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The Sacrifice · Incredible Adventures

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Section four of Incredible Adventures by Algernon Blackwood. This LibriVox recording is in the
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public domain. Read by Bin Tucker, The Sacrifice One Limisson was a religious
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man, though what depth and quality were unknown, since no trial of ultimate
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severity had yet tested him. An adherent of no particular creed, he yet
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had his gods, and his self discipline was probably more rigorous than his friends
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conjectured. He was so reserved few guests. Perhaps the desires conquered, the
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passions regulated, the inner tendencies, trained and schooled not by denying their expression,
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but by transmuting them alchemically into nobler channels. He had in him the
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makings of an enthusiastic devotee, and might have become such, but for two
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limitations that prevented. He loved his wealth, laboring to increase it to the
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neglect of other interests. And secondly, instead of following up one steady line
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of search, he scattered himself upon many picturesque theories, like an actor who
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wants to play all parts rather than concentrate on one, And the more picturesque
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the part, the more he was attracted. Thus, though he did his
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duty unshrinkingly and with a touch of love. He accused himself sometimes of merely
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gratifying a sensuous taste and spiritual sensations. There was this unbalance in him that
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argued want of depth. As for his gods, in the end he discovered
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their reality by first doubting then denying their existence. It was this denial and
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doubt that restored them to their thrones, converting his dilettant skirmishes into genuine,
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deep belief. And the proof came to him one summer in early June,
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when he was making ready to leave town for his annual month among the mountains
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with limasson. Mountains, in some inexplicable sense, were a passion almost and
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climbing so deep a pleasure that the ordinary scrambler hardly understood it grave as a
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kind of worship. It was to him the preparations for an ascent. The
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ascent itself, in particular, involved a concentration that seemed symbolical as of a
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ritual. He not only loved the heights, the massive grandeur, the splendor
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of vast proportions blocked in space, but loved them with a respect that held
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a touch of awe. The emotion mountains stirred in him, one might say,
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was of that profound, incalculable kind that held kinship with his religious feelings.
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Half realized though these were his gods had their invisible thrones somewhere among the
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grim forbidding heights. He prepared himself for this annual mountaineering with the same earnestness
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that a holy man might approach a solemn festival of his church, and the
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impetus of his mind was running with big momentum in this direction when there fell
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upon him, almost on the eve of starting, a swift series of disasters
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that shook his being to its last foundations and left him stunned among the ruins.
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To describe these is unnecessary. People said one thing after another like that,
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what appalling luck. Poor wretch then wondered, with the curiosity of children,
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how in the world he would take it. Due to no apparent fault
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of his own, these disasters were so sudden that life seemed in a moment
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shattered, and his interest in existence almost ceased. People shook their heads and
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thought of the emergency exit. But Limison was too vital a man to dream
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of annihilation upon him. It had a different effect. He turned and questioned
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what he called his gods. They did not answer or explain. For the
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first time in his life, he doubted a hair's breath beyond lay, definite
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denial. The ruin in which he sat, however, was not material.
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No man of his age, possessed of courage and a working scheme of life,
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would permit disaster of a material order to overwhelm him. It was collapse
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of a mental spiritual kind, an assault upon the roots of character and temperament.
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Moral duties lay suddenly upon him, threatened to crush. His personal existence
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was assailed and apparently must end. He must spend the remainder of his life
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caring for others who were nothing to him. No outlet showed no way of
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escape. So diabolically complete was the combination of events that rushed his inner trenches.
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His faith was shaken. A man can but endure so much and remain
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human. For him, the saturation point seemed reached. He experienced the spiritual
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equivalent of that physical numbness which supervenes when pain has touched the limit of endurance.
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He laughed, grew callous, then mocked his silent gods. It is
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said that upon this state of blank negation. There follows sometimes a condition of
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lucidity which mirrors with crystal clearness the forces driving behind life at a given moment,
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a kind of clairvoyance that brings explanation, and therefore peace limison looked for
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this in vain. There was the doubt that questioned, There was the sneer
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that mocked, the silence into which his questions fell. But there was neither
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answer nor explanation, and certainly not peace. There was no relief in this
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tumult of revolt. He did none of the things his friends suggested or expected.
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He merely followed the line of least resistance. He yielded to the impetus
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that was upon him. When the catastrophe came to their indignant amazement, he
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went out to his mountains, all marveled that at such a time he could
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adopt so trivial a line of action, neglecting duties that seemed paramount they disapproved.
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Yet in reality he was taking no definite action at all, but merely
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drifting with the momentum that had been acquired just before. He was bewildered with
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so much pain, confused with suffering, stunned with the crash that flung him
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helpless amid undeserved calamity. He turned to the mountains as a child to its
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mother. Instinctively, mountains had never failed to bring him consolation, comfort,
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peace, The grandeur restored proportion whenever disorder threatened to life. No calculation,
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properly speaking, was in his move at all, but a blind desire for
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a violent physical reaction such as climbing brings and the instinct was more wholesome than
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he knew. In the high Upland valley, among lonely peaks whither Limisen then
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went, he found in some measure the proportion he had lost. He studiously
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avoided thinking. He lived in his muscles recklessly. The region, with its
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little inn was familiar to him. Peak after peak he attacked, sometimes with
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but more often without a guide, until his reputation as a sane climber,
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a laurelled member of all the foreign alpine clubs, was seriously in danger.
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That he overdid it physically is beyond question, but that the mountains breathed into
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him some portion of their enormous calm and deep endurance is also true. His
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God odds. Meanwhile, he neglected utterly for the first time in his life.
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If he thought of them at all. It was as tensil figure's imagination
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had created figures upon a stage that merely decorated life for those whom pretty pictures
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pleased. Only he had left the theater, and there make believe no longer
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hypnotized his mind. He realized their impotence and disowned them. This attitude,
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however, was subconscious. He lent to it no substance either of thought or
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speech. He ignored rather than challenged their existence. And it was somewhat in
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this frame of mind, thinking little, feeling even less, that he came
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out into the hotel vestibule after dinner one evening and took mechanically the bundle of
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letters the porter handed to him. They had no possible interest for him.
