streets. But at the door he had a disappointment. Dr.

Brighton-Pomfrey was away at the front--of all places; he had
gone for some weeks; would the bishop like to see Dr. Dale?

The bishop hesitated. He had never set eyes on this Dr. Dale.
Indeed, he had never heard of Dr. Dale.

Seeing his old friend Brighton-Pomfrey and being gently and
tactfully told to do exactly what he was longing to do was one

thing; facing some strange doctor and going slowly and
elaborately through the whole story of his illness, his vow and

his breakdown, and perhaps having his reaction time tested and
all sorts of stripping and soundings done, was quite another. He

was within an ace of turning away.
If he had turned away his whole subsequent life would have been

different. It was the very slightest thing in the world tipped
the beam. It was the thought that, after all, whatever

inconvenience and unpleasantness there might be in this
interview, there was at the end of it a very reasonable prospect

of a restored and legitimate cigarette.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH - THE FIRST VISION

(1)
Dr. DALE exceeded the bishop's worst apprehensions. He was a

lean, lank, dark young man with long black hair and irregular,
rather prolonged features; his chin was right over to the left;

he looked constantly at the bishop's face with a distinctly
sceptical grey eye; he could not have looked harder if he had

been a photographer or a portraitpainter. And his voice was
harsh, and the bishop was particularly sensitive to voices.

He began by understanding far too much of the bishop's illness,
and he insisted on various familiarities with the bishop's heart

and tongue and eye and knee that ruffled the bishop's soul.
"Brighton-Pomfrey talked of neurasthenia?" he asked. "That was

his diagnosis," said the bishop. "Neurasthenia," said the young
man as though he despised the word.

The bishop went on buttoning up his coat.
"You don't of course want to break your vows about drinking and

smoking," said the young man with the very faintest suggestion of
derision in his voice.

"Not if it can possibly be avoided," the bishop asserted.
"Without a loss, that is, of practical efficiency," he added.

"For I have much to do."
"I think that it is possible to keep your vow," said the young

man, and the bishop could have sworn at him. "I think we can
manage that all right."

(2)
The bishop sat at the table resting his arm upon it and

awaiting the next development of this unsatisfactory interview.
He was on the verge of asking as unpleasantly as possible when

Brighton-Pomfrey would return.
The young man stood upon Brighton-Pomfrey's hearth-rug and was

evidently contemplating dissertations.
"Of course," he said, as though he discussed a problem with

himself, "you must have some sort of comfort. You must get out of
this state, one way or another."

The bishop nodded assent. He had faint hopes of this young
man's ideas of comfort.

Dr. Dale reflected. Then he went off away from the question of
comfort altogether. "You see, the trouble in such a case as this

is peculiarly difficult to trace to its sources because it comes
just upon the border-line of bodily and mental things. You may

take a drug or alter your regimen and it disturbs your thoughts,
you may take an idea and it disturbs your health. It is easy

enough to say, as some do, that all ideas have a physical
substratum; it is almost as easy to say with the Christian

Scientist that all bodily states are amenable to our ideas. The
truth doesn't, I think, follow the border between those opposite

opinions very exactly on either side. I can't, for instance, tell
you to go home and pray against these uncertainties and despairs,

because it is just these uncertainties and despairs that rob you
of the power of efficient prayer."

He did not seem to expect anything from the bishop.
"I don't see that because a case brings one suddenly right up

against the frontier of metaphysics, why a doctor should
necessarily pull up short at that, why one shouldn't go on into

either metaphysics or psychology if such an extension is
necessary for the understanding of the case. At any rate if

you'll permit it in this consultation...."
"Go on," said the bishop, holding on to that promise of

comfort. "The best thing is to thrash out the case in your own
way. And then come to what is practical."

"What is really the matter here--the matter with you that is
--is a disorganization of your tests of reality. It's one of a

group of states hitherto confused. Neurasthenia, that
comprehensive phrase--well, it is one of the neurasthenias.

Here, I confess, I begin to talk of work I am doing, work still
to be published, finished first and then published.... But I go

off from the idea that every living being lives in a state not
differing essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentially from a state of hallucination concerning

the things about it. Truth, essential truth, is hidden. Always.
Of course there must be a measure of truth in our working

illusions, a workingmeasure of truth, or the creature would
smash itself up and end itself, but beyond that discretion of the

fire and the pitfall lies a wide margin of error about which we
may be deceived for years. So long as it doesn't matter, it

doesn't matter. I don't know if I make myself clear."
"I follow you," said the bishop a little wearily, "I follow

you. Phenomena and noumena and so on and so on. Kant and so
forth. Pragmatism. Yes."

With a sigh.
"And all that," completed Dr. Dale in a voice that suggested

mockery. "But you see we grow into a way of life, we settle down
among habits and conventions, we say 'This is all right' and

'That is always so.' We get more and more settled into our life
as a whole and more and more confident. Unless something happens

to shake us out of our sphere of illusion. That may be some
violent contradictory fact, some accident, or it may be some

subtle change in one's health and nerves that makes us feel
doubtful. Or a change of habits. Or, as I believe, some subtle

quickening of the criticalfaculty. Then suddenly comes the
feeling as though we were lost in a strange world, as though we

had never really seen the world before."
He paused.

The bishop was reluctantly interested. "That does describe
something--of the mental side," he admitted. "I never believe

in concealing my own thoughts from an intelligent patient," said
Dr. Dale, with a quiet offensiveness. "That sort of thing belongs

to the dark ages of the 'pothecary's art. I will tell you exactly
my guesses and suppositions about you. At the base of it all is a

slight and subtle kidney trouble, due I suggest to your going to
Princhester and drinking the local water--"

"But it's excellent water. They boast of it."
"By all the established tests. As a matter of fact many of our

best drinking waters have all sorts of unspecified qualities.
Burton water, for example, is radioactive by Beetham's standards

up to the ninth degree. But that is by the way. My theory about
your case is that this produced a change in your blood, that

quickened your sensibilities and your critical faculties just at
a time when a good many bothers--I don't of course know what

they were, but I can, so to speak, see the marks all over you--