A dead Finger by Sabine bearing gold. Why the National Gallery should not attract
so many visitors as say the British Museum, I cannot explain. The latter
does not contain much that one would suppose appeals to the interest of the ordinary
sightseer. What knows such of prehistoric flints and scratched bones of a Syrian sculpture,
of Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Greek and Roman statuary is cold and dead.
The paintings in the National Gallery glow with color and are instinct with life.
Yet somehow a few listless wanderers saunter yawning through the National Gallery, whereas swarms
port through the halls of the British Museum and talk in past remarks about the
objects they are exposed, of the date and meaning of which they have not
the faintest conception. I was thinking of this problem and endeavoring to unravel it
one morning, whilst sitting in the room for English Masters at the Great Collection
in Trofulgar's Square. At the same time, another thought forced itself upon me.
I had been through the rooms devoted to foreign schools, and had then
come into that given over Reynolds Moreland Gainsborough, Constable and Hogarth. The morning
had been for a while propitious, but towards noon a dense, umber tinted
fog had come on, making it all but impossible to see the pictures,
and quite impossible to do them justice. I was tired, and so seated
up myself on one of the chairs, and fell into the consideration, first
of all, of why the National Gallery is not as popular as it should
be, and secondly how it was that the British school had no beginnings like
those of Italy and the Netherlands. We can see the art of the painter
from its first initiation in the Italian peninsula and among the Flemings. It starts
on its progress like a child, and we can trace every stage of its
growth. Not so with English art. It springs to life in full and
splendid maturity. Who were there before Reynolds and Gainsboro and Hogarth. The names
of those portrait and subject painters who have left their canvasses upon the walls of
our country houses were those of foreigners. Holbein, Nuller van Dyke and Lily
for portraits, and Moneyer for flower and fruit pieces. Landscapes figure subjects were
all importations none homegrown? How came that about? Was there no limmur that
was native? Was it that fashion trampled on homegrown pictorial beginnings as it flouted
and spurned native music? Here was food for contemplation, dreaming in the brown
fog, looking through it without seeing its beauties at Hogarth's painting of Lavinia Fenton
as Polly Peachum, without wondering how so indifferent a beauty could have captivated the
Duke of Bolton and held him for thirty years. I was recalled to myself
and my surroundings by the strange conduct of a lady who had seated herself on
the shared next to me, also discouraged by the fog and awaiting its dispersion.
I had not noticed her, particularly at the present moment. I do
not remember particularly what she was like, So far as I can recollect,
she was middle aged and quietly yet well dressed. It was not her face
nor her dress that attracted my attention and disturbed the current of my thoughts.
The effect I speak of was produced by her strange movements and behavior. She
was sitting listless, probably thinking of nothing at all, or nothing in particular,
when in turning her eyes round, and, finding that she could see
nothing of the paintings, she began to study me. This did concern me
greatly. A cat may look at the king, but to be contemplated by
a lady is a compliment sufficient to please any gentleman. It was not gratified
vanity that troubled my thoughts, but the consciousness that my appearance produced, first
of all startled surprise, then undisguised alarm, and finally indescribable horror. A
man can sit quietly, leaning on the head of his umbrella and glow internally
warmed and illumined by the consciousness that he is being surveyed with admiration by a
lovely woman, even when he is middle aged and not fashionably dressed. But
no man can maintain his composure when he discovers himself to be an object of
aversion and terror. What was it? I passed my hand over my chin
and upper lip, thinking it not impossible that I might have forgotten to shave
that morning, and in my confusion, not considering that the fog would prevent
the lady from discovering neglect in this particular had it occurred, which had not.
I am a little careless, perhaps about shaving when in the country,
but wood in town. Never. The next idea that occurred to me was
a smut. Had a London black curdled in that dense pea soup atmosphere descended
on my nose and blackened it. I hastily drew my silk handkerchief from my
pocket, moistened it, and passed it over my nose and then each cheek.
