<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>XVIII<br/> <small>THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH</small></h2>
<p class='drop-cap'>WHEN men have slain the Living Truth and a
new age has arisen from its death, the world
still rolls onward in its course and mankind does
not know that anything has happened. Children
are born into the world, men and women are
married, others die, and only a few poor, lowly
ones know the significance of that death and
resurrection. Thus it must ever be. In the
outer world there is no sign; each man pursues
his own business and pleasure with just the same
avidity as though God’s Truth had not perished
in the flesh to rise again into the glory of resurrection.</p>
<p>Yea; judgment-day may come and the angel
may blow his trumpet until the earth shall crack
and heaven itself shall tremble, but the ears of
man are deaf to the blast and his eyes are blind
to the terrors that overhang the soul. In his ears
are stoppers of clay and over his eyes is a film of
flesh, and neither sound nor sight can reach him.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>What wonder, then, that men not only deny
their Creator and their Redeemer, but even refuse
to believe that the soul within them is alive.
To them the body seems alive and not the soul;
to them it seems as though this world is the end
of everything.</p>
<hr class="tb" />
<p>Mrs. Gilderman, though she had not recovered
from her confinement with the rapidity that a
washerwoman might have done under the same
circumstances, was, nevertheless, so nearly quite
well by the end of the month as to be able to be
down-stairs and about the house. She did not
go much abroad. Maybe on a fine afternoon she
would take a spin in the park in the automobile
or out along the river, but she did not go shopping,
and was yet watched by her nurse with the
jealous care due to a convalescent patient of such
pre-eminent importance. But, though she did
not go abroad, her friends came to see her, and
she often held receptions in her own room with
tea and wafers, maybe, and a babble of feminine
chatter. She was conscious that her imported
blue tea-gown was vastly becoming to
her blond beauty, and she made the most of it,
lying back in a nest of blue silk, silver-embroidered
cushions.</p>
<p>It was about this time that she made Gilderman<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</SPAN></span>
promise to have his portrait painted. “I
want Reginald to have it to say,” she said, “that
that is the way my father looked in the year that
I was born.”</p>
<p>So Gilderman had commissioned Norcott to
paint a full-length portrait of himself with a bit
of realistic background showing a glimpse of the
famous Cyprian Adonis fragment. No one living
could do those little realistic bits of background
as could Norcott.</p>
<p>During this same month the Biddington-De
Vaux wedding was to come off at the national
capital–Arabella Stewart Biddington and Lord
George De Vaux, an <i>attaché</i> to a foreign embassy.
Gilderman, on the score of relationship
to Miss Biddington, had, of course, to go. That
same day he was also to give a sitting to Norcott.
He was growing very tired of these sittings.
There had been a great many of them, for Norcott
was endeavoring to make the work a <i>chef-d’œuvre</i>.
At first Gilderman had been very much
interested in the artist, his surroundings, and
the studio in which he worked. Not only had
Norcott much to say for himself, but he had collected
about him an enormous amount of bric-à-brac,
rugs, tapestries, and hangings. You would
have pronounced the anteroom to the studio to
have been cluttered were the things gathered<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</SPAN></span>
there less fine and interesting than they were.
The studio itself was a great, high-ceilinged room
with a big skylight. There was more bric-à-brac,
rugs, tapestries here, but in the wider spaces they
did not seem so crowded together as in the anteroom.
