Part 3
On this occasion, however, there seemed to be something the matter with the spiritoscope. Be it that the mirrors were not in order, or that even scientific and indirect vision may be deceptive, there was evidently some kind of an obscuration within the tube, which could not be explained by natural causes. In vain Professor Cracker repeatedly cleaned his spectacles, and ultimately substituted coloured glasses for them; the fact was undeniable that something dark, some sort of a shadow, appeared repeatedly within the field of indirect vision, and this something must have been alive, for it moved about by means of some energy contained within itself, and without being kinetically impelled by any discoverable extraneous force. Repeatedly the Professor exclaimed the ominous word: “rot!” and “bosh!” and “impossible!” His scepticism had to give way before the evidence produced by his spiritoscope, and at last he was overcome by the conviction of having discovered a gnome. He looked somewhat pale, as with bated breath and with ill-suppressed excitement he announced the discovery to his colleagues.
It was now Rev. Stiffbone’s turn to take a look through the spiritoscope. He, too, saw the shadow, and saw it move. Owing to the circumstance that the light fell into the instrument from the side opposed to the standpoint of the observer, the part of the spirit turned toward Stiffbone’s eye could not be clearly seen, but its outlines seemed to grow sometimes larger and sometimes smaller, from which he inferred that the spirit was a gnome, as they were said to be able to change the size of their forms.
These observations were corroborated by Mr Scalawag. Professor Cracker looked again, and having satisfied himself that there could be no possible mistake, he made a speech, in which he said that it had been reserved for him to make the greatest discovery of this age, and that the existence of gnomes--which had heretofore been doubted by certain too sceptical people--was now an established fact, demonstrated by him for the first time in human history.
But alas! “this world is but a fleeting show,” and even the demonstrations of science cannot always be depended upon as absolutely true, for while the Professor made his speech, the head of a little mouse appeared at the opening of the tube, and seeing the coast clear, the mouse jumped to the ground and ran away. How the mouse happened to come into the spiritoscope has never been satisfactorily explained. The committee looked perplexed, and Cracker grew red in the face.
“_Errare humanum est!_” exclaimed Stiffbone, and Mr Scalawag added: “We are all liars. The best plan will be to say nothing about it.”
Although the committee did not believe thenceforth in spirits, it can nevertheless not be denied that a spirit of gloom rested upon them after this incident; a scowl rested upon the Professor’s face, and he admitted that for once in his life he had been mistaken.
While they discussed this matter the wind had changed from E.N.E. to N., and now a light puff of air brought a piece of paper flying into the cave. Rev. Stiffbone saw it, and picked it up. There were written upon it the following verses:--
O foolish mortal, by dull senses bound; Within thyself the spirit must be found. Know thou thyself, and by self-knowledge know The lives above and in the world below. In every sphere each being knows its own; To spirits only spirits can be shown.
After reading these lines, Mr Stiffbone handed the paper to the Professor, and asked him what he thought. The Professor carefully examined the structure of the paper and said:
“This is nothing but an ordinary piece of notepaper, manufactured in this country. There is nothing supernatural about it.”
“But the verses,” answered Stiffbone. “They seem to refer to the subject of our conversation. How is this coincidence to be explained?”
“In a very simple manner,” replied Professor Cracker, growing more and more excited as he spoke. “You, sir, have written these miserable verses yourself, for the purpose of playing it on me; but let me assure you that, even if I have been imposed on by a mouse, I am not going to be fooled by such a ragamuffin as yourself; your trick was not clever enough for that.”
During this speech the Rev. Stiffbone, with open mouth, stared aghast at the Professor, and the word “ragamuffin” aroused his temper. He said that such an ill-founded accusation was calculated to greatly lessen his respect for one whose capacity to judge he had anyhow always regarded as doubtful, and that he owed it to his own respectability as a clergyman to regard Mr Cracker’s calumnies as being those of a man in his dotage, if not a wilful perverter of truth.
Cracker retorted again, and it is doubtful how the matter would have ended, but just at that moment a long-drawn sigh was heard, coming from some invisible source, and at the next moment a gust of wind followed that overthrew the spiritoscope, and sent Stiffbone’s hat flying out at the other end of the Dragon’s Den. Directly afterwards the cave became illumined by a flash of lightning, and this was succeeded by a clap of thunder which caused the ground to tremble, and reverberated like the firing of a battery of guns through the clefts in the neighbourhood. The committee stood aghast and terrified, looking at each other in a perplexed manner and not knowing what to do.
It appears that the sky had become suddenly overcast with clouds, and a storm gathered at the top of the Untersberg, while our friends were too much absorbed in their scientific researches to notice it, and now the rain began to come down in torrents, and the archway offered but little protection, for sheets of rain were blown in at the open side of the cave, and streams of water began to flow in every direction over the ground.
