Produced by David Widger
THE RETURN OF THE SOUL
By Robert S. Hichens
1896
"I have been here before, But when, or how, I cannot tell!"
Rossetti.
I.
_Tuesday Night, November 3rd_.
Theories! What is the good of theories? They are the scourges that lashour minds in modern days, lash them into confusion, perplexity, despair.I have never been troubled by them before. Why should I be troubled bythem now? And the absurdity of Professor Black's is surely obvious. Achild would laugh at it. Yes, a child! I have never been a diary writer.I have never been able to understand the amusement of sitting downlate at night and scrawling minutely in some hidden book every paltryincident of one's paltry days. People say it is so interesting to readthe entries years afterwards. To read, as a man, the _menu_ that I atethrough as a boy, the love-story that I was actor in, the tragedy that Ibrought about, the debt that I have never paid--how could it profit me?To keep a diary has always seemed to me merely an addition to the illsof life. Yet now I have a hidden book, like the rest of the world, and Iam scrawling in it to-day. Yes, but for a reason.
I want to make things clear to myself, and I find, as others, thatmy mind works more easily with the assistance of the pen. The actualtracing of words on paper dispels the clouds that cluster round mythoughts. I shall recall events to set my mind at ease, to prove tomyself how absurd a man who could believe in Professor Black wouldbe. "Little Dry-as-dust" I used to call him 'Dry'? He is full of wildromance, rubbish that a school-girl would be ashamed to believe in. Yethe is abnormally clever; his record proves that. Still, clever men arethe first to be led astray, they say. It is the searcher who follows thewandering light. What he says can't be true. When I have filled thesepages, and read what I have written dispassionately, as one of theoutside public might read, I shall have done, once for all, with theridiculous fancies that are beginning to make my life a burden. To putmy thoughts in order will make a music. The evil spirit within me willsleep, will die. I shall be cured. It must be so--it shall be so.
To go back to the beginning. Ah! what a long time ago that seems! As achild I was cruel. Most boys are cruel, I think. My school companionswere a merciless set--merciless to one another, to their masters whenthey had a chance, to animals, to birds. The desire to torture wasin nearly all of them. They loved to bully, and if they bullied onlymildly, it was from fear, not from love. They did not wish theirboomerang to return and slay them. If a boy were deformed, they twittedhim. If a master were kind, or gentle, or shy, they made his life asintolerable as they could. If an animal or a bird came into their power,they had no pity. I was like the rest; indeed, I think that I was worse.Cruelty is horrible. I have enough imagination to do more than knowthat--to feel it.
Some say that it is lack of imagination which makes men and womenbrutes. May it not be power of imagination? The interest of torturing islessened, is almost lost, if we can not be the tortured as well as thetorturer.
As a child I was cruel by nature, by instinct. I was a handsome,well-bred, gentlemanlike, gentle-looking little brute. My parents adoredme, and I was good to them. They were so kind to me that I was almostfond of them. Why not? It seemed to me as politic to be fond of them asof anyone else. I did what I pleased, but I did not always let themknow it; so I pleased them. The wise child will take care to fosterthe ignorance of its parents. My people were pretty well off, and I wastheir only child; but my chief chances of future pleasure in life werecentred in my grandmother, my mother's mother. She was immenselyrich, and she lived here. This room in which I am writing now was herfavourite sitting-room. On that hearth, before a log fire, such as isburning at this moment, used to sit that wonderful cat of hers--thathorrible cat! Why did I ever play my childish cards to win this house,this place? Sometimes, lately--very lately only--I have wondered, like afool perhaps. Yet would Professor Black say so? I remember, as a boy ofsixteen, paying my last visit here to my grandmother. It bored me verymuch to come. But she was said to be near death, and death leaves greathouses vacant for others to fill. So when my mother said that I hadbetter come, and my father added that he thought my grandmother wasfonder of me than of my other relations, I gave up all my boyish plansfor the holidays with apparent willingness. Though almost a child, I wasnot short-sighted. I knew every boy had a future as well as a present. Igave up my