[CW] Rudyard Kipling's short story: "Wireless"

[Sudipta Ghose]

Ugh! You typed it?
SG

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 4:42 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. <n1ea at arrl.net> wrote:

>  It's a funny thing, this Marconi business, isn’t it?’ said Mr. Shaynor,
> coughing heavily. ‘Nothing seems to make any difference, by what they tell
> me—storms, hills, or anything; but if that’s true we shall know before
> morning.’
>
> ‘Of course it’s true,’ I answered, stepping behind the counter. ‘Where’s
> old Mr. Cashell?’
>
> ‘He’s had to go to bed on account of his influenza. He said you’d very
> likely drop in.’
>
> ‘Where’s his nephew?’
>
> ‘Inside, getting the things ready. He told me that the last time they
> experimented they put the pole on the roof of one of the big hotels here,
> and the batteries electrified all the water-supply, and’—he giggled—‘the
> ladies got shocks when they took their baths.’
>
> ‘I never heard of that.’
>
> ‘The hotel wouldn’t exactly advertise it, would it? Just now, by what Mr.
> Cashell tells me, they’re trying to signal from here to Poole, and they’re
> using stronger batteries than ever. But, you see, he being the guvnor’s
> nephew and all that (and it will be in the papers too), it doesn’t matter
> how they electrify things in this house. Are you going to watch?’
>
> ‘Very much. I’ve never seen this game. Aren’t you going to bed?’
>
> ‘We don’t close till ten on Saturdays. There’s a good deal of influenza in
> town, too, and there’ll be a dozen prescriptions coming in before morning. I
> generally sleep in the chair here. It’s warmer than jumping out of bed every
> time. Bitter cold, isn’t it?’
>
> ‘Freezing hard. I’m sorry your cough’s worse.’
>
> ‘Thank you. I don’t mind cold so much. It’s this wind that fair cuts me to
> pieces.’ He coughed again hard and hackingly, as an old lady came in for
> ammoniated quinine. ‘We’ve just run out of it in bottles, madam,’ said Mr.
> Shaynor, returning to the professional tone, ‘but if you will wait two
> minutes, I’ll make it up for you, madam.’
>
> I had used the shop for some time, and my acquaintance with the proprietor
> had ripened into friendship. It was Mr. Cashell who revealed to me the
> purpose and power of Apothecaries’ Hall what time a fellow-chemist had made
> an error in a prescription of mine, had lied to cover his sloth, and when
> error and lie were brought home to him had written vain letters.
>
> ‘A disgrace to our profession,’ said the thin, mild-eyed man, hotly, after
> studying the evidence. ‘You couldn’t do a better service to the profession
> than report him to Apothecaries’ Hall.’
>
> I did so, not knowing what djinns I should evoke; and the result was such
> an apology as one might make who had spent a night on the rack.
>
> I conceived great respect for Apothecaries’ Hall, and esteem for Mr.
> Cashell, a zealous craftsman who magnified his calling. Until Mr. Shaynor
> came down from the North his assistants had by no means agreed with Mr.
> Cashell. ‘They forget,’ said he, ‘that, first and foremost, the compounder
> is a medicine-man. On him depends the physician’s reputation. He holds it
> literally in the hollow of his hand, Sir.’
>
> Mr. Shaynor’s manners had not, perhaps, the polish of the grocery and
> Italian warehouse next door, but he knew and loved his dispensary work in
> every detail. For relaxation he seemed to go no farther afield than the
> romance of drugs—their discovery, preparation, packing, and export—but it
> led him to the ends of the earth, and on this subject, and the
> Pharmaceutical Formulary, and Nicholas Culpepper, most confident of
> physicians, we met.
>
> Little by little I grew to know something of his beginnings and his
> hopes—of his mother, who had been a school-teacher in one of the northern
> counties, and of his red-headed father, a small job-master at Kirby Moors,
> who died when he was a child; of the examinations he had passed and of their
> exceeding and increasing difficulty; of his dreams of a shop in London; of
> his hate for the price-cutting Co-operative stores; and, most interesting,
> of his mental attitude towards customers.
>
> ‘There’s a way you get into,’ he told me, ‘of serving them carefully, and I
> hope, politely, without stopping your own thinking. I’ve been reading
> Christy’s *New Commercial Plants* all this autumn, and that needs keeping
> your mind on it, I can tell you. So long as it isn’t a prescription, of
> course, I can carry as much as half a page of Christy in my head, and at the
> same time I could sell out all that window twice over, and not a penny wrong
> at the end. As to prescriptions, I think I could make up the general run of
> ’em in my sleep, almost.’
