Scarlatina broke out in the village in the spring of that year, a week
or two before my sixteenth birthday. There were not many cases, and all
were mild, but there was much talk of closing the school. My father,
for I know not what reason, was against this, and in the end got his
own way, but about a month later he had the satisfaction of seeing me
catch the infection just when everybody else was getting better. I can
remember quite distinctly the day I took ill. I had not been feeling
well the day before, but had said nothing about it, and that morning I
went to school as usual. I might as well have stayed at home for all
the work I did. I sat there with a book before me, my head aching, my
throat dry and painful. The noise of the classes saying their lessons
at the tops of their voices, especially the junior class, to whom
Miss McWaters was repeating a stanza of poetry, line by line, while
they screamed it after her, irritated, even while it amused, me. Miss
McWaters was a thin and angular person, no longer young, endowed by
nature with a high-pitched voice, prominent teeth, and a red nose, and
by art with a yellow, fuzzy fringe. All these qualities now loomed
particularly large in my vision of her, though at other times I knew
she was a kind and friendly person. Her red nose and her fringe haunted
me, her whole face seemed to undergo extraordinary, kaleidoscopic
changes; she became a sort of fantastic witch who was exercising
horrible spells on these small children standing in a circle round her
chair; her mouth grew larger, her big white teeth seemed thirsting to
bury themselves in their soft little throats. This impression grew
suddenly so sharp that I had to shake myself and sit back in my seat
to get rid of it. Then once more she was only Miss McWaters, to whom
years ago I had repeated this same verse of poetry in that same shrill
sing-song tone which now was going through and through my head....
I looked about the room with heavy eyes――at the white walls, the torn,
ink-stained maps, the scored desks and forms, the wooden floor――and
the whole place seemed to move round and round like a wheel. I saw my
father, with a pointer in his hand, indicating differently shaped areas
on a large blank map of England, and asking a row of youngsters what
counties they represented. That was the kind of lesson I had always
detested myself and had never even attempted to learn. I knew from my
father’s angry, “Next――next――next,” that nobody in the class was giving
satisfaction. And then they all seemed to shrink and float back, while
the room shot out like a telescope, and I watched them from somewhere
miles and miles away. And the high, clear voice of Miss McWaters
proclaimed:
“Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower’d,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.”
And a dozen shrill voices replied:
“Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower’d,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.”
The words seemed mere nonsense in my ears, and I had a sort of
delirious vision of a big star, with a red nose and a fringe and large
white teeth, pointing out the time on a huge clock, while a lot of
little stars stood round in a ring and pulled watches out of their
waistcoat pockets and set them to the time told by the big clock. This
seemed funny to me, and I began to laugh; and then, next moment, I
wanted to lie down somewhere and be quiet. My head was throbbing like
a steamboat with a too powerful engine, and there was a dull aching at
the back of my eyeballs. I got up and tip-toed across the room, but my
foot caught the end of a form, and I nearly pitched through the door,
head first.
I had intended going home, but with my hand on the latch of the gate I
decided to go up to Derryaghy instead. Singularly enough, the thought
that I might be sickening for scarlatina never occurred to me. The
distance to Derryaghy was not more than a quarter of a mile, yet it
seemed to me long, and before I arrived I regretted having started.
The hall-door being open when I reached the house, I went in without
ringing. I knew they would be at lunch, but I had no appetite, and as
I did not want to answer questions or talk, I went straight on up the
broad, low stairs, with the intention of going to my own room. At the
head of the staircase, full in the light, hangs the celebrated portrait
people come from far to admire. I sat down on the wide couch before it,
not because I wanted to look at what I had already seen thousands of
times, but because my head swam. I leaned against the back of the couch
and closed my eyes. When I opened them, the portrait being in front
of me, I could not help staring at it, in a dull way. It represents a
young man standing bare-headed on a hill-side, holding a gun in his
hand, and with an elderly dog seated sedately by him. The curiously
long, oval face, with its high forehead and narrow, pointed chin, has
much distinction, though little beauty, and its pallor contrasts oddly
with the faded red of the full sensuous lips, completely revealed
beneath the light, curled moustache. The eyes are dark, the hair light
brown. The hands are hidden by brown gauntlet gloves, and over the
dark brown doublet falls a lace collar. The trousers would look black
but for the darker shade of the long boots, and this darker note is
carried through to the trees behind, sombre and heavy against a yellow
sky. Both man and dog are obviously posing for their portraits――the
whole thing is a work of art, that is to say, it is something utterly
beyond nature. The highest light is in the face, but there is no white
anywhere, and, with the exception of the faint red of the lips, no
colour save the browns and blacks, the creamy flesh-tints. Over all,
the mellow tone of time has cast a kind of golden softness. I had been
told that it was by a great Spanish artist called Velasquez――his name,
indeed, was there, in large black letters on the dull gilt frame――and
that it was a very valuable painting, worth fabulous sums. I can affirm
to-day that it is really a fine work; but it is not by Velasquez. It is
by Mazo, and is, in fact, only a slightly modified copy of Velasquez’s
famous portrait of Philip in the Louvre.
