The Plattner Story and Others Read online

  THE APPLE

  "I must get rid of it," said the man in the corner of the carriage,abruptly breaking the silence.

  Mr. Hinchcliff looked up, hearing imperfectly. He had been lost inthe rapt contemplation of the college cap tied by a string to hisportmanteau handles--the outward and visible sign of his newly-gainedpedagogic position--in the rapt appreciation of the college cap andthe pleasant anticipations it excited. For Mr. Hinchcliff had justmatriculated at London University, and was going to be junior assistantat the Holmwood Grammar School--a very enviable position. He staredacross the carriage at his fellow-traveller.

  "Why not give it away?" said this person. "Give it away! Why not?"

  He was a tall, dark, sunburnt man with a pale face. His arms werefolded tightly, and his feet were on the seat in front of him. He waspulling at a lank black moustache. He stared hard at his toes.

  "Why not?" he said.

  Mr. Hinchcliff coughed.

  The stranger lifted his eyes--they were curious, dark-grey eyes--andstared blankly at Mr. Hinchcliff for the best part of a minute,perhaps. His expression grew to interest.

  "Yes," he said slowly. "Why not? And end it."

  "I don't quite follow you, I'm afraid," said Mr. Hinchcliff, withanother cough.

  "You don't quite follow me?" said the stranger quite mechanically,his singular eyes wandering from Mr. Hinchcliff to the bag with itsostentatiously displayed cap, and back to Mr. Hinchcliff's downy face.

  "You're so abrupt, you know," apologised Mr Hinchcliff.

  "Why shouldn't I?" said the stranger, following his thoughts. "You area student?" he said, addressing Mr. Hinchcliff.

  "I am--by Correspondence--of the London University," said Mr.Hinchcliff, with irrepressible pride, and feeling nervously at his tie.

  "In pursuit of knowledge," said the stranger, and suddenly took hisfeet off the seat, put his fist on his knees, and stared at Mr.Hinchcliff as though he had never seen a student before. "Yes," hesaid, and flung out an index finger. Then he rose, took a bag fromthe hat-rack, and unlocked it. Quite silently he drew out somethinground and wrapped in a quantity of silver-paper, and unfolded thiscarefully. He held it out towards Mr. Hinchcliff--a small, very smooth,golden-yellow fruit.

  Mr. Hinchcliff's eyes and mouth were open. He did not offer to takethis object--if he was intended to take it.

  "That," said this fantastic stranger, speaking very slowly, "is theApple of the Tree of Knowledge. Look at it--small, and bright, andwonderful--Knowledge--and I am going to give it to you."

  Mr. Hinchcliff's mind worked painfully for a minute, and thenthe sufficient explanation, "Mad!" flashed across his brain, andilluminated the whole situation. One humoured madmen. He put his head alittle on one side.

  "The Apple of the Tree of Knowledge, eigh!" said Mr. Hinchcliff,regarding it with a finely assumed air of interest, and then lookingat the interlocutor. "But don't you want to eat it yourself? Andbesides--how did you come by it?"

  "It never fades. I have had it now three months. And it is ever brightand smooth and ripe and desirable, as you see it." He laid his handon his knee and regarded the fruit musingly. Then he began to wrap itagain in the papers, as though he had abandoned his intention of givingit away.

  "But how did you come by it?" said Mr. Hinchcliff, who had hisargumentative side. "And how do you know that it _is_ the Fruit of theTree?"

  "I bought this fruit," said the stranger, "three months ago--for adrink of water and a crust of bread. The man who gave it to me--becauseI kept the life in him--was an Armenian. Armenia! that wonderfulcountry, the first of all countries, where the ark of the Floodremains to this day, buried in the glaciers of Mount Ararat. This man,I say, fleeing with others from the Kurds who had come upon them,went up into desolate places among the mountains--places beyond thecommon knowledge of men. And fleeing from imminent pursuit, theycame to a slope high among the mountain-peaks, green with a grasslike knife-blades, that cut and slashed most pitilessly at anyonewho went into it. The Kurds were close behind, and there was nothingfor it but to plunge in, and the worst of it was that the paths theymade through it at the price of their blood served for the Kurds tofollow. Every one of the fugitives was killed save this Armenian andanother. He heard the screams and cries of his friends, and the swishof the grass about those who were pursuing them--it was tall grassrising overhead. And then a shouting and answers, and when presently hepaused, everything was still. He pushed out again, not understanding,cut and bleeding, until he came out on a steep slope of rocks below aprecipice, and then he saw the grass was all on fire, and the smoke ofit rose like a veil between him and his enemies."

  The stranger paused. "Yes?" said Mr. Hinchcliff. "Yes?"

  "There he was, all torn and bloody from the knife-blades of the grass,the rocks blazing under the afternoon sun--the sky molten brass--andthe smoke of the fire driving towards him. He dared not stay there.Death he did not mind, but torture! Far away beyond the smoke he heardshouts and cries. Women screaming. So he went clambering up a gorge inthe rocks--everywhere were bushes with dry branches that stuck out likethorns among the leaves--until he clambered over the brow of a ridgethat hid him. And then he met his companion, a shepherd, who had alsoescaped. And, counting cold and famine and thirst as nothing againstthe Kurds, they went on into the heights, and among the snow and ice.They wandered three whole days.