Gilderman had become pretty well acquainted
with all these surroundings by now, and
they were no longer so interesting to him as they
had been at first. He sat there in the morning
of the Biddington-De Vaux wedding feeling rather
bored. He had to take the trip to the capital
in the afternoon, too. That also was a bore in
prospect.</p>
<p>The outer door of the reception-room of Norcott’s
studio was so arranged that when it opened
a chime of bells was rung. Norcott was working
silently and industriously and Gilderman was sitting
thinking about the nuisance of the impending
journey, when suddenly the chime of bells
rang out upon the silence of the studio. Presently
Norcott’s Moorish servant came bringing
in a card. Norcott looked at it. “It’s Santley
Foord, Mr. Gilderman,” he said. “Would you
like him to come in? He’s a very interesting
fellow, and it might entertain you.”</p>
<p>“Santley Foord?” said Gilderman. And then,
remembering the name: “Oh yes; he’s the fellow
who wrote and illustrated those very interesting<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</SPAN></span>
articles about the West-China <i>imbroglio</i>
for the <i>Mundane Sphere</i>, is he not?”</p>
<p>“Yes, that’s the man.”</p>
<p>“I’d be very glad to meet him,” said Gilderman,
welcoming any break in the monotony of
the sitting.</p>
<p>Then Santley Foord came in. He was a lively,
brisk little man, with a face burned russet-brown
by the sun, a mustache nearly white, and very
light, closely cropped gray hair. He had a strong
jaw and chin, and his little eyes were as bright
and as black as beads and danced and twinkled
and were never still for a moment. Norcott introduced
Gilderman, who bowed with a manner
that was very urbane. Santley Foord was evidently
extremely gratified by the introduction.</p>
<p>“I was very much interested in your West-China
articles,” said Gilderman. “It seemed to
me that your sketches were strikingly clever,
too. That one with the dead bodies lying on
the snow and the flock of crows around them
and the long line of road cut through the snow
and stretching away to the distance against the
gray sky impressed me extremely.”</p>
<p>“I am highly flattered that you should have
noticed it, Mr. Gilderman,” said Foord. “One can
always get a capital effect of snow in reproductive
process. And then, I suppose, the subject<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</SPAN></span>
was very fetching. I stood there in the snow
sketching the scene over the back of my Tartar
pony, with the sketch-book resting on the saddle,
while my two Kalmuck men brewed some
tea in a deserted hut at the road-side.” Then
he began describing incidental scenes connected
with the circumstances of the massacre. He
talked well, and Gilderman listened much interested.</p>
<p>From this subject, at a question from Norcott,
the narrator branched out into his experience in
a Tartar village. He described his introduction
to a fat old Tartar chief, and he mimicked the
obese Oriental with an almost startling vividness.
Gilderman laughed heartily, and as he
did so he registered in his own mind that he
would give a man’s dinner-party and would ask
Santley Foord. It would be very entertaining.
How Stirling West would enjoy the fellow.</p>
<p>“But, after all,” said Foord, “you don’t have
to go out to the far East to find such things. I’ve
come across a mine of interest here that nobody
seems to know or to think anything about. Did
you, for instance, know that the disciples of that
carpenter, about whom there was so much talk
awhile ago, are still living here in the very midst
of the city, a community in themselves? They
claim to have had supernatural experiences and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</SPAN></span>
to have seen visions and all that sort of thing.
They have strange religious ceremonies and meetings,
in which they appear to go off into a trance
state, and a good many of the poor people among
whom they live believe all that they say to be a
<i>bona-fide</i> fact.”</p>
<p>“I thought all that trouble was over and done
with now,” said Gilderman.</p>
<p>“Oh no, indeed. Why, I’m going to meet
Dolan–Inspector Dolan, you know–at eleven
o’clock to-day, and we’re going down to a meeting
that those people are going to hold this morning.
I’m going to make a sketch of it. They are quite
the most interesting thing I have come across for
a long time, and I think the world will be rather
struck to find that these strange folk are living in
its very midst without its knowing anything at
all about them.”</p>
<p>“Really!” said Gilderman. And then, after a
moment of pause: “Do you know, Mr. Foord, I’d
like immensely to go with you and Dolan and see
these people.”</p>
<p>Santley Foord laughed. “Well, Mr. Gilderman,
to tell you the honest truth, I don’t believe
you would like it very much. The surroundings
are not especially pleasant. I’ve got used to all
those kinds of sights and smells by this time. One
gets used to no end of such things knocking about<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</SPAN></span>
on the rough side of the world, but I don’t believe
you’d like it.”</p>
<p>Gilderman laughed in answer. “I don’t know
that I would especially like the sights and smells,”
he said, “but I’d like very much to see what
these poor people are doing.” And then, after
a brief second of hesitation, he continued: “Such
things interest me very much. I saw the Man
Himself two or three times while He was alive,
and spoke to Him once face to face. He impressed
me very singularly.”</p>
<p>“Did He, indeed?” said Santley Foord.</p>
<p>Gilderman had found it very hard one time to
confess this to his wife. It had not been so
hard to repeat the narrative in part to Stirling
West, and since then he had described the scene
in the cemetery several times to friends who
had asked him about it. He described it now,
growing conscious as he did so of how flat his
narrative was compared to the clever way in
which Foord would have told the story.</p>
<p>Foord listened very interestedly. “By Jove!”
he said, when Gilderman had ended, “I would
have given a deal to see that, Mr. Gilderman.
It beats anything I ever saw down in India, and
I’ve seen some very strange things there, too.”
