Volume Ii Part 11 (1/2)
”No, Madame,” Dagobert answered; ”those tales--which we enjoyed more than any others which we heard as children--would never have raised up such an enduring echo in us if the strings which re-echo them had not existed within us to begin with. There is no denying the existence of the mysterious spirit-world which lies all around us, and often gives us note of its Being in wondrous, mystic sounds, and even in marvellous sights. Most probably the shudder of awe with which we receive those intimations of that spirit-world, and the involuntary fear which they produce in us, are nothing but the result of our being hemmed in--imprisoned--by our human organization. The awe and the fear are merely the modes in which the spirit imprisoned within our bodies expresses its sorrow thereat.”
”You are a spirit-seer, a believer in all those things--like all people who have lively imaginations,” said Madame von G. ”But if I were to go the length of admitting, and believing, that it is permitted that an unknown spirit-world should reveal its existence to us by means of sounds and sights, I should still have to say that I am unable to comprehend why that mysterious realm, and its denizens, should stand in such a relation to us that they bring merely paralyzing fear and horror upon us.”
”Perhaps,” Dagobert said, ”it is the punishment inflicted on us by that mother from whose care and discipline we have run away. I mean, that in that golden age when our race was living in the most perfect union with all nature, no dread or terror disturbed us, for the simple reason that in the profound peace and perfect harmony of all created things, there was nothing hostile that could cause us any such emotion. I was mentioning strange spirit-sounds; but why is it that all the real _nature_-tones--of whose origin and causes we can give the most complete account--sound to us like the most piercing sorrow, and fill our hearts with the profoundest dread? The most remarkable of those nature-tones is the air-music, or, as it is called, the 'devil-voice,'
heard in Ceylon and the neighbouring countries, spoken of by Schubert in his 'Glances at the Night-side of Natural Science.' This nature-tone is heard on calm and bright nights, sounding like the wail of some human creature lamenting in the deepest distress. It seems to come sometimes from the most remote distance, and then again to be quite close at hand. It affects the human intelligence so powerfully that the most self-controlled cannot help feeling the deepest terror when they hear it.”
”Yes,” said Moritz, ”it is so. I have never been in Ceylon, certainly, or in any of the neighbouring countries; but I have heard that terrible nature-sound; and not only I, but every one else who heard it, felt just that precise effect which Dagobert alludes to.”
”I should be extremely obliged to you,” said Dagobert, ”and you would probably convince Madame von G. also, if you would not mind telling us what happened.”
”You know,” Moritz said, ”that I served the campaign in Spain under Wellington, with a mixed force of English and Spanish cavalry against the French. The night before the battle of Vittoria I was bivouacking in the open country. Being wearied to death by the long march we had made during the day, I had fallen into a deep sleep of exhaustion, when I was awakened by a piercing cry of distress. I naturally thought--and it was the only idea that came into my mind--that what I heard was the death-cry of some wounded soldier near me; but the comrades who were lying round me were all snoring, and there was no other sound to be heard. The first gleams of the dawn were breaking through the deep darkness, and I got up and strode away over the bodies of the sleepers, thinking that I might perhaps come across the wounded man, whoever he was, who had uttered that cry. It was a singularly calm night, and only most gradually and imperceptibly did the morning breeze begin to move, and to cause the leaves to tremble. Then a second cry, like the former--a long wail of woe--came ringing through the air, and died away in the remotest distance. It was as though the spirits of the slain were rising up from the battlefield, and wailing their boundless sorrow out into the wide heaven. My breast throbbed, was overwhelmed by an inexpressible awe; all the sorrow which I had ever heard exhaled from all human b.r.e.a.s.t.s was nothing in comparison with that heart-piercing wail. Our comrades now awoke from their sleep, and, for the third time, that terrible cry of sorrow arose, and filled the whole air, more fearful and awful than before. We were all smitten with the profoundest fear; even the horses were terrified; they snorted and stamped. Many of the Spaniards fell on their knees and prayed aloud. One of the English officers told us that he had several times met with this phenomenon in southern countries; and that it was of electrical origin, and there would probably be a change in the weather. The Spaniards, with their bent towards the supernatural, heard in it the mighty voices of supernatural beings, announcing great events about to happen. In this they were confirmed when, next day, the battle came thundering in upon them, with all its horrors.”
”Is there any occasion.” Dagobert said, ”to go to Ceylon, or to Spain, to hear these marvellous Nature-tones of sorrow and complaining? Surely the howling of the storm-wind, the rattling of the hail, the groanings and creakings of the vanes are just as capable of filling us with profound terror as are those other Nature-tones we have been speaking of. Listen to that weird music which some hundreds of fearful voices are organing down this chimney; or to the strange little spirit-like ditty which the tea-urn is just beginning to sing.”
