XIII
A VICTIM OF HIGHER SPACE
"There's a hextraordinary gentleman to see you, sir," said the new man.
"Why 'extraordinary'?" asked Dr. Silence, drawing the tips of his thinfingers through his brown beard. His eyes twinkled pleasantly. "Why'extraordinary,' Barker?" he repeated encouragingly, noticing theperplexed expression in the man's eyes.
"He's so--so thin, sir. I could hardly see 'im at all--at first. He wasinside the house before I could ask the name," he added, rememberingstrict orders.
"And who brought him here?"
"He come alone, sir, in a closed cab. He pushed by me before I couldsay a word--making no noise not what I could hear. He seemed to move sosoft like----"
The man stopped short with obvious embarrassment, as though he hadalready said enough to jeopardise his new situation, but trying hard toshow that he remembered the instructions and warnings he had receivedwith regard to the admission of strangers not properly accredited.
"And where is the gentleman now?" asked Dr. Silence, turning away toconceal his amusement.
"I really couldn't exactly say, sir. I left him standing in the'all----"
The doctor looked up sharply. "But why in the hall, Barker? Why notin the waiting-room?" He fixed his piercing though kindly eyes on theman's face. "Did he frighten you?" he asked quickly.
"I think he did, sir, if I may say so. I seemed to lose sight of him,as it were----" The man stammered, evidently convinced by now that hehad earned his dismissal. "He come in so funny, just like a cold wind,"he added boldly, setting his heels at attention and looking his masterfull in the face.
The doctor made an internal note of the man's halting description;he was pleased that the slight signs of psychic intuition which hadinduced him to engage Barker had not entirely failed at the firsttrial. Dr. Silence sought for this qualification in all his assistants,from secretary to serving man, and if it surrounded him with a somewhatsingular crew, the drawbacks were more than compensated for on thewhole by their occasional flashes of insight.
"So the gentleman made you feel queer, did he?"
"That was it, I think, sir," repeated the man stolidly.
"And he brings no kind of introduction to me--no letter or anything?"asked the doctor, with feigned surprise, as though he knew what wascoming.
The man fumbled, both in mind and pockets, and finally produced anenvelope.
"I beg pardon, sir," he said, greatly flustered; "the gentleman handedme this for you."
It was a note from a discerning friend, who had never yet sent him acase that was not vitally interesting from one point or another.
"Please see the bearer of this note," the brief message ran, "though Idoubt if even you can do much to help him."
John Silence paused a moment, so as to gather from the mind of thewriter all that lay behind the brief words of the letter. Then helooked up at his servant with a graver expression than he had yet worn.
"Go back and find this gentleman," he said, "and show him into thegreen study. Do not reply to his question, or speak more than actuallynecessary; but think kind, helpful, sympathetic thoughts as stronglyas you can, Barker. You remember what I told you about the importanceof _thinking_, when I engaged you. Put curiosity out of your mind, andthink gently, sympathetically, affectionately, if you can."
He smiled, and Barker, who had recovered his composure in the doctor'spresence, bowed silently and went out.
There were two different reception-rooms in Dr. Silence's house. One(intended for persons who imagined they needed spiritual assistancewhen really they were only candidates for the asylum) had padded walls,and was well supplied with various concealed contrivances by means ofwhich sudden violence could be instantly met and overcome. It was,however, rarely used. The other, intended for the reception of genuinecases of spiritual distress and out-of-the-way afflictions of a psychicnature, was entirely draped and furnished in a soothing deep green,calculated to induce calmness and repose of mind. And this room was theone in which Dr. Silence interviewed the majority of his "queer" cases,and the one into which he had directed Barker to show his presentcaller.
To begin with, the arm-chair in which the patient was always directedto sit, was nailed to the floor, since its immovability tended toimpart this same excellent characteristic to the occupant. Patientsinvariably grew excited when talking about themselves, and theirexcitement tended to confuse their thoughts and to exaggerate theirlanguage. The inflexibility of the chair helped to counteract this.After repeated endeavours to drag it forward, or push it back, theyended by resigning themselves to sitting quietly. And with the futilityof fidgeting there followed a calmer state of mind.
Upon the floor, and at intervals in the wall immediately behind, werecertain tiny green buttons, practically unnoticeable, which on beingpressed permitted a soothing and persuasive narcotic to rise invisiblyabout the occupant of the chair. The effect upon the excitable patientwas rapid, admirable, and harmless. The green study was furtherprovided with a secret spy-hole; for John Silence liked when possibleto observe his patient's face before it had assumed that mask thefeatures of the human countenance invariably wear in the presence ofanother person. A man sitting alone wears a psychic expression; andthis expression is the man himself. It disappears the moment anotherperson joins him. And Dr. Silence often learned more from a fewmoments' secret observation of a face than from hours of conversationwith its owner afterwards.