>
> For reasons of my own, I was deeply interested in Marconi experiments at
> their outset in England; and it was of a piece with Mr. Cashell’s unvarying
> thoughtfulness that, when his nephew the electrician appropriated the house
> for a long-range installation, he should, as I have said, invite me to see
> the result.
>
> The old lady went away with her medicine, and Mr. Shaynor and I stamped on
> the tiled floor behind the counter to keep ourselves warm. The shop, by the
> light of the many electrics, looked like a Paris-diamond mine, for Mr.
> Cashell believed in all the ritual of his craft. Three superb glass
> jars—red, green, and blue—of the sort that led Rosamond to parting with her
> shoes—blazed in the broad plate-glass windows, and there was a confused
> smell of orris, Kodak films, vulcanite, tooth-powder, sachets, and
> almond-cream in the air. Mr. Shaynor fed the dispensary stove, and we sucked
> cayenne-pepper jujubes and menthol lozenges. The brutal east wind had
> cleared the streets, and the few passers-by were muffled to their puckered
> eyes. In the Italian warehouse next door some gay feathered birds and game,
> hung upon hooks, sagged to the wind across the left edge of our
> window-frame.
>
> ‘They ought to take these poultry in—all knocked about like that,’ said Mr.
> Shaynor. ‘Doesn’t it make you feel fair perishing? See that old hare! The
> wind’s nearly blowing the fur off him.’
>
> I saw the belly-fur of the dead beast blown apart in ridges and streaks as
> the wind caught it, showing bluish skin underneath. ‘Bitter cold,’ said Mr.
> Shaynor, shuddering. ‘Fancy going out on a night like this! Oh, here’s young
> Mr. Cashell.’
>
> The door of the inner office behind the dispensary opened, and an
> energetic, spade-bearded man stepped forth, rubbing his hands.
>
> ‘I want a bit of tin-foil, Shaynor,’ he said. ‘Good-evening. My uncle told
> me you might be coming.’ This to me, as I began the first of a hundred
> questions.
>
> ‘I’ve everything in order,’ he replied. ‘We’re only waiting until Poole
> calls us up. Excuse me a minute. You can come in whenever you like—but I’d
> better be with the instruments. Give me that tin-foil. Thanks.’
>
> While we were talking, a girl—evidently no customer—had come into the shop,
> and the face and bearing of Mr. Shaynor changed. She leaned confidently
> across the counter.
>
> ‘But I can’t,’ I heard him whisper uneasily—the flush on his cheek was dull
> red, and his eyes shone like a drugged moth’s. ‘I can’t. I tell you I’m
> alone in the place.’
>
> ‘No, you aren’t. Who’s *that*? Let him look after it for half an hour. A
> brisk walk will do you good. Ah, come now, John.’
>
> ‘But he isn’t——’
>
> ‘I don’t care. I want you to; we’ll only go round by St. Agnes’. If you
> don’t——’
>
> He crossed to where I stood in the shadow of the dispensary counter, and
> began some sort of broken apology about a lady-friend.
>
> ‘Yes,’ she interrupted. ‘You take the shop for half an hour—to oblige *me*,
> won’t you?’
>
> She had a singularly rich and promising voice that well matched her
> outline.
>
> ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it—but you’d better wrap yourself up, Mr.
> Shaynor.’
>
> ‘Oh, a brisk walk ought to help me. We’re only going round by the church.’
> I heard him cough grievously as they went out together.
>
> I refilled the stove, and, after reckless expenditure of Mr. Cashell’s
> coal, drove some warmth into the shop. I explored many of the glass-knobbed
> drawers that lined the walls, tasted some disconcerting drugs, and, by the
> aid of a few cardamoms, ground ginger, chloric-ether, and dilute alcohol,
> manufactured a new and wildish drink, of which I bore a glassful to young
> Mr. Cashell, busy in the back office. He laughed shortly when I told him
> that Mr. Shaynor had stepped out—but a frail coil of wire held all his
> attention, and he had no word for me bewildered among the batteries and
> rods. The noise of the sea on the beach began to make itself heard as the
> traffic in the street ceased. Then briefly, but very lucidly, he gave me the
> names and uses of the mechanism that crowded the tables and the floor.
>
> ‘When do you expect to get the message from Poole?’ I demanded, sipping my
> liquor out of a graduated glass.
>
> ‘About midnight, if everything is in order. We’ve got our installation-pole
> fixed to the roof of the house. I shouldn’t advise you to turn on a tap or
> anything to-night. We’ve connected up with the plumbing, and all the water
> will be electrified.’ He repeated to me the history of the agitated ladies
> at the hotel at the time of the first installation.
>
> ‘But what *is* it?’ I asked. ‘Electricity is out of my beat altogether.’
