CHAPTER XXVII
THE FACE THAT CAME IN DREAMS
Virdow was not a scientist in the strict sense of the term. He had been a fairly good musician in youth and had advanced somewhat in art. He was one of those modern scientists, who are not walled in by past conclusions, but who, like Morse, leap forward from a vantage point and build back to connect with old results. Early in life he had studied the laws of vibration, until it seemed revealed to him that all forms, all fancies, were born of it. Gradually as his beautiful demonstrations were made and all art co-ordinated upon this law, he saw in dreams a fulfillment of his hopes that in his age, in his life, might bloom the fairest flower of science, a mind memory opened to mortal consciousness.
Dreaming further along the lines of Wagner, it had come to him that the key to this hidden, dumb and sleeping record of the mind was vibration; that the strains of music which summon beautiful dreams to the minds of men were magic wands lifting the vision of this past; not its immediate past, but the past of ages; for in the brain of the subtle German was firmly fixed the belief that the minds of men were in their last analysis one and indivisible, and older than the molecules of physical creation.
He held triumphantly that "then shall you see clearly," was but one way of saying "then shall you remember."
To this man the mind picture which Gerald had drawn, the church, with its tragic figures, came as a reward of generations of labor. He had followed many a false trail and failed in hospital and asylum. In Gerald he hoped for a sound, active brain, combined with the faculty of expression in many languages and the finer power of art; an organism sufficiently delicate to carry into that viewless vinculum between body and soul, vibrations, rhymes and co-ordinations delicate enough to touch a new consciousness and return its reply through organized form. He had found these conditions perfect, and he felt that if failure was the result, while still firmly fixed in his belief, never again would opportunity of equal merit present itself. If in Gerald his theory failed of demonstration, the mind's past would be, in his lifetime, locked to his mortal consciousness. In brief he had formed the conditions so long sought and upon these his life's hope was staked.
Much of this he stated as they sat in the wing-room. Gerald lay upon the divan when he began talking, lost in abstraction, but as the theory of the German was gradually unfolded Edward saw him fix his bright eye upon the speaker, saw him becoming restless and excited. When the explanation ended he was walking the floor.
"Experiments with frogs," he said, abruptly; "accidents to the human brain and vivisection have proved the separateness of memory and consciousness. But I shall do better; I shall give to the world a complete picture descended from parent to child – an inherited brain picture of which the mind is thoroughly conscious." His listeners waited in breathless suspense; both knew to what he referred. "But," he added, shaking his head, "that does not carry us out of the material world."
His ready knowledge of this subject and its quick grasp of the proposition astonished Virdow beyond expression.
"Go on," he said, simply.
"When that fusion of mind and matter occurs," said Gerald, positively; "when the consciousness is put in touch with the mind's unconscious memory there will be no pictures seen, no records read; we shall simply broaden out, comprehend, understand, grasp, know! That is all! It will not come to the world, but to individuals, and, lastly, it has already come! Every so called original thought that dawns upon a human, every intuitive conception of the truth, marks the point where mind yielded something of a memory to human consciousness."
The professor moved uneasily in his seat; both he and Edward were overwhelmed with the surprise of the demonstration that behind the sad environment of this being dwelt a keen, logical mind. The speaker paused and smiled; his attention was not upon his company.
"So," he said, softly, "come the song into the mind of the poet, so the harmonies to the singer and so the combination of colors to the artist; so the rounded periods of oratory and so the conception that makes invention possible. No facts appear, because facts are the results of laws, the proofs of truths. The mind-memory carries none of these; it carries laws and the truth which interprets it all; and when men can hold their consciousness to the touch of mind without a falling apart, they will stand upon the plane of their Creator, because they will then be fully conscious of the eternal laws and in harmony with them."
"And you," said Virdow, greatly affected, "have you ever felt the union of consciousness and mind-memory?"
"Yes," he replied; "what I have said is the truth; for it came from an inner consciousness without previous determination and intention. I am right, and you know I am right!" Virdow shook his head.
"I have hoped," he said, gently, "that in this mind-memory dwelt pictures. We shall see, we shall see." Gerald turned away impatiently and threw himself upon his couch. Presently in the silence which ensued rose the solemn measure of Mendelssohn's heart-beat march from Edward's violin. The strange, sad, depressing harmony filled the room; even Virdow felt its wonderful power and sat mute and disturbed. Suddenly he happened to gaze toward Gerald. He lay with ashen face and rigid eyes fixed upon the ceiling, to all appearances a corpse. Virdow bounded forward and snatched the bow from Edward's hand.
"Stop!" he cried; "for his sake stop, or you will kill him!"
They dragged the inanimate form to the window and bathed the face. A low moan escaped the young man, and then a gleam of intelligence came into his eyes. He tried to speak, but without success; an expression of surprise and distress came upon his face as he rose to his feet. For a moment he stood gasping, but presently his breath came normally.
