The Undiscovered Country. William Dean Howells
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light sound of hesitating steps made itself heard in the next room; the two men remained silent, and presently one of the partition doors was rolled back, and a tall young girl in a somewhat theatrical robe of white serge, with a pale green scarf on her shoulders, appeared at the threshold. Her beautiful, serious face had a pallid quiet, broken by what seemed the unnatural alertness of her blue eyes, which glanced quickly, like those of a child too early obliged to suspect and avert; her blonde hair, which had a plastic massiveness, was drawn smoothly back from her temples, and lay heaped in a heavy coil on her neck, where its rich abundance showed when she turned her profile away, as if to make sure that someone was following in the room behind her. A door opened and closed there, and she came on towards the two men, who had risen. At sight of the taller of the two she halted, while an elderly gentleman hurried forward, with a bustling graciousness, and offered him his small, short hand. He had the same fair complexion as the girl, but his face was bright and eager; his thin, light hair was wavy and lusterless; he looked hardly so tall as she. He had a mouth of delicacy and refinement, and a smile of infantine sweetness.
"Ah, you've really come," he said, shaking the young man's hand cordially. "So many people manifest an interest in our public seances, and then let the matter drop without going any further. I don't know whether I presented you to my daughter, the other day, Mr. Ford?"
Ford bowed gravely to the girl, who slightly returned his obeisance. "Let me introduce Mr. Phillips, Dr. Boynton, — a friend whom I ventured to bring with me."
"Very glad to see you, Mr. Phillips. I was about to say—Oh! my daughter, Mr. Phillips, Miss Egeria Boynton. Take seats, gentlemen—I was about to say that one of the most curious facts connected with the phenomena is the ardor with which people take the matter up on first acquaintance, and the entire indifference with which they let it drop. In our line of life, Mr. Phillips, as public exhibitors, we often have occasion to note this. It seldom happens but half a dozen persons come to me at the close of a seance, and ask earnestly for the privilege of pursuing their investigations with the aid of my daughter's mediumship. But these persons rarely call; I rarely see them at a second public seance, even. If I had not such abiding hopes of the phenomena myself, I should sometimes feel discouraged by the apathy and worse than apathy with which they are received, not the first, but the second time. You must excuse my expression of surprise at first greeting you, Mr. Ford,—you must indeed. It was but too natural under the circumstances."
"By all means," answered Ford. "I never thought of not coming. But I can't promise that you'll find me a ready believer."
"Precisely," returned the other. "That is the very mood in which I could have wished you to come. I am myself, as I think I told you, merely an inquirer. In fact"— Dr. Boynton leaned forward, with his small, plump hands extended, as if the more conveniently to round his periods, but arrested himself, in the explanation he was about to make, at something Mr. Phillips was saying to his daughter.
"I couldn't help being interested in the character of your parlor, before you came in, Miss Boynton. These old Boston houses all have so much character. It's surprising what good taste people had fifty or sixty years ago,—the taste of the First Empire. That cornice is very pretty,—very simple and very refined, neither glutted nor starved in design; and that mantel,—how refreshing those sane and decent straight lines are after the squirms and wriggles of subsequent marble! I don't know that I should have chosen urns for an ornament to the corners; but we must not forget that we are mortal; and there are cinerary associations with fireplaces."
Miss Boynton said nothing in return for this speech, the full sense of which had perhaps not quite reached her. She stared blankly at Phillips, to whom her father turned with his most winning smile. "An artist?" asked Dr. Boynton.
"A sufferer in the cause of art," returned Phillips with ironical pathos.
"Ah! A connoisseur," said the doctor.
"The fact is," said Phillips, "I was finding the modern equipment of your old-fashioned parlor intolerable, as you came in. You won't mind my not liking your landlady's taste, Miss Boynton?" he demanded with suave ingratiation.
Miss Boynton looked about the room, as if she had not seen it before. "It is ugly," she answered quietly. "But it does as well as any."
"Yes," her father eagerly interposed, "better than any other room in any other house in any other quarter of the city. We are still, as I may say, gentlemen, feeling our way towards what we believe a sublime truth. My daughter's development is yet so recent, so incomplete, that we must not reject any furthering influences, however humble, however disagreeable. It is not by our own preference that we are here. I know, as well as you do, that this is a street inhabited by fortune-tellers and charlatans of low degree. For that very reason I have taken our lodgings here. The element, the atmosphere, of simple, unquestioning faith brought into this vicinity by the dupes of these people is, unknown to them, of the highest use, the most vital advantage, to us in our present attempt. At the same time, I should not, I could not in candor, deny to these pretenders themselves a beneficial, a highly—I may call it—evolutionary, influence upon my daughter. We desire no personal acquaintance with them. But they are of the old tradition of supernaturalism, —a tradition as old as nature,—and we cannot afford to reject the favor of the tradition which they represent. You will understand that, gentlemen. We cannot say, We hold — or we trust we hold — communion with spirits, and yet deny that there is something in second-sight, divination, or whatever mysteries these people pretend to. In some sort, we must psychologically ally ourselves with them. They are, no doubt, for the most part and in most cases, shameless swindlers; hut it seems to be a condition of our success that we shall not deny—I don't say that we shall believe—the fact of an occult power in some of them. Their neighborhood was very repulsive at first, and still is measurably so; but we accept it, and have found it of advantage. We are mere experimenters, as yet, and claim nothing except that my daughter is the medium, the instrument, of certain phenomena which we can explain only in one way; we do not dispute the different explanations of others. In the course of our investigations, we neglect no theory, however slight, that may assist us. Now, in so simple a matter as dress, even: we have found by repeated experiment that the manifestations have a greater affinity for white than any other color. This may point to some hidden truth—I don't say —in the old-fashioned ghost-stories, where the specter always appears in white. At any rate, we think it worthwhile that my daughter should wear white, in both her public and her private seances, for the present. And green,—just now we seem to find a good effect in pale green, Mr. Phillips, pale green."
"If I may say it without impertinence to Miss Boynton's father, in my character of connoisseur," said Phillips, with a bow for the young girl, which he delivered to the doctor, "I think the effect is very good indeed."
"Ah! yes, yes!" cried the doctor. "In that sense. I see. Very good. However, I meant"— Dr. Boynton paused, bending on either visitor an exquisite smile of child-like triumph. A series of light taps, beginning with a sound like a straining of the wood, and then separating into a sharper staccato, was heard at different points in the room, chiefly on the table, and on the valves of the sliding doors. Phillips gave a little nervous start. Ford remained indifferent, but for the slow movement of his eyes in the direction of the young girl, who bent an appealing look on her father. The doctor lifted a hand to invoke attention; the raps died away. "Giorgione, I presume. Will you ask, Egeria?"
She hesitated. Then, in a somewhat tremulous voice, she demanded, "Is it you, Giorgione?" A light shower of raps instantly responded. A thrill of strong excitement visibly passed over the girl, who clutched one hand with the other, and seemed to stay herself by a strong effort of will in her place on the sofa.
"Calmly, my daughter, calmly!" said Dr. Boynton, making a certain restraining gesture towards her. "Yes, it is Giorgione. He can never keep away when color is mentioned. Very celebrated for his coloring, I am told, when alive. A Viennese painter, I believe, Mr. Phillips."
"Venetian," answered Phillips, abstractedly. He recalled himself, and added with a forced lightness, "But I don't know that I can advise you to trust the professions of our rapping and tapping friend; there are so few genuine Giorgiones." A brisk volley of taps discharged upon the wall directly behind Phillips's head caused him to turn abruptly and stare hard at the place.
"Oh,