November 17, 2024 • 38 mins
🎧 H.G. Wells - "The Stolen Body" (1898) 👻🕯️
A haunting tale of science, spirit, and possession! 🌌✨ In this chilling short story, two friends dabble in the occult, experimenting with astral projection. When one of them succeeds in leaving his body, a sinister entity seizes the opportunity to possess the now-empty vessel. 😱🌀 Set against the eerie backdrop of Victorian England, this gripping narrative explores the boundaries between the physical and the metaphysical, the known and the unknown. 🏙️📖 Wells weaves suspense and mysticism into a thought-provoking exploration of the dangers lurking beyond the veil. 🌙🔮
A haunting tale of science, spirit, and possession! 🌌✨ In this chilling short story, two friends dabble in the occult, experimenting with astral projection. When one of them succeeds in leaving his body, a sinister entity seizes the opportunity to possess the now-empty vessel. 😱🌀 Set against the eerie backdrop of Victorian England, this gripping narrative explores the boundaries between the physical and the metaphysical, the known and the unknown. 🏙️📖 Wells weaves suspense and mysticism into a thought-provoking exploration of the dangers lurking beyond the veil. 🌙🔮
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
H. G. Wells The Stolen Body, published in eighteen ninety eight.
Mister Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel,
Hart and Brown of Saint Paul's Churchyard, and for many
years he was well known among those interested in psychical
research as a liberal minded and conscientious investigator. He was
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an unmarried man, and instead of living in the suburbs,
after the fashion of his class, he occupied rooms in
the Albany near Piccadilly. He was particularly interested in the
questions of thought transference and of apparitions of the living,
and in November, published in eighteen ninety six, he commenced
a series of experiments in conjunction with mister Vincey of
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staple Inn, in order to test the alleged possibility of
projecting an apparition of one's self by force of will
through space. Their experiments were conducted in the following manner.
At a pre arranged hour, mister Bessel shut himself in
one of his rooms in the Albany air and mister
Vincey in his sitting room and staple Inn, and each
then fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other.
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Mister Bessel had acquired the art of self hypnotism, and
so far as he could, he attempted first to hypnotize
himself and then to project himself as a phantom of
the living across the intervening space of nearly two miles
into mister Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this was tried
without any satisfactory result. But on the fifth or sixth occasion,
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mister Vincey did actually see or imagine he saw an
apparition of mister Bessel's standing in his room. He states
that the appearance, although brief, was very vivid and real.
He noticed that mister Bessel's face was white, in his
expression anxious, and moreover, that his hair was disordered. For
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a moment, mister Vincey, in spite of his state of expectation,
was too surprised to speak or move, and in that
moment it seemed to him as though the figure glanced
over its shoulder and and incontinently vanished. It had been
arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph any
phantasm scene, but mister Vincey had not the instant presence
of mind to snap the camera that lay ready on
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the table beside him. And when he did so, he
was too late. Greatly elated, However, even by this partial success,
he made a note of the exact time, and at
once took a cab to the Albany to inform mister
Bessel of this result. He was surprised to find mister
Bessel's outer door standing open to the night, and the
inner apartments lit, and in an extraordinary disorder. An empty
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Champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor. Its neck had
been broken off against the ink pot on the bureau,
and lay beside it. An octagonal occasional table which carried
a bronze statuette and a number of choice books, had
been rudely overturned and down the primrose paper of the wall.
Inky fingers had been drawn, as it seemed, for the
mere pleasure of defilement. One of the delicate chin N's
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curtains had been violently torn from its rings and thrust
upon the fire, so that the smell of its smoldering
filled the room. Indeed, the whole place was disarranged in
the strangest fashion for a few minutes. Mister Vincey, who
had entered sure of finding mister Bessel in his easy
chair awaiting him, could scarcely believe his eyes, and stood
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staring helplessly at these unanticipated things. Then, full of a
vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at the
entrance lodge. Where is mister Bessel? He asked, Do you
know that all the furniture is broken in mister Bessel's room.
The porter said nothing, but, obeying his gestures, came at
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once to mister Bessel's apartment to see the state of affairs.
This settles it, he said, surveying the lunatic confusion. I
didn't know of this. Mister Bessel's gone off. He's mad.
He then proceeded to tell mister Vinie that about half
an hour previously, that is to say, at about the
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time of mister Bessel's apparition in mister Vincey's rooms, the
missing gentleman had rushed out of the gates of the
Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with disordered hair, and
had vanished into the direction of Bond Street. And as
he went past me, said the porter, he laughed a
sort of gasping laugh, with his mouth open and his
eyes glaring. I tell you, sir, he fair scared me.
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Like this. According to his imitation, it was anything but
a pleasant laugh. He waved his hand with all his
fingers crooked in clawing like that, and he said, in
a sort of fierce whisper life, just that one word, life,
Dear me, said mister Vincey, Tut tut, and dear me.
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He could think of nothing else to say. He was
naturally very much surprised. He turned from the room to
the porter, and from the porter to the room, in
the gravest perplexity, beyond his suggestion that probably mister Bessel
would come back presently and explain what had happened, their
conversation was unable to proceed. It might be a sudden toothache,
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said the porter, a very sudden and violent toothache, jumping
on him suddenly like and driving him wild. I've broken
things myself before, now in such a case, he thought.
If it was, why should he say life to me?
As he went past, mister Vincey did not know. Mister
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Bessel did not return. And at last mister Vincey, having
done some more helpless staring, and having addressed a note
of brief inquiry, and left it in a conspicuous position
on the Bureau returned in a very perplexed frame of
mind to his own premises in staple Inn. This affair
had given him a shock. He was at a loss
to account for mister Bessel's conduct on any sane hypothesis.
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He tried to read, but he could not do so.
He went for a short walk and was so preoccupied
that he narrowly escaped a cab at the top of
Chancery Lane, and at last, a full hour before his
usual time, he went to bed. For a considerable time,
he could not sleep because of his memory of the
silent confusion of mister Bessel's apartment, and when at length
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he did attain an uneasy slumber, it was at once
disturbed by a very vivid and distressing dream of mister Bessel.
He saw mister Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face
white and contorted and inexplicably mingled with his appearance suggested,
perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear an urgency
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to act. He even believes that he heard the voice
of his fellow experimenter calling distressfully to him, though at
the time he considered this to be an illusion. The
vivid impression remained though mister Vincey awoke for a space,
he lay awake and trembling in the darkness zest with
that vague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out
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of dreams upon even the bravest men. But at last
he roused himself and turned over and went to sleep again,
only for the dream to return with enhanced vividness. He
awoke with such a strong conviction that mister Bessel was
in overwhelming distress and need of help, that sleep was
no longer possible. He was persuaded that his friend had
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rushed out to some dire calamity. For a time he
lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but at last he
gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit
his gas and dressed, and set out through the deserted streets,
deserted save for a noiseless policeman or so and the
early news carts, towards Vigo Street to inquire if mister
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Bessel had returned. But he never got there. As he
was going down Long Acre, some unaccountable impulse turned him
aside out of that street towards Covent Garden, which was
just waking to its nocturnal activities. He saw the market
in front of him, a queer effect of glowing yellow
lights and busy black figures. He became aware of a shouting,
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and perceived a figure turn the corner by the hotel
and run swiftly towards him. He knew at once that
it was mister Bessel, But it was mister Bessel transfigured.
He was hatless and disheveled. His collar was torn open.
