Religion

H. G. W EL LS "The Door in the Wall"

H . G . WELLS

"The Door in the Wall"

Human beings have discovered the sources of their common humanity and the ir particu lar identities in many places other than their work. Part of leading a life that matters involves attaining clarity about what finally mat- ters to us , not s imply about what we value and cherish but also about what we regard as the sources of ourselves. In the three readings that fol - low Wells's story, we offer a small sampling of three of the main places hu- man beings have looked over time to find themselves: religion , nature, a nd love of oth e rs .

Befo re turning to these particular "sources of the self," we should re- mark upo n a powerful feeli ng o r conviction that is common to many hu - man beings at so me ti mes and to some human beings all of the time. In its negative fo rm, this is ca lled world weariness or We/tschmertz; in its pos- itive form , it co nsists of the overwhel ming sentiment that one's deepest self, the source of everythi ng that is most beautiful , most true, most genu- ine, and most joyful, is to be fo und in a "world elsewhere," in some place or time far d istant from the dem a nd s of wo rk and the routines of daily life. Whether such sentiments provide mome ntary glimpses into an ideal world that really does e nfold o ur quotid ia n lives or whethe r they provide comforting illusions at best a nd crippl ing escapes from responsibility at worst has been a pers istent ma tte r of debate in a good deal of world litera- ture. "The Door in the Wall" powerfully drama tizes this sentiment in the life of one man. Whether what lies be hind th e doo r is life-giving or death - dealing in the judgment of th e na rrato r a nd the principa l character must be left to the reader to decide.

Consider these four people: the auth or, H. G. Wells; the narrator of the story who cl a ims to be reco un ti ng what so m eo ne else told him; Lionel Wallace, the subject of the s tory as he told it to the na rrator; and you, the

From The Complete Short Stories of H. G. Wells (New York : St Martin's Press. 1971), pp. 144-16 1.

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Must My Job Be the Primary Source of My Identity? QUEST IO NS '

f h e four people make of the meani ng and signi' h do each o t es ,. reader. W at d , How do their opinions differ and why? . fthe green oor. 1cance o -=-- -----=---:

f,d . 1 evening not three months ago. Lionel Wallace told me this One con enua ' f h D r in the Wall. And at the time I thought that so far as he was storyo t e oo

concerned it was a true story. . . . . . He told it to me with such a direct stmphctty of conVIctton that I could

not do otherwise than believe in him. But in the morning, in my own flat, I woke to a different atmosphere. and as I lay in bed and recalled the things he had told me. stripped of the glamour of his earnest slow voice, denuded of the focused shaded table light, the shadowy atmosphere that wrapped about him and the pleasant bright things, the dessert and glasses and napery of the dinner we had shared, making them for the time a bright little world quite cut off from every-day realities, I saw it all as frankly incredible. "He was mystifying'" I said. and then: "How well he did it! ... It isn't quite the thing I should have expected him, of all people, to do well."

Afterwards, as I sat up in bed and sipped my morning tea, I found my- self trying to account for the flavour of reality that perplexed me in his im- possible reminiscences, by supposing they did in some way suggest, present, convey - I ha rdly know which word to use - experiences it was otherwise impossible to tell. . Well . I don't resort to that explanation now. I have got over my interven- mg doubts. I believe now, as I believed at the moment of telling that Wallace did to the very best of his ability strip the truth of his secre: for me. But whetber he himself saw, or only thought he saw, whether he himself was the possessor of an inestimable privilege, or the victim of a fantastic dream, I ;annot pretend to guess. Even the facts of his death which ended my doubts orever, throw no light on that. •

~;at much the reader must judge for himself. orget now what ch . cent a man t f'd . ance comment or criticism of mine moved so ren-

o con , e JO me H h' . imputation of I kn · e was, I t mk, defending himself against an public move sac_ ess _and unreliability I had made in relation to a great ment JO which h h d d' d denly. "I have • h 'd e a JSappointed me But he plunged su -

"I k ..' e sa, . "a preoccupation _.. . now, he went on aft . .

gar ash. "I have be 1

·. er a pause that he devoted to the study of his ct· en neg ,gent Th c . · e ,act ts - it isn't a case of ghosts or appa-

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H. G. WELLS "The Door in the Wall"

. . b _ 't' n odd thing to tell of, Redmond - I am haunted. I am ntwnsd-b ut

1 ths;g _ that rather takes the light out of things, that fills

haunte y some ' me with longings. • • ."

d hecked by that English shyness that so often overcomes us He pause . c . . .. when we would speak of moving or grave or beauttful thmgs. You were at Saint Athelstan's all through," he said, and for a moment that seemed to me

uite irrelevant. "Well"- and he paused. Then very haltingly at first, but _af- (erwards more easily, he began to tell of the thing that was hidden m his hf~ the haunting memory of a beauty and a happiness that filled his heart wn insatiable longings that made all the interests and spectacle of worldly hfe seem dull and tedious and vain to him.

