Walter Besant
The inner house
CHAPTER VI
THE ARCH PHYSICIAN
The Arch Physician generally walked in the College Gardens for an hour or so every forenoon. They are very large and spacious Gardens, including plantations of trees, orchards, ferneries, lawns, flower-beds, and shrubberies. In one corner is a certain portion which, having been left entirely alone by the gardeners, has long since become like a tangled coppice, rather than a garden, covered with oaks and elms and all kinds of trees, and overgrown with thick underwoods. It was in this wild and secluded part that Dr. Linister daily walked. It lay conveniently at the back of his own residence, and adjoining the Museum and Picture Gallery. No one came here except himself, and but for the beaten path which his footsteps had made in their daily walk, the place would have become entirely overgrown. As it was, there were thick growths of holly and of yew; tall hawthorn-trees, wild roses spreading about among brambles; ferns grew tall in the shade, and under the great trees there was a deep shadow even on the brightest day. In this neglected wood there were creatures of all kinds – rabbits, squirrels, snakes, moles, badgers, weasels, and stoats. There were also birds of all kinds in the wood, and in the stream that ran through the place there were otters. In this solitary place Dr. Linister walked every day and meditated. The wildness and the solitude pleased and soothed him. I have already explained that he had always, from the outset, been most strongly opposed to the policy of the majority, and that he was never free from a certain melancholy. Perhaps he meditated on the world as he would have made it, had he been able to have his own way.
I have heard that much was said among the Rebels about my conduct during these events, as wanting in Gratitude. In the first place, if it is at all necessary for me to defend my conduct, let me point out that my duty to the Authority of the House must come before everything – certainly before the claims of private gratitude. In the second place, I owe no gratitude at all to Dr. Linister, or to anybody. I have made myself. Whatever I have done, alone I have done it, and unaided. Dr. Linister, it is very true, received me into his laboratory as bottle-washer and servant. Very good. He paid me my wages, and I did his work for him. Much room for gratitude there. He looked for the proper discharge of the work, and I looked for the regular payment of the wages. Where does the gratitude come in? He next taught me the elements of science. To be sure, he wanted the simpler part of his experiments conducted by a skilled, not an ignorant, hand. Therefore he taught me those elements. The better skilled the hand, the more he could depend upon the successful conduct of his research. Therefore, when he found that he could depend upon my eye and hand, he taught me more, and encouraged me to work on my own account, and gave me the best books to read. Very good. All for his own purposes.
What happened next? Presently, Grout the Bottle-washer became so important in the laboratory that he became Grout the Assistant, or Demonstrator; and another Bottle-washer was appointed – a worthy creature who still performs that useful Function, and desires nothing more than to wash the bottles truly and thoroughly. Next, Grout became known outside the laboratory; many interesting and important discoveries were made by Grout; then Grout became too big a man to be any longer Dr. Linister's Assistant; he had his own laboratory; Grout entered upon his own field of research. This was a practical field, and one in which he quickly surpassed all others.
Remember that Dr. Linister never claimed, or looked for, gratitude. He was much too wise a man. On all occasions, when it was becoming in him, he spoke in the highest terms of his former Assistant's scientific achievements.
There was, in fact, no question of Gratitude at all.
As for personal friendship, the association of years, the bond of union, or work in common – these are mere phrases, the worn-out old phrases of the vanished Past. Besides, there never was any personal friendship. Quite the contrary. Dr. Linister was never able to forget that in the old time I had been the servant and he the master. Where equality has been so long established, the continual reminder of former inequality is galling.
Dr. Linister, indeed, was always antipathetic from the beginning. Except over a research, we could have nothing in common. In the old days he was what they called a gentleman; he was also a scholar; he used to play music and write verses; he would act and dance and sing, and do all kinds of things; he was one of those men who always wanted to do everything that other men can do, and to do it as well as other men could do it. So that, though he was a great scientific worker, he spent half his day at his club, or at his sports, or in Society; that is to say, with the women – and mostly, I think, among the games and amusements of the women. There was every day, I remember, a great running to and fro of page-boys with notes from them; and he was always ready to leave any, even the most important work, just to run after a woman's caprice.
