Produced by eagkw, Chris Curnow and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)
THE PLATTNER STORY
AND OTHERS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE STOLEN BACILLUS THE WONDERFUL VISIT THE WHEELS OF CHANCE THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU THE TIME MACHINE
THE PLATTNER STORY
AND OTHERS
BY H. G. WELLS
METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. LONDON 1897
TO MY FATHER
CONTENTS
PAGE THE PLATTNER STORY 2 THE ARGONAUTS OF THE AIR 29 THE STORY OF THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM 47 IN THE ABYSS 71 THE APPLE 94 UNDER THE KNIFE 106 THE SEA-RAIDERS 126 POLLOCK AND THE PORROH MAN 142 THE RED ROOM 165 THE CONE 179 THE PURPLE PILEUS 196 THE JILTING OF JANE 213 IN THE MODERN VEIN 224 A CATASTROPHE 239 THE LOST INHERITANCE 252 THE SAD STORY OF A DRAMATIC CRITIC 262 A SLIP UNDER THE MICROSCOPE 274
THE PLATTNER STORY
Whether the story of Gottfried Plattner is to be credited or not, isa pretty question in the value of evidence. On the one hand, we haveseven witnesses--to be perfectly exact, we have six and a half pairsof eyes, and one undeniable fact; and on the other we have--what isit?--prejudice, common sense, the inertia of opinion. Never were thereseven more honest-seeming witnesses; never was there a more undeniablefact than the inversion of Gottfried Plattner's anatomical structure,and--never was there a more preposterous story than the one theyhave to tell! The most preposterous part of the story is the worthyGottfried's contribution (for I count him as one of the seven). Heavenforbid that I should be led into giving countenance to superstition bya passion for impartiality, and so come to share the fate of Eusapia'spatrons! Frankly, I believe there is something crooked about thisbusiness of Gottfried Plattner; but what that crooked factor is, Iwill admit as frankly, I do not know. I have been surprised at thecredit accorded to the story in the most unexpected and authoritativequarters. The fairest way to the reader, however, will be for me totell it without further comment.
Gottfried Plattner is, in spite of his name, a free-born Englishman.His father was an Alsatian who came to England in the Sixties, marrieda respectable English girl of unexceptionable antecedents, and died,after a wholesome and uneventful life (devoted, I understand, chieflyto the laying of parquet flooring), in 1887. Gottfried's age isseven-and-twenty. He is, by virtue of his heritage of three languages,Modern Languages Master in a small private school in the South ofEngland. To the casual observer he is singularly like any other ModernLanguages Master in any other small private school. His costume isneither very costly nor very fashionable, but, on the other hand, itis not markedly cheap or shabby; his complexion, like his height andhis bearing, is inconspicuous. You would notice, perhaps, that, likethe majority of people, his face was not absolutely symmetrical, hisright eye a little larger than the left, and his jaw a trifle heavieron the right side. If you, as an ordinary careless person, were to barehis chest and feel his heart beating, you would probably find it quitelike the heart of anyone else. But here you and the trained observerwould part company. If you found his heart quite ordinary, the trainedobserver would find it quite otherwise. And once the thing was pointedout to you, you too would perceive the peculiarity easily enough. It isthat Gottfried's heart beats on the right side of his body.
Now, that is not the only singularity of Gottfried's structure,although it is the only one that would appeal to the untrained mind.Careful sounding of Gottfried's internal arrangements, by a well-knownsurgeon, seems to point to the fact that all the other unsymmetricalparts of his body are similarly misplaced. The right lobe of his liveris on the left side, the left on his right; while his lungs, too, aresimilarly contraposed. What is still more singular, unless Gottfried isa consummate actor, we must believe that his right hand has recentlybecome his left. Since the occurrences we are about to consider (asimpartially as possible), he has found the utmost difficulty inwriting, except from right to left across the paper with his left hand.He cannot throw with his right hand, he is perplexed at meal timesbetween knife and fork, and his ideas of the rule of the road--he isa cyclist--are still a dangerous confusion. And there is not a scrapof evidence to show that before these occurrences Gottfried was at allleft-handed.
There is yet another wonderful fact in this preposterous business.Gottfried produces three photographs of himself. You have him at theage of five or six, thrusting fat legs at you from under a plaid frock,and scowling. In that photograph his left eye is a little larger thanhis right, and his jaw is a trifle heavier on the left side. Thisis the reverse of his present living conditions. The photograph ofGottfried at fourteen seems to contradict these facts, but that isbecause it is one of those cheap "Gem" photographs that were then invogue, taken direct upon metal, and therefore reversing things justas a looking-glass would. The third photograph represents him atone-and-twenty, and confirms the record of the others. There seems hereevidence of the strongest confirmatory character that Gottfried hasexchanged his left side for his right. Yet how a human being can be sochanged, short of a fantastic and pointless miracle, it is exceedinglyhard to suggest.
