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| IX |
X |
XI |
“Do you not hear all through the House that trembling of the air? And do you not now remember?”
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—“The House of the Past,” Blackwood
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It was hot and the sun threw an aimless glare throughout the city as I walked in search of an antique house. But what original goal had animated me, what hope inspired me, was now lost or blinded by the heat, by the light, by the crowds passing on the sidewalk—and distracted by the confusing segmentation of the street I followed. It pursued a single block, then ended—or rather disappeared—while a search of some minutes was necessary before I discovered its continuation several blocks away.
So I continued, thinking and seeing ever less than before, but marching hypnotically, slowly in the heat, while the midday sun bore down steadily on everything around me. And still the house eluded me. The street once more broke off and disappeared, while signs pointed the way, tempting me on, encouraging me even as I was lost ever further in the depth of the city. And still I wondered why I had come. What was it I searched for here? Was it really a house and only a house that had carried me so far away? Was it really a house, and only a house, that was drawing me through the streets?
Then at that thought, as though in answer, the house appeared. I observed it calmly. If I felt anticipation, it was very slight. The house itself was insignificant; a tall, narrow-fronted house among many such; an antiquity among many antique houses. This was an old neighborhood and my destination (my inscrutable hope) stood undistinguished in the row but for a black placarde above its door. I crossed the street, knocked lightly and entered without waiting for a reply.
The interior was cool and dark. The interior of a cave would not have been more cool or gratefully felt. A man just inside told me rapidly and without ceremony that I might see myself throughout—only, he added, I should beware the steepness of stairs. But though I heard him, I remained standing there for some time while my face cooled and my eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was not a sound in the house; no noises penetrated from the street. And although I acknowledged my host, I did not particularly regard him. His manner had been short and decisive, and seemed by its lack of ceremony to forbid unnecessary speech. So, when I felt more myself and could see plainly the first steps of the staircase before me, I left him without a word and commenced the ascent.
He had not exaggerated the steepness of the stairs. The treads were so narrow and the risers so high that the steps were impossible to climb without constantly clinging to the rail. Then too the staircase was also very narrow and would not have permitted the sidelong passage of two men. But I found that by leaning constantly forward I was able to maintain my balance until I reached the landing of the second floor.
In the main room that occupied this level was a bench and numerous portraits on the wall. Was this all I was meant to find? I saw nothing of great interest, although some of the pictures on the wall were quite familiar.
There remained one level above, I knew. But now, insteading of going upstairs, I turned and looked back the way I came, at the steep and narrow steps behind me. I did so with no thought beyond the memory of the late ascent—with no more thought than what steep and narrow steps they were in that high and narrow house—but felt nonetheless an unreasoning ambivalence and trepidation.
Turning once more, I approached the second staircase in a corner of the room. Peering in and upward at the shaft, I saw that this one was more precipitous than the last and added to the arduousness of the climb a sharp twisting path that nearly turned the steps upon themselves. At the top, the light of an unseen window reflected from the walls and floor of a garret almost entirely obscured from view by the convolution of the staircase below.
For the last time, I climbed. But now the rail was worse than useless. In at first clinging to it, my arm was raised in such a relation to my lower body that I was almost overbalanced and thrown down. I lowered myself to the steps and continued on my hands and knees as the garret drew slowly into view.
I saw it. It was the most ordinary room. There was a low bed under a closely slanting ceiling (I could not have sat up, had I lain there)—a washstand and basin (where, had I lived there, I must have spent my mornings, cat-bathing by the window)—and a writing-desk (where I might well have written many things not now forgotten). With these thoughts supplanting all others, I clambered to my feet and entered the room. I strode from side to side. The room did not exceed three paces in any direction. I turned my eyes to the window and looked out. It was strange to me. The street that had looked so ordinary only minutes before now seemed bizarrely unfamiliar. Surely this was not the street outside the house—this was not the city that surrounded it. Yet it was, and I knew that it was. But perhaps, I thought, there was something false about the glass, some unevenness or distortion, since even my own face in it took on a strangely unfamiliar cast.
I lay my hand on the writing-desk. I strode with objectless steps around the room. I sat on the bed and even stretched at length upon it, thinking no thoughts but struggling vainly with feelings sometimes of sadness and sometimes of vague horror, although I could not have said—and shall not say now—what disturbed me.
But after a time, the feelings passed and I felt myself again. This was not my house, though in other days it might have been. And this was not my bed I lay upon, though (I smiled to think of it) in other days I might have slept here.
The day was wasting away. I saw the sky dimming into shades of deeper blue. And carefully (since the ceiling slanted so close above the bed) I rose, took one last look around the room and descended. And the steps were not so strange although I was careful in descending—although (I smiled again) two men could not have passed sidelong.
The steps twisted and dropped precipitantly like the turns and falls of memory and time, like the passing of generations into the past and the resurrection of ghosts in the mind. But they were steps and only steps. I had walked many such—just such as these. And the house was only a house. I had lived in many such—just such as this one. And passing my host without a word, I emerged from the cool gloom of the house into the street, where the heat no longer paralyzed my thoughts and the light of the sun no longer blinded me. |
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