Now that I have the clue to it, the thing seems written visibly in his face . I have a photograph in which that look of detachment has been caught and in- tensified. It reminds me of what a woman once said of him - a woman who had loved him greatly. "Suddenly.'' she said, "the interest goes out of him. He forgets you. He doesn't care a rap for you - under his very nose .... "

Yet the interest was not always out of him, and when he was holding his attention to a thing Wallace could contrive to be an extremely successful man. His career, indeed, is set with successes. He left me behind him long ago; he soared up over my head, and cut a figure in the world that I couldn't cut - anyhow. He was still a year short of forty, and they say now that he would have been in office and very probably in the new Cabinet if he had lived. At school he always beat me without effort - as it were by nature. We were at school to- gether at Saint Athelstan's College in West Kensington for almost all our school time. He came into the school as my co-equal. but he left far above me, in a blaze of scholarships and brilliant performance. Yet I think I made a fair average running. And it was at school I heard first of the Door in the Wall - that I was to hear of a second time only a month before his death.

To him at least the Door in the Wall was a real door leading through a real wall to immortal realities. Of that I am now quite assured.

And it came into his life early, when he was a little fellow between five and six. I remember how, as he sat making his confession to me with a slow gravity, he reasoned and reckoned the date of it. 'There was," he said, "a crimson Virginia creeper in it - all one bright uniform crimson in a clear amber sunshine against a white wall. That came into the impression some- how, though I don't clearly remember how, and there were horse-chestnut leaves upon the clean pavement outside the green door. They were blotched yellow and green, you know, not brown nor dirty, so that they must have been new fallen. I take it that means October. I look out for horse-chestnut leaves every year, and I ought to know.

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_ _ that I was about five years and four months old .~ ·If rm right 1~ h a precocious little boy - he learned to talk at He was. he sa,d, ratd erh "as so sane and "old-fashioned," as people an I age.an e,-. . _ say,

abnonnally ear Y _ d 10unt of initiative that most children scarcely at that he was perm~tte 3H~ an other died when he was born, and he was und ·

or eight. 1sm er tain by se_v:nant and authoritative care of a nursery governess. His father was Ulc less ,,.,gil _ d 1 er who gave him little attention , and expected a stern, preocc~p,e F

3'7' hi's brightness he found life a little grey and dull 1 reatthingsof him. ora ' g . done day he wandered. think. An II the particular neglect that enabled him to get away He could not reca d 1 '

r the course he took among the West Kensington r~a s. A l that had faded no . bl blurs of memory. But the whne wall and the green among the mcura e . . door stood out quite d1stmctly. . . . .

As his memory of that remote ch1ld1s~ expen~nce ran, he d1~ at the very first sight of that door experience a pec~har emouon, an attr~ctton, a desire to get to the door and open it and walk m._ And ~t the same ume h~ had the clearest conviction that either it was unwise. or 1t w~s :vrong of h~m - he could not tell which - to yield to this attracuon. He ms1sted upon tt as a cu. rious thing that he knew from the very beginning - unless memory has played him the queerest trick - chat the door was unfastened, and that he could go in as he chose.

J seem to see the figure of that little boy, drawn and repelled. And it was very clear in his mind, too. though why it should be so was never explained, that his father would be very angry if he went through that door.

Wallace described all these moments of hesitation to me with the Ut· most particularity. He went right past the door, and then, with his hands in his pockets, and making an in fant ile attempt to whistle, strolled right along beyond the end of the wall. There he reca lls a number of mean, dirty shops, and particularly that of a plumber and decorator, with a dusty disorder of earthenware pipes, sheet lead ball taps, pattern books of wall paper, and tins of enamel. He stood pretending to examine these things, and coveting, pas• sionately desiring the green door.

Then, he said, he had a gust of emotion. He made a run for it, lest hesita· tion should grip him again: he went plump with outstretched hand through the green door and let it slam behind him. And so, in a trice, he came into the garden that has haunted all his life. . le was very difficult for Wallace to give me his full sense of that garden into wh ich he came.

