THE COMPLETE JOHN SILENCE CASES. Algernon Blackwood

Читать онлайн книгу.

THE COMPLETE JOHN SILENCE CASES - Algernon  Blackwood


Скачать книгу
you knew anything of magic," he pursued, "you would know that thought is dynamic, and that it may call into existence forms and pictures that may well exist for hundreds of years. For, not far removed from the region of our human life is another region where float the waste and drift of all the centuries, the limbo of the shells of the dead; a densely populated region crammed with horror and abomination of all descriptions, and sometimes galvanised into active life again by the will of a trained manipulator, a mind versed in the practices of lower magic. That this woman understood its vile commerce, I am persuaded, and the forces she set going during her life have simply been accumulating ever since, and would have continued to do so had they not been drawn down upon yourself, and afterwards discharged and satisfied through me.

      "Anything might have brought down the attack, for, besides drugs, there are certain violent emotions, certain moods of the soul, certain spiritual fevers, if I may so call them, which directly open the inner being to a cognisance of this astral region I have mentioned. In your case it happened to be a peculiarly potent drug that did it.

      "But now, tell me," he added, after a pause, handing to the perplexed author a pencil drawing he had made of the dark countenance that had appeared to him during the night on Putney Hill—"tell me if you recognise this face?"

      Pender looked at the drawing closely, greatly astonished. He shuddered a little as he looked.

      "Undoubtedly," he said, "it is the face I kept trying to draw—dark, with the great mouth and jaw, and the drooping eye. That is the woman."

      Dr. Silence then produced from his pocket-book an old-fashioned woodcut of the same person which his secretary had unearthed from the records of the Newgate Calendar. The woodcut and the pencil drawing were two different aspects of the same dreadful visage. The men compared them for some moments in silence.

      "It makes me thank God for the limitations of our senses," said Pender quietly, with a sigh; "continuous clairvoyance must be a sore affliction."

      "It is indeed," returned John Silence significantly, "and if all the people nowadays who claim to be clairvoyant were really so, the statistics of suicide and lunacy would be considerably higher than they are. It is little wonder," he added, "that your sense of humour was clouded, with the mind-forces of that dead monster trying to use your brain for their dissemination. You have had an interesting adventure, Mr. Felix Pender, and, let me add, a fortunate escape."

      The author was about to renew his thanks when there came a sound of scratching at the door, and the doctor sprang up quickly.

      "It's time for me to go. I left my dog on the step, but I suppose—"

      Before he had time to open the door, it had yielded to the pressure behind it and flew wide open to admit a great yellow-haired collie. The dog, wagging his tail and contorting his whole body with delight, tore across the floor and tried to leap up upon his owner's breast. And there was laughter and happiness in the old eyes; for they were clear again as the day.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wBDAAMCAgMCAgMDAwMEAwMEBQgFBQQEBQoHBwYIDAoMDAsK CwsNDhIQDQ4RDgsLEBYQERMUFRUVDA8XGBYUGBIUFRT/2wBDAQMEBAUEBQkFBQkUDQsNFBQUFBQU FBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBT/wAARCAeoBXgDAREA AhEBAxEB/8QAHQAAAwEAAwEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAECAwYHCAkFBP/EAHIQAAEDAgMGAwQEBAoQEA0B CQEAAhEDIRIxQQQFBiJRYQcTcQgygZEUQqGxFSOzwRYXGDNSYnWy0tMkJSY2N3JzdIKDkqK00eHj CSdDRVNUVVZjk5SVo6XCwyg0NURGZGV2hIWW8PE4ZoakGUdXZ+LE/8QAHAEBAQEAAwEBAQAAAAAA AAAAAAECAwUGBAcI/8QAShEBAAIABAMEBAgKCQQDAQEBAAERAgMhMQRBUQUSYXEGEzKxIjVygZGh wdEUFRYzNFJTkuHwIyVCYnOCorLSJENk8VRjwkT

Скачать книгу