THE SEEING
They carry her to her room. There is only one doctor in Whitecliffe.
He is found and fetched; and leaving Mr. and Mrs. Bickers by the
bedside, comes down to the sitting-room where is a man stunned to
apparent speechlessness by grief, whom he takes to be the patient's
brother. The doctor says he will stay till the end, and for "the
end" then substitutes "for the night." There is nothing he can do
immediately and by himself. He speaks of the possibility of an
operation in the morning, but seemingly has no thought of
telegraphing to a surgeon he names who could perform it. She will
pass away without recovery of consciousness, he fears. There is not
only the injury to her head but of her spine. More than that there
is the question of-- If the case had been taken to the hospital at
Market Redding.... The man whom he takes to be her brother drags
with blundering fingers from his pocket a packet of banknotes and
thrusts them towards him with a curious action--an action suggestive
(were not the idea ridiculous) of their being some horrible thing.
Well, are they not the price of her that was to buy her?
Taking the packet, the doctor flushes. He had judged these people by
the rooms they occupy--a clumsy thing to do at the seaside where
frequently people must take what accommodation they can find. This
man's educated bearing, perceptible despite the grief that scarcely
enables him to speak, should have informed him of his mistake. Very
well, he will telegraph. He cannot hold out much hope. But convey
hope to those poor old folk up-stairs. Indeed, of course one knows
of cases.... In these days of aeroplanes one hears of cases where
terrible falls, long periods of unconsciousness, have been survived.
Eh? Still--and though he is alone in the sitting-room with this the
poor girl's brother he drops his voice and tells him....
She lies in her room, Mother and Dad with her. She lies there
unconscious and only, under God, to wake to die. He that had
stumbled before her bier, directing those who bore her, stumbles now
from the house. "Kill me! Kill me!" Ah, cry that pulses as a wound
within him; that he desires to cry aloud, and would cry aloud, and
does wordlessly groan with his breathing. But there is agony that he
endures that of speech bereaves him, of power of movement wherewith
to carry out what now alone remains, numbs and denies him. There is
a seat without the house upon the parade. He drops upon it, and
there endures ... and there endures....
Endures! It is as if there had been discovered to him within him
some vital core, some spot, some nucleus of life, some living soul
and centre of him, capable of receiving the very quick and apotheosis
of torture, such as all his normal body and all his normal mind
delivered over to rack and irons could not have felt. There is a
point in human pain where pain, numbing the centres of the mind,
mercifully defeats itself and can no more. There is discovered to
him within him a core, a quick, an essence of him, capable of agony
to infinity, down into which, as a blunted knife, drives every
thought in writhing agony. In physical agony he writhes beneath
them, twisting his legs, driving his nails within his palms, bleeding
with his teeth his lips.
In that flash while she fell, and falling saved him: "She has given
her life for mine!" In that hour, that age, that all eternity of
time while, prone and powerless, rescued upon the cliff he lay:
"Twice, twice, I look upon a body lifeless to let mine live!" In
that stumbling progression before her bier: "Kill me! Kill me! O
vile, O worst, O foulest, unnameable thing, betake thyself to hell,
if any hell be vile enough to hold thee!"
Revelation! Revelation! As she fell, as he lay, as he stumbled, as
here he writhes in agony--revelation--and all his life in terrible
review beneath it. "Kill me! Kill me!" he groans. "O vile, O
worst, O foulest, unnameable thing, betake thyself to hell, if any
hell be vile enough to hold thee!"
"Not so. Not yet," there answers him. It is as though there speak
to him his thoughts with voice that peals imperatively through all
his being, reverberating through him in tremendous majesty of doom,
as through the aisles reverberates and makes to tremble all the air
an organ's swelling thunder.
"Not so! Not yet! Thou hast not strength to move to find thy hell.
Rise if thou canst. Stay, for thou must. Revelation is here.
Behold thy life beneath it!"
He crouches there. Enormously it thunders all about him.
"Revelation! O blind, O purblind miserable! Have not a thousand
lights been thrust before thee to proclaim thee this that only now
thou seest? Thou seeker after happiness! Thou greatly-to-be-pitied!
