Speaker 1: The manuscript by Otto Larsen. Two men sat chatting together
one evening. Their daily business was to occupy themselves with literature.
At the present moment they were engaged in drinking whisky,
an occupation both agreeable and useful, and in chatting about books,
the theater, women, and many other things. Finally they came
round to that inexhaustible subject for conversation, the mysterious life
of the soul, the hidden things, the unknown, that theme
for which Shakespeare has given us an oft quoted and
oft abused device, which one of the men, mister X
now used to point his remarks. Raising his glass, he
looked at himself meditatively, in a mere opposite, and in
a good imitation of the manner of his favorite actor,
he quoted, there are more things in heaven and earth
than are dreamt of in thy philosophy, Horatio. Mister wy
arranged a fresh glass for himself and answered, I believe it.
I believe also that it is given but to a
few chosen ones to see these things. It never fell
to my lot, I know, fortunately for me, perhaps for
at least so it appears to me, these chosen ones
appear on closer investigation to be individuals of an abnormal
condition of brain. As far as I personally am concerned,
I know of nothing more strange than the usual logical
and natural sequence of events on our globe. I confess
things do sometimes happen outside of this orderly sequence. But
for the cold blooded and thoughtful person, the strange, the
apparently inexplicable, usually turns out to be a sum of chance,
that chance we will never be quite clever enough to
fully take into our calculations. As an instance, I would
like to tell you the story of what happened several
years back to a friend of mine, a young French writer.
He had a good, sincere mind, but he also had
a strong leaning toward Mistuss's, something which was just then
in danger of becoming as much of a fashion in
France as it is here now. The event of which
I am about to tell you threw him into what
was almost a delirium, which came near to robbing him
of his normal intelligence, and therefore came near to robbing
French readers of a few excellent books. This was the
way it happened. It was about ten years back, and
I was spending the spring and summer in Paris. I
had a room with the family of a concierge on
the left bank Rue de va Gerard, near the Luxembourg Gardens.
A few steps from my modest domicile lived my friend
Lucien F. We had become acquainted through a chain of
circumstances which do not belong to this story. But these
circumstances had made firm friends of us, a friendship which
was a source of great pleasure and also of assistance
to me in my study of Paris conditions. This friendship
also enabled me to enjoy better and cheaper whisky than
one can usually meet with in the city by the Seine,
a real good jameson Highland. Lucy and F had already
published several books which had aroused attention through the oddity
of their themes, and their gratifying success had made it
possible for him to establish himself in a comfortably furnished
bachelor apartment on the corner of the Rue de Vaucherarde
and the Rue de Conde. The apartment had a corridor
and three rooms, a dining room, a bedroom, and a
charming study with an enclosed balcony, the three windows of
which a large one in the center, and two smaller
ones at the side sent a flood of light in
over the great writing table, which filled nearly the entire balcony.
Inside the room, near the balcony stood a divan covered
with a bear skin rug. Upon this divan I spent
many of my hours in Paris occupied in the smoking
of my friend's excellent cigars and the sampling of his
superlatively good whisky. At the same time, I could lie
staring up at the tops of the tree in the
Luxembourg gardens while Lucian worked at his desk. For unlike
most writers, he could work best when he was not alone.
If I remained away several days, he would invariably ring
my bell early some morning and drag me out of
bed with the remark, the whiskey is ready. I can't
write if you are not there. During the particular days
of which I shall tell you, he was engaged in
the writing of a fantastic novelette, The Force of the Wind,
a work which interested him greatly, and which he would
interrupt unwillingly at intervals to furnish coffee for the well
known newspaper that numbered him among the members of its staff.
His books were printed by the same house that did
the printing for the paper. Often as I lay in
my favorite position on the divan, the bell would ring,
and we would be honored by a visit from the
printer's boy, Adolph, a little fellow in a blue blouse,
the true type of Paris gayman. Adolph rejoiced in a
broken nose, a pair of crafty eyes, and had his
fists always full of manuscripts, which he treated with a
carelessness that would have driven a literary novice to despair.
