Three More John Silence Stories
Page 5
sharply from face to face, feeling as though some silent,unseen process were changing everything about him. All the faces seemedoddly familiar. Pagel, the Brother he had been talking with, was ofcourse the image of Pagel, his former room-master, and Kalkmann, he nowrealised for the first time, was the very twin of another master whosename he had quite forgotten, but whom he used to dislike intensely inthe old days. And, through the smoke, peering at him from the corners ofthe room, he saw that all the Brothers about him had the faces he hadknown and lived with long ago--Roest, Fluheim, Meinert, Rigel, Gysin.
He stared hard, suddenly grown more alert, and everywhere saw, orfancied he saw, strange likenesses, ghostly resemblances,--more, theidentical faces of years ago. There was something queer about it all,something not quite right, something that made him feel uneasy. He shookhimself, mentally and actually, blowing the smoke from before his eyeswith a long breath, and as he did so he noticed to his dismay that everyone was fixedly staring. They were watching him.
This brought him to his senses. As an Englishman, and a foreigner, hedid not wish to be rude, or to do anything to make himself foolishlyconspicuous and spoil the harmony of the evening. He was a guest, and aprivileged guest at that. Besides, the music had already begun. BruderSchliemann's long white fingers were caressing the keys to some purpose.
He subsided into his chair and smoked with half-closed eyes that yet saweverything.
But the shudder had established itself in his being, and, whether hewould or not, it kept repeating itself. As a town, far up some inlandriver, feels the pressure of the distant sea, so he became aware thatmighty forces from somewhere beyond his ken were urging themselves upagainst his soul in this smoky little room. He began to feel exceedinglyill at ease.
And as the music filled the air his mind began to clear. Like a liftedveil there rose up something that had hitherto obscured his vision. Thewords of the priest at the railway inn flashed across his brainunbidden: "You will find it different." And also, though why he couldnot tell, he saw mentally the strong, rather wonderful eyes of thatother guest at the supper-table, the man who had overheard hisconversation, and had later got into earnest talk with the priest. Hetook out his watch and stole a glance at it. Two hours had slipped by.It was already eleven o'clock.
Schliemann, meanwhile, utterly absorbed in his music, was playing asolemn measure. The piano sang marvellously. The power of a greatconviction, the simplicity of great art, the vital spiritual message ofa soul that had found itself--all this, and more, were in the chords,and yet somehow the music was what can only be described asimpure--atrociously and diabolically impure. And the piece itself,although Harris did not recognise it as anything familiar, was surelythe music of a Mass--huge, majestic, sombre? It stalked through thesmoky room with slow power, like the passage of something that wasmighty, yet profoundly intimate, and as it went there stirred into eachand every face about him the signature of the enormous forces of whichit was the audible symbol. The countenances round him turned sinister,but not idly, negatively sinister: they grew dark with purpose. Hesuddenly recalled the face of Bruder Kalkmann in the corridor earlier inthe evening. The motives of their secret souls rose to the eyes, andmouths, and foreheads, and hung there for all to see like the blackbanners of an assembly of ill-starred and fallen creatures. Demons--wasthe horrible word that flashed through his brain like a sheet of fire.
When this sudden discovery leaped out upon him, for a moment he lost hisself-control. Without waiting to think and weigh his extraordinaryimpression, he did a very foolish but a very natural thing. Feelinghimself irresistibly driven by the sudden stress to some kind of action,he sprang to his feet--and screamed! To his own utter amazement he stoodup and shrieked aloud!
But no one stirred. No one, apparently, took the slightest notice of hisabsurdly wild behaviour. It was almost as if no one but himself hadheard the scream at all--as though the music had drowned it andswallowed it up--as though after all perhaps he had not really screamedas loudly as he imagined, or had not screamed at all.
Then, as he glanced at the motionless, dark faces before him, somethingof utter cold passed into his being, touching his very soul.... Allemotion cooled suddenly, leaving him like a receding tide. He sat downagain, ashamed, mortified, angry with himself for behaving like a fooland a boy. And the music, meanwhile, continued to issue from the whiteand snakelike fingers of Bruder Schliemann, as poisoned wine might issuefrom the weirdly fashioned necks of antique phials.
