Part 2
Cromartie did not betray any uneasiness; he ate his lunch, smoked a cigar, and played several games of Patience, but by tea-time he was exhausted, and would have liked to go and lie down in his bedroom, but it seemed to him that to do so would be to confess weakness. What made it worse, because more ridiculous, was that the Chimpanzee and the Orang-outang next door, each came to the partition walls and spent the whole day staring at him too. No doubt they were only imitating the public in doing so, but they added a great deal to poor Mr. Cromartie’s unhappiness. At last the long day was over, the crowds departed, the Gardens were closed, and then came another surprise--for his two neighbours did not go away. No, they clung to the wire partitions and began to chatter and show their teeth at him. Cromartie was too tired to stay in the cage, and went and lay down in his bedroom. When he came back after an hour the Chimpanzee and the Orang were still there, and greeted him with angry snarls. There was no doubt about it--they were threatening him.
Cromartie did not understand why this should be until Collins, who had come past, explained it to him.
“They are wild with jealousy,” he said, “that you should have drawn such a large crowd.” And he warned Mr. Cromartie to be very careful not to go within reach of their fingers. They would tear his hair out and kill him if they could get at him.
At first Mr. Cromartie found this very hard to credit, but afterwards, when he got to know the characters of his fellow captives better, it became the most ordinary commonplace. He learnt that all the monkeys, the elephants, and the bears felt jealous in this way. It was natural enough that the creatures that were fed by the public should feel resentment if they were passed over, for they are all insatiably greedy, and the worse they digest the food given them the more anxious they are to glut themselves with it. The wolves felt a different jealousy, for they were constantly forming attachments to particular persons among the crowd, and if the chosen person neglected them for a neighbour they became jealous. Only the larger cats, lions, and panthers seemed free from this degrading passion.
During his stay Mr. Cromartie gradually came to know all the beasts in the Gardens pretty well, since he was allowed out every evening after closing-time, and very often was allowed to go into other cages. Nothing struck him more forcibly than the distinction which most of the different creatures very soon drew between him and the keepers. When a keeper came past every animal would pay some attention, whereas few of them would even look round for Mr. Cromartie. He was treated by the vast majority with indifference. As time went on he saw that they treated him as they treated each other, and it struck him that they had somehow learnt that he was being exhibited as they were themselves. This impression was so forcible that Mr. Cromartie believed it without question, though it is not easy to prove that it was so, and still more difficult to explain how such a piece of knowledge could have spread among so heterogeneous a collection of creatures. Yet the attitude of the animals to each other was so marked, that Mr. Cromartie not only observed it in them, but very soon came to feel it in himself for them. He could not describe it better than by calling it firstly “cynical indifference,” and then adding that it was perfectly good-natured. It was expressed usually by total indifference, but sometimes by something between a yawn of contempt and a grin of cynical appreciation. It was just in these slight shades of manner that Mr. Cromartie found the animals interesting. Naturally they had nothing to say to him, and in such artificial surroundings their natural habits were difficult to ascertain, only those living in families or colonies ever seeming perfectly at their ease, but they all did seem to reveal something of themselves in their attitude to each other. To man they showed quite different behaviour, but in their eyes Mr. Cromartie was not a man. He might smell like one, but they saw at once that he had come out of a cage.
There is in this a possible explanation of the often recorded fact that it is particularly easy for convicts to make friends with mice and rats in prison.
For the rest of that week crowds collected round the new Ape-house every day, and the queue for admittance was longer than that at the pit of Drury Lane Theatre on a first night.
Thousands of people paid for admission to the Gardens and waited patiently for hours in order to catch a glimpse of the new creature which the Society had acquired, and none were really disappointed when they had seen him, although many professed to be so. For everyone went away with what people are most grateful for having--that is, a new subject for conversation, something that everyone could discuss and have an opinion about, viz., the propriety of exhibiting a man. Not that this discussion was confined to those who had actually been successful in catching a glimpse of him. On the contrary it raged in every train, in every drawing-room, and in the columns of every newspaper in England. Jokes on the subject were made at public dinners, and at music-halls, and Mr. Cromartie was referred to continually in _Punch_, sometimes in a facetious manner. Sermons were preached about him, and a Labour member in the House of Commons said that when the working classes came into power the rich would be put “alongside the Man in the Zoo, where they properly belonged.”
What was the strangest thing was that everyone held the view either that a man ought to be exhibited, or that he ought not to be exhibited, and that after a week’s time there were not half a dozen men in England who believed no moral principle to be involved in the matter.
