That particular room in the Lick House was well toward the rear of the
building, on one of the upper floors, and from its window, one looked
out upon a vast reach of roofs that rose little by little to meet the
abrupt rise of Telegraph Hill. It was a sordid and grimy wilderness,
topped with a gray maze of wires and pierced with thousands of chimney
stacks. Many of the roofs were covered with tin long since blackened by
rust and soot. Here and there could be seen clothes hung out to dry.
Occasionally upon the flanking walls of some of the larger buildings was
displayed an enormous painted sign, a violent contrast of intense black
and staring white amidst the sooty brown and gray, advertising some
tobacco, some newspaper, or some department store. Not far in the
distance two tall smokestacks of blackened tin rose high in the air,
above the roof of a steam laundry, one very large like the stack of a
Cunarder, the other slender, graceful, with a funnel-shaped top. All day
and all night these stacks were smoking; from the first, the larger one,
rolled a heavy black smoke, very gloomy, waving with a slow and
continued movement like the plume of some sullen warrior. But the other
one, the tall and slender pipe, threw off a series of little white
puffs, three at a time, that rose buoyant and joyous into the air like
so many white doves, vanishing at last, melting away in the higher
sunshine, only to be followed by another flight. They came three at a
time, the pipe tossing them out with a sharp gay sound like a note of
laughter interrupted by a cough.
But the interior of the room presented the usual dreary aspect of the
hotel bedroom--cheerless, lamentable.
The walls were whitewashed and bare of pictures or ornaments, and the
floor was covered with a dull red carpet. The furniture was a "set," all
the pieces having a family resemblance. On entering, one saw the bed
standing against the right-hand wall, a huge double bed with the name of
the hotel in the corners of its spread and pillowcases. In the exact
middle of the room underneath the gas fixture was the centre-table, and
upon it a pitcher of ice-water. The blank, white monotony of one side
of the room was jarred upon by the grate and mantelpiece, iron, painted
black, while on the mantelpiece itself stood a little porcelain
matchsafe with ribbed sides in the form of a truncated cone. Precisely
opposite the chimney was the bureau, flanked on one side by the door of
the closet, and on the other in the corner of the room by the stationary
washstand with its new cake of soap and its three clean, glossy towels.
On the wall to the left of the door was the electric bell and the
directions for using it, and tacked upon the door itself a card as to
the hours for meals, the rules of the hotel, and the extract of the code
defining the liabilities of innkeepers, all printed in bright red.
Everything was clean, defiantly, aggressively clean, and there was a
clean smell of new soap in the air.
But the room was bare of any personality. Of the hundreds who had lived
there, perhaps suffered and died there, not a trace, not a suggestion
remained; their different characters had not left the least impress upon
its air or appearance. Only a few hairpins were scattered on the bottom
of one of the bureau drawers, and two forgotten medicine bottles still
remained upon the top shelf of the closet.
This had been the appearance of Vandover's new home when he had first
come to it, after leaving his suite of rooms in the huge apartment house
on Sutter Street. He had lived here now for something over a year.
It had all commenced with the seizure of his furniture by the
proprietors of the apartment house. Almost before he knew it he owed for
six months' room and board; when the extras were added to this bill it
swelled to nearly a thousand dollars. At first he would not believe it;
it was not possible that so large a bill could accumulate without his
knowledge. He declared there was a mistake, tossing back the bill to the
clerk who had presented it, and shaking his head incredulously. This
other became angry, offered to show the books of the house. The manager
was called in and attempted to prove the clerk's statement by figures,
dates, and extracts from the entries. Vandover was confused by their
noise, and grew angry in his turn; vociferating that he did not propose
to be cheated, the others retorted in a rage, the interview ended in a
scene.
But in the end they gained their point; they were right, and at length
Vandover was brought around to see that he was in the wrong, but he had
no ready money, and while he hesitated, unwilling to part with any of
his bonds or to put an additional mortgage upon the homestead, the
hotel, after two warnings, suddenly seized upon his furniture. What a
misery!
In a moment of time it was all taken from him, all the lovely
bric-à-brac, all the heavy pieces, all the little articles of _vertu_
which he had bought with such intense delight and amongst which he had
lived with such happiness, such contentment, such never-failing
pleasure. Everything went--the Renaissance portraits, the pipe-rack, the
chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_
and, worst of all, the stove, the famous tiled stove, the delightful
cheery iron stove with the beautified flamboyant ornaments. For the
first few months after the seizure Vandover was furious with rage and
disappointment, persuaded that he could never live anywhere but in just
such a room; it was as if he had been uprooted and cast away upon some
barren, uncongenial soil. His new room in the hotel filled him with
horror, and for a long time he used it only as a place where he could
sleep and wash. For a long time even his pliable character refused to
fit itself to such surroundings, refused to be content between four
enormous white walls, a stuccoed ceiling, and a dark red carpet. He
passed most of his time elsewhere, reading the papers at the Mechanics
Library in the morning, and in the afternoon sitting about the hotel
office and parlours until it was time to take his usual little four
o'clock stroll on Kearney and Market streets. He had long since become a
familiar figure on this promenade. Even the women and girls of Flossie's
type had ceased to be interested in this tall, thin young man with the
tired, heavy eyes and blue-white face. One day, however, a curious
incident did for a moment invest Vandover with a sudden dramatic
interest. It was just after he had moved down to the Lick House, about a
month after he had sold the block in the Mission. Vandover was standing
at Lotta's fountain at the corner of Kearney and Market streets,
interested in watching a policeman and two boys reharnessing a horse
after its tumble. All at once he fell over flat into the street,
jostling one of the flower venders and nearly upsetting him. He struck
the ground with a sodden shock, his arms doubled under him, his hat
rolling away into the mud. Bewildered, he picked himself up; very few
had seen him fall, but a little crowd gathered for all that. One asked
if the man was drunk, and Vandover, terrified lest the policeman should
call the patrol wagon, hurried off to a basement barber shop near by,
where he brushed his clothes, still bewildered, confused, wondering how
it had happened.
The fearful nervous crisis which Vandover had undergone had passed off
slowly. Little by little, bit by bit, he had got himself in hand again.
However, the queer numbness in his head remained, and as soon as he
concentrated his attention on any certain line of thought, as soon as he
had read for any length of time, especially if late at night, the
numbness increased. Somewhere back of his eyes a strange blurring mist
would seem to rise; he would find it impossible to keep his mind fixed
upon any subject; the words of a printed page would little by little
lose their meaning. At first this had been a source of infinite terror
to him. He fancied it to be the symptoms of some approaching mental
collapse, but, as the weeks went by and nothing unusual occurred, he
became used to it, and refused to let it worry him. If it made his head
feel queer to read, the remedy was easy enough--he simply would not
read; and though he had been a great reader, and at one time had been
used to spend many delightful afternoons lost in the pages of a novel,
he now gave it all up with an easy indifference.
But, besides all this, the attack had left him with nerves all unstrung;
even his little afternoon walk on Kearney and Market streets exhausted
him; any trifling and sudden noise, the closing of a door, the striking
of a clock, would cause him to start from his place with a gasp and a
quick catch at the heart. Toward evening this little spasm of nerves
would sometimes come upon him even when there was nothing to cause it,
and now he could no longer drop off to sleep without first undergoing a
whole series of these recoils and starts, that would sometimes bring him
violently up to a sitting posture, his breath coming short and quick,
his heart galloping, startled at he knew not what.