There ~as something in the ve ry air of it that exhilarated, that gave one a sense of hghtness and good happening and well being; there was some-

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thing in the sight of it that made .all i_ts co!our clean and p_e:fect and subtly luminous. In the instant of commg mto It one was exqu1s1tely glad - as only in rare moments and when one is young and joyful one can be glad in this world. And everything was beaut iful there . .. .

Wallace mused before he went on telling me. NYou see," he said, with the doubtful inflection of a man who pauses at incredible th ings, Nthcre were two great panthers there . ... Yes , spotted panthers. And I was not afraid. There was a long wide path with marble-edged flower borders on either side, and these two huge velvety beasts were playing there with a ball. One looked up and came towards me, a li ttle curious as it seemed. It came right up to me, rubbed its soft round ear ve ry gently agai nst the small hand I held out and purred. It was, I tell you, an enchanted garden. I know. And the size? Oh! it stretched far and wide, th is way and that. I believe there were hills far away. Heaven knows where West Kensington had suddenly got to. And somehow it was just like coming home.

"You know, in the very moment the door swung to behind me, I forgot the road with its fallen chestnut leaves, its cabs and tradesmen's carts, I for- got the sort of gravitational pull back to the discipline and obedience of home. I forgot all hesitations and fear, forgot discretion, forgot all the inti- mate realities of th is life. I became in a moment a very glad and wonder- happy linle boy- in another world. It was a world with a di ffe rent quality, a warmer, more penetrating and mellower light, with a fa int clear gladness in its air, and wisps of sun-touched cloud in the blueness of its sky. And before me ran this long wide path, invitingly, with weedless beds on either side, rich with untended flowers. and these two great panthers. l put my linle hands fearlessly on their soft fur, and caressed their round ears and the sen• sitive corners under their ears, and played with them, and it was as though th~y welcomed me home. There was a keen sense of home-coming in my mmd, and when presently a tall , fa ir girl appeared in the pathway and came to meet me, smiling, and said 'Well?' to me, and li fted me, and kissed me, and put me down, and led me by the hand, there was no amazement , but on_ly an impression of delightful rightness, of being reminded of happy thmgs that had in some strange way been overlooked. There were broad steps, I remember, that came into view between spikes of delphinium, and up these we went to a great avenue between very old and shady dark trees. All down this avenue, you know, between the red chapped stems, were mar- ble scats of honour and statuary, and ve ry tame and fr iendly white doves .. . .

NAnd along this avenue my girl-friend led me, looking down - I recall the pleasa.nt lin.es, the finely-modelled chin of her sweet kind face - asking me questtons m a soft, agreeable voice, and telling me things, pleasant

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h verc I was never able to recall . o1. hwhatt eY ' . ·-·,.nd things I 1;now, thoug chin monkey. very clean, with a fur of ruddy broWn

resently a little Capucame down 3 tree to us and ran beside me, looking up p d ki"ndl)' hazel eyes. ti ,leapt to my shoulder. So we went on an . . and presen } our

me and gnnmng, .. at . great happiness . . -. way 1n

He paused. •Go on." I said. h" \Ve passed an old man musing among laurels

b l"ttlet mgs. , ·1 remem er 1 1 ay with parakeets, and came through a broad I remember, and a Pace g ·ous cool palace, full of pleasant fountains full 1 de toaspact . , '

shaded co onna s full of the quality and promtse of hearts desire. And of beautiful thmg '. d many people. some that still seem to stand out ny thmgs an there were ma h a little vague, but all these people were beautiful clearly and some I at a~ 1 don't know how - it was conveyed to me that

d ki d In some way d fill" an n · . d glad to have me there. an 1 mg me with gladness th llwerekin tome, h 1 cy a. b the touch of their hands, by t e we come and love in by their gestures, .. y theireyes. Yes - ' d h Th h

d, hi"le ~Playmates I 1oun t ere. at was very muc to He muse 1or aw · me because I was a lonely little boy. They_ played deligh_tful games in a

· d t where there was a sun-dial set about W1th flowers. And grass-covere cour as one played one loved. --•

"But _ it's odd - there's a gap in my memory. l don't remember the games we played. 1 never remembered. Afterwards, as a chHd, I spent long hours trying. even with tears, to recall the form of that happiness. I wanted to play itall overagain - in my nursery- by myself. No! All I remembern the happiness and two dear playfellows who were most with me .... Then presently came a sombre dark woman, with a grave, pale face and drea~y eyes, a sombre woman wearing a soft long robe of pale purple, who earned a book and beckoned and took me aside with her into a gallery above a hall - though my playmates were loth to have me go, and ceased thei r game and stood wa1ching as I was carried away. 'Come back to us! ' they cried. 'Come back to us soon'' ! looked up at her face, but she heeded them not at all. Her face was very gentle and grave. She took me to a seat in the gallery, and I stood beside her, ready to look at her book as she opened it upon her knee. The pages fell open. She pointed, and I looked, marvell ing, for in the living pages of that book I saw myself; it was a story about myself, and in it were all the things that had happened to me since ever I was born . ···

"It was wonderful to me, because the pages of that book were not pie· tures, you understand, but realities,.