Mr. Cromartie cared less than nothing for all these discussions of which he was the subject; it was no more to him indeed what men said about him than if he had been the ape in the cage beside his own. Indeed it was really less, for had the ape been able to understand that thousands of people were talking about it, the creature would have been as much puffed up with pride as now it was mortified with jealousy that its neighbour should draw so vast a crowd.
Mr. Cromartie told himself he cared nothing for the world of men now. As he looked through the meshes of his cage at the excited faces watching him, it cost him an effort to listen to what was being said of him, and after a while his attention wandered even against his will, for he cared nothing for mankind and cared nothing for what they said.
Yet while he told himself that with some complacency, something came into his mind which threw him into such disorder that he looked about him for a minute as if he were distracted, and then ran as if in terror into his hiding-place, his place of refuge, his bedroom, which he had not sheltered in before, at least not in that way.
“What if I should see Josephine among them?” he asked himself aloud, and the thought of her coming was so actual to him that it seemed as if she were at that moment entering the house, and then were there at the bars already.
“What can I do?” he asked himself. “I can do nothing. What can I say? I can say nothing. No, I must not speak to her, I will not look at her. When I see her I will sit down in my armchair and look on the floor until she is gone, that is, if I have the strength. What will become of me if she should come? And perhaps she will come every day and will be always there watching me through the bars, and will call out and insult me as some do already. How could I bear that?”
Then he asked himself why should she come at all, and began to persuade himself that there was no reason why she should visit him, and that it was the most irrational fear that could seize hold of him--but it would not do.
“No,” said he at length, shaking his head, “I see she is bound to come. She is free to go where she likes, and one day when I look up I shall see her there, staring into my cage at me. Sooner or later it is bound to happen.” Then he asked himself what errand would send her there to look at him? Why would she come? Would it be to mock at him and torment him, or would it be because now that it was too late she repented of sending him there?
“No,” he told himself, “no, Josephine will never repent, or if she should, she would not own to it. When she does come here it will be to hurt me more than she has done already; she will come to torture me because it amuses her and I am at her mercy. Oh, God, she has no mercy in her.”
At this Mr. Cromartie who was so proud only a half-hour ago, saying he cared nothing for mankind now and nothing for what they said, began to cry and whimper like a baby, staying hidden all the while in his little bedroom. He sat there on the edge of his bed with his face buried in his hands for a quarter of an hour, and the tears running through his fingers. And all the while he was busy with this new fear of his, and saying to himself first that his life was no longer safe, that Josephine would bring a pistol and shoot him through the bars; and then his thoughts fetching about, that she cared nothing for him, and would not come to hurt him, but from mere love of notoriety and to get herself talked about by her friends or in the newspapers. At last he pulled himself somewhat together, washed his face and bathed his eyes, and then went back into his cage, where you may be sure the crowd was pretty impatient to see him after being kept waiting so long.
Once again you could see how this Mr. Cromartie “cared nothing for mankind and what they said.” For the moment that he stepped into his cage in full view of the public, from being an abject creature with his face comically twisted up to keep back his tears, he became at once quite calm and self-possessed and showed no trace of any feeling. Yet did this assumed calm show that he cared nothing for mankind? Was it because he cared nothing for mankind that he made these efforts, swallowing down the lump that was risen in his throat, holding back the tear that would have started to his eye, and strolling in with a serene smile, then knitting his brows with an affectation of thought; and was all this because he cared nothing for mankind?
The strange thing was that Mr. Cromartie should have taken three weeks to think that Josephine would certainly come and pay him a visit. For three weeks he had been thinking at every moment of the day of this girl Josephine, and, indeed, dreaming of her almost every night, but it had never come into his head that he would ever see her again. He had told himself a thousand times, “We are parted for ever,” and had never asked himself, “Why do I say this?” He had, one evening, even retraced their steps as they had wandered from one cage to another on the day that they had had their final rupture. But now all these sentimental ideas were a thousand miles away from him, who, though he lay back, yawned, and negligently cut the pages of a book from Mudie’s, was all the same terrified at the question he kept asking himself:
“When will she come? Will she come now, to-day, or perhaps to-morrow? Will she not come till next week, or not for a month?”
And his heart shrank within him as he understood that he would never know when she was coming and he would never be prepared for her.
But with all this flutter Mr. Cromartie was like a countryman coming into town a day late for the fair, for Josephine had already paid him a visit that day two hours before he had ever thought that she might do so.