At first he had intended to see a doctor, but he had put off carrying
his intention into effect until he had grown accustomed to the whole
matter; otherwise, he was well enough, his appetite was good, and when
he finally did get to sleep he would not wake up for a good eight hours.
One evening, however, about three months after the first crisis and just
as Vandover was becoming well accustomed to the condition of body and
mind in which it had left him, the second attack came on. It was
fearful, much worse than on the first occasion, and this time there was
no room for doubt. Vandover knew that for the moment he was actually
insane.
Ellis had been with Vandover most of that afternoon, the two had been
playing cards in Vandover's room until nearly six o'clock. All the
afternoon they had been drinking whisky while they played, and by
supper-time neither of them had any appetite. Ellis refused to go down,
declaring that if he should eat now it would make him sick. Vandover
went down alone, but once in the dining-room he found that _he_ could
not eat either. However, he knew that it was not the whisky. For two
days his appetite had been failing him. The smell of food revolted him,
and he left the supper-table, going up to his bare and lamentable room
with the feeling that he was about to undergo a long spell of sickness.
In the deserted hall, between the elevator and the door of his room, the
second crisis came upon him all at once. It was so sudden that it was as
if some enemy had leaped upon his back, springing out of the shadow,
gripping him from behind, holding him close. Once more the hysteria
shook him like a dry leaf. The little nervous starts came so fast that
they ran together, mingling to form one long thrill of terror, the
blind, unreasoning terror of something unknown; the numbness weighed
down upon his brain until consciousness dwindled to a mere point and
mercifully dulled the torture of his crisping nerves. It seemed to him
that his hands and head were rapidly swelling to enormous size.
All this he had felt before; it was his old enemy, but now with this
second attack began a new and even stranger sensation. In his distorted
wits he fancied that he was in some manner changing, that he was
becoming another man; worse than that, it seemed to him that he was no
longer human, that he was sinking, all in a moment, to the level of
some dreadful beast.
Later on in that same evening Ellis met young Haight coming out of one
of the theatres, and told him a story that Haight did not believe. Ellis
was very pale, and he seemed to young Haight to be trying to keep down
some tremendous excitement.
"If he was drunk," said Ellis, "it was the strangest drunk I ever saw.
He came back into the room on all fours--not on his hands and knees, you
understand, but running along the floor upon the palms of his hands and
his toes--and he pushed the door of the room open with his head,
nuzzling at the crack like any dog. Oh, it was horrible. _I_ don't know
what's the matter with Van. You should have seen him; his head was
hanging way down, and swinging from side to side as he came along; it
shook all his hair over his eyes. He kept rattling his teeth together,
and every now and then he would say, way down in his throat so it
sounded like growls, 'Wolf--wolf--wolf.' I got hold of him and pulled
him up to his feet. It was just as though he was asleep, and when I
shook him he came to all at once and began to laugh. 'What's the matter,
Van?' says I. 'What are you crawling on the floor that way for?' 'I'm
damned if I know,' says he, rubbing his eyes. 'I guess I must have been
out of my head. Too much whisky!' Then he says: 'Put me to bed, will
you, Bandy? I feel all gone in.' Well, I put him to bed and went out to
get some bromide of potassium; he said that made him sleep and kept his
nerves steady. Coming back, I met a bell-boy just outside of Van's door,
and told him to ask the hotel doctor to come up. You see, I had not
opened the door of the room yet, and while I was talking to the bell-boy
I could hear the sound of something four-footed going back and forth
inside the room. When I got inside there was Van, perfectly naked, going
back and forth along the wall, swinging his head very low, grumbling to
himself. But he came to again as soon as I shook him, and seemed
dreadfully ashamed, and went to bed all right. He got to sleep finally,
and I left the doctor with him, to come out and get something for my own
nerves."
"What did the doctor say was the matter?" asked young Haight, in horror.
"_Lycanthropy-Pathesis_. I never heard the name before--some kind of
nervous disease. I guess Van had been hitting up a pretty rapid gait,
and then I suppose he's had a good deal to worry him, too."
* * * * *
Once more the attack passed off, leaving Vandover exhausted, his nerves
all jangling, his health impaired. Every day he seemed to grow thinner,
great brown hollows grew under his eyes, and the skin of his forehead
looked blue and tightly drawn. By degrees a deep gloom overcame him
permanently, nothing could interest him, nothing seemed worth while. Not
only were his nerves out of tune, but they were jaded, deadened, slack;
they were like harpstrings that had been played upon so long and so
violently that now they could no longer vibrate unless swept with a very
whirlwind.
As he had foreseen, Vandover had returned again to vice, to the vice
that was knitted into him now, fibre for fibre, to the ways of the brute
that by degrees was taking entire possession of him. But he no longer
found pleasure even in vice; once it had been his amusement, now it was
his occupation. It was the only thing that seemed to ease the horrible
nervousness that of late had begun to prey upon him constantly.
But though nothing could amuse him, on the other hand nothing could
worry him; in the end the very riot of his nerves ceased even to annoy
him. He had arrived at a state of absolute indifference. He had so often
rearranged his pliable nature to suit his changing environment that at
last he found that he could be content in almost any circumstances. He
had no pleasures, no cares, no ambitions, no regrets, no hopes. It was
mere passive existence, an inert, plantlike vegetation, the moment's
pause before the final decay, the last inevitable rot.
One day after he had been living nearly a year at the Lick House, Adams
& Brunt, the real estate agents, sent him word that they had an offer
for his property on California Street. It was the homestead. The English
gentleman, the president of the fruit syndicate who had rented the house
of Vandover, was now willing to buy it. His business was by this time on
a firm and paying basis and he had decided to make his home in San
Francisco. He offered twenty-five thousand dollars for the house,
including the furniture.
Brunt had several talks with Vandover and easily induced him to sell.
"You can figure it out for yourself, Mr. Vandover," he said, as he
pointed out his own calculations to him; "property has been going down
in the city for the last ten years, and it will continue to do so until
we can get a competing railroad through. Better sell when you can, and
twenty-five thousand is a fair price. Of course, you will have to pay
off the mortgage; you won't get but about fifteen thousand out of it,
but at the same time you won't have to pay the interest on that mortgage
to the banks; that will be so much saved a month; add that to what you
could get for your fifteen thousand at, say, 6 per cent., and you would
have a monthly income nearly equal to the present rent of the house, and
much more certain, too. Suppose your tenant should go out, then where
would you be?"
"All right, all right," answered Vandover, nodding his head vaguely. "Go
ahead, _I_ don't care." He parted from his old home with as much
indifference as he had parted from his block in the Mission.
Vandover signed the deed that made him homeless, and at about the same
time the first payment was made. Ten thousand dollars was deposited in
one of the banks to his credit, and a check sent to him for the amount.
The very next day Vandover drew against it for five hundred dollars.
