High Spirits - A Collection Of Ghost Stories Part 1
Robertson Davies.
High Spirits.
A Collection of Ghost Stories.
How the High Spirits Came abouta"
A Chapter of Autobiography
Ghost stories came into my life before I could read. How well I remember the first one; it was at a party given by my parents, and it was not yet time for me to go to bed, because I remember that the sun was sinking outside the windows, and as the guests ate tulip jelliesa"they were streaked red and yellow and topped with whipped cream of a deliciousness that seems to have departed from the eartha"Mrs. Currie told the strange tale of the Disappearance of Oliver Lurch. He was a farm youth in Kentucky who had gone out one night from a gathering just like ours, to fetch some wood for the fire, had not returned and when the others went to seek him he could be heard calling from the sky, aHere I am! Here I am! Help me! I am Oliver Lurch!a The cries became fainter and fainter, and Oliver was heard and seen no more. There were those who said he had been carried off by a great eagle buta"a grown man? What sort of eagle was that? It must have been Something Else.
I fell asleep that night fearing the Mighty Clutch. And since then I have always felt that any party would be the better for a ghost story.
The first uncanny tale I read, when I was ten, was Frankenstein, which terrified me unforgettably and gloriously. None of the film versions, in my opinion, comes near the effect Mary Sh.e.l.ley produces by her special quality of prose. A story in this collection, The Cat That Went To Trinity, obviously owes much to this favourite of mine, and although it is far from serious, it is not meant to be derisive of the great original. No disrespect toward serious spectres is intended herein.
Although I have read tales of ghosts and the supernatural eagerly all my life I never thought of writing one until I went to Ma.s.sey College in the University of Toronto, in 1963. The college had a Christmas party for its members and their friends, and some sort of entertainment was needed. There were lots.of gifted people to call ona"poets and musiciansa"but I was expected to make a contribution, and I decided on a ghost story, the one which appears first in this book. For the eighteen years I was at the college a story was called for every Christmas, and here they are, gathered together, in the hope that other enthusiasts for this sort of tale will enjoy them.
It was never my intention to frighten anyone. Indeed I do not think that would have been possible; the audience was too big and to me, at least, terror is best when the group of listeners is small. No, these stories were to amuse, and perhaps to add a dimension to a building and a community that was brand-new. University College has a ghost, of which it is justifiably proud, and doubtless there are others around the University which have not yet found their chroniclers. Ma.s.sey College is a building of great architectural beauty, and few things become architecture so well as a whiff of the past, and a hint of the uncanny. Canada needs ghosts, as a dietary supplement, a vitamin taken to stave off that most dreadful of modern ailments, the Rational Rickets.
Let no one suppose that I was the first to think that a few hauntings might be acceptable in the new college. Very early in its first autumn I was told that a figure had taken to appearing on the stairs, and in dark corners, who frightened some people, and disappeared when bolder people pursued it. I have never thought of myself as a ghost-catcher, but my work at the college demanded some unusual tasks, and I accepted this one as part of the job. I captured the ghost at lasta"sneaked up on him from behinda"and he proved to be one of the students who, with a sheet and an ugly rubber mask, was trying to cheer the place up. That was his explanation, but there was a gleam in his eye that suggested to me that the ghost game fulfilled some need in his own character. That was not hard to understand, for he was engaged in a particularly rational and hard-headed form of study, and too much rationality, as I have suggested, calls for a balancing element.
Writing ghost stories, and in particular, cheerful ghost stories, set me to the task of examining the literature of the ghost story, and its technique. There are some very famous ghost stories, and perhaps the acknowledged masterpiece is Henry Jamesa The Turn of the Screw. James casts it in the form of a tale read at Christmas time to a party of friends in an English country house; what could be better? It is without doubt the best of Jamesa substantial and distinguished contribution to this branch of literature. There are also the fine stories written by Montague Rhodes James, which he composed and at first read aloud to groups of friends at Kingas, Cambridge, and later at Eton, where he was Provost. My father-in-law heard him on a few of these occasions and many years later described to me the special pleasure they gave. Parties of friends, college occasions: yes, we could provide these elements at the Ma.s.sey College Gaudy Nights; the word comes from the Latin gaude, and has long been applied to college parties. But what about style?
