In the Days of the Comet Read online

Page 34


  Section 2

  It was queer to find barley fields in heaven, but no doubt therewere many surprises in store for me.

  How still everything was! Peace! The peace that passeth understanding.After all it had come to me! But, indeed, everything was very still!No bird sang. Surely I was alone in the world! No birds sang. Yes,and all the distant sounds of life had ceased, the lowingof cattle, the barking of dogs. . . .

  Something that was like fear beatified came into my heart. It wasall right, I knew; but to be alone! I stood up and met the hotsummons of the rising sun, hurrying towards me, as it were,with glad tidings, over the spikes of the barley. . . .

  Blinded, I made a step. My foot struck something hard, and I lookeddown to discover my revolver, a blue-black thing, like a dead snakeat my feet.

  For a moment that puzzled me.

  Then I clean forgot about it. The wonder of the quiet took possessionof my soul. Dawn, and no birds singing!

  How beautiful was the world! How beautiful, but how still! I walkedslowly through the barley towards a line of elder bushes, wayfaringtree and bramble that made the hedge of the field. I noted asI passed along a dead shrew mouse, as it seemed to me, among thehalms; then a still toad. I was surprised that this did not leapaside from my footfalls, and I stooped and picked it up. Its bodywas limp like life, but it made no struggle, the brightness of itseye was veiled, it did not move in my hand.

  It seems to me now that I stood holding that lifeless little creaturefor some time. Then very softly I stooped down and replaced it. Iwas trembling--trembling with a nameless emotion. I looked withquickened eyes closely among the barley stems, and behold, noweverywhere I saw beetles, flies, and little creatures that did notmove, lying as they fell when the vapors overcame them; they seemedno more than painted things. Some were novel creatures to me. Iwas very unfamiliar with natural things. "My God!" I cried; "butis it only I------?"

  And then at my next movement something squealed sharply. I turnedabout, but I could not see it, only I saw a little stir in a rutand heard the diminishing rustle of the unseen creature's flight.And at that I turned to my toad again, and its eye moved and itstirred. And presently, with infirm and hesitating gestures, itstretched its limbs and began to crawl away from me.

  But wonder, that gentle sister of fear, had me now. I saw a littleway ahead a brown and crimson butterfly perched upon a cornflower.I thought at first it was the breeze that stirred it, and then Isaw its wings were quivering. And even as I watched it, it startedinto life, and spread itself, and fluttered into the air.

  I watched it fly, a turn this way, a turn that, until suddenly itseemed to vanish. And now, life was returning to this thing andthat on every side of me, with slow stretchings and bendings,with twitterings, with a little start and stir. . . .

  I came slowly, stepping very carefully because of these drugged,feebly awakening things, through the barley to the hedge. It was avery glorious hedge, so that it held my eyes. It flowed along andinterlaced like splendid music. It was rich with lupin, honeysuckle,campions, and ragged robin; bed straw, hops, and wild clematistwined and hung among its branches, and all along its ditch borderthe starry stitchwort lifted its childish faces, and chorused inlines and masses. Never had I seen such a symphony of note-likeflowers and tendrils and leaves. And suddenly in its depths, Iheard a chirrup and the whirr of startled wings.

  Nothing was dead, but everything had changed to beauty! And Istood for a time with clean and happy eyes looking at the intricatedelicacy before me and marveling how richly God has madehis worlds. . . . .

  "Tweedle-Tweezle," a lark had shot the stillness with his shiningthread of song; one lark, and then presently another, invisibly inthe air, making out of that blue quiet a woven cloth of gold. . . .

  The earth recreated--only by the reiteration of such phrasesmay I hope to give the intense freshness of that dawn. For a timeI was altogether taken up with the beautiful details of being, asregardless of my old life of jealous passion and impatient sorrowas though I was Adam new made. I could tell you now with infiniteparticularity of the shut flowers that opened as I looked, of tendrilsand grass blades, of a blue-tit I picked up very tenderly--neverbefore had I remarked the great delicacy of feathers--that presentlydisclosed its bright black eye and judged me, and perched, swayingfearlessly, upon my finger, and spread unhurried wings and flewaway, and of a great ebullition of tadpoles in the ditch; like allthe things that lived beneath the water, they had passed unalteredthrough the Change. Amid such incidents, I lived those first greatmoments, losing for a time in the wonder of each little part themighty wonder of the whole.

  A little path ran between hedge and barley, and along this, leisurelyand content and glad, looking at this beautiful thing and that,moving a step and stopping, then moving on again, I came presentlyto a stile, and deep below it, and overgrown, was a lane.

  And on the worn oak of the stile was a round label, and on thelabel these words, "Swindells' G 90 Pills."

  I sat myself astraddle on the stile, not fully grasping all theimplications of these words. But they perplexed me even more thanthe revolver and my dirty cuff.

  About me now the birds lifted up their little hearts and sang, evermore birds and more.

  I read the label over and over again, and joined it to the factthat I still wore my former clothes, and that my revolver had beenlying at my feet. One conclusion stared out at me. This was no newplanet, no glorious hereafter such as I had supposed. This beautifulwonderland was the world, the same old world of my rage and death!But at least it was like meeting a familiar house-slut, washed anddignified, dressed in a queen's robes, worshipful and fine. . . .

  It might be the old world indeed, but something new lay upon allthings, a glowing certitude of health and happiness. It might bethe old world, but the dust and fury of the old life was certainlydone. At least I had no doubt of that.

  I recalled the last phases of my former life, that darkling climaxof pursuit and anger and universal darkness and the whirling greenvapors of extinction. The comet had struck the earth and made anend to all things; of that too I was assured.

  But afterward? . . .

  And now?

  The imaginations of my boyhood came back as speculative possibilities.In those days I had believed firmly in the necessary advent of alast day, a great coming out of the sky, trumpetings and fear, theResurrection, and the Judgment. My roving fancy now suggested tome that this Judgment must have come and passed. That it had passedand in some manner missed me. I was left alone here, in a swept andgarnished world (except, of course, for this label of Swindells')to begin again perhaps. . . .

  No doubt Swindells has got his deserts.

  My mind ran for a time on Swindells, on the imbecile pushfulness ofthat extinct creature, dealing in rubbish, covering the country-sidewith lies in order to get--what had he sought?--a silly, ugly,great house, a temper-destroying motor-car, a number of disrespectful,abject servants; thwarted intrigues for a party-fund baronetcy asthe crest of his life, perhaps. You cannot imagine the littlenessof those former times; their naive, queer absurdities! And forthe first time in my existence I thought of these things withoutbitterness. In the former days I had seen wickedness, I hadseen tragedy, but now I saw only the extraordinary foolishness ofthe old life. The ludicrous side of human wealth and importanceturned itself upon me, a shining novelty, poured down upon me likethe sunrise, and engulfed me in laughter. Swindells! Swindells,damned! My vision of Judgment became a delightful burlesque. I sawthe chuckling Angel sayer with his face veiled, and the corporealpresence of Swindells upheld amidst the laughter of the spheres."Here's a thing, and a very pretty thing, and what's to be done withthis very pretty thing?" I saw a soul being drawn from a rotund,substantial-looking body like a whelk from its shell. . . .

  I laughed loudly and long. And behold! even as I laughed the keenpoint of things accomplished stabbed my mirth, and I was weeping,weeping aloud, convulsed with weeping, and the tears were pouringdown my face.