This picture had always had an odd fascination for me, though there
was something about the face I did not like, something cold and proud,
which I knew I should have detested in actual life. I gazed at it now
stupidly enough, and then I had a nervous thrill, for it seemed to me
to have come all at once to life. One part of my brain knew this to
be nonsense, and that I had been seeing queer things all day, but the
other part of my brain continued to watch it, with a half expectation
of seeing it descend out of its frame. The eyes had begun to move, and
the lips trembled; the mouth opened slowly in a yawn which the brown
gloved hand was raised languidly to conceal; and then from behind the
picture I heard a little mocking laugh. These things bewildered me,
but did not startle me; and through them I became conscious that Mrs.
Carroll was coming up the stair and that she was speaking to me. I
answered her in words which I knew were perfectly idiotic, and which
moreover sounded husky and strange, as if some other voice than my own
were speaking through my lips. Again I heard the little mocking laugh.
This time I thought it came from the top of the picture, and glancing
up I saw, sure enough, a black imp, like a small, naked, negro boy,
perched cross-legged, on the top of the frame, from which he grinned
down at me impudently, raising his fingers to his snub nose, and
spreading them out in a derisive and very familiar grimace. I began to
talk about the picture, about school, and about Miss McWaters. Then
a cloud waved back from my brain; the portrait slid into its place,
the imp disappeared, and everything was once more as it should be.
But I felt a burning thirst, and when Mrs. Carroll opened the door of
a large, bright, sunny room, I was glad to fling myself down on the
bed. Almost immediately I was seized by a deadly sickness. I managed
to get off the bed in time to avoid making a mess, but the vomiting
returned again and again, till I collapsed into a state of exhaustion.
Heavy clouds waved across my brain, obscuring my thoughts, and again
clearing, leaving consciousness to flicker up, like the flame in a
dying lamp, so that I knew I had been undressed and was safe in bed.
And all the time I wanted to drink――to drink.... More than one person
was in the room with me; Mrs. Carroll was there, and old Doctor
O’Brian. In the open doorway Miss Dick hovered. And then suddenly I
was alone. I could hear a fire crackling in the grate, and it had
grown darker. A lamp was burning on a table somewhere over beside the
fireplace. I listened to the fire, and presently it seemed to me I
could hear the lamp burning too. It burned with a soft low continuous
sound that was like the note of a flute, and it occurred to me that
everything in the world was only sound――the bed I was lying on, the
shadows flickering across the ceiling, the dancing firelight――all were
but notes of a tune. This appeared so strikingly obvious that I could
not understand why I had never noticed it before. I tried to make out
what the tune was, but it eluded me, flickering away from me like a
butterfly. I turned round in my bed, for I had heard a slight noise
at the door. All seemed now to have grown silent. I could not hear
the lamp burning, nor even the fire. This silence was surely unusual,
abnormal; it filled me with a vague disquietude. It grew deeper and
deeper till I could not hear, even when I strained my ears, the
faintest murmur either without or within the house. The silence was
like a liquid, luminous atmosphere, through which strange things were
floating nearer. It was like a sea, and gradually it darkened into
colour――there was a broad, dark, blue sea before me, in a strange, rich
light, as if I were watching it through old stained glass. I saw sirens
swimming about in the warm, swelling waves, appearing and disappearing.
They followed a high-pooped, fantastic ship, just as I had often seen
porpoises following a boat out in the bay. The ship moved along slowly,
and its broad, coloured sails were embroidered with green dragons
that shone like fire, and at its bow was a green, jewelled serpent’s
head. Then once more there was nothing but the room, and I heard a
faint noise as of someone moving in a chair. Another sound immediately
followed, and I started, for it was curiously different; it was the
sound one hears before something happens. I watched the handle of the
door turn, and the door itself open and close quickly yet stealthily.
Three figures had entered. One was a tall figure in brown, with a gun
in his gloved hand, and he was followed by a great dark brown dog, who
at once leaped on to the bed and sat at the foot, watching me with
sombre, burning eyes. The third figure was Miss McWaters. Her nose
was longer and redder than I had ever seen it before, and it kept
twitching from side to side in a curious way; her big teeth flashed
in an unpleasant grin, and her fringe waved and curled about as if it
were alive. For the third time I heard the strange little mocking laugh
that had come from behind the picture, but I could not discover who had
uttered it. Perhaps it was Miss McWaters, for I knew she was waiting
for me to say something――a verse of poetry――yes, I remembered:
“Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower’d,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.”
Then a dense, heavy darkness swept up, blotting out everything.