Then there was the conventional outline of a goblet or cup, actually suggesting the mystic chalice, but it was the familiar goblet shape we all know, with round base and glass-stem. This chalice is as large as the head of the soldier, or rather it simply takes up the same amount of space, as if they were both formal patterns stamped on picture cards, or even (now that I think of it) on playing cards. I have said, with the Professor, that I would lay my cards on the table. These were those cards; so far, two of them. The third follows at once or I now perceive it. It is a simple design in perspective, at least suggesting perspective after the other two flat patterns. It is a circle or two circles, the base the larger of the two; it is joined by three lines, not flat as I say but in perspective, a simple object to draw, once the idea of tilting the planes to give the idea of space is understood. And this object is so simple yet so homely that I think again, “It’s a shadow thrown.” Actually, it could not have been, as this shadow was, “light”; but the exact replica of this pattern was set on the upper shelf of the old-fashioned wash-stand, along with toothbrush-mug, soap-dish, and those various oddments. It was exactly the stand for the small spirit-lamp we had with us. (Spirit-lamp?) And I know that, if these objects are projected outward from my own brain, this is a neat trick, a shortcut, a pun, a sort of joke. For the three-legged lamp-stand in the miscellaneous clutter on the wash-stand is none other than our old friend, the tripod of classic Delphi. So the tripod, this venerated object of the cult of the sun god, symbol of poetry and prophecy, is linked by association with this most ordinary little metal frame that fits into the small saucepan and is used as a support for it when we boil water for that extra sustaining cup of tea upstairs in our room. The tripod then is linked in thought with something friendly and ordinary, the third or second member of my traveler’s set, used as base for the flat spirit-lamp and support for the aluminum container. The tripod now becomes all the more an object to be venerated. At any rate, there it is, the third of my cards on the table.
33
So far, so good — or so far, so dangerous, so abnormal a “symptom.” The writing, at least, is consistent. It is composed by the same person, it is drawn or written by the same hand. Whether that hand or person is myself, projecting the images as a sign, a warning or a guiding sign-post from my own subconcious mind, or whether they are projected from outside — they are at least clear enough, abstract and yet at the same time related to images of our ordinary time and space. But here I pause or the hand pauses — it is as if there were a slight question as to the conclusion or direction of the symbols. I mean, it was as if a painter had stepped back from a canvas the better to regard the composition of the picture, or a musician had paused at the music-stand, perhaps for a moment, in doubt as to whether he would continue his theme, or wondering perhaps in a more practical manner if he could himself turn the page on the stand before him without interrupting the flow of the music. That is in myself too — a wonder as to the seemliness, or the safety even, of continuing this experience or this experiment. For my head, although it cannot have taken very long in clock-time for these pictures to form there, is already warning me that this is an unusual dimension, an unusual way to think, that my brain or mind may not be equal to the occasion. Perhaps in that sense the Professor was right (actually, he was always right, though we sometimes translated our thoughts into different languages or mediums). But there I am seated on the old-fashioned Victorian sofa in the Greek island hotel bedroom, and here I am reclining on the couch in the Professor’s room, telling him this, and here again am I, ten years later, seated at my desk in my own room in London. But there is no clock-time, though we are fastidiously concerned with time and with a formal handling of a subject which has no racial and no time-barriers. Here is this hieroglyph of the unconscious or subconscious of the Professor’s discovery and life-study, the hieroglyph actually in operation before our very eyes. But it is no easy matter to sustain this mood, this “symptom” or this inspiration.
And there I sat and there is my friend Bryher who has brought me to Greece. I can turn now to her, though I do not budge an inch or break the sustained crystal-gazing stare at the wall before me. I say to Bryher, “There have been pictures here — I thought they were shadows at first, but they are light, not shadow. They are quite simple objects — but of course it’s very strange. I can break away from them now, if I want — it’s just a matter of concentrating — what do you think? Shall I stop? Shall I go on?” Bryher says without hesitation, “Go on.”
34
While I was speaking to Bryher, there is a sort of pictorial buzzing — I mean, about the base of the tripod, there are small creatures, but these are in black; they move about, in and around the base of the tripod, but they are very small; they are like ants swarming, or very small half-winged insects that have not yet learnt to fly. Fly? They are flies, it seems — but no, they are tiny people, all in black or outlined as in, or with, shadow, in distinction to the figures of the three “cards” already described. They are not a symbol of themselves, they are simply a sort of dust, a cloud or a swarm of small midges that move back and forth, but on one level, as if walking rather than flying. Even as I consider this new aspect of the writing, I am bothered, annoyed — just as one is when suddenly in a country lane one is beset in the evening light by a sudden swarm of midges. They are not important but it would be a calamity if one of them got stuck in one’s eye. There was that sort of feeling; people, people — did they annoy me so? Would they perhaps eventually cloud my vision or, worse still, would one of them get “stuck in my eye”? They were people, they were annoying — I did not hate people, I did not especially resent any one person. I had known such extraordinarily gifted and charming people. They had made much of me or they had slighted me and yet neither praise nor neglect mattered in the face of the gravest issues — life, death. (I had had my child, I was alive.) And yet, so oddly, I knew that this experience, this writing-on-the-wall before me, could not be shared with them — could not be shared with anyone except the girl who stood so bravely there beside me. This girl had said without hesitation, “Go on.” It was she really who had the detachment and the integrity of the Pythoness of Delphi. But it was I, battered and disassociated from my American family and my English friends, who was seeing the pictures, who was reading the writing or who was granted the inner vision. Or perhaps in some sense, we were “seeing” it together, for without her, admittedly, I could not have gone on.
35
Yet, although now assured of her support, my own head is splitting with the ache of concentration. I know that if I let go, lessen the intensity of my stare and shut my eyes or even blink my eyes, to rest them, the pictures will fade out. My curiosity is insatiable. This has never happened to me before, it may never happen again. I am not actually analyzing this as I watch the pictures, but it seems now possible that the mechanism of their projection (from within or from without) had something to do with, or in some way was related to, my feelings for the shrine at Delphi. Actually, we had intended stopping off at Itea; we had come from Athens, by boat through the Corinthian canal and up the Gulf of Corinth. Delphi and the shrine of Helios (Hellas, Helen) had been really the main objective of my journey. Athens came a very close second in affection; however, having left Athens, we were informed when the boat stopped at Itea that it was absolutely impossible for two ladies alone, at that time, to make the then dangerous trip on the winding road to Delphi, that in imagination I saw so clearly tucked away under Parnassus. Bryher and I were forced to content ourselves with a somewhat longer stay than was first planned in the beautiful island of Corfu.