CHAPTER XIII
THE DEAD IMMORTAL
When I reached home, Sarakoff was out. He had left a message to say hewould not be in until after midnight, as he was going to hear Leonorasing at the opera, and purposed to take her to supper afterwards. Dinnerwas therefore a solitary meal for me, and when it was all over Iendeavoured to plunge into some medical literature. The hours passedslowly. It was almost impossible to read, for the process, to me, wassimilar to trying to take an interest in a week-old newspaper.
The thought of the bacillus made the pages seem colourless; it dwarfedall meaning in the words. I gave up the attempt and set myself tosmoking and gazing into the fire. What was I to do about Alice?
Midnight came and my mind was still seething. I knew sleep was out ofthe question and the desire to walk assailed me. I put on a coat andhat and left the house. It was a cold night, clear with stars. HarleyStreet was silent. My footsteps led me south towards the river. I walkedrapidly, oblivious of others. The problem of Alice was beyond solution,for the simple reason that I found it impossible to think of herclearly. She was overshadowed by the wonder of the bacillus. But thepicture of her father haunted me. It filled me with strange emotions,and at moments with stranger misgivings.
There are meanings, dimly caught at the time, which remain in the mindlike blind creatures, mewing and half alive. They pluck at the brainceaselessly, seeking birth in thought. Old Annot's face peering into thehall mirror--what was it that photographed the scene so pitilessly in mymemory? I hurried along, scarcely noticing where I went, and as I went Iargued with myself aloud.
On the Embankment I returned to a full sense of my position in space.The river ran beneath me, cold and dark. I leaned over the stonebalustrade and stared at the dark forms of barges. Yes, it was trueenough that I had not realized that the germ would keep Mr. Annot aliveindefinitely. Sarakoff's significant whistle that morning came to mymind, and I saw that I had been guilty of singular denseness in notunderstanding its meaning.
And now old Annot would live on and on, year after year. Was I glad? Itis impossible to say. It was that expression in the old man's face thatdominated me. I tried to think it out. It had been a triumphant look;and more than that ... a triumphant _toothless_ look. Was that thesolution? I reflected that triumph is an expression that belongs toyouth, to young things, to all that is striving upwards in growth.Surely old people should look only patient and resigned--nevertriumphant--in this world? Some strong action with regard to Alice'sposition would be necessary. It was absurd to think that her fathershould eternally come between her and me. It would be necessary to godown to Cambridge and make a clean confession to Alice. And then, whenforgiven, I would insist on an immediate arrangement concerning ourmarriage. Marriage! The word vibrated in my soul. The solemnity of thatceremony was great enough to mere mortals, but what would it mean to uswhen we were immortals? Sarakoff had hinted at a new marriage system.Was such a thing possible? On what factors did marriage rest? Was itmerely a discipline or was it ultimately selfishness?
My agitation increased, and I hurried eastwards, soon entering an areaof riverside London that, had I been calmer, might have given me somealarm. It must have been about two o'clock in the morning when thepressure of thoughts relaxed in my mind. I found myself in the greatdock area. The forms of giant cranes rose dimly in the air. A distantglare of light, where nightshifts were at work, illuminated the hugeshapes of ocean steamers. The quays were littered with crates and bales.A clanking of buffers and the shrill whistles of locomotives came out ofthe darkness. For some time I stood transfixed. In my imagination I sawthese big ships, laden with cargo, slipping down the Thames and out intothe sea, carrying with them an added cargo to every part of the earth.For by them would the Blue Germ travel over the waterways of the worldand enter every port. From the ports it would spread swiftly into thetowns, and from the towns onwards across plain and prairie until thegift of Immortality had been received by every human being. The visionthrilled me....
A commotion down a side street on my right shattered this gloriouspicture. Hoarse cries rang out, and a sound of blows. I could make out asmall dark struggling mass which seemed to break into separate parts andthen coalesce again. A police whistle sounded. The mass again broke up,and some figures came rushing down the street in my direction. Theypassed me in a flash, and vanished. At the far end of the street twotwinkling lights appeared. After a period of hesitation--what doctorgoes willingly into the accidents of the streets?--I walked slowly intheir direction.
When I reached them I found two policemen bending over the body of aman, which lay in the gutter face downwards.
"Good evening," I said. "Can I be of any service? I am a doctor."
They shone their lamps on me suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"
"Walking," I replied. Exercise had calmed me. I felt cool and collected."I often walk far at nights. Let me see the body."
I stooped down and turned the body over. The policemen watched me insilence. The body was that of a young, fair-haired sailor man. There wasa knife between his ribs. His eyes were screwed up into a rigid state ofcontraction which death had not yet relaxed. His whole body was rigid. Iknew that the knife had pierced his heart. But the most extraordinarything about him was his expression. I have never looked on a face eitherin life or death that expressed such terror. Even the policemen werestartled. The light of their lamps shone on that monstrous and distortedcountenance, and we gazed in horrified silence.
"Is he dead?" asked one at last.
"Quite dead," I replied, "but it is odd to find this rigidity so early."I began to press his eyelids apart. The right eye opened. I uttered acry of astonishment.
"Look!" I cried.
They stared.
"Blest if that ain't queer," said one. "It's that Blue Disease. He must'ave come from Birmingham."
