by Arthur Machen.
Originally published in The Whirlwind (Herbert Vivian) vol.2 #24 (13 Dec 1890)
LIVELY AND ECCENTRIC STORIES.
"I am glad you came, Clarke; very glad indeed. Have another cigar?"
"Thanks, I will, your cigars are wonderful, like everything else about you. But have you no misgivings, Raymond? Is it absolutely safe?"
The two men were slowly pacing the terrace in front of Dr. Raymond's house. The sun still hung above the western mountain-line, but it shone with a dull red glow that cast no shadows; the delicate blue smoke of the cigars floated softly away through the quiet air; a sweet breath came from the great wood on the hill-side above, and with it, at intervals, the soft murmuring call of the wild doves. Below, in the long lovely valley, the river wound in and out between the lonely hills and, as the sun set, a faint mist, pure white, began to rise from its banks. Dr. Raymond turned sharply to his friend.
"Safe? Of course it is. You remember that operation I performed when we were at Paris together? I don't think my hand has lost its cunning. In itself the operation is a perfectly simple one; any surgeon could do it."
"And there is no danger at any other stage?"
"None; absolutely no physical danger whatsoever, I give you my word. You were always timid, Clarke, always; but you know my history. I have devoted myself to transcendental medicine for the last twenty years. I have heard myself called quack and charlatan, but all the while I knew I was on the right path. Five years ago I reached the goal, and since then every day has been a preparation for what we shall do to-night."
"I should like to believe that it is all true." Clarke knit his brows, and looked doubtfully at Dr. Raymond, and then at his cigar. "Are you perfectly sure, Raymond, that your theory is not a phantasmagoria—a splendid vision, certainly, but a mere vision after all?"
Dr. Raymond stopped in his walk, and turned round. He was a middle-aged man, somewhat thin, and of a pale yellow complexion, but as he answered Clarke's query his face flushed.
"Look about you, Clarke. You see the mountain and hill following after hill; you see the woods and orchards, the fields of corn and the meadows by the river. You see me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all these things—yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath our feet—I tell you that all these are but dreams and shadows; the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes. There is a real world, but it is beyond them all as beyond a veil. I do not know whether any human being has ever lifted
that veil; but I do know, Clarke, that you and I shall see it lifted this very night from before another's eyes. You may think all this strange nonsense; it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients knew what lifting the veil means. They called it seeing the God Pan."
Clarke shivered; the white mist gathering over the river was chilly.
"It is wonderful indeed," he said. "We are standing on the brink of a strange world, Raymond, if what you say is true. I suppose the knife is absolutely necessary?"
"Yes; a slight lesion in the grey matter, that is all. But think what the knife will effect. It will level utterly the solid wall of sense, and probably for the first time since man was made a spirit will gaze on a spirit world. Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!"
But you remember what you wrote to me last year? I thought it would be requisite that she—"
Clarke whispered the rest of the sentence into the doctor's ear.
"Not at all; not at all. Perfect nonsense, I assure you. Indeed, it is better as it is; I am quite certain of that."
"Consider the matter well, Raymond. It's a great responsibility. Something might go wrong; you would be a miserable man for the rest of your days."
"No, I think not, even if the worst happened. As you know, I rescued Mary from the gutter and almost certain starvation, when she was a child; I think her life is mine to use as I see fit. Come, it's getting late; we had better go in."
Dr. Raymond led the way into the house, through the hall and down a long dark passage. He took a key from his pocket and opened a heavy door, and motioned Clarke into his laboratory. It had once been a billiard-room and was lighted by a glass dome in the centre of the ceiling, whence there still shone a sad grey light on the figure of the doctor as he lit the lamp and placed it on a table in the middle of the room.
"Take another cigar, Clarke. You will want something to smother these nasty drugs of mine."
Clarke lit his cigar and looked about him. Scarcely a foot of wall remained bare; there were shelves all around laden with bottles and phials of all shapes and colours, and at one end stood a little Chippendale book-case. Raymond pointed to this.
"You see that parchment, Oswald Crollins? He was one of the first to show me the way, though I don't think he ever found it himself. That is a strange saying of his: 'In every grain of wheat there lies hidden the soul of a star.'"
There was not much of furniture in the laboratory. The table in the centre, a stone slab with a drain in one corner, the two armchairs on which Raymond and Clarke were sitting; that was all, except an odd-looking chair at the farthest end of the room. Clarke looked at it and raised his eyebrows.
"Yes, that is the chair," said Raymond. "We may as well place it in position." He got up and wheeled the chair to the light and began raising and lowering it, letting down the seat, setting the back at another angle and adjusting the foot-rest. It looked comfortable enough and Clarke passed his hand over the soft green velvet, as the doctor manipulated the levers.
"Now, Clarke, make yourself quite comfortable. I have a couple of hours' work before me; I was obliged to leave certain matters to the last."
Raymond went over to the stone slab, and Clarke watched him drearily as he bent over a row of phials and lit the flame under the crucible. At last he poured out a few drops of oily fluid into a green phial, and stopped it tightly.
"It is done now," he said. "I am going to fetch Mary; I shall be back in ten minutes."
Clarke lay back in his chair and wondered. It seemed more dream than reality. He half expected to see the walls of the laboratory melt and disappear, and to awake in London, shuddering at his own sleeping fancies. But the door opened, and the doctor returned, and behind him came a girl of about seventeen, dressed all in white. She was so beautiful that Clarke did not wonder at what the doctor had written to him. She was blushing now over face and neck and arms, but Raymond seemed unmoved.
"Mary," he said, "the time has come. You are quite free. Are you willing to trust yourself to me entirely?"
"Yes, dear."
"Do you hear that, Clarke? You are my witness. Here is the chair, Mary, just sit in it and lean back. Are you ready?"
"Yes, dear, quite ready. Give me a kiss before you begin."
The doctor stooped and kissed her mouth, kindly enough. "Now shut your eyes," he said. The girl shut her eyes as if she were tired and longed to sleep, and Raymond placed the green phial to her nostrils for a few moments, then stepped back, and turned up one of her eyelids. She was quite unconscious. He pressed hard on one of the levers, and in an instant the chair became a couch. Then he too up a glittering instrument from a little case and Clarke turned away shuddering. When he looked again Raymond was binding up the wound he had made. "She will awake in five minutes." Raymond was still perfectly cool. "There is nothing further to be done; we can only wait."
The minutes passed slowly; they could hear a slow, heavy, ticking. There was an old clock in the passage. Clarke felt sick and faint; his knees shook beneath him, he could hardly stand.
Suddenly, as they watched, they heard a long-drawn sigh and suddenly did the colour that had vanished return to the girl's cheeks and suddenly her eyes opened. Clarke quailed before them. They shone with an awful light, looking far away, and a great wonder fell upon her face, and her hands stretched out as if to touch what was invisible; but in an instant the wonder faded, and gave place to the most awful terror. The muscles of her face were hideously convulsed, she shook from head to foot; the soul seemed struggling and shuddering within the house of flesh. It was a horrible sight, and Clarke rushed forward, as she fell shrieking to the floor.
Three days later Raymond took Clarke to Mary's bedside. She was lying wide-awake, rolling her head from side to side and grinning vacantly.
"Yes," said the doctor, still quite cool, "it is a great pity; she is a hopeless idiot. However, it could not be helped and, after all, she has seen the Great God Pan."