A very light, almost a dancing, step followed Barker's heavy treadtowards the green room, and a moment afterwards the man came in andannounced that the gentleman was waiting. He was still pale and hismanner nervous.
"Never mind, Barker," the doctor said kindly; "if you were not psychicthe man would have had no effect upon you at all. You only needtraining and development. And when you have learned to interpret thesefeelings and sensations better, you will feel no fear, but only a greatsympathy."
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir!" And Barker bowed and made his escape,while Dr. Silence, an amused smile lurking about the corners of hismouth, made his way noiselessly down the passage and put his eye to thespy-hole in the door of the green study.
This spy-hole was so placed that it commanded a view of almost theentire room, and, looking through it, the doctor saw a hat, gloves, andumbrella lying on a chair by the table, but searched at first in vainfor their owner.
The windows were both closed and a brisk fire burned in the grate.There were various signs--signs intelligible at least to a keenlyintuitive soul--that the room was occupied, yet so far as human beingswere concerned, it was empty, utterly empty. No one sat in the chairs;no one stood on the mat before the fire; there was no sign even thata patient was anywhere close against the wall, examining the Boecklinreproductions--as patients so often did when they thought they werealone--and therefore rather difficult to see from the spy-hole.Ordinarily speaking, there was no one in the room. It was undeniable.
Yet Dr. Silence was quite well aware that a human being _was_ in theroom. His psychic apparatus never failed in letting him know theproximity of an incarnate or discarnate being. Even in the dark hecould tell that. And he now knew positively that his patient--thepatient who had alarmed Barker, and had then tripped down the corridorwith that dancing footstep--was somewhere concealed within the fourwalls commanded by his spy-hole. He also realised--and this was mostunusual--that this individual whom he desired to watch knew thathe was being watched. And, further, that the stranger himself wasalso watching! In fact, that it was he, the doctor, who was beingobserved--and by an observer as keen and trained as himself.
An inkling of the true state of the case began to dawn upon him, andhe was on the verge of entering--indeed, his hand already touched thedoor-knob--when his eye, still glued to the spy-hole, detected a slightmovement. Directly opposite, between him and the fireplace, somethingstirred. He watched very attentively and made certain that he was notmistaken. An object on the mantelpiece--it was a blue vase--disappearedfrom view. It passed out of sight toge
ther with the portion of themarble mantelpiece on which it rested. Next, that part of the fireand grate and brass fender immediately below it vanished entirely, asthough a slice had been taken clean out of them.
Dr. Silence then understood that something between him and theseobjects was slowly coming into being, something that concealed them andobstructed his vision by inserting itself in the line of sight betweenthem and himself.
He quietly awaited further results before going in.
First he saw a thin perpendicular line tracing itself from just abovethe height of the clock and continuing downwards till it reached thewoolly fire-mat. This line grew wider, broadened, grew solid. It wasno shadow; it was something substantial. It defined itself more andmore. Then suddenly, at the top of the line, and about on a level withthe face of the clock, he saw a round luminous disc gazing steadily athim. It was a human eye, looking straight into his own, pressed thereagainst the spy-hole. And it was bright with intelligence. Dr. Silenceheld his breath for a moment--and stared back at it.
Then, like some one moving out of deep shadow into light, he sawthe figure of a man come sliding sideways into view, a whitish facefollowing the eye, and the perpendicular line he had first observedbroadening out and developing into the complete figure of a humanbeing. It was the patient. He had apparently been standing there infront of the fire all the time. A second eye had followed the first,and both of them stared steadily at the spy-hole, sharply concentrated,yet with a sly twinkle of humour and amusement that made it impossiblefor the doctor to maintain his position any longer.
He opened the door and went in quickly. As he did so he noticed forthe first time the sound of a German band coming in gaily through theopen ventilators. In some intuitive, unaccountable fashion the musicconnected itself with the patient he was about to interview. This sortof prevision was not unfamiliar to him. It always explained itselflater.
