Part 2
“You say that as if you thought there was one law for the rich and another for the poor. You are making a mistake. If I am had up for begging as well as you, we shall both of us go to prison. The fact that I have no need to steal or beg, can pay for getting drunk and taking holidays, is hardly to the point--you must see that! Do not be led away by sentimental talk; if we appear before a judge, we both must suffer punishment. I am not so likely to appear as you perhaps, but that’s an accident. No, please don’t say that dreadful thing again! I wish to help you. There is Canada, but they don’t want you. I would send you anywhere to stop your eyes from haunting me, but they don’t want you. Where do they want you? Tell me, and you shall go.”
“I am a lost dog.”
“You remind me of that white shadow with little liver spots that my spaniel dog and I picked up one night when we were going home.
“‘Master,’ he said, ‘there’s such an amusing cur out there in the middle of the road.’
“‘Behave yourself! Don’t pick up with anything you come across like this!’
“‘Master, I know it is a thin and dirty cur, but the creature follows me.’
“‘Keep to heel! The poor dog will get lost if you entice him far from home.’
“‘Oh, master! that’s just what’s so amusing. He hasn’t any.’
“And like a little ghost the white dog crept along behind. We looked to read his collar; it was gone. We took him home--and how he ate, and how he drank! But my spaniel said to me:
“‘Master, what is the use of bringing in a dog like this? Can’t you see what he is like? He has eaten all my meat, drunk my bowl dry, and he is now sleeping in my bed.’
“I said to him: ‘My dear, you ought to like to give this up to this poor dog.’
“And he said to me: ‘Master, I _don’t_! He is no good, this dog; I am cleaner and fatter than he. And don’t you know there’s a place on the other side of the water for all this class of dog? When are we going to take him there?’
“And I said to him: ‘My dear, don’t ask me; _I don’t know_.’
“And you are like that dog, standing there with those eyes of yours and that weak chin and those weak knees, before this half-built house with the winter coming on. And I am like my spaniel, who knows there is a proper place for all your kind of creature. Man! what shall I do with you?”
“I am a lost dog.”
DEMOS
II
DEMOS
“Well, she’s my wife, ain’t she?” He put his hands on the handles of his barrow as though to take it away from one who could not see his point of view, wheeled it two yards, and stopped.
“It’s no matter what I done to her. Look ’ere!” He turned his fish-white face, and his dead eyes came suddenly to life, with a murky, yellow glare, as though letting escape the fumes within his soul. “I ought to ha’ put her to bed with a shovel long ago; and I will, too, first chance I get.”
“You are talking like a madman.”
“Look ’ere, ’as a man a right to his own wife an’ children?” His thick loose lower lip trembled. “You tell me that!”
“It depends on how he behaves himself. If you knock her about, you can’t expect her to stay with you.”
“I never done no more to her than what she deserved. I never gave her the ’alf o’ what she ought to ’ave.”
“I’ve seen her several times with your marks on her face.”
“Yes, an’ I’ll mark ’er again, I will.”
“So you have just said.”
“Because a man ’its ’is wife when he’s got a drop o’ liquor in ’im, that don’t give ’er the right to go off like this and take a man’s children from ’im, do it?”
“I think it does.”
“When I find her----”
“I hope you will not find her.”
He thrust his head forward, and the yellow in the whites of his eyes deepened and spread till his whole face seemed suffused with it.
“Look ’ere, man an’ wife is man an’ wife, and don’t you or any one come between ’em, or it’ll be the worse for you.”
“I have told you my opinion.”
“You think I don’t know the law; the law says his children belongs to a man, not to a woman.”
“We needn’t go into that.”
“Needn’t we? You think, becos I’m not a torf, I got no rights. I know what the law says. A man owns ’is wife, an’ ’e owns ’is children.”
“Do you deny that you drink?”
“You’d drink if you ’ad my life; d’you think I like this goin’ about all day with a barrer?”
“Do you deny that you’ve often struck your wife?”
“What’s it to you or any one else, what I do to ’er in private? Why don’t you come down to my place an’ order me about?”
“But I suppose you know your wife can get a separation order if she goes down to the Court?”
On his face a grin stole up.
“Separation order! Do ’er a lot o’ good, that would! D’you think that’d keep my ’ands off ’er afterwards? She knows what I’d do to ’er if she went against me.”
