The demon-shape, which I now clearly recognise as that which had
figured in my last “dream” at Cambridge, seemed to gulp. At that
instant a convulsion shook the dying man and a coughing eructation
took the “demon.” Instantly the whole theory dawned on me, that this
“demon” was an imaginary personification of the disease. Now at once I
understood demonology, from Bodin and Weirus to the moderns, without a
flaw. But was it imaginary or was it real? Real enough to swallow up
the “sane” thought!
At that instant the old Arthur reappeared. “I am not the monster! I am
Arthur Blair, of Fettes and Trinity. I have passed through a paroxysm.”
The sick man stirred feebly. A portion of his brain had shaken off the
poison for the moment, and was working furiously against time.
“I am going to die.
“The consolation of death is Religion.
“There is no use for Religion in life.
“How many atheists have I not known sign the articles for the sake of
fellowships and livings! Religion in life is either an amusement and a
soporific, or a sham and a swindle.
“I was brought up a Presbyterian.
“How easily I drifted into the English Church!
“And now where is God?
“Where is the Lamb of God?
“Where is the Saviour?
“Where is the Comforter?
“Why was I not saved from that devil?
“Is he going to eat me again? To absorb me into him? O fate
inconceivably hideous! It is quite clear to me--I hope you’ve got it
down, Magdalen!--that the demon is made of all those that have died
of Bright’s disease. There must be different ones for each disease. I
thought I once caught sight of a coughing bog of bloody slime.
“Let me pray.”
A frenzied appeal to the Creator followed. Sincere as it was, it would
read like irreverence in print.
And then there came the cold-drawn horror of stark blasphemy against
this God--who would not answer.
Followed the bleak black agony of the conviction--the absolute
certitude--“There is no God!” combined with a wave of frenzied wrath
against the people who had so glibly assured him that there was, an
almost maniac hope that they would suffer more than he, if it were
possible.
(Poor Arthur! He had not yet brushed the bloom off Suffering’s grape;
he was to drink its fiercest distillation to the dregs.)
“No!” thought he, “perhaps I lack their ‘faith.’
“Perhaps if I could really persuade myself of God and Christ--perhaps
if I could deceive myself, could make believe----”
Such a thought is to surrender one’s honesty, to abdicate one’s reason.
It marked the final futile struggle of his will.
The demon caught and crunched him, and the noisy delirium began anew.
My flesh and blood rebelled. Taken with a deathly vomit, I rushed from
the room, and resolutely, for a whole hour, diverted my sensorium
from thought. I had always found that the slightest trace of tobacco
smoke in a room greatly disturbed my power. On this occasion I puffed
cigarette after cigarette with excellent effect. I knew nothing of what
had been going on.