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In a corner where the big steam heater mitigated the chilliness of the hall,
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he idly sorted them. The score or so of other guests, chiefly expert
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climbing men, were trailing out in twos and threes from the dining room,
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but he felt a little interest in them, As in his letters, no
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conversation could alter facts, no written phrases change his circumstances. At random.
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Then he opened a business letter with a typewritten address, it would probably be
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impersonal, less of a mockery therefore than the others with their tiresome sham condolences,
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And in a sense it was impersonal. Sympathy from a solicitor's office is
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mere formula a few extra ticks upon the universal keyboard of a Remington. But
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as he read it, Limison made a discovery that startled him into acute and
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bitter sensation. He had imagined the limit of bearable suffering and disaster already reached.
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Now in a few dozen words, his error was proved convincingly. The
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fresh blow was dislocating. This culminating news of additional catastrophe disclosed within him entirely
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new reaches of pain, of biting, resentful fury. Limison experienced a momentary
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stopping of the heart as he took it, in a dizziness, a violent
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sensation of revolt whose impotence induced almost physical nausea. He felt like death,
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must I suffer? All things flashed through his arrested intelligence in letters of fire.
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There was a sullen rage in him, a dazed bewilderment, but no
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positive suffering. As yet. His emotion was too sickening to include the smaller
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pains of disappointment. It was primitive blind anger that he knew. He read
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the letter calmly, even to the neat paragraph of machine made sympathy at the
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last, then placed it in his inner pocket. No outward sign of disturbance
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was upon him. His breath came slowly. He reached over to the table
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for a match, holding it at arm's length lest the sulfur fumes should sting
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his nostrils, And in that moment he made his second discovery. The fact
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that further suffering was still possible. Included also the fact that some touch of
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resignation had been left in him, and therefore some vestige of belief as well.
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Now as he felt the crackling sheet of stiff paper in his pocket,
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watched the sulfur die, and saw the wood ignite. This remnant faded utterly
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away, like the blackened end of a match. It shriveled and dropped off.
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It vanished savagely, yet with an external calmness that enabled him to light
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his pipe with untrembling hand. He addressed his futile deities, and once more
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in fiery letters there flashed across the darkness of his passionate thought, Even this
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you demand of me, this cruel, ultimate sacrifice, And he rejected them,
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bag and baggage, for they were a mockery and a lie. With
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contempt, he repudiated them forever the stage of doubt had passed. He denied
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his gods, yet with a smile upon his lips. For what were they,
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after all, but the puppets his religious fancy had imagined? They never
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had existed? Was it then merely the picturesque, sensational aspect of his devotional
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temperament that had created them. That side of his nature, in any case,
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was dead, now killed by a single devastating blow. The gods went
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with it, surveying what remained of his life. It seemed to him like
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a city that an earthquake had reduced to ruins. The inhabitants think no worse
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thing could happen. Then comes the fire. Two lines of thought, it
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seems, then developed parallel on him and simultaneously. For while underneath he stormed
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against this culminating blow, as upper mind dealt calmly with the project of a
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great expedition he would make at dawn, He had engaged no guide as an
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experienced mountaineer, he knew the district well, his name was tolerably familiar,
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and in half an hour he could have settled all details and retired to bed
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with instructions to be called too. But instead he sat there waiting, unable
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to stir a human volcano that any moment might break forth into violence. He
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smoked his pipe as quietly as though nothing had happened, while through the blazing
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depths of him ran ever this one self repeating statement, even this you demand
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of me, this cruel, ultimate sacrifice. His self control, dynamically estimated
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just then, must have been very great, and thus repressed the store of
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potential energy accumulated enormously. With thought concentrated largely upon this final blow, Limison
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had not noticed the people who streamed out of the salre amangies and scattered themselves
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in groups about the hall. Some individual now and again approached his chair with
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the idea of conversation, then, seeing his absorption, turned away. Even
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when a climber whom he slightly knew, reached across him with a word of
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apology for the matches, Limison made no response, for he did not see
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him. He noticed nothing in particular, He did not notice two men who
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from an opposite corner had for some time been observing him. He now looked
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up by chance, and was vaguely aware that they were discussing him. He
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met their eyes across the hall and started for At first he thought he knew
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them, possibly he had seen them about in the hotel. They seemed familiar,
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yet he certainly had never spoken with them. Aware of his mistake,
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he turned his glance elsewhere, though still vividly conscious of their attention. One
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was a clergyman or a priest. His face wore an air of gravity,
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touched by sadness, a sternness about the lips, counteracted by a kindling beauty
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in the eyes that betrayed enthusiasm. Nobly regulated. There was a suggestion of
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stateliness in the man that made the impression very sharp. His clothing emphasized it.
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He wore a dark tweed suit that was strict in its simplicity. There
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was an austerity in him somewhere. His companion, perhaps by contrast, seemed
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inconsiderable in his conventional evening dress, a good deal younger than his friend.
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His hair, always a tell tale detail, was a trifle long, The
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thin fingers that flourished a cigarette wore rings. The face, though picturesque,
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was flippant, and his entire attitude conveyed a certain insignificance, gesture that faultless
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language, which challenges counterfeit, betrayed unbalance somewhere. The impression he produced,
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however, was shadowy compared to the sharpness of the other. Theatrical was the
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word in Limison's mind as he turned his glance elsewhere. But as he looked
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away he fidgeted. The interior darkness caused by the dreadful letter rose about him.
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It engulfed him. Dizziness came with it. Far away, the blackness
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was fringed with light, and through this light, stepping with speed and carelessness,
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as from gigantic distance, the two men, suddenly grown large, came
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at him. Limison, in self protection, turned to meet them. Conversation
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he did not desire. Somehow, he had expected this attack. Yet the
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instant they began to speak, it was the priest who opened fire. It
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was also natural and easy that he almost welcomed the diversion a phrase by way
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of introduction, and he was speaking of the summits. Something in Limison's mind
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turned over. The man was a serious climber, one of his own species.