"Temporary aphasia," he said, in a low tone. Going to the easel he drew rapidly the picture of a woman kneeling above the prostrate form of another, and stood contemplating it in silence. Edward and Virdow came to his side, the latter pale with excitement. Gerald did not notice them. Only the back of the kneeling woman was shown, but the face of the other was distinct, calm and beautiful. It was the girl in the small picture.
"That face – that face," he whispered. "Alas! I see it only as my ancestors saw it." He resumed his lounge dejectedly.
"You have seen it before, then?" said Virdow, earnestly.
"Before! In my dreams from childhood! It is a face associated with me always. In the night, when the wind blows, I hear a voice calling Gerald, and this vision comes. Shall I tell you a secret – " His voice had become lower and now was inaudible. Placing his hand upon the white wrist, Virdow said:
"He sleeps; it is well. Come away, my young friend; I have learned much, but the experience might have been dearly bought. Sometime I will explain." Noiselessly they withdrew to Edward's room. Edward was depressed.
"You have gained, but not I," he said. "The back of the kneeling woman was toward him."
"Wait," said Virdow; "all things cannot be learned in a night. We do not know who witnessed that scene."
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE THREE PICTURES
Virdow had arisen and been to town when Edward made his appearance late in the morning. After tossing on his pillow all night, at daylight he had fallen into a long, dreamless sleep.
Gerald was looking on, and the professor was arranging an experimental apparatus of some kind. He had suspended a metal drum from the arch of the glass-room by steel wires, and over the upper end of the drum had drawn tightly a sheet of rubber obtained from a toy balloon manufacturer. In the base of this drum he inserted a hollow stem of tin, one end of which was flared like a trumpet. The whole machine when completed presented the appearance of a gigantic pipe; the mouthpiece enlarged. When Edward came in the German was spreading upon the rubber surface of the drum an almost impalpable powder, taken from one of the iron nodules which lay about on the surrounding hills and slightly moistened.
"I have been explaining to Gerald," said Virdow, cheerily, "some of my bases for hopes that vibration is the medium through which to effect that ether wherein floats what men call the mind, and am getting ready to show the co-ordinations of force and increasing steadily and evenly. Try what you Americans call 'A' in the middle register and remember that you have before you a detective that will catch your slightest error." He was closing doors and openings as he spoke.
Edward obeyed. Placing his mouth near the trumpet opening he began. The simple note, prolonged, rang out in the silent room, increasing in strength to a certain point and ending abruptly. Then was seen a marvelous thing; animated, the composition upon the disk rushed to the exact center and then tremulously began to take definite shape. A little medallion appeared, surrounded by minute dots, and from these little tongues ran outward. The note died away, and only the breathing of the eager watchers was heard. Before them in bas-relief was a red daisy, as perfect, aye, more nearly perfect, than art could supply. Gerald after a moment turned his head and seemed lost in thought.
"From that we might infer," said Virdow, "that the daisy is the 'A' note of the world; that of it is born all the daisy class of flowers, from the sunflower down – all vibrations of a standard."
Again and again the experiment was repeated, with the same result.
"Now try 'C,'" said the German, and Edward obeyed. Again the mass rushed together, but this time it spread into the form of a pansy. And then with other notes came fern shapes, trees and figures that resembled the scale armor of fish. And finally, from a softly sounded and prolonged note, a perfect serpent in coils appeared, with every ring distinctly marked. This form was varied by repetition to shells and cornucopias.
So through the musical scale went the experiments, each yielding a new and distinct form where the notes differed. Virdow enjoyed the wonder of Edward and the calm concentration of Gerald. He continued:
"Thus runs the scale in colors; each of the seven – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet – is a note, and as there are notes in music that harmonize, so in colors there are the same notes, the hues of which blend harmoniously. What have they to do with the mind memory? This: As a certain number of vibrations called to life in music the shell, in light the color, and in music the note, so once found will certain notes, or more likely their co-ordinations, awaken the memories of the mind, since infallibly by vibrations were they first born.
"This is the border land of speculation, you think, and you are partly correct. What vibration could have fixed the form of the daisy and the shape we have found in nature is uncertain, but remember that the earth swings in a hollow drum of air as resonant and infinitely more sensitive than rubber; and the brain – there is a philosophic necessity for the shape of a man's head."
