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46 - Centaur by Algernon Blackwood · Centaur

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  Speaker 1: Chapter forty six of The Centaur by Alginon Blackwood. This
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  Speaker 1: liberyvox recording is in the public domain. Read by yoganand
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  Speaker 1: the Centaur, chapter fourty six. It was at the close
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  Speaker 1: of a vet and foggy autumn that we met again
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  Speaker 1: in winter in the air all London desolate, and his
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  Speaker 1: waist had fallen. Appearance told me the truth at once.
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  Speaker 1: Only the passionate, eagerness of voice and manner were there
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  Speaker 1: to prove that the spirit had not weakened. They glorwed
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  Speaker 1: within a fire that showed itself in the translucent shining
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  Speaker 1: of the eyes and face. I've made on great discovery,
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  Speaker 1: old man, he exclaimed, with old familiar high enthusiasm. One
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  Speaker 1: great discovery. At least you've made so many, I answered, cheerfully,
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  Speaker 1: while my real thoughts were busy with this bodily state
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  Speaker 1: of health. For his appearance shocked me. He stood among
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  Speaker 1: a litter of papers, books, neckties, nailed boots, knapsacks, maps,
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  Speaker 1: and what not that rolled upon the floor from the
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  Speaker 1: mouth of the Williston Canvas sack. His old gray flannel
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  Speaker 1: suit hung literally upon a bag of bones. All the
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  Speaker 1: life there was seemed concentrated in his face, and eyes,
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  Speaker 1: those fast seeing light blue eyes. They were darker than
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  Speaker 1: usual now, eyes like the sea, I thought. His hair,
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  Speaker 1: long and disordered, tumbled over his forehead. He was pale
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  Speaker 1: and at the same time flushed. It was almost a
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  Speaker 1: disemborid spirit that I saw. You've made so many I
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  Speaker 1: love to hear them. Is this one finer than the others?
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  Speaker 1: He looked a moment at me, through and through, almost uncannily.
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  Speaker 1: He looked in reality, beyond me. It was something else
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  Speaker 1: he saw, and in the dusk I turned involuntarily. Simpler,
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  Speaker 1: he said, quickly, much simpler. He moved up close beside me, whispering.
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  Speaker 1: Was it all imagination that a breath of flowers came
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  Speaker 1: from him? There were certainly a curious fragrance in the air,
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  Speaker 1: wild and sweet like arches in the spring. And it
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  Speaker 1: is not the gardens everywhere. You needn't go to the
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  Speaker 1: distance Caucusus to find it. It is all about this
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  Speaker 1: old London town, and in these foggy streets and dingy pavements.
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  Speaker 1: It's even in this cramped, undusted room now at this moment,
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  Speaker 1: while that lamp flickers and the thousands go to sleep,
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  Speaker 1: the gates of horn and ivory are here, he tapped exprest.
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  Speaker 1: And here the flowers, the long, clean open hills, the
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  Speaker 1: giant herd, the nymphs, the sunshine, and the gods. So
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  Speaker 1: attached was he now to that little room in Parrington,
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  Speaker 1: where his books and papers lay. And when the curious
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  Speaker 1: illness that had caught him grew so much verse and
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  Speaker 1: the attacks of the nameless fever that afflicted him turned serious,
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  Speaker 1: I hired a bedroom for him in the same house.
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  Speaker 1: And it was in that poky, cage like den he
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  Speaker 1: breathed his last his illness. I call curis his favor nameless,
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  Speaker 1: because they were really so, and puzzled every one. He
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  Speaker 1: simply faded out of life. It seemed. There was no pain,
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  Speaker 1: no sleeplessness, no suffering of any physical kind, uttered, no complaint,
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  Speaker 1: nor were their symptoms of any known disorder. Your friend
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  Speaker 1: is sound organically, the doctor told me, when I pressed
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  Speaker 1: him for the truth. There on the stairs, sound as
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  Speaker 1: a bell. He wants the open air and plenty of
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  Speaker 1: wholesome foot that's all. His body is ill nourished. His
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  Speaker 1: trouble is mental, some deep and heavy disappointment. Doubtless, if
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  Speaker 1: he can change the current of his thoughts awaken interest
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  Speaker 1: in common things and give him change of scene. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: he shrugged his shoulders and looked very grave. You think
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  Speaker 1: he's dying. I think, yes, He's dying from from lack
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  Speaker 1: of living. Pure and simple was the answer. He has
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  Speaker 1: lost all hold in life. He has abundant vitality, still
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  Speaker 1: full of it, but it all goes elsewhere. The physical
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  Speaker 1: organism gets none of it. Yet mentally, I asked, there's
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  Speaker 1: nothing actually wrong, not in the ordinary sense. The mind
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  Speaker 1: is clear and active, so far as I can tested.
