Peculiar: A Tale of the Great TransitionSargent, Epes
History
Peculiar: A Tale of the Great Transition
Sargent, Epes
African Americans -- Fiction; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
After this improvised concert, Peek felt all at once a warm living hand
upon his forehead, first lovingly patting it and then passing round his
cheek, under his chin, and up on the other side of his face. He grasped
the hand, and it returned his pressure. It was a hand much larger than
Corinna’s, and she lay on her back several feet from him, too far to
touch him with any part of her person. Plainly in the moonlight he could
see it,—a perfect hand, resembling his mother’s! It shaded off into
vacuity above the wrist, and, even while he held it solid and
flesh-like, melted all at once, like an impalpable ether, in his
grasp.[6]
These phenomena, with continual variations, were repeated day after day
and night after night. Flowers would drop from the ceiling into his
hands, delicious odors of fruits would diffuse themselves through the
room. A music like that of the Swiss bell-ringers would break upon the
silence, continuing for a minute or more. A pen would start up from the
table and write an intelligible sentence. A castanet would be played on
and dashed about furiously, as if by some invisible Bacchante. A
clatter, as of the hammering of a hundred carpenters, would suddenly
make itself heard. A voice would speak intelligible sentences, sometimes
using a tin trumpet for the purpose. Articles of furniture would pass
about the room and cross each other with a swiftness and precision that
no mortal could imitate. The noise of dancers, using their feet, and
keeping time, would be heard on the floor.
Once Corinna asked him to leave his watch with her. He did so. When he
was several rods from the house she called to him, “You are sure you
haven’t your watch?” “Yes, sure,” replied Peek. He hurried home, a
distance of two miles, without meeting a human being. On undressing to
go to bed, he found his watch in his vest pocket.
These physical thaumaturgies produced upon Peek a more astounding effect
than all the evidences of mind-reading and clairvoyance. In the
communications made to him by the “power,” there was generally something
unsatisfying or incomplete. He would, for instance, think of some
departed friend,—a white man, perhaps,—and, without uttering or writing
a word, would desire some manifestation from that friend. Immediately
Corinna would strip from her arm the drapery, and show on her skin,
written in clear crimson letters, some brief message signed by the right
name. And then the supposed bearer of that name (speaking through
Corinna) would correctly recall incidents of his acquaintance with
Peek.[7]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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