THE THEORY OF IDLENESS
I
Within the next seven days Mr. Prohack had reason to lose confidence in
himself as an expert in human nature. "After all," he reflected, "I must
have been a very simple-minded man to have thought that I thoroughly
understood another human being. Every human being is infinite, and will
beat your understanding in the end."
The reference of course was to his wife. Since the automobile accident
she had become another person and a more complex person. The climax, or
what seemed to be the climax, came one cold morning when she and Mr.
Prohack and Sissie and Dr. Veiga were sitting together in the little
boudoir beyond the bedroom. They were packed in there because Eve
(otherwise Marian) had taken a fancy to the sofa.
Eve was relating to the admired and trusted doctor all her peculiar
mental and moral symptoms. She was saying that she could no longer
manage the house, could not concentrate her mind on anything, could not
refrain from strange caprices, could not remain calm, could not keep her
temper, and was the worst conceivable wife for such a paragon as Arthur
Prohack. Her daughter alone had saved the household organism from a
catastrophe; her daughter Sissie--
"Come here, Sissie!"
Sissie obeyed the call and was suddenly embraced by her mother with deep
tenderness. This in front of the doctor! Still more curious was the fact
that Sissie, of late her mother's frigid critic, came forward and
responded to the embrace almost effusively. The spectacle was really
touching. It touched Mr. Prohack, who yet felt as if the floor had
yielded under his feet and he was falling into the Tube railway
underground. Indeed Mr. Prohack had never had such sensations as drew
and quartered him then.
"Well," said Dr. Veiga to Mrs. Prohack in his philosophical-realistic
manner, "I've been marking time for a week. I shall now proceed to put
you right. You can't sleep. You will sleep to-night--I shall send you
something. I suppose it isn't your fault that you've been taking the
digestive tonic I sent you last thing at night under the impression that
it was a sedative, in spite of the label. But it is regrettable. As for
your headaches, I will provide a pleasing potion. As for this sad lack
of application, don't attempt application. As for your strange caprices,
indulge them. One thing is essential. You must go away to the sea. You
must go to Frinton-on-Sea. It is an easy journey. There is a Pullman car
on the morning train, and the air is unrivalled for your--shall I
say?--idiosyncrasy."
"Yes, darling mother," said Sissie. "You must go away, and father and I
will take you."
"Of course!" confirmed Mr. Prohack, with an imitation of pettishness, as
though he had been steadily advocating a change of scene for days past;
but he had done nothing of the kind.
"Oh!" Eve cried piteously, "that's the one thing I can't do!"
Dr. Veiga laughed. "Afraid of the expense, I suppose?"
"No," Eve answered with seriousness. "My husband has just made a very
fortunate investment, which means a profit of at least a hundred
thousand pounds--like that!" She snapped her fingers and laughed
lightly.
Here was another point to puzzle an expert in human nature. Instead of
being extremely incredulous and apprehensive about the vast speculation
with Sir Paul, Eve had in truth accepted it for a gold-mine. She did not
assume satisfaction; she really was satisfied. Her satisfaction was
absurd, and nothing that Mr. Prohack could say would diminish it. She
had already begun to spend the financial results of the speculation with
enormous verve. For instance, she had hired another Eagle to take the
place of the wounded Eagle, without uttering a word to her husband of
what she had done. Mr. Prohack could see the dregs of his bank-balance;
and in a dream he had had glimpses of a sinister edifice at the bottom
of a steep slope, the building being the Bankruptcy Court.
"Is it a railway strike you're afraid of?" demanded Dr. Veiga cruelly.
And Eve replied with sweetness:
"I can't leave London until my son Charlie comes back from Glasgow, and
he's written me to say he'll be here next week."
A first-rate example, this, of her new secretiveness! She had said
absolutely nothing to Mr. Prohack about a letter from Charlie.
"When did you hear that?" Mr. Prohack might well have asked; but he was
too loyal to her to betray her secretiveness by such a question. He did
not wish the Portuguese quack to know that he, the husband, was kept in
the dark about anything whatever. He had his ridiculous dignity, had
Mr. Prohack, and all his motives were mixed motives. Not a perfectly
pure motive in the whole of his volitional existence!
However, Sissie put the question in her young blundering way. "Oh,
mother dear! You never told us!"
"I received the letter the day before yesterday," Eve continued gravely.
"And Charlie is certainly not coming home to find me away."
For two entire days she had had the important letter and had concealed
it. Mr. Prohack was disturbed.
