PAGE 17
A Difficult Case
by
“Well, that’s right,” said Hilbrook, in willing dismissal of the trifle which had delayed him from the great matter in his mind.
Some new thoughts had occurred to him in corroboration of the notions they had agreed upon in their last meeting. But in response Ewbert found himself beset by a strange temptation,–by the wish to take up these notions and expose their fallacy. They were indeed mere toys of their common fancy which they had constructed together in mutual supposition, but Ewbert felt a sacredness in them, while he longed so strangely to break them one by one and cast them in the old man’s face. Like all imaginative people, he was at times the prey of morbid self-suggestions, whose nature can scarcely be stated without excess. The more monstrous the thing appeared to his mind and conscience, the more fascinating it became. Once the mere horror of such a conception as catching a comely parishioner about the waist and kissing her, when she had come to him with a case of conscience, had so confused him in her presence as to make him answer her wildly, not because he was really tempted to the wickedness, but because he realized so vividly the hideousness of the impossible temptation. In some such sort he now trembled before old Hilbrook, thinking how dreadful it would be if he were suddenly to begin undoing the work of faith in him, and putting back in its place the doubts which he had uprooted before. In a swift series of dramatic representations he figured the old man’s helpless amaze at the demoniacal gayety with which he should mock his own seriousness in the past, the cynical ease with which he should show the vanity of the hopes he had been so fervent in awakening. He had throughout recognized the claim that all the counter-doubts had upon the reason, and he saw how effective he could make these if he were now to become their advocate. He pictured the despair in which he could send his proselyte tottering home to his lonely house through the dark.
He rent himself from the spell, but the last picture remained so real with him that he went to the window and looked out, saying, “Is there a moon?”
“It ain’t up yet, I guess,” said old Hilbrook, and from something in his manner, rather than from anything he recollected of their talk, Ewbert fancied him to have asked a question, and to be now waiting for some answer. He had not the least notion what the question could have been, and he began to walk up and down, trying to think of something to say, but feeling his legs weak under him and the sweat cold on his forehead. All the time he was aware of Hilbrook following him with an air of cheerful interest, and patiently waiting till he should take up the thread of their discourse again.
He controlled himself at last, and sank into his chair. “Where were we?” he asked. “I had gone off on a train of associations, and I don’t just recall our last point.”
Hilbrook stated it, and Ewbert said, “Oh, yes,” as if he recognized it, and went on from it upon the line of thought which it suggested. He was aware of talking rationally and forcibly; but in the subjective undercurrent paralleling his objective thought he was holding discourse with himself to an effect wholly different from that produced in Hilbrook.
“Well, sir,” said the old man when he rose to go at last, “I guess you’ve settled it for me. You’ve made me see that there can be an immortal life that’s worth living; and I was afraid there wa’n’t! I shouldn’t care, now, if I woke up any morning in the other world. I guess it would be all right; and that there would be new conditions every way, so that a man could go on and be himself, without feelin’ that he was in any danger of bein’ wasted. You’ve made me want to meet my boy again; and I used to dread it; I didn’t think I was fit for it. I don’t know whether you expect me to thank you; I presume you don’t; but I”–he faltered, and his voice shook in sympathy with the old hand that he put trembling into Ewbert’s–“I bless you!”