plans, and came here with a smile; but in my heart I hated mygrandmother for having power, and so bending me to relinquish pleasurefor boredom. I hated her, and I came to her and kissed her, and saw herbeautiful white Persian cat sitting before the fire in this room, andthought of the fellow who was my bosom friend, and with whom I longedto be, shooting, or fishing, or riding. And I looked at the cat again.I remember it began to purr when I went near to it. It sat quite still,with its blue eyes fixed upon the fire, but when I approached it Iheard it purr complacently. I longed to kick it. The limitations of itsridiculous life satisfied it completely. It seemed to reproduce in anabsurd, diminished way my grandmother in her white lace cap, with herwhite face and hands. She sat in her chair all day and looked at thefire. The cat sat on the hearthrug and did the same. The cat seemed tome the animal personification of the human being who kept me chainedfrom all the sports and pleasures I had promised myself for theholidays. When I went near to the cat, and heard it calmly purring atme, I longed to do it an injury. It seemed to me as if it understoodwhat my grandmother did not, and was complacently triumphing at myvoluntary imprisonment with age, and laughing to itself at the painsmen--and boys--will undergo for the sake of money. Brute! I did not lovemy grandmother, and she had money. I hated the cat utterly. It hadn't a_sou!_
This beautiful house is not old. My grandfather built it himself. He hadno love for the life of towns, I believe, but was passionately in touchwith nature, and, when a young man, he set out on a strange tour throughEngland. His object was to find a perfect view, and in front of thatview he intended to build himself a habitation. For nearly a year, so Ihave been told, he wandered through Scotland and England, and at lasthe came to this place in Cumberland, to this village, to this very spot.Here his wanderings ceased. Standing on the terrace--then uncultivatedforest--that runs in front of these windows, he found at last what hedesired. He bought the forest. He bought the windings of the river,the fields upon its banks, and on the extreme edge of the steep gorgethrough which it runs he built the lovely dwelling that to-day is mine.
This place is no ordinary place. It is characteristic in the highestdegree. The house is wonderfully situated, with the ground fallingabruptly in front of it, the river forming almost a horseshoe round it.The woods are lovely. The garden, curiously, almost wildly, laid out, islike no other garden I ever saw. And the house, though not old, is fullof little surprises, curiously shaped rooms, remarkable staircases,quaint recesses. The place is a place to remember. The house is a houseto fix itself in the memory. Nothing that had once lived here could evercome back and forget that it had been here. Not even an animal--not evenan animal.
I wish I had never gone to that dinnerparty and met the Professor. Therewas a horror coming upon me then. He has hastened its steps. He has putmy fears into shape, my vague wondering into words. Why cannot men leavelife alone? Why will they catch it by the throat and wring its secretsfrom it? To respect reserve is one of the first instincts of thegentleman; and life is full of reserve.
It is getting very late. I thought I heard a step in the house justnow. I wonder--I wonder if _she_ is asleep. I wish I knew. Day afterday passed by. My grandmother seemed to be failing, but almostimperceptibly. She evidently loved to have me near to her. Like most olddying people, in her mind she frantically clutched at life, that couldgive to her nothing more; and I be
lieve she grew to regard me as thepersonification of all that was leaving her. My vitality warmed her. Sheextended her hands to my flaming hearthfire. She seemed trying to livein my life, and at length became afraid to let me out of her sight.One day she said to me, in her quavering, ugly voice--old voices are sougly, like hideous echoes:
"Ronald, I could never die while you were in the room. So long as youare with me, where I can touch you, I shall live."
And she put out her white, corrugated hand, and fondled my warm boy'shand.
How I longed to push her hand away, and get out into the sunlight andthe air, and hear young voices, the voices of the morning, not of thetwilight, and be away from wrinkled Death, that seemed sitting on thedoorstep of that house huddled up like a beggar, waiting for the door tobe opened!
I was bored till I grew malignant. I confess it. And, feeling malignant,I began to long more and more passionately to vent myself on someone orsomething. I looked at the cat,