I then turned my eyes into the corners and looked at the lady to
see whether by this means I had got rid of what was objectionable in my
personal appearance. Then I saw that her eyes, dilated with horror, were
riveted not on my face, but on my leg, my leg. What
on earth could that harmless member have in it so terrifying? The morning had
been dull, there had been rain in the night, and I admit that,
on leaving my hotel, I had turned up the bottoms of my trousers.
That is a proceeding not so uncommon, not so outrageous as to account
for the stony stare of the woman's eyes. If that were all, I
would turn my trousers down. Then I saw her shrink from the chair on
which She sat to one further removed from me, but still with her eyes
fixed on my leg about the level of my knee. She had let fall
her umbrella and was grasping the seat of her chair with both hands as she
backed for me. I need hardly say that I was greatly disturbed in mind
and feelings, and forgot all about the origin of the English schools and painters
in the question why the British Museum is more popular than the National Gallery.
Thinking that I might have been spattered by a handsome whilst crossing Oxford Street,
I passed my hand down my side hastily with a sense of annoyance, and
all at once touched something cold, clammy that sent a thrill to my heart
and made me start and take a step forward. At the same moment,
the lady, with a cry of horror, sprang to her feet and with
raised hands, fled from the room, leaving her umbrella where I had fallen.
There were other visitors to the picture gallery besides ourselves, who had been
passing through the saloon, and they turned at her cry and looked in surprise.
After her. The policeman stationed in the room came to me and asked
what had happened. I was in such agitation that I hardly knew what to
answer. I told him that I could explain what had occurred little better than
himself. I had noticed that the lady had worn an odd expression and had
behaved in most extraordinary fashion, and that he had best take charge of her
umbrella and wait for her return to claim it. This questioning by the official
was vexing, as it prevented me from, at once and on the spot,
investigating the cause of her alarm and mind hers at something she must have
seen on my leg, and mine at something I had distinctly felt creeping up
my leg. The numbing and sickening effect on me of the touch of the
object I had not seen was not to be shaken off at once. Indeed,
I felt as though my hand were contaminated, and that I could have
no rest till I had thoroughly washed the hand and, if possible, washed
away the feeling that had been produced. I looked on the floor, I
examined my leg, but saw nothing. As I wore my overcoat, it
was probable that in rising from my seat, the skirt had fallen over my
trousers and hidden the thing. Whatever it was. I therefore hastily removed my
overcoat and shook it, then looked at my trousers. There was nothing whatever
on my leg, and nothing fell from my overcoat when shaken accordingly. I
reinvested myself and hastily left the gallery. Then took my way as speedily as
I could without actually running, to the Charing Cross station and down the narrow
way leading to the Metropo, where I went into Faulkner's bath and hair dressing
establishment and asked for hot water to thoroughly wash my hand and well soap it.
I bathed my hand in water as hot as I could endure it,
employed carbolic soap, and then, after having a good brush down, especially
on my left side, where my hand had encountered the object that had so
affected me, I left. I had entertained the intention of going to the
Princess's Theater that evening, and of securing a ticket in the morning, But
all thought of theater going was gone for me. I could not free my
heart from the sense of nausea and cold that had been produced by the touch.
I went into Gattis to have lunch and ordered something I forget what,
but when served I found that my appetite was gone. I could eat nothing.
The food inspired me with disgust. I thrust it from me, untasted,
and after drinking a couple of glasses of claret, left the restaurant and
returned to my hotel. Feeling sick and faint, I threw my overcoat over
the sofa back and cast myself on my bed. I do not know that
there was any particular reason for my doing so. But as I lay my
eyes around my great coat, the density of the fog has passed away,
and there was light again, not a first quality, but sufficient for a
Londoner to swear by, so that I could see everything in my room through
a veil darkly. I do not think my mind is occupied in any way
about. The only occasions on which, to my knowledge my mind is actually
passive or inert is when crossing the channel in the foam from Dover to Calais,
when I am always in every weather objectly seasick and thoughtless. But as
I now lay on my bed, uncomfortable, squeamish, without knowing why,
I was in the same inact of mental condition, but not for long,
I saw something that startled me. First it appeared to me as if the
lappet of my overcoat pocket were in movement being raised. I did not pay
much attention to this, as I suppose that the garment was sliding down onto
the seat of the sofa from the back, and that this displacement of gravity
caused movement. I observed this I soon saw was not the case. That
which moved the la pet was something in the pocket that was struggling to get
out. I could see now that it was working its way up the inside,
and that when it reached the opening, it lost balance and fell down
again. I can make this out by the projections and indentations in the cloth.
