October 29, 2025 • 36 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Stolen Body. Mister Bessel was a 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 an unmarried man, and instead of living in
(00:20):
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 eighteen ninety six he commenced
a series of experiments in conjunction with mister Vincey of
staple Inn, in order to test the alleged possibility of
(00:42):
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 and mister Vincey
in his sitting room and staple Inn, and each then
fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other
(01:03):
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,
(01:26):
mister Vincey did actually see or imagine he saw an
apparition of mister Bessel 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, and his
expression anxious, and moreover, that his hair was disordered. For
a moment, mister Vincey, in spite of his state of expectation,
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was too surprised to speak or move, and in that
moment it seemed to him as though the figure glanced
over its shoulder and incontinently vanished. It had been arranged
that an attempt should be made to photograph any phanfasm seen,
but mister Vincey had not the instant presence of mind
to snap the camera that lay ready on the table
(02:09):
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 Champagne magnum lay
(02:33):
smashed upon the floor. Its neck had been broken off
against the ink port 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.
(02:54):
One of the delicate Chintz 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
(03:14):
believe his eyes and stood staring helplessly at these unanticipated things. Then,
full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the
porter at the entrance loadch where is mister Besseel? He asked,
do you know that all the furniture is broken in
mister Bessel's room. The porter said nothing, but, obeying his gesture,
(03:35):
came at 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 Bethel's gone off.
He's mad. He then proceeded to tell mister Vincey that
about half an hour previously, that is to say, at
about the time of mister Bessel's apparition in mister Vincey's rooms,
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the missing gentleman had rushed out of the gate 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 opened and
his eyes glaring. I tell you, sir, he fair scared me.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Quit this.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
According to his imitation, it was anything but a pleasant laugh.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
He waved his hand with all his fingers scrooked and
clawing like that, and he said, in a son of
fierce whisper life, just that one word, life, Dear me,
said mister Vincey, Tut tut, and dear me. He could
think of nothing else to say. He was naturally very
(04:45):
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 Besel would come back
presently and explain what had happened, their conversation was unable
to proceed. It might be a sudden toothache, said the porter,
a very sudden and violent toothache, jumping on him suddenly
(05:07):
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 Bessel did not return.
And at last mister Vincey, having done some more helpless staring,
(05:30):
and having addressed a note of brief inquiry and left
it in a conspicuous position on the bureau, returned in
a very perplex frame of mind to his own premises
and 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. He tried to read, but
he could not do so. He bent for a short walk,
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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 he did attain an uneasy slumber,
(06:12):
it was at once disturbed by a very vivid and
distressing dream of mister Bessel. He saw mister Bessell 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 to act. He even believes that
he heard the voice of his fellow experimenter calling distressfully
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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, possessed with that vague, unaccountable terror of unknown
possibilities that comes out of dreams upon even the bravest men.
But at last he roused himself and turned over and
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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 rushed out to some dire calamity. For
a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but
(07:18):
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 safe for a noiseless policeman
or so and the early newsgards towards Eagle Street to
inquire if mister Bessel had returned, But he never got there.
As he was going down Long Acre, some unaccountable impulse
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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 and perceived a figure turned the corner
by the hotel and run swiftly towards him. He knew
at once that it was mister Bessel, But it was
(08:03):
mister Bessel transfigured. He was hatless and disheveled. His collar
was tone open. He grasped a bone handled walking cane
near the ferrul end, and his mouth was pulled or rye,
and he ran with agile strides very rapidly. There encountered
was the affair of an instant besel, cried Vincey. The
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running man gave no sign of recognition, either of mister
Vincey or of his own name. Instead, he cut at
his friend savagely with a stick, hitting him in the
face within an inch 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
leaped over him as he fell. When he looked again,
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mister Bessel had vanished, and a policeman and a number
of garden porters and salesmen were rushing past towards long
Acre in hot pursuit, with the assistance of several passers by,
for the whole street was speedily alive with one people.
Mister Vincey struggled to his feet. He at once became
the center of a crowd, greedy to see his injury.
(09:06):
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 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 a successful blow. A
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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.
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,
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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,
if possible, to save him from the violence the indignant people.