He grasped a bone handled walking cane near the feral end,
and his mouth was pulled awry, and he ran with
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agile strides very rapidly. There encounter was the affair of
an instant beseel, cried Vincey. The running man gave no
sign of recognition, either of mister Vincey or of his
own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with
the stick, hitting him in the face within an inch
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of the eye. Mister Vincey, stunned and astonished, staggered back,
lost his footing, and fell heavily on the pavement. It
seemed to him that mister Bessel leapt over him as
he fell. When he looked again, mister Bessel had vanished,
and a policeman and a number of garden porters and
salesmen were rushing past towards long Acre in hot pursuit,
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with the assistance of several passers by, for the whole
street was speedily alive with running people. Mister Vincey struggled
to his feet. He at once became the center of
a crowd, greedy to see his injury. A multitude of
voices competed to reassure him of his safety, and then
to tell him of the behavior of the madman. As
they regarded mister Bessel. He had suddenly appeared in the
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middle of the market, screaming life Life, striking left and
right with a blood stained walking stick, and dancing and
shouting with laughter at each successful blow. A lad and
two women had broken heads, and he had smashed a
man's wrist, a little child had been knocked insensible, and
for a time he had driven every one before him.
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So furious and resolute had his behavior been. Then he
made a raid upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin
flare through the window of the post office, and fled laughing.
After stunning the foremost of the two policemen who had
the pluck to charge him. Mister Vincey's first impulse was
naturally to join in the pursuit of his friend, in order,
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if possible, to save him from the violence of the
indignant people. But his action was slow. The blow had
half stunned him, and while this was still no more
than a resolution, came the news shouted through the crowd
that mister Bessel had eluded his pursuers. At first, mister
Vincey could scarcely credit this, but the universality of the report,
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and presently the dignified return of two feudal policemen, convinced him.
After some aimless inquiries, he returned towards Staple Inn, padding
a handkerchief to a now very painful nose. He was angry,
and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him indisputable that
mister Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst
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of his experiment in thought transference. But why that should
make him appear with a sad white face in mister
Vincy's dreams seemed a problem beyond solution. He racked his
brains in vain to explain this. It seemed to him
at last that not simply mister Bessel, but the order
of things must be insane, but he could think of
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nothing to do. He shut himself carefully into his room,
lit his fire, it was a gas fire with asbestos bricks,
and fearing fresh dreams if he went to bed, remained
bathing his injured face, or holding up books in a
vain attempt to read until dawn. Throughout that vigil he
had a curious persuasion that mister Bessel was endeavoring to
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speak to him, but he would not let himself attend
to any such belief. About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself,
and he went to bed and slept at last in
spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrest and anxious, and
in considerable facial pain. The morning papers had no news
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of mister Bessel's aberration. It had come too late for them.
Mister Vincey's perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise
added fresh irritation, became at last intolerable, and after a
fruitless visit to the Albany, he went down to Saint
Paul's churchyard to mister Hart, mister Bessel's partner, and so
far as mister Vincey knew, his nearest friend, he was
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surprised to learn that mister Hart, although he knew nothing
of the outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision,
the very vision that mister Vincey had seen mister Bessel,
white and disheveled, pleading earnestly by his gestures for help.
That was his impression of the import of his signs.
I was just going to look him up in the
Albany when you arrived, said mister Hart. I was so
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sure of something being wrong with him. As the outcome
of their consultation, the two gentlemen decided to inquire at
Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend. He is
bound to be laid by the heels, said mister Hart.
He can't go on at that pace for long. But
the police authorities had not laid mister Bessel by the heels.
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They confirmed mister Vincy's overnight experiences and added fresh circumstances,
some of an even graver character than those he knew.
A list of smashed glass along the upper half of
Tottenham Court Road, an attack upon a policeman in Hampstead Road,
and an atrocious assault upon a woman. All these outrages
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were committed between half past twelve and a quarter to
two in the morning, and between those hours, and indeed
from the very moment of mister Bessel's first rush from
his rooms at half past nine in the evening, they
could trace the deepening violence of his fantastic career. For
the last hour, at least from before one, that is,
until a quarter to two, he had run amok through London,
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eluding with amazing agility every effort to stop or capture him.
But after a quarter to two he had vanished. Up
to that hour, witnesses were multitudinous. Dozens of people had
seen him, fled from him, or pursued him, and then
things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to
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two he had been seen running down the Euston Road
towards Baker Street, flourishing a can of burning Calza oil
and jerking splashes of flame therefrom at the windows of
the houses he passed. But none of the policemen on
Euston Road beyond the waxwork exhibition, nor any of those
in the side streets down which he must have passed
had he left the Euston Road, had seen anything of him.
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Abruptly he disappeared. Nothing of his subsequent doings came to light.
In spite of the keenest inquiry, here was a fresh
astonishment for mister Vincey. He had found considerable comfort in
mister Hart's conviction he is bound to be laid by
the heels before long, and in that assurance he had
been able to suspend his mental perplexities. But any fresh
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development seemed destined to add new impossibilities to a pile
already heaped beyond the powers of his acceptance. He found
himself doubting whether his memory might not have played him
some grotesque trick, debating whether any of these things could
possibly have happened, and in the afternoon he hunted up
mister Hart again to share the intolerable weight on his mind.
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He found mister Hart engaged with a well known private detective.
But as that gentlemen accomplished nothing in this case, we
need not enlarge upon his proceedings. All that day mister
Bessel's whereabouts eluded an unceasingly active inquiry, And all that
night and all that day there was a persuasion in
the back of Vincey's mind that mister Bessel sought his attention.
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And all through the night mister Bessel, with a tear
stained face of anguish, pursued him through his dreams, and
whenever he saw mister Bessel in his dreams, he also
saw a number of other faces, vague but malignant, that
seemed to be pursuing mister Bessel. It was on the
following day, Sunday, that mister Vincey recalled certain remarkable stories
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of Missus Bullock, the medium, who was then attracting attention
for the first time in London. He determined to consult her.
She was staying at the house of that well known inquirer,
doctor Wilson Paget, and mister Vincey, although he had never
met that gentleman before, repaired to him forthwith with the
intention of invoking her help. But scarcely had he mentioned
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the name of Bessel when doctor Paget interrupted him last night,
just at the end he said, we had a communication.
He left the room and returned with a slate on
which were certain words written in a handwriting shaky indeed,
but indisputably the handwriting of mister Bessel. How did you
get this, said mister Vincey. Do you mean we got
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it last night? Said doctor Paget, with numerous interruptions from
mister Vincey, he proceeded to explain how the writing had
been obtained. It appears that in her seances, Missus Bullock
passes into a condition of trance, her eyes rolling up
in a strange way under her eyelids, and her body
becoming rigid. She then begins to talk very rapidly, usually
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in voices other than her own. At the same time,
one or both of her hands may become active, and
if slates and pencils are provided, they will then write
messages simultaneously with and quite independently of the flow of
words from her mouth. By many, she is considered an
even more remarkable medium than the celebrated Missus Piper. It
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was one of these messages, the one written by her
left hand, that mister Vincey now had before him. It
consists of eight words written disconnectedly George Bessel, trialc scavn, Baker, Street, help, starvation.
Curiously enough, neither doctor Paget or the two other inquirers
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who were present had heard of the disappearance of mister Besseel.
The news of it appeared only in the evening papers
of Saturday, and they had put the message aside with
many others of a vague and enigmatical sort that missus
Bullock has from time to time delivered. When doctor Paget
heard mister Vincey's story, he gave himself at once with
great energy, to the pursuit of this clue to the
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discovery of mister Bessel. It would serve no useful purpose
here to describe the inquiries of mister Vincey and himself.