These moved as the creature or whatever it was, worked its way up
to the lining. A mouse, I said, and forgot my seediness.
I was interested the little rascal, however, did it? He concrived to
seat himself in my pocket, and I have worn that overcoat all morning.
But no, it was not a mouse. I saw something white poke its
way out from under the la pet, and in another moment an object was
revealed that, though revealed, I could not understand, nor could I distinguish
what it was. Now Roused by curiosity, I raised myself on my elbow.
In doing this, I made some noise. The bed creaked instantly.
The something dropped to the floor, lay outstretched for a moment to recover itself,
then began with the motions of a maggot to run along the floor.
There is a caterpillar called the measurer because when it advances, it draws its
tail up to where its head is, and then throws forward its full length,
and again draws up its extremity, forming at each time a loop,
and with each step measuring its total length. The object I now saw on
the floor was advancing precisely like the measuring caterpillar. It had the color of
a cheese maggot, and in length was about three and a half inches.
It was not, however, like a caterpillar, which is flexible throughout its
entire length. But this was, as it seemed to me, jointed in
two places, one joint being more conspicuous than the other. For some moments,
I was so completely paralyzed by the astonishment that I remained motionless, looking
at the thing as it crawled along the carpet, a dull green carpet with
darker green, almost black flowers in it. It had as it seemed to
me a glossy head distinctly marked, but as the light was not really I
could not make out very clearly, and moreover, the rapid movements prevented close
scrutiny. Presently, with a shock still more startling than it produced by its
apparition, at the opening of the pocket of my greatcoat. But became convinced
that what I saw was a finger, a human forefinger, and that the
glossy head was no other than the nail. The finger did not seem to
have been amputated. There was no sign of blood or laceration where the knuckle
should be, but the extremity of the finger or root rather faded away to
indistinctness, and I was unable to make out the root of the finger.
I could see no hand, no body behind this finger, nothing whatever,
except a finger that had little token of warm life in it, no coloration
as through blood circulated in it. And this finger was an active motion,
creeping along the carpet towards a wardrobe that stood against the wall by the fireplace.
I sprang off the bed and pursued it. Evidently the finger was alarmed,
for it redoubled its pace reached the wardrobe and went under it. By
the time I had arrived at the article of furniture, it had disappeared.
I lit a vesta match and held it beneath the wardrobe that was raised above
the carpet by about two inches on turned feet, but I could see nothing
more of the finger. I got my umbrella and thrust it beneath and raked
forwards and backwards, right and left, and raked out flew and nothing more
solid. I packed my poormanteau next day and returned to my home in the
country. All desire for amusement in town was gone, and the faculty to
transact business had departed as well. A linger in qualms had come over me,
and my head was in a maze. I was unable to fix my
thoughts on anything. At times I was disposed to believe that my wits were
deserting me, at others that I was on the verge of a severe illness.
Anyhow, whether likely to go off my head or not, or to
take my bed home was the only place for me, and homeward I sped
accordingly. On reaching my country habitation, my servant, as usual, took
my pormanteau to my bedroom unstrapped it, but did not unpack it. I
object to his throwing out the contents of my gladstone bag, not that there
is anything that he may not see. That he puts my things where I
cannot find him again. My clothes, he is welcome to place them where
he likes and where they belong. In this latter he knows better than I
do. But then I carry about with me other things in a dress,
suit and changes of linen and flannel. There are letters, papers, books,
and the proper destinations of these are known only to myself. A servant
has a singular and evil knack of putting away literary matter and odd volumes in
such places that it takes the owner half a day to find them again.