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The sufferer felt a certain relief as he heard the invitation and realized,
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though dully, the compliment involved if you felt inclined to join us, if
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you would honor us with your company, the man was saying, quietly,
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adding something then about your great experience and invaluable advice and judgment. Limison looked
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up, trying hard to concentrate and understand the tour de de Nault, he
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repeated, mentioning the peak proposed, rarely attempted, never conquered, and with
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an ominous record of disaster. It happened to be the very summit he had
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meant to attack himself next day. You have engaged guides, he knew,
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the question foolish. No guide will try it, the priest answered, smiling,
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while his companion added with a flourish but we we need no guide.
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If you will come, you are unattached. I believe you are alone,
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the priest inquired, moving a little in front of his friend as though to
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keep him in the background. Yes, replied Limison, I am quite alone.
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He was listening attentively, but with only part of his mind. He
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realized the flattery of the invitation, yet it was like flattery addressed to some
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one else. He felt himself so indifferent, so dead. These men wanted
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his skillful body, his experienced mind, and it was his body and mind
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that talked with them and finally agreed to go. Many a time expeditions had
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been planned in just this way, But to night he felt there was a
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difference. Mind and bodies signed the agreement, but his soul, listening elsewhere
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and looking on, was silent. With his rejected gods it had left him,
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though hovering close still, it did not interfere, It did not warn,
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it even approved. It sang to him from great disas that this expedition
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cloaked another. He was bewildered by the clashing of his hire and his lower
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mind. At one in the morning, Then if that will suit you,
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the older man concluded, I'll see to the provisions, exclaimed the younger enthusiastically,
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and I shall take my telephoto for the summit. The porters can come
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as far as the Great Tower. We're over six thousand feet here already,
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you see so, And his voice died away in the distance as his companion
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led him off. Limison saw him go with relief, but for the other
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man, he would have declined the invitation. At heart, he was indifferent
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enough. What decided him really was the coincidence that the tor de Nion was
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the very pique he had intended to attack himself alone, and the curious feeling
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that this expedition cloaked another somehow almost that these men had a hidden motive,
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but he dismissed the idea it was not worth thinking about. A moment later,
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he followed them to bed. So careless was he of the affairs of
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the world, so dead to mundane interests, that he tore up his other
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letters and tossed them into a corner of the room, unread two. Once
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in his chilly bedroom, he realized that his upper mind had permitted him to
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do a foolish thing. He had drifted, like a schoolboy into an unwise
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situation. He had pledged himself to an expedition with two strangers, an expedition
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for which normally he would have chosen his companions with the utmost caution. Moreover,
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he was guide. They looked at him for safety, while yet it
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was they who had arranged and planned it. But who were these men with
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whom he proposed to run grave, bodily risks. He knew them as little
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as they knew him. Whence came, he wondered the curious idea that this
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climb was really planned by another who was no one of them. The thought
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slipped idly across his mind, going out by one door. It came back,
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however, quickly, by another. He did not think about it,
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more than to note its passage through the disorder that passed with him, just
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than for thinking. Indeed, there was nothing in the whole world for which
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he cared a single brass farthing. As he undressed for bed, he said
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to himself, I shall be called at one. But why am I going
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with these two people on this wild plan? And who made the plan?
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It seemed to have settled itself. It came about so naturally and easily,
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so quickly He probed no deeper he didn't care, and for the first time
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he omitted the little ritual half prayer, half adoration it had always been his
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custom to offer his deities upon retiring to rest. He no longer recognized them.
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How utterly broken his life was, how blank and terrible and lonely.
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He felt cold and piled his overcoats upon the bed as though his mental isolation
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involved a physical effect as well. Switching off the light by the door,
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he was in the act of crossing the floor in the darkness when a sound
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beneath the window caught his ear. Outside there were voices talking. The roar
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of falling water made them indistinct, yet he was sure they were voices,
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and that one of them he knew. He stopped still to listen. He
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heard his own name uttered, John Limison. They ceased. He stood a
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moment shivering on the boards, then crawled into bed beneath the heavy clothing.
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But in the act of settling down they began again. He raised himself again,
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hurriedly to listen. What little wind there was passed in that moment down
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the valley, carrying off the roar of falling water, and into the moment's
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space of silence, dropped fragments of definite sentences. They are close, you
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say, close down upon the world. It was the voice of the priest.
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Surely or days I have been passing? Was the answer, A rough,
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deep tone that might have been a peasant's, and a kind of fear
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in it. For all my flocks are scattered. The signs are sure,
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you know them. Tumult was the answer in much lower tones. There has
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been tumult in the mountains. There was a break, then, as though
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the voices sank too low to be heard. Two broken fragments came next,
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end of a question, beginning of an answer, the opportunity of a lifetime.
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If he goes of his own free will, success is sure for acceptances.
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And the wind returning bore back the sound of the falling water, so
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that Limison heard no more. An indefinable emotion stirred in him. As he
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turned over to sleep, he stuffed his ears lest he should hear more.
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He was aware of a sinking of the heart that was inexplicable. What in
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the world were they talking about? These two? What was the meaning of
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these disjointed phrases? There lay behind them a grave significance, almost solemn.
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That tumult in the mountains was somehow ominous, its suggestion terrible and mighty.
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He felt disturbed, uncomfortable. The first emotion that had stirred in him for
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days, the numbness, melted before its faint awakening. Conscience was in it.
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He felt vague prickings, but it was deeper, far than conscience.
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Somewhere out of sight, in a region life had as yet not plumbed.
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The words sank down and vibrated like pedal notes. They rumbled away into the
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night of undecipherable things, and though explanation failed him, he felt they had
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reference somehow to the Morrow's expedition. How what, wherefore? He knew?