At one time he had had an ambition to buy back his furniture from the
huge apartment house in which he had formerly lived, and with it to make
his cheerless bedroom in the Lick House seem more like a home. He felt
it almost as a dishonour to have strangers using this furniture, sitting
in the great leather chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, staring
stupidly at his Renaissance portraits and copies of Assyrian
_bas-reliefs_. Above all, it was torture to think that other hands than
his own would tend the famous tiled and flamboyant stove, a stove that
had its moods, its caprices, like any living person, a stove that had to
be coaxed and humoured, a stove that he alone could understand. He had
told himself that if ever again he should have money enough he would
bring back this furniture to him. At first its absence had been a matter
for the keenest regret and grief. He had been so used to pleasant
surroundings that he languished in his new quarters as in a prison. His
indulgent, luxurious character continually hungered after subdued,
harmonious colours, pictures, ornaments, and soft rugs. His imagination
was forever covering the white walls with rough stone-blue paper, and
placing screens, divans, and window-seats in different parts of the cold
bare room. One morning he had even gone so far as to pin about the walls
little placards which he had painted with a twisted roll of the hotel
letter-paper dipped into the inkstand. "Pipe-rack Here." "Mona Lisa
Here." "Stove Here." "Window-seat Here." He had left them up there ever
since, in spite of the chambermaid's protests and Ellis' clumsy satire.
Now, however, he had plenty of money. He would have his furniture back
within the week. He came back from the bank, the money in his pocket,
and went up to the room directly, with some vague intention of writing
to the proprietors of the apartment house at once. But as he shut the
door behind him, leaning his back against it and looking about, he
suddenly realized that his old-time desire was passed; he had become so
used to these surroundings that it now no longer made any difference to
him whether or not they were cheerless, lamentable, barren. It was like
all his other little ambitions--he had lost the taste for them, nothing
made much difference after all. His money had come too late.
Why should he spend his five hundred dollars on something that could no
longer amuse him? It would be much wiser to spend it all in having a
good time somewhere--champagne dinners with Flossie, or betting on the
races--he did not know exactly what. It was true that even these
alternatives would not amuse him very much--he would fall back upon them
as things of habit. For that matter everything was an _ennui_, and
Vandover began to long for some new pleasure, some violent untried
excitement.
Since the sale of the block in the Mission he had seen but little of
Geary; young Haight had not been his companion since the time when
Turner Ravis had broken with him, but little by little he had begun to
associate with Ellis and his friend the Dummy. Almost every evening the
three were together, sometimes at the theatre, sometimes in the back
rooms of the Imperial, sometimes even in the parlours of certain houses,
amid the murmur of heavy silks and the rustle of stiffly starched
skirts. At times they would be drunk four nights of the week, and on
these occasions it was tacitly understood between Ellis and Vandover
that they should try to get the Dummy so full that he could talk.
However, Ellis' vice was gambling; he and the Dummy often passed the
whole night over their cards, and as Vandover came more and more under
Ellis' influence--succumbing to it as weakly as he had succumbed to the
influence of Charlie Geary--he began to join these parties. They played
Van John at five dollars a corner. Vandover won as often as he lost, but
the habit of cards grew upon him steadily.
Toward eleven o'clock the evening of the day upon which he had drawn his
five hundred, Vandover went around to the Imperial looking for his two
friends. He found Ellis drinking whisky all alone in one of the little
rooms, as was his custom; fifteen minutes later the Dummy and Flossie
joined them. Flossie had grown stouter since Vandover had first known
her, nearly ten years ago. She had a double chin, and puffy, discoloured
pockets had come under her eyes. Now her hair was dyed, her cheeks and
lips rouged, and her former air of health and good spirits gone. She
never laughed. She had smoked so many cigarettes that now her voice
hardly rose above a whisper. At one time she had been accustomed to
boast that she never drank, and it had been one of her peculiarities for
which she was well known. But on this occasion she joined Ellis in his
whisky. She had long since departed from her old-time rule of
temperance, and nowadays drank nothing else but whisky. She had even
become well known for the quantity of whisky she could drink.
For half an hour the four sat around the little table, talking about the
new, enormous Sutro Baths that were building at that time. After a while
Flossie left them, and the Dummy began to imitate the motions of some
one dealing cards, looking at the same time inquiringly into their
faces.
"How about that, Bandy?" asked Vandover. "Shall we have a game
to-night?"
The man of few words merely nodded his head and drank off the rest of
his whisky at a swallow. They all went up to Vandover's room. Vandover
got out the cards, the celluloid chips, and a fresh box of cigars. The
Dummy held up two fingers of his left hand, shutting them together
afterward with his right and making a hissing noise between his teeth.
He raised his eyebrows at Vandover. Vandover understood, and, ringing
for a bell-boy, ordered up three bottles of soda in siphon bottles.
The game was _vingt et un_, or, as they called it, Van John. They cut
for banker. Ellis turned the first ace, and Vandover bought the bank
from him. For the first hour they were very jolly, laughing and talking
back and forth at each other; the Dummy especially communicative,
continually scribbling upon his writing-pad, holding it toward the
others. But it was not necessary for them to put their replies in
writing--he understood from watching the movement of their lips. The
luck had not declared itself as yet; none of them had lost or won very
much. The bell-boy brought up the siphons. The Dummy took off his coat,
and the other two followed his example. They were all smoking, and an
acrid blue haze filled the room, making a golden blur about each gas
globe.
But little by little the passion of the gambling seized upon them. The
luck had begun to declare itself, alternating between Ellis and the
Dummy. Vandover lost steadily; twice already his bank had been broken,
and he had been forced to buy in. The play resolved itself into two
parts, Vandover struggling to keep up with the game on one side, and on
the other a great battle going on between Ellis and the Dummy. Long
since they had ceased to laugh, and not a word was spoken; each one was
absorbed in the game, intently watching the cards as they were turned.
The four gas-jets of the chandelier flared steadily, filling the room
with a crude raw light that was reflected with a blinding glare from the
four staring white walls, the room grew hot, the layer of foul warm air
just beneath the ceiling, slowly descending. The acrid tobacco smoke no
longer rose, but hung in long, slow-waving threads just above their
heads. They played on steadily; a great stillness grew in the room, a
stillness broken only by the little rattle of chips and subdued rustle
of the shuffled cards. Once Vandover stopped, just time enough to throw
off his vest, his collar, and his scarf. For a moment the luck seemed
about to settle on him. He was still banking, and twice in succession
he drew Van John, both times winning heavily from the Dummy, and a
little later tied Ellis at twenty when the latter had staked on nearly a
third of his chips. But in the next half-dozen hands Ellis got back the
lead again, winning from both the others. From this time on it was
settled. The luck suddenly declared openly for Ellis, the Dummy and
Vandover merely fighting for second place. Ellis held his lead; at one
o'clock he was nearly fifty dollars ahead of the game. The profound
silence of the room seemed to widen about them. After midnight the
noises in the hotel, the ringing of distant call bells, the rattle of
dishes from the kitchens, the clash of closing elevator doors, gradually
ceased; only at long intervals one heard the hurried step of a bell-boy
in the hall outside and the clink of the ice in the water pitcher that
he was carrying. Outside a great quiet seemed in a sense to rise from
the sleeping city, the noises in the streets died away. The last
electric car went down Kearney Street, getting under way with a long
minor wail. Occasionally a belated coupé, a nighthawk, rattled over the
cobbles, while close by, from over the roofs, the tall slender stack
upon the steam laundry puffed incessantly, three puffs at a time, like
some kind of halting clock. The room became more and more close, none of
them would take the time to open the window, from ceiling to floor the
air was fouled by their breathing, by the tobacco smoke and by the four
flaring gas-jets. By this time a sombre excitement burnt in their eyes
and quivered in their fingers. Never for an instant did their glances
leave the cards. Ellis was drinking whisky again, mixed with soda, his
hand continually groping for the glass with a mechanical gesture; the
Dummy was so excited he could not keep his cigar alight, and contented
himself with chewing the end with an hysterical motion of his jaws. The
perspiration stood in beads on the back of Vandover's hands, running
down in tiny rivulets between his fingers, his teeth were shut close
together and he was breathing short through his nose, a fine trembling
had seized upon his hands so that the chips in his palm rattled like
castanets. In the stale and murky atmosphere of the overheated room in
the midst of the vast silence of the sleeping city they played on
steadily.
