The Dark Side Read Online Free PDF Page B

Don’t listen! Suppress this distraction! This is part of their plan—But it was too late, too late. He felt himself slipping, falling, wrenched from reality back into the fraud world in which they had kept him. It was gone, gone completely, with no single association around him to which to anchor memory. There was nothing left but the sense of heartbreaking loss and the acute ache of unsatisfied catharsis.
    “Leave it where it is. I’ll take care of it.”
    “Okey-doke.” The attendant bustled out, slamming the door, and noisily locked it.
    He lay quite still for a long time, every nerve end in his body screaming for relief.
    At last he got out of bed, still miserably unhappy, and attempted to concentrate on his plans for escape. But the psychic wrench he had received in being recalled so suddenly from his plane of reality had left him bruised and emotionally disturbed. His mind insisted on rechewing its doubts, rather than engage in constructive thought. Was it possible that the doctor was right, that he was not alone in his miserable dilemma? Was he really simply suffering from paranoia, delusions of self-importance?
    Could it be that each unit in this yeasty swarm around him was the prison of another lonely ego—helpless, blind, and speechless, condemned to an eternity of miserable loneliness?
    Was the look of suffering which he had brought to Alice’s face a true reflection of inner torment and not simply a piece of play-acting intended to maneuver him into compliance with their plans?
    A knock sounded at the door. He said, “Come in,” without looking up. Their comings and goings did not matter to him.
    “Dearest—” A well-known voice spoke slowly and hesitantly.
    “Alice!” He was on his feet at once, and facing her. “Who let you in here?”
    “Please, dear, please—I had to see you.”
    “It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair.” He spoke more to himself than to her. Then: “Why did you come?”
    She stood up to him with a dignity he had hardly expected. The beauty of her childlike face had been marred by line and shadow, but it shone with an unexpected courage. “I love you,” she answered quietly. “You can tell me to go away, but you can’t make me stop loving you and trying to help you.”
    He turned away from her in an agony of indecision. Could it be possible that he had misjudged her? Was there, behind that barrier of flesh and sound symbols, a spirit that truly yearned toward his? Lovers whispering in the dark—“You do understand, don’t you?”
    “Yes, dear heart, I understand.”
    “Then nothing that happens to us can matter, as long as we are together and understand—” Words, words, rebounding hollowly from an unbroken wall—
    No, he couldn’t be wrong! Test her again—“Why did you keep me on that job in Omaha?”
    “But I didn’t make you keep that job. I simply pointed out that we should think twice before—”
    “Never mind. Never mind.” Soft hands and a sweet face preventing him with mild stubbornness from ever doing the thing that his heart told him to do. Always with the best of intentions, the best of intentions, but always so that he had never quite managed to do the silly, unreasonable things, that he knew were worth while. Hurry, hurry, hurry, and strive, with an angel-faced jockey to see that you don’t stop long enough to think for yourself—
    “Why did you try to stop me from going back upstairs that day?”
    She managed to smile although her eyes were already spilling over with tears. “I didn’t know it really mattered to you. I didn’t want us to miss the train.”
    It had been a small thing, an unimportant thing. For some reason not clear even to him he had insisted on going back upstairs to his study when they were about to leave the house for a short vacation. It was raining, and she had pointed out that there was barely enough time to get to the station. He had surprised himself and her, too, by insisting on his own way in circumstances in