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Not his name had been spoken, then these curious sentences. That was all
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Yet Tomorrow's expedition? What was it but an expedition of impersonal kind, not
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even planned by himself, merely his own plan, taken and altered by others
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made over his personal business. His personal life were not really in it at
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all. The thought startled him a moment, he had no personal life.
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Struggling with sleep, his brain played the endless game of disentanglement without winning a
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single point, while the undermined in him looked on and smiled because it knew.
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Then suddenly a great peace fell over him. Exhaustion brought it. Perhaps
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he fell asleep, and next moment it seemed he was aware of a thundering
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at the door, and an unwelcome growling voice seized baldinder. Hare of sten
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rising at such an hour unless the heart be in it, his assorted and
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depressing business. Limisen dressed without enthusiasm, conscious that thought and feeling were exactly
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where he had left him on going to sleep. The same confusion and bewilderment
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were in him, also the same deep solemn emotion, starred by the whispering
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voices. Only long habit enabled him to attend to detail and insured that nothing
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was forgotten. He felt heavy and oppressed, a kind of anxiety about him.
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The routine of preparation he followed gravely, utterly untouched by the customary joy.
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It was mechanical, yet through it ran the old familiar sense of ritual,
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due to the practice of so many years, that cleansing of mind and
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body for a big ascent, like initiatory rites that once had been as important
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to him as those of some priest who approached the worship of his deity in
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the temples of ancient time. He performed the ceremony with the same care,
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as though no ghost of vanished faith still watched him, beckoning from the air
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as formerly. His knapsack carefully packed, he took his ice axe from beside
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the bed, turned out the light, and went down the creaking wooden stairs
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and stockinged feet, lest his heavy boots should waken the other sleepers. And
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in his head still rang the phrase he had fallen asleep on, as though
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just uttered. The signs are sure. For days they have been passing close
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down upon the world. The flocks are scattered. There has been tumult,
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tumult in the mountains. The other fragments he had forgotten. But who were
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they? And why did the word bring a chill of awe into his blood?
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And as the words rolled through him, Limisen felt tumult in his thoughts
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and feelings too. There had been tumult in his life, and all his
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joys were scattered, joys that hitherto had fed his days. The signs were
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sure. Something was close down upon his little world, passing sweeping. He
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felt a touch of terror. Outside, in the fresh darkness of very early
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morning, the strangers stood waiting for him. Rather, they seemed to arrive
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in the same instant as himself, equally punctual. The clock in the church
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tower sounded one. They exchanged low greetings, remarked that the weather promised to
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hold good, and started off in single file over soaking meadows towards the first
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belt of forest. The porter Mere peasant, unfamiliar of face and not connected
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with the hotel, led the way with a hurricane lantern. The air was
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marvelously sweet and fragrant. In the sky overhead, the stars shone in their
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thousands. Only the noise of falling water from the heights and the regular thud
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of their heavy boots broke the stillness and black against the sky towered the enormous
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pyramid of the Tour d'Eu nael they meant to conquer. Perhaps the most delightful
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portion of the biggest scent is the beginning in the scented darkness, while the
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thrill of possible conquest lies still far off. The hours stretched themselves queerly.
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Last night's sunset might be days ago. Sunrise on the brilliants coming seemed in
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another week, part of dim futurity. Like children's holidays, it is difficult
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to realize that this biting coal before the dawn and the blazing heat to come
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both belonged to the same today. There were no sounds as they toiled slowly
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up the zigzag path through the first fifteen hundred of pine woods. No one
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spoke. The clink of nails and ice axe points against the stones was all
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they heard, for the roar of water was felt rather than heard. It
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beat against the ears and the skin of the whole body at once. The
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deeper notes were below them now in the sleeping valley, the shriller ones sounded
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far above, where streams just borne out of ponderous snow beds tinkled sharply.
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The change came delicately. The stars turned a shade less brilliant, a softness
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in them, as of human eyes that say farewell. Between the highest branches,
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the sky grew visible. A sighing air smoothed all their crests one way.
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Moss, earth and open spaces brought keen perfumes, and the little human
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procession, leaving the forest stepped out into the vastness of the world. Above
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the tree line. They paused while the porter stooped to put his lantern out,
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and the eastern sky was colour. The peaks and crags rushed closer.
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Was it the dawn limison turned his eyes from the height of sky, where
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the summits pierced a path for the coming day, to the faces of his
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companions, pale and wide in the early twilight. How small, how insignificant,
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they seemed, amid this hungry emptiness of desolation. The stupendous cliffs fled
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past them, led by headstrong peaks crowned with eternal snows, thin lines of
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cloud trailing half way up Precipice and ridge seemed like the swish of movement,
28:19
as though he caught the earth turning as she raced through space. The four
28:25
of them, timid riders on the gigantic saddle, clung for their lives against
28:29
her titan ribs, while currents of some majestic life swept up at them from
28:33
every side. He drew deep drafts of the rarefied air into his lungs.
28:38
It was very cold. Avoiding the pallid, insignificant faces of his companions,
28:42
he pretended interest in the porter's operations. He stared fixedly on the ground.
28:48
It seemed twenty minutes before the flame was extinguished and the lantern fastened to the
28:52
pack behind. This dawn was like any he had seen before. For in
28:59
reality, all the while, Limison was trying to bring order out of the
29:03
extraordinary thoughts and feelings that had possessed him during the slow forest ascent, and
29:07
the task was not crowned with much success. The plan made by others had
29:12
taken charge of him, he felt, and he had thrown the reins of
29:15
personal will and interest loosely upon its steady gait. He had abandoned himself carelessly
29:21
to what might come. Knowing that he was leader of the expedition. He
29:26
yet had suffered the porter to go first, taking his own place as it
29:29
was appointed to him, behind the younger man, but before the priest.