Although I was uncomfortable and my head in a whirl, I opened and unpacked
my own pormanteau. As I was thus engaged, I saw something curled up
in my collar box, the lid of which had gotten broken by a boot
heel and pinging on it. I had pulled off the damage cover to see
if my callers had been spoiled, when something curled up inside suddenly rose on
end and left dressed like a cheese jumper out of the box, over the
edge of the gladstone bag, and scurried away across the floor in a manner
already familiar to me. I could not doubt for a moment what it was.
Here was the finger again. It had come with me from London to
the country. Whither it went in its run over the floor, I do
not know. I was too bewildered to observe. Somewhat later, towards evening,
I seated myself in my easy chair, took up a book and tried
to read. I was tired with the journey, with a knocking about in
town, and the discomfort and alarm produced by the apparition of the finger.
I felt worn out. I was unable to give my attention to what I
read, and before I was aware was asleep. Roused for an instant by
the fall of a book from my hands, I speedily relapsed into unconsciousness.
I am not sure that a doze in the armchair ever does good. It
usually leaves me in a semi stupid condition and with a headache. Five minutes
in a horizontal position on my bed as worth thirty in a chair. That
is my experience in sleeping in a sedentary position that the head is a difficulty.
It drops forward or lalls on one side of the other and has to
be brought back into a position in which the line to the center of gravity
runs through the trunk. Otherwise the head carries the body over in a sort
of general capsize out of the chair onto the floor. I slept on the
occasion of which I'm speaking pretty healthily, because deadly weary. But I was
brought to waking not by my head falling over the arm of the chair and
my trunk tumbling after it, but by a feeling of cold extending from my
throat to my heart. When I awoke, I was in a diagonal position,
with my right ear resting on my right shoulder and exposing the left side
of my throat. And it was here where the jugular vein throbs, that
I felt the greatest intensity of cold. At once I shrugged my left shoulder,
rubbing my neck with the collar of my coat, and so doing immediately
something fell off upon the floor, and again I saw the finger. My
disgust horror were intensified when I perceived that it was dragging something after it,
which might have been an old stalking in which I took a first glance for
something of the sort. The evening sun shone in through my window in a
brilliant gold ray that lighted the object as it scrambled. Along with this illumination,
I was able to distinguish what the object was. It was not easy
to describe it, but I will make the attempt. The finger I saw
was solid and material. What it drew after it was neither, or was
in a nebulous protoplasmic condition. The finger was attached to a hand that was
curdling into matter and in process of acquiring solidity. Attached to the hand was
an arm in a very filmy condition, and this arm belonged to a human
body in a still more vaporous immaterial condition. This was being dragged along the
floor by the finger, just as a silkworm might pull after it the tangle
of its web. I could see legs and arms, and head and coat
tail tumbling about and interlacing and disentangling again in a promiscuous manner. There were
no bone, no muscle, no substance in the figure. The members were
attached to the trunk, which was spineless, but they had evidently no functions
and were wholly dependent on the finger, which pulled them along in a jumble
of parts as it advanced in such confusion. Did the whole vaporous matter seem
that? I think? I cannot say for certain it was so, But
the impression left on my mind was that one of the eyeballs was looking out
at a nostril, and the tongue lolling out of one of the ears.
Was, however, only for a moment that I saw this germ body.
I can not call by another name, that which had not more substance than
smoke. I saw it only so long as it was being dragged athwart the
ray of sunlight. The moment it was pulled jerkily out of the beam into
the shadow beyond, I could see nothing of it, only the crawling finger.
I had not sufficient moral energy or physical force in me to rise,
pursue and stamp on the finger, and grind it with my heel into the
floor. Both seemed drained out of me, but became of the finger.
Whither it went. How it managed to discreet itself, I do not know.
I had lost the power to inquire. I sat in my chair,
chilled, staring before me into space. Please, sir, a voice said,
that's mister Square below electrical engineer. A I looked dreamily around my valet
was at the door. Please, sir, the gentleman would be glad to
be allowed to go over the house and see all the electrical apparatus is in
order. Oh, indeed, yes, show him up. I had recently
placed the lighting of my house in the hands of an electrical engineer, a
very intelligent man, mister Square, for whom I had contracted a sincere friendship.
