Three John Silence Stories
Page 22
year, since when you have never been backto the place?"
"Last autumn, yes," murmured Vezin; "and I have never dared to go back.I think I never want to."
"And, tell me," asked Dr. Silence at length, when he saw that the littleman had evidently come to the end of his words and had nothing more tosay, "had you ever read up the subject of the old witchcraft practicesduring the Middle Ages, or been at all interested in the subject?"
"Never!" declared Vezin emphatically. "I had never given a thought tosuch matters so far as I know--"
"Or to the question of reincarnation, perhaps?"
"Never--before my adventure; but I have since," he repliedsignificantly.
There was, however, something still on the man's mind that he wished torelieve himself of by confession, yet could only with difficulty bringhimself to mention; and it was only after the sympathetic tactfulness ofthe doctor had provided numerous openings that he at length availedhimself of one of them, and stammered that he would like to show him themarks he still had on his neck where, he said, the girl had touched himwith her anointed hands.
He took off his collar after infinite fumbling hesitation, and loweredhis shirt a little for the doctor to see. And there, on the surface ofthe skin, lay a faint reddish line across the shoulder and extending alittle way down the back towards the spine. It certainly indicatedexactly the position an arm might have taken in the act of embracing.And on the other side of the neck, slightly higher up, was a similarmark, though not quite so clearly defined.
"That was where she held me that night on the ramparts," he whispered, astrange light coming and going in his eyes.
* * * * *
It was some weeks later when I again found occasion to consult JohnSilence concerning another extraordinary case that had come under mynotice, and we fell to discussing Vezin's story. Since hearing it, thedoctor had made investigations on his own account, and one of hissecretaries had discovered that Vezin's ancestors had actually lived forgenerations in the very town where the adventure came to him. Two ofthem, both women, had been tried and convicted as witches, and had beenburned alive at the stake. Moreover, it had not been difficult to provethat the very inn where Vezin stayed was built about 1700 upon the spotwhere the funeral pyres stood and the executions took place. The townwas a sort of headquarters for all the sorcerers and witches of theentire region, and after conviction they were burnt there literally byscores.
"It seems strange," continued the doctor, "that Vezin should haveremained ignorant of all this; but, on the other hand, it was not thekind of history that successive generations would have been anxious tokeep alive, or to repeat to their children. Therefore I am inclined tothink he still knows nothing about it.
"The whole adventure seems to have been a very vivid revival of thememories of an earlier life, caused by coming directly into contact withthe living forces still intense enough to hang about the place, and, bya most singular chance, too, with the very souls who had taken part withhim in the events of that particular life. For the mother and daughterwho impressed him so strangely must have been leading actors, withhimself, in the scenes and practices of witchcraft which at that perioddominated the imaginations of the whole country.
"One has only to read the histories of the times to know that thesewitches claimed the power of transforming themselves into variousanimals, both for the purposes of disguise and also to convey themselvesswiftly to the scenes of their imaginary orgies. Lycanthropy, or thepower to change themselves into wolves, was everywhere believed in, andthe ability to transform themselves into cats by rubbing their bodieswith a special salve or ointment provided by Satan himself, found equalcredence. The witchcraft trials abound in evidences of such universalbeliefs."
Dr. Silence quoted chapter and verse from many writers on the subject,and showed how every detail of Vezin's adventure had a basis in thepractices of those dark days.
"But that the entire affair took place subjectively in the man's ownconsciousness, I have no doubt," he went on, in reply to my questions;"for my secretary who has been to the town to investigate, discoveredhis signature in the visitors' book, and proved by it that he hadarrived on September 8th, and left suddenly without paying his bill. Heleft two days later, and they still were in possession of his dirtybrown bag and some tourist clothes. I paid a few francs in settlement ofhis debt, and have sent his luggage on to him. The daughter was absentfrom home, but the proprietress, a large woman very much as he describedher, told my secretary that he had seemed a very strange, absent-mindedkind of gentleman, and after his disappearance she had feared for a longtime that he had met with a violent end in the neighbouring forest wherehe used to roam about alone.
"I should like to have obtained a personal interview with the daughterso as to ascertain how much was subjective and how much actually tookplace with her as Vezin told it. For her dread of fire and the sight ofburning must, of course, have been the intuitive memory of her formerpainful death at the stake, and have thus explained why he fancied morethan once that he saw her through smoke and flame."
"And that mark on his skin, for instance?" I inquired.
"Merely the marks produced by hysterical brooding," he replied, "likethe stigmata of the _religieuses_, and the bruises which appear on thebodies of hypnotised subjects who have been told to expect them. This isvery common and easily explained. Only it seems curious that these marksshould have remained so long in Vezin's case. Usually they disappearquickly."
"Obviously he is still thinking about it all, brooding, and living itall over again," I ventured.
"Probably. And this makes me fear that the end of his trouble is notyet. We shall hear of him again. It is a case, alas! I can do little toalleviate."
Dr. Silence spoke gravely and with sadness in his voice.
"And what do you make of the Frenchman in the train?" I askedfurther--"the man who warned him against the place, _a cause du sommeilet a cause des chats?_ Surely a very singular incident?"
"A very singular incident indeed," he made answer slowly, "and one I canonly explain on the basis of a highly improbable coincidence--"
"Namely?"
"That the man was one who had himself stayed in the town and undergonethere a similar experience. I should like to find this man and ask him.But the crystal is useless here, for I have no slightest clue to goupon, and I can only conclude that some singular psychic affinity, someforce still active in his being out of the same past life, drew him thusto the personality of Vezin, and enabled him to fear what might happento him, and thus to warn him as he did.
"Yes," he presently continued, half talking to himself, "I suspect inthis case that Vezin was swept into the vortex of forces arising out ofthe intense activities of a past life, and that he lived over again ascene in which he had often played a leading part centuries before. Forstrong actions set up forces that are so slow to exhaust themselves,they may be said in a sense never to die. In this case they were notvital enough to render the illusion complete, so that the little manfound himself caught in a very distressing confusion of the present andthe past; yet he was sufficiently sensitive to recognise that it wastrue, and to fight against the degradation of returning, even inmemory, to a former and lower state of development.
"Ah yes!" he continued, crossing the floor to gaze at the darkening sky,and seemingly quite oblivious of my presence, "subliminal up-rushes ofmemory like this can be exceedingly painful, and sometimes exceedinglydangerous. I only trust that this gentle soul may soon escape from thisobsession of a passionate and tempestuous past. But I doubt it, I doubtit."
His voice was hushed with sadness as he spoke, and when he turned backinto the room again there was an expression of profound yearning uponhis face, the yearning of a soul whose desire to help is sometimesgreater than his power.