"Now, look here," said Square, "I'm not going to have that cuss at its
pranks any more. Tell me all 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 put to me just a
few pointed questions and elicited the main facts. He pieced them
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, then 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 loss of vital
force and, in a word, of health. What you lose, that 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 is force, and see if I can't
deal with your visitant in such a way as will prove just as truly a
moral dissuasive as that employed on the union men on strike in--never
mind where it was. That's not to the point."
"Will you kindly give me some lime-juice?" I entreated.
I sipped the acid draught, but without relief. I listened to Square, but
without hope. I wanted to be left alone. I was weary of my pain, weary
of everything, even of life. It was a matter of indifference to me
whether I recovered or slipped out of existence.
"It will be here again shortly," said the engineer. "As the French say,
_l'appetit vient en mangeant_. 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."
Mr. Square rubbed his chin, and then put his hands into his trouser
pockets. That also was a trick acquired in the States, an inelegant 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
colour," only he spoke to them, looked at them, walked with them, always
with his hands in his pockets. I have 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, fourposter. Oughtn't to be
allowed, I guess; unwholesome all the way round."
I was not in a condition to dispute this. I like a fourposter 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 glare
in one's eyes, and yet without darkening the room by drawing the blinds.
There is much to be said for a fourposter, but this is not the place in
which to say it.
Mr. 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, and then thrust the knob at the end into
my hand in the bed.
"Keep your eye open," said he, "and your hand shut and covered. If that
finger comes again tickling your ribs, try it with the point. I'll
manage the 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 but the shooting pains through my head
and the aches in my loins and back and legs.
Some time 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, the hand would, so to speak, sit down on it,
with the cold palm over it, and that then immediately my heart would
cease to beat, and it would be, as 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,
endeavouring 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 till I know all about you."
The last sentence was addressed, not to me, but to the apparition.
Thereupon he bade me 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 catechise my visitor, who moved restlessly
within the circle of wire, but could not escape from it. It replied in a
thin, squealing voice that sounded as if it came from a distance, and
had a querulous tone in it. I do 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 rattled
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. Some think there's a future state of blessedness and so have
hope, and look to attain to 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 do it, if we can get out of our cheap and nasty
coffins. But not till the greater part of us is mouldered 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 the rest of us that has gone to nothing after it.
Then we grope 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 like my luck.
Miss everything. Always have, except misery and disappointment. Get
plenty of that."
"What are you all?" asked Square. "Anarchists out of employ?"
"Some of us go by that name, some by other designations, but we are all
one, and own allegiance to but one monarch--Sovereign discontent. We are
bred to have a distaste for manual work; and we grow up loafers,
grumbling at everything and quarrelling 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 called us once Anarchists, Nihilists, Socialists, Levellers,
now they call us the Influenza. The learned talk of microbes, and
bacilli, and bacteria. Microbes, bacilli, and bacteria be blowed! We are
the Influenza; we 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 to acid, to envy, spite, gall. It
inspires nothing, but rots the whole moral system. Here you have
it--moral, social, political discontent in another form, nay
aspect--that is all. What Anarchism is in the body Politic, that
Influenza is in the body Physical. Do you see that?"
"Ye-e-s-e-s," I believe I answered, and dropped away into the land of
dreams.
I recovered. What Square did with the Thing I know not, but believe that
he reduced it again to its former negative and self-decomposing
condition.