The man, he saw, was of middle age and of very ordinary appearance;so ordinary, in fact, that he was difficult to describe--hisonly peculiarity being his extreme thinness. Pleasant--that is,good--vibrations issued from his atmosphere and met Dr. Silence ashe advanced to greet him, yet vibrations alive with currents anddischarges betraying the perturbed and disordered condition of his mindand brain. There was evidently something wholly out of the usual inthe state of his thoughts. Yet, though strange, it was not altogetherdistressing; it was not the impression that the broken and violentatmosphere of the insane produces upon the mind. Dr. Silence realisedin a flash that here was a case of absorbing interest that mightrequire all his powers to handle properly.
"I was watching you through my little peep-hole--as you saw," he began,with a pleasant smile, advancing to shake hands. "I find it of thegreatest assistance sometimes----"
But the patient interrupted him at once. His voice was hurried and hadodd, shrill changes in it, breaking from high to low in unexpectedfashion. One moment it thundered, the next it almost squeaked.
"I understand without explanation," he broke in rapidly. "You get thetrue note of a man in this way--when he thinks himself unobserved. Iquite agree. Only, in my case, I fear, you saw very little. My case, asyou of course grasp, Dr. Silence, is extremely peculiar, uncomfortablypeculiar. Indeed, unless Sir William had positively assured me----"
"My friend has sent you to me," the doctor interrupted gravely, witha gentle note of authority, "and that is quite sufficient. Pray, beseated, Mr.----"
"Mudge--Racine Mudge," returned the other.
"Take this comfortable one, Mr. Mudge," leading him to the fixed chair,"and tell me your condition in your own way and at your own pace. Mywhole day is at your service if you require it."
Mr. Mudge moved towards the chair in question and then hesitated.
"You will promise me not to use the narcotic buttons," he said,before sitting down. "I do not need them. Also I ought to mention thatanything you think of vividly will reach my mind. That is apparentlypart of my peculiar case." He sat down with a sigh and arranged histhin legs and body into a position of comfort. Evidently he was verysensitive to the thoughts of others, for the picture of the greenbuttons had only entered the doctor's mind for a second, yet the otherhad instantly snapped it up. Dr. Silence noticed, too, that Mr. Mudgeheld on tightly with both hands to the arms of the chair.
"I'm rather glad the chair is nailed to the floor," he remarked, ashe settled himself more comfortably. "It suits me admirably. The factis--and this is my case in a nutshell--which is all that a doctor ofyour marvellous development requires--the fact is, Dr. Silence, I am avictim of Higher Space. That's what's the matter with me--Higher Space!"
The two looked at each other for a space in silence, the little patientholding tightly to the arms of the chair which "suited him admirably,"and looking up with staring eyes, his atmosphere positively tremblingwith the waves of some unknown activity; while the doctor smiled kindlyand sympathetically, and put his whole person as far as possible intothe mental condition of the other.
"Higher Space," repeated Mr. Mudge, "that's what it is. Now, do youthink you can help me with _that_?"
There was a pause during which the men's eyes steadily searched downbelow the surface of their respective personalities. Then Dr. Silencespoke.
"I am quite sure I can help," he answered quietly; "sympathy mustalways help, and suffering always owns my sympathy. I see you havesuffered cruelly. You must tell me all about your case, and when I hearthe gradual steps by which you reached this strange condition, I haveno doubt I can be of assistance to you."
He drew a chair up beside his interlocutor and laid a hand on hisshoulder for a moment. His whole being radiated kindness, intelligence,desire to help.
"For instance," he went on, "I feel sure it was the result of no merechance that you became familiar with the terrors of what you termHigher Space; for Higher Space is no mere external measurement. Itis, of course, a spiritual state, a spiritual condition, an innerdevelopment, and one that we must recognise as abnormal, since it isbeyond the reach of the world at the present stage of evolution. HigherSpace is a mythical state."
"Oh!" cried the other, rubbing his birdlike hands with pleasure, "therelief it is to be to talk to some one who can understand! Of coursewhat you say is the utter truth. And you are right that no mere chanceled me to my present condition, but, on the other hand, prolonged anddeliberate study. Yet chance in a sense now governs it. I mean, myentering the condition of Higher Space seems to depend upon the chanceof this and that circumstance. For instance, the mere sound of thatGerman band sent me off. Not that all music will do so, but certainsounds, certain vibrations, at once key me up to the requisite pitch,and off I go. Wagner's music always does it, and that band must havebeen playing a stray bit of Wagner. But I'll come to all that later.Only, first, I must ask you to send away your man from the spy-hole."
John Silence looked up with a start, for Mr. Mudge's back was to thedoor, and there was no mirror. He saw the brown eye of Barker glued tothe little circle of glass, and he crossed the room without a word andsnapped down the black shutter provided for the purpose, and then heardBarker shuffle away along the passage.
