The Serpent

by Neil M. Gunn

  None of these had the purely physical menace of such a figure as the one in the morning coat with the hands hanging loosely in front. The head and neck were cut off, not straight across, but at a slant upward from below the right shoulder. Perhaps the head and neck were there. After the first involuntary vision he had never dared to look.

  Now the utterly awful thing about a vision of this kind was not merely that it came into focus against the will, against every desire, but that when he used his will to banish it, it remained waiting until he had finished jerking his physical eyes about.

  In this capacity of his creations to remain waiting was contained, perhaps above all else, their most demoralising power.

  After a time he felt himself slowly getting the upperhand of the disruptive forces, cunningly and gradually getting stronger in that region where the fight went on, until in the small hours of one morning he realised that all along he had been growing weaker and that suddenly, now, at this moment, he was going to break.

  Hitherto there had been at one end, as it were, of his creations the figure of his father – rarely menacing him directly, but indirectly of an extreme menace – and at the other that smooth animal-demon of the Devil’s Croft. This night – he must have awakened to the intensity of the vision – the demon was at some little distance, beyond a moving formlessness of unfocused figures, and the face was turned towards him. The face was covered with the same fine ratlike hair as the body but quite short and smooth, except where it ran in two raised circles about the eyes like continued eyebrows. The eyes were perfectly round and flat, and the fine skin over them was delicate and charged with a light that was a glimmer of pain, pain that might have come from a scratching of the eyeballs, though manifestly that was not its source. They were looking directly at him across and between the other figures, watchful in a manner impossible to describe because they knew what was going to happen and he in the bed did not. But apprehension was now drawn out to so exquisite a tension that when he realised his father was about to appear in a commanding action that would be final, he knew at last that he was going to be beaten, that he could not hold the tension. As it snapped and he collapsed inwardly into the dark chaos of himself, he began to scream.

  His mother came running on her bare feet, in her nightgown, without a light. As she bent over him in the dark, crying his name, he gripped her with all his might and clung to her.

  He clung to her like a child wakening out of a nightmare, conscious of her body as a shield against the convoluting hell behind him.

  Her arms were round him. ‘No-one will get you!’ she cried. She hit his back with the broad of her hand in firm tender slaps. She pressed him to her. His fingers dug into her loose flesh in a way that must have hurt. She cried soothingly, her voice tremulous and breaking, but fighting for him.

  As the wave of horror ebbed, he became aware of her great bosom and the broad planes of her shoulders, and from them there passed into him a slow suffusing sense of physical reality, quietening and strengthening him. He clung to her like the drowning man to his spar, the swirl of the nameless ocean of horror falling away from him.

  When at last, fully conscious, he let go his hold and lay back exhausted, he said, ‘Don’t go yet for a little while.’

  His quietened tone of acceptance, of natural dependence, moved her to a depth of compassion and love that brought a quivering, flowering assurance into her voice and the mothering actions of her body. ‘My own boy!’ she murmured, and her arms went over him, tucking the clothes around him; all in a practical capable way, with no intrusion on the terrible sensitiveness she had come to know. ‘Wait you now, and I’ll have everything all right.’ She lifted his head firmly and set the pillow straight.

  It was an exquisite relief to give in to her, to care no more, to feel her near him. Never had his pride broken like this before anyone; but now that it was broken, his acceptance of his mother was the acceptance of a natural ally who spoke and behaved validly in her own right. That she was not the figure his secret pride and egoism had desired was now all the better. The qualities in her that formerly had made him impatient with her were the very qualities of endurance and patience which he now saw were the only ultimates against the cruelties and inexhaustible resource of fate.

  As though she sensed she could not just sit beside him there in the dark but must distract him, she said, ‘Would you like the lamp lit?’

  ‘Not yet for a little,’ he answered, realising how much the darkness had helped him.

  His friendly tones must have been a song in her ears, for always her questioning had been wrong. It had been wrong this time, but now in an instant she knew why.

  ‘I’ll blow the fire up in no time and heat some milk for you. It’s good for putting you to sleep. I’ll light the candle.’ She did not wait for him to say anything but, still talking, went into the kitchen. Soon there was a flicker of light coming into his room, and now her voice was ordering the cat off the chair. He could distinctly hear her breath like a bellows blowing the peat embers. She came in with the candle. ‘I’ll leave this here so that I’ll see my way in,’ she said, giving him a look. ‘You’re feeling a bit better now?’ she asked, almost as if he had been suffering from a pain in the stomach.

  ‘Yes, much better,’ he answered.

  Off she went again, nearly running.

  The sight of her, waddling away in such eagerness, was too much for his terribly weakened condition. There was something in it of love that was too much, and suddenly the tears burst from his eyes and he was choking his mouth against sobbing.

  He was certain that, hearing him – and she was bound to hear – she would come running, and to cope with her now was beyond his power. He just could not bear it if she came in. But she did not come. And when the spasm exhausted itself and he listened, there was a great quietness in the kitchen. No sooner was he composed than she entered with the milk in a bowl.

