The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
'Do you know what that cry meant?' he said. 'Did you hear that cry? It
was some one who saw--even here once in a long time, they say, it can
be seen--'
'What can be seen?'
He shook his head, looking at me with a meaning which I could not
interpret. It was beyond the range of my thoughts. I came to know after,
or I never could have made this record. But on that subject he said no
more. He turned the way I was going, though it mattered nothing what way
I went, for all were the same to me. 'You are one of the new-comers?' he
said; 'you have not been long here--'
'Tell me,' I cried, 'what you mean by _here_. Where are we? How can one
tell who has fallen--he knows not whence or where? What is this place? I
have never seen anything like it. It seems to me that I hate it already,
though I know not what it is.'
He shook his head once more. 'You will hate it more and more,' he said;
'but of these dreadful streets you will never be free, unless--' And here
he stopped again.
'Unless--what? If it is possible, I will be free of them, and that
before long.'
He smiled at me faintly, as we smile at children, but not with derision.
'How shall you do that? Between this miserable world and all others,
there is a great gulf fixed. It is full of all the bitterness and tears
that come from all the universe. These drop from them, but stagnate here.
We, you perceive, have no tears, not even at moments--' Then, 'You will
soon be accustomed to all this,' he said. 'You will fall into the way.
Perhaps you will be able to amuse yourself to make it passable. Many do.
There are a number of fine things to be seen here. If you are curious,
come with me and I will show you. Or work,--there is even work. There is
only one thing that is impossible, or if not impossible--' And here he
paused again and raised his eyes to the dark clouds and lurid sky
overhead. 'The man who gave that cry! if I could but find him! he must
have seen--'
'What could he see?' I asked. But there arose in my mind something like
contempt. A visionary! who could not speak plainly, who broke off into
mysterious inferences, and appeared to know more than he would say. It
seemed foolish to waste time, when evidently there was still so much to
see, in the company of such a man; and I began already to feel more at
home. There was something in that moment of anguish which had wrought a
strange familiarity in me with my surroundings. It was so great a relief
to return out of the misery of that sharp and horrible self-realization,
to what had come to be, in comparison, easy and well known. I had no
desire to go back and grope among the mysteries and anguish so suddenly
revealed. I was glad to be free from them, to be left to myself, to get a
little pleasure perhaps like the others. While these thoughts passed
through my mind, I had gone on without any active impulse of my own, as
everybody else did; and my latest companion had disappeared. He saw, no
doubt, without any need for words, what my feelings were. And I proceeded
on my way. I felt better as I got more accustomed to the place, or
perhaps it was the sensation of relief after that moment of indescribable
pain. As for the sights in the streets, I began to grow used to them. The
wretched creatures who strolled or sat about with signs of sickness or
wounds upon them disgusted me only, they no longer called forth my pity.
I began to feel ashamed of my silly questions about the hospital. All the
same, it would have been a good thing to have had some receptacle for
them, into which they might have been driven out of the way. I felt an
inclination to push them aside as I saw other people do, but was a little
ashamed of that impulse too; and so I went on. There seemed no quiet
streets, so far as I could make out, in the place. Some were smaller,
meaner, with a different kind of passengers, but the same hubbub and
unresting movement everywhere. I saw no signs of melancholy or
seriousness; active pain, violence, brutality, the continual shock of
quarrels and blows, but no pensive faces about, no sorrowfulness, nor the
kind of trouble which brings thought. Everybody was fully occupied,
pushing on as if in a race, pausing for nothing.
The glitter of the lights, the shouts, and sounds of continual going, the
endless whirl of passers-by, confused and tired me after a while. I went
as far out as I could go to what seemed the out-skirts of the place,
where I could by glimpses perceive a low horizon all lurid and glowing,
which seemed to sweep round and round. Against it in the distance stood
up the outline, black against that red glow, of other towers and
house-tops, so many and great that there was evidently another town
between us and the sunset, if sunset it was. I have seen a western sky
like it when there were storms about, and all the colors of the sky were
heightened and darkened by angry influences. The distant town rose
against it, cutting the firmament so that it might have been tongues of
flame flickering between the dark solid outlines; and across the waste
open country which lay between the two cities, there came a distant hum
like the sound of the sea, which was in reality the roar of that other
multitude. The country between showed no greenness or beauty; it lay dark
under the dark overhanging sky. Here and there seemed a cluster of giant
trees scathed as if by lightning, their bare boughs standing up as high
as the distant towers, their trunks like black columns without foliage.
