THE CHARIOT OF THE FLESH

THE CHARIOT OF THE FLESH

PART I

CHAPTER I

It is nearly eleven years since Alan Sydney left England, but I have only recently been released from my promise of secrecy. So sacred to me is the memory of our friendship, that, even now, I shrink from the task of narrating his strange and curious history. A strong impulse, however, urges me to break silence.

The village of Anstead, near which we both lived, is in Surrey, possibly the best county in England to find mixed society. Here the old-fashioned farmers, the labourers who have never travelled as far as London, and a few country squires are mingled with, and influenced by, retired London shopkeepers, merchant princes--with or without H's--and a sprinkling of literary and scientific dabblers; these last are regarded with suspicion by all, but especially by the retired Army and Navy magnates.

Nobody seemed to know to which class Alan Sydney belonged, and strange to say he was admitted, chiefly, I fancy, because he was an eccentric bachelor, into all societies. As I am wealthy and have been a confirmed idler from my youth, the same privilege has been granted to me; a privilege of which, however, I am seldom inclined to take advantage.

I had known Alan Sydney for some years before we became at all intimate. He fascinated, repelled and puzzled me. "Why," I would say to myself, "is this man so confoundedly unlike other men?"

It is not easy to describe him, because, instead of having to portray an identity, I seem rather obliged to describe a number of individualities peeping out through one person. Often you would fancy when speaking to him that you were in the presence of a fool, to be sharply awakened to the unpleasant discovery that it was far more probable you were being fooled yourself. You had hardly decided that he was a liar before you were conscious that, if once able to get behind the outside spray of speech with which he was purposely blinding you, it might be possible to trust him more fully than other men. I usually left him with the unpleasant impression that instead of treating me as a man, he had been dissecting me as a mental or spiritual corpse. He seemed to have about as much regard for the opinion any one formed of his character as a surgeon would have of the views once entertained by his unconscious subject. Yet it was difficult to tell why one felt these sensations, for his manner was outwardly pleasant even at times jovial; and if there was satire in what he said it was certainly quite impossible for a third party to be conscious of it. I have heard him at a dinner-party make some trivial remark in his quiet voice to one of the guests which would cause the person addressed to flush up with annoyance and surprise as though he had been detected in a crime or stung by the lash of a whip.

I have never been able to find out why he chose me as his only confidant, but so it came about.

It was a warm summer evening, and after dinner it occurred to me that I would stroll over and consult him about an old manuscript which I had recently purchased. From something that he had once said it seemed probable that he might be able to help me with the Old English, which was more than usually difficult on account of the writer having been a North-countryman. Alan Sydney was in the garden inhaling a cigarette, a bad habit which he frequently denounced and perpetually practised. Sitting down beside him I remarked on his inconsistency.

"Consistency," he replied, smiling, "if we may believe Bacon, Emerson, and at least ten other original thinkers, is the quixotism of little minds. Inhaling cigarettes is the last infirmity of habitual smokers. The boy-child begins with a cigarette; in youth or manhood he drifts into cigars and pipes; later on, if he should be unfortunate enough once to try the experiment of inhaling, he reverts to his first love."

I turned the subject by handing to him the manuscript, which he looked over for some time with evident interest. When asked if he could make out the meaning of some of the Old English words he answered that he could not, and that there was probably no one living who could.

"You think I am conceited in making such a remark, but in that you are mistaken. It is simply that I am better acquainted with ignorance than you are. Most of these early English provincialisms, if I may use the term for want of a better, can only be guessed at. There are not sufficient local manuscripts of similar date for comparison to be of much service. If a word cannot be traced either to Anglo-Saxon, Moeso-Gothic, or Scandinavian, you may safely translate it as you please and defy criticism. But let us come in, it is getting chilly."

We entered the house together, passing on to his study. The home was typical of the man.