He had built a shed with a dynamo out of sight and had entrusted
the laying of the wires to subordinates, as he had been busy with other
orders and cannot personally watch every detail. But he was not the man to
let anything pass unobserved, and he knew that electricity was not a force to
be played with. That or careless workmen will often insufficiently protect the wires or
neglect the insertion of the lead, which serves as a safety valve. In
the event of the current being too strong, houses may be set on fire,
and beings fatally shocked by the neglect of a bad or slovenly workman.
The apparatus for my mansion was just completed, but mister Square had come to
inspect it and make sure that it was all right. He was an enthusiast
in the matter of electricity, and saw for it a vast perspective, the
limits of which could not be predicted. All forces, said he, are
correlated. When you have force in one form, you may just turn it
into this or that as you like. In one form it is motive power,
in another, it is light in another heat. Now we have electricity
for illumination, we employ it, but not as freely as in the States.
For propelling vehicles, Why should we have horses drawing our buses? We
should use only electric trams. Why do we burn coal to warm our shins?
There is electricity which throws out no filthy smoke as does coal. Why
should we let the tides waste their energies in the Thames? In other estuaries
there we have nature supplying us free gratis, and for nothing, with all
the force we want for propelling, for heating, for lighting. I will
tell you something more, my dear sir, said mister Square. I have
mentioned but three modes of force, and have incense but a limited number of
uses to which electricity may be turned. How is it with photography? Is
not electric light becoming an artistic agent? I bet you, said he,
Before long it will become a therapeutic agent as well. Oh yes, I
have heard of certain impostures with their life belts. Mister Square did not relish
with this little deck I gave him. He winced, but returned to the
charge. We don't know how to direct it, all right, that is
all, said he. I haven't taken the matter up, but others will,
I bet, and we shall have electricity used as freely as now we
use powders and pills. I don't believe in doctor's stuff myself. I hold
that disease lays hold of a man because he lacks physical force to resist it.
Now, is it not obvious that you are beginning at the wrong end
when you attack the disease. What you want is to supply force make up
for the lack of physical power. And force is force wherever you find it.
Here motive, they're illuminating, and so on. I don't see why
physicians should not utilize the tide rushing out under London Bridge for restoring the feeble
vigor of all who are languid and a prey to disorder in the metropolis.
It will come to that, I bet. And that is not all.
Force is force everywhere, political, moral force, physical force, dynamic force,
heat, light, tidal ways and so on. All are one,
All is one. In time we shall know how to galvanize into aptitude and
moral energy all the limp and crooked consciences and wills that need taking in hand,
and such there always will be in modern civilization. I don't know how
to do it. I don't know how it will be done. But in
the future the priest as well as the doctor, will turn electricity hon as
his principle, nay, his only agent, and he can get his force
anywhere, out of the running stream, out of the wind, out of
the tidal wave. I'll give you an instance, continued mister Square, chuckling
and rubbing his hands, to show you the great possibilities and electricity used in
the crude fashion. In a certain great city far west in the States,
a go had placed too, more so than New York. They had electric
trans all up and down and along the roads to everywhere. The union men
working for the company demanded that the non unionists should be turned off, but
the company didn't see it. Instead, it turned off the union men.
It had up its sleeve a sufficiency of the others, and filled all places
at once. Union men didn't like it, and passed word that at a
given hour on a certain day, every wire was to be cut. The
company knew this by means of its spies, and turned on ready for them,
three times of power into all the wires at the fixed moment. Up
the poles with the strikers to cut the cables, and down they came a
dozen times quicker than they went up. Then there came wires to the hospitals
from all quarters for stretchers to carry off the disabled men. Some broken legs,
arms, ribs, two or three had their necks broken. I reckon.
The company was wonderfully merciful. It didn't put on sufficient force to make
cinders of them. Then in there possibly opinion might not have liked it.
