CHAPTER IV
The war was over, though the benefits of the long anticipated peacestill kept provocatively, exasperatingly, out of reach, when, about themiddle of September, Dr. Fillery received a letter that interested himdeeply.
The shattered world was still distraught, uneasy. Nervously eager toresume its former activities, it was yet waiting for the word thatshould give it the necessary confidence to begin. Doubt, insecurity,uncertainty everywhere dominated human minds. Those who hoped for arenewal of the easy, careless mood of pre-war days were dismayed tofind this was impossible; others who had allowed an optimistic idealismto prophesy a New Age, looked about them bewilderingly and in vain forsigns of its fair birth. The latter, to whom, perhaps, Dr. Fillerybelonged, were more bitterly disappointed, more cruelly shocked, thanthe former. The race, it seemed to many unshirking eyes, had leapedback centuries at a single spring; the gulf of primal savagery whichhad gaped wide open for five years, proving the Stone Age close beneaththe surface of so-called civilization, had not yet fully closed. Itsjaws still dripped blood, hatred, selfishness; the Race was stilldislocated by the convincing disproof of progress, horrified at thefierce reality which had displaced the two-pence coloured dream it hadbeen complacently worshipping hitherto. Men in the mass undoubtedlywere savages still.
To Dr. Fillery, an honest, though not a necessarily fundamentalpessimism, seemed justified. He believed in progress still, but ashis habit was, he faced the facts. His attitude lost something of itsoriginal enthusiasm. Looking about him, he saw no big constructivemovement; the figure who more than any other was altering the faceof the world with his ideas as well as his armies, was avowedlydestructive only. He found himself a sobered and a saddened man.
His Private Home, having accomplished splendid work, had justdischarged its last shell-shocked patient; it was now empty again,the staff, carefully chosen and proved by long service, dismissedon holidays, the building itself renovated and repaired against thearrival later of new patients that were expected.
Devonham, his assistant, away for a period of rest in Switzerland,would be back in a week or two, and Dr. Fillery, before resuming hisnormal work, found himself with little to do but watch the progress ofthe cleaners, painters and carpenters at work.
Into this brief time of leisure dropped the strange, perplexing letterwith an effect distinctly stimulating. It promised an unusual case, apatient, if patient the case referred to could properly be called, ayoung man "who if you decide after careful reflection to reject, canbe looked after only by the State, which means, of course, an Asylumfor the Insane. I know you are no longer head of the Establishment inLiverpool, but that you confine yourself to private work along similarlines, though upon a smaller scale, and that you welcome only casesthat have been given up as hopeless. I honour your courage and yoursympathy, I know your skill. So far as a cure is conceivable, this oneis hopeless certainly, but its unusual, indeed, its unique character,entitles it, I believe, to be placed among your chosen few. Love,sympathy, patience, combined with the closest observation, it urgentlydemands, and these qualities, associated with unrivalled skill, youmust allow me, again, to think you alone possess among healers andhelpers of strange minds.
"For over twenty years, in the solitudes of these Jura forests andmountains, I have cared for him as best I could, and with a devotion achild of my own might have expected. But now, my end not far away, Icannot leave him behind me here uncared for, yet the alternative, theimpersonal and formal care of an Institute, must break my heart andhis. I turn to you.
"My advanced age and growing infirmities, in these days of unkindtravel, prohibit my bringing him over. Can your great heart suggest ameans, since I feel sure you will not refuse the care of this strangebeing whose nature and peculiarities indicate your especial care, andyours alone? Is it too much to wonder if you yourself could come andsee him--here in the remote mountain chalet where I have tended andcared for him ever since his mother died in bearing him over twentyyears ago?
"I have taught him what seemed wise and best; I have guarded andobserved him; he knows little or nothing of an outside world of men andwomen, and is ignorant of life in the ordinary meaning of the word.What precisely he may be, to what stratum of consciousness he belongs,what kind of being he is, I mean...." The last two lines were thenscored through, though left legible. "I feel with Arago, that he isa rash man who pronounces the word 'impossible' anywhere outside thesphere of pure mathematics." More sentences were here scored through.
