Clairvoyance

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information and to find out
how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Clairvoyance
by Algernon Blackwood. In the darkest corner, where the firelight

(00:30):
could not reach him, he sat listening to the stories.
His young hostess occupied the corner on the other side.
She was also screened by shadows, and between them stretched
the horseshoe of eager, frightened faces that seemed all eyes behind.
Yond the blackness of the big room, running as it were,

(00:51):
without a break into the night. Someone crossed on tiptoe
and drew a blind up with a rattle, and at
the sound all started through the window opened at the
top came a rustle of the poplar leaves that stirred
like footsteps in the wind. There's a strange man walking

(01:11):
past the shrubberies, whispered a nervous girl. I saw him
crouch and hide. I saw his eyes. Nonsense came sharply
from a male member of the group. It's far too
dark to see, you heard the wind, for mist had
risen from the river just below the lawn, pressing close

(01:31):
against the windows of the old house like a soft
gray hand, and through it the stir of leaves was
faintly audible. Then, while several called for lights, others remembered
that hop pickers were still about in the lanes and
the tramps. This autumn over, bold and insolent, all perhaps
wished secretly for the sun. Only the elderly man in

(01:54):
the corner sat quiet and unmoved, contributing nothing. He had told,
no fearsome story he had evaded. Indeed, many openings expressly
made for him, though fully aware that to his well
known interest in psychical things was partly due his presence
in the week end party. I never have experiences that way,

(02:17):
he said shortly, when someone asked him point blank for
a tale. I have no unusual powers. There was perhaps
the merest hint of contempt in his tone. But the
hostess from her darkened corner quickly and tactfully covered his retreat,
and he wondered, for he knew why she invited him

(02:39):
the haunted room he was well aware had been specially
allotted to him. And then, most opportunely, the door opened
noisily and the host came in. He sniffed at the
darkness rang at once for lamps puffed at his big
curved pipe, and generally by his mere presence made the
group feel foolish. Light streamed past him from the corridor,

(03:04):
his white hair shone like silver, and with him came
the atmosphere of common sense of shooting agriculture motors, and
the rest age entered at that door, and his young
wife sprang up instantly to greet him, as though his
disapproval of this kind of entertainment might need humoring. It

(03:26):
might have been the light, that witchery of half lights
from the fire in the corridor, or it may have
been the abrupt entrance of the practical upon the soft imaginative,
that traced the outline with such pitiless, sharp conviction. At
any rate, the contrast, for those who had this inner
clairvoyant sight all had been prating of so glibly, was

(03:48):
unmistakably revealed. It was poignantly dramatic pain, somewhere in it
naked pain. For as she paused a moment, there beside him,
in the light, this childless wife of three years, standing
picture of youth and beauty, there stood upon the threshold
of that room, the presence of a true ghost story,

(04:11):
and most marvelously, she changed her lineaments, her very figure,
her whole presentment. Etched against the gloom, the delicate, unmarked
face shone suddenly keen and anguished, and a rich maturity
deeper than any mere age flushed all her little person,

(04:31):
with its secret grandeur. Lines started into being upon the
pale skin of the girlish face, lines of pleading, pity
and love the daylight did not show, and with them
an air of magic tenderness that betrayed, though for a
second only the full soft glory of a motherhood denied,

(04:52):
Yet somehow mysteriously enjoyed about her slenderness rose all the
deep bosomed sweetness of maternity, a potential mother of the world,
and a mother, though she might know no dear fulfillment,
who yet yearned to sleep into her immense embrace, all
the little helpless things that ever lived. Light like emotion

(05:16):
can play strangest tricks. The change pressed almost upon the
edge of revelation. Yet when a moment later lamps were brought,
it is doubtful if any but the silent guest, who
had told no marvelous tale, knew no psychical experience, and
disclaimed the smallest clairvoyant faculty had received and registered the vivid,

(05:38):
poignant picture. For an instant it had flashed there, mercilessly
clear for all to see who were not blind to
subtle spiritual wonder thick with pain. And it was not
so much mere picture of youth and age ill matched,
as of youth that yearned with the oldest craving in
the world, and of age that had slipped beyond the

(06:01):
power of sympathetically divining it. It passed, and all was
as before. The husband laughed with genial good nature, not
one whit annoyed. They've been frightening you with stories, child,
he said in his jolly way, and put a protective
arm about her. Haven't they now tell me the truth?

(06:23):
Much better? He added? Have joined me instead at Billiard's,
or for a game of patience? Eh. She looked up
shyly into his face, and he kissed her on the forehead.
Perhaps they have a little, dear, she said, But now
that you've come, I feel all right again. Another night
of this, he added, in a graver tone, and you'd

(06:45):
be at your old trick of putting guests to sleep
in the haunted room. I was right, after all, you see,
to make it out of bounds. He glanced fondly, paternally
down upon her. Then he went over and poked the
fire into a blaze. Someone struck up a waltz on
the piano, and couples danced. All trace of nervousness vanished,

(07:07):
and the butler presently brought in the tray with drinks
and biscuits, and slowly the group dispersed. Candles were lit.
They passed down the passage into the big hall, talking
in lowered voices of tomorrow's plans. The laughter died away
as they went up the stairs to bed, the silent
guest and the young wife lingering a moment over the embers.

(07:33):
You have not, after all? Then put me in your
haunted room, he asked, quietly. You mentioned you remember in
your letter, I admit, she replied at once, her manner
gracious beyond her years, her voice quite different, that I
wanted you to sleep there, some one I mean, who
really knows and is not merely curious. But forgive my saying.