Suffice it that the clue was a genuine one, and
that mister Besseel was actually discovered by its aid. He
was found at the bottom of a detached shaft which
had been sunk and abandoned at the commencement of the
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work for the new electric railway near Baker Streets station.
His arm and leg and two ribs were broken. The
shaft is protected by a hoarding nearly twenty feet high
and over this incredible as it seems, mister Bessel, a stout,
middle aged gentleman, must have scrambled in order to fall
down the shaft. He was saturated in calza oil and
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the smashed tin lay beside him. But luckily the flame
had been extinguished by his fall, and his madness had
passed from him altogether, but he was of course terribly enfeebled,
and at the sight of his rescuers he gave way
to hysterical weeping in view of the deplorable state of
his flat. He was taken to the house of doctor
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Hatton in Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to
a sedative treatment, and anything that might recall the violent
crisis through which he had passed was carefully avoided. But
on the second day he volunteered a statement. Since that occasion,
mister Bessel has several times repeated this statement to myself
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among other people, varying the details, as the narrator of
real experiences always does, but never by any chance contradicting
himself in any particular. And the statement he makes is
in substance as follows. In order to understand it clearly,
it is necessary to go back to his experiments with
mister Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mister Bessel's first attempts
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at self projection in his experiments with mister Vincey were,
as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all of
them he was concentrating all his power and will upon
getting out of the body, willing it with all my might,
he says. At last, almost against expectation, came success, and
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mister Besseil asserts that he, being alive, did actually, by
an effort of will, leave his body and pass into
some place or state outside this world. The release was,
he asserts, instantaneous. At one moment, I was seated in
my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping
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the arms of the chair, doing all I could to
concentrate my mind on Vincey. And then I perceived myself
outside my body, saw my body near me, but certainly
not containing me, with the hands relaxing and the head
drooping forward on the breast. Nothing shakes him in his
assurance of that release. He describes in a quiet, matter
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of fact way, the new sensation he experienced. He felt
he had become impalpable. So much he had expected, but
he had not expected to find himself enormously large. So,
however it would seem, he became. I was a great cloud,
if I may express it that way, anchored to my body.
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It appeared to me at first as if I had
discovered a greater self, of which the conscious being in
my brain was only a little part. I saw the
Albany in Piccadilly and Regent Street, and all the rooms
and places in the houses, very minute and very bright
and distinct, spread out below me, like a little city
seen from a balloon. Every now and then vague shapes,
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like drifting wreaths of smoke, made the vision a little indistinct,
But at first I paid little heed to them. The
thing that astonished me most, and which astonishes me still,
is that I saw quite distinctly the insides of the houses,
as well as the streets. Saw little people dining and
talking in the private houses, men and women dining, playing
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billiards and drinking in restaurants and hotels, and several places
of entertainment crammed with people. It was like watching the
affairs of a glass hive. Such were mister Bessel's exact
words as I took them down when he told me
the story. Quite forgetful of mister Vincey, he remained for
a space observing these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says,
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he stooped down, and, with the shadowy arm he felt
found himself possessed of, attempted to touch a man walking
along Vigo Street. But he could not do so, though
his fingers seemed to pass through the man. Something prevented
his doing this, But what it was, he finds it
hard to describe. He compares the obstacle to a sheet
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of glass. I felt as a kitten may feel, he said,
when it goes for the first time to pat its
reflection in a mirror. Again and again. On the occasion
when I heard him tell this story, mister Bessel returned
to that comparison of the sheet of glass. Yet it
was not altogether a precise comparison, because, as the reader
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will speedily see, there were interruptions of this generally impermeable
resistance means of getting through the barrier to the material
world again. But naturally, there is a very great difficulty
in expressing these unprecedented impressions in the language of everyday experience.
A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon
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him throughout all this experience was the stillness of this place.
He was in a world without sound. At first, mister
Bessel's mental state was an unemotional wonder. His thought chiefly
concerned itself with where he might be. He was out
of the body, out of his material body at any rate.
But that was not all he believes, and I, for
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one believe also that he was somewhere out of space
as we understand it. Altogether, by a strenuous effort of will,
he had passed out of his body into a world
beyond this world, a world undreamt of, yet lying so
close to it, and so strangely situated with regard to it,
that all things on this earth are clearly visible, both
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from without and from within, in this other world about us.
For a long time, as it seemed to him, this
realization occupied his mind to the exclusion of all other matters.
And then he recalled the engagement with mister Vincy, to
which this astonishing experience was, after all but a pro
He turned his mind to locomotion in this new body
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in which he found himself. For a time he was
unable to shift himself from his attachment to his earthly carcase.
For a time, this new strange cloud body of his
simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed with his efforts
to free himself. And then quite suddenly the link that
bound him snapped. For a moment, everything was hidden by
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what appeared to be whirling spheres of dark vapor, and
then through a momentary gap, he saw his drooping body collapse, limply,
saw his lifeless head drop sideways, and found he was
driving along like a huge cloud in a strange place
of shadowy clouds that had the luminous intricacy of London
spread like a model below. But now he was aware
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that the fluctuating vapor about him was something more than vapor,
and the temporarious excitement of his first essay was shot
with fear, for he perceived, at first indistinctly, and then
suddenly very clearly, that he was surrounded by faces that
each roll and coil of the seeming cloud stuff was
a face, and such faces faces of thin shadow, faces
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of gaseous tenuity, Faces like those faces that glare with
intolerable strangeness upon the sleeper in the evil hours of
his dreams, evil greedy eyes that were full of a
covetous curiosity. Faces with knit brows and snarling, smiling lips.
Their vague hands clutched at mister Bessel as he passed,
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and the rest of their bodies was but an elusive
streak of trailing darkness. Never a word they said, never
a sound from the mouths that seemed to gibber all
about him. They pressed in that dreamy silence, passing freely
through the dim mistiness that was his body, gathering evermore
numerously about him, and the shadowy mister Bessel, now suddenly
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fear stricken, drove through the silent, active multitude of eyes
and clutching hands. So inhuman were these faces, so malignant,
their staring eyes and shadowy, clawing gestures, that it did
not occur to mister Bessel to attempt intercourse with these
drifting creatures, idiot phantoms. They seemed children of vain desire,
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beings unborn and forbidden, the boon of being whose only
expressions and gestures told of the envy, in craving for
life that was their one link with existence. It says
much for his resolution that amidst the swarming cloud of
these noiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of
mister Vincey. He made a violent effort of will and
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found himself He knew not how stooping towards staple Inn
saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert in his arm chair
by the fire, and clustering also about him, as they
clustered ever about all that lives and breathes was another
multitude of these vain, voiceless shadows, longing, desiring, seeking some
loophole into life for a space. Mister Bessel sought ineffectually
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to attract his friend's attention. He tried to get in
front of his eyes, to move the objects in his
room to touch him, but mister Vincey remained unaffected, ignorant
of the being that was so close to his own.
The strange something that mister Bessel has compared to a
sheet of glass separated them impermeably, and at last mister
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Bessel did a desperate thing. I have told how that
in some strange way he could see not only the
outside of a man as we see him, but within.
He extended his shadowy hand and thrust his vague black fingers,
as it seemed, through the heedless brain. Then suddenly mister
Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention from
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wandering thoughts, and it seemed to mister Bessel that a little,
dark red body situated in the middle of mister Vincey's brain,
swelled and glowed as he did so. Since that experience
he has been shown anatomical figure of the brain. And
he knows now that this is that useless structure, as
doctors call it, the pinnial eye. For strange, as it
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will seem to many, we have deep in our brains
where it cannot possibly see any earthly light. An eye.