  "The third day came the vision. I suppose hungry men often do seevisions, but then there is this fruit." He lifted the wrapped globe inhis hand. "And I have heard it, too, from other mountaineers who haveknown something of the legend. It was in the evening time, when thestars were increasing, that they came down a slope of polished rockinto a huge dark valley all set about with strange, contorted trees,and in these trees hung little globes like glow-worm spheres, strangeround yellow lights.

  "Suddenly this valley was lit far away, many miles away, far down it,with a golden flame marching slowly athwart it, that made the stuntedtrees against it black as night, and turned the slopes all about themand their figures to the likeness of fiery gold. And at the visionthey, knowing the legends of the mountains, instantly knew that it wasEden they saw, or the sentinel of Eden, and they fell upon their faceslike men struck dead.

  "When they dared to look again the valley was dark for a space, andthen the light came again--returning, a burning amber.

  "At that the shepherd sprang to his feet, and with a shout began to rundown towards the light, but the other man was too fearful to followhim. He stood stunned, amazed, and terrified, watching his companionrecede towards the marching glare. And hardly had the shepherd set outwhen there came a noise like thunder, the beating of invisible wingshurrying up the valley, and a great and terrible fear; and at thatthe man who gave me the fruit turned--if he might still escape. Andhurrying headlong up the slope again, with that tumult sweeping afterhim, he stumbled against one of these stunted bushes, and a ripe fruitcame off it into his hand. This fruit. Forthwith, the wings and thethunder rolled all about him. He fell and fainted, and when he came tohis senses, he was back among the blackened ruins of his own village,and I and the others were attending to the wounded. A vision? But thegolden fruit of the tree was still clutched in his hand. There wereothers there who knew the legend, knew what that strange fruit mightbe." He paused. "And this is it," he said.

  It was a most extraordinary story to be told in a third-class carriageon a Sussex railway. It was as if the real was a mere veil to thefantastic, and here was the fantastic poking through. "Is it?" was allMr. Hinchcliff could say.

  "The legend," said the stranger, "tells that those thickets of dwarfedtrees growing about the garden sprang from the apple that Adam carriedin his hand when he and Eve were driven forth. He felt something inhis hand, saw the half-eaten apple, and flung it petulantly aside.And there they grow, in that desolate valley, girdled round with theeverlasting snows, and there the fiery swords keep ward against theJudgment Day."

  "But I thought these things were"--Mr. Hinchcliffpaused--"fa
bles--parables rather. Do you mean to tell me that there inArmenia"--

  The stranger answered the unfinished question with the fruit in hisopen hand.

  "But you don't know," said Mr. Hinchcliff, "that that _is_ the fruitof the Tree of Knowledge. The man may have had--a sort of mirage, say.Suppose"--

  "Look at it," said the stranger.

  It was certainly a strange-looking globe, not really an apple, Mr.Hinchcliff saw, and a curious glowing golden colour, almost as thoughlight itself was wrought into its substance. As he looked at it, hebegan to see more vividly the desolate valley among the mountains, theguarding swords of fire, the strange antiquities of the story he hadjust heard. He rubbed a knuckle into his eye. "But"--said he.

  "It has kept like that, smooth and full, three months. Longer than thatit is now by some days. No drying, no withering, no decay."

  "And you yourself," said Mr. Hinchcliff, "really believe that"--

  "Is the Forbidden Fruit."

  There was no mistaking the earnestness of the man's manner and hisperfect sanity. "The Fruit of Knowledge," he said.

  "Suppose it was?" said Mr. Hinchcliff, after a pause, still staringat it. "But after all," said Mr. Hinchcliff, "it's not my kind ofknowledge--not the sort of knowledge. I mean, Adam and Eve have eatenit already."

  "We inherit their sins--not their knowledge," said the stranger."That would make it all clear and bright again. We should seeinto everything, through everything, into the deepest meaning ofeverything"--

  "Why don't you eat it, then?" said Mr. Hinchcliff, with an inspiration.

  "I took it intending to eat it," said the stranger. "Man has fallen.Merely to eat again could scarcely"--

  "Knowledge is power," said Mr. Hinchcliff.

  "But is it happiness? I am older than you--more than twice as old.Time after time I have held this in my hand, and my heart hasfailed me at the thought of all that one might know, that terriblelucidity-- Suppose suddenly all the world became pitilessly clear?"

  "That, I think, would be a great advantage," said Mr. Hinchcliff, "onthe whole."

  "Suppose you saw into the hearts and minds of everyone about you, intotheir most secret recesses--people you loved, whose love you valued?"

  "You'd soon find out the humbugs," said Mr. Hinchcliff, greatly struckby the idea.

  "And worse--to know yourself, bare of your most intimate illusions.To see yourself in your place. All that your lusts and weaknessesprevented your doing. No merciful perspective."

