Speaker 1: The man who went too far by E. F. Benson,
The little villages and Faith's nestles in a hollow of
wooded hill up on the north bank of the River
Fawn in the County of Hampshire, huddling close round its
gray Norman church, as if for spiritual protection against the
fays and fairies, the trolls and little people who might
be supposed still to linger in the vast empty spaces
of the new forest, and to calm after dusk and
do their doubtful businesses. Once outside the hamlet, you may
walk in any direction, so long as you avoid the
high road which leads to Brockenhast, for the length of
a summer afternoon, without seeing sign of human habitation, or
possibly even catching sight of another human being. Shaggy wild
ponies may stop their feeding for a moment as you pass.
The white scuts of rabbits will vanish into their burrows.
A brown viper perhaps will glide from your path into
a clump of heather, and unseen birds will chuckle in
the bushes. But it may easily happen that for a
long day you will see nothing human, but you will
not feel in the least lonely in summer at any rate,
the sunlight will be gay with butterflies, and the air
thick with all those woodland sounds, which, like instruments in
an orchestra, combine to play the great symphony of the
yearly festival of June. Winds whisper in the birches and
sigh among the firs. Bees are busy with their redolent
labor among the heather. A myriad bird's chirp in the
green temples of the forest trees, and the voice of
the river, prackling over stony places, bubbling into pools, chuckling
and gulping round corners, gives you the sense that many
presences and companions are near at hand. Yet oddly enough, though,
one would have thought that these benign and cheerful influences
of wholesome air and spaciousness of forest were very healthful
comrades for a man, in so far as nature can
really influence this wonderful human genus, which has in these
centuries learned to defy her most violent storms in its
well established houses, to bridle her torrents and make them
lighted streets, to tunnel her mountains, and plow her seas.
The inhabitants of Saint Faith's will not willingly venture into
the forest after dark. For in spite of the silence
and loneliness of the hooded night, it seems that man
is not sure in what company he may suddenly find himself.
And though it is difficult to get from these villages
any very clear story of occult appearances, the feeling is widespread.
One story, indeed, I have heard, with some definiteness, the
tale of a monstrous goat that has been seen to
skip with hellish glee about at the woods and shady places.
And this perhaps is connected with the story which I
have here attempted to piece together. It too, is well
known to them. For all, remember the young artist who
died here not long ago. A young man or so,
he struck, the beholder of great personal beauty, with something
about him that made men's faces to smile and brighten
when they looked on him. His ghost, they will tell you,
walks constantly by the stream and through the woods which
he loved so, And in especial it haunts a certain house,
the last of the village, where he lived, and its
garden in which he was done to death. For my part,
I am inclined to think that the terror of the
forest dates chiefly from that day. So such as the
story is, I have set it forth in connected form.
It is based partly on the accounts of the villagers,
but mainly on that of Darcy, a friend of mine
and a friend of the man with whom these events
were chiefly concerned. The day had been one of untarnished
midsummer splendor, and as the sun drew near to its setting,
the glory of the evening grew every moment more crystalline,
more miraculous. Westward from Saint Faith's, the beech wood, which
stretched for some miles toward the heathery upland beyond, already
cast its veil of clear shadow over the red roofs
of the village, But the spire of the gray Church,
over topping all still pointed a flaming orange finger into
the sky. The river Fawn, which runs below, lay in
sheets of sky reflected blue, and wound its dreamy, devious
course round the edge of this wood, where a rough
two planked bridge crossed from the bottom of the garden
of the last house in the village, and communicated by
means of a little wicker gate with the wood itself. Then,
once out of the shadow of the wood, the stream
lay in flaming pools of the molten crimson of the sunset,
and lost itself in the haze of woodland distances. This house,
at the end of the village, stood outside the shadow,
as the lawn, which sloped down to the river, was
still flecked with sunlight. Garden beds of dazzling color lined
its gravel walks, and down the middle of it ran
a brick pergola, half hidden in clusters of rambler rows
and purple with starry clematis. At the bottom end of it,
between two of its pillars was slung a hammock containing
a shirt sleeved figure. The house itself lay somewhat remote
from the rest of the village, and a footpath leading
across two fields, now tall and fragrant with hay, was
its only communication with the high road. It was low,
built only to stories in height, and like the garden,
its walls were a mass of flowering roses. A narrow
stone terrace ran along the garden front, over which was
stretched an awning and on the terrace a young, silent
footed man servant was busied with the laying of the
table for dinner. He was neat handed and quick with
his job, and having finished it, he went back into
the house and reappeared again with a large, rough bath
towel on his arm. With this he went to the
hammock in the pergola nearly hat. Sir, he said, there's
mister Darcy come here, asked a voice from the hammock. No, sir,
if I'm not back when he comes, tell him I'm
just having a bathe before dinner. The servant went back
to the house, and after a moment or two, Frank
Halton struggled to a sitting posture and slipped out on
to the grass. He was of medium height and rather
slender in build, but the supple, ease and grace of
his movements gave the impression of great physical strength. Even
his descent from the hammock was not an awkward performance.