As for me, I never had any school education at all; I never had anything to do with Society; the sight of a woman always filled me with contempt for the man who could waste time in running after a creature who knew no science, never cared for any, and was so wont to disfigure her natural figure by the way she crowded on her misshapen clothes that no one could guess what it was like beneath them. As for music, art, and the rest of it, I never asked so much as what they meant; after I began to make my way, I had the laboratory for work, play, and all.
When, again, it came to the time when the Property question became acute, and we attempted to solve it by a Civil War, although Dr. Linister adhered to his determination not to leave his laboratory, his sympathies were always with individualism. Nay, he never disguised his opinion, but was accustomed regularly to set it forth at our Council meetings in the House of Life – that the abolition of property and the establishment of the perfect Socialism were the greatest blows ever inflicted upon civilization. It is not, however, civilization which the College advances, but Science – which is a very different thing – and the Scientific End of Humanity. The gradual extinction of all the emotions – love, jealousy, ambition, rivalry – Dr. Linister maintained, made life so poor a thing that painless extinction would be the very best thing possible for the whole race. It is useless to point out, to one so prejudiced, the enormous advantage gained in securing constant tranquillity of mind. He was even, sometimes, an advocate for the revival of fighting – fighting, the old barbarous way of settling disputes, in which lives were thrown away by thousands on a single field. Nor would he ever agree with the majority of the House that the only End of Humanity is mere existence, at which Science should always aim, prolonged without exertion, thought, care, or emotion of any kind.
In fact, according to the contention of my followers and myself, the Triumph of Science is as follows: The Philosopher finds a creature, extremely short-lived at the best, liable to every kind of disease and suffering from external causes, torn to pieces from within by all kinds of conflicting emotions; a creature most eager and insatiate of appetite, fiery and impetuous, quarrelsome and murderous, most difficult to drive or lead, guided only by its own selfish desires, tormented by intellectual doubts and questions which can never be answered. The Philosopher works upon this creature until he has moulded it into another so different that no one would perceive any likeness to the original creature. The new creature is immortal; it is free from disease or the possibility of disease; it has no emotions, no desires, and no intellectual restlessness. It breathes, eats, sleeps.
Such is my idea of Science Triumphant. It was never Dr. Linister's.
In manners, the Arch Physician preserved the old manners of courtesy and deference which were the fashion when he was brought up. His special work had been for many years the study of the so-called incurable diseases, such as asthma, gout, rheumatism, and so forth. For my own part, my mind, since I became Suffragan, has always been occupied with Administration, having steadily in view the Triumph of Science. I have, with this intention, made the Social Equality real and complete from every point; I have also endeavored to simplify labor, to enlarge the production and the distribution of food by mechanical means, and thus to decrease the necessity for thought, contrivance, and the exercise of ingenuity. Most of our work is so subdivided that no one understands more than the little part of it which occupies him for four hours every day. Workmen who know the whole process are impossible. They ask, they inquire, they want to improve; when their daily task is but a bit of mechanical drudgery, they do it without thought and they come away. Since labor is necessary, let it be as mechanical as possible, so that the head may not be in the least concerned with the work of the hand. In this – my view of things – the Arch Physician could never be brought to acquiesce. Had he been able to have his own way, the whole of my magnificent scheme would have been long ago destroyed and rendered impossible. I suppose it was this impossibility of having his own way which afflicted him with so profound a melancholy. His face was always sad, because he could never reconcile himself to the doctrine of human equality, without which the Perfection of Man is impossible.
It will be seen, in short, that the Arch Physician and myself held hardly a single view in common. But he had been elected to his post, and I to mine. We shared between us the Great Secret; and if my views prevailed in our Council, it was due either to my own power of impressing my views upon my colleagues, or to the truth and justice of those views.
But as to gratitude, there was no room or cause for any.