”Oh! most ingenious indeed!” cried Madame von G. ”Even into the very tea-urn Dagobert conjures spirits which render themselves cognisable to us by fearful cries of woe.”
”But he is not far wrong, dear mother!” Angelica said. ”I could very soon be seriously frightened at the extraordinary way in which that whistling, and rattling, and hissing is going on in the chimney; and the little tune which the tea-urn is singing, in such a tone of profound sorrow, is--to me--so eery and uncomfortable, that I shall go and blow out the spirit lamp, that there may be an end of it at once.”
Angelica rose: her handkerchief fell. Moritz quickly picked it up and handed it to her. She allowed a glance, full of soul, from her heavenly eyes to rest upon him; he took her hand, and pressed it fervently to his lips.
At that moment Marguerite shuddered convulsively, as if touched by some electric current, and allowed the gla.s.s of punch, which she had just poured out for Dagobert, to drop from her hand. It shattered to atoms on the floor. She cast herself down at Madame von G.'s feet sobbing bitterly--said she was a stupid creature, and implored that she might be allowed to go to her room. She said that what they had been talking about had made her frightened and nervous--although she had not understood it; that she felt frightened still--as if she could not stay in the room--though she could not explain why; that she was feeling unwell, and would like to get to bed. So saying, she kissed Madame von G.'s hands, and bedewed them with the tears she was shedding.
Dagobert felt the painfulness of the incident, and the necessity of giving matters a different turn. He, too, fell at Madame von G.'s feet, and in the most pathetic voice at his command, begged forgiveness for the culprit. As regarded the stain of punch on the floor, he vowed that he would put waxed brushes on his feet in the morning, and go figuring athwart the boards in the most exquisite tours, and steps that ever inspired the brain of a court dancing-master.
Madame von G., who had at first been looking very grave over Marguerite's mishap, strange as it seemed, and inexplicable, cleared up a little at Dagobert's words. She gave each of them her hand with a smile and said, ”Rise, and wipe away your tears. You are forgiven, Marguerite; you have this champion of yours to thank that I do not inflict a very severe punishment upon you. But I can't let you go altogether scot free. If you _are_ a little out of sorts, you must try to forget it. I shall ordain you to stay here, be more a.s.siduous than before at filling the gentlemen's gla.s.ses with the punch, and, above all things, you must reward your champion and defender with a kiss, in token of your sincere grat.i.tude.”
”So that Virtue is its own reward,” Dagobert said, with a comic pathos, as he took Marguerite's hand. ”All I ask of you, beauteous lady,” he continued, ”is to believe that the world contains (though you might be sceptical on the subject) legal luminaries of such a heroic sort that they do not hesitate a moment to offer themselves up a sacrifice at the shrine of Innocence and Truth. But we must obey the commands of our fair judge, from whose award there is no appeal.” And he impressed a fugitive kiss upon Marguerite's lips, and then led her back to her seat with much solemnity. Marguerite, blus.h.i.+ng like a rose, laughed very heartily; but the bright tears still stood in her eyes.
”Stupid fool that I am,” she cried in French, ”have I not got to do whatever Madame von G. bids me? I will keep perfectly calm. I will go on making their punch. I will listen to their ghost-stories without being in the least afraid.”
”Bravo, angelic child,” cried Dagobert. ”My heroism has infected you, and the sweetness of your lips has inspired _me_. My imagination has unfolded new wings, and I feel ready to serve up the most awful events and mysteries from the 'Regno di Pianto.'”
”I thought we had done with this unpleasant subject,” said Madame von G.
”Oh no, mother dear,” cried Angelica eagerly; ”please to let Dagobert go on! I am exactly like a child about those things. I don't know anything I so delight in as a nice ghost story--something that makes all one's flesh creep.”
”Oh, how I _do_ like that!” Dagobert cried. ”Nothing is so utterly delightful in young ladies as their being tremendously superst.i.tious, and easily frightened; and I should never dream of marrying a woman who was not terribly afraid of ghosts.”
”You were saying a little while ago, dear Dagobert,” said Moritz, ”that we ought to guard ourselves against--or take care how we allow ourselves to get into--that dreamy state of awe which is the commencement of spirit-fear--the dread of the superhuman, the ghostly world. You have still got to explain to us the _why_.”
