come up here for copy from you, too. But then--you'll
understand after all I've been telling you,--I came around past 'La
Prunelle' and Virginie stood in the doorway, and she'd promised to go
out with me that evening. So I ran up to speak to her. And then when I
went on again, I saw a sheet with your writing lying in the street.
You know I know all the gentlemen's writing, whose copy I fetch. Then
I was frightened. I thought to myself, 'The devil,' I thought, 'here
I've lost M. Lucien's manuscript.' I couldn't remember calling for it,
but I thought I must have done so before I got M. Laroy's. I can't
remember much except Virginie these days. I took up the sheet and saw
three others a little further on. And I saw a lot more shining just
behind the railing of the Luxembourg Garden. You know how hard it
rained. The water held the paper down, so the wind couldn't carry it
any further. I ran into the Garden and picked up all the sheets,
thirty-two of them. All of them, except the first four I found in the
street, had blown in behind the railing. And I can tell you I was
precious glad that I had them all together. I ran back to the office,
told them I had dropped the manuscript in the street, but asked them
not to say anything to you about it. But the sheets were all
there,--you always number them so clearly, and 'handsome August,' the
compositor, promised he wouldn't tell on me. I knew if the foreman
heard of it, he'd put me out, for he had a grudge against me. So
nobody knew anything about it. But I thought I ought to tell you,
'cause you've been so nice to me. Maybe you'll understand how one gets
queer at times, when a girl like Virginie tells you she likes you
better than Pierre, and yet you think she might deceive you for his
sake--that big, stupid animal--But now I'll be going. Much obliged for
your kindness, M. Lucien, and for the anisette--' And he left me.
"There you have the explanation, the very simple and natural
explanation of the phenomenon that almost drove me crazy.
"The entire 'supernatural' occurrence was caused by a careless boy's
love affairs, by a gust of southwest wind, by a sudden heavy rain, and
by the chance that I had used English ink, the kind that water cannot
blur. All these simple natural things made me act so foolishly toward
a good friend, the sort of friend I have always known you to be. Let
me hear from you, and tell me what you people up North think of my
book. I give you my word that the 'Unknown Powers' shall never again
make me foolish enough to risk losing your friendship!
"Yours
"LUCIEN."
"So this is my story. Yes, 'there are more things in heaven and
earth--' But the workings of Chance are the strangest of all. And this
whisky is really very good. Here's to you."