“What _would_ you do?”
“She wouldn’t want to arsk for any more separation orders.”
“You would be locked up if you molested her afterwards.”
“Should I? _She_ wouldn’t be there to speak against me.”
“I understand.”
“She knows what I’d do to ’er.”
“You’ve scared her so that she daren’t go to the Court--she daren’t stay with you; what can she do but leave you?”
“I don’t want _’er_, let ’er go; I want the children.”
“Do you really mean that you don’t want her?”
“I never ’ad a woman keep _me_.”
“You know that her earnings have kept you all.”
“I tell you I never ’ad a woman keep me.”
“Can you support the children?”
“If I could get a proper job----”
“But can you get a proper job?”
“Well, ’oo’s fault is that; it’s not my fault, is it?”
“You’ve had plenty of chances.”
“‘Oo cares if I ’ave! I’ve always been a good father to my children. I’ve worked for ’em, an’ begged for ’em, an’ stole for ’em; I’m well known to be a good father all about where I live.”
“But that won’t keep them off the parish, will it?”
“You let the parish alone! If I ’aven’t got money, I’ve got honour; that’s better than all the money. I don’t want no money to tell me what’s right and what isn’t.”
“Come, come!”
“The children’s mine--every one o’ them. Takin’ children away from their father! that’s a fine thing to be backin’ up like this!”
His eyes moved from side to side, like the eyes of an animal in pain, and his voice was hoarse as though a lump had risen in his throat.
“Look ’ere! I’m fonder of them children than what people might think. I’ll never sleep again till I know where they are.”
“How can I tell you where they are without telling you where their mother is?”
“They’re mine--the law gives ’em to me. ’Oo are you to go against the law?”
“We went over that just now.”
“When she married me she took me for better or worse, didn’t she? Man an’ wife should settle their own affairs. They don’t want no one else to interfere with them!”
“You want her back so that you can do what you like to her. Do you expect other people to help you to that?”
“Look ’ere! D’you think it’s pleasant for me when I go into the pub to ’ave ’em talk about _my wife_ goin’ off on ’er own? D’you think I ’aven’t got enough to bear without that?”
“You ought to have thought of that before you drove her to it.”
“‘Oo says I drove ’er? Noos-bearin’, talkin’ about ’er, like what they are? She’s lost ’er honour; d’you think that’s pleasant for _me_?”
“No.”
“Well, then!” He came from between the handles of his barrow and stood on the edge of the pavement, and the movement of his shoulders was like the movement of a bull that is about to charge. “Look ’ere! She’s mine to do what I like with. I never injured any one that didn’t injure me; but any one that injures me’ll ’ave a funny piece o’ cake to cut, what ’e’ll never be able to swaller.”
“Who is injuring you?”
“An’ don’t you think I’m afraid o’ the police. Not all the police in the world won’t stop _me_!”
“Well?”
“You only listens to one side; if I was to tell you all I’d got against ’er----”
“You beat her--and you ask me to help you find her?”
“I’m arskin’ you the whereabouts o’ my children.”
“It’s the same thing. Can’t you see that no decent man would tell you?”
He plucked at his throat and stood silent, with a groping movement like a man suddenly realising that the darkness before him is not going to lift.
“It’s all like a Secret Society to me! If I can’t get ’em back, I can’t bear meself.”
“How can it be otherwise?”
“You’re all on ’er side. She’s a disgrace, that’s what _she_ is, takin’ ’em away from their ’ome, takin’ ’em away from their father.”
“She brought them into the world.”
“When I find ’er, I’ll make _’er_ sorry she was ever brought into the world ’erself. I’ll let ’er know ’oo’s ’er master! She sha’n’t forget a second time! She’s mine, and the children’s mine!”
“Well, I can’t help you.”
“I stands on the law. The law gives ’em to me, and I’ll keep ’em. She knows better than to go to the Court against me--it means ’er last sleep.”
“Good-morning!”
He plucked at his neck again and ground the sole of his boot on the pavement, and the movement of his eyes was pitiful to see.
“I’m ’alf out o’ meself, that’s what I am; I’ll never sleep until I find ’em. Look ’ere! _Tell_ me where they are, sir?”
“I am sorry, I cannot.”