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  Speaker 1: The process of thought is healthy and undamaged. It seems
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  Speaker 1: to me. He hesitated a moment on the doorstep when
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  Speaker 1: the driver warned the motor handle. I waited with a
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  Speaker 1: sinking heart for the rest of the sentence. Like certain
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  Speaker 1: cases of nostalgia, I've known, very rare and very difficult
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  Speaker 1: to deal with. Acute and vehement nostalgia, yes, sometimes called
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  Speaker 1: a broken heart, he added, pausing another instant at the
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  Speaker 1: carriage door, in which the entire stream of a man's
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  Speaker 1: inner life flows to some distant place, a person, or
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  Speaker 1: or to some imagine yearning that he craves to satisfy
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  Speaker 1: to a dream. It might be even that, he answered,
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  Speaker 1: slowly stepping in. It might be spiritual, the religious and
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  Speaker 1: poetic temperament of most open to it, and the most
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  Speaker 1: difficult to deal with when afflicted. He emphasized the little word,
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  Speaker 1: as though the doubt he felt was far less strong
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  Speaker 1: than the conviction he only half concealed. If you would
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  Speaker 1: save him, try to change the direction of his st thoughts.
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  Speaker 1: There is nothing in all, honest to I must say it,
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  Speaker 1: nothing that I can do to help. And then, pulling
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  Speaker 1: at the great tuft on his chin and looking keenly
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  Speaker 1: at me a moment over his glasses, those flowers, he said, hesitatingly,
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  Speaker 1: you might know those flowers from the room. Perhaps their
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  Speaker 1: perfume is a trifle strong. It might be better. Again,
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  Speaker 1: he looked sharply at me. There was no expression in
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  Speaker 1: his eyes, and in my heart there was an odd
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  Speaker 1: sensation too, so odd that I found myself were after
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  Speaker 1: a moment of any speech at all, And when my
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  Speaker 1: tongue became untied, the carriage was already disappearing down the street,
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  Speaker 1: For in the dingy sick room there were no flowers
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  Speaker 1: at all. Yet the perfume of woods and fields and
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  Speaker 1: open spaces had reached the doctor too, and obviously perplexed
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  Speaker 1: him changed the direction of his thoughts. I went indoors,
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  Speaker 1: wondering how any honest and even half unselfish friend, knowing
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  Speaker 1: what I knew, could follow such advice with what but
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  Speaker 1: the lowest motive of keeping him alive from my own
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  Speaker 1: hand happiness? Could I seek to change his thoughts of
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  Speaker 1: some imagined joy and peace to the pain and sordid
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  Speaker 1: facts of an earthly system that he loathed. But when
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  Speaker 1: I turned, I saw the tussled, yellow headed landlady standing
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  Speaker 1: in the breach. Missus Heath stopped me in the hall
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  Speaker 1: to inquire whether I could say anything about the rent,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps a man who was defiant I found three months
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  Speaker 1: were owing. It's not good asking him, she said, though
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  Speaker 1: not unkindly on the whole. I'm sick and tired of
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  Speaker 1: always being put off. He talks about the gods and
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  Speaker 1: mister Pan, oh, some such gentleman whom he says, we'll
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  Speaker 1: look after it all. But I never seize him, not
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  Speaker 1: this mister Pan. And there's stuff up there jerking ahead
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  Speaker 1: toward the little room. Ain't y the sankey moody hymn book,
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  Speaker 1: Take the law of it at cost? I reassured, her,
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  Speaker 1: it was impossible to help smiling. For some minds, I
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  Speaker 1: reflected a Sankey hymn book might whold dreams that were
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  Speaker 1: every bit as potent as his own, and far less troublesome.
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  Speaker 1: But that mister or some such gentleman should serve as
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  Speaker 1: reference between Lodger and landlady was an unwitting comment on
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  Speaker 1: the modern point of view that made me want to
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  Speaker 1: cry rather than to laugh. O'Malley and missus Heath, between them,
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  Speaker 1: had made a profounder criticism than they knew, and so
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  Speaker 1: by slow degrees he went, leaving the outer fury for
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  Speaker 1: the inner piece. The center of consciousness gradually shifted from
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  Speaker 1: the transient form, which is the true ghost, to the deeper,
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  Speaker 1: permanent state, which is the eternal reality. For this was
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  Speaker 1: how he phrased it to me in one of her
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  Speaker 1: last strange talks. He watched his own vitraal in bed.
