Kitabı oku: «The Water Ghost and Others», sayfa 4
THE SPECK ON THE LENS
"Talking about inventions," said the oculist, as he very dexterously pocketed two of the pool balls, the handsome ringer, more familiarly known as the fifteen ball, and the white ball itself, thereby adding somewhat to the minus side of his string—"talking about inventions, I had a curious experience last August. It was an experience which was not only interesting from an inventive point of view, but it had likewise a moral, which, will become more or less obvious as I unfold the story.
"You know I rented and occupied a place in Yonkers last summer. It was situated on the high lands to the north of the city, a little this side of Greystone, overlooking that magnificent stream, the Hudson, the ever-varying beauties of which so few of the residents along its banks really appreciate. It was a comfortable spot, with a few trees about it, a decent-sized garden—large enough to raise a tomato or two for a Sunday-night salad—and a lawn which was a cure for sore eyes, its soft, sheeny surface affording a most restful object upon which to feast the tired optic. I believe it was that lawn that first attracted me as I drove by the place with a patient I had in tow. It was just after a heavy shower, and the sun breaking through the clouds and lighting up the rain-soaked grass gave to it a glistening golden greenness that to my eyes was one of the most beautiful and soul-satisfying bits of color I had seen in a long time. 'Oh, for a summer of that!' I said to myself, little thinking that the beginning of a summer thereof was to fall to my lot before many days—for on May 1st I signed papers which made me to all intents and purposes proprietor of the place for the ensuing six months.
"At one corner of the grounds stood, I should say, a dozen apple-trees, the spreading branches of which seemed to form a roof for a sort of enchanted bower, in which, you may be sure, I passed many of my leisure hours, swinging idly in a hammock, the cool breezes from the Hudson, concerning which so many people are sceptical, but which nevertheless exist, bringing delight to the ear and nostril as well as to the 'fevered brow,' which is so fashionable in the neighborhood of New York in the summer, making the leaves rustle in a tuneful sort of fashion, and laden heavily with the sweet odors of many a garden close over which they passed before they got to me."
"Put that in rhyme, doctor, and there's your poem," said the lieutenant, as he made a combination scratch involving every ball on the table.
"I'll do it," said the doctor; "and then I'll have it printed as Appendix J to the third edition of my work on Sixty Astigmatisms, and How to Acquire Them. But to get back to my story," he continued. "I was lying there in my hammock one afternoon trying to take a census of the butterflies in sight, when I thought I heard some one back of me call me by name. Instantly the butterfly census was forgotten, and I was on the alert; but—whether there was something the matter with my eyes or not, I do not know—despite all my alertness, there wasn't a soul in sight that I could see. Of course, I was slightly mystified at first, and then I attributed the interruption either to imagination or to some passer-by, whose voice, wafted on the breeze, might have reached my ears. I threw myself back into the hammock once more, and was just about dozing off to the lullaby sung by a bee to the accompaniment of the rustling leaves, when I again heard my name distinctly spoken.
"This time there was no mistake about it, for as I sprang to my feet and looked about, I saw coming towards me a man of unpleasantly cadaverous aspect, whose years, I should judge, were at least eighty in number. His beard was so long and scant that, to keep the breezes from blowing it about to his discomfort, he had tucked the ends of it into his vest pocket; his eyes, black as coals, were piercing as gimlets, their sharpness equalled by nothing that I had ever seen, excepting perhaps the point of this same person's nose, which was long and thin, suggesting a razor with a bowie point; his slight body was clad in sombre garb, and at first glance he appeared to me so disquietingly like a visitor from the supernatural world that I shuddered; but when he spoke, his voice was all gentleness, and whatever of fear I had experienced was in a moment dissipated.
"'You are Doctor Carey?' he said, in a timid sort of fashion.
"'Yes,' I replied; 'I am. What can I do for you?'
"'The distinguished oculist?' he added, as if not hearing my question.
"'Well, I'm a sort of notorious eye-doctor,' I answered, my well-known modesty preventing my entire acquiescence in his manner of putting it.
"He smiled pleasantly as I said this, and then drew out of his coat-tail pocket a small tin box, which, until he opened it, I supposed contained a drinking-cup—one of those folding tin cups.
