by Forrest Reid
The albatross trembled with annoyance. She rose threateningly, and Tom was afraid there was going to be a battle. But the serpent was either too cautious or too lazy, and to Tom’s relief the dangerous moment passed. The temper of the albatross remained ruffled, however, and when, with those snowy pinions closely enfolding him, Tom couldn’t help fidgeting a little, she gave him a peck and said quite sharply: “Sit still!”
Tom repressed a squeal. It hadn’t really been a very hard peck, but on the other hand she had a beak of iron, and he certainly didn’t want a second one. So he sat as quiet as he could, and it was more with a view of effecting an escape than anything else that he presently made a suggestion. “Now that there are four of us,” he ventured timidly, “we might have a game of something perhaps.”
“Why so?” inquired the albatross, and Tom indeed had no particular reason to offer. “Making up a four you know,” he explained rather feebly. “It was just the words that put it into my head.”
“The child has very little sense,” the albatross observed. “It’s kinder to take no notice.”
“I’ll play a game with you, if you like,” Dog Whispered in Tom’s ear, but the albatross overheard the whisper and her wing pressed tighter than ever.
“He doesn’t want to play games,” she snapped. “He’s tired. If anything, he ought to have a sleep, and in the meantime we’ll sit as we are.”
Dog did not insist. There was something very nice about Dog, Tom thought. Though he mightn’t be as clever as the other two, or have so strong a character, you felt at your ease with him, which you didn’t quite feel with either the serpent or the albatross. Dog was like the Rock of Ages: he evidently hadn’t changed in one single quality since the very beginning; so that knowing successive generations of dogs was really just knowing Dog.
“It seems strange that nobody is asking questions,” remarked the albatross inconsequently. “I suppose it is because the child is extremely well-mannered—either that or else unusually shy.”
Now Tom had been thinking of a question at that very moment. Unfortunately it was an extremely personal one, having to do with the loss of the serpent’s legs, so in spite of this encouragement he still hesitated to ask it. The albatross broke the ice herself. “What is your name, child? I expect you have a special name, like Adam and the angels.”
“Tom is my special name,” he said.
“Tom!” they all repeated, and it had a curiously different sound coming from each. Dog turned it into a short sharp bark; with the albatross it sounded more like a cry, plangent and harsh; with the serpent it had a low breathing sound that was half a love word.
And then suddenly a most pertinent question occurred to Tom, and he asked: “Does God ever walk in the Garden now?”
Possibly he had said the wrong thing: it very much looked as if he had. The serpent’s eyes glittered; the gaze of the albatross was fixed on a point so remote that Tom wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that her home was at the South Pole. Only Dog remained untroubled as ever. “I don’t think so,” he answered cheerfully. “I’ve never seen him.” Then he added, with a sort of quaint innocence: “Sometimes I bark at the angels and their swords.”
Tom could quite believe it. All the same he thought it was brave of Dog, and said so. Dog looked pleased. “They take no notice,” he remarked modestly. “Besides, I keep on our side of the hedge. It’s just for something to do, and because there’s nobody else to bark at, but it’ll be different now you’ve come; I’m very glad you’ve come.”
Tom was sorry to disappoint Dog, but he felt he ought to mention that he was only paying a visit and wouldn’t be staying long. . . . Though how on earth he was to set about going home again, he had as yet no idea.
“Of course he won’t be staying,” chimed in the albatross, in her possessive domineering way. “I’m going to take him to the sea in a few minutes.”
“Then your nest isn’t in that tree,” Tom exclaimed, “and I needn’t have been frightened to climb it after all!”
“Do I look as if I would have a nest in a tree?” the albatross replied impatiently. “Use your wits, child.”
“I am using them,” Tom retorted, for he was getting rather tired of being treated in this fashion. “And it’s ridiculous of you to talk of carrying me. You couldn’t possibly do it even if I was only half as big as I am.”
The albatross looked as astonished as if a linnet had attacked her. “Well I never! she cried, spreading out her wings like great white fans and taking a few leaps from the ground as though to show him. Tom felt that perhaps he had spoken too impulsively, and to change the subject he asked her where she did live.
