Part 6

“I talked with your employer, Mr. Jackson,” he said. “The conversation, I must say, was disappointing. He told me frankly that your work of late had been lax.” Roberts cleared his throat. “I’ve been somewhat afraid of that. You can’t burn the candle at both ends, Martin. The social and the economic won’t mix.”

“Roberts—save your platitudes for a darker night!” Martin was glaring at him. “So that was really it! You intimated as much at one time.”

Roberts went over to him, touching the back of Martin’s hand with indescribable tenderness.

“Are you tired enough now, my friend, to have a drink with the one man in the world who sees you in your entirety?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ll drink,” said Martin wearily, leaning back in a chair and closing his eyes. He took the glass from Roberts, holding it loosely, and drank from it without thinking.

Roberts now put his hand on Martin’s head.

“I have given my time to place you,” he said gently. “You would not rebuke me for that.”

Martin felt the lassitude of the whisky, of the words; yet some fundamental stroke of his own blood kept him from acceptance. He seemed to hear a bold, ancestral cry, and sat straighter.

“You’re modern, Roberts. You have a modern sword.”

“I’ve never hurt you, Martin. I’ve tried to help.”

“Of course. But your body is too demanding.”

“Meaning?——”

“I won’t fence. I’ve seen an ugly mind—an inexpensive one.”

“Devaud,” said Roberts, in a sharp, clear voice, “you don’t belong among civilized people. One can’t talk to you decently without your making an unpleasant issue. You’re a confounded savage and worse, because you have the instruments of this superficial world, too. And all of your cruelty—yes, you’re cruel!—and I suppose all of your vices are tucked under your fine exterior. No wonder Deane is intrigued! But if she could see you just as I see you now, with that brutish look in your eyes, then——”

Martin interrupted him.

“Don’t mention her name,” he said, in a low, moody voice.

Roberts moved away from him quickly.

“Martin—did you make this appointment to build, or to destroy?”

“Neither. I just wanted you to know that my understanding belongs to you.”

“Then it’s the only thing that belongs to me.” Roberts spoke bitterly. “Martin! For the last time I ask you to forget a cycle that has brought you only unhappiness.”

Martin got out of his chair.

“You should never try to be clever with me, Roberts. I respect the frank demands of the body. Petty intrigues disgust me. Your intricate desires have overruled your intelligence. As an invert I respected you. As a subverter I find you intolerable.”

Roberts walked toward him, motioning, his head shaking. His shining black hair fell across his face which had turned from red to a lurid purple. The white part of his eyes took on the same color. His appearance was that of some monster in a fable.

“I’ll—” he said, “I’ll not—I’ll not—” his head bobbed up and down. “I will never let you——”

“You’re prodding yourself sick,” said Martin in disgust. “You’re jarring the very devil out of yourself,” he flung at him and left the room, his shoulders swaying.

Martin went to a liquor store and bought a gallon of wine. In his room, he sat down on the edge of the bed, kicked off his shoes and began to drink. Half-drunken, he lay back and soon fell asleep.

He awoke in the late morning. He knew his position. The contact had been broken. Sick from the evening’s drinking he got out of bed and looked at his face in the mirror. His cheeks were pale and there was an unhealthy expression in his eyes. He felt his heart. Its methodical, heavy beat disturbed him. He poured a glass of wine and drank it swiftly. The nerves deadened. His apprehension died and he stood again before the mirror, regarding himself calmly. He shaved and dressed, took another glass of wine and went out, going directly to the typographical plant.

His former employer was writing. Martin looked at him vaguely, hesitating before his desk.

“What is it, young man?” asked Jackson, glancing up with impatience.

“No one told me why I was fired,” said Martin indistinctly. “Will there be anything later?”

His condition seemed a little pitiable to Jackson, although, the employer told himself, such individualities really belonged outside the mathematical régime of commerce. One had to dispose of them accordingly.

“There will be nothing later,” he stated firmly. “You were inefficient. I can see no reason for returning you to this Company.”

“I want to work,” said Martin. “That’s the reason.” His fingers rubbed the top of the desk and he looked unsteadily at the man behind it.

Jackson arose.

“You’re drunk, Devaud,” he said. “It is not a question of personalities. Good-day.”

Martin gave him a perplexed look. The impeccable tailoring of his employer’s suit had suddenly become offensive to him. Completely bewildered by this strange revulsion, Martin turned and walked out of the room.

