Conrad Aiken - The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

“That’s of course taken for granted—isn’t it?” he went on. And then added, for all the world as if the words were not so much his own as somehow given him, “What I mean is—isn’t it sufficient guarantee of our mutual trust—or sympathy, at all events—that so far, for all the singularity of our intercourse, we so easily and with so little error, follow one another?” He was pleased with himself at this, and showed it by smiling a little more lightly than before, and also by relaxing slightly in his chair.

And the shopkeeper, too, was pleased. He again, in that curious way which Dace had noticed downstairs in the shop, seemed before his very eyes in the act of changing; it was as if he became more significant, as if all his colors became brighter and richer, as if a secret low light within had somehow been sharply turned up. The wrinkled lids lifted a little, and the face became luminous with words of which Dace felt that he could almost, in advance, see the shape.

“Ah,” came the pleased murmur. “Exactly. That’s a good deal better, isn’t it? We begin to know where we are. And isn’t it important that you should agree with me, since you use the word ‘follow,’ that I follow you quite as successfully as you follow me ? I don’t mean to urge or press you—no—no. But that, I think, if you will permit my saying so, is—er—a point—”

“Of cardinal importance? Yes—I believe it is. You mean—”

“I mean that, in all the experience we are sharing, or are about to share, you are contributing—quite without any assistance from me—as much as I. Or, to put it in another way, that you have been as free to accept as complete my identification as I have been to accept or reject yours. The responsibility is divided.”

“Responsibility?”

The Jew’s face clouded.

“Perhaps that’s not the best word,” he explained a little painfully. “There’s of course no serious question of responsibility. Responsibility for what?” He laughed. “No. We can put that aside.… Though it might be as well, afterwards, to know that it had been said.”

It was clear to Dace the Jew meant, by responsibility, responsibility for their mutual delusion. And surely there could be no harm in appearing to admit a share in the creation of it?

“Well—I’m quite ready to grant it, if you are—why not?”

Dace’s friendly, and perhaps slightly paternal, grin was met by one as friendly. They remained so for a moment, smiling, smiling as over the exchange of something secret and precious. Then, firmly, Dace continued—

“But we’ve got rather far away, haven’t we, from the set of the Twelve Disciples. What about that?”

“Ah, my dear fellow! Are you so determined to make a joke of it?”

“A joke? Why no.”

“But surely you realize that it’s just that that we’ve been , all this time, talking about!”

“Oh! Oh! I see.”

“But my dear chap— do you see?…”

The shopkeeper’s voice, on this, had become rather surprisingly loud and agitated. “ Do you see!… Or have I been, after all, so hideously mistaken?”

“But how could you have been?”

“Ah, yes—how could I have been? It’s ridiculous.… Tell me”—he went on slowly, as if he were feeling his way with the greatest of care. “When you think of this set, when you light it sharply for yourself—do you feel toward it, in any way, any sort of—impulse?”

Dace was startled. Impulse? Of course, he did. But was it wise, after all, to admit it? What was this singular shopkeeper up to?… The rapidity of events had confused him. But it was necessary, after all—it was even imperative—that in this other-world darkness some sort of outline should be made out, some purpose or design should be guessed. Certainly, it did not seem an extravagance to suppose that the Jew was mad; nor was it in any way an extravagance to perceive, as he was almost sure he perceived, a slow, methodical, careful effort on the Jew’s part, to weave strongly the illusion, and to weave into it, as a vital part of it, both himself, and, what was more important, Dace. More obscure was the question whether the Jew was conscious of doing this. When he had so emphatically caviled over the point of their divided, their cooperative responsibility for the delusion—if it was a delusion—it had certainly appeared that he was, even if mad, aware of what he was doing. He had seemed quite consciously fearful lest Dace should suspect something. This odd something which he had so zealously guarded—was it, at bottom, nothing but a dim kind of hypnosis? But, if so, what was it for?… Dace looked hard into this tangle. It had no beginning and no end, and there was no point at which he might, with any clearness of view, start to unravel it. Most disquieting of all was his inability to distinguish, in his own mind, that part of this growing, glimmering, mutual delusion which might, quite genuinely, and quite, as the Jew had said, “without any assistance,” be his own strange contribution. But was any of it his own?… To admit that was to admit either one of two possibilities, neither of them comforting. It was to admit either that he himself was on the border of a kind of madness, or else that he had suddenly, with a catastrophic crash, gone through some queer crust of the world into a dimension which he had not hitherto known to exist, but which was none the less grotesquely real. But surely this was absurd! The man must be mad. Mad, but with a madness of which some intrinsic and secret element was an extraordinary power to exert an influence. Could it be also that he, Dace, by some psychological freak, was in exactly the right state of mind to be easily influenced? Was he responsible?… His misgiving, however, was only momentary, and, hearing again, in that still, strange room, the ethereal far ringing of the half-hour bells of the church tower, in the world he had left outside, and in a sense so far behind, his feeling of adventure was once more deepened and renewed. Strange, strange, he said to himself, and found himself, for no reason, staring at his hands, which he had lifted. Old hands; old and scarred. He stared at them, hard, as if he desired to look into them, to discover there some curious and embedded revelation. It embarrassed him, presently, to find that the Jew was watching this action intently, and had lifted his own hands into the same position. His answer was thus, in a manner, startled out of him. Was the Jew, then, in the very act of hypnotizing him?…

“Impulse?” he said. “I thought I had told you. Yes—I have an impulse, a curious and very strong one. I think it must have been because of that impulse that I’ve just found myself, as you seem to have observed”—he laughed—“staring so idiotically at my old hands.… Each time that I have clearly visualized this set of chessmen, with its kings, and its fallen Judas, I have half-surrendered to the most unaccountable impulse to right the fallen piece. And each time, on coming to my senses, I’ve found myself pressing, very hard, against—well, the showcase downstairs, the taboret, here. That, I suppose, is what you mean?”

The Jew nodded.

“Exactly. And now—But first let me repeat that you are—how shall I put it—mentally quite free in this matter—isn’t that true?”

“But, of course—how could it not be?” Dace, saying this, felt a little disingenuous.

“Well. The interesting question then is—do you see any reason for this impulse?… Don’t let me hurry you—take your time. Try, if you like, lighting the board for yourself once more. Observe, if you can, when you feel this impulse, whether it is connected with any profound feeling of identification —or shall we say, rather, sympathy.… Perhaps I embarrass you. I’ll turn my back.”