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I knew that I was making my body die. I was devoted to that sole task. At the end of an hour my body was dead to the hips.
When I reached the level of my heart, the first blurring and dizzying of my consciousness occurred. I had shifted my concentration to my fingers. My brain cleared again, and the death of my arms to the shoulders was most rapidly accomplished.
At this stage my body was all dead, save my head[32] and a little patch of my chest. My heart was beating steadily but feebly.
At this point it seemed as if a prodigious enlargement of my brain was taking place within the skull itself that did not enlarge. Most perplexing was the seeming enlargement of brain. It seemed to me that the periphery of my brain was already outside my skull and still expanding. Time and space underwent an enormous extension. Thus, without opening my eyes to verify, I knew that the walls of my narrow cell had receded until it was like a vast audience-chamber[33]. And while I contemplated the matter, I knew that they continued to recede. Of course, this was pure fantastic whim, and I knew it.
The extension of time was equally remarkable. Only at long intervals did my heart beat. I counted the seconds between my heart-beats. At first, as I clearly noted, over a hundred seconds intervened between beats.
Morrell had told me that he had won freedom from his body by killing his body—or by eliminating his body from his consciousness. But—and here was the problem, and Morrell had not warned me—should I also will my head to be dead? If I did so, would not the body of Darrell Standing be for ever dead?
I decided to kill the chest and the slow-beating heart. So I no longer had chest nor heart. I was only a mind, a soul, a consciousness—call it what you will—and my nebulous brain inside my skull was expanded, and was continuing to expand, beyond my skull.
And then I was off and away[34]. I had vaulted prison roof and California sky, and was among the stars. I walked among the stars. I was a child. I was clad in frail, delicate robes that shimmered in the cool starlight. In my hand I carried a long glass wand. With the tip of this wand I must touch each star.
It was a long way among the stars. For centuries I trod space, with the tip of my wand tapping each star I passed. The way grew brighter. I was aware all the time that it was I, Darrell Standing, who walked among the stars and tapped them with a wand of glass.
And then the tip of my wand missed a star, and on the instant I knew I had been guilty of a great crime. On the instant a knock, vast and compulsive, inexorable and mandatory, smote me and reverberated across the universe. I was Darrell Standing, the life-convict, lying in his strait-jacket in solitary. And I knew the immediate cause of that summons. It was a rap of the knuckle by Ed Morrell, begi
Now I know, my reader, that this story seems a farrago. I agree with you. It was experience, however. But it was real to me.
It may have taken Ed Morrell two minutes to tap his question. Yet, to me, aeons elapsed between the first tap of his knuckle and the last. And all the time I knew it was Ed Morrell’s knuckle that thus cruelly held me earth-bound. I tried to speak to him, to ask him to cease. But I had eliminated my body from my consciousness. My body lay dead in the jacket, though I still inhabited the skull. In vain I strove to will my foot to tap my message to Morrell.
Next I pursued my way among the stars and was not called back. From time to time, I stirred—please, my reader, don’t miss that verb—I STIRRED. I moved my legs, my arms. I was aware of clean, soft bed linen against my skin. I was aware of bodily well-being. Oh, it was delicious!
I awoke. Everything was the natural and the expected. I was I, be sure of that. But I was not Darrell Standing! Darrell Standing had nothing to do with the being I was. Darrell Standing was as yet unborn and would not be born for centuries. But you will see.
I lay with closed eyes, lazily listening. I heard steps and movements.
“Pons[35],” I ordered, without opening my eyes, “water, cold water, quick. I drank too much last night.”
“And slept over long today,” he scolded, as he passed me the water.
I sat up and opened my eyes. And as I drank I looked at Pons.
Now note two things. I spoke in French; I was not conscious that I spoke in French. Pons was a little old man. He was born in our house—I knew it. Pons was sixty. He was mostly toothless. Also, he was impudently familiar. This was because he had been in my house sixty years. He had been my father’s servant before I was born, and after my father’s death he became my servant.
Pons shook his head as I drained the huge draught. Then he took my new scarlet satin doublet.
“Sixty ducats for that!” Pons exclaimed.
And while we dressed—that is, while Pons helped me to dress—I continued to talk to him.
“It is quite clear, Pons, that you have not heard the news,” I said slyly.
“Late news?” Pons queried.
“Yes,” I shook my head. “But news perhaps to you. Have you not heard? The philosophers of Greece were whispering it two thousand years ago. It is because of that news I became a dandy. You see, Pons, the world is a terrible place, life is sad, all men die, and, being dead… well, are dead. So to escape the evil and the sadness, men in these days, like me, seek amazement, insensibility, and enjoyment.”
“But the news, master? What did the philosophers whisper about so long ago?”
“That God was dead, Pons,” I replied solemnly. “Didn’t you know that? God is dead, and I soon shall be, and I wear sixty ducats on my back.”
“God lives,” Pons asserted fervently. “God lives, and his kingdom is at hand[36]. I tell you, master, it is at hand.”
“So said the Christians in ancient Rome, Pons, when Nero made torches of them.”
“Too much learning is a sickness,” Pons complained. “I was always opposed to it. What did you study astronomy in Venice, poetry in Florence, and astrology in Pisa, and God knows what in that madman country of Germany for? The philosophers! I tell you, master, I, Pons, your servant, a poor old man who knows nothing—I tell you God lives, and the time you will appear before him is short.”
He paused with sudden recollection, and added: “The priest you spoke of is here.”
“Why did you not tell me before?” I demanded angrily.
“What did it matter?” Pons shrugged his shoulders. “Has he not been waiting two hours as it is?”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“You were shouting like a cock, ‘Sing cucu, sing cucu, cucu nu nu cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu.’”
“You have a good memory,” I commented. He shook his head sourly.
“No need of memory when you roared it over and over for the thousandth time. And when I had you finally in the bed, did you not call me to you and command, if the devil called, to tell him you slept? And did you not call me back again, and command me to call you not of the morning save for one thing?”
“Which was?”
“Which was the heart of one, a black buzzard, you said, by name Martinelli[37]—for the heart of Martinelli smoking on a gold platter. The platter must be gold, you said; and you said I must call you by singing, ‘Sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu.’ So you began to teach me how to sing, ‘Sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu.’”
32
save my head – кроме моей головы
33
audience-chamber – дворцовый зал
34
I was off and away – я унёсся прочь
35
Pons – Понс
36
at hand – близко
37
Martinelli – Мартинелли