Book: The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition

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The doctor was an affable local practitioner with white hair, and
he said
nothing till Dick began to describe the gray film in the studio.

'We all want a little patching and repairing from time to time,' he
chirped. 'Like a ship, my dear sir,--exactly like a ship. Sometimes
the hull
is out of order, and we consult the surgeon; sometimes the rigging,
and
then I advise; sometimes the engines, and we go to the
brain-specialist;
sometimes the look-out on the bridge is tired, and then we see an
oculist. I
should recommend you to see an oculist. A little patching and
repairing
from time to time is all we want. An oculist, by all means.'

Dick sought an oculist,--the best in London. He was certain that
the local
practitioner did not know anything about his trade, and more
certain
that Maisie would laugh at him if he were forced to wear
spectacles.

'I've neglected the warnings of my lord the stomach too long.
Hence these
spots before the eyes, Binkie. I can see as well as I ever could.'

As he entered the dark hall that led to the consulting-room a man
cannoned against him. Dick saw the face as it hurried out into the
street.

'That's the writer-type. He has the same modelling of the forehead
as
Torp. He looks very sick. Probably heard something he didn't like.'

Even as he thought, a great fear came upon Dick, a fear that made
him
hold his breath as he walked into the oculist's waiting room, with
the
heavy carved furniture, the dark-green paper, and the sober-hued
prints
on the wall. He recognised a reproduction of one of his own
sketches.

Many people were waiting their turn before him. His eye was
caught by
a flaming red-and-gold Christmas-carol book. Little children came
to
that eye-doctor, and they needed large-type amusement.

'That's idolatrous bad Art,' he said, drawing the book towards
himself.

'From the anatomy of the angels, it has been made in Germany.' He
opened in mechanically, and there leaped to his eyes a verse
printed in
red ink--

The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of three,
To see her good Son Jesus Christ
Making the blind to see;
Making the blind to see, good Lord,
And happy we may be.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
To all eternity!

Dick read and re-read the verse till his turn came, and the doctor
was
bending above him seated in an arm-chair. The blaze of the
gas-microscope in his eyes made him wince. The doctor's hand
touched
the scar of the sword-cut on Dick's head, and Dick explained
briefly how
he had come by it. When the flame was removed, Dick saw the
doctor's
face, and the fear came upon him again. The doctor wrapped
himself in a
mist of words. Dick caught allusions to 'scar,' 'frontal bone,' 'optic
nerve,' 'extreme caution,' and the 'avoidance of mental anxiety.'

'Verdict?' he said faintly. 'My business is painting, and I daren't
waste
time. What do you make of it?'

Again the whirl of words, but this time they conveyed a meaning.

'Can you give me anything to drink?'

Many sentences were pronounced in that darkened room, and the
prisoners often needed cheering. Dick found a glass of liqueur
brandy in
his hand.

'As far as I can gather,' he said, coughing above the spirit, 'you call
it
decay of the optic nerve, or something, and therefore hopeless.
What is
my time-limit, avoiding all strain and worry?'

'Perhaps one year.'

'My God! And if I don't take care of myself?'

'I really could not say. One cannot ascertain the exact amount of
injury
inflicted by the sword-cut. The scar is an old one, and--exposure to
the
strong light of the desert, did you say?--with excessive application
to fine
work? I really could not say?'

'I beg your pardon, but it has come without any warning. If you
will let
me, I'll sit here for a minute, and then I'll go. You have been very
good in
telling me the truth. Without any warning; without any warning.

Thanks.'

Dick went into the street, and was rapturously received by Binkie.

'We've got it very badly, little dog! Just as badly as we can get it.
We'll
go to the Park to think it out.'

They headed for a certain tree that Dick knew well, and they sat
down to
thin, because his legs were trembling under him and there was cold
fear
at the pit of his stomach.

'How could it have come without any warning? It's as sudden as
being
shot. It's the living death, Binkie. We're to be shut up in the dark in
one
year if we're careful, and we shan't see anybody, and we shall
never have
anything we want, not though we live to be a hundred!' Binkie
wagged
his tail joyously. 'Binkie, we must think. Let's see how it feels to be
blind.' Dick shut his eyes, and flaming commas and
Catherine-wheels
floated inside the lids. Yet when he looked across the Park the
scope of
his vision was not contracted. He could see perfectly, until a
procession of
slow-wheeling fireworks defiled across his eyeballs.

'Little dorglums, we aren't at all well. Let's go home. If only Torp
were
back, now!'

But Torpenhow was in the south of England, inspecting dockyards
in the
company of the Nilghai. His letters were brief and full of mystery.

