The Dark Other quotes

“

Interest in people, and life, and gay times, and pretty things, and⁠—and one’s self and one’s own feelings.

And the feelings of the people one loves.”

“Why not?” she queried, smiling ingenuously at him.

“Gracious! I had no idea my logic was as convincing as that.”

“Your logic isn’t. The rest of you is.”

“Gracious! I had no idea my logic was as convincing as that.”

“Your logic isn’t. The rest of you is.”

“That sounds like a compliment,” observed Pat. “If it is,” she continued in a bantering tone, “it’s the only one I can recall obtaining from you.”

“That sounds like a compliment,” observed Pat. “If it is,” she continued in a bantering tone, “it’s the only one I can recall obtaining from you.”

“That’s because I seldom call attention to the obvious.”

“And that’s another,” laughed the girl. “I’ll have to mark this date in red on my calendar. It’s entirely unique in our—let’s see—nearly a month’s acquaintance.”

Character, loyal, naturally happy, intelligent, but not serious. An intellectual butterfly; a dilettante. Poised, cool, self-possessed, yet inherently affectionate. A being untouched by reality, as yet, living in Chicago and in a make-believe world at the same time.” He paused, “How old are you, Pat?”

“I wondered how long one could manage to stay in the world of make-believe. I’m twenty-six, and I’m long exiled.”

“I don’t think you know what you mean by a make-believe world. I’m sure I don’t.”

“Of course you don’t. You can’t know and still remain there.

It’s like being happy; once you realize it, it’s no longer perfect.

”

He stepped on the starter; the motor ground into sudden life. The car backed into the road, turning toward Chicago, that glared like a false dawn in the southern sky.

“I hope you never find out,” he said.

“Well, he had the choice of professions, and it occurred to him that medicine and law were the vulture professions, since lawyers live by men’s quarrels and doctors by men’s misfortunes. So—he became a writer.”

“And what do writers live by?” queried Pat mischievously. “By men’s stupidity!”

“You’re precious, Pat!” Nick chuckled delightedly. “If I’d created you to order, I couldn’t have planned you more to taste—pepper, tabasco sauce, vinegar, spice, and honey!”

“Not subtle, Pat.

You’re the poem yourself; all I need do is look at you, listen to you, and translate.

”

“Nick!” Pat half-screamed in appalled astonishment. “How—” She paused, shocked into abrupt silence, for the face turned toward her was but a remote, evil caricature of Nicholas Devine’s.

It leered at her out of bloodshot eyes, as if behind the mask of Nick’s face peered a red-eyed demon.

“No,” he said, still in those cold tones. “This is an experiment.”

“Yes. An experiment in evil.”

“I don’t understand,” she repeated.

“Evil!” she said dizzily.

“Evil and good⁠—what’s difference? All in a lifetime!”

She felt a surge of tipsy elation, and then the muffled music of the mechanical piano, drifting through the closed door, penetrated her befuddled consciousness.

She found a hidden reserve somewhere within her. Her voice rose, shrill and hysterical.

“We’ve been in Hell!” she said. “You came to take me back, didn’t you? Orpheus and Eurydice!” She laughed. “Dr. Orpheus Horker!”

The Doctor flashed her another incredulous glance and a grim and very terrible expression flamed in his face. He turned toward Nicholas Devine, his hands clenching, his mouth twisting without utterance, with no sound save a half-audible snarl.

Cruel, terrible, demoniac, he might have been; he had also been kind, lovable, and gentle. Yet Dr. Carl had told her that split personalities could contain no characteristics that were not present in the original, normal character.

Was cruelty, then, a part of kindness? Was cruelty merely the lack of kindness, or, cynical thought, was kindness but the lack of cruelty?

Which qualities were positive in the antagonistic phases of Nicholas Devine’s individuality, and which negative? Was the gentle, lovable, but indubitably weaker character the split, and the demon of last evening his normal self? Or vice-versa?

“Queer, is it?” flared Pat.

“I don’t think you and your mind-doctors know as much as a Swahili medicine-man with a mask!”

She leaped angrily to her feet, stamped viciously into the hall.

“Pat!” called the Doctor anxiously. “Pat! Where are you going, child?”

“Where do devils live?” Her voice floated tauntingly back from the front door. “Hell, of course!”

“What—what are you?” she stammered.

“Synapse! I’m a question of synapses,” jeered the other. “Simple! Very simple! Ask your friend the Doctor!”

“I think,” said the girl, a measure of control returning to her voice, “that you’re a devil. You’re some sort of a fiend that has managed to attach itself to Nick, and you’re not human. That’s what I think!”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “if it is, it has one thing in common with every spook or devil I ever heard of.”

“It refuses to appear under any conditions where one has a chance to examine it. It’s like one of these temperamental mediums trying to perform under a spotlight.”

“Only by night!” mused the girl. Another idea was forming in her active little mind, another conception, disturbing, impossible to phrase. “Is that worse than being possessed by a devil, Magda?”

“Sure it’s worse! The Priest, he could cast out the devil, but I never heard no cure for being a werewolf.”

Pat said nothing further, but slid from her high perch to the floor and went soberly out of the kitchen. The fears of last night had come to life again, and now the overcast skies outside seemed a fitting symbol to her mood.

“Well!” she exclaimed, eyeing the figure inimically.

“Your appearances and disappearances are beginning to remind me of the Cheshire Cat.”

“Except for the grin,” said the other in his cold tones.

“Well!” she exclaimed, eyeing the figure inimically. “Your appearances and disappearances are beginning to remind me of the Cheshire Cat.”

“Except for the grin,” said the other in his cold tones.

“What do you want?” snapped Pat.

“Heaven and Hell always were the same place,” said Nicholas Devine, his red eyes glaring down at the girl.

“We’ll demonstrate the fact.”

“Don’t you, Pat?” He pointed again at the moon. “That’s Heaven, the dead world, and this is Hell, the living one. Heaven and Hell swinging forever about their common center!” He gestured toward the sparkling moon-path on the water.

“Look, Pat! The dead world strews flowers on the grave of the living one!”

Some of his bitter ecstasy caught the girl; she felt his somber mood of exaltation.

“Don’t you, Pat?” He pointed again at the moon.

“That’s Heaven, the dead world, and this is Hell, the living one. Heaven and Hell swinging forever about their common center!”

He gestured toward the sparkling moon-path on the water. “Look, Pat! The dead world strews flowers on the grave of the living one!”

Suddenly the scene appeared humorous to the girl, queerly funny, in some unnatural horrible fashion. Her nerves, overstrained for hours, were on the verge of breaking; without realization of it, she had come to the border of hysteria.

“Shopping for death!” she choked, trying to suppress the wild laughter that beat in her throat.

“Which one’s most suitable? Which one’s most becoming? Which one”—a hysterical laughing sob shook her—“will wear the longest?”