>
> ‘Ah, if you knew *that* you’d know something nobody knows. It’s just
> It—what we call Electricity, but the magic—the manifestations—the Hertzian
> waves—are all revealed by *this*. The coherer, we call it.’
>
> He picked up a glass tube not much thicker than a thermometer, in which,
> almost touching, were two tiny silver plugs, and between them an
> infinitesimal pinch of metallic dust. ‘That’s all,’ he said, proudly, as
> though himself responsible for the wonder. ‘That is the thing that will
> reveal to us the Powers—whatever the Powers may be—at work—through space—a
> long distance away.’
>
> Just then Mr. Shaynor returned alone and stood coughing his heart out on
> the mat.
>
> ‘Serves you right for being such a fool,’ said young Mr. Cashell, as
> annoyed as myself at the interruption. ‘Never mind—we’ve all the night
> before us to see wonders.’
>
> Shaynor clutched the counter, his handkerchief to his lips. When he brought
> it away I saw two bright red stains.
>
> ‘I—I’ve got a bit of a rasped throat from smoking cigarettes,’ he panted.
> ‘I think I’ll try a cubeb.’
>
> ‘Better take some of this. I’ve been compounding while you’ve been away.’ I
> handed him the brew.
>
> ‘’Twon’t make me drunk, will it? I’m almost a teetotaller. My word! That’s
> grateful and comforting.’
>
> He set down the empty glass to cough afresh.
>
> ‘Brr! But it was cold out there! I shouldn’t care to be lying in my grave a
> night like this. Don’t *you* ever have a sore throat from smoking?’ He
> pocketed the handkerchief after a furtive peep.
>
> ‘Oh, yes, sometimes,’ I replied, wondering, while I spoke, into what
> agonies of terror I should fall if ever I saw those bright-red
> danger-signals under my nose. Young Mr. Cashell among the batteries coughed
> slightly to show that he was quite ready to continue his scientific
> explanations, but I was thinking still of the girl with the rich voice and
> the significantly cut mouth, at whose command I had taken charge of the
> shop. It flashed across me that she distantly resembled the seductive shape
> on a gold-framed toilet-water advertisement whose charms were unholily
> heightened by the glare from the red bottle in the window. Turning to make
> sure, I saw Mr. Shaynor’s eyes bent in the same direction, and by instinct
> recognised that the flamboyant thing was to him a shrine. ‘What do you take
> for your—cough?’ I asked.
>
> ‘Well, I’m the wrong side of the counter to believe much in patent
> medicines. But there are asthma cigarettes and there are pastilles. To tell
> you the truth, if you don’t object to the smell, which is very like incense,
> I believe, though I’m not a Roman Catholic, Blaudett’s Cathedral Pastilles
> relieve me as much as anything.’
>
> ‘Let’s try.’ I had never raided a chemist’s shop before, so I was thorough.
> We unearthed the pastilles—brown, gummy cones of benzoin—and set them alight
> under the toilet-water advertisement, where they fumed in thin blue spirals.
>
>
> ‘Of course,’ said Mr. Shaynor, to my question, ‘what one uses in the shop
> for one’s self comes out of one’s pocket. Why, stock-taking in our business
> is nearly the same as with jewellers—and I can’t say more than that. But one
> gets them’—he pointed to the pastille-box—‘at trade prices.’ Evidently the
> censing of the gay, seven-tinted wench with the teeth was an established
> ritual which cost something.
>
> ‘And when do we shut up shop?’
>
> ‘We stay like this all night. The guv—old Mr. Cashell—doesn’t believe in
> locks and shutters as compared with electric light. Besides, it brings
> trade. I’ll just sit here in the chair by the stove and write a letter, if
> you don’t mind. Electricity isn’t my prescription.’
>
> The energetic young Mr. Cashell snorted within, and Shaynor settled himself
> up in his chair over which he had thrown a staring red, black, and yellow
> Austrian jute blanket, rather like a table-cover. I cast about, amid
> patent-medicine pamphlets, for something to read, but finding little,
> returned to the manufacture of the new drink. The Italian warehouse took
> down its game and went to bed. Across the street blank shutters flung back
> the gaslight in cold smears; the dried pavement seemed to rough up in
> goose-flesh under the scouring of the savage wind, and we could hear, long
> ere he passed, the policeman flapping his arms to keep himself warm. Within,
> the flavours of cardamoms and chloric-ether disputed those of the pastilles
> and a score of drugs and perfume and soap scents. Our electric lights, set
> low down in the windows before the tun-bellied Rosamond jars, flung inward
> three monstrous daubs of red, blue, and green, that broke into kaleidoscopic
> lights on the faceted knobs of the drug-drawers, the cut-glass scent
> flagons, and the bulbs of the sparklet bottles. They flushed the white-tiled
> floor in gorgeous patches; splashed along the nickel-silver counter-rails,
> and turned the polished mahogany counter-panels to the likeness of intricate
> grained marbles—slabs of porphyry and malachite. Mr. Shaynor unlocked a
> drawer, and ere he began to write, took out a meagre bundle of letters. From
> my place by the stove, I could see the scalloped edges of the paper with a
> flaring monogram m the corner and could even smell the reek of chypre. At
> each page he turned toward the toilet-water lady of the advertisement and
> devoured her with over-luminous eyes. He had drawn the Austrian blanket over
> his shoulders, and among those warring lights he looked more than ever the
> incarnation of a drugged moth—a tiger-moth as I thought.