In one way, of course, these facts might be explicable on thesupposition that Plattner has undertaken an elaborate mystification,on the strength of his heart's displacement. Photographs may befudged, and left-handedness imitated. But the character of the mandoes not lend itself to any such theory. He is quiet, practical,unobtrusive, and thoroughly sane, from the Nordau standpoint. Helikes beer, and smokes moderately, takes walking exercise daily, andhas a healthily high estimate of the value of his teaching. He has agood but untrained tenor voice, and takes a pleasure in singing airsof a popular and cheerful character. He is fond, but not morbidlyfond, of reading,--chiefly fiction pervaded with a vaguely piousoptimism,--sleeps well, and rarely dreams. He is, in fact, the verylast person to evolve a fantastic fable. Indeed, so far from forcingthis story upon the world, he has been singularly reticent on thematter. He meets inquirers with a certain engaging--bashfulness isalmost the word, that disarms the most suspicious. He seems genuinelyashamed that anything so unusual has occurred to him.
It is to be regretted that Plattner's aversion to the idea ofpost-mortem dissection may postpone, perhaps for ever, the positiveproof that his entire body has had its left and right sidestransposed. Upon that fact mainly the credibility of his story hangs.There is no way of taking a man and moving him about _in space_, asordinary people understand space, that will result in our changinghis sides. Whatever you do, his right is still his right, his lefthis left. You can do that with a perfectly thin and flat thing, ofcourse. If you were to cut a figure out of paper, any figure with aright and left side, you could change its sides simply by lifting itup and turning it over. But with a solid it is different. Mathematicaltheorists tell us that the only way in which the right and left sidesof a solid body can be changed is by taking that body clean out ofspace as we know it,--taking it out of ordinary existence, that is,and turning it somewhere outside space. This is a little abstruse,no doubt, but anyone with any knowledge of mathematical theory willassure the reader of its truth. To put the thing in technical language,the curious inversion of Plattner's right and left sides is proofthat he has moved out of our space into what is called the FourthDimension, and that he has returned again to our world. Unless wechoose to
consider ourselves the victims of an elaborate and motivelessfabrication, we are almost bound to believe that this has occurred.
So much for the tangible facts. We come now to the account of thephenomena that attended his temporary disappearance from the world.It appears that in the Sussexville Proprietary School, Plattner notonly discharged the duties of Modern Languages Master, but also taughtchemistry, commercial geography, book-keeping, shorthand, drawing, andany other additional subject to which the changing fancies of theboys' parents might direct attention. He knew little or nothing ofthese various subjects, but in secondary as distinguished from Boardor elementary schools, knowledge in the teacher is, very properly, byno means so necessary as high moral character and gentlemanly tone.In chemistry he was particularly deficient, knowing, he says, nothingbeyond the Three Gases (whatever the three gases may be). As, however,his pupils began by knowing nothing, and derived all their informationfrom him, this caused him (or anyone) but little inconvenience forseveral terms. Then a little boy named Whibble joined the school, whohad been educated (it seems) by some mischievous relative into aninquiring habit of mind. This little boy followed Plattner's lessonswith marked and sustained interest, and in order to exhibit his zealon the subject, brought, at various times, substances for Plattner toanalyse. Plattner, flattered by this evidence of his power of awakeninginterest, and trusting to the boy's ignorance, analysed these, and evenmade general statements as to their composition. Indeed, he was so farstimulated by his pupil as to obtain a work upon analytical chemistry,and study it during his supervision of the evening's preparation. Hewas surprised to find chemistry quite an interesting subject.
So far the story is absolutely commonplace. But now the greenishpowder comes upon the scene. The source of that greenish powder seems,unfortunately, lost. Master Whibble tells a tortuous story of findingit done up in a packet in a disused limekiln near the Downs. It wouldhave been an excellent thing for Plattner, and possibly for MasterWhibble's family, if a match could have been applied to that powderthere and then. The young gentleman certainly did not bring it toschool in a packet, but in a common eight-ounce graduated medicinebottle, plugged with masticated newspaper. He gave it to Plattner atthe end of the afternoon school. Four boys had been detained afterschool prayers in order to complete some neglected tasks, and Plattnerwas supervising these in the small classroom in which the chemicalteaching was conducted. The appliances for the practical teaching ofchemistry in the Sussexville Proprietary School, as in most smallschools in this country, are characterised by a severe simplicity. Theyare kept in a small cupboard standing in a recess, and having about thesame capacity as a common travelling trunk. Plattner, being bored withhis passive superintendence, seems to have welcomed the intervention ofWhibble with his green powder as an agreeable diversion, and, unlockingthis cupboard, proceeded at once with his analytical experiments.Whibble sat, luckily for himself, at a safe distance, regarding him.The four malefactors, feigning a profound absorption in their work,watched him furtively with the keenest interest. For even within thelimits of the Three Gases, Plattner's practical chemistry was, Iunderstand, temerarious.