Then he began a vivid description of the old
trick: how he had once seen some jugglers put a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</SPAN></span>
woman under a basket that was just big enough
to cover her, and of how one of the Indians had
run the basket through and through with a
sword. His description of the woman’s screams
and of the trick blood that flowed from under
the basket and over the hot, white stones of the
pavement was almost horribly startling, and Gilderman,
as he listened, again registered a determination
that he would ask Santley Foord to a
man’s dinner some time in the near future.</p>
<p>After a while Foord arose from where he was
sitting and sauntered around the room, looking
at some of the pictures and sketches. Then,
having completed his inspection, he said, in his
almost abrupt fashion: “Well, it’s time to go
around to the St. George. If you really care to
go with us to see these people, Mr. Gilderman,
I’ll be glad to take you along.”</p>
<p>“I’d like to see them,” said Gilderman, “but
I don’t know whether Norcott’s through with me
yet.”</p>
<p>“Just give me five minutes more, Mr. Gilderman,”
said Norcott, “and then we’ll call the sitting
off for the day.”</p>
<p>Gilderman took Foord around to the St. George
with him in his automobile, and they got out together
and entered the wide, marble-flagged vestibule
almost arm-in-arm. They found Inspector<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</SPAN></span>
Dolan already there and waiting. He was sitting
on one of the leather-covered seats that stood
along the wall and was talking to a stranger.
He arose as Gilderman and Foord came in,
and he looked distinctly surprised to see Gilderman.</p>
<p>“Mr. Gilderman wants to go along with us,”
said Foord, and then the inspector laughed.</p>
<p>Gilderman ordered an electric coach, and as
they whirled away down-town he offered his
cigarette-case to his companions.</p>
<p>“I don’t think I’ve seen you, inspector,” he
said, “since that man sold his Master to the
bishop that day. Whatever became of him? I
wonder if he ever felt sorry for what he had
done.”</p>
<p>“Sorry!” said the inspector–“sorry! I should
think so. The officers found his dead body hanging
to a tree the day after the execution.”</p>
<p>“Oh yes,” said Gilderman, “I remember now
reading an account of it. But I did not know it
was that man who hanged himself.”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir, that was the man.”</p>
<p>The coach stopped in a narrow and dirty
street. Then they all got out and walked for
some little distance down the paved court until
the inspector at last turned into an alleyway.</p>
<p>The alley opened into another paved court, and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</SPAN></span>
here Gilderman found himself in the midst of the
sights and smells of which Santley Foord had
spoken. There were two or three rather dilapidated
houses looking down upon the court. They
were shabby, squalid-looking piles, and overhead,
from house to house, were stretched clothes-lines,
with clothes hanging out to dry, motionless in
the dull, heavy air. The court was paved with
cobble-stones, and here and there water had
settled in stagnant puddles. There were a
couple of ash-barrels standing by one of the
houses, piled high with ashes and scraps of
refuse.</p>
<p>The inspector led the way directly to one of the
houses. He put his hand upon the knob of the
door and turned it very softly. Then he opened
it and entered with Gilderman and Foord at his
heels.</p>
<p>Gilderman found himself in a dark, narrow
entryway. The walls of the entry had that peculiar,
greasy look that seems always to belong to
houses of the poorer sort, and there was everywhere
a rank and pervading smell. As the inspector
closed the door, another door at the
farther end of the entry opened and a stout
woman, unmistakably Jewish in appearance,
stood framed in the space of light behind. She
hesitated for a moment, and then said, with a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</SPAN></span>
sharp, rasping voice: “What do you want?
What are you doing here?”</p>
<p>The inspector walked directly along the passageway
towards her. “That’s all right, Sarah,”
he said. “It’s Inspector Dolan.”</p>
<p>“What’s the matter now?” said the woman.
“I ’ain’t been doing no harm.”</p>
<p>“There’s nothing the matter at all, only these
two gentlemen here want to go up-stairs to see
your friends on the third floor.”</p>
<p>“There ain’t nobody up on the third floor,”
said the woman, sullenly; “they ’ain’t been here
for a couple of days.”</p>
<p>The inspector laughed. “That’s all right,
Sarah,” he said. “We’ll go up and look for ourselves.
Just you stay down here. And don’t
you go kicking up a row,” he added, turning
suddenly stern in his demeanor.</p>
<p>The woman shrunk back as though threatened
with a lash, but she did not go entirely away.
She partly followed them and then stood watching
with a sort of impotent sullenness as they
went up-stairs, the inspector leading the way.</p>
<p>Gilderman was nearly overpowered by the
close, heavy atmosphere of the house. His companions
did not seem to think anything of it
at all, and he knew that the people who lived
every day in that atmosphere would not be aware<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</SPAN></span>
of its close fetor. Surroundings of this sort were
infinitely distasteful to him, but since he had
come so far he made up his mind that he would
go on to the end.</p>
<p>As the three climbed the stairs Gilderman became
aware of a strange, droning, sing-song sort
of chant, or rather mummer, that grew louder
and louder as they ascended. He found it came
from one of the rooms on the third floor. The
inspector led the way directly to the door of this
room, and Santley Foord turned and said to Gilderman:
“It’s those people you hear, and, by
George! Mr. Gilderman, we’re in luck; they’re
about some of their religious ceremonies this
minute. I hope you’ll be able to see some of
them in a trance state.”</p>
<p>The inspector stood for a while with his hand
upon the knob as though listening. Then he
said, in a low voice, “I’ll wait outside here.”</p>
<p>“Is it perfectly safe?” asked Gilderman, instinctively
lowering his voice to the same pitch
as that in which the inspector spoke.</p>
<p>“Lord bless you! yes, Mr. Gilderman,” said
Dolan; “they’re as harmless as mice.”</p>
<p>Then he opened the door and Foord stepped
into the room, closely followed by Gilderman.
