Читать книгу True Tales of the Weird - Dickinson Sidney - Страница 4

This story, as well as the one that immediately follows it, was first related to the late Wilkie Collins, the noted English novelist, with whom I had the good fortune to be acquainted – and who, as all his intimates know, and as those whose knowledge of him is derived from his romances may surmise, was an earnest and careful student of occult phenomena. I placed in his hands all the concurrent data which I could secure, and furnished the names of witnesses to the incidents – which names are now in possession of the publishers of this volume – equipped with which he carried out a thorough personal investigation. The result of this investigation he made known to me, one pleasant spring afternoon, in his study in London.

"During my life," he said, "I have made a considerable study of the supernatural, but the knowledge I have gained is not very definite. Take the matter of apparitions, for instance, to which the two interesting stories you have submitted to me relate: – I have come to regard these as subjective rather than objective phenomena, projections from an excited or stimulated brain, not actual existences. Why, I have seen thousands of ghosts myself! Many a night, after writing until two o'clock in the morning, and fortifying myself for my work with strong coffee, I have had to shoulder them aside as I went upstairs to bed. These apparent presences were nothing to me, since I knew perfectly well that their origin was nowhere else than in my overwrought nerves – and I have come to conclude that most cases of visions of this sort are to be explained by attributing them to a temporary or permanent disorganization of the brain of the percipient. Mind, I do not say all cases – there are many that are not to be set aside so readily. Again, it is not easy to arrive at the facts in any given case; even if the observer is honest, he may not have cultivated the habit of exact statement – moreover, stories are apt to grow by repetition, and a tendency to exaggerate is common to most of us. Now and then, however, I have come upon an account of supernatural visitation which seems an exception to the general run, and upsets my theories; and I must say that, having from time to time investigated at least fifteen hundred such instances, the two stories you have furnished me are of them all the best authenticated."

Some years ago, in the course of a tour of art study which took me through the principal countries of Europe, I found myself in Naples, having arrived there by a leisurely progress that began at Gibraltar, and had brought me by easy stages, and with many stops en route, through the Mediterranean. The time of year was late February, and the season, even for Southern Italy, was much advanced; – so, in visiting the Island of Capri (the exact date, I recollect, was February 22) I found this most charming spot in the Vesuvian Bay smiling and verdant, and was tempted by the brilliant sunshine and warm breezes to explore the hilly country which rose behind the port at which I had landed.

The fields upon the heights were green with grass, and spangled with delicate white flowers bearing a yellow centre, which, while smaller than our familiar American field-daisies, and held upon more slender stalks, reminded me of them. Having in mind certain friends in then bleak New England, whence I had strayed into this Land of Summer, I plucked a number of these blossoms and placed them between the leaves of my guide-book – Baedeker's "Southern Italy," – intending to inclose them in letters which I then planned to write to these friends, contrasting the conditions attending their "Washington's Birthday" with those in which I fortunately found myself.

Returning to Naples, the many interests of that city put out of my head for the time the thought of letter-writing, and three days later I took the train for Rome, with my correspondence still in arrears. The first day of my stay in Rome was devoted to an excursion by carriage into the Campagna, and on the way back to the city I stopped to see that most interesting and touching of Roman monuments, the Tomb of Cecilia Metella. Every tourist knows and has visited that beautiful memorial – so I do not need to describe its massive walls, its roof (now fallen and leaving the sepulchre open to the sky) and the heavy turf which covers the earth of its interior. This green carpet of Nature, when I visited the tomb, was thickly strewn with fragrant violets, and of these, as of the daisylike flowers I had found in Capri, I collected several, and placed them in my guide-book – this time Baedeker's "Central Italy."

I mention these two books – the "Southern" and the "Central Italy" – because they have an important bearing on my story.

The next day, calling at my banker's, I saw an announcement that letters posted before four o'clock that afternoon would be forwarded to catch the mail for New York by a specially fast steamer for Liverpool, and hastened back to my hotel with the purpose of preparing, and thus expediting, my much-delayed correspondence. The most important duty of the moment seemed to be the writing of a letter to my wife, then living in Boston, and to this I particularly addressed myself. I described my trip through the Mediterranean and my experience in Naples and Rome, and concluded my letter as follows:

"In Naples I found February to be like our New England May, and in Capri, which I visited on 'Washington's Birthday,' I found the heights of the island spangled over with delicate flowers, some of which I plucked, and enclose in this letter. And, speaking of flowers, I send you also some violets which I gathered yesterday at the Tomb of Cecelia Metella, outside of Rome – you know about this monument, or, if not, you can look up its history, and save me from transcribing a paragraph from the guide-book. I send you these flowers from Naples and Rome, respectively, in order that you may understand in what agreeable surroundings I find myself, as compared with the ice and snow and bitter cold which are probably your experience at this season."