They are practically unanimous in their account of Plattner'sproceedings. He poured a little of the green powder into a test-tube,and tried the substance with water, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid,and sulphuric acid in succession. Getting no result, he emptied out alittle heap--nearly half the bottleful, in fact--upon a slate and trieda match. He held the medicine bottle in his left hand. The stuff beganto smoke and melt, and then--exploded with deafening violence and ablinding flash.
The five boys, seeing the flash and being prepared for catastrophes,ducked below their desks, and were none of them seriously hurt. Thewindow was blown out into the playground, and the blackboard on itseasel was upset. The slate was smashed to atoms. Some plaster fellfrom the ceiling. No other damage was done to the school edifice orappliances, and the boys at first, seeing nothing of Plattner, fanciedhe was knocked down and lying out of their sight below the desks. Theyjumped out of their places to go to his assistance, and were amazed tofind the space empty. Being still confused by the sudden violence ofthe report, they hurried to the open door, under the impression thathe must have been hurt, and have rushed out of the room. But Carson,the foremost, nearly collided in the doorway with the principal, Mr.Lidgett.
Mr. Lidgett is a corpulent, excitable man with one eye. The boysdescribe him as stumbling into the room mouthing some of those temperedexpletives irritable schoolmasters accustom themselves to use--lestworse befall. "Wretched mumchancer!" he said. "Where's Mr. Plattner?"The boys are agreed on the very words. ("Wobbler," "snivelling puppy,"and "mumchancer" are, it seems, among the ordinary small change of Mr.Lidgett's scholastic commerce.)
Where's Mr. Plattner? That was a question that was to be repeated manytimes in the next few days. It really seemed as though that frantichyperbole, "blown to atoms," had for once realised itself. There wasnot a visible particle of Plattner to be seen; not a drop of blood nora stitch of clothing to be found. Apparently he had been blown cleanout of existence and left not a wrack behind. Not so much as wouldcover a sixpenny piece, to quote a proverbial expression! The evidenceof his absolute disappearance, as a consequence of that explosion, isindubitable.
It is not necessary to enlarge here upon the commotion excited in theSussexville Proprietary School, and in Sussexville and elsewhere, bythis event. It is quite possible, indeed, that some of the readers ofthese pages may recall the hearing of some remote and dying versionof that excitement during the last summer holidays. Lidgett, it wouldseem, did everything in his power to suppress and minimise the story.He instituted a penalty of twenty-five lines for any mention ofPlattner's name among the boys, and stated in the schoolroom that hewas clearly aware of his assistant's whereabouts. He was afraid, heexplains, that the possibility of an explosion happening, in spite ofthe elaborate precautions taken to minimise the practical teaching ofchemistry, might injure the reputation of the school; and so might anymysterious quality in Plattner's departure. Indeed, he did everythingin his power to make the occurrence seem as ordinary as possible. Inparticular, he cross-examined the five eye-witnesses of the occurrenceso searchingly that they began to doubt the plain evidence of theirsenses. But, in spite of these efforts, the tale, in a magnifiedand distorted state, made a nine days' wonder in the district, andseveral parents withdrew their sons on colourable pretexts. Not theleast remarkable point in the matter is the fact that a large numberof people in the neighbourhood dreamed singularly vivid dreams ofPlattner during the period of excitement before his return, and thatthese dreams had a curious uniformity. In almost all of them Plattnerwas seen, sometimes singly, sometimes in company, wandering aboutthrough a coruscating iridescence. In all cases his face was pale anddistressed, and in some he gesticulated towards the dreamer. One ortwo of the boys, evidently under the influence of nightmare, fanciedthat Plattner approached them with remarkable swiftness, and seemed tolook closely into their very eyes. Others fled with Plattner from thepursuit of vague and extraordinary creatures of a globular shape. Butall these fancies were forgotten in inquiries and speculations when, onthe Wednesday next but one after the Monday of the explosion, Plattnerreturned.
