John had risen, and was saying with his mouth full, “Hullo, old Fido, hullo, Bertha! You’ll hate me, Bertha, but I must have Fido to help me for a few weeks, buying stores and things.”
“But we’re just going to get married,” I protested.
“Damn!” said John. Then to my surprise I assured John that of course we would put it off for a couple of months. Bertha wilted12 on to a chair with a voiceless “Of course.”
“Good,” cried John cheerfully. “After this affair I may not bother you any more.”
Unexpectedly my heart sank.
The following weeks were spent in a whirl of practical activities. The Skid had to be reconditioned, the plane repaired. Tools and machinery13, electric fittings and plumbing14 materials must be bought and shipped to Valparaiso to await transhipment. Timber must be sent from the South American forests to the same port. General stores must be purchased in England. My task was to negotiate all these transactions, under John’s direction. John himself prepared a list of books which I must somehow procure16 and dispatch. There were to be scores of technical works on various biological subjects, tropical agriculture, medicine and so on. There were to be books on theoretical physics, astronomy, philosophy, and a rather intriguing17 selection of purely18 literary works in many languages. Most difficult to procure were many scores of Asiatic writings with titles suggestive of the occult.
Shortly before the Skid’s next sailing-date the additional European members of the party began to arrive. John himself went to Hungary to fetch Jelli, a mite19 said to be seventeen years old. She was no beauty. The frontal and the occipital regions of her head were repulsively20 over-developed, so that the back of her head stretched away behind her, and her brow protruded21 beyond her nose, which was rudimentary. In profile her head suggested a croquet mallet22. She had a hare-lip and short bandy legs. Her general appearance was that of a cretin; yet she had supernormal intelligence and temperament23, and also hyper-sensitive vision. Not only did she distinguish two primary colours within the spectrum-band that we call blue, but also she could see well down into the infra-red. In addition to this colour-discrimination, she had a sense of form that was, so to speak, much finer-grained than ours. Probably there were more nerve-endings in her retinae than in normal eyes, for she could read a newspaper at twenty yards’ distance, and she could see at a glance that a penny was not accurately24 circular. So sensitive was she to form that, if the parts of a puzzle picture were flung down before her, she took in their significant relations at a glance, and could construct the picture without a pause. This amazing percipience often caused her distress25, for no man-made article appeared to her to achieve the shape that its maker26 intended. And in the sphere of art she was excruciated, not merely by inaccuracy of execution but also by crudity27 of conception.
Besides Jelli, there was the French girl, Marianne Laffon, quite normal in contrast with Jelli, and rather pretty with her dark eyes and olive skin. She was seemingly a repository of the whole of French culture, and could quote any passage of any classic, and, by some magic of her own, so amplify28 it that one seemed to plumb15 the author’s mind.
There was also a Swedish girl, Sigrid, whom John called the Comb–Wielder, “because she has such a gift for combing out tangled29 minds till they’re all sleek30 and sane31.” She had been a consumptive, but had apparently32 cured herself by some sort of mental “immunizing” of her tissues. Even after her cure she retained the phthisic’s cheerfulness. A great-eyed, fragile thing, she combined her wonderful gift of sympathy and insight with a maternal33 tenderness toward brute34 strength. When she found it being brutal35, she censured36 but still loved it. She was moved to send it away howling with its tail between its legs, but at the same time she “felt all sloppy37 about it. as though it were just a delicious little naughty boy.”
Several young male supernormals turned up, one by one, to join the Skid. (The Wainwrights’ house became at this time a shocking slum.) There was Kemi, the Finn, a younger John; Shah?n, the Turk, a few years older than John, but well content to be his subordinate; and Kargis from the Caucasus.
Of these. Shah?n was from the normal point of view the most attractive, for he had the build of a Russian dancer and in social intercourse38 a lightness of touch which one took according to one’s mood, either as charming frivolity39 or as sublime40 detachment.
Kargis, who was not much younger than John, arrived in a state bordering on mania41. He had had a very trying journey in a tramp steamer, and his unstable42 mind had failed to stand the strain. In appearance he was of John’s type, but darker and less hardy43. I found it very difficult to form a consistent idea of this strange being. He oscillated between excitement and lethargy, between passion and detachment. The cause of these fluctuations44 was not, I was assured, anything in his body’s physiological45 rhythm, but external events which were hidden from me. When I inquired what kind of events, Lo, who was trying to help me, said, “He’s like Sigrid in having a great sense of personality. But he regards persons rather differently from her way. She just loves them, and laughs at them too, and helps them, and cures them. But for him each person is like a work of art, having a particular quality or style, or ideal form which he embodies46 well or ill. And when a person is jarringly untrue to his peculiar47 style or ideal form, Kargis is excruciated.”
The ten young people and one helpless infant set sail in the Skid in August of 1928.