Having finished the letter, I took from the guide-book on "Central Italy" which lay on the table before me, the violets from the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, enclosed them, with the sheets I had written, in an envelope, sealed and addressed it, and was about to affix the stamp, when it suddenly occurred to me that I had left out the flowers I had plucked at Capri. These, I then recalled, were still in the guide-book for "Southern Italy," which I had laid away in my portmanteau as of no further present use to me. Accordingly I unstrapped and unlocked the portmanteau, found the guide-book, took out the flowers from Capri which were still between its leaves, opened and destroyed the envelope already addressed, added the daisies to the violets, and put the whole into a new inclosure, which I again directed, stamped, and duly dropped into the mail-box at the bankers'.

I am insistent upon these details because they particularly impressed upon my mind the certainty that both varieties of flowers were inclosed in the letter to my wife. Subsequent events would have been strange enough if I had not placed the flowers in the letter at all – but the facts above stated assure me that there is no question that I did so, and make what followed more than ever inexplicable.

So much for the beginning of the affair – in Italy; now for its conclusion – in New England.

During my year abroad, my wife was living, as I have said, in Boston, occupying at the Winthrop House, on Bowdoin street – a hotel which has since, I believe, been taken down – a suite of rooms comprising parlor, bedroom and bath. With her was my daughter by a former marriage, whose mother had died at her birth, some seven years before. On the same floor of the hotel were apartments occupied by Mrs. Celia Thaxter, a woman whose name is well known in American literature, and with whom my wife sustained a very intimate friendship. I am indebted for the facts I am now setting down not only to my wife, who gave me an oral account of them on my return from Europe, four months later, but also to this lady who wrote out and preserved a record of them at the time of their occurrence, and sent me a copy of the same while I was still abroad.

About ten days after I had posted my letter, inclosing the flowers from Capri and Rome, my wife suddenly awoke in the middle of the night, and saw standing at the foot of her bed the form of the child's mother. The aspect of the apparition was so serene and gracious that, although greatly startled, she felt no alarm; moreover, it had once before appeared to her, as the reader will learn in the second story of this series, which, for reasons of my own, I have not arranged in chronological order. Then she heard, as if from a voice at a great distance, these words: "I have brought you some flowers from Sidney." At the next instant the figure vanished.

The visitation had been so brief that my wife, although she at once arose and lighted the gas, argued with herself that she had been dreaming, and after a few minutes extinguished the light and returned to bed, where she slept soundly until six o'clock the next morning. Always an early riser, she dressed at once and went from her bedroom, where the child was still sleeping, to her parlor. In the centre of the room was a table, covered with a green cloth, and as she entered and happened to glance at it she saw, to her surprise, a number of dried flowers scattered over it. A part of these she recognized as violets, but the rest were unfamiliar to her, although they resembled very small daisies.

The vision of the night before was at once forcibly recalled to her, and the words of the apparition, "I have brought you some flowers," seemed to have a meaning, though what it was she could not understand. After examining these strange blossoms for a time she returned to her chamber and awakened the child, whom she then took to see the flowers, and asked her if she knew anything about them.

"Why, no, mamma," the little girl replied; "I have never seen them before. I was reading my new book at the table last night until I went to bed, and if they were there I should have seen them."

So the flowers were gathered up and placed on the shelf above the fireplace, and during the morning were exhibited to Mrs. Thaxter, who came in for a chat, and who, like my wife, could make nothing of the matter.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon of that day the postman called at the hotel, bearing among his mail several letters for my wife, which were at once sent up to her. Among them was one that was postmarked "Rome" and addressed in my handwriting, and with this she sat down as the first to be read. It contained an account, among other things, of my experiences in Naples and Rome, and in due course mentioned the enclosure of flowers from Capri and from the Tomb of Cecilia Metella. There were, however, no flowers whatever in the letter, although each sheet and the envelope were carefully examined; my wife even shook her skirts and made a search upon the carpet, thinking that the stated enclosure might have fallen out as the letter was opened. Nothing could be found – yet ten hours before the arrival of the letter, flowers exactly such as it described had been found on the centre-table!

Mrs. Thaxter was summoned, and the two ladies marvelled greatly. Among Mrs. Thaxter's friends in the city was a well-known botanist, and she at once suggested that the flowers be offered for his inspection. No time was lost in calling upon him, and the flowers were shown (without, however, the curious facts about them being mentioned), with the request that he state, if it were possible, whence they came. He examined them carefully and then said:

"As to the violets, it is difficult to say where they grew, since these flowers, wherever they may be found in the world (and they are of almost universal occurrence, through cultivation or otherwise) may everywhere be very much alike. Certain peculiarities in these specimens, however, coupled with the scent they still faintly retain and which is characteristic, incline me to the opinion that they came from some part of Southern Europe – perhaps France, but more likely Italy. As to the others, which, as you say, resemble small daisies, they must have come from some point about the Bay of Naples, as I am not aware of their occurrence elsewhere."