A Strange Story — Volume 06Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
Science
A Strange Story — Volume 06
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
energy of desire that its influence should reach Margrave and command
him. And since I knew not his whereabout, yet was vaguely aware that,
according to any conceivable theory by which the wand could be supposed
to carry its imagined virtues to definite goals in distant space, it
should be pointed in the direction of the object it was intended to
affect, so I slowly moved the wand as if describing a circle; and thus, in
some point of the circle--east, west, north, or south--the direction could
not fail to be true. Before I had performed half the circle, the wand of
itself stopped, resisting palpably the movement of my hand to impel it
onward. Had it, then, found the point to which my will was guiding it,
obeying my will by some magnetic sympathy never yet comprehended by any
recognized science? I know not; but I had not held it thus fixed for
many seconds, before a cold air, well remembered, passed by me, stirring
the roots of my hair; and, reflected against the opposite wall, stood the
hateful Scin-Laeca. The Shadow was dimmer in its light than when before
beheld, and the outline of the features was less distinct; still it was
the unmistakable lemur, or image, of Margrave.
And a voice was conveyed to my senses, saying, as from a great distance,
and in weary yet angry accents,
"You have summoned me? Wherefore?"
I overcame the startled shudder with which, at first, I beheld the Shadow
and heard the Voice.
"I summoned you not," said I; "I sought but to impose upon you my will,
that you should persecute, with your ghastly influences, me and mine no
more. And now, by whatever authority this wand bestows on me, I so abjure
and command you!"
I thought there was a sneer of disdain on the lip through which the answer
seemed to come,--
"Vain and ignorant, it is but a shadow you command. My body you have cast
into a sleep, and it knows not that the shadow is here; nor, when it
wakes, will the brain be aware of one reminiscence of the words that you
utter or the words that you hear."
"What, then, is this shadow that simulates the body? Is it that which in
popular language is called the soul?"
"It is not: soul is no shadow."
"What then?"
"Ask not me. Use the wand to invoke Intelligences higher than mine."
"And how?"
"I will tell you not. Of yourself you may learn, if you guide the wand by
your own pride of will and desire; but in the hands of him who has learned
not the art, the wand has its dangers. Again I say you have summoned me!
Wherefore?"
"Lying shade, I summoned thee not."
"So wouldst thou say to the demons, did they come in their terrible wrath,
when the bungler, who knows not the springs that he moves, calls them up
unawares, and can neither control nor dispel. Less revengeful than they,
I leave thee unharmed, and depart."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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