Towards eight o'clock we both felt the false craving for food which is
produced by alcohol, and we clamoured for dinner. Dinner under such
circumstances produces a delusive feeling of sobriety, and men think
that they have killed the alcohol; but the stuff is still there, and
every molecule of it is ready, as it were, to explode and fly through
the blood when a fresh draught is added. At eleven o'clock we were at
cards with Mr. Coney. At one we went out to admire the moon, and though
one of us saw two moons, he felt a dull pain at the heart as he
remembered days long ago, when the pale splendour brought gladness. When
we had solemnly decided that it was a fine night, we went back to our
reeking room again, and pursued our conversation on the principle that
each man should select his own subject and try to howl down the other
two. This exercise soon palled on us, and one by one we sank to sleep.
The clear light was pouring in when I woke, but the very sight of the
straight beams made me doleful. When a man is in training, that gush of
brightness makes him joyous; but a night with the fiend poisons the
light, the air, the soul. Bob lay on the floor under the full glare of
the window. What a fine fellow he was! His chest bulged strongly under
his fleecy sweater; his neck was round and muscular, and every limb of
him seemed compact and hard. His curls were all dishevelled, and his
face was miserably puffy, but he had not had time to become bloated. No
wonder that girls liked him.
Presently we were all awake, and a more wretched company could not very
well be found. Novelists talk about "a debauch" in a way that makes
novices think debauchery has something grand and mysterious about it.
"We must have orgies; it's the proper thing," says Tom Sawyer the
delightful. The raw lad finds "debauches" mentioned with majestic
melancholy, and he naturally fancies that, although a debauch may be
wicked, it is neither nasty nor contemptible. Why cannot some good man
tell the sordid truth? I suppose he would be accused of Zolaism, but he
would frighten away many a nice lad from the wrong road. Let any
youngster who reads this try to remember his worst sick headache; let
him (if he has been to sea) remember that moment when he longed for
someone to come and throw him overboard; let him then imagine that he
has committed a deadly crime; let him also fancy what he would feel if
he knew that some awful irreparable calamity must inevitably fall on him
within an hour. Then he will understand that state of mind and body
which makes men loathe beauty, loathe goodness, loathe life; then he
will understand what jolly fellows endure.
We glowered glassily on each other, and we were quite ready either to
quarrel or to shed tears on the faintest provocation. Presently Bob
laughed in a forced way, and said, "God, what a head! Let's come out.
Those yellow shades make me bilious." The glory of full day flooded the
lovely banks, but the light pained our eyes, and we sought refuge in the
cool, dim shades of the parlour. Our conversation was exactly like that
of passengers on board ship when they are just about to collapse. The
minutes seemed like hours; our limbs were listless, as if we had been
beaten into helplessness. So passed one doleful hour. I mentioned
breakfast, and Bob shuddered, while Coney rushed from the room. What a
pleasant thing is a jovial night!
"Let's see if we can manage some champagne," said Darbishire, and the
"merry" three were soon mournfully gazing on a costly magnum. Sip by sip
we contrived to drink a glass each; then the false thirst woke, the
nausea departed, and we were started again for the day.
I persisted in taking violent exercise, but Darbishire seemed to have
lost all his muscular aptitudes, and although I implored him to exert
himself, he sank into a lethargy that was only varied by mad fits,
during which he performed the freaks of a lunatic. After the sixth day's
drinking I proposed to go away. Bob looked queerly at me, and said in a
whisper, "Don't you try it on! See that!" and he showed me a little
Derringer. I laughed; but I was not really amused. You always notice
that, when a man is about to go wrong, he thinks of killing those whom
he likes best. That night Bob's hands flew asunder with a jerk while we
were playing cards; the cards flew about; then he flung a decanter
violently into the fireplace, and sat down trembling and glaring. I
sprang to his side, and found that the sweat was running down his neck.
I pulled off his shoes--his socks were drenched! I said, "I thought
you'd get them, old fellow. Now, have some beef-tea, and I'll send right
away for a sleeping draught." Bob trembled still more.
"No beef-tea. I've had nothing these three days, as you know. It would
kill me to swallow." Then he said, in a horrible whisper, "The brute's
coming down the chimney again. There's a paw! Now his head! Now's a
chance! Yah! you pink devil, that's got you! Three days you've been
coming, and now you're cheeky. Yeo, ho! That's done him." Then he flung
a second decanter, and sank down once more with a shriek.
"I'll have a drink on that!" he screamed; and I let him take a full
glass of spirits, for I wanted to secure the Derringer. The drink
appeared to paralyse him, and I slipped down to the landlord's room. The
worthy man took things very coolly; none of his trade ever like to see a
man drunk, but they become hardened to it in time, and talk about
delirium tremens as if it were measles. Here is the dialogue.
"Bob's queer."
"I thought so. He's had 'em once before. He must be careful, but you
can't stop him."
"I must have help. I could drown myself when I think that I've perhaps
encouraged him."
"Don't you worry yourself. He'd have been a million times worse if you'd
not been about. He sits with the watchmen and all sorts of tow-rags
then."
"We must get him home somehow."
The landlord fairly shouted: "Home! anything but that! Not that I want
to keep him, but we must have him right first. There's his mother, what
could she do?" Then, dropping his voice, the shrewd fellow said, "You
see, it would nearly pay me to be without his custom, for I'm in the old
lady's hands. Fact is, they've engaged him to a swell girl, and she's
awful spoons on him, for there ain't nobody so nice and hearty as he is
when he's square. He's fond of her, too, but she wants to _reclaim_ him,
don't you know, and he kinder kicks. So he says when he came, "I'm going
to be out of apron-strings for a bit," and I don't want him to go near
home till he's fit to meet the lady. She's a screamer, she is--a real
swell; and she'd go off her head if she saw him with 'em on. I'll tell
you what we'll do. I've got one bromide of potass draught. We'll get
that into him somehow, and in the morning we may manage to feed him.
During the day we'll get some more stuff from the doctor, and patch him
up ready for home I don't care to see him again, for there's no stopping
him."
When I went up to our room, Bob was lying on the floor, and breathing
heavily. He opened his eyes, rose, and staggered a little; then he said,
"B'lieve I can walk a bit; come out for a stroll on the tow-path." The
moon was charging through wild clouds, and the river was flecked
alternately by strong lights and broad swathes of shadow. Bob muttered
as he walked; so, to give him an excuse for conversation, I said, "Why
were you chucking the hardware so gay and free, Robert?" He put his lips
to my ear, and said, "That pink tom cat has followed me for ever so
long, and I can't do for him anyhow. By God, he's everywhere! A pink
cat, you know, with eyes made of red fire. He's on to me just when I
don't expect him. Take me for a row. The brute can't come on the water."
"You'll never go out to-night!"
"Won't I? And so will you, or I'll know the reason why!"