At the time, this, with the rest of the internal
anatomy of the brain, was quite new to him. At
the sight of its changed appearance, however, he thrust forth
his finger, and, rather fearful still of the consequences, touched
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this little spot, And instantly mister Vincey started, and mister
Bessel knew that he was seen. And at that instant
it came to mister Bessel that evil had happened to
his body. And behold, a great wind blew through all
that world of shadows and tore him away. So strong
was this persuasion that he thought no more of mister Vincey,
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but turned about forthwith and all the countless faces drove
back with him like leaves before a gale. But he
returned to too late. In an instant he saw the
body that he had left inert and collapsed, lying indeed,
like the body of a man just dead, had arisen,
had arisen by virtue of some strength and will beyond
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his own. It stood with staring eyes, stretching its limbs
in dubious fashion. For a moment he watched it in
wild dismay. And then he stooped towards it. But the
pane of glass had closed against him again, and he
was foiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and all
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about him, the spirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked.
He gave way to furious anger. He compares himself to
a bird that has fluttered heedlessly into a room and
is beating at the window pane that holds it back
from freedom. And behold, the little body that had once
been his was now dancing with delight. He saw it shouting,
(30:56):
though he could not hear its shouts. He saw the
violence of its movements grow. He watched it fling his
cherished furniture about in the mad delight of existence, rend
his books apart, smash bottles, drink heedlessly from the jagged fragments,
leap and smite in a passionate acceptance of living. He
watched these actions in paralyzed astonishment. Then once more he
(31:20):
hurled himself against the impassable barrier, and then, with all
that crew of mocking ghosts about him, hurried back in
dire confusion to Vincey to tell him of the outrage
that had come upon him. But the brain of Vincey
was now closed against apparitions, and the disembodied mister Bessel
pursued him in vain as he hurried out into Holborn
(31:40):
to call a cab. Foiled and terror stricken, mister Bessel
swept back again to find his desecrated body whooping in
a glorious frenzy down the Burlington Arcade. And now the
attentive reader begins to understand mister Bessel's interpretation of the
first part of this strange story. The being whose pantic
rush through London had inflicted so much injury and disaster
(32:03):
had indeed mister Bessel's body, But it was not mister Bessel.
It was an evil spirit out of that strange world
beyond existence into which mister Bessel had so rashly ventured.
For twenty hours, it held possession of him, And for
all those twenty hours, the dispossessed spirit body of mister
Bessel was going to and fro in that unheard of
(32:24):
middle world of shadows. Seeking help in vain, he spent
many hours beating at the minds of mister Vincey and
of his friend mister Hart. Each as we know, he
roused by his efforts, But the language that might convey
his situation to these helpers across the gulf he did
not know. His feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly in
(32:45):
their brains. Once. Indeed, as we have already told, he
was able to turn mister Vincey aside from his path
so that he encountered the stolen body in its career,
but he could not make him understand the thing that
had happened. He was unable to draw any help from
that encounter. All through those hours, the persuasion was overwhelming
(33:07):
in mister Bessel's mind that presently his body would be
killed by its furious tenant, and he would have to
remain in this shadow land Forevermore so that those long
hours were a growing agony of fear. And ever, as
he hurried to and fro in his ineffectual excitement, innumerable
spirits of that world about him mobbed him and confused
(33:27):
his mind, And ever an envious applauding multitude poured after
their successful fellow, as he went upon his glorious career.
For that, it would seem, must be the life of
these bodyless things of this world that is the shadow
of our world. Ever they watch coveting away into a
mortal body, in order that they may descend as furies
(33:49):
and frenzies, as violent lusts and mad strange impulses, rejoicing
in the body they have won. For mister Bessel was
not the only human soul in that place. Witness the
fact that he met first one, and afterward several shadows
of men, men like himself, it seemed, who had lost
their bodies, even it may be as he had lost his,
(34:11):
and wandered despairingly in that lost world that is neither
life nor death. They could not speak, because that world
is silent. Yet he knew them for men, because of
their dim human bodies, and because of the sadness of
their faces. But how they had come into that world
he could not tell, nor where the bodies they had
lost might be, Whether they still raved about the earth,
(34:35):
or whether they were closed forever in death against return.
That they were the spirits of the dead, neither he
nor I believe. But doctor Wilson Paget thinks they are
the rational souls of men who are lost in madness
on the earth. At last, mister Bessel chanced upon a
place where a little crowd of such disembodied, silent creatures
(34:56):
was gathered and thrusting through them. He saw below a
brightly lit room, and four or five quiet gentlemen, and
a woman, a stoutish woman, dressed in black bombazine and
sitting awkwardly in a chair with her head thrown back.
He knew her from her portraits to be Missus Bullock,
the medium, and he perceived that tracts and structures in
(35:16):
her brain glowed and stirred, as he had seen the
pinnial eye in the brain of mister Vincy glow. The
light was very fitful. Sometimes it was a broad illumination,
and sometimes merely a faint twilight spot, and it shifted
slowly about her brain. She kept on talking and writing
with one hand, and mister Bessel saw that the crowding
(35:37):
shadows of men about him, and a great multitude of
the shadow spirits of that shadowland, were all striving and
thrusting to touch the lighted regions of her brain. As
one gained her brain or another was thrust away. Her
voice and the writing of her hand changed, so that
what she said was disorderly and confused for the most part.
(35:58):
Now a fragment of one soul's mesay, and now a
fragment of another's. And now she babbled the insane fancies
of the spirits of vain desire. Then mister Bessel understood
that she spoke for the spirit that had touch of her,
and he began to struggle very furiously towards her. But
he was on the outside of the crowd, and at
(36:18):
that time he could not reach her. And at last,
growing anxious, he went away to find what had happened
meanwhile to his body. For a long time he went
to and fro seeking it in vain and fearing that
it must have been killed. And then he found it
at the bottom of the shaft in Baker Street, writhing
furiously and cursing with pain. Its leg and an arm
(36:39):
and two ribs had been broken by its fall. Moreover,
the evil spirit was angry because his time had been
so short, and because of the pain, making violent movements
and casting his body about. And at that mister Bessel
returned with redoubled earnestness to the room where the seance
was going on, And so soon as he had thrust
himself within sight of the place, he saw one of
(37:01):
the men who stood about the medium, looking at his
watch as if he meant that the seance should presently end.
At that a great number of the shadows who had
been striving turned away with gestures of despair. But the
thought that the seance was almost over only made mister
Bessel the more earnest, and he struggled so stoutly with
his will against the others, that presently he gained the
(37:21):
woman's brain. It chanced that just at that moment it
glowed very brightly, and in that instant she wrote the
message that doctor Wilson Paget preserved. And then the other
shadows and the cloud of evil spirits about him had
thrust mister Besil away from her, and for all the
rest of the seance he could regain her no more.
(37:42):
So he went back and watched through the long hours
at the bottom of the shaft, where the evil spirit
lay in the stolen body it had maimed, writhing and
cursing and weeping and groaning, and learning the lesson of
pain and towards dawn, the thing he had waited for happened.
