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