"Very well," Dr. Veiga concurred. "It doesn't really matter whether you
go to Frinton now or next month, or even next year but one. You're a
powerful woman and you'll last a long time yet, especially if you don't
worry. I won't call for about a week, and if you'd like to consult
another doctor, do." He smiled on her in an avuncular manner, and rose.
Whereupon Mr. Prohack also jumped up.
"I'm not worrying," she protested, with a sweet, pathetic answering
smile. "Yes, I am. Yes, I am. I'm worrying because I know I'm worrying
my poor husband." She went quickly to her poor husband and kissed him
lavishly. Eve was an artist in kissing, and never a greater artist than
at that moment. And now Mr. Prohack, though still to the physical eye a
single individual, became two Mr. Prohacks. There was the Mr. Prohack
who strongly deprecated this departure from the emotional reserve which
is one of the leading and sublimest characteristics of the British
governing-class. And there was the Mr. Prohack, all nerves and heart and
humanity, who profoundly enjoyed the demonstration of a woman's
affection, disordered and against the rules though the demonstration
might be. The first Mr. Prohack blushed and hated himself for blushing.
The second was quite simply enraptured and didn't care who knew it.
"Dr. Veiga," Eve appealed, clinging to Mr. Prohack's coat. "It is my
husband who needs looking after. He is not making any progress, and it
is my fault. And let me tell you that you've been neglecting him for
me."
She was a dramatic figure of altruism, of the everlasting sacrificial
feminine. She was quite possibly absurd, but beyond doubt she was
magnificent. Mr. Prohack felt ashamed of himself, and the more ashamed
because he considered that he was in quite tolerable health.
"Mother," murmured Sissie, with a sweetness of which Mr. Prohack had
imagined her to be utterly incapable. "Come and sit down."
And Eve, guided by her daughter, the callous, home-deserting
dancing-mistress, came and sat down.
* * * * *
II
"My dear sir," said Dr. Veiga. "There is nothing at all to cause alarm.
She will gradually recover. Believe me."
He and Mr. Prohack and Sissie were conspiring together in the
dining-room, the drawing-room being at that hour and on that day under
the dominion of servants with brushes.
"But what's the matter with her? What is it?"
"Merely neurasthenia--traumatic neurasthenia."
"But what's that?" Mr. Prohack spoke low, just as though his wife could
overhear from the boudoir above and was listening to them under the
impression that they were plotting against her life.
"It's a morbid condition due to a violent shock."
"But how? You told me the other day that it was purely physical."
"Well," said Dr. Veiga. "It is, because it must be. But I assure you
that if a post-mortem were to be held on Mrs. Prohack--"
"Oh, doctor, please!" Sissie stopped him resentfully.
The doctor paused and then continued: "There would be no trace of any
morbid condition in any of the organs."
"Then how do you explain it?"
"We don't explain it," cried Dr. Veiga, suddenly throwing the onus on
the whole medical profession. "We can't. We don't know."
"It's very, very unsatisfactory, all this ignorance."
"It certainly is. But did you suppose that medical science, alone among
all sciences, had achieved finality and omniscience? We've reached the
state of knowing that we don't know, and that's something. I hope I'm
not flattering you by talking like this. I only do it to people whom I
suspect to be intelligent. But of course if you'd prefer the omniscient
bedside manner you can have it without extra charge."
Mr. Prohack thought, frightened: "I shall be making a friend of this
quack soon, if I'm not careful."
"And by the way, about _your_ health," Dr. Veiga proceeded, after
having given further assurances as to his other patient. "Mrs. Prohack
was perfectly correct. You're not making progress. The fact is, you're
bored. You haven't organised your existence, and the lack of
organisation is reacting on your health."
"Something is reacting on his health," Sissie put in. "I'm not at all
pleased." She was now not Mr. Prohack's daughter but his aunt.
"How can I organise my existence?" Mr. Prohack burst out crossly. "I
haven't got any existence to organise. I haven't got anything to do. I
thought I had too much to do, the other day. Illusion. Of course I'm
bored. I feel all right, but bored I am. And it's your fault."
"It is," the doctor admitted. "It is my fault. I took you for a person
of commonsense, and so I didn't tell you that two and two make four and
a lot more important things of the same sort. I ought to have told you.
You've taken on the new profession of being idle--it's essential for
you--but you aren't treating it seriously. You have to be a
_professionally_ idle man. Which means that you haven't got a moment to
spare. When I advised you to try idleness, I didn't mean you to be idle
idly. That's worse than useless. You've got to be idle busily. You
aren't doing half enough. Do you ever have a Turkish bath?"