Dick had never asked anybody to help him in his joys or his
sorrows. He
argued, in the loneliness of his studio, henceforward to be
decorated with
a film of gray gauze in one corner, that, if his fate were blindness,
all the
Torpenhows in the world could not save him. 'I can't call him off
his trip
to sit down and sympathise with me. I must pull through this
business
alone,' he said. He was lying on the sofa, eating his moustache and
wondering what the darkness of the night would be like. Then
came to
his mind the memory of a quaint scene in the Soudan. A soldier
had been
nearly hacked in two by a broad-bladed Arab spear. For one instant
the
man felt no pain. Looking down, he saw that his life-blood was
going
from him. The stupid bewilderment on his face was so intensely
comic
that both Dick and Torpenhow, still panting and unstrung from a
fight
for life, had roared with laughter, in which the man seemed as if he
would join, but, as his lips parted in a sheepish grin, the agony of
death
came upon him, and he pitched grunting at their feet. Dick laughed
again, remembering the horror. It seemed so exactly like his own
case.

'But I have a little more time allowed me,' he said. He paced up
and
down the room, quietly at first, but afterwards with the hurried feet
of
fear. It was as though a black shadow stood at his elbow and urged
him
to go forward; and there were only weaving circles and floating
pin-dots
before his eyes.

'We need to be calm, Binkie; we must be calm.' He talked aloud
for the
sake of distraction. 'This isn't nice at all. What shall we do? We
must do
something. Our time is short. I shouldn't have believed that this
morning;
but now things are different. Binkie, where was Moses when the
light
went out?'

Binkie smiled from ear to ear, as a well-bred terrier should, but
made no
suggestion.

'"Were there but world enough and time, This coyness, Binkie,
were not
crime. . . . But at my back I always hear----"' He wiped his
forehead,
which was unpleasantly damp. 'What can I do? What can I do? I
haven't
any notions left, and I can't think connectedly, but I must do
something,
or I shall go off my head.'

The hurried walk recommenced, Dick stopping every now and
again to
drag forth long-neglected canvases and old note-books; for he
turned to
his work by instinct, as a thing that could not fail. 'You won't do,
and you
won't do,' he said, at each inspection. 'No more soldiers. I couldn't
paint
'em. Sudden death comes home too nearly, and this is battle and
murder
for me.'

The day was failing, and Dick thought for a moment that the
twilight of
the blind had come upon him unaware. 'Allah Almighty!' he cried
despairingly, 'help me through the time of waiting, and I won't
whine
when my punishment comes. What can I do now, before the light
goes?'

There was no answer. Dick waited till he could regain some sort of
control over himself. His hands were shaking, and he prided
himself on
their steadiness; he could feel that his lips were quivering, and the
sweat
was running down his face. He was lashed by fear, driven forward
by the
desire to get to work at once and accomplish something, and
maddened
by the refusal of his brain to do more than repeat the news that he
was
about to go blind. 'It's a humiliating exhibition,' he thought, 'and
I'm
glad Torp isn't here to see. The doctor said I was to avoid mental
worry.

Come here and let me pet you, Binkie.'

The little dog yelped because Dick nearly squeezed the bark out of
him.

Then he heard the man speaking in the twilight, and, doglike,
understood
that his trouble stood off from him--
'Allah is good, Binkie. Not quite so gentle as we could wish, but
we'll
discuss that later. I think I see my way to it now. All those studies
of
Bessie's head were nonsense, and they nearly brought your master
into a
scrape. I hold the notion now as clear as crystal,--"the Melancolia
that
transcends all wit." There shall be Maisie in that head, because I
shall
never get Maisie; and Bess, of course, because she knows all about
Melancolia, though she doesn't know she knows; and there shall be
some
drawing in it, and it shall all end up with a laugh. That's for myself.
Shall
she giggle or grin? No, she shall laugh right out of the canvas, and
every
man and woman that ever had a sorrow of their own shall--what is
it the
poem says?--

'Understand the speech and feel a stir
Of fellowship in all disastrous fight.

"In all disastrous fight"? That's better than painting the thing
merely to
pique Maisie. I can do it now because I have it inside me. Binkie,
I'm
going to hold you up by your tail. You're an omen. Come here.'

Binkie swung head downward for a moment without speaking.

'Rather like holding a guinea-pig; but you're a brave little dog, and
you
don't yelp when you're hung up. It is an omen.'

Binkie went to his own chair, and as often as he looked saw Dick
walking
up and down, rubbing his hands and chuckling. That night Dick
wrote a
letter to Maisie full of the tenderest regard for her health, but
saying
very little about his own, and dreamed of the Melancolia to be
born. Not
till morning did he remember that something might happen to him
in the
future.