When she had come Josephine did not know at all certainly why she found herself there. Every day since she had heard of the “loathsome thing” John had done she had vowed that she would never see him again, and would never think of him again. Every day she spent in thinking of him, and every day her anger drove her to walk in the direction of Regent’s Park, and all her time was occupied in thinking how she could best punish him for what he had done.
At first it had been insupportable for her. She had heard the news from her father at breakfast while he was reading _The Times_, and had learnt it in fragments as he chanced to read it out to her while she sat silent with the coffee machine and the egg machine in front of her, for her father stickled for his eggs being boiled very exactly. When breakfast was over she found _The Times_ and read the account of the “Startling Acquisition by the Zoo Authorities.” She told herself then that she could never forgive or forget the insult to which she had been subjected, and that while she sat at breakfast she had grown an old woman.
As time went on Josephine’s fury did not slacken; no, it became greater; and it passed through a dozen or more phases every day. Thus at one moment she would laugh with pity for such a poor fool as John, in the next marvel that such a creature should have the sense to know where he belonged, then turn all her rage on the Zoological Society for causing such an outrage to decency to occur in their grounds, and reflect bitterly on the folly of mankind who were ready to divert themselves at such a sorry spectacle as the degraded John--reducing themselves indeed to his level. Again, she would exclaim at the vanity which led him to such a course; anything would do so long as he got himself talked about. No doubt he would see that she, Josephine, was talked about too. Indeed, John, she declared, had done it solely to affront her. But he had gone the wrong way to work if he thought he would impress her. She would indeed go to see him and show him how little she cared for him; no, what was better, she would go visit the other ape next door to him. That was the way by which she could best show him her indifference to him, and her superiority to the vulgar mob of sightseers. Nothing would induce her to look at such a base creature as John. She could not regard his action with indifference. It was a calculated insult, but fortunately he would alone suffer for it, for as for herself she had never cared in the least for him, and her complete indifference was not likely to be ruffled by his latest escapade. Indeed it meant no more to her than any other creature being exhibited.
Thus Miss Lackett drove round and round in circles, vowing vengeance at one time and the next moment swearing that it was all one to her what he did, she had never cared for him and never would. But do what she might she could think of nothing else. At night she lay awake saying to herself first one thing and then another, and changing her mind ten times for every time she turned her head on the pillow, and thus she spent the first three or four days and nights in misery.
Yet in all this there was something that wounded Miss Lackett more even than the fact itself, and that was the consciousness of her own worthlessness and vulgarity. Everything she felt, everything she said, was vulgar. Her preoccupation with Mr. Cromartie was vulgar, and every emotion connected with him which she now felt was degrading. In fact, after the first few days this weighed on her so heavily that she was almost ready to forgive him, but she could never forgive herself. All her self-respect was gone for ever, she told herself; henceforward she knew that she was never disinterested. She had offended herself more than any number of Cromarties would ever do. She was, she said, deeply disappointed in herself, and wondered how it had come about that this side of her nature should have been so long unsuspected by her.
It was this turning off of her rage and indignation against herself that finally allowed of her going to see him, or rather of her going to see the Chimpanzee next him, for she repeated to herself that she would not look at him, that she could not endure to see him, and so on, though at moments this decision was modified by the reflection that she only hoped he would feel properly punished when he saw her give him one glance of cool contempt.
Miss Lackett found the event different from her expectations. In front of the Ape-house a crowd was collected, and directly she had joined it she found herself caught up in a queue of people waiting to see “The Man.” On all sides she heard jokes about him, and those of the women (who were in the majority) struck her as being barely decent. Progress was extremely slow and very exhausting.
At last, when she found herself in the building itself, it was impossible for her to carry out her intention of looking only at the apes, for she suddenly became overcome at the thought of seeing them and closed her eyes lest she should see an ape and be overcome by nausea. In a few minutes she found herself in front of Cromartie’s cage, and gazed at him helplessly. At that moment he was engaged in walking up and down (which occupation, by the way, took up far more of his time than he ever suspected). But she could not speak to him, indeed she dreaded that he should see her.
Back and forth he walked by the wire division, with his hands behind his back and his head bent slightly, until he reached the corner, when up went his head and he turned on his heel. His face was expressionless.
Before she got out Miss Lackett was to have another shock, for, leaving Mr. Cromartie’s cage, she let her eyes wander and suddenly was looking straight into the mug of the Orang. This creature sat disconsolately on the floor with her long red hair matted and entangled with straws. Her close-set brown eyes were staring in front of her and nothing about her moved but her black nostrils, that were the shape of an inverted heart and set in a mask of black and dusty rubber. This, then, was the creature that her lover resembled! It was to this melancholy Caliban that everyone compared him! Such a hideous monster as this ape was thought a suitable companion for the man with whom she had imagined herself in love! For the man whom she had considered marrying!