The brain glowed brightly, and the evil spirit came out,
and mister Bessel entered the body he had feared he
(38:04):
should never enter again. As he did so, the silence,
the brooding silence, ended. He heard the tumult of traffic
and the voices of people overhead, and that strange world
that is the shadow of our world, the dark and
silent shadows of ineffectual desire and the shadows of lost men,
vanished clean away. He lay there for the space of
(38:26):
about three hours before he was found. And in spite
of the pain and suffering of his wounds and of
the dim, damp place in which he lay, in spite
of the tears wrung from him by his physical distress,
his heart was full of gladness to know that he
was nevertheless back once more in the kindly world of men,
H. G. Wells The Stolen Body, published in eighteen ninety eight.
Mister Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel,
Hart and Brown of Saint Paul's Churchyard, and for many
years he was well known among those interested in psychical
research as a liberal minded and conscientious investigator. He was
(00:22):
an unmarried man, and instead of living in the suburbs,
after the fashion of his class, he occupied rooms in
the Albany near Piccadilly. He was particularly interested in the
questions of thought transference and of apparitions of the living,
and in November, published in eighteen ninety six, he commenced
a series of experiments in conjunction with mister Vincey of
(00:44):
staple Inn, in order to test the alleged possibility of
projecting an apparition of one's self by force of will
through space. Their experiments were conducted in the following manner.
At a pre arranged hour, mister Bessel shut himself in
one of his rooms in the Albany air and mister
Vincey in his sitting room and staple Inn, and each
then fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other.
(01:08):
Mister Bessel had acquired the art of self hypnotism, and
so far as he could, he attempted first to hypnotize
himself and then to project himself as a phantom of
the living across the intervening space of nearly two miles
into mister Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this was tried
without any satisfactory result. But on the fifth or sixth occasion,
(01:30):
mister Vincey did actually see or imagine he saw an
apparition of mister Bessel's standing in his room. He states
that the appearance, although brief, was very vivid and real.
He noticed that mister Bessel's face was white, in his
expression anxious, and moreover, that his hair was disordered. For
(01:50):
a moment, mister Vincey, in spite of his state of expectation,
was too surprised to speak or move, and in that
moment it seemed to him as though the figure glanced
over its shoulder and and incontinently vanished. It had been
arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph any
phantasm scene, but mister Vincey had not the instant presence
of mind to snap the camera that lay ready on
(02:12):
the table beside him. And when he did so, he
was too late. Greatly elated, However, even by this partial success,
he made a note of the exact time, and at
once took a cab to the Albany to inform mister
Bessel of this result. He was surprised to find mister
Bessel's outer door standing open to the night, and the
inner apartments lit, and in an extraordinary disorder. An empty
(02:36):
Champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor. Its neck had
been broken off against the ink pot on the bureau,
and lay beside it. An octagonal occasional table which carried
a bronze statuette and a number of choice books, had
been rudely overturned and down the primrose paper of the wall.
Inky fingers had been drawn, as it seemed, for the
mere pleasure of defilement. One of the delicate chin N's
(03:00):
curtains had been violently torn from its rings and thrust
upon the fire, so that the smell of its smoldering
filled the room. Indeed, the whole place was disarranged in
the strangest fashion for a few minutes. Mister Vincey, who
had entered sure of finding mister Bessel in his easy
chair awaiting him, could scarcely believe his eyes, and stood
(03:20):
staring helplessly at these unanticipated things. Then, full of a
vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at the
entrance lodge. Where is mister Bessel? He asked, Do you
know that all the furniture is broken in mister Bessel's room.
The porter said nothing, but, obeying his gestures, came at
(03:42):
once to mister Bessel's apartment to see the state of affairs.
This settles it, he said, surveying the lunatic confusion. I
didn't know of this. Mister Bessel's gone off. He's mad.
He then proceeded to tell mister Vinie that about half
an hour previously, that is to say, at about the
(04:04):
time of mister Bessel's apparition in mister Vincey's rooms, the
missing gentleman had rushed out of the gates of the
Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with disordered hair, and
had vanished into the direction of Bond Street. And as
he went past me, said the porter, he laughed a
sort of gasping laugh, with his mouth open and his
eyes glaring. I tell you, sir, he fair scared me.
(04:26):
Like this. According to his imitation, it was anything but
a pleasant laugh. He waved his hand with all his
fingers crooked in clawing like that, and he said, in
a sort of fierce whisper life, just that one word, life,
Dear me, said mister Vincey, Tut tut, and dear me.
(04:52):
He could think of nothing else to say. He was
naturally very much surprised. He turned from the room to
the porter, and from the porter to the room, in
the gravest perplexity, beyond his suggestion that probably mister Bessel
would come back presently and explain what had happened, their
conversation was unable to proceed. It might be a sudden toothache,
(05:14):
said the porter, a very sudden and violent toothache, jumping
on him suddenly like and driving him wild. I've broken
things myself before, now in such a case, he thought.
If it was, why should he say life to me?
As he went past, mister Vincey did not know. Mister
(05:35):
Bessel did not return. And at last mister Vincey, having
done some more helpless staring, and having addressed a note
of brief inquiry, and left it in a conspicuous position
on the Bureau returned in a very perplexed frame of
mind to his own premises in staple Inn. This affair
had given him a shock. He was at a loss
to account for mister Bessel's conduct on any sane hypothesis.
(06:00):
He tried to read, but he could not do so.
He went for a short walk and was so preoccupied
that he narrowly escaped a cab at the top of
Chancery Lane, and at last, a full hour before his
usual time, he went to bed. For a considerable time,
he could not sleep because of his memory of the
silent confusion of mister Bessel's apartment, and when at length
(06:21):
he did attain an uneasy slumber, it was at once
disturbed by a very vivid and distressing dream of mister Bessel.
He saw mister Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face
white and contorted and inexplicably mingled with his appearance suggested,
perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear an urgency
(06:42):
to act. He even believes that he heard the voice
of his fellow experimenter calling distressfully to him, though at
the time he considered this to be an illusion. The
vivid impression remained though mister Vincey awoke for a space,
he lay awake and trembling in the darkness zest with
that vague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out
(07:04):
of dreams upon even the bravest men. But at last
he roused himself and turned over and went to sleep again,
only for the dream to return with enhanced vividness. He
awoke with such a strong conviction that mister Bessel was
in overwhelming distress and need of help, that sleep was
no longer possible. He was persuaded that his friend had
(07:26):
rushed out to some dire calamity. For a time he
lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but at last he
gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit
his gas and dressed, and set out through the deserted streets,
deserted save for a noiseless policeman or so and the
early news carts, towards Vigo Street to inquire if mister
(07:48):
Bessel had returned. But he never got there. As he
was going down Long Acre, some unaccountable impulse turned him
aside out of that street towards Covent Garden, which was
just waking to its nocturnal activities. He saw the market
in front of him, a queer effect of glowing yellow
lights and busy black figures. He became aware of a shouting,
(08:10):
and perceived a figure turn the corner by the hotel
and run swiftly towards him. He knew at once that
it was mister Bessel, But it was mister Bessel transfigured.
He was hatless and disheveled. His collar was torn open.
He grasped a bone handled walking cane near the feral end,
and his mouth was pulled awry, and he ran with
(08:33):
agile strides very rapidly. There encounter was the affair of
an instant beseel, cried Vincey. The running man gave no
sign of recognition, either of mister Vincey or of his
own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with
the stick, hitting him in the face within an inch
(08:55):
of the eye. Mister Vincey, stunned and astonished, staggered back,
lost his footing, and fell heavily on the pavement. It
seemed to him that mister Bessel leapt over him as
he fell. When he looked again, mister Bessel had vanished,
and a policeman and a number of garden porters and
salesmen were rushing past towards long Acre in hot pursuit,
(09:19):
with the assistance of several passers by, for the whole
street was speedily alive with running people. Mister Vincey struggled
to his feet. He at once became the center of
a crowd, greedy to see his injury. A multitude of
voices competed to reassure him of his safety, and then
to tell him of the behavior of the madman. As
they regarded mister Bessel. He had suddenly appeared in the
(09:43):
middle of the market, screaming life Life, striking left and
right with a blood stained walking stick, and dancing and
shouting with laughter at each successful blow. A lad and
two women had broken heads, and he had smashed a
man's wrist, a little child had been knocked insensible, and
for a time he had driven every one before him.
