the very devil out of yourself,” he flung at him and left the room, his
shoulders swaying.
Martin went to a liquor store and bought a gallon of wine. In his room,
he sat down on the edge of the bed, kicked off his shoes and began to
drink. Half-drunken, he lay back and soon fell asleep.
He awoke in the late morning. He knew his position. The contact had been
broken. Sick from the evening’s drinking he got out of bed and looked at
his face in the mirror. His cheeks were pale and there was an unhealthy
expression in his eyes. He felt his heart. Its methodical, heavy beat
disturbed him. He poured a glass of wine and drank it swiftly. The nerves
deadened. His apprehension died and he stood again before the mirror,
regarding himself calmly. He shaved and dressed, took another glass of
wine and went out, going directly to the typographical plant.
His former employer was writing. Martin looked at him vaguely, hesitating
before his desk.
“What is it, young man?” asked Jackson, glancing up with impatience.
“No one told me why I was fired,” said Martin indistinctly. “Will there
be anything later?”
His condition seemed a little pitiable to Jackson, although, the
employer told himself, such individualities really belonged outside the
mathematical régime of commerce. One had to dispose of them accordingly.
“There will be nothing later,” he stated firmly. “You were inefficient. I
can see no reason for returning you to this Company.”
“I want to work,” said Martin. “That’s the reason.” His fingers rubbed
the top of the desk and he looked unsteadily at the man behind it.
Jackson arose.
“You’re drunk, Devaud,” he said. “It is not a question of personalities.
Good-day.”
Martin gave him a perplexed look. The impeccable tailoring of his
employer’s suit had suddenly become offensive to him. Completely
bewildered by this strange revulsion, Martin turned and walked out of the
room.
“Good-day,” he said, and went down the steps and out into the street.
“Good-day,” he kept repeating into the ears of astonished passers-by.
He stopped, after he had wandered awhile, before a restaurant; for he
smelled the aroma of coffee. Then he shook his fist at the window.
“_That_ won’t split this illness!” he said, and walked on, mumbling.
In his room he sat down once more on the edge of the bed. His mind,
levitated by wine and discouragement, projected itself. Images rose
before him. Secretive, luxurious women were in his fantasy. He drank
again and went to bed. He slept, awakened, washed his face and slept
once more, reality and the dream becoming as one. Day and night passed.
The sun rose, slanted, fell over the windowsill and crept up the bed into
Martin’s eyes. He awakened, his heart pounding. He stood up and finished
the last of the wine.
“Internal application only!” he observed. Repeatedly the mirror drew
him. “Poison if taken externally,” he continued amiably; then seeing the
foolish expression on his face, turned away in disgust.
He looked at himself again.
“Emancipation!” he shouted. “To business! To weaving, undecipherable sex
and even my own hot mouth!” In amazement he looked into the crypt of his
eyes. That soft sound of weeping.... “From the ceiling,” he cried. “Not
from these French fried lips!” He went back to bed.
In a dream he placed his hand on his hard body.
“The unborn,” he whispered, breaking his hand on himself. “Modest
child of onanism.... One daughter who will not ride the world on her
ruby-jeweled bird’s nest!... One lad who will not ride the world on a
bird’s nest!”
He awoke and looked at the ceiling. The room was death. Outside, snow
was falling, flakes padding the window. He stared into the darkness. To
escape without struggle—his body falling—and then, rest—infinitely deep
and sweet.... His imagination stretched steeply into awareness. Not into
chaos or unreality. The wind pressed snow on the window, through the
window and into his arms. He felt the cold. Holding his hands into the
air, he prayed....
“God!”
No bright arm of light; no sound of wings. It was four in the morning
and his terror had grown to a deadening satisfaction. The rose shadows
of steepled city buildings at night rang dimly in his court, their inner
warmth full of promise and engaging noise. He looked out of the window,
and shook his head.
“Too young and stupid, my infantile prince,” he said, and touched the
gooseflesh on his arm, kissing with faint disdain its embarrassed nubs.
“Back to bed again to sleep and jump like a poisoned cat.” And another
day waved her dreaming, blue hands, regretfully——
Martin knew an alternative in that purple morning. A gun—the shot—the
quick flutter of his hand.
“No,” he whispered. “Too demure. Fruitful, but demure.”
Outside, the sun blended into trucks and the yapping noise of turning
wheels. He dressed and went into the street, stopping at the nearest bar.
And strangely, in all his tiredness and fear, arose the man as he had
been—straight from the ocean, with clear eyes that had watched the sea so
often, and with hand half-raised as though holding the helm of his ship.