Thou sufferer! Thou victim of affliction! Thou innocent! Thou
greatly wronged! Is it thus thou hast seen thyself? Ah, whining
wretch that thou hast been! Ah, blind, ah, purblind fool, that could
not see! That first must have a life to show thee! That first must
send to death he that in daily sacrifices of thy companionship had
shown thee happiness was sacrifice! Blind, blind! Thou must demand
death of him to try to rend thy blindness, and still wast blind,
still cried to heaven of thy misery, still wast of all men most to be
pitied, most oppressed! Ah, whining wretch! To her for more
revelation thou must come. By her, daily, hourly revelation is
thrust before thee--she, that gay, that sweet, that joyous life,
whose every single, smallest thought was thought for others, and
still, O soul enmired, enmeshed in blindness, thou couldst not
see!--still thou must have the deeper sacrifice! One life doth not
suffice thee. Another thou must have. And now thou criest:
'Revelation! Revelation!' What cost? Look, look, thou vilest, now
that thine eyes are clear, now that thy soul is stirred at last from
all the slime of self, self, self, where thou hast kept it--look now,
and count the cost of this thy revelation. Look now! Hold up thy
shuddering soul, new from its slime, to look how all thy life is
strewed with sacrifices made for thee, how at each step, blind, thou
hast demanded more; how two whose every slightest breath was more of
beauty than all thy years have made, how two were given thee; how in
thy blindness thou rebukedst them both in each devotion, in every act
of love, of care, and must press on to have their lives, their broken
bodies--he by the sea, she by the cliff--for this thy revelation."
Day comes to evening, evening reaches into night. "Kill me! Kill
me!" he moans. "O vile, O worst, O foulest thing, O blind, let me
betake myself to hell, if any hell be vile enough to hold me!"
There answers him in dreadful summons, in final roll and crash of
sound: "Look back. Look back. Thou hast purchased this thy
revelation. Thou hast recovered from its slime thy soul. Two lives
and boundless love thou hast demanded for it. Thy price is paid.
Look back, look back. Hold up that soul of thine and see the way
that thou hast come. Then seek thy hell, if hell will have thee.
Hold up thy soul!"
The sound is snatched away. Only its resonance remains, and sharp
and piercing streams the air it leaves to silence. In that intensity
with new eyes he looks back; and now into this quick, this nucleus of
life within him that is made capable of pain transcending human pain,
receives each vision that his new eyes reveal. In agony receives
them, writhing at their torture. Who had been happy? They that had
sacrificed! Happy till when? Till he came! Happy in what? In
selflessness, in selflessness.... Who had been happy? That uncouth
vagabond that in their every moment together had tended him, cared
for him, protected him. O blind, that, mired in self, never till now
had realised his strong devotion! In shame, in horror, in grief's
abandonment, he cries aloud his uncouth name: "Puddlebox! Puddlebox!
For me! O God, for me!" Writhing, he hears his jolly voice: "O ye
tired strangers of the Lord: bless ye the Lord." Hears his jolly
voice: "Down, loony, down!" ... That was on the wagon, receiving
blows that he might escape! ... Hears his jolly voice: "You think too
much about yourself, boy, and therefore I name you spooked." ... O
blind, O blind that all his life had thought too much about himself,
and only of himself--thought only of how to win his own happiness,
realised never till now that happiness was in making others happy,
and nowhere else, and nowhere else! ... Hears his jolly voice:
"Wherefore whatsoever comes against me, boy--heat, cold; storm,
shine; hunger, fullness; pain, joy--cause for praise I find in them
all and therefore sing: 'O ye world of the Lord; bless ye the Lord.'"
... O blind, blind, that many weeks lived with that creed and never
till now realised its meaning.... Hears his jolly voice: "I like
you, boy." ... Hears his jolly voice: "Why, what to the devil is the
sense of it, boy?"--but doing it, following it, for him! ... O blind,
O blind! ... Hears his jolly voice: "I'm to you now, boy! I'm to
you, boy. Why, that's my loony!" ... Hears his jolly voice: "Wedge
in, boy! Wedge in! Swim! Why, I'd swim that rotten far with my
hands tied, and I challenge you or any man--" ... Sees him swing off
his hands, and drop, and go, and drown, and die.... O blind, blind,
blind!