Ghost stories tend to be very serious affairs. Who has ever heard of a ghost cracking a joke? I wanted my ghosts to be light-hearted, if not in themselves, at least as they appeared to my hearers. No new style would suit a ghost story, so it would be necessary to parody the usual style. And the parody would have to be affectionate, for cruel parody is distasteful in itself, and utterly outside the spirit of a party.
I think I know the traditional ghost story style pretty thoroughly. It is solemn, and it frequently makes use of unusual words, designed to strike awe into the minds of the reader or the hearer. It is a style that can very easily become ridiculous, and even such a great master of the ghost story as Joseph Sheridan LeFanu does not always escape this peril. Poor LeFanu not only wrote uncanny tales, he lived one. The story has been told many times that he suffered from a recurrent nightmare, in which he stood at the foot of a macabre and menacing house which towered high in the air, and which he knew was about to collapse on him. When he died in 1873, of a heart seizure, his physician remarked dryly that the house had fallen at last.
It is one of the regrets of my life that I missed seeing, and perhaps even having some conversation with, a man who was a great scholar in the realm of magic, uncanny happenings, and of course ghost stories. He was, to give him his full resounding t.i.tle and name, the Reverend Father Alphonsus Joseph-Mary Augustus Montague Summers, chiefly known for his work in the realm of Restoration drama, but also the author of The History of Witchcraft and many other books about werewolves, Satanism and the supernatural. He was a rum customer. He had left his home in Oxford shortly before I went there in 1936 and was remembered with affection, some mirth, and now and then with unexpected venom. He appeared in the streets dressed like a European priest, in ca.s.sock and shovel-hat, with a cloak and a bulky umbrella; some stories insisted that he always walked in the gutter, for no determinable reason. Buta"and it was this that raised eyebrowsa"he was invariably accompanied on his afternoon walk either by a pallid youth dressed in black, who was supposed to be his secretary, or by a large black dog, but never by both! Tongues wagged.
Although I never met Father Summers, I have all my life collected his books, among which are several collections of ghost stories, some of which he wrote himself, and to all of which he appends learned discussions of the kind of literature he knew and loved so well. His prose style, which sets the teeth of more austere readers on edge, fills me with delight. He had read so many tales of the supernatural, pored over so many old ma.n.u.scripts and grimoires, that his writing had been infected by them, and displays a fruit cakyness and port-winyness that makes for very rich literary feeding. He delights in words like asepulturea and acharnela which it would be a pity to allow to fall out of the language. So when I set to work to write some ghost stories, with a glint of parody in my eye, I determined also to lay a few laurels on the tomb of that not always wholly admired scholar, Montague Summers. I shall be pleased if those who know his work feel that I have not altogether failed.
My ghosts are sufficiently traditional, in that they all appear in search of something. This is the usual reason for ghostly appearances; something has been lost, or some revenge or justice is sought, and the spirit cannot rest until this unfinished business is concluded. If that is established, it is obvious that the proper greeting to a ghost is not a shriek of terror but a courteous aWhat can I do for you?a It was Sh.e.l.ley who wrotea"and I echo hima"
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlit wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
In my ghost stories I have tried to explore where such high talk might lead.
Anybody who writes ghost stories is sure to be asked: Do you believe in ghosts? And the answer to that must be, I believe in them precisely as Shakespeare believed in them. People who want further discussion may be referred to that model of good sense, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who said: It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it, but all belief is for it.