He fell to work, whistling softly, and was swallowed up in the
clean, clear
joy of creation, which does not come to man too often, lest he
should
consider himself the equal of his God, and so refuse to die at the
appointed time. He forgot Maisie, Torpenhow, and Binkie at his
feet, but
remembered to stir Bessie, who needed very little stirring, into a
tremendous rage, that he might watch the smouldering lights in her
eyes.

He threw himself without reservation into his work, and did not
think of
the doom that was to overtake him, for he was possessed with his
notion,
and the things of this world had no power upon him.

'You're pleased to-day,' said Bessie.

Dick waved his mahl-stick in mystic circles and went to the
sideboard for
a drink. In the evening, when the exaltation of the day had died
down, he
went to the sideboard again, and after some visits became
convinced that
the eye-doctor was a liar, since he could still see everything very
clearly.

He was of opinion that he would even make a home for Maisie,
and that
whether she liked it or not she should be his wife. The mood
passed next
morning, but the sideboard and all upon it remained for his
comfort.

Again he set to work, and his eyes troubled him with spots and
dashes
and blurs till he had taken counsel with the sideboard, and the
Melancolia both on the canvas and in his own mind appeared
lovelier
than ever. There was a delightful sense of irresponsibility upon
him, such
as they feel who walking among their fellow-men know that the
death-sentence of disease is upon them, and, seeing that fear is but
waste
of the little time left, are riotously happy. The days passed without
event.

Bessie arrived punctually always, and, though her voice seemed to
Dick
to come from a distance, her face was always very near. The
Melancolia
began to flame on the canvas, in the likeness of a woman who had
known
all the sorrow in the world and was laughing at it. It was true that
the
corners of the studio draped themselves in gray film and retired
into the
darkness, that the spots in his eyes and the pains across his head
were
very troublesome, and that Maisie's letters were hard to read and
harder
still to answer. He could not tell her of his trouble, and he could
not
laugh at her accounts of her own Melancolia which was always
going to
be finished. But the furious days of toil and the nights of wild
dreams
made amends for all, and the sideboard was his best friend on
earth.

Bessie was singularly dull. She used to shriek with rage when Dick
stared
at her between half-closed eyes. Now she sulked, or watched him
with
disgust, saying very little.

Torpenhow had been absent for six weeks. An incoherent note
heralded
his return. 'News! great news!' he wrote. 'The Nilghai knows, and
so does
the Keneu. We're all back on Thursday. Get lunch and clean your
accoutrements.'

Dick showed Bessie the letter, and she abused him for that he had
ever
sent Torpenhow away and ruined her life.

'Well,' said Dick, brutally, 'you're better as you are, instead of
making
love to some drunken beast in the street.' He felt that he had
rescued
Torpenhow from great temptation.

'I don't know if that's any worse than sitting to a drunken beast in a
studio. You haven't been sober for three weeks. You've been
soaking the
whole time; and yet you pretend you're better than me!'

'What d'you mean?' said Dick.

'Mean! You'll see when Mr. Torpenhow comes back.'

It was not long to wait. Torpenhow met Bessie on the staircase
without a
sign of feeling. He had news that was more to him than many
Bessies,
and the Keneu and the Nilghai were trampling behind him, calling
for
Dick.

'Drinking like a fish,' Bessie whispered. 'He's been at it for nearly a
month.' She followed the men stealthily to hear judgment done.

They came into the studio, rejoicing, to be welcomed over
effusively by a
drawn, lined, shrunken, haggard wreck,--unshaven, blue-white
about the
nostrils, stooping in the shoulders, and peering under his eyebrows
nervously. The drink had been at work as steadily as Dick.

'Is this you?' said Torpenhow.

'All that's left of me. Sit down. Binkie's quite well, and I've been
doing
some good work.' He reeled where he stood.

'You've done some of the worst work you've ever done in your life.
Man
alive, you're----'

Torpenhow turned to his companions appealingly, and they left the
room
to find lunch elsewhere. Then he spoke; but, since the reproof of a
friend
is much too sacred and intimate a thing to be printed, and since
Torpenhow used figures and metaphors which were unseemly, and
contempt untranslatable, it will never be known what was actually
said
to Dick, who blinked and winked and picked at his hands. After a
time
the culprit began to feel the need of a little self-respect. He was
quite sure
that he had not in any way departed from virtue, and there were
reasons,
too, of which Torpenhow knew nothing. He would explain.

He rose, tried to straighten his shoulders, and spoke to the face he
could
hardly see.

