The Return

BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD







It was curious--that sense of dull uneasiness that came over him so

suddenly, so stealthily at first he scarcely noticed it, but with such

marked increase after a time that he presently got up and left the

theater. His seat was on the gangway of the dress circle, and he slipped

out awkwardly in the middle of what seemed to be the best and jolliest

song of he piece. The full house was shaking with laughter; so

infectious was the gaiety that even strangers turned to one another as

much as to say, "Now, isn't that funny?"



It was curious, too, the way the feeling first got into him at all, and

in the full swing of laughter, music, light-heartedness; for it came as

a vague suggestion, "I've forgotten something--something I meant to

do--something of importance. What in the world was it, now?" And he

thought hard, searching vainly through his mind; then dismissed it as

the dancing caught his attention. It came back a little later again,

during a passage of long-winded talk that bored him and set his

attention free once more, but came more strongly this time, insisting on

an answer. What could it have been that he had overlooked, left undone,

omitted to see to? It went on nibbling at the subconscious part of him.

Several times this happened, this dismissal and return, till at last the

thing declared itself more plainly--and he felt bothered, troubled,

distinctly uneasy.



He was wanted somewhere. There was somewhere else he ought to be. That

describes it best, perhaps. Some engagement of moment had entirely

slipped his memory--an engagement that involved another person, too. But

where, what, with whom? And, at length, this vague uneasiness amounted

to positive discomfort, so that he felt unable to enjoy the piece, and

left abruptly. Like a man to whom comes suddenly the horrible idea that

the match he lit his cigarette with and flung into the waste-paper

basket on leaving was not really out--a sort of panic distress--he

jumped into a taxicab and hurried to his flat to find everything in

order, of course; no smoke, no fire, no smell of burning.



But his evening was spoiled. He sat smoking in his armchair at home,

this business man of forty, practical in mind, of character some called

stolid, cursing himself for an imaginative fool. It was now too late to

go back to the theater; the club bored him; he spent an hour with the

evening papers, dipping into books, sipping a long cool drink, doing

odds and ends about the flat. "I'll go to bed early for a change," he

laughed, but really all the time fighting--yes, deliberately

fighting--this strange attack of uneasiness that so insidiously grew

upwards, outwards from the buried depths of him that sought so

strenuously to deny it. It never occurred to him that he was ill. He was

not ill. His health was thunderingly good. He was as robust as a

coal-heaver.



The flat was roomy, high up on the top floor, yet in a busy part of

town, so that the roar of traffic mounted round it like a sea. Through

the open windows came the fresh night air of June. He had never noticed

before how sweet the London night air could be, and that not all the

smoke and dust could smother a certain touch of wild fragrance that

tinctured it with perfume--yes, almost perfume--as of the country. He

swallowed a draught of it as he stood there, staring out across the

tangled world of roofs and chimney-pots. He saw the procession of the

clouds; he saw the stars; he saw the moonlight falling in a shower of

silver spears upon the slates and wires and steeples. And something in

him quickened--something that had never stirred before.



He turned with a horrid start, for the uneasiness had of a sudden leaped

within him like an animal. There was some one in the flat.



Instantly, with action--even this slight action--the fancy vanished;

but, all the same, he switched on the electric lights and made a search.

For it seemed to him that some one had crept up close behind him while

he stood there watching the night--some one, whose silent presence

fingered with unerring touch both this new thing that had quickened in

his heart and that sense of original deep uneasiness. He was amazed at

himself--angry--indignant that he could be thus foolishly upset over

nothing, yet at the same time profoundly distressed at this vehement

growth of a new thing in his well-ordered personality. Growth? He

dismissed the word the moment it occurred to him--but it had occurred to

him. It stayed. While he searched the empty flat, the long passages, the

gloomy bedroom at the end, the little hall where he kept his overcoats

and golf sticks, it stayed. Growth! It was oddly disquieting. Growth

to him involved, though he neither acknowledged nor recognized the truth

perhaps, some kind of undesirable changeableness, instability,

unbalance.



Yet singular as it all was, he realized that the uneasiness and the

sudden appreciation of beauty that was so new to him had both entered by

the same door into his being. When he came back to the front room he

noticed that he was perspiring. There were little drops of moisture on

his forehead. And down his spine ran chills, little, faint quivers of

cold. He was shivering.



He lit his big meerschaum pipe, and left the lights all burning. The

feeling that there was something he had overlooked, forgotten, left

undone, had vanished. Whatever the original cause of this absurd

uneasiness might be--he called it absurd on purpose because he now

realized in the depths of him that it was really more vital than he

cared about--it was much nearer to discovery than before. It dodged

about just below the threshold of discovery. It was as close as that.

