Algernon Blackwood

“ Between the highest branches the sky grew visible. A sighing air smoothed all their crests one way; moss, earth, and open spaces brought keen perfumes; and the little human procession, leaving the forest, stepped out into the vastness of the world above the tree-line. They paused while the porter stooped to put his lantern out. In the eastern sky was colour. The peaks and crags rushed closer.
Was it the Dawn? Limasson turned his eyes from the height of sky where the summits pierced a path for the coming day, to the faces of his companions, pale and wan in the early twilight. ”

“ Rising at such an hour, unless the heart be in it, is a sordid and depressing business; Limasson dressed without enthusiasm, conscious that thought and feeling were exactly where he had left them on going to sleep. The same confusion and bewilderment were in him; also the same deep solemn emotion stirred by the whispering voices. ”

“ In the womb they grope and stifle, depending ever upon another. Denial is ever the call to life, a protest against continued darkness for deliverance. Yet birth is the ruin of all that has hitherto been depended on. There comes then that standing alone which at first seems desolate isolation. The tumult of destruction precedes release.
Limasson rose to his feet, stood with difficulty upright, looked about him from the figure so close now at his side to the snowy summit of that Tour du Néant he would never climb. ”

“ The roar and thunder of Their passage was resumed. It seemed the mountains reeled.
“They are passing,” sang the voice that was beside him and within him too, “but They have known you, and your offering is accepted. When They come close upon the world there is ever wreckage and disaster in the affairs of men. They bring disorder and confusion into the mind, a confusion that seems final, a disorder that seems to threaten death. For there is tumult in Their Presence, and apparent chaos that seems the abandonment of order. Out of this vast ruin, then, there issues life in new design. ”

“ But Limasson was too vital a man to dream of annihilation. Upon him it had a different effect⁠—he turned and questioned what he called his gods. They did not answer or explain. For the first time in his life he doubted. A hair’s breadth beyond lay definite denial.
The ruin in which he sat, however, was not material; no man of his age, possessed of courage and a working scheme of life, would permit disaster of a material order to overwhelm him. ”

“ The trick that sight had played upon him, assisted by the rarefied atmosphere of the heights and by the witchery of dawn, was no uncommon one, after all. The long straining of the eyes to pick the way in an uncertain light so easily deceives perspective. Delusion ever follows abrupt change of focus. These shadowy encircling forms were but the rampart of still distant precipices whose giant walls framed the tremendous amphitheatre to the sky. ”

“ He turned to the mountains as a child to its mother, instinctively. Mountains had never failed to bring him consolation, comfort, peace. Their grandeur restored proportion whenever disorder threatened life. No calculation, properly speaking, was in his move at all; but a blind desire for a violent physical reaction such as climbing brings. And the instinct was more wholesome than he knew.
In the high upland valley among lonely peaks whither Limasson then went, he found in some measure the proportion he had lost. He studiously avoided thinking; he lived in his muscles recklessly. ”

“ You know them?”
“Tumult,” was the answer in much lower tones. “There has been tumult in the mountains.⁠ ⁠...”
There was a break then as though the voices sank too low to be heard. Two broken fragments came next, end of a question⁠—beginning of an answer.
“... the opportunity of a lifetime?”
“... if he goes of his own free will, success is sure. For acceptance is⁠ ⁠...”
And the wind, returning, bore back the sound of the falling water, so that Limasson heard no more.⁠ ⁠...
An indefinable emotion stirred in him as he turned over to sleep. He stuffed his ears lest he should hear more. ”

“ Temples are everywhere, for the entire earth is a temple, and the body, House of Royalty, is the biggest temple of them all. To ascertain the pattern its movements trace in daily life, could be to determine the relation of that particular ceremony to the Cosmos, and so learn power. The entire system of Pythagoras, he realised, could be taught without a single word⁠—by movements; and in everyday life even the commonest act and vulgarest movement are part of some big Ceremony⁠—a message from the Gods. ”

“ Empty of personal desire, indifferent to an ascent that formerly would have thrilled his heart with ambition and delight, he understood that climbing had ever been a ritual for his soul and of his soul, and that power must result from its sincere accomplishment. ”

“ A thrill of ecstasy ran down every nerve. The hair of his head stood up. It was far from unfamiliar to him, this sight of the upper mountain world awakening from its sleep of the summer night, but never before had he stood shuddering thus at its exquisite cold glory, nor felt its significance as now, so mysteriously within himself. Some transcendent power that held sublimity was passing across this huge desolate plateau, far more majestic than the mere sunrise among mountains he had so often witnessed. There was Movement. ”

