XI
I am seated in my room at a hotel in the city of New York. The proprietor told me that there is a large closet between my room and Sandy’s which was reserved and locked by the former occupant of these rooms. I dislike privacy within my own privacy.
Sandy went out early in the evening to get the necessary ingredients for the making of his sangaree, as I told him that I should like to have a fresh quantity on hand. He returned about two hours since and made me about a gallon of the mixture. After I drank a glass, I told him that I felt better, and that he might go out to see the sights of this great city. Sandy is always reluctant to leave me alone. I am sorry now that I allowed him to go out, for I have a prescience that an unusual coma is about to fall upon me. But why worry about the unknown? Where death is, said a philosopher, we are not. And where we are, death is not.
I arose and thought that I ought to lie down in an attempt to sleep, when I thought that I heard a knock upon a door. Oddly enough, it was not upon my outer chamber door, but upon the closet door within. Surely I was mistaken.
I removed my dressing gown and stretched myself upon the bed. To convince myself, I arose and went to the inner closet door, but as I took hold of the handle, I stopped.
“What a superstitious wretch you are,” I uttered unconsciously aloud to myself, “get to bed. For how could a human being be knocking at an inner closet door?”
With this I was consoled, yet I shuddered, and drank another glass of sangaree.
My God, the noise was repeated again!
I was in this awful predicament when a clearer knock at my outer door brought me to my senses. Although relieved at hearing a human sound, I was much embarrassed at my condition, as I had on an oriental costume which I wear for comfort when shut within my chambers. While I hesitated, another sharp knock came at the outer door, and in another second, I heard a scratch in the key-hole. Unfortunately I had not shot the bolt on the inside, so rather than have the intruder open the door for himself, I sprang forward and swung open the door. There stood a man. He was flurried and out of breath, but apparently a gentleman of culture. He carried a valise.
I was angry and beside myself with nervousness, and determined to be abrupt with him.
“Be good enough to pardon me for disturbing you,” he said, “for I know how angry I would be if a similar interruption should occur to me. I shall only bother you for a moment. I was the last occupant of these rooms, and the proprietor of this hotel allowed me to reserve the large closet until such a time as I might be able to carry away its contents.”
“Yes, so he told me,” I answered, sharply, “but you come at a late hour to remove your effects and will arouse the other guests who may retire earlier than I am accustomed to do.”
“To say the whole truth,” he replied, “I did not come to remove my effects. I came to look upon your face. Now I am at my ease. I will leave without bothering you, and I shall remain away until you give up these apartments.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, bluntly, as I thought the man insinuated that I would have pried into his effects if he had not seen me.
“I mean that I take you for a gentleman,” he said, “a gentleman without the curiosity of Bluebeard’s wives.”
His frankness at once unarmed me and amused me.
“You are quite out of breath;” I remarked.
“Yes,” he said, “I have walked up the seven flights of stairs.”
“What, are not the elevators running?” I asked, worrying about Sandy’s return.
“Oh, yes, but they make me dizzy. I—I—I rarely use them.”
The man’s hesitation shot a fiendish idea into my brain. There are two classes of men who interest me particularly, one type is composed of those who are taciturn about their mysterious selves, and the other kind who conceal mystery under a glib and suave exterior. My visitor being of the latter class, this fiendish intention came into my brain: suppose you dose him with your sangaree until he reveals his mystery, and you can read his naked soul. Besides this, the man had a fascinating face and figure. He was about fifty years of age, his hair streaked with grey, his eyes outwardly plausible but inwardly leering, his mouth told of an exceedingly sensuous nature. His features and his body stood out like a mask, covering an actual self within, totally different from his considerate, gentlemanly exterior. I want to scratch that thin veneer of civilization, and get a look at this urbane creature.
“I fear that you mistook my abruptness for rudeness,” I said, “sit down, won’t you? Rest a few minutes until you recover your breath. I fear you have no conception of how hard stair-climbing is on the heart.”
“I have been used to it for years,” he replied, about to depart, “for eighteen years I climbed the pyramids of Egypt.”
“What a coincidence,” I answered, “I myself am a student of the East. I even adopt their dress within doors, as you see. Did you ever work about the vicinity of Memphis? Come in and sit a moment, for you are in no condition to strain yourself any more for a while. My servant is out, or I would offer you refreshment.”
I opened the door wide. He hesitated, but after brushing off a cloud of suspicion arising from my change of manner, he entered, set down his valise, and looked at me as I closed the door.
“When you spoke of Memphis,” said he, “well, I can only say that I was taken aback! Memphis was the site of most of my work.”