Wallace paused gravely - looked at me doubtfully.

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H. G. WELLS • •Ti,, Door i11 the Wall"

"Go on • I sa id "I understand." d "The ,~ere re~lities - yes, they must have been; people moved an

. y d t ·n them· my dear mother, whom I had near forgotten; thmgscame an wen I , II h " T then my fa ther, stern and upright, the servants , the nursery: a t e am1 iar thin s of home. Then the front door and the busy streets, wtth tr~ffi.c to and fro·~ looked and marvelled, and looked half doubtfully again mto the wo~ an's face and turned the pages over, skipping this and t~at, to see ~ore of this book, and more, and so at last I came to myselfhoven~g and heslt~t- ing outside the green door in the long white wall, and felt again the conflict and the fear.

"'And next?' I cried, and would have turned on, but the cool hand of the grave woman delayed me.

"'Next?' I insisted, and struggled gently with her hand, pulling up her fingers with all my childish strength, and as she yielded and the page came over she bent down upon me like a shadow and kissed my brow.

''But the page did not show the enchanted garden, nor the panthers, nor the girl who had led me by the hand, nor the playfellows who had been so loth to let me go. It showed a long grey street in West Kensington, on that ch ill hour of afternoon before the lamps are lit, and I was there, a wretched little figure, weeping aloud, for all that I could do to restrain myself, and I was weeping because I could not return to my dear playfellows who had called after me, 'Come back to us! Come back to us soon!' I was there. This was no page in a book, but harsh reality; that enchanted place and the re- straining hand of the grave mother at whose knee I stood had gone - whither have they gone?.,

He halted again, and remained for a time, staring into the fire. "Oh! the wretchedness of that return!" he murmured. "Well?" I said after a minute or so. _"Poor little wretch I was - brought back to this grey world again! As I

rea li sed th_e fullness of what had happened to me, I gave way to quite ungov- e'.nable gnef. And the shame and humiliation of that public weeping and my d1sg~aceful homecoming remain with me still. I see again the benevolent- lookmg old gentleman in gold spectacles who stopped and spoke to me - proddmg me first with his umbrella. 'Poor little chap,' said he; 'and are you lost then?' - and me a London boy of five and more! And he must needs bring in a kindly young policeman and make a crowd of me, and so march me home. Sobbing, conspicuous and frightened, I came from the enchanted garden to the steps of my father's house.

"That is as well as I can remember my vision of that garden - the gar- den that haunts me still. Of course, I can convey nothing of that indescrib-

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• ,. Must My Job Be the Primary Source of My Ide . QUESrtoNS ntity/

I nt unreality. that difference frorn th I. of trans uce II b h e con, able qua ,ty . h t hung about it a ; ut t at - that is h <non f enence t a d • "'•th things o e.xp I am sure it was a ay-t1me and altogeth ai>-f" vasa drean1. " II d er Cltt pened. I it' H"m!- naturally there o owe a terrible question· rao,.

dinar)' dream. ·· · h nurse the governess - everyone Ing, by y father, t e • · · · ·

my aun•: 01 tell ,hem. and my fa ther gave me my first thrashing for . -1 lfled to rd I tried to tell my aunt, she punished rne ag . telling \;,hen afterwa s c b a,n for lies. . Then as I said, everyone was 10r idden to list <ny

. ked persistence. • 1 b ks en to <n "" · d b t it Even my fairy ta e oo were taken away f •• h awor a ou · . . , h rocn to ear - because I was 'too imaginative. E ? Yes, they did that! M <ne for a ume d to the old school. . . . And my story was driven back up y f,. ther belongc d ·t to my pillow - my pillow that was often darnp on niy. elf I whisper< ' d dd d and sal s · h" . g lips with childish tears. An I a e always to m Iii t

tomyw isperm 'I • I Yo IC~I , t prayers this one heart,e t request: P ease God J may d and less ,erven d ' T k b rcan, of the garden. Oh' take me back to my gar en. a e rne ack to rny garden,.

