Penelope

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Story

Penelope

By Vincent Starrett

My friend Raymond is a fascinating fellow—

a compendium of useless and entertaining lore.

I can not think of a better companion for an

evening with what the ancients felicitously

called “pipe and bowl.” When the latter is

empty and the former going like a blast furnace,

Raymond is the equal of any raconteur under the sun, moon, and stars. A great fellow,

indeed!

And the sun, moon, and stars are his familiars.

They are no more puzzling to him than a rail¬

way time-table; much less. Occasionally he lectures, and that is his only fault. I mean that his conversation by degrees slips from its informal, negligee ease and takes on the rhetoric of the classroom. How he can talk! I shall never forget the exposition of his theory of the wireless composition of the Absolute.

No matter! As a rule, he is sound—although invariably he is outside the pale. Had he cared

to do so, he might have strung a kite-tail of

alphabetic degrees after his name, years ago;

but he scorns such trappings. Orthodox science,

of course, will have none of him; he knows too

much. Gray field of Anaconda University once

said of him: “Raymond knows more things

that aren’t so than any man I ever met.”

Again, no matter! The heresy of today is

the orthodoxy of tomorrow; the radical of

yesterday is the conservative of today. Thus

does the world progress—toward what? Per¬

haps insanity!

We sat at a table in my rooms and talked;

that is, Raymond talked. I listened. It made

no difference what was said; it was all enter¬

taining and amusing, and I had not seen him

for a fortnight. When, quite suddenly, his

voice ceased, it was as if a powerful, natural

flow of water had been interrupted in its course.

I looked at him across the table, and was in

time to see him squeeze the last golden drop

from his glass and set down the tumbler with

a sigh. His hand trembled. Instinctively, we

both looked at the bottle. It was empty.

“It is glorious!” said Raymond. “I have

not felt so light-headed since Penelope was in

perihelion.”

I looked at him suspiciously. I had always

claimed that Raymond’s clearest view of the

stars was through a colored bottle used as a

telescope.

He rose to his feet and unsteadily crossed

the floor to collapse upon a couch. In an

instant he was asleep and snoring. It was the

promptest performance by the man that I had

ever seen, and I was lost in admiration. But

as my wife was due at any moment, I withheld

my wonder and shook him into wakefulness.

After a bit he sat up with a stare.

“Give us an arm, old chap,” he murmured;

and after a moment: “The heat here is awful.”

I assisted him to his feet, and we ricocheted

to the balcony, upon which long doors opened

at the front of the room. The light breeze

impinged pleasantly upon our senses. We were

two floors up, and from somewhere below

ascended the strains of a banjo, pianissimo.

Raymond draped a long arm across my

shoulders and, thus fortified, closed one eye

and looked into the heavens. The other arm

described an arc and developed a rigid finger,

pointing upward.

“Look!” he said. “It is the star Penelope!”

I restrained an inclination to laugh. “Which ?”

I asked, although it was quite clear that Ray¬

mond was drunk.

He indicated, and I allowed myself to be

persuaded that I saw it. Penelope, I learned

later, is a small star of about the thirtieth

magnitude, which, on a clear night and with

a powerful glass, may be picked up midway

between the constellations of the Pleiades and

Ursa Major. It is a comparatively insignif¬

icant star, and that Raymond actually saw

it I still greatly doubt.

But the sight, real or fancied, was tonic. It

was as if that remote point of fire had thrilled

him with a life-ray. He straightened, sobered,

became grave. The pointing finger was with¬

drawn.

“Diccon,” he said, giving me a familiar and

affectionate pseudonym, “I have never told you

of my connection with the star Penelope. There

are few that know. Those whom I have told

have looked upon me as mad. If I have con¬

cealed from you this, my strangest adventure,

you must believe that it was because I valued

your opinion of my sanity. Tonight-”

Again he turned his gaze upward, and I

pretended to see that distant star. His voice

became reminiscent, introspective.

“Penelope,” he whispered, “Penelope ! Only

yesterday it seems that you were under my

feet!”