The long rolls of yellow paper would hang out of
his trousers pockets, as if ready to fall apart at
his next movement, and the disrespectful manner in which he
crammed my friend Lucian's scarcely dried essay into the breast
of his blouse would have certainly called forth remarks from
a journalist of more self conceit. But his eyes were
so full of sly cunning, and there was such an
atmosphere of Paris about the stocky little fourteen year old
Chap that we would often keep him longer with us
and treat him to a glass of anisette to hear
his opinion of the writers whose work he handled. He
was an amusing cross between a tricky little Paris gaymon
and a real child, and he hit off the characteristics
of the various writers with a keen touch of actuality,
as he could put into his stories of how many
sentimies he had won that morning at craps from his
friend Pierre. Pierre was another employee of the printing house,
Adolph's comrade in his study of the mysteries of Paris streets,
and now his rival. They were both in love with
the same girl, the fifteen year old daughter of the
keeper of La Prunelle cafe, and her favor was oft
in the prize of the morning's game. Now and then
this rivalry between the two young Parisians would drop into
a hand to hand fight. I myself was witnessed to
such a skirmish one day in front of La Prunelle.
The rivals pulled each other's hair mightily, while the manuscripts
flew about over the pavement, and Virginny, in her short skirts,
stood at the door of the cafe and laughed until
she seemed about to shake to pieces. Pierre was the strongest,
and Adolph came off with a bloody nose. He gathered
up his manuscripts in grim silence, and left the battlefield
and the still laughing Virginny with an expression of deep
anger on his wounded face. The following day, when I
teased him a little because of his defeat, he smiled
a sly smile and remarked, yes, but I want a
frank from him, the big stupid animal. And so it
was I, after all who took Virginny out. That evening.
We went to the Cafe naut where I let them
put me in a coffin and pretended to be decaying
to amuse her. She thought it was lots of fun.
One morning, Lucian had come for me as usual, put
me on the divan and seated himself at his writing table.
He was just putting the last words to his novel,
and the table was entirely covered with the scattered leaves
closely written. I could just see his neck as he
sat there, a thin, sinewed, expressive neck. He bent over
his work, blind and deaf for anything else. I lay
there and gazed out over the tops of the trees
in the park, up into the blue summer sky. The
window on the left side of the desk stood wide open,
for it was a warm and sultry day. I sipped
my whisky slowly. The air was heavy and thunder threatened
in the distance. After a little while, the clouds gathered together, heavy,
low hanging copper hued real thunder clouds, and the trees
in the park rustled softly. The air was stifling and
lay heavy as lead on my breast, Lucian. Lucian did
not hear or see anything. His pen flew over the paper.
I fell back lazily on my divan. Then suddenly there
was a mighty tumult. A strong gust of wind swept
through the street, bending the trees in the gardens quite
out of my horizon. With a crash, the right hand
window in the balcony flew wide open, and like a cyclone,
the wind swept through, clearing the table in an instant
of all those loose sheets of paper that had lain
scattered about it. The devil. Why don't you shut the window,
I cried, springing up from the sofa. Spare your energy.
It's too late, said Lucian, with a gentle mockery in
his soft voice. Look there, he pointed out into the street,
where his sheets of paper went swirling about in the
heavy air like white doves. A second later came the rain,
a veritable cloud burst. We shut the windows and gave
ourselves up to melancholy thoughts about the lost man Yu,
the recovery of which now seemed utterly hopeless. That's one
thousand francs at least that the wind has robbed me of,
sighed Lucian. Well, and Finn it doesn't matter so much.
But do you know anything more tiresome than to work
over the same subject a second time? I can't think
of doing it. It would fairly make me sick to
try it. We were in a sad mood that morning.
When we went out to breakfast at about two o'clock,
we looked about for some traces of the lost manuscript.
There was nothing to be seen. It had vanished, completely,
whirled off to all four corners of the earth. Probably
this manuscript from which Lucian had expected so much. Truly
it was the force of the wind. Now comes the
strange part of the story. One morning, two weeks later,
Lucian stood in the door of my little room, pale
as a ghost. He had a bundle of printer's proofs
in his hand and held them out to me without
a word. I looked at it and read the force
of the wind by Lucian. F it was a good
bundle of proofs, the entire first proofs of Lucian's novel,
that novel, the manuscript of which we had seen blow
out of the balcony window and whirled away by the winds.
My dear man, I exclaimed, as I handed him back
the proofs. You have been industrious, indeed, to write your
entire novel over again in so short a time, and
to have proofs already. Lucian did not answer. He stood silent,
staring at me with a weird look in his otherwise
so sensible eyes. After a moment, he stammered, I did
not write the novel over again. I have not touched
a pin since the day the manuscript blew out of
the window. Are you a sleep walker, Lucian? Why do
you ask? Why? That would be the only natural explanation.