Stopped the strike did that great moral effect. All dead by electricity. In
this manner, mister Square was wont to rattle on. He interested me,
and I came to think that there might be something in what he said,
that his suggestions were not mere nonsense. I was glad to see mister Square
enter my room, shown in by my man. I did not rise from
my chair to shake his hand, for I had not sufficient energy to do
so. In a languid tone, I welcomed him and signed to him to
take a seat. Mister Square looked at me with some surprise. Why what's
the matter, he said, you seem unwell. Knock out the flu have
you? I beg your pardon the influenza. Every third person is crying out
that he has it, And the sale of eucalyptus is enormous, not that
eucalyptus is anyth good influenza microbes. Indeed, what cared they for eucalyptus?
We've gone down some steps of the latter of life since I last saw you,
Squire, how do you account for that? I hesitated about the mentioning
the extraordinary circumstances that had occurred. But Square was a man who would not
allow any beating about the bush. He was downright and straight, and in
ten minutes he got the entire story out of me. Rather boisterous for your
nerves. That a crawling finger, he said he it's a queer story taken
on end. Then he was silent, considering after a few minutes, he
rose and said, I'll go and look at the fittings, and then I'll
turn this little matter of yours over again and see if I can't knock the
bottom out of it. I'm kinder fond of those sort of things. Mister
Square was not a Yankee, but he had lived for some time in America
and affected to speak like an American. He used expressions terms of speech common
in the States, but had none of the Transatlantic twang. He was a
man absent, sally, without affection in every other particular. This was his
sole weakness, and it was harmless. The man was so thorough in all
he did that I did not expect him to return immediately. He was certain
to examine every portion of the dynamo engine and all the connections and burners.
This would necessarily engage him for some hours. As the day was nearly done,
I knew he could not accomplish what he wanted that evening, and accordingly
gave orders that a room should be prepared for him. Then, as my
head was full of pain and my skin was burning, I told my servant
to apologize for my absence from dinner and tell mister Square that I was really
forced to return to my bed by sickness, and that I believed I was
about to be prostrated by an attack of influenza. The valet, a worthy
fellow who had been with me for six years, was concerned at my appearance
and urged me to allow him to send for a doctor. I had no
confidence in the local practitioner, and if I sent for another from the nearest
town, I should offend him, and a row would perhaps ensue. So
I declined, if I were really in for an Leuwenza attack, I knew
about as much as my any doctor how to deal with it. Quinny and
quiney, that was all. I bade my man light a small lamp,
lower it so as to give sufficient illumination to enable me to find some lime
juice at my bed head and my pocket handkerchief, and to be able to
read my watch. When he had done this, I bade him leave me.
I lay in bed, burning, racked with pain in my head and
my eyeballs on fire. Whether I fell asleep or went off my head for
a while I cannot tell. I may have fainted. I have no recollection
of anything. After gone to bed and taking a sip of lime juice that
tasted to me like soap, till I was roused by a sense of pain
in my ribs, a slow, gnawing, torturing pain, waxing momentarily more
intense. In half consciousness, I was partly dreaming and partly aware of actual
suffering. The pain was real, but in my fancy I thought that a
great maggot was working its way into my side between my roobs. I seemed
to see it. It twisted itself half round, then reverted to its former
position again, a twisting itself, moving like a brattle, not like a
gimlet, which latter forms a complete revolution. This obviously must have been a
dream hallucination only as I was lying on my back and my eyes were directed
towards the bottom of my bed, the coverlet and blankets, and she intervened
between my eyes and the side. But in fever one seized without eyes,
and in every direction, and through all obstructions, roused thoroughly by an excruciating
twinge, I tried to cry out, and succeeded in throwing myself over on
my right side, that which was in pain. At once I felt the
thing withdrawn that was all in If I may use the word in between my
ribs. And now I saw standing beside the bed a figure that had its
arm under the bed clothes and was slowly removing it. The hand was leisurely
drawn from under the coverings and rested on the eider down coverlet, with the
forefinger extended. The figure was that of a man in shabby clothes, with
a sallow, mean face, a retreating forehead, and hair cut after the
French fashion, and a mustache. The draws and chin were covered with a
bristly growth, as if shaving had been neglected for a fortnight. The figure
did not appear to be thoroughly solid, but to be of the consistency of
curd, and the face was of the complexion of curd. As I looked
at this object, it withdrew, sliding backward an odd sort of manner,
and as though overweighted by the hand, which was the most substantial, indeed
the only substantial portion of it. Though the finger retreated stooping, yet it
was no longer huddled along by the finger, as if it had no material
existence. If the same, it had acquired a consistency in a solidity which
it did not possess before. How it vanished. I do not know nor
whether it went. The door opened and Square came in. What he explained
with cheery voice, influenza is it? I don't know. I think it's
that finger again. Now look here, said Square, I'm not going to
have that cuss at its pranks anymore. Tell me about it. I was
now so exhausted, so feeble, that I was not able to give a
connected account of what had taken place. But Square to put me just a
few pointed questions and elicited the main facts. He pieced him together in his
own orderly mind, so as to form a connected whole. There is a
feature in the case, said he, that strikes me as remarkable and important.