In a few moments the members of the committee and myself were drenched to the skin, and did not know what to begin; but our guide, drawing aside the branches of the rosebush that stood at the entrance, pointed out to us an excavation in the rock, which had escaped the observation of the committee, and he invited us to enter. Into this hole we crawled one after another; and after proceeding a few feet it grew wider, and formed a hollow of considerable size. Here we were comfortable enough, only we were wet, and the place was perfectly dark.
Professor Cracker struck a light, and lit a candle which he happened to have in his pocket, and by that aid we discovered a passage leading still further into the interior of the hill. This we decided to explore. Professor Cracker entered with his candle, then came Rev. Stiffbone, after him Mr Scalawag, and finally myself, each man holding on to the coat-tail of the one who preceded.
Thus we went on for a considerable distance, when suddenly a draught of cold air blew out the Professor’s light. At the same time Mr Cracker’s foot hit against some soft elastic substance of an unknowable kind, and directly afterwards he received a fearful blow upon his abdomen from something unseen. Turning round for escaping the invisible enemy, he received another blow that sent him flying heels over head, overturning the Rev. Stiffbone, who in his turn upset Mr Scalawag. They were all lying in a heap, and I heard Cracker’s voice producing a series of most unearthly yells; but the Rev. Stiffbone, while begging for mercy and blindly grasping about, clutched the air and got hold of Mr Scalawag’s hair, who defended himself with his fists; but my observations were also cut short, for I had just time, as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, to see a still darker object rushing at me over the prostrate forms of my friends, when I myself received a severe blow upon my stomach, that caused me to lose my senses, and for a moment I knew nothing more.
III.
WITHIN THE UNTERSBERG.
It seems that during the consternation caused by this event, I must have unconsciously wandered off, for when I gathered my senses again, I found myself in a strange labyrinth of rocks. In vain I tried to find my way back to the Dragon’s Den; there were perpendicular walls and precipices encompassing me on all sides, and the only outlet which I discovered led me still higher up towards the main body of the Untersberg.
The storm-clouds had disappeared and the sky was clear; but my mind (if there is such a thing) was somewhat confused; I did not know which was which. Owing to Professor Cracker’s exposition about the unreliability of direct vision, I could not tell whether the things around me were actually there, or whether they were merely the products of auto-suggestion, trumpery, etc. More than once I bumped my head against a projecting rock, because my method of observation was not scientifically trained enough to enable me to realise the actuality of the rock without a knock-down argument. I had always fancied before that if one receives an impression from an object, be it in the waking state or in a dream, an object or image of some kind must be actually present, from which that impression comes; but now I saw that, according to science, impressions may come from nothing and may be only the products of the accidental friction of brain molecules. I was therefore no longer sure of the existence of anything that had not been analysed and attested to by a scientific expert.
It seemed to me that the sun was about to set, and that I was still wandering on, querying whether I actually was myself or whether some gnome was playing a trick upon my imagination, making me believe that I was I. There was nothing to prove to me scientifically that the something or nothing which imagined itself to be myself was not something else, entirely unknown to me, provided there was such a thing as “myself” at all, which seemed rather doubtful, it having not yet been analysed and its composition shown. I can, in truth, only say that something which somehow seemed to be myself (but to whom it seemed so, I do not know) imagined itself to be I; but, for all I know, there may be no “I,” and it may have been nothing but space.
It seemed to me, or to something, that the setting sun was gilding the ice-fields of the neighbouring mountain-peaks with floods of light, and I (or something) received or seemed to receive the impression somehow, that tints of various hues, beginning with a dainty rose-colour, followed by orange, yellow, sea-green, and ending with blue, were adorning the sky (if there was any), while clouds, apparently floating within the depths of space (whose existence has not yet been proved scientifically), seemed to appear like fleecy masses of pure silver, lined with fluid gold. The vegetation (provided that there actually was one) appeared to be more scanty than below, and to consist mainly of clusters of Rhododendron, and occasionally a specimen of Mandrake, Gentian, or Thyme was to be seen or imagined. Judging from certain impressions, which something that seemed to be myself appeared to receive, I seemed to arrive at the conclusion that there were rocks covered with green moss, upon which grew various ferns and some Ericas. Tranquillity somehow seemed to reign supreme in this altitude, although this is a mere assertion, which I am not prepared to prove; and I seemed to perceive nothing which could have led anyone to infer that the stillness was in any way interrupted, except by the song of a finch that was sitting or appeared to sit upon the branch of a tree--always supposing that the tree was actually there--and the croaking of a flock of ravens, which were flying or seemed to be flying around the tops of the Untersberg. I say all this with a certain reserve, and confess myself unable to prove it; because direct vision is unreliable, and I had no spiritoscope at my command.
