Of Human Bondage
have tea. He found the work of absorbing interest. There was humanity
there in the rough, the materials the artist worked on; and Philip felt
a curious thrill when it occurred to him that he was in the position of
the artist and the patients were like clay in his hands. He remembered
with an amused shrug of the shoulders his life in Paris, absorbed in
colour, tone, values, Heaven knows what, with the aim of producing
beautiful things: the directness of contact with men and women gave a
thrill of power which he had never known. He found an endless
excitement in looking at their faces and hearing them speak; they came
in each with his peculiarity, some shuffling uncouthly, some with a
little trip, others with heavy, slow tread, some shyly. Often you could
guess their trades by the look of them. You learnt in what way to put
your questions so that they should be understood, you discovered on
what subjects nearly all lied, and by what inquiries you could extort
the truth notwithstanding. You saw the different way people took the
same things. The diagnosis of dangerous illness would be accepted by
one with a laugh and a joke, by another with dumb despair. Philip found
that he was less shy with these people than he had ever been with
others; he felt not exactly sympathy, for sympathy suggests
condescension; but he felt at home with them. He found that he was able
to put them at their ease, and, when he had been given a case to find
out what he could about it, it seemed to him that the patient delivered
himself into his hands with a peculiar confidence.
“Perhaps,” he thought to himself, with a smile, “perhaps I’m cut out to
be a doctor. It would be rather a lark if I’d hit upon the one thing
I’m fit for.”
It seemed to Philip that he alone of the clerks saw the dramatic
interest of those afternoons. To the others men and women were only
cases, good if they were complicated, tiresome if obvious; they heard
murmurs and were astonished at abnormal livers; an unexpected sound in
the lungs gave them something to talk about. But to Philip there was
much more. He found an interest in just looking at them, in the shape
of their heads and their hands, in the look of their eyes and the
length of their noses. You saw in that room human nature taken by
surprise, and often the mask of custom was torn off rudely, showing you
the soul all raw. Sometimes you saw an untaught stoicism which was
profoundly moving. Once Philip saw a man, rough and illiterate, told
his case was hopeless; and, self-controlled himself, he wondered at the
splendid instinct which forced the fellow to keep a stiff upper-lip
before strangers. But was it possible for him to be brave when he was
by himself, face to face with his soul, or would he then surrender to
despair? Sometimes there was tragedy. Once a young woman brought her
sister to be examined, a girl of eighteen, with delicate features and
large blue eyes, fair hair that sparkled with gold when a ray of autumn
sunshine touched it for a moment, and a skin of amazing beauty. The
students’ eyes went to her with little smiles. They did not often see a
pretty girl in these dingy rooms. The elder woman gave the family
history, father and mother had died of phthisis, a brother and a
sister, these two were the only ones left. The girl had been coughing
lately and losing weight. She took off her blouse and the skin of her
neck was like milk. Dr. Tyrell examined her quietly, with his usual
rapid method; he told two or three of his clerks to apply their
stethoscopes to a place he indicated with his finger; and then she was
allowed to dress. The sister was standing a little apart and she spoke
to him in a low voice, so that the girl should not hear. Her voice
trembled with fear.
“She hasn’t got it, doctor, has she?”
“I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it.”
“She was the last one. When she goes I shan’t have anybody.”
She began to cry, while the doctor looked at her gravely; he thought
she too had the type; she would not make old bones either. The girl
turned round and saw her sister’s tears. She understood what they
meant. The colour fled from her lovely face and tears fell down her
cheeks. The two stood for a minute or two, crying silently, and then
the older, forgetting the indifferent crowd that watched them, went up
to her, took her in her arms, and rocked her gently to and fro as if
she were a baby.
When they were gone a student asked:
“How long d’you think she’ll last, sir?”
Dr. Tyrell shrugged his shoulders.
“Her brother and sister died within three months of the first symptoms.
She’ll do the same. If they were rich one might do something. You can’t
tell these people to go to St. Moritz. Nothing can be done for them.”
Once a man who was strong and in all the power of his manhood came
because a persistent aching troubled him and his club-doctor did not
seem to do him any good; and the verdict for him too was death, not the
inevitable death that horrified and yet was tolerable because science
was helpless before it, but the death which was inevitable because the
man was a little wheel in the great machine of a complex civilisation,
and had as little power of changing the circumstances as an automaton.
Complete rest was his only chance. The physician did not ask
impossibilities.
“You ought to get some very much lighter job.”
“There ain’t no light jobs in my business.”
“Well, if you go on like this you’ll kill yourself. You’re very ill.”
“D’you mean to say I’m going to die?”
“I shouldn’t like to say that, but you’re certainly unfit for hard
work.”
“If I don’t work who’s to keep the wife and the kids?”
Dr. Tyrell shrugged his shoulders. The dilemma had been presented to
him a hundred times. Time was pressing and there were many patients to
be seen.
“Well, I’ll give you some medicine and you can come back in a week and
tell me how you’re getting on.”