And, with the rest of them, Harris drank it in.
Forcing himself to believe that he had been the victim of some kind ofillusory perception, he vigorously restrained his feelings. Then themusic presently ceased, and every one applauded and began to talk atonce, laughing, changing seats, complimenting the player, and behavingnaturally and easily as though nothing out of the way had happened. Thefaces appeared normal once more. The Brothers crowded round theirvisitor, and he joined in their talk and even heard himself thanking thegifted musician.
But, at the same time, he found himself edging towards the door, nearerand nearer, changing his chair when possible, and joining the groupsthat stood closest to the way of escape.
"I must thank you all _tausendmal_ for my little reception and the greatpleasure--the very great honour you have done me," he began in decidedtones at length, "but I fear I have trespassed far too long already onyour hospitality. Moreover, I have some distance to walk to my inn."
A chorus of voices greeted his words. They would not hear of hisgoing,--at least not without first partaking of refreshment. Theyproduced pumpernickel from one cupboard, and rye-bread and sausage fromanother, and all began to talk again and eat. More coffee was made,fresh cigars lighted, and Bruder Meyer took out his violin and began totune it softly.
"There is always a bed upstairs if Herr Harris will accept it," saidone.
"And it is difficult to find the way out now, for all the doors arelocked," laughed another loudly.
"Let us take our simple pleasures as they come," cried a third. "BruderHarris will understand how we appreciate the honour of this last visitof his."
They made a dozen excuses. They all laughed, as though the politeness oftheir words was but formal, and veiled thinly--more and more thinly--avery different meaning.
"And the hour of midnight draws near," added Bruder Kalkmann with acharming smile, but in a voice that sounded to the Englishman like thegrating of iron hinges.
Their German seemed to him more and more difficult to understand. Henoted that they called him "Bruder" too, classing him as one ofthemselves.
And then suddenly he had a flash of keener perception, and realised witha creeping of his flesh that he had all along misinterpreted--grosslymisinterpreted all they had been saying. They had talked about thebeauty of the place, its isolation and remoteness from the world, itspeculiar fitness for certain kinds of spiritual development andworship--yet hardly, he now grasped, in the sense in which he had takenthe words. They had meant something different. Their spiritual powers,their desire for loneliness, their passion for worship, were not thepowers, the solitude, or the worship that _he_ meant and understood. Hewas playing a part in some horrible masquerade; he was among men whocloaked their lives with religion in order to follow their real purposesunseen of men.
What did it all mean? How had he blundered into so equivocal asituation? Had he blundered into it at all? Had he not rather been ledinto it, deliberately led? His thoughts grew dreadfully confused, andhis confidence in himself began to fade. And why, he suddenly thoughtagain, were they so impressed by the mere fact of his coming to revisithis old school? What was it they so admired and wondered at in hissimple act? Why did they set such store upon his having the courage tocome, to "give himself so freely," "unconditionally" as one of them hadexpressed it with such a mockery of exaggeration?
Fear stirred in his heart most horribly, and he found no answer to anyof his questionings. Only one thing he now understood quite clearly: itwas their purpose to keep him here. They did not
intend that he shouldgo. And from this moment he realised that they were sinister, formidableand, in some way he had yet to discover, inimical to himself, inimicalto his life. And the phrase one of them had used a moment ago--"this_last_ visit of his"--rose before his eyes in letters of flame.
Harris was not a man of action, and had never known in all the course ofhis career what it meant to be in a situation of real danger. He was notnecessarily a coward, though, perhaps, a man of untried nerve. Herealised at last plainly that he was in a very awkward predicamentindeed, and that he had to deal with men who were utterly in earnest.What their intentions were he only vaguely guessed. His mind, indeed,was too confused for definite ratiocination, and he was only able tofollow blindly the strongest instincts that moved in him. It neveroccurred to him that the Brothers might all be mad, or that he himselfmight have temporarily lost his senses and be suffering under someterrible