•1 dreamt often of the garden. I may have added to it, I may ha~e changed it: 1 do not know . .. . All this you understand is ~n attempt to rccon. srruct from fragmentary memon~s a very early expenenc~. Between that and the other consecutive memories of my boyhood there 1s a gulf. A tune came when ii seemed impossible I should ever speak of that wonder glunpsc again: _

I asked an obvious question. "No." he said. "I don't remember that I ever atternpted to find my way

back to the garden in those early years. Th,s seems odd to me now, but 1 think that very probably a closer watch was kept on my movements after this misadventure to prevent my going astray. No, it wasn't until you knew me that I tried for the garden again. And I believe there was a period - in- credible as it seems now - when I forgot the garden altogether - when I was about eight or nine it may have been. Do you remember me as a kid at Saint Athelstan's?"

"Rather!" "I didn"t show any signs, did I, in those days of having a secret dream?"

He looked up with a sudden smile. "Did you ever play North-West Passage with me? . .. No, of course you

didn't come my way!" "It was the sort of game," he went on, "that every imaginative child plays

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all day. The idea was the discovery of a North-West Passage to school. The way to school was plai n enough; the game consisted in fi nding some way ,hat wasn't pla in, starting off ten minutes early in some almost hopeless di- rection, and working one's way round through unaccustomed streets to my goal. And one day I got entangled among some rather low-class streets on the other side of Campden Hill. and I began to think that for once the game would be against me and that I should get to school late. I tried rather des- perately a street that seemed a cul-de-sac, and fou nd a passage at the end. I hurried through that with renewed hope. 'I shall do it yet,' I said, and passed a row of frowsy little shops that were inexplicably familiar to me, and be- hold! there was my long white wall and the green door that led to the en- chanted garden!

'The th ing whacked upon me suddenly. Then, after all , that garden, that wonderful garden, wasn't a dream!"

He paused. "I suppose my second experience with the green door marks the world

of difference there is between the busy life of a schoolboy and the infinite lei- sure of a child. Anyhow, this second time I didn't for a moment think of go- ing in straight away. You see . ... For one thing my mind was fu ll of the idea of getting to school in time - set on not breaking my record for punctuality. I must surely have felt some little desire at least to try the door - yes, I must have felt that. . . But I seem to remember the attraction of the door mainly as another obstacle to my overmastering determination to get to school. I was immediately interested by this discovery I had made, of course - I went on with my mind full of it- but I went on. It didn't check me. I ran past tugging out my watch, found I had ten minutes still to spare, and then I was going downhill into fam iliar surroundings. I got to school, breathless, it is true, and wet with perspiration, but in time. I can remember hanging up my coat and hat . ... Went right by it and left it behind me. Odd, eh?"

He looked at me thoughtfully. "Of course, I didn't know then that it wouldn't always be there. Schoolboys have limited imaginations. I suppose I th~ught it was an awfully jolly thing to have it there, to know my way back to It, but there was the school tugging at me. I expect I was a good deal dis- traught and inattentive that morning, recalling what I could of the beautiful strange people I should presently see again. Oddly enough I had no doubt in my mind that they would be glad to see me . ... Yes, I must have thought of the g_arden ~hat morning just as a jolly sort of place to which one might re- sort m the interludes of a strenuous scholastic career.

"I didn't go t_hat day at all . The next day was a half-holiday, and that may have weighed wuh me. Perhaps, too, my state of inattention brought down

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Q UE ST IO NS • 2· Musi My Job Be the Primary Source of My Identity?

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me and docked the marg~n of time ne~cssary for the de. imposmon~ up ow What I do know is that m the meantime the enchanted tour. I don I kn · h n my mind 1hat I could not keep it 10 myself o muc upo . garden was s h his name? - a ferrety-looking youngster we us d

M\told-W atwas e to call Squiff." .

y Hopkins" said I. : :"Jns it was.' I did not like telling hin~. I had a feelin~ that in some H P . he rules to tell him, but I did. He was walkmg part of the

Y1twasagamSlt ·f h d lk d wa . h . he was talkative, and t we a not ta e about the en- way home wll me, f h' I d. hanted garden we should have talked o somet mg e se, an 1t was intolera- ~le to me to think about any other subject. So I blabbed.

