Maradick thought for a moment and then he said: “But look here, Garrick, if Morelli’s what you say, if, after all, there’s something supernatural about him, he must have known that those two were going to run away; well, if he knew and minded so much, why didn’t he stop them?”
“I’m not saying that he did know,” said Punch slowly, “and I’m not saying that he wanted to stop them. Morelli’s not a man, nor anything real at all. ’E’s just a kind of vessel through which emotions pass, if you understand me. The reason, in a way, that ’e expresses Nature is because nothing stays with him. ’E’s cruel, ’e’s loving, ’e’s sad, ’e’s happy, just like Nature, because the wind blows, or the rivers run, or the rains fall. ’E’s got influence over everything human because ’e isn’t ’uman ’imself. ’E isn’t a person at all, ’e’s just an influence, a current of atmosphere in a man’s form.
“There are things, believe me, sir, all about this world that take shape one day like this and another day like that, but they have no soul, no personal identity, that is, because they have no beginning or end, no destiny or conclusion, any more than the winds or the sea. And you look out for yourself when that’s near you—it’s mighty dangerous.”
Maradick said nothing. Punch went on—
“You can’t see these things in cities, or in places where you’re for ever doing things. You’ve got to have your mind like an empty room and your eyes must be blind and your ears must be closed, and then, slowly, you’ll begin to hear and see.”
Maradick shook his head. “No, I don’t understand,” he said. “And when I get back to my regular work again I shall begin to think it’s all bunkum. But I do know that I’ve been near something that I’ve never touched before. There’s something in the place that’s changed us all for a moment. We’ll all go back and be all the same again; but things can’t ever be quite the same again for me, thank God.”
Punch knocked out his pipe against the heel of his boot.
“Man,” he said suddenly, “if you’d just come with me and walk the lanes and the hills I’d show you things. You’d begin to understand.” He gripped Maradick’s arm. “Come with me,” he said, “leave all your stupid life; let me show you the real things. It’s not worth dying with your eyes shut.”
For a moment something in Maradick responded. For a wild instant he thought that he would say yes. Then he shook his head.
“No, David, my friend,” he answered. “That’s not my life. There’s my wife, and there are others. That’s my line. But it will all be different now. I shan’t forget.”