“ Let the body imitate, reproduce⁠—in a bedroom, in a wood⁠—anywhere⁠—the movements of the stars, and the meaning of those stars shall sink down into the heart. The movements constitute a script, a language. To mimic the gestures of a stranger is to understand his mood, his point of view⁠—to establish a grave and solemn intimacy. ”

“ The porters can come as far as the Great Tower. We’re over six thousand feet here already, you see, so⁠ ⁠...” and his voice died away in the distance as his companion led him off.
Limasson saw him go with relief. But for the other man he would have declined the invitation. At heart he was indifferent enough. What decided him really was the coincidence that the Tour du Néant was the very peak he had intended to attack himself alone, and the curious feeling that this expedition cloaked another somehow⁠—almost that these men had a hidden motive. ”

“ He must spend the remainder of his life caring for others who were nothing to him. No outlet showed, no way of escape, so diabolically complete was the combination of events that rushed his inner trenches. ”

“ Yet through it ran the old familiar sense of ritual, due to the practice of so many years, that cleansing of mind and body for a big Ascent⁠—like initiatory rites that once had been as important to him as those of some priest who approached the worship of his deity in the temples of ancient time. He performed the ceremony with the same care as though no ghost of vanished faith still watched him, beckoning from the air as formerly.⁠ ⁠... ”

“ It wears us all. We must husband our resources,” and he pointed significantly to the pyramid of the Tour du Néant that gleamed above them at an incredible altitude.
“We are here to amuse ourselves; life is a pleasure, a sensation, or it is nothing,” grumbled his companion; but there was a gravity in the tone of the older man that discouraged argument and made resistance difficult. The other arranged his pack for the tenth time, twisting his axe through an ingenious scheme of straps and string, and fell silently into line behind his leaders. Limasson moved on again⁠ ⁠... ”

“ It is said that upon this state of blank negation there follows sometimes a condition of lucidity which mirrors with crystal clearness the forces driving behind life at a given moment, a kind of clairvoyance that brings explanation and therefore peace. ”

“ His gods had their invisible thrones somewhere among the grim, forbidding heights. He prepared himself for this annual mountaineering with the same earnestness that a holy man might approach a solemn festival of his church.
And the impetus of his mind was running with big momentum in this direction, when there fell upon him, almost on the eve of starting, a swift series of disasters that shook his being to its last foundations, and left him stunned among the ruins. To describe these is unnecessary. People said, “One thing after another like that! What appalling luck! ”

“ Action, moreover, is symbolical; a group of men, a family, an entire nation, engaged in those daily movements which are the working out of their destiny, perform a Ceremony which is in direct relation somewhere to the pattern of greater happenings which are the teachings of the Gods. ”

“ Long, thundering gusts of wind passed distantly across the precipices as he spoke. The same moment, expecting apparently no rejoinder to his strange utterance, he stooped and began to unpack his knapsack. The change from the sacerdotal language to this commonplace and practical detail was singularly bewildering.
“It is the time to rest,” he added, “and the time to eat. Let us prepare.” ”

“ Yet the instant they began to speak⁠—it was the priest who opened fire⁠—it was all so natural and easy that he almost welcomed the diversion. A phrase by way of introduction⁠—and he was speaking of the summits. Something in Limasson’s mind turned over. The man was a serious climber, one of his own species. ”

“ He stood stock still. A cold that was not of this world turned him rigid in his tracks. A few yards behind him the priest had halted too. Farther in the rear they heard the stumbling tread of the younger man, and the faint calling of his voice⁠—a feeble broken sound as of a man whom sudden fear distressed to helplessness.
“We’re off the track, and I’ve lost my way,” the words came on the still air. “My axe is gone⁠ ⁠... let us put on the rope!⁠ ⁠... Hark! ”

“ And it was somewhat in this frame of mind⁠—thinking little, feeling even less⁠—that he came out into the hotel vestibule after dinner one evening, and took mechanically the bundle of letters the porter handed to him. They had no possible interest for him; in a corner where the big steam-heater mitigated the chilliness of the hall, he idly sorted them. The score or so of other guests, chiefly expert climbing men, were trailing out in twos and threes from the dining-room ”

“ Though his thought assumed no form of little phrases, his brain yet furnished detailed statements that clinched the marvellous thing with simile and incident which daily life might apprehend: That knowledge arises from action ”