"Now," continued the little man in the chair, "I can begin. You havemanaged to put me completely at my ease, and I feel I may tell you mywhole case without shame or reserve. You will understand. But you mustbe patient with me if I go into details that are already familiar toyou--details of Higher Space, I mean--and if I seem stupid when I haveto describe things that transcend the power of language and are reallytherefore indescribable."
"My dear friend," put in the other calmly, "that goes without saying.To know Higher Space is an experience that defies description, and oneis obliged to make use of more or less intelligible symbols. But, pray,proceed. Your vivid thoughts will tell me more than your halting words."
An immense sigh of relief proceeded from the little figure half lostin the depths of the chair. Such intelligent sympathy meeting himhalf-way was a new experience to him, and it touched his heart at once.He
leaned back, relaxing his tight hold of the arms, and began in histhin, scale-like voice.
"My mother was a Frenchwoman, and my father an Essex bargeman," hesaid abruptly. "Hence my name--Racine and Mudge. My father died beforeI ever saw him. My mother inherited money from her Bordeaux relations,and when she died soon after, I was left alone with wealth and astrange freedom. I had no guardian, trustees, sisters, brothers, or anyconnection in the world to look after me. I grew up, therefore, utterlywithout education. This much was to my advantage; I learned none ofthat deceitful rubbish taught in schools, and so had nothing to unlearnwhen I awakened to my true love--mathematics, higher mathematics andhigher geometry. These, however, I seemed to know instinctively. It waslike the memory of what I had deeply studied before; the principleswere in my blood, and I simply raced through the ordinary stages, andbeyond, and then did the same with geometry. Afterwards, when I readthe books on these subjects, I understood how swift and undeviatingthe knowledge had come back to me. It was simply memory. It was simply_re-collecting_ the memories of what I had known before in a previousexistence and required no books to teach me."
In his growing excitement, Mr. Mudge attempted to drag the chairforward a little nearer to his listener, and then smiled faintly as heresigned himself instantly again to its immovability, and plunged anewinto the recital of his singular "disease."
"The audacious speculations of Bolyai, the amazing theories ofGauss--that through a point more than one line could be drawn parallelto a given line; the possibility that the angles of a triangle aretogether _greater_ than two right angles, if drawn upon immensecurvatures-the breathless intuitions of Beltrami and Lobatchewsky--allthese I hurried through, and emerged, panting but unsatisfied, upon theverge of my--my new world, my Higher Space possibilities--in a word, mydisease!
"How I got there," he resumed after a brief pause, during which heappeared to be listening intently for an approaching sound, "is morethan I can put intelligibly into words. I can only hope to leave yourmind with an intuitive comprehension of the possibility of what I say.
"Here, however, came a change. At this point I was no longer absorbingthe fruits of studies I had made before; it was the beginning ofnew efforts to learn for the first time, and I had to go slowly andlaboriously through terrible work. Here I sought for the theories andspeculations of others. But books were few and far between, and withthe exception of one man--a 'dreamer,' the world called him--whoseaudacity and piercing intuition amazed and delighted me beyonddescription, I found no one to guide or help.
"You, of course, Dr. Silence, understand something of what I amdriving at with these stammering words, though you cannot perhaps yetguess what depths of pain my new knowledge brought me to, nor why anacquaintance with a new development of space should prove a source ofmisery and terror."
Mr. Racine Mudge, remembering that the chair would not move, did thenext best thing he could in his desire to draw nearer to the attentiveman facing him, and sat forward upon the very edge of the cushions,crossing his legs and gesticulating with both hands as though he sawinto this region of new space he was attempting to describe, andmight any moment tumble into it bodily from the edge of the chair anddisappear from view. John Silence, separated from him by three paces,sat with his eyes fixed upon the thin white face opposite, noting everyword and every gesture with deep attention.
"This room we now sit in, Dr. Silence, has one side open to space--toHigher Space. A closed box only _seems_ closed. There is a way in andout of a soap bubble without breaking the skin."
"You tell me no new thing," the doctor interposed gently.
"Hence, if Higher Space exists and our world borders upon it and liespartially in it, it follows necessarily that we see only portionsof all objects. We never see their true and complete shape. We seetheir three measurements, but not their fourth. The new direction isconcealed from us, and when I hold this book and move my hand all roundit I have not really made a complete circuit. We only perceive thoseportions of any object which exist in our three dimensions; the restescapes us. But, once we learn to see in Higher Space, and objects willappear as they actually are. Only they will thus be hardly recognisable!
