CHAPTER XVIII
IMMORTAL LOVE
On the same afternoon Miss Annot paid me a visit. I was still sitting inthe waiting-room, and Sarakoff was with me. My mind had been deeplyoccupied with the question of the larger beliefs that we hold. For ithad come to me with peculiar force that law and order, and officialslike the Home Secretary, are concerned only with the small beliefs ofhumanity, with the burdensome business of material life. As long as aman dressed properly, walked decently and paid correctly, he wasaccepted, in spite of the fact that he might firmly believe the worldwas square. No one worried about those matters. We judge peopleultimately by how they eat and drink and get up and sit down. What theysay is of little importance in the long run. If we examine a personprofessionally, we merely ask him what day it is, where he is, what ishis name and where he was born. We watch him to see if he washes,undresses and dresses, and eats properly. We ask him to add two and two,and to divide six by three, and then we solemnly give our verdict thathe is either sane or insane.
The enormity of this revelation engrossed me with an almost painfulactivity of thought.
I gazed across at Sarakoff and wondered what appalling gulf divided ourviews on supreme things. What view did he really take of women? Did heor did he not think that the planets and stars were inhabited? Did hebelieve in the evolution of the soul like Mr. Thornduck?
A kind of horror possessed me as I stared at him and reflected thatthese questions had never entered my consciousness until that moment. Ihad lived with him and dined with him and worked with him, and yethitherto it would have concerned me far more if I had seen him tuck hisnapkin under his collar or spit on the carpet.... What laughable littlefolk we were! I, who had always seen man as the last and finalexpression of evolution, now saw him as the stumbling, crawling,incredibly stupid, result of a tentative experiment--a first step up aladder of infinitive length.
Whilst I was immersed in the humiliation of these thoughts Miss Annotentered. She wore a dark violet coat and skirt and a black hat. Inoticed that her complexion, usually somewhat muddy, was perfectlyclear, though of a marble pallor. We greeted each other quietly and Iintroduced Sarakoff.
"So you are an Immortal, Alice," I said smiling. She gazed at me.
"Richard, I do not know what I am, but I know one thing; I am entirelychanged. Some strange miracle has been wrought in me. I came to ask youwhat it is."
"You see that both Professor Sarakoff and I have got the germ in oursystems like you, Alice. Yes, it is a miracle; we are Immortals."
I studied her face attentively, she had changed. It seemed to me thatshe was another woman, she moved in a new way, her speech was unhurried,her gaze was direct and thoughtful. I recalled her former appearancewhen her manner had been nervous and bashful, her eyes downcast, hermovements hurried and anxious.
"I do not understand," she said. "Tell me all you know."
I did so, I suppose I must have talked for an hour on end. Throughoutthat time neither she nor Sarakoff stirred. When I had finished therewas a long silence.
"It is funny to think of our last meeting, Richard," she said at length."Do you remember how my father behaved? He is different now. He sits allday in his study--he eats very little. He seems to be in a dream."
"And you?" I asked.
"I am in a dream, too. I do not understand it. All the things I used tobusy myself with seem unimportant."
"That is how we feel," said Sarakoff. He rose to his feet and spokestrongly. "Harden, as Miss Annot says, everything has changed. I neverforesaw this; I do not understand it myself."
He went slowly to the mantelpiece and leaned against it.
"When I created this germ, I saw in my mind an ideal picture of life. Isaw a world freed from a dire spectre, a world from which fear had beenremoved, the fear of death. I saw the great triumph of materialism andthe final smashing up of all superstition. A man would live in a stateof absolute certainty. He would lay his plans for pleasure and comfortand enjoyment with absolute precision, knowing--not hoping--butcertainly knowing, that they would come about. I saw cities and gardensbuilt in triumph to cater for the gratification of every sense. I sawnew laws in operation, constructed by men who knew that they hadmastered the secret of life and had nothing to fear. I saw all thosethings about which we are so timid and vague--marriage and divorce, theeducation of children, luxury, the working classes, religion and soon--absolutely settled in black and white. I saw what I thought to bethe millennium."
"And now?" asked Alice.
"Now I see nothing. I am in the dark. I do not understand what hashappened to me."
"What we are in for now, no man can say," I remarked.
"It's the extraordinary restfulness that puzzles me," said Sarakoff."Here I have been sitting for hours and I feel no inclination to doanything."
"The thing that is most extraordinary to me is the difficulty I have inrealizing how I spent my time formerly," said Alice. "Of course, fatheris no bother now and meals have been cut down, but that does not accountfor all of it. It seems as if I had been living in a kind of nightmarein the past, from which I have suddenly escaped."
