III
Mabel stood perfectly still until she heard the locking of the door andthe withdrawal of the key. Then once more she went to the window andclasped the sill.
From where she stood there was visible to her first the courtyardbeneath, with its lawn in the centre, and a couple of trees growingthere--all plain in the brilliant light that now streamed from herwindow, and secondly, above the roofs, a tremendous pall of ruddy black.It was the more terrible from the contrast. Earth, it seemed, wascapable of light; heaven had failed.
It appeared, too, that there was a curious stillness. The house was,usually, quiet enough at this hour: the inhabitants of that place werein no mood for bustle: but now it was more than quiet; it was deathlystill: it was such a hush as precedes the sudden crash of the sky'sartillery. But the moments went by, and there was no such crash: onlyonce again there sounded a solemn rolling, as of some great wain faraway; stupendously impressive, for with it to the girl's ears thereseemed mingled a murmur of innumerable voices, ghostly crying andapplause. Then again the hush settled down like wool.
She had begun to understand now. The darkness and the sounds were notfor all eyes and ears. The nurse had seen and heard nothingextraordinary, and the rest of the world of men saw and heard nothing.To them it was no more than the hint of a coming storm.
Mabel did not attempt to distinguish between the subjective and theobjective. It was nothing to her as to whether the sights and soundswere generated by her own brain or perceived by some faculty hithertounknown. She seemed to herself to be standing already apart from theworld which she had known; it was receding from her, or, rather, whilestanding where it had always done, it was melting, transforming itself,passing to some other mode of existence. The strangeness seemed no morestrange than anything else than that ... that little painted box uponthe table.
Then, hardly knowing what she said, looking steadily upon that appallingsky, she began to speak....
"O God!" she said. "If You are really there really there---"
Her voice faltered, and she gripped the sill to steady herself. Shewondered vaguely why she spoke so; it was neither intellect nor emotionthat inspired her. Yet she continued....
"O God, I know You are not there--of course You are not. But if You werethere, I know what I would say to You. I would tell You how puzzled andtired I am. No--No--I need not tell You: You would know it. But I wouldsay that I was very sorry for all this. Oh! You would know that too. Ineed not say anything at all. O God! I don't know what I want to say. Iwould like You to look after Oliver, of course, and all Your poorChristians. Oh! they will have such a hard time.... God. God--You wouldunderstand, wouldn't You?" ...
* * * * *
Again came the heavy rumble and the solemn bass of a myriad voices; itseemed a shade nearer, she thought.... She never liked thunderstorms orshouting crowds. They always gave her a headache ...
"Well, well," she said. "Good-bye, everything---"
Then she was in the chair. The mouthpiece--yes; that was it....
She was furious at the trembling of her hands; twice the spring slippedfrom her polished coils of hair.... Then it was fixed ... and as if abreeze fanned her, her sense came back....
She found she could breathe quite easily; there was no resistance--thatwas a comfort; there would be no suffocation about it.... She put outher left hand and touched the handle, conscious less of its suddencoolness than of the unbearable heat in which the room seemed almostsuddenly plunged. She could hear the drumming pulses in her temples andthe roaring of the voices.... She dropped the handle once more, and withboth hands tore at the loose white wrapper that she had put on thismorning....
Yes, that was a little easier; she could breathe better so. Again herfingers felt for and found the handle, but the sweat streamed from herfingers, and for an instant she could not turn the knob. Then it yieldedsuddenly....
* * * * *
For one instant the sweet languid smell struck her consciousness like ablow, for she knew it as the scent of death. Then the steady will thathad borne her so far asserted itself, and she laid her hands softly inher lap, breathing deeply and easily.
She had closed her eyes at the turning of the handle, but now openedthem again, curious to watch the aspect of the fading world. She haddetermined to do this a week ago: she would at least miss nothing ofthis unique last experience.
It seemed at first that there was no change. There was the feathery headof the elm, the lead roof opposite, and the terrible sky above. Shenoticed a pigeon, white against the blackness, soar and swoop again outof sight in an instant....
... Then the following things happened....
There was a sudden sensation of ecstatic lightness in all her limbs; sheattempted to lift a hand, and was aware that it was impossible; it wasno longer hers. She attempted to lower her eyes from that broad strip ofviolet sky, and perceived that that too was impossible. Then sheunderstood that the will had already lost touch with the body, that thecrumbling world had receded to an infinite distance--that was as she hadexpected, but what continued to puzzle her was that her mind was stillactive. It was true that the world she had known had withdrawn itselffrom the dominion of consciousness, as her body had done, except, thatwas, in the sense of hearing, which was still strangely alert; yet therewas still enough memory to be aware that there was such a world--thatthere were other persons in existence; that men went about theirbusiness, knowing nothing of what had happened; but faces, names,places had all alike gone. In fact, she was conscious of herself in sucha manner as she had never been before; it seemed as if she hadpenetrated at last into some recess of her being into which hitherto shehad only looked as through clouded glass. This was very strange, and yetit was familiar, too; she had arrived, it seemed, at a centre, round thecircumference of which she had been circling all her life; and it wasmore than a mere point: it was a distinct space, walled and enclosed....At the same instant she knew that hearing, too, was gone....
Then an amazing thing happened--yet it appeared to her that she hadalways known it would happen, although her mind had never articulatedit. This is what happened.
The enclosure melted, with a sound of breaking, and a limitless spacewas about her--limitless, different to everything else, and alive, andastir. It was alive, as a breathing, panting body is alive--self-evidentand overpowering--it was one, yet it was many; it was immaterial, yetabsolutely real--real in a sense in which she never dreamed ofreality....
Yet even this was familiar, as a place often visited in dreams isfamiliar; and then, without warning, something resembling sound orlight, something which she knew in an instant to be unique, tore acrossit....
* * * * *
Then she saw, and understood....
Lord of the World Page 54
