Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (78 page)

"I
have
been
awake,"
he
said
quietly,
sadly,
"but
I
am
now
falling back
into
sleep
again.
I
have
been
elsewhere'and
otherwise,
but time
now
separates
things
idiotically
here.
I've
been
out
of
the cage.
.
.
."

He
said
much
more,
his
words,
each
like
a
great
eagle
on
the
wing, rushing
past
me,
into
some
region
where
I
could
not
follow.
For understanding
left
me,
even
while
something
just
beyond
reason beckoned
dangerously.
With
those
shining
eyes
fixed
on
my
own,
I felt
myself
caught
up,
rapt
away,
ravished
into
something
beyond experience.
Only
the
feeblest
flash
of
his
meaning
came—namely, that
our
earthly
consciousness,
even
at
its
best
and
highest,
is
so limited
that
it
is
little
better
than
a
state
of
dream,
and
that
his
return to
it
was
like
falling
into
sleep.
But
before
I
could
frame
a
single question,
much
less
utter
an
intelligible
comment,
the
front
door
had opened
again,
and
I
heard
Vronski's
rather
harsh
voice
calling:
"The taxi's
here.
Come
on!"

Mantravers
was
legally
dead;
in
the
eyes
of
authority
he
had
no existence;
he
could
neither
be
taxed,
fined,
nor
arrested
and
imprisoned.
He
lived—went
to
bed,
rather,
and
stayed
there—in
Dr. Vronski's
house
in
Westminster,
and
to
me,
ignorant,
stupid,
scared, but
"open-minded,"
was
allotted
by
Vronski
the
task
of
watching over
him.
"He'll
talk
to
you,
at
least
he
may,"
said
Vronski,
emphasising
"you"
and
"may,"
"if
he
talks
at
all.
Not,"
he
added
bluntly, resentfully
a
trifle
too,
"because
you
know
anything,
or
will
even understand
what
he
says,
but
because
you're
a
link
of
sorts,
a'link with
his
dream-existence
here,
you
see,
before
he
left."

I
was
too
uneasy
to
feel
flattered,
as
I
listened,
but
it
did
occur
to me
to
ask
why
he,
Vronski,
couldn't
be
that
link
himself.
His
reply only
set
my
mind
going
in
whirls
and
whorls.
He
couldn't,
he
explained,
because
he,
Vronski,
was
still
in
the
state
of
sleep—what
most people
called
life—whereas
Mantravers
had
been
"awake
for
a
long time,
for
twenty-five
years
or
more.
I
woke
up
for
moments,
but
I never
could
hold
it.
I
dropped
back
again
into—into
this,"
and
he waved
his
arms
over
London,
as
it
were.
"He
left
me
more
than
a quarter
of
a
century
ago,
a
whole
generation.
But
you,"
he
looked hard
at
me
with
a
bitter
envy
in
both
voice
and
eyes,
"though
you don't
know
it"—he
hesitated
a
moment—"are
more
awake
than
I— for
longer
periods
anyhow."
He
turned
away
with
a
half
angry
shrug. "Anyhow,
he
may
talk
to
you,
and
if
he
does,
treasure
his
words
like gold.
I
can't
get
a
syllable
out
of
him."