Openings here and there, with glimmering lights, looked like the mouths
of mines; but of passengers there were scarcely any. A figure here and
there flew along as if pursued, imperfectly seen, a shadow only a little
darker than the space about. And in contrast with the sound of the city,
here was no sound at all, except the low roar on either side, and a
vague cry or two from the openings of the mine,--a scene all drawn in
darkness, in variations of gloom, deriving scarcely any light at all from
the red and gloomy burning of that distant evening sky.
A faint curiosity to go forwards, to see what the mines were, perhaps to
get a share in what was brought up from them, crossed my mind. But I was
afraid of the dark, of the wild uninhabited savage look of the landscape;
though when I thought of it, there seemed no reason why a narrow stretch
of country between two great towns should be alarming. But the impression
was strong and above reason. I turned back to the street in which I had
first alighted, and which seemed to end in a great square full of people.
In the middle there was a stage erected, from which some one was
delivering an oration or address of some sort. He stood beside a long
table, upon which lay something which I could not clearly distinguish,
except that it seemed alive, and moved, or rather writhed with convulsive
twitchings, as if trying to get free of the bonds which confined it.
Round the stage in front were a number of seats occupied by listeners,
many of whom were women, whose interest seemed to be very great, some of
them being furnished with note-books; while a great unsettled crowd
coming and going, drifted round,--many, arrested for a time as they
passed, proceeding on their way when the interest flagged, as is usual to
such open-air assemblies. I followed two of those who pushed their way to
within a short distance of the stage, and who were strong, big men, more
fitted to elbow the crowd aside than I, after my rough treatment in the
first place, and the agitation I had passed through, could be. I was
glad, besides, to take advantage of the explanation which one was giving
to the other. 'It's always fun to see this fellow demonstrate,' he said,
'and the subject to-day's a capital one. Let's get well forward, and see
all that's going on.'
'Which subject do you mean?' said the other; 'the theme or the example?'
And they both laughed, though I did not seize the point of the wit.
'Well, both,' said the first speaker. 'The theme is nerves; and as a
lesson in construction and the calculation of possibilities, it's fine.
He's very clever at that. He shows how they are all strung to give as
much pain and do as much harm as can be; and yet how well it's all
managed, don't you know, to look the reverse. As for the example, he's a
capital one--all nerves together, lying, if you like, just on the
surface, ready for the knife.'
'If they're on the surface I can't see where the fun is,' said the other.
'Metaphorically speaking. Of course they are just where other people's
nerves are; but he's what you call a highly organized nervous
specimen. There will be plenty of fun. Hush! he is just going to begin.'
'The arrangement of these threads of being,' said the lecturer, evidently
resuming after a pause, 'so as to convey to the brain the most
instantaneous messages of pain or pleasure, is wonderfully skilful and
clever. I need not say to the audience before me, enlightened as it is by
experiences of the most striking kind, that the messages are less of
pleasure than of pain. They report to the brain the stroke of injury far
more often than the thrill of pleasure; though sometimes that too, no
doubt, or life could scarcely be maintained. The powers that be have
found it necessary to mingle a little sweet of pleasurable sensation,
else our miserable race would certainly have found some means of
procuring annihilation. I do not for a moment pretend to say that the
pleasure is sufficient to offer a just counterbalance to the other. None
of my hearers will, I hope, accuse me of inconsistency. I am ready to
allow that in a previous condition I asserted somewhat strongly that this
was the case; but experience has enlightened us on that point. Our
circumstances are now understood by us all in a manner impossible while
we were still in a condition of incompleteness. We are all convinced that
there is no compensation. The pride of the position, of bearing
everything rather than give in, or making a submission we do not feel, of
preserving our own will and individuality to all eternity, is the only
compensation. I am satisfied with it, for my part.'
