Tales of Space and Time
hurt him excruciatingly or make him violently sick, how to hit or kick
"vital," how to use glass in one's garments as a club and to spread red
ruin with various domestic implements, how to anticipate and demolish
your adversary's intentions in other directions; all the pleasant
devices, in fact, that had grown up among the disinherited of the great
cities of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, were spread out by a
gifted exponent for Denton's learning. Blunt's bashfulness fell from
him as the instruction proceeded, and he developed a certain expert
dignity, a quality of fatherly consideration. He treated Denton with the
utmost consideration, only "flicking him up a bit" now and then, to keep
the interest hot, and roaring with laughter at a happy fluke of Denton's
that covered his mouth with blood.
"I'm always keerless of my mouth," said Blunt, admitting a weakness.
"Always. It don't seem to matter, like, just getting bashed in the
mouth--not if your chin's all right. Tastin' blood does me good. Always.
But I better not 'it you again."
Denton went home, to fall asleep exhausted and wake in the small hours
with aching limbs and all his bruises tingling. Was it worth while that
he should go on living? He listened to Elizabeth's breathing, and
remembering that he must have awaked her the previous night, he lay very
still. He was sick with infinite disgust at the new conditions of his
life. He hated it all, hated even the genial savage who had protected
him so generously. The monstrous fraud of civilisation glared stark
before his eyes; he saw it as a vast lunatic growth, producing a
deepening torrent of savagery below, and above ever more flimsy
gentility and silly wastefulness. He could see no redeeming reason, no
touch of honour, either in the life he had led or in this life to which
he had fallen. Civilisation presented itself as some catastrophic
product as little concerned with men--save as victims--as a cyclone or a
planetary collision. He, and therefore all mankind, seemed living
utterly in vain. His mind sought some strange expedients of escape, if
not for himself then at least for Elizabeth. But he meant them for
himself. What if he hunted up Mwres and told him of their disaster? It
came to him as an astonishing thing how utterly Mwres and Bindon had
passed out of his range. Where were they? What were they doing? From
that he passed to thoughts of utter dishonour. And finally, not arising
in any way out of this mental tumult, but ending it as dawn ends the
night, came the clear and obvious conclusion of the night before: the
conviction that he had to go through with things; that, apart from any
remoter view and quite sufficient for all his thought and energy, he had
to stand up and fight among his fellows and quit himself like a man.
The second night's instruction was perhaps less dreadful than the first;
and the third was even endurable, for Blunt dealt out some praise. The
fourth day Denton chanced upon the fact that the ferret-faced man was a
coward. There passed a fortnight of smouldering days and feverish
instruction at night; Blunt, with many blasphemies, testified that never
had he met so apt a pupil; and all night long Denton dreamt of kicks and
counters and gouges and cunning tricks. For all that time no further
outrages were attempted, for fear of Blunt; and then came the second
crisis. Blunt did not come one day--afterwards he admitted his
deliberate intention--and through the tedious morning Whitey awaited the
interval between the spells with an ostentatious impatience. He knew
nothing of the scrapping lessons, and he spent the time in telling
Denton and the vault generally of certain disagreeable proceedings he
had in mind.
Whitey was not popular, and the vault disgorged to see him haze the new
man with only a languid interest. But matters changed when Whitey's
attempt to open the proceedings by kicking Denton in the face was met by
an excellently executed duck, catch and throw, that completed the flight
of Whitey's foot in its orbit and brought Whitey's head into the
ash-heap that had once received Denton's. Whitey arose a shade whiter,
and now blasphemously bent upon vital injuries. There were indecisive
passages, foiled enterprises that deepened Whitey's evidently growing
perplexity; and then things developed into a grouping of Denton
uppermost with Whitey's throat in his hand, his knee on Whitey's chest,
and a tearful Whitey with a black face, protruding tongue and broken
finger endeavouring to explain the misunderstanding by means of hoarse
sounds. Moreover, it was evident that among the bystanders there had
never been a more popular person than Denton.
Denton, with proper precaution, released his antagonist and stood up.
His blood seemed changed to some sort of fluid fire, his limbs felt
light and supernaturally strong. The idea that he was a martyr in the
civilisation machine had vanished from his mind. He was a man in a world
of men.
The little ferret-faced man was the first in the competition to pat him
on the back. The lender of oil cans was a radiant sun of genial
congratulation.... It seemed incredible to Denton that he had ever
thought of despair.
Denton was convinced that not only had he to go through with things, but
that he could. He sat on the canvas pallet expounding this new aspect to
Elizabeth. One side of his face was bruised. She had not recently
fought, she had not been patted on the back, there were no hot bruises
upon her face, only a pallor and a new line or so about the mouth. She
was taking the woman's share. She looked steadfastly at Denton in his
new mood of prophecy. "I feel that there is something," he was saying,
"something that goes on, a Being of Life in which we live and move and
have our being, something that began fifty--a hundred million years ago,
perhaps, that goes on--on: growing, spreading, to things beyond
us--things that will justify us all.... That will explain and justify my
fighting--these bruises, and all the pain of it. It's the chisel--yes,
the chisel of the Maker. If only I could make you feel as I feel, if I
could make you! You _will_, dear, I know you will."