In the unmoving fish-white face his dead eyes, straining in their sockets, began to glow again with that queer yellow glare, as though alive with the spirit that dwells where light has never come; the spirit that possesses those dim multitudes who know no influence but that of force, no reason, and no gentleness, since these have never come their way; who know only that they must keep that little which they have, since that which they have not is so great and so desirable; the dim multitudes who, since the world began, have lived from hand to mouth, like dogs crouched over their stale bones, snarling at such as would take those poor bones from them.
“I’m ’er ’usband, an’ I mean to ’ave ’er, alive or dead.”
And I saw that this was not a man who spoke, but the very self of the brute beast that lurks beneath the surface of our State; the very self of the chained monster whom Nature tortures with the instinct for possession, and man with whips drives from attainment. And behind his figure in the broad flowery road I seemed to see the countless masses of his fellows filing out of their dark streets, out of their alleys and foul lodgings, in a never-ending river of half-human flesh, with their faces set one way. They covered the whole road, and every inlet was alive with them; and all the air was full of the dull surging of thousands more. Of every age, in every sort of rags; on all their faces the look that said: “All my life I have been given that which will keep me alive, that, and no more. What I have got I have got; no one shall wrench it from my teeth! I live as the dogs; as the dogs shall my actions be! I am the brute beast; have I the time, the chance, the money to learn gentleness and decency? Let me be! Touch not my gnawed bones!”
They stood there--a great dark sea stretching out to the farther limits of the sight; no sound came from their lips, but all their eyes glowed with that yellow glare, and I saw that if I took my glance off them they would spring at me.
“You defy me, Guv’nor?”
“I am obliged to.”
“One day I’ll meet yer, then, for all your money, and I’ll let yer know!”
He took up the handles of his barrow, and slowly, with a sullen lurch, wheeled it away, looking neither to his right nor left. And behind him, down the road with its gardens and tall houses, moved the millions of his fellows; and, as they passed in silence, each seemed to say:
“One day I’ll meet you, and--I’ll let you know!”
The road lay empty again beneath the sun; nursemaids wheeled their perambulators, the lilac-trees dropped blossom, the policemen at the corners wrote idly in their little books.
There was no sign of what had passed.
OLD AGE
III
OLD AGE
He came running out of the darkness, and spoke at once: “Go an’ see my poor mother, gentleman; go and see my poor father an’ mother!”
It was a snowy midnight; by the light of the street lamp he who made this strange request looked ragged and distraught.
“They lives in Gold Street, 22; go an’ see ’em, gentleman. Mrs. James White--my poor mother starvin’.”
In England no one starves.
“Go an’ see ’em, gentleman; it’s the book o’ truth I’m tellin’ you. They’re old; they got no food, they got nothin’.”
“Very well, I will.”
He thrust out his face to see whether he might trust his ears, then without warning turned and ran on down the road. His shape vanished into darkness, whence it came....
Gold Street with its small grey houses whose doors are always open, and its garbage-littered gutters, where children are at play.
“Mr. and Mrs. James White?”
“First floor back. Mr. White--wanted!”
My dog sniffed at the passage wall, that smelled unlike the walls belonging to him, and presently an old man came. He looked at us distrustfully, and we looked back distrustfully at him.
“Mr. James White?”
“Yes.”
“Last night some one calling himself your son asked me to come up and see you.”
“Come up, sir.”
The room was unpapered, and not more than ten feet square; it contained a double bed, over whose dirty mattress was stretched a black-brown rag; a fireplace and no fire; a saucepan, but nothing in it; two cups, a tin or two, no carpet, a knife and spoon, a basin, some photographs, and rags of clothing; all blackish and discoloured.
On a wooden chair before the hearth was sitting an old woman whose brown-skinned face was crowsfooted all over. Her hair was white, and she had little bright grey eyes and a wart on one nostril. A dirty shawl was pinned across her chest; this, with an old skirt and vest, seemed all her clothing. The third finger of her left hand was encircled by a broad gold ring. There were two chairs, and the old man placed the other one for me, having rubbed it with his sleeve. My dog lay with his chin pressed to the ground, for the sights and scents of poverty displeased him.
“I’m afraid you’re down on your luck.”
“Yes, sir, we are down.”
Seated on the border of the bed, he was seen to be a man with features coloured greyish-dun by lack of food; his weak hair and fringe of beard were touched with grey; a dumb, long-suffering man from whom discouragement and want had planed away expression.