But his action was slow. The blow had half stunned him,
and while this was still no more than a resolution,
(10:07):
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, and presently
the dignified return of two futile policemen, convinced him. After
some aimless inquiries, he returned towards staple Inn, padding a
handkerchief to a now very painful nose. He was angry,
(10:30):
and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him indisputable that
mister Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst
of his experiment in thought transference. But why that he
should make him appear with a sad white face in
mister Vincey'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
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order of things must be insane. But he could think
of nothing to do, he shut himself carefully into his room,
let 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
(11:13):
had a curious persuasion that mister Bessel was endeavoring to
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, unrested 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 Bessell'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 being disturbed by a vision,
the very vision that mister Vincey had seen mister Bessel,
white and dishevel, 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
(12:16):
Albany when you arrived, said mister Hart. I was so
sure of something being wrong with him. At 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.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
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. They confirmed mister
Vincey'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 Cote Road,
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an attack upon a policeman in Hampstead Road, and an
atrocious assault upon a woman. All these outrages were committed
by 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
room at half past nine in the evening, they could
trace the deepening violence of his fantastic career. For the
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last hour at last, from before one, that is, until
a quarter to two, he had run amok through London,
elluding with amazing agility every effort to stop or capture him.
But after a quarter of 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
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things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to two,
he had been seen running down the Euston Road towards
Baker's Street, flourishing a can of burning coals or 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
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had he left the Euston Road, had seen anything of him.
Abruptly he disappeared. Nothing of his subsequent doings came to light.
In spite of the keenest inquiry. Here was a fresh
astonishment for mister Vincy. 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
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been able to suspend his mental perplexities. But any fresh
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
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mister Hart again to share the intolerable weight on his mind.
He found mister Hart engaged with a well known private detective.
But as that gentleman accomplished nothing in this case, we
need not enlarge upon his proceedings. All that day mister
Bessel's whereabouts saluted an unceasingly active inquiry, and all that
night and all that there was a persuasion at the
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back of Vincey's mind that mister Bessell sought his attention,
And all through the night mister Bessel, with a tear
stained face of anguish pursued him through his dreams, and
whenever he saw mister Besseil in his dreams, he also
saw a number of other faces, vague but malignant, that
seemed to be pursuing mister Bessel. It was in 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 Vincy. Do you mean we got
(16:09):
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 the 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
was one of these messages, the one written by her
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left hand, that mister Vincey now had before him. It
consisted of eight words written disconnectedly. John Lodge Bessel, Trial,
Excaben Baker's Street, help Starvation. Curiously enough, neither doctor Paget
nor the other two inquirers who were present had heard
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of the disappearance of mister Bessel. 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 had 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 discovery of mister Bessel.
(17:35):
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 Bessel 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 work for the new
electric railway near Baker Street station. His arm and leg
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and two ribs were broken. The shaft is protected by
a holding 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 colser oil, and the smashed tin
lay beside him. But luckily the flame had been extinguished
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by his fall, and his madness had passed from him altogether.
But he was of course terribly and feeble 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 Hatton in
Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to a sedative treatment,
and anything that might recall the violent crisis through which
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he had passed was carefully avoided. But on the second
day he volunteered a statement. Since that occasion, mister Bessel
has several times repeated the statement to myself among other people,
varying the details, as the narrator of real experience always does,
but never by any chance contradicting himself in any particular.
And the statement he makes is in substance as follows.
(19:03):
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 attempt at self projection in
his experiments with mister Vincey were, as a reader will remember, unsuccessful.
But through all of them he was concentrating all his
power and will upon getting out of the body, willing
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it with all my might, he says. At last, almost
against expectation, came success and mister Bessel 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,
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my hands gripping 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 this assurance of that release. He describes in a quiet,
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matter 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.
It appeared to me at first as if I had
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discovered a great self of which the conscious being in
my brain was only a little part. I saw the
Albany and 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 reeds 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 a shadowy arm he found
himself possessed of, attempted to touch a man walking along
Beagle Street. But he could not do so, since 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 of glass.
I felt as a kitten may feel, he said, when
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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 will
speedily see, there were interruptions of this generally impermeable resistance
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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 every day experience.
A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon
him throughout all his experience, was the stillness of this place.
He was in a world without sound. At first, Miss
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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 one,
believe also that he was somewhere out of space as
we understand it altogether. By a strenuous effort of will,
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he had passed out of his body into a world
beyond this world, a world undreamt off, yet lying so
close to it, and so strangely situated with regard to it,
that all things on this earth are clearly visible, both
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.