They say, we can do a great many things in sleep,
of which we know nothing when we wake. I have
heard queer stories of that men have committed murders in
their sleep. It happens quite often that sleepwalkers write letters
in a handwriting. They do not recognize when awake. I
have never been a sleep walker. Lucian answered, oh, you
never can tell. I remarked, would you rather explain it
as magic or the work of fairies? Or do you
believe in ghosts? Your muse has fascinated you, you mystic?
And I laughed and trilled a line from the mascot
which we had seen the evening before at the lyric.
But my merriment did not seem to strike an answering
note in Lucian. He turned from me in silence, and
with an offended expression, took his hat and his proofs.
And humorous and skeptic as he was ordinarily, he parted
from me with the words uttered in a theatrical tone,
there are more things in heaven and Earth than are
dreamed of in thy philosophy. He turned on his heel
and left the room to be candid. I was unpleasantly
affected by the little scene. I could not for an
instant doubt Lucian's honesty. He was so pale, so frightened,
almost so touching in the alarm and excitement of his soul.
Of course, the only explanation that I could see was
that he had written his novel in a sleep walking state.
For certainly, no printer could set up type from a
manuscript that did not exist, to say nothing of printing
it and sending out proofs. Several days passed, but Lucian
did not come near me. I went to his place
once or twice, but the door was locked. Had the
devil carried him off bodily, or had this strange and
inexplicable occurrence robbed him of his sanity and robbed me
of his friendship and his excellent whisky. After three useless
attempts to find him at home, and after writing him
a letter which he did not answer, I gave up
Lucian without any further attempt to understand his enigmatical behavior.
A short time after I left for my home, without
having seen or heard anything more of him. Months passed
I remained at home, and one evening, when, during the
course of a gay party, the conversation came round to
the subject of mysticism and occult occurrences, I dished up
my story of the enigmatical manuscript the unknown The occult
was the rage just then, and my story was received
with great applause and called forth numerous quotations as to
more things in heaven and Earth. I came to think
so much of it myself that I wrote it out
and sent it to Professor Flammarian, who was just then
making a study of the unknown, which he preserved in
his later book lesn Connieux. The occupying myself with the
story brought my mind around again to memories of Lucien.
One day I saw a notice in La Figero to
the effect that his book The Force of the Wind
had appeared in a second large edition and had aroused
much attention, particularly in spiritualistic circles. I seemed to see
him again before me, with his long nervous neck, which
was so expressive. The vision of this neck rose up
before me whenever I drank the same sort of whisky
that I had drunk so often with him, and the
longing to hear something more of my lost friend came
over me. I sat down one evening, when in a
sentimental mood, and wrote to him, asking him to tell
me something of himself and to send me his book.
A week later I received the little book and the
following letter, which I have here in my pocket. It
is somewhat crumpled, for I have read it several times
but no matter. I will read it to you now,
if you will pardon my awkward translating of the French original.
Here it is, dear friend, many thanks for your letter.
Here is the book. I have to thank you also
that you did not lay my behavior of your last
days in Paris up against me. It must have seemed
strange to you. I will try to explain it. I
have been nervous from childhood. The fact that most of
my books have treated of fantastic subjects, somewhat in the
manner of Edgar Allan Poe has made me more susceptible
for all that world which lies beyond and about the
world of everyday life. I have sought after and yet
feared the mystical, cool and lucid as I can be
at times. I have always had an inclination for the enigmatical,
the unknown. But the first thing that ever happened in
my life that I could not explain or understand was
the affair of the manuscript. You remember the day I
stood in your room, I must have looked the picture
of misery. The affair had played more havoc with my
nerves than you can very well understand. Your mockery hurt me,
and yet under all I felt ashamed of my own
thoughts concerning this foolish occurrence. I could not explain the phenomenon,
and I shivered at the things that it suggested to me.
In this condition, which lasted several weeks, I could not
bear to see you or any one else, and I
was impolite enough even to leave your letter unanswered. The
book appeared and made a hit, since that sort of
thing was the center of interest just then. But almost
a month passed before I could arouse myself from that
condition of fear, and I had almost said softening of
the brain which prevented my enjoyment of my success. Then
the explanation came. Thanks to this occurrence. I know now
that I shall never again be in danger of being haunted,
and I know now that chance can bring about stranger
happenings than can any fancied visitations from the spirit world.