  ‘It’s not hot,’ she said, setting the candle on the small table by his bed. ‘You take it now. Take it all. It will do you good.’ She set the pillows behind him with sure strength.

  He could hardly hold the bowl and she helped him to balance it. After he had drunk a couple of mouthfuls she took the bowl from him and placed it on the table. ‘Take your time,’ she said. ‘There’s no hurry.’

  He lay back against the pillows and closed his eyes, breathing heavily.

  ‘It’s good nourishing food you need to bring your strength back. You haven’t been eating nearly enough. But I’m going to see to it, and you’ll have to eat. Now, come, drink some more.’

  He gulped most of it and then pushed the bowl away. She set it on the table.

  ‘I’m a great bother to you,’ he said, lying back.

  She began straightening the bedclothes. She could have withstood anything but this tribute in his voice. She shook her head, her hands busy. Then she turned her back to him and stood quite still. He knew she was fighting her tears.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother.’

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Oh no.’ Her voice choked. ‘Don’t say that.’ She drew in a deep breath that broke. ‘I’m foolish. Don’t mind me.’

  ‘Mother –’

  ‘No, no,’ she cried, and started off, but stood again, then blindly came for the bowl, to carry it away. But she turned her face to him for a moment. How ghastly his own must have been could be read in the compassion of her eyes. It was a moment of pure communion in which a feeling of her own insufficiency, now that he was kind to her, must have risen like a ghost within her.

  She stood, bereft of intention and movement. Then she groped for the quilt to set it straight again, her head bowed. But she could not deal with her emotion, and leaned on her hands, and then with a queer culminating cry of shame for her weakness, her breast fell on the bed and she buried her face in the quilt, weeping horribly.

  ‘Mother!’ He leaned forward and stroked her head, the tears running hot down his throat.

  ‘No, no, I’m no use. I’m
no use to you.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Mother.’

  ‘Oh, my son,’ she cried, ‘if I could give my life to make you well – how gladly I would give it!’ Her head crushed down again from side to side.

  But she fought down her emotion, and he felt her head press against the touch of his hand.

  ‘You have been good to me, Mother.’

  She got up and wiped her eyes. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ she muttered to herself.

  She went away and came back; she busied herself about the house.

  ‘Do you think you’ll go to sleep?’ she asked when there was nothing more she could pretend to do.

  ‘Yes. You go to your bed now.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll leave your door open so that you can call me if you want anything.’

  An hour later, he heard her coming on her bare feet to the door. He breathed evenly, and she had hardly gone away when a drowsiness began to settle down upon him.

  The following afternoon he tried to get up and found he could not stand. Sitting on the bed, however, he got his clothes on and was making an effort again to get to his feet when his mother came in.

  He sat down and smiled to her. ‘I thought I would like to go through,’ he said and his whole body wavered.

  ‘Do you think you should try?’ she asked through her amazement, grasping him at the same time by the arm.

  ‘I think,’ he murmured, ‘it would do me good.’

  She put her arm round him as he stumbled and all but carried him into the kitchen, where she padded the wooden armchair with her bed quilt and set him comfortably to the fire.

  But his head was swimming and he felt like an empty husk. The faintness grew and in a few moments his mother was carrying him back to bed.

  The humiliation of this did not worry him.

  In a few days he was making the afternoon journey to the kitchen fire on his own and lengthening his stay each time. There was a haste in his mother’s actions like an overflow of happiness. It was not only that she could not do enough for him – and all she did was practically suited to the occasion – but also that some overflow of well-being suffused her acts. Even the articles of furniture and the fire were in this pleasant conspiracy. Inside the four walls of the kitchen everything was friendly.

  Now and again he would see his mother glance through the window. Without a word having been spoken between them on the subject of possible callers, she was keeping watch! One afternoon she said on a breath, ‘There’s Big Ann coming!’

  At once he got up and retreated to his own room. She followed him. ‘Lie down and put the quilt over you,’ she said.

  ‘No, I’ll do fine here,’ he answered, for she had a fire in his room. At first he had harshly repudiated the notion of a fire, but now it added to the intimacy and security of his room and of the house.

  He saw her dismissing him from her mind as she arranged herself for the meeting with Big Ann, and as she left him he smiled.

  After a time he stole to the door to listen to their talk.

  ‘Yes, he’s coming on fine. He’s a little weak yet, but I’m hoping soon to have him up.’

  ‘It’s a weakening thing, the pleurisy,’ said Big Ann. ‘Had he much fever?’

  ‘He’d a good bit, but I kept him warm and gave him a hot drink when he needed it. He’s weak enough now but the fever’s left him and that’s a blessing.’

  ‘He’s on the mend in that case. It would be a wetting he got maybe?’

  ‘It was,’ answered his mother brightly. ‘But now if you’ll excuse me I’ll just put on the kettle.’

  ‘You’ll not make any tea for me.’

  ‘Indeed and I will.’