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And then he recalled the engagement with mister Vincy, to
which this astonishing experience was, after all but a prelude.
He turned his mind to look emotion in this new
body in which he found himself. For a time, he
was unable to shift himself from his attachment to this
earthly carcass. For a time, this new strange cloud body
(23:43):
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 what appeared to be whirling spheres of dark vapor,
And then, through a momentary he saw his drooping body
collapse limply. He saw his lifeless head drop sideways, and
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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 that the fluctuating vapor about him was
something more than vapor, and the timorrious excitement of his
first essay was shot with fear. For he perceived, at
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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 of gacious tenuity, Faces like those
faces that glared intolerable strangeness upon the sleeper in the
evil hours of his dreams, evil greedy eyes that were
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full of covetuous curiosity, faces with knit brows and snarling,
smiling lips. Their vague hands clutched at mister Bessel as
he passed, 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
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freely through the dim mistiness that was his body, gathering
even more numerously about him, and the shadowy mister Bessel,
now suddenly fear stricken, drove through the silent, active multitude
of eyes and clutching hands. So inhuman were their faces,
so malignant, their staring eyes and shadowy, clawing gestures, that
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it did not occur to mister Bessel to attempt intercourse
with these drifting creatures, idiot phantoms. They seemed children of
vain desire, beings unborne and forbidden, the boon of being
whose only expressions and gestures told of the envy and
craving for life that was their one link with existence.
It says much for his resolution that amidst the swarming
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cloud of these noiseless spirits of evil, he could still
think of mister Vincey. He made a violent effort of
will and 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 breeds
was another multitude of these vain, voiceless shadows, longing desiring
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seeking some loophole into life for a space, mister Bessel
sought ineffectually 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 had compared to a
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sheet of glass separated them impermeably, and at last mister
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
(27:01):
Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention from
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 figures of the brain, and
he knows now that this is for that useless structure
as doctors call it, the pennial eye. For strange, as
(27:25):
it 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
(27:46):
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 and blew through
all that world of shadows and tore him away. So
strong was this persuasion that he thought no more of
(28:06):
mister Vincey, but turned about forthwith and all the countless
faces drove back with him like leaves before a gale.
But he returned 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,
and arisen by virtue of some strength and will beyond
his own. It stood with staring eyes, stretching its limbs,
(28:30):
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 spoiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and all
about him the spirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked.
He gave way to furious anger. He compares himself to
(28:50):
a bird that had fluttered needlessly 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,
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
(29:12):
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
hurled himself against the impossible barrier, and then, with all
that crew of mocking ghosts about him, hurried back and
die confusion to Vincey to tell him of the outrage
(29:34):
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 Hawborne
to call a cab. Foiled in terror. Stricken, mister Bessel
swept back again to find his desecrated body whooping in
a glorious frenzy down the Burlington Arcade. And now the
(29:55):
attentive reader begins to understand mister Bessel's interpretation of the
first part of this strange story. The being whose frantic
rush to London had inflicted so much injury and disaster
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.
(30:18):
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
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
(30:39):
his situation to these helpers across the gulf he did
not know. His feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly in
their brains. Once Indeed, as we have already told, he
was able to turn mister Vincey aside from his patch,
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
(31:01):
that encounter. All through these hours, the persuasion was overwhelming
in mister Bessel's mind that presently his body would be
killed by its furious tenant, and he would have to
remain in his shadow land for evermore. So that those
long hours were a growing agony of fear, and ever,
as he hurried to and fro in his ineffectual excitement,
(31:22):
innumerable spirits of that world about him mobbed him and
confused his mind, And ever an envious applauding multitude poured
after their successful fellow as he went upon his glorious career,
that it would seem must be the life of these
bodiless things of this world that is the shadow of
our world. Ever, they watch coveting away into a mortal body,
(31:45):
in order that they may descend as furies 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 afterwards several shadows of men,
men like himself, had seemed, who had lost their bodies.
(32:05):
Even it may be as he had lost his, and
wondered despairingly in that lost world that is neither life
nor death. They could not speak, because the world is silent.