The orator made a pause, holding his head high, and there was a certain
amount of applause. The two men before me cheered vociferously. 'That is
the right way to look at it,' one of them said. My eyes were upon them,
with no particular motive; and I could not help starting, as I saw
suddenly underneath their applause and laughter a snarl of cursing, which
was the real expression of their thoughts. I felt disposed in the same
way to curse the speaker, though I knew no reason why.
He went on a little farther, explaining what he meant to do; and then
turning round, approached the table. An assistant, who was waiting,
uncovered it quickly. The audience stirred with quickened interest, and I
with consternation made a step forwards, crying out with horror. The
object on the table, writhing, twitching to get free, but bound down by
every limb, was a living man. The lecturer went forwards calmly, taking
his instruments from their case with perfect composure and coolness.
'Now, ladies and gentlemen,' he said, and inserted the knife in the
flesh, making a long clear cut in the bound arm. I shrieked out, unable
to restrain myself. The sight of the deliberate wound, the blood, the cry
of agony that came from the victim, the calmness of all the lookers-on,
filled me with horror and rage indescribable. I felt myself clear the
crowd away with a rush, and spring on the platform, I could not tell how.
'You devil!' I cried, 'let the man go! Where is the police? Where is a
magistrate? Let the man go this moment! fiends in human shape! I'll have
you brought to justice!' I heard myself shouting wildly, as I flung
myself upon the wretched sufferer, interposing between him and the knife.
It was something like this that I said. My horror and rage were
delirious, and carried me beyond all attempt at control.
Through it all I heard a shout of laughter rising from everybody round.
The lecturer laughed; the audience roared with that sound of horrible
mockery which had driven me out of myself in my first experience. All
kinds of mocking cries sounded around me. 'Let him a little blood to calm
him down.' 'Let the fool have a taste of it himself, doctor.' Last of all
came a voice mingled with the cries of the sufferer whom I was trying to
shield, 'Take him instead; curse him! take him instead.' I was bending
over the man with my arms outstretched, protecting him, when he gave vent
to this cry. And I heard immediately behind me a shout of assent, which
seemed to come from the two strong young men with whom I had been
standing, and the sound of a rush to seize me. I looked round, half mad
with terror and rage; a second more and I should have been strapped on
the table too. I made one wild bound into the midst of the crowd; and
struggling among the arms stretched out to catch me, amid the roar of the
laughter and cries--fled--fled wildly, I knew not whither, in panic and
rage and horror which no words could describe. Terror winged my feet. I
flew, thinking as little of whom I met, or knocked down, or trod upon in
my way, as the others did at whom I had wondered a little while ago.
No distinct impression of this headlong course remains in my mind, save
the sensation of mad fear such as I had never felt before. I came to
myself on the edge of the dark valley which surrounded the town. All my
pursuers had dropped off before that time; and I have the recollection of
flinging myself upon the ground on my face in the extremity of fatigue
and exhaustion. I must have lain there undisturbed for some time. A few
steps came and went, passing me; but no one took any notice, and the
absence of the noise and crowding gave me a momentary respite. But in my
heat and fever I got no relief of coolness from the contact of the soil.
I might have flung myself upon a bed of hot ashes, so much was it unlike
the dewy cool earth which I expected, upon which one can always throw
one's self with a sensation of repose. Presently the uneasiness of it
made me struggle up again and look around me. I was safe; at least the
cries of the pursuers had died away, the laughter which made my blood
boil offended my ears no more. The noise of the city was behind me,
softened into an indefinite roar by distance, and before me stretched out
the dreary landscape in which there seemed no features of attraction.
Now that I was nearer to it, I found it not so unpeopled as I thought. At
no great distance from me was the mouth of one of the mines, from which
came an indication of subterranean lights; and I perceived that the
flying figures which I had taken for travellers between one city and
another were in reality wayfarers endeavoring to keep clear of what
seemed a sort of press-gang at the openings. One of them, unable to stop
himself in his flight, adopted the same expedient as myself, and threw
himself on the ground close to me when he had got beyond the range of
pursuit. It was curious that we should meet there, he flying from a
danger which I was about to face, and ready to encounter that from which
I had fled. I waited for a few minutes till he had recovered his breath,
and then, 'What are you running from?' I said. 'Is there any danger
there?' The man looked up at me with the same continual question in his
eyes,--Who is this fool?