The circumstances of his return were as singular as those of hisdeparture. So far as Mr. Lidgett's somewhat choleric outline can befilled in from Plattner's hesitating statements, it would appear thaton Wednesday evening, towards the hour of sunset, the former gentleman,having dismissed evening preparation, was engaged in his garden,picking and eating strawberries, a fruit of which he is inordinatelyfond. It is a large old-fashioned garden, secured from observation,fortunately, by a high and ivy-covered red-brick wall. Just as he wasstooping over a particularly prolific plant, there was a flash in theair and a heavy thud, and before he could look round, some heavy bodystruck him violently from behind. He was pitched forward, crushing thestrawberries he held in his hand, and that so roughly, that his silkhat--Mr. Lidgett adheres to the older ideas of s
cholastic costume--wasdriven violently down upon his forehead, and almost over one eye.This heavy missile, which slid over him sideways and collapsed into asitting posture among the strawberry plants, proved to be our long-lostMr. Gottfried Plattner, in an extremely dishevelled condition. Hewas collarless and hatless, his linen was dirty, and there was bloodupon his hands. Mr. Lidgett was so indignant and surprised that heremained on all-fours, and with his hat jammed down on his eye, whilehe expostulated vehemently with Plattner for his disrespectful andunaccountable conduct.
This scarcely idyllic scene completes what I may call the exteriorversion of the Plattner story--its exoteric aspect. It is quiteunnecessary to enter here into all the details of his dismissal by Mr.Lidgett. Such details, with the full names and dates and references,will be found in the larger report of these occurrences that was laidbefore the Society for the Investigation of Abnormal Phenomena. Thesingular transposition of Plattner's right and left sides was scarcelyobserved for the first day or so, and then first in connection withhis disposition to write from right to left across the blackboard. Heconcealed rather than ostended this curious confirmatory circumstance,as he considered it would unfavourably affect his prospects in a newsituation. The displacement of his heart was discovered some monthsafter, when he was having a tooth extracted under anaesthetics. He then,very unwillingly, allowed a cursory surgical examination to be made ofhimself, with a view to a brief account in the _Journal of Anatomy_.That exhausts the statement of the material facts; and we may now go onto consider Plattner's account of the matter.
But first let us clearly differentiate between the preceding portionof this story and what is to follow. All I have told thus far isestablished by such evidence as even a criminal lawyer would approve.Every one of the witnesses is still alive; the reader, if he have theleisure, may hunt the lads out tomorrow, or even brave the terrors ofthe redoubtable Lidgett, and cross-examine and trap and test to hisheart's content; Gottfried Plattner, himself, and his twisted heart andhis three photographs are producible. It may be taken as proved that hedid disappear for nine days as the consequence of an explosion; thathe returned almost as violently, under circumstances in their natureannoying to Mr. Lidgett, whatever the details of those circumstancesmay be; and that he returned inverted, just as a reflection returnsfrom a mirror. From the last fact, as I have already stated, itfollows almost inevitably that Plattner, during those nine days, musthave been in some state of existence altogether out of space. Theevidence to these statements is, indeed, far stronger than that uponwhich most murderers are hanged. But for his own particular accountof where he had been, with its confused explanations and well-nighself-contradictory details, we have only Mr. Gottfried Plattner's word.I do not wish to discredit that, but I must point out--what so manywriters upon obscure psychic phenomena fail to do--that we are passinghere from the practically undeniable to that kind of matter which anyreasonable man is entitled to believe or reject as he thinks proper.The previous statements render it plausible; its discordance withcommon experience tilts it towards the incredible. I would prefer notto sway the beam of the reader's judgment either way, but simply totell the story as Plattner told it me.
He gave me his narrative, I may state, at my house at Chislehurst, andso soon as he had left me that evening, I went into my study and wrotedown everything as I remembered it. Subsequently he was good enough toread over a type-written copy, so that its substantial correctness isundeniable.
He states that at the moment of the explosion he distinctly thought hewas killed. He felt lifted off his feet and driven forcibly backward.It is a curious fact for psychologists that he thought clearly duringhis backward flight, and wondered whether he should hit the chemistrycupboard or the blackboard easel. His heels struck ground, and hestaggered and fell heavily into a sitting position on something softand firm. For a moment the concussion stunned him. He became aware atonce of a vivid scent of singed hair, and he seemed to hear the voiceof Lidgett asking for him. You will understand that for a time hismind was greatly confused.
At first he was distinctly under the impression that he was still inthe classroom. He perceived quite distinctly the surprise of the boysand the entry of Mr. Lidgett. He is quite positive upon that score.He did not hear their remarks; but that he ascribed to the deafeningeffect of the experiment. Things about him seemed curiously dark andfaint, but his mind explained that on the obvious but mistaken ideathat the explosion had engendered a huge volume of dark smoke. Throughthe dimness the figures of Lidgett and the boys moved, as faint andsilent as ghosts. Plattner's face still tingled with the stingingheat of the flash. He was, he says, "all muddled." His first definitethoughts seem to have been of his personal safety. He thought he wasperhaps blinded and deafened. He felt his limbs and face in a gingerlymanner. Then his perceptions grew clearer, and he was astonished tomiss the old familiar desks and other schoolroom furniture about him.Only dim, uncertain, grey shapes stood in the place of these. Then camea thing that made him shout aloud, and awoke his stunned facultiesto instant activity. _Two of the boys, gesticulating, walked oneafter the other clean through him!_ Neither manifested the slightestconsciousness of his presence. It is difficult to imagine the sensationhe felt. They came against him, he says, with no more force than a wispof mist.