"Dare I say--to you, as master, teacher, great open-minded soul--thatto _human_ life, as we know it, he does not, perhaps, belong?
"In writing--in this letter--I find it impossible to give you fulldetails. I had intended to set them down; my pen refuses; in theplain English at my disposal--well, simply, it is not credible. But Ihave kept full notes all these years, and the notes belong to you. Ienclose an imperfect painting I made of him some four years ago. I amno artist; for background you must imagine what lay beyond my littleskill--the blazing glory of the immense wood-fires that he loves tomake upon the open mountain side, usually at dawn after a night ofprayer and singing, while waiting for the strange power he derives(as we all do, indeed, at second or third hand), from the worship ofwhat is to him his mighty father, the life-giving sun. Wind, as the'messengers' of the sun, he worships too.... Both sun and wind, thatis, produce an unusual state approaching ecstasy.
"Counting upon you, I have hypnotized him, suggesting that he forgetall the immediate past (in fact to date), and telling him he will likeyou in place of me--though with him it is an uncertain method.
"I am now old in years. I have lived and loved, suffered and dreamedlike most of us; my hands have been warmed at the fires of life, ofwhich, let me add, I am not ignorant. You have known, I believe,my serious, as also my lighter imaginative books; my occasionalcorrespondence with your colleague Paul Devonham has been of help andguidance to me. We are not, therefore, wholly strangers.
"The twenty years spent in these solitudes among simple peasant folk,with a single object of devotion to fill my days, have been, I wouldtell you, among the best of my long existence. My renouncement of theworld was no renouncement. I am enriched with wonder and experiencethat amaze me, for the world holds possibilities few have ever dreamedof, and that I myself, filled as I am with the memory of theircontemplation, can hardly credit even now. Perhaps in an earlier stageof evolution, as Delboeuf believes, man was fully aware of _all_ thatwent on within himself--a region since closed to us, owing to attentionbeing increasingly directed outwards. Into some such region I have hada glimpse, it seems. I feel sometimes there was as much fact as fancy,perhaps, in the wise old Hebrew who stated poetically--recently, too,compared with the stretch of time my science deals with--'The Sons ofGod took to themselves daughters of the children of men...."
The letter here broke off, as though interrupted by somethingunexpected and unusual; it was signed, indeed, "John Mason," but signedin pencil and at the bottom of an unwritten blank sheet. It had notall been written, either, at one time, or on the same day; there wereintervals, evidently, perhaps of hours, perhaps of days, between theparagraphs. Dr. Fillery read, re-read, then read again the strangeepistle, coming each time to the same conclusion--the writer was dyingin the very act of forming the last sentences. Their incoherence, thealteration in the style, were thus explained. He had felt the end oflife so close that he had written his signature, probably addressed theenvelope as well, knowing the page might never be filled up. It had notbeen filled up.
Something behind the phrases, behind the intensity of the actualwords, beyond the queer touches that revealed a mind betrayed bysolitude, the hints possibly of a deluded intelligence--there wassomething that rang true and stimulated him more than ordinarily. Thereference to Devonham, too, was definite enough. Dr. Fillery rememberedvaguely a correspondence during recent crowded years with a man namedMason, living away in Switzerland somewhere, and that Devonham hadasked him questions from time to time about what he ca
lled, with hisrough-and-ready and half-humorous classification, "pagan obsession,""worshipper of fire and wind," referring it to the writer of theletters, named John Mason. "Non-human delusion," he had also called itsometimes. They had come to refer to it, he remembered, as "N. H." infact.
He now looked up those Notes, for the mention of the books caused himan uncomfortable feeling of neglected opportunity, and John Mason wasan honoured name.
"You know, I believe ... my books," the writer said. Could thisbe, he asked himself anxiously, John Mason, the eminent geologist?Had Devonham not realized who he was? Must he blame his assistant,whose jealous care and judgment saved him so many foolish, futile,un-real cases, reserving what was significant and important only?