(10:05):
So furious and resolute had his behavior been. Then he
made a raid upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin
flare through the window of the post office, and fled laughing.
After stunning the foremost of the two policemen who had
the pluck to charge him. Mister Vincey's first impulse was
naturally to join in the pursuit of his friend, in order,
(10:26):
if possible, to save him from the violence of the
indignant people. But his action was slow. The blow had
half stunned him, and while this was still no more
than a resolution, came the news shouted through the crowd
that mister Bessel had eluded his pursuers. At first, mister
Vincey could scarcely credit this, but the universality of the report,
(10:47):
and presently the dignified return of two feudal policemen, convinced him.
After some aimless inquiries, he returned towards Staple Inn, padding
a handkerchief to a now very painful nose. He was angry,
and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him indisputable that
mister Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst
(11:08):
of his experiment in thought transference. But why that should
make him appear with a sad white face in mister
Vincy's dreams seemed a problem beyond solution. He racked his
brains in vain to explain this. It seemed to him
at last that not simply mister Bessel, but the order
of things must be insane, but he could think of
(11:29):
nothing to do. He shut himself carefully into his room,
lit his fire, it was a gas fire with asbestos bricks,
and fearing fresh dreams if he went to bed, remained
bathing his injured face, or holding up books in a
vain attempt to read until dawn. Throughout that vigil he
had a curious persuasion that mister Bessel was endeavoring to
(11:51):
speak to him, but he would not let himself attend
to any such belief. About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself,
and he went to bed and slept at last in
spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrest and anxious, and
in considerable facial pain. The morning papers had no news
(12:12):
of mister Bessel's aberration. It had come too late for them.
Mister Vincey's perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise
added fresh irritation, became at last intolerable, and after a
fruitless visit to the Albany, he went down to Saint
Paul's churchyard to mister Hart, mister Bessel's partner, and so
far as mister Vincey knew, his nearest friend, he was
(12:36):
surprised to learn that mister Hart, although he knew nothing
of the outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision,
the very vision that mister Vincey had seen mister Bessel,
white and disheveled, pleading earnestly by his gestures for help.
That was his impression of the import of his signs.
I was just going to look him up in the
Albany when you arrived, said mister Hart. I was so
(12:59):
sure of something being wrong with him. As the outcome
of their consultation, the two gentlemen decided to inquire at
Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend. He is
bound to be laid by the heels, said mister Hart.
He can't go on at that pace for long. But
the police authorities had not laid mister Bessel by the heels.
(13:22):
They confirmed mister Vincy's overnight experiences and added fresh circumstances,
some of an even graver character than those he knew.
A list of smashed glass along the upper half of
Tottenham Court Road, an attack upon a policeman in Hampstead Road,
and an atrocious assault upon a woman. All these outrages
(13:42):
were committed between half past twelve and a quarter to
two in the morning, and between those hours, and indeed
from the very moment of mister Bessel's first rush from
his rooms at half past nine in the evening, they
could trace the deepening violence of his fantastic career. For
the last hour, at least from before one, that is,
until a quarter to two, he had run amok through London,
(14:05):
eluding with amazing agility every effort to stop or capture him.
But after a quarter to two he had vanished. Up
to that hour, witnesses were multitudinous. Dozens of people had
seen him, fled from him, or pursued him, and then
things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to
(14:25):
two he had been seen running down the Euston Road
towards Baker Street, flourishing a can of burning Calza oil
and jerking splashes of flame therefrom at the windows of
the houses he passed. But none of the policemen on
Euston Road beyond the waxwork exhibition, nor any of those
in the side streets down which he must have passed
had he left the Euston Road, had seen anything of him.
(14:48):
Abruptly he disappeared. Nothing of his subsequent doings came to light.
In spite of the keenest inquiry, here was a fresh
astonishment for mister Vincey. He had found considerable comfort in
mister Hart's conviction he is bound to be laid by
the heels before long, and in that assurance he had
been able to suspend his mental perplexities. But any fresh
(15:12):
development seemed destined to add new impossibilities to a pile
already heaped beyond the powers of his acceptance. He found
himself doubting whether his memory might not have played him
some grotesque trick, debating whether any of these things could
possibly have happened, and in the afternoon he hunted up
mister Hart again to share the intolerable weight on his mind.
(15:34):
He found mister Hart engaged with a well known private detective.
But as that gentlemen accomplished nothing in this case, we
need not enlarge upon his proceedings. All that day mister
Bessel's whereabouts eluded an unceasingly active inquiry, And all that
night and all that day there was a persuasion in
the back of Vincey's mind that mister Bessel sought his attention.
(15:57):
And all through the night mister Bessel, with a tear
stained face of anguish, pursued him through his dreams, and
whenever he saw mister Bessel in his dreams, he also
saw a number of other faces, vague but malignant, that
seemed to be pursuing mister Bessel. It was on the
following day, Sunday, that mister Vincey recalled certain remarkable stories
(16:18):
of Missus Bullock, the medium, who was then attracting attention
for the first time in London. He determined to consult her.
She was staying at the house of that well known inquirer,
doctor Wilson Paget, and mister Vincey, although he had never
met that gentleman before, repaired to him forthwith with the
intention of invoking her help. But scarcely had he mentioned
(16:42):
the name of Bessel when doctor Paget interrupted him last night,
just at the end he said, we had a communication.
He left the room and returned with a slate on
which were certain words written in a handwriting shaky indeed,
but indisputably the handwriting of mister Bessel. How did you
get this, said mister Vincey. Do you mean we got
(17:08):
it last night? Said doctor Paget, with numerous interruptions from
mister Vincey, he proceeded to explain how the writing had
been obtained. It appears that in her seances, Missus Bullock
passes into a condition of trance, her eyes rolling up
in a strange way under her eyelids, and her body
becoming rigid. She then begins to talk very rapidly, usually
(17:31):
in voices other than her own. At the same time,
one or both of her hands may become active, and
if slates and pencils are provided, they will then write
messages simultaneously with and quite independently of the flow of
words from her mouth. By many, she is considered an
even more remarkable medium than the celebrated Missus Piper. It
(17:53):
was one of these messages, the one written by her
left hand, that mister Vincey now had before him. It
consists of eight words written disconnectedly George Bessel, trialc scavn, Baker, Street, help, starvation.
Curiously enough, neither doctor Paget or the two other inquirers
(18:14):
who were present had heard of the disappearance of mister Besseel.
The news of it appeared only in the evening papers
of Saturday, and they had put the message aside with
many others of a vague and enigmatical sort that missus
Bullock has from time to time delivered. When doctor Paget
heard mister Vincey's story, he gave himself at once with
great energy, to the pursuit of this clue to the
(18:37):
discovery of mister Bessel. It would serve no useful purpose
here to describe the inquiries of mister Vincey and himself.
Suffice it that the clue was a genuine one, and
that mister Besseel was actually discovered by its aid. He
was found at the bottom of a detached shaft which
had been sunk and abandoned at the commencement of the
(18:57):
work for the new electric railway near Baker Streets station.