Plattner's first thought after that was that he was dead. Having beenbrought up with thoroughly sound views in these matters, however, hewas a little surprised to find his body still about him. His secondconclusion was that he was not dead, but that the others were: that theexplosion had destroyed the Sussexville Proprietary School and everysoul in it except himself. But that, too, was scarcely satisfactory. Hewas thrown back upon astonished observation.
Everything about him was extraordinarily dark: at first it seemed tohave an altogether ebony blackness. Overhead was a black firmament.The only touch of light in the scene was a faint greenish glow at theedge of the sky in one direction, which threw into prominence a horizonof undulating black hills. This, I say, was his impression at first.As his eye grew accustomed to the darkness, he began to distinguish afaint quality of differentiating greenish colour in the circumambientnight. Against this background the furniture and occupants of theclassroom, it seems, stood out like phosphorescent spectres, faintand impalpable. He extended his hand, and thrust it without an effortthrough the wall of the room by the fireplace.
He describes himself as making a strenuous effort to attract attention.He shouted to Lidgett, and tried to seize the boys as they went toand fro. He only desisted from these attempts when Mrs. Lidgett, whomhe (as an Assistant Master) naturally disliked, entered the room. Hesays the sensation of being in the world, and yet not a part of it,was an extraordinarily disagreeable one. He compared his feelings,not inaptly, to those of a cat watching a mouse through a window.Whenever he made a motion to communicate with the dim, familiar worldabout him, he found an invisible, incomprehensible barrier preventingintercourse.
He then turned his attention to his solid environment. He found themedicine bottle still unbroken in his hand, with the remainder of thegreen powder therein. He put this in his pocket, and began to feelabout him. Apparently, he was sitting on a boulder of rock covered witha velvety moss. The dark country about him he was unable to see, thefaint, misty picture of the schoolroom blotting it out, but he had afeeling (due perhaps to a cold wind) that he was near the crest of ahill, and that a steep valley fell away beneath his feet. The greenglow along the edge of the sky seemed to be growing in extent andintensity. He stood up, rubbing his eyes.
It would seem that he made a few steps, going steeply down hill, andthen stumbled, nearly fell, and sat down again upon a jagged mass ofrock to watch the dawn. He became aware that the world about him wasabsolutely silent. It was as still as it was dark, and though there wasa cold wind blowing up the hill-face, the rustle of grass, the soughingof the boughs that should have accompanied it, were absent. He couldhear, therefore, if he could not see, that the hillside upon which hestood was rocky and desolate. The g
reen grew brighter every moment, andas it did so a faint, transparent blood-red mingled with, but did notmitigate, the blackness of the sky overhead and the rocky desolationsabout him. Having regard to what follows, I am inclined to think thatthat redness may have been an optical effect due to contrast. Somethingblack fluttered momentarily against the livid yellow-green of thelower sky, and then the thin and penetrating voice of a bell rose outof the black gulf below him. An oppressive expectation grew with thegrowing light.
It is probable that an hour or more elapsed while he sat there, thestrange green light growing brighter every moment, and spreadingslowly, in flamboyant fingers, upward towards the zenith. As it grew,the spectral vision of _our_ world became relatively or absolutelyfainter. Probably both, for the time must have been about that of ourearthly sunset. So far as his vision of our world went, Plattner, byhis few steps downhill, had passed through the floor of the classroom,and was now, it seemed, sitting in mid-air in the larger schoolroomdownstairs. He saw the boarders distinctly, but much more faintlythan he had seen Lidgett. They were preparing their evening tasks,and he noticed with interest that several were cheating with theirEuclid riders by means of a crib, a compilation whose existence he hadhitherto never suspected. As the time passed, they faded steadily, assteadily as the light of the green dawn increased.
Looking down into the valley, he saw that the light had crept fardown its rocky sides, and that the profound blackness of the abysswas now broken by a minute green glow, like the light of a glow-worm.And almost immediately the limb of a huge heavenly body of blazinggreen rose over the basaltic undulations of the distant hills, andthe monstrous hill-masses about him came out gaunt and desolate, ingreen light and deep, ruddy black shadows. He became aware of a vastnumber of ball-shaped objects drifting as thistledown drifts overthe high ground. There were none of these nearer to him than theopposite side of the gorge. The bell below twanged quicker and quicker,with something like impatient insistence, and several lights movedhither and thither. The boys at work at their desks were now almostimperceptibly faint.