29:33
In this order they had plotted as only experienced climber's plod for hours without arrest,
29:38
until half way up a change had taken place. He had wished it,
29:41
and instantly it was affected. The priest moved past him, while his
29:45
companion dropped to the rear, the companion who forever stumbled in his speed,
29:51
whereas the older man climbed surely confidently, and thereafter limison walked more easily,
29:56
as though the relative positions of the three were of importance. Somehow the steep
30:00
ascent of smothering darkness through the woods became less arduous. He was glad to
30:06
have the younger man behind him, for the impression had strengthened as they climbed
30:11
in silence, that this ascent pertained to some significant ceremony, and the idea
30:17
had grown insistently, almost stealthily, upon him. The movements of himself and
30:22
his companions, especially the positions each occupied relative to the other, established some
30:27
kind of intimacy that resembled speech, suggesting even question and answer, and the
30:33
entire performance while occupying hours by his watch, it seemed to him more than
30:37
once had been in reality, briefer than the flash of a passing thought,
30:41
so that he saw it within himself. Pictorially, he thought of a picture
30:45
working in colors upon a strip of elastic. Someone pulled the strip and the
30:49
picture stretched, or some one released it again, the picture flew back,
30:53
reduced to a mere stationary speck. All happened in a single speck of time,
31:00
and the little change of position, apparently so trivial, gave point to
31:03
this singular notion working in his under mind, that this ascent was a ritual
31:08
and a ceremony, as in older days, its significant approaching revelation. However,
31:12
for the first time, now without language, this stole over him.
31:18
No words could quite describe it, for it came to him that these three
31:22
formed a unit, himself being in some fashion. Yet the acknowledged principle the
31:26
leader. The laboring porter had no place in it. For this first toiling
31:30
through the darkness was a preparation, and when the actual climb began, he
31:34
would disappear, while Limison himself went first. This idea that they took part
31:40
together in a ceremony established itself firmly in him, with the added wonder that,
31:45
though so often done, he performed it now for the first time with
31:48
full comprehension, knowledge, truth, empty of personal desire, indifferent to an
31:53
assent that formerly would have thrilled his heart with ambition and delight. He understood
31:59
that climbing had ever been a ritual for his soul and of his soul,
32:04
and that power must result from its sincere accomplishment. It was a symbolical assent.
32:10
In words, this did not come to him. He felt it,
32:14
never criticizing, that is, he neither rejected nor accepted. It stole most
32:20
sweetly, grandly over him. It floated into him while he climbed, yet
32:24
so convincingly that he had felt his relative position must be changed. The younger
32:30
man held too prominent a post, or at least a wrong one in advance.
32:34
Then after the change affected mysteriously, as though all recognized it. This
32:37
line of certainty increased, and there came upon him the big, strange knowledge
32:43
that all of life is a ceremony on a giant scale, and that by
32:46
performing the movements accurately with sincere fidelity, there may come knowledge. There was
32:53
a gravity in him. From that moment. This ran in his mind with
32:59
certainty. Though his thought assumed no form of little phrases, his brain yet
33:04
furnished detailed statements that clinched the marvelous thing with simile and incident, which daily
33:09
life might apprehend. That knowledge arises from action, that to do the thing
33:15
invites the teaching and explains it. Action, moreover, is symbolical a group
33:21
of men, a family, an entire nation, engaged in those daily movements
33:25
which are the working out of their destiny, perform a ceremony which is in
33:30
direct relation somewhere to the pattern of greater happenings, which are the teachings of
33:35
the gods. Let the body imitate, reproduce in a bedroom, in a
33:39
wood anywhere the movements of the stars and the meaning of those stars shall sink
33:45
down into the heart. The movements constitute a script, a language to mimic
33:51
the gestures of a strangers to understand his mood, his point of view,
33:54
to establish a grave and solemn intimacy. Temples are everywhere, For the entire
34:00
earth is a temple, and the body house of Royalty is the biggest temple
34:04
of them all. To ascertain the pattern its movements, trace and daily life
34:07
could be to determine the relation of that particular ceremony to the cosmos. And
34:14
so learned power. The entire system of Pythagoras, he realized, could be
34:17
taught without a single word, by movements, and in every day life.
34:22
Even the commonest act and vulgariest movement are part of some big ceremony. A
34:27
message from the gods. Ceremony, in a word, is three dimensional language.
34:31
An action, therefore, is the language of the gods. The gods
34:36
he had denied, were speaking to him, passing with tumult close across his
34:39
broken life. Their passage it was, indeed, that had caused the breaking.
34:46
In this cryptic, condensed fashion, the great fact came over him that
34:51
he and these other two here and now took part in some great ceremony of
34:54
whose ultimate object, as yet he was in ignorance. The impact with which
34:59
it drips upon his mind was tremendous. He realized it most fully when he
35:02
stepped from the darkness of the forest and entered the expanse of glimmering early light.
35:08
Up till this moment, his mind was being prepared only whereas now he
35:13
knew the innate desire to worship, which all along had been his the momentum
35:17
his religious temperament had acquired during forty years. The yearning to have proof in
35:23
a word, that the gods he once acknowledged were really true swept back upon
35:28
him with that violent reaction which denial had roused. He wavered where he stood,
35:35
looking about him. Then, while the others rearranged burdens, the returning
35:38
porter now discarded, he perceived the astonishing beauty of the time and place,
35:44
feeling it soak into him as by the very pores of his skin. From
35:47
all sides, this beauty rushed upon him. Some radiant, winged sense of
35:52
wonder sped past him through the silent air. A thrill of ecstasy ran down
35:57
every nerve. The hair of his head stood up. It was far from
36:00
unfamiliar to him the sight of the upper mountain world awakening from its sleep of
36:06
the summer night. But Never before had he stood shuddering thus at its exquisite
36:10
cold glory, nor felt its significance as now so mysteriously within himself. Some
36:19
transcendent power that held sublimity was passing across this huge, desolate plateau, far
36:24
more majestic than mere sunrise among mountains he had so often witnessed. There was
36:30
movement. He understood why he had seen his companions insignificant. Again, he
36:36
shivered and looked about him, touched by a solemnity that held deep awe.
36:42
Personal life indeed was wrecked, destroyed, but something greater was on the way.