Yet he kneels 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,
(32:27):
Whether they still raved about the earth, or whether they
were closed forever and 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 was gathered and
(32:50):
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 on awkwardly
in a chair with a head thrown back. He knew
her from her portraits to be Missus Bullert, the medium,
and he perceived that tracts and structures in her brain
glowed and stirred, as yet seen the pennial eye in
(33:11):
the brain of mister vincyglow. 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 shadows of men about him,
and a great multitude of shadow spirits of that shadow land,
(33:34):
were all striving and thrusting to touch the lighted regions
of a brain. As one gained her brain or another
was thrust away, her voice in the writing of her
hand changed so that what she said was disorderly and
confused for the most part, now a fragment of one's
soul's message, and now a fragment of another's. And now
she babbled the insane fancies of the spirits of vain desire.
(33:57):
Then mister Bessel understood that she spoke for this spirit
that had touched of her, and he began to struggle
very furiously towards her. But he was in the outside
of the crowd, and at 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
(34:17):
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, an arm, 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
(34:40):
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 the men who stood about the medium,
looking at his watch as if he meant that the
seance should presently end, and that a great number of
the shadows who had been striving turned away with gestures
of despair. But it thought that the seance was almost
(35:02):
over only made mister Bessel the more earnest, and he
struggled so stoutly with his will against the others, that
presently he gained the 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 in the cloud of evil
spirits about him had thrust mister Besseil away from her,
(35:25):
and for all the rest of the seance he could
regain her no more. 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 lessons of pain. And towards dawn the thing
he had waited for happened. The brain glowed brightly, and
(35:47):
the evil spirit came out, and mister Bessel entered the
body he had feared he 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
(36:08):
shadows of lost men, vanished clean away. He lay there
for the space of 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
(36:30):
world of men and of the stolen body. By H. G.
Wells
The Stolen Body. Mister Bessel was a 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 an unmarried man, and instead of living in
(00:20):
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 eighteen ninety six he commenced
a series of experiments in conjunction with mister Vincey of
staple Inn, in order to test the alleged possibility of
(00:42):
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 and mister Vincey
in his sitting room and staple Inn, and each then
fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other
(01:03):
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,
(01:26):
mister Vincey did actually see or imagine he saw an
apparition of mister Bessel 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, and his
expression anxious, and moreover, that his hair was disordered. For
a moment, mister Vincey, in spite of his state of expectation,
(01:49):
was too surprised to speak or move, and in that
moment it seemed to him as though the figure glanced
over its shoulder and incontinently vanished. It had been arranged
that an attempt should be made to photograph any phanfasm seen,
but mister Vincey had not the instant presence of mind
to snap the camera that lay ready on the table
(02:09):
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 Champagne magnum lay
(02:33):
smashed upon the floor. Its neck had been broken off
against the ink port 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.
(02:54):
One of the delicate Chintz 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
(03:14):
believe his eyes and stood staring helplessly at these unanticipated things. Then,
full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the
porter at the entrance loadch where is mister Besseel? He asked,
do you know that all the furniture is broken in
mister Bessel's room. The porter said nothing, but, obeying his gesture,
(03:35):
came at 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 Bethel's gone off.
He's mad. He then proceeded to tell mister Vincey that
about half an hour previously, that is to say, at
about the time of mister Bessel's apparition in mister Vincey's rooms,
(03:57):
the missing gentleman had rushed out of the gate 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 opened and
his eyes glaring. I tell you, sir, he fair scared me.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Quit this.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
According to his imitation, it was anything but a pleasant laugh.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
He waved his hand with all his fingers scrooked and
clawing like that, and he said, in a son of
fierce whisper life, just that one word, life, Dear me,
said mister Vincey, Tut tut, and dear me. He could
think of nothing else to say. He was naturally very
(04:45):
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 Besel would come back
presently and explain what had happened, their conversation was unable
to proceed. It might be a sudden toothache, said the porter,
a very sudden and violent toothache, jumping on him suddenly
(05:07):
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 Bessel did not return.
And at last mister Vincey, having done some more helpless staring,
(05:30):
and having addressed a note of brief inquiry and left
it in a conspicuous position on the bureau, returned in
a very perplex frame of mind to his own premises
and 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. He tried to read, but
he could not do so. He bent for a short walk,
(05:52):
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 he did attain an uneasy slumber,
(06:12):
it was at once disturbed by a very vivid and
distressing dream of mister Bessel. He saw mister Bessell 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 to act. He even believes that
he heard the voice of his fellow experimenter calling distressfully
(06:36):
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, possessed with that vague, unaccountable terror of unknown
possibilities that comes out of dreams upon even the bravest men.