Then they began to "plunge," agreeing to play a no limit game and
raising the value of a red chip to ten dollars; at times they even
played with the coins themselves when their chips were exhausted.
Vandover had lost all his ready money, and now for a long time had been
gambling with the five hundred dollars he had that day drawn from the
bank. Ellis had practically put the Dummy out of the play, and now the
game was between him and Vandover. Ellis was banking, and at length
offered to sell the bank to either one of them. For the first time since
the real gambling began they commenced to talk a little, but in short,
brief sentences, answering by monosyllables and by signs.
"How much for the bank?" inquired Ellis, holding up the deck and looking
from one to the other. Instantly the Dummy wrote ten dollars, in
figures, on his pad, and showed it to him. Vandover looked at what the
Dummy had written, and said:
"Fifteen."
"Twenty," scribbled the Dummy, as he watched Vandover's lips form the
word.
"Twenty-five," returned Vandover. The Dummy hesitated a moment and then
wrote "thirty." Ellis shook his head saying, "I'll keep the bank myself
at that."
"Forty dollars!" cried Vandover. The Dummy shook his head, leaning back
in his chair. Ellis shoved the pack across the table to Vandover, and
Vandover gave him a twenty-dollar bill and two red chips.
On Vandover's very first deal around, the Dummy "stood" on the second
card, for twelve chips; Ellis bet twenty-five on his first card, and, as
he got the second, turned both of them face up. He had two jacks.
"Twenty-five on each of these," he said. "I'll draw to each one."
Vandover looked at his own card; it was a ten-spot. All at once he grew
reckless, and seized with a sudden folly, resolved to attempt a great
_coup_. "Double up!" he ordered. The Dummy set out twelve more chips,
and Ellis another fifty, making his bet an even hundred. Vandover began
to deal to Ellis. On the first jack Ellis drew eighteen and stood at
that; the first card that fell to the second jack was an ace. "Van
John," he remarked quietly. The Dummy drew three cards and stood on
nineteen. Vandover turned up his own card and began to deal for himself.
He already had a ten; now he drew a seven-spot and king in succession.
"The bank pays," he exclaimed. He paid the Dummy twenty-four chips. He
gave Ellis fifty for the eighteen he had drawn on his first jack, and
one hundred for the Van John upon the second, since the latter
combination called for double the amount wagered; besides this, the bank
was lost to him. Including the forty that he had paid for the bank, he
had lost in all two hundred and fourteen dollars.
Never in his life had Vandover played so high a game, never before had
he won or lost more than fifty dollars at a sitting. But he was content
to have it thus. Here at last was the new pleasure for which he had
longed, the fresh violent excitement that alone could rouse his jaded
nerves, the one thing that could amuse him. However, the failure of his
_coup_ had left him without chips; he was out of the game. He decided
that he would stop; more than half of his five hundred dollars was gone
already. He drank off a glass of soda, the dregs of one of the siphon
bottles, and got up yawning, shivering a little and stretching his arms
high above. The other two played on steadily. The Dummy began to gain
slowly upon Ellis, playing very cautiously, betting only upon face
cards, aces, and ten-spots. Twice Ellis offered to sell him the bank,
but he refused, fearful lest it should change his luck.
Vandover sat behind the Dummy's chair, watching his game, but at length,
worn out, he began to drop off to sleep, waking every now and then with
a sudden leap and recoil of all his nerves. An hour later the persistent
scratching of a match awoke him. Ellis and the Dummy were still playing,
and the Dummy was once more relighting the stump of his cigar. Ellis
continued to deal, winning at almost every play; a great pile of chips
and money lay at his elbow. For a few minutes Vandover watched the
Dummy's game, leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees. But
it was evident that the Dummy had lost his nerve. Ellis' continued
winnings had at length demoralized him. At one time he would bet heavily
on worthless cards, and at another would throw back nines and tens for
no apparent reason. Finally Ellis dealt him a queen, which he kept,
betting ten chips. His next card was a seven-spot. He signed to Ellis
that he would stand. Ellis drew twenty in three cards. Vandover could
not restrain an exclamation of impatience at the Dummy's stupidity. What
a fool a man must be to stand on seventeen with only two in the game.
All at once he tossed twenty dollars across the table to Ellis, saying,
"Give me that in chips. I'm coming in again." Once more he resumed his
seat at the table, and Ellis dealt him a hand.
But Vandover's interruption had for an instant taken Ellis' mind from
the game. He stirred in his chair and looked about the room, puffing out
his cheeks and blowing between his lips.
"Say, this room is close enough to strangle you. Open the window behind
you, Van, you're nearest to it." As Vandover raised the curtain he
uttered a cry: "Look here! will you?"
It was morning; the city was flooded by the light of the sun already an
hour high. The sky was without a cloud. Over the roofs and amongst the
gray maze of telegraph wires swarms of sparrows were chittering
hoarsely, and as Vandover raised the window he could hear the newsboys
far below in the streets chanting the morning's papers.
"Come on, Van!" exclaimed Ellis impatiently; "we're waiting for you."
That night decided it. From that time on, Vandover's only pleasure was
gambling. Night and day he sat over the cards, the passion growing upon
him as he continued to lose, for his ill luck was extraordinary. It was
a veritable mania, a wild blind frenzy that knew no limit. At first he
had contented himself with a game in which twenty or thirty dollars was
as much as he could win or lose at a sitting, but soon this palled upon
him; he was obliged to raise the stakes continually in order to arouse
in him the interest, the keen tense excitement, that his jaded nerves
craved.
The five hundred dollars that he had drawn from the ten thousand, the
first payment on his old home, melted away within a week. Only a few
years ago Vandover would have stopped to reflect upon the meaning of
this, would have resisted the temptation that drew him constantly to the
gambling-table, but the idea of resistance never so much as occurred to
him. He did not invest his fifteen thousand, but drew upon it
continually to satisfy his last new craze. It was not with any hope of
winning that he gambled--the desire of money was never strong in him--it
was only the love of the excitement of the moment.