He suddenly turned.

“Come,” he commanded. “Come into the

house. I feel that I must tell you tonight.”

Has well [began my friend Raymond], I shall

not ask your belief ; to you the tale will seem

incredible. I shall ask only your attention and

—your sympathy.

The star Penelope is my natal star. Born

under its baleful influence, I have been sub¬

jected to that influence ever since. You will

recall that my father before me was deeply

interested in astronomy, so deeply that his

researches gained him the jealous enmity of the

world’s greatest scientists—“Mad Raymond,”

they called him.

You will also recall that he died in an

asylum. My dear Haswell, he was no more

mad than I. But there is no denying that his

astounding knowledge, and the equally astound¬

ing inferences and deductions he drew there¬

from, made him a marked man in his day. It

is dangerous to be a hundred years ahead of

one’s fellows.

My father discovered the star Penelope, and

—as if a strange pre-natal influence thus had

been brought to bear upon his parenthood—it

was my natal star. The circumstance was

sufficient to enlist his whole interest, after my

birth, in the star Penelope. He had calculated

that its orbit was so vast that fifty years would

be required to complete it. I was with my

father when he died, and his last words to

me were:

“Beware of Penelope when in perihelion.”

He died shortly afterward, and it was little

enough that I could learn of his thought; but

from his dying whispers I gathered that with

Penelope in perihelion a sinister influence

would enter my life. The star would then

possess its greatest power over me for evil.

The exact nature of its effect I think he could

not himself foretell or even guess, but he

feared a material change that would affect not

only my mental but my physical being.

My father’s warning was uttered ten years

ago, and I have never forgotten it. And through

the long, silent nights—following his footsteps

—I watched the relentless approach of the star

which was to have so fateful an influence upon

my destiny.

Three years ago I insensibly became aware

of its proximity. As it came nearer it seemed

that little messengers were sent forth to herald

its coming. Like a shadow cast before, I

recognized—I felt—the adumbrations of its

power. Little whispers of its influence crossed

the distances and reached me before its central

intelligence was felt in all its terror.

I struggled against it, as a man frantically

seeks to escape the coiling tentacles of a mon-

ster irresistibly drawing him nearer. I feared

that I would commit some dreadful crime, or

that I would go mad—knowing that either

would have been a relief. And there was no

one to whom I could tell my appalling appre¬

hensions. The merest whisper of my situation

would have branded me a lunatic.

Two years ago I set myself the task of

calculating the exact time when the star Penel¬

ope would attain its perihelion with our sun,

and a long series of computations assured me

that on the twenty-sixth day of the following

October Penelope would be in the zenith.

That was a year ago last October. Perhaps

you will recall that for a week I was absent from

my usual haunts. When you saw me later you

asked where I had been, and remarked that I

was looking peaked. I said I had been out of

town, but I lied. I had been in hiding in my

rooms—not that I believed four walls could

avert the impending disaster, whatever it might

be, but to avert from my friends and from the

public the possible consequences of my deeds.

I shut myself in my study, locked the door,

and threw the key out of the window. Then,

alone and unaided, I sat down to await the

moment and the catastrophe.

To divert my mind, I attacked a problem

which always had bothered me and which,

indeed, still remains unsolved. In the midst of

my calculations, overcome with weariness and

lack of sleep, I sank into a profound slumber.

My dreams were hideous. Then, suddenly, I

awoke, with a dizzy feeling of falling.

How shall I tell you what I saw ? It seemed

that while I slept the room had been entered

and cleared of its furniture. No vestige

of impedimenta remained. Even the carpet

was gone, and I was lying at full length on the

floor, the boards of which had been replaced

with plaster and whitewash.

The room seemed stifling, and, remembering

that I had left the window slightly down for

ventilation, I crawled across to it. It stood

close down, almost against the floor—an extra¬

ordinary removal—and whoever had emptied

the room also had closed the window at the

top and opened it at the bottom. I had to

kneel down to lean out across the sill.

I am telling all this calmly. Perhaps you

will imagine the state of my mind, however.

