Norman Invasions by John Norman Page B

which, if revealed, would to our pleasure be seen to well cohere with well-recognized imperatives of nature and common sense. Our illusionist, on the other hand, often pretended that his powers were actually beyond nature, and were authentic expressions of occult forces and destinies, of powers and worlds beyond the pale of our quotidian realities, indeed, powers and worlds not only inaccessible to, but literally alien to, the quantifications and presuppositions of science. This sort of claim sophisticated auditors tended on the whole to find amusing, understanding it as part of the entertainment, but some, like myself, thought it improper, even offensive, particularly as we recognized, only too clearly, that over time some members, indeed, eventually several members, of his audience, or following, seemed to take the claim seriously. Such claims, of course, would have been more to be expected not in our own century but in, say, Rhodes of the 2nd Century, Paris or Marseilles of the 12th Century, or perhaps in Renaissance Florence. Indeed, for such claims, in earlier eras, one might have risked exile, stoning, or the stake. But to make such claims in our century was ludicrous to any informed, educated mind. The universe may be mysterious, but it is all of a piece, and it is all here, so to speak. Our reality is the only reality. Has this not been proven by science? But our illusionist, in my view, preyed on the superstitions and fears of common men, over whom he seemed to exercise a fascinating, almost hypnotic sway. He was not even above selling alleged nostrums, philters, and elixirs, prognosticating the future, and supposedly communicating with what he spoke of the “realms of the elsewise.” Supposedly there were many dimensions, or worlds, or states of being, of which ours was only one, and these differed considerably the one from the other, some relatively benign, others malignant, some as inhospitable as polar wastes, others as fraught with life as green, rain-lashed jungles, or wide, endless, wind-swept, grassy plains, trodden by incessantly prowling beasts of strange aspect, driven on and on through what would be centuries in our time, hungry, starving, seeking food. Pressed for details, of course, matters, as expected, became very vague, and we were assured that these remarks were largely sensings, and that, in our terms, such worlds and such creatures could not be easily understood or described. How convenient! They were “elsewise.” “How do you know?” he was asked. He would pale, and say, “There are doors, doors.” He was an incorrigible, exemplary charlatan. One had to admire him for his shameless bravado, if nothing else. “Have you ever gone through such doors?” we asked him. “No,” he would say. “But I open them sometimes, and look through. “Where are they?” we asked. “Sometimes they are here, and sometimes not,” he said. “Is there one here now?” we asked. “I do not think so,” he said. “How do you know they exist?” we asked. “I see them,” he said. “We do not,” we said. “Be glad,” he said. We laughed at him, and I do not think he cared for this. I suppose we had insulted him, and he was a proud, high-strung, sensitive man. But I had the eerie feeling then that he might be serious, that he might actually have convinced himself of his own nonsense, that he might have become eventually the victim of his own fancies, that we were dealing with a pathology, simply, that he might be mad. In any event it was unkind of us, and I for one regretted that we had behaved as we had.
    He retired from the stage shortly after that.
    One supposes this had to do with his health, which was never robust.
    His career had been remarkable, all told, though, as I have suggested, controversial. I, for one, felt, despite his considerable and acknowledged talents, he had abused his craft, and had