All belief? The Doctor speaks with his accustomed certainty. Much belief, undoubtedly, for in 1954-55 the popular Swiss fortnightly Schweizerischer Beobachter published a series of articles on prophetic dreams, coincidences, premonitions and ghosts, and then asked readers who had any experience of such things to write to the Editor. The response was overwhelming; more than 1200 readers wrote in, giving more than 1500 cases of personal experience; and these writers were people of education and discretion. It is interesting that most of the letter-writers confided their names to the Editor but asked that they be not made public; few people will admit to all the world that they believe in the supernatural. These letters were confided by the paper to the late Dr. C. G. Jung, whose secretary, Mrs. Aniela Jaffe, published them with psychological comment, and extremely interesting reading they make. So it may be said that if not everybody believes in ghosts, there are a great many people who certainly do not disbelieve in them.
One word remains to be said: I have not edited these stories specifically for the reader; they remain in the form in which they were first spoken aloud, and I beg youa"you readersa"to grant them the attention of the ear, as well as of the eye. Perhaps, as in my case, your first ghost story was heard.
The names of several living people, a.s.sociated in one way or another with Ma.s.sey College, appear in these stories. Never, let me say, are they mentioned in anything except an affectionate and genial spirit, as befits a Gaudy Night, and I hope that the bearers of these names will not feel that I have beenimpudently free with them, or suggested an acceptance of the supernatural which they may disclaim. These are, after all, party-ghosts, emanating from high spirits.
Revelation from a Smoky Fire
At the outset of a personal ghost story, it is accepted practice to say that one is the least fanciful person in the world, that one has not a nerve in oneas body, doesnat believe in ghosts, and canat understand how it happened. I am therefore at a disadvantage, for I am a more than ordinarily fanciful person, I am extremely nervous, I donat find anything intrinsically improbable in the notion of a ghost, and I have a pretty shrewd idea how it happened. Therefore I am more likely to distress myself than to alarm you by what I am going to recount; I know that in the ghost controversy you are all overwhelmingly of the anti-ghost party. But I can a.s.sure you that I found it a disquieting experience.
The fire in my study smokes. It is not merely that the Bursar buys green wood; something is amiss with the chimney. Sometimes it smokes so much that I feel like those Jesuit missionaries who used to fling themselves on the floor in the longhouses of the Canadian Indians, because only within six inches of the floor could one breathe the air without tearing the lungs.
My fire was smoking yesterday afternoon at dusk, as I sat reading the prcis of an M.A. thesis. My nerves would have been quieter had I been reading a ghost story; thesis abstracts are, with a very few exceptions, the least credible and most horrifying productions of imaginative literature. Nevertheless you will understand that I was not in the least disposed to see a ghost, though I was rather far advanced in asphyxiation.
At last, reluctantly, like a man approaching a task he knows to be outside human power, I went to the fire and knelt to poke it, thinking perhaps I might alter the quality of the smoke, and thus secure change, if not relief. Of course I simply made it worse. I grew impatient, and, holding my breath, put my head into the worst of the smother, to see if anythinga"a birdas nest, or a dead squirrel, or anything of that sort, might have stuck in the chimney.
Nothing. Defeated, and with the disgruntled resignation of one used to such defeats, I crawled backward into the room, and stood up.
There was a man sitting at my desk.
Nothing in the least alarming about that. People quite often come into my study without being heard; when I am busy I often do not notice what is happening around me. I a.s.sumed he was a visitor. He looked like a senior faculty membera"a tall, rather lean, bald man, with professorial eyebrows. He was wearing his gown, but so was I, for that matter for, though smoky, my study was cold.
aGood afternoon,a I said; aCan I help you?a aYou can help me by doing something about that smoking chimney,a he replied.
He smiled as he spoke, and I a.s.sumed that this was some form of donnish humour. Nevertheless, I thought it rather cool of him to complain about what was, after all, my chimney. I decided to take the line of extreme and disarming courtesy, which sometimes works well with impudent people.
aI a.s.sure you I am doing the best I can,a said I.
aNot a very good best,a said he; atake another look up the flue.a I obeyed. Not, you understand, because I was awed by him, but because I wanted time to think. Slowly I knelt, and poked my head into the fireplace again, and thought.