36:46
His fragile alliance with the spiritual world was strengthened. He realized his own
36:52
past insolence. He became afraid. Three The treeless plateau, littered with the
37:00
enormous boulders, stretched for miles to right and left gray in the dusk of
37:04
very early morning. Behind him dropped thick Guardian pine woods into the sleeping valley
37:09
that still detained the darkness of the night. Here and there lay patches of
37:15
deep snow, gleaming faintly through thin rising mist. Singing streams of icy water
37:21
spread everywhere among the stones, soaking the coarse rough grass that was the only
37:25
sign of vegetation. No life was visible, nothing stirred, nor anywhere was
37:31
movement but of the quiet, trailing mist, and of his own breath that
37:35
drifted past his face like smoke. Yet through the splendid stillness there was movement,
37:40
that sense of absolute movement which results in stillness. It was owing to
37:45
the stillness that he became aware of it, so vast on its surface,
37:50
or great machinery turned with such vertiginous velocity, that it appears steady to the
37:54
deceived function of the eye. For it was not through the eye that this
37:59
solemn movement made itself known, but rather through a massive sensation that owned his
38:04
entire body as its organ. Within the league long amphitheater of enormous peaks and
38:08
precipices that enclosed the plateau. Piling themselves upon the horizon, Limison felt the
38:15
outline of a ceremony extended. The pulses of its grandeur poured into him where
38:21
he stood. Its vast design was knowable because they themselves had traced were even
38:27
then tracing its earthly counterpart in little and the awe in him increased. This
38:34
light is false. We have an hour yet before the true dawn. He
38:37
heard the younger man say, lightly, the summits still are ghostly. Let
38:43
us enjoy the sensation and see what we can make of it. And Limison,
38:46
looking up, startled from his reverie, saw that the faraway heights and
38:51
towers indeed were heavy with shadow, faint still with the light of stars.
38:55
It seemed to him they bowed their awful heads, and that their stupid and
39:00
his shoulders lowered. They drew together, shutting out the world. True,
39:06
said his companion, and the upper snows still where the spectral shine of night.
39:10
But let us now move faster, for we travel very light. The
39:15
sensations you propose will but delay in weakness. He handed a share of the
39:20
burdens to his companion and to Limaison. Slowly they all moved forward, and
39:23
the mountains shut them in. And two things Limison noted then, as he
39:29
shouldered his heavier pack and led the way, First that he suddenly knew their
39:34
destination, though its purpose still lay hidden. And secondly that the porters leaving
39:37
before the ascent proper began, signified finally that the ordinary climbing was not their
39:43
real objective. Also, the dawn was a lifting of inner veils from off
39:47
his mind, rather than a brightening of the visible earth due to the nearing
39:52
sun. Thick darkness indeed draped this enormous, lonely amphitheater where they moved.
39:59
You lead up, well, said the priest a few feet behind him,
40:01
as he picked his way unfalteringly among the boulders and streams. Strange that I
40:07
do so, replied Limison, in a low tone, for the way is
40:12
new to me, and the darkness grows instead of lessening. The language seemed
40:16
hardly of his choosing. He spoke and walked as in a dream. Far
40:21
in the rear, the voice of the younger man called plaintively after them.
40:25
You go so fast, I can't keep up with you. And again he
40:29
stumbled and dropped his ice axe. Among the rocks. He seemed forever stooping
40:34
to drink the icy water, or clambering off the trail to test the patches
40:37
of snow. As to quality and depth, You're missing all the excitement,
40:43
he cried repeatedly. There are a hundred pleasures and sensations by the way.
40:47
They paused a moment for him to overtake them. He came up, panting
40:51
and exhausted, making remarks about the fading stars, the wind upon the heights,
40:55
new routes. He longed to try up dangerous collors about everything, it
41:00
seemed, except the work in hand. There was eagerness in him, the
41:04
kind of excitement that SAPs energy and wastes the nervous force, threatening a probable
41:08
collapse before the arduous object is attained. Keep to the thing in hand,
41:14
replied the priest sternly. We are not really going fast. It is you
41:17
who are scattering yourself to no purpose. It wears us all. We must
41:22
husband our resources, and he pointed significantly to the pyramid of the Torda Niels
41:27
that gleamed above them at an incredible altitude. We are here to amuse ourselves.
41:34
Life is a pleasure, a sensation, or it is nothing, grumbled
41:37
his companion. But there was a gravity in the tone of the older man
41:42
that discouraged argument and made resistance difficult. The other arranged his pack for the
41:46
tenth time, twisting his axe through an ingenious scheme of straps and string,
41:52
and fell silently into line behind his leaders. Limison moved on again, and
41:57
the darkness at last began to lift far overhead at first, the snowy summits
42:01
shone with a hue less spectral, A delicate pink spread softly from the east.