But at last he roused himself and turned over and
(06:57):
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 rushed out to some dire calamity. For
a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but
(07:18):
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 safe for a noiseless policeman
or so and the early newsgards towards Eagle Street to
inquire if mister Bessel had returned, But he never got there.
As he was going down Long Acre, some unaccountable impulse
(07:41):
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 and perceived a figure turned the corner
by the hotel and run swiftly towards him. He knew
at once that it was mister Bessel, But it was
(08:03):
mister Bessel transfigured. He was hatless and disheveled. His collar
was tone open. He grasped a bone handled walking cane
near the ferrul end, and his mouth was pulled or rye,
and he ran with agile strides very rapidly. There encountered
was the affair of an instant besel, cried Vincey. The
(08:24):
running man gave no sign of recognition, either of mister
Vincey or of his own name. Instead, he cut at
his friend savagely with a stick, hitting him in the
face within an inch 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
leaped over him as he fell. When he looked again,
(08:46):
mister Bessel had vanished, and a policeman and a number
of garden porters and salesmen were rushing past towards long
Acre in hot pursuit, with the assistance of several passers by,
for the whole street was speedily alive with one people.
Mister Vincey struggled to his feet. He at once became
the center of a crowd, greedy to see his injury.
(09:06):
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 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 a successful blow. A
(09:27):
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.
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,
(09:47):
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,
if possible, to save him from the violence the indignant people.
But his action was slow. The blow had half stunned him,
and while this was still no more than a resolution,
(10:07):
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, and presently
the dignified return of two futile policemen, convinced him. After
some aimless inquiries, he returned towards staple Inn, padding a
handkerchief to a now very painful nose. He was angry,
(10:30):
and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him indisputable that
mister Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst
of his experiment in thought transference. But why that he
should make him appear with a sad white face in
mister Vincey'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
(10:53):
order of things must be insane. But he could think
of nothing to do, he shut himself carefully into his room,
let 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
(11:13):
had a curious persuasion that mister Bessel was endeavoring to
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, unrested and anxious, and
in considerable facial pain. The morning papers had no news
(11:34):
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 Bessell's partner, and so
far as mister Vincey knew his nearest friend, he was
(11:55):
surprised to learn that mister Hart although he knew nothing
of the outbreak, had also being disturbed by a vision,
the very vision that mister Vincey had seen mister Bessel,
white and dishevel, 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
(12:16):
Albany when you arrived, said mister Hart. I was so
sure of something being wrong with him. At 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.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
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. They confirmed mister
Vincey'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 Cote Road,
(12:52):
an attack upon a policeman in Hampstead Road, and an
atrocious assault upon a woman. All these outrages were committed
by 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
room at half past nine in the evening, they could
trace the deepening violence of his fantastic career. For the
(13:14):
last hour at last, from before one, that is, until
a quarter to two, he had run amok through London,
elluding with amazing agility every effort to stop or capture him.
But after a quarter of 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
(13:35):
things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to two,
he had been seen running down the Euston Road towards
Baker's Street, flourishing a can of burning coals or 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
(13:57):
had he left the Euston Road, had seen anything of him.
Abruptly he disappeared. Nothing of his subsequent doings came to light.
In spite of the keenest inquiry. Here was a fresh
astonishment for mister Vincy. 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
(14:19):
been able to suspend his mental perplexities. But any fresh
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
(14:39):
mister Hart again to share the intolerable weight on his mind.
He found mister Hart engaged with a well known private detective.
But as that gentleman accomplished nothing in this case, we
need not enlarge upon his proceedings. All that day mister
Bessel's whereabouts saluted an unceasingly active inquiry, and all that
night and all that there was a persuasion at the
(15:01):
back of Vincey's mind that mister Bessell sought his attention,
And all through the night mister Bessel, with a tear
stained face of anguish pursued him through his dreams, and
whenever he saw mister Besseil in his dreams, he also
saw a number of other faces, vague but malignant, that
seemed to be pursuing mister Bessel. It was in the
following day, Sunday, that mister Vincey recalled certain remarkable stories
(15:25):
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
(15:45):
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 Vincy. Do you mean we got
(16:09):
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 the 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
(16:30):
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
was one of these messages, the one written by her
(16:52):
left hand, that mister Vincey now had before him. It
consisted of eight words written disconnectedly. John Lodge Bessel, Trial,
Excaben Baker's Street, help Starvation. Curiously enough, neither doctor Paget
nor the other two inquirers who were present had heard
(17:13):
of the disappearance of mister Bessel. 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 had 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 discovery of mister Bessel.