“You were surprised no more than I when you spoke of the pyramids,” I replied, “pardon me, but will you excuse me if I take a glass of a mild beverage which I keep on hand? I would gladly offer you some, but I fear you would not care for it, and I am sorry that I have nothing else to give you, and that my servant is out.”
“What is your beverage? I have tasted every liquor from vodka to white whiskey.”
“Oh, mine is a very mild concoction. It is only sangaree.”
“Sangaree? Why, I was raised on sangaree.”
“I am glad that I can now be hospitable. Excuse me while I fill the caraffe.”
I went into Sandy’s room, drew a pitcher of his strong stock solution, and returned to find my visitor reading one of the books on my table.
“A most exhaustive work upon marriage,” he said, running over its pages, “I finished it myself last spring. The Germans are the only thorough scholars we have, and this book by Westermark will remain a standard work.”
These matter-of-course remarks of his did not interest me, so I made no reply, and merely filled two goblets with the sangaree, offering him one. He raised the glass to his lips like one accustomed to heavy draughts, emptied half of it, looked at the liquor, looked at me, looked at the liquor again, set it down, and said nothing. I refilled it before taking my seat. Thinking that I was not observing him, he scrutinized me again, once more looked at the liquor, saw me empty my glass, rubbed his nose, and then emptied his again. For a time, we sat in silence.
“Do you want to know what Westermark taught me, though he contradicts it himself?”
I nodded, looking him full in the eyes.
“I came to the conclusion that the Almighty had married a monogamous woman to a polygamous man.”
As he set down his glass, I knew that the liquor was beginning to work. I felt like another Ethan Brand.
“There’s rum in your sangaree;” he said, compressing his lips.
“Yes, to give it flavor with the cherry bounce—don’t you like it?”
“Very much indeed. It’s difficult to procure real Medford rum these days.”
“Let me fill your glass.”
“Really, I have had sufficient; thank you.”
I filled his glass again.
“Plenty, plenty, thank you!” he insisted, as the liquor reached the brim of the glass.
“But the trouble with Westermark and the other scientific observers,” I began, “is that they give you second-hand knowledge of men and women, theirs is mostly book knowledge. I always feel that I am reading works upon heated blood written by cold, dried-up, bloodless professors, who lack the first-hand experience of one’s own life.”
“I am a professor myself;” said he.
“I beg your pardon, but I mean—”
“Tush—tush!” said he, “you are entirely right. I had to resign my professorship because of a woman. I say, this is a mighty good drink.”
He took the pitcher and refilled his own glass.
“My dear sir,” said he, unbending and stretching his legs, “I like you, for sometimes we can say things to a stranger which we would not dare breathe to a life-long friend. Fourteen years ago I was a professor at a Theological Seminary; I was a lover of beauty, a devout searcher for truth, as natural and free as I am with you now. (Here he lighted one of my cigars.) One twilight in April, the Chairman of the Faculty came to my room, told me that I was the subject of gossip, that my words shocked the New Englanders, and that I must be more circumspect in my conduct. His words wounded my frank nature. I went to Boston and got intoxicated, and sent the Faculty this telegram, saying, “Good-bye, my colleagues. Your world is not my world. Yours is a world of sham learning, hypocritical inconsistency between your reason and your emotions. Good-bye.” Naturally, it was an indiscreet thing to do; but you can wager that they never published that telegram.”
“I should think not;” I said, smiling.
He knocked the ashes off his cigar and continued:
“Seriously, my friend, it is this theological tinkering that has caused most of the trouble in this world. Long ago when the world was young, men wanted to do certain things; so they invented gods and told their people that it was the gods, not themselves, who wanted these things done. Then began the tinkering with what was beyond man’s sphere. Then man began to tinker with elements over which he had no control, with elements which he was never meant to comprehend. He segregated men and women apart, and made the distance between them contrary to natural laws. Instead of allowing Nature to run her beautiful course, he set up laws out of his own little brain. In order to protect himself as a selfish egoist, in order to gain power over his fellow men, in order to be able to own any woman whom he might desire under the guise of divine right, he had the assurance to say that these laws were God-given, and that therefore his wilful possession of a woman was a sacrament! That is what I mean by his tinkering, mental juggling with elemental truths which he did not understand and had no right to touch. It was his conceit. His sophistry for physical perversion. Do you know what ‘God-given’ means? I don’t. And I have been trying to find out for twenty years. And woman, like the silly she has always been, said it was grand, and acquiesced; while all other animals have, without man’s arrogance, remained true to their elemental nature, and so are spared our trials and shortcomings. I am right, I am right, I know I am right! That is why civilization is a failure, caused by man’s tinkering with the fundamental, basic operations of the ordinary course of the perpetuation of the species.”
