Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (79 page)

He
gazed
at
me
with
that
horrible
envy
in
his
eyes.
It
made
me shiver
to
hear
him,
and
though
I
longed
to
ask
him
about
those twenty-five
years,
missing
years
as
it
were,
I
could
not
bring
myself
to do
so.

"You
have,"
he
went
on
more
quietly,
"an
amazing
privilege—a chance
in
a
thousand
million.
Think
of
it—a
man,
a
human,
who
has tasted
other
time
and
space.
You
may
hear
something
about
existence outside
our
categories
altogether.
Make
a
note
of—of
everything, especially
of
what
you
don't
understand.
The
more
it
contradicts our
logic
and
experience,
the
more
valuable
it
may
be.
Nonsense, sheer
nonsense,
here
will
be
right,
remember.
.
.
."

Much
more
in
similar
vein
he
impressed
upon
me,
as
he
installed me
in
the
dressing-room
leading
out
of
the
"sick
man's"
chamber in
his
luxurious
house,
the
very
house,
I
knew,
where
he
and
my
cousin had
carried
on
their
audacious
experiments
of
years
ago.
I
listened, listened
closely,
saying
hardly
anything
myself,
while
in
my
mind,
or in
some
part
of
me
that
somehow
remained
aloof,
unfrightened,
the calmest
of
calm
spectators,
I
was
perfectly
aware
that
Vronski
and I
were
talking
in
a
dream,
and
that
our
three-dimensional
consciousness
was
little
better
than
a
dream-state.
The
journey
in
the
taxi, to
go
back
a
bit,
left
few
clear
impressions
in
me;
I
was
too
scared, too
utterly
nonplussed
at
the
moment,
to
focus
attention
or
reflection. Mantravers,
emaciated,
limp
and
so
strangely
shining,
lay
back
in his
comer
beside
his
former
friend.
He
rarely
spoke
a
word.
I
watched him
as
I
might
have
watched
a
nightmare
figure.
This
dream-texture wove
itself
through
the
whole
journey.

The
taxi,
I
remember,
drove
dangerously
fast,
so
that,
as
in
the cinema
stunt-pictures,
crashes
which
seemed
unavoidable
were
just avoided
by
a
hair's
breadth
and
the
stream
of
vehicles
rushed
past us
in
a
dreadful
sequence.
I
was
clutching
for
safety
at
everything within
reach,
when
my
cousin
spoke.
"Why
doesn't
the
man
start?" he
asked
impatiently.
"He's
got
three
directions
to
choose
from, hasn't
he,
and
the
house
can't
come
to
us—down
here,
at
any
rate, it
can't.
I'm
there
already
anyhow,
if
he
only
knew
it."
He
gave
a queer
little
gulp
of
laughter,
turning
to
me
with
a
look
that
set
my shivers
going
again.
"I
knew
it,
knew
it
perfectly,
you
see,
before I
came
back
into
this,
but
I'm
losing
it
now,
it's
going
again."
His piercing,
fiery
eyes
were
full
upon
me;
he
drew
a
profound
sigh
of weariness,
of
disgust,
of
pity.
"The
cage
is
about
me,
the
stupid, futile
cage.
It's
time
that
does
it,
it's
your
childish
linear
time,
time in
a
single
line.
In
such
a
limited
state
it's
not
even
being
awake,