42:07
There was a freshening of the chilly wind. Then suddenly the highest peak
42:10
that topped the others by a thousand feet of soaring rock, stepped sharply into
42:15
sight, half golden and half rose. At the same instant, the vast
42:21
movement of the entire scene slowed down. There came one or two terrific gusts
42:25
of wind, and quick succession, a roar, like an avalanche of falling
42:30
stones boomed distantly, and Limasen stopped dead and held his breath. Or something
42:36
blocked the way before him, something he knew he could not pass. Gigantic
42:42
and unformed, it seemed part of the architecture of the desolate waste about him,
42:45
while yet it bulked there, enormous in the trembling dawn, as belonging
42:50
neither to plain nor mountain. Suddenly it was there, where a moment before
42:54
had been mere emptiness of air. Its massive outline shifted into visibility as though
43:00
it had risen from the ground. He stood stock still. A cold that
43:05
was not of this world turned him rigid in his tracks. A few yards
43:08
behind him, the priest had halted too farther in the rear, they heard
43:13
the stumbling tread of the younger man, and the faint calling of his voice,
43:17
a feeble, broken sound, as of a man whom sudden fear distressed
43:21
to helplessness. Where off the track? And I've lost my way? The
43:27
words came on still air, my axe is gone. Let us put on
43:30
the rope. Hark do you hear that? Roar? And then a sound
43:35
as though he came slowly groping on his hands and knees. You have exhausted
43:40
yourself too soon, the priest answered sternly, Stay where you are and rest,
43:45
for we go no farther. This is the place we sought. There
43:50
was in his tone a kind of altimate solemnity that for a moment turned Limison's
43:53
attention from the great obstacle that blocked his farther way. The darkness lifted veil
43:59
by veil, not gradually, but by a series of leaps, as when
44:02
someone inexpertly turns a wick. He perceived then that not a single grandeur loomed
44:08
in front, but that others of similar kind, some huger than the first
44:14
stood all about him, forming an enclosing circle that hemmed him in. Then
44:19
with a start he recovered himself. Equilibrium and common sense returned. The trick
44:23
that sight had played upon him, assisted by the rarefied atmosphere of the heights,
44:29
and the witchery of dawn, was no uncommon one. After all,
44:32
the long straining of the eyes to pick the way in an uncertain light so
44:37
easily deceives perspective delusion, ever follows abrupt change of focus. The shadowy encircling
44:44
forms were but the rampart of still distant precipices, whose giant walls framed the
44:49
tremendous amphitheater to the sky. Their closeness was a mere gesture of the dusk
44:53
and distance. The shock of the discovery produced an instant's unsteadiness in him.
44:59
There brought bewilderment. He straightened up, raised his head and looked about him.
45:05
The cliffs, it seemed to him, shifted back instantly to their accustomed
45:07
places, as though after all they had been close. There was a reeling
45:13
among the topmost crags. They balanced fearfully, then stood still against the sky,
45:17
already faintly crimson the roar he heard that might well have seemed the tumult
45:22
of their hurrying speed was in reality, but the wind of dawn that rushed
45:27
against their ribs, beating the echoes out with angry wings, and the lines
45:31
of trailing mist streaking the air, like proofs of rapid motion, merely coiled
45:36
and floated in the empty spaces. He turned to the priest, who had
45:40
moved up beside him. How strange, he said, is this beginning of
45:46
new light? My sight went all astray for a passing moment, I thought
45:51
the mountains stood right across my path, and when I looked up just now,
45:55
it seemed they all ran back. His voice was small and lost in
46:00
the grateless in and air. The man looked fixedly at him. He had
46:04
removed his slouched hat, hot with the long ascent, and as he answered,
46:07
a long, thin shadow flitted across his features. A breath of darkness
46:13
dropped about them. It was as though a mask or forming the face that
46:17
now was covered had been naked. He was so long in answering that Limison
46:22
heard his mind sharpening the sentence like a pencil. He spoke very slowly.
46:29
They move, perhaps even as their powers move and their minutes are our years.
46:37
Their passage, ever, is in tumult. There is disorder. Then
46:42
among the affairs of men, there is confusion in their minds. There may
46:46
be ruin and disaster, but out of the wreckage shall issue strong fresh growth,
46:52
For like a sea they pass. There was in his mien a grandeur
46:58
that seemed borrowed marvelously from the mountains. His voice was grave and deep.
47:02
He made no sign or gesture, and in his manner was a curious steadiness
47:07
that breathed through the language, a kind of sacred prophecy. Long thundering gusts
47:12
of wind passed distantly across the precipices as he spoke. The same moment,
47:17
expecting apparently no rejoinder to his strange utterance, he stooped and began to unpack
47:22
his knapsack. The change from the sacradotal language to this commonplace in practical detail
47:29
was singularly bewildering. It's the time to rest, he added, and the
47:34
time to eat. Let us prepare, And he drew out several small packets
47:38
and laid them in a row upon the ground. Awe deepened over limis,
47:43
and as he watched, and with it, a great wonder too, for
47:45
the words seemed ominous, as though this man, upon the floor of some
47:50
vast temple said, let us prepare a sacrifice. There flashed into him,
47:54
out of depths that had hitherto concealed it, a lightning clue that hinted at
48:00
explanation of the entire strange proceeding of the abrupt meeting with the strangers, the
48:06
impulsive acceptance of their project for the great ascent, their grave behavior as though
48:10
it were a ceremonial of immense design, his change of position, the bewildering
48:15
tricks of sight, and the solemn language finally of the older man that corroborated
48:20
what he himself had deemed at first illusion. In a flying second of time,
48:24
this all swept through him, and with it the sharp desire to turn
48:29
aside, retreat, to run away. Noting the movement, or perhaps divining
48:34
the emotion prompting it, the priest looked up quickly, and his tone was
48:37
a coldness that seemed as though this scene of wintry desolation uttered words. You
48:43
have come too far to think of turning back. It is not possible.
48:47
You stand now at the gates of birth and death. All that might hinder
48:52
you have so bravely cast aside. Be brave now to the end. And
48:58
as Limison heard the words, there dropped suddenly into him a new and awful
49:01
insight into humanity, a power that unerringly discovered the spiritual necessities of others and
49:07
therefore of himself. With a shock, he realized that the younger man,
49:13
who had accompanied them with increasing difficulty as they climbed higher and higher, was
49:16
but a shadow of reality. Like the porter, he was but an incumbrance
49:22
who impeded progress. And he turned his eyes to search the desolate landscape.
49:28
You will not find him, said his companion, for he is gone.
49:31
Never unless you weakly call, shall you see him again, nor desire to
49:36
hear his voice. And Limisen realized that in his heart he had all the
49:40
while disapproved of the man, disliked him for his theatrical fondness of sensation and
49:45
effect. More, that he had even hated and despised him. Starvation might
49:51
crawl upon him where he had fallen and eat his life away before he would
49:54
stir a finger to save him. It was with the older man he now
49:59
had dreads full business in hand. I am glad, he answered, for
50:05
in the end, he must have proved my death, our death. And
50:09
they drew closer round the little circle of food the priest had laid upon the
50:13
rocky ground, an intimate understanding, linking them together in a sympathy that completed
50:19
Limasson's bewilderment. There was bread, he saw, and there was salt.
