A SCIENTIFIC OPIUM DEN
The reader was here interrupted by a loud voice crying out in the
verandah:
"Donnerwetter! what has become of Mr. Grenits?"
"That's our Pole," said van Rheijn, folding up the letter he was
reading and replacing it in his pocket. "There is nothing specially
interesting in the end of William's letter, and I do not think it
advisable to allow a private communication of this kind to spread
beyond our own little circle."
The door opened and Dr. Murowski entered. Having shaken hands with the
prisoner and greeted the other gentlemen, he said in a queer lingo
of his own, made up of Dutch, German, and Polish, but which we will
not attempt to reproduce:
"Rather behind time, I fear, gentlemen, rather behind time, but
donnerwetter--!"
"Come, come, doctor," said van Beneden with a laugh, "no strong
language if you please. I daresay you fell in with Miss van Bemmelen
on the green."
The doctor reddened up to the very roots of his hair, as he replied
in some confusion:
"Well, yes, I did meet her--"
"In that case, my dear fellow," continued van Beneden, "you need not
trouble yourself to make any apology at all, where there is a lady
in the case--"
"Stuff and nonsense!" broke in Murowski, "I wasn't in her company
for five minutes!"
"If that be the case, doctor," said van Rheijn, "we must ask you why
you have kept us so long. You knew we were all here waiting for you."
"Oh, never mind," put in Grashuis with a smile, "don't press him too
hard--our learned friend has probably been hunting some other pretty
little butterfly!"
"Yes, I can see him," continued van Beneden, "net in hand, running
after some splendid Sphynx."
"Indeed," growled Murowski, "you seem to have a pretty lively
imagination. Sphynx indeed! A funny kind of Sphynx has been after me!"
Van Rheijn laughed aloud. "Now, come," said he, "illustrious countryman
of Sobieski, of Poniatowski, and so many other worthies in ski,
let us have your news--for news you evidently have to tell us. Let
us have it. But, mind you, whatever excuse you may have to make--it
will have to be a a good one."
"As I was strolling about the green enjoying the music," began the
doctor, "my chief called me aside and said he wanted to see me at
his quarters as soon as ever the concert was over."
"Well, what of that?" cried the friends.
"A request of this kind," rejoined the Pole, "is, as you know,
gentlemen, tantamount to a positive order."
"Yes, yes," cried van Rheijn, full of curiosity, "we grant you that;
but what important communication had he to make to you?"
"No doubt some case of pneumato--" began van Beneden.
But Murowski did not give him time to complete his sentence.
"He simply wanted to tell me that I am to be transferred to another
station."
"You are going to leave us?" exclaimed the friends in a breath.
"Yes, gentlemen, so it seems--you see I have been a very long time
settled in this place," grumbled Murowski, "it must be quite five
months and a half."
"Well, and where are they going to send you to?"
"To Gombong, it appears."
"They might very easily have packed you off to a worse place," said
van Rheijn, "to Singkelen, for instance, or to Atjeh."
"Oh, I have no doubt you are quite right there," sighed Murowski, "but
where on earth is Gombong? You must excuse my ignorance, gentlemen,"
continued he, with a smile, "the study of Indian geography is, I fear,
somewhat neglected in Poland."
"Gombong," exclaimed van Rheijn, "is in Bagelen."
"Indeed," replied the Pole, "I am much obliged to you for the
information; but where may Bagelen be?"
"Bagelen," said the embryo-controller, with a certain sense of
superiority, pointing in the required direction, "Bagelen is only
just over there."
"Not over the sea then?" cried Murowski, evidently much relieved.
"No, no, my dear fellow, not a bit of it; a carriage will take you
there very comfortably. But, why don't you ask van Nerekool, he has
but just returned from the very place. He knows all about it. Why! he
lost his heart there!"
"Lost his heart? At Gombong?" asked Murowski, looking from one to
the other with a puzzled air.