·well, he told my secret. The nexl day m the play mterval I found myself surrounded by half a dozen bigger boys, half teasmg a_nd wholly curious 10 hear more of the enchanted garden. There was that b,g Fawcett you re- member him?_ and Carnaby and Morley Reynold~. You weren t there by any chance? No, 1 think \ should have remembered if yo~ we:e . ... ·

"A boy is a creature of odd feelings. I was, I really believe, m spite of my secret self-disgust, a little flattered to have the attention of these big fellows. I remember particularly a moment of pleasure caused by the praise of Craw. shaw _ you remember Crawshaw major. the son of Crawshaw the com-

oser?-who said it was the best lie he had ever heard . But at the same time ihere was a really painful undertow of shame at telling what I felt was indeed a sacred secret That beast Fawcett made a joke about the gi rl in green-~

Wallace's voice sank with the keen memory of that shame. ~1 pretended not to hear,· he said. "Well. then Carnaby suddenly called me a young liar and disputed with me when I said the thing was true. I said I knew where to find the green door, could lead them all there in ten minutes. Carnaby be- came outrageously virtuous, and said I'd have to - and bear out my words or suffer. Did you ever have Carnaby 1wist your arm? Then perhaps you'll understand how it went with me. I swore my story was true. There was no- body in the school then to save a chap from Carnaby, though Crawshaw put in a word or so. Carnaby had got his game. I grew excited and red-eared, and a linle frightened, I behaved altogether like a silly little chap, and the out- come of it all was that instead of starting alone for my enchanted garden, I led the way presently - cheeks flu shed, cars hot, eyes smarting, and my soul one burning misery and shame - for a party of six mocking, curious and threatening school.fellows.

·we never found the white wall and the green door . . "You mean? - "I mean I couldn't find it. I would have found it if I could.

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..And afterwards when I could go alone I couldn't find it. I never found it. I seem now to have been always looking for it through my school-boy days, but I've never come upon it again."

.. Did the fe llows - make it disagreeable?" "Beastly . .. . Carnaby held a council over me for wanton lying. I remem·

ber how I sneaked home and upstairs to hide the marks of my blubbering. But when I cried myself to sleep at last it wasn't for Carnaby, but for the gar- den, for the beaut iful afternoon I had hoped for, for the sweet friendly women and the waiting playfellows and the game I had hoped to learn again, 1hat beautiful forgotten game . . .

"I believed fi rmly that if I had nol told - ... I had bad times after that - cryi ng at night and wool-gathering by day. For two terms I slackened and had bad reports. Do you remember? Of course you would! It was you - your beating me in mathematics that brought me back to the grind again."

For a time my fr iend stared silently into the red heart of the fire. Then he said: "I never saw it again until I was seventeen.

"It leapt upon me for the third ti me- as I was driving to Paddington on my way to Oxford and a scholarship. I had just one momentary glimpse. I was leani ng over the apron of my hansom smoking a cigarette, and no doubt thinking mysel f no end of a man of the world, and suddenly there was the door, the wall, the dear sense of unforgettable and still attainable th ings.

.. We clattered by - I 100 taken by surp rise to stop my cab until we were well past and round a corner. Then I had a queer moment, a double and di· vergent movement of my will: I tapped the little door in the roof of the cab, and brought my arm down to pull out my watch. 'Yes, sir!' said the cabman, smartly. 'Er - well - it's nothing,' I cried. 'My mistake! We haven't much time! Go on!' and he went on . .

:·1 got n_1Y scholarship. And the night after I was told of that I sat over my fi re 1~ my lmlc upper room, my study, in my father's house, with his praise - his rare praise - and his sound counsels ringing in my ears, and J smoked my favourite pipe - the formidable bulldog of adolescence - and thought of that door in the long white wall. 'I f I had stopped,' I thought , 'I should have missed my scholarshi p, I should have missed Oxford - mud• died all the fi~e career before me! I begin to see 1hings better!' I fell musing deeply, but I did not doubt then th is ca reer of mine was a thing that merited sacrifice.

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• 2 Musf 1 Q U ESTION .