This extinction of our world, when the green sun of this other universerose, is a curious point upon which Plattner insists. During theOther-World night it is difficult to move about, on account of thevividness with which the things of this world are visible. It becomes ariddle to explain why, if this is the case, we in this world catch noglimpse of the Other-World. It is due, perhaps, to the comparativelyvivid illumination of this world of ours. Plattner describes themidday of the Other-World, at its brightest, as not being nearly sobright as this world at full moon, while its night is profoundlyblack. Consequently, the amount of light, even in an ordinary darkroom, is sufficient to render the things of the Other-World invisible,on the same principle that faint phosphorescence is only visible inthe profoundest darkness. I have tried, since he told me his story,to see something of the Other-World by sitting for a long space in aphotographer's dark room at night. I have certainly seen indistinctlythe form of greenish slopes and rocks, but only, I must admit, veryindistinctly indeed. The reader may possibly be more successful.Plattner tells me that since his return he has dreamt and seen andrecognised places in the Other-World, but this is probably due to hismemory of these scenes. It seems quite possible that people withunusually keen eyesight may occasionally catch a glimpse of thisstrange Other-World about us.
However, this is a digression. As the green sun rose, a long streetof black buildings became perceptible, though only darkly andindistinctly, in the gorge, and, after some hesitation, Plattner beganto clamber down the precipitous descent towards them. The descent waslong and exceedingly tedious, being so not only by the extraordinarysteepness, but also by reason of the looseness of the boulderswith which the whole face of the hill was strewn. The noise of hisdescent--now and then his heels struck fire from the rocks--seemednow the only sound in the universe, for the beating of the bell hadceased. As he drew nearer, he perceived that the various edifices hada singular resemblance to tombs and mausoleums and monuments, savingonly that they were all uniformly black instead of being white, asmost sepulchres are. And then he saw, crowding out of the largestbuilding, very much as people disperse from church, a number of pallid,rounded, pale-green figures. These dispersed in several directionsabout the broad street of the place, some going through side alleys andreappearing upon the steepness of the hill, others entering some of thesmall black buildings which lined the way.
At the sight of these things drifting up towards him, Plattner stopped,staring. They were not walking, they were indeed limbless, and theyhad the appearance of human heads, beneath which a tadpole-like bodyswung. He was too astonished at their strangeness, too full, indeed,of strangeness, to be seriously alarmed by them. They drove towardshim, in front of the chill wind that was blowing uphill, much assoap-bubbles drive before a draught. And as he looked at the nearestof those approaching, he saw it was indeed a human head, albeit withsingularly large eyes, and wearing such an expression of distress andanguish as he had never seen before upon mortal countenance. He wassurprised to find that it did not turn to regard him, but seemed to bewatching and following some unseen moving thing. For a moment he waspuzzled, and then it occurred to him that this creature was watchingwith its enormous eyes something that was happening in the world he hadjust left. Nearer it came, and nearer, and he was too astonished tocry out. It made a very faint fretting sound as it came close to him.Then it struck his face with a gentle pat--its touch was very cold--anddrove past him, and upward towards the crest of the hill.
An extraordinary conviction flashed across Plattner's mind that thishead had a strong likeness to Lidgett. Then he turned his attentionto the other heads that were now swarming thickly up the hillside.None made the slightest sign of recognition. One or two, indeed, cameclose to his head and almost followed the example of the first, buthe dodged convulsively out of the way. Upon most of them he saw thesame expression of unavailing regret he had seen upon the first, andheard the same faint sounds of wretchedness from them. One or two wept,and one rolling swiftly uphill wore an expression of diabolical rage.But others were cold, and several had a look of gratified interest intheir eyes. One, at least, was almost in an ecstasy of happiness.Plattner does not remember that he recognised any more likenesses inthose he saw at this time.
For several hours, perhaps, Plattner watched these strange thingsdispersing themselves over the hills, and not till long after theyhad ceased to issue from the clustering black buildings in the gorge,did he resume his downward climb. The darkness about him increased somuch that he had a difficulty in stepping true. Overhead the sky wasnow a bright, pale green. He felt neither hunger nor thirst. Later,when he did, he found a chilly stream running down the centre of thegorge, and the rare moss upon the boulders, when he tried it at last indesperation, was good to eat.