I say that all this seemed (to whom?) to be as described; but even this is not scientifically exact or correct; for not knowing myself, how could I have the cheek to assert that I actually perceived anything, or nothing, or everything? How could I make any exact statement about myself if I am not acquainted with myself, and do not know whether or not I exist? I love to be scientifically exact in my statements, and to avoid making wild assertions. I wish (or imagine to wish) to express myself in a manner leaving no room for the learned critic to misunderstand or misinterpret my words, and to speak so plainly that everybody must necessarily understand what I mean; but I find that this philosophical and round-about way of describing things is very inconvenient, and that for the reader’s own sake I cannot persevere in it. Everything in this world seems to be only relatively true, and if we were bound to speak nothing but absolute truth, and express it in a manner that could not possibly be misunderstood by anybody, we would surely be doomed to eternal silence. I must therefore ask the permission of the reader to depart from this exact and strictly scientific method of speaking and circumscribing, and to do like people of common sense, and tell what I experienced or believed to experience, as if I were really something whose existence had been proved and recognised by science, even if I have no other proof of my existence to offer, except that I am. This being myself is a reality to me, but it may be discredited by another; for there can be nothing real to anybody except what he or she realises, and if they realise it, it is, or seems to be, real to them. During my visit in the Untersberg I realised my existence, or seemed to realise it just as much as at any other time in my life (always provided that I exist and live), and the experiences through which I passed were just as real to me as any other experiences before or after that event. Let those who doubt my words, or deny the possibility of what I describe as having occurred, doubt or deny to their heart’s content; they cannot rob me of the satisfaction of knowing what I know.
Somehow I felt myself more free than usual; my body moved without experiencing any fatigue, and I seemed to have no weight. Owing, perhaps, to the invigorating influence of the mountain air, I felt myself filled with strength; my mind was tranquil, my heart full of joy,[1] and, as it were, one with the spirit of all nature--if I may be permitted to use such an expression--and it may be for this reason that I understood the language of nature as plainly as if it had been expressed in audible words, for the rushing of a distant waterfall spoke to me of eternal motion; the presence of the earth of the substantiality of the universe, nourishing all things; the wide expanse of the air of universal freedom; and the fiery orb of the sinking sun of an universal consciousness whose existence cannot be proved, but which may be experienced by souls that are free. Even the flowers had a language of their own, speaking to me of purity, beauty, modesty, and similar principles unknown to modern science, and not yet analysed and classified.
As I scrambled on the scenery grew more wild. Huge boulders of enormous size often blocked the way, throwing fantastic shadows upon the ground. Slowly the sun disappeared behind the slopes of the western range, and solitary stars began to glitter here and there in the sky. The song of the finch had ceased, and the ravens gone to roost among the tops of the pines; but the more all animated things became silent and quiet, the more seemed life to become active in those things which are called inanimate--it was as if the inner life of nature awakened while the outward life went to rest. There is a voice that speaks to the soul in the stillness of night with words that are not to be found in the dictionary. Of course, Professor Cracker would surely call this an hallucination or lie; but, for all that, I know it to be true. The boulders around me looked like gigantic sentinels guarding the entrance to the kingdom of the gnomes, and asking me in their own language by what right I dared to enter upon the forbidden precinct. Here and there the trunk of a stunted tree, a larch or fir with crooked boughs, added to the grotesqueness of the picture, complaining to me bitterly in silent but nevertheless eloquent words that the soil in that place was too poor and the climate too rough to permit a full development of its qualities and a luxuriant evolution of form. At last I stood before a wall of rocks, at the bottom of which a dark cavern held its jaws permanently open, and a feeling of curiosity attracted me towards the entrance. I felt a sort of premonition that the mysterious depths of that cavern was holding for me a new revelation.[2]
The night had now fairly set in, but the moon arose in her glory. It was, as already stated, the eve of St John’s Day, when fairies and elves are said to come nearer to our world to hold intercourse with mortals; the mysterious night, when the ruby spark in the heart of the fern may be seen. A feeling of awe came over me as I looked into the cave and saw the silvery rays of the rising moon shining through the opening, revealing within the interior a lake of considerable extent. I went nearer, and now I beheld, as far as I could see, perpendicular rocks bordering the lake, with projecting nooks, holes, and crevices of unknown extent, while, from the vaulted roofs, appearing like huge stalactites of curious shapes, a curtain of icicles descended, and the surface of the water glittered and sparkled in the moonlight, and the grotto looked like the cave of the nymphs in a fairy tale. I strained my eyes to behold the further end of the lake, but the background was veiled in darkness, and my sight could not penetrate through the mysterious gloom.