There were maybe a dozen or so men in the
crowded space. The room was very close and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</SPAN></span>
hot. Some of the inmates were sitting around
a deal table; two were standing with their backs
to a cold and rusty stove, and one was leaning
against the wall, his face hidden in his arm, his
body shaking as though he were crying. None
of them seemed to be aware of the presence of
the intruders, and then Gilderman saw with a
shock, almost as of awe, that they were indeed
in a state as though of entrancement. The
faces of all were transfixed, vacant, exalted.
They seemed all to be lit with a singular illumination.
It was almost as though the faces
were translucent and illuminated to that singular
roseate brightness by a light from behind.
Gilderman had never seen anything like it before.
By-and-by a feeling akin to terror began
to creep over him. What did it all mean? A
strange, groaning murmur coming from the
breasts of the men filled the room full of sound,
now rising fuller, almost into articulate speech,
now quavering away into a dull murmur. It
was very impressive–almost awful, to Gilderman.</p>
<p>If Foord was at all impressed he was too busy
to yield to his emotions. He had taken out
his sketch-book and was sketching rapidly. Inspector
Dolan was looking over his shoulder
through the half-open door.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>None of the three knew what it was that they
had come so near to seeing; for the crying man
with his face hidden against the wall was Thomas
the Doubter.</p>
<p>Still Foord sketched away rapidly, and by-and-by
Gilderman found himself becoming interested
in the swift, dexterous strokes of the
pencil and the quick suggestions of portraiture.
“Do you suppose they mind you doing this?”
he whispered.</p>
<p>“Lord bless you, no!” said Foord, <i>sotto voce</i>.
“They don’t see or know anything when they’re
in that state.”</p>
<p>At the sound of the voice the crying man lifted
his face for a moment from his hands and looked
towards Gilderman with strange, filmy, sightless
eyes. His cheeks were drenched with tears.
Gilderman knew that though the man looked
towards him he did not see him.</p>
<hr class="tb" />
<p>As Gilderman continued down-town towards
the office, he felt strangely softened and moved–strangely
impressed by what he had just seen.
Again, as he thought over it all, a feeling as of
awe came upon him. He did not understand
what it was he had beheld, but the impression
lay heavily upon him. A recollection of the
morning’s scene, accompanied by the same feeling<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</SPAN></span>
of awe (though less strong and vivid), recurred
again to him that afternoon as he crossed
the river to embark upon the other side for
the capital. He was standing in the bow of
the ferry-boat at the time looking out across
the water. He had never seen a human face
illuminated as those faces had been. It was
as though the spirit shone forth and consumed
the fibres of flesh that incased it. Was it then,
indeed, true that the spirit was so present in
every fibre of flesh that it could thus glorify the
human body to that strange illumination? The
bright surface of the harbor stretched away before
him, shut in by the distant farther shore of
clustered buildings. A huge out-going steamer
was ploughing its slow and monstrous way down
the river. Gilderman saw everything and yet
saw nothing as he stood there pondering the
remembrances of that morning.</p>
<p>He suddenly awoke to the things of every day
as the boat thumped its way into the slip, and
he pushed forward with the crowd which, as
soon as it had poured off from the boat, presently
spread out until he was able to hurry
through the waiting-room of the depot to the
train.</p>
<p>His man met him at the gate and directed
him to the parlor-car, where Stirling West met<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</SPAN></span>
him. “Hello, Gildy!” he said; “I thought you
were going to be left.”</p>
<p>As they went together along between the
rows of chairs to the compartment where Tom
De Witt and his mother and two sisters already
sat, Stirling West nudged Gilderman with his
elbow. “Ain’t she a daisy!” he said, in a whisper.
And Gilderman, looking down, saw an exceedingly
pretty and stylishly dressed blond girl
sitting with an elderly man of senatorial appearance.</p>
<p>He felt a distinct pleasure in the prettiness
of the girl, and he looked back at her again as
he was about to enter the door of the compartment.
He was already forgetting what he had
that morning seen.</p>
<p class='center'><br/>
THE END<br/></p>
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