When the strange professor finished speaking, I confess that I was at a loss for words, and asked:
“Do you really believe that civilization is a failure?”
“My dear sir, look about you. Side by side with material progress, with perfected inventions and conquest of disease, how much have our morals improved? How much have our vanities diminished? Do men and women grow more and more faithful to that sacrament? Do our cities grow more and more pure, and free from the taint of perversion? With our much-vaunted inheritance of art and culture, what has become of the freedom of the will, which was said to be the supreme good in that inheritance?”
“Well,” I said, “you are not saying anything new; we all know that! What are you going to do about it? You Ibsens are wonderful diagnosticians, but what we want is a cure!”
“That is only a quibble, if indeed it is not nonsense,” answered the strange professor, “for then you admit that we have not freedom of the will, that there is no such thing; well, my friend, I heartily agree with you. It is not a question of free will with us, it is a question of strength of will and weakness of will, which is purely a matter of fate.”
“Surely you are not a fatalist!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, sir, every inch a fatalist. You doubt my faith in my convictions, I see? Would you like me to prove them to you by supernatural means?”
Here the man leered at me with defiance, and I grew uneasy and longed for Sandy’s return.
“Proceed if you wish;” I said, folding my arms.
“My dear sir,” he began, rising and holding out his hand for me to clasp, “can I trust you? If you do not wish to believe me, may I prove my position to you by a discovery for which I searched a lifetime, an invention on which I lavished the slavery of years, an invention whose workings may warp your credulity until you doubt my sanity and your own. Can I trust you with my secret? I have the instrument in that valise. That is why I have walked up the seven flights of stairs, because the elevator’s motion would upset its delicate mechanism. Can I trust you?”
“Proceed if you wish;” I said, without taking his hand, for there was something uncanny about the man in his present state.
“Listen to me. I may be a trifle long, but if you knew how I am enjoying myself, yes, how I am relieving my brain by detaining you! I say relieving my brain, for it is about pent-up brains that I am about to speak. Have you ever thought that when each one of us dies, how many facts, memories, griefs, joys, are enclosed in the folds of our brain? How our skull is literally the storehouse of all we knew, felt and experienced. That in there, it was; and that in there, it must be? I have spent hours roaming through museums in which mummies were exposed; I have spent still more hours passing through cemeteries where the countless dead, known and unknown, lie. What if their skulls could be tapped? I asked myself, would we not find a few ideas, perhaps, which had filtered to the bone and survived alone of all the mind that was?
“My dear sir, you know what we have done with electricity? Thirty years ago, the first time I heard over the telephone, it sounded like a voice from the other world, and many believed that it was, until we got so we could recognize the individual voice. On that line of the vibratory properties of matter, I have worked. If we can vibrate with the dead, they will reply. I followed the example of that famous musician who said he would fiddle down a bridge. And he did. I, in turn, sought to fiddle down that invisible bridge over which we must all walk with astral steps. And, sir, my efforts have been rewarded.”
That instant he ceased speaking, and there came the same gentle knock at my inner closet door.
“There he is now!” uttered the strange professor.
“Who?” I asked, breathlessly.
“My mummy! My mummy! You shall hear him orate. Has he tapped before I came this evening?”
I was paralyzed with fear, believing that I was in the presence of a spiritualistic maniac. But I maintained my composure as the surest means of safeguard, and held my tongue.
The strange professor took from his pocket a bunch of keys, unlocked his valise, produced an instrument not unlike the phonograph, attached a long rubber tube to it, the tube having two metal balls at the other end; these balls he carried to the closet door, unlocked it and drew out the case of an Egyptian mummy! The professor turned off the lights. What he did, I know not. I heard him start his machine. I heard him rummage in the closet and say, “Here is your suit of modern clothes!”
After long trying moments for me, he turned on the lights, and a man with a yellow complexion sat between us; and the mummy case was empty. I swear it upon my oath.
“Tell the gentleman who you are,” demanded the strange professor, “make for him your oration, as you did for me. Are you able to stand alone now?”
The man arose and said:
“I belong to the Undying Ones. I am the Thracian, named Zalmoxis, of whom Herodotus tells. I could not endure the civilization of my time, and had a subterranean hall built in which to reside. The people of my day believed that I never died. But I did die, though I contracted with an Egyptian priest to embalm and mummify me. And here is my secret. I took with me the power to return at the end of certain cycles of years to the land of the living. How I came by that power, I reveal to no man, neither do I reveal the term of my cycles, lest the living plot against me. Besides this, I learned the art wherewith to speak the language of whatever land or age in which I may arise. The last I spoke was Arabic. At another time I was a contemporary of Cartaphilus, the Usher of the Divan in Jerusalem. He was Pilate’s door-keeper at the time of Christ’s trial. I myself saw him strike Jesus on the neck when the young men were leading Him from the hall of judgment. I hear that this Jew who smote Jesus has also lived since.