John kept in communication with us by the ordinary mail. As I shall explain later, the Skid, and sometimes the plane, had occasion to make frequent voyages among the Islands or to Valparaiso. Thus it was possible to post John’s brief and guarded letters. From these documents we learned first that the voyage out had been uneventful; that they had called at Valparaiso to load as much of the stores as possible; that they had reached the island; that the Skid, manned by Ng–Gunko, Kemi and Marianne, was plying48 to and from Valparaiso to transport the rest of the stores; that the building of the settlement was now well under way; that the Asiatic members had arrived, and were “settling in nicely,” that a hurricane had struck the island, destroying all the temporary buildings, depositing the damaged Skid on a little hill beside the harbour, and hurting one of the Tibetan boys; that they had sowed large tracts49 of fruit and vegetables; that they had built six canoes for fishing; that Kargis had fallen seriously ill of some digestive disease and was expected to die; that he had recovered; that the remains50 of a Galapagos lizard51 had been washed up on the shore after God knows how long a journey; that Sigrid had tamed an albatross, and that it stole the breakfast; that the Colony had suffered its first tragedy, for Yang Chung had been caught by a shark, and Kemi had been seriously mauled in the vain attempt to rescue him, that Sambo was spending all his time reading, but could not yet sit upright; that they had made for themselves pipes on the James Jones model, but with special attachments52 so that they could be played by normal five-fingered hands; that Tsomotre (one of the Tibetans) and Shah?n were composing wonderful music; that Jelli had developed acute appendicitis53 and Lo had operated successfully; that Lo herself had been working too hard on some embryological experiments and had fallen into one of her terrible nightmares; that she was awake again; that Marianne and Shên Kuo had gone to live on the far side of the Island “because they wanted to be alone for a bit”; that “Washy” was going mad, for she complained of feeling hate for Lankor (a Tibetan girl) who had won the heart of Shah?n; that “Washy” had tried to kill Lankor and herself; that Sigrid, in spite of prolonged and patient efforts, had failed to cure “Washy,” and was now herself showing signs of strain; that both girls were not being cured from afar by Langatse’s telepathic influence; that the Colonists54 had completed their stone library and meeting-house, and the observatory55 was being started; that Tsomotre and Lankor, who were evidently the most expert telepathists, were now able to provide the colony with the news of the world in daily bulletins; that the more advanced members of the party, under the direction of Langatse, were undergoing severe exercises in spiritual discipline, which in time should raise them to a new plane of experience; that a severe earthquake had caused the whole island to sink nearly two feet, so that they had to lay several new courses of stone on the quays56, and would henceforth need to keep the Skid in readiness for a sudden exodus57, in case the island should disappear.
As the months protracted58 themselves into years, John’s letters became less frequent and more brief. He was evidently entirely59 absorbed in the affairs of the colony; and as the party became more and more concerned with supernormal activities, he found it increasingly difficult to give us an intelligible60 account of their life.
In the spring of 1932, however, I was greatly surprised to receive a long letter from John, the main purport61 of which was to urge me to visit the island as soon as possible. I quote the essential passage. “You will laugh when I tell you I want you to come and use your journalistic prowess upon us. In fact I want you to write that threatened biography after all, not for our sakes but for your own species. I must explain. We have made a wonderful start. Sometimes it was a bit grim, but now we have worked out a very satisfactory life and society. Our practical activities run smoothly62, delightfully63, and we are able at last to join in a great effort to reach the higher planes of experience. Already we are very different mentally from what we were when we landed. Some of us have seen far and deep into reality, and we have at least gained a clear view of the work we have undertaken. But a number of signs suggest that before very many months have passed the colony will be destroyed. If your species discovers us, it will certainly try to smash us; and we are not yet in a position to defeat it. Langatse has urged us (and he is right) to push on with the spiritual part of our work, so as to complete as much as possible of it before the end. But also we may as well leave records of our little adventure as an example for any future supernormals who may attempt to found the new world, and for the benefit of the more sensitive members of Homo sapiens. Langatse will take charge of the record for supernormals; the record for your species entails64 only normal powers and can be done satisfactorily by yourself.”
I was now a tolerably successful free-lance journalist, and I had a full programme before me. I was married, and Bertha was expecting a child. Yet I eagerly accepted the invitation. That afternoon I made inquiries65 about steamers for Valparaiso, and replied to John (post restante at that city), telling him when to expect me.
Guiltily, I broke my news to Bertha. She was hard hit by it, but she said, “Yes, if John wants you, of course you must go.” Then I went round to the Wainwrights’. Pax greatly surprised me, for no sooner had I begun to tell her about the letter than she interrupted me. “I know,” she said, “for some weeks he has been giving me little stray visions of the island, and even talking to me. He said he would be asking for you.”
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1
skid
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| v.打滑 n.滑向一侧；滑道 ，滑轨 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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snugly
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| adv.紧贴地；贴身地；暖和舒适地；安适地 | |
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tighten
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| v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧 | |
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squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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6
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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7
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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9
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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10
inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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11
reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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12
wilted
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| （使）凋谢，枯萎( wilt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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14
plumbing
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| n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究 | |
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plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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16
procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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17
intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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18
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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mite
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| n.极小的东西；小铜币 | |
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repulsively
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| adv.冷淡地 | |
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protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22
mallet
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| n.槌棒 | |
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23
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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24
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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25
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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crudity
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| n.粗糙，生硬；adj.粗略的 | |
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amplify
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| vt.放大，增强；详述，详加解说 | |
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29
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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30
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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32
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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33
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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36
censured
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| v.指责，非难，谴责( censure的过去式 ) | |
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sloppy
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| adj.邋遢的，不整洁的 | |
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38
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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39
frivolity
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| n.轻松的乐事，兴高采烈；轻浮的举止 | |
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40
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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41
mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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42
unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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43
hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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44
fluctuations
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| 波动，涨落，起伏( fluctuation的名词复数 ) | |
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45
physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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46
embodies
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| v.表现( embody的第三人称单数 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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47
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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48
plying
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的现在分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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49
tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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50
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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51
lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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52
attachments
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| n.（用电子邮件发送的）附件( attachment的名词复数 )；附着；连接；附属物 | |
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53
appendicitis
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| n.阑尾炎，盲肠炎 | |
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54
colonists
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| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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55
observatory
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| n.天文台，气象台，瞭望台，观测台 | |
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56
quays
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| 码头( quay的名词复数 ) | |
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57
exodus
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| v.大批离去，成群外出 | |
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58
protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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59
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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60
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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61
purport
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| n.意义，要旨，大要；v.意味著，做为...要旨，要领是... | |
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62
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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64
entails
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| 使…成为必要( entail的第三人称单数 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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65
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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