"Not exactly at Gombong; but at all events very close by, at Karang
Anjer. Do you know Miss van Gulpendam?"
"Pretty Miss van Gulpendam! Of course I do," exclaimed the doctor.
"Very well then, Miss van Gulpendam has gone to Karang Anjer, and
she has taken our friend's heart along with her."
"That's smart," replied the Pole, quite mistaking the meaning of the
word he employed.
"Oh, you think so?" asked Grashuis, drily.
This conversation, as may well be supposed, was highly distasteful
to van Nerekool. He hastened to put an end to it by saying:
"Gentlemen, I vote we begin to think of our experiment."
"Ah, you are right," exclaimed the doctor, "our experientia by all
means; experientia optima rerum magistra you know. By-the-bye, did
you receive the parcel I sent you?"
"Oh, yes," answered Grenits, "you will find it safe on that little
table yonder."
Thereupon Murowski produced his instruments; a couple of thermometers,
a hygrometer, an aneroid barometer, a stethoscope, and a small
chemical balance.
While he was arranging these, van Rheijn opened the other parcel,
which contained a bedoedan and a small box of tjandoe.
"I say," cried van Beneden, who was the first to open the little box,
"precious nasty stuff this looks!"
Murowski took the box from him, examined the contents, and then
falling at once into a lecturing tone, he began:
"Opium is an amorphous, sticky substance which, being of a gummy
nature, is not fissile but plastic. It is of a dark brown colour,
possesses a faint sweetish smell, and is somewhat oily to the
touch. Its chief constituents are morphine and narcotine, in the
absence of these the drug has no value."
"But," interrupted van Beneden somewhat impatiently, "which of us is
to submit to the experiment?"
"The best plan to settle that question," said van Rheijn, "would be,
I think, to draw lots."
"Very good," put in Murowski, "providing you allow me to stand out,
as I shall have to watch the experiment."
"Now, I think," suggested Grenits, "you had better let me make
the trial."
"Why you, rather than anyone of us?"
"Why, because, being a prisoner," replied Grenits, "I have plenty of
time on my hands to get over the effects of the debauch."
"You are quite right," said van Rheijn, "I never thought of that--I
must be at my office as usual to-morrow morning."
"And I," continued van Beneden, "I have to be in court, on Setrosmito's
business, you know."
"Of course, of course!" cried all in chorus, "not one of us must,
on any account, miss that trial."
"Very good," said Grenits, "we are all agreed then that I am to be
the smoker."
"It is very kind of you, Theodoor, to make the offer."
"All right, I am quite ready to begin."
"Very likely," interrupted Murowski, "but that is more than I am."
"No, and I am not ready yet," said Edward van Rheijn.
Thereupon, assuming the most severe professional gravity, the worthy
Pole commenced carefully to weigh out the stock of opium, which he
found came to 142 grains. This fact he noted down in his pocket-book.
"You had better add," said van Rheijn, "that there are twenty-five
matas."
"Twenty-five what?" asked Murowski, again with a puzzled look.
"Twenty-five matas," repeated van Rheijn.
"Matas!" exclaimed the doctor. "What? eyes?"
The general burst of merriment which followed the question served
only to augment the doctor's surprise.
"Eyes!" laughed van Rheijn, "no, no, nothing of the kind. The
Government table of opium weights runs thus: 1 pikoe = 100 katties,
1 kattie = 16 taëls, 1 taël = 10 tji, and 1 tji = 10 matas, and
therefore--"
"All right, all right!" cried Murowski, as he joined in the laugh,
"now I see it."
"But, gentlemen," he continued, "we must look sharp, the sun has set."
It was nearly a quarter past six and, in the month of August, the
sun in Java sets some time before that hour.
Murowski requested Grenits to have the lamps lighted, and when the
servant had brought in the lights, the Pole continued:
"Now then, Grenits, get your clothes off!"
"What is that for?" asked Theodoor.
