Flames - Robert Hichens

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of joy and grief hung upon the almost visionary thin thread of one little life. It is ghastly to be so idiotically dependent. Yet who, at some time, is not? And those who are independent lose, by their power, their possible Paradise. But such a time of uncertainty as that which Julian must now endure is a great penalty to pay for even the greatest joy, when the joy is past. He had his trance of the mind. He was hypnotized by his ignorance whether Valentine were alive or dead. And so he sat motionless, making the tour of an eternity of suffering, of wonder, of doubt, and hope, and yet, through it all, in some strange, indefinite way, numb, phlegmatic, and actually stupid.

      At last the bell rang. Dr. Levillier had arrived. He was struck at once by Julian's heaviness of manner.

      "What is it? What is the matter?" he asked.

      "I don't know. You tell me."

      "He is fainting—unconscious?"

      "Unconscious, yes."

      They were in the little hall now. Doctor Levillier narrowly scrutinized Julian. For a moment he thought Julian had been drinking, and he took him by the arm.

      "No; it is fear," he murmured, releasing him, and walking into the tentroom.

      Julian followed with a loud footstep, treading firmly. Each step said to

       Death, "You are not here. You are not here."

      He stood at a little distance near the door, while Levillier approached Valentine and bent over him. Rip woke up and curled his top lip in a terrier smile of welcome. The doctor stroked his head, then lifted Valentine's hand and held the wrist. He dropped it, and threw a glance on Julian. There was a scream of interrogation in Julian's fixed eyes. Doctor Levillier avoided it by dropping his own, and again turning his attention to the figure on the divan. He undid Valentine's shirt, bared the breast, and laid his hand on the heart, keeping it there for a long time.

      "Fetch me a hand-glass," he said to Julian.

      Mechanically, Julian went into the bedroom, and groped in the dark upon the dressing-table.

      "Well, have you got it? Why don't you turn up the light?"

      "I don't know," Julian answered, drily.

      Doctor Levillier saw that anxiety was beginning to unnerve him. When the glass was found the doctor led Julian back to the tentroom and pushed him gently down in a chair.

      "Keep quiet," he said. "And—keep hoping."

      "There is—there is—hope?"

      "Why not?"

      Then the doctor held the little glass to Valentine's lips. The bright surface was not dimmed. No breath of life tarnished it to dulness. Again the doctor felt his heart, drew his eyelids apart, and carefully examined the eyes, then turned slowly round.

      "Doctor—doctor!" Julian whispered. "Why do you turn away? What are you going to do?"

      Doctor Levillier made a gesture of finale, and knelt on the floor by Valentine. His head was bowed. His lips moved silently. Julian saw that he was praying, and sprang up fiercely. All the frost of his senses thawed in a moment. He seized Levillier by the shoulders.

      "Don't pray!" he cried out; "don't pray. Curse! Curse as I do! If he's dead you shall not pray. You shall not! You shall not!"

      The little doctor drew him down to his knees.

      "Julian, hush! My science tells me Valentine is dead."

      Julian opened his white lips, but the doctor, with a motion, silenced him, and added, pointing to Rip, who still lay happily by his master's side:

      "But that dog seems to tell me he is alive; that this is some strangely complete and perfect simulation of death, some unnatural sleep of the senses. Pray, pray with me that Valentine may wake."

      And, kneeling by his friend, with bent head, Julian strove to pray. The answer to that double prayer pierced the two men. It was so instant, and so bizarre, fighting against probability, yet heralding light, and the end of that night's pale circumstances.

      Rip, relapsing quickly from his perfunctory smile on the doctor, had again fallen asleep with an evident exceeding confidence and comfort, snoring his way into an apparent peace that passed all understanding. But scarcely had the doctor spoken, giving Julian hope, than the little dog suddenly opened its eyes, shifted round in its nest of arm and bosom, smelt furtively at Valentine's hand. Then it turned from the hand to the side of its master, investigated it with a supreme anxiety, pursued its search as far as the white, strict face and bared bosom. From the face it recoiled, and with a piercing howl like the scream of a dog run over by a cart, it sprang away, darted to the farthest corner of the room, and huddled close against the wall in an agony of terror.

      Julian turned cold. He believed implicitly that the trance at that very moment had deepened into death, and that the sleepless instinct of the dog had divined it partially while he slept, and now knew it and was afraid. And the same error of belief shook Dr. Levillier. A spasm crossed his thin, earnest face. No death had ever hurt him so sharply as this death hurt him. He saw Julian recoil in horror from the divan, and he could say nothing. For he, too, felt horror.

      But in this moment of despair Valentine's hands slowly unclenched themselves, and the fingers were gradually extended as by a man stretching himself after a long sleep.

      The doctor saw this, but believed himself a victim of a delusion, tricked by the excitement of his mind into foolish visions. And Julian had turned quite away, trembling. But now Valentine moved slightly, pressed his elbows on the cushions that supported him, and half sat up, still with closed eyes.

      "Julian," Dr. Levillier said in a low, summoning voice—"Julian, do you see what I see? Is he indeed alive? Julian."

      Then Julian, turning, saw, with the doctor, Valentine sit up erect, open his eyes and gaze upon his two friends with a grave, staring scrutiny.

      "Valentine, Valentine, how you frightened me! How you terrified me!" Julian at last found a voice to exclaim. "Thank God, thank God! you are alive. Oh, Valentine, you are alive; you are not dead."

      Valentine's lips smiled slowly.

      "Dead," he answered. "No; I am not dead."

      And again he smiled quietly, as a man smiles at some secret thought which tickles him or whips the sense of humour in him till, like an obeying dog, it dances.

      Dr. Levillier, having regained his feet, stood silently looking at Valentine, all his professional instinct wide awake to note this apparent resurrection from the dead.

      "You here, doctor!" said Valentine. "Why, what does this all mean?"

      "I want you to tell me that," Levillier said. "And you," he added, now turning towards Julian.

      But Julian was too much excited to answer. His eyes were blazing with joy and with emotion. And Valentine seemed still to be informed with a curious, serpentine lassitude. The life seemed to be only very gently running again over his body, creeping from the centre, from the heart, to the extremities, gradually growing in the eyes, stronger and stronger, a dawn of life in a full-grown man. Dr. Levillier had never seen anything quite like it before. There was something violently unnatural about it, he thought, yet he could not say what. He could only stand by the broad couch, fascinated by the spectacle under his gaze. Once he had read a tale of the revivifying of a mummy in a museum. That might have been like this; or the raising of Lazarus. The streams of strength almost visibly trickled through Valentine's veins. And this new life was so vigorous, so alert. It was as if during his strange sleep Valentine had been carpentering his energies, polishing his powers, setting the temple of his soul in order, gaining almost a ruthlessness from rest. He stretched his limbs now as an athlete might stretch them to win the full consciousness of their muscular force. When the doctor took hold of his hand to feel his pulse the hand was hard and tense like iron, the fingers gripped for a moment like thin bands of steel, and the life in the blue eyes bounded, raced, swirled as water swirls in a mill-stream. Indeed, Dr. Levillier felt as if there was too much life in them, as

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