"No," she said in a low voice. "No, I shall not."
"So I might have thought--"
She shook her head. "No," she said, "I have thought as well. What you
say--doesn't convince me."
She looked at his face resolutely. "I hate it," she said, and caught at
her breath. "You do not understand, you do not think. There was a time
when you said things and I believed them. I am growing wiser. You are a
man, you can fight, force your way. You do not mind bruises. You can be
coarse and ugly, and still a man. Yes--it makes you. It makes you. You
are right. Only a woman is not like that. We are different. We have let
ourselves get civilised too soon. This underworld is not for us."
She paused and began again.
"I hate it! I hate this horrible canvas! I hate it more than--more than
the worst that can happen. It hurts my fingers to touch it. It is
horrible to the skin. And the women I work with day after day! I lie
awake at nights and think how I may be growing like them...."
She stopped. "I _am_ growing like them," she cried passionately.
Denton stared at her distress. "But--" he said and stopped.
"You don't understand. What have I? What have I to save me? _You_ can
fight. Fighting is man's work. But women--women are different.... I have
thought it all out, I have done nothing but think night and day. Look at
the colour of my face! I cannot go on. I cannot endure this life.... I
cannot endure it."
She stopped. She hesitated.
"You do not know all," she said abruptly, and for an instant her lips
had a bitter smile. "I have been asked to leave you."
"Leave me!"
She made no answer save an affirmative movement of the head.
Denton stood up sharply. They stared at one another through a long
silence.
Suddenly she turned herself about, and flung face downward upon their
canvas bed. She did not sob, she made no sound. She lay still upon her
face. After a vast, distressful void her shoulders heaved and she began
to weep silently.
"Elizabeth!" he whispered--"Elizabeth!"
Very softly he sat down beside her, bent down, put his arm across her in
a doubtful caress, seeking vainly for some clue to this intolerable
situation.
"Elizabeth," he whispered in her ear.
She thrust him from her with her hand. "I cannot bear a child to be a
slave!" and broke out into loud and bitter weeping.
Denton's face changed--became blank dismay. Presently he slipped from
the bed and stood on his feet. All the complacency had vanished from his
face, had given place to impotent rage. He began to rave and curse at
the intolerable forces which pressed upon him, at all the accidents and
hot desires and heedlessness that mock the life of man. His little voice
rose in that little room, and he shook his fist, this animalcule of the
earth, at all that environed him about, at the millions about him, at
his past and future and all the insensate vastness of the overwhelming
city.
V--BINDON INTERVENES
In Bindon's younger days he had dabbled in speculation and made three
brilliant flukes. For the rest of his life he had the wisdom to let
gambling alone, and the conceit to believe himself a very clever man. A
certain desire for influence and reputation interested him in the
business intrigues of the giant city in which his flukes were made. He
became at last one of the most influential shareholders in the company
that owned the London flying stages to which the aeroplanes came from
all parts of the world. This much for his public activities. In his
private life he was a man of pleasure. And this is the story of his
heart.
But before proceeding to such depths, one must devote a little time to
the exterior of this person. Its physical basis was slender, and short,
and dark; and the face, which was fine-featured and assisted by
pigments, varied from an insecure self-complacency to an intelligent
uneasiness. His face and head had been depilated, according to the
cleanly and hygienic fashion of the time, so that the colour and contour
of his hair varied with his costume. This he was constantly changing.
At times he would distend himself with pneumatic vestments in the rococo
vein. From among the billowy developments of this style, and beneath a
translucent and illuminated headdress, his eye watched jealously for the
respect of the less fashionable world. At other times he emphasised his
elegant slenderness in close-fitting garments of black satin. For
effects of dignity he would assume broad pneumatic shoulders, from which
hung a robe of carefully arranged folds of China silk, and a classical
Bindon in pink tights was also a transient phenomenon in the eternal
pageant of Destiny. In the days when he hoped to marry Elizabeth, he
sought to impress and charm her, and at the same time to take off
something of his burthen of forty years, by wearing the last fancy of
the contemporary buck, a costume of elastic material with distensible
warts and horns, changing in colour as he walked, by an ingenious
arrangement of versatile chromatophores. And no doubt, if Elizabeth's
affection had not been already engaged by the worthless Denton, and if
her tastes had not had that odd bias for old-fashioned ways, this
extremely _chic_ conception would have ravished her. Bindon had
consulted Elizabeth's father before presenting himself in this garb--he
was one of those men who always invite criticism of their costume--and
Mwres had pronounced him all that the heart of woman could desire. But
the affair of the hypnotist proved that his knowledge of the heart of
woman was incomplete.
Bindon's idea of marrying had been formed some little time before Mwres