Little by little the fifteen thousand in the bank dwindled. It did not
all go in cards. Certain habits of extravagance grew upon Vandover, the
natural outcome of his persistent gambling, the desire of winning easily
being balanced by the impulses to spend quickly. He took a certain
hysterical delight in flinging away money with both hands. Now it was
the chartering of a yacht for a ten-days' cruise about the bay, or it
was a bicycle bought one week and thrown away the next, a fresh suit of
clothes each month, gloves worn but once, gold-pieces thrust into
Flossie's pockets, suppers given to bouffe actresses--twenty-four-hour
acquaintances--a racehorse bought for eight hundred dollars, resold for
two hundred and fifty--rings and scarf-pins given away to the women and
girls of the Imperial, and a whole world of follies that his poor
distorted wits conceived from hour to hour. His judgment was gone, his
mind unbalanced. All his life Vandover had been sinking slowly lower and
lower; this, however, was the beginning of the last plunge. The process
of degeneration, though inevitable, had been gradual as long as he
indulged generally in all forms of evil; it was only now when a passion
for one particular vice absorbed him that he commenced to rush headlong
to his ruin.
The fifteen thousand dollars--the price of his old home--he gambled or
flung away in a little less than a year. He never invested it, but ate
into it day after day, sometimes to pay his gambling debts, sometimes to
indulge an absurd and extravagant whim, sometimes to pay his bill at the
Lick House, and sometimes for no reason at all, moved simply by a
reckless desire for spending.
On the evening of a certain Thanksgiving day, nine months after he had
sold the house, Vandover came in through the ladies' entrance of the
Imperial, going slowly down the passageway, looking into the little
rooms on his right for Ellis or the Dummy. There had been a great
intercollegiate football game that day, and Vandover, remembering that
he had once found an interest in such things, had at first determined to
see it. But toward eleven o'clock in the morning the rain had begun to
fall, and Ellis, who was to have gone with him, declared that he did not
care enough about the game to go out to it in the rain. Vandover was
disappointed; he fancied that he could have enjoyed the game--as much as
he could enjoy anything of late--but he hated to go to places alone. In
the end, however, he resolved to go whether Ellis went or not. It was a
holiday. Vandover had Ellis and the Dummy to lunch with him at the
hotel, where they arranged the menu of a famous Thanksgiving dinner for
that evening: they would meet in one of the little rooms of the Imperial
and go from there to the restaurant. As they were finishing their lunch
Vandover said:
"I got a new kind of liqueur yesterday--has a colour like violets and
smells like cologne. You fellows better come up to my room and try it.
I've got to go up and change anyway, if I go out to that game." They all
went up to Vandover's cheerless room, and Ellis began to argue with
Vandover against the folly of going anywhere in the rain.
"_You_ don't want to go to that game, Van. Just look how it's raining.
I'll bet there won't be a thousand people there. They'll probably
postpone the game anyway. Say, this _is_ queer looking stuff. What do
you call it?"
"_Crème violette._"
The Dummy set down his emptied liqueur glass on the mantelshelf, and
nodded approvingly at Vandover; then he scribbled, "Out of sight," on
his tablet.
"Tastes like cough syrup and alcohol," growled Ellis, scowling and
sipping. "I think a pint of this would make the Dummy talk Dutch. Keep
it up, Dummy," he continued, articulating distinctly so that the other
could catch the movement of his lips. "Drink some more--make you talk."
Vandover was cutting the string around a pasteboard box that had just
come from his tailor's; it was a new suit of clothes, rough cheviot,
brown with small checks. He dressed slowly and tipped forward the
swinging mirror of the bureau to see how the trousers set. Meanwhile
Ellis and the Dummy had got out the cards and chips from the drawer of
the centre-table and had begun a game.
"Better change your mind, Van," said Ellis without raising his eyes from
the cards.
"No, sir," answered Van. "You don't know how it is--you never were a
college man. Why, I wouldn't miss a football game for anything. Talk
about your horse-racing, talk about your baseball--I tell you there's
nothing in the world so exciting as a hot football game." He swung into
his long high-coloured waterproof and stood behind Ellis, watching his
game for a moment while he tied a couple of long silk streamers to his
umbrella handle.
"It's one of the college colours," he explained. "Seems like old times
back at Harvard." Ellis snorted with contempt.
"Such kids!" he growled.
"I saw one of the coaches go down the street a little while ago,"
continued Vandover, still watching Ellis shuffle and deal. "There were
about twenty college men on top, and they had a big bulldog all
harnessed out in their colours, and they were blowing fish-horns, and I
tell you it made me wish I was one of them again." Ellis did not answer;
it was probable he did not hear. Both he and the Dummy were settling
down for a game that no doubt would last all the afternoon. Vandover
made them free of his room, and they often gambled there when he was
away. But it invariably made Ellis nervous to have any one stand behind
his chair while he was playing; he began to move about uneasily. By and
by he looked at his watch. "Better get a move on," he said, "you'll be
late."
"Just a minute," answered Vandover, more and more interested in the
game. "Go on playing; don't bother about me. Oh, I saw Charlie Geary,
too," he continued, "on another coach; there was a party of them.
Charlie was with Turner Ravis on the box seat. You remember Turner
Ravis, don't you, Bandy? The girl I used to go with."
"There's a girl I never liked," observed Ellis. "She always struck me as
being one of these regular snobs."
"Ah, snob is no name for it," assented Vandover. "She thought she was
too damned high-toned for me. As soon as I got into that mess about Ida
Wade, she threw me over. No, she didn't want to be associated with me
any longer. Well, she can go to the devil. Geary's welcome to her."
"I thought Dolly Haight was going to marry her," said Ellis. "What was
the matter _there_?"
"I don't know," returned Vandover; "probably Dolly Haight didn't have
enough money to suit her. Guess she wants a man that will make his pile
in this town and make his way, too. Ah, you bet!"
Half an hour later he was still behind Ellis' chair. Ellis had become so
fidgety that he was losing steadily. Once more he turned to Vandover,
speaking over his shoulder, "Come on, come on, Van, go along to your
football; you make me nervous standing there." Vandover pushed a
ten-dollar gold-piece across the table to the Dummy, who was banking,
and said:
"Give me that in chips. I'm coming in."
"I thought you were going to the game?" inquired Ellis.
"Ah, the devil!" answered Vandover. "Too much rain."
They had played without interruption all that afternoon, and for once
Vandover had all the luck. When they broke up about five o'clock with
the understanding to meet again in the Imperial at seven, he had won
nearly a hundred dollars.
When Vandover went out to keep this appointment he found the
streets--especially Kearney and Market streets--crowded. It was about
half-past six. The football game was over and the college men had
returned. They were everywhere, marching about in long files, chain-gang
fashion, each file headed by a man beating upon a gong, or parading the
sidewalks ten abreast, singing college songs or shouting their slogan.
At every moment one heard the college yells answering each other from
street corner to street corner, "Rah, rah, rah--Rah, rah, rah!" Vandover
found the Imperial crowded with students. The barroom was packed to the
doors, every one of the little rooms in the front hall was full, while
Flossie and Nannie had a great party of the young fellows in one of the
larger rooms in the rear. Among the crowd in the barroom, three members
of the winning team--heroes, with bandages about their heads--were
breaking training, smoking and drinking for the first time in many long
weeks.
Vandover found Ellis and the Dummy leaning against the wall in the
crowded front passage. They were both in bad humour, the Dummy sulking
because Flossie had left him for one of the football men, the full-back,
a young blond giant with two dislocated fingers; Ellis in a rage because
he could get no cocktails at the bar, only straight drinks that
night--too much of a crowd. These damn college sports thought they
owned the town. "Ah, let's get out of here, Van!" he called over the
heads of the throng as soon as Vandover came in sight.