Who the devil is he? There is something familiar about his face, but what is his name? I wish I could either forget both faces and names, or remember both. It is this perpetual dealing with nameless faces that makes my life a muddle of uncertainty. Is he one of those architectural critics who still push their way into the college, and take on airs? How dare he give me orders? I must have met him somewhere. Is he one of those dons who suffers from the delusion that he is Dr. Johnson, and is rude on principle?
By this time I had thought all I could, without drawing in huge breaths of smoke, so I crawled back into the room and stood up again.
aIf I were you Iad go up on the roof and put a rod down that chimney,a said the stranger. aOr why donat you come down it again?a aDown the chimney?a said I. Aha, this was the clue. Here was a madman.
aYes,a said he; ayou didnat knock at the door, so I a.s.sume you must have come down the chimney. You werenat here a minute ago.a One of my cardinal rules in life is always to humour madmen. It is second nature to me. I do it several times every day. aQuite so,a said I. aI came down the chimney.a He looked at me closely, and I thought somewhat insultingly.
aTight squeeze, wasnat it?a said he.
aNot in the least,a I replied. aA chimney with a good clear draught might be a little swift for a man of my age and quiet habit of life, but this is a superbly smoky chimneya"and the smoke, as you readily understand, gives just that density to the atmosphere in the flue which permits me to float down as gently as a feather. Science, you observe.a I said this airily, for I was beginning to enjoy myself.
aLook here,a said he; aI donat believe youare a chimney sweep at all.a aYour perception is in perfect order,a said I. aI am not a chimney sweep; I am the Master of this College. Now may I ask who you are?a aAha,a he cried, ajust as I thought. Youare a madman. I donat believe in humouring madmen. Out you go!a aAs you please,a said I. He looked as though he might become violent, and I wanted time to edge myself toward the bell which calls the Porter. aBut before I go, would you have the goodness to tell me who you are?a aI?a he shouted, working the tremendous eyebrows in a way which I could tell had been effective in quelling undergraduates. aCertainly Iall tell you. I am Master of this College.a aOf course,a said I, in my silkiest tones, abut which Master are you?a ad.a.m.n your impudence,a he roared, aIam the ninth Master.a I confess this made me feel very unwell. I canat tell why, but it did, and although I cannot fully describe the sensation, I thought I was going to faint; for a time my consciousness seemed to come and go in rhythmic waves; it was like vertigo, only more intense; I was horribly distressed. But my visitor seemed even more so.
aStop! Stop!a he cried; afor G.o.das sake donat fade and reappear like that. You make me giddy.a And to my astonishment he fell back into my chair and closed his eyes, as white asa"well, as white as a ghost. I forgot all about the Porter, and hurried to his side. I put out my hand to feel his brow, just as he opened his eyes. I was amazed to see unmistakable fear in his face, and he shrank from my touch.
aDonat be afraid,a I said, aI only want to help you.a His voice was faint, and came from a dry mouth. aWho did you say you were?a he asked.
aI am the first Master,a said I. Presumably I was distressed more than I realized, for though I was trying to rea.s.sure him my voice sounded sad and eerie, even to myself.
aThen you area"Finch?a he said.
Again the inexplicable malaise overcame me, and I could tell by the fear in his eyes that, to his vision, I must be fading and reappearing again. My sensations were mingled; to be mistaken for Robert Fincha"painter, poet, musician, scholar, wit and distinguished diner-outa"presented me with an extreme of temptation. Should I risk all, and bask for a moment in anotheras glory? But decency prevailed. I denied, reluctantly, that I was Finch.
aGood G.o.d! Thena"you must be the other fellow who was here, briefly, even before Finch,a said he.