"Now, you may begin to grasp something of what I am coming to."
"I am beginning to understand something of what you must havesuffered," observed the doctor soothingly, "for I have made similarexperiments myself, and only stopped just in time----"
"You are the one man in all the world who can hear and understand,_and_ sympathise," exclaimed Mr. Mudge, grasping his hand and holdingit tightly while he spoke. The nailed chair prevented furtherexcitability.
"Well," he resumed, after a moment's pause, "I procured the implementsand the coloured blocks for practical experiment, and I followed theinstructions carefully till I had arrived at a working conception offour-dimensional space. The tessaract, the figure whose boundaries arecubes, I knew by heart. That is to say, I knew it and saw it mentally,for my eye, of course, could never take in a new measurement, or myhands and feet handle it.
"So, at least, I thought," he added, making a wry face. "I had reachedthe stage, you see, when I could _imagine_ in a new dimension. I wasable to conceive the shape of that new figure which is intrinsicallydifferent to all we know--the shape of the tessaract. I could perceivein four dimensions. When, therefore, I looked at a cube I could seeall its sides at once. Its top was not foreshortened, nor its fartherside and base invisible. I saw the whole thing out flat, so to speak.And this tessaract was bounded by cubes! Moreover, I also saw itscontent--its insides."
"You were not yourself able to enter this new world," interrupted Dr.Silence.
"Not then. I was only able to conceive intuitively what it was likeand how exactly it must look. Later, when I slipped in there andsaw objects in their entirety, unlimited by the paucity of our poorthree measurements, I very nearly lost my life. For, you see, spacedoes not stop at a single new dimension, a fourth. It extends in allpossible new ones, and we must conceive it as containing any number ofnew dimensions. In other words, there is no space at all, but only aspiritual condition. But, meanwhile, I had come to grasp the strangefact that the objects in our normal world appear to us only partially."
Mr. Mudge moved farther forward till he was balanced dangerously onthe very edge of the chair. "From this starting point," he resumed,"I began my studies and experiments, and continued them for years.I had money, and I was without friends. I lived in solitude andexperimented. My intellect, of course, had little part in the work,for intellectually it was all unthinkable. Never was the limitation ofmere reason more plainly demonstrated. It was mystically, intuitively,spiritually that I began to advance. And what I learnt, and knew, anddid is all impossible to put into language, since it all describesexperiences transcending the experiences of men. It is only some of theresults--what you would call the symptoms of my disease--that I cangive you, and even these must often appear absurd contradictions andimpossible paradoxes.
"I can only tell you, Dr. Silence"--his manner became exceedinglyimpressive--"that I reached sometimes a point of view whence all thegreat puzzle of the world became plain to me, and I understood whatthey call in the Yoga books 'The Great Heresy of Separateness'; why allgreat teachers have urged the necessity of man loving his neighbour ashimself; how men are all really _one_; and why the utter loss of selfis necessary to salvation and the discovery of the true life of thesoul."
He paused a moment and drew breath.
"Your speculations have been my own long ago," the doctor said quietly."I fully realise the force of your words. Men are doubtless notseparate at all--in the sense they imagine----"
"All this about the very much Higher Space I only dimly, very dimly,conceived, of course," the other went on, raising his voice again byjerks; "but what did happen to me was the humbler accident of--thesimpler disaster--oh, dear, how shall I put it----?"
He stammered and showed visible signs of distress.
"It was simply this," he resumed with a sudden rush of
words, "that,accidentally, as the result of my years of experiment, I one dayslipped bodily into the next world, the world of four dimensions, yetwithout knowing precisely how I got there, or how I could get backagain. I discovered, that is, that my ordinary three-dimensional bodywas but an expression--a projection--of my higher four-dimensional body!
"Now you understand what I meant much earlier in our talk when I spokeof chance. I cannot control my entrance or exit. Certain people,certain human atmospheres, certain wandering forces, thoughts, desireseven--the radiations of certain combinations of colour, and above all,the vibrations of certain kinds of music, will suddenly throw me intoa state of what I can only describe as an intense and terrific innervibration--and behold I am off! Off in the direction at right angles toall our known directions! Off in the direction the cube takes when itbegins to trace the outlines of the new figure! Off into my breathlessand semi-divine Higher Space! Off, _inside myself_, into the world offour dimensions!"
He gasped and dropped back into the depths of the immovable chair.