>
> He put his letter into an envelope, stamped it with stiff mechanical
> movements, and dropped it in the drawer. Then I became aware of the silence
> of a great city asleep—the silence that underlay the even voice of the
> breakers along the sea-front—a thick, tingling quiet of warm life stilled
> down for its appointed time, and unconsciously I moved about the glittering
> shop as one moves in a sick-room. Young Mr. Cashell was adjusting some wire
> that crackled from time to time with the tense, knuckle-stretching sound of
> the electric spark. Upstairs, where a door shut and opened swiftly, I could
> hear his uncle coughing abed.
>
> ‘Here,’ I said, when the drink was properly warmed, ‘take some of this, Mr.
> Shaynor.’
>
> He jerked in his chair with a start and a wrench, and held out his hand for
> the glass. The mixture, of a rich port-wine colour, frothed at the top.
>
> ‘It looks,’ he said, suddenly, ‘it looks—those bubbles—like a string of
> pearls winking at you—rather like the pearls round that young lady’s neck.’
> He turned again to the advertisement where the female in the dove-coloured
> corset had seen fit to put on all her pearls before she cleaned her teeth.
>
> ‘Not bad, is it?’ I said.
>
> ‘Eh?’
>
> He rolled his eyes heavily full on me, and, as I stared, I beheld all
> meaning and consciousness die out of the swiftly dilating pupils. His figure
> lost its stark rigidity, softened into the chair, and, chin on chest, hands
> dropped before him, he rested open-eyed, absolutely still.
>
> ‘I’m afraid I’ve rather cooked Shaynor’s goose,’ I said, bearing the fresh
> drink to young Mr. Cashell. ‘Perhaps it was the chloric-ether.’
>
> ‘Oh, he’s all right.’ The spade-bearded man glanced at him pityingly.
> ‘Consumptives go off in those sort of dozes very often. It’s exhaustion . .
> . I don’t wonder. I daresay the liquor will do him good. It’s grand stuff.’
> He finished his share appreciatively. ‘well, as I was saying—before he
> interrupted—about this little coherer. The pinch of dust, you see, is
> nickelfilings. The Hertzian waves, you see, come out of space from the
> station that despatches ’em, and all these little particles are attracted
> together—cohere, we call it—for just so long as the current passes through
> them. Now, its important to remember that the current is an induced current.
> There are a good many kinds of induction——’
>
> ‘Yes, but what *is* induction?’
>
> ‘That’s rather hard to explain untechnically. But the long and the short of
> it is that when a current of electricity passes through a wire there’s a lot
> of magnetism present round that wire; and if you put another wire parallel
> to, and within what we call its magnetic field—why, then the second wire
> will also become charged with electricity.’
>
> ‘On its own account?’
>
> ‘On its own account.’
>
> ‘Then let’s see if I’ve got it correctly. Miles off, at Poole, or wherever
> it is——’
>
> ‘It will be anywhere in ten years.’
>
> ‘You’ve got a charged wire——’
>
> ‘Charged with Hertzian waves which vibrate, say two hundred and thirty
> million times a second.’ Mr. Cashell snaked his forefinger rapidly through
> the air.
>
> ‘All right—a charged wire at Poole, giving out these waves into space. Then
> this wire of yours sticking out into space—on the roof of the house—in some
> mysterious way gets charged with those waves from Poole——’
>
> ‘Or anywhere—it only happens to be Poole to-night.’
>
> ‘And those waves set the coherer at work, just like an ordinary
> telegraph-office ticker?’
>
> ‘No! That’s where so many people make the mistake. The Hertzian waves
> wouldn’t be strong enough to work a great heavy Morse instrument like ours.
> They can only just make that dust cohere, and while it coheres (a little
> while for a dot and a longer while for a dash) the current from this
> battery—the home battery’—he laid his hand on the thing—‘can get through to
> the Morse printing-machine to record the dot or dash. Let me make it
> clearer. Do you know anything about steam?’