(07:57):
So when I saw you, she laughed very slowly. And
when you told no marvelous story like the others, I
somehow felt but I never see anything he put in hurriedly.
You feel though she interrupted swiftly, the passionate tenderness in
her voice, but half suppressed. I can tell it from

(08:19):
your others, Then he interrupted abruptly, almost bluntly, have slept there?
Sat up? Rather not recently? My husband stopped it. She
paused a second, then added, I had that room for
a year when first we married. The other's anguished look

(08:41):
flew back upon her little face like a shadow, and
was gone, While at the sight of it, there rose
in himself a sudden, deep rush of wonderful amazement, beckoning
almost toward worship. He did not speak, for his voice
would tremble. I had to give it up, she finished,
very low. Was it so terrible? After a pause, he ventured,

(09:08):
she bowed her head. I had to change, she repeated, softly.
And since then now you see nothing, he asked. Her
reply was singular, because I will not, not, because it's gone.
He followed her in silence to the door, and as

(09:30):
they passed along the passage again, that curious great pain,
of emptiness, of loneliness, of yearning rose upon him, as
of a sea that never never can swim beyond the
shore to reach the flowers. That it loves. Hurry up, child,
or a ghost will catch you, cried her husband, leaning

(09:52):
over the banisters, as the pair moved slowly up the
stairs towards him. There was a moment's silence when they met.
The guests, took his lighted candle and went down the corridor.
Good nights were set again. They moved away, she to
her loneliness, he to his unhaunted room, and at his

(10:12):
door he turned. At the far end of the passage.
Silhouetted against the candle light, he watched them, the fine
old man with his silvered hair and heavy shoulders, and
the slim young wife with that amazing air as of
some great bountiful mother of the world, for whom the
years yet passed, hungry and unharvested. They turned the corner,

(10:34):
and he went in and closed his door. Sleep took
him very quickly, And while the mist rose up and
veiled the countryside, something else veiled equally for all other
sleepers in that house, but two drew on towards its climax.
Some hours later he awoke. The world was still, and

(10:57):
it seemed the whole house listened, For with that clear
vision which some bring out of sleep, he remembered that
there had been no direct denial, and of a sudden
realized that this big, gaunt chamber where he lay was,
after all, the haunted room for him. However, the entire world,
not merely separate rooms in it, was ever haunted, and

(11:21):
he knew no terror to find the space about him
charged with thronging life quite other than his own. He
rose and lit the candle, crossed over to the window,
where the mist shone gray, knowing that no barriers of
walls or door or ceiling could keep out this host
of presences that poured so thickly everywhere about him. It

(11:43):
was like a wall of being with peering eyes, small
hands stretched out, a thousand pattering wee feet, and tiny
voices crying in a chorus, very faintly and beseeching the
haunted room. Was it not rather a temple vestibule, prepared
and sanctified by yearning rights Few men might ever guess,

(12:05):
for all the childless women of the world. How could
she know that he would understand this woman he had
seen but twice in all his life, And how entrust
to him so great a mystery that was her secret?
Had she so easily divined in him a similar yearning
to which long years ago death had denied fulfillment. Was

(12:27):
she clairvoyant in the true sense? And did all faces
bear on them so legibly this great map that sorrow traced.
And then, with awful suddenness, mere feelings dipped away, and
something concrete happened. The handle of the door had faintly rattled.
He turned the round brass knob was slowly moving, and

(12:51):
first at the sight something of common fear did grip him,
as though his heart had missed a beat. But on
the instant he heard the voice of his his own mother,
now long beyond the stars, calling to him to go softly,
yet with speed. He watched a moment the feeble efforts
to undo the door, Yet never afterwards could swear that

(13:12):
he saw actual movement. For something in him, Tragica's blindness
rose through a mist of tears and darkened vision. Utterly,
he went towards the door. He took the handle very
gently and very softly. Then he opened it. Beyond was darkness.

(13:33):
He saw the empty passage, the edge of the banisters,
where the great hall yawned below, and dimly the outline
of the Alpine photograph, and the stuffed deer's had upon
the wall. And then he dropped upon his knees and
opened wide his arms to something that came in upon
uncertain viewless feet. All the young winds and flowers and

(13:57):
dews of dawn passed with it him to the brim,
covering closely his breast and eyes and lips. There clung
to him all the small beginnings of life that cannot
stand alone, the little, helpless hands and arms that have
no confidence. And when the wealth of tears and love
that flooded his heart seemed to break upon the frontiers

(14:20):
of some mysterious yet impossible fulfillment, he rose and went
with curious small steps towards the window to taste the cooling,
misty air of that other dark emptiness that waited so
patiently there above the entire world. He drew the sash up.
The air felt soft and tender, as though there were

(14:42):
somewhere children in it too, children of stars and flowers,
of mists and wings and music, all that the universe contains,
unborn and tiny. And when at length he turned again,
the door was closed. The room was empty of air, life,
but that which lay so wonderfully blessed within himself, and

(15:05):
this he felt had marvelously increased and multiplied. Sleep then
came back to him, and in the morning he left
the house before the others were astir pleading some overlooked engagement,
for he had seen ghosts, indeed, but yet no ghost
that he could talk about with others round an open fire.

(15:31):
End of Clairvoyance by Algernon Blackwood.