His arm and leg and two ribs were broken. The
shaft is protected by a hoarding nearly twenty feet high
and over this incredible as it seems, mister Bessel, a stout,
middle aged gentleman, must have scrambled in order to fall
down the shaft. He was saturated in calza oil and
(19:20):
the smashed tin lay beside him. But luckily the flame
had been extinguished by his fall, and his madness had
passed from him altogether, but he was of course terribly enfeebled,
and at the sight of his rescuers he gave way
to hysterical weeping in view of the deplorable state of
his flat. He was taken to the house of doctor
(19:42):
Hatton in Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to
a sedative treatment, and anything that might recall the violent
crisis through which he had passed was carefully avoided. But
on the second day he volunteered a statement. Since that occasion,
mister Bessel has several times repeated this statement to myself
(20:02):
among other people, varying the details, as the narrator of
real experiences always does, but never by any chance contradicting
himself in any particular. And the statement he makes is
in substance as follows. In order to understand it clearly,
it is necessary to go back to his experiments with
mister Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mister Bessel's first attempts
(20:26):
at self projection in his experiments with mister Vincey were,
as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all of
them he was concentrating all his power and will upon
getting out of the body, willing it with all my might,
he says. At last, almost against expectation, came success, and
(20:47):
mister Besseil asserts that he, being alive, did actually, by
an effort of will, leave his body and pass into
some place or state outside this world. The release was,
he asserts, instantaneous. At one moment, I was seated in
my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping
(21:08):
the arms of the chair, doing all I could to
concentrate my mind on Vincey. And then I perceived myself
outside my body, saw my body near me, but certainly
not containing me, with the hands relaxing and the head
drooping forward on the breast. Nothing shakes him in his
assurance of that release. He describes in a quiet, matter
(21:28):
of fact way, the new sensation he experienced. He felt
he had become impalpable. So much he had expected, but
he had not expected to find himself enormously large. So,
however it would seem, he became. I was a great cloud,
if I may express it that way, anchored to my body.
(21:50):
It appeared to me at first as if I had
discovered a greater self, of which the conscious being in
my brain was only a little part. I saw the
Albany in Piccadilly and Regent Street, and all the rooms
and places in the houses, very minute and very bright
and distinct, spread out below me, like a little city
seen from a balloon. Every now and then vague shapes,
(22:11):
like drifting wreaths of smoke, made the vision a little indistinct,
But at first I paid little heed to them. The
thing that astonished me most, and which astonishes me still,
is that I saw quite distinctly the insides of the houses,
as well as the streets. Saw little people dining and
talking in the private houses, men and women dining, playing
(22:32):
billiards and drinking in restaurants and hotels, and several places
of entertainment crammed with people. It was like watching the
affairs of a glass hive. Such were mister Bessel's exact
words as I took them down when he told me
the story. Quite forgetful of mister Vincey, he remained for
a space observing these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says,
(22:57):
he stooped down, and, with the shadowy arm he felt
found himself possessed of, attempted to touch a man walking
along Vigo Street. But he could not do so, though
his fingers seemed to pass through the man. Something prevented
his doing this, But what it was, he finds it
hard to describe. He compares the obstacle to a sheet
(23:17):
of glass. I felt as a kitten may feel, he said,
when it goes for the first time to pat its
reflection in a mirror. Again and again. On the occasion
when I heard him tell this story, mister Bessel returned
to that comparison of the sheet of glass. Yet it
was not altogether a precise comparison, because, as the reader
(23:38):
will speedily see, there were interruptions of this generally impermeable
resistance means of getting through the barrier to the material
world again. But naturally, there is a very great difficulty
in expressing these unprecedented impressions in the language of everyday experience.
A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon
(23:59):
him throughout all this experience was the stillness of this place.
He was in a world without sound. At first, mister
Bessel's mental state was an unemotional wonder. His thought chiefly
concerned itself with where he might be. He was out
of the body, out of his material body at any rate.
But that was not all he believes, and I, for
(24:21):
one believe also that he was somewhere out of space
as we understand it. Altogether, by a strenuous effort of will,
he had passed out of his body into a world
beyond this world, a world undreamt of, yet lying so
close to it, and so strangely situated with regard to it,
that all things on this earth are clearly visible, both
(24:42):
from without and from within, in this other world about us.
For a long time, as it seemed to him, this
realization occupied his mind to the exclusion of all other matters.
And then he recalled the engagement with mister Vincy, to
which this astonishing experience was, after all but a pro
He turned his mind to locomotion in this new body
(25:05):
in which he found himself. For a time he was
unable to shift himself from his attachment to his earthly carcase.
For a time, this new strange cloud body of his
simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed with his efforts
to free himself. And then quite suddenly the link that
bound him snapped. For a moment, everything was hidden by
(25:28):
what appeared to be whirling spheres of dark vapor, and
then through a momentary gap, he saw his drooping body collapse, limply,
saw his lifeless head drop sideways, and found he was
driving along like a huge cloud in a strange place
of shadowy clouds that had the luminous intricacy of London
spread like a model below. But now he was aware
(25:48):
that the fluctuating vapor about him was something more than vapor,
and the temporarious excitement of his first essay was shot
with fear, for he perceived, at first indistinctly, and then
suddenly very clearly, that he was surrounded by faces that
each roll and coil of the seeming cloud stuff was
a face, and such faces faces of thin shadow, faces
(26:13):
of gaseous tenuity, Faces like those faces that glare with
intolerable strangeness upon the sleeper in the evil hours of
his dreams, evil greedy eyes that were full of a
covetous curiosity. Faces with knit brows and snarling, smiling lips.
Their vague hands clutched at mister Bessel as he passed,
(26:33):
and the rest of their bodies was but an elusive
streak of trailing darkness. Never a word they said, never
a sound from the mouths that seemed to gibber all
about him. They pressed in that dreamy silence, passing freely
through the dim mistiness that was his body, gathering evermore
numerously about him, and the shadowy mister Bessel, now suddenly
(26:55):
fear stricken, drove through the silent, active multitude of eyes
and clutching hands. So inhuman were these faces, so malignant,
their staring eyes and shadowy, clawing gestures, that it did
not occur to mister Bessel to attempt intercourse with these
drifting creatures, idiot phantoms. They seemed children of vain desire,
(27:18):
beings unborn and forbidden, the boon of being whose only
expressions and gestures told of the envy, in craving for
life that was their one link with existence. It says
much for his resolution that amidst the swarming cloud of
these noiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of
mister Vincey. He made a violent effort of will and
(27:38):
found himself He knew not how stooping towards staple Inn
saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert in his arm chair
by the fire, and clustering also about him, as they
clustered ever about all that lives and breathes was another
multitude of these vain, voiceless shadows, longing, desiring, seeking some
loophole into life for a space. Mister Bessel sought ineffectually
(28:04):
to attract his friend's attention. He tried to get in
front of his eyes, to move the objects in his
room to touch him, but mister Vincey remained unaffected, ignorant
of the being that was so close to his own.
The strange something that mister Bessel has compared to a
sheet of glass separated them impermeably, and at last mister
(28:24):
Bessel did a desperate thing. I have told how that
in some strange way he could see not only the
outside of a man as we see him, but within.
He extended his shadowy hand and thrust his vague black fingers,
as it seemed, through the heedless brain. Then suddenly mister
Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention from
(28:46):
wandering thoughts, and it seemed to mister Bessel that a little,
dark red body situated in the middle of mister Vincey's brain,
swelled and glowed as he did so. Since that experience
he has been shown anatomical figure of the brain. And
he knows now that this is that useless structure, as
doctors call it, the pinnial eye. For strange, as it
(29:07):
will seem to many, we have deep in our brains
where it cannot possibly see any earthly light. An eye.