It was momentary; but the bartender stood looking at him quietly and with
respect.
“A Guinness’s Stout,” said Martin.
“A nip or a pint, sir?” asked the man.
“A nip and a pint.”
The black liquid hung to Martin’s glass as he raised it to his lips. The
stout ran through his dry throat and into his stomach, washing away the
starved slime. It spanged against his knotted intestines, loosening their
disgusted quiver. It broke the cordy fold of nervous tissue.
Martin bent over the bar, touched by its rustic intimacy. Out of its
shining, wooden face arose the image of Deane, slim-throated, filling the
mist. She moved closer. Martin mused over the bar and drank, and drank
again. The liquor sank to his nerves and he awoke.
Deane forgotten?... Her bell-like gown drifting over his teeth—sprung
from the fog—outlined in the smoke of his thoughts....
The subway was crowded. Meaty faces lined in pink, pale array before
him. A woman, mother of too many, rubbed a glove over her nose, worry
misting her eyes, a dustpan supporting her neck. Across from her perched
a she-gazelle on meatless haunches, hair and breasts correctly arranged.
The train stopped and Martin went up the stairs into the cold wind. He
entered a building and walked down the hall to Deane’s apartment.
She opened the door and stood before him, a bright, tremulous blur. He
swayed a little and she caught him by the shoulder, assisting him into
the room. He tried to stand straight, smiling gently through his brackish
eyes.
“It’s all right, Deane, but I can’t stop my mind,” he said. “I can’t
stop it from turning.” He licked the dry scale of his lips. “I can’t do
it.” He closed his eyes tightly to keep in the moisture and talked on
rapidly, glibly.
From the window came the city lights. Deane sat in a chair, brooding, a
frightened look on her face; for Martin’s hysteria grew in the strength
of evening. His motions became more selfish. Every idea turned upon
itself.
“Somewhere,” he said, “there is a worm. A relentless worm canting my
words, embarrassing me—deep, vicious and blinding.”
“What do you want me to do, Martin?” All of Deane’s tolerance—her
understanding and affection were contained in this question; but he was
deafened with pain and apprehension and all the seeds of disaster which
fall, germinate and grow so swiftly in certain poisonous gardens. He put
his hand across his face.
“Let’s get a doctor,” he said. “A magical doctor ... a sorcerer ... a
doctor for a sorcerer.”
Deane nodded her head. And if he could have seen her then, in the gown he
loved and with all the concern in her eyes, it might have taken him from
this evil spell. But he was blind and sick and walked like a dead man;
while in his agony he cried, “No! Nothing! Get nothing!” Tormented, he
went across the room to her, and as he faltered, Deane caught him in her
arms.
_CHAPTER IX_
Martin felt the hum of an elevator, fresh air in his face and the
movement of an automobile. He knew that he was talking too much to an
individual he’d never seen before, and suddenly found himself in a
long bright corridor that smelled of medicine. He was helped into a
semi-darkened room and felt a glass between his lips. He thought of
Roberts, swallowed and choked.
“It’s ether,” he said.
“No, it isn’t,” said the nurse, standing by him and trying to get him
into bed. “It will be good for you.”
Martin saw her for the first time. Then he felt himself falling. The
nurse steadied him, and suddenly everything was clear. He felt well,
stimulated. He wanted to talk some more.
“So! Martin finally reaches Hell! Our pathological bundle of yeast
becomes animate in Bedlam!”
“_Won’t_ you get into bed?” asked the nurse. “You will be sleepy in a
minute.”
“All right.” He stood up, swaying. “Martin in Hell. Being tucked in bed
by an angel with wide hips. Coasting to sleep with a bellyful of ether.
A true Nirvana for a true aesthete.” He stopped talking. Again hysteria
struck him. But this time it was soft and languorous and he held it
tightly as it moved in his groin. His breathing was quiet.
The nurse sat beside him in the darkened room. He breathed slowly now,
beginning to jerk and posture. He held his hand in the air as though
emphasizing a dream.
In the early morning he awakened. His hand moved over the side of the
bed, reaching for a bottle of wine. His fingers went back and forth over
the rug. Then he opened his eyes and saw the woman sitting beside him.
“Are you my nurse?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m your nurse. Won’t you go back to sleep?”
“I hurt,” said Martin. “I hurt all over, but my back is the worst. And I
need a drink.”
“What would you like?”
“Whisky. A big one.”
“I’ll get your medication,” said the girl, and left the room.
