The Wonderful Visit by H. G. Wells

Author:H. G. Wells
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction, Fantasy fiction, Angels -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2018-05-02T18:12:36+00:00

XXIX Further Adventures of the Angel in the Village

“That’s all right,” said Crump when the bandaging was re­placed. “It’s a trick of memory, no doubt, but these ex­cres­cences of yours don’t seem nearly so large as they did yes­ter­day. I sup­pose they struck me rather for­cibly. Stop and have lunch with me now you’re down here. Mid­day meal, you know. The young­sters will be swal­lowed up by school again in the af­ter­noon.”

“I never saw any­thing heal so well in my life,” he said, as they walked into the din­ing-room. “Your blood and flesh must be as clean and free from bac­teria as they make ’em. Whatever stuff there is in your head,” he ad­ded sotto voce.

At lunch he watched the An­gel nar­rowly, and talked to draw him out.

“Jour­ney tire you yes­ter­day?” he said sud­denly.

“Jour­ney!” said the An­gel. “Oh! my wings felt a little stiff.”

(“Not to be had,”) said Crump to him­self. (“Sup­pose I must enter into it.”)

“So you flew all the way, eigh? No con­vey­ance?”

“There wasn’t any way,” ex­plained the An­gel, tak­ing mus­tard. “I was fly­ing up a sym­phony with some Griffins and Fi­ery Cher­ubim, and sud­denly everything went dark and I was in this world of yours.”

“Dear me!” said Crump. “And that’s why you haven’t any lug­gage.” He drew his ser­vi­ette across his mouth, and a smile flickered in his eyes.

“I sup­pose you know this world of ours pretty well? Watch­ing us over the adam­antine walls and all that kind of thing. Eigh?”

“Not very well. We dream of it some­times. In the moon­light, when the Night­mares have fanned us to sleep with their wings.”

“Ah, yes—of course,” said Crump. “Very po­et­ical way of put­ting it. Won’t you take some bur­gundy? It’s just be­side you.”

“There’s a per­sua­sion in this world, you know, that An­gels’ Vis­its are by no means in­fre­quent. Per­haps some of your—friends have trav­elled? They are sup­posed to come down to de­serving per­sons in pris­ons, and do re­fined Nautches and that kind of thing. Faust busi­ness, you know.”

“I’ve never heard of any­thing of the kind,” said the An­gel.

“Only the other day a lady whose baby was my pa­tient for the time be­ing—in­di­ges­tion—as­sured me that cer­tain fa­cial con­tor­tions the little creature made in­dic­ated that it was Dream­ing of An­gels. In the nov­els of Mrs. Henry Wood that is spoken of as an in­fal­lible symp­tom of an early de­par­ture. I sup­pose you can’t throw any light on that ob­scure patho­lo­gical mani­fest­a­tion?”

“I don’t un­der­stand it at all,” said the An­gel, puzzled, and not clearly ap­pre­hend­ing the Doc­tor’s drift.

(“Get­ting huffy,”) said Crump to him­self. (“Sees I’m pok­ing fun at him.”) “There’s one thing I’m curi­ous about. Do the new ar­rivals com­plain much about their med­ical at­tend­ants? I’ve al­ways fan­cied there must be a good deal of hy­dro­pathic talk just at first. I was look­ing at that pic­ture in the Academy only this June. …”

“New ar­rivals!” said the An­gel. “I really don’t fol­low you.”

The Doc­tor stared. “Don’t they come?”

“Come!” said the An­gel. “Who?”

“The people who die here.”

“After they’ve gone to pieces here?”

“That’s the gen­eral be­lief, you know.

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