"'Doctor Carey,' said he, sitting down in the hammock which I had vacated, and toying with the tin box—a proceeding that was so extraordinarily cool that it made me shiver—'I have been looking for you for just sixty-three mortal years.'
"'Excuse me,' I returned, as nonchalantly as I could, considering the fact that I was beginning to be annoyed—'excuse me, but that statement seems to indicate that I was born famous, which I'm inclined to doubt. Inasmuch as I am not yet fifty years old, I cannot understand how it has come to pass that you have been looking for me for sixty-three years.'
"'Nevertheless, my statement was correct,' said he. 'I have been looking for you for sixty-three years, but not for you as you.'
"This made me laugh, although it added slightly to my nervousness, which was now beginning to return. To have a man with a tin box in his hand tell me he had been looking for me for thirteen years longer than I had lived, and then to have him add that it was not, however, me as myself that he wanted, was amusing in a sense, and yet I could not help feeling that it would be a relief to know that the tin box did hold a drinking-cup, and not dynamite.
"'You seem to speak English,' I said, in answer to this remark, 'and I have always thought I understood that language pretty well, but you'll excuse me if I say that I don't see your point.'
"'Why is it that great men are so frequently obtuse?' he said, languidly, giving the ground such a push with his toe that it set the hammock swinging furiously. 'When I say that I have searched for you all these years, but not for you as you, I mean not for you as Dr. Carey, not for you as an individual, but for you as the possessor of a very rare eye.'
"'Go on,' I said, feebly, and rubbed my forehead, thinking perhaps my brains had got into a tangle, and were responsible for this extraordinary affair. 'What is the peculiar quality which makes my eye so rare?'
"'There is only one pair of eyes like them in the world, that I know of,' said the stranger, 'and I have visited all lands in search of them and experimented with all kinds of eyes.'
"'And I am the proud possessor of that pair?' I queried, becoming slightly more interested.
"'Not you,' said he. 'You and I together possess that pair, however.'
"'You and I?' I cried.
"'Yes,' said he. 'Your left eye and my right have the honor of being the only two unique eyes in the world.'
"'That's queer too,' I observed, a mixture of sarcasm and flippancy in my tones, I fear. 'You mean twonique, don't you?'
"The old gentleman drew himself up with dignity, made a gesture of impatience, and remarked that if I intended to be flippant he would leave me. Of course I would not hear of this, now that my curiosity had been aroused, and so I apologized.
"'Don't mention it,' he said. 'But, my dear doctor, you cannot imagine my sensations when I found your eye yesterday.'
"'Oh! You found it yesterday, did you?' I put in.
"'Yes,' he said. 'On Forty-third Street.'
"'I was on Forty-third Street yesterday,' I replied, 'but really I was not conscious of the loss of my eye.'
"'Nobody said you had lost it,' said my visitor. 'I only said I had found it. I mean by that that I found it as Columbus found America. America was not necessarily lost before it was found. I had the good fortune to be passing through the street as you left your club. I glanced into your face as I passed, caught sight of your eye, and my heart stood still. There at last was that for which I had so long and so earnestly searched, and so overcome was I with joy at my discovery that I seemed to lose all power of speech, of locomotion, or of sane thought, and not until you had passed entirely out of sight did I return really to my senses. Then I rushed madly into the club-house I had seen you leave a few moments before, described you to the man at the door, learned your name and address, and—well, here I am.'
"'And what does all this extraordinary nonsense lead up to?' I asked. 'What do you intend to do about my eye? Do you wish to borrow it, buy it, or steal it?'
"'Doctor Carey,' said my visitor, sadly, 'I shall not live very long. I have reason to believe that another summer will find me in my grave, and I do not want to die without imparting to the world the news of a marvellous discovery I have made—the details of a wonderful invention that I have not only conceived, but have actually put into working order. I, an unknown man—too old to be able to refute the charge of senility were any one disposed to question the value of my statements—could announce to the world my great discovery a thousand times a day, and very properly the world would decline to believe in me. The world would cry humbug, and I should have been unable, had I failed to find you, to convince the world that I was not a humbug. With the discovery of your eye, all that is changed. I shall have an ally in you, and that is valuable for the reason that your statements, whatever they may be, will always be entitled to and will receive respectful attention. Here in this box is my invention. I shall let you discover its marvellous power for yourself, hoping that when you have discovered its power, you will tell the world of it, and of its inventor.'