At first a finger only, then a hand that a nebulous figure attached
to the hand, without backbone, without consistency. Lastly a complete form with
consistency and with backbone, but the latter in a gelatinous condition, and the
entire figure overweighted by the hand, just as hand and figure were previously overweighted
by the finger. Simultaneously, with this compacting and consolidating of the figure came
your degeneration and lost of vital force. And in a word of help,
what you lose, the object acquires, and what it acquires it gains by
contact with you. That's clear enough, is it not? I dare say
I don't know. I can't think. I suppose not. The faculty of
thought is drained out of you. Very well, I must think for you,
and I will force his force, and see if I can't deal with
your visitant in such a way as will prove just as truly a moral dissuasive
that employed on the union men on striking. Never mind where it was,
that's not the point. Will you kindly give me some lime juice? I
entreated. I sipped the acid drought, but without relief. I listened to
Square, but without hope. I wanted to be left alone. I was
wary of my pain, weary of everything, even of life. It was
a matter of indifference to me whether I recovered or slipped out of its existence.
It will be here again, shortly, said the engineer, as the
French say, l'a pativia monjan. It has been at you thrice. It
won't be content without another peck, And if it does get another, I
guess it will pretty well about finish you. Mister Square rubbed his chin and
then put his hands into his trousers pockets. That was also a trick acquired
in the States, and an elegant one. His hands, when not actively
occupied, went into his pockets. Inevitably they gravitated thither. Ladies did not
like square. They said he was not a gentleman. But it was not
that he said or did anything off color. Only he spoke to them,
looked at them, and walked with them, always with his hands in his
pockets. I've seen a lady turn her back on him deliberately because of this
trick. Standing now with his hands in his pockets, he studied my bed
and said, contemptuously, old fashioned and bad. Four poster oughtn't be allowed.
I guess, unwholesome all the way around. I was not in a
condition to dispute this. I like a four poster with curtains at head and
feet, not that I ever draw them, but it gives a sense of
privacy, that is wanting in one of your half tester beds. If there
is a window at one's feet, one can lie in bed without the glaring
one's eyes, and yet without darkening the room by drawing the blinds. There's
much to be said for a four poster, but this is not the place
in which you say it. Mister Square pulled his hands out of his pockets
and began fiddling with the electric point near the head of my bed. Attached
a wire, swept it in a semicircle along the floor, then thrust the
knob at the end into my hand in the bed. Keep your eye open,
he said, and your hand shut and covered. If that finger comes
again tickling your ribs, try it with the point. I'll manage to switch
from behind the curtain. Then he disappeared. I was too indifferent in my
misery to turn my head and observe where he was. I remained inert,
with the knob in my hand and my eyes closed, suffering and thinking of
nothing, with the shooting pains through my head and the aches in my loins
and back and legs. Sometime probably elapsed before I felt the finger again at
work at my ribs. It groped, but no longer bored. I now
felt the entire hand, not a single finger, and the hand was substantial,
cold and clammy. I was aware, how I know not that if
the finger point reached the region of my heart on the left side, that
the hand would so to speak, sit down on it with the cold palm
over it. And then immediately my heart ceased to beat, and it would
be a Square might express it gone coon with me. In self preservation,
I brought up the knob of the electric wire against the hand against one of
the ringers, I think, and at once was aware of a rapping,
squealing noise. I turned my head languidly and saw the form, now more
substantial than before, capering in an ecstasy of pain, endeavoring fruitlessly to withdraw
its arm from under the bedclothes and the hand from the electric point. At
the same moment, Square stepped from behind the curtain with a dry laugh and
said, I thought we should fix him. He has the coil about him
and can't escape. Now let us drop to particulars. But I shan't let
you off until I know all about you. The last sentence was addressed not
to me, but to the apparition. Thereupon he bade me to take the
point away from the hand of the figure, being whatever it was, but
to be ready with it at a moment's notice. He then proceeded to catchize
my visitor, who moved restlessly within the circle of the wire, but could
not escape from it, it replied, in a thin, squealing voice that
sounded as if to come from a distance, and had a querulous tone in
it. I'd not pretend to give all that was said. I cannot recollect
everything that passed. My memory was affected by my illness as well as my
body. Yet I prefer giving the scraps that I recollect to what Square told
me he had heard. Yes, I was unsuccessful. Always was nothing answered
with me. The world was against me, society was. I hate society.