The man took his letter with the useless prescription written upon it
and walked out. The doctor might say what he liked. He did not feel so
bad that he could not go on working. He had a good job and he could not
afford to throw it away.
“I give him a year,” said Dr. Tyrell.
Sometimes there was comedy. Now and then came a flash of cockney
humour, now and then some old lady, a character such as Charles Dickens
might have drawn, would amuse them by her garrulous oddities. Once a
woman came who was a member of the ballet at a famous music-hall. She
looked fifty, but gave her age as twenty-eight. She was outrageously
painted and ogled the students impudently with large black eyes; her
smiles were grossly alluring. She had abundant self-confidence and
treated Dr. Tyrell, vastly amused, with the easy familiarity with which
she might have used an intoxicated admirer. She had chronic bronchitis,
and told him it hindered her in the exercise of her profession.
“I don’t know why I should ’ave such a thing, upon my word I don’t.
I’ve never ’ad a day’s illness in my life. You’ve only got to look at
me to know that.”
She rolled her eyes round the young men, with a long sweep of her
painted eyelashes, and flashed her yellow teeth at them. She spoke with
a cockney accent, but with an affectation of refinement which made
every word a feast of fun.
“It’s what they call a winter cough,” answered Dr. Tyrell gravely. “A
great many middle-aged women have it.”
“Well, I never! That is a nice thing to say to a lady. No one ever
called me middle-aged before.”
She opened her eyes very wide and cocked her head on one side, looking
at him with indescribable archness.
“That is the disadvantage of our profession,” said he. “It forces us
sometimes to be ungallant.”
She took the prescription and gave him one last, luscious smile.
“You will come and see me dance, dearie, won’t you?”
“I will indeed.”
He rang the bell for the next case.
“I am glad you gentlemen were here to protect me.”
But on the whole the impression was neither of tragedy nor of comedy.
There was no describing it. It was manifold and various; there were
tears and laughter, happiness and woe; it was tedious and interesting
and indifferent; it was as you saw it: it was tumultuous and
passionate; it was grave; it was sad and comic; it was trivial; it was
simple and complex; joy was there and despair; the love of mothers for
their children, and of men for women; lust trailed itself through the
rooms with leaden feet, punishing the guilty and the innocent, helpless
wives and wretched children; drink seized men and women and cost its
inevitable price; death sighed in these rooms; and the beginning of
life, filling some poor girl with terror and shame, was diagnosed
there. There was neither good nor bad there. There were just facts. It
was life.
LXXXII
Towards the end of the year, when Philip was bringing to a close his
three months as clerk in the out-patients’ department, he received a
letter from Lawson, who was in Paris.
Dear Philip,
Cronshaw is in London and would be glad to see you. He is living at 43
Hyde Street, Soho. I don’t know where it is, but I daresay you will be
able to find out. Be a brick and look after him a bit. He is very down
on his luck. He will tell you what he is doing. Things are going on
here very much as usual. Nothing seems to have changed since you were
here. Clutton is back, but he has become quite impossible. He has
quarrelled with everybody. As far as I can make out he hasn’t got a
cent, he lives in a little studio right away beyond the Jardin des
Plantes, but he won’t let anybody see his work. He doesn’t show
anywhere, so one doesn’t know what he is doing. He may be a genius, but
on the other hand he may be off his head. By the way, I ran against
Flanagan the other day. He was showing Mrs. Flanagan round the Quarter.
He has chucked art and is now in popper’s business. He seems to be
rolling. Mrs. Flanagan is very pretty and I’m trying to work a
portrait. How much would you ask if you were me? I don’t want to
frighten them, and then on the other hand I don’t want to be such an
ass as to ask L150 if they’re quite willing to give L300.
Yours ever,
Frederick Lawson.
Philip wrote to Cronshaw and received in reply the following letter. It
was written on a half-sheet of common note-paper, and the flimsy
envelope was dirtier than was justified by its passage through the
post.
Dear Carey,
Of course I remember you very well. I have an idea that I had some part
in rescuing you from the Slough of Despond in which myself am
hopelessly immersed. I shall be glad to see you. I am a stranger in a
strange city and I am buffeted by the philistines. It will be pleasant
to talk of Paris. I do not ask you to come and see me, since my lodging
is not of a magnificence fit for the reception of an eminent member of
Monsieur Purgon’s profession, but you will find me eating modestly any
evening between seven and eight at a restaurant yclept Au Bon Plaisir
in Dean Street.
Your sincere
J. Cronshaw.
Philip went the day he received this letter. The restaurant, consisting
of one small room, was of the poorest class, and Cronshaw seemed to be
its only customer. He was sitting in the corner, well away from
draughts, wearing the same shabby great-coat which Philip had never
seen him without, with his old bowler on his head.
“I eat here because I can be alone,” he said. “They are not doing well;
the only people who come are a few trollops and one or two waiters out
of a job; they are giving up business, and the food is execrable. But
the ruin of their fortunes is my advantage.”