Speaker 1: Fear by Gui de Moupissan. We went up on deck
after dinner. Before us, the Mediterranean lay without a ripple
and shimmered in the moonlight. The great ship glided on,
casting upward to the star studded sky, A long serpent
of black smoke behind us. The dazzling white water, stirred
by the rapid progress of the heavy bark and beaten
by the propeller, foamed, seemed to Writhe gave off so
much brilliancy that one could have called it boiling moonlight.
There were six or eight of us, silent with admiration,
and gazing toward far away Africa, whither we were going.
The commandant, who was smoking a cigar with us, brusquely
resumed the conversation begun at dinner. Yes, I was afraid.
Then my ship remained for six hours on that rock,
beaten by the wind and with a great hole in
the side. Luckily we were picked up toward evening by
an English color which sighted us. Then a tall man
of sunburned face and grave demeanor, one of those men
who have evidently traveled unknown in far away lands, whose
calm eyes seems to preserve in its depths something of
the foreign scenes. It is observed a man that you
are sure is impregnated with courage, spoke for the first time.
You say, Commandant, that you are afraid. I beg to
disagree with you. You are in error as to the
meaning of the word and the nature of the sensation
that you experienced. An energetic man is never afraid in
the presence of urgent danger. He is excited, aroused, full
of anxiety. But fear is something quite different. The commandant
laughed and answered, bah, I assure you that I was afraid.
Then the man of the tanned countenance addressed us deliberately
as follows. Permit me to explain fear and the bold
as men may feel, fear is something horrible, an atrocious sensation,
a sort of decomposition of the soul, a terrible spasm
of brain and heart, the very memory of which brings
a shudder of anguish. But when one is brave, he
feels it neither under fire, nor in the presence of
sure death, nor in the face of any well known danger.
It springs up under certain abnormal conditions, under certain mysterious influences,
in the presence of vague peril. Real fear is a
sort of reminiscence of fantastic terror of the past. A
man who believes in ghosts and imagines he sees a
specter in the darkness must feel terror in all its horror.
As for me, I was overwhelmed with fear in broad
daylight about ten years ago, and again one December night
last winter. Nevertheless, I have gone through many dangers, many
adventures which seem to promise death. I have often been
battle I have been left for dead by thieves in America.
I was condemned as an insurgent to be hanged and
off the coast of China. Have been thrown into the
sea from the deck of a ship. Each time I
thought I was lost, I at once decided upon my
course of action without regret or weakness. That is not fear.
I have felt it in Africa, and yet it is
a child of the North. The sunlight banishes it like
the mist. Consider this fact, gentlemen. Among the Orientals, life
has no value. Resignation is natural. The nights are clear
and empty of the somber spirit of unrest which haunts
the brain in cooler lands. In the Orient, panic is known,
but not fear. Well, then here is the incident that
befell me in Africa. I was crossing the Great Sands
to the south of Onargla. It is one of the
most curious districts in the world. You have seen the solid,
con tenuous sand of the endless ocean strands. Well, imagine
the ocean itself turned to sand in the midst of
a storm. Imagine a silent tempest with motionless billows of
yellow dust. They are high as mountains, these uneven varied surges,
rising exactly like unchained billows, but still larger and stratified
like watered silk. On this wild, silent and motionless sea,
the consuming rays of the tropical sun are poured piteously
and directly. You have to climb these streaks of red
hot ash, descend again on the other side. Climb again, climb, climb,
without halt, without repose, without shade. The horses cough, sink
to their knees, and slide down the sides of these
remarkable hills. We were a couple of friends, followed by
eight spahis and four camels with their drivers. We were
no longer talking, overcome by heat, fatigue, and a thirst
such as had produced this burning desert. Suddenly one of
our men uttered a cry. We all halted, surprised by
the unsolved phenomenon known only to travelers in these trackless wastes.
Somewhere near us, in an indeterminable direction, a drum was rolling,
the mysterious drum of the sands. It was beating distinctly,
now with greater residence, and again feebler, ceasing, then resuming
its uncanny roll. The Arabs, terrified, stared at one another,
and one said, in his language, death is upon us.
As he spoke, my companion, my friend, almost my brother,
dropped from his horse, falling face downward on the sand,
overcome by a sunstroke. And for two hours, while I
tried in vain to save him, this weird drum filled
my ears with its monotonous, intermittent and incomprehensible tone, and
I felt lay hold of my bones fear, real fear,
hideous fear, in the presence of this beloved corpse, in
this hole, scorched by the sun, surrounded by four mountains
of sand, and two hundred leagues from any French settlement,
while echo assailed our ears with this furious drum beat.
On that day I realized what fear was. But since
then I have had another and still more vivid experience,
the commandant interrupted the speaker. I beg your pardon, but
what was the drum? The traveler replied, I cannot say.
No one knows. Our officers are often surprised by this
singular noise and attribute it generally to the echo produced
by a hail of grains of sand blown by the
winds against the dry and brittle leaves of weeds. For
it has always been noticed that the phenomenon occurs in
proximity to little plants burned by the sun and hardest parchment.
This sound seems to have been magnified, multiplied, and swelled
beyond measure in its progress through the valleys of sand,
and the drum therefore might be considered a sort of
sound mirage, nothing more. But I did not know that
until later. I shall proceed to my second instance. It
was last winter in a forest of the northeast of France.
