The Return Of The Soul

by Robert Hichens

the ladiesleft the dining-room, and entered into conversation. At the moment Iwas glad, but before we followed the women I would have given a year--Imight say years--of my life not to have spoken to him, not to have heardhim speak that night.

  How did we drift into that fatal conversation? I hardly remember. Wetalked first of the neighbourhood, then swayed away to books, then topeople. Yes, that was how it came about. The Professor was speaking ofa man whom we both knew in town, a curiously effeminate man, whose everythought and feeling seemed that of a woman. I said I disliked him,and condemned him for his woman's demeanour, his woman's mind; but theProfessor thereupon joined issue with me.

  "Pity the fellow, if you like," he uttered, in his rather stridentvoice; "but as to condemning him, I would as soon condemn a tadpole fornot being a full-grown frog. His soul is beyond his power to manage, oreven to coerce, you may depend upon it."

  Having sipped his port, he drew a little nearer to me, and slightlydropped his voice.

  "There would be less censure of individuals in this world," he said,"if people were only a little more thoughtful. These souls are likeletters, and sometimes they are sealed up in the wrong envelope. Forinstance, a man's soul may be put into a woman's body, or _vice versa_.It has been so in D------'s case. A mistake has been made."

  "By Providence?" I interrupted, with, perhaps, just a _soupcon_ ofsarcasm in my voice.

  The Professor smiled.

  "Suppose we imitate Thomas Hardy, and say by the President of theImmortals, who makes sport with more humans than Tess," he answered."Mistakes may be deliberate, just as their reverse may be accidental.Even a mighty power may condescend sometimes to a very practical joke.To a thinker the world is full of apple-pie beds, and cold wetsponges fall on us from at least half the doors we push open. Thesoul-juggleries of the before-mentioned President are very curious, butpeople will not realize that soul transference from body to body isas much a plain fact as the daily rising of the sun on one half of theworld and its nightly setting on the other."

  "Do you mean that souls pass on into the world again on the death ofthe particular body in which they have been for the moment confined?" Iasked.

  "Precisely: I have no doubt of it. Sometimes a woman's soul goes intoa man's body; then the man acts woman, and people cry against him foreffeminacy. The soul colours the body with actions, the body does notcolour the soul, or not in the same degree."

  "But we are not irresponsible. We can command ourselves."

  The Professor smiled dryly.

  "You think so?" he said. "I sometimes doubt it."

  "And I doubt your theory of soul transference."

  "That shows me--pardon the apparent impertinence--that you have neverreally examined the soul question with any close attention. Do yousuppose that D------ really likes being so noticeably different fromother men? Depend upon it,' he has noticed in himself what we havenoticed in him. Depend upon it, he has tried to be ordinary, and foundit impossible. His soul manages him as a strong nature manages aweak one, and his soul is a female, not a male. For souls have sexes,otherwise what would be the sense of talking about wedded souls? I haveno doubt whatever of the truth of reincarnation on earth. Souls go onand on following out their object of development."

  "You believe that every soul is reincarnated?"

  "A certain number of times."

  "That even in the animal world the soul of one animal passes into thebody of another?"

  "Wait a minute. Now we are coming to something that tends to provemy theory true. Animals have souls, as you imply. Who can know themintimately and doubt it for an instant? Souls as immortal--or asmortal--as ours. And their souls, too, pass on."

  "Into other animals?"

  "Possibly. And eventually, in the process of development, into humanbeings."

  I laughed, perhaps a little rudely. "My dear Professor, I thought thatold notion was quite exploded in these modern scientific days."

  "I found my beliefs upon my own minute observations," he said ratherfrigidly. "I notice certain animals masquerading--to some extent--ashuman beings, and I draw my own conclusions. If they happen to fit inat all with the conclusions of Pythagoras--or anyone else, for thatmatter--well and good. If not, I am not much concerned. Surelyyou notice the animal--and not merely the animal, but definiteanimals--reproduced in man. There are men whose whole demeanour suggeststhe monkey. I have met women who in manner, appearance, and evencharacter, were intensely like cats."