Martin looked around him. A hospital—neurotherapy; adjacent to a
madhouse! Weakened your resistance in one and shipped you into the other!
His body ached and his mind still turned. On with the medication!—and
then what? From dipsomania to dope in twelve treatments. Bring on the
bed-straps. Damned efficient nurse, that one—watching him jump around.
Patient. If only his back wouldn’t hurt so terribly. Must be the kidneys.
Need flushing. Why not use a plunger? Imagine that immaculate nurse
astride him, pounding his gizzard with a plunger!
The nurse returned with two glasses. One was full of orange juice. The
other she held away from her nose.
“More ether?” asked Martin.
“It isn’t.”
“Well, ether or not—down the hatch!” And taking a deep breath he
swallowed.
The nurse steadied him once more and he pressed his head into her breast,
breathing sharply, like a man struck in the throat. He allowed himself to
tremble. His feelings changed from sick horror to quietude and a faint
elation. He let his head drop on the pillow. This time the paraldehyde
brought relief, but no immediate sleep. Words kept ringing in his mind
and he talked on, without cessation. The nurse listened to him, laughing
occasionally. In the morning’s light, Martin slept.
When he awoke, the nurse was gone. He was alone on a bridge with
madmen. He was afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid of fear. A word sounded
in his mind—phobiaphobia, fear of fear. Nothing tangible to fight. The
deep-seated root of the worm in his imagination. His feeling of isolation
became complete, unbearable. He got out of bed and walked into the hall.
A student nurse looked warily at him as he approached—unshaven, with
bloodshot eyes, his unfastened robe trailing.
“Where’s the head nurse?” he asked. “Where is she?”
“Here I am.”
Martin turned on her, white faced and trembling.
“For God’s sake, nurse. Is this a hospital? Get me a drink. Get me
something. And don’t leave me alone.”
She helped him into bed and brought the same medication. Sober,
terror-stricken, Martin could not face the shock of the incredible drug.
The nurse held him, and again Martin drank, feeling the same shudder and
movement of the deep-seated tissue. He reached out and felt the woman’s
arms. A sharp, sweet odor in his nose prolonged his trembling. The nurse
wrapped a blanket around him, leaned over and kissed his damp forehead.
Martin rested, watching her move quietly around the room. Was her kiss a
gesture of sympathy? He met her gentle brown eyes and knew she understood.
The greater part of the next two days and nights he slept, only awakening
to drink the bright, relieving poison. The third day he remembered
Deane—her laugh, the surge of her skirts; and each thought was a torment.
That evening two psychiatrists came to talk with him. One, his own
doctor, young and solemn; the other, the consulting physician, mature,
shrewd, Olympian. Martin explained his fears, bringing up the residue of
his experiences. During his story he caught fragments of remarks from the
older man. Suggestive words such as _masochism_ and _sadism_ set fire to
his imagination. When they left him without comment he was more lonely
and fearful than before. In desperation he entered deeper into his mind,
finding new horror with each analysis. By night the momentum had grown to
such an active fear that the nurse did not dare leave the room. Martin
followed her with his eyes.
The special night nurse came on duty, fresh, buxom and cheerful. Martin
drew new hope out of her vitality. As he watched her straightening his
bed he felt resentment at his own weakness. What was he?—to be fussed
over and coddled like an old dog. He watched the strong shanks of the
girl move steadily around the room. A curious thought entered his
mind and he laughed. The nurse turned and looked at him, fearing new
hallucinations.
“No,” said Martin, “I’m not hysterical. Come here and sit on the bed.”
“I can’t,” said the girl.
“Well, then,” said Martin, “pull that chair closer and sit here.”
She did as he requested, and Martin reached out for her hand. It was soft
and warm. He pressed it tightly, looking into her eyes. The girl’s cheeks
flushed but she did not pull away. Martin looked up at the ceiling, each
fresh thought bringing anger—the keen, strong happiness of anger. This
young animal beside him had given him a new perspective. He turned again
to the nurse and held her hand more tightly, stroking it, and explaining
his movements with his eyes. He reached out for her waist and smiled to
see her pull away. She was afraid. Not he. What did he have to be afraid
of? Phobiaphobia? How foolish! This complex, that complex——
“Listen, nurse,” he said. “I’m cured.”
“Yes. You seem to be much better.”
“Better nothing!” cried Martin. “I’m well. There isn’t anything wrong
with me. I was drunk.”
The girl stared at him for a moment, then put her hand on his shoulder.