Miss Lackett slipped silently out of the house, sick with disgust and weighed down with shame. She was ashamed of everything, of her own feelings, of her weakness in caring what happened to John. She was ashamed of the spectators, of herself, and of the dirty world where such men, and beasts like them, existed. Mixed with her shame was fear which grew greater with every step she took. She was alarmed lest she would be recognised, and looked at everyone she passed with nervous apprehension; even after she had got out of the Gardens she did not feel safe, so that she got herself a taxi and climbed in almost breathlessly, and even then looked behind her through the pane of glass in the back. Nothing followed her.
“Thank God, it is all right. There is no danger,” she said to herself, though what the danger was of which she spoke she could not have said. Perhaps she was afraid that she might be shut up in a cage herself.
The next day Miss Lackett had somewhat shaken off the painful impressions caused by her visit, and her chief emotion was a sensible relief that it had turned out no worse.
“Never again,” she said to herself, “shall I be guilty of such folly. Never again,” she repeated, “need I run such an awful risk. Never again shall I think of that poor fellow, for I shall never need to. Out of justice to him I had to see him, even though at a distance, and without his seeing me. It would have been cowardly not to have gone, it would not have been in keeping with my character. But it would be cowardice in me to go again. It would be weak. After all I had to indulge my curiosity, it would have been fatal to have suppressed it. Now I know the worst and the affair is closed for ever. If I were to go again it would be painful to me and unjust to him, for I might be recognised; if he heard that I had been twice it would fill him with false hopes. He might conclude that I wished to speak with him. Nothing, nothing could be farther from the truth. I think he is mad. I feel sure he is mad. Talking to him would be like those interviews that people have to have once a year with their insane relatives. But fortunately for me my duty coincides with my inclinations--I ought not to see him and I abhor the thought of doing so. There is no more to be said.”
It was not often that Miss Lackett was so consistent in her thoughts, neither, we may add, was she often quite so prim. She managed to repeat such phrases over and over again to herself throughout the week, but somehow she did not succeed in forgetting all about Mr. Cromartie, or even in putting him out of her thoughts for more than an hour or two at a time.
On the fourth day after her visit it so happened that General Lackett gave a dinner-party at which his daughter acted as hostess. Several of the guests were young, and one or two of them not very well to do. It was natural in these circumstances, as the General had rather thoughtlessly dismissed his chauffeur for the evening, that his daughter should offer to drive some of her young friends home. One of them lived in Frognal, two others in Circus Road, St. John’s Wood. On the outward journey Miss Lackett took the ordinary route from Eaton Square, that is, by Park Lane, Baker Street, Lord’s, and the Finchley Road as far as Frognal, afterwards bringing her other companions back to Circus Road.
It was then, after saying good-bye, and good-bye again as she drove away, that she gave way to a feeling of unrest. She drove slowly to Baker Street station, but by that time she was thinking of Mr. Cromartie. This caused her, almost mechanically, to swing her car round to the left, and shortly afterwards to take the Outer Circle. As she drove, her mind was almost blank; she was driving in that direction merely to dissipate a mood. All she was conscious of was that Cromartie was there--in the Zoo. She was tired, and driving distracted her. In a few moments she was passing the Gardens. She pulled up just over the tunnel, before reaching the main entrance. At this point she was as close as she could get to the new Ape-house, which lay, as she knew, under the shadow of the Mappin Terraces. She got out of the car and walked up to the palings. They were too high for her to look over, and when she pulled herself up by her hands there was nothing to be seen but the black shadows of evergreens and, through one break in them, a corner of the Mappin Terraces--a silhouette of black against the moonlight. As she looked it came into her head that it was like something familiar to her. Her wrists ached and she jumped down.
“John, John, why are you in there?” she said aloud. In a few moments she saw a policeman approaching her, so she got back into her car and drove on slowly.
As she passed the main entrance she turned again, and again she saw the Mappin Terraces.
“The Tower of Babel, of course,” she said aloud, “in Chambers’s Encyclopedia. It’s like Noah’s Ark, too, I suppose, as it’s a menagerie, and--Oh, curse! Oh, damn!” There were tears in her eyes, and the street lamps had become little circular rainbows. But what she said to herself was that it was awkward driving.