  I uttered a slight exclamation, which did not interrupt him.

  "Now, I have made a minute study of cats. Of all animals they interestme the most. They have less apparent intensity, less uttered passion,than dogs, but in my opinion more character. Their subtlety isextraordinary, their sensitiveness wonderful. Will you understand mewhen I say that all dogs are men, all cats women? That remark expressesthe difference between them."

  He paused a moment.

  "Go on--go on," I said, leaning forward, with my eyes fixed upon hiskeen, puckered face.

  He seemed pleased with my suddenly-aroused interest..

  "Cats are as subtle and as difficult to understand as the most complexwoman, and almost as full of intuitions. If they have been well treated,there is often a certain gracious, condescending suavity in theirdemeanour at first, even towards a total stranger; but if that strangeris ill disposed toward them, they seem instinctively to read his soul,and they are in arms directly. Yet they dissemble their fears in a coldindifference and reserve. They do not take action: they merely abstainfrom action. They withdraw the soul that has peeped out, as they canwithdraw their claws into the pads upon their feet. They do not showfight as a dog might, they do not become aggressive, nor do they whineand put their tails between their legs. They are simply on guard,watchful, mistrustful. Is not all this woman?"

  "Possibly," I answered, with a painful effort to assume indifference.

  "A woman intuitively knows who is her friend and who is her enemy--solong, at least, as her heart is not engaged; then she runs wild, Iallow. A woman---- But I need not pursue the parallel. Besides, perhapsit is scarcely to the point, for my object is not to bolster up anabsurd contention that all women have the souls of cats. No; but I havemet women so strangely like cats that their souls have, as I said beforesouls do, coloured their bodies in actions. They have had the very lookof cats in their faces. They have moved like them. Their demeanour hasbeen patently and strongly feline. Now, I see nothing ridiculous in theassumption that such women's bodies may contain souls--in process ofdevelopment, of course--that formerly were merely cat souls, but thatare now gaining humanity gradually, are working their way upwards inthe scale. After all, we are not so much above the animals, and in ourlapses we often become merely animals. The soul retrogrades for themoment."

  He paused again and looked at me. I was biting my lips, and my glass ofwine was untouched. He took my agitation as a compliment, I suppose, forhe smiled and said:

  "Are you in process of conversion?"

  I half shook my head. Then I said, with an effort: "It is a curious andinteresting idea, of course. But there is much to explain. Now, I shouldlike to ask you this: Do you--do you believe that a soul, if it passeson as you think, carries its memory with it, its memory of former lovesand--and hates? Say that a cat's soul goes to a woman's body, andthat the cat has been--has been--well, tortured--possibly killed, bysomeone--say some man, long ago, would the woman, meeting that man,remember and shrink from him?"

  "That is a very interesting and curious problem, and one which I do notpretend to have solved. I can, therefore, only suggest what might be,what seems to me reasonable.

  "I do not believe that the woman would remember positively, but I thinkshe might have an intuition about the man. Our intuitions are, perhaps,sometimes only the fragmentary recollections of our souls, of whatformerly happened to them when in other bodies. Why, otherwise, shouldwe sometimes conceive an ardent dislike of some stranger--charming toall appearance--of whom we know no evil, whom we have never heard of n
ormet before? Intuitions, so called, are often only tattered memories.And these intuitions might, I should fancy, be strengthened, givenbody, robustness, by associations--of place, for example. Cats becomeintensely attached to localities, to certain spots, a particular houseor garden, a particular fireside, apart from the people who may bethere. Possibly, if the man and the woman of whom you speak couldbe brought together in the very place where the torture arid deathoccurred, the dislike of the woman might deepen into positive hatred.It would, however, be always unreasoning hatred, I think, and even quiteunaccountable to herself. Still----"

  But here Lord Melchester rose from the table. The conversations brokeinto fragments. I felt that I was pale to the lips.

  We passed into the drawing-room. The ladies