"And there," he whispered, his voice issuing from among the cushions,"there I have to stay until these vibrations subside, or until theydo something which I cannot find words to describe properly orintelligibly to you--and then, behold, I am back again. First, that is,I disappear. Then I reappear."
"Just so," exclaimed Dr. Silence, "and that is why a few----"
"Why a few moments ago," interrupted Mr. Mudge, taking the words outof his mouth, "you found me gone, and then saw me return. The musicof that wretched German band sent me off. Your intense thinking aboutme brought me back--when the band had stopped its Wagner. I saw youapproach the peep-hole and I saw Barker's intention of doing so later.For me no interiors are hidden. I see inside. When in that state thecontent of your mind, as of your body, is open to me as the day. Oh,dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!"
Mr. Mudge stopped and again mopped his brow. A light trembling ranover the surface of his small body like wind over grass. He still heldtightly to the arms of the chair.
"At first," he presently resumed, "my new experiences were so vividlyinteresting that I felt no alarm. There was no room for it. The alarmcame a little later."
"Then you actually penetrated far enough into that state to experienceyourself as a normal portion of it?" asked the doctor, leaning forward,deeply interested.
Mr. Mudge nodded a perspiring face in reply.
"I did," he whispered, "undoubtedly I did. I am coming to all that. Itbegan first at night, when I realised that sleep brought no loss ofconsciousness----"
"The spirit, of course, can never sleep. Only the body becomesunconscious," interposed John Silence.
"Yes, we know that--theoretically. At night, of course, the spiritis active elsewhere, and we have no memory of where and how, simplybecause the brain stays behind and receives no record. But I foundthat, while remaining conscious, I also retained memory. I had attainedto the state of continuous consciousness, for at night I regularly,with the first approaches of drowsiness, entered _nolens volens_ thefour-dimensional world.
"For a time this happened regularly, and I could not control it;though later I found a way to regulate it better. Apparently sleep isunnecessary in the higher--the four-dimensional--body. Yes, perhaps.But I should infinitely have preferred dull sleep to the knowledge.For, unable to control my movements, I wandered to and fro, attracted,owing to my partial development and premature arrival, to parts of thisnew world that alarmed me more and more. It was the awful waste anddrift of a monstrous world, so utterly different to all we know and seethat I cannot even hint at the nature of the sights and objects andbeings in it. More than that, I cannot even remember them. I cannot nowpicture them to myself even, but can recall only the _memory of theimpression_ they made upon me, the horror and devastating terror of itall. To be in several places at once, for instance----"
"Perfectly," interrupted John Silence, noticing the increase of theother's excitement, "I understand exactly. But now, please, tell me alittle more of this alarm you experienced, and how it affected you."
"It's not the disappearing and reappearing _per se_ that I mind,"continued Mr. Mudge, "so much as certain other things. It's seeingpeople and objects in their weird entirety, in their true and completeshapes, that is so distressing. It introduces me to a world ofmonsters. Horses, dogs, cats, all of which I loved; people, trees,children; all that I have considered beautiful in life--everything,from a human face to a cathedral--appear to me in a different shapeand aspect to all I have known before. I cannot perhaps convince youwhy this should be terrible, but I assure you that it is so. To hearthe human voice proceeding from this novel appearance which I scarcelyrecognise as a human body is ghastly, simply ghastly. To see insideeverything and everybody is a form of insight peculiarly distressing.To be so confused in geography as to find myself one moment at theNorth Pole, and the next at Clapham Junction--or possibly at bothplaces simultaneously--is absurdly terrifying. Your imagination willreadily furnish other details without my multiplying my experiencesnow. But you have no idea what it all means, and how I suffer."
Mr. Mudge paused in his panting account and lay back in his chair. Hestill held tightly to the arms as though they could keep him in theworld of sanity and three measurements, and only now and again releasedhis left hand in order to mop his face. He looked very thin and whiteand oddly unsubstantial, and he stared about him as though he saw intothis other space he had been talking about.
John Silence, too, felt warm. He had listened to every word and hadmade many notes. The presence of this man had an exhilarating effectupon him. It seemed as if Mr. Racine Mudge still carried about withhim something of that breathless Higher-Space condition he had beendescribing. At any rate, Dr. Silence had himself advanced sufficientlyfar along the legitimate paths of spiritual and psychic transformationsto realise that the visions of this extraordinary little person had abasis of truth for their origin.
After a pause that prolonged itself into minutes, he crossed the roomand unlocked a drawer in a bookcase, taking out a small book with a redcover. It had a lock to it, and he produced a key out of his pocket andproceeded to open the covers. The bright eyes of Mr. Mudge never lefthim for a single second.