"My dear fellow," replied the doctor, "I must have you in pyjamas;
for I shall have narrowly to watch the action of the chest."
Grenits retired to his bedroom, and in a few minutes returned clad
in his ordinary night clothing. The doctor then made him lie down
on the divan, he felt his pulse, examined his tongue, sounded him
with the stethoscope, and carefully took his temperature. During
these preliminaries the countenance of Murowski wore a look of stern
solemnity which, no doubt, ought to have impressed the spectators
with the feelings of respect and awe due to a high priest of science;
but which, unfortunately, only served to excite their merriment. Even
Grenits himself could hardly repress a smile.
"What in the world is the good of all that hocus-pocus?" whispered
August van Beneden to Grashuis.
"Why are you lawyers," rejoined the other, "always fencing with
scraps of Latin? It is the correct thing, I suppose. It is a trick
of the trade."
At length Grenits said: "Well, doctor, is my carcase in pretty
good order?"
"Perfect," replied Murowski, "perfectly normal; I must have a look
at the barometer, and then our experiment may begin at once."
The barometer recorded 745 m.m., and the doctor made a note of the
reading.
"There, now," he said to Grenits, "I am quite ready--no, no, wait a
bit--there is something else. When did you last partake of food?"
"At half-past twelve," replied Grenits, "the usual dinner."
"Thank you," said the doctor, and looking at his watch he continued,
"It is now half-past six--just six hours ago. Did you partake of
anything in the way of spirits?"
"No, nothing of the kind," answered Grenits, "nothing but a little
pale ale."
The doctor then placed his thermometers in position under the
patient's arms.
While all this was doing, van Rheijn was busily employed dividing the
opium into twenty-five equal parts. Then he lit the lamps, and, warming
the bits of opium at the flame of the little lamp to make them soft,
he kneaded into each of them some very finely cut Javanese tobacco,
and then rolled them into small round pills. His friends looked on
with some surprise at the dexterity with which he performed these
manipulations; for he had not told them that, previously, he had asked
Lim Ho to show him how the thing ought to be done. This lesson the
wily Chinaman had been only too willing to give him. "Who knows,"
thought he, with a grin, "perhaps the Europeans may take a fancy
to the delicacy." When Edward had prepared his pills, he produced
the bedoedan. It consisted of a tolerably thick bamboo stem some
nine or ten inches in length, highly polished and of a beautiful
light-brown tint. This stem was open at one end and sealed at the
other. Very near to the closed end and at right angles to the stem,
a small earthenware bowl was inserted into the wood.
"It is a spick-span brand new one, I can assure you," said van Rheijn
to Theodoor, "I bought it myself for this very occasion."
"Thank heaven for that!" cried Grenits. "Just fancy if one of those
old sots had been sucking and slobbering at it! Bah! it makes me sick
to think of it."
"That shows how innocent you are," rejoined van Rheijn, "your
real lover of opium, your 'feinschmecker,' prizes an old pipe very
highly. When the stem is thoroughly saturated and the bowl thickly
encrusted with juice, the smoke must be indeed delicious."
Thus saying, Edward put one of the little pills into the bowl and
handed the pipe, thus loaded, to his friend, while he drew the little
table with the lamp within easy reach of the smoker.
Grenits lay stretched out at full length on the divan, the front of
his kabaai was wide open, so that the action of the chest was plainly
visible, and his head rested on a somewhat hard pillow.
"Now," remarked Grashuis, "there is only one thing lacking, and that
is the greasy filthy pillow we saw in the den at Kaligaweh."
"Much obliged to you, Leendert," laughed Grenits. "I would not for
the world touch the beastly thing--this pillow will do perfectly well."
Thus speaking, he turned his face to the lamp, applied his mouth to
the stem of his bedoedan, and, trying to imitate as closely as he
could the proceedings he had witnessed at Kaligaweh, he was about to
apply the bowl to the flame.