. ds and that clear atmosphere seemed very sweet to me, ·Thosedearfnen . , ri was fixing now upon the world. I saw another

b 1 remote. M}g P • very fine. u e door of my career. . door opening - _th _

010 the fire. Its red lighcs picked ?ut a ~tubborn strength

He stared ~gain ~e flickering moment. and then 1t vanished again. in his face for JU5'. 0 nd si hed. "I have served that career. I have done _

·well." he said 3 d g k But I have dreamt of the enchanted garden a much work. much a~: se:::~ door, or at lc~st glimpsed its d~or, four ~imc.s thousand drea~. four times. For a while this world_ was so bright and uner. sin~e then . Yes

50 full of meaning and opportunity that the half-effaced

esung, seemed rden was by comparison gentle and remote. Who wants to charm of 1he ga the wa to dinner with prcny women and distinguished pal pan1hers onwn to L~ndon from Oxford. a man of bold promise that I men? I came do _ d em Something - and yet there have been dis-- have done something to re e .

app~int~ent~~~~-been in love - 1 will not dwell on that - but once, as I T"ice I one who, 1 know, doubted whether I dared to c~me, I took a

went to soma!.' venture through an un frequenred road ne~r Ea~l s ~oun , and shor~ cu:n:d on

3 white wall and a fami liar green door. , Odd! sa id I to my.

so h .,~t I thought this place was on Campden Hill . Its the place I never self, h - like counting Stonehenge - the place of that queer could find sofm~ o,~And I went by ii intent upon my purpose. It had no ap-- day dream o mine. peal ro me that afternoon. .

•1 had just a moment's impulse to try the door, three steps aside were needed at the most_ though I was sure enough in my heart that it would open w me - and then I thought 1ha1 doing so migh1 delay me on the way to that appointment in which I thought my honour was involved. Af'.er• wards J was sorry for my punctuality - I might at leas t have peeped m. I thought, and waved a hand to those panthers, but I knew en~ugh by thJS iime not ro seek again belatedly chat which is not found by seek mg. Yes, that time made me \'ery sorry . ..

"Years of hard work after 1hat and never a sight of the door. It's only re- cently i1 has come back to me. With it there has come a sense as though somt' thin tarnish had spread itself over my world. I began to think of it as a sorrowful and bi tter thing that I should never sec that door aga in. Perhaps I was suffering a linlc from overwork - perhaps it was what I've heard spo- ken of as the feel ing of forty. I don 't know. But certa inly the keen brightness that makes effort easy has gone out of things recently, and that just at a time with all these new politica l developments - when I ought to be working. Odd. isn·, it? But I do begin to find li fe toilsome, il s rewards, as I come near

2ll

H. G. WE LLS • -nie Door in the WaW

them, cheap. 1 began a linle while ago 10 want 1he garden quite badly. Yes - and I've seen it three times."

"The garden?" ~No - the door! And I haven 't gone in!" He leaned over the table to me, with an enormous sorrow in his voice as

he spoke. "Thrice J have had my chance~ rhrice! If ever thar door ~ffe rs its~lf 10 me again, J swore, I will go in out of this dust and heat, out of this dry gl1 ~- ter of vanity, out of these toilsome futilities. I will go and never return. This rime I will stay . . . . I swore it and when the time came - 1 didn 't go.

"Three times in one yea r have I passed that door and failed to enter. Three times in the last year.

"The first time was on the nighr of the snatch division on the Tenants' Redemption Bill, on which the Government was saved by a majority of three. You remember? No one on our side - perhaps very few on the oppo- site side - expected the end that night. Then the debate collapsed like egg- shells. I and Hotchkiss we re dining wi th his cousin at Brentford, we were both unpaired, and we were called up by telephone, and set off at once in his cousin's motor. We got in barely in time, and on the way we passed my wall and door - livid in the moonlight , blotched with hot yellow as the glare of our lamps lit it , but unmis1akable. 'My God!' cried I. 'What?' said Hotchkiss. 'Nothing!' I answered, and the moment passed.

"'I've made a great sacrifice,' I told the whip as I got in. 'They all have,' he sa id, and hurried by.

"I do not see how I could have done otherwise then. And the nex t occa- sion was as I rushed to my fat her's bedside to bid that stern old man fare- well. Then, too, the claims of li fe were imperative. But the th ird time was dif- ferent; it happened a week ago. It fills me with hot remorse to recall it. I was with Gu rker and Ralphs - it's no secret now you know that I've had my talk with Gurker. We had been dining at Frobisher's, and the talk had become in- limatc between us. The ques tion of my place in the reconstructed min istry lay always just over the boundary of the discussion. Yes - yes. That's all set- tled. It needn'1 be talked about yet, but the re's no reason to keep a secre1 from you, . .. Yes - thanks! thanks! But lee me tell you my story.

