Clairvoyance - Algernon Blackwood

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Clairvoyance by Algernon Blackwood. In the darkest corner, where the
firelight 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

(00:21):
the horseshoe of eager, frightened faces that seemed all eyes
behind yone. The blackness of the big room, running as
it were, without a break into the night. Some one
crossed on tiptoe and drew a blind up with a rattle,
and at the sound all started through the window opened

(00:43):
at the top came a rustle of the poplar leaves
that stirred like footsteps in the wind. There's a strange
man walking 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

(01:07):
mist had risen from the river just below the lawn,
pressing close 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,

(01:29):
all perhaps wished secretly for the sun. Only the elderly
man in 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

(01:51):
due his presence in the weekend party. I never have
experiences that way, 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

(02:12):
covered his retreat, and he wondered, for he knew why
she invited him 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

(02:34):
at his big curved pipe, and generally, by his mere
presence made the group feel rather foolish. Light streamed past
him from the corridor, 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,

(02:56):
and his young wife sprang up instantly to greet him,
as though his disapproval of this kind of entertainment might
need humoring. It 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,

(03:18):
sharp conviction. At any rate, the contrast, for those who
had this inner clairvoyant sight, all had been prating of
so glibly was 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

(03:42):
three years, standing picture of youth and beauty, there stood
upon the threshold of that room the presence of a
true ghost story. 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

(04:06):
a rich maturity deeper than any mere age flushed all
her little person, 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,

(04:26):
though for a second only the full soft glory of
a motherhood denied, 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 sweep into

(04:48):
her immense embrace all the little helpless things that ever lived.
Light like emotion 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

(05:11):
no psychical experience, and disclaimed the smallest clairvoyant faculty had
received and registered the vivid, 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

(05:32):
and age ill matched, as of youth that yearned with
the oldest craving in the world, and of age that
had slipped beyond the 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

(05:54):
with stories, child, he said in his jolly way, and
put a protective arm about her. Haven't they now tell
me the truth? 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,

(06:17):
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 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

(06:38):
over and poked the fire into a blaze. Someone struck
up a waltz on the piano, and couples danced. All
trace of nervousness vanished, 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

(07:02):
laughter died away as they went up the stairs to bed,
the silent guest and the young wife lingering a moment
over the embers. 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,

(07:24):
her manner gracious beyond her years, her voice quite different,
that I wanted you to sleep there someone I mean,
who really knows and is not merely curious. But forgive
my saying. So when I saw you, she laughed very slowly.
And when you told no marvelous story like the others,

(07:45):
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 your others. Then he interrupted abruptly, almost bluntly,
have slept there? Sat up rather not recently? My husband

(08:09):
stopped it. She paused a second, then added, I had
that room for a year when first we married. The
other's anguished look 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,

(08:30):
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,
She bowed her head. I had to change, she repeated, softly.

(08:55):
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
they passed along the passage again that curious great pain,
of emptiness, of loneliness, of yearning rose upon him, as

(09:19):
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
over the banisters, as the pair moved slowly up the stairs,
towards him. There was a moment's silence when they met.

(09:40):
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
door he turned at the far end of the passage.
Silhouetted against the candlelight, he watched them, the fi old

(10:00):
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, and
he went in and closed his door. Sleep took him
very quickly, and while the mist rose up and veiled

(10:23):
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
it seemed the whole house listened, For with that clear
vision which some bring out of sleep, he remembered that

(10:44):
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
he knew no terror to find the space about him
charged with thronging life quite other than his own. He

(11:08):
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
was like a wall of being with peering eyes, small
hands stretched out, a thousand pattering wee feet, and tiny

(11:32):
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,
for all the childless women of the world. How could
she know that he would understand this woman he had

(11:52):
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
she clairvoyant in the true sense? And did all faces
bear on them, so legibly, this great map that sorrow traced.

(12:16):
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
first at the sight something of common fear did grip him,
as though his heart had missed a beat. But on

(12:38):
the instant he heard the voice of 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
he saw actual movement, for something in him, Tragica's blindness
rose through a mist of tears and dark vision. Utterly

(13:03):
he went towards the door. He took the handle very
gently and very softly. Then he opened it. Beyond was darkness.
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

(13:25):
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
dews of dawn passed with it, filling him to the brim,
covering closely his breast and eyes and lips. There clung

(13:46):
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
of some mysterious yet impossible fulfillment, he rose and went
with curious small steps towards the window to taste the cooling,

(14:09):
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
somewhere children in it too, children of stars and flowers,
of mists and wings and music, all that the universe contains,

(14:32):
unborn and tiny. And when at length he turned again,
the door was closed. The room was empty of any
life but that which lay so wonderfully blessed within himself,
and this he felt had marvelously increased and multiplied. Sleep
then came back to him, and in the morning he

(14:54):
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. And of Clairvoyance by Algernon Blackwood