'You are right,' he said. 'But I am right, too. After you went away I
had
some trouble with my eyes. So I went to an oculist, and he turned a
gasogene--I mean a gas-engine--into my eye. That was very long
ago. He
said, "Scar on the head,--sword-cut and optic nerve." Make a note
of
that. So I am going blind. I have some work to do before I go
blind, and I
suppose that I must do it. I cannot see much now, but I can see best
when
I am drunk. I did not know I was drunk till I was told, but I must
go on
with my work. If you want to see it, there it is.' He pointed to the
all but
finished Melancolia and looked for applause.

Torpenhow said nothing, and Dick began to whimper feebly, for
joy at
seeing Torpenhow again, for grief at misdeeds--if indeed they were
misdeeds--that made Torpenhow remote and unsympathetic, and
for
childish vanity hurt, since Torpenhow had not given a word of
praise to
his wonderful picture.

Bessie looked through the keyhole after a long pause, and saw the
two
walking up and down as usual, Torpenhow's hand on Dick's
shoulder.

Hereat she said something so improper that it shocked even
Binkie, who
was dribbling patiently on the landing with the hope of seeing his
master
again.

CHAPTER XI

The lark will make her hymn to God,
The partridge call her brood,
While I forget the heath I trod,
The fields wherein I stood.

'Tis dule to know not night from morn,
But deeper dule to know
I can but hear the hunter's horn
That once I used to blow.
-- The Only Son-

IT WAS the third day after Torpenhow's return, and his heart was
heavy.

'Do you mean to tell me that you can't see to work without
whiskey? It's
generally the other way about.'

'Can a drunkard swear on his honour?' said Dick.

'Yes, if he has been as god a man as you.'

'Then I give you my word of honour,' said Dick, speaking hurriedly
through parched lips. 'Old man, I can hardly see your face now.
You've
kept me sober for two days,--if I ever was drunk,--and I've done no
work.

Don't keep me back any more. I don't know when my eyes may
give out.

The spots and dots and the pains and things are crowding worse
than
ever. I swear I can see all right when I'm--when I'm moderately
screwed,
as you say. Give me three more sittings from Bessie and all--the
stuff I
want, and the picture will be done. I can't kill myself in three days.
It
only means a touch of D. T. at the worst.'

'If I give you three days more will you promise me to stop work
and--the
other thing, whether the picture's finished or not?'

'I can't. You don't know what that picture means to me. But surely
you
could get the Nilghai to help you, and knock me down and tie me
up. I
shouldn't fight for the whiskey, but I should for the work.'

'Go on, then. I give you three days; but you're nearly breaking my
heart.'

Dick returned to his work, toiling as one possessed; and the yellow
devil
of whiskey stood by him and chased away the spots in his eyes.
The
Melancolia was nearly finished, and was all or nearly all that he
had
hoped she would be. Dick jested with Bessie, who reminded him
that he
was 'a drunken beast'; but the reproof did not move him.

'You can't understand, Bess. We are in sight of land now, and soon
we
shall lie back and think about what we've done. I'll give you three
months' pay when the picture's finished, and next time I have any
more
work in hand--but that doesn't matter. Won't three months' pay
make
you hate me less?'

'No, it won't! I hate you, and I'll go on hating you. Mr. Torpenhow
won't
speak to me any more. He's always looking at maps.'

Bessie did not say that she had again laid siege to Torpenhow, or
that at
the end of our passionate pleading he had picked her up, given her
a kiss,
and put her outside the door with the recommendation not to be a
little
fool. He spent most of his time in the company of the Nilghai, and
their
talk was of war in the near future, the hiring of transports, and
secret
preparations among the dockyards. He did not wish to see Dick till
the
picture was finished.

'He's doing first-class work,' he said to the Nilghai, 'and it's quite
out of
his regular line. But, for the matter of that, so's his infernal
soaking.'

'Never mind. Leave him alone. When he has come to his senses
again
we'll carry him off from this place and let him breathe clean air.
Poor
Dick! I don't envy you, Torp, when his eyes fail.'

'Yes, it will be a case of "God help the man who's chained to our
Davie."
The worst is that we don't know when it will happen, and I believe
the
uncertainty and the waiting have sent Dick to the whiskey more
than
anything else.'

'How the Arab who cut his head open would grin if he knew!'

'He's at perfect liberty to grin if he can. He's dead. That's poor
consolation now.'

In the afternoon of the third day Torpenhow heard Dick calling for
him.

'All finished!' he shouted. 'I've done it! Come in! Isn't she a beauty?
Isn't
she a darling? I've been down to hell to get her; but isn't she worth
it?'

