The End: How the Great War Was Stopped. A Novelistic Vagary

by L. P. Gratacap

At first I could see nothing but soon I became conscious of some diffused light or glow, a kind of absorbed brightness, as if it escaped from the darkness itself, perhaps faintly bluish. It arrested my attention, and the thought of Blanchette died away as I actually saw the brightness increase around me. It was a strange indescribable light. It was not only seen by the eyes; it was felt by the mind, if I may put it that way. Looking more cautiously and intently it became evident that it lay in lines proceeding through the blackness of the room, from a point somewhere at our side, and it still grew slowly stronger, with a soft interior palpitation, as if the source of the emanations pulsed regularly, sending out the luminous streams in waves. With this increasing intensity—though intensity hardly expresses it, it was so vaguely dispersed and yet obviously confined in radial directions—with the increasing intensity, the mental influence deepened also, and it was only by a supreme effort that I retained my position.

The inclination with me was to allow myself to float, from the unmistakable sense of buoyancy that invaded all my body, and with that came to my sensorium a most peculiar incomputable sensation of diffusion. I cannot put it into words. It felt like a dissolution, as if the material substance of which I was composed were undergoing dispersion or extension, and the solvent was this strengthening light. But the sensation was also peculiarly delightful so that, while you felt yourself as it were vanishing, there was no sickness of fear with it, nor any, the slightest, physical resistance. I feel certain it was the prelude to unconsciousness. Some residual wakefulness, springing from my curiosity, saved me from the invited surrender, and I slowly rose to my feet, still holding Gabrielle's hands.

Then I looked at my sister, and, so it seemed, in that gloom there had developed around her head a half nebulous curtain or aureole of light also, which, in its turn, was emitting the peculiar light beams. It was at that moment I dropped her hands, that had become almost lifeless to my feeling. In an instant the previous sense of dematerialization left me, and with a shock, absurdly like the flying back of widely distended or separated limbs, I became keenly conscious, and concretely centered. I remember the faint thrill of amusement that this réassemblage caused to me. And now—there was not much desire on my part to be ratiocinative—the other point, the emergent initial centre of the emanations grew, not only brighter, but greatly larger, and I divined with a sudden consternation of heart, that there were forming before me the outlines of a human figure. I shrank backward for an instant, and for an instant only, and then bent forward and moved forward with the increasing light, for now the adjutant centres—that about the evolving apparition, and that around my sister—both increased, filling my eyes with the radiance, and yet administering no particular illumination to the objects in the room. These latter were perhaps more visible than they had been. That I think was incontestable, but the light might have been described as self-centered, in this sense, that it was entirely refluent on its source and confined in its illuminating effect to that.

And now—I lost sight of everything else, so concentrated was my thought upon the spectacle—the light to the side and in the depth of the room expanded rapidly, and the shape that it made was that of a naked phosphorescent figure, whose configuration, while it was discerned, was not really revealed, so bathed it seemed to be in the billowy light that encumbered it, and yet exposed it. Only the arms of the figure escaped that luminous envelope, and, stretching outward beyond it, put on the semblance of white flesh. I put my hand to my head. It was wet with the dew of perspiration, that may have been the sweat of amazement, or of excitement.

The intention so dearly formed of seizing my restored Blanchette died away before this immaculate phenomenon, for in it there dawned no reminiscence of the earthly charm I had called by that name. That loveliness whose perishable garb of color and of matter I had worshipped was not suggested here; the showery lightness that seemed tremulous with a thousand interior responses had its wonderfulness indeed, but it only left me wonder-stricken. Neither did it appall me. I became chilled into immobility, although every nerve was shaking with the impressed realization of a miracle. I was standing before the resurrected DEAD.

Whether it was this thought or the resuscitated passion of my heart, rebelling against the incandescent splendor, I do not know, but I suddenly stepped towards the scintillating object and spoke: "Blanchette! Blanchette! Blanchette!" My voice was instinct with the note of human passion, the earthly cry of love for the reality of warmth, and softness, and breath, and fragrance, the concomitants of the living body—and, as my words were repeated, and again repeated, and my arms were outstretched, while my face, bathed in the sepulchral light, perhaps might have showed my yearning, this marvellous and stupendous reality occurred:

The phosphorescent configuration with the extended arms grew paler and paler, and as its extreme blurry splendor died away, there sprang forward from within it, the real similitude of Blanchette, a pallid figure of light, and in it the dear face of the girl, tender, divinely, to my eyes, beautiful, with now a compassionate wistfulness of prettiness, O! so faintly expressed, in the dim radiance that seemed yet to stream with undulous waves through the room from the relaxed, motionless body of my sister. And—so it appeared to me—the figure advanced towards me with the same outstretched arms, with which I leaped forward to receive it.

I clasped the empty air and fell headlong in a convulsion, that rattled my very bones, while sharp strokes of pain severed my muscles, and throbs, like the intermittent knocks of a hammer, beat within my brain. It was an utterly unnatural collapse; the strained attitude of the last few hours, with the previous anticipation—unsuspectingly untying the resistance of my nerves—did not clearly explain it. There was something else. I was still quite conscious and, more than that, I was wrathful with disappointment, as if caught in a trick of deception, the hocus-pocus of a mere niaiserie. My eyes watched the faded spot of light from which the transfiguration had started. It actually flitted unevenly for some moments over my fallen body, and then it moved slowly—now contracted into a mere ball of luminosity—towards my yet unawakened sister. There it increased in brilliancy, and the former glowing outline, with the resumed extended arms, reappeared, and then came the last denouement. In an instant there was a flashing collision between the light of the vision and the light, seemingly emitted by my sister, when the entire room became vivid with light—everything seen, with absolutely nothing there but my sister and myself, and then the darkness again more profound by contrast, and swimming—the word is exactly descriptive—upward, and then sideways a ball, a mere star, of brightness, sparkled for one second in the fire-place, and vanished.

There was no sound, there had not been an audible word, and now there was the undisturbed apartment with myself spread out in pain on the floor, and my sister still in her unbroken trance. I struggled to my feet and seized Gabrielle's hands and drew her up. She awoke, dazed, and also in pain, standing at my side in a benumbed speechless way that startled me. I lit the lamp hurriedly, and led her to the couch, where she again fell into unconsciousness. I chafed her hands. I wet her temples. Finally she slowly responded to the treatment, and I was able to lead her to her room. She had by that time become normal, but reticent and oppressed, and begged me to leave. I went away.