“Good-day,” he said, and went down the steps and out into the street. “Good-day,” he kept repeating into the ears of astonished passers-by. He stopped, after he had wandered awhile, before a restaurant; for he smelled the aroma of coffee. Then he shook his fist at the window.

“_That_ won’t split this illness!” he said, and walked on, mumbling.

In his room he sat down once more on the edge of the bed. His mind, levitated by wine and discouragement, projected itself. Images rose before him. Secretive, luxurious women were in his fantasy. He drank again and went to bed. He slept, awakened, washed his face and slept once more, reality and the dream becoming as one. Day and night passed.

The sun rose, slanted, fell over the windowsill and crept up the bed into Martin’s eyes. He awakened, his heart pounding. He stood up and finished the last of the wine.

“Internal application only!” he observed. Repeatedly the mirror drew him. “Poison if taken externally,” he continued amiably; then seeing the foolish expression on his face, turned away in disgust.

He looked at himself again.

“Emancipation!” he shouted. “To business! To weaving, undecipherable sex and even my own hot mouth!” In amazement he looked into the crypt of his eyes. That soft sound of weeping.... “From the ceiling,” he cried. “Not from these French fried lips!” He went back to bed.

In a dream he placed his hand on his hard body.

“The unborn,” he whispered, breaking his hand on himself. “Modest child of onanism.... One daughter who will not ride the world on her ruby-jeweled bird’s nest!... One lad who will not ride the world on a bird’s nest!”

He awoke and looked at the ceiling. The room was death. Outside, snow was falling, flakes padding the window. He stared into the darkness. To escape without struggle—his body falling—and then, rest—infinitely deep and sweet.... His imagination stretched steeply into awareness. Not into chaos or unreality. The wind pressed snow on the window, through the window and into his arms. He felt the cold. Holding his hands into the air, he prayed....

“God!”

No bright arm of light; no sound of wings. It was four in the morning and his terror had grown to a deadening satisfaction. The rose shadows of steepled city buildings at night rang dimly in his court, their inner warmth full of promise and engaging noise. He looked out of the window, and shook his head.

“Too young and stupid, my infantile prince,” he said, and touched the gooseflesh on his arm, kissing with faint disdain its embarrassed nubs. “Back to bed again to sleep and jump like a poisoned cat.” And another day waved her dreaming, blue hands, regretfully——

Martin knew an alternative in that purple morning. A gun—the shot—the quick flutter of his hand.

“No,” he whispered. “Too demure. Fruitful, but demure.”

Outside, the sun blended into trucks and the yapping noise of turning wheels. He dressed and went into the street, stopping at the nearest bar. And strangely, in all his tiredness and fear, arose the man as he had been—straight from the ocean, with clear eyes that had watched the sea so often, and with hand half-raised as though holding the helm of his ship. It was momentary; but the bartender stood looking at him quietly and with respect.

“A Guinness’s Stout,” said Martin.

“A nip or a pint, sir?” asked the man.

“A nip and a pint.”

The black liquid hung to Martin’s glass as he raised it to his lips. The stout ran through his dry throat and into his stomach, washing away the starved slime. It spanged against his knotted intestines, loosening their disgusted quiver. It broke the cordy fold of nervous tissue.

Martin bent over the bar, touched by its rustic intimacy. Out of its shining, wooden face arose the image of Deane, slim-throated, filling the mist. She moved closer. Martin mused over the bar and drank, and drank again. The liquor sank to his nerves and he awoke.

Deane forgotten?... Her bell-like gown drifting over his teeth—sprung from the fog—outlined in the smoke of his thoughts....

The subway was crowded. Meaty faces lined in pink, pale array before him. A woman, mother of too many, rubbed a glove over her nose, worry misting her eyes, a dustpan supporting her neck. Across from her perched a she-gazelle on meatless haunches, hair and breasts correctly arranged. The train stopped and Martin went up the stairs into the cold wind. He entered a building and walked down the hall to Deane’s apartment.

She opened the door and stood before him, a bright, tremulous blur. He swayed a little and she caught him by the shoulder, assisting him into the room. He tried to stand straight, smiling gently through his brackish eyes.

“It’s all right, Deane, but I can’t stop my mind,” he said. “I can’t stop it from turning.” He licked the dry scale of his lips. “I can’t do it.” He closed his eyes tightly to keep in the moisture and talked on rapidly, glibly.

From the window came the city lights. Deane sat in a chair, brooding, a frightened look on her face; for Martin’s hysteria grew in the strength of evening. His motions became more selfish. Every idea turned upon itself.

