Read Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) Online
Authors: Travelers In Time
Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (310 page)
"Come,
come,
now!"
the
cobbler
would
threaten;
"Your
insides are
naked;
do
you
wear
your
heart
in
a
nightgown
or
your
tongue
in a
canister?"
"Only
the
ghost
of
it,"
would
be
the
hazed
reply.
That
was
the
general
gist
and
limit
of
the
cross-examination,
but the
mad
cobbler
would
rehearse
him
again
and
again
until
the culprit
confessed
to
having
hung
himself,
on
a
tree,
in
an
orchard, and
imploringly
added:
"Forgive
me
again,
aye,
but
this
once
and
no more.
Amen."
In
this
matter,
although
the
poor
wretch
could
remember
nothing else,
his
grim
recollection
had
some
truth
in
it;
not
the
whole
truth, but
truth
as
far
as
it
could
range
in
his
benighted
soul.
For
once upon
a
time,
in
an
age
dropped
far
under
the
horizon
of
his
years,
he had
thought
to
commit
suicide.
What
an
agony
of
mind
must
have
dogged
one
who
thus
incurs eternal
damnation!
To
be
so
stricken
that
an
infinity
of
torment, in
whatever
guise
to
follow,
would
seem
to
be
a
lesser
evil!
For
if ease
is
not
to
be
attained
here,
why
should
it
be
found
there—or anywhere?
Howbeit,
this
fellow
had
fastened
rope
to
tree,
drawn noose
upon
neck,
had
leapt
to
his
doom,
and
at
the
crunch
which severed
soul
from
body
his
soul
had
launched
into
space
with
the ferocity
of
a
rocket
searching
the
sky,
but
searching
without
sound.
And
it
did
not
pause
or
falter
or
swerve,
or
break
into
soft
drops
of colour,
nor
did
it
leave
a
golden
trail.
Eyeless
and
bereft
of
knowledge, without
body
or
any
substance
at
all,
an
awareness
of
flight
alone possessed
his
soul
as,
all
ignorant
of
direction,
it
sought
a
goal.
But
what
goal?
Where?
And
what
way
could
be
his,
what
true path
in
the
boundless
uncharted
beyond
our
world
of
known
brightness?
No
inkling
of
direction
guided
it,
for
thought
and
instinct
were extinguished
or
left
far
behind
in
that
body
from
which
they
had grown—and
that
body
was
now
dead.
This
Something
that
had inspired
a
mortal
form
to
laugh,
toil,
weep,
love
and
betray,
doing as
all
must
do,
this
marrow
of
life,
phantom
spur
and
proctor
of dues,
was
lost
in
the
huge
Shade.
Like
a
wisp
of
gossamer
in
the vortex
of
a
flying
train
it
was
swept
past
colossal
tundras
and
pale aerial
oceans
without
a
bourne
into
a
void
of
blackness
where
no light
ever
fell
and
time
was
sunk
in
the
original
sleep.
Do
you
imagine
that
even
here
upon
earth
time
has
any
reality? It
has
not.
A
clock
measures
the
denoted
minutes
and
hours,
calendars record
the
days,
weeks,
months
and
years,
but
this
lapse
and
these divisions
are
not
time
itself,
they
mark
only
the
movement
of
the globe
spinning
alternate
night
and
day
as
it
voyages
round
the
sun. Did
we
always
face
the
sun
and
were
never
moved
away
from
its beam
we
should
have
no
more
awareness
of
time
than
sleeping
cats or
fish
at
the
bottom
of
a
well.
Time
is
but
a
name
for
a
garment
of
the world,
a
habit
never
changed;
unmoving
and
measureless
it
enfolds
a past
that
had
no
beginning
and
a
futurity
that
can
never
end.
It
is life,
not
time,
that
is
on
the
move;
clocks
and
calendars
may
notify what
they
will,
but
time
is
one
for
ever.
It
is
we
who
fly,
using twilight
for
our
magnificent
dreams,
darkness
and
dawn
to
drowse in,
and
the
glory
of
day
for
matters
of
no
moment.
Our
flight
is
of life,
not
time,
and
he
who
goes
far
must
fly
fast;
knowing
his
goal,
and being
worthy
of
it,
he
wins
quickly
home;
but
to
be
unworthy
and know
not
the
goal
is
to
be
lost
indeed,
as
was
this
poor
ghost,
this thread
of
invisible
gossamer,
swept
past
sun,
moon
and
stars
into solitudes
beyond
the
reach
of
our
thought.
Being
ghost
it
had
only
a ghost's
awareness,
had
lost
all
mortal
clues.
A
dog
knows
its
kennel, the
wounded
mouse
creeps
to
its
hole
again,
blood
flows
from
the heart
of
man
and
returns
to
his
heart,
but
for
the
mindless
disembodied soul
there
is
no
such
refuge.
A
prisoner,
inescapably
sterile,
it
was
one
with the blind black aimless pattern of eternity, through which ages and ages
lapsed like unnoted afternoons.