Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (125 page)

The
last
weeks
of
my
visit
were
perfectly
uneventful,
both
for Lithway
and
me—as
if
the
house,
too,
were
on
its
guard.
I
came
to believe
that
there
was
nothing
in
it,
and
if
either
of
us
had
been
given to
drinking,
I
should
have
called
the
eleven-o'clock
visitation
a
new form
of
hang-over.
I
was
a
little
inclined,
in
defiance
of
medical authorities,
to
consider
it
an
original
and
interesting
form
of
indigestion.
By
degrees
I
imposed
upon
myself
to
that
extent.
I
did not
impose
on
myself,
however,
to
the
extent
of
wanting
to
hear Wender
talk
about
it;
and
I
still
blush
to
think
how
shallow
were the
excuses
that
I
mustered
for
not
meeting
him
at
any
of
the
times that
he
proposed.

This
is
a
bad
narrative,
for
the
reason
that
it
must
be
so
fragmentary. It
is
riddled
with
lapses
of
time.
Ghosts
may
get
in
their
fine
work in
an
hour,
but
they
have
always
been
preparing
their
coup
for
years. Every
ghost,
compared
with
us,
is
Methuselah.
We
have
to
fight
in a
vulnerable
and
dissolving
body;
but
they
aren't
pressed
for
time. They've
only
to
lie
low
until
the
psychological
moment.
Oh,
I'd undertake
to
accomplish
almost
anything
if
you'd
give
me
the
ghost's chance.
If
he
can't
get
what
he
wants
out
of
this
generation,
he
can get
it
out
of
the
next.
Grand
thing,
to
be
a
ghost!

It
was
some
years
before
I
went
back
to
Braythe.
Wender,
I
happen
to
know, never went back. Lithway used to write me now and then, but seldom
referred to my adventure. He couldn't very well, since the chief burden of his
letters was always "When are you coming to visit me?" Once, when I
had pressed him to join me for a season in Japan, he virtually consented, but
at the last moment I got a telegram, saying: "I can't leave her. Bon voyage/"
That didn't make me want to go back to Braythe. I was worried about him, but
his persistent refusal to act on any one's advice made it impossible to do
anything for him. I thought once of hiring some one to bum the house down; but
Lithway wouldn't leave it, and I didn't want to do anything clumsy that would
imperil him. I was much too far away to arrange it neatly. I suggested it once
to Wender, when we happened to meet in London, and he was exceedingly taken
with the idea. I half hoped, for a moment, that he would do it himself. But the
next afternoon he came back with a lot of reasons why it wouldn't do—he had
been grubbing in the British Museum all day. I very nearly heard Wender's
theory that time, but I pleaded a dinner engagement and got off.

You can imagine that I was delighted when I
heard from Lithway, some years after my own encounter with the savage on the
staircase, that he had decided to pull out and go to Europe. He had the most
fantastic reasons for doing it—this time he wrote me fully. It seems he had become
convinced that his apparition was displeased with him—didn't like the look in
her eyes, found it critical. As he wasn't doing anything in particular except
live like a hermit at Braythe, the only thing he could think of to propitiate
her was to leave. Perhaps there was a sort of withered coquetry in it, too; he
may have thought the lady would miss him if he departed and shut up the house.
You see, by this time she was about the most real thing in his life. I don't
defend Lithway; but I thought then that, whatever the impelling motive, it
would be an excellent thing for him to leave Braythe for a time. Perhaps, once
free of it, he would develop a normal and effectual repugnance to going back,
and then we should all have our dear, delightful Lithway again. I wrote
triumphantly to Wender, and he replied hopefully, but on a more subdued note.

Lithway came over to Europe. He wrote to me,
making tentative suggestions that I should join him; but, as he refused to join
me and I didn't care at all about the sort of thing he was planning, we didn't
meet. I was all for the Peloponnesus, and he was for a wretched
tourist's
itinerary
that
I
couldn't
stomach.
I
hoped
to
get
him
in
the end
to
wander
about
in
more
interesting
places,
but
as
he
had announced
that
he
was
going
first
to
Berlin
to
look
up
the
little cousin
and
her
maternal
aunt,
I
thought
I
would
wait
until
he
had satisfied
his
clannish
conscience.
Then,
one
fine
day,
his
old
curiosity would
awaken,
and
we
should
perhaps
start
out
together
to
get
new impressions.
That
fine
day
never
dawned,
however.
He
lingered
on in
Germany,
following
his
relatives
to
Marienbad
when
they
left Berlin
for
the
summer.
I
hoped,
with
each
mail,
that
he
would announce
his
arrival
in
some
spot
where
I
could
conceivably
meet him;
but
the
particular
letter
announcing
that
never
came.
He
was quite
taken
up
with
the
cousins.
He
said
nothing
about
going
home, and
I
was
thoroughly
glad
of
that,
at
least.