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Page 24
Balder Halwyse was on board. After dining with the cook, and smoking
a real Havana cigar (probably the first real one that he had ever been
blessed with), he put a package of the same brand in his
travelling-bag, bade his entertainer,--who had solemnly engaged to
remain in Boston for Mr. Helwyse's sole sake,--bade his
fellow-convivialist good by, and took the train to Newport, and from
there the "Empire State" for New York.
The darkness was the most impenetrable that the young man had ever
seen; Long Island Sound was like a pocket. The passengers--those who
did not go to their state-rooms at once--sat in the cabin reading, or
dozing on the chairs and sofas. A few men stayed out on deck for an
hour or two, smoking; but at last they too went in. The darkness was
appalling. The officer on the bridge blew his steam fog-whistle every
few minutes, and kept his lanterns hung out; but they must have been
invisible at sixty yards.
Helwyse kept the deck alone. Apparently he meant to smoke his whole
bundle of cigars before turning in. He paced up and down,
Napoleon-like in his high boots, until finally he was brought to a
stand by the blind night-wall, which no man can either scale or
circumvent. Then he leaned on the railing and looked against the
darkness. Not a light to be seen in heaven or on earth! The water
below whispered and swirled past, torn to soft fragments by the
gigantic paddle-wheel. Helwyse's beard was wet and his hands sticky
with the salt mist.
Ever and anon sounded the fog-whistle, hoarsely, as though the fog had
got in its throat; and the pale glare of a lantern, fastened aloft
somewhere, lighted up the white issuing steam for a moment. There was
no wind; one was conscious of motion, but all sense of direction and
position--save to the steersman--was lost. Helwyse could see the red
end of his cigar, and very cosey and friendly it looked; but he could
see nothing else.
It is said that staid and respectable people, when thoroughly steeped
in night, will sometimes break out in wild grimaces and outlandish
gesticulations. It is certainly the time when unlawful thoughts and
words come to men most readily and naturally. Night brings forth many
things that daylight starts from. The real power of darkness lies not
in merely baffling the eyesight, but in creating the feeling of
darkness in the soul. The chains of light are broken, and we can
almost believe our internal night to be as impenetrable to God's eyes
as that external, to our own!
By and by Helwyse thought he would find some snug place and sit down.
The cabin of the "Empire State" was built on the main deck, abaft the
funnel, like a long, low house. Between the stern end of this house
and the taffrail was a small space, thickly grown with camp-stools.
Helwyse groped his way thither, got hold of a couple of the
camp-stools, and arranged himself comfortably with his back against
the cabin wall. The waves bubbled invisibly in the wake beneath. After
sitting for a while in the dense blackness, Helwyse began to feel as
though his whole physical self were shrivelled into a single atom,
careering blindly through infinite space!
After all, and really, was he anything more? If he chose to think not,
what logic could convince him of the contrary? Visible creation, as
any child could tell him, was an illusion,--was not what it seemed to
be. But this darkness was no illusion! Why, then, was it not the only
reality? and he but an atom, charged with a vital power of so-called
senses, that generally deceived him, but sometimes--as now--let him
glimpse the truth? The fancy, absurd as it was, had its attraction for
the time being. This great living, staring world of men and things is
a terrible weight to lug upon one's back. But if man be an invisible
atom, what a vast, wild, boundless freedom is his! Infinite space is
wide enough to cut any caper in, and no one the wiser.
One would like to converse with a man who had been born and had lived
in solitude and darkness. What original views he would have about
himself and life! Would he think himself an abstract intelligence,
out of space and time? What a riddle his physical sensations would be
to him! Or, suppose him to meet with another being brought up in the
same way; how they would mystify each other! Would they learn to feel
shame, love, hate? or do the passions only grow in sunshine? Would
they ever laugh? Would they hatch plots against each other, lie,
deceive? Would they have secrets from each other?
But, fancy aside, take a supposable case. Suppose two sinners of our
daylight world to meet for the first time, mutually unknown, on a
night like this. Invisible, only audible, how might they plunge
profound into most naked intimacy,--read aloud to each other the
secrets of their deepest hearts! Would the confession lighten their
souls, or make them twice as heavy as before? Then, the next morning,
they might meet and pass, unrecognizing and unrecognized. But would
the knot binding them to each other be any the less real, because
neither knew to whom he was tied? Some day, in the midst of friends,
in the brightest glare of the sunshine, the tone of a voice would
strike them pale and cold.
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