Part 17

The medium, Willy S., kept rather in the background. The Baron introduced me to him among others. “Here,” he said, “is our star performer.” He repeated the phrase more than once, obviously with the idea of stimulating the young man’s sense of importance, but also by way of prepossessing me in favour of this precious and delicately organic instrument of his experiments. In my case, his concern was quite unnecessary. My sympathies were boundless, and I took pains to let our artist feel that I was no hostile onlooker, present with the sole idea of pouncing and unmasking, with a bellow of triumph. I was a sceptic on the positive side, who would rejoice at his success--I wished him to know that. Deception? Between deception and reality there were many degrees, and at some point they were one. Perhaps there was a sort of natural deception, which might be just as good to talk to as reality! I had come hither, not humbugging myself in the least, to see what there was to be seen, just that, no more and no less. I exchanged a few words with Willy S. and tried to get an idea of his personality. I found a dark-haired youth of some eighteen or nineteen, not unattractive, certainly with nothing striking about him. His origins were plainly simple; his speech a South-German-Austrian dialect, and his manner decent and friendly, with no signs of wanting to curry favour by over-politeness. His answers to my matter-of-fact questions were monosyllabic; and he seemed, quite excusably, in a sort of stage-fright, a state of suppressed excitement united with the shyness natural to his youth.

The young clinician summoned Master Willy to have his blood-pressure measured, and I turned away and followed our host’s invitation to have a look round in the laboratory adjoining. It was a large room, filled with a confusion of photographic apparatus and arrangements for a magnesium flash-light. There were tables and chairs upon which stood or lay a variety of objects: a music-box, a little table-bell with a handle, a typewriter, several white felt rings, and so on--objects uninteresting in themselves, which yet would be employed by young Willy to accomplish strange matters. We shall come back to them. There was a sort of cage made of fine wire in which they had confined the youth during a severely scientific and critical sitting. It had not prevented him from doing what they could not explain. Lastly there was the so-called “black cabinet,” about which so much had been said and so much more whispered. Some of Willy’s predecessors had been sorely in need of it. I looked within. There was nothing special about it. Indifferent lumber stood behind the ceiling-high curtain which shut off one corner of the room from the rest. “We shall not require the cabinet,” said Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing. Willy did not need it. He was strong. He sat right out in the room in his operations. So much the better. My positive scepticism had swallowed the cabinet too--but if Willy was strong, why, so much the better. We returned to the library. Beyond it lay a study with a writing-table, where Willy made his toilet for the sitting.

He did not make it by himself. By no means. He made it under the argus-eyed control of three persons: the master of the house and two assistants. This time Dr. von Schrenck appointed as assistants the lively nerve-specialist and myself. And we obliged him--though privately I doubted my fitness for the office. I felt lax and benevolent, and inclined to regard the supervision as a formality. I am not at home in the rôle of misdoubting observer; it embarrasses me, it is repugnant to my humanity. You cannot expect a man to turn you his good side when you take his bad one for granted. This youth now girding up his loins to perform marvels--why should I dash his spirits by showing him I suspected him of preparing to take me in? I am a sceptic, but I want something to happen. Yet might not that be the most fundamental and extreme form of scepticism? Perhaps I, in my laxity and benevolence, was the most unbelieving of all?--But no more, for the moment. Make your toilet, young man, I will watch you.

The Baron showed us the black, one-piece tricot affair in which Willy was to cover himself from neck to ankle. He urged us to subject it to a careful scrutiny, to feel it all over. He laid great stress on a critical attitude. A garment, of cotton tricot. Very good. No sign of deception about that; and Willy drew it on over his tanned, boyish body. As he did so I caught a shy and solemn look he cast at my colleague, the blonde lady nerve-specialist, who blithely regarded the ceiling. But in nothing but the tricot the chap would freeze, that was humanly plain; so they gave him a dressing-gown besides, a comfortable old wadded kimono of the Baron’s, which likewise we conscientiously examined, pockets, lining, and all. A good-natured old dressing-gown. Good. But it had one curious feature: the Baron explained it to us. It was trimmed all over with ribbons, on the sleeves, the seams, the hem, sewed on everywhere. And these ribbons had been treated with a luminous preparation so that you would be able to see the outline of Willy’s figure even by a dim light and easily keep it in your eye. That seemed a sensible precaution. More luminous ribbon went like a diadem about his head; he stuck his feet into an old pair of Turkish slippers. They completed the preparations. Or no. For when he stood arrayed he opened his jaws very wide, like a lion, as though to swallow us. I gasped; until it was explained to me that this was a matter of controlling the mouth cavity. The deuce! And I had been within an ace of forgetting the mouth cavity. He already had one gold tooth in it, to the honour of his trade. For the rest, it was an irreproachable mouth cavity. We saw it as far down as the glottis. In God’s name, enough. We returned to the other room.