They went out into the street and started in the direction of the
restaurant where they had decided to eat their Thanksgiving dinner.
After leaving Vandover that afternoon Ellis had seen the head waiter of
this restaurant and had explained to him the bill of fare that Vandover,
the Dummy, and himself had arranged during their lunch at the Lick
House. The streets had relapsed into a momentary quiet--it was between
half-past six and seven--and most of the college men were gathered into
the hotels and cafés eating dinner. About an hour later they would
reappear again for a moment on their way to the theatre, which they were
to attend in a body.
But Vandover suddenly discovered that he could not eat a mouthful, the
smell of food revolted him, and little by little an irregular twitching
had overcome his hands and forearms.
He had received a great shock. That same evening, as he was leaving the
hotel, the clerk at the office had handed him some letters that had
accumulated in his box. Vandover could never think to ask for his mail
in the morning as he went in to breakfast. Something was surely wrong
with his head of late. Every day he found it harder and harder to
remember things. There were three letters altogether: one was the
tailor's bill mailed the same day that his last suit had been finished;
a second was an advertisement announcing the near opening of the Sutro
Baths that were building at that time; and the third a notice from the
bank calling his attention to the fact that his account was overdrawn by
some sixty dollars.
At first Vandover did not see the meaning of this notice, and thrust it
back in his pocket together with the tailor's bill; then slowly an idea
struggled into his mind. Was it possible that he no longer had any money
at the bank? Was his fifteen thousand gone? From time to time his
bank-book had been balanced, and invariably during the first days of
each month his checks had come back to him, used and crumpled, covered
with strange signatures and stamped in blue ink; but after the first few
months he had never paid the least attention to these; he never kept
accounts, having a veritable feminine horror of figures. But it was
absurd to think that his money was gone. Pshaw! one could not spend
fifteen thousand in nine months! It was preposterous! This notice was
some technicality that he could not understand. He would look into it
the next day. And so he dismissed the wearisome matter from his mind
with a shrug of his shoulders as though ridding himself of some
troublesome burden. However, the idea persisted. Somehow, between the
lines of the printed form he smelt out a fresh disaster. He read it over
again and again. All at once as he stood in the doorway of the hotel,
turning up the collar of his waterproof and watching the little pools in
the hollows of the asphalt pavement to see if it were still raining, the
conviction came upon him. In a second he knew that he was ruined. The
true meaning of the notice became apparent with the swiftness of a great
flash of light. He had spent his fifteen thousand dollars!
The blow was strong enough, sudden enough to penetrate even Vandover's
clouded and distorted wits. His nerves were gone in a minute, a sudden
stupefying numbness fell upon his brain, and the fear of something
unknown, the immense unreasoning terror that had gripped him for the
first time the morning after Ida Wade's suicide came back upon him,
horrible, crushing, so that he had to shut his teeth against a wild
hysterical desire to rush through the streets screaming and waving his
arms.
By the time the three friends had reached the restaurant where they were
to eat their Thanksgiving dinner, Vandover's appetite had given place to
a loathing of the very smell of food, his nervousness was fast
approaching hysteria, the little nerve clusters all over his body seemed
to be crisping and writhing like balls of tiny serpents, at intervals he
would twitch sharply as though startled at some sudden noise, his breath
coming short, his heart beating quick.
They had their dinner in one of the private rooms of the restaurant on
the second floor. All through the meal Vandover struggled to keep
himself in hand, fighting with all his strength against this
reappearance of his old enemy, this sudden return of the dreadful
crisis, determined not to make an exhibition of himself before the
others. He pretended to eat, and forced himself to talk, joining in with
Ellis, who was badgering the Dummy about Flossie. The proper thing to
do was to fill the Dummy's glass while his attention was otherwise
absorbed, and in the end to get him so drunk that he could talk. Toward
the end of the dinner Ellis was successful. All at once the Dummy got
upon his feet, his eyes were glazed with drunkenness, he swayed about in
an irregular circle, holding up, now by the table, now by the
chair-back, and now by the wall behind him. He was very angry,
exasperated beyond control by Ellis' raillery and abuse. He forgot
himself and uttered a series of peculiar cries very faint and shrill,
like the sounds of a voice heard through a telephone when some
imperfection of transmission prevents one from distinguishing the words.
His mouth was wide open and his tongue rolled about in an absurd way
between his teeth. Now and then one could catch a word or two. Ellis
went into spasms of laughter, holding his sides, gasping for breath.
Vandover could not help being amused, and the two laughed at the Dummy's
stammering rage until their breath was spent. Throughout the rest of the
evening the Dummy recommenced from time to time, rising unsteadily to
his feet, shaking his fists, pouring out a stream of little ineffectual
birdlike twitterings, trying to give Ellis abuse for abuse, trying to
talk long after it had ceased to amuse the other two. Ellis had been
drinking for nearly six hours, without the liquor producing the
slightest effect upon him; long since, the Dummy was hopelessly drunk;
and now Vandover, who had been drinking upon an empty stomach, began to
grow very noisy and boisterous. Little by little Ellis himself commenced
to lose his self-control. By and by he and Vandover began to sing, each
independent of the other, very hoarse and loud. The Dummy joined them,
making a hideous and lamentable noise which so affected Ellis that he
pretended to howl at it like a little dog overcome by mournful music.
But suddenly Ellis had an idea, crying out thickly, between two
hiccoughs:
"Hey, there, Van, do your dog-act for us! Go on! Bark for us!"
By this time Vandover was very nearly out of his head, his drunkenness
finishing what his nervousness had begun. The attack was fast
approaching culmination; strange and unnatural fancies began to come and
go in his brain.
"Go on, Van!" urged Ellis, his eyes heavy with alcohol. "Go on, do your
dog-act!"
All at once it was as though an angry dog were snarling and barking over
a bone there under the table about their feet. Ellis roared with
laughter, but suddenly he himself was drunk. All the afternoon he had
kept himself in hand; now his intoxication came upon him in a moment.
The skin around his eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves
were contracted; they grew darker, taking on the colour of bitumen.
Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all from
off the table with a single movement of his arm. Then the alcohol
overcame him all in an instant like a poisonous gas. He swayed forward
in his chair and fell across the stripped table, his head rolling
inertly between his outstretched arms. He did not move again.
In a neighbouring room young Haight had been dining with some college
fellows, fraternity men, all friends of his, upon whose coach he had
ridden to and from the game. He had heard Vandover and Ellis in the room
across the hall and had recognized their voices. Haight had never been a
friend of Ellis, but no one, not even Turner, had grieved more over
Vandover's ruin than had his old-time college chum.
Young Haight heard the noise of the falling crockery as Ellis swept the
table clear, and turned his head sharply, listening. There was a
moment's silence after this, and Haight, fearing some accident had
happened, stepped out into the hall and stood there a moment listening
again; his head inclined toward the closed door. He heard no groaning,
no exclamations of pain, not even any noise of conversation; only
through the closed door came a steady sound of barking.
Puzzled, he tried the door and, finding it locked, as he had expected,
put one foot upon the knob and, catching hold of the top jamb, raised
himself up and looked down through the open space that answered for a
transom.