>
> ‘Very little. But go on.’
>
> ‘Well, the coherer is like a steam-valve. Any child can open a valve and
> start a steamer’s engines, because a turn of the hand lets in the main
> steam, doesn’t it? Now, this home battery here ready to print is the main
> steam. The coherer is the valve, always ready to be turned on. The Hertzian
> wave is the child’s hand that turns it.’
>
> ‘I see. That’s marvellous.’
>
> ‘Marvellous, isn’t it? And, remember, we’re only at the beginning. There’s
> nothing we shan’t be able to do in ten years. I want to live—my God, how I
> want to live, and see it develop!’ He looked through the door at Shaynor
> breathing lightly in his chair. ‘Poor beast! And he wants to keep company
> with Fanny Brand.’
>
> ‘Fanny *who*?’ I said, for the name struck an obscurely familiar chord in
> my brain—something connected with a stained handkerchief, and the word
> ‘arterial.’
>
> ‘Fanny Brand—the girl you kept shop for.’ He laughed. ‘That’s all I know
> about her, and for the life of me I can’t see what Shaynor sees in her, or
> she in him.’
>
> ‘*Can’t* you see what he sees in her?’ I insisted.
>
> ‘Oh, yes, if *that’s* what you mean. She’s a great, big, fat lump of a
> girl, and so on. I suppose that’s why he’s so crazy after her. She isn’t his
> sort. Well, it doesn’t matter. My uncle says he’s bound to die before the
> year’s out. Your drink’s given him a good sleep, at any rate.’ Young Mr.
> Cashell could not catch Mr. Shaynor’s face, which was half turned to the
> advertisement.
>
> I stoked the stove anew, for the room was growing cold, and lighted another
> pastille. Mr. Shaynor in his chair, never moving, looked through and over me
> with eyes as wide and lustreless as those of a dead hare.
>
> ‘Poole’s late,’ said young Mr. Cashell, when I stepped back. ‘I’ll just
> send them a call.’
>
> He pressed a key in the semi-darkness, and with a rending crackle there
> leaped between two brass knobs a spark, streams of sparks, and sparks again.
>
>
> ‘Grand, isn’t it? *That’s* the Power—our unknown Power—kicking and
> fighting to be let loose,’ said young Mr. Cashell. ‘There she
> goes—kick—kick—kick into space. I never get over the strangeness of it when
> I work a sending-machine—waves going into space, you know. T.R. is our call.
> Poole ought to answer with L.L.L.’
>
> We waited two, three, five minutes. In that silence, of which the boom of
> the tide was an orderly part, I caught the clear ‘*kiss—kiss—kiss*’ of the
> halliards on the roof, as they were blown against the installation-pole.
>
> ‘Poole is not ready. I’ll stay here and call you when he is.’
>
> I returned to the shop, and set down my glass an a marble slab with a
> careless clink. As I did so, Shaynor rose to his feet, his eyes fixed once
> more on the advertisement, where the young woman bathed in the light from
> the red jar simpered pinkly over her pearls. His lips moved without
> cessation. I stepped nearer to listen. ‘And threw—and threw—and threw,’ he
> repeated; his face all sharp with some inexplicable agony.
>
> I moved forward astonished. But it was then he found words—delivered
> roundly and clearly. These:
>
> And threw warm gules on Madeleine’s young breast.
>
> The trouble passed off his countenance, and he returned lightly to his
> place, rubbing his hands.
>
> It had never occurred to me, though we had many times discussed reading and
> prize-competitions as a diversion, that Mr, Shaynor ever read Keats, or
> could quote him at all appositely. There was, after all, a certain
> stained-glass effect of light on the high bosom of the highly-polished
> picture which might, by stretch of fancy, suggest, as a vile chromo recalls
> some incomparable canvas, the line he had spoken. Night, my drink, and
> solitude were evidently turning Mr. Shaynor into a poet. He sat down again
> and wrote swiftly on his villainous note-paper, his lips quivering.
>
> I shut the door into the inner office and moved up behind him. He made no
> sign that he saw or heard. I looked over his shoulder, and read, amid
> half-formed words, sentences, and wild scratches:—
>
>  ——Very cold it was. Very cold
> The hare—the hare—the hare—
> The birds——
>
> He raised his head sharply, and frowned toward the blank shutters of the
> poulterer’s shop where they jutted out against our window. Then one clear
> line came:—
>
> The bare, in spite of fur, was very cold.