50:24
There was also a little flask of deep red wine. In the center of
50:29
the circle was a miniature fire of sticks the priest had collected from the bushes
50:31
of wild rhododendron. The smoke rose upwards in a thin blue line. It
50:37
did not even quiver. So profound was the surrounding stillness of the mountain air.
50:43
But far away, among the precipices ran the boom of falling water,
50:46
and behind it again the muffled roar as of peaks and snow fields that swept
50:52
with a rolling thunder through the heavens. They are passing, the priest said,
50:57
in a low voice, and they know that you are here. You
51:01
have now the opportunity of a lifetime, For if you yield acceptance of your
51:06
own free will, success is sure. You stand before the gates of birth
51:10
and death. They offer you life. Yet I denied them, He murmured
51:19
it below his breath. Denial is evocation. You called to them, and
51:25
they have come. The sacrifice of your little personal life is all they ask.
51:31
Be brave and yield it. He took the bread as he spoke,
51:37
and breaking it in three pieces, he placed one before Limasson, one before
51:43
himself, and the third he laid upon the flame, which first blackened and
51:46
then consumed it. Eat it and understand, he said, for it is
51:52
the nourishment that shall revive your fading life. Next with the salt, he
51:59
did the same. Then, raising the flask of wine, he put it
52:01
to his lips, offering it afterwards to his companion. When both had drunk,
52:07
there still remained the greater part of the contents. He lifted the vessel
52:12
with both hands, reverently towards the sky. He stood upright. The blood
52:17
of your personal life I offer to them and your name by the renunciation which
52:22
seems to you as death, shall you pass through the gates of birth to
52:27
the life of freedom beyond. For the ultimate sacrifice that they ask of you
52:32
is this. And bending low before the distant heights, he poured the wine
52:39
upon the rocky ground. For a period of time, Limison found no means
52:45
of measuring, so terrible were the emotions in his heart. The priest remained
52:50
in this attitude of worship and obeisance. The tumult in the mountains ceased,
52:54
an absolute hush dropped down upon the world. There seemed to pause in the
52:59
inner history of the universe itself. All waited till he rose again. And
53:05
when he did so, the mask that had for hours now been spreading across
53:07
his features was accomplished. The eyes gazed sternly down into his own. Limison
53:15
looked and recognized he stood face to face with the man whom he knew best
53:20
of all others in the world himself. There had been death, there had
53:25
also been that recovery of splendor, which is birth and resurrection. And the
53:30
sun that moment, with the sudden surprise that mountains only know, rushed clear
53:35
above the heights, bathing the landscape and the standing figure with a stainless glory,
53:40
into the vast temple where he knelt, as into the greater inner temple,
53:45
which is mankind's true house of royalty, there poured the completing presence which
53:50
is light. For in this way, and in this way only shall you
53:54
pass from death to life, saying a chanting voice he recognized also now for
54:00
the first time, as indubitably his own. It was marvelous, but the
54:06
birth of light is ever marvelous. It was anguish, but the pangs of
54:10
resurrection since time began have been accomplished by the sweetness of fierce pain. For
54:16
the majorities still lie in the prenatal stage, unborn, unconscious of a definite
54:22
spiritual existence in the womb, they grope and stifle, depending ever upon another.
54:29
Denial is ever the call to life a protest against continued darkness for deliverance.
54:35
Yet birth is the ruin of all that has hitherto been depended on.
54:39
There comes then that standing alone, which at first seems desolate, isolation,
54:45
the tumult of destruction precedes release. Limson rose to his feet, stood with
54:52
difficulty upright, looked about him from the figure so close now at his side,
54:58
to the snowy summit of that toured nion he would never climb. The
55:02
roar and thunder of their passage was resumed. It seemed the mountains reeled.
55:09
They are passing, saying the voice that was beside him and within him too,
55:15
But they have known you and your offering is accepted. When they come
55:20
close upon the world, there is ever wreckage and disaster in the affairs of
55:23
men. They bring disorder and confusion into the mind, a confusion that seems
55:30
final, a disorder that seems to threaten death. For there is tumult in
55:36
their presence, and apparent chaos that seems the abandonment of order. Out of
55:43
this vast ruin, then there issues life in new design. The dislocation is
55:49
its entrance, the dishevelment its strength. There has been birth. The sunlight
55:57
dazzled his eyes. That distant roar like a wind, came close and swept
56:01
his face. An icy air, as from a passing star, breathed over
56:06
him. Are you prepared? He heard? He knelt again, without a
56:13
sign of hesitation or reluctance. He bared his chest to the sun and wind.
56:17
The flash came swiftly, instantly, descending into his heart with unerring aim.
56:22
He saw the gleam in the air, He felt the fiery impact of
56:27
the blow. He even saw the stream gush forth and sink into the rocky
56:30
ground, far redder than the wine. He gasped for breath. A moment
56:37
staggered, reeled, collapsed, and within the moment, so quickly did all
56:40
happen. He was aware of hands that supported him and helped him to his
56:45
feet, but he was too weak to stand. They carried him up to
56:49
bed. The porter and the man who had reached across him for the matches
56:52
five minutes before intended conversation stood one at his feet and the other at his
56:58
head. As he passed through the vestibule of the hotel, he saw the
57:00
people staring, and in his hand he crumpled up the unopened letters he had
57:05
received so short a time ago. I really think I can manage alone,
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he thanked them. If you will set me down, I can walk.
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I felt dizzy for a moment the heat in the hall. The gentleman began
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in a quiet sympathetic voice. They left him standing on the stairs, watching
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a moment to see that he had quite recovered. Limison walked up the two
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flights to his room without faltering. The momentary dizziness had passed. He felt
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quite himself again, strong, confident, able to stand alone, able to
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move forward, able to climb. End of section four