The room was very warm, the air thick with the smell of cooked food, the
fumes of whisky, and the acrid odour of cigar smoke. Ellis had rolled
from his chair and lay upon the floor sprawling on his face in the wreck
of the table. Near to him, likewise upon the floor, but sitting up, his
back against the wall, was the Dummy. He was muttering incessantly to
himself, as if delighted at having found his tongue, his head swaying
on his shoulders, and a strange murmur, soft, birdlike, meaningless,
like sounds heard from a vast distance, coming from his wide-open mouth.
Vandover was sitting bolt upright in his chair, his hands gripping the
table, his eyes staring straight before him. He was barking incessantly.
It was evident that now he could not stop himself; it was like
hysterical laughter, a thing beyond his control. Twice young Haight
called him by name, kicking the door as his leg hung against it. At last
Vandover heard him. Then as he caught sight of his face over the door he
raised his upper lip above his teeth and snarled at him, long and
viciously.
As Haight dropped down into the hall a waiter came running up; he, too,
had heard the noise of the breaking dishes. As he thrust his key into
the lock he paused a moment, listening and looking in a puzzled way at
young Haight. "They have a dog in here, then? They had no dog when they
came. That's funny!"
"Open the door," said young Haight quietly. Once inside Haight went
directly to Vandover, crying out: "Come! come on, Van! come home with
me." Vandover started suddenly, looking about him bewildered, drawing
his hand across his face.
"Home," he repeated vaguely; "yes, that's the idea. Let's go home. I
want to go to bed. Hello, Dolly! where did _you_ come from? Say, Dolly,
let me tell you--listen here--come down here close; you mustn't mind me;
you know I'm a wolf mostly!"
They went down toward the Lick House. Vandover grew steadier after a few
minutes in the open air. Young Haight locked arms with him; they went on
together in silence. By this time the streets were crowded again, the
theatres were over, and the college men were once more at large. Now
they were all gathered together into one immense procession, headed by a
brass band in a brewer's wagon, and they tramped aimlessly to and fro
about Kearney and Market streets, making a hideous noise. At the head
the band was playing a popular quick-step with a great banging of a bass
drum. The college men in the front ranks were singing one song, those
in the rear another, while the middle of the column was given over to an
abominable medley of fish-horns, policemen's rattles and great Chinese
gongs. At stated intervals the throng would halt and give the college
yell.
"Dolly, you and I used to do that," said Vandover, looking after the
procession. He had himself well in hand by this time. "What was the
matter with me back there at the restaurant, Dolly?" he asked after a
while.
"Oh, you'd been drinking a good deal, I guess," answered young Haight.
"You--you had some queer idea about yourself!"
"Yes, I know," answered Vandover quickly. "Fancied I was some kind of a
beast, didn't I--some kind of wolf? I have that notion sometimes and I
can't get it out of my head. It's curious just the same."
They went up to Vandover's room. Vandover lit the gas, but he could
hardly keep back an exclamation as the glare suddenly struck young
Haight's face. What in heaven's name was the matter with his old-time
chum? He seemed to be blighted, shattered, struck down by some terrible,
overwhelming calamity. A dreadful anguish looked through his eyes. The
sense of a hopeless misery had drawn and twisted his face. There could
be no doubt that something had made shipwreck of his life. Vandover was
looking at a ruined man.
"My God, Dolly!" exclaimed Vandover, "what's happened to you? You look
like a death's-head, man! What's gone wrong? Aren't you well?"
Haight caught his friend's searching gaze, and for a moment they looked
at each other without speaking. There was no mistaking the fearful grief
that smouldered behind Haight's dull, listless eyes. For a moment
Vandover thought of Turner Ravis. But even if she had turned him off,
that alone would not account for his friend's fearful condition of mind
and body.
"What is it, Dolly?" persisted Vandover. "We used to be pretty good
chums, not so long ago."
They sat down on the edge of the bed, and for a moment their positions
seemed reversed: Haight the one to be protected and consoled, Vandover
the shielding and self-reliant one.
Young Haight passed his hand over his face before he answered, and
Vandover noticed that his fingers trembled like an old man's.
"Do you remember that night, Van, when you and Charlie and I all went
out to Turner's house, and we had _tamales_ and beer, and a glass broke
in that peculiar way, and I cut my lip?"
Vandover nodded, forcing his attention against the alcoholic fumes, to
follow his friend's words.
"We went down to the Imperial afterward," Haight continued, "and ran
into Ellis, and we had something more to eat. Do you remember that as we
sat there, Toby, the waiter, brought Flossie in, and she sat there with
us a while?"
He paused, choosing his words. Vandover listened closely, trying to
recall the incident.
"She kissed me," said young Haight slowly, "and the court-plaster came
off. You know I never had anything to do with women, Van. I always tried
to keep away from them. But that's where my life practically came to an
end."
"You mean--" began Vandover. "You mean--that you--that Flossie--?"
Haight nodded.
"Good God! I can't believe it. It's not possible! I _know_ Flossie!"
Haight shook his head, smiling grimly.
"I can't help that, Van," said he. "There's no denying facts, there's no
other possible explanation! As soon as I knew, I went to the doctors
here, and then I went to New York for treatment, but there's no hope. I
didn't know, you see. I didn't believe it possible. Turner Ravis and I
were engaged. I waited too long! There's only one escape for me now."
His voice dropped, he stared for a moment at the floor. Then he
straightened up, and said in a different tone, "But, damn it, Van, let's
not talk about it! I'm haunted with the thing day and night. I want to
talk to you! I want to talk to you seriously. You know you are ruining
yourself, old man!"
But Vandover interrupted him with a gesture, saying, "Don't go on,
Dolly; it isn't the least use. There _was_ a time for that, but that was
long ago. I used to care, I used to be sorry and all that, but I'm not
now. Ruining myself? Why, I _have_ ruined myself long ago. We're both
ruined--only in your case it wasn't your fault. It's too late for me
now, and I'm even not sorry that it _is_ too late. Dolly, I don't _want_
to pull up. You can't imagine a man fallen as low as that, can you? I
couldn't imagine it myself a few years ago. I'm going right straight to
the devil now, and you might as well stand aside and give me a free
course, for I'm bound to get there sooner or later. I suppose you would
think that a man who could see this as plainly as I do would be afraid,
would have remorse and all that sort of thing. Well, I did at first.
I'll never forget the night when I first saw it; came near shooting
myself, but I got over it, and now I'm used to the idea. Dolly, _I can
get used to almost anything_. Nothing makes much difference to me
nowadays--only I like to play cards. Look here!" he went on, laying out
the notice from the bank upon the table, "this came to-day. You see what
it is! I sold the old house on California Street. Well, I've gambled
away that money in less than a year. It seems that I'm a financial ruin
now, but"--and he began to laugh--"I live through it somehow. The news
didn't prevent me from getting drunk to-night."
After young Haight was gone, Vandover went to bed, turning out the gas
and drawing down the window half-way from the top. The wine had made him
sleepy; he was dropping away into a very grateful doze when a sudden
shock, a violent leap of every nerve in his body, brought him up to a
sitting posture, gasping for breath, his heart fluttering, his hands
beating at the empty air. He settled down again, turning upon his
pillow, closing his eyes, very weary, longing for a good night's sleep.