>
> The head, moving machine-like, turned right to the advertisement where the
> Blaudett’s Cathedral pastille reeked abominably. He grunted, and went on:—
>
>  Incense in a censer——
> Before her darling picture framed in gold—
> Maiden’s picture—angel’s portrait—
>
> ‘Hsh!’ said Mr. Cashell guardedly from the inner office, as though in the
> presence of spirits. ‘There’s something coming through from somewhere; but
> it isn’t Poole.’ I heard the crackle of sparks as he depressed the keys of
> the transmitter. In my own brain, too, something crackled, or it might have
> been the hair on my head. Then I heard my own voice, in a harsh whisper:
> ‘Mr. Cashell, there is something coming through here, too. Leave me alone
> till I tell you.’
>
> ‘But I thought you’d come to see this wonderful thing—Sir,’ indignantly at
> the end.
>
> ‘Leave me alone till I tell you. Be quiet.’
>
> I watched—I waited. Under the blue-veined hand—the dry hand of the
> consumptive—came away clear, without erasure:—
>
>                  And my weak spirit fails
> To think how the dead must freeze—
>
> he shivered as he wrote—
>
> Beneath the churchyard mould.
>
> Then he stopped, laid the pen down, and leaned back.
>
> For an instant, that was half an eternity, the shop spun before me in a
> rainbow-tinted whirl, in and through which my own soul most dispassionately
> considered my own soul as that fought with an over-mastering fear. Then I
> smelt the strong smell of cigarettes from Mr. Shaynor’s clothing, and heard,
> as though it had been the rending of trumpets, the rattle of his breathing.
> I was still in my place of observation, much as one would watch a rifle-shot
> at the butts, halfbent, hands on my knees, and head within a few inches of
> the black, red, and yellow blanket of his shoulder. I was whispering
> encouragement, evidently to my other self, sounding sentences, such as men
> pronounce in dreams.
>
> ‘If he has read Keats, it proves nothing. If he hasn’t—like causes *must*beget like effects. There is no escape from this law.
> *You* ought to be grateful that you know “St. Agnes’ Eve” without the
> book; because, given the circumstances, such as Fanny Brand, who is the key
> of the enigma, and approximately represents the latitude and longitude of
> Fanny Brawne; allowing also for the bright red colour of the arterial blood
> upon the handkerchief, which was just what you were puzzling over in the
> shop just now; and counting the effect of the professional environment, here
> almost perfectly duplicated—the result is logical and inevitable. As
> inevitable as induction.’
>
> Still, the other half of my soul refused to be comforted. It was cowering
> in some minute and inadequate corner—at an immense distance.
>
> Hereafter, I found myself one person again, my hands still gripping my
> knees, and my eyes glued on the page before Mr. Shaynor. As dreamers accept
> and explain the upheaval of landscapes and the resurrection of the dead,
> with excerpts from the evening hymn or the multiplication-table, so I had
> accepted the facts, whatever they might be, that I should witness, and had
> devised a theory, sane and plausible to my mind, that explained them all.
> Nay, I was even in advance of my facts, walking hurriedly before them,
> assured that they would fit my theory. And all that I now recall of that
> epoch-making theory are the lofty words: ‘If he has read Keats it’s the
> chloric-ether. If he hasn’t, it’s the identical bacillus, or Hertzian wave
> of tuberculosis, *plus* Fanny Brand and the professional status which, in
> conjunction with the main-stream of subconscious thought common to all
> mankind, has thrown up temporarily an induced Keats.’
>
> Mr. Shaynor returned to his work, erasing and rewriting as before with
> swiftness. Two or three blank pages he tossed aside. Then he wrote,
> muttering:
>
> The little smoke of a candle that goes out.
>
> ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘Little smoke—little smoke—little smoke. What else?’ He
> thrust his chin forward toward the advertisement, whereunder the last of the
> Blaudett’s Cathedral pastilles fumed in its holder. ‘Ah!’ Then with relief:—
>
>
> The little smoke that dies in moonlight cold.
>
> Evidently he was snared by the rhymes of his first verse, for he wrote and
> rewrote ‘gold—cold—mould’ many times. Again he sought inspiration from the
> advertisement, and set down, without erasure, the line I had overheard:—
>
> And threw warm gules on Madeleine’s young breast.
>
> As I remembered the original it is ‘fair’—a trite word—instead of ‘young,’
> and I found myself nodding approval, though I admitted that the attempt to
> reproduce ‘Its little smoke in pallid moonlight died’ was a failure.
>
> Followed without a break ten or fifteen lines of bald prose—the naked
> soul’s confession of its physical yearning for its beloved—unclean as we
> count uncleanliness; unwholesome, but human exceedingly; the raw material,
> so it seemed to me in that hour and in that place, whence Keats wove the
> twenty-sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas of his poem. Shame I had none in
> overseeing this revelation; and my fear had gone with the smoke of the
> pastille.