His face and hands were of very dark complexion, either
from constant exposure to wind and sun, or as his
black hair and dark eyes tended to show from some
strain of southern blood. His head was small, his face
of an exquisite beauty of modeling, while the smoothness of
its contour would have led you to believe that he
was a beardless lad still in his deens, But something
some look which living and experience alone can give, seemed
to contradict that, and finding yourself completely puzzled as to
his age, he would next moment probably cease to think
about that and only look at this glorious specimen of
young manhood with wondering satisfaction. He was dressed as became
the season and the heat, and wore only a shirt
open at the neck and a pair of flannel trousers.
His head, covered very thickly with a somewhat rebellious crop
of short, curly hair, was bare as he strolled across
the lawn to the bathing place that lay below. Then
for a moment there was silence, then the sound of
splashed and defied waters, and presently after a great shout
of ecstatic joy as he swam up stream, with the
foamed water standing in a frill round his neck. Then,
after some five minutes of limb stretching struggle with the flood,
he turned over on his back and with arms thrown wide,
floated down stream, ripple cradled and inert. His eyes were
shut and between half parted lips, he talked gently to himself.
I am one with it, he said to himself. The
river and I. I and the river, the coolness and
splash of it is I. And the water herbs that
wave in it are I also. And my strength and
my limbs are not mine but the rivers. It is
all one, all one, dear fawn. A quarter of an
hour later he appeared again at the bottom of the lawn,
dressed as before, his wet hair already drying into its crisp,
short curls. Again there he paused a moment, looking back
at the stream with the smile with which men look
on the face of a friend. Then he turned towards
the house. Simultaneously, his servant came to the door leading
on to the terrace, followed by a man who appeared
to be some half way through the fourth decade of
his years. Frank and he saw each other across the
bushes and garden beds, and each quickening his step, they
met suddenly face to face round an angle of the
garden walk in the fragrance of Syringa. My dear Darcy,
cried Frank, I am charmed to see you, But the
other stared at him in amazement. Frank, he exclaimed, Yes,
that is my name, he said, laughing, What is the matter.
Darcy took his hand. What have you done to yourself?
He asked, you're a boy again. Ah, I have a
lot to tell you, said Frank, Lots that you will
hardly believe, but I shall convince you. He broke off
suddenly and held up his hand. Hush, there is my nightingale,
he said. The smile of recognition and welcome with which
he had greeted his friend faded from his face, and
a look of rapt wonder took its place, as of
a lover listening to the voice of his beloved. His
mouth parted slightly, showing the white line of his teeth,
and his eyes looked out and out till they seemed
to Darcy to be focused on things beyond the vision
of man. Then something perhaps startled the bird, for the
song ceased. Yes, not to tell you, he said, really,
I am delighted to see you, but you look rather
white and pulled down. No wonder after that fever, And
there is to be no nonsense about this visit. It
is June. Now you stop here till you are fit
to begin work. Again two months at least. Oh, but
I can't trespass quite to that extent. Frank took his
arm and walked him down the grass. Trespas who talks
of trespass? I shall tell you quite openly when I
am tired of you. But you know, when we had
the studio together, we used not to bore each other. However,
it's ill talking of going away on the moment of
your arrival. Just a stroll to the river and then
it will be dinner time. Darcy took out his cigarette
case and offered it to the other. Frank laughed, No,
not for me, dear me. I suppose I used to
smoke once, how very odd given it up. I don't know.
I suppose I must have. Anyway, I don't do it now.
I would as soon think of eating meat. Another victim
on the smoking altar of vegetarianism. Victim asked Frank, do
I strike you as such? He paused on the margin
of the stream and whistled softly. Next moment, a moor
hen made its splashing flight across the river and ran
up the bank. Frank took it very gently in his
hands and stroked its head. As the creature lay against
his shirt, And is the house among the reeds still secure?
He half crooned to it, And is the missus quite well?
And are the neighbors flourishing their dear home with you?
And he flung it into the air. That bird's very tame,
said Darcy, slightly bewildered. He it is, rather, said Frank,
following its flight. During dinner, Frank chiefly occupied himself in
bringing himself up to date in the movements and achievements
of this old friend, whom he had not seen for
six years. Those six years, it now appeared, had been
full of incident and success. For Darcy. He had made
a name for himself as a portrait painter, which bad
fair to outlast the vogue of a couple of seasons,
and his leisure time had been brief then. Some four
months previously he had been through a severe attack of typhoid,
the result of which, as concerns this story, was that
he had come down to this sequestered place to recruit. Yes,
you've got on, said Frank at the end. I always
knew you would a r A with more in prospect
money you roll in it, I suppose. But oh Darcy,
how much happiness have you had all these years. That
is the only imperishable possession. And how much have you learned?