As, then, Dr. Linister walked to and fro upon the open space outside the Picture Gallery, his hands behind him, his head hanging, and his thoughts I know not where, he became conscious of something that was out of the usual order. When one lives as we live, one day following another, each like the one which went before, little departures from the accustomed order disturb the mind. For many, many years the Doctor had not given a thought to the Picture Gallery or to the door. Yet, because it stood open, and he had been accustomed to see it closed, he was disturbed, and presently lifted his head and discovered the cause.
The door stood open. Why? What was the door? Then he remembered what it was, and whither it led. It opened into the ancient Picture Gallery, the very existence of which he had forgotten, though every day he saw the door and the building itself. The Picture Gallery! It was full of the pictures painted in the last few years before the Great Discovery; that is to say, it was full of the life which he had long ago lived – nay, he lived it still. As he stood hesitating without the door, that life came back to him with a strange yearning and sinking of the heart. He had never, you see, ceased to regret it, nor had he ever forgotten it. And now he was tempted to look upon it again. As well might a monk in the old times look upon a picture of fair women years after he had forsworn love.
He hesitated, his knees trembling, for merely thinking what was within. Then he yielded to the temptation, and went into the Gallery.
The morning sun streamed through the window and lay upon the floor; the motes danced in the sunshine; the Gallery was quite empty; but on the walls hung, one above the other, five or six in each row, the pictures of the Past. In some the pigments were faded; crimson was pale-pink; green was gray; red was brown; but the figures were there, and the Life which he had lost once more flashed upon his brain. He saw the women whom once he had loved so much; they were lying on soft couches, gazing upon him with eyes which made his heart to beat and his whole frame to tremble; they were dancing; they were in boats, dressed in dainty summer costume; they were playing lawn-tennis; they were in drawing-rooms, on horseback, on lawns, in gardens; they were being wooed by their lovers. What more? They were painted in fancy costumes, ancient costumes, and even with no costume at all. And the more he looked, the more his cheek glowed and his heart beat. Where had they gone – the women of his youth?
Suddenly he heard the tinkling of a musical instrument. It was a thing they used to call a zither. He started, as one awakened out of a dream. Then he heard a voice singing; and it sang the same song he had heard that night five or six weeks ago – his own song:
"The girls they laugh, the girls they cry,
'What shall their guerdon be? —
Alas! that some must fall and die! —
Bring forth our gauds to see.
'Twere all too slight, give what we might.'
Up spoke a soldier tall:
'Oh! Love is worth the whole broad earth;
Oh! Love is worth the whole broad earth;
Give that, you give us all!'"
This time, however, it was another voice – a fuller and richer voice – which sang those words.
Dr. Linister started again when the voice began. He changed color, and his cheek grew pale.
"Heavens!" he murmured. "Are there phantoms in the air? What does it mean? This is the second time – my own song – the foolish old song – my own air – the foolish, tinkling air that they used to like! And the voice – I remember the voice – whose voice is it? I remember the voice – whose voice is it?"
He looked round him again, at the pictures, as if to find among them the face he sought. The pictures showed all the life of the Past; the ball-room with the dancers; the sports of the field; the drive in the afternoon, the ride in the morning; the bevy of girls; the soldiers and the sailors; the streets crowded with people; the vile slums and the picturesque blackguardism of the City – but not the face he wanted. Then he left off looking for the singer, and began to think of the faces before him.
"On every face," he said, "there is unsatisfied desire. Yet they are the happier for that very dissatisfaction. Yes – they are the happier." He paused before a painted group of street children; some were playing over the gutter; some were sitting on door-steps, carrying babies as big as themselves; one was sucking a piece of orange-peel picked up on the pavement; one was gnawing a crust. They were all ragged and half starved. "Yet," said the Arch Physician, "they are happy. But we have no children now. In those days they could paint and draw – and we have lost the Art. Great heavens!" he cried, impatiently, "we have lost every Art. Cruel! cruel!" Then from within there broke upon his ears a strain of music. It was so long since he had heard any music that at first it took away his breath. Wonderful that a mere sound such as that of music should produce such an effect upon a man of science! "Oh," he sighed, heavily, "we have even thrown away that! Yet – where – where does the music come from? Who plays it?"