“How have you got into this state?”
“The winter an’ my not gettin’ work.”
A whisper came from the old lady by the hearth:
“Father can work, sir; oh! ’e can work!”
“Yes, I can work; I’m good for a day’s work at any time.”
“I’m afraid you don’t look it!”
His hand was shaking violently, and he tried to stop its movement.
“It’s a bit chilly; I feels well enough in meself.”
More confidential came the old lady’s whisper:
“Father’s very good ’ealth, sir; oh! ’e can work. It’s not ’avin’ any breakfast that makes ’im go like that this weather.”
“But how old are you?”
“Father’s seventy-one, sir, and I’m the same. Born within two months of each other--wasn’t we, Father?”
“Forgive my saying so, Mr. White, but, with all this competition, is there much chance of your getting work at that age? What _are_ you?”
“Painter I am, sir; take any work--I’m not particular. Mr. Williams gives me a bit when times are good, but the winter----”
“Father can work, sir; oh! ’e can work!”
“Thirty-three years I worked for one firm--thirty-three years.”
“What firm was that?”
“Thirty-three years--till they gave up business----”
“But what firm----”
“Answer the gentleman’s question. Father’s very slow, sir.”
“Scotter’s, of John Street, that was--thirty-three years. Now they’ve given up.”
“How long since they gave up?”
“Three years.”
“And how have you managed since?”
“Just managed along--get some jobs in the summer--just managed along.”
“You mustn’t mind Father, sir. Why don’t you tell the gentleman? Just managed along, as you see, sir--everything’s gone now.”
She passed her hand over her mouth, and the sound of her whisper was more intimate than ever:
“Dreadful things we’ve suffered in this room, sir; dreadful! I don’t like to speak of ’em, if you’ll believe me.”
And, with that almost soundless whisper, that stealthy movement of her hand before her mouth, all those things she spoke of seemed to be happening in their deadly privacy to those two old people behind their close-shut door.
There was a silence; my dog spoke with his eyes: “Master, we have been here long enough; I smell no food; there is no fire!”
“You must feel the cold dreadfully this weather?”
“We stays in bed as long as we can, sir--to keep warm, you know--to keep warm.”
The old man nodded from the black ruin of a bed.
“But I see you have no blankets.”
“All gone, sir--all gone.”
“Had you no savings out of that thirty-three years?”
“Family, sir--family; four sons an’ two daughters; never more than thirty shillin’s a week. He always gave me his wages--Father always gave me his wages.”
“I never was one to drink.”
“Sober man, Father; an’ now he’s old. But ’e can work, sir; ’e can work.”
“But can’t your sons help you?”
“One’s dead, sir; died of fever. And one”--her withered finger touched her forehead--“not quite--you know, not quite----”
“The one I saw last night, I suppose?”
“Not quite--not since he was in the Army. A bit--” Again she touched her forehead.
“And the other two?”
“Good sons, sir; but large families, you know. Not able----”
“And the daughters?”
“One’s dead, sir; the other’s married--away.”
“Haven’t you any one to fall back on?”
The old man interrupted heavily:
“No, sir; we haven’t.”
“Father doesn’t put things right, sir--let me speak to the gentleman! Tell you the truth, never ’ad the habit, sir; not accustomed to ask for things; never done it--couldn’t!”
The old man spoke again:
“The Society looked into our case; ’ere’s their letter. Owin’ to my not ’avin’ any savin’s, we weren’t thought fit for bein’ ’elped, so they says ’ere. All my savin’s is gone this year or more; what could I save, with six children?”
“Father couldn’t save; ’e did ’is duty by them--’e couldn’t save. We’ve not been in the ’abit of askin’ people, sir; wouldn’t do such a thing--couldn’t!”
“Well! You see they’ve made a start with old-age pensions?”
The old man slowly answered:
“I ’eard something--I don’t trouble about politics.”
“Father never was one for the public-’ouse, sir; never.”
“But you used to have a vote, of course?”
A smile came on his lips, and faded; and in that smile, not even ironical, he passed judgment on the centuries that had left him where he was.
“I never bothered about them. I let that alone!”
And again he smiled. “I’ll be dead long before they reach _me_, I know that.”
“The winter’s only half over. What are you going to do?”