A chorus of friendly shouts welcomed us. The old hands hailed their Willy in his professional disguise. It was a merry masquerade, and Willy himself, in his talar and priestly bands, laughed too, in good-natured embarrassment. _Allons, mes enfants!_ The company trooped into the laboratory and our host shut the door behind us.

Things were looking serious. Unnatural events were to take place in this strange room that was like a photographic studio even down to the objects to distract the children’s minds with. I confess to a little faint-heartedness, an inner resistance, a doubt whether I, personally, was a suitable candidate for the enterprise. But now the conductor of the experiment, all unsolicited, entrusted me with the control of the medium, Willy’s landlady, Frau P., acting as the second control; and began at once to instruct me in the technique. And technique it was, in all seriousness, very thorough and gratifying indeed. I sat opposite to the young man, with my chair close to his, his two knees between mine. I held both his hands and my assistant both his wrists. Nobody could deny--and I was far from doing so--that Willy was in safe arrest; we sat and looked idiotically at each other, while the rest of the company took their places chattering.

We were grouped in front of the curtain, in an irregular circle, three-quarters closed. At one end sat the medium, with us “controls,” and at the other the master of the house. Not all those present found a place in this circle; two or three people had to move back into a second row, where they stood or sat as they liked. Among them was the sporting zoology professor, who to my astonishment had armed himself with an accordion. It appeared that he was a skilled performer on this instrument, in demand for excursions and summer evening garden-parties, and particularly welcome in such gatherings as the present one, for a medium needs music, almost continuous music, for his demonstrations--a temperamental requirement which it would be foolish not to gratify. Professor G. with his concertina added variety to a programme which would otherwise have been furnished only by a music-box that played one single and not even very pleasing tune.

The room was still lighted by ordinary white electricity, by which the Baron put the finishing touches to his arrangements. A little table stood in our circle, not precisely in the middle, rather nearer to our host than to the medium, from whom it was some five feet distant. The Baron measured the distance with a yardstick, and then placed several objects upon it: a lamp in a red shade, the table-bell, a plate of flour, a little slate and piece of chalk. A sizable wastepaper-basket stood upside-down by the table, with a music-box on it; not the one that was to play (that stood on a shelf behind the Baron’s chair), but a smaller affair on which Herr Willy’s powers were to be displayed. The typewriter the Baron set somewhere on the carpet near himself; then he strewed felt rings about the floor within the circle. They were luminous, like the ribbons on Willy’s clothes, and to one or two of them was attached a longish, luminous string. Furthermore, all the larger objects, so far as was practicable, the waste-paper-basket, the music-box, the table-bell, were marked with luminous ribbons as well. These ribbons were the Baron’s own invention, he rather prided himself on them and used them in profusion.... The light went out.

But it was turned on again; for Willy, sitting there in my arrest and still in his waking senses, had remembered something. “The pins, Herr Baron,” he said. He referred, did this honourable youth, to another precautionary measure which had been overlooked. The Baron bestuck the sleeves and skirt of the velvet dressing-gown with pins that had thick, white, illuminated heads. Others of the same kind already stuck in the curtains, right and left of the opening, so that every movement in their folds must betray itself. Once more the white light was turned off. The only illumination now was a dark red shimmer from the shrouded ceiling light, and from the little lamp on the table, which was likewise shaded. For the unadjusted eye rather a scanty illumination. But the Baron assured us that it was the best he could do. His utmost efforts had not succeeded in securing a greater toleration for light. “I struggle,” he said, “for every ray, but this is all I can get, up to now.” However, Willy himself gave out light; so did the felt rings, the bands on the other objects, and the pins in the curtains. After all, the field of operations was visible; and after a little while the top of the table seemed really quite well lighted. We were asked for a little silence, in which the music-box performed its single number, a clear and childish tune with a brief recurring melody and a tinkling accompaniment. We waited. I in particular waited, with Willy’s hands in mine, neither too tight nor too loose.