"With that," said the doctor, "the old fellow handed me the tin box, which I opened with considerable misgivings as to possible results. There was no explosion, however. The cover came off easily enough, and on the inside was a curiously shaped telescope, not a drinking-cup, as I had at first surmised.
"'Why, it's a telescope, isn't it?' I said.
"'Yes. What did you suppose it was?' he asked.
"'I hadn't an idea,' I replied, not exactly truthfully. 'But it can't be good for much in this shape,' I added, for, as I pulled the parts out and got it to its full length, I found that each section was curved, and that the whole formed an arc, which, though scarcely perceptible, nevertheless should, it seemed to me, have interfered with the utility of the instrument.
"'That's the point I want you to establish one way or the other,' said my visitor, getting up out of the hammock, and pacing nervously up and down the lawn. 'To my eye that telescope is a marvel, and is the result of years of experiment. It fulfils my expectations, and if your eye is what I think it is, I shall at last have found another to whom it will appear the treasure it appears to me to be. You have a tower on your house, I see. Let us go up on the roof of the tower, and test the glass. Then we shall see if I claim too much for it.'
"The earnestness of the old gentleman interested me hugely, and I led the way through the garden to the house, up the tower stairs to the roof, and then standing there, looking across the river at the Palisades looming up like a huge fortress before me, I put the telescope to my eye.
"'I see absolutely nothing,' I said, after vainly trying to fathom the depths of the instrument.
"'Alas!' began the old gentleman; and then he laughed, nervously. 'You are using the wrong eye. Try the other one. It is your left eye that has the power to show the virtues of this glass.'
"I obeyed his order, and then a most singular thing happened. Strange sights met my gaze. At first I could see nothing but the Palisades opposite me, but in an instant my horizon seemed to broaden, the vista through the telescope deepened, and before I knew it my sight was speeding, now through a beautiful country, over fields, hills, and valleys; then on through great cities, out to and over a broad, gently undulating stretch which I at once recognized as the prairie lands of the west. In a minute more I began to catch the idea of this wonderful glass, for I now saw rising up before me the wonderful beauties of the Yosemite, and then, like a flash of the lightning, my vision passed over the Sierra Nevada range, my eye swept down upon San Francisco, and was soon speeding over the waters of the Pacific.
"Two minutes later I saw the strange pagodas of the Chinese rising before me. Sweeping my glass to the north, bleak Siberia met my gaze; then to the south I saw India, her jungles, her waste places. Not long after, a most awful sight met my gaze. I saw a huge ship at the moment of foundering in the Indian Ocean. Horrified, I turned my glass again to the north, and the minarets of Stamboul rose up before me; then the dome of St. Peter's at Rome; then Paris; then London; then the Atlantic Ocean. I levelled my glass due west, and finally I could see nothing but one small, black speck—as like to a fleck of dust as to anything else—on the lens at the other end. With a movement of my hand, I tried to wipe it off, but it still remained, and, in answer to a chuckle at my side, I put the glass down.
"'It is the most extraordinary thing I ever saw,' I said.
"'Yes, it is,' said the other.
"'One can almost see around the world with it,' I cried, breathless nearly with enthusiasm.
"'One can—quite,' said the inventor, calmly.
"'Nonsense!' I said. 'Don't claim too much, my friend.'
"'It is true,' said he. 'Did you notice a speck on the glass? I am sure you did, for you tried to remove it.'
"'Yes,' said I, 'I did. But what of it? What does that signify?'
"'It proves what I said,' he answered. 'You did see all the way around the world with that glass. The black spot on the lens that you thought was a piece of dust was the back of your own head.'
"'Nonsense, my boy! The back of my head is bigger than that,' I said.
"'Certainly it is,' he responded; 'but you must make some allowance for perspective. The back of your head is a trifle less than twenty-four thousand miles from the end of your nose the way you were looking at it.'"
"You mean to say—" began the lieutenant, as the doctor paused to chalk his cue.