“Well, sir, I don’t know _what_ we’re goin’ to do.”
“Don’t you think that, all things considered, you’d be better off in the--in the Infirmary?”
Silence.
“You know they--they’re quite comfortable, and----”
Silence.
“It’s not as if there were any--any disgrace, or----”
Silence.
“Well?”
He rose and crossed over to the hearth, and my dog, disturbed, sniffed at his trousers. “You are worn out,” he seemed to say; “go where you ought to go, then my master will not have to visit you, and waste the time he owes to me.” And he, too, rose and came and put his snout on my knee; “When I am old, master, you will still take care of me--that is understood between us. But this man has no one to take care of him. Let us go!”
The old man spoke at last:
“No, sir. I don’t want to go there; I can work. I don’t want to go there.”
Beyond him the whisper rose:
“Father can work, sir; ’e can work. So long as we get a crust of bread, we’d rather stay ’ere.”
“I’ve got _this_, but I can’t bring meself to use it. I can work; I’ve always worked.” He took out a piece of paper. It was an order admitting James White, aged 71, and Eliza White his wife, aged 71, into the local Workhouse; if used for purposes of begging to be destroyed.
“Father can work, sir; ’e can work. We seen dreadful times in this room, believe, me, sir, before we came to getting that. We don’t want to go. I tell Father I’d rather die out ’ere.”
“But you’d be so much more comfortable, Mrs. White; you must know that.”
“Yes, sir; but there it is--I don’t want to, and Father don’t want to.”
“I can work; I can go about with a barrer, or anything.”
“But can you _live_?”
“Well, sir, so long as we’re alive. After that, I can’t tell--they’ll get us then, I suppose.”
And the whisper came:
“We can’t ’elp it after that. As you see, sir--there’s nothin’ left, there’s nothin’ left.”
She raised her hand and pointed to the bed; and the sun, that had been hidden all the morning, broke through and glittered on her wedding ring.
THE CAREFUL MAN
IV
THE CAREFUL MAN
He came on one side of farmer stock who had married farmer stock since the invasion of the Saxons, and on the other side of county families who had married county families since the Norman conquest. He was born where the town ended and country life began, educated at a public school, and his father was a judge.
Being designed for a profession he had adopted it, keeping himself in hand, so as not to be unpleasantly professional. For since the time when he was wheeled in perambulators he had never wanted to do anything too much. He had so completely seen the other side of being wheeled in perambulators that he had ever afterwards been loth to put himself in a position which made it needful for him to act with all his heart. His organs were in fact remarkably adjusted. He had not too much head nor too much heart. He had not too much appetite, but he had appetite enough. When asked at lunch of which sweet he would partake, he would answer: “A little of both, thanks”; for nothing seemed to him in life so great a pity as to take one thing to the exclusion of another. The instinct was so founded in the very roots of him that he knew nothing of it; and it was this unconsciousness which lent a simple strength to what might otherwise have seemed an undecided character.
His attitude to women was a guarded one. It was repugnant to him to have too much wife, and yet, not wife enough was also very painful; and so he had devised a way out of his embarrassment by saying to himself: “We two are only married to the extent that we desire to be; we will do exactly as we like.” And he found that by thinking this, and getting his wife, who was a clever woman, to say she thought it too, he remained extremely faithful. With regard to children, it had no doubt been difficult, for--after a year or two--to have children and not to have them had been found impossible. In this dilemma he had considered very seriously what course he should adopt, and having carefully weighed the pro’s and con’s had discovered them to be so very equal that he could come to no conclusion. In consequence of this he had two children; after which he found no difficulty in not wanting to have more.
The question of his residence had occasioned him some pain; for, supposing that he lived in town he missed the country, and supposing that he resided in the country he missed the town. He therefore lived a little in both town and country; so regulating things that when in London he wanted to be out, and when out of London he wanted to be in, which kept him healthy.
A moderate meat diet gave him a hankering after other diets, making him a vegetarian in theory, so that he was in accord with either school. He drank wine at times; at times he drank no wine; he smoked one cigar after every meal--no more, because more made him sick.
His feeling about money was that he ought to have enough, in order to have no feeling about money; and, to attain this vacuum, he mechanically restrained his wants, still more his wife’s--for, not being so beautifully adjusted as himself, when she wanted things, she _wanted_ them.