§ 5
Sargon sat up in bed, motionless now except that his head turned slowly to look at the people about him, and silent. His recent outbreak had in some way assuaged the exasperation of that endless recitation. It continued, now crazily persuasive, now strident and vehement, now a mere babble of words, it flowed past him and over him; it was now manifestly directed at him, but he was able to disregard it. He sat up and looked at the people about him and contemplated the vast dreadful hours that plainly lay before him.
He did not look beyond the coming night. That alone he foresaw as an eternity.
He knew that this harsh, naked electric light which prized up his eyelids however tightly he closed them, would be glaring all night; he knew that because he had noted a glance that Higgs had directed at the violent man with red hair. Instantly he knew that Higgs was afraid of that red-haired man with the shining pink skin and would never dare to have the ward in darkness, never dare to have even shade in it, whatever the custom or the regulations might be. And also he understood why ever and again Higgs went out of the room at the upper end; he went out to assure himself of the presence of Jordan or some such other helper, within call. Yes, this light would certainly keep on all night and the poet seemed as likely to keep on, and there would be occasional outbreaks of table hammering and shouting from the red-haired man and from another man who uttered a sudden flat shout ever and again. And there would be misadventures of various sorts; noises and comings and goings. So he might just as well sit up and think as lie down and make hopeless attempts to slumber. One could always think. Of course if one was too tired one would cease thinking onward, one would just think round and round, but it would be impossible not to go on waking and thinking. There was no sleeping in this place. Eyes, ears, nose were all too much offended. Did anyone ever sleep here, mad or sane?
There was nothing for him to do, therefore, but to sit up and think, sit up and think, doze perhaps and think into a dream, until some unexpected jolt or jar brought him back to his thinking.
The longest night must end at last.
Then suddenly Sargon, between sleeping and waking, saw something horrible. At least it struck upon his nerves as horrible. Two beds away from him there lay an extremely emaciated young man and his head was lifted up. It was not supported by pillows; it was six inches above the pillow. It was held up in an attitude that it was painful to realize. The young man’s face expressed a serenely proud satisfaction at this fantastic rigidity. It was incredible. Was there such a thing as an invisible pillow? Or was this a delusion of Sargon’s eyes, a waking dream?
In the bed beyond another man was lying down with his wakeful face towards Sargon. His eyes met Sargon’s. Neither man said a word nor made a gesture, but to each came infinite comfort. For the eyes each encountered were as sane as his own and each gave support to the other. It is so, they said. It is strange, but your eyes are not deceiving you. That is the form of that young man’s affliction.
Sargon nodded. The other sane man nodded in reply and then turned over in his bed as a reassured child might do, to sleep. But could he sleep?
Sargon’s gaze went round the ward with a new discovery. Yes, several of these others might be sane—sane as he was—and caught like himself. There was another man across the corridor with a little beard, a very, very mournful man, but he also had sane eyes.
To-morrow Sargon must go and talk to these others and tell them about himself and discuss this dreadful situation, but not now because Higgs would certainly interfere. Many things had already conspired to annoy Higgs. It was plain he could be easily irritated and it would be well not to annoy him further. For the present one must just sit and think.
What were the mad and what did madness mean?
Why had he been lifted up by the Supreme Power, out of the common acts and imaginations of his daily life, to a knowledge of his immortal being, why had he been shown his endless destinies and a vision of the whole world as his sphere, merely to be cast out of life and light and freedom forthwith into this grey underworld of the demented? It could not be that this was for nothing. It must signify.
And then the wind of a second question blew across his mind. The Power that had called him and called him it would seem only to bring him into this place, had also brought all these others to this same dreadfulness. Why? For him it might be a trial but what was it for these others, whose souls had indeed dissolved and gone? What was the Power doing with them?
The whole scheme of things in Sargon’s mind began to shudder and dissolve. If the Power had not done this, then it must be the Anti-Power had done it. There must be an Anti-Power as strong almost as the Power then, able to snatch men out of life into confusion, indignity, and death for ever. Or else—there was Nothing!
He sat quite still with his chin on his knuckles and eyes staring blankly at the last black possibility.
Was the whole of this call and this mission of his a deception and a delusion? Had he been cheated at Tunbridge Wells when the call first came to him to arise and awake? Were those memories of Sumeria no more than dreams? Was he indeed just Albert Edward Preemby—gone crazy? In a crazy, pointless universe of commonplace inanities? If so he was indeed the most foolish of living men. He had left his comfort and securities, sound though insignificant; he had run away from his dear Christina Alberta—to obey a Power that was nothing more than his own imagination and to follow a phantom end. For days he had been shutting Christina Alberta out of his thoughts; she was a sceptic, an ally of the Anti-Power. Now she came back, over-valiant and rash, but just a girl. He had left her to shift for herself, left her beyond reach of his reproofs and cautions. What was she doing? What evil and danger might not be overtaking her even now? It had not occurred to him before that his disappearance might distress and endanger her. Now he saw plainly that it must have done so.
The enemy came and argued frankly with him. “You have been a fool, Albert Edward Preemby,” said the enemy. “You have got yourself into a position of great danger and discomfort, you have deserted your own proper life for a horror of nothingness. Go back. Go back while there is still a chance of going back.”
But could he go back?
Yes. That could be done. So easily! He could say plainly that now he remembered his proper name. He could ask to see the doctor or the director or whoever it was presided over Jordan and Higgs and their colleagues; he could give his name and the address of the studio and his bankers’ address and the address of the laundry and so forth, speaking very plainly and quietly, he could admit that he had behaved strangely but that the fit was over, and so he would pass out of these grim shadows back into the world. It would rejoice the heart of Christina Alberta....
He thought of that alert, kind, slightly antagonistic figure. If only he could see it now! Coming down the long ward to him, to rescue, to release....
Then he would be just Preemby again for the rest of his days, comfortably Preemby, Preemby the bystander, Preemby the onlooker, the ineffective, speechless man in the background of the noisy studio. But certain things would be at an end. He would never go to any museums again or browse in the dark shadows of book-shops over dusty forgotten books about vanished cities and enigmatical symbols. He would think no more of the wonder and mystery of Atlantis and of the measurements of the Pyramids and of all the high riddles of the past and the future. There would be no more wonder in his life at all, for he had sought to enter into wonder and had found it delusion. Those things would be old tales and fancies of things that would never arrive. Past and future would be dead for him. The days would be dull and empty as they had never been before. The bladder of his life would be pricked....
And the other way lay pain, indignity, rough treatment, vile food, filthy circumstances, trials that might break him—but with the Power still beckoning.
He thought of the things that belonged to Sargon; of the Power, of cities that were like great single persons, of the Whole World, of the mystical promise of the stars, of all these things he must renounce now and be Preemby, Preemby plain and sensible, to the end of his days, if he would go out of this place. He sat at it seemed to him for an immense time, still and brooding, though his answer was already definite in his mind. And at last he spoke. “No,” he said in a hoarse voice that was almost a shout. “I am Sargon, Sargon the servant of God—and the Whole World is mine!”