I was far indeed from calm. There are no

words to tell you my bewilderment. But if I

had been amazed by the condition of the room,

I was conf ounded when I looked out into the

night. I was literally so frightened that I could

not utter a sound.

I had looked down, expecting to look into

the street; and there were the stars shining

below me, millions of miles away. And yet

the noises of the street fell distinctly on my

ears. The earth seemed to have melted away

beneath my dwelling, which apparently hung

upside down in the sky; but the sounds of

traffic and human voices were all about me.

A horror that made me dizzy had crept over

me, but, gripping the narrow sill with both

hands, I twisted my face fearfully upward.

Then for the first time a scream left my lips.

Above me, not thirty feet away, was the

street, filled with its accustomed hum and popu¬

lated with people and with traffic—all upside

down.

Men and women walked the pavement, head

downward, as a fly walks the ceiling. Auto¬

mobiles rolled past in frantic procession, their

tops toward me, their wheels miraculously

clinging to the overhanging roadway.

You, by this time, will have comprehended

what had happened. I did not. Frightened,

bewildered, half-mad, I drew in my head and

fell back upon the whitewashed floor; and

then, as I lay there upon my back, I saw what

I had not seen before. On the ceiling of the

room, clinging to it, head downward as the

motors had clung to the street, was the missing

furniture of my study.

It was arranged precisely as I had left it,

except that it was upside down and appeared

to have changed sides. The heavy desk at

which I had sat, hung directly over me, and

with a gasp of terror I jumped aside; I thought

that it would fall and crush me. The missing

carpet was spread across the ceiling, and the

tables and chairs reposed upon it; the books on

table and bookcase hung easily from the under¬

surface, and none fell.

I pulled out my watch, and it slipped from

my hand and shot upward the length of the

chain. When I had recovered it, I looked at

the hour, and everything that I wished to know

flashed over me.

It was midnight, and Penelope was in peri¬

helion !

The influence of my natal star had over-

come the pitiful attraction of the earth, and

I had been released from earth’s influence. I

was now held by the gravity of the star Penel¬

ope. The earth remained as it had been; the

house was not upside down; only I! And I

had thought I had fallen from my chair! Ye

Gods, I had risen from it—as you would under¬

stand it—and had crashed against the ceiling of

my room!

I sat there, upside down from the earth point

of view, upon the ceiling of my study, and

considered my position. Then I stood up and

paced back and forth across the ceiling, and as

I moved, coins and keys fell from my pockets

and dropped downward—upward—as you will

—to the floor of the room.

One thing was clear. I had averted a very

serious disaster by clinging to the window-

frame when I looked out. With that fearsome

influence upon me, a moment’s overbalancing

would have pulled me over the edge, and I

should have been precipitated into the awful

depths of space which gleamed like an ocean

beneath my window.

Mad as was the thought, I wondered what

time would be required for my comet-like flight

to the shores of the star Penelope. I saw

myself speeding like a meteor across those

tremendous distances to plunge at last into the

heart of the infinite mystery. Even while I

shook with the sick horror of the thought, it

was not without its allure.

The heat of the room was great, for heat

rises and I was on the ceiling. A human desire

to leave the study and go outside seized me,

and, perilous as I knew the action to be, I

resolved to try.

I walked across to the door of my study,

but it was so high above my head that I could

not grasp the knob. I remembered, too, that

I had locked the door and thrown away the

key. Fortunately, the transom was open, and

as this was nearer to me I made a spring and

grasped its frame. Then, painfully, I pulled

myself up and managed to climb through,

dropping to the ceiling on the other side.

It was dark in the corridor, and as I crossed

the ceiling I heard footsteps ascending the

stairs, which were above and to one side of

me. Then a candle flickered around the bend,

and my landlord came into view, walking head

downward like the rest of the world.

In his hand he grasped what, as he came

nearer, I made out to be a revolver. Appar¬

ently he had heard the strange noises from my

part of the house and was intent on inquiring

their meaning. I trembled, for I knew that if

he caught sight of me, upside down as he would

think, against the ceiling, he would instantly

shoot me—supposing that he did not die of

fright.