"Then, on that night things were very much in the ai r. My position was a very delicate one. I was keenly anxious to get some defin ite word from Gurker, but was hampered by Ralphs' presence. I was using the best power of my brain to keep that light and careless ta lk not too obvious ly di rected to the point that concerns me. I had to. Ral phs' behaviour since has more than justified my caution . ... Ra lphs, I knew, would leave us beyond the Kensington High Street, and then I could surprise Gurker by a sudden frank-

2 \ J

QUESTION S • z. f,,! LLSt My Job Be 1he Primary Source of My Identity?

has somelimcs to resort co 1hese little de.vices . ... And then it ness._One

1 in of my field of vision I became aware once more 0 ta.s

that in the n arg door before us down the road . the white wall , th~ g.n--e~king I passed it. I can still sec the shadow of G k

·We pl~\ ~-raope~ hat tilted fo rwa rd over his prominent n tn Cr's marked pdsro 'r'·h_ isneck wrap going before my shadow and Ralp~se, the many fol o is as \Ve

sauntered P~st. ·ihin twenty inches of the door. 'If I say good-night 1 h

d ·I p_as~el

3 ;~:d myself. ·what will happen?' And I was all <Hingle ~0

1 ehn,,

an go tn. rt at word with Gurker .

• 1

could 0 01 answer that question in the tangle of my other problems ·They will think me mad.' I 1hought. 'An_d_ s~p p,ose I vani~h now! _ Amaz~ ing disappearance of a prominent _poht1c1an!_ That \~e1ghc~ with me. A thousand inconceivably petty worldlinesses weighed wnh me m that crisis.

Then he turned on me with a sorrowful smile, and, speaking slow!~• ,

· Here I am!" he repeated, ~and my chance has gone from me. Three times in one year the door has been offered me _- the door that goes into peace, into delight, in!O a beauty beyond dreaming, a ki ndness no man on earth can know. And I have rejected it. Redmond, and it has gone_ "

"How do you know?" ·1 know. I know. I am left now to wo rk it out, to stick to the tasks that

held me so strongly when my moments came. You say, I have success - this vulgar, tawdry, irksome, envi:d thin_g. I have it." He_had a walnut in his big hand. •1fthacwas my success, he sa1d. and cr ushed It , and held it out for me to see.

"Let me tell you something, Redmond. This loss is destroying me. For rwo months, for ten weeks nearly now, I have done no work at all, except the most necessary and urgent duties. My soul is fu ll of inappeasable regrets. At nights- when it is less li kely I shall be recognised - I go out. I wander. Yes. I wonder what people would think of that if they knew. A Cabinet Minister, the responsible head of that most vital of all depa rtments, wandering alone_ grieving - sometimes near audibly lamenting - fo r a door, for a garden!"

I can see now his rather pallid face, and 1he un famili ar sombre flrc that had come into his eyes. I see hi m very vividly to-night. I sit recalling his words, his tones, and last evening's Westminster Gazette still lies on my sofa , con-

21 4

H. G. WE LLS • MThe Door in the Wair

taining the notice of his death. At lunch to-day the club was busy with him and the strange riddle of his fa te.

They fo und his body very early yesterday morning in a deep excavation near East Kensington Statio n. It is one of two shafts that have been made in connection with an extension of the railway southward. It is protected from the intrusion of the publ ic by a hoarding upon the high road, in which a small doorway has been cut for the convenience of some of the workmen who live in that direction . The doorway was left unfastened 1hrough a m is- understanding between two gangers, and th rough it he made his way . .

My mind is darkened with ques1ions and riddles. It would seem he walked all the way from the House th at night - he

has frequently walked home during the past Sessio n - and so it is I figure his dark fo rm coming along the late and empty streets, wrapped up, intent. And then did the pale electric lights near the station cheat the rough plank- ing into a semblance of white? Did that fa tal un fas tened door awaken som e memory?

Was there, after all, ever any green door in the wall at all? I do not know. I have told his story as he 10ld it to me. There arc tim es

wh en I believe that Wallace was no more than the victim of the coincidence between a rare but not unprecedented type of hallucination and a careless trap, but that indeed is not my profoundest belief. You may think me super- stitious if you will , and foolish ; but , indeed, I am more than half convinced that he had in truth , an abnormal gift, and a sense, someth ing - 1 know not what-that in the guise of wall and door offered him an outlet , a secret and pec uliar passage of escape into another and altogether m ore beautifu l world. At any rate, you \viii say, it betrayed him in the end. But did it betray him? There you touch the inmost mystery of these dreamers , these men of vision and the imagination .

~e see our world fa ir and commo n, the hoardi ng and the pit. By our daylight standard he walked out of security into da rkness, danger and death.

But d id he sec like that?

2 15