The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) (51 page)

"I'll tell you," I said, sternly, "I am going to bend your head back
and cradle your neck in the hollow of my left arm,-so-and
squeeze you close-so-and the moment you say it I am going to
kiss you on the mouth."

She gazed up from the cradling arm with the proper play-acting
humility and resignation, and whispered-

"Lisabet!" and took her punishment without a protest.

"You have been a very'good girl," I said, and patted her cheek
approvingly. "There wasn't any trap, Lisabet-at least none but this: I pretended that forgetfulness because when the sweetest of
all names comes from the sweetest of all lips it is sweeter then than
ever, and I wanted to hear you say it."

"Oh, you dear thing! I'll say the rest of it at the same price!"

"Done!"

"Elisabeth von Arnim!"

"One-two-three: a kiss for each component!"

I was out of the fog, I had the name. It was a triumph of
diplomacy, and I was proud of it. I repeated the name several times,
partly for the pleasure of hearing it and partly to nail it in my
memory, then I said I wished we had some more things to trade
between us on the same delicious basis. She caught at that, and
said-

"We can do your name, Martin."

Martin! It made me jump. Whence had she gathered this batch
of thitherto unheard-of names? What was the secret of this mystery, the how of it, the why of it, the explanation of it? It was too
deep for me, much too deep. However, this was no time to be
puzzling over it, I ought to be resuming trade and finding out the
rest of my name; so I said-

"Martin is a poor name, except when you say it. Say it again,
sweetheart."

"Martin. Pay me!"

Which I did.

"Go on, Betty dear; more music-say the rest of it."

"Martin von Giesbach. I wish there was more of it. Pay!"

I did, and added interest.

Boone-m-m-m! from the solemn great bell in the main tower.

"Half-past eleven-oh, what will mother say! I did not dream it
was so late, did you Martin?"

"No, it seemed only fifteen minutes."

"Come, let us hurry," she said, and we hurried-at least after a
sort of fashion-with my left arm around her waist and the hollow
of her right hand cupped upon my left shoulder by way of having a
support. Several times she murmured dreamily, "How happy I am,
how happy, happy, happy!" and seemed to lose herself in that thought and be conscious of nothing else. By and by I had a rare
start-my Duplicate stepped suddenly out from a bunch of shadows, just as we were passing by! He said, reproachfully-

"Ah, Marget, I waited so long by your door, and you broke your
promise! Is this kind of you? is it affectionate?"

Oh, jealousy-I felt the pang of it for the first time.

To my surprise-and joy-the girl took no more notice of him
than if he had not been there. She walked right on, she did not
seem to see him nor hear him. Ile was astonished, and stopped still
and turned, following her with his eyes. He muttered something,
then in a more definite voice he said-

"What a queer attitude-to be holding her hand up in the air
like that! . . . . . Why, she's walking in her sleep!"

1-le began to follow, a few steps behind us. Arrived at Marget's
door, I took her-no, Lisbet's!-peachy face between my hands and
kissed the eyes and the lips, her delicate hands resting upon my
shoulders the while; then she said "Good-night-good-night and
blessed dreams," and passed within. I turned toward my Duplicate.
Ile was standing near by, staring at the vacancy where the girl had
been. For a time he did only that. Then he spoke up and said
joyfully-

"I've been a jealous fool! That was a kiss-and it was for me! She
was dreaming of me. I understand it all, now. And that loving
good-night-it was for me, too. Ah, it makes all the difference!" Ile
went to the door and knelt down and kissed the place where she
had stood.

I could not endure it. I flew at him and with all my spiritstrength I fetched him an open-handed slat on the jaw that sent
him lumbering and spinning and floundering over and over along
the stone floor till the wall stopped him. Ile was greatly surprised.
l IC got up rubbing his bruises and looking admiringly about him
for a minute or two, then went limping away, saying-

"I wonder what in hell that was!"