I don't mean an art even I could have done
well in that, Darcy laughed. Done well, my dear fellow,
All I have learned in these six years you knew
so to speak in your cradle. Your old pictures fit
huge prices. And do you never paint? Now? Frank shook
his head and no, I'm too busy, he said, doing what?
Please tell me? That is what every one is for,
ever asking me doing? I suppose you would say, I
do nothing. Darcy glanced up at the brilliant young face
opposite him. It seems to suit you that way of
being busy, he said. Now it's your turn. Do you read?
Do you study? I remember you saying that it would
do us, all, all us artists. I mean a great
deal of good if we would study any one human
face carefully for a year without recording a line. Have
you been doing that? Frank shook his head again. I
mean exactly what I say, he said. I have been
doing nothing, and I've never been so occupied. Look at me?
Have I not done something to myself? To begin with?
You're two years younger than I said, Darcy, at least
you used to be you therefore are thirty five. But
had I never seen you before, I should say you
were just twenty. But was it worth while to spend
six years of greatly occupied life in order to look
seems rather like a woman of fashion? Frank laughed boisterously.
The first time I've ever been compared to that particular
bird of prey, He said, No, that has not been
my occupation. In fact, I'm only very rarely conscious that
one effect of my occupation has been that. Of course
it must have been, if one comes to think of it,
it's not very important. Quite true, my body has become young,
but that's very little I have become young. Darcy pushed
back his chair and sat sideways to the table, looking
at the other. Has that been your occupation, then? He asked? Yes, that, anyhow,
is one aspect of it. Think what youth means. It
is the capacity for growth mind, body, spirit, All grow,
all get stronger, all have a fuller, firmer life. Every day.
That is something, considering that every day that passes after
the ordinary man reaches the full blown flower of his strength,
weakens his hold on life. A man reaches his prime,
and remains we say, in his prime for ten years,
or perhaps twenty. But after his primest prime is reached,
he slowly, insensibly weakens. These are the signs of age
in you, in your body, in your art, probably in
your mind. You're less electric than you were. But I
when I reach my prime, I'm nearing it. A ha ha.
You shall see. The stars had begun to appear in
the blue velvet of the sky. As to the east,
the horizon seen above the black silhouette of the village
was growing dove colored with the approach of moonrise. White
moths hovered dimly over the garden beds, and the footsteps
of night tiptoed through the bushes. Suddenly, Frank rose, Ah,
it is the supreme moment, he said, softly, Now, more
than at any other time. The current of life, the eternal,
imperishable current, runs so close to me that I am
almost enveloped in it. Be silent a minute. He advanced
to the edge of the terrace and looked out, standing
stretched with arms outspread. Darcy heard him draw a long
breath into his lungs, and, after many seconds, expel it again.
Six or eight times. He did this, then turned back
into the lamp light. It will sound to you quite mad,
I expect, he said. But if you want to hear
the soberest truth I have ever spoken, and shall ever speak,
I will tell you about myself. But come into the garden,
if it's not too damp for you. I have never
told anyone yet, but I shall like to tell you.
It's long, in fact, since I have even tried to
classify what I have learned. They wandered into the fragrant
dimness of the pergola and sat down. Then Frank began.
Years ago, do you remember, he said, we used often
to talk about the decay of joy in the world.
Many impulses, we settled had contributed to this decay, some
of which were good in themselves, others that were quite
completely bad. Among the good things, I caught what we
may call certain Christian virtues, renunciation, resignation, sympathy with suffering,
and the desire to relieve sufferers. But out of those
things spring very bad ones, useless renunciations, asceticism for its
own sake, mortification of the flesh with nothing to follow,
no corresponding gain. That is, and that awful and terrible
disease which devastated England some centuries ago, and from which
by heredity of spirit we suffer. Now Puritanism, that was
a dreadful plague. The brutes held and taught that joy
and laughter and merriment were evil. It was a doctrine,
the most profane and wicked. Why what is the commonest
crime one sees a sullen face? That is the truth
of the matter. Now, all my life I have believed
that we are intended to be happy, that joy is,
of all gifts, the most divine. And when I left
London abandoned my career, such as it was, I did
so because I intended to devote my life to the
cultivation of joy, and by continuous and unsparing effort to
be happy among people and in constant intercourse with others.
I did not find it possible. There were too many
distractions in towns and work rooms, and also too much suffering.
So I took one step backwards or forwards, as you
may choose to put it, and went straight to nature,
to trees, birds, animals, to all those things which quite
clearly pursue one aim only, which blindly follow the great
native instinct to be happy without any care at all
for morality or human law or divine law. I wanted
you understand to get all joy first hand and unadulterated.
And I think it scarce exists among men. It is obsolete.