“I’ve never believed the things you’ve told me,” she said. “At first, I
thought there was something a little bit—” Her cheeks turned red and she
laughed. “But now, I know you’re just a normal man.”
Martin thought of the woman he loved. Deane! He could go to Deane now.
There was nothing wrong. He thought of his doctors. Surely they had
known. They had left him with that fear—its implication of neuroses and
reference to disgusting complexities. How many lay that night, fed with
bromides and sedatives; crucified on theories!
In the morning when the psychiatrists returned, Martin raised his head
from the pillow.
“Good morning.”
The young doctor nodded his head briefly, blinked his eyes and faced the
light from the window, his face expressionless.
“Good morning. Did you sleep?” asked the older physician, in a
perfunctory tone.
“Very well indeed,” Martin said. Then sitting up a little straighter,
he added, “Doctor! I don’t want to anticipate a diagnosis, but I’m not
sick. You understand that I merely gave a history of the fantasies and
sublimated desires that are in all our minds, but which we are rarely
dyspeptic enough to publicize.”
The older doctor watched him furtively. Martin saw that he resembled a
spider, and grinning to himself, thought that there were probably a few
cobwebs about him. But in the younger doctor’s eyes he saw concern and
liking, and even the faint touch of friendship.
“What do you mean?” asked the older man at last.
Martin climbed out of bed, put on his robe and stood before the
consulting psychiatrist.
“You understand.”
“You have been a child,” said the physician sternly.
“You understand,” repeated Martin.
The psychiatrist took firm hold of his shoulders. There were furious
lights about the man—not understanding; merely curiosity and hatred for
something unintelligible. He tightened his grasp on Martin’s shoulders,
shook his head angrily and stormed out of the room. But the younger
doctor, with all the suns between his eyes, observed in formula Martin’s
pulse and all the rest of it, dismissing his patient with a friendly,
sympathetic nod as soon as he could.
When Martin left the hospital it was snowing. The medication had
destroyed his orientation. He leaned against the wall of the building
for a moment, then tried to walk straight while he looked for a taxi.
Inside the cab he wrapped his coat about him and held his ankles from the
cold air. Sick from the drugs and weak from lack of food, he thought once
more of Deane and smiled. He was tired, but he had won.
When he arrived at the apartment he stopped just inside the door. There
was a woman sitting in a chair. Who was she? Where was Deane? Was this
woman alive? For her face was pale, and her eyes, too large, too dark,
seemed to have lost all comprehension.
“What is wrong?” he asked excitedly. “What is it?”
Deane did not answer but sank down in her chair, covering her face with
hands that trembled.
Martin felt sick. The air in the room suffocated him.
“Deane! It’s Martin!” he cried.
Her hands dropped to her lap.
“I talked with your doctors,” she answered simply. “I talked with them
for two hours. I was ashamed—humiliated.”
“Ashamed of what? Ashamed of me? Why! I’m all right now!”
“I spoke with your doctors,” Deane repeated, as though in fatal
acceptance. “It was horrible.”
Martin took off his coat. He had on no shirt. He looked past Deane for a
moment, leaning heavily against the wall.
“They have taken my girl.” He spoke bitterly. Then in a louder, more
distracted voice, he repeated—“_They have taken my girl._”
He continued to look about him as though in a daze.
“What have they done to you?” he kept asking. “Damn them! Collaborators
with madhouses—sucking my giddy ideas, engendering the malingerer.
They’ve doped you with psychological jargon, hypnotized you with
fine phrases.... Breeders of hypochondriacs! I’m not afraid of them
any longer, I have nothing but contempt for them. I wanted the clear
advice of mature, impersonal intellects, and I meet with personal
vindictiveness.”
“They said you have a persecution complex,” replied Deane. “They tried to
help you.” Her throat was dry and the room was spinning round.
“‘Persecution complex!’” repeated Martin with a contemptuous gesture.
“It’s contagious. It’s a disease—an indiscriminate application of words
typing an individual, placing him in a box, granting him the elasticity
of brick. They are dealing with humanity—not with bricks. What do these
rigid intellectualists know definitely, after all? Stumbling about in the
most infantile science of the lot. A befuddled group of astrologers of
the mind. The more competent admit they know little—admit that while they
do the best they can, that often they must strike out blindly, hoping
that nature will effect a cure.”
Deane’s eyes did not change; but the delicate lids, with their heavy
lashes, gave a sudden, nervous flicker. What was this perspiring man
talking about? She still felt sick. He didn’t have on a shirt. If she
could only rest. She knew that her mind was bleeding. Each of Martin’s
words opened a new point in her brain.
