The Gates Between Part 12

Nothing that I could see interested me. Much or most that I took the trouble to observe, I should have been frankly obliged to admit that I did not understand.

The customs of the people bewildered me. Their evident happiness irritated me. Their activity produced in me only the desire to get out of sight of it. Their personal health and beauty--for they were a very comely people--gave me something the kind of nervous shrinking that I had so often witnessed in the sick, when some buoyant, inconsiderate, bubbling young creature burst into the room of pain. I felt in the presence of the universal blessedness about me like some hurt animal, who cares only to crawl in somewhere and be forgotten. If I drew near, as I had on several occasions done, to give some attention to the occupations of the inhabitants, all these feelings were accentuated so much that I was fain to withdraw before I had studied the subject.

Study there was in that country, and art and industry; even traffic, if traffic it might be called; it seemed to be an interchange of possessions, conducted upon principles of the purest consideration for the public, as opposed to personal welfare.

Homes there were, and the construction of them, and the happiest natural absorption in their arrangement and management. There were families and household devotion; parents, children, lovers, neighbours, friends. I saw schools and other resorts of learning, and what seemed to be inst.i.tutions of benevolence and places of worship, a series of familiar and yet wholly unfamiliar sights. In them all existed a spirit, even as the spirit of man exists in his earthly body, which was and willed and acted as that does, and which, like that, defied a.n.a.lysis. I could perceive at the hastiest glance that these people conducted themselves upon a set of motives entirely strange to me.

What they were doing--what they were doing it _for_--I simply did not know. A great central purpose controlled them, such as controls ma.s.ses of men in battle or at public prayer; a powerful and universal Law had hold of them; they treated it as if they loved it. They seemed to feel affectionately toward the whole system of things. They loved, and thought, and wrought straight onward with it; no one put the impediment of a criticism against it,--no one that I could see or suspect, in all the place, except my isolated self. They had the air of those engaged in some sweet and solemn object, common to them all; an object, evidently set above rather than upon the general level. Their faces shone with pleasure and with peace. Often they wore a high, devout look. They never showed an irritated expression, never an anxious nor that I could see a sad one. It was impossible to deny the marked n.o.bility of their appearance.

"If this," I thought, "be what is called a spiritual life, I was not ready to become a spirit."

Now, when my child awaited and called me, as he had begun, in the dear old days on earth, to learn to do, and like any live human baby proceeded to give vent to a series of incoherent remarks bearing upon the fact that Boy would like his supper, I was fain to perceive that being a spirit did not materially change the relation of a man to the plainer human duties; and that, whether personally agreeable or no, I must needs bring myself into some sort of connection with the civilization about me. I might be a homesick fellow, but the baby was hungry. I might be at odds with the whole scheme of things, but the child must have a shelter. I might be a spiritual outcast, but what was to become of Boy? The heart of the father arose in me; and, gathering the little fellow to my breast, I set forth quickly to the nearest town.

Here, after some hesitation, I accosted a stranger, whose appearance pleased me, and besought his a.s.sistance in my perplexity. He was a man of lofty bearing; his countenance was strong and benign as the western wind; he had a gentle smile, but eyes which piercingly regarded me. He was of superior beauty, and conducted himself as one having authority.

He was much occupied, and hastening upon some evidently important errand; but he stopped at once, and gave his attention to me with the hearty interest in others characteristic of the people.

"Are you a stranger in the country--but newly come to us?"

"A stranger, sir, but not newly arrived."

"And the child?"

"The child ran into my arms about an hour ago."

"Is the boy yours?"

"He is my only child."

"What do you desire for him?"

"I would fain provide for him those things which a father must desire.

I seek food and shelter. I wish a home, and means of subsistence, and neighbourhood, and the matters which are necessary to the care and comfort of an infant. Pray, counsel me. I do not understand the conditions of life in this remarkable place."

"I do not know that it is of consequence that I should," I added, less courteously, "but I cannot see the boy deprived. He must be made comfortable as speedily as possible. I shall be obliged to you for some suggestion in the matter."

"Come hither," replied the stranger, laconically. Forthwith, he led me, saying nothing further, and I followed, asking nothing more.

This embarra.s.sed me somewhat, and it was with some discomfort that I entered the house of entertainment to which I was directed, and asked for those things which were needful for my child. These were at once and lavishly provided. It soon proved that I had come to a luxurious and hospitable place. The people were most sympathetic in their manner. Boy especially excited the kindest of attention; some women fondled him, and all the inmates of the house interested themselves in the little motherless spirit.

In spite of myself this touched me, and my heart warmed toward my entertainers.

"Tell me," I said, turning toward him who had brought me thither, "how shall I make compensation for my entertainment? What is the custom of the country? I--what we used to call property--you will understand that I necessarily left behind me. I am accustomed to the use of it.