"Never mind what I mean to say," said the doctor. "Reflect upon what I have said."
"But the man and the telescope—what became of them?" asked the lieutenant.
"I was about to tell you that. The old fellow who had made this marvellous glass, which to two eyes that he knew of, and to only two, would work as was desired, feeling that he was about to die, had come to me to offer the glass for sale on two considerations. One was a consideration of $25. The other was that I would leave no stone unturned to discover a possible third person younger than myself with an eye similar to those we had, to whom at my death the glass should be transmitted, exacting from him the promise that he too would see that it was passed along in the same manner into the hands of posterity. I was also to acquaint the world with the story of the glass and the name of its inventor to the fullest extent possible."
"And you, of course, accepted?"
"I did," said the doctor; "but having no money in my pocket, I went down into the house to borrow it of my wife, and upon my return to the roof, found no trace of the glass, the old man, or the roof either."
"What!" cried the lieutenant. "Are you crazy?"
"No," smiled the doctor. "Not at all. For the moment I reached the roof of the house, I opened my eyes, and found myself still swinging in the hammock under the trees."
"And the moral?" queried the lieutenant. "You promised a moral, or I should not have listened."
"Always have money in your pocket," replied the doctor, pocketing the last ball, and putting up his cue. "Then you are not apt to lose great bargains such as I lost for the want of $25."
"It's a good idea," returned the lieutenant. "And you live up to it, I suppose?"
"I do," returned the oculist, tapping his pocket significantly. "Always!"
"Then," said the lieutenant, earnestly, "I wish you'd lend me a tenner, for really, doctor, I have gone clean broke."
A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
I do not assert that what I am about to relate is in all its particulars absolutely true. Not, understand me, that it is not true, but I do not feel that I care to make an assertion that is more than likely to be received by a sceptical age with sneers of incredulity. I will content myself with a simple narration of the events of that evening, the memory of which is so indelibly impressed upon my mind, and which, were I able to do so, I should forget without any sentiments of regret whatsoever.
The affair happened on the night before I fell ill of typhoid fever, and is about the sole remaining remembrance of that immediate period left to me. Briefly the story is as follows:
Notwithstanding the fact that I was overworked in the practice of my profession—it was early in March, and I was preparing my contributions for the coming Christmas issues of the periodicals for which I write—I had accepted the highly honorable position of Entertainment Committeeman at one of the small clubs to which I belonged. I accepted the office, supposing that the duties connected with it were easy of performance, and with absolutely no notion that the faith of my fellow-committeemen in my judgment was so strong that they would ultimately manifest a desire to leave the whole programme for the club's diversion in my hands. This, however, they did; and when the month of March assumed command of the calendar I found myself utterly fagged out and at my wits' end to know what style of entertainment to provide for the club meeting to be held on the evening of the 15th of that month. I had provided already an unusually taking variety of evenings, of which one in particular, called the "Martyrs' Night," in which living authors writhed through selections from their own works, while an inhuman audience, every man of whom had suffered even as the victims then suffered, sat on tenscore of camp-stools puffing the smoke of twenty-five score of free cigars into their faces, and gloating over their misery, was extremely successful, and had gained for me among my professional brethren the enviable title of "Machiavelli Junior." This performance, in fact, was the one now uppermost in the minds of the club members, having been the most recent of the series; and it had been prophesied by many men whose judgment was unassailable that no man, not even I, could ever conceive of anything that could surpass it. Disposed at first to question the accuracy of a prophecy to the effect that I was, like most others of my kind, possessed of limitations, I came finally to believe that perhaps, after all, these male Cassandras with whom I was thrown were right. Indeed, the more I racked my brains to think of something better than the "Martyrs' Night," the more I became convinced that in that achievement I had reached the zenith of my powers. The thing for me to do now was to hook myself securely on to the zenith and stay there. But how to do it? That was the question which drove sleep from my eyes, and deprived me for a period of six weeks of my reason, my hair departing immediately upon the restoration thereof—a not uncommon after-symptom of typhoid.