  "That might be an excellent thing too. 'Know thyself,' you know."

  "You are young," said the stranger.

  "If you don't care to eat it, and it bothers you, why don't you throwit away?"

  "There again, perhaps, you will not understand me. To me, how could onethrow away a thing like that, glowing, wonderful? Once one has it, oneis bound. But, on the other hand, to _give_ it away! To give it awayto someone who thirsted after knowledge, who found no terror in thethought of that clear perception"--

  "Of course," said Mr. Hinchcliff thoughtfully, "it might be some sortof poisonous fruit."

  And then his eye caught something motionless, the end of a white boardblack-lettered outside the carriage window. "--MWOOD," he saw. Hestarted convulsively. "Gracious!" said Mr. Hinchcliff. "Holmwood!"--andthe practical present blotted out the mystic realisations that had beenstealing upon him.

  In another moment he was opening the carriage-door, portmanteau inhand. The guard was already fluttering his green flag. Mr. Hinchcliffjumped out. "Here!" said a voice behind him, and he saw the dark eyesof the stranger shining and the golden fruit, bright and bare, heldout of the open carriage-door. He took it instinctively, the train wasalready moving.

  "_No!_" shouted the stranger, and made a snatch at it as if to take itback.

  "Stand away," cried a country porter, thrusting forward to close thedoor. The stranger shouted something Mr. Hinchcliff did not catch, headand arm thrust excitedly out of the window, and then the shadow of thebridge fell on him, and in a trice he was hidden. Mr. Hinchcliff stoodastonished, staring at the end of the last waggon receding round thebend, and with the wonderful fruit in his hand. For the fraction ofa minute his mind was confused, and then he became aware that two orthree people on the platform were regarding him with interest. Was henot the new Grammar School master making his debut? It occurred to himthat, so far as they could tell, the fruit might very well be the naiverefreshment of an orange. He flushed at the thought, and thrust thefruit into his side pocket, where it bulged undesirably. But there wasno help for it, so he went towards them, awkwardly concealing his senseof awkwardness, to ask the way to the Grammar School, and the means ofgetting his portmanteau and the two tin boxes which lay up the platformthither. Of all the odd and fantastic yarns to tell a fellow!

  His luggage could be taken on a truck for sixpence, he found, and hecould precede it on foot. He fancied an ironical note in the voices. Hewas painfully aware of his contour.

  The curious earnestness of the man in the train, and the glamourof the story he told, had, for a time, diverted the current of Mr.Hinchcliff's thoughts. It drove like a mist before his immediateconcerns. Fires that went to and fro! But the preoccupation of hisnew position, and the impression he was to produce upon Holmwoodgenerally, and the school people in particular, returned upon him withreinvigorating power before he left the station and cleared his mentalatmosphere. But it is extraordinary what an inconvenient thing theaddition of a soft and rather brightly-golden fruit, not three inchesin diameter, may prove to a sensitive youth on his best appearance.In the pocket of his black jacket it bulged dreadfully, spoilt thelines altogether. He passed a little old lady in black, and he felther eye drop upon the excrescence at once. He was wearing one gloveand carrying the other, together with his stick, so that to bear thefruit openly was impossible. In one place, where the road into thetown seemed suitably secluded, he took his encumbrance out of hispocket and tried it in his hat. It was just too large, the hat wobbledludicrously, and just as he was taking it out again, a butcher's boycame driving round the corner.

  "Confound it!" said Mr. Hinchcliff.

  He would have eaten the thing, and attained omniscience there andthen, but it would seem so silly to go into the town sucking a juicyfruit--and it certainly felt juicy. If one of the boys should come by,it might do him a serious injury with his discipline so to be seen.And the juice might make his face sticky and get upon his cuffs--or itmight be an acid juice as potent as lemon, and take all the colour outof his clothes.

  Then round a bend in the lane came two pleasant sunlit girlish figures.They were walking slowly towards the town and chattering--at anymoment they might look round and see a hot-faced young man behind themcarrying a kind of phosphorescent yellow tomato! They would be sure tolaugh.

  "_Hang!_" said Mr. Hinchcliff, and with a swift jerk sent theencumbrance flying over the stone wall of an orchard that there abuttedon the road. As it vanished, he felt a faint twinge of loss that lastedscarcely a moment. He adjusted the stick and glove in his hand, andwalked on, erect and self-conscious, to pass the girls.

  * * * * *

  But in the darkness of the night Mr. Hinchcliff had a dream, and sawthe valley, and the flaming swords, and the contorted trees, and knewthat it really was the Apple of the Tree of Knowledge that he hadthrown regardlessly away. And he awoke very unhappy.

  In the morning his regret had passed, but afterwards it returned andtroubled him; never, however, when he was happy or busily occupied. Atlast, one moonlight night about eleven, when all Holmwood was quiet,his regrets returned with redoubled force, and therewith an impulse toadventure. He slipped out of the house and over the playground wall,went through the silent town to Station Lane, and climbed into theorchard where he had thrown the fruit. But nothing was to be foundof it there among the dewy grass and the faint intangible globes ofdandelion down.