Here you have the story of this mystic occurrence which
came near endangering my sanity, and which turns out to
be a chance combination of a gust of wind, a
sudden downpour of rain, and the strange elements in the
character of our little friend Adolph the printer's boy. You
remember that funny little chap with the crafty eye, his
talent for gambling, in his admiration for the girl of
La Prunelle, A queer little mixture, this child who has
himself alone to look too for livelihood and care. The
typical race of the Paris streets, the modified gayman from
Les Miserabla. About a month after the appearance of my book,
I lay on the demand one day your favorite place
you remember, and lost myself in idle reasonings on the
same old subject that never left my mind day or night.
When the bell rang and Adolph appeared to call for
the essay on Le Boulevard, there was an unusually nervous
gleam in his eyes. That day I gave him an
anisset and tried to find out what his trouble was.
I did find it out, and I found out a
good deal more. Besides, thanks to his good fortune as
a gambler, Virginny came to look upon him with favor.
Pierre was quite out of the race, and Adolph's affection
was reciprocated as much as his heart could desire. But
with his good fortune and love came all the suffering
all the torture, the suspicions that tear the hearts of
us men when we set our hopes upon a woman's truth.
Young as he was, he went through them all. And
now he was torturing himself with the thought that she
did not really love him and was only pretending while
she gave her heart to another. Perhaps he was right?
Why not? I talked to Adolf as man to man
and managed to bring back a gleam of his usual
jollity and sly humor. He took another glass of Annisette
and said, suddenly, Monsieur Lucienne, I did something. Did what
I asked something I should have told you long ago.
It was wrong, and you've always been so nice to me.
You remember the day two months ago when we had
such a sudden wind and rain storm, a regular cloud burst.
I was down here in this neighborhood fetching manuscripts from
Monsieur le Vuquire and Monsieur Leroy. I was to have
come up here for copy from you too, But then
you'll understand, after all I've been telling you. I came
round pass La Prunell and Virginny stood in the doorway,
and she'd promised to go out with me that evening,
so I ran up to speak to her. And then
when I went on again, I saw a sheet with
your writing lying in the street. You know, I know
all the gentlemen's writing, whose copy I fetch? Then I
was frightened. I thought to myself the devil. I thought, here,
I've lost Monsieur Lucienne's manuscript. I couldn't remember calling for it,
but I thought I must have done so before I
got to Monsieur LeRoy's. I can't remember much except Virginny
these days. I took up the sheet and saw three
others a little further on, and I saw a lot
more shining just behind the railing of the Luxembourg garden.
You know how hard it rained. The water held the
paper down so the wind couldn't carry it any further.
I ran into the garden and picked up all the sheets,
thirty two of them. All of them except the first
four I found in the street, had blown in behind
the railing, and I can tell you I was precious
glad that I had them altogether. I ran back to
the office, told them I had dropped the manuscript in
the street, but asked them not to say anything. To
you about it. But the sheets were all there, you
always numbered them so clearly and handsome. August the compositor,
promised he wouldn't tell on me. I knew if the
foreman heard of it, he'd put me out, for he
had a grudge against me. So nobody knew anything about it.
But I thought I ought to tell you, cause you've
been so nice to me. Maybe you'll understand how one
gets queer at times when a girl like Virginny tells
you she likes you better than Pierre, and yet you
think she might deceive you for his sake, that big
stupid animal. But now I'll be going much obliged for
your kindness, Monsieur Lucien, and for the annisset. And he
left me. There you have the explanation, the very simple
and natural explanation of the phenomenon that almost drove me crazy.
The entire supernatural occurrence was caused by a careless boy's
love affairs, by a gust of southwest wind, by a
sudden heavy rain, and by the chance that I had
used English ink, the kind that water cannot blur. All
these simple natural things made me act so foolishly toward
a good friend the sort of friend I have always
known you to be. Let me hear from you and
tell me what you people up north think of my book.
I give you my word that the unknown powers shall
never again make me foolish enough to risk losing your friendship, Yours, Lucien.
So this is my story. Yes there are more things
in heaven and earth, but the workings of chance are
the strangest of all. And this whiskey is really very good.
Here's to you.