The Notes established his mistakes and his assistant's--perhapsintentional?--ignorance. The writer of this curious letter wasunquestionably the author of those fairy books for children, oldand young, whose daring speculations had suggested that other typesand races, ages even before the Neanderthal man, had dwelt side byside with what is known as modern man upon this time-worn planet.Behind the literary form of legend and fairy tale, however, lay acurious conviction. Atlantis was of yesterday compared with earliercivilizations, now extinct by fire and flood and general upheaval,which once may have inhabited the globe. The present evolutionarysystem, buttressed by Darwin and the rest, was but a little recentinsignificant series, trivial both in time and space, when set besidethe mightier systems that had come and gone. Their evidence hefound, not in clumsy fossils and footprints on cooled rocks, but inthe _minds_ of those who had followed and eventually survived them:memories of Titan Wars and mighty beings, and gods and goddesses ofnon-human kind, to whose different existence the physical conditions ofan over-heated planet presented no impossibility. The human species,this trumpery, limited, self-satisfied super-animal man, was not theonly type of being.
Yet John Mason, in his day, had held the chair at Edinburgh University,his lectures embodied common-sense and knowledge, with acutestimaginative insight. His earliest writings were the text-books of thetime. His name, when Edward Fillery was medical student there, stillhovered like well-loved incense above the old-town towers.
The Notes now intrigued him. No blame attached to Devonham for havingmissed the cue, Devonham could not know everything; geology was not inhis line of work and knowledge; and Mason was a common name. Ratherhe blamed himself for not having been struck by the oddness of thecase--the Mason letters, the pagan obsession, worshipper of wind andfire, the strange "N. H."
"A competent indexer, at any rate," he said to himself with a smile, ashe turned up the details easily.
These were very scanty. Devonham evidently had deemed the case ofquestionable value. The letters from Mason, with the answers to them,he could not find.
The slight record was headed "_Mason_, John," followed by anaddress "Chez Henri Petavel, peasant, Jura Mountains, Vaud, FrenchSwitzerland," and details how to reach this apparently remote valley bymule and carriage and foot-path. Name of Mason's protege not given.
"_Sex, male_; age--born 1895; parentage, couple of mysticaltemperament, sincere, but suffering from marked delusions, believers inMagic (various, but chiefly concerned with Nature and natural forces,once known, forgotten to-day, of immense potency, accessible to certainpractices of logical but undetailed kind, able apparently to intensifyhuman consciousness).
"_Subject_, of extremely quick intelligence, yet betrays ignorance ofhuman conditions; intelligence superior to human, though sometimesinferior; long periods of quiescence, followed by immense, almostsuper-human, activity and energy; worships fire and air, chiefly theformer, calling the sun his father and deity.
"Abhors confined space; this shown by intense desire for heat, which,together with free space (air), seem conditions of well-being.
"Fears (as in claustrophobia) both water and solidity (anythingmassive).
"Has great physical power, yet indifferent to its use; womenirresistibly attracted to him, but his attitude towards other sex seemsone of gentleness and pity; love means nothing. Has, on the other hand,extraordinarily high ideal of service. Is puzzled by quarrels anddifferences of personal kind. Half-memories of vast system of myriadworkers, ruled by this ideal of harmonious service. Faithful, true,honest; falseness or lies impossible ... lovable, pathetic, helplesstype----"
The Notes broke off abruptly.
Dr. Fillery, wondering a little that his subordinate's brief butsuggestive summary had never been brought to his notice before, turneda moment to glance at the rough water-colour drawing he held in hishand. He looked at it for some moments with absorption. The expressionof his face was enigmatical. He was more than surprised that Devonhamhad not drawn his attention to the case in detail. Placing his hand soas to hide the lower portion of the face, he examined the eyes, thenturned the portrait upside down, gazing at the eyes afresh. He seemedlost in thought for a considerable time. A faint flush stole into hischeek, and a careful observer might have noticed an increase of lightabout the skin. He sighed once or twice, and presently, laying theportrait down again, he turned back to the _dossier_ upon the table infront of him.