While he listened, carried away by the pictures and by the music and by his own thoughts to the Past, his mind full of the Past, it did not surprise him in the least that there came out from the door between the Gallery and the Museum a young lady belonging absolutely to the Past. There was no touch of the Present about her at all. She did not wear the regulation dress; she did not wear the flat cap.
"It is," said Dr. Linister, "the Face that belongs to the Voice. I know it now. Where did I see it last? To whom does it belong?"
She stood for a few moments in the sunshine. Behind her was a great picture all crimson and purple, a mass of flaming color, before which her tall and slight figure, dressed in a delicate stuff of soft creamy color, stood clearly outlined. The front of the dress – at least that part which covered the throat to the waist – was of some warmer color; there were flowers at her left shoulder; her hair was braided tightly round her head; round her neck was a ribbon with something hanging from it; she wore brown gloves, and carried a straw hat dangling in her hand. It was, perhaps, the sunshine which made her eyes so bright, her cheek so glowing, her rosy lips so quivering.
She stood there, looking straight down the Hall, as if she saw no one.
Dr. Linister gazed and turned pale; his cheeks were so white that you might have thought him about to faint; he reeled and trembled.
"Good God!" he murmured, falling back upon the interjection of the Past, "we have lost the Beauty of women! Oh, Fools! Fools! We have thrown all away – all – and for what?"
Then the girl came swiftly down the Hall towards him. A smile of welcome was on her lips; a blush upon her cheek; her eyes looked up and dropped again, and again looked up and once more dropped.
Then she stopped before him and held out both her hands.
"Harry Linister!" she cried, as if surprised, and with a little laugh, "how long is it since last we met?"
CHAPTER VII
THE FIDELITY OF JOHN LAX
That morning, while I was in my private laboratory, idly turning over certain Notes on experiments conducted for the artificial manufacture of food, I was interrupted by a knock at the door.
My visitor was the Porter of the House of Life, our most trusted servant, John Lax. His duty it was to sleep in the House – his chamber being that ancient room over the South Porch – to inspect the furnaces and laboratories after the work of the day was closed, and at all times to keep an eye upon the Fabric itself, so that it should in no way fall out of repair. His orders were also to kill any strangers who might try to force their way into the House on any pretence whatever.
He was a stout, sturdy fellow, vigorous and strong, though the Great Discovery had found him nearly forty years of age; his hair, though it had gone bald on the top, was still thick on the sides, and gave him a terrifying appearance under his cap of scarlet and gold. He carried a great halberd as a wand of office, and his coat and cap matched each other for color and for gold embroidery. Save as representing the authority of the House and College, I would never have allowed such a splendid appearance to any one.
"What have you come to tell me, John?" I asked.
I may explain that I had always found John Lax useful in keeping me informed as to the internal condition of the College and its Assistants – what was said and debated – what opinions were advanced, by what men, and so forth.
"In the College itself, Suffragan," he said, "and in the House, things are mighty dull and quiet. Blessed if a little Discontent or a Mutiny, or something, wouldn't be worth having, just to shake up the lot. There's not even a grumbler left. A little rising and a few heads broken, and we should settle down again, quiet and contented again."
"Don't talk like a fool, John."
"Well, Suffragan, you like to hear all that goes on. I wonder what you'll say to what I'm going to tell you now?"
"Go on, John. What is it?"
"It's irregular, Suffragan, but your Honor is above the Law; and, before beginning a long story – mind you, a most important story it is – "
"What is it about? Who's in it?"
"Lots of the People are in it. They don't count. He's in it now – come!"
"He?"
John Lax had pointed over his shoulder so clearly in the direction of the Arch Physician's residence that I could not but understand. Yet I pretended.
"He, John? Who is he?"
"The Arch Physician is in it. There! Now, Suffragan, bring out that bottle and a glass, and I can then tell you the story, without fear of ill consequences to my throat that was once delicate."
I gave him the bottle and a glass, and, after drinking a tumblerful of whiskey (forbidden to the People) he began.
Certain reasons, he said, had made him suspicious as to what went on at night in the Museum during the last few weeks. The lights were up until late at night. Once he tried the doors, and found that they were locked. He heard the playing of music within, and the sound of many voices.