The albatross settled down again, but he wasn’t sure that she had entirely forgiven him, for it was rather coldly that she answered: “I live beside the Pacific Ocean.”
“Near the top of a cliff,” Dog supplemented.
“The highest cliff,” continued the albatross. “If you were there you could look out over the water all day long. And when there was a storm you would see waves as high as that tree, rolling in and bursting and thundering up the rocks. At night you would watch the clouds scudding across the moon, and listen to the howling of the wind, and perhaps see a great ship foundering.”
“I don’t want to see a ship foundering,” Tom told her.
“Don’t you?” said the albatross, surprised. “Why not? It’s most exciting. There’s nothing so exciting as a good shipwreck, with plenty of screaming and struggling. And in the morning at sunrise you fly over the place where the ship sank and search among the floating wreckage and dip down to the green waves and let them carry you along, up and down, up and down—like the rocking of a cradle—with nothing but the sea all round you and the sky above you for miles and miles and miles.”
“I couldn’t do any of those things,” said Tom quietly, “because I can’t fly. And I can’t even stay in the water for more than a very few minutes without getting benumbed.”
“Benumbed!” repeated the albatross. But she was really so moved by her own picture of the joys of the sea that she had hardly listened to him. “I must be going,” she cried restlessly. “I only looked in—I don’t remember why.”
“Only birds and fishes can get in or out,” Dog whispered to Tom. “The rest of us have to stay here.”
The albatross now stood with her head lifted and her eyes fixed on the sun. She stretched out her wings, beat them twice, and then, seemingly without an effort, rose into the air and glided away over the tops of the trees, higher and higher, till she was only a minute white speck in the sky; and finally that speck too vanished.
“And she never even said good-bye!” Dog marvelled. “After all the fuss she made about you too!”
Yet with the disappearance of the albatross he himself seemed to find that they had talked long enough, for he yawned, and presently dropping his head down between his outstretched paws, closed his eyes.
* * *
And all this time the serpent had been looking at Tom. It was as if he had been waiting for this moment, as if he had anticipated it, for now he drew his green coils in a little, and his narrow head found a pillow on Tom’s legs, while his eyes remained bright and wakeful.
“You are the youngest thing here,” he breathed, “and I am the oldest. I am older than Dog and the albatross, older than Eden, older than the earth.”
“I don’t think I can be the youngest, surely,” Tom replied, having just seen a very small squirrel peeping down at them between the leaves.
“You are the youngest, because nothing has been born here since the gates were shut. Nothing has been born and nothing has changed.”
“But you said just now that birds and fishes could get in,” Tom reminded him dreamily, for the serpent’s voice had a strangely lulling influence.
“I didn’t say it; Dog said it. Birds and fishes might find a way in, but, nothing that was not here at the beginning could live in this air.”
“The albatross,” Tom murm
ured.
“The albatross is Albatross and was named by Adam.”
“Then is Adam himself still alive?” Tom questioned wonderingly.
“No. But on the other creatures there was no curse, only upon Adam and me. Besides, old age came on very slowly here, not at all as it does with you; and sooner or later most of the animals and birds and creeping things ate the berries of the Tree of Life. After that they remained for ever as they were.”
“Is that a secret?” Tom asked eagerly. “I mean, can I tell about it when I go back? I’m sure nobody else knows, and it may be frightfully important.” Not that he could quite see the importance, but he was sure it would cause a sensation and possibly make him famous. Not only scientists like Daddy, but people like bishops and Dean Inge—— And then an objection occurred to him. “How is it that I can live here?” he asked. “I wasn’t here in the beginning and yet the air hasn’t done me any harm.” He drew in a deep breath to prove it.
“Didn’t an angel bring you?” said the serpent softly. “I too am an angel.”
“A fallen angel,” Tom very nearly reminded him, but luckily checked himself in time.