“Ah, if you could believe that with these eyes of mine, I have seen the ancient caliphs of Babylon; that with these legs I have traveled the empire of the Saracens; that with these arms, I fought throughout the wars in the Holy Land. I was a compatriot of the bravest man who ever walked the earth, Godfrey de Bouillon.”
“Tell us,” said the strange professor, cutting him short, “in your various revisits to this land of the living, what impresses you the most?”
“I look back with surprise and wonder at the intricate systems of the theology of the ancient Greek and Roman, and can scarcely credit the credulity which could receive them as truths and cherish them with reverence from age to age. I marvel at my own faith in them. Yet the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Resurrection, no whit less dark and intricate, and requiring nothing less of credulity, I see you receive with religious reverence, and respect as revelations of Deity.
“Indeed, when I consider the faith which is requisite for your own religion, and without which you are destitute of any religion, it should teach you to look with respect at least upon the passionate but noble gods of Rome, at the artful but polished deities of Greece.
“Even the gods are not immortal! And these are a great and forgotten race. The calm, majestic Neptune, who soothed the mighty ocean with his trident, has sunk beneath its waves to rise no more forever. The roar of cannon has frightened Mars from out the world. Alas for sighing youth, that laughter-loving, blushing Venus lives only in the skies. A dark shade hangs over Pluto; and the entrance to the realms of Tartarus has been withdrawn from mortal ken. High in heaven, another deity now sits upon the seat of dethroned Jove; and the book of fate, new-bound and new-entitled ‘Providence’ is yet preserved, though the three sisters no longer guard its sacred records.
“Thus with curiosity unmixed with reverence, I recall the names of the departed gods whom I once worshipped, and sometimes with a confidence mingled with a doubt, I wonder lest such should be the fate of your own religion.”
At this point, the man’s knees trembled, and the strange professor motioned him to be seated, as he seemed about to collapse. The whole spectacle was too much for me; and I sprang out of my chair.
“Come, we must go out in the open air,” I suggested, “the heat of this room is oppressive.”
“Nothing would suit us better,” said the strange professor, “it will do my friend good, and afford him an opportunity to see our great metropolis.” Upon this, I began at once to change my costume.
“To what nationality does he claim to belong?” I asked.
“I am an Egyptian,” spoke up the man, “I was born a Thracian, but I moved to Egypt. I lived at Memphis, a superb city which has long since passed into complete oblivion. I often think that not one of us as we used to walk its streets could ever have believed such utter desolation possible. Away in the distance only the pyramids of our Pharaohs stand. When I saw them last, I could hardly recognize them.”
“Why did you go to Memphis when you were alive?” asked the strange professor.
“On account of a common concubine. I had to be a foolish young man.”
By this time, we had reached the elevators, and the professor said that he would have to walk down, as he took with him the valise which contained the mechanism too sensitive to be taken upon an elevator. Whereupon, I insisted upon the three of us walking down, for I did not wish to be left alone with the Egyptian.
When at last we reached the street, I offered to take them to the opera, though I confessed that it would be nearly over. I hoped that even a few strains of music might soothe my troubled brain. I purchased three tickets, and we mingled with the magnificent assemblage in the foyer. After looking about him, the Egyptian suddenly stood aghast.
“Is that the best your women can do?” asked the Egyptian, turning first to me and then to the professor.
“What is the matter with them?” we asked together.
“After all these centuries, is the best they can do, the wearing of trinkets on their ears, bangles on their arms, and their fingers stiff with rings? Why, the barbaric brain of the early Egyptian perfected every known design of jewelry. Is woman at heart still a savage? And these absurd head-dresses! And that dirty powder on their faces! Have you not gotten beyond even that common sort of vanity?”
“I am afraid that your friend will not enjoy it here,” I said, fearing a scene, “let us leave.”
As it was now late in the evening, I took them to a famous French café. We had hardly seated ourselves at a table, when the place filled with people who came from the closing of the theatres. Soon the corks popped from the bottles, soon the men became noisy and drowned the music, and soon the painted women became vulgar.
“Is this the best your men can do?” asked the Egyptian, looking about him, as though a pall of ennui had fallen upon him, “after all these generations since I was foolish, is man’s chief diversion that of getting drunk with low women? I used to do this with the strumpets of Babylon; and those chartered courtesans were at least naturally beautiful.”
