第 10 节
作者:冬儿      更新:2024-04-07 11:52      字数:9321
  〃Yes; sir;〃 said Dave; and absolute conviction vibrated in his voice。
  He opened the door and passed out。 The secretary looked at him
  interrogatively。
  〃Gosh!〃 was all Dave vouchsafed; and with this utterance passed
  out of the offices and the story。
  III
  James G。 Ward was forty years of age; a successful business
  man; and very unhappy。 For forty years he had vainly tried to
  solve a problem that was really himself and that with
  increasing years became more and more a woeful affliction。 In
  himself he was two men; and; chronologically speaking; these
  men were several thousand years or so apart。 He had studied the
  question of dual personality probably more profoundly than any
  half dozen of the leading specialists in that intricate and
  mysterious psychological field。 In himself he was a different
  case from any that had been recorded。 Even the most fanciful
  flights of the fiction…writers had not quite hit upon him。 He
  was not a Dr。 Jekyll and Mr。 Hyde; nor was he like the
  unfortunate young man in Kipling's 〃Greatest Story in the
  World。〃 His two personalities were so mixed that they were
  practically aware of themselves and of each other all the time。
  His other self he had located as a savage and a barbarian
  living under the primitive conditions of several thousand years
  before。 But which self was he; and which was the other; he
  could never tell。 For he was both selves; and both selves all
  the time。 Very rarely indeed did it happen that one self did
  not know what the other was doing。 Another thing was that he
  had no visions nor memories of the past in which that early
  self had lived。 That early self lived in the present; but while
  it lived in the present; it was under the compulsion to live
  the way of life that must have been in that distant past。
  In his childhood he had been a problem to his father and
  mother; and to the family doctors; though never had they come
  within a thousand miles of hitting upon the clue to his
  erratic; conduct。 Thus; they could not understand his excessive
  somnolence in the forenoon; nor his excessive activity at
  night。 When they found him wandering along the hallways at
  night; or climbing over giddy roofs; or running in the hills;
  they decided he was a somnambulist。 In reality he was wide…eyed
  awake and merely under the nightroaming compulsion of his early
  self。 Questioned by an obtuse medico; he once told the truth
  and suffered the ignominy of having the revelation
  contemptuously labeled and dismissed as 〃dreams。〃
  The point was; that as twilight and evening came on he became
  wakeful。 The four walls of a room were an irk and a restraint。
  He heard a thousand voices whispering to him through the
  darkness。 The night called to him; for he was; for that period
  of the twenty…four hours; essentially a night…prowler。 But
  nobody understood; and never again did he attempt to explain。
  They classified him as a sleep…walker and took precautions
  accordinglyprecautions that very often were futile。 As his
  childhood advanced; he grew more cunning; so that the major
  portion of all his nights were spent in the open at realizing
  his other self。 As a result; he slept in the forenoons。 Morning
  studies and schools were impossible; and it was discovered that
  only in the afternoons; under private teachers; could he be
  taught anything。 Thus was his modern self educated and
  developed。
  But a problem; as a child; he ever remained。 He was known as a
  little demon; of insensate cruelty and viciousness。 The family
  medicos privately adjudged him a mental monstrosity and
  degenerate。 Such few boy companions as he had; hailed him as a
  wonder; though they were all afraid of him。 He could outclimb;
  outswim; outrun; outdevil any of them; while none dared fight
  with him。 He was too terribly strong; madly furious。
  When nine years of age he ran away to the hills; where he
  flourished; night…prowling; for seven weeks before he was
  discovered and brought home。 The marvel was how he had managed
  to subsist and keep in condition during that time。 They did not
  know; and he never told them; of the rabbits he had killed; of
  the quail; young and old; he had captured and devoured; of the
  farmers' chicken…roosts he had raided; nor of the cave…lair he
  had made and carpeted with dry leaves and grasses and in which
  he had slept in warmth and comfort through the forenoons of
  many days。
  At college he was notorious for his sleepiness and stupidity