Darcy turned in his chair. Ah, but what makes birds
and animals happy? He asked? Food, food, and mating. Frank
laughed gently in the stillness. And don't think I became
a sensualist, he said. I didn't make that mistake. For
the sensualist carries his miseries piggyback and round his feet,
des wounds the shroud that shall soon enwrap him. I
may be mad, it's true, but I'm not so stupid
anyhow as to have tried that. No, what is it
that makes puppies play with their own tails? That sends
cats on their prowling ecstatic errands at night? He paused
a moment. So I went to nature, he said. I
sat down here in this new forest, sat down, fair
and square and looked. That was my first difficulty, to
sit here quiet without being bored, to wait, without being impatient,
to be receptive and very alert. Though for a long
time nothing particular happened. The change, in fact was slow
in those early stages, nothing happened, asked Darcy, rather impatiently,
with the sturdy revolt against any new idea, which to
the English mind is synonymous with nonsense. Why what in
the world should happen now? Frank, as he had known him,
was the most generous but most quick tempered of mortal men.
In other words, his anger would flare to a prodigious
beacon under almost no provocation, only to be quenched again
under a gust of no less impulsive kindliness. Thus, the
moment Darcy had spoken, an apology for his hasty question
was half way up his tongue, but there was no
need for it to have traveled even so far. Laughed again,
with kindly genuine mirth. Oh, how I should have resented
that a few years ago, he said, Thank goodness, that
resentment is one of the things I got rid of.
I certainly wish that you should believe my story. In
fact you are going to, but that you, at this
moment should imply that you do not. Doth not concern me. Ah,
your solitary sojournings have made you in human, said Darcy,
still very English. No human, said Frank, rather more human
at least, rather less of an ape. Well, that was
my first quest, he continued, after a moment, the deliberate
and unswerving pursuit of joy, and my method, the eager
contemplation of nature. As far as motive went, I dare
say it was purely selfish. But as far as effect goes,
it seems to me about the best thing one can
do for one's fellow creatures. The happiness is more infectious
than small pox. So, as I said, I sat down
and waited. I looked at happy things zealously avoided the
sight of anything unhappy, and by degrees a little trickle
of the happiness of this blissful world began to filter
into me. The trickle grew more abundant. And now, my
dear fellow, if I could, for a moment divert from
me into you, one half of the torrent of joy
that pours through me day and night, you would throw
the world, art, everything aside, and just live exist. When
a man's body dies, it passes into trees and flowers. Well,
that is what I've been trying to do with my soul.
Before death. The servant had brought into the pergola a
table with siphons and spitirits and had set a lamp
upon it. As Frank spoke, he leaned forward towards the other,
and Darcy, for all his matter of fact common sense,
could have sworn that his companion's face shone was luminous
in itself. His dark brown eyes glowed from within the
unconscious smile of a child irradiated and transformed his face.
Darcy felt suddenly excited, exhilarated. Go On, he said, go on,
I can feel your somehow telling me sober truth. I
dare say you're mad, but I don't see that matters.
Frank laughed again. Mad, he said, es, certainly if you wish,
but I prefer to call it sane. However, nothing matters
less than what anybody chooses to call things. God never
labels his gifts. He just puts them into our hands,
just as he put animals in the garden of Eden
for Adam to name if he felt disposed so. By
the continual observance and study of things that were happy,
continued he. I got happiness. I got joy, but seeking it,
as I did from nature. I got much more, which
I did not seek, but stumbled upon originally by accident.
It's difficult to explain, but I will try. About three
years ago, I was sitting one morning in a place
I will show you to morrow. It is down by
the river bank, very green, dappled with sun and shade,
and the river passes there through some little clumps of reeds. Well,
as I sat there, doing nothing but just looking and listening,
I heard the sound quite distinctly of some flute like
instrument playing a strange, unending melody. I thought at first
it was some musical yokul on the highway, and didn't
pay much attention. But before long the strangeness and indescribable
beauty of the tune struck me. It never repeated itself,
but it never came to an end. Phrase after phrase
ran its sweet course. It worked gradually and inevitably up
to a climax, and having attained it, it went on.
Another climax was reached, and another and another. Then, with
a sudden gasp of wonder, I localized where it came from.
It came from the reeds, and from the sky, and
from the trees. It was everywhere. It was the sound
of life. It was my dear Darcy, as the Greeks
would have said, it was pan playing on his pipes,
the voice of nature. It was the life melody, the
world melody. Darcy was far too interested to interrupt, though
there was a question he would have liked to ask,
and Frank went on. Well, for the moment, I was terrified,
terrified with the impotent horror of nightmare. And I stopped
my ears and just ran from the place and got
back to the house, panting, trembling, literally in a panic. Unknowingly,
for at that time I only pursued joy. I had begun,
since I drew my joy from nature to get in
touch with nature. Nature, force, God call it what you will,
had drawn across my face, a little gossamer web of
essential life. I saw that when I emerged from my terror,
and I went very humbly back to where I had
heard the band pipes. But it was nearly six months
before I heard them again. Why was that, asked Dulcy.
