Paul Suter

“ Jugrand laughed.
"It seems to you the living beside the dead—therefore bizarre. In his normal moments, it would seem so to him. To-night, he is not normal. I am not so sure that he is even asleep—as we understand sleep. Perhaps he has been staring rather too steadily into the fire."
He went on, in a moment:
"I should like to have heard Craddock's theories. I, myself, have but one. Of course, I have suspected the truth for some time."
"What truth?" demanded Marvin.
"That this friend of ours—this dear and wonderful friend, who lies in his coffin—was suffering from loss of memory. ”

“ After a time, Jugrand rose, with an air of heavy resolution, ponderously adapted himself to a standing position, and walked over to the double glass doors. He looked through them, intently. The lines of thought gave his face something of power and charm, despite its fatness. The others stared at him, as he stared through the glass.
When he resumed his chair, which still rocked gently, he addressed himself to the surgeon:
"I like to play sometimes with a theory—a fanciful theory—that the brain cells continue to work for a while after what we call death. Why do we call it that? ”

“ The doctor bowed, gravely, in the moonlight; and the old man in the doorway also bowed, with an even graver courtesy. He was a giant of a man, whose long, white beard and slightly bent shoulders, proclaimed his years. In the yellow light of the candle he carried, his eyes gleamed with sombre vigor. Though the hand which held the candle shook, his voice was free from the cackling quality of age. ”

“ Simply because our crude instruments can no longer detect signs of life. We have no proof but that decay—even embalming, perhaps—may precede absolute death by an appreciable interval."
He stopped, with his eyes on the surgeon. It was as if he were feeling for some unthinkable result, grotesque, like his own fat cheeks. Craddock's narrow face looked pale and tired. He groped for a rocker, and fell into it, chin on hand. He stared steadfastly into the fire.
Jugrand asked him a quiet question:
"Do you suppose he was thinking of this trouble when he talked to Marvin about 'background'?" ”

“ On the other was an oaken wardrobe, with a top higher than the doctor could reach. He essayed the feat, in youthful exuberance, and paid for it the next moment when he sank down upon the bed, hand on heart. The comfort was quickly gone, however, and he rose to look out of the broad-silled window at the valley below.
The grass waved and glistened in the moonlight. In the distance, the circle of woods enclosed it, like a dark horizon line. The moon had mounted higher, but its slanting rays were not yet entering his chamber. No living thing moved within sight. ”

“ Do you mean to tell me you're not joking? If you're not, then you are ill; for you know these woods better than I."
"I was lost; but I’ve found myself, now!" he answered her, with an abrupt burst of gayety. "I've found myself, Lucia!"
"Did you ever lose yourself, then, silly boy?" she retorted.
It was a simple question, but it shook the doctor. His mind, which had seemed very steady, swayed a little, and he saw the girl and the room and the crackling logs through a mist. Then the steadiness returned. ”

“ The artist fairly shot his questions.
"No."
Jugrand spoke, deliberately choosing his words:
"I am interested in what he learned from himself—from his own mind. A man of his mentality can not have let such a matter rest. He must have employed the various expedients of psycho-analysis."
"He did. That, in fact, was the fight I referred to. He told me. Also, he took the more obvious course of trying to find the hospital where he had been ill. But if he ever succeeded, no hospital admitted it. Possibly the right one had been enjoined to secrecy, through his mother's influence." ”

“ The moon shone here, too. It showed him a ruined fireplace, a stone floor, four blackened walls.
For a moment, his eyes wandered to and fro, regarding the room with nightmare fascination; then he turned, mechanically, and walked down the ruinous hall, through the crumbling doorway, into the valley. He knew this for reality. He had come, the night before to this burned house; he had sat on that remnant of a bench, before that cold fireplace; he had lain, and felt that
he was resting comfortably, on the charred slats of that bed, All the rest had been in his mind merely ”

“ That points to a subconscious inhibition—something in his original life which dried up the springs, so to speak. Maybe he had loved once, before memory left him—when he was, perhaps, eighteen or nineteen—and could not love again. There you have my theory."
Marvin was silent, staring moodily into the flames. Jugrand rose, and, walking to the glass doors, slowly pushed them open. He spoke, softly:
"The one breathes heavily, and mutters in his dreams. The other is still; he would react to no test at present available to science. ”

“ So it was that they listened intently—painfully—when Craddock started to tell of an informal party which he and Doctor Wilford Sawyer had attended together.
"In this room—a year ago. There must have been a dozen of us, more or less. Someone suggested that each of us tell something he did as a boy—some adventure—something out of the ordinary."
"As a boy—yes?" Marvin prompted, nervously.
He untwisted his lean legs from the Morris chair where he happened to be coiled, just then. He was suddenly on the alert. ”

“ She died that same year."
"You knew them then?" the surgeon asked. His voice was drowsy.
Jugrand nodded.
"I attended her funeral. He looks very much like her. The clergyman had a hard time getting enough information for his address."
Marvin relaxed in a brief smile. There is grim humor in the professional funeral eulogy. Then, as if fulfilling a difficult duty, Craddock palpably roused himself and launched into the remainder of what he had to say. ”

“ She laughed, frankly, and, seizing his hand in her own firm little one, dragged him unresisting to the bench. There she plumped down, and took both of his hands in hers, the better to emphasize, by patting them, the fact that she was scolding him soundly.
"What will you say next? Each night you've the most ridiculous excuse in the world. Then, the very next time, you come with a worse. Don’t you know, sir, that lovers should be ahead of their hour, and not tardy?"
The doctor was aware that the old couple had excused themselves. He was alone with the girl. ”

“ At thirty, he had finished college, and had served his year in a hospital. He could not have been more than forty when he came to us, and even then, I believe, he had an enviable reputation."
Jugrand nodded.
"He had it from the first. He is not of common clay with the rest of us. He is one of the immortals."
"And this in spite of the fight that never ceased for a moment," Craddock emphasized.
The artist jerked his head, impatiently.
"What fight? I don't understand. Loss of memory is bad enough, of course; but his mother must have told him a good deal ”

“ He had been desperately ill; and he had come out of the illness with his mind sponged clean, as a child wipes a slate. There was this difference, though: the slate is no more susceptible after the wiping than if nothing had ever been written upon it; his mind became very susceptible. ”

“ He was even worse off, for in his case the spirits had taken his life and ripped it squarely across."
Talk is infectious. Let one man, in a silent company such as that, start it, and soon all the others are eager to follow his example. Craddock paused, communing a little too long with memory; the uneasy atmosphere of expectancy settled lower over them; then, abruptly, the artist began to speak, Jugrand watched him, curiously. ”