"It almost seems a pity," he said at length, "to cure you, Mr. Mudge.You are on the way to discovery of great things. Though you may loseyour life in the process--that is, your life here in the world ofthree dimensions--you would lose thereby nothing of great value--youwill pardon my apparent rudeness, I know--and you might gain what isinfinitely greater. Your suffering, of course, lies in the fact thatyou alternate between the two worlds and are never wholly in one or theother. Also, I rather imagine, though I cannot be certain of this fromany personal experiments, that you have here and there penetrated eveninto space of more than four dimensions, and have hence experienced theterror you speak of."
The perspiring son of the Essex bargeman and the woman of Normandy benthis head several times in assent, but uttered no word in reply.
"Some strange psychic predisposition, dating no doubt from one of yourformer lives, has favoured the development of your 'disease'; and thefact that you had no normal training at school or college, no leadingby the poor intellect into the culs-de-sac falsely called knowledge,has further caused your exceedingly rapid movement along the lines ofdirect inner experience. None of the knowledge you have foreshadowedhas come to you through the senses, of course."
Mr. Mudge, sitting in his immovable chair, began to tremble slightly.A wind again seemed to pass over his surface and again to set itcuriously in motion like a field of grass.
"You are merely talking to gain time," he said hurriedly, in a shakingvoice. "This thinking aloud delays us. I see ahead what you are comingto, only please be quick, for something is going to happen. A band isagain coming down the street, and if it plays--if it plays Wagner--Ishall be off in a twinkling."
"Precisely. I will be quick. I was leading up to the point of how toeffect your cure. The way is this: You must s
imply learn to _block theentrances_."
"True, true, utterly true!" exclaimed the little man, dodging aboutnervously in the depths of the chair. "But how, in the name of space,is that to be done?"
"By concentration. They are all within you, these entrances, althoughouter cases such as colour, music and other things lead you towardsthem. These external things you cannot hope to destroy, but once theentrances are blocked, they will lead you only to bricked walls andclosed channels. You will no longer be able to find the way."
"Quick, quick!" cried the bobbing figure in the chair. "How is thisconcentration to be effected?"
"This little book," continued Dr. Silence calmly, "will explainto you the way." He tapped the cover. "Let me now read out to youcertain simple instructions, composed, as I see you divine, entirelyfrom my own personal experiences in the same direction. Follow theseinstructions and you will no longer enter the state of Higher Space.The entrances will be blocked effectively."
Mr. Mudge sat bolt upright in his chair to listen, and John Silencecleared his throat and began to read slowly in a very distinct voice.
But before he had uttered a dozen words, something happened. A soundof street music entered the room through the open ventilators, for aband had begun to play in the stable mews at the back of the house--theMarch from _Tannhaeuser_. Odd as it may seem that a German band shouldtwice within the space of an hour enter the same mews and play Wagner,it was nevertheless the fact.
Mr. Racine Mudge heard it. He uttered a sharp, squeaking cry andtwisted his arms with nervous energy round the chair. A piteous lookthat was not far from tears spread over his white face. Grey shadowsfollowed it--the grey of fear. He began to struggle convulsively.
"Hold me fast! Catch me! For God's sake, keep me here! I'm on the rushalready. Oh, it's frightful!" he cried in tones of anguish, his voiceas thin as a reed.
Dr. Silence made a plunge forward to seize him, but in a flash, beforehe could cover the space between them, Mr. Racine Mudge, screaming andstruggling, seemed to shoot past him into invisibility. He disappearedlike an arrow from a bow propelled at infinite speed, and his voiceno longer sounded in the external air, but seemed in some curious wayto make itself heard somewhere within the depths of the doctor's ownbeing. It was almost like a faint singing cry in his head, like a voiceof dream, a voice of vision and unreality.
"Alcohol, alcohol!" it cried, "give me alcohol! It's the quickest way.Alcohol, before I'm out of reach!"
The doctor, accustomed to rapid decisions and even more rapid action,remembered that a brandy flask stood upon the mantelpiece, and in lessthan a second he had seized it and was holding it out towards the spaceabove the chair recently occupied by the visible Mudge. Then, beforehis very eyes, and long ere he could unscrew the metal stopper, he sawthe contents of the closed glass phial sink and lessen as though someone were drinking violently and greedily of the liquor within.
"Thanks! Enough! It deadens the vibrations!" cried the faint voicein his interior, as he withdrew the flask and set it back upon themantelpiece. He understood that in Mudge's present condition one sideof the flask was open to space and he could drink without removing thestopper. He could hardly have had a more interesting proof of what hehad been hearing described at such length.