(17:35):
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 Bessel 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 work for the new
electric railway near Baker Street station. His arm and leg
(17:57):
and two ribs were broken. The shaft is protected by
a holding 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 colser oil, and the smashed tin
lay beside him. But luckily the flame had been extinguished
(18:17):
by his fall, and his madness had passed from him altogether.
But he was of course terribly and feeble 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 Hatton in
Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to a sedative treatment,
and anything that might recall the violent crisis through which
(18:40):
he had passed was carefully avoided. But on the second
day he volunteered a statement. Since that occasion, mister Bessel
has several times repeated the statement to myself among other people,
varying the details, as the narrator of real experience always does,
but never by any chance contradicting himself in any particular.
And the statement he makes is in substance as follows.
(19:03):
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 attempt at self projection in
his experiments with mister Vincey were, as a reader will remember, unsuccessful.
But through all of them he was concentrating all his
power and will upon getting out of the body, willing
(19:26):
it with all my might, he says. At last, almost
against expectation, came success and mister Bessel 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,
(19:49):
my hands gripping 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 this assurance of that release. He describes in a quiet,
(20:10):
matter 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.
It appeared to me at first as if I had
(20:31):
discovered a great self of which the conscious being in
my brain was only a little part. I saw the
Albany and 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,
(20:51):
like drifting reeds 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
(21:11):
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,
(21:34):
he stooped down, and, with a shadowy arm he found
himself possessed of, attempted to touch a man walking along
Beagle Street. But he could not do so, since 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 of glass.
I felt as a kitten may feel, he said, when
(21:56):
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 will
speedily see, there were interruptions of this generally impermeable resistance
(22:17):
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 every day experience.
A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon
him throughout all his experience, was the stillness of this place.
He was in a world without sound. At first, Miss
(22:39):
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 one,
believe also that he was somewhere out of space as
we understand it altogether. By a strenuous effort of will,
(23:00):
he had passed out of his body into a world
beyond this world, a world undreamt off, yet lying so
close to it, and so strangely situated with regard to it,
that all things on this earth are clearly visible, both
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.
(23:23):
And then he recalled the engagement with mister Vincy, to
which this astonishing experience was, after all but a prelude.
He turned his mind to look emotion in this new
body in which he found himself. For a time, he
was unable to shift himself from his attachment to this
earthly carcass. For a time, this new strange cloud body
(23:43):
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 what appeared to be whirling spheres of dark vapor,
And then, through a momentary he saw his drooping body
collapse limply. He saw his lifeless head drop sideways, and
(24:06):
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 that the fluctuating vapor about him was
something more than vapor, and the timorrious excitement of his
first essay was shot with fear. For he perceived, at
(24:26):
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 of gacious tenuity, Faces like those
faces that glared intolerable strangeness upon the sleeper in the
evil hours of his dreams, evil greedy eyes that were
(24:50):
full of covetuous curiosity, faces with knit brows and snarling,
smiling lips. Their vague hands clutched at mister Bessel as
he passed, 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
(25:11):
freely through the dim mistiness that was his body, gathering
even more numerously about him, and the shadowy mister Bessel,
now suddenly fear stricken, drove through the silent, active multitude
of eyes and clutching hands. So inhuman were their faces,
so malignant, their staring eyes and shadowy, clawing gestures, that
(25:31):
it did not occur to mister Bessel to attempt intercourse
with these drifting creatures, idiot phantoms. They seemed children of
vain desire, beings unborne and forbidden, the boon of being
whose only expressions and gestures told of the envy and
craving for life that was their one link with existence.
