Ten Minute Stories/The House of the Past

One night a dream came to me and brought with her an old and rusty key. She led me across fields and sweet-smelling lanes, where the hedges were already whispering to one another in the dark of the spring, till we came to a huge, gaunt house with staring windows and lofty roof half hidden in the shadows of very early morning. I noticed that the blinds were of heavy black, and that the house seemed wrapped in absolute stillness.

“This,” she whispered in my ear, “is the house of the past. Come with me and we will go through some of its rooms and passages; but quickly, for I have not the key for long, and the night is very nearly over.”

The key made a dreadful noise as she turned it in the lock, and when the great door swung open into an empty hall and we went in, I heard sounds of whispering and weeping, and the rustling of clothes, as of people moving in their sleep and about to wake. Then, instantly, a spirit of intense sadness came over me, drenching me to the soul; my eyes began to burn and smart, and in my heart I became aware of a strange sensation as of the uncoiling of something that had been asleep for ages. My whole being, unable to resist, at once surrendered itself to the spirit of deepest melancholy, and the pain in my heart, as the things moved and woke, became in a moment of time too strong for words.⁠ ⁠…

As we advanced, the faint voices and sobbings fled away before us into the interior of the house, and I became conscious that the air was full of hands held aloft, of swaying garments, of drooping tresses, and of eyes so sad and wistful that the tears, which were already brimming in my own, held back for wonder at the sight of such yearning and patient sorrow. “Do not allow all this sadness to overwhelm you,” whispered the dream at my side. “It is not often ‘They’ wake. They sleep for years and years and years. The chambers are all full, and unless visitors such as we come to disturb them, they will never wake of their own accord. But, when one stirs, the sleep of the others is troubled, and they too awake, till the motion is communicated from one room to another and thus finally throughout the whole house.⁠ ⁠… Then, sometimes, the sadness is too great to be borne, and the mind weakens. For this reason memory gives to them the sweetest and deepest sleep she has, and she keeps this old key rusty from little use. But, listen now,” she added, holding up her hand, “do you not hear all through the house that trembling of the air like the distant murmur of tumbling water?”

Even before she spoke, I had already caught faintly the beginning of a new sound; and, now, deep in the cellars beneath our feet, and from the upper regions of the great house as well, I heard the whispering, and the rustling and the inward stirring of the sleeping shadows. It rose like a chord swept softly from huge unseen strings stretched somewhere among the foundations of the house, and its tremblings ran gently through all its walls and ceilings. And I knew that I was listening to the slow awakening of the ghosts of the past.

Ah me, with what terrible inrushing of sadness I stood with brimming eyes and listened to the sweet dead voices of the long ago.⁠ ⁠… For, indeed, the whole house was awakening; and there presently rose to my nostrils the subtle, penetrating odour of age; of letters, long preserved, with ink faded and ribbons pale; of scented tresses, golden and brown, laid away, ah how tenderly! among pressed flowers that still held the inmost delicacy of their forgotten fragrance; the scented presence of lost memories⁠—the intoxicating incense of the past. My eyes o’erflowed, my heart tightened and expanded, as I yielded myself up without reserve to these old, old influences of sound and smell. These ghosts of the past⁠—forgotten in the tumult of more recent memories⁠—thronged round me, took my hands in theirs, and, ever whispering of what I had so long forgot, ever sighing, shaking from their hair and garments the ineffable odours of the dead ages, led me through the vast house, from room to room, from floor to floor.

And the ghosts⁠—were not all equally clear to me. Some had indeed but the faintest life, and stirred me so little that they left only an indistinct, blurred impression in the air; while others gazed half reproachfully at me out of faded, colourless eyes, as if longing to recall themselves to my recollection; and then, seeing they were not recognised, floated back gently into the shadows of their room, to sleep again undisturbed till the final day, when I should not fail to know them.

“Many of them have slept so long,” said the dream ever beside me, “that they wake only with the greatest difficulty. Once awake, however, they know and remember you even though you fail to remember them. For it is the rule in this house of the past that, unless you recall them distinctly, remembering precisely when you knew them and with what particular causes in your past evolution they were associated, they cannot stay awake. Unless you remember them when your eyes meet, unless their look of recognition is returned by you, they are obliged to go back to their sleep, silent and sorrowful, their hands unpressed, their voices unheard, to sleep and dream, deathless and patient, till.⁠ ⁠…”