Surely because I had revolted, rebelled, and worst of all,
been frightened. For I believe that just as there is
nothing in the world which so injures one's body is fear,
so there is nothing that so much shuts up the soul.
I was afraid. You see, of the one thing in
the world which has real existence, no wonder its manifestation
was withdrawn, and after six months, after six months, one
blessed morning, I heard the piping again. I wasn't afraid
that time, and since then it has grown louder, it
has become more constant. I now hear it often, and
I can put myself into such an attitude towards nature
that the pipes will almost certainly sound, and never yet
have they played the same tune. It is always something new,
something fuller, richer, more complete than before. What do you
mean by such an attitude towards nature, asked Darcy. I
can't explain that, but by translating it into a bodily attitude.
It is this. Frank sat up for a moment, quite
straight in his chair, then slowly sunk back, with arms
outspread and head drooped. That, he said, an effortless attitude,
but open, resting, receptive. It is just that which you
must do with your soul. Then he sat up again.
One word more, he said, And I will bore you
no further, nor unless you ask me questions, shall I
talk about it again? You will find me, in fact
quite sane in my mode of life, birds and beasts
you will see behaving somewhat intimately to me like that more,
but that is all. I will walk with you, ride
with you, play golf with you, and talk with you
on any subject you like. But I wanted you on
the threshold to know what has happened to me. And
one thing more will happen. He paused again, and a
slight look of fear crossed his eyes. There will be
a final revelation, he said, a complete and blinding stroke
which will throw open to me once and for all
the full knowledge, the full realization and comprehension that I
am one just as you are with life. In reality,
there is no me, no you, no it. Everything is
part of the one and only thing which is life.
I know that that is so, But the realization of
it is not yet mine, but it will be, And
on that day, so I take it, I shall see pan.
It may mean death, the death of my body, that is,
but I don't care. It may mean immortal, eternal life,
lived here and now and for ever. Then, having gained that,
my dear Darcy, I shall preach such a gospel of joy,
showing myself as the living proof of the truth that puritanism,
the dismal religion of sour faces shall vanish like a
breath of smoke, and be dispers'd and disappear in the
sunlit air. But first the full knowledge must be mine.
Darcy watched his face narrowly. You're afraid of that moment,
he said. Frank smiled at him. Quite true, you're quick
to have seen that. But when it comes, I hope
I shall not be afraid. For some little time, there
was silence. Then Darcy rose, who've bewitched me? You extraordinary boy?
He said? You've been telling me a fairy story? And
I find myself saying, promise me it's true. I promise you,
that said the other. And I know I sha'n't sleep,
added Darcy. Frank looked at him with a sort of
mild wonder, as if he scarcely understood. Well, what does
that matter, he said, I assure you it does. I'm
wretched unless I sleep. Of course, I can make you
sleep if I want, said Frank, in a rather bored voice. Well,
do very good, go to bed. I'll come upstairs in
ten minutes. Frank busied himself for a little after the
other had gone, moving the table back under the awning
of the verandah, and quenching the lamp. Then he went
back with his quick, silent tread upstairs and into Darcy's room.
The latter was already in bed, but very wide eyed
and wakeful, and Frank, with an amused smile of indulgence
as for a fretful child, sat down on the edge
of the bed. Look at me, he said, and Darcy looked.
The birds are sleeping in the break, said Frank softly,
And the winds are asleep. The sea sleeps, and the
tides are but the heaving of its breast. The stars
swing slow rocks in the great cradle of the heavens.
And he stopped, suddenly, gently blew out Darcy's candle, and
left him sleeping. Morning brought to Darcy a flood of
hard common sense, as clear and crisp as the sunshine
that filled his room. Slowly, as he woke, he gathered
together the broken threads of the memories of the evening
which had ended, so he told himself, in a trick
of common hypnotism, that accounted for it all. The whole
strange talk he had had. Was under a spell of
suggestion from the extraordinary, vivid boy who had once been
a man all his own excitement. His acceptance of the
incredible had been merely the effect of a stronger, more
potent will imposed on his own. How strong that will was,
he guessed from his own instantaneous obedience to Frank's suggestion
of sleep, and armed with impenetrable common sense, he came
down to breakfast. Frank had already begun and was consuming
a large plateful of porridge and milk with the most
prosaic and healthy appetite. Step twell, he asked, Yes, of course,
where did you learn hypnotism? By the side of the river.
You talked an amazing quantity of nonsense last night, remarked Darcy,
in a voice prickly with reason. Oh, rather, I felt
quite giddy. Look, I remember to order a dreadful daily
paper for you. You can read about any money, markets, or
politics or cricket matches. Darcy looked at him closely in
the morning light. Frank looked even fresher, younger, more vital
than he had done the night before, and the sight
of him somehow dnted Darcy's armor of common sense. You're
the most extraordinary fellow I ever saw, he said, I
want to ask you some more questions. Ask away, said Frank.