Torpenhow looked at the head of a woman who laughed,--a
full-lipped,
hollow-eyed woman who laughed from out of the canvas as Dick
had
intended she would.

'Who taught you how to do it?' said Torpenhow. 'The touch and
notion
have nothing to do with your regular work. What a face it is! What
eyes,
and what insolence!' Unconsciously he threw back his head and
laughed
with her. 'She's seen the game played out,--I don't think she had a
good
time of it,--and now she doesn't care. Isn't that the idea?'

'Exactly.'

'Where did you get the mouth and chin from? They don't belong to
Bess.'

'They're--some one else's. But isn't it good? Isn't it thundering
good?
Wasn't it worth the whiskey? I did it. Alone I did it, and it's the
best I
can do.' He drew his breath sharply, and whispered, 'Just God!
what
could I not do ten years hence, if I can do this now!--By the way,
what do
you think of it, Bess?'

The girl was biting her lips. She loathed Torpenhow because he
had
taken no notice of her.

'I think it's just the horridest, beastliest thing I ever saw,' she
answered,
and turned away.

'More than you will be of that way of thinking, young
woman.--Dick,
there's a sort of murderous, viperine suggestion in the poise of the
head
that I don't understand,' said Torpenhow.

That's trick-work,' said Dick, chuckling with delight at being
completely
understood. 'I couldn't resist one little bit of sheer swagger. It's a
French
trick, and you wouldn't understand; but it's got at by slewing round
the
head a trifle, and a tiny, tiny foreshortening of one side of the face
from
the angle of the chin to the top of the left ear. That, and deepening
the
shadow under the lobe of the ear. It was flagrant trick-work; but,
having
the notion fixed, I felt entitled to play with it,--Oh, you beauty!'

'Amen! She is a beauty. I can feel it.'

'So will every man who has any sorrow of his own,' said Dick,
slapping
his thigh. 'He shall see his trouble there, and, by the Lord Harry,
just
when he's feeling properly sorry for himself he shall throw back
his head
and laugh,--as she is laughing. I've put the life of my heart and the
light
of my eyes into her, and I don't care what comes. . . . I'm
tired,--awfully
tired. I think I'll get to sleep. Take away the whiskey, it has served
its
turn, and give Bessie thirty-six quid, and three over for luck. Cover
the
picture.'

He dropped asleep in the long chair, hid face white and haggard,
almost
before he had finished the sentence. Bessie tried to take
Torpenhow's
hand. 'Aren't you never going to speak to me any more?' she said;
but
Torpenhow was looking at Dick.

'What a stock of vanity the man has! I'll take him in hand
to-morrow and
make much of him. He deserves it.--Eh! what was that, Bess?'

'Nothing. I'll put things tidy here a little, and then I'll go. You
couldn't
give the that three months' pay now, could you? He said you were
to.'

Torpenhow gave her a check and went to his own rooms. Bessie
faithfully
tidied up the studio, set the door ajar for flight, emptied half a
bottle of
turpentine on a duster, and began to scrub the face of the
Melancolia
viciously. The paint did not smudge quickly enough. She took a
palette-knife and scraped, following each stroke with the wet
duster. In
five minutes the picture was a formless, scarred muddle of colours.
She
threw the paint-stained duster into the studio stove, stuck out her
tongue
at the sleeper, and whispered, 'Bilked!' as she turned to run down
the
staircase. She would never see Torpenhow any more, but she had
at least
done harm to the man who had come between her and her desire
and
who used to make fun of her. Cashing the check was the very
cream of
the jest to Bessie. Then the little privateer sailed across the
Thames, to be
swallowed up in the gray wilderness of South-the-Water.

Dick slept till late in the evening, when Torpenhow dragged him
off to
bed. His eyes were as bright as his voice was hoarse. 'Let's have
another
look at the picture,' he said, insistently as a child.

'You--go--to--bed,' said Torpenhow. 'You aren't at all well, though
you
mayn't know it. You're as jumpy as a cat.'

'I reform to-morrow. Good-night.'

As he repassed through the studio, Torpenhow lifted the cloth
above the
picture, and almost betrayed himself by outcries: 'Wiped
out!--scraped
out and turped out! He's on the verge of jumps as it is. That's
Bess,--the
little fiend! Only a woman could have done that!-with the ink not
dry on
the check, too! Dick will be raving mad to-morrow. It was all my
fault for
trying to help gutter-devils. Oh, my poor Dick, the Lord is hitting
you
very hard!'

Dick could not sleep that night, partly for pure joy, and partly
because
the well-known Catherine-wheels inside his eyes had given place
to
crackling volcanoes of many-coloured fire. 'Spout away,' he said
aloud.

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