No More Learning

' I said, 'Do you
see anything near the door? ' and she said, 'Yes, I see a subject for
dissection. ' Then we saw him go out again into the narrow streets, I
following the story of the seeress, sometimes merely following her
words, but sometimes seeing for myself. My acquaintance saw nothing; I
think he was forbidden to see, it being his own life, and I think could
not in any case. His imagination had no will of its own. Presently the
man in black went into a house with two gables facing the road, and up
some stairs into a room where a hump-backed woman gave him a key; and
then along a corridor, and down some stairs into a large cellar full of
retorts and strange vessels of all kinds. Here he seemed to stay a long
while, and one saw him eating bread that he took down from a shelf. The
evoker of spirits and the seeress began to speculate about the man's
character and habits, and decided, from a visionary impression, that
his mind was absorbed in naturalism, but that his imagination had been
excited by stories of the marvels wrought by magic in past times, and
that he was trying to copy them by naturalistic means. Presently one of
them saw him go to a vessel that stood over a slow fire, and take out
of the vessel a thing wrapped up in numberless cloths, which he partly
unwrapped, showing at length what looked like the image of a man made
by somebody who could not model. The evoker of spirits said that the
man in black was trying to make flesh by chemical means, and though he
had not succeeded, his brooding had drawn so many evil spirits about
him, that the image was partly alive. He could see it moving a little
where it lay upon a table. At that moment I heard something like little
squeals, but kept silent, as when I saw the dead body. In a moment more
the seeress said, 'I hear little squeals. ' Then the evoker of spirits
heard them, but said, 'They are not squeals; he is pouring a red liquid
out of a retort through a slit in the cloth; the slit is over the mouth
of the image and the liquid is gurgling in rather a curious way. ' Weeks
seemed to pass by hurriedly, and somebody saw the man still busy in
his cellar.
Then more weeks seemed to pass, and now we saw him lying
sick in a room up-stairs, and a man in a conical cap standing beside
him. We could see the image too. It was in the cellar, but now it could
move feebly about the floor. I saw fainter images of the image passing
continually from where it crawled to the man in his bed, and I asked
the evoker of spirits what they were. He said, 'They are the images
of his terror. ' Presently the man in the conical cap began to speak,
but who heard him I cannot remember. He made the sick man get out of
bed and walk, leaning upon him, and in much terror till they came to
the cellar. There the man in the conical cap made some symbol over
the image, which fell back as if asleep, and putting a knife into the
other's hand he said, 'I have taken from it the magical life, but you
must take from it the life you gave. ' Somebody saw the sick man stoop
and sever the head of the image from its body, and then fall as if he
had given himself a mortal wound, for he had filled it with his own
life. And then the vision changed and fluttered, and he was lying sick
again in the room up-stairs. He seemed to lie there a long time with
the man in the conical cap watching beside him, and then, I cannot
remember how, the evoker of spirits discovered that though he would in
part recover, he would never be well, and that the story had got abroad
in the town and shattered his good name. His pupils had left him and
men avoided him. He was accursed. He was a magician.

The story was finished, and I looked at my acquaintance. He was white
and awestruck.