Of Human Bondage
Cronshaw had before him a glass of absinthe. It was nearly three years
since they had met, and Philip was shocked by the change in his
appearance. He had been rather corpulent, but now he had a dried-up,
yellow look: the skin of his neck was loose and winkled; his clothes
hung about him as though they had been bought for someone else; and his
collar, three or four sizes too large, added to the slatternliness of
his appearance. His hands trembled continually. Philip remembered the
handwriting which scrawled over the page with shapeless, haphazard
letters. Cronshaw was evidently very ill.
“I eat little these days,” he said. “I’m very sick in the morning. I’m
just having some soup for my dinner, and then I shall have a bit of
cheese.”
Philip’s glance unconsciously went to the absinthe, and Cronshaw,
seeing it, gave him the quizzical look with which he reproved the
admonitions of common sense.
“You have diagnosed my case, and you think it’s very wrong of me to
drink absinthe.”
“You’ve evidently got cirrhosis of the liver,” said Philip.
“Evidently.”
He looked at Philip in the way which had formerly had the power of
making him feel incredibly narrow. It seemed to point out that what he
was thinking was distressingly obvious; and when you have agreed with
the obvious what more is there to say? Philip changed the topic.
“When are you going back to Paris?”
“I’m not going back to Paris. I’m going to die.”
The very naturalness with which he said this startled Philip. He
thought of half a dozen things to say, but they seemed futile. He knew
that Cronshaw was a dying man.
“Are you going to settle in London then?” he asked lamely.
“What is London to me? I am a fish out of water. I walk through the
crowded streets, men jostle me, and I seem to walk in a dead city. I
felt that I couldn’t die in Paris. I wanted to die among my own people.
I don’t know what hidden instinct drew me back at the last.”
Philip knew of the woman Cronshaw had lived with and the two
draggle-tailed children, but Cronshaw had never mentioned them to him,
and he did not like to speak of them. He wondered what had happened to
them.
“I don’t know why you talk of dying,” he said.
“I had pneumonia a couple of winters ago, and they told me then it was
a miracle that I came through. It appears I’m extremely liable to it,
and another bout will kill me.”
“Oh, what nonsense! You’re not so bad as all that. You’ve only got to
take precautions. Why don’t you give up drinking?”
“Because I don’t choose. It doesn’t matter what a man does if he’s
ready to take the consequences. Well, I’m ready to take the
consequences. You talk glibly of giving up drinking, but it’s the only
thing I’ve got left now. What do you think life would be to me without
it? Can you understand the happiness I get out of my absinthe? I yearn
for it; and when I drink it I savour every drop, and afterwards I feel
my soul swimming in ineffable happiness. It disgusts you. You are a
puritan and in your heart you despise sensual pleasures. Sensual
pleasures are the most violent and the most exquisite. I am a man
blessed with vivid senses, and I have indulged them with all my soul. I
have to pay the penalty now, and I am ready to pay.”
Philip looked at him for a while steadily.
“Aren’t you afraid?”
For a moment Cronshaw did not answer. He seemed to consider his reply.
“Sometimes, when I’m alone.” He looked at Philip. “You think that’s a
condemnation? You’re wrong. I’m not afraid of my fear. It’s folly, the
Christian argument that you should live always in view of your death.
The only way to live is to forget that you’re going to die. Death is
unimportant. The fear of it should never influence a single action of
the wise man. I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know
that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to
keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to
such a pass; but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased,
poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.”
“D’you remember that Persian carpet you gave me?” asked Philip.
Cronshaw smiled his old, slow smile of past days.
“I told you that it would give you an answer to your question when you
asked me what was the meaning of life. Well, have you discovered the
answer?”
“No,” smiled Philip. “Won’t you tell it me?”
“No, no, I can’t do that. The answer is meaningless unless you discover
it for yourself.”
LXXXIII
Cronshaw was publishing his poems. His friends had been urging him to
do this for years, but his laziness made it impossible for him to take
the necessary steps. He had always answered their exhortations by
telling them that the love of poetry was dead in England. You brought
out a book which had cost you years of thought and labour; it was given
two or three contemptuous lines among a batch of similar volumes,
twenty or thirty copies were sold, and the rest of the edition was
pulped. He had long since worn out the desire for fame. That was an
illusion like all else. But one of his friends had taken the matter
into his own hands. This was a man of letters, named Leonard Upjohn,
whom Philip had met once or twice with Cronshaw in the cafes of the
Quarter. He had a considerable reputation in England as a critic and
was the accredited exponent in this country of modern French
literature. He had lived a good deal in France among the men who made
the Mercure de France the liveliest review of the day, and by the
simple process of expressing in English their point of view he had
acquired in England a reputation for originality. Philip had read some
of his articles. He had formed a style for himself by a close imitation
of Sir Thomas Browne; he used elaborate sentences, carefully balanced,
and obsolete, resplendent words: it gave his writing an appearance of
individuality. Leonard Upjohn had induced Cronshaw to give him all his
poems and found that there were enough to make a volume of reasonable
size. He promised to use his influence with publishers. Cronshaw was in
want of money. Since his illness he had found it more difficult than
ever to work steadily; he made barely enough to keep himself in liquor;
and when Upjohn wrote to him that this publisher and the other, though
admiring the poems, thought it not worth while to publish them,
Cronshaw began to grow interested. He wrote impressing upon Upjohn his
great need and urging him to make more strenuous efforts. Now that he
was going to die he wanted to leave behind him a published book, and at
the back of his mind was the feeling that he had produced great poetry.