But he did not see me, and after prowling

about for some twenty minutes he went away

satisfied, and I was left to make my way out

of the house as best I could.

I felt curiously light, as if I had lost many

pounds of weight, which indeed must have been

the case; and I made very little sound as I

trod the ceilings toward the back of the house,

where I knew there was a fire-escape leading

to the street. The door into the rear room was

open, and I clambered over the obstacle inter¬

posed by the top of its frame and entered the

chamber, crossing quietly to the window.

I dared not look down as I climbed through

the aperture, but once I had seized the iron¬

work of the fire-escape I felt more at ease;

then carefully I began my strange upward climb

toward the overhanging street. To anyone

looking up, I might have seemed to be a

whimsical acrobat coming down the ironwork

on his hands, and I suppose I should have

created a sensation.

At the bottom my difficulties began, for I

could not hope to remain on the earth without

support; walking on my hands would not solve

the puzzle. The pull of Penelope was exactly

the pull of the earth when one hangs by his

hands from a height. With fear in my heart,

I began my extraordinary journey toward the

street, taking advantage of every inequality in

the foundation of the house; often I was

clinging desperately to a single little shelf of

brick, for while ostensibly I was walking on

my hands, actually I was hanging at a fearful

height in momentary danger of dropping into

the immeasurable abyss of the sky beneath me.

An iron fence ran around the house, and at

one point it was close enough for me to reach

out a hand and seize it. Then, with a shudder,

I drew myself across onto its iron pickets,

where, after a bit, I felt safer.

The fence offered a real support, for the iron

frame about its top became a narrow but strong

rest for my feet. But the fence was not

particularly high, and, as I progressed, the earth,

owing to the inequalities of the ground, often

was only a few inches above my head. Anyone

stopping to look would have seen a man—a

madman, as he would have supposed—standing

on, his head against the iron fence, and occa¬

sionally moving forward by convulsive move¬

ments of his rigid arms.

The traffic had thinned, and there seemed to

be few pedestrians on my side of the thorough¬

fare. A wild idea seized me—to negotiate the

distance to your home, Haswell, clinging to the

fences along the way. I thought it could be

done, and you were the only person to whom

I felt I could tell my strange story with a hope

of belief.

Had I attempted the journey, I should have

been lost without a doubt; somewhere along

the way my arm sockets would have rebelled,

my grasp would have torn away, and I should

have been plunged, into the depths of a star-

strewn space, have become a wanderer in the

void speeding toward an unimagined destiny.

As it happened, this was not to be.

I had reached the end of the side fence, and

was just beginning to make my way around to

the front, when I was seen by a woman—a

young woman, who came along the street at

that moment. I knew nothing of her presence

until her muffled scream reached my ears. See¬

ing me standing apparently on my head, she

thought me a maniac.

To me she seemed a woman upside down,

and I looked into her face as one looks into a

reflection in the depths of a pool. A street

lamp depended from the pavement above me and

not far from my position of the moment, and

in its light I saw that her face was young and

sweet. I wonder, Haswell, if there can be any

situation, however incredible, in which the face

of a lovely woman will not command attention ?

I think not.

Well, it was a sweet face—and she did not

scream again. I said to her: “Please do not

be frightened. I am not crazy, although I do

not wonder that you think so. Preposterous

as it may seem, I am for the time being in a

normal position; were I to stand upon the earth

as you do, I should-”

I was going to say that I should vanish from

her side, but I realized that this would be too

much for her.

“I should be suffocated,” I finished. “The

blood would rush to my head, and I should

die.”

Then she spoke, and her voice was filled

with tenderness. It was easy to understand

that she believed me quite mad; but she did

not fear me.

“You are ill,” she said. “You need assist¬

ance. May I not go for help? Is there not

some one you would like summoned ?”