For the next day or two, Darcie, he replied his
friend with many questions, objections, and criticisms on the theory
of life, and gradually got out of him a coherent
and complete account of his experience. In brief then, Frank
believed that by lying naked, as he put it to
the force which controls the passage of the stars, the
breaking of a wave, the budding of a tree, the
love of a youth and maiden, he had succeeded in
a way hitherto undreamed of, in possessing himself of the
essential principle of life. Day by day, so he thought
he was getting nearer to and in closer union with
the great power itself, which caused all life, to be
the spirit of nature, of force, or the spirit of God.
For himself he confessed to what others would call paganism.
It was sufficient for him that there existed a principle
of life. He did not worship it, he did not
prate it, he did not praise it. Some of it
existed in all human beings, just as it existed in
trees and animals. To realize and make living to himself.
The fact that it was all one was his sole
aim and object. Here, perhaps Darcy would put in a
word of warning. Take care, he said, to see Pan
meant death, did it not. Frank's eyebrows would rise at this.
What does that matter? He said? True, the Greeks were
always right, and they said so. But there is another possibility.
For the nearer I get to it, the more living,
the more vital and young I become. What, then, do
you expect the final revelation will do for you? I
have told you, said he, It will make me immortal.
But it was not so much from speech and argument
that Darcy grew to grasp his RAN's conception as from
the ordinary conduct of his life. They were passing, for instance,
one morning down the village street, when an old woman,
very bent and decrepit, but with an extraordinary cheerfulness of face,
hobbled out from her cottage. Frank instantly stopped when he
saw her. You, oh, darling, how goes it all? He said,
But she didn't answer. Her dim old eyes were riveted
on his face. She seemed to drink in, like a
thirsty creature, the beautiful radiance which shone there suddenly she
put her two withered old hands on his shoulders. You're
just the sunshine in itself, she said, and he kissed
her and passed on. But scarcely a hundred yards further,
a strange contradiction of such tenderness occurred. A child running
along the path towards them, fell on a face and
set up a dismal cry of fright and pain. A
look of horror came into Frank's eyes, and, putting his
fingers in his ears, he fled at full speed down
the street and didn't pause till he was out of hearing. Darcy,
having ascertained that the child was not really hurt, followed
him in bewilderment. Are you without pity? Then, he asked.
Frank shook his head impatiently. Can't you see, he asked,
can't you understand that that sort of thing, pain, anger,
anything unlovely, throws me back retards the coming of the
great hour. Perhaps when it comes I shall be able
to piece that side of life on to the other,
onto the true religion of joy. At present I can't.
But the old woman was she not ugly? Frank's radiance
gradually returned, And oh no, she was like me. She
longed for joy and knew it when she saw it.
The old darling. Another question suggested itself. Then what about Christianity,
asked Darcy. I can't accept it. I can't believe in
any creed of which the central doctrine is that God,
who is joy, should have had to suffer. Perhaps it
was so in some inscrutable way. I believe it may
have been so, but I don't understand how it was possible.
So I leave it alone. My affair is joy. They
had come to the weir above the village, and the
thunder of riotous cool water was heavy in the air.
Trees dipped into the translucent stream with slender trailing branches,
and the meadow where they stood was starred with midsummer blossomings.
Larks shot up, caroling into the crystal dome of the blue,
and a thousand voices of June sang round them. Frank,
bare headed as was his wont, with his coats slung
over his arm and his shirt sleeves rolled up above
the elbow, stood there like some beautiful wild animal, with
eyes half shut and mouth half open, drinking in the
scented warmth of the air. Then suddenly he flung himself
face downwards on the grass at the edge of the stream,
burying his face in the daisies and cowslips and slay,
stretched there in wide armed ecstasy, with his long fingers
pressing and stroking the dewy herbs of the field. Never
before had Darcy seen him thus fully possessed by his idea,
his caressing fingers, his half buried face pressed close to
the grass. Even the clothed lines of his figure were
instinct with a vitality that somehow was different from that
of other men, And some faint glow from it reached Darcy.
Some thrill, some vibration from that charged recumbent body passed
to him, and for a moment he understood as he
had not understood before, despite his persistent questions and the
candid answers there received, how real and how realized by
Frank his idea was. Then suddenly, the muscles in Frank's
neck became stiff and alert, and he half raised his head,
whispering the pan pipes, the pan pipes close, oh so close,
very slowly, as if a sudden movement might interrupt the melody.