”If there is, at the commencement of it, any real cause for that sense of awesomeness--which is at first so thoroughly blended up with the _dreamily_ pleasurable--it by no means remains at that stage. Soon there supervenes a deadly fear--a horror which makes the hair stand on end; so that the said pleasurable feeling at the commencement would seem to be the fascination of temptation with which the Spirit World lures us on and ensnares us. We were talking of certain Nature-tones which are capable of explanation, and of their fearsome effect upon our senses. But we at times hear sounds more extraordinary, of which the origin and cause are indiscoverable by us, and which produce in us the profoundest awe and terror. All rea.s.suring ideas--such as that they proceed from some animal in pain, or are produced by currents of air, or other natural causes--are useless and of no avail. Every one, I presume, has experienced that, in the night, the very faintest sound, if only it occurs at regular intervals with pauses between, completely drives away sleep, and goes on increasingly stirring up one's inward disquiet till it reaches the point of complete disorganization of the faculties. Not very long ago I had to spend a night, on a journey, at an inn, where the landlord put me in a nice, comfortable, lofty, airy bedroom. In the middle of the night I started up from my sleep, wide awake. The moon was s.h.i.+ning brightly in at the window, which was uncurtained, so that I could see every article of the furniture, and even the minutest objects in the room. There was a sound as of water dropping into some metallic dish. I lay and listened. The drops went on falling at regular, measured intervals, drip, drip, drip. My dog, who was lying under the bed, crept out, and went about the room whimpering and crying, scratching on the walls and on the floor. I felt as if streams of icy water were running all through me, and the cold perspiration dripped from my brow. However, I collected myself by a great effort, and--after first of all giving a good loud shout--I got out of bed, and went forward to the middle of the room. There the drops seemed to be falling close in front of me, or rather I should say _right through_ me into the metal, of which I heard the reverberation ringing loud and clear as they fell. Then, overcome by terror, I crept back, somehow, to the bed, and covered myself up with the bedclothes.
And then it seemed to me that the dropping--still going on at the same regular intervals--grew gradually fainter and fainter, and died away as if in the distance. I fell into a deep sleep, out of which I did not wake till it was bright daylight in the morning. The dog had come and lain down close beside me in bed, and did not move till I got up, when he jumped up too, barking vigorously, as if he had got over his terror of the previous night. It occurred to me that it might only be to me that the (doubtless) natural cause or causes of this strange sound were a mystery, and I told the landlord of my adventure--of which I still felt the terror in all my frame. I ended by saying that he could, no doubt, explain the whole affair to me, but that he ought to have told me of it beforehand. He turned as pale as a sheet, and begged me never to tell any one what had happened to me, as he would risk the loss of his customers. He said many travellers had complained about that sound, which they had heard on bright moonlight nights--that he had examined everything with the utmost care and attention, and even had the floor of that room and the adjoining one taken up, as well as making inquisition into everything in the neighbourhood, without coming upon the faintest trace of anything to account for this awe-inspiring noise.
It had not been heard for nearly a year before the night I speak of, and he had been flattering himself that the Principle--whatever it might be--which was haunting the room had ceased its operation. But seeing, to his great alarm, that in this he was mistaken, he determined that he would never, in any circ.u.mstances, allow anybody to pa.s.s the night there again.”
”Oh! how terrible!” cried Angelica, shuddering like one in the cold stage of an ague. ”That is really most terrible! Oh! I am sure I should have died if anything like that had happened to me! But I have often woke up from sleep, suddenly, feeling an indescribable, inexplicable alarm and anxiety, as if I had been going through something terrible and alarming; and yet, I had not the slightest idea what it was that I had been going through, nor the very faintest recollection of any fearful dream, or anything of that kind. Rather I seemed to be waking from some condition of complete unconsciousness, like death.”
”I know that feeling perfectly well,” Dagobert said. ”Perhaps it points straight to the effect upon us of psychical influences external to us, to which we are compelled to yield ourselves up, whether we choose or not. Just as the mesmeric subject has no remembrance of the mesmeric sleep, or of anything which happens in it. Perhaps that sense of fear and anxiety which we feel on awaking (as we have said), of which the cause is hidden from us, may be the lingering echo of some mighty spell which has forced us out of ourselves.”
”I remember very distinctly,” Angelica said, ”some four years ago, the night before my fourteenth birthday, awaking in a condition of that kind. I could not shake off the terror of it for several days afterwards. But I strove in vain to remember anything about my dream (if dream it was, that had so terrified me). I knew, and I know quite well, that in the very dream itself I had told several people--my own dear mother amongst them--what the dream was, several times. But all I could remember when I woke was that I had told the dream. I could not recall the slightest trace of what the dream had been.”
”This strange psychical phenomenon,” Dagobert said, ”is closely connected with the magnetic principle.”
”Our conversation is getting more and more dreadful,” said Madame von G. ”We are getting deep, and losing ourselves in matters I can't bear even to think about. Moritz, I must beg you to tell us something entertaining--outrageous even--that we may get away from this terrible region of the supernatural.”