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  Speaker 1: He would lie for hours with fixed and happy eyes,
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  Speaker 1: staring apparently at nothing, the expression on his face quite vardiant,
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  Speaker 1: the pulse sank often dangerously low. He scarcely seemed to breathe,
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  Speaker 1: Yet it was never complete on consciousness or trance. My
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  Speaker 1: voice when I found the heart to try, and Quarkes's
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  Speaker 1: own for speech would win him back. The eyes would
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  Speaker 1: then grow dimmer, losing the happier life. As he turned
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  Speaker 1: to the outer world to look at me. The pula
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  Speaker 1: is so tremendous now, he whispered. I was far, so
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  Speaker 1: far away, in the deep life of earth. Why do
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  Speaker 1: you bring me back to all these little pains. I
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  Speaker 1: can do nothing here there I'm of use, he spoke,
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  Speaker 1: so low. I to bend my head to catch the birds.
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  Speaker 1: It was very late at night. For hours I had
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  Speaker 1: been watching by his side. Outside an ugly yellow fog
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  Speaker 1: oppressed the town, but about him like an utmostphere, I
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  Speaker 1: caught again that fragrance as of trees and flowers. It
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  Speaker 1: was too faint for any name, that fugitive, mild perfume
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  Speaker 1: one meets upon bare hills and round the skirts of forests.
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  Speaker 1: It was somehow I fancied in the very breath Each time.
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  Speaker 1: The effort to return is grater. In there I am
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  Speaker 1: complete and full of power. I can work and send
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  Speaker 1: my message back so splendidly. Here. He glanced down at
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  Speaker 1: his wted body with a curious smile. I'm only on
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  Speaker 1: the fringe. It's pain and failure, all so ineffective that
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  Speaker 1: other look came back into the eyes more swiftly than before.
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  Speaker 1: I thought, you might like to speak, to tell me something,
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  Speaker 1: I said, keeping the tears with difficulty from my voice.
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  Speaker 1: Is there no one you would like to see? He
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  Speaker 1: shook his head slowly and gave the peculiar answer. They
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  Speaker 1: are all in there, but it's tall. Perhaps if I
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  Speaker 1: could get him here. An expression of gentle disapproval crossed
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  Speaker 1: his face, then melted softly into a wispful tenderness, as
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  Speaker 1: of a child. He's not there yet, he whispered, But
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  Speaker 1: he will come too in the end. In sleep, I
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  Speaker 1: think he goes there even now. Where are you really? Then?
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  Speaker 1: I ventured, and where is it you go to? The
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  Speaker 1: answer came unhesitatingly. There was no doubt of searching into myself,
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  Speaker 1: my real and deeper self, and so beyond it, into her,
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  Speaker 1: the earth where all the others are all all all.
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  Speaker 1: And then he frightened me by sitting up in bed. Abruptly,
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  Speaker 1: his eyes stared past me, out beyond the close, confining walts.
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  Speaker 1: The movement was so startling with its suddenness and vigor
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  Speaker 1: that I shrank back a moment the head was sideways.
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  Speaker 1: He was intently listening. Hark, he whispered, they're calling me.
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  Speaker 1: Do you hear? The look of joy that broke over
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  Speaker 1: the face like sunshine made me hold my breath. Something
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  Speaker 1: in his voice thrilled me beyond all I have ever known.
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  Speaker 1: I listened too, while the rumble of the traffic down
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  Speaker 1: the distant main street broke, the silence, the rattle of
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  Speaker 1: a nearer cart, and the footsteps of a few pedestrians.
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  Speaker 1: No other noises came across the night. There was no wind.
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  Speaker 1: Thick yellow fog muffled everything. I hear nothing, I answered, softly,
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  Speaker 1: what is it that you hear? And making no reply,
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  Speaker 1: he presently laid on again among the pillows, that look
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  Speaker 1: of joy and glory still upon his face. It lay
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  Speaker 1: there to the inn like sunrise. The fog came in
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  Speaker 1: so thickly through the window that I rose to close it.
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  Speaker 1: He never closed that window, and I hoped he would
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  Speaker 1: not notice, for a sound of wretched street music was
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  Speaker 1: coming nearer, some beggar playing dismally upon a penny whistle,
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  Speaker 1: and I feared it would disturb him. But in a
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  Speaker 1: flash he was up again. No, no, he cried, raising
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  Speaker 1: his voice for the first time that night. Do not
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  Speaker 1: shut it. I shan't be able to hear them. Let
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  Speaker 1: all the air come in. Open it wider, wider. I
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  Speaker 1: love that sound, the fog. There is no fog. It's
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  Speaker 1: while his sun and flowers and music. Let them in.
