Conrad Aiken: The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

Later in the evening—at what hour he didn’t know—he was telling Miss Dean about it, as he had intended to do. They were sitting in deck chairs on the sheltered side. The sea was black, and there was a cold wind. He wished they had chosen to sit in the lounge.

Miss Dean was extremely pretty—no, beautiful. She looked at him, too, in a very strange and lovely way, with something of inquiry, something of sympathy, something of affection. It seemed as if, between the question and the answer, they had sat thus for a very long time, exchanging an unspoken secret, simply looking at each other quietly and kindly. Had an hour or two passed? And was it at all necessary to speak?

“No,” she said, “I never have.”

She breathed into the low words a note of interrogation and gave him a slow smile.

“That’s the funny part of it. I never had either until last night. Never in my life. I hardly ever even dream. And it really rather frightens me.”

“Tell me about it, Mr. Arcularis.”

“I dreamed at first that I was walking, alone, in a wide plain covered with snow. It was growing dark, I was very cold, my feet were frozen and numb, and I was lost. I came then to a signpost—at first it seemed to me there was nothing on it. Nothing but ice. Just before it grew finally dark, however, I made out on it the one word ‘Polaris.’”

“The Pole Star.”

“Yes—and you see, I didn’t myself know that. I looked it up only this morning. I suppose I must have seen it somewhere? And of course it rhymes with my name.”

“Why, so it does!”

“Anyway, it gave me—in the dream—an awful feeling of despair, and the dream changed. This time, I dreamed I was standing outside my stateroom in the little dark corridor, or cul-de-sac , and trying to find the door-handle to let myself in. I was in my pajamas, and again I was very cold. And at this point I woke up.… The extraordinary thing is that’s exactly where I was!”

“Good heavens. How strange!”

“Yes. And now the question is, Where had I been? I was frightened, when I came to—not unnaturally. For among other things I did have, quite definitely, the feeling that I had been somewhere. Somewhere where it was very cold. It doesn’t sound very proper. Suppose I had been seen!”

“That might have been awkward,” said Miss Dean.

“Awkward! It might indeed. It’s very singular. I’ve never done such a thing before. It’s this sort of thing that reminds one—rather wholesomely, perhaps, don’t you think?”—and Mr. Arcularis gave a nervous little laugh—“how extraordinarily little we know about the workings of our own minds or souls. After all, what do we know?”

“Nothing—nothing—nothing—nothing,” said Miss Dean slowly.

“ Absolutely nothing.”

Their voices had dropped, and again they were silent; and again they looked at each other gently and sympathetically, as if for the exchange of something unspoken and perhaps unspeakable. Time ceased. The orbit—so it seemed to Mr. Arcularis—once more became pure, became absolute. And once more he found himself wondering who it was that Miss Dean—Clarice Dean—reminded him of. Long ago and far away. Like those pictures of the islands and mountains. The little freckle-faced girl at the hospital was merely, as it were, the stepping stone, the signpost, or, as in algebra, the “equals” sign. But what was it they both “equaled”? The jackstones came again into his mind and his Aunt Julia’s rose garden—at sunset; but this was ridiculous. It couldn’t be simply that they reminded him of his childhood! And yet why not?

They went into the lounge. The ship’s orchestra, in the oval-shaped balcony among faded palms, was playing the finale of “Cavalleria Rusticana,” playing it badly.

“Good God!” said Mr. Arcularis, “can’t I ever escape from that damned sentimental tune? It’s the last thing I heard in America, and the last thing I want to hear.”

“But don’t you like it?”

“As music? No! It moves me too much, but in the wrong way.”

“What, exactly, do you mean?”

“Exactly? Nothing. When I heard it at the hospital—when was it?—it made me feel like crying. Three old Italians tootling it in the rain. I suppose, like most people, I’m afraid of my feelings.”

“Are they so dangerous?”

“Now then, young woman! Are you pulling my leg?”

The stewards had rolled away the carpets, and the passengers were beginning to dance. Miss Dean accepted the invitation of a young officer, and Mr. Arcularis watched them with envy. Odd, that last exchange of remarks—very odd; in fact, everything was odd. Was it possible that they were falling in love? Was that what it was all about—all these concealed references and recollections? He had read of such things. But at his age! And with a girl of twenty-two! It was ridiculous.

After an amused look at his old friend Polaris from the open door on the sheltered side, he went to bed.

The rhythm of the ship’s engines was positively a persecution. It gave one no rest, it followed one like the Hound of Heaven, it drove on, out into space and across the Milky Way and then back home by way of Betelgeuse. It was cold there, too. Mr. Arcularis, making the round trip by way of Betelgeuse and Polaris, sparkled with frost. He felt like a Christmas tree. Icicles on his fingers and icicles on his toes. He tinkled and spangled in the void, hallooed to the waste echoes, rounded the buoy on the verge of the Unknown, and tacked glitteringly homeward. The wind whistled. He was barefooted. Snowflakes and tinsel blew past him. Next time, by George, he would go farther still—for altogether it was rather a lark. Forward into the untrodden! as somebody said. Some intrepid explorer of his own backyard, probably, some middle-aged professor with an umbrella: those were the fellows for courage! But give us time, thought Mr. Arcularis, give us time, and we will bring back with us the nightrime of the Obsolute. Or was it Absolete? If only there weren’t this perpetual throbbing, this iteration of sound, like a pain, these circles and repetitions of light—the feeling as of everything coiling inward to a center of misery.…

Suddenly it was dark, and he was lost. He was groping, he touched the cold, white, slippery woodwork with his fingernails, looking for an electric switch. The throbbing, of course, was the throbbing of the ship. But he was almost home—almost home. Another corner to round, a door to be opened, and there he would be. Safe and sound. Safe in his father’s home.

It was at this point that he woke up: in the corridor that led to the dining saloon. Such pure terror, such horror, seized him as he had never known. His heart felt as if it would stop beating. His back was toward the dining saloon; apparently he had just come from it. He was in his pajamas. The corridor was dim, all but two lights having been turned out for the night, and—thank God!—deserted. Not a soul, not a sound. He was perhaps fifty yards from his room. With luck he could get to it unseen. Holding tremulously to the rail that ran along the wall, a brown, greasy rail, he began to creep his way forward. He felt very weak, very dizzy, and his thoughts refused to concentrate. Vaguely he remembered Miss Dean—Clarice—and the freckled girl, as if they were one and the same person. But he wasn’t in the hospital, he was on the ship. Of course. How absurd. The Great Circle. Here we are, old fellow … steady round the corner … hold hard to your umbrella.…

In his room, with the door safely shut behind him, Mr. Arcularis broke into a cold sweat. He had no sooner got into his bunk, shivering, than he heard the night watchman pass.

“But where”—he thought, closing his eyes in agony—“have I been?…”