第28章 THE FIFTH - THE FIRST VISION(3)

"But just one word more!" said Dr.Dale."Hear why I would do this! It was easy and successful to rest and drug people back to their old states of mind when the world wasn't changing, wasn't spinning round in the wildest tornado of change that it has ever been in.But now--Where can I send you for a rest? Where can Isend you to get you out of sight and hearing of the Catastrophe?

Of course old Brighton-Pomfrey would go on sending people away for rest and a nice little soothing change if the Day of Judgment was coming in the sky and the earth was opening and the sea was giving up its dead.He'd send 'em to the seaside.Such things as that wouldn't shake his faith in the Channel crossing.My idea is that it's not only right for you to go through with this, but that it's the only thing to do.If you go right on and right through with these doubts and intimations--"He paused.

"You may die like a madman," he said, "but you won't die like a tame rabbit."(4)

The bishop sat reflecting.What fascinated and attracted him was the ending of all the cravings and uneasinesses and restlessness that had distressed his life for over four years;what deterred him was the personality of this gaunt young man with his long grey face, his excited manner, his shock of black hair.He wanted that tonic--with grave misgivings."If you think this tonic is the wiser course," he began."I'd give it you if you were my father," said Dr.Dale."I've got everything for it," he added.

"You mean you can make it up--without a prescription.""I can't give you a prescription.The essence of it--It's a distillate I have been trying.It isn't in the Pharmacopeia."Again the bishop had a twinge of misgiving.

But in the end he succumbed.He didn't want to take the stuff, but also he did not want to go without his promised comfort.

Presently Dale had given him a little phial--and was holding up to the window a small medicine glass into which he was pouring very carefully twenty drops of the precious fluid."Take it only," he said, "when you feel you must.""It is the most golden of liquids," said the bishop, peering at it.

"When you want more I will make you more.Later of course, it will be possible to write a prescription.Now add the water--so.

"It becomes opalescent.How beautifully the light plays in it!

"Take it."

The bishop dismissed his last discretion and drank.

"Well?" said Dr.Dale.

"I am still here," said the bishop, smiling, and feeling a joyous tingling throughout his body."It stirs me."(5)

The bishop stood on the pavement outside Dr.Brighton-Pomfrey's house.The massive door had closed behind him.

It had been an act of courage, of rashness if you will, to take this draught.He was acutely introspective, ready for anything, for the most disagreeable or the most bizarre sensations.He was asking himself, Were his feet steady? Was his head swimming?

His doubts glowed into assurance.

Suddenly he perceived that he was sure of God.

Not perhaps of the God of Nicaea, but what did these poor little quibblings and definitions of the theologians matter? He had been worrying about these definitions and quibblings for four long restless years.Now they were just failures to express--what surely every one knew--and no one would ever express exactly.Because here was God, and the kingdom of God was manifestly at hand.The visible world hung before him as a mist might hang before the rising sun.He stood proudly and masterfully facing a universe that had heretofore bullied him into doubt and apologetics, a universe that had hitherto been opaque and was now betrayed translucent.

That was the first effect of the new tonic, complete reassurance, complete courage.He turned to walk towards Mount Street and Berkeley Square as a sultan might turn to walk among his slaves.

But the tonic was only beginning.

Before he had gone a dozen steps he was aware that he seemed more solid and larger than the people about him.They had all a curious miniature effect, as though he was looking at them through the wrong end of an opera glass.The houses on either side of the street and the traffic shared this quality in an equal measure.It was as if he was looking at the world through apertures in a miniature cinematograph peep-show.This surprised him and a little dashed his first glow of satisfaction.

He passed a man in khaki who, he fancied, looked at him with an odd expression.He observed the next passers-by narrowly and suspiciously, a couple of smartish young men, a lady with a poodle, a grocer's boy with a basket, but none seemed to observe anything remarkable about him.Then he caught the eye of a taxi-driver and became doubtful again.

He had a feeling that this tonic was still coming in like a tide.It seemed to be filling him and distending him, in spite of the fact that he was already full.After four years of flaccidity it was pleasant to be distended again, but already he felt more filled than he had ever been before.At present nothing was showing, but all his body seemed braced and uplifted.He must be careful not to become inflated in his bearing.

And yet it was difficult not to betray a little inflation.He was so filled with assurance that things were right with him and that God was there with him.After all it was not mere fancy; he was looking through the peepholes of his eyes at the world of illusion and appearance.The world that was so intent upon its immediate business, so regardless of eternal things, that had so dominated him but a little while ago, was after all a thing more mortal than himself.

Another man in khaki passed him.

For the first time he saw the war as something measurable, as something with a beginning and an end, as something less than the immortal spirit in man.He had been too much oppressed by it.He perceived all these people in the street were too much oppressed by it.He wanted to tell them as much, tell them that all was well with them, bid them be of good cheer.He wanted to bless them.He found his arm floating up towards gestures of benediction.Self-control became increasingly difficult.