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Page 25
Somewhat after this fashion, perhaps, did Helwyse commune with
himself. He liked to follow the whim of the moment, whither it would
lead him. He was romantic; it was one of his agreeablest traits,
because spontaneous; and he indulged it the more, as being confident
that he had too much solid ballast in the hold to be in danger of
upsetting. To-night, at this point of his mental ramble, he found that
his cigar had gone out. Had he been thinking aloud? He believed not,
and yet there was no telling; he often did so, unconsciously. Were it
so, and were any one listening, that person had him decidedly at
advantage!
What put it into his head that some one might be listening? It may
have come by pure accident,--if there be such a thing. The idea
returned, stealing over his mind like a chilling breath. What if some
one had all along been close beside him, with eyes fixed upon him!
Helwyse found himself sitting perfectly still, holding his breath to
listen. There was no disguising it,--he felt uneasy. He wished his
cigar had not gone out. On second thoughts, he wished there had not
been any cigar at all, because, if any one were near, the cigar must
have pointed out the smoker's precise position. The uneasiness did not
lessen, but grew more defined.
It was like the sensation felt when pointed at by a human finger, or
stared at persistently. Was there indeed any one near? No sound or
movement gave answer, but the odd sensation continued. Helwyse fancied
he could now tell whence it came;--from the left, and not far away. He
peered earnestly thitherward, but his eyes only swallowed blackness.
Was not this carrying a whim to a foolish length? If he thought he
had a companion, why not speak, and end the doubt? But the dense
silence, darkness, uncertainty, made common-sense seem out of place.
The whole black fog, the sea, the earth itself, seemed to be pressing
down his will! The longer he delayed, the weaker he grew.
A slight shifting of his position caused him all at once to encounter
the eyes of the unseen presence with his own! The stout-nerved young
fellow was startled to the very heart. Was the unseen presence
startled also? At all events, the shock found Balder Helwyse his
tongue, seldom before tied up without his consent.
"I hope I'm not disturbing your solitude. You are not a noisy
neighbor, sir."
So flat fell the words on the blank darkness, it seemed as if there
could never be a reply. Nevertheless, a reply came.
"You must come much nearer me than you are, to disturb my solitude. It
does not consist in being without a companion."
The quality of this voice of darkness was peculiar. It sounded old,
yet of an age that had not outlived the devil of youth. Probably the
invisibility of the speaker enhanced its effect. With most of the
elements of pleasing, it was nevertheless repulsive. It was soft,
fluent, polished, but savage license was not far off, hard held by a
slender leash; an underlying suggestion of harsh discordance. The
utterance, though somewhat rapid, was carefully distinct.
Helwyse had the gift of familiarity,--of that rare kind of familiarity
which does not degenerate into contempt. But there was an incongruity
about this person, hard to assimilate. In a couple of not very
original sentences, he had wrought upon his listener an effect of
depraved intellectual power, strangely combined with artless
simplicity,--an unspeakably distasteful conjunction! Imagination,
freed from the check of the senses, easily becomes grotesque; and
Helwyse, unable to see his companion, had no difficulty in picturing
him as a grisly monster, having a satanic head set upon the ingenuous
shoulders of a child. And what was Helwyse himself? No longer, surely,
the gravely humorous moralizer? The laws of harmony forbid! He is a
monster likewise; say--since grotesqueness is in vogue--the heart of
Lucifer burning beneath the cool brain of a Grecian sage. The
symbolism is not inapt, since Helwyse, while afflicted with pride and
ambition as abstract as boundless, had, at the same time, a logical,
fearless brain, and keen delight in beauty.
"I was just thinking," remarked the latter monster, "that this was a
good place for confidential conversation."
"You believe, then, that talking relieves the mind?" rejoined the
former, softly.
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