It says much for his resolution that amidst the swarming
(25:53):
cloud of these noiseless spirits of evil, he could still
think of mister Vincey. He made a violent effort of
will and 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 breeds
was another multitude of these vain, voiceless shadows, longing desiring
(26:18):
seeking some loophole into life for a space, mister Bessel
sought ineffectually 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 had compared to a
(26:39):
sheet of glass separated them impermeably, and at last mister
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
(27:01):
Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention from
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 figures of the brain, and
he knows now that this is for that useless structure
as doctors call it, the pennial eye. For strange, as
(27:25):
it 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
(27:46):
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 and blew through
all that world of shadows and tore him away. So
strong was this persuasion that he thought no more of
(28:06):
mister Vincey, but turned about forthwith and all the countless
faces drove back with him like leaves before a gale.
But he returned 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,
and arisen by virtue of some strength and will beyond
his own. It stood with staring eyes, stretching its limbs,
(28:30):
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 spoiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and all
about him the spirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked.
He gave way to furious anger. He compares himself to
(28:50):
a bird that had fluttered needlessly 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,
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
(29:12):
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
hurled himself against the impossible barrier, and then, with all
that crew of mocking ghosts about him, hurried back and
die confusion to Vincey to tell him of the outrage
(29:34):
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 Hawborne
to call a cab. Foiled in terror. Stricken, mister Bessel
swept back again to find his desecrated body whooping in
a glorious frenzy down the Burlington Arcade. And now the
(29:55):
attentive reader begins to understand mister Bessel's interpretation of the
first part of this strange story. The being whose frantic
rush to London had inflicted so much injury and disaster
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.
(30:18):
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
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
(30:39):
his situation to these helpers across the gulf he did
not know. His feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly in
their brains. Once Indeed, as we have already told, he
was able to turn mister Vincey aside from his patch,
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
(31:01):
that encounter. All through these hours, the persuasion was overwhelming
in mister Bessel's mind that presently his body would be
killed by its furious tenant, and he would have to
remain in his shadow land for evermore. So that those
long hours were a growing agony of fear, and ever,
as he hurried to and fro in his ineffectual excitement,
(31:22):
innumerable spirits of that world about him mobbed him and
confused his mind, And ever an envious applauding multitude poured
after their successful fellow as he went upon his glorious career,
that it would seem must be the life of these
bodiless things of this world that is the shadow of
our world. Ever, they watch coveting away into a mortal body,
(31:45):
in order that they may descend as furies 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 afterwards several shadows of men,
men like himself, had seemed, who had lost their bodies.
(32:05):
Even it may be as he had lost his, and
wondered despairingly in that lost world that is neither life
nor death. They could not speak, because the world is silent.
Yet he kneels 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,
(32:27):
Whether they still raved about the earth, or whether they
were closed forever and 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 was gathered and
(32:50):
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 on awkwardly
in a chair with a head thrown back. He knew
her from her portraits to be Missus Bullert, the medium,
and he perceived that tracts and structures in her brain
glowed and stirred, as yet seen the pennial eye in
(33:11):
the brain of mister vincyglow. 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 shadows of men about him,
and a great multitude of shadow spirits of that shadow land,
(33:34):
were all striving and thrusting to touch the lighted regions
of a brain. As one gained her brain or another
was thrust away, her voice in the writing of her
hand changed so that what she said was disorderly and
confused for the most part, now a fragment of one's
soul's message, and now a fragment of another's. And now
she babbled the insane fancies of the spirits of vain desire.
(33:57):
Then mister Bessel understood that she spoke for this spirit
that had touched of her, and he began to struggle
very furiously towards her. But he was in the outside
of the crowd, and at 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
(34:17):
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, an arm, 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
(34:40):
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 the men who stood about the medium,
looking at his watch as if he meant that the
seance should presently end, and that a great number of
the shadows who had been striving turned away with gestures
of despair. But it thought that the seance was almost
(35:02):
over only made mister Bessel the more earnest, and he
struggled so stoutly with his will against the others, that
presently he gained the 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 in the cloud of evil
spirits about him had thrust mister Besseil away from her,
(35:25):
and for all the rest of the seance he could
regain her no more. 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 lessons of pain. And towards dawn the thing
he had waited for happened. The brain glowed brightly, and
(35:47):
the evil spirit came out, and mister Bessel entered the
body he had feared he 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
(36:08):
shadows of lost men, vanished clean away. He lay there
for the space of 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
(36:30):
world of men and of the stolen body. By H. G.
Wells
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