>
> ‘That’s it,’ I murmured. ‘That’s how it’s blocked out. Go on! Ink it in,
> man. Ink it in!’
>
> Mr. Shaynor returned to broken verse wherein ‘loveliness’ was made to rhyme
> with a desire to look upon ‘her empty dress.’ He picked up a fold of the
> gay, soft blanket, spread it over one hand, caressed it with infinite
> tenderness, thought, muttered, traced some snatches which I could not
> decipher, shut his eyes drowsily, shook his head, and dropped the stuff.
> Here I found myself at fault, for I could not then see (as I do now) in what
> manner a red, black, and yellow Austrian blanket coloured his dreams.
>
> In a few minutes he laid aside his pen, and, chin on hand, considered the
> shop with thoughtful and intelligent eyes. He threw down the blanket, rose,
> passed along a line of drug-drawers, and read the names on the labels aloud.
> Returning, he took from his desk Christy’s *New Commercial Plants* and the
> old Culpepper that I had given him, opened and laid them side by side with a
> clerky air, all trace of passion gone from his face, read first in one and
> then in the other, and paused with pen behind his ear.
>
> ‘What wonder of Heaven’s coming now?’ I thought.
>
> ‘Manna—manna—manna,’ he said at last, under wrinkled brows. ‘That’s what I
> wanted. Good! Now then! Now then! Good! Good! Oh, by God, that’s good!’ His
> voice rose and he spoke rightly and fully without a falter:—
>
>  Candied apple, quince and plum and gourd,
> With jellies smoother than the creamy curd,
> And lucent syrops tinct with cinnamon;
> Manna and dates in argosy transferred
> >From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one
> >From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.
>
> He repeated it once more, using ‘blander’ for ‘smoother’ in the second
> line; then wrote it down without erasure, but this time (my set eyes missed
> no stroke of any word) he substituted ‘soother’ for his atrocious second
> thought, so that it came away under his hand as it is written in the book—as
> it is written in the book.
>
> A wind went shouting down the street, and on the heels of the wind followed
> a spurt and rattle of rain.
>
> After a smiling pause—and good right had he to smile—he began anew, always
> tossing the last sheet over his shoulder:—
>
>  The sharp rain falling on the window-pane.
> Rattling sleet—the wind-blown sleet.
>
> Then prose: ‘It is very cold of mornings when the wind brings rain and
> sleet with it. I heard the sleet on the window-pane outside, and thought of
> you, my darling. I am always thinking of you. I wish we could both run away
> like two lovers into the storm and get that little cottage by the sea which
> we are always thinking about, my own dear darling. We could sit and watch
> the sea beneath our windows. It would be a fairyland all of our own—a fairy
> sea—a fairy sea . . . .’
>
> He stopped, raised his head, and listened. The steady drone of the Channel
> along the sea-front that had borne us company so long leaped up a note to
> the sudden fuller surge that signals the change from ebb to flood. It beat
> in like the change of step throughout an army—this renewed pulse of the
> sea—and filled our ears till they, accepting it, marked it no longer.
>
>  A fairyland for you and me
> Across the foam-beyond . . .
> A magic foam, a perilous sea.
>
> He grunted again with effort and bit his underlip. My throat dried, but I
> dared not gulp to moisten it lest I should break the spell that was drawing
> him nearer and nearer to the highwater mark but two of the sons of Adam have
> reached. Remember that in all the millions permitted there are no more than
> five—five little lines—of which one can say: ‘These are the pure Magic.
> These are the clear Vision. The rest is only poetry.’ And Mr. Shaynor was
> playing hot and cold with two of them!
>
> I vowed no unconscious thought of mine should influence the blindfold soul,
> and pinned myself desperately to the other three, repeating and
> re-repeating:—
>
>  A savage place! as holy and enchanted
> As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
> By woman wailing for her demon-lover.
>
> But though I believed my brain thus occupied, my every sense hung upon the
> writing under the dry, bony hand, all brown-fingered with chemicals and
> cigarette-smoke.
>
> Our windows fronting on the dangerous foam,
>
> (he wrote, after long, irresolute snatches), and then—
>
>  Our open casements facing desolate seas
> Forlorn—forlorn—
>
> Here again his face grew peaked and anxious with that sense of loss I had
> first seen when the Power snatched him. But this time the agony was tenfold
> keener. As I watched it mounted like mercury in the tube. It lighted his
> face from within till I thought the visibly scourged soul must leap forth
> naked between his jaws, unable to endure. A drop of sweat trickled from my
> forehead down my nose and splashed on the back of my hand.
>
>  Our windows facing on the desolate seas
> And pearly foam of magic fairyland—
>
> ‘Not yet—not yet,’ he muttered, ‘wait a minute. *Please* wait a minute. I
> shall get it then—
>
>  Our magic windows fronting on the sea,
> The dangerous foam of desolate seas . . .
