Читать «Cup of Gold (Золотая чаша)» онлайн - страница 122

There she was again, intent on making a contract with God. But Henry did not want to look at her.

Naпve though her philosophy was, her eyes were as deep and as sad as the limitless sky. He wanted to say, "I won't want to get to heaven once I am dead. I won't want them to disturb me." They made such a commotion about this death.

The doctor had come back into the room. "He is unconscious," the booming voice proclaimed. "I think I will bleed him again."

Henry felt the scalpel cut into his arm. It was pleasant. He hoped they would cut him again and again.

But the illusion was contradictory. Rather than feeling the blood leaving him, he sensed a curious warmth slipping through his body. His breast and arms tingled as though some robust, ancient wine were singing in his veins.

Now a queer change began to take place. He found that he could see through his eyelids, could see all about him without moving his head. The doctor and his wife and the Vicar and even the room were sliding away from him.

"They are moving," he thought. "I am not moving. I am fixed. I am the center of all things and cannot move. I am as heavy as the universe. Perhaps I am the universe."

A low, sweet tone was flowing into his consciousness; a vibrant, rich organ tone, which filled him, seemed to emanate from his brain, to flood his body, and from it to surge out over the world. He saw with a little surprise that the room had gone. He was lying in an immeasurable dark grotto along the sides of which were rows of thick, squat columns made of some green, glittering crystal. He was still in a reclining position, and the long grotto was sliding past him. Of a sudden, the movement stopped. He was surrounded by strange beings, having the bodies of children, and bulbous, heavy heads, but no faces.

The flesh where their faces should have been was solid and unbroken. These beings were talking and chattering in dry, raucous voices. Henry was puzzled that they could talk without mouths.

Slowly the knowledge grew in him that these were his deeds and his thoughts which were living with Brother Death. Each one had gone immediately to live with Brother Death as soon as it was born. When he knew their identity, the faceless little creatures turned on him and clustered thickly about his couch.

"Why did you do me?" one cried.

"I do not know; I do not remember you."

"Why did you think me?"

"I do not know. I must have known, but I have forgotten.

My memory is slipping away from me here in this grotto."

Still insistently they questioned him, and their voices were becoming more and more strident and harsh, so that they overwhelmed the great Tone.

"Me! answer me!"

"No; me!"

"Oh, leave me! Let me rest," Henry said wearily. "I am tired, and I cannot tell you anything anyway."

Then he saw that the little beings were crouching before an approaching form. They turned toward the form and cowered, and at length fell on their knees before it and raised trembling arms in gestures of supplication.