Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (311 page)

And thus, for half a million days and many
more, it scoured in celestial zones, far from any realms of bliss, far from the
warm bosom of the senses, lapped in oblivion. Not in death, for the soul is not
destroyed though it leave a body corrupting in the world. Not in life either,
for that is experience, sensation, relish, love; maybe, too, it is fortitude
and high endeavour, as well as treason and greed.

To be diverted from this everlasting orbit by
the collapse of a nebular system was an event the soul could neither see nor be
aware of. Yet it happened so. A fringe of stars glimmering an age away loomed
and whirled across its path; unseeing, unknowing, the ghost was streaming
towards a tornado of spheres and leaping moons, cracked stars colliding, vast
orbs dissolving, pouring their livid dust in a chorale of flames that
transcribed immortal glory. At its approach the elements swarmed and united
hugely to repel that jot of alien fuel and wafted it violently away. Spurned
and thrown back in a wayward arc it veered towards earth again.

Long, long the journey, yet in the end it
swung once more into the range of the world, no longer the slave of its own
speed but floating high in clouds, borne on draughts of polar air from
mountains always white. Skimming the seas it drifted into a tangle of the
forests of Finland, and thence scudding aerially along a wild shore was caught
against the prong of a half-buried rusty anchor and there stayed.

The eternal gates were unbarred and the prisoner freed!

Dawn had come to the world, the wind blew;
tides rolled, flowed out, came in. At noon it was cold and grey and the roaring
waters dressed the sea with sombre foliage. At eve the tides lapsed and withdrew
from ridges of pebbles across floors of wrinkled sand. No eye had seen, no eye
could see, that ancient filament blown against a half-buried anchor—for who has
ever seen the soul? But the miracle had happened, it was there upon the earth
again after centuries of voyaging beyond unknown offings and was lodged upon a
rusty anchor. Still unaware, and ignorant of its fortune, it was shaken free
and bumbled like a pappus across continent and sea until, faring
one
day over the flats of Huntingdon it came to rest indeed, to life again,
sensation and awareness again, for it clung to a human body, warm and
receptive.

There
in an orchard again, a body hung from a tree again, a noose
about
its
neck
again.
Some
other
piteous
soul
had
just
launched
in the
selfsame
way
upon
the
selfsame
journey,
and
at
that
very
moment the
long-wandering
one
drifted
into
the
vacant
breast,
there
to
cling with
mad
unity,
aware
at
once
of
human
being,
of
noise,
sight,
touch, smell,
danger,
joy,
but
noise
most
of
all
of
men
shouting
and
thrusting
as
they
severed
the
rope
and
tumbled
the
half-choked
body
to
the grass.
They
slapped
the
face,
they
chafed
the
hands
and
limbs.

"Hey,
man,
hey!"
several
voices
were
crying
"What
a
to-do!
Are ye
living?
Whatever
made
ye
'tempt
to
hang
yourself!
Who
are
ye? Where
from?"

The
noise
their
tongues
made
was
like
the
babble
of
evening
birds. He
was
dazed,
he
could
not
understand
them.
It
was
not
the
world he
had
known.
Strange
beings
surrounded
him,
uncouth
admonishing faces
peered
against
his,
he
was
in
terrible
fear.
When
he
opened his
mouth
and
spoke
they
could
not
make
head
or
tail
of
the
mysterious
sounds
that
issued
from
his
lips;
the
gushes
of
meaningless intonation
awed
them
and
they
drew
themselves
away
to
glance
and nod
wamingly
together.
Then
one
bolder
than
the
others
advanced, took
him
by
the
hand,
shook
him
and
sat
him
up:

"What's
the
matter
with
you?
Why
can't
you
speak
proper?"

The
poor
alien,
altogether
without
understanding,
gazed
one
by one
at
the
half-dozen
countrymen
jabbering
around
him.

"Mad,
stark
and
staring!"
they
were
exclaiming.
"Just
in
time it
were,
but
he's
mad
right
enough.
As
yet
he
is
however.
It's
true insanity."

Such
was
their
opinion,
and
when
the
authorities
came
and
took him
away
to
enquire
into
the
matter
it
was
their
verdict
also—that he
was
quite
mad
and
unaccountable.
He
could
neither
ask
nor answer,
he
could
not
use
or
understand
their
slow
plain
speech,
could utter
no
sounds
save
the
queer
incomprehensible
syllables
that
rippled from
his
lips,
so
to
the
madhouse
he
must
go.
He
was
a
stranger,
nobody
owned
him,
nothing
was
known
of
his
antecedents,
and
his senseless
gibble-gabble
was
testimony
of
a
mind
collapsed
in
ruins, while
his
mad
act—as
it
was
taken
to
be—gave
proof
of
dangerous qualities;
to
be
capable
of
killing
one's
self
was
surely
to
be
capable of
murder.
To
the
madhouse
he
must
go,
there
to
stay
until
sense and
civility
returned
to
him.