I don't like work, neither never did. But I like agitating against
what is established. I hate the royal family, the landed interest, the
parsons, everything that is except the people that is, the unemployed. I
always did, I couldn't get work as suited me. When I died,
they buried me in a cheap coffin dirt cheap, and gave me a nasty
grave cheap, and a service ratt away cheap, and no monument. Didn't
want none. Oh, there are lots of us, all discontented. Discontent.
That's a passion it is. It gets into the veins, it fills
the brain, it occupies the heart. It's a sort of divine cancer that
takes possession of the entire man and makes him dissatisfied with everything and hate everybody.
But we must have our share of happiness at some time. We all
crave for it in one way or other. Somethink is a future state of
blessedness, and so of hope, and look to attain it. For hope
is a cable and anchor that attaches to what is real. But when you
have no hope of that sort, don't believe in any future state. You
must look for happiness in life. Here we didn't get it when we were
alive, so we seek to procure it after we are dead. We can't
do it if we can get out of our cheap and nasty coffins, but
not till the greater part of us is molded away. If a finger or
two remains that can work its way up to the surface, those cheap deal
coffins go to pieces quick enough, then the only solid part of us left
can pull them. The rest of us that has gone to nothing after it.
Then we grow up about after the living, the well to do if
we can get at them, the honest, working poor. If we can't,
we hate them too, because they are content and happy. If we
reach any of these and can touch them, then we can draw their vital
force out of them into ourselves and recuperate at their expense. That was about
what I was going to do with you, getting on famous, nearly solidified
into a new man, and given another chance in life. But I've missed
it this time, just my luck. Miss everything always have, except misery
and disappointment. Get plenty of that. What are you all asked? Swear
anarchists out of employee. Some of us go by that name, some by
other designations, but we are all one and own allegiance to what one monarch
sovereign discontent. We are bred to have a distaste for manual work, and
we grow up loafers, grumbling at everything and quarreling with society that is around
us and the providence that is above us. And what do you call yourselves?
Now call ourselves nothing? We are the same in another condition. That
is all folk once called this anarchists, nihilists, socialists, levelers. Now
they call us the influenza. The learned talk of microbes and baccali and bacteria,
microbes backalie and bacteria be blowed. We are the influenza. We are
the social failures, the generally discontented, coming up out of our cheap and
nasty graves in the form of physical disease. We are the influenza. There
you are, I guess, exclaimed Square triumphantly. Did I not say that
all forces were correlated? If so, then all negations deficiencies of force are
one in their several manifestations. Talk of divine discontent as a force impelling to
progress rubbish. It is a paralysis of energy. It turns all it absorbs
into acid to envy, spite, gall It inspires nothing but rots the whole
moral system. Here you have it moral, social, political desas content in
another form, nay, aspect. That is all. What anarchism is the
body politic. The influenza is the body physical. Do you see that?
Yes, I believe, I answered, and dropped away into the land of
dreams. I recovered What Square did with the thing, I do not know,
but believe that he reduced it again to its former negative and self decomposing
condition. End of a dead finger.