At this moment, the words of my dream died away suddenly into the distance, and I became conscious of an overpowering sensation of delight and happiness. Something had touched me on the lips, and a strong, sweet fire flashed down into my heart and sent the blood rushing tumultuously through my veins. My pulses beat wildly, my skin glowed, my eyes grew tender, and the terrible sadness of the place was instantly dispelled as if by magic. Turning with a cry of joy, that was at once swallowed up in the chorus of weeping and sighing round me, I looked. . and instinctively stretched forth my arms in a rapture of happiness towards⁠ ⁠… towards a vision of a face⁠ ⁠… hair, lips, eyes; a cloth of gold lay about the fair neck, and the old old perfume of the East⁠—ye stars, how long ago⁠—was in her breath. Her lips were again on mine; her hair over my eyes; her arms round my neck, and the love of her ancient soul pouring into mine out of eyes still starry and undimmed. Oh, the fierce tumult, the untold wonder, if I could only remember!⁠ ⁠… That subtle, mist-dispelling odour of many ages ago, once so familiar⁠ ⁠… before the hills of Atlantis were above the blue sea, or the sands of ages had begun to form the bed of the Sphinx. Yet wait; it comes back; I begin to remember. Curtain upon curtain rises in my soul, and I can almost see beyond. But that hideous stretch of the years, awful and sinister, thousands upon thousands.⁠ ⁠… My heart shakes, and I am afraid. Another curtain rises and a new vista, further than the others, comes into view, interminable, running to a point among thick mists. Lo, they too are moving, rising, lightening. At last, I shall see⁠ ⁠… already I begin to recall⁠ ⁠… the dusky skin⁠ ⁠… the Eastern grace, the wondrous eyes that held the knowledge of Buddha and the wisdom of Christ before these had even dreamed of attainment. As a dream within a dream, it steals over me again, taking compelling possession of my whole being⁠ ⁠… the slender form⁠ ⁠… the stars in that magical Eastern sky⁠ ⁠… the winds whispering low among the palm trees⁠ ⁠… the murmur of the river’s waves and the music of the reeds where they bend and sigh in the shallows on the golden sand. Thousand of years ago. It fades a little and begins to pass; then again seems to rise. Ah me, that smile of the shining teeth⁠ ⁠… those lace-veined lids. Oh, who will help me to recall, for it is too far away, too dim, and I cannot wholly remember; though my lips are still tingling, and my arms still outstretched, it again begins to fade. Already there is the look of sadness too deep for words, as she realises that she is unrecognised⁠ ⁠… she, whose mere presence could doubtless once extinguish for me the entire universe⁠ ⁠… and she goes back slowly, mournfully, silently to her age-long sleep, to dream and dream of the day when I must remember her and she must come where she belongs.⁠ ⁠…

She peers at me from the end of the room where the shadows already cover her and win her back with outstretched arms to the sleep of the ages in the house of the past.

Trembling all over, and with the strange odour still in my nostrils, and the fire in my heart, I turned away and followed my dream up a broad staircase into another part of the house.

As we entered the upper corridors I heard the wind singing over the roof. Its music took possession of me until I felt as though my whole body were a single heart, aching, straining, throbbing as if it would break; and all because I heard the wind singing round this house of the past.

“But, remember,” whispered the dream, answering my unspoken wonder, “that you are listening to the song it has sung for untold ages into untold myriad ears. It carries back so appallingly far; and in that simple dirge, profound in its terrible monotony, are the associations and recollections of the joys, griefs and struggles of all previous existence. The wind, like the sea, speaks to the inmost memory,” she added, “and that is why its voice is one of such deep spiritual sadness. It is the song of things forever incomplete, unfinished, unsatisfying.”

As we passed through the vaulted rooms, I noticed that no one stirred. There was no actual sound, only a general impression of deep, collective breathing, like the heave of a muffled ocean. But the rooms, I knew at once, were full to the walls, crowded, rows upon rows⁠ ⁠… And, from the floors below, rose ever the murmur of the weeping shadows as they returned to their sleep, and settled down again in the silence, the darkness, and the dust. The dust.⁠ ⁠… Ah, the dust that floated in this house of the past, so thick, so penetrating; so fine, it filled the throat and eyes without pain; so fragrant, it dulled the senses and stilled the aching of the heart; so soft, it parched the tongue, without offence; yet so silently falling, gathering, settling over everything, that the air held it like a fine mist and the sleeping shadows wore it for their shrouds.

“And these are the oldest,” said my dream, “the longest asleep,” pointing to the crowded rows of silent sleepers. “None here have wakened for ages too many to count; and if they did wake you would not know them. They are, like the others, all your own, but they are the memories of your earliest stages along the great path of evolution. Some day, though, they will awake, and you must know them, and answer their questions, for they can never die till they have exhausted themselves again through you.”

“Ah,” I thought, only half listening to or understanding these last words, “what mothers, fathers, brothers may then be asleep in this room; what faithful lovers, what true friends, what ancient enemies! And to think that some day they will step forth and confront me, and I shall meet their eyes again, claim them, know them, forgive, and be forgiven⁠ ⁠… the memories of all my past⁠ ⁠…”

I turned to speak to the dream at my side, but she was already fading into dimness, and, as I looked again, the whole house melted away into the flush of the eastern sky and I heard the birds singing and saw the clouds overhead veiling the stars in the light of the coming day.