“They are dangerous because they are clever,” he went on. “And some of
them are diabolical. Theirs is a subtle lechery. They love this parade of
erotics. Orgasms by proxy! Intelligent, perverted and ruthless!”
Deane now looked steadily at him. The ice locking her mind moved
restlessly.
“They do good, Martin. Not everyone plays with love and pain the way you
do.”
“Let me rest, Deane. I want to rest.” He leaned for a moment against
the divan and then got up. “You’re the only one I care about,” he
said wearily. “Can these ponderous technicians, with their burden of
world-pain give you happiness? Can you let their hard lines of conduct,
which apply to the diseased, disturb our concept of life? Top-heavy and
non-elastic—surely they cannot appeal to your ideas!”
Deane knew that he was splendid in his agony. She wanted to kiss his
cheeks. She wanted to forget his tiredness, his indictment of psychiatry.
She felt that his imaginings were unfair; untrue; those of a sick man.
She knew that he had talked bravely and fought desperately for her. She
felt all these things. But she stood up and turned away.
Martin knew. He put on his coat and smiled at her. He wanted to tell her
that he loved her. Instead, he left the apartment.
_CHAPTER X_
Rio went down to the Seaman’s Institute for breakfast. He had come to a
conclusion about Martin. He felt that it was useless to look for him. And
Rio needed the sea. It would be easy to get a ship.
The Mediterranean?—Algiers on a hot night, a skiff rubbing its brown
keel on a plaque of sand. Turpentine.... South America?—Through the deep
night wind one single light on Tierra del Fuego, an invalid blonde on the
cruise ship, port of Rio.... Intercoastal?—The French “Babee” Quarter in
Cristobal, water changing under the heat.
Rio scuffed his shoes on the concrete floor and looked up moodily. Then
he saw him. Martin was sitting alone at one of the small tables. Rio
pushed back his chair and walked over to him.
“Well,” he said, looking at Martin’s white face. “Well.”
“Hello, Rio.” Martin raised his cup, but the coffee spilled before it
reached his lips, and without drinking, he replaced the cup on the table.
“You’re a fine guy,” Rio was frowning.
“Yes.”
“Try again.”
“No.”
Rio took his arm and they went into the street. In Rio’s hotel, Martin
lay down on the bed. The other sat beside him.
“You ain’t quite so funny now,” said Rio.
Martin nodded.
“Where you been?”
Martin raised himself on his elbow.
“I’ve been playing bats with a visitor from Saturn. You know it has many
moons. The visitor told me all about them.”
“Yeah,” said Rio dryly. “You only got one. But it ought to be kicked.”
“It has been,” said Martin.
“You son-of-a-bitch.”
Martin couldn’t manage sympathy and started to cry. He didn’t make
any noise and there were no tears. There was just a choking, helpless
movement as he looked steadily at his friend.
Rio got up, lit a cigarette, then sat down once more on the bed and put
the cigarette between Martin’s lips.
“I know all about it, buddy,” he said. “Once in Dairen I piled off a
ship....” He looked away as dreamily as a big ape.
Martin laughed inside to see this fellow trying to be tender, but he
listened to the story and it made him feel better. Finally he sat up.
“One night in the tropics, Rio, you told me I wasn’t a sailor. I knew you
were right, so when we came into New York I got off. I went on Relief and
met a man named Roberts at the Employment Station. He was intelligent and
interesting, but he was like this—” Martin held out his arms.
Rio nodded.
“However, that didn’t make any difference,” Martin continued, lying down
again. “And later, he got me a job.”
“Now ain’t that pretty,” said Rio.
“He got me a job,” Martin went on, “and asked me up to his place. Anyway,
to make this a good yarn, along came the girl. I liked her. Roberts’
vanity was hurt. Perhaps he even liked me. But I thought I loved the
girl.”
“You do.”
“All right, then. I do.”
“So?”
“So Roberts had me fired.”
“So?”
“I got drunk and the girl told me I was through.”
“You weak punk,” said Rio.
Martin hit him in the face. It was a glancing blow off Rio’s nose and
there wasn’t any drive behind it. He tried to get in another one, but Rio
shoved him back on the bed and held his shoulders down. Martin saw that
the big sailor was grinning.
“It’s all right, buddy,” said Rio. “How about some food?”
Martin looked at his friend’s nose. There was a trickle of blood coming
from it.
“All right,” he said, still watching the blood which was dripping over
Rio’s lip.