Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (70 page)

Time, as we know it, runs forward only in a
line; but in two dimensions it would run backwards, or parallel as well. Not
only could he be in two places at once, but he could be also in two times at
once. He could do two things—two things otherwise mutually self-exclusive—at
once.

"At
any given moment," said my fellow-prisoner, "you have a choice of
doing several things. Of these you choose one. Actually, you might choose any
of the others. You select one, however, and do it. That one thing
actualises."

I nodded, as much as my
approaching headache allowed.

"Now,.listen:
In time of more than one dimension you could choose more than one thing. You
could do several things at once— and they all would actualise. . . ."

At
which point my sick headache usually developed suddenly, so that my friend
continued to talk without my understanding.

I acquired, at any rate, a
sort of smattering of comprehension.

"Anyone
escaping into other time and space," he finished later, "would come
back, you see, at the point he left, even if years of our time had passed
meanwhile—years or a few minutes only. . . ."

Such
explanations, I found, supported themselves, loosely enough, with the jargon of
Relativity. Einstein, the magician thinker, was called in to help. To me it
remained a "line of speculation," than which the sober mind would say
no more.

Mantravers,
at any rate, disappeared . . . and since he vanished when war was declared, and
reappeared shortly after the Armistice, there were those who sneered that he
had been in hiding. This was untrue, absurd as well. No more patriotic
Englishman ever lived. Nor was his courage questionable. The date of his going
and returning had nothing to do with the War. The Great War, indeed, was almost
a trivial item in his strange experience, and his disappearance, I incline to
think, was enforced, and singularly enforced.

It was January 1919 when I found myself in
London again. My intention, backed by a deep instinct, was to go back to the
house where Sydney Mantravers had left me standing on the steps: to enter the
building, if still unoccupied; to walk through all its rooms and passages
again. I wished to do this alone, and to do it before I had spoken with Dr.
Vronski, or even seen him. Vronski's talk and information could come later. I
kept my return secret from him.

If I
never quite explained or justified this deep instinct even to myself, I recognised
that no mere morbid curiosity lay in it anywhere. Clearest in my mind was the
desire to make this visit and inspection before I became immersed again in the
world of ordinary everyday affairs, that is, before some inner mood or attitude
acquired in my years of solitude had dissipated. During those prison years of
introspection, thought, speculation, even of experiment as well, something had
come to life in me that contact with the bustling outer world, I knew, must
smash to pieces. It was as though I had dreamed of another order of existence,
had even fringed the perception of entirely new categories. Two sets of values,
at any rate, appeared in some depth of my being that was only accessible to me
with the greatest difficulty and effort. I was aware of them, no more than
that; the slightest mistake, of clumsiness or stupidity, on my part would send
them plunging for ever beyond my reach. This extremely delicate balance I
perceived. The disappearance of Mantravers was concerned with the set of values
I had dreamed of, possibly just begun to understand, to acquire even, in my
bitter years of prison life. My instinct was to visit the house while this
still remained and before its fading, already in progress, resulted in complete
forgetfulness.

Did
I expect to see him too, actually to see some figure or outline of the man who
had disappeared over four years ago and was now legally dead? I cannot
truthfully say, although I believe some uncanny, rather awful hope lurked deep
down in me.
...
I reached London at
noon, my return to England, my presence in town, a well-kept secret; not
wasting a minute, I was walking up the Bayswater side-street by the afternoon,
the January daylight already fading, and it must have been close on four
o'clock when the house came into view, plastered, I noticed, still with agents'
boards, and therefore unlet, unoccupied. The stained and dirty window-panes had
no blinds, the patchy walls showed no signs of recent paint, the air of neglect
and disuse were the same as before, only more marked. The key, in case of need,
the very key my cousin had handed to me himself, was in my pocket, kept
carefully all these years. In the pocket of my mackintosh my fingers
gripped
it
tightly,
even
a
trifle
feverishly,
as
though
it
might
somehow melt
away
and
defeat
my
purpose.
I
kept
feeling
it
over,
indeed,
as
a man
might
finger
bank-notes
to
make
quite
sure
he
still
had
them safely.

A
definite
realisation,
moreover,
came
to
me
as
I
walked
up
the steps—that
I
was
both
exhilarated
and
frightened,
and
that
while
the exhilaration
contained
an
immense,
a
biting
curiosity,
the
fear
was partly
due
to
a
sudden
wave
of
depression
that
had
come
upon
me. Was
this
depression,
this
lowering
of
vitality,
I
remember
asking
myself,
similar
to
what
the
two
ladies
experienced
just
as
they
passed
the threshold
into
their
unique
otherworldly
Adventure
in
Versailles? The
vivid
detail
rose
up
from
my
reading
in
my
prison
camp.
It
was certainly
not
a
physical
fear,
it
was
perhaps
a
mental,
a
spiritual
hint of
terror,
as
best
I
could
diagnose
it,
for
the
idea
appeared
that
my ordinary
equipment
of
mind
and
body
contained
no
weapon
to
help me
in
what
might
be
coming.
Yet
a
touch
of
horror
I
had
known before
"going
over
the
top"
seemed
in
it
too.
My
hand,
at
any
rate, was
trembling
as
I
took
the
big
key
and
began
to
fit
it
into
the
lock of
the
front
door—at
which
very
moment
a
noise
of
tapping
on
glass somewhere
above
me
made
me
pause.
It
sounded
like
fingers
drumming
or
tapping
faintly
on
a
window-pane.
Startled,
I
looked
up quickly,
and
there,
at
a
window
on
the
second
floor,
two
storeys
above, I
saw
a
face
peering
down
at
me
through
the
dusty
pane,
a
face
I recognised,
the'
face
of
my
cousin,
Sydney
Mantravers.
Looking
over his
shoulder,
and
also
staring
down
at
me,
was
the
outline
of
a
second face,
but
a
face
that
was
wholly
strange
to
me.
I
had
just
time
to
note that
it
wore
a
small
moustache,
when
both
the
faces
withdrew
sharply backwards
from
the
window
so
that
they
were
no
longer
visible,
and it
was
in
this
same
instant
that
my
fingers,
fumbling
with
the
key automatically,
discovered
that
the
door
was
not
locked
at
all
but
was indeed
already
open
into
the
hall.