He expected to burst upon the world like a new star. There was
something fine in keeping to himself these treasures of beauty all his
life and giving them to the world disdainfully when, he and the world
parting company, he had no further use for them.
His decision to come to England was caused directly by an announcement
from Leonard Upjohn that a publisher had consented to print the poems.
By a miracle of persuasion Upjohn had persuaded him to give ten pounds
in advance of royalties.
“In advance of royalties, mind you,” said Cronshaw to Philip. “Milton
only got ten pounds down.”
Upjohn had promised to write a signed article about them, and he would
ask his friends who reviewed to do their best. Cronshaw pretended to
treat the matter with detachment, but it was easy to see that he was
delighted with the thought of the stir he would make.
One day Philip went to dine by arrangement at the wretched eating-house
at which Cronshaw insisted on taking his meals, but Cronshaw did not
appear. Philip learned that he had not been there for three days. He
got himself something to eat and went round to the address from which
Cronshaw had first written to him. He had some difficulty in finding
Hyde Street. It was a street of dingy houses huddled together; many of
the windows had been broken and were clumsily repaired with strips of
French newspaper; the doors had not been painted for years; there were
shabby little shops on the ground floor, laundries, cobblers,
stationers. Ragged children played in the road, and an old barrel-organ
was grinding out a vulgar tune. Philip knocked at the door of
Cronshaw’s house (there was a shop of cheap sweetstuffs at the bottom),
and it was opened by an elderly Frenchwoman in a dirty apron. Philip
asked her if Cronshaw was in.
“Ah, yes, there is an Englishman who lives at the top, at the back. I
don’t know if he’s in. If you want him you had better go up and see.”
The staircase was lit by one jet of gas. There was a revolting odour in
the house. When Philip was passing up a woman came out of a room on the
first floor, looked at him suspiciously, but made no remark. There were
three doors on the top landing. Philip knocked at one, and knocked
again; there was no reply; he tried the handle, but the door was
locked. He knocked at another door, got no answer, and tried the door
again. It opened. The room was dark.
“Who’s that?”
He recognised Cronshaw’s voice.
“Carey. Can I come in?”
He received no answer. He walked in. The window was closed and the
stink was overpowering. There was a certain amount of light from the
arc-lamp in the street, and he saw that it was a small room with two
beds in it, end to end; there was a washing-stand and one chair, but
they left little space for anyone to move in. Cronshaw was in the bed
nearest the window. He made no movement, but gave a low chuckle.
“Why don’t you light the candle?” he said then.
Philip struck a match and discovered that there was a candlestick on
the floor beside the bed. He lit it and put it on the washing-stand.
Cronshaw was lying on his back immobile; he looked very odd in his
nightshirt; and his baldness was disconcerting. His face was earthy and
death-like.
“I say, old man, you look awfully ill. Is there anyone to look after
you here?”
“George brings me in a bottle of milk in the morning before he goes to
his work.”
“Who’s George?”
“I call him George because his name is Adolphe. He shares this palatial
apartment with me.”
Philip noticed then that the second bed had not been made since it was
slept in. The pillow was black where the head had rested.
“You don’t mean to say you’re sharing this room with somebody else?” he
cried.
“Why not? Lodging costs money in Soho. George is a waiter, he goes out
at eight in the morning and does not come in till closing time, so he
isn’t in my way at all. We neither of us sleep well, and he helps to
pass away the hours of the night by telling me stories of his life.
He’s a Swiss, and I’ve always had a taste for waiters. They see life
from an entertaining angle.”
“How long have you been in bed?”
“Three days.”
“D’you mean to say you’ve had nothing but a bottle of milk for the last
three days? Why on earth didn’t you send me a line? I can’t bear to
think of you lying here all day long without a soul to attend to you.”
Cronshaw gave a little laugh.
“Look at your face. Why, dear boy, I really believe you’re distressed.
You nice fellow.”
Philip blushed. He had not suspected that his face showed the dismay he
felt at the sight of that horrible room and the wretched circumstances
of the poor poet. Cronshaw, watching Philip, went on with a gentle
smile.
“I’ve been quite happy. Look, here are my proofs. Remember that I am
indifferent to discomforts which would harass other folk. What do the
circumstances of life matter if your dreams make you lord paramount of
time and space?”
The proofs were lying on his bed, and as he lay in the darkness he had
been able to place his hands on them. He showed them to Philip and his
eyes glowed. He turned over the pages, rejoicing in the clear type; he
read out a stanza.