>         For aye.
>
> *Ouh*, my God!’
>
> >From head to heel he shook—shook from the marrow of his bones
> outwards—then leaped to his feet with raised arms, and slid the chair
> screeching across the tiled floor where it struck the drawers behind and
> fell with ajar. Mechanically, I stooped to recover it.
>
> As I rose, Mr. Shaynor was stretching and yawning at leisure.
>
> ‘I’ve had a bit of a doze,’ he said. ‘How did I come to knock the chair
> over? You look rather——’
>
> ‘The chair startled me,’ I answered. ‘It was so sudden in this quiet.’
>
> Young Mr. Cashell behind his shut door was offendedly silent.
>
> ‘I suppose I must have been dreaming,’ said Mr. Shaynor.
>
> ‘I suppose you must,’ I said. ‘Talking of dreams—I—I noticed you
> writing—before——’
>
> He flushed consciously.
>
> ‘I meant to ask you if you’ve ever read anything written by a man called
> Keats.’
>
> ‘Oh! I haven’t much time to read poetry, and I can’t say that I remember
> the name exactly. Is he a popular writer?’
>
> ‘Middling. I thought you might know him because he’s the only poet who was
> ever a druggist. And he’s rather what’s called the lover’s poet.’
>
> ‘Indeed. I must dip into him. What did he write about?’
>
> ‘A lot of things. Here’s a sample that may interest you.’
>
> Then and there, carefully, I repeated the verse he had twice spoken and
> once written not ten minutes ago.
>
> ‘Ah! Anybody could see he was a druggist from that line about the tinctures
> and syrups. It’s a fine tribute to our profession.’
>
> ‘I don’t know,’ said young Mr. Cashell, with icy politeness, opening the
> door one half-inch, ‘if you still happen to be interested in our trifling
> experiments. But, should such be the case——’
>
> I drew him aside, whispering, ‘Shaynor seemed going off into some sort of
> fit when I spoke to you just now. I thought, even at the risk of being rude,
> it wouldn’t do to take you off your instruments just as the call was coming
> through. Don’t you see?’
>
> ‘Granted—granted as soon as asked,’ he said, unbending. ‘I *did* think it
> a shade odd at the time. So that was why he knocked the chair down?’
>
> ‘I hope I haven’t missed anything,’ I said.
>
> ‘I’m afraid I can’t say that, but you’re just in time for the end of a
> rather curious performance. You can come in too, Mr. Shaynor. Listen, while
> I read it off’.’
>
> The Morse instrument was ticking furiously. Mr. Cashell interpreted: ‘“ *K.K.V.
> Can make nothing of your signals.*”’ A pause. ‘“ *M.M.V. M.M.V. Signals
> unintelligible. Purpose anchor Sundown Bay. Examine instruments to-morrow.
> *” Do you know what that means? It’s a couple of men-o’-war working
> Marconi signals off the Isle of Wight. They are trying to talk to each
> other. Neither can read the other’s messages, but all their messages are
> being taken in by our receiver here. They’ve been going on for ever so long.
> I wish you could have heard it.’
>
> ‘How wonderful!’ I said. ‘Do you mean we’re overhearing Portsmouth ships
> trying to talk to each other—that we’re eavesdropping across half South
> England?’
>
> ‘Just that. Their transmitters are all right, but their receivers are out
> of order, so they only get a dot here and a dash there. Nothing clear.’
>
> ‘Why is that?’
>
> ‘God knows—and Science will know tomorrow. Perhaps the induction is faulty;
> perhaps the receivers aren’t tuned to receive just the number of vibrations
> per second that the transmitter sends. Only a word here and there. Just
> enough to tantalise.’
>
> Again the Morse sprang to life.
>
> ‘That’s one of ’em complaining now. Listen “*Disheartening—most
> disheartening.*” It’s quite pathetic. Have you ever seen a spiritualistic
> seance? It reminds me of that sometimes—odds and ends of messages coming out
> of nowhere—a word here and there—no good at all.’
>
> ‘But mediums are all impostors,’ said Mr. Shaynor, in the doorway, lighting
> an asthma-cigarette. ‘They only do it for the money they can make. I’ve seen
> ’em.’
>
> ‘Here’s Poole, at last—clear as a bell. L.L.I,. Now we shan’t be long.’ Mr.
> Cashell rattled the keys merrily. ‘Anything you’d like to tell ’em?’
>
> No, I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I’ll go home and get to bed. I’m feeling a
> little tired.’
>
> =30=
>
>
>
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> =30=
>



-- 
One of those ... ...
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