He groped about among the tombs that ran down the gorge, seekingvaguely for some clue to these inexplicable things. After a longtime he came to the entrance of the big mausoleum-like building fromwhich the heads had issued. In this he found a group of green lightsburning upon a kind of basaltic altar, and a bell-rope from a belfryoverhead hanging down into the centre of the place. Round the wallran a lettering of fire in a character unknown to him. While he wasstill wondering at the purport of these things, he heard the recedingtramp of heavy feet echoing far down the street. He ran out into thedarkness again, but he could see nothing. He had a mind to pull thebell-rope, and finally decided to follow the footsteps. But, althoughhe ran far, he never overtook them; and his shouting was of no avail.The gorge seemed to extend an interminable distance. It was as darkas earthly starlight throughout its length, while the ghastly greenday lay along the upper edge of its precipices. There were none of theheads, now, below. They were all, it seemed, busily occupied along theupper slopes. Looking up, he saw them drifting hither and thither, somehovering stationary, some flying swiftly through the air. It remindedhim, he said, of "big snowflakes"; only these were black and pale green.
In
pursuing the firm, undeviating footsteps that he never overtook, ingroping into new regions of this endless devil's dyke, in clambering upand down the pitiless heights, in wandering about the summits, and inwatching the drifting faces, Plattner states that he spent the betterpart of seven or eight days. He did not keep count, he says. Thoughonce or twice he found eyes watching him, he had word with no livingsoul. He slept among the rocks on the hillside. In the gorge thingsearthly were invisible, because, from the earthly standpoint, it wasfar underground. On the altitudes, so soon as the earthly day began,the world became visible to him. He found himself sometimes stumblingover the dark green rocks, or arresting himself on a precipitous brink,while all about him the green branches of the Sussexville lanes wereswaying; or, again, he seemed to be walking through the Sussexvillestreets, or watching unseen the private business of some household.And then it was he discovered, that to almost every human being in ourworld there pertained some of these drifting heads: that everyone inthe world is watched intermittently by these helpless disembodiments.
What are they--these Watchers of the Living? Plattner never learned.But two, that presently found and followed him, were like hischildhood's memory of his father and mother. Now and then other facesturned their eyes upon him: eyes like those of dead people who hadswayed him, or injured him, or helped him in his youth and manhood.Whenever they looked at him, Plattner was overcome with a strangesense of responsibility. To his mother he ventured to speak; but shemade no answer. She looked sadly, steadfastly, and tenderly--a littlereproachfully, too, it seemed--into his eyes.
He simply tells this story: he does not endeavour to explain. We areleft to surmise who these Watchers of the Living may be, or if they areindeed the Dead, why they should so closely and passionately watch aworld they have left for ever. It may be--indeed to my mind it seemsjust--that, when our life has closed, when evil or good is no longera choice for us, we may still have to witness the working out of thetrain of consequences we have laid. If human souls continue afterdeath, then surely human interests continue after death. But that ismerely my own guess at the meaning of the things seen. Plattner offersno interpretation, for none was given him. It is well the reader shouldunderstand this clearly. Day after day, with his head reeling, hewandered about this strange-lit world outside the world, weary and,towards the end, weak and hungry. By day--by our earthly day, thatis--the ghostly vision of the old familiar scenery of Sussexville, allabout him, irked and worried him. He could not see where to put hisfeet, and ever and again with a chilly touch one of these WatchingSouls would come against his face. And after dark the multitude ofthese Watchers about him, and their intent distress, confused his mindbeyond describing. A great longing to return to the earthly life thatwas so near and yet so remote consumed him. The unearthliness of thingsabout him produced a positively painful mental distress. He was worriedbeyond describing by his own particular followers. He would shout atthem to desist from staring at him, scold at them, hurry away fromthem. They were always mute and intent. Run as he might over the unevenground, they followed his destinies.
On the ninth day, towards evening, Plattner heard the invisiblefootsteps approaching, far away down the gorge. He was then wanderingover the broad crest of the same hill upon which he had fallen in hisentry into this strange Other-World of his. He turned to hurry downinto the gorge, feeling his way hastily, and was arrested by the sightof the thing that was happening in a room in a back street near theschool. Both of the people in the room he knew by sight. The windowswere open, the blinds up, and the setting sun shone clearly into it, sothat it came out quite brightly at first, a vivid oblong of room, lyinglike a magic-lantern picture upon the black landscape and the lividgreen dawn. In addition to the sunlight, a candle had just been lit inthe room.
On the bed lay a lank man, his ghastly white face terrible upon thetumbled pillow. His clenched hands were raised above his head. A littletable beside the bed carried a few medicine bottles, some toast andwater, and an empty glass. Every now and then the lank man's lipsfell apart, to indicate a word he could not articulate. But the womandid not notice that he wanted anything, because she was busy turningout papers from an old-fashioned bureau in the opposite corner of theroom. At first the picture was very vivid indeed, but as the green dawnbehind it grew brighter and brighter, so it became fainter and more andmore transparent.
