“I am glad you came, Clarke; very glad indeed. I was not sure you couldspare the time.”
“I was able to make arrangements for a few days; things are not verylively just now. But have you no misgivings, Raymond? Is it absolutelysafe?”
The two men were slowly pacing the terrace in front of Dr. Raymond’shouse. The sun still hung above the western mountain-line, but it shone with adull red glow that cast no shadows, and all the air was quiet; a sweet breathcame from the great wood on the hillside above, and with it, at intervals, thesoft murmuring call of the wild doves. Below, in the long lovely valley, theriver wound in and out between the lonely hills, and, as the sun hovered andvanished into the west, a faint mist, pure white, began to rise from the hills.Dr. Raymond turned sharply to his friend.
“Safe? Of course it is. In itself the operation is a perfectly simpleone; any surgeon could do it.”
“And there is no danger at any other stage?”
“None; absolutely no physical danger whatsoever, I give you my word. Youare always timid, Clarke, always; but you know my history. I have devotedmyself to transcendental medicine for the last twenty years. I have heardmyself called quack and charlatan and impostor, but all the while I knew I wason the right path. Five years ago I reached the goal, and since then every dayhas been a preparation for what we shall do tonight.”
“I should like to believe it is all true.” Clarke knit his brows,and looked doubtfully at Dr. Raymond. “Are you perfectly sure, Raymond,that your theory is not a phantasmagoria—a splendid vision, certainly,but a mere vision after all?”
Dr. Raymond stopped in his walk and turned sharply. He was a middle-aged man,gaunt and thin, of a pale yellow complexion, but as he answered Clarke andfaced him, there was a flush on his cheek.
“Look about you, Clarke. You see the mountain, and hill following afterhill, as wave on wave, you see the woods and orchard, the fields of ripe corn,and the meadows reaching to the reed-beds by the river. You see me standinghere beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all thesethings—yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky to thesolid ground beneath our feet—I say that all these are but dreams andshadows; the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes. There is areal world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision, beyond these‘chases in Arras, dreams in a career,’ beyond them all as beyond aveil. I do not know whether any human being has ever lifted that veil; but I doknow, Clarke, that you and I shall see it lifted this very night from beforeanother’s eyes. You may think this all strange nonsense; it may bestrange, but it is true, and the ancients knew what lifting the veil means.