The serpent looked sad, which made Tom feel sympathetic. He began to stroke the smooth glittering coils. Then the serpent raised his head and pressed it tightly against Tom’s cheek. Fallen angel or not, Tom had begun to like him. “I never cared for Eva,” the serpent whispered, so close to Tom’s ear that it was like the murmur of a sea-shell. “That was the cause of it all.”
Tom, who had no great affection for Eva himself, was neither surprised nor shocked, only interested. “What had she done?” he asked.
“I don’t know really that she had done anything,” the serpent answered plaintively. “You see, she didn’t need to do very much, she was a misfortune in herself. Everything was so much nicer before she came. Afterwards Adam grew different. It was because she didn’t really care about anybody except Adam, though at first, to please him, she pretended that she did. And before long she got so great an influence over him that he could see only with her eyes and think only her thoughts. Of course he didn’t know this. She would ask his advice, she would consult him, she would look at him with eyes full of admiration, but all the time really she was making him say and do exactly what she wanted. And he was flattered and pleased and weak and foolish, and he thought there was no one like her.”
“Nor was there,” the serpent presently resumed in a more sombre tone. “Poor old Dog was the first to find the difference, though he was too simple to understand what had caused it. Eva, in a way, was simple also. I knew exactly the depth of her intelligence, and it exasperated me to see Adam hanging on her words.”
“How deep was it?” Tom inquired curiously.
“A dewdrop would be an ocean in comparison.” Tom could not help fancying that there must be some personal feeling here, but he did not say so. “Adam’s must have been still shallower,” was what he said.
“So far as she was concerned Adam’s didn’t exist,” the serpent replied. Then he paused, but soon went on sadly: “It was at no time remarkable, but before Eva came there was at least enough of it to make conversation possible. We used to talk in the evenings—Adam and I—when it was coolest and pleasantest. It was rather like talking to Dog, but Adam wanted to learn, he took an interest in most things, and I became very fond of him. Later he was interested only in Eva, which made his conversation monotonous. To her, however, this seemed natural and right: she wished to have him wholly to herself, and when he came to talk with me—as he would still do sometimes, though more and more rarely—she would find an excuse for calling him away. There would be something she wanted done, something she must ask him about, something she must tell him. Failing this, she would come with him, and that was worst of all. Picture it—little Tom! Since she couldn’t be ignored, everything had to be reduced to the plane of her interests. Adam would sit silent, listening to her. I would be silent too. And she would babble on. But, unlike Adam, I used to think, when I wasn’t too bored to think anything, how sweet it would be to wring that soft little neck. Anyhow, it was all utterly changed from what it had been. And then one day, when Adam was doing something or other she wanted him to do, I thought of a plan to get rid of her. I knew it needn’t be elaborate; I didn’t think it would be difficult; as a matter of fact I decided only to remind her that this tree was forbidden. There was no need to do more, no need to persuade her to taste an apple. If I had tried to persuade her she might even have refused. So I simply watched—watched her eating it—taking silly little bites so that I could hardly keep from pushing the whole thing down her throat. This I know was mere impatience, and when she had finished I no longer felt any grudge against her, and was even prepared to be friendly with her. I knew she would be banished from the Garden, and Eva as a memory would be not unpleasant. What never for a moment occurred to me was that she would run straight off to Adam and get him to eat an apple. Perhaps I ought to have guessed, but I imagined she would keep the whole thing secret, if not for her own sake, then for his.”
“I’ve eaten an apple,” Tom could not help interrupting.
“Yes, I saw you; but they’ve lost most of their power now.”
“Oh,” said Tom, a little regretfully. “They’re like musk, I suppose. You know how the smell of musk has gone.” Then he asked: “Has the Tree of Life lost its power too?”
“Do you wish to live for ever?” the serpent questioned him.
Tom hesitated. “I don’t know. . . . Yes, I do. I do wish it.”
“It only means for ever in that body,” the serpent said. “It would be a foolish choice. You will live for ever as it is, though it will not always be the same life. But that is better.”
“Do you think so?” Tom pondered doubtfully.
“Much better,” said the serpent. “How do you know that your present life will not become a burden to you? I could show you lives you have already lived, and I don’t think you would wish to return to them.”