"Hold hard!" cried Murowski, "don't be in a hurry, one moment."
With these words he took Theodoor's pulse and held it for fully a
minute looking the while carefully at his watch. Then he once again
applied the stethoscope, examined the thermometers, replaced them,
and finally, in his notebook he wrote: Pulse 72, respiration 24,
temperature 99 1/2.
"That's it," said he, "now then puff away to your heart's content."
With one steady long pull Grenits sucked the flame of the lamp into
the bowl. As the opium-ball kindled, a faint sweetish odour began
to pervade the apartment, a smell somewhat suggestive of warm blood
and treacle.
"Swallow it, swallow it!" cried van Rheijn.
This, however, was more easily said than done. Grenits made an effort
to swallow the nasty smoke; but then a violent fit of coughing
compelled him to open his mouth and blow out the fumes into the
room, augmenting thereby the nauseous smell which already pervaded
the apartment.
"Poeah! poeah!" cried Grenits, puffing and coughing.
"What do you feel? What do you taste?" asked Murowski.
"I am half choked with coughing," stammered Grenits, "and I have a
nasty sweetish taste in my mouth. I cannot describe it."
This first draw had been a deep one; the madat-ball was entirely
consumed; van Rheijn slipped another opium-ball into the pipe.
"Now, this time," said he, "you must try to swallow the smoke; you
have done so often enough when you have blown the smoke of a cigar
from your nose."
Poor Grenits made another attempt. This time he did actually inhale
the fumes and succeeded in retaining them for some seconds, after
which he allowed them slowly to curl out at his nostrils.
Dr. Murowski made a note in his pocket-book, pulse 70, respiration 25,
temperature normal.
Being asked again what he felt, Grenits answered: "I feel nothing;
but the sweet taste has gone and now it tastes rather bitter."
After the third pipe, Theodoor complained that his head felt heavy
and said he wanted to go to sleep. This drowsiness seemed to increase
with the fourth and fifth pipes; but, as yet, Grenits was well able to
resist it. He returned sensible answers to the questions put to him
by his friends; but remarked that his faculties seemed to be clouded
and that he had to reflect for some considerable time before he could
grasp the meaning of a question, and that he could not readily frame
an answer. He was able, however, to sit upright, and could even walk
up and down the room without support.
Dr. Murowski watched him carefully and after the sixth pipe he found,
that the drowsy feeling was still increasing, that the pulse was at
70 while the respiration had risen to 28.
The eighth pipe produced further drowsiness, but yet Theodoor was
able to tell the time by the clock.
With the ninth pipe, his speech became thick and his utterance
indistinct; and when the doctor pressed him very hard, he said that
his tongue seemed as if it were increasing in volume.
After the tenth pipe, the patient began to complain of a bitter taste
in his mouth, and said he felt giddy. The doctor at once grasped his
hand; but pulse and respiration both remained unaltered.
After the eleventh, Grenits could no longer raise himself unaided
from the divan, and, when he tried to walk had to be supported,
so tottering and uncertain were his steps.
After the twelfth pipe, which he smoked very slowly, a remarkable
change came over the patient. Theodoor was now lying with his eyes
closed; but every now and then he opened them and there was now a
brightness in his look which offered a strange contrast to his former
dull and heavy expression. His sensations, he declared, were highly
pleasurable; but he could give no description of his feelings.
"Charles, Charles," he faintly cried, "give us a little music," and
he turned slightly to van Nerekool. The latter at once sat down at
the piano and began very softly to play Chopin's variations on airs
from Don Giovanni. The ecstatic expression on the smoker's face showed
that he took in every chord and every note.
"Go on playing," he murmured, as soon as Charles left off, "more
music--more smoke--give me the pipe."
This ecstatic state went on increasing with the thirteenth pipe and
with it also the craving for opium grew more intense.