"No. Never could bear the idea of them."
"Well, you will kindly take two Turkish baths a week. You can be
massaged at the same time. A Turkish bath is as good as a day's hunting,
as far as exercise goes, but you must have more exercise. Do you dance?
I see you don't. You had better begin dancing. There is no finer
exercise. I absolutely prescribe it."
At this juncture Mr. Prohack was rather relieved that the sound of an
unaccustomed voice in the hall drew his daughter out of the dining-room.
When she had gone Dr. Veiga went on, in a more confidential tone:
"There's another point. An idle man who really knows his business will
visit his tailor's, his hosier's, his bootmaker's, his barber's much
oftener and much more conscientiously than you do. You've got a mind
above clothes--of course. So have I. I take a wicked pleasure in being
picturesquely untidy. But I'm not a patient. My life is a great lark.
Yours isn't. Yours is serious. You have now a serious profession,
idleness. Bring your mind down to clothes. I say this, partly because to
be consistently well-dressed means much daily expenditure of time, and
partly because really good clothes have a distinctly curative effect on
the patient who wears them. Then again--"
Mr. Prohack was conscious of a sudden joyous uplifting of the spirit.
"Here!" said he, interrupting Dr. Veiga with a grand gesture. "Have a
cigar."
"I cannot, my friend." Dr. Veiga looked at his watch.
"You must. Have a corona." Mr. Prohack moved to the cigar cabinet which
he had recently purchased.
"No. My next patient is awaiting me in Hyde Park Gardens at this
moment."
"Let him die!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack ruthlessly. "You've got to have a
cigar with me. Look. I'll compromise. I'll make it a half-corona. You
can charge me as if for another consultation."
The doctor's foreign eyes twinkled as he sat down and struck a match.
"You thought I was a quack," he said maliciously, and maliciously he
seemed to intensify his foreign accent.
"I did," admitted Mr. Prohack with candour.
"So I am," said Dr. Veiga. "But I'm a fully qualified quack, and all
really good doctors are quacks. They have to be. They wouldn't be worth
anything if they weren't. Medicine owes a great deal to quacks."
"Tell me something about some of your cases," said Mr. Prohack
imperatively. "You're one of the most interesting men I've ever met. So
now you know. We want some of your blood transfused, into the English
character. You've got a soul above medicine as well as clothes."
"All good doctors have," said Dr. Veiga. "My life is a romance."
"And so shall mine be," said Mr. Prohack.
* * * * *
III
When at length Mr. Prohack escorted Dr. Veiga out into the hall he saw
Sissie kissing Eliza Brating with much affection on the front-door step.
They made an elegant group for a moment and then Eliza Brating departed
hurriedly, disappearing across the street behind Dr. Veiga's attendant
car.
"Now I'll just repeat once more to both of you," resumed Dr. Veiga,
embracing father and daughter in one shrewd glance. "You've nothing to
worry about upstairs." He indicated the boudoir by a movement of his
somewhat tousled head. "But you've got just a little to worry about
here." And he indicated Mr. Prohack.
"I know," said Sissie with assurance. "But I shall look after him,
doctor. You can rely on me. I understand--both cases."
"Well, there's one good thing," said Sissie, following her father into
the dining-room after the doctor had gone. "I've done with that foolish
Eliza. I knew it couldn't last and it hasn't. Unless I'm there all the
time to keep my eye on everything--of course it all goes to pieces. That
girl is the biggest noodle...!"
"But haven't I just seen you and her joined in the deepest affection?"
"Naturally I had to kiss her. But I've finished with her. And what's
more, she knows what I think of her. She never liked me."
"Sissie," said Mr. Prohack, "you shock me." And indeed he was genuinely
shocked, for he had always thought that Sissie was different from other
girls; that she had all the feminine qualities without any of the
feminine defects. Yes, he had thought that she might develop into a
creature more perfect even than Marian. And here she was talking and
behaving exactly as men at the club would relate of their own
conventional women.
Sissie gazed firmly at her father, as it were half in pity and half in
disdain. Did the innocent fellow not then understand the nature of
women? Or was he too sentimental to admit it, too romantic to be a
realist?
"Would you believe," said Sissie, "that although I was there last night
and told her exactly what to do, she's had a quarrel this morning with
the landlord of the studio? Well, she has. You know the A.R.A. on the
first floor has been making a lot of silly complaints about the
noise--music and so on--every night. And some other people have
complained. _I_ could have talked the landlord round in ten minutes!