But the next moment--the very same moment it almost seemed--the Germanband stopped midway in its tune--and there was Mr. Mudge back in hischair again, gasping and panting!
"Quick!" he shrieked, "stop that band! Send it away! Catch hold of me!Block the entrances! Block the entrances! Give me the red book! Oh, oh,oh-h-h-h!!!"
The music had begun again. It was merely a temporary interruption. The_Tannhaeuser_ March started again, this time at a tremendous pace thatmade it sound like a rapid two-step as though the instruments playedagainst time.
But the brief interruption gave Dr. Silence a moment in which tocollect his scattering thoughts, and before the band had got throughhalf a bar, he had flung forward upon the chair and held Mr. RacineMudge, the struggling little victim of Higher Space, in a grip of iron.His arms went all round his diminutive person, taking in a good partof the chair at the same time. He was not a big man, yet he seemed tosmother Mudge completely.
Yet, even as he did so, and felt the wriggling form underneath him,it began to melt and slip away like air or water. The wood of thearm-chair somehow disentangled itself from between his own arms andthose of Mudge. The phenomenon known as the passage of matter throughmatter took place. The little man seemed actually to get mixed up inhis own being. Dr. Silence could just see his face beneath him. Itpuckered and grew dark as though from some great internal effort. Heheard the thin, reedy voice cry in his ear to "Block the entrances,block the entrances!" and then--but how in the world describe what isindescribable?
John Silence half rose up to watch. Racine Mudge, his face distortedbeyond all recognition, was making a marvellous inward movement, asthough doubling back upon himself. He turned funnel-wise like waterin a whirling vortex, and then appeared to break up somewhat as areflection breaks up and divides in a distorting convex mirror. Hewent neither forward nor backwards, neither to the right nor the left,neither up nor down. But he went. He went utterly. He simply flashedaway out of sight like a vanishing projectile.
All but one leg! Dr. Silence just had the time and the presence of mindto seize upon the left ankle and boot as it disappeared, and to this heheld on for several seconds like grim death. Yet all the time he knewit was a foolish and useless thing to do.
The foot was in his grasp one moment, and the next it seemed--this wasthe only way he could describe it--inside his own skin and bones, andat the same time outside his hand and all round it. It seemed mixed upin some amazing way with his own flesh and blood. Then it was gone, andhe was tightly grasping a draught of heated air.
"Gone! gone! gone!" cried a thick, whispering voice, somewhere deepwithin his own consciousness. "Lost! lost! lost!" it repeated, growingfainter and fainter till at length it vanished into nothing and thelast signs of Mr. Racine Mudge vanished with it.
John Silence locked his red book and replaced it in the cabinet, whichhe fastened with a click, and when Barker answered the bell he inquiredif Mr. Mudge had left a card upon the table. It appeared that he had,and when the servant returned with it, Dr. Silence read the address andmade a note of it. It was in North London.
"Mr. Mudge has gone," he said quietly to Barker, noticing hisexpression of alarm.
"He's not taken his 'at with him, sir."
"Mr. Mudge requires no hat where he is now," continued the doctor,stooping to poke the fire. "But he may return for it----"
"And the humbrella, sir."
"And the umbrella."
"He didn't go out _my_ way, sir, if you please," stuttered the amazedservant, his curiosity overcoming his nervousness.
"Mr. Mudge has his own way of coming and going, and prefers it. If hereturns by the door at any time remember to bring him instantly to me,and be kind and gentle with him and ask no questions. Also, remember,Barker, to think pleasantly, sympathetically, affectionately of himwhile he is away. Mr. Mudge is a very suffering gentleman."
Barker bowed and went out of the room backwards, gasping and feelinground the inside of his collar with three very hot fingers of one hand.
It was two days later when he brought in a telegram to the study. Dr.Silence opened it, and read as follows:
"Bombay. Just slipped out again. All safe. Have blocked entrances. Thousand thanks. Address Cooks, London.--MUDGE."
Dr. Silence looked up and saw Barker staring at him bewilderingly. Itoccurred to him that somehow he knew the contents of the telegram.
"Make a parcel of Mr. Mudge's things," he said briefly, "and addressthem Thomas Cook & Sons, Ludgate Circus. And send them there exactly amonth from to-day and marked 'To be called for.'"
"Yes, sir," said Barker, leaving the room with a deep sigh and ahurried glance at the waste-paper basket where his master had droppedthe pink paper.