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  Speaker 1: Don't you hear it? Now? He added, And more to
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  Speaker 1: bring him peace than anything else. I bowed my head
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  Speaker 1: to signify agreement, for the last confusion of the mind
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  Speaker 1: I saw was upon him, and he made the outer
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  Speaker 1: world confirm some imagined detail of his inner dream. I
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  Speaker 1: drew the sash down lower, covering his body closely with
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  Speaker 1: the blankets. He flung them off impatiently atwards. The damp
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  Speaker 1: and freezing night rushed in upon us like a presence.
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  Speaker 1: It made me shudder, but O'Malley whully raised himself upon
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  Speaker 1: one elbow to taste it better and to listen, then
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  Speaker 1: waiting patiently for the written of the quiet, trance like state,
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  Speaker 1: when I might cover him again. I moved toward the
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  Speaker 1: window and looked out. The street was empty save for
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  Speaker 1: that beggar playing wildly on his penny whistle. The wretch
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  Speaker 1: came to a standstill immediately before the house. The lamplight
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  Speaker 1: fell from the room upon his tattered, broken figure. I
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  Speaker 1: could not see his face. He groped and felt his
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  Speaker 1: way outside that homeless one were a played his penny
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  Speaker 1: pipe in the night of cold and darkness. Inside the
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  Speaker 1: dreamer listened, dreaming of his coats and garden, his great
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  Speaker 1: earth mother, his wision life of peace and simple things
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  Speaker 1: with a living nature. And I felt somehow that player
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  Speaker 1: watched us. I made an angry sign to him to go,
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  Speaker 1: But it was a sudden upon my arm that made
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  Speaker 1: me turn round, with such a sudden start that I
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  Speaker 1: almost cried aloud. O'Malley, in his night clothes, stood close
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  Speaker 1: against me on the floor, slight as the spirit eyes,
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  Speaker 1: ashine lips, moving faintly into speech through the most wonderful
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  Speaker 1: smile of human face has ever shone me. Do not
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  Speaker 1: send him away, he whispered, joy breaking from him like
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  Speaker 1: a light. But tell him that I love it God,
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  Speaker 1: and thank him. Tell him I hear and understand, and
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  Speaker 1: say that I am coming. Will you. Something within me whirled.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed that I was lifted from my feet a moment,
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  Speaker 1: some tide of power rushed from his person to my own.
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  Speaker 1: The room was filled with blinding light. But in my
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  Speaker 1: heart there rose a great emotion that combined tears and
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  Speaker 1: joy and laughter all at once. The moment you are
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  Speaker 1: back in bed, I heard my voice like one speaking
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  Speaker 1: from a distance. I'll go. The momentary wild confusion passed
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  Speaker 1: as suddenly as it came. I remember he obeyed at once.
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  Speaker 1: As they bent down to tuck the clothes about him.
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  Speaker 1: The fragrance, as of flowers and open spaces, rose about
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  Speaker 1: my bending face, like incense, bewilderingly sweet. And the next
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  Speaker 1: second I was standing in the street. The man who
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  Speaker 1: played upon the pipe I saw was blind. His hand
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  Speaker 1: and fingers were curiously large. I was already close, ready
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  Speaker 1: to press all that my pockets held into his hand. Aye,
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  Speaker 1: and far more than merely pockets held, because O'Malley said
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  Speaker 1: he loved the music. When something made me turn my
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  Speaker 1: head away, I cannot say precisely what it was. For
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  Speaker 1: first it seemed a tapping at the window of his
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  Speaker 1: room behind me, and then a little noise within the
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  Speaker 1: room itself, And next, more curious than either, a feeling
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  Speaker 1: that something came out rushing past me through the air.
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  Speaker 1: It whirled and shouted as it went. I only remembered
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  Speaker 1: clearly that in the very act of turning, and while
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  Speaker 1: my look still held the beggar's face within the field
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  Speaker 1: of vision, I saw the sightless eye turn bright a moment,
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  Speaker 1: as though he opened them, and saw he did most
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  Speaker 1: certainly smile. To that, I swear. But when I turned again,
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  Speaker 1: the street immediately about me was empty. The beggar man
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  Speaker 1: was gone and down the payment, moving swiftly through the
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  Speaker 1: curtain of fog. I saw his vanishing figure. It was
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  Speaker 1: large and spreading in the fringe of light. The lamp
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  Speaker 1: post gave its upper edges seemed far above the ground.
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  Speaker 1: Some one else was with him. There were two figures.
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  Speaker 1: I heard that sound piping far away. It sounded faint
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  Speaker 1: and almost flute like, in the air and in the
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  Speaker 1: mud at my feet. The money lay spurned utterly. I
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  Speaker 1: heard the last coins ring upon the payment as he settled.
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  Speaker 1: But in the room when he got back, the body
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  Speaker 1: of Terence O'Malley had ceased to breathe. The end of
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  Speaker 1: chapter four six, the end of the Centaur