Looking Backward, 2000 to 1887
Page 20
Chapter 20
That afternoon Edith casually inquired if I had yet revisited theunderground chamber in the garden in which I had been found.
"Not yet," I replied. "To be frank, I have shrunk thus far from doingso, lest the visit might revive old associations rather too stronglyfor my mental equilibrium."
"Ah, yes!" she said, "I can imagine that you have done well to stayaway. I ought to have thought of that."
"No," I said, "I am glad you spoke of it. The danger, if there was any,existed only during the first day or two. Thanks to you, chiefly andalways, I feel my footing now so firm in this new world, that if youwill go with me to keep the ghosts off, I should really like to visitthe place this afternoon."
Edith demurred at first, but, finding that I was in earnest, consentedto accompany me. The rampart of earth thrown up from the excavation wasvisible among the trees from the house, and a few steps brought us tothe spot. All remained as it was at the point when work was interruptedby the discovery of the tenant of the chamber, save that the door hadbeen opened and the slab from the roof replaced. Descending the slopingsides of the excavation, we went in at the door and stood within thedimly lighted room.
Everything was just as I had beheld it last on that evening one hundredand thirteen years previous, just before closing my eyes for that longsleep. I stood for some time silently looking about me. I saw that mycompanion was furtively regarding me with an expression of awed andsympathetic curiosity. I put out my hand to her and she placed hers init, the soft fingers responding with a reassuring pressure to my clasp.Finally she whispered, "Had we not better go out now? You must not tryyourself too far. Oh, how strange it must be to you!"
"On the contrary," I replied, "it does not seem strange; that is thestrangest part of it."
"Not strange?" she echoed.
"Even so," I replied. "The emotions with which you evidently credit me,and which I anticipated would attend this visit, I simply do not feel.I realize all that these surroundings suggest, but without theagitation I expected. You can't be nearly as much surprised at this asI am myself. Ever since that terrible morning when you came to my help,I have tried to avoid thinking of my former life, just as I haveavoided coming here, for fear of the agitating effects. I am for allthe world like a man who has permitted an injured limb to liemotionless under the impression that it is exquisitely sensitive, andon trying to move it finds that it is paralyzed."
"Do you mean your memory is gone?"
"Not at all. I remember everything connected with my former life, butwith a total lack of keen sensation. I remember it for clearness as ifit had been but a day since then, but my feelings about what I rememberare as faint as if to my consciousness, as well as in fact, a hundredyears had intervened. Perhaps it is possible to explain this, too. Theeffect of change in surroundings is like that of lapse of time inmaking the past seem remote. When I first woke from that trance, myformer life appeared as yesterday, but now, since I have learned toknow my new surroundings, and to realize the prodigious changes thathave transformed the world, I no longer find it hard, but very easy, torealize that I have slept a century. Can you conceive of such a thingas living a hundred years in four days? It really seems to me that Ihave done just that, and that it is this experience which has given soremote and unreal an appearance to my former life. Can you see how sucha thing might be?"
"I can conceive it," replied Edith, meditatively, "and I think we oughtall to be thankful that it is so, for it will save you much suffering,I am sure."
"Imagine," I said, in an effort to explain, as much to myself as toher, the strangeness of my mental condition, "that a man first heard ofa bereavement many, many years, half a lifetime perhaps, after theevent occurred. I fancy his feeling would be perhaps something as mineis. When I think of my friends in the world of that former day, and thesorrow they must have felt for me, it is with a pensive pity, ratherthan keen anguish, as of a sorrow long, long ago ended."
"You have told us nothing yet of your friends," said Edith. "Had youmany to mourn you?"
"Thank God, I had very few relatives, none nearer than cousins," Ireplied. "But there was one, not a relative, but dearer to me than anykin of blood. She had your name. She was to have been my wife soon. Ahme!"
"Ah me!" sighed the Edith by my side. "Think of the heartache she musthave had."
Something in the deep feeling of this gentle girl touched a chord in mybenumbed heart. My eyes, before so dry, were flooded with the tearsthat had till now refused to come. When I had regained my composure, Isaw that she too had been weeping freely.
"God bless your tender heart," I said. "Would you like to see herpicture?"
A small locket with Edith Bartlett's picture, secured about my neckwith a gold chain, had lain upon my breast all through that long sleep,and removing this I opened and gave it to my companion. She took itwith eagerness, and after poring long over the sweet face, touched thepicture with her lips.
"I know that she was good and lovely enough to well deserve yourtears," she said; "but remember her heartache was over long ago, andshe has been in heaven for nearly a century."
It was indeed so. Whatever her sorrow had once been, for nearly acentury she had ceased to weep, and, my sudden passion spent, my owntears dried away. I had loved her very dearly in my other life, but itwas a hundred years ago! I do not know but some may find in thisconfession evidence of lack of feeling, but I think, perhaps, that nonecan have had an experience sufficiently like mine to enable them tojudge me. As we were about to leave the chamber, my eye rested upon thegreat iron safe which stood in one corner. Calling my companion'sattention to it, I said:
"This was my strong room as well as my sleeping room. In the safeyonder are several thousand dollars in gold, and any amount ofsecurities. If I had known when I went to sleep that night just howlong my nap would be, I should still have thought that the gold was asafe provision for my needs in any country or any century, howeverdistant. That a time would ever come when it would lose its purchasingpower, I should have considered the wildest of fancies. Nevertheless,here I wake up to find myself among a people of whom a cartload of goldwill not procure a loaf of bread."
As might be expected, I did not succeed in impressing Edith that therewas anything remarkable in this fact. "Why in the world should it?" shemerely asked.