At the time, this, with the rest of the internal
anatomy of the brain, was quite new to him. At
the sight of its changed appearance, however, he thrust forth
his finger, and, rather fearful still of the consequences, touched
(29:30):
this little spot, And instantly mister Vincey started, and mister
Bessel knew that he was seen. And at that instant
it came to mister Bessel that evil had happened to
his body. And behold, a great wind blew through all
that world of shadows and tore him away. So strong
was this persuasion that he thought no more of mister Vincey,
(29:52):
but turned about forthwith and all the countless faces drove
back with him like leaves before a gale. But he
returned to too late. In an instant he saw the
body that he had left inert and collapsed, lying indeed,
like the body of a man just dead, had arisen,
had arisen by virtue of some strength and will beyond
(30:13):
his own. It stood with staring eyes, stretching its limbs
in dubious fashion. For a moment he watched it in
wild dismay. And then he stooped towards it. But the
pane of glass had closed against him again, and he
was foiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and all
(30:33):
about him, the spirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked.
He gave way to furious anger. He compares himself to
a bird that has fluttered heedlessly into a room and
is beating at the window pane that holds it back
from freedom. And behold, the little body that had once
been his was now dancing with delight. He saw it shouting,
(30:56):
though he could not hear its shouts. He saw the
violence of its movements grow. He watched it fling his
cherished furniture about in the mad delight of existence, rend
his books apart, smash bottles, drink heedlessly from the jagged fragments,
leap and smite in a passionate acceptance of living. He
watched these actions in paralyzed astonishment. Then once more he
(31:20):
hurled himself against the impassable barrier, and then, with all
that crew of mocking ghosts about him, hurried back in
dire confusion to Vincey to tell him of the outrage
that had come upon him. But the brain of Vincey
was now closed against apparitions, and the disembodied mister Bessel
pursued him in vain as he hurried out into Holborn
(31:40):
to call a cab. Foiled and terror stricken, mister Bessel
swept back again to find his desecrated body whooping in
a glorious frenzy down the Burlington Arcade. And now the
attentive reader begins to understand mister Bessel's interpretation of the
first part of this strange story. The being whose pantic
rush through London had inflicted so much injury and disaster
(32:03):
had indeed mister Bessel's body, But it was not mister Bessel.
It was an evil spirit out of that strange world
beyond existence into which mister Bessel had so rashly ventured.
For twenty hours, it held possession of him, And for
all those twenty hours, the dispossessed spirit body of mister
Bessel was going to and fro in that unheard of
(32:24):
middle world of shadows. Seeking help in vain, he spent
many hours beating at the minds of mister Vincey and
of his friend mister Hart. Each as we know, he
roused by his efforts, But the language that might convey
his situation to these helpers across the gulf he did
not know. His feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly in
(32:45):
their brains. Once. Indeed, as we have already told, he
was able to turn mister Vincey aside from his path
so that he encountered the stolen body in its career,
but he could not make him understand the thing that
had happened. He was unable to draw any help from
that encounter. All through those hours, the persuasion was overwhelming
(33:07):
in mister Bessel's mind that presently his body would be
killed by its furious tenant, and he would have to
remain in this shadow land Forevermore so that those long
hours were a growing agony of fear. And ever, as
he hurried to and fro in his ineffectual excitement, innumerable
spirits of that world about him mobbed him and confused
(33:27):
his mind, And ever an envious applauding multitude poured after
their successful fellow, as he went upon his glorious career.
For that, it would seem, must be the life of
these bodyless things of this world that is the shadow
of our world. Ever they watch coveting away into a
mortal body, in order that they may descend as furies
(33:49):
and frenzies, as violent lusts and mad strange impulses, rejoicing
in the body they have won. For mister Bessel was
not the only human soul in that place. Witness the
fact that he met first one, and afterward several shadows
of men, men like himself, it seemed, who had lost
their bodies, even it may be as he had lost his,
(34:11):
and wandered despairingly in that lost world that is neither
life nor death. They could not speak, because that world
is silent. Yet he knew them for men, because of
their dim human bodies, and because of the sadness of
their faces. But how they had come into that world
he could not tell, nor where the bodies they had
lost might be, Whether they still raved about the earth,
(34:35):
or whether they were closed forever in death against return.
That they were the spirits of the dead, neither he
nor I believe. But doctor Wilson Paget thinks they are
the rational souls of men who are lost in madness
on the earth. At last, mister Bessel chanced upon a
place where a little crowd of such disembodied, silent creatures
(34:56):
was gathered and thrusting through them. He saw below a
brightly lit room, and four or five quiet gentlemen, and
a woman, a stoutish woman, dressed in black bombazine and
sitting awkwardly in a chair with her head thrown back.
He knew her from her portraits to be Missus Bullock,
the medium, and he perceived that tracts and structures in
(35:16):
her brain glowed and stirred, as he had seen the
pinnial eye in the brain of mister Vincy glow. The
light was very fitful. Sometimes it was a broad illumination,
and sometimes merely a faint twilight spot, and it shifted
slowly about her brain. She kept on talking and writing
with one hand, and mister Bessel saw that the crowding
(35:37):
shadows of men about him, and a great multitude of
the shadow spirits of that shadowland, were all striving and
thrusting to touch the lighted regions of her brain. As
one gained her brain or another was thrust away. Her
voice and the writing of her hand changed, so that
what she said was disorderly and confused for the most part.
(35:58):
Now a fragment of one soul's mesay, and now a
fragment of another's. And now she babbled the insane fancies
of the spirits of vain desire. Then mister Bessel understood
that she spoke for the spirit that had touch of her,
and he began to struggle very furiously towards her. But
he was on the outside of the crowd, and at
(36:18):
that time he could not reach her. And at last,
growing anxious, he went away to find what had happened
meanwhile to his body. For a long time he went
to and fro seeking it in vain and fearing that
it must have been killed. And then he found it
at the bottom of the shaft in Baker Street, writhing
furiously and cursing with pain. Its leg and an arm
(36:39):
and two ribs had been broken by its fall. Moreover,
the evil spirit was angry because his time had been
so short, and because of the pain, making violent movements
and casting his body about. And at that mister Bessel
returned with redoubled earnestness to the room where the seance
was going on, And so soon as he had thrust
himself within sight of the place, he saw one of
(37:01):
the men who stood about the medium, looking at his
watch as if he meant that the seance should presently end.
At that a great number of the shadows who had
been striving turned away with gestures of despair. But the
thought that the seance was almost over only made mister
Bessel the more earnest, and he struggled so stoutly with
his will against the others, that presently he gained the
(37:21):
woman's brain. It chanced that just at that moment it
glowed very brightly, and in that instant she wrote the
message that doctor Wilson Paget preserved. And then the other
shadows and the cloud of evil spirits about him had
thrust mister Besil away from her, and for all the
rest of the seance he could regain her no more.
(37:42):
So he went back and watched through the long hours
at the bottom of the shaft, where the evil spirit
lay in the stolen body it had maimed, writhing and
cursing and weeping and groaning, and learning the lesson of
pain and towards dawn, the thing he had waited for happened.
The brain glowed brightly, and the evil spirit came out,
and mister Bessel entered the body he had feared he
(38:04):
should never enter again. As he did so, the silence,
the brooding silence, ended. He heard the tumult of traffic
and the voices of people overhead, and that strange world
that is the shadow of our world, the dark and
silent shadows of ineffectual desire and the shadows of lost men,
vanished clean away. He lay there for the space of
(38:26):
about three hours before he was found. And in spite
of the pain and suffering of his wounds and of
the dim, damp place in which he lay, in spite
of the tears wrung from him by his physical distress,
his heart was full of gladness to know that he
was nevertheless back once more in the kindly world of men,
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