I FLOATED off to my room through the unresisting air, and
stirred up my fire and sat down to enjoy my happiness and study
over the enigma of those names. By ferreting out of my memory
certain scraps and shreds of information garnered from 44's talks I
presently untangled the matter, and arrived at an explanationwhich was this: the presence of my flesh-and-blood personality was
not a circumstance of any interest to Marget Regen, but my presence as a spirit acted upon her hypnotically-as 44 termed it-and
plunged her into the somnambulic sleep. This removed her DaySelf from command and from consciousness, and gave the command to her DreamSelf for the time being. Her DreamSelf was a
quite definite and independent personality, and for reasons of its
own it had chosen to name itself Elisabeth von Arnim. It was
entirely unacquainted with Marget Regen, did not even know she
existed, and had no knowledge of her affairs, her feelings, her
opinions, her religion, her history, nor of any other matter concerning her. On the other hand, Marget was entirely unacquainted
with Elisabeth and wholly ignorant of her existence and of all other
matters concerning her, including her name.

Marget knew me as August Feldner, her DreamSelf knew me as
Martin von Giesbach-why, was a matter beyond guessing. Awake,
the girl cared nothing for me; steeped in the hypnotic sleep, I was
the idol of her heart.

There was another thing which I had learned from 44, and that
was this: each human being contains not merely two independent
entities, but three-the Waking-Self, the DreamSelf, and the
Soul. This last is immortal, the others are functioned by the brain
and the nerves, and are physical and mortal; they are not functiona-ble when the brain and nerves are paralysed by a temporary hurt or
stupefied by narcotics; and when the man dies they die, since their
life, their energy and their existence depend solely upon physical sustenance, and they cannot get that from dead nerves and a dead
brain. When I was invisible the whole of my physical make-up was
gone, nothing connected with it or depending upon it was left. My
soul-my immortal spirit-alone remained. Freed from the encumbering flesh, it was able to exhibit forces, passions and emotions of a
quite tremendously effective character.

It seemed to me that I had now ciphered the matter out correctly,
and unpuzzled the puzzle. I was right, as I found out afterward.

And now a sorrowful thought came to me: all three of my Selves
were in love with the one girl, and how could we all be happy? It
made me miserable to think of it, the situation was so involved in
difficulties, perplexities and unavoidable heart-burnings and resentments.

Always before, I had been tranquilly unconcerned about my
Duplicate. To me he was merely a stranger, no more no less; to him
I was a stranger; in all our lives we had never chanced to meet until
44 had put flesh upon him; we could not have met if we had
wanted to, because whenever one of us was awake and in command
of our common brain and nerves the other was of necessity asleep
and unconscious. All our lives we had been what 44 called Box
and Cox lodgers in the one chamber: aware of each other's existence but not interested in each other's affairs, and never encountering each other save for a dim and hazy and sleepy half-moment on the threshold, when one was coming in and the other
going out, and never in any case halting to make a bow or pass a
greeting.

And so it was not until my DreamSelf's fleshing that he and I
met and spoke. There was no heartiness; we began as mere acquaintances, and so remained. Although we had been born together, at the same moment and of the same womb, there was no
spiritual kinship between us; spiritually we were a couple of distinctly independent and unrelated individuals, with equal rights in
a common fleshly property, and we cared no more for each other
than we cared for any other stranger. My fleshed Duplicate did not
even bear my name, but called himself Emil Schwarz.

I was always courteous to my Duplicate, but I avoided him. This was natural, perhaps, for he was my superior. My imagination,
compared with his splendid dream-equipment, was as a lightning
bug to the lightning; in matters of our trade he could do more with
his hands in five minutes than I could do in a day; he did all my
work in the shop, and found it but a trifle; in the arts and graces of
beguilement and persuasion I was a pauper and he a Croesus; in
passion, feeling, emotion, sensation-whether of pain or pleasure-I
was phosphorus, he was fire. In a word he had all the intensities
one suffers or enjoys in a dream!

This was the creature that had chosen to make love to Marget! In
my coarse dull human form, what chance was there for me? Oh,
none in the world, none! I knew it, I realized it, and the heartbreak
of it was unbearable.