Theodoor now began to laugh; he stretched out and waved his arms--the
most pleasant pictures were evidently floating through his brain. When
Murowski asked him what made him laugh he replied, with a fresh burst
of unnatural merriment: "I don't know, I don't know!"
Presently he requested van Nerekool to play him a certain passage from
Schumann's Manfred. In this state of ecstasy the patient remained while
he smoked his fourteenth and fifteenth pipes. The fixed smile did
not leave his features; but now he ceased to reply to the questions
of his friends. He also grew restless by degrees and no longer lay
still as before.
After the sixteenth pipe Grenits complained of having to leave
off smoking while the pipe was being refilled. He grew fretful
and found fault with van Rheijn for not having supplied another
bedoedan, for then, he said, the experiment might have gone on without
interruption. Dr. Murowski observed that the pulse was at 72 and the
respiration at 28; that the conjunctiva was much bloodshot and the
eyelids heavy and drooping.
After the seventeenth pipe the smoker suddenly started up and attempted
to walk; but, after a few steps, fell down and was unable to rise. His
friends carried him back to the divan. He begged hard to be allowed to
go on smoking and, as the doctor declared there was no danger whatever,
the request was complied with.
The eighteenth pipe brought back the state of ecstasy which, for
awhile, seemed to have left the patient. Every now and then he opened
his eyes wide and seemed to follow some flying image.
With the twentieth pipe these symptoms merely increased, and when
Murowski asked him how he felt he replied:
"Oh! I feel so happy; I never felt anything like it before."
The doctor made the following note: Sclerotica much inflamed, pulse
70, respiration 25, temperature 100·04, satyriasis setting in. Upon
being asked if he wanted anything, he replied:
"I don't want anything--nothing at all--leave me alone. The pipe! give
me the pipe! that Edward, that Edward! does he want the thing to
fail altogether?"
The next instant he exclaimed: "Oh! if this be Mohammed's paradise,
let me go on smoking for ever! The pipe! the pipe!"
"Is it not high time," asked van Nerekool anxiously, "to put a stop to
this? The poor fellow will, I fear, do himself some serious mischief."
"No, no, no," cried the Pole. "Don't be alarmed, I answer for him,
there is not the slightest danger. His pulse is perfectly regular,
the breathing has quickened somewhat; but there is only a rise of
·3 in the temperature. It would be a pity not to go on now, this
experiment is most important to science."
After the twenty-first pipe, Grenits seemed to lose all control over
himself. He lay still, almost motionless; but every word he uttered,
every look and every gesture betrayed what was passing within. This
continued until the twenty-fourth pipe had been smoked. Murowski then
again asked him how he felt, and he answered pretty quietly:
"Oh! I am at peace, at rest. Delightful! delightful!"
But this was far from satisfying our Pole. With his right forefinger
on the patient's pulse and his left hand spread out on his breast,
he kept on asking him again and again, "What kind of feeling is it?"
Theodoor, however, did not reply. By this time he was heaving and
panting with excitement. His arms and hands were stretched out
clutching convulsively at some phantom of his brain. His face wore
a look of unutterable bliss which filled the bystanders at once with
amazement and horror.
"Doctor, doctor!" muttered van Nerekool, "let us put an end to
this. Look at him, look at him. It is disgusting!"
But the Pole would not give in.
"There is no danger, none whatever!" he cried; "we must go on now,
we must go on!"
With the tough tenacity of the man of science bent upon fathoming
some natural phenomenon, he eagerly watched Theodoor's slightest
movement. He was desperately anxious to make the patient speak
out. "Grenits!" he cried, "Grenits, do you hear me; tell me, do you
hear me?"
Then he forced up the eyelids, and with his finger sharply filliped
his nose as he kept on crying, trembling with impatience: "Do you
hear me, Grenits, do you hear?"
Grenits muttered a few incoherent words as he restlessly tossed about
on the divan.
"Do you hear me?" persisted the doctor. "Tell me, can you understand?"