Now, there is, as I told John Lax at this point, no law against the assemblage of the People, nor against their sitting up, or singing and playing together. I had, to be sure, hoped that they had long ceased to desire to meet together, and had quite forgotten how to make music.
He remembered, John Lax went on to say, that there was a door leading into the Picture Gallery from the College Garden – a door of which he held the key.
He opened this door quietly, and then, night after night, he crept into the Picture Gallery, and watched what went on through the door, which opened upon the Museum. He had found, in fact, a place close by the door, where, hidden behind a group of statuary, he could watch and listen in almost perfect security.
I then heard, to my amazement, how a small company of the People were every night carrying on a revival of the Past; not with the laudable intention of disgusting themselves with the horrors of that time, but exactly the contrary. It was only the pleasant side of that time – the evening life of the rich and careless – which these foolish persons reproduced.
They had, in fact, gone so far, John Lax told me, as to fall in love with that time, to deride the Present, and to pour abuse upon my name – mine – as the supposed chief author of the Social Equality. This was very well for a beginning. This was a startling awakener out of a Fool's Paradise. True, the company was small; they might be easily dispersed or isolated; means might be found to terrify them into submission. Yet it gave me a rude shock.
"I've had my suspicions," John Lax continued, "ever since one morning when I looked into the Museum and see that young gal dressed up and carrying on before the looking-glass, more like – well, more like an actress at the Pav, as they used to make 'em, than like a decent woman. But now there's more." He stopped and whispered, hoarsely, "Suffragan, I've just come from a little turn about the Garden. Outside the Picture Gallery, where there's a bit o' turf and a lot of trees all standin' around, there's a very curious sight to see this minute; and if you'll get up and go along o' me, Suffragan, you'll be pleased – you will, indeed – astonished and pleased you will be."
I obeyed. I arose and followed this zealous servant. He led me to a part of the Garden which I did not know; it was the place of which I have spoken. Here, amid a great thick growth of underwood, he took me into the ruins of an old garden or tool-house, built of wood, but the planks were decaying and were starting apart.
"Stand there, and look and listen," whispered John Lax, grinning.
The open planks commanded a view of a semicircular lawn, where the neglected grass had grown thick and rank. Almost under my eyes there was sitting upon a fallen trunk a woman, fantastically dressed – against the Rules – and at her feet lay none other than the Arch Physician himself! Then, indeed, I pricked up my ears and listened with all my might.
"Are we dreaming, Mildred?" he murmured. "Are we dreaming?"
"No, Harry; we have all been dreaming for a long, long time – never mind how long. Just now we are not dreaming, we are truly awake. You are my old playfellow, and I am your old sweetheart," she said, with a little blush. "Tell me what you are doing – always in your laboratory. I suppose, always finding some new secrets. Does it make you any happier, Harry, to be always finding something new?"
"It is the only thing that makes life endurable – to discover the secrets of Nature. For what other purpose do we live?"
"Then, Harry, for what purpose do the rest of us live, who do not investigate those secrets? Can women be happy in no other way? We do not prosecute any kind of research, you know."
"Happy? Are we in the Present or the Past, Mildred?"
He looked about him, as if expecting to see the figures of the Pictures in the Gallery walking about upon the grass.
"Just now, Harry, we are in the Past. We are back – we two together – in the glorious and beautiful Past, where everything was delightful. Outside this place there is the horrible Present. You have made the Present for us, and therefore you ought to know what it is. Let me look at you, Harry. Why, the old look is coming back to your eyes. Take off that black gown, Harry, and throw it away, while you are with me. So. You are now my old friend again, and we can talk. You are no longer the President of the Holy College, the terrible and venerable Arch Physician, the Guardian of the House of Life. You are plain Harry Linister again. Tell me, then, Harry, are you happy in this beautiful Present that you have made?"
"No, Mildred; I am never happy."
"Then why not unmake the Present? Why not return to the Past?"
"It is impossible. We might go back to the Past for a little; but it would become intolerable again, as it did before. Formerly there was no time for any of the fleeting things of life to lose their rapture. All things were enjoyed for a moment, and then vanished. Now" – he sighed wearily – "they last – they last. So that there is nothing left for us but the finding of new secrets. And for you, Mildred?"
