Part 46 (2/2)
”'How do you know you don't?' inquired the professor.
”'Because,' I said, firmly, 'it is nonsense to say that the soul of a human being can inhabit a hen!'
”'Put it in a more simplified form!' insisted the professor. 'Do you believe that the soul of a hen can inhabit a human being?'
”'No, I don't!'
”'Did you ever hear of a hen-pecked man?' cried the professor, his voice ending in a shout.
”I nodded, intensely annoyed.
”'Will you listen to reason, then?' he continued, eagerly.
”'No,' I began, but I caught Miss Wyeth's blue eyes fixed on mine with an expression so sad, so sweetly appealing, that I faltered.
”'Yes, I will listen,' I said, faintly.
”'Will you become my pupil?' insisted the professor.
”I was shocked to find myself wavering, but my eyes were looking into hers, and I could not disobey what I read there. The longer I looked the greater inclination I felt to waver. I saw that I was going to give in, and, strangest of all, my conscience did not trouble me. I felt it coming--a sort of mild exhilaration took possession of me. For the first time in my life I became reckless--I even gloried in my recklessness.
”'Yes, yes,' I cried, leaning eagerly across the table, 'I shall be glad--delighted! Will you take me as your pupil?' My single eye-gla.s.s fell from its position unheeded. 'Take me! Oh, will you take me?' I cried. Instead of answering, the professor blinked rapidly at me for a moment. I imagined his eyes had grown bigger, and were a.s.suming a greenish tinge. The corners of his mouth began to quiver, emitting queer, caressing little noises, and he rapidly added knot after knot to his twitching coat-tails. Suddenly he bent forward across the table until his nose almost touched mine. The pupils of his eyes expanded, the iris a.s.suming a beautiful, changing, golden-green tinge, and his coat-tails switched violently. Then he began to mew.
”I strove to rouse myself from my paralysis--I tried to shrink back, for I felt the end of his cold nose touch mine. I could not move. The cry of terror died in my straining throat, my hands tightened convulsively; I was incapable of speech or motion. At the same time my brain became wonderfully clear. I began to remember everything that had ever happened to me--everything that I had ever done or said. I even remembered things that I had neither done nor said; I recalled distinctly much that had never happened. How fresh and strong my memory! The past was like a mirror, crystal clear, and there, in glorious tints and hues, the scenes of my childhood grew and glowed and faded, and gave place to newer and more splendid scenes. For a moment the episode of the cat at the Hotel St. Antoine flashed across my mind. When it vanished a chilly stupor slowly clouded my brain; the scenes, the memories, the brilliant colors, faded, leaving me enveloped in a gray vapor, through which the two great eyes of the professor twinkled with a murky light. A peculiar longing stirred me--a strange yearning for something, I knew not what--but, oh! how I longed and yearned for it! Slowly this indefinite, incomprehensible longing became a living pain. Ah, how I suffered, and how the vapors seemed to crowd around me! Then, as at a great distance, I heard her voice, sweet, imperative:
”'Mew!' she said.
”For a moment I seemed to see the interior of my own skull, lighted as by a flash of fire; the rolling eyeb.a.l.l.s, veined in scarlet, the glistening muscles quivering along the jaw, the humid ma.s.ses of the convoluted brain; then awful darkness--a darkness almost tangible--an utter blackness, through which now seemed to creep a thin, silver thread, like a river crawling across a world--like a thought gliding to the brain--like a song, a thin, sharp song which some distant voice was singing--which I was singing.
”And I knew that I was mewing!
”I threw myself back in my chair and mewed with all my heart. Oh, that heavy load which was lifted from my breast! How good, how satisfying it was to mew! And how I did miaul and yowl!
”I gave myself up to it, heart and soul; my whole being thrilled with the pa.s.sionate outpourings of a spirit freed. My voice trembled in the upper bars of a feline love-song, quavered, descended, swelling again into an intimation that I brooked no rival, and ended with a magnificent crescendo.
”I finished, somewhat abashed, and glanced askance at the professor and his daughter, but the one sat nonchalantly disentangling his coat-tails, and the other was apparently absorbed in the distant landscape. Evidently they did not consider me ridiculous. Flus.h.i.+ng painfully, I turned in my chair to see how my grewsome solo had affected the people on the terrace. n.o.body even looked at me. This, however, gave me little comfort, for, as I began to realize what I had done, my mortification and rage knew no bounds. I was ready to die of shame. What on earth had induced me to mew? I looked wildly about for escape--I would leap up--rush home to bury my burning face in my pillows, and, later, in the friendly cabin of a homeward-bound steamer. I would fly--fly at once! Woe to the man who blocked my way!
I started to my feet, but at that moment I caught Miss Wyeth's eyes fixed on mine.
”'Don't go,' she said.
”What in Heaven's name lay in those blue eyes? I slowly sank back into my chair.
”Then the professor spoke: 'Wilhelmina, I have just received a despatch.'
”'Where from, papa?'
”'From India. I'm going at once.'
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