“You had better go back to your mummy case,” said the professor, “we have nothing more to offer you. Here is your sleeping powder.”
The Egyptian took the powder and willingly made his escape. The professor looked at me, and I looked at the professor. I fear that I was rather sheep-faced and ashamed of the only civilization we had to offer. The professor saw my chagrin, and that he had scored in favor of his doctrines.
“I have just one more experiment to prove to you the scope of my invention,” said he, “and then I shall bid you good-night.”
He took me by the arm, and with the other hand he carried his valise. He led me into the downtown districts, along the great thoroughfare which is so crowded by day and so deserted by night. We came to the gates of an old cemetery, and after looking up and down the street to make sure that the police did not observe us, the strange professor ushered me into the cemetery, and we sat down upon a cold marble slab, and once more in the hush and chill of quiet moonlight, the man became uncanny.
“I know what you think,” said he, “you think that I have this power over only that one man. You even suspect me. You fear lest I have you in a state of hypnosis or morbid sleep, and that even the Egyptian himself was an illusion. I know you. You tried to get me intoxicated with your sangaree. I admit that you have a power of extracting confidences. You thought that perhaps you had found in me some interesting phantast who would amuse you. But let me tell you the most profound paradox in the world: if you possess a power, and abuse your power, that power will be taken away from you. Take care!
“Now for my last experiment. Answer me, if you can not believe your eyes, can you trust your ears? Listen to the sentiments which have outlasted the brains of a few of the dead. Often these ideas crystallize their whole experience.”
He undid his valise, placed two hard rubber tubes in my ears, and then slowly inserted the two metal balls into the head of a grave. I saw his spider-like fingers reach out and touch the valise, and the machine started.
“Hold the tubes tightly in your ears.”
Presently a gurgling vibration ceased and these words came distinctly:
“I should like to see the sun shining, and my sheep nibbling the green, tender grass. I was happy.”
Then the vibration stopped. The professor seemed to know it, probably from the relaxed intentness of my expression. He said not a word, but motioned me to follow him. We moved to another grave where he repeated the operations. Then came these words to my ears:
“Too late, too late; everything came for me too late. They even tried to cure me too late. Alas, poor Dorothy!”
The next grave gave forth these words:
“I believed in God and said my prayers. That was my only solace.”
We moved again to a mound covered with fresh earth and new flowers. The professor whispered that the lately dead often had confused ideas. This was the message:
“Last night was my first night in the grave. I trusted my lover. His faithlessness turned me into a bad woman. I weighed only ninety-two pounds when I died. I wish that I could drink and dance with him once more. I wish I could see his eyes beam on me. I do love him.”
The words ceased to come and the vibration stopped.
The professor whispered that he would go to three more graves and then depart.
The first gave out only one sentence:
“I married a man whom I did not love, yet I kept him from knowing the truth.”
And the second:
“My eight children which I bore my husband gave me much joy and some sorrow. I was so proud of my son, Charlie.”
And the last:
“I was known as the rich spinster of the place where I lived. Ah, they little knew that money does not, can not, make one happy. Why had I to be sterile?”
To my dying day, I shall hear that plaintive, unselfish question. And when they tap my skull, the answer will be graven there.
The strange professor put the metal balls and the tubes back in their place, and closed the valise. We issued forth again upon the sidewalk.
“Why was it that only women spoke?” I asked.
“Because most women die keeping the true secrets of their existence; whereas few men can maintain a life-long self within a self. Men are more vain, but they have less pride than women. Goodnight! Good-bye!”
Without another word the strange professor took a passing street car and left me stark alone. And I walked for hours before I cared, or rather dared, to go to my hotel. Daylight was coming through the windows when at last I reached my rooms. The mummy case was gone! The closet door was open, and the closet empty! I went into Sandy’s room, and there he sat awaiting me.
“Lor’, maarstar, you done do me wrong. I jest come home, after tryin’ to spy on you. I sees you once with two gen’lemen.”
“What? Were there three of us, Sandy?”
“Yes, maarstar, you know one of them was yaller. He never did look like he come from this country.”
“Do you swear it, Sandy?” I asked, placing my hand on his shoulder.
“I sirtainly do, maarstar;” said he, looking up at me as if I were bereft of my reason.
“Thank heaven!” I uttered aloud, “I almost thought that I might be going mad. We must leave this city, Sandy, for while I am here, I keep thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking of the days I spent here once as a boy. Oh, Sandy, that morning in May when I awoke to find that it was true! Too true! You remember, the following February Miss Susanne died?—Let us pack the trunks.”