He raised himself and leaned on the elbow of his
bent arm. His eyes opened white, the lower lids drooped,
as if he focused his eyes on something very far away,
and the smile on his face broadened and quivered like
sunlight on still water, till the exultance of its happiness
was scarcely human. So he remained motionless and rapt for
some minutes. Then the look of listening died from his face,
and he bowed his head, satisfied. Ah, that was good,
he said. How is it possible you didn't hear? Oh,
you poor fellow, did you really hear nothing? A week
of this outdoor and stimulating life did wonders in restoring
to Darcy the vigor and health which his weeks of
fever had filched from him. And as his normal activity
and higher pressure of vitality returned, he seemed to himself
to fall even more under the spell which the miracle
of Frank's youth cast over him. Twenty times a day.
He found himself saying to himself suddenly, at the end
of some ten minutes silent resistance to the absurdity of
Frank's idea. But it isn't possible. It can't be possible.
And from the fact of his having to assure himself
so frequently of this, he knew that he was struggling
and arguing with a conclusion which had already taken root
in his mind, For in any case, a visible, living
miracle confronted him. Since it was equally impossible that this youth,
this boy trembling on the verge of manhood, was thirty five.
Yet such was the fact. July was ushered in by
a couple of days of blustering and fretful rain, and Darcy,
unwilling to risk a chill, kept to the house. But
to Frank, this weeping change of weather seemed to have
no bearing on the behavior of man, and he spent
his days exactly as he did under the suns of June,
lying in his hammock, stretched on the dripping grass, or
making huge, rambling excursions into the forest, the birds hopping
from tree to tree after him, to return in the evening,
drenched and soaked, but with the same unquenchable flame of
joy burning within him. Catch cold, he would ask, I've
forgotten how to do it. I think. I suppose it
makes one's body more sensible always to sleep out of doors.
People who live indoors always remind me of something peeled
and skinless. Do you mean to say you slept out
of doors last night in that deluge, asked Darcy. And
where may I ask? Frank thought, for a moment, I
stepped in the hammock till nearly dawn, he said, For
I remember the light blinked in the east when I awoke.
Then I went, Where did I go? Oh? Yes, to
the meadow where the pan pipe sounded so close a
week ago. You will with me, do you remember? But
I always have a rug if it's wet, And he
went whistling upstairs. Somehow that little touch, his obvious effort
to recall where he had slept, brought strangely home to
Darcy the wonderful romance of which he was the still
half incredulous beholder. Sleep till close on dawn in a hammock,
then the tramp or probably scamper underneath the windy and
weeping heavens, to the remote and lonely meadow by the weir.
The picture of other such nights rose before him, Frank sleeping,
perhaps by the bathing place, under the filtered twilight of
the stars or the white blaze of moonshine, astir and
wakening at some dead hour, perhaps a space of silent,
wide eyed thought, and then a wandering through the hushed
woods to some other dormitory, alone with his happiness, alone
with the joy and the life that suffused and enveloped him,
without other thought or desire or aim except the hourly
and never ceasing communion with the joy of nature. They
were in the middle of dinner that night, talking on
indifferent subjects, when Darcys suddenly broke off in the middle
of a sentence. I've got it, he said, at last,
I've got it. Congratulate you, said, Frank, But what the
radical unsoundness of your idea? It is this? All nature,
from highest to lowest, is full, crammed, full of suffering.
Every living organism in nature preys on another. Yet in
your aim to get close, to to be one with nature,
you leave suffering altogether out, You run away from it,
You refuse to recognize it. And you're waiting, you say,
for the final revelation. Frank's brow clouded slightly well, he asked,
rather wearily. Can't you guess then, when the final revelation
will be? Enjoy You're supreme? I grant you that I
didn't know a man could be so master of it.
You've learned, perhaps practically all that nature can teach. And if,
as you think, the final revelation is coming to you,
it will be the revelation of horror, suffering, death, pain
in all its hideous forms. Suffering does exist. You hate
it and fear it. Frank held up his hand. Stop
let me think, he said. There was silence for a
long minute that never struck me. He said, at length,
it is possible that what you suggest is true. Does
the sight of Pan mean that? Do you think? Is
it that nature take it altogether? Suffers, horribly, suffers to
a hideous and inconceivable extent. Shall I be shown all
the suffering? He got up and came round to where
Darcy sat. If it is so, so be it, he said, Because,
my dear fellow, I am near, so splendidly near to
the final revelation. To day the pipes have sounded almost
without pause. I have even heard the rustle in the bushes.
I believe of Pan's coming. I have seen yet I
saw to day the bushes pushed aside as if by
a hand, and peace of a face not human peered through.