Dolly Haight's terrible story, his unjustified fate, and the hopeless
tragedy of it, came back to him. Vandover would gladly have changed
places with him. Young Haight had the affection and respect of even
those that knew. He, Vandover, had thrown away his friends' love and
their esteem with the rest of the things he had once valued. His
thoughts, released from all control of his will, began to come and go
through his head with incredible rapidity, confused ideas,
half-remembered scenes, incidents of the past few days, bits and ends of
conversation recalled for no especial reason, all galloping across his
brain like a long herd of terrified horses; an excitement grew upon
him, a strange thrill of exhilaration. He was broad awake now, but
suddenly his left leg, his left arm and wrist, all his left side jerked
with the suddenness of a sprung trap; so violent was the shock that the
entire bed shook and creaked with it. Then the inevitable reaction
followed, the slow crisping and torsion of his nerves, twisting upon
each other like a vast swarm of tiny serpents; it seemed to begin with
his ankles, spreading slowly to every part of his body; it was a
veritable torture, so poignant that Vandover groaned under it, shutting
his eyes. He could not keep quiet a second--to lie in bed was an
impossibility; he threw the bed-clothes from him and sprang up. He did
not light the gas, but threw on his bathrobe and began to walk the
floor. Even as he walked, his eyelids drooped lower and lower. The need
of sleep overcame him like a narcotic, but as soon as he was about to
lose himself he would be suddenly and violently awakened by the same
shock, the same jangling recoil of his nerves. Then his hands and head
seemed to swell; next, it was as though the whole room was too small for
him. He threw open the window and, leaning upon his elbows, looked out.
The clouds had begun to break, the rain was gradually ceasing, leaving
in the air a damp, fresh smell, the smell of wet asphalt and the odour
of dripping woodwork. It was warm; the atmosphere was dank, heavy,
tepid. One or two stars were out, and a faint gray light showed him the
vast reach of roofs below stretching away to meet the abrupt rise of
Telegraph Hill. Not far off the slender, graceful smokestack puffed
steadily, throwing off continually the little flock of white jets that
rose into the air very brave and gay, but in the end dwindled
irresolutely, discouraged, disheartened, fading sadly away, vanishing
under the night, like illusions disappearing at the first touch of the
outside world. As Vandover leaned from his window, looking out into the
night with eyes that saw nothing, the college slogan rose again from the
great crowd of students who still continued to hold the streets.
"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
He turned back into the room, groping among the bottles on his washstand
for his bromide of potassium. As he poured out the required dose into
the teaspoon his hand twitched again sharply, flirting the medicine
over his bared neck and chest, exposed by the bathrobe which he had left
open at the throat. It was cold, and he shivered a bit as he wiped it
dry with the back of his hand.
He knew very well that his nervous attack was coming on again. As he set
down the bottle upon the washstand he muttered to himself, "Now I'm
going to have a night of it." He began to walk the floor again with
great strides, fighting with all his pitiful, shattered mind against the
increasing hysteria, trying to keep out of his brain the strange
hallucination that assailed it from time to time, the hallucination of a
thing four-footed, a thing that sulked and snarled. The hotel grew
quiet; a watchman went down the hall turning out each alternate gas jet.
Just outside of the door was a burner in a red globe, fixed at a stair
landing to show the exit in case of fire. This burned all night and it
streamed through the transom of Vandover's room, splotching the ceiling
with a great square of red light. Vandover was in a torment, overcome
now by that same fear with which he had at last become so familiar, the
unreasoning terror of something unknown. He uttered an exclamation, a
suppressed cry of despair, of misery, and then suddenly checked himself,
astonished, seized with the fancy that his cry was not human, was not of
himself, but of something four-footed, the snarl of some exasperated
brute. He paused abruptly in his walk, listening, for what he did not
know. The silence of the great city spread itself around him, like the
still waters of some vast lagoon. Through the silence he heard the noise
of the throng of college youths. They were returning, doubling upon
their line of march. A long puff of tepid air breathing through the open
window brought to his ears the distant joyous sound of their slogan:
"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
They passed by along the adjacent street, their sounds growing faint.
Vandover took up his restless pacing again. Little by little the
hallucination gained upon him; little by little his mind slipped from
his grasp. The wolf--the beast--whatever the creature was, seemed in his
diseased fancy to grow stronger in him from moment to moment. But with
all his strength he fought against it, fought against this strange
mania, that overcame him at these periodical intervals--fought with his
hands so tightly clenched that the knuckles grew white, that the nails
bit into the palm. It seemed to him that in some way his personality
divided itself into three. There was himself, the real Vandover of every
day, the same familiar Vandover that looked back at him from his mirror;
then there was the wolf, the beast, whatever the creature was that lived
in his flesh, and that struggled with him now, striving to gain the
ascendency, to absorb the real Vandover into its own hideous identity;
and last of all, there was a third self, formless, very vague, elusive,
that stood aside and watched the strife of the other two. But as he
fought against his madness, concentrating all his attention with a
tremendous effort of the will, the queer numbness that came upon his
mind whenever he exerted it enwrapped his brain like a fog, and this
third self grew vaguer than ever, dwindled and disappeared. Somehow it
seemed to be associated with consciousness, for after this the sense of
the reality of things grew dim and blurred to him. He ceased to know
exactly what he was doing. His intellectual parts dropped away one by
one, leaving only the instincts, the blind, unreasoning impulses of the
animal.
Still he continued his restless, lurching walk back and forth in his
room, his head hanging low and swinging from side to side with the
movement of his gait. He had become so nervous that the restraint
imposed upon his freedom of movement by his bathrobe and his loose
night-clothes chafed and irritated him. At length he had stripped off
everything.
Suddenly and without the slightest warning Vandover's hands came slowly
above his head and he dropped forward, landing upon his palms. All in an
instant he had given way, yielding in a second to the strange
hallucination of that four-footed thing that sulked and snarled. Now
without a moment's stop he ran back and forth along the wall of the
room, upon the palms of his hands and his toes, a ludicrous figure, like
that of certain clowns one sees at the circus, contortionists walking
about the sawdust, imitating some kind of enormous dog. Still he swung
his head from side to side with the motion of his shuffling gait, his
eyes dull and fixed. At long intervals he uttered a sound, half word,
half cry, "Wolf--wolf!" but it was muffled, indistinct, raucous, coming
more from his throat than from his lips. It might easily have been the
growl of an animal. A long time passed. Naked, four-footed, Vandover ran
back and forth the length of the room.
By an hour after midnight the sky was clear, all the stars were out, the
moon a thin, low-swinging scimitar, set behind the black mass of the
roofs of the city, leaving a pale bluish light that seemed to come from
all quarters of the horizon. As the great stillness grew more and more
complete, the persistent puffing of the slender tin stack, the three gay
and joyous little noises, each sounding like a note of discreet laughter
interrupted by a cough, became clear and distinct. Inside the room there
was no sound except the persistent patter of something four-footed going
up and down. At length even this sound ceased abruptly. Worn out,
Vandover had just fallen, dropping forward upon his face with a long
breath. He lay still, sleeping at last. The remnant of the great band of
college men went down an adjacent street, raising their cadenced slogan
for the last time. It came through the open window, softened as it were
by the warm air, thick with damp, through which it travelled:
"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
Naked, exhausted, Vandover slept profoundly, stretched at full length at
the foot of the bare, white wall of the room beneath two of the little
placards, scrawled with ink, that read, "Stove Here"; "Mona Lisa Here."