Condemn me, if you will, as an egotist, but in such a situation which of you could have contained his curiosity? aWhat became of hima"that other fellow who was here, briefly, before Finch?a I asked. And again I heard in my own voice that hollow, eerie note.
He shook his head. aI donat really know,a he said; ait was whispered that something happened that occasionally happened to professors in those days; something called amaking a composition with his creditorsa, or some quaint phrase of the kind, and he went.a aWhere did he go?a I persisted. The man looked as if he needed fresh air, but the subject was of such importance to me that I put my own interest first.
aI donat think anybody knew,a he said. aThe story that has come down to us is that there was a full-dress enquiry in the Round Room, and it is presumed that the Visitor broke the Master, for when it was over he stumbled out into the quad, and it was seen that the russet rosette had been torn from his gown. After thata"well, some said it was the pool, and some said he leapt from the tower, and some saidaa"here his voice thickened with repugnancea"athat he went off and got a job at York. The College behaved very well toward the wife and girls; they kept going by taking in washing for some of the Junior Fellows who couldnat afford the Coin Wash. Finch was a man of very delicate feeling, by all accounts, and he saw to it. But it was all so long agoaa My concern for his suffering had considerably abated. Madman he might be, buta aHow long ago?a I asked.
aA century, at least,a said he. aLetas seea"this is Christmas, 2063a"oh, yes; a full century.a aA century, and nine Masters?a said I. And again that dreadful sensation, like going down too rapidly in an elevator.
aA distinguished group,a said he, with complacency, aLetas seea"before mea"Iam in my fourth year nowa"there was Kasabowszki for twenty-one years, poor Sawyers who died after three, Taschereau who made it for ten, Gamble for twelve, Meyer for seven, Duruset for fifteen, poor Polanyia"worn out with waiting, really,a"for three, and of course Finchas glorious first mastership of twenty-five long, sunny years. Yes, nine Masters from the beginning.a I knew I was dealing with a madman. I knew that I was behaving foolishly, but I couldnat help myself. aNine, you idiot!a I shouted. aTen, ten, ten! I was first Mastera"a I stopped, shocked at what I had said, and hurried to change the dreadful word. aI am first Master,a I screamed.
I suppose I must have looked dreadful, waving my arms and shouting, for he shrank back into my chair, and covered his face with his hands. But I could hear him muttering.
aIt isnat true,a he was whispering to himself. aReason and sciencea"everything I have lived bya"are against it. Iam not seeing a ghost. I utterly deny that I am seeing a ghost.a These words affected me dreadfully. I felt as though every fibre and bone of my body were melting into something insubstantial, and my control of myself deserted me utterly. aGhost!a I screamed; aghost yourself! Ghost yourself!a But even as I protested a fearful sickness of doubt was mounting to my heart. I needed help, not for the madman in my chair but for myself. I pushed the bell for the Porter; that way lay sanity; an old army man would know what to do.
The Porter came faster than I could have hopeda"but what a Porter! Six feet four of ex-naval man, a boasun if ever I saw one. He went at once to the figure in my chair.
aI heard you shouting, sir,a said he; aanything I can do?a aGet rid of that thing there by the fireplace,a said the impostor, pointing toward me, but keeping his eyes closed.
aNothing there, sir,a said the Porter. aBetter let me help you out into the air, sir. Terrible smoky fire you have today.a Nothing there! The words struck me like a heavy blow, and I swooned.
How long it was I do not know, but some time later I was aroused to find Mr. McCracken helping me to my feet.
aBetter let me help you out into the air, sir,a he said. aTerrible smoky fire you have today.a aYes,a I said; awe must ask the Bursar for some seasoned wood.a
The Ghost Who Vanished by Degrees
Some of you may have wondered what became of our College Ghost. Because we had a ghost, and there are people in this room who saw him. He appeared briefly last year at the College Dance on the stairs up to this Hall, and at the Gaudy he was seen to come and go through that door, while I was reading an account of another strange experience of mine. I did not see him then, but several people did so. What became of him?
