There is a theory that when a planet, like our earth for example, has manifested every form of life, when it has fulfilled itself to the point of exhaustion, it crumbles to bits and is dispersed like star dust throughout the universe. It does not roll on like a dead moon, but explodes, and in the space of a few minutes there is not a trace of it visible in the heavens. In marine life we have a similar effect. It is called implosion. When an amphibian accustomed to the black depths rises above a certain level, when the pressure to which it adapts itself is lifted, the body blows apart, implodes in a million directions. Are we not familiar with this spectacle in the human being also? The Norsemen who went berserk, the Malay who runs amok—are these not examples of implosion and explosion? When the cup is full it runs over. But when the cup and that which it contains are one substance, what then?
There are moments when the elixir of life rises to such over-brimming splendor that the soul spills over. In the seraphic smile of the Madonnas the soul is seen to flood the psyche. The moon of the face becomes full; the equation is perfect. A minute, a half-minute, a second later, the miracle has passed. Something intangible, something inexplicable, was given out—and received. In the life of a human being it may happen that the moon never comes to the full. In the lives of some human beings it would seem, indeed, that the only mysterious phenomenon observable is that of perpetual eclipse. In the case of those afflicted with genius, whatever the form it may take, we are almost frightened to observe that there is nothing but a continuous waxing and waning of the moon. Rarer still are the anomalous ones who, having come to the full, are so terrified by the wonder of it that they spend the rest of their lives endeavoring to stifle that which gave them birth and being. The war of the mind is the story of the soul-split. When the moon was at full there were those who could not accept the dim death of diminution; they tried to hang full-blown in the zenith of their own heaven. They tried to arrest the action of the law which was manifesting itself through them, through their own birth and death, in fulfillment and transfiguration. Caught between the tides they were sundered; the soul departed the body, leaving the simulacrum of a divided self to fight it out in the mind. Blasted by their own radiance they live forever the futile quest of beauty, truth and harmony. Depossessed of their own effulgence they seek to possess the soul and spirit of those to whom they are attracted. They catch every beam of light; they reflect with every facet of their hungry being. Instantly illumined, when the light is directed towards them, they are also as speedily extinguished. The more intense the light which is cast upon them the more dazzling—and blinding—they appear. Especially dangerous are they to the radiant ones; it is always towards these bright and inexhaustible luminaries that they are most passionately drawn….
She lay in an argent light, the lips slightly parted in a mysterious smile. Her body seemed extraordinarily light, as if floating in the distilled vapors of a drug. The glow which always emanated from her flesh was still there, but it was detached, suspended all about her, hovering over her like some rare condensation waiting to be reabsorbed by the flesh.
A strange idea took possession of me, as I lost myself in contemplation. Was it mad to think that in trying to extinguish herself she had discovered that she already was extinct? Had death rolled back on her, refusing to be cheated? Was that strange glow, which was collecting about her like the breath on a mirror, the reflection of another death?
She was always so intensely alive. Supernaturally alive, one might say. She never rested, except in sleep. And her sleep was that of a stone.
«Don’t you ever dream?» I had asked her once. She couldn’t remember—it was so long ago since she had had a dream.
«But everybody dreams,» I insisted. «You make no effort to remember, that’s all.»
Soon thereafter she made known to me in a too obviously casual way that she was beginning to dream again. They were extraordinary dreams. Utterly different from her talk. At first she pretended to be shy about revealing them, but then, when she saw from my queries how remarkable they were, she elaborated at great length.
One day, in recounting one of them to Kronski, giving it to him as my own and pretending that I was perplexed and mystified, I was dumbfounded to hear him say: «There’s nothing original about that, Mister Miller! Are you trying to trip me up?»
«Trip you up?» I repeated with genuine astonishment.
«It might sound original to a writer,» he sneered, «but to a psychologist it’s phoney. You can’t invent dreams like you can stories, you know. Dreams have their mark of authenticity just as stories do.»
I allowed him to demolish the dream and admitted, to shut him up, that I had invented it.
A few days later, browsing through Dr. Onirifick’s library, I came across a ponderous tome dealing with depersonalization. Skimming the pages I found an envelope with my own name and address on the back of it. It was just the flap of the envelope, but the hand writing was indubitably my own. There was only one explanation: it had been left there by Mona.
The pages which I raced through like an ant-eater were devoted to the dreams recorded by a psychiatrist. The dreams were the walking dreams of a somnambulist, with a dimorphic personality. I found myself following them with a disturbing sense of familiarity. I recognized them only in spots.
Finally I became so absorbed that I made notes of the recognizable fragments. Where the other elements had come from I would discover in due time. I yanked out a number of books, searching for place-mark, but found none.
The process, however, I had caught on to. She had extracted only the most dramatic elements—and then joined them together. It made no difference to her that one fragment was the dream of a sixteen year old female and another fragment the dream of a male drug addict.
I thought it a good idea to put the piece of torn envelope in another section of the book before returning it to the shelf.
A half hour later I had a still better idea. I took down the book, consulted my notes, and then carefully underlined the fragmentary passages she had plagiarized. I realized, of course, that with her I might never hear the truth of the matter till years later—perhaps never. But I was content to wait.
A depressing thought followed in the wake of this reflection. If she could fake her dream life, what about her waking life? If I were to begin investigating her past… The enormity of that task was in itself enough to dissuade me from any immediate attempt in that direction. However, one could always prick up his ears. That was not a cheerful thought either. One can’t go through life with ears cocked. Curiously enough, I had no more than told myself this when I recalled the way she had dismissed a certain subject. It was strange how she had succeeded in making me forget that little item. In disabusing me of the idea that I had caught a glimpse of her mother in the backyard, on my first inspection of her home precincts, she had skillfully buried the suspicion by dwelling with artful sincerity on the traits and qualities of the woman I had imagined to be her mother, the woman she insisted must have been her aunt. It was such a commonplace ruse of the liar that I was annoyed at myself, thinking back on it, to have been taken in so easily. This at least was something I could investigate in the near future. I was so positive that I was right that I almost decided to forego te mechanical task of corroboration. It would be more enjoyable, I thought to myself, not to go there just yet, but to trap her by some clever verbal maneuvering. If I could develop the art of laying traps it would save a lot of useless footwork.
Above all, I concluded, it was imperative never to let her suspect that I was on to her lies. Why was that so imperative? I asked myself almost immediately. To have the pleasure of uncovering more and more untruths? Was that a pleasure? And then another question popped into my head. If you were married to a dipsomaniac, would you pretend that the mania for alcohol was perfectly harmless? Would you keep up the pretence that everything was lovely in order to study the effects of this particular vice upon the person of the one you loved?
If there were any legitimacy in abetting the appetites of curiosity then it were better to get at the root of the thing, to discover why she lied so flagrantly. The effects of this malady were not altogether obvious to me—yet. A little thought and I should have