It was a typical March night, this one upon which the extraordinary incident about to be related took place. It was the kind of night that novelists use when they are handling a mystery that in the abstract would amount to nothing, but which in the concrete of a bit of wild, weird, and windy nocturnalism sends the reader into hysterics. It may be—I shall not attempt to deny it—that had it happened upon another kind of an evening—a soft, mild, balmy June evening, for instance—my own experience would have seemed less worthy of preservation in the amber of publicity, but of that the reader must judge for himself. The fact alone remains that upon the night when my uncanny visitor appeared, the weather department was apparently engaged in getting rid of its remnants. There was a large percentage of withering blast in the general make-up of the evening; there were rain and snow, which alternated in pattering upon my window-pane and whitening the apology for a wold that stands three blocks from my flat on Madison Square; the wind whistled as it always does upon occasions of this sort, and from all corners of my apartment, after the usual fashion, there seemed to come sounds of a supernatural order, the effect of which was to send cold chills off on their regular trips up and down the spine of their victim—in this instance myself. I wish that at the time the hackneyed quality of these sensations had appealed to me. That it did not do so was shown by the highly nervous state in which I found myself as my clock struck eleven. If I could only have realized at that hour that these symptoms were the same old threadbare premonitions of the appearance of a supernatural being, I should have left the house and gone to the club, and so have avoided the visitation then imminent. Had I done this, I should doubtless also have escaped the typhoid, since the doctors attributed that misfortune to the shock of my experience, which, in my then wearied state, I was unable to sustain—and what the escape of typhoid would have meant to me only those who have seen the bills of my physician and druggist for services rendered and prescriptions compounded are aware. That my mind unconsciously took thought of spirits was shown by the fact that when the first chill came upon me I arose and poured out for myself a stiff bumper of old Reserve Rye, which I immediately swallowed; but beyond this I did not go. I simply sat there before my fire and cudgelled my brains for an idea whereby my fellow-members at the Gutenberg Club might be amused. How long I sat there I do not know. It may have been ten minutes; it may have been an hour—I was barely conscious of the passing of time—but I do know that the clock in the Dutch Reformed Church steeple at Twenty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue was clanging out the first stroke of the hour of midnight when my door-bell rang.
Theretofore—if I may be allowed the word—the tintinnabulation of my door-bell had been invariably pleasing unto me. I am fond of company, and company alone was betokened by its ringing, since my creditors gratify their passion for interviews at my office, if perchance they happen to find me there. But on this occasion—I could not at the moment tell why—its clanging seemed the very essence of discord. It jangled with my nervous system, and as it ceased I was conscious of a feeling of irritability which is utterly at variance with my nature outside of business hours. In the office, for the sake of discipline, I frequently adopt a querulous manner, finding it necessary in dealing with office-boys, but the moment I leave shop behind me I become a different individual entirely, and have been called a moteless sunbeam by those who have seen only that side of my character. This, by-the-way, must be regarded as a confidential communication, since I am at present engaged in preparing a vest-pocket edition of the philosophical works of Schopenhauer in words of one syllable, and were it known that the publisher had intrusted the magnificent pessimism of that illustrious juggler of words and theories to a "moteless sunbeam" it might seriously interfere with the sale of the work; and I may say, too, that this request that my confidence be respected is entirely disinterested, inasmuch as I declined to do the work on the royalty plan, insisting upon the payment of a lump sum, considerably in advance.
But to return. I heard the bell ring with a sense of profound disgust. I did not wish to see anybody. My whiskey was low, my quinine pills few in number; my chills alone were present in a profusion bordering upon ostentation.
"I'll pretend not to hear it," I said to myself, resuming my work of gazing at the flickering light of my fire—which, by-the-way, was the only light in the room.
"Ting-a-ling-a-ling" went the bell, as if in answer to my resolve.
"Confound the luck!" I cried, jumping from my chair and going to the door with the intention of opening it, an intention however which was speedily abandoned, for as I approached it a sickly fear came over me—a sensation I had never before known seemed to take hold of my being, and instead of opening the door, I pushed the bolt to make it the more secure.
"There's a hint for you, whoever you are!" I cried. "Do you hear that bolt slide, you?" I added, tremulously, for from the other side there came no reply—only a more violent ringing of the bell.
"See here!" I called out, as loudly as I could, "who are you, anyhow. What do you want?"