"I have been in a dream," she replied. "Oh, a long, long nightmare, that has never left me, day or night. I don't know how long it has lasted. But it has lifted at last, thank God!"
The Arch Physician started and looked astonished.
"It seems a long time," he said, "since I heard those words. I thought we had forgotten – "
"It was a dream of no change, day after day. Nothing happened. In the morning we worked; in the afternoon we rested; in the evening we took food; at night we slept. And the mind was dead. There were no books to read; there was nothing to talk about; there was nothing to hope. Always the same work – a piece of work that nobody cared to do – a mechanical piece of work. Always the same dress – the same hideous, horrible dress. We were all alike; there was nothing at all to distinguish us. The Past seemed forgotten."
"Nothing can be ever forgotten," said Dr. Linister; "but it may be put away for a time."
"Oh, when I think of all that we had forgotten, it seems terrible! Yet we lived – how could we live? – it was not life. No thought, no care, about anything. Every one centred in himself, careless of his neighbor. Why, I did not know so much as the occupants of the rooms next to my own. Men looked on women, and women on men, without thought or emotion. Love was dead – Life was Death? Harry, it was a most dreadful dream. And in the night there used to come a terrible nightmare of nothingness! It was as if I floated alone in ether, far from the world or life, and could find nothing – nothing – for the mind to grasp or think of. And I woke at the point of madness. A dreadful dream! And yet we lived. Rather than go back to that most terrible dream, I would – I would – "
She clasped her forehead with her hand and looked about her with haggard eyes.
"Yes, yes," said Dr. Linister; "I ought to have guessed your sufferings – by my own. Yet I have had my laboratory."
"Then I was shaken out of the dream by a girl – by Christine. And now we are resolved – some of us – at all costs and hazards – yes, even if we are debarred from the Great Discovery – to – live – again – to live – again!" she repeated, slowly. "Do you know, Harry, what that means? To go back – to live again! Only think what that means."
He was silent.
"Have you forgotten, Harry," she asked, softly, "what that means?"
"No," he said. "I remember everything; but I am trying to understand. The accursed Present is around and above me, like a horrible black Fog. How can we lift it? How can we live again?"
"Some of us have found out a way. In the morning we put on the odious uniform, and do our allotted task among the poor wretches who are still in that bad dream of never-ending monotony. We sit among them, silent ourselves, trying to disguise the new light that has come back to our eyes, in the Public Hall. In the evening we come here, put on the old dresses, and live the old life."
"It is wonderful," he said. "I knew all along that human nature would one day assert itself again. I told Grout so. He has always been quite wrong!"
"Grout! What does Grout know of civilized life? Grout! Why, he was your own bottle-washer – a common servant. He thought it was justice to reduce everybody to his own level, and happiness for them to remain there! Grout! Why, he has only one idea – to make us mere machines. Oh, Harry!" she said, reproach in her eyes, "you are Arch Physician, and you cannot alter things!"
"No; I have the majority of the College against me."
"Am I looking well, Harry, after all these years?"
She suddenly changed her voice and manner and laughed, and turned her face to meet his. Witch! Abominable Witch!
"Well, Mildred, was it yesterday that I loved you? Was the Great Discovery made only yesterday? Oh, you look lovelier than ever!"
"Lovely means worthy of love, Harry. But you have killed love."
"No, no. Love died. We did not kill love. Why did the men cease to love the women? Was it that they saw them every day, and so grew tired of them?"
"Perhaps it was because you took from us the things that might have kept love alive; music, art, literature, grace, culture, society – everything."
"We did not take them. They died."
"And then you dressed us all alike, in the most hideous costume ever invented."
"It was Grout's dress."
"What is the good of being Arch Physician if one cannot have his own way?"
Harry sighed.
"My place is in the laboratory," he said. "I experiment, and I discover. The Suffragan administers. It has always been the rule. Yet you live again, Mildred. Tell me more. I do not understand how you contrive to live again."