Any moment he would know what it was; he would remember. Yes, he would

remember. Meanwhile, he was in the right place. No desire to go

elsewhere afflicted him, as in the theater. Here was the place, here in

the flat.



And then it was with a kind of sudden burst and rush--it seemed to him

the only way to phrase it--memory gave up her dead.



At first he only caught her peeping round the corner at him, drawing

aside a corner of an enormous curtain, as it were; striving for more

complete entrance as though the mass of it were difficult to move. But

he understood, he knew, he recognized. It was enough for that. As an

entrance into his being--heart, mind, soul--was being attempted and the

entrance because of his stolid temperament was difficult of

accomplishment, there was effort, strain. Something in him had first to

be opened up, widened, made soft and ready as by an operation, before

full entrance could be effected. This much he grasped though for the

life of him he could not have put it into words. Also he knew who it was

that sought an entrance. Deliberately from himself he withheld the name.

But he knew as surely as though Straughan stood in the room and faced

him with a knife saying, "Let me in, let me in. I wish you to know I'm

here. I'm clearing a way! You recall our promise?"



He rose from his chair and went to the open window again, the strange

fear slowly passing. The cool air fanned his cheeks. Beauty till now had

scarcely ever brushed the surface of his soul. He had never troubled his

head about it. It passed him by indifferent; and he had ever loathed the

mouthy prating of it on others' lips. He was practical; beauty was for

dreamers, for women, for men who had means and leisure. He had not

exactly scorned it; rather it had never touched his life, to sweeten, to

cheer, to uplift. Artists for him were like monks--another sex

almost--useless beings who never helped the world go round. He was for

action always, work, activity, achievement as he saw them. He remembered

Straughan vaguely--Straughan, the ever impecunious friend of his youth,

always talking of color and sound--mysterious, ineffectual things. He

even forgot what they had quarreled about, if they had quarreled at all

even; or why they had gone apart all these years ago. And certainly he

had forgotten any promise. Memory as yet only peeped at him round the

corner of that huge curtain tentatively, suggestively, yet--he was

obliged to admit it--somewhat winningly. He was conscious of this

gentle, sweet seductiveness that now replaced his fear.



And as he stood now at the open window peering over huge London, beauty

came close and smote him between the eyes. She came blindingly, with her

train of stars and clouds and perfumes. Night, mysterious, myriad-eyed,

and flaming across her sea of haunted shadows invaded his heart and

shook him with her immemorial wonder and delight. He found no words of

course to clothe the new unwonted sensations. He only knew that all his

former dread, uneasiness, distress, and with them this idea of growth

that had seemed so repugnant to him were merged, swept up, and gathered

magnificently home into a wave of beauty that enveloped him. "See it,

and understand," ran a secret inner whisper across his mind. He saw. He

understood....



He went back and turned the lights out. Then he took his place again at

that open window, drinking in the night. He saw a new world; a species

of intoxication held him. He sighed, as his thoughts blundered for

expression among words and sentences that knew him not. But the delight

was there, the wonder, the mystery. He watched with heart alternately

tightening and expanding the transfiguring play of moon and shadow over

the sea of buildings. He saw the dance of the hurrying clouds, the open

patches into outer space, the veiling and unveiling of that ancient

silvery face; and he caught strange whispers of the hierophantic,

sacerdotal power that has echoed down the world since Time began and

dropped strange magic phrases into every poet's heart, since first "God

dawned on Chaos"--the Beauty of the Night.



A long time passed--it may have been one hour, it may have been

three--when at length he turned away and went slowly to his bedroom. A

deep peace lay over him. Something quite new and blessed had crept into

his life and thought. He could not quite understand it all. He only knew

that it uplifted. There was no longer the least sign of affliction or

distress. Even the inevitable reaction that set in could not destroy

that.



And then as he lay in bed nearing the borderland of sleep, suddenly and

without any obvious suggestion to bring it, he remembered another thing.

He remembered the promise. Memory got past the big curtain for an

instant and showed her face. She looked into his eyes. It must have been

a dozen years ago when Straughan and he had made that foolish solemn

promise, that whoever died first should show himself if possible to the

other.



He had utterly forgotten it--till now. But Straughan had not forgotten

it. The letter came three weeks later from India. That very evening

Straughan had died--at nine o'clock. And he had come back--in the Beauty

that he loved.