Something seemed to draw my soul towards the realm of that shadow which the rays of the moon could not reach, and, as I stood listening, a soft melody was wafted over the waters. Was it the breeze causing a rippling upon the surface which produced that melodious sound while playing among the icicles, or was it the rhythmic dripping of drops of water from the vault overhead, causing faint echoes within these secret recesses? I cannot tell, but it seemed to me like a tiny voice of a woman, but of a woman of some ethereal kind. The melody seemed to express a longing for something unknown. It was like the cry of a new-born soul, desiring to live and exist.[3]
It seems to me an impossibility to fully express in words the sentiments that were embodied in that song. It contained a desire for death or transformation--terms which mean the same thing, namely, the abandoning one state of existence for another one. It embodied a wish for entering upon a higher plane of life and consciousness. The melody which I heard formed itself into a language, whose meaning may perhaps be approximately expressed in the following words:--
“O what is this secret longing, Welling up within my heart? Unknown powers, surging, thronging, Rending solid rocks apart. New-born joys and dying sadness, Bursting clouds and opening sight! Something whispers, full of gladness, This is love, is life and light!”
These words formed themselves within myself without any conscious volition or ratiocination of my own; and, what is still more surprising, they had a certain magical effect upon me. I felt as if I were myself entering _into_ a new state of consciousness, such as I never experienced before or afterwards, and as if I had become a new being, endowed with a new kind of perception and memory; it was as if I had been asleep all my life and suddenly awakened for the first time. I now somehow knew that I was I; but I could dissect or analyse _my_ Self. I knew that my Self was a unity and not a compound, and therefore incapable of being taken to pieces. I had never known it before, and knew of no authority on whose strength I would have accepted that theory; nevertheless I was certain of it; because I found that my self-consciousness was not composed of parts.
And lo! as I stood at the border of that lake, bending forwards, and with all my senses on the alert listening to the song, I saw a radiance within the depths of that darkness, issuing from a circular luminous centre; and as I concentrated all my attention upon it, this light grew brighter, and there appeared in it the shape of a human being--a woman of supernatural beauty, in a mist-like, silvery garment dotted with stars. Her long golden hair was flowing over her shoulders, and a radiant light shone upon her forehead. It was that light, issuing, as I found afterwards, from a precious gem, which illuminated her person and all the objects within its sphere.
I dislike to tell what followed, because I have no means of demonstrating its truth, and there will be undoubtedly many inclined to doubt it or to dispute it away; but if I had to give evidence before a notary-public, I could not describe what followed otherwise than by saying that I was filled with an irresistible desire to approach that ethereal being, and that I made a step forward, quite without being aware that I was stepping upon a lake. To my surprise, the water supported me, and I now think that it must have been solid ice, for I passed safely over it, and a moment afterwards I stood in mute admiration before the most charming apparition of a lady of noble mien. The lady of the lake looked at me with wondering eyes and smiled. This encouraged me, so I said:
“Who are you, angelic being? if you will permit an intruder this question. Are you one of the angels of heaven or a spirit of nature?”
“My name is Adalga,” answered the lady, and her voice sounded like the music of the spheres. “I am the daughter of Bimbam I., King of the gnomes. But what are you? Are you a spirit, hobgoblin, or spook?”
“I am neither the one nor the other,” I answered. “I am----” but at this moment I could not for the sake of my life remember who or what I was; I had entirely forgotten my name and all that referred to my past life. At last, while I was trying hard to remember who I was, it suddenly dawned upon me that I was an Irishman, born near the Lakes of Killarney, and living at Limerick. I am sure that if I ever was an Irishman, it must have been before I was born; but at that moment I was quite certain of it, and remembered my home and my family. I therefore said:--
“I am Patrick Mulligan, Esq., if it pleases your worship.”
“There is a great deal of power in that name,” replied the princess; “but what is your essential nature?”
“A tailor, if you please,” was my answer; but seeing that the lady did not understand what I meant, I explained that I was in the habit of making clothes. Upon this she asked:
“Are you, then, one of these semi-intelligent forces of nature, capable of assuming a form, which according to our traditions are believed to inhabit the solid vastness of the element called the air?--one of these airy elementals whose bodies are subject to change--mischievous beings, that often cause explosions in our mines?”
The princess stared at me and I stared at her. What she said about the solid vastnesses of the air was incomprehensible to me, until I found out later on that the element of the air is just as impenetrable to the gnomes as the earth is to us; but what astonished me most was, that after having doubted the existence of elemental spirits of nature, I now found myself by one of them regarded as an elemental spirit of the air. At last I said: “With your permission, I flatter myself to be somewhat more than semi-intelligent, and if I am a force, I am surely a substantial one. The fact is that I am a man, a member of the human family, a gentleman from the ancient kingdom of Ireland and a descendant of Caolbha, the 123rd king of Ulster.”