'Danger!' he said. 'Are you so new here, or such a cursed idiot, as not
to know the danger of the mines? You are going across yourself, I
suppose, and then you'll see.'
'But tell me,' I said; 'my experience may be of use to you afterwards,
if you will tell me yours now.'
'Of use!' he cried, staring; 'who cares? Find out for yourself. If they
get hold of you, you will soon understand.'
I no longer took this for rudeness, but answered in his own way, cursing
him too for a fool. 'If I ask a warning I can give one; as for kindness,'
I said, 'I was not looking for that.'
At this he laughed, indeed we laughed together,--there seemed something
ridiculous in the thought; and presently he told me, for the mere relief
of talking, that round each of these pit-mouths there was a band to
entrap every passer-by who allowed himself to be caught, and send him
down below to work in the mine. 'Once there, there is no telling when you
may get free,' he said; 'one time or other most people have a taste of
it. You don't know what hard labor is if you have never been there. I had
a spell once. There is neither air nor light; your blood boils in your
veins from the fervent heat; you are never allowed to rest. You are put
in every kind of contortion to get at it, your limbs twisted, and your
muscles strained.'
'For what?' I said.
'For gold!' he cried with a flash in his eyes--'gold! There it is
inexhaustible; however hard you may work, there is always more, and
more!'
'And to whom does all that belong?' I said. 'To whoever is strong enough
to get hold and keep possession,--sometimes one, sometimes another. The
only thing you are sure of is that it will never be you.'
Why not I as well as another? was the thought that went through my mind,
and my new companion spied it with a shriek of derision.
'It is not for you nor your kind,' he cried. 'How do you think you could
force other people to serve _you_? Can you terrify them or hurt them, or
give them anything? You have not learned yet who are the masters here.'
This troubled me, for it was true. 'I had begun to think,' I said, 'that
there was no authority at all,--for every man seems to do as he pleases;
you ride over one, and knock another down, or you seize a living man and
cut him to pieces'--I shuddered as I thought of it--'and there is nobody
to interfere.'
'Who should interfere?' he said. 'Why shouldn't every man amuse himself
as he can? But yet for all that we've got our masters,' he cried with a
scowl, waving his clinched fist in the direction of the mines; 'you'll
find it out when you get there.'
It was a long time after this before I ventured to move, for here it
seemed to me that for the moment I was safe,--outside the city, yet not
within reach of the dangers of that intermediate space which grew clearer
before me as my eyes became accustomed to the lurid threatening afternoon
light. One after another the fugitives came flying past me,--people who
had escaped from the armed bands whom I could now see on the watch near
the pit's mouth. I could see too the tactics of these bands,--how they
retired, veiling the lights and the opening, when a greater number than
usual of travellers appeared on the way, and then suddenly widening out,
throwing out flanking lines, surrounded and drew in the unwary. I could
even hear the cries with which their victims disappeared over the opening
which seemed to go down into the bowels of the earth. By and by there
came flying towards me a wretch more dreadful in aspect than any I had
seen. His scanty clothes seemed singed and burned into rags; his hair,
which hung about his face unkempt and uncared for, had the same singed
aspect; his skin was brown and baked. I got up as he approached, and
caught him and threw him to the ground, without heeding his struggles to
get on. 'Don't you see,' he cried with a gasp, 'they may get me again.'
He was one of those who had escaped out of the mines; but what was it to
me whether they caught him again or not? I wanted to know how he had been
caught, and what he had been set to do, and how he had escaped. Why
should I hesitate to use my superior strength when no one else did? I
kept watch over him that he should not get away.
'You have been in the mines?' I said.
'Let me go!' he cried. 'Do you need to ask?' and he cursed me as he
struggled, with the most terrible imprecations. 'They may get me yet.
Let me go!'
'Not till you tell me,' I cried. 'Tell me and I'll protect you. If they
come near I'll let you go. Who are they, man? I must know.'
He struggled up from the ground, clearing his hot eyes from the ashes
that were in them, and putting aside his singed hair. He gave me a glance
of hatred and impotent resistance (for I was stronger than he), and then
cast a wild terrified look back. The skirmishers did not seem to remark
that anybody had escaped, and he became gradually a little more composed.
