Olaf Stapledon - Odd John

Here McWhist paused in his narrative, looking both distressed and awkward. He sucked violently at his pipe. At last he proceeded.

“Obviously we couldn’t leave the kid like that, so I asked cautiously if we could do anything for him. He did not answer. I crept in again, and squatted beside him, waiting. As gently as I could I put a hand on his knee. He gave a start and a shudder, looked at me with a frown, as if trying to get things straight in his mind, made a quick movement for the stiletto, checked himself, and finally broke into a wry boyish grin, remarking, ‘Oh, come in, please. Don’t knock, it’s a shop.’ He added, ‘Can’t you blighters leave a fellow alone?’ I said we had come upon him quite by accident, but of course we couldn’t help being puzzled about him. I said we’d been very struck with his climbing, the other day. I said it seemed a pity for him to be stuck up here alone. Wouldn’t he come along with us? He shook his head, smiling, and said he was quite all right there. He was just having a bit of a rough holiday, and thinking about things. At first it had been difficult feeding himself, but now he’d got the technique, and there was plenty of time for the thinking. Then he laughed. A sudden sharp crackle it was that made my scalp tingle.”

Here Norton broke in and said, “I had crawled into the cave by then, and I was terribly struck by the gaunt condition he was in. There wasn’t a bit of fat on him anywhere. His muscles looked like skeins of cord under his skin. He was covered with scars and bruises. But the most disturbing thing was the look on his face, a look that I have only seen on some one that had just come out of the anaesthetic after a bad op.—sort of purified. Poor kid, he’d evidently been through it all right, but through what?”

“At first,” said McWhist, “we thought he was mad. But now I’m ready to swear he wasn’t. He was possessed. Something that we don’t know anything about had got him, something good or bad, I don’t know which. The whole business gave me the creeps, what with the noise of the storm outside, and the dim firelight, and the smoke that kept blowing back on us down the sort of chimney he’d made for it. We were a bit light-headed with lack of food, too. He offered us the rest of his bird, by the way, and some bilberries, but of course we didn’t want to run him short. We asked if there wasn’t anything we could do for him, and he answered, yes, there was, we could make a special point of not telling anyone about him. I said, couldn’t we take a message to his people. He grew very serious and emphatic, and said, ‘No, don’t tell a soul, not a soul. Forget. If the papers get on to my tracks,’ he said very slowly and coldly, ‘I shall just have to kill myself.’ This put us in a hole. We felt we really ought to do something and yet somehow we felt we must promise.”

McWhist paused, then said crossly, “And we did promise. And then we cleared out, and floundered about in the dark till we reached our tent. We roped to get down the rock, and the lad went in front, unroped, to show us the way.” He paused again, then added, “The other day when I happened to hear from Brinston about your lost lad, I broke my promise. And now I’m feeling damned bad about it.”

I laughed, and said, “Well, no harm’s done. I shan’t tell the Press.”

Norton spoke again. “It’s not as simple as that. There’s something McWhist hasn’t told you yet. Go on, Mac.”

“Tell him yourself,” said McWhist, “I’d rather not.”

There was a pause, then Norton laughed awkwardly, and said, “Well, when one tries to describe it in cold blood over a cup of coffee, it just sounds crazy. But damn it, if the thing didn’t happen, something mighty queer must have happened to us , for we both saw it, as clearly as you see us now.”

He paused. McWhist rose from his arm-chair and began examining the rows of books on shelves behind us.

Norton proceeded: “The lad said something about making us realize we’d come up against something big that we couldn’t understand, said he’d give us something to remember, and help us to keep the secret. His voice had changed oddly. It was very low and quiet and composed. He stretched his skinny arm up to the roof, saying, ‘This slab must weigh fifty tons. Above it there’s just blizzard. You can see the raindrops in the doorway there.’ He pointed to the cave entrance. ‘What of it?’ he said in a cold proud voice. ‘Let us see the stars.’ Then, my God, you won’t believe it, of course, but the boy lifted that blasted rock upon his finger-tips like a trap door. A terrific gust of wind and sleet entered, but immediately died away. As he lifted he rose to his feet. Overhead was a windless, clear, starry sky. The smoke of the fire rose as a wavering column, illuminated at the base, and spreading dimly far above us, where it blotted out a few stars with a trail of darkness. He pushed the rock back till it was upright, then leaned lightly against it with one arm, crooking the other on his hip. ‘There!’ he said, In the starlight and firelight I could see his face as he gazed upwards. Transfigured, I should call it, bright, keen, peaceful.

“He stayed still for perhaps half a minute, and silent; then, looking down at us, he smiled, and said, ‘Don’t forget. We have looked at the stars together.’ Then he gently lowered the rock into position again, and said, ‘I think you had better go now. I’ll take you down the first pitch. It’s difficult by night.’ As we were both pretty well paralysed with bewilderment we made no immediate sign of quitting. He laughed, gently, reassuringly, and said something that has haunted me ever since. (I don’t know about McWhist.) He said, ‘It was a childish miracle. But I am still a child. While the spirit is in the agony of outgrowing its childishness, it may solace itself now and then by returning to its playthings, knowing well that they are trivial.’ By now we were creeping out of the cave, and into the blizzard.”

There was a silence. Presently McWhist faced us again, and glared rather wildly at Norton. “We were given a great sign,” he said, “and we have been unfaithful.”

I tried to calm him by saying, “Unfaithful in the letter, perhaps, but not in the spirit. I’m pretty sure John wouldn’t mind my knowing. And as to the miracle, I wouldn’t worry about that,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. “He probably hypnotized you both in some odd sort of way. He’s a weird kid.”

Toward the end of the summer Pax received a post card, saying “Home late to-morrow. Hot bath, please. John.”

On the first opportunity I had a long talk with John about his holiday. It was a surprise to me to find that he was ready to talk with perfect frankness, and that he had apparently quite got over the phase of uncommunicative misery which had caused us so much anxiety before his flight from home. I doubt if I really understood what he told me, and I am sure there was a good deal that he didn’t tell me because he knew I wouldn’t understand. I had a sense that he was all the while trying to translate his actual thoughts into language intelligible to me, and that the translation seemed to him very crude. I can give only so much of his statement as I understood.

JOHN said that when he had begun to realize the tragic futility of Homo sapiens he was seized with “a panicky sense of doom.” and along with that “a passion of loneliness.” He felt more lonely in the presence of others than in isolation. At the same time, apparently, something strange was happening to his own mind. At first he thought perhaps he was going mad, but clung to the faith that he was after all merely growing up. Anyhow he was convinced that he must cut right adrift and face this upheaval in himself undisturbed, It was as though a grub were to feel premonitions of dissolution and regeneration, and to set purposefully about protecting itself with a cocoon.