Looking Backward: 2000-1887 Read online

  CHAPTER XX.

  That afternoon Edith casually inquired if I had yet revisited theunderground chamber in the garden in which I had been found.

  "Not yet," I replied. "To be frank, I have shrunk thus far from doingso, lest the visit might revive old associations rather too stronglyfor my mental equilibrium."

  "Ah, yes!" she said, "I can imagine that you have done well to stayaway. I ought to have thought of that."

  "No," I said, "I am glad you spoke of it. The danger, if there wasany, existed only during the first day or two. Thanks to you, chieflyand always, I feel my footing now so firm in this new world, that ifyou will go with me to keep the ghosts off, I should really like tovisit the place this afternoon."

  Edith demurred at first, but, finding that I was in earnest, consentedto accompany me. The rampart of earth thrown up from the excavationwas visible among the trees from the house, and a few steps brought usto the spot. All remained as it was at the point when work wasinterrupted by the discovery of the tenant of the chamber, save thatthe door had been opened and the slab from the roof replaced.Descending the sloping sides of the excavation, we went in at the doorand stood within the dimly-lighted room.

  Everything was just as I had beheld it last on that evening onehundred and thirteen years previous, just before closing my eyes forthat long sleep. I stood for some time silently looking about me. Isaw that my companion was furtively regarding me with an expression ofawed and sympathetic curiosity. I put out my hand to her and sheplaced hers in it, the soft fingers responding with a reassuringpressure to my clasp. Finally she whispered, "Had we not better go outnow? You must not try yourself too far. Oh, how strange it must be toyou!"

  "On the contrary," I replied, "it does not seem strange; that is thestrangest part of it."

  "Not strange?" she echoed.

  "Even so," I replied. "The emotions with which you evidently creditme, and which I anticipated would attend this visit, I simply do notfeel. I realize all that these surroundings suggest, but without theagitation I expected. You can't be nearly as much surprised at this asI am myself. Ever since that terrible morning when you came to myhelp, I have tried to avoid thinking of my former life, just as I haveavoided coming here, for fear of the agitating effects. I am for allthe world like a man who has permitted an injured limb to liemotionless under the impression that it is exquisitely sensitive, andon trying to move it finds that it is paralyzed."

  "Do you mean your memory is gone?"

  "Not at all. I remember everything connected with my former life, butwith a total lack of keen sensation. I remember it for clearness as ifit had been but a day since then, but my feelings about what Iremember are as faint as if to my consciousness, as well as in fact, ahundred years had intervened. Perhaps it is possible to explain this,too. The effect of change in surroundings is like that of lapse oftime in making the past seem remote. When I first woke from thattrance, my former life appeared as yesterday, but now, since I havelearned to know my new surroundings, and to realize the prodigiouschanges that have transformed the world, I no longer find it hard, butvery easy, to realize that I have slept a century. Can you conceive ofsuch a thing as living a hundred years in four days? It really seemsto me that I have done just that, and that it is this experience whichhas given so remote and unreal an appearance to my former life. Canyou see how such a thing might be?"

  "I can conceive it," replied Edith, meditatively, "and I think weought all to be thankful that it is so, for it will save you muchsuffering, I am sure."

  "Imagine," I said, in an effort to explain, as much to myself as toher, the strangeness of my mental condition, "that a man first heardof a bereavement many, many years, half a lifetime perhaps, after theevent occurred. I fancy his feeling would be perhaps something as mineis. When I think of my friends in the world of that former day, andthe sorrow they must have felt for me, it is with a pensive pity,rather than keen anguish, as of a sorrow long, long ago ended."

  "You have told us nothing yet of your friends," said Edith. "Had youmany to mourn you?"

  "Thank God, I had very few relatives, none nearer than cousins," Ireplied. "But there was one, not a relative, but dearer to me than anykin of blood. She had your name. She was to have been my wife soon. Ahme!"

  "Ah me!" sighed the Edith by my side. "Think of the heartache she musthave had."

  Something in the deep feeling of this gentle girl touched a chord inmy benumbed heart. My eyes, before so dry, were flooded with the tearsthat had till now refused to come. When I had regained my composure, Isaw that she too had been weeping freely.

  "God bless your tender heart," I said. "Would you like to see herpicture?"

  A small locket with Edith Bartlett's picture, secured about my neckwith a gold chain, had lain upon my breast all through that longsleep, and removing this I opened and gave it to my companion. Shetook it with eagerness, and after poring long over the sweet face,touched the picture with her lips.

  "I know that she was good and lovely enough to well deserve yourtears," she said; "but remember her heartache was over long ago, andshe has been in heaven for nearly a century."

  It was indeed so. Whatever her sorrow had once been, for nearly acentury she had ceased to weep, and, my sudden passion spent, my owntears dried away. I had loved her very dearly in my other life, but itwas a hundred years ago! I do not know but some may find in thisconfession evidence of lack of feeling, but I think, perhaps, thatnone can have had an experience sufficiently like mine to enable themto judge me. As we were about to leave the chamber, my eye rested uponthe great iron safe which stood in one corner. Calling my companion'sattention to it, I said:--

  "This was my strong room as well as my sleeping room. In the safeyonder are several thousand dollars in gold, and any amount ofsecurities. If I had known when I went to sleep that night just howlong my nap would be, I should still have thought that the gold was asafe provision for my needs in any country or any century, howeverdistant. That a time would ever come when it would lose its purchasingpower, I should have considered the wildest of fancies. Nevertheless,here I wake up to find myself among a people of whom a cartload ofgold will not procure a loaf of bread."

  As might be expected, I did not succeed in impressing Edith that therewas anything remarkable in this fact. "Why in the world should it?"she merely asked.