"Oh, yes, yes," at length muttered Grenits, "do leave me alone!"
In his eagerness the doctor bent over his patient, he did not for
an instant take his eyes from his face. Just then the friend was
transformed wholly into the man of science who, entirely mastered
by the passionate desire of unravelling some secret of nature, might
become capable of practising vivisection even upon his fellow-man.
"Oh do tell me," passionately implored the doctor, "do tell me what
you feel!"
"What I feel?" muttered Theodoor vaguely. "Oh it is delightful,
delightful--more delicious than--"
"This is too bad!" shouted van Nerekool, "abominable! I can't stand
this any longer!" and, snatching the pipe out of Grenits' hand, he
stamped on it with his foot. Then he seized the box in which there
remained but a single pill of opium and violently flung it and its
contents out of the window.
"That's right, quite right!" cried Grashuis and van Beneden in
a breath.
"It is a pity, a thousand pities," complained Murowski.
But even he had very soon to change his tone, as the condition
of Grenits now began seriously to alarm even the medical man. The
smoker's pulse had fallen to 62, and his respiration to 24, while
the temperature had risen to 101·40.
Grenits moreover was now growing very restless, and was pouring
forth a torrent of libidinous and incoherent ejaculations. His eyes
were bloodshot, his face much swollen, his skin was hot and dry,
while the hands were damp with clammy sweat. Incessantly he kept
on clamouring for opium. "The pipe, give me the pipe! van Rheijn,
the pipe!" he almost yelled, and this amidst a string of loose and
frantic exclamations.
Murowski, now beginning to fear that the experiment might have been
carried too far, endeavoured to make him drink some of the strong
coffee which had been kept ready for the purpose, by pouring it down
his throat with a spoon. He bathed his head with iced water, and
every now and then, made him sniff strong smelling salts. Thus, with
considerable difficulty, the doctor at length succeeded in somewhat
quieting his patient. The coffee, especially, seemed to have a soothing
effect. At first Grenits violently resisted all attempts to make him
swallow it; but presently, of his own accord he began to ask for it,
and the beverage had the most sobering effect. Gradually the excitement
began to abate, the patient's voice became more natural and subdued,
and his utterances less wild. At length Grenits fell into a deep sleep.
Murowski took out his pocket-book and wrote: Pulse 70, respiration 24,
temperature 100.
"Normal," said he with a sigh of relief, "quite normal! However, I
shall not leave him to-night." The gaoler was very easily persuaded to
allow the doctor to remain with his patient for that night, and Grenits
slept for thirty-three hours. When he at length awoke he found that,
with the exception of a feeling of exhaustion and a pretty severe
headache, he was none the worse of his opium-debauch. Even these
unpleasant sensations, however, left him as soon as he had taken a
bath, and then he became ravenously hungry so that his attendant had
some difficulty in serving him quickly and plentifully enough.
Three days after these events Murowski was on his way to his new
station. It was his intention to expand his notes into a full account
of what he had witnessed, and to send his paper on the effects of
opium smoking to one of the scientific publications in Germany.
The experiment in the prison at Santjoemeh had one good effect, at
least, upon those who were assembled to witness it: it served namely,
to confirm the opinions they already held with regard to the use of
opium. It would not be true to say that van Rheijn had ever stood up
as a defender of the use of the drug; yet he had always striven to
find some argument in palliation of the Government system; but now
even he was completely converted.
With poor Theodoor Grenits the events of that evening were, for a
long time, a very sore point; and he never could bear the slightest
allusion made to his antics while under the spell of the poppy-juice.
"May I be hanged!" he cried, "if ever again I touch a bedoedan,
however seductive and pleasant may be the images it calls up." And
then, turning to his friends, he said, "Gentlemen, I beg you will do
me the great favour of never, in the slightest manner, alluding to
the past; and," continued he enthusiastically, "let us now join hands
and solemnly declare war--war to the knife against the opium trade."