Deep swings the night about him; deep sounds the murmuring sea.
"Kill me! Kill me!" he groans. "O vile, O worst, O foulest thing,
let me betake myself to hell, if any hell be vile enough to hold me!"
There answers him: "Not so. Not yet. Look back. Look back. Hold
up thy soul, new from its slime of self, self, self, and look along
the way that thou hast come. Hold up thy soul and look!"
He is searching, he is searching in the days at Pendra. He is
wondering, he is wondering. Is there some secret of happiness in
life that he has missed? O blind, O purblind in the face of God!
Day and night, by countless love, by endless devotion, the secret had
been thrust before him. Blind! Of self alone he had thought. The
last, the uttermost sacrifice had been presented him. Blind!
Enmired, enmeshed in self, it had shown him nothing, left him still
whimpering, still wondering, still seeking, still pitying his fate.
Who had been happy? Essie! Essie! Happy till when? Till he came!
Happy in what? In selflessness! Blind! O blindness black beyond
belief, now that with new eyes he sees it. Puddlebox had shown him.
Essie not alone had shown him but had told him. On that day of the
depth of his misery at the Tower House School, when she had helped
and advised him by telling of her way with her own Sunday-school
boys: "You jus' try it," she had said. "I mean to say, whatever's
the good of anybody if they don't try to make everybody else happy,
is there? You jus' try." He had tried. He had made the boys happy.
Himself he had touched happiness in theirs. O blind, O blind! She
had given the very secret of happiness into his hands, and he had
used it and proved it and yet, so chained in self, had never
recognised it, but had pressed on for further proof. On past her
"Aren't you quiet, though, sometimes? I don't mind, dear." On past
her "Oh, won't I keep you quiet just when you're working!" On to her
piteous cry: "Oh, didn't I think you loved me truly!" On, on,
voracious in his blindness as vampire in its lust, on, on, demanding
yet another life until she says: "Well, both of us, dear, what's the
sense to it?" Until she lies there, broken, that he might live.
Until she lies here unconscious and only, under God, to wake to die.
"Kill me! Kill me!" he groans. "Let me find hell, if any hell is
vile enough to hold me. Let me not live but to create hell here on
earth for all who come about me. O ye world of the Lord: bless ye
the Lord." He had crushed out that praise. "Let's have a laugh!"
He had crushed out that laughter.
Kill himself. That was left. That was all. Ah, if he had but
killed himself when, on that night countless ages of changed identity
ago, he had thrown himself into the river! Who had been saved had he
not lived? What of delight had he not robbed the world had he not
trailed across it? Who had been saved? Old Puddlebox--old Puddlebox
had been alive, jovial, genial, praising. Essie--Essie had been
alive, laughing, loving, streaming her sunshine. Who would have
missed him? None, none, for there was none in all his life he had
brought happiness.
Was there none, indeed? What is this sudden apprehension as of some
new dismay that checks and holds him? What new revelation of his
depths has that question unlocked, unloosed upon him? What change,
what agony is here? What bursts within his heart? What seems to
struggle in the air to reach him? What sweeps across that quick,
that nucleus of life, that core, that essence, that as deep waters
takes his breath and holds him trembling where till now in torture he
has writhed?
"Matey! Matey!"
"Captain! Captain!"
Ah, tumult inexpressible as of bursting floods rushing in mist and
spray from bondage; ah, surging of immensity of thoughts, of visions.
Missed him had he died? There was one, there was one had lost a
little happiness had he died when he had tried to die. "Captain!
Captain!"
He hears his voice as he had heard it in the ward: "Matey! Matey!
Gor' bless yer, Matey!"
He turns about on the seat. He throws his arms upon its rail. He
buries his face upon them.
There is a step across the road. A hand touches him. "Arthur? Is
that you, Arthur?"
Mr. Bickers, bending above him.
"Is she dead?"
"She's still unconscious. I'm anxious for Mrs. Bickers, Arthur. I
want to take her to lie down a little. Would you just come and watch
in case our Essie wakes?"
He gets up and goes with Mr. Bickers to the house.