I know. I am responsible for his disappearance. I think I may say without unwarrantable spiritual pride that I laid him. And, as is always the case in these psychic experiences, it was not without great cost to myself.
When first the ghost was reported to me, I a.s.sumed that we had a practical joker within the College. Yet the nature of the joke was against any such conclusion. We had had plenty of jokesa"socks in the pool, fish in the pool, funny notices beside the pool, pumpkins on the roofs, ringing the bell at strange hoursa"all the wild exuberance, the bubbling, ungovernable high spirits and gossamer fantasy one a.s.sociates with the Graduate School of the University of Toronto. The wit of a graduate student is like champagnea"Canadian champagnea"but this joke had a different flavour, a dash of wormwood, in its nature.
You see, the ghost was so unlike a joker. He did not appear in a white sheet and shout aBoo!a He spoke to no one, though a Junior Fellowa"the one who met him on the stairsa"told me that the Ghost pa.s.sed him, softly laying a finger on its lips to caution him to silence. On its lips, did I say? Now this is of first importance: it laid its finger where its lips doubtless were, but its lips could not be seen, nor any of its features. Everybody who saw it said that the Ghost had a head, and a place where its face ought to bea"but no face that anybody could see or recognize or remember. Of course there are scores of people like that around the university, but they are not silent; they are clamouring to establish some sort of ident.i.ty; the Ghost cherished his anonymity, his facelessness. So, perversely I determined to find out who he was.
The first time I spotted him was in the Common Room. I went in from my Study after midnight to turn out the lights, and he was just to be seen going along the short pa.s.sage to the Upper Library. I gave chase, but when I reached the Upper Library he had gone, and when I ran into the entry, he was not to be seen. But at last I was on his trail, and I kept my eyes open from that time.
All of this took place, you should know, last Christmas, between the Gaudy and New Year. Our Gaudy last year was on December the seventeenth; I first saw the Ghost, and lost him, on the twenty-first. He came again on the twenty-third. I woke in the night with an odd sensation that someone was watching me, and as this was in my own bedroom I was very angry; if indeed it were a joker he lacked all discretion. I heard a stirring anda"I know this sounds like the shabbiest kind of nineteenth century romance, but I swear it is truea"I heard a sigh, and then on the landing outside my door, a soft explosion, and a thud, as though something had fallen. I ran out of my room, but there was nothing to be seen. Over Christmas Day and Boxing Day I had no news of the Ghost, but on the twenty-eighth of December matters came to a head.
December the twenty-eighth, as some of you may know, is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, traditionally the day on which King Herod slaughtered the children of Bethlehem. In the Italian shops in this city you can buy very pretty little babies, made of sugar, and eat them, in grisly commemoration of Herodas whimsical act.
I was sitting in my study at about eleven oaclock that night, reflectively nibbling at the head of a sugarbaby and thinking about money, when I noticed that the lights were on in the Round Room. It troubles me to see electric current wasted, so I set out for the Round Room in a bad humour. As I walked across the quad, it seemed that the glow from the skylight in the Round Room was more blue and cold than it should be, and seemed to waver. I thought it must be a trick of the snow, which was falling softly, and the moonlight which played so prettily upon it.
I unlocked the doors, walked into the Round Room, and there he was, standing under the middle of the skylight.
He bowed courteously. aSo you have come at last,a said he.
aI have come to turn out the lights,a said I, and realized at once that the lights were not on. The room glowed with a fitful bluish light, not disagreeable but inexpressibly sad. And the stranger spoke in a voice which was sad, yet beautiful.
It was his voice which first told me who he was. It had a compelling, acello-like note which was unlike anything I was accustomed to hear inside the College, though our range is from the dispirited quack of Ontario to the reverberant splendours of Nigeria. The magnificent voice came from the part of his head where a face should bea"but there was no face there, only a shadow, which seemed to change a little in density as I looked at it. It was unquestionably the Ghost!