"What do you feel most inclined to do?" I asked.
"Nothing at present. I sit and think. It was difficult for me to makemyself come here to-day." She smiled suddenly. "Richard, it seemsstrange to recall that we were engaged."
She spoke without any embarrassment and I answered her with equal ease.
"I hope you don't think our engagement is broken off, Alice. I think myfeelings towards you are unchanged."
"Ah!" exclaimed Sarakoff. "That is interesting. Are you sure of that,Harden?"
"Not altogether," I answered tranquilly. "There is a lot to think outbefore I can be sure, but I know that I feel towards Alice a greatsympathy."
"Sympathy!" the Russian exclaimed. "What are we coming to? Good heavens!Is sympathy to be our strongest emotion? What do you think, Miss Annot."
"Sympathy is exactly what I feel," she replied. "Richard and I would bevery good companions. Isn't that more important than passion?"
"Is sympathy to be the bond between the sexes, then, and is all passionand romance to die?" he exclaimed scornfully. He seemed to be strugglingwith himself, as if he were trying to throw off some spell that heldhim. "Surely I seem to recollect that yesterday life contained somericher emotions than sympathy," he muttered. "What has come over us? Whydoesn't my blood quicken when I think of Leonora?" He burst into alaugh. "Harden, this is comic. There is no other word for it. It issimply comic."
"It may be comic, Sarakoff, but to speak candidly, I prefer my stateto-day to my state yesterday. Last night seems to me like a bad dream."I got to my feet. "There is one thing I must see about as soon aspossible, and that is getting rid of this house. What an absurd place tolive in this is! It is a comic house, if you like--like a tomb."
The room seemed suddenly absurd. It was very dark, the wallpaper was ofa heavy-moulded variety, sombre in hue and covered with meaninglessfiguring. The ceiling was oppressive. It, too, was moulded in somefantastic manner. Several large faded oil-paintings hung on the wall. Ido not know why they hung there, they were hideous and meaningless aswell. The whole place was meaningless. It was the _meaninglessness_ thatseemed to leap out upon me wherever I turned my eyes. The fireplaceastounded me. It was a mass of pillars and super-structures andcarvings, increasing in complexity from within outwards, until itattained the appearance of an ornate temple in the centre of whichburned a little coal. It was grotesque. On the topmost ledges of thismonstrous absurdity stood two vases. They bulged like distendedstomachs, covered on their outsides with yellow, green and blacksplotches of colour. I recollected that I paid ten pounds apiece forthem. Under what perverted impulse had I done that? My memories becameincredible. I moved deliberately to the mantelpiece and seized thevases. I opened the window and hurled them out on to the pavement. Theyfell with a crash, and their fragments littered the ground.
Alice expressed no surprise.
"It is r
ather comic," said the Russian, "but where are you going tolive?"
"Alice and I will go and live by the sea. We have plenty to think about.I feel as if I could never stop thinking, as if I had to dig away amountain of thought with a spade. Alice, we will go round to the houseagent now."
When Alice and I left the house the remains of the vases littered thepavement at our feet. We walked down Harley Street. The house agentlived in Regent Street. It was now a clear, crisp afternoon with apleasant tint of sunlight in the air. A newspaper boy passed, callingsomething unintelligible in an excited voice. I stopped him and bought apaper.
"What an inhuman noise to make," said Alice. "It seems to jar on everynerve in my body. Do ask him to stop."
"You're making too much noise," I said to the lad. "You must callsoftly. It is an outrage to scream like that."
He stared up at me, an impudent amazed face surmounting a tattered anddishevelled body, and spoke.
"You two do look a couple of guys, wiv' yer blue faices. If some of themdoctors round 'ere catches yer, they'll pop yer into 'ospital."
He ran off, shrieking his unintelligible jargon.
"We must get to the sea," I said firmly. "This clamour of London isunbearable."
I opened the paper. Enormous headlines stared me in the face.
"Blue Disease sweeping over London. Ten thousand cases reported to-day.Europe alarmed. Question of the isolation of Great Britain underdiscussion. Debate in the Commons to-night. The Duke of Thud and theEarl of Blunder victims. The Royal Family leave London."
We stood together on the pavement and gazed at these statements insilence. A sense of wonder filled my mind. What a confusion! What anemotional, feverish, heated confusion! Why could not they take thematter calmly? What, in the name of goodness, was the reason of thispanic. They knew that the Blue Disease had caused no fatalities inBirmingham, and yet so totally absent was the power of thought anddeduction, that they actually printed those glaring headlines.