Again, Haswell, I thought of you. But would

she carry a message? Would she not, instead,

go for the police? Was she not even now

meditating a ruse by which I might be captured

before I did myself an injury? And I knew

now that I could not continue by myself. Sooner

or later I should be forced to drop, or I should

certainly meet—not a handsome young woman

but a policeman. My mind was quickly made

up. I said to her:

“Thank you, my dear, for your offer; but

you are in error. There is nobody who can

help me now; perhaps there never will be.

This is my home here, behind me, and rather

than frighten people I shall go back as I came

and stay within doors. But I appreciate your

kindness, and I am glad that you do not believe

me mad and that you are not afraid of me.

It may be that some day I shall be cured of

this strange trouble, and if that day comes I

should like to meet you again and thank you.

Will you tell me your name?”

Then she told me her name, flutteringly, and

—I almost screamed again.

Her name, Haswell, was Penelope! Penelope

Pollard!

I all but let go of the railing that supported

me, and as I wavered and seemed about to fall

she gave a low cry and, turning, ran away into

the darkness.

She had gone for help. I knew it, and

shortly I knew that I should be the center of

an embarrassing and probably a jeering crowd.

And so I turned and went back. The return

trip was worse than the forward journey

had been, but after an agony of tortured limbs

and straining sinews I found myself back in

my study, and there, thoroughly worn out, I

fell prone upon the floor—or the ceiling—in a

corner, and went instantly to sleep.

Hours later, when I awoke, I was lying on

the carpeted floor of my study, and the sun

was pouring in at my window as it had done

in past years. Again I was subordinate to

the laws of terrestrial gravity. I fancy that

as the influence passed I slid gradually down

the wall until, without shock, I reached the

floor.

My landlord was beating upon my door, and

after a dazed moment or two I rose and tried

td let him in. But as I had thrown away the

key, I had to pretend that I had lost it and had

accidentally made myself a prisoner. When

he had freed me, I asked him if there had been

any inquiry after me, and he told me there had

not. So it seemed that my fair friend of the

night before had not returned with a posse of

bluecoats. I was grateful and I determined at

the first opportunity to look her up.

From that day forward I looked for her—

Penelope Pollard. I traced Pollards until I

almost hated the name. There were Sylvias

and Graces and Sarahs and Janes and all the

thousand and one other epithets bestowed on

feminine innocence, but never a Penelope—

never, Haswell, until last week.

Penelope!

Last week I found her. And where ? Has¬

well, she lives within three doors of my own

home. She had lived there all the time. She had

seen me many times before my fateful night,

and she had seen me often afterward—always

walking the earth normally like other human

beings, save for that one astounding evening.

She was willing to talk, and glad to discuss my

case; she is a highly intelligent girl, I may say.

She has since told me that on that evening she

believed me to be drunk. It amused her, but did not frighten her. That is why she did

not go for help; she believed it to be a drunken

whim of mine to walk around on my hands,

and that it would pass in its own time.

That, Haswell, is the story of my amazing

connection with the star Penelope. You will

understand that nearly fifty years must pass

before it will again be in perihelion, and by that

time, probably, I shall be dead.

I am very glad of it; one such experience is

enough. Perhaps also you will understand that

I would not have missed it that once for all

the worlds in all the solar systems.

“I think your friend was right,” I remarked,

after a long silence. “You certainly were

drunk, Raymond. Just as certainly as you are

drunk tonight. Or did the whole thing happen

tonight, as you went along ?”

“Drunk?” he echoed. “Yes, I am drunk,

Haswell—drunk with a diviner nectar than

ever was brewed by man. Drunk with the wine

of Penelope—the star Penelope. I have kept

the best part of the story until the end. Next

week Penelope and I are to be married. I am

here tonight by her permission, for a last bout

with my old friend Haswell. It is my final

jamboree. Congratulate me, Diccon !”

Of course, I congratulated him, and I did

it sincerely; but the whole story still vastly

puzzles me. Mrs. Raymond is a charming

woman, and her name certainly is Penelope.

But does that prove anything?

Penelope 183

did not frighten her. That is why she did