Had I been a true artist, a person of exquisite susceptibilities
and nothing else, I should have been bound, no doubt,
to be finally overwhelmed with this sensational touch,
and to have insisted on getting out and walking.
As it was, I regret to say, I expressed myself politely,
but firmly, to the effect that I didn’t care
particularly if the train took me to Paddington.
But when the train had started with its unknown burden
I did do one thing, and do it quite instinctively,
without stopping to think, or to think more than a
flash. I threw away my cigar. Something
that is as old as man and has to do with all mourning
and ceremonial told me to do it. There was something
unnecessarily horrible, it seemed to me, in the idea
of there being only two men in that train, and one
of them dead and the other smoking a cigar. And
as the red and gold of the butt end of it faded like
a funeral torch trampled out at some symbolic moment
of a procession, I realised how immortal ritual is.
I realised (what is the origin and essence of all
ritual) that in the presence of those sacred riddles
about which we can say nothing it is more decent merely
to do something. And I realised that ritual will
always mean throwing away something; destroying
our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.
When the train panted at last into Paddington Station
I sprang out of it with a suddenly released curiosity.
There was a barrier and officials guarding the rear
part of the train; no one was allowed to press towards
it. They were guarding and hiding something;
perhaps death in some too shocking form, perhaps something
like the Merstham matter, so mixed up with human mystery
and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort
of sanctity; perhaps something worse than either.
I went out gladly enough into the streets and saw
the lamps shining on the laughing faces. Nor
have I ever known from that day to this into what strange
story I wandered or what frightful thing was my companion
in the dark.
IV
THE PERFECT GAME
We have all met the man who says that some odd things
have happened to him, but that he does not really
believe that they were supernatural. My own
position is the opposite of this. I believe in
the supernatural as a matter of intellect and reason,
not as a matter of personal experience. I do
not see ghosts; I only see their inherent probability.
But it is entirely a matter of the mere intelligence,
not even of the motions; my nerves and body are altogether
of this earth, very earthy. But upon people of
this temperament one weird incident will often leave
a peculiar impression. And the weirdest circumstance
that ever occurred to me occurred a little while ago.
It consisted in nothing less than my playing a game,
and playing it quite well for some seventeen consecutive
minutes. The ghost of my grandfather would have
astonished me less.