Suddenly, after two or three minutes, he shivered. A shudder ran through him, and his arms, taking mine along, began to perform pumping and thrusting motions. His breath came short and thick.

“Trance,” announced my experienced assistant.

So the chap had fallen into a trance under my hands! I had never observed this state before, and gave it my profoundest attention, convinced as I am that it is a condition of the most far-reaching implications. While it lasts, Willy’s ego is divided into two symbolic persons, for the purposes of his dream-performance, a male and a female. He calls them Erwin and Minna. Childishness. Hocus-pocus. Nobody takes Erwin and Minna seriously; but for the sake of the business in hand we are fain to humour the whim: from now on we ignore Willy’s existence and stick to these two, who have a simple way of making clear which is which. Erwin is a lout. He manifests himself by the vigour with which Willy lays about him, but seldom does anything worth seeing; leaving the serious business to his milder and more efficient sister. My assistant thought it was Minna who was now shaking us and pumping with our arms.

“Is Minna there?” asked the Baron.

Yes, she was there. I receive one quick, firm pressure of Willy’s hand; that is Minna’s way of saying yes. For no there is a sideways motion of the hands and torso, to and fro. Moreover, the somnambulist will speak to the controls; his voice is a quick, loud, thick-tongued whisper, with a certain intensity in it.

The Baron greets Minna. “Good-evening, Minna. There are good friends here, most of them you know, a few are new, but you don’t mind that, do you?”

A to-and-fro movement in denial.

“Today the control is a very sympathetic man, full of the most cordial interest in you and your powers. I hope you will show him something nice.”

A squeeze of my hand, a short forward thrust of Willy’s torso. Yes, she promises--absurdly enough, one involuntarily says “she.”

“Well then, Minna, do your best.”

And a general conversation begins. It has to begin, the medium exacts it. “Talk,” he babbles in my ear, and I pass the word on. The company have formed a chain and are sitting hand in hand. This may be a vestige of spiritualistic parlour games, it may be an organic necessity. Hard to tell. Anyway, Willy insists on it, and keeps whispering us to keep the chain firm. My neighbour on the left is in touch with me too, his right hand rests on my shoulder and arm. We talk into the darkness, saying anything that comes into our heads, scarcely knowing to whom. It is not easy. The subject-matter dwindles, the forced conversation keeps breaking off or dying away, for our real attention is not upon it. But we are warned against watching too eagerly for phenomena. Our leader recommends a hovering attitude, a mood of suspension, which may be evoked by the music that now mingles with our loud, artificial voices. The zoology professor has struck up behind us on his concertina, wheezing out a brisk succession of lively marches. His resources are apparently endless; and when he falters, the music-box takes up the strain with its tinkling little tune.

A fantastic setting. It is not hard to see why science, which sets store by exact values, is at home in the dry, objective air of the laboratory and used to purely abstract work with apparatus and prepared subjects, should feel put off with this all too human kind of experimentation. It is the same with the layman. He has come keyed up to a suggestive atmosphere and a mood of consecration and mystery. He is disappointed to find himself in a situation which probably disgusts him both intellectually and æsthetically, suggesting as it does the mawkish revival methods of the Salvation Army. This impression is strengthened by the shouts with which the audience keeps encouraging the medium--or, rather, the officiating Minna: “Hullo, Minna, are you there? Buck up, show us what you can do! Get on with it, Minna!” The one mystical thing about the situation--and that not in any spiritual sense, but with reference to organic mysteries, primitive and affecting at once--is the medium himself, as he tosses and threshes with his arms, whispering in quick groans and pants: he is the primary object of my curiosity. His condition and actions quite strikingly and unmistakably remind me of the act of parturition. The head is now thrown far back, now it sinks on my shoulder or on our hands, which are so wet with perspiration that I constantly need to renew my grip. His efforts come at intervals, like throes; the pauses between are times of complete rest and inaccessibility, during which he sleeps, the head drooping sideways on the chest, and assembles new powers. This is deep trance, from which he rouses himself to resume his procreative labour.