I hardly know what to do without it. I am accustomed to--some abundance. I wish to remunerate the people of this house."

"What _did_ you bring with you?" asked my new acquaintance, with a half-sorrowful look, as if he would have helped me out of an unpleasant position if he could.

"Nothing," I replied, after some thought, "nothing but my misery. That does not seem to be a marketable commodity in this happy place. I could spare some, if it were."

"What had you?" pursued my questioner, without noticing my ill-timed satire. "What were your possessions in the life yonder?"

"Health. Love. Happiness. Home. Prosperity. Work. Fame. Wealth.

Ambition." I numbered these things slowly and bitterly. "None of them did I bring with me. I have lost them all upon the way. They do not serve me in this differing civilization."

"Was there by chance nothing more?"

"Nothing more. Unless you count a little incidental usefulness."

"And that?" he queried eagerly.

I therefore explained to him that I had been a very busy doctor; that I used to think I took pleasure in relieving the misery of the sick, but that it seemed a mixed matter now, as I looked back upon it,--so much love of fame, love of power, love of love itself,--and that I did not put forth my life's work as of importance in his scale of value.

"That would not lessen its value," replied my friend. "I myself was a healer of the sick. Your case appeals to me. I was known as"--

He whispered a name which gave me a start of pleasure. It was a name famous in its day, and that a day long before my own; a name immortal in medical history. Few men in the world had done as much as this one to lessen the sum of human suffering. It excited me greatly to meet him.

"But you," I cried, "you were not like the rest of us or the most of us. _You_ believed in these--invisible things. You were a man of what is called faith. I have often thought of that. I never laid down a biography of you without wondering that a man of your intelligence should retain that superst.i.tious element of character. I ought to beg your pardon for the adjective. I speak as I have been in the habit of speaking."

"Do you wonder now?" asked the great surgeon, smiling benignly. I shook my head. I wondered at nothing now.

But I felt myself incapable of discussing a set of subjects upon which, for the first time in my life, I now knew myself to be really uninformed.

I took the pains to explain to my new friend that in matters of what he would call spiritual import I was, for aught I knew to the contrary, the most ignorant person in the community. I added that I supposed he would expect me to feel humiliated by this.

"Do you?" he asked, abruptly.

"It makes me uncomfortable," I replied, candidly. "I don't know that I can say more than that. I find it embarra.s.sing."

"That is straightforward," said the great physician. "There is at least no diseased casuistry about you. I do not regard the indications as unfavourable."

He said this with something of the professional manner; it amused me, and I smiled. "Take the case, Doctor, if you will," I humbly said. "I could not have happened on any person to whom I would have been so willing to intrust it."

"We will consider the question," he said gravely.

In this remarkable community, and under the guidance of this remarkable man, I now began a difficult and to me astonishing life. The first thing which happened was not calculated to soothe my personal feeling: this was no less than the discovery that I really had nothing wherewith to compensate the citizens who had provided for the comfort of my child and of myself; in short, that I was no more nor less than an object of charity at their hands. I writhed under this, as may be well imagined; and with more impatience than humility urged that I be permitted to perform some service which at least would bring me into relation with the commercial system of the country. I was silenced by being gently asked: What could I do?

"But have you no sick here?" I pleaded, "no hospitals or places of need? I am not without experience, I may say that I am even not without attainment, in my profession. Is there no use for it all, in this state of being which I have come to?"

"Sick we have," replied the surgeon, "and hospitals. I myself am much occupied in one of these. But the diseases that men bring here are not of the body. Our patients are chiefly from among the newly arrived, like yourself; they are those who are at odds with the spirit of the place; hence they suffer discomfort."

"They do not harmonize with the environment, I suppose," I interrupted eagerly. I was conscious of a wish to turn the great man's thought from a personal to a scientific direction. It occurred to me with dismay that I might be selected yet to become a patient under this extraordinary system of things. That would be horrible. I could think of nothing worse.

I proceeded to suggest that if anything could be found for me to do, in this superior art of healing, or if, indeed, I could study and perfect myself in it, I was more than willing to learn, or to perform.

"Canst thou heal a sick spirit?" inquired my friend, solemnly. "Canst thou administer holiness to a sinful soul?"

I bowed my head before him; for I had naught to say. Alas, what art had I, in that high science so far above me, that my earth-bound gaze had never reached unto it?

I was not like my friend, who seemed to have carried on the whole range of his great earthly attainments, by force of what I supposed would have to be called his spiritual education. Here in this world of spirits I was an unscientific, uninstructed fellow.

"Give me," I said brokenly, "but the lowliest chance to make an honourable provision for the comfort of my child in your community. I ask no more."