This was no joker, no disguised Junior Fellow. He was our Ghost, and like every proper ghost he was transporting and other-worldly, rather than merely alarming. I felt no fear as I looked at him, but I was deeply uneasy.
aYou have come at last,a said the Ghost. aI have waited for you longa"but of course you are busy. Every professor in this university is busy. He is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth. But none has time for an act of mercy.a It pleased me to hear the Ghost quote Scripture; if we must have apparitions, by all means let them be literate.
aYou have come here for mercy?a said I.
aI have come for the ordeal, which is also the ultimate mercy,a he replied.
aBut we donat go in for ordeals,a said I. aPerhaps you can tell me a little more plainly what it is you want?a aIs this not the Graduate School?a said he.
aNo indeed,a said I; athis is a graduate college, but the offices of the Graduate School are elsewhere.a aDonat trifle with me,a said the Ghost sternly. aMany things are growing very dim to me, but I have not wholly lost my sense of place; this is the Graduate School; this is the Examination Room. And yetaa"the voice faltered a" ait seemed to me that it used to be much higher in the air, much less handsome than this. I remember stairsa"very many stairsaa aYou had been climbing stairs when you came to me in my bedroom,a said I.
aYes,a he said eagerly. aI climbed the stairsa"right to the topa"and went into the Examination Rooma"and there you lay in bed, and I knew I had missed it again. And so there was nothing for it but to kill myself again.a That settled it. Now I knew who he was, and I had a pretty shrewd idea where, so far as he was concerned, we both were.
Every university has its secretsa"things which are n.o.bodyas fault, but which are open to serious misunderstanding. Thirty or more years ago a graduate student was ploughed on his Ph.D. oral; he must have expected something of the kind because when he had been called before his examiners and given the bad news he stepped out on the landing and shot himself through the head. It is said, whether truly or not I cannot tell, that since that time n.o.body is allowed to proceed to the presentation and defence of his thesis unless there is a probability amounting to a certainty that he will get his degree.
Here, obviously, was that unfortunate young man, standing with me in the Round Room. Why here? Because, before Ma.s.sey College was built, the Graduate School was housed in an old dwelling on this land, and the Examination Room was at the top of the house, as nearly as possible where my bedroom is now. Before that time the place had been the home of one of the Greek-letter fraternitiesa"the Mu Kau Mu, I believe it was called.
aThe Examination Room you knew has gone,a said I. aIf you are looking for it, I fear you must go to Tepermanas wrecking yard, for whatever remains of it is there.a aBut is this not an Examination Room?a said the Ghost. I nodded. aThen I beg you, by all that is merciful, to examine me,a he cried, and to my embarra.s.sed astonishment, threw himself at my feet.
aExamine you for what?a I said.
aFor my Ph.D.a, wailed the Ghost, and the eerie, agonized tone in which it uttered those commonplace letters made me, for the first time, afraid. aI must have it. I knew no rest when I was in the world of men, because I was seeking it; I know no rest now, as I linger on the threshold of another life, because I lack it. I shall never be at peace without it.a I have often heard it said that the Ph.D. is a vastly overvalued degree, but I had not previously thought that it might stand between a man and his eternal rest. I was becoming as agitated as the Ghost.
aMy good creature,a said I, rather emotionally, aif I can be of any a.s.sistancea"a aYou can,a cried the Ghost, clawing at the knees of my trousers with its transparent hands; aexamine me, I beg of you. Examine me now and set me free. Iam quite ready.a aBut, just a moment,a said I; athe papersa"the copies of your thesisa"a aAll ready,a said the Ghost, in triumph. And, though I swear that they were not there before, I now saw that all the circle of tables in the Round Room was piled high with those dismal, unappetizing volumesa"great wads of typewritten octavo papera"which are Ph.D. theses.