  during the morning lectures and for his brilliance in the
  afternoon。 By collateral reading and by borrowing the notebook
  of his fellow students he managed to scrape through the
  detestable morning courses; while his afternoon courses were
  triumphs。 In football he proved a giant and a terror; and; in
  almost every form of track athletics; save for strange
  Berserker rages that were sometimes displayed; he could be
  depended upon to win。 But his fellows were afraid to box with
  him; and he signalized his last wrestling bout by sinking his
  teeth into the shoulder of his opponent。
  After college; his father; in despair; sent him among the
  cow…punchers of a Wyoming ranch。 Three months later the doughty
  cowmen confessed he was too much for them and telegraphed his
  father to come and take the wild man away。 Also; when the
  father arrived to take him away; the cowmen allowed that they
  would vastly prefer chumming with howling cannibals; gibbering
  lunatics; cavorting gorillas; grizzly bears; and man…eating
  tigers than with this particular Young college product with
  hair parted in the middle。
  There was one exception to the lack of memory of the life of
  his early self; and that was language。 By some quirk of
  atavism; a certain portion of that early self's language had
  come down to him as a racial memory。 In moments of happiness;
  exaltation; or battle; he was prone to burst out in wild
  barbaric songs or chants。 It was by this means that he located
  in time and space that strayed half of him who should have been
  dead and dust for thousands of years。 He sang; once; and
  deliberately; several of the ancient chants in the presence of
  Professor Wertz; who gave courses in old Saxon and who was a
  philogist of repute and passion。 At the first one; the
  professor pricked up his ears and demanded to know what mongrel
  tongue or hog…German it was。 When the second chant was
  rendered; the professor was highly excited。 James Ward then
  concluded the performance by giving a song that always
  irresistibly rushed to his lips when he was engaged in fierce
  struggling or fighting。 Then it was that Professor Wertz
  proclaimed it no hog…German; but early German; or early Teuton;
  of a date that must far precede anything that had ever been
  discovered and handed down by the scholars。 So early was it
  that it was beyond him; yet it was filled with haunting
  reminiscences of word…forms he knew and which his trained
  intuition told him were true and real。 He demanded the source
  of the songs; and asked to borrow the precious book that
  contained them。 Also; he demanded to know why young Ward had
  always posed as being profoundly ignorant of the German
  language。 And Ward could neither explain his ignorance nor lend
  the book。 Whereupon; after pleadings and entreaties that
  extended through weeks; Professor Wert took a dislike to the
  young man; believed him a liar; and classified him as a man of
  monstrous selfishness for not giving him a glimpse of this
  wonderful screed that was older than the oldest any philologist
  had ever known or dreamed。
  But little good did it do this much…mixed young man to know
  that half of him was late American and the other half early
  Teuton。 Nevertheless; the late American in him was no weakling;
  and he (if he were a he and had a shred of existence outside of
  these two) compelled an adjustment or compromise between his
  one self that was a nightprowling savage that kept his other
  self sleepy of mornings; and that other self that was cultured
  and refined and that wanted to be normal and live and love and
  prosecute business like other people。 The afternoons and early
  evenings he gave to the one; the nights to the other; the
  forenoons and parts of the nights were devoted to sleep for the
  twain。 But in the mornings he slept in bed like a civilized
  man。 In the night time he slept like a wild animal; as he had
  slept Dave Slotter stepped on him in the woods。
  Persuading his father to advance the capital; he went into
  business and keen and successful business he made of it;
  devoting his afternoons whole…souled to it; while his partner
  devoted the mornings。 The early evenings he spent socially;
  but; as the hour grew to nine or ten; an irresistible
  restlessness overcame him and he disappeared from the haunts of
  men until the next afternoon。 Friends and acquaintances thought
  that he spent much of his time in sport。 And they were right;
  though they never would have dreamed of the nature