But I wasn't frightened. At least I didn't run away
this time. He took a turn up to the window
and back again. Yes, there is suffering all through, he said,
and I have left it all out of my search. Perhaps,
as you say, the revelation will be that, and in
that case it will be good bye. I have gone
on one line. I shall have gone too far along
one road without having explored the other. But I can't
go back now. I wouldn't if I could not a
step would I retrace. In any case, whatever the revelation is,
it will be God. I'm sure of that. The rainy
weather soon passed, and with the return of the sun,
Darcy again joined Frank in long, rambling days. It grew
extraordinarily hotter, and with the fresh bursting of life after
the rain, Frank's vitality seemed to blaze higher and higher then,
as is the habit of the English weather, one evening,
clouds began to bank themselves up in the west. The
sun went down in a glare of coppery thunder rack,
and the whole earth, broiling under an unspeakable oppression and sultiness,
paused and panted for the storm. After sunset, the remote
fires of lightning began to wink and flickered on the horizon,
But when bedtime came, the storm seemed to have moved
no nearer, though a very low, unceasing noise of thunder
was audible. Weary and oppressed by the stress of the day,
Darcy fell at once into a heavy, uncomforting sleep. He
woke suddenly into full consciousness with the din of some
appalling explosion of thunder in his ears, and sat up
in bed with a racing heart. Then, for a moment,
as he recover'd himself from the panic land which lies
between sleeping and waking, there was silence, except for the
steady hissing of rain on the shrubs outside his window.
But suddenly that silence was shattered and shredded into fragments
by a scream from somewhere close at hand, outside in
the back garden, a scream of supreme and despairing terror. Again,
and once again it shrilled up, and then a babble
of awful words was interjected. A quivering, sobbing voice that
he knew, said my God, Oh, my God, oh Christ,
and then followed a little mocking, bleating laugh. Then was
silence again, only the rain hissed on the shrubs. All
this was but the affair of the moment, and without
pause either to put on clothes or light a candle,
Darcy was already fumbling at his door handle. Even as
he opened it, he met a terror stricken face outside,
that of the man servant who carried a life. Did
you hear, he asked. The man's voice was bleached to
a dull, shining whiteness. Yes, sir, he said, it was
the Master's voice. Together they hurried down the stairs and
through the dining room, where an orderly table for breakfast
had already been laid, and out on to the terrace.
The rain for the moment had been utterly stayed, as
if the tap of the heavens had been turned off.
And under the lowering black sky not quite dark, since
the moon rose somewhere serene behind the conglomerated thunder clouds,
Darcies stumbled into the garden, followed by the servant with
the candle. The monstrous, leaping shadow of himself was cast
before him on the lawn. Lost and wandering odors of
rose and lily and damp earth were thick about him.
But more pungent was some sharp and acrid smell that
suddenly reminded him of a certain chalet in which he
had once taken refuge in the Alps. In the blackness
of the hazy light from the sky and the vague
tossing of the candle behind him, he saw that the
hammock in which Frank so often lay was tenanted. A
gleam of white shirt was there, as if a man
sitting up in it, But across that there was an
obscure dark shadow, and as he approached the acrid odor
grew more intense. He was now only some few yards
away when suddenly the black shadow seemed to jump into
the air and came down with tappings of hard hoofs
on the brick path that ran down the burglar, and
with frolicsome skippings, galloped off into the bushes. When that
was gone, Darcy could see quite clearly that a shirted
figure sat up in the hammock. For one moment, from
sheer terror of the unseen, he hung on his step,
and the servant joining him, they walked together to the hammock.
It was Frank. He was in shirts and trousers only,
and he sat up with braced arms for one half
second he stared at them, his face a mask of horrible,
contoted terror. His upper lip was drawn back so that
the guns of the teeth appeared, and his eyes were
focused not on the two who approached him, but on
something quite close to him. His nostrils were widely expanded,
as if he panted for breath, and terror incarnate and
repulsion and deathly anguish ruled dreadful lines on his smooth
cheeks and forehead. Then, even as they looked, the body
sank backwards, and the robes of the hammock wheezed and strained.
Darcy lifted him out and carried him indoors. Once he
thought there was a faint, convulsive stir of the limbs
that lay with so dead a weight in his arms.
But when they got inside there was no trace of life.
But the look of supreme terror and agony of fear
had gone from his face. A boy tired with play,
but still smiling in his sleep. Was the burden he
laid on the floor. His eyes had closed, and the
beautiful mouth lay in smiling curves, even as when a
few mornings ago in the meadow by the weir, it
had quivered to the music of the unheard melody of
Pan's pipes. Then they looked further. Frank had come back
from his bath before dinner that night in his usual
costume of shirt and trousers, only he had not dressed,
and during dinner, so Darcy remembered, he had rolled up
the sleeves of his shirt to above the elbow. Later,
as they sat and talked after dinner, on the close
sultriness of the evening, he had unbuttoned the front of
his shirt to let what little breath of wind there
was play on his skin. The sleeves were rolled up.
Now the front of the shirt was unbuttoned, and on
his arms and on the brown skin of his chest
were strange discolorations which grew momently more clear and defined,
till they saw that the marks were pointed prints, as
if caused by the hoofs of some monstrous goat that
had leaped and stamped upon him. End of the man
who went too far