"If," said Gerald, "you had said these vibrations awakened the memories of the brain instead of the mind, I could have agreed with you. Yours are on the order of the London experiments. I am familiar with them, but only through reading." Again Virdow wondered, but he continued:
"The powers of vibration are not understood – in fact, only dreamed of. Only one man in the world, your Keely, has appreciated its possibilities, and he is involved in the herculean effort to harness it to modern machinery. It was vibration simply that affected Gerald so deeply last night; a rhythm co-ordinating with his heart. I have seen vast audiences – and you have, too, Edward – painfully depressed by that dangerous experiment of Mendelssohn; for the heart, like a clock, will seek to adjust itself to rhythms. Your tempo was less than seventy-two to the minute; Gerald's delicate heart caught time and the brain lacked blood. A quick march would have sent the blood faster and brought exhilaration. Under the influence of march time men cheer and do deeds of valor that they would not otherwise attempt, though the measure is sounded only upon a drum; but when to this time is added a second, a third and a fourth rhythm, and the harmonies of tone against tone, color against color, in perfect co-ordination, they are no longer creatures of reason, but heroes. The whole matter is subject to scientific demonstration.
"But back to this 'heart-beat march.' The whole nerve system of man since the infancy of the race has been subject to the rhythm of the heart, every atom of the human body is attuned to it; for while length of life, breadth of shoulders, chest measure and stature have changed since the days of Adam we have no evidence that the solemn measure of the heart, sending its seventy-two waves against all the minute divisions of the human machine, has ever varied in the normal man. Lessen it, as on last night, and the result is distressing. And as you increase it, or substitute for it vibrations more rapid against those myriad nerves, you exhilarate or intoxicate.
"But has any one ever sent the vibration into that 'viewless vinculum' and awakened the hidden mind? As our young friend testifies, yes! There have been times when these lower co-ordinations of song and melodies have made by a momentary link mind and matter one, and of these times are born the world's greatest treasures – jewels wrested from the hills of eternity! What has been done by chance, science should do by rule."
Gerald had listened, with an attention not hoped for, but the conclusion was anticipated in his quick mind. Busy with his portfolio, he did not attend, but upon the professor's conclusion he turned with a picture in his hand. It was the drawing of the previous night.
"What is it?" he asked.
"A mind picture, possibly," said Virdow.
"You mean by that a picture never impressed upon the brain, but living within the past experience of the mind?"
"Exactly."
"And I say it is simply a brain picture transmitted to me by heredity."
"I deny nothing; all things are possible. But by whom? One of those women?" Gerald started violently and looked suspiciously upon his questioner. Virdow's face betrayed nothing.
"I do not know," said Gerald; "you have gaps in your theory, and this is the gap in mine. Neither of these women could have seen this picture; there must have been a third person." Virdow smiled and nodded his head.
"And if there was a third person he is my missing witness. From him comes your vision – a true mind picture."
"And this?" Gerald drew from the folio a woman's face – the face that Edward had shown, but idealized and etherealized. "From whom comes this?" cried the young man with growing excitement. "For I swear to you that I have never, except in dreams, beheld it, no tongue has described it! It is mine by memory alone, not plucked from subtle ether by a wandering mind, but from the walls of memory alone. Tell me." Virdow shook his head; he was silent for fear of the excitement. Gerald came and stood by him with the two pictures; his voice was strained and impassioned, and his tones just audible:
"The face in this and the sleeper's face in this are the same; if you were on the stand to answer for a friend's life would you say of me, this man descends from the kneeling woman?" Virdow looked upon him unflinchingly.
"I would answer, as by my belief in God's creation, that by this testimony you descend from neither, for the brain that held those pictures could belong to neither woman. One could not hold an etherealized picture of her own face, nor one a true likeness of her own back." Gerald replaced the sheets.
"You have told me what I knew," he said; "and yet – from one of them I am descended, and the pictures are true!" He took his hat and boat paddle and left them abruptly. The portfolio stood open. Virdow went to close it, but there was a third drawing dimly visible. Idly he drew it forth.
It was the picture of a white seagull and above it was an arch; beyond were the bending trees of the first picture. Both men studied it curiously, but with varying emotions.
CHAPTER XXIX
"HOME SWEET HOME."
Edward approached the hall that afternoon with misgivings. A charge had been brought against him, denied, and the denial defended with his life; but the charge was not disproved. And in this was the defect of the "code of honor." It died not because of its bloodiness but of inadequacy. A correct aim could not be a satisfactory substitute for good character nor good morals.
Was it his duty to furnish proof to his title to the name of gentleman? Or could he afford to look the world in the face with disdain and hold himself above suspicion? The latter course was really his only choice. He had no proofs.
This would do for the world at large, but among intimates would it suffice? He knew that nowhere in the world is the hearthstone more sacred than in the south, and how long would his welcome last, even at The Hall, with his past unexplained? He would see! The first hesitancy of host or hostess, and he would be self-banished!
There was really no reason why he should remain in America; agents could transact what little business was his and look after Gerald's affairs. Nothing had changed within him; he was the same Edward Morgan, with the same capacities for enjoyment.