"Very accurate and careful," he said to himself with satisfaction ashe noticed the date Devonham had set against the entries--"June 20th,1914."
The war, therefore, had interrupted the correspondence.
Devonham had made further notes of his own in the margin here and there:
"Does this originate primarily from Mason's mind, communicated thenceto his protege?" He agreed with his assistant's query.
"If so, was it transferred to Mason's mind before that? By the fatheror mother? The mother was, obviously, his--Mason's--great love. Yet thefather was his life friend. Mason's great passion was suppressed. Henever told it. It found no outlet."
"Admirable," was the comment spoken below his breath.
"Boy born as result of some 'magical' experiment intensely believed(not stated in detail), during course of which father died suddenly.
"Mason tended mother, then lived alone in remote place where all hadoccurred.
"Did Mason inherit entire content of parents' beliefs, dramatizing thisby force of unexpressed but passionate love?
"Did not Mason's mind, thus charged, communicate whole business to theyoung mind he has since formed, a plastic mind uninfluenced by normalhuman surroundings and conditions of ordinary life?
"Transfer of a sex-inspired mania?"
Then followed another note, summarizing evidently Devonham's judgment:
"Not worth F.'s investigation until examined further. N.B.--Look upMason first opportunity and judge at first hand."
Dr. Fillery, glancing from the papers to the portrait, smiled a littleagain as he signified approval.
But the last entry interested him still more. It was dated July 13,1914.
"Mason reports boy's prophecy of great upheaval coming. Entirerace slips back into chaos of primitive life again. Entire WesternCivilization crumbles. Modern inventions and knowledge vanish. Naturespirits reappear.... Desires return of all previous letters. These sentby registered post."
A few scattered notes on separate sheets of paper lay at the end ofthe carefully typed _dossier_, but these were very incomplete, andDevonham's handwriting, especially when in pencil, was not of theclearest.
"Non-human claim, though absurd, not traceable to any antecedentcauses given by letters. What is Mason's past mental and temperamentalhistory? Is he not, through the parents, the cause? Mania seemsharmless, both to subject and others. No suffering or unhappiness.Therefore not a case for F., until further examined by self. Better seeMason and his subject first. Wrote July 24th proposing visit."
Dr. Fillery's eyes twinkled. His forehead relaxed. He looked back. Heremembered details. Devonham's holiday that year, he recalled, wasdue on August 1st; he had intended going out mountain climbing inSwitzerland.
The final note of all, also in half-legible writing, seemed to referto the treatment Mason had asked advice about, and th
e line Devonhamhad suggested:
"Natural life close to Nature cannot hurt him. But I advise watch himwith fire and with heights--heat, air! That is, he may decide hisphysical body is irksome and seek to escape it. Teach him naturalhistory--botany, geology, insects, animals, even astronomy, but alwaysgiving him reasons and explanations. _Above all_--let him meet girls ofhis own age and fall in love. Fullest natural expression, but guardedwithout his knowing it...."
For a long time Dr. Fillery sat with the notes and papers before him,thinking over what he had read. Devonham's advice was clever enough,but without insight, sound and astute, yet lacking divination.
The twinkle in his eyes, caused by the final entry, died away. Hisface was grave, his manner preoccupied, intense. He gazed long at theportrait in his hand.... It was dusk when he finally rose, replacedthe _dossier_, locked the cabinet, and went out into another room, andthence into the hall. Taking his hat and stick, he left the house,already composing in his mind the telegram instructing Devonham, whileapologizing for the interrupted holiday, to bring the subject of theNotes to England with him. A telegraph girl met him on the very stepsof the house. He took the envelope from her, and opened it. He read themessage. It was dated Bale, the day before:
"Arriving end week with interesting patient. Details index under Mason. Prepare private suite. "DEVONHAM."