'Who are they?' he said hoarsely. 'They're cursed wretches like you and
me; and there are as many bands of them as there are mines on the road;
and you'd better turn back and stay where you are. You are safe here.'
'I will not turn back,' I said.
'I know well enough: you can't. You've got to go the round like the
rest,' he said with a laugh which was like a sound uttered by a wild
animal rather than a human voice. The man was in my power, and I struck
him, miserable as he was. It seemed a relief thus to get rid of some of
the fury in my mind. 'It's a lie,' I said; 'I go because I please. Why
shouldn't I gather a band of my own if I please, and fight those brutes,
not fly from them like you?'
He chuckled and laughed below his breath, struggling and cursing and
crying out, as I struck him again, 'You gather a band! What could you
offer them? Where would you find them? Are you better than the rest of
us? Are you not a man like the rest? Strike me you can, for I'm down. But
make yourself a master and a chief--you!'
'Why not I?' I shouted again, wild with rage and the sense that I had no
power over him, save to hurt him. That passion made my hands tremble; he
slipped from me in a moment, bounded from the ground like a ball, and
with a yell of derision escaped, and plunged into the streets and the
clamor of the city from which I had just flown. I felt myself rage after
him, shaking my fists with a consciousness of the ridiculous passion of
impotence that was in me, but no power of restraining it; and there was
not one of the fugitives who passed, however desperate he might be, who
did not make a mock at me as he darted by. The laughing-stock of all
those miserable objects, the sport of fate, afraid to go forwards, unable
to go back, with a fire in my veins urging me on! But presently I grew a
little calmer out of mere exhaustion, which was all the relief that was
possible to me. And by and by, collecting all my faculties, and impelled
by this impulse, which I seemed unable to resist, I got up and went
cautiously on.
Fear can act in two ways: it paralyzes, and it renders cunning. At this
moment I found it inspire me. I made my plans before I started, how to
steal along under the cover of the blighted brushwood which broke the
line of the valley here and there. I set out only after long thought,
seizing the moment when the vaguely perceived band were scouring in the
other direction intercepting the travellers. Thus, with many pauses, I
got near to the pit's mouth in safety. But my curiosity was as great as,
almost greater than my terror. I had kept far from the road, dragging
myself sometimes on hands and feet over broken ground, tearing my clothes
and my flesh upon the thorns; and on that farther side all seemed so
silent and so dark in the shadow cast by some disused machinery, behind
which the glare of the fire from below blazed upon the other side of the
opening, that I could not crawl along in the darkness, and pass, which
would have been the safe way, but with a breathless hot desire to see and
know, dragged myself to the very edge to look down. Though I was in the
shadow, my eyes were nearly put out by the glare on which I gazed. It was
not fire; it was the lurid glow of the gold, glowing like flame, at which
countless miners were working. They were all about like flies,--some on
their knees, some bent double as they stooped over their work, some lying
cramped upon shelves and ledges. The sight was wonderful, and terrible
beyond description. The workmen seemed to consume away with the heat and
the glow, even in the few minutes I gazed. Their eyes shrank into their
heads; their faces blackened. I could see some trying to secret morsels
of the glowing metal, which burned whatever it touched, and some who were
being searched by the superiors of the mines, and some who were punishing
the offenders, fixing them up against the blazing wall of gold. The fear
went out of my mind, so much absorbed was I in this sight. I gazed,
seeing farther and farther every moment into crevices and seams of the
glowing metal, always with more and more slaves at work, and the entire
pantomime of labor and theft, and search and punishment, going on and
on,--the baked faces dark against the golden glare, the hot eyes taking a
yellow reflection, the monotonous clamor of pick and shovel, and cries
and curses, and all the indistinguishable sound of a multitude of human
creatures. And the floor below, and the low roof which overhung whole
myriads within a few inches of their faces, and the irregular walls all
breached and shelved, were every one the same, a pandemonium of
gold,--gold everywhere. I had loved many foolish things in my life, but
never this; which was perhaps why I gazed and kept my sight, though there
rose out of it a blast of heat which scorched the brain.