But something had changed. He felt it with the mere thought of absence. What was it? As in answer to his mental question, there came behind him the quick breath of a horse and turning he beheld Mary. She smiled in response to his bow. The next instant he had descended from his buggy and was waiting.
"May I ride with you?" Again the face of the girl lighted with pleasure.
"Of course. Get down, Jerry, and change places with Mr. Morgan." Jerry made haste to obey. "Now, drop behind," she said to him, as Edward seated himself by her side.
"You see I have accepted your invitation," he began, "only I did not come as soon as I wished to, or I would have answered your kind note at once in person. All are well, I trust?" Her face clouded.
"No. Mamma has become entirely blind – probably for all time. I have just been to telegraph Dr. Campbell to come to us. We will know to-morrow." He was greatly distressed.
"My visit is inopportune – I will turn back. No, I was going from The Hall to the general's; I can keep straight on."
"Indeed, you shall not, Mr. Morgan. Mamma is bearing up bravely, and you can help so much to divert her mind if you tell her of your travels." He assented readily. It was a novel sensation to find himself useful.
"To-morrow morning," she continued, "perhaps I can find time to go to the general's – if you really want to go – "
"I do," he said. "My German friend, Virdow, has a theory he wishes to demonstrate and has asked me to find the dominate tones in a waterfall; I remembered the general's little cascade, and owing him a visit am going to discharge both duties. What a grand old man the general is!"
"Oh, indeed, yes. You do not know him, Mr. Morgan. If you could have seen how he entered into your quarrel – " she blushed and hesitated. "Oh, what an outrage was that affair!"
"It is past, Miss Montjoy; think no more upon it. It was I who cost your father his seat in Congress. That is the lamentable feature."
"That is nothing," said the young girl, "compared with the mortification and peril forced upon you. But you had friends – more than you dreamed of. The general says that the form of your note to Mr. Royson saved you a grave complication."
"You mean that I am indebted to Mr. Barksdale for that?"
"Yes. I love Mr. Barksdale; he is so manly and noble." Edward smiled upon her; he was not jealous of that kind of love.
"He is certainly a fine character – the best product of the new south, I take it. I have neglected to thank him for his good offices. I shall call upon him when I return."
"And," she said in a low tone, "of course you will assure the general of your gratitude to-morrow. You owe him more than you suspect. I would not have you fail there."
"And why would you dislike to have me fail?" She blushed furiously when she realized how she had become involved, but she met his questioning gaze bravely.
"You forget that I introduced you as my friend, and one does not like for friends to show up in a bad light."
He fell into moody silence, from which with difficulty only he could bring himself to reply to questions as she led the way from personal grounds. The Hall saved him from absolute disgrace.
In the darkened sitting-room was Mrs. Montjoy when the girl and the young man entered. She lifted her bandaged eyes to the door as she heard their voices in the hall.
"Mamma, here is Mr. Morgan," said Mary. The family had instinctively agreed upon a cheerful tone; the great oculist was coming; it was but a question of time when blessed sight would return again. The colonel raised himself from the lounge where he had been dozing and came forward. Edward could not detect in his grave courtesy the slightest deviation of manner. He welcomed him smilingly and inquired of Gerald. And then, continuing into the room, the young man took the soft hand of the elder woman. She placed the other on his and said with that singular disregard of words peculiar to the blind:
"I am glad to see you Mr. Morgan. We have been so distressed about you. I spent a wretched day and night thinking of your worry and danger."
"They are all over now, madam; but it is pleasant to know that my friends were holding me up all the time. Naturally I was somewhat lonesome," he said, forcing a smile, "until the general came to my rescue." Then recollecting himself, he added: "But those hours were as nothing to this, madam. You cannot understand how distressed I was to learn, as I have just now, of your illness." She patted his hand affectionately, after the manner of old ladies.
"Oh, yes, I can. Mary has told us of your offer to take us to Paris on that account. I am sure sometimes that one's misfortunes fall heaviest upon friends."
"It is not too late," he said, earnestly. "If the colonel will keep house and trust you with me, it is not too late. Really, I am almost obliged to visit Paris soon, and if – " he turned to the colonel at a loss for words. That gentleman had passed his hand over his forehead and was looking away.
"You are more than kind, my young friend," he said, sadly: "more than kind. We will see Campbell. If it is necessary Mrs. Montjoy will go to Paris."
Mary had been a silent witness of the little scene. She turned away to hide her emotion, fearful that her voice, if she spoke, would betray her. The Duchess came in and climbed to grandma's lap and wound her arms around the little woman. The colonel had resumed his seat when Mary brought in from the hall the precious violin and laid it upon the piano, waiting there until the conversation lagged.
"Mamma," she said, then, "Mr. Morgan has his violin; he was on his way through here to the general's when I intercepted him. I know you can rely upon him to play for us."
"As much and as often as desired," said Edward heartily. "I have a friend at home, an old professor with whom I stu