There was no answer, except from the bell, which began again.
"Bell-wire's too cheap to steal!" I called again. "If you want wire, go buy it; don't try to pull mine out. It isn't mine, anyhow. It belongs to the house."
Still there was no reply, only the clanging of the bell; and then my curiosity overcame my fear, and with a quick movement I threw open the door.
"Are you satisfied now?" I said, angrily. But I addressed an empty vestibule. There was absolutely no one there, and then I sat down on the mat and laughed. I never was so glad to see no one in my life. But my laugh was short-lived.
"What made that bell ring?" I suddenly asked myself, and then the feeling of fear came upon me again. I gathered my somewhat shattered self together, sprang to my feet, slammed the door with such force that the corridors echoed to the sound, slid the bolt once more, turned the key, moved a heavy chair in front of it, and then fled like a frightened hare to the sideboard in my dining-room. There I grasped the decanter holding my whiskey, seized a glass from the shelf, and started to pour out the usual dram, when the glass fell from my hand, and was shivered into a thousand pieces on the hardwood floor; for, as I poured, I glanced through the open door, and there in my sanctum the flicker of a random flame divulged the form of a being, the eyes of whom seemed fixed on mine, piercing me through and through. To say that I was petrified but dimly expresses the situation. I was granitized, and so I remained, until by a more luminous flicker from the burning wood I perceived that the being wore a flaring red necktie.
"He is human," I thought; and with the thought the tension on my nervous system relaxed, and I was able to feel a sufficiently well-developed sense of indignation to demand an explanation. "This is a mighty cool proceeding on your part," I said, leaving the sideboard and walking into the sanctum.
"Yes," he replied, in a tone that made me jump, it was so extremely sepulchral—a tone that seemed as if it might have been acquired in a damp corner of some cave off the earth. "But it's a cool evening."
"I wonder that a man of your coolness doesn't hire himself out to some refrigerating company," I remarked, with a sneer which would have delighted the soul of Cassius himself.
"I have thought of it," returned the being, calmly. "But never went any further. Summer-hotel proprietors have always outbid the refrigerating people, and they in turn have been laid low by millionaires, who have hired me on occasion to freeze out people they didn't like, but who have persisted in calling. I must confess, though, my dear Hiram, that you are not much warmer yourself—this greeting is hardly what I expected."
"Well, if you want to make me warmer," I retorted, hotly, "just keep on calling me Hiram. How the deuce did you know of that blot on my escutcheon, anyhow?" I added, for Hiram was one of the crimes of my family that I had tried to conceal, my parents having fastened the name of Hiram Spencer Carrington upon me at baptism for no reason other than that my rich bachelor uncle, who subsequently failed and became a charge upon me, was so named.
"I was standing at the door of the church when you were baptized," returned the visitor, "and as you were an interesting baby, I have kept an eye on you ever since. Of course I knew that you discarded Hiram as soon as you got old enough to put away childish things, and since the failure of your uncle I have been aware that you desired to be known as Spencer Carrington, but to me you are, always have been, and always will be, Hiram."
"Well, don't give it away," I pleaded. "I hope to be famous some day, and if the American newspaper paragrapher ever got hold of the fact that once in my life I was Hiram, I'd have to Hiram to let me alone."
"That's a bad joke, Hiram," said the visitor, "and for that reason I like it, though I don't laugh. There is no danger of your becoming famous if you stick to humor of that sort."
"Well, I'd like to know," I put in, my anger returning—"I'd like to know who in Brindisi you are, what in Cairo you want, and what in the name of the seventeen hinges of the gates of Singapore you are doing here at this time of night?"
"When you were a baby, Hiram, you had blue eyes," said my visitor. "Bonny blue eyes, as the poet says."
"What of it?" I asked.
"This," replied my visitor. "If you have them now, you can very easily see what I am doing here. I am sitting down and talking to you."
"Oh, are you?" I said, with fine scorn. "I had not observed that. The fact is, my eyes were so weakened by the brilliance of that necktie of yours that I doubt I could see anything—not even one of my own jokes. It's a scorcher, that tie of yours. In fact, I never saw anything so red in my life."
"I do not see why you complain of my tie," said the visitor. "Your own is just as bad."