"The fools," I said. "The amazing, fatuous fools. They simply want tosell the paper. They have no other idea."
A strong nausea came over me. I crumpled up the paper and stood staringup and down the street. The newspaper boy was in the far distance, stillshrieking. I saw Sir Barnaby Burtle, the obstetrician, standing by hisscarlet front door, eagerly devouring the news. His jaw was slack andhis eyes protruded.
The solemn houses of Harley Street only increased my nausea. The follyof it--the selfish, savage folly of life!
"Come, Richard," said Alice. "The sooner we get to the house agent thebetter. We could never live here."
"I'll put him on to the job of finding a bungalow on the South Coast atonce," I said. "And then we'll go and live there."
"We must get married," she observed.
"Married!" I stopped and stared at her with a puzzled expression. "Don'tyou think the marriage ceremony is rather barbarous?"
She did not reply; we walked on immersed in our own thoughts. At times Idetected in the passers-by a gleam of sparrow-egg blue.
My house agent was a large, confused individual who habitually wore ashining top hat on the back of his head and twisted a cigar in thecorner of his mouth. He was very fat, with one of those creased facesthat seem to fall into folds like a heavy crimson curtain. His brooding,congested eye fell upon me as we entered, and an expression of alarmbecame visible in its depths. He pushed his chair back and retreated toa corner of the room.
"Dr. Harden!" he exclaimed fearfully, "you oughtn't to come here likethat, you really oughtn't."
"Don't be an ass, Franklyn," I said firmly. "You are bound to catch thegerm sooner or later. It will impress you immensely."
"It's all over London," he whimpered. "It's too much; it will hit ushard. It's too much."
"Listen to me," I said. "I have come here to see you about business. Nowsit down in your chair; I won't touch you. I want you to get me abungalow by the sea with a garden as soon as possible. I am going tosell my house."
"Sell your house!" He became calmer. "That is very extraordinary, Dr.Harden."
"I am going out of London."
He was astonished.
"But your house--in Harley Street--so central...." he stammered. "Idon't understand. Are you giving up your practice?"
"Of course."
"At your age, Dr. Harden?"
"What has age got to do with it? There is no such thing as age."
He stared. Then his eyes turned to Alice.
"No such thing as age?" he murmured helplessly. "But surely you are notgoing to sell; you have the best house in Harley Street. Its commandingposition ... in the centre of that famous locality...."
"Do you think that any really sane man would live in the centre ofHarley Street," I asked calmly. "Is he likely to find any peace in thatfurnace of crude worldly ambitions? But all that is already a thing ofthe past. In a few weeks, Franklyn, Harley Street will be deserted."
"Deserted?" His eyes rolled.
"Deserted," I said sternly. "In its upper rooms there may remain a fewImmortals, but the streets will be silent. The great business ofsickness, which occupies the attention of a third of the world andfurnishes the main topic of conversation in every home, will be gone.Sell my house, Franklyn, and find me a bungalow on the South Coastfacing the sea."
I turned away and went towards the door, Alice followed me. The houseagent sat in helpless amazement. He filled me with a sense of nausea. Heseemed so gross, so mindless.
"A bungalow," he whispered.
"Yes. Let us have long, low, simple rooms and a garden where we may growenough to live on. The age of material complexity and noise is at anend. We need peace."
Strolling along at a slow pace, we went down Oxford Street towards theMarble Arch. It was dusk. The newsboys were howling at every corner andeveryone had a paper. Little groups of people stood on the pavementsdiscussing the news. In the roadway the stream of traffic was incessant.The huge motor-buses thundered and swayed along, with their loads ofpale humanity feverishly clinging to them. The public-houses werecrowded. The slight tension that the threat of the Blue Disease producedin people filled the bars with men and women, seeking the relaxation ofalcohol. There was in the air that liveliness, that tendency to collectinto small crowds, that is evident whenever the common safety of thegreat herd is threatened. In the Park a crowd surrounded the platform ofan agitator. In a voice like that of a delirious man, he implored thecrowd to go down on its knees and repent ... the end of the world was athand ... the Blue Disease was the pouring out of one of the vials ofwrath ... repent!... repent!... His voice rang in our ears and drove usaway. We crossed the damp grass. I stumbled over a sleeping man. Therewas something familiar in his appearance and I stooped down and turnedhim over. It was Mr. Herbert Wain. He seemed to be fast asleep.... Wewalked to King's Cross, and I put Alice without regret in the train forCambridge.