But my Soul, stripped of its vulgar flesh-what was my Duplicate in competition with that? Nothing, and less than nothing. The
conditions were reversed, as regarded passions, emotions, sensations,
and the arts and graces of persuasion. Lisbet was mine, and I could
hold her against the world-but only when she was Lisbet, only
when her DreamSelf was in command of her person! when she
was Marget she was her Waking-Self, and the slave of that reptile!
Ah, there could be no help for this, no way out of this fiendish
complication. I could have only half of her; the other half, no less
dear to me, must remain the possession of another. She was mine,
she was his, turn-about.

These desolating thoughts kept racing and chasing and scorching
and blistering through my brain without rest or halt, and I could
find no peace, no comfort, no healing for the tortures they brought.
Lisbet's love, so limitlessly dear and precious to me, was almost lost
sight of because I couldn't have Marget's too. By this sign I perceived that I was still a human being; that is to say, a person who
wants the earth, and cannot be satisfied unless he can have the
whole of it. Well, we are made so; even the humblest of us has the
voracity of an emperor.

At early mass the next morning my happiness came back to me,
for Marget was there, and the sight of her cured all my sorrows. For
a time! She took no notice of me, and I was not expecting she would, therefore I was not troubled about that, and w..s content to
look at her, and breathe the same air with her, and note and admire
everything she did and everything she didn't do, and bless myself in
these privileges; but when I found she had over-many occasions to
glance casually and fleetingly around to her left I was moved to
glance around, myself, and see if there was anything particular
there. Sure enough there was. It was Emil Schwarz. He was already become a revolting object to me, and I now so detested him
that I could hardly look at anything else during the rest of the
service; except, of course, Marget.

When the service was over,I lingered outside, and made myself
invisible, purposing to follow Marget and resume the wooing. But
she did not come. Everybody came out but two,-those two. After a
little, Marget put her head out and looked around to see if any one
was in sight, then she glanced back, with a slight nod, and moved
swiftly away. That saddened me, for I interpreted it to mean that
the other wooing was to have first place. Next came Schwarz, and
him I followed-upward, always upward, by dim and narrow stairways seldom used; and so, to a lofty apartment in the south tower,
the luxurious quarters of the departed magician. He entered, and
closed the door, but I followed straight through the heavy panels,
without waiting, and halted just on the inside. There was a great
fire of logs at the other end of the room, and Marget was there! She
came briskly to meet this odious Dream-stuff, and flung herself into
his arms, and kissed him-and he her, and she him again, and he
her again, and so on, and so on, and so on, till it was most
unpleasant to look at. But I bore it, for I wanted to know all my
misfortune, the full magnitude of it and the particulars. Next, they
went arm-in-arm and sat down and cuddled up together on a sofa,
and did that all over again-over and over and over and over-the
most offensive spectacle I had ever seen, as it seemed to me. Then
Schwarz tilted up that beautiful face, using his profane forefinger
as a fulcrum under the chin that should have been sacred to me,
and looked down into the luminous eyes which should have been
wholly mine by rights, and said, archly-

"Little traitor!"

"Traitor? I? How, Emil?"

"You didn't keep your tryst last night."

"Why, Emil, I did!"

"Oh, not you! Come-what did we do? where did we go? For a
ducat you can't tell!"

Marget looked surprised-then nonplussed-then a little frightened.

"It is very strange," she said, "very strange . . . . . unaccountable. I seem to have forgotten everything. But I know I was out; I
was out till near midnight; I know it because my mother chided me,
and tried her best to make me confess what had kept me out so late;
and she was very uneasy, and I was cruelly afraid she would suspect
the truth. I remember nothing at all of what happened before. Isn't
it strange!"

Then the devil Schwarz laughed gaily and said that for a kiss he
would unriddle the riddle. So he told her how he had encountered
her, and how she was walking in her sleep, and how she was
dreaming of him, and how happy it made him to see her kiss the
air, imagining she was kissing him. And then they both laughed at
the odd incident, and dropped the trifle out of their minds, and fell
to trading caresses and endearments again, and thought no more
about it.