  As his mother lifted the wooden lid off the bucket of well-water, Tom went back to his chair by the fire.

  So it was pleurisy he had!

  For the first time in months a feeling of the old natural humour spread over him.

  There was a period of quiet even happiness, like a period of normal convalescence, which lasted over many days. He could still recall the figures of his visions but they had grown thin and lost their power. His mind could wander away from them as a body by its own volition could wander back from a cliff-head into green fields or small birch woods. Often indeed his mind did wander into a sunniness of braes and woods and singing birds.

  This was an intimate world of his own, and all that had happened before was outside it. Even his old desires were outside it and had lost their force, much as the horrible visions had.

  He tried to read some of his agnostic books but somehow did not care for them very much. They slightly excited him and so tended to tear the delicate peace in which he lived. A paragraph or two at a time was enough, for the spirit that informed them was an earnest fighting spirit, and he was finished with fighting for the time being, and craved something more in accord with this intangible harmony and sheer wonder of being alive.

  As he grew stronger he would often have long thoughts into the outside world. Memories of Glasgow came back to him frequently at this time, as if Glasgow were a distant place of refuge in the factual world much as his own home was in this present intimate life.

  Then one night when he awoke and found the fire dying, he decided not to make it up and fell into a reverie. He was wandering back from his visit to Bob and Dannie, and in the cavern of the street experienced again that peculiar sadness at being separated from his old friends. His contacts with Dave and Tim, the new direction of his thoughts, the inspiration from the feeling that at last he had found the true meaning and reality of existence, made a return to the old-fashioned world of Bob and Dannie impossible. Unless he had experienced it, he would not have believed that the sense of division could have been so absolute.

  In his reverie, the persons and scene changed, and now he was understanding the mood that moved Janet, the reluctance upon Janet, the meaning and reality of existence for Janet, that made it impossible for her to turn back from the new burning love to the old-fashioned friendly liking.

  She could not do it. It was beyond her human strength to turn back from Donald to him.

  So clearly, so utterly, did he understand this that he was moved to a profound sympathy and held as it were in his hands her beating heart.

  Slowly an infinite sadness darkened his tenderness, and his love which now gleamed brightly (gleamed as never before for it was at last seen and comprehended against eternal loss) slowly faded, and the vivid gleam of Janet’s face and the beating of her heart faded, and the fingers of each hand closed and writhed against one another with the dry rustling sound of withered leaves.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A dullness came down upon him after that, an even shadow over the mind, like the shadow over the land on one of these December days when the ceiling of cloud hung low and grey. The gleam of convalescence had gone, but in its place physical strength had come and presently he was adventuring out to the byre to see the beasts and into the barn where he would stand idly until he grew cold and shivered.

  Sometimes, as his eyes cast about to make sure there was no-one near, he experienced the criminal feeling of one in hiding. His fear of encountering a fellow being was such that if he heard behind him, or outside beyond the barn door, a soft sound like a footfall, his heart at once began to race and his mouth dried in the moments of listening.

  The inside of his home was now like a burrow, a secure bolt-hole from the outside world. Sometimes he caught his mother’s eyes on him when he happened to lift his glance from the fire into which he could stare for long blank periods. He knew that she would have liked him to be more active, not for the sake of doing real work, but for his own good. Yet she, too, in some measure was affected by him, was getting used to this secluded life, and was a jealous part of it.

  They spoke little to each other, for he had no desire to know what was happening among the neighbours. But where he could help her he did, and when she found the byre cleaned or the two buckets filled with well-water or a pail of pot
atoes beside the iron pot, she was obviously pleased. Soon he was giving such help regularly and more than once forestalled her in some special task.

  These days toward the end of December were very short, outside duties few, and the evenings long. He tried to read again, but could not get back the old enthusiasm. It did not seem to matter to him very greatly whether the God of Abraham was this kind of god or that. Disputation for its own sake gave him no pleasure. And if the answer to the riddle of the universe was so-and-so, well, it was hardly a matter for excitement. Materialistic certainty had the air of finality which might be satisfactory but gave no thrill – unless possibly to the man who was having the fun of proving his theory. But the earnestness of such a man seemed to Tom strangely remote at times, like the noise of a December bluebottle, galvanised into action against the window-pane by a blink of sun. In the case of the bluebottle, its concern to lay its eggs was at least imperative. It could not help it.

  On New Year’s eve they heard footsteps passing the window. It was about nine o’clock and pitch dark. At once Tom got up and tiptoed past the knocking to his own room. His mother opened the door but could not see the visitor.

  ‘It’s me, Andie Gordon. We were wondering how Tom was. How is he?’

  ‘He’s getting on fine, thank you. He’s lying down just now, for he’s not very strong yet. Will you come in?’

  ‘Oh well no, we won’t be bothering you in tha’ case. No. We were just going our rounds, an’ we thought of Tom, and as we were going our rounds we thought we would jus’ call round to see how he was. But if he’s lying down – tha’s fine. It’s all righ’. I hope you’re quite well yourself, Mrs. Mathieson?’