“Tell me about them, you mean,” Tom corrected him. “You couldn’t show me.”
“Show you,” the serpent said.
“But how?” Tom argued. “If a thing is past it isn’t any longer there. You can’t show me the snow house Pascoe and I built last winter. I could show you a photograph of it if I was at home, but the house itself isn’t there.”
“Where is it then?”
Tom wondered. Where was it? Where was anything you didn’t happen to be looking at? “I suppose,” he said, puckering up his forehead, “I suppose it has gone into the invisible world.”
“There is no invisible world,” said the serpent.
“But that can’t be true,” Tom answered, frowning still more. “Lots of things are invisible. Sounds are invisible—and smells.”
“There is no invisible world,” the serpent repeated.
Tom made no reply, and presently the serpent continued: “There are degrees of perfection in the organs of vision—that is all.”
It was a puzzling doctrine. But then, many things were puzzling, and it was not the first time that something rather like it had occurred to Tom himself. At all events, even if it wasn’t true, he couldn’t prove it wasn’t. He remained silent until he said: “You mean that all that has happened is still there.”
“Yes; all that has been; all that is; all that will be. Time is an illusion. Shut your eyes and look.”
Tom shut his eyes, and, as he did so, he felt the air filling with the serpent’s peculiar odour, felt the serpent’s coils twining about his naked body like a climbing plant, felt the serpent’s face pressing, smooth cheek by cheek, against his own. There was a minute of dizziness—a blank—and then he was in a large bare stone room hung with black curtains and decaying tapestries. Or was it he? A boy was in the room, waiting beside an old man clad in a white woollen robe, with a wreath of leaves upon his silver hair, and a short naked sword at his feet. The old man was shredding herbs into a chafing-dish poised above a lighted b
razier, and a blue smoke wound up to the roof. There was a white marble altar with strangely shaped alchemical vessels upon it, and the boy, who was Tom and yet not Tom, knew the names though not all the purposes of these vessels, and he heard the old man muttering as his hands moved like fluttering pigeons above the chafing-dish.
“To-night, half an hour after midnight, the great work will be accomplished,” he muttered. But the boy had heard those words before, and he knew the old man’s hopefulness, and he thought: “The great work will never be accomplished. He has been saying that for years. He was saying it before I was born. He will be saying it when he is dying. Always it has failed, something has gone wrong before the appointed time was reached. And I think it was well for me perhaps that this happened. I do not like to leave him, because he has been kind in his way, and he is old and lonely; but I will leave him before the hour strikes.” He could hear the wind in the dark trees outside, and a black cat, crouching beyond the magic circle drawn upon the floor, watched him with fierce green eyes. Then the boy thought, as he had lately come to think, that the cat was an evil spirit, for he knew that the old man was a wizard. “The cat will try to keep me from escaping,” he thought. “He is here for both of us. Why else should he have come? But my master does not know this. Or if he knows it, then the cat is his familiar spirit. I am not sure which is true, but I am sure that it is time for me to leave him—now while I am still able to do so.”
The smoke drifted slowly through the room, and as it spread out, the different objects it touched began to waver and to lose their substantiality, and the mirror behind the altar became clouded. There was no light now except from the fire burning in the brazier, and this fire glowed and dimmed as if it were a living creature breathing. The air grew sensibly colder, and the boy felt an increasing lassitude in all his limbs, and a numbing drowsiness that weakened his will. And suddenly there came a knocking on the heavy oak door. The old man did not hear it, for he had begun his incantations in a louder voice. But the cat heard it and growled angrily. His fur bristled, his tail switched from side to side, his eyes glared and he looked as if he were about to spring. Then the knocking came again—louder, louder, louder. The cat sprang; it was tearing at Tom’s doublet—trying to reach his throat. It had grown large and heavy; it was shaking him. Tom gasped, choked, cried out—and suddenly he was back in his bedroom at the Fort, with Pascoe standing over him in the sunlight, his hands still grasping Tom’s shoulders.