As the echoing footsteps paced nearer and nearer, those footstepsthat sound so loud in that Other-World and come so silently in this,Plattner perceived about him a great multitude of dim faces gatheringtogether out of the darkness and watching the two people in the room.Never before had he seen so many of the Watchers of the Living.A multitude had eyes only for the sufferer in the room, anothermultitude, in infinite anguish, watched the woman as she hunted withgreedy eyes for something she could not find. They crowded aboutPlattner, they came across his sight and buffeted his face, the noiseof their unavailing regrets was all about him. He saw clearly onlynow and then. At other times the picture quivered dimly, through theveil of green reflections upon their movements. In the room it musthave been very still, and Plattner says the candle flame streamedup into a perfectly vertical line of smoke, but in his ears eachfootfall and its echoes beat like a clap of thunder. And the faces!Two, more particularly near the woman's: one a woman's also, whiteand clear-featured, a face which might have once been cold and hard,but which was now softened by the touch of a wisdom strange to earth.The other might have been the woman's father. Both were evidentlyabsorbed in the contemplation of some act of hateful meanness, so itseemed, which they could no longer guard against and prevent. Behindwere others, teachers, it may be, who had taught ill, friends whoseinfluence had failed. And over the man, too--a multitude, but nonethat seemed to be parents or teachers! Faces that might once havebeen coarse, now purged to strength by sorrow! And in the forefrontone face, a girlish one, neither angry nor remorseful, but merelypatient and weary, and, as it seemed to Plattner, waiting for relief.His powers of description fail him at the memory of this multitude ofghastly countenances. They gathered on the stroke of the bell. He sawthem all in the space of a second. It would seem that he was so workedon by his excitement that, quite involuntarily, his restless fingerstook the bottle of green powder out of his pocket and held it beforehim. But he does not remember that.
Abruptly the footsteps ceased. He waited for the next, and there wassilence, and then suddenly, cutting through the unexpected stillnesslike a keen, thin blade, came the first stroke of the bell. At that themultitudinous faces swayed to and fro, and a louder crying began allabout him. The woman did not hear; she was burning something now in thecandle flame. At the second stroke everything grew dim, and a breath ofwind, icy cold, blew through the host of watchers. They swirled abouthim like an eddy of dead leaves in the spring, and at the third strokesomething was extended through them to the bed. You have heard of abeam of light. This was like a beam of darkness, and looking again atit, Plattner saw that it was a shadowy arm and hand.
The green sun was now topping the black desolations of the horizon,and the vision of the room was very faint. Plattner could see thatthe white of the bed struggled, and was convulsed; and that the womanlooked round over her shoulder at it, startled.
The cloud of watchers lifted high like a puff of green dust before thewind, and swept swiftly downward towards the temple in the gorge. Thensuddenly Plattner understood the meaning of the shadowy black arm thatstretched across his shoulder and clutched its prey. He did not dareturn his head to see the Shadow behind the arm. With a violent effort,and covering his eyes, he set himself to run, made, perhaps, twentystrides, then slipped on a boulder, and fell. He fell forward on hishands; and the bottle smashed and exploded as he touched the ground.
In another moment he found himself, stunned and bleeding, sitting faceto face with Lidgett in the old walled garden behind the school.
* * * * *
There the story of Plattner's experiences ends. I have resisted, Ibelieve
successfully, the natural disposition of a writer of fictionto dress up incidents of this sort. I have told the thing as far aspossible in the order in which Plattner told it to me. I have carefullyavoided any attempt at style, effect, or construction. It would havebeen easy, for instance, to have worked the scene of the death-bedinto a kind of plot in which Plattner might have been involved.But, quite apart from the objectionableness of falsifying a mostextraordinary true story, any such trite devices would spoil, to mymind, the peculiar effect of this dark world, with its livid greenillumination and its drifting Watchers of the Living, which, unseen andunapproachable to us, is yet lying all about us.
It remains to add, that a death did actually occur in Vincent Terrace,just beyond the school garden, and, so far as can be proved, atthe moment of Plattner's return. Deceased was a rate-collector andinsurance agent. His widow, who was much younger than himself, marriedlast month a Mr. Whymper, a veterinary surgeon of Allbeeding. As theportion of this story given here has in various forms circulated orallyin Sussexville, she has consented to my use of her name, on conditionthat I make it distinctly known that she emphatically contradicts everydetail of Plattner's account of her husband's last moments. She burntno will, she says, although Plattner never accused her of doing so:her husband made but one will, and that just after their marriage.Certainly, from a man who had never seen it, Plattner's account of thefurniture of the room was curiously accurate.
One other thing, even at the risk of an irksome repetition, I mustinsist upon, lest I seem to favour the credulous superstitious view.Plattner's absence from the world for nine days is, I think, proved.But that does not prove his story. It is quite conceivable that evenoutside space hallucinations may be possible. That, at least, thereader must bear distinctly in mind.