"Queer?" I said passionately. "Why, man, it's tragedy--unadulteratedtragedy. The man was an Immortal."
They stared at me heavily.
"Immortal?" said one.
"He would have lived for ever," I said. "In his system there is the mostmarvellous germ that the world has ever known. It was circulating in hisblood. It had penetrated to every part of his body. A few minutes ago,as he walked along the dark street, he had before him a future ofunnumbered years. And now he lies in the gutter. Can you imagine agreater tragedy?"
The policemen transferred their gaze from me to the dead man. Then, asif moved by a common impulse, they began to laugh. I watched themmoodily, plunged in an extraordinary vein of thought. When I moved awaythey at once stopped me.
"No, you don't," said one. "We'll want you at the police station to giveyour evidence. Not," he continued with a grin, "to tell that bit ofinformation you just gave us, about him being an angel or something."
"I didn't say he was an angel."
They laughed tolerantly. Like Mr. Clutterbuck, they thought I was mad.
"Let's hope he's an angel," said the other. "But, by his face, he looksmore like the other thing. Bill, you go round for the ambulance. I'llstay with the gentleman."
The policeman moved away ponderously and vanished in the darkness.
"What was that you were saying, sir?" asked the policeman who remainedwith me.
"Never mind," I muttered, "you wouldn't understand."
"I'm interested in religious matters," continued the policeman in a softvoice. "You think that the Blue Disease is something out of the common?"
I am never surprised at London policemen, but I looked at this oneclosely before I replied.
"You seem a reasonable man," I said. "Let me tell you that what I havetold you about the germ--that it confers immortality--is correct. In aday or two you will be immortal."
He seemed to reflect in a calm massive way on the news. His eyes werefixed on the dead man's face.
"An Immortal Policeman?"
"Yes."
"You're asking me to believe a lot, sir."
"I know that. But still, there it is.
It's the truth."
"And what about crime?" he continued. "If we were all Immortals, whatabout crime?"
"Crime will become so horrible in its meaning that it will stop."
"It hasn't stopped yet...."
"Of course not. It won't, till people realize they are immortal."
He shifted his lantern and shone it down the road.
"Well, sir, it seems to me it will be a long time before people realize_that_. In fact, I don't see how anyone could ever realize it."
"Why not?"
"Just think," he said, with a large air. "Supposing crime died out, whatwould happen to the Sunday papers? Where would those lawyers be? Whatwould we do with policemen? No, you can't realize it. You can't realizethe things you exist for all vanishing. It's not human nature." Hebrooded for a time. "You can't do away with crime," he continued."What's behind crime? Woman and gold--one or the other, or both. Now youdon't mean to tell me, sir, that the Blue Disease is doing away withwomen and gold in a place like Birmingham? Why, sir, what madeBirmingham? What do you suppose life is?"
"I have never been asked the question before by a policeman," I said. "Ido not know what made Birmingham, but I will tell you what life is. Itis ultimately a cell, containing protoplasm and a nucleus."
A low rumbling noise began somewhere in his vast bulk. It graduallyincreased to a roar. I became aware that he was laughing. He held hissides. I thought his shining belt would burst. At length his hilarityslowly subsided, and he became sober. He surveyed the dead body at hisfeet.
"No, sir," he said, "don't you believe it. Life is women and gold. Italways was that, and it always will be." He shone his lamp downwards sothat the light fell on the terrible features of the dead sailor. "Nowthis man, sir, was killed because of money, I'll wager. And behind themoney I reckon you'll find a woman." He mused for a time. "Notnecessarily a pretty woman, but a woman of some sort."
"How do you account for that look of fear on his face?"
"I couldn't say. I've never seen anything like it. I've seen a lot ofdead faces, but they are usually quiet enough, as if they were asleep.But I'll tell you one thing, sir, that I have noticed, and that is thatmoney--which includes diamonds and such like, makes a man die worse andmore bitter than anything else."
He turned his lantern down the street. A sound of wheels reached us.
"That's the ambulance."
"Will you really require me at the police station?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Will it be necessary to prove who I am?"
He smiled.
"You won't need to prove that you're a doctor, sir," he said genially."We have a lot to do with doctors. I could tell you were a doctor aftertalking a minute with you. You are all the same."
"What do you mean?"
"Well--it's the things you say. Now only a doctor could have said whatyou did--about life being a cell. Do you know, sir, I sometimes believethat doctors is more innocent than parsons. It's the things theysay...."
The low rumbling began again in his interior. I waited silently untilthe ambulance came up. I felt a slight shade of annoyance. But how couldI expect the enormous uneducated bulk beside me to take a reallyintelligent and scientific view of life? Of course life was a cell.Every educated person knew that--and now that cell was, for the firsttime in history, about to become immortal--but what did the policemancare? How stupid people were, I reflected. We moved off in a smallprocession towards the police station. Half an hour later I was on myway west, deeply pondering on the causes of that extraordinaryexpression of fear in the dead sailor's face. Never in my life beforehad I seen so agonized a countenance, but I was destined to see othersas terrible. As I walked, the strangeness of the dead man's tragedygrew in my mind and filled me with a tremendous wonder, for who had everseen a dead Immortal?
On reaching home I roused Sarakoff and related to him what I had seen.