A masculine lying-in, in a reddish darkness, amid chatter and shoutings and jazz. It was like nothing else in the world. I reflected that it would have been quite worth seeing even if nothing else were to happen. And really it looked as though nothing else would. The “child” did not come. Nothing supernatural felt inclined to show itself. True, some of our audience, in their eagerness to see things, anticipated them. Two of the illuminated pins had come out of Willy’s dressing-gown, though they had been stuck in deep and firmly. They lay on the floor, one of them rather far off him. The eager said they had been taken; but it was quite possible if not probable that Willy’s writhings had forced them out. But then, what about the two lighted rings which had lain immediately in front of the curtain? They had originally been visible in all their circumference, not partly hidden by the hangings; but in the course of the last few minutes their position had changed, you could see only about a third of them now; either the curtain had moved forward or the rings back, while the next time you looked, see, they were once more entirely visible, free of the curtain and not beneath it. And that was a manifestation. A poor, uncertain one, but it had to suffice. And had I not felt the breath of cooler air the medium exhaled--that always heralded new phenomena? No, to be frank, I should have welcomed any breath of cooler air, but I had noticed nothing of the sort.

And time passes. It is hard to judge how much has passed already; perhaps three-quarters of an hour. Evidently the medium is having a hard time. They ask if this is the case, but he denies it and goes on struggling. They ask if everything is in order, and the answer is yes. But I don’t believe him. Privately I take on myself the blame for our lack of success. From the first I had doubted whether my nature would be helpful to the good Willy at his work; and now I am certain that there in his beyond he shares my doubts. He denies it, of course; that is the merest politeness--however odd it may sound to speak of somnambulistic politeness. So far as I can observe, it is by no means impossible that civilized and personal considerations have a hampering effect in this condition; nor did Willy absolutely deny that this was so. He said in a whisper: “Do you want the phenomena to come faster?” Well? And what then? Silence. Did he want a pause? Still silence. Then he began to kick with his feet; the Baron counted. Fifteen times. A fifteen-minute pause, then. Good. We stop, temporarily.

The medium is given time to come to before the light is turned on. He made wonderful preparations: scraping motions of hand and arm at his side, which, in his fancy at least, served to draw in the organic forces which had been sent out but not yet manifested. He woke in a series of starts and blinked stupidly at the light. We betook ourselves into the next room.

Cigarettes were lighted. Willy smoked too, sitting on the sofa in his costume. The position was discussed. It was far from being discouraging. A temporary hitch. The need of rest was not unusual. An absolutely negative sitting occurred very seldom with our Willy. Nothing was lost. Willy’s foster-mother diverted us with tales of their domestic experiences. They would probably have to move into another apartment. People objected to the uncalled-for things that were always happening, wherever Willy was: spontaneous phenomena, signs and wonders. Fists knocked on the walls. Hands did things nobody told them to. A spook had showed itself most unexpectedly at the dining-room door. The cook had seen it, and fled with a shriek. All that was to the good. However, as for us we had so far drawn a blank. The young clinician took a new measurement with his blood-pressure apparatus, for purposes of comparison, and discussed its result with Dr. von Schrenck. Fifteen minutes. The Baron signed for the renewal of the sitting.

I felt sure that Willy had contrived the pause in order to get the control changed, and so I insisted on giving up my office. But our host would not hear to it. No, no. We must not give way to all Minna’s little whims. For the sake of the impression I should get, it was necessary I should have the medium in my personal charge. But I might take the second place, Frau P.’s, and give the first to someone else, either Herr Reicher or Herr von K. Better Herr von K. “Come on, Herr von K. You always manage to get it out of her.”

Von K. was the Polish painter, the man with the gruff and hearty voice. He was a direct and vigorous character and the medium’s favourite control. When a session seemed likely to be a failure, they always called on him. He held Willy’s hands and encouraged him with a geniality of which he alone possessed the secret; and almost always something happened. “_Grüss’ Gott, Minna!_ Old friends together again, that’s fine, I think, and surely you think the same? You do, eh? Right-oh--but listen to me, not so hard! You’ll pull my shoulder out. Minna, is that the way you love me?” Like that. Willy requires this sort of thing, and almost always responds to it. Soon after the red light went on again, he had fallen into the magnetic trance. The music-box rippled, the concertina took its turn. The lying-in went on.