The sky was so overcast that night came two hours
earlier than usual. My guide was a peasant who walked
beside me along the narrow road under the vault of
fir trees, through which the wind and its fury howled
between the tree tops. I saw the fleeting clouds, which
seemed to hasten, as if to escape some object of terror. Sometimes,
in a fierce gust of wind, the whole forest bowed
in the same direction with a groan of pain, and
a chill laid hold of me despite my rapid pace
and heavy clothing. We were to sup and sleep at
an old gamekeeper's house not much farther on I had
come out for hunting. My guides sometimes raised his eyes
and murmured ugly weather. Then he told me about the
people among whom we were to spend the night. The
father had killed a poacher two years before, and since
then had been gloomy and behaved as though haunted by
a memory. His two sons were married and lived with him.
The darkness was profound. I could see nothing before me
nor around me, and the mass of overhanging, interlaced trees
rubbed together, filling the night with an incessant whispering. Finally
I saw a light, and soon my companion was knocking
upon a door. Sharp woman's voices answered us. Then a
man's voice, a choking voice, asked, who goes there? My
guide gave his name. We entered and beheld a memorable picture.
An old man with white hair, wild eyes, and a
loaded gun in his hands, stood waiting for us in
the middle of the kitchen, while two stalwart youths armed
with axes guarded the door. In the somber corners, I
distinguished two women kneeling with faces to the wall. Matters
were explained, and the old man stood his gun against
the wall at the same time, ordering that a room
be prepared for me. Then, as the women did not stir,
look you, monsieur, said he two years ago this night
I killed a man, and last year he came back
to haunt me. I expect him again to night. Then
he added, in a tone that made me smile. And
so we are somewhat excited. I reassured him as best
I could. Happy to have arrived on that particular evening
and to witness this superstitious terror. I told stories and
almost succeeded in calming the whole household. Near the fireplace
slept an old dog, mustached and almost blind, with his
head between his paws, such a dog as reminds you
of people you have known. Outside, the raging storm was
beating against the little house, and suddenly through a a
pane of glass, a sort of peep window placed near
the door, I saw, in a brilliant flash of lightning
a whole mass of trees thrashed by the wind. In
spite of my efforts, I realized that terror was laying
hold of these people, and each time that I ceased
to speak, all ears listened for distant sounds. Annoyted these
foolish fears, I was about to retire to my bed
when the old gamekeeper suddenly leaped from his chair, seized
his gun, and stammered wildly, there he is, there he is,
I hear him. The two women again sank upon their
knees in the corner and hid their faces, while the
suns took up the axes. I was going to try
to pacify them once more, when the sleeping dog awakened suddenly,
and raising his head and stretching his neck, looked the
fire with his dim eyes, and uttered one of those
mournful howls which make travelers shudder in the darkness and
solitude of the country. All eyes were focused upon him
now as he rose upon his front feet, as though
haunted by a vision, and began to howl at something invisible, unknown,
and doubtless horrible, for he was bristling all over. The gamekeeper,
with livid face, cried, he sends him, he sends him.
He was there when I killed him. The two women, terrified,
began to wail in concert with a dog. In spite
of myself, cold chills ran down my spine. This vision
of the animal at such a time and place, in
the midst of these startled people, was something frightful to witness.
Then for an hour the dog howled without stirring. He
howled as though in the anguish of a nightmare, and fear,
horrible fear came over me. Fear of what How can
I say? It was fear, and that is all I know.
We remained motionless and pale, expecting something awful to happen.
Our ears were strained, and our hearts beat loudly, while
the slightest noise startled us. Then the beast began to
walk around the room, sniffing at the walls and growling constantly.
His maneuvers were driving us mad. Then the countryman who
brought me thither, in a paroxysm of rage, seized the
dog and carrying him to a door which opened into
a small court thrust him forth. The noise was suppressed,
and we were left plunged in a silence still more terrible.
Then suddenly we all started. Some one was gliding along
the outside wall toward the forest. Then he seemed to
be feeling of the door with a trembling hand. Then
for two minutes nothing was heard, and we almost lost
our minds. Then he returned, still feeling along the wall,
and scratched lightly upon the door, as a child might
do with his finger nails. Suddenly a face appeared behind
the glass of the peep window, a white face with
eyes shining like those of the cat tribe. A sound
was heard, and indistinct plaintive murmur. Then there was a
formidable burst of noise in the kitchen. The old gamekeeper
had fired, and the two suns at once rushed forward
and barricaded the window with a great table, reinforcing it
with the buffet. I swear to you that at the
shock of the gun's discharge, which I did not expect,
such an anguish laid hold of my heart, my soul,
and my very body that I felt myself about to fall,
about to die from fear. We remained there until dawn
unable to move in short, seized by an indescribable numbness
of the brain. No one dared to remove the barricade
until a thin ray of sunlight appeared through a crack
in the back room. At the base of the wall
and under the window, we found the old dog lying dead,
his skull shattered by a ball. He had escaped from
the little court by digging a hole under a fence.
The dark visaged man became silent. Then he added, and
yet on that night I incur no danger. But I
should rather again pass through all the hours in which
I have confronted the most terrible perils than the one
minute when that gun was discharged at the bearded head
in the window.