Eliza doesn't merely not talk him round,--she quarrels with him! Of
course it's all up. And as if that wasn't enough, a County Council
inspector has been round asking about a music and dancing licence. We
shall either have to give up business altogether or else move somewhere
else. Eliza says she knows of another studio. Well, I shall write her
to-night and tell her she can have my share of the fittings and
furniture and go where she likes, but I shan't go with her. And if she
never liked me I can honestly say I never liked her. And I don't want to
run a dancing studio any more, either. Why should I, after all? We
_were_ the new poor. Now we're the new rich. Well, we may as well _be_
the new rich."
Mr. Prohack was now still more shocked. Nay, he was almost frightened.
And yet he wasn't either shocked or frightened, in the centre of his
soul. He was rather triumphant,--not about his daughter with the feet of
clay, but about himself.
"But I shan't give up teaching dancing entirely," said Sissie.
"No?" He wondered what would come next.
"No! I shall teach you."
"Indeed you won't!" He instinctively recoiled.
"Yes, I shall. I promised the doctor he could rely on me. You'll buy a
gramophone, and we'll have the carpet up in the drawing-room. Oh! You
startled deer, do you want to run back into the depths of the forest?...
Father, you are the funniest father that ever was." She marched to him
and put her hand on his shoulder and just twitched his beard. "I can
look after you quite as well as mother can. We're pals, aren't we?"
"Yes. Like the tiger and the lamb. You've got hold of my silky fleece
already."
IV
Mr. Prohack sat in the dining-room alone. The room was now heated by an
electric radiator which Eve had just bought for the sake of economy. But
her economy was the economy of the rich, for the amount of expensive
current consumed by that radiator was prodigious, while the saving it
effected in labour, cleanliness and atmospheric purity could certainly
not have been measured without a scientific instrument adapted to the
infinitely little. (Still, Machin admired and loved it.) Mr. Prohack
perceived that all four bars of it were brightly incandescent, whereas
three bars would have been ample to keep the room warm. He ought to get
up and turn a bar off.... He had a hundred preoccupations. His daughter
had classed him with the new rich. He resented the description, but
could he honestly reject it? All his recent troubles sprang from the new
riches. If he had not inherited from a profiteer he would assuredly have
been at his office in the Treasury, earning an honest living, at that
very moment. For only sick persons of plenteous independent means are
ever prescribed for as he had been prescribed for; the others either go
on working and making the best of such health as is left to them, or
they die. If he had not inherited from a profiteer he would not have had
a car and the car would not have had an accident and he would not have
been faced with the prospect (as he was faced with it) of a legal
dispute, to be fought by him on behalf of the insurance company, with
the owner of the colliding car. (The owner of the colliding car was a
young woman as to whose veracity Carthew had had some exceedingly hard
things to say.) Mr. Prohack would have settled the matter, but neither
Eve nor the insurance company would let him settle it. And if the car
had not had an accident Eve would not have had traumatic neurasthenia,
with all its disconcerting reactions on family life. And if he had not
inherited from a profiteer, Charlie would not have gone off to
Glasgow,--he had heard odds and ends of strange tales as to Charlie's
doings in Glasgow,--not in the least reassuring! And if he had not
inherited from a profiteer Sissie would not have taken a share in a
dancing studio and might never have dangerously danced with that worm
Oswald Morfey. And if he had not inherited from a profiteer he would not
have been speculating, with a rich chance of more profiteering, in
Roumanian oil with Paul Spinner. In brief--well, he ought to get up and
turn off a bar of that wasteful radiator.
Yet he was uplifted, happy. Not because of his wealthy ease. No! A week
or two ago he had only to think of his fortune to feel uplifted and
happy. But now!
No! He was uplifted and happy now for the simple reason that he had
caught the romance of the doctor's idea of taking idleness seriously and
practising it as a profession. If circumstances forced him to be idle,
he would be idle in the grand manner. He would do everything that the
doctor had suggested, and more. (The doctor saw life like a poet. He
might be a cross between a comedian and a mountebank, but he was a great
fellow.) Every species of idleness should have its appointed hour. In
the pursuit of idleness he would become the busiest man in London. A
definite programme would be necessary. Strict routine would be
necessary. No more loafing about! He hankered after routine as the
drunkard after alcohol. Routine was what he had been missing. The
absence of routine, and naught else, was retarding his recovery. (Yes,
he knew in his heart that what they all said was true,--he was not
getting better.) His own daughter had taught him wisdom. Inevitably,
unavoidably, he was the new rich. Well, he would be the new rich
thoroughly. No other aim was logical.... Let the radiator burn!