“Somewhere,” he said, “there is a worm. A relentless worm canting my words, embarrassing me—deep, vicious and blinding.”

“What do you want me to do, Martin?” All of Deane’s tolerance—her understanding and affection were contained in this question; but he was deafened with pain and apprehension and all the seeds of disaster which fall, germinate and grow so swiftly in certain poisonous gardens. He put his hand across his face.

“Let’s get a doctor,” he said. “A magical doctor ... a sorcerer ... a doctor for a sorcerer.”

Deane nodded her head. And if he could have seen her then, in the gown he loved and with all the concern in her eyes, it might have taken him from this evil spell. But he was blind and sick and walked like a dead man; while in his agony he cried, “No! Nothing! Get nothing!” Tormented, he went across the room to her, and as he faltered, Deane caught him in her arms.

_CHAPTER IX_

Martin felt the hum of an elevator, fresh air in his face and the movement of an automobile. He knew that he was talking too much to an individual he’d never seen before, and suddenly found himself in a long bright corridor that smelled of medicine. He was helped into a semi-darkened room and felt a glass between his lips. He thought of Roberts, swallowed and choked.

“It’s ether,” he said.

“No, it isn’t,” said the nurse, standing by him and trying to get him into bed. “It will be good for you.”

Martin saw her for the first time. Then he felt himself falling. The nurse steadied him, and suddenly everything was clear. He felt well, stimulated. He wanted to talk some more.

“So! Martin finally reaches Hell! Our pathological bundle of yeast becomes animate in Bedlam!”

“_Won’t_ you get into bed?” asked the nurse. “You will be sleepy in a minute.”

“All right.” He stood up, swaying. “Martin in Hell. Being tucked in bed by an angel with wide hips. Coasting to sleep with a bellyful of ether. A true Nirvana for a true aesthete.” He stopped talking. Again hysteria struck him. But this time it was soft and languorous and he held it tightly as it moved in his groin. His breathing was quiet.

The nurse sat beside him in the darkened room. He breathed slowly now, beginning to jerk and posture. He held his hand in the air as though emphasizing a dream.

In the early morning he awakened. His hand moved over the side of the bed, reaching for a bottle of wine. His fingers went back and forth over the rug. Then he opened his eyes and saw the woman sitting beside him.

“Are you my nurse?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m your nurse. Won’t you go back to sleep?”

“I hurt,” said Martin. “I hurt all over, but my back is the worst. And I need a drink.”

“What would you like?”

“Whisky. A big one.”

“I’ll get your medication,” said the girl, and left the room.

Martin looked around him. A hospital—neurotherapy; adjacent to a madhouse! Weakened your resistance in one and shipped you into the other! His body ached and his mind still turned. On with the medication!—and then what? From dipsomania to dope in twelve treatments. Bring on the bed-straps. Damned efficient nurse, that one—watching him jump around. Patient. If only his back wouldn’t hurt so terribly. Must be the kidneys. Need flushing. Why not use a plunger? Imagine that immaculate nurse astride him, pounding his gizzard with a plunger!

The nurse returned with two glasses. One was full of orange juice. The other she held away from her nose.

“More ether?” asked Martin.

“It isn’t.”

“Well, ether or not—down the hatch!” And taking a deep breath he swallowed.

The nurse steadied him once more and he pressed his head into her breast, breathing sharply, like a man struck in the throat. He allowed himself to tremble. His feelings changed from sick horror to quietude and a faint elation. He let his head drop on the pillow. This time the paraldehyde brought relief, but no immediate sleep. Words kept ringing in his mind and he talked on, without cessation. The nurse listened to him, laughing occasionally. In the morning’s light, Martin slept.

When he awoke, the nurse was gone. He was alone on a bridge with madmen. He was afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid of fear. A word sounded in his mind—phobiaphobia, fear of fear. Nothing tangible to fight. The deep-seated root of the worm in his imagination. His feeling of isolation became complete, unbearable. He got out of bed and walked into the hall. A student nurse looked warily at him as he approached—unshaven, with bloodshot eyes, his unfastened robe trailing.

“Where’s the head nurse?” he asked. “Where is she?”

“Here I am.”

Martin turned on her, white faced and trembling.

“For God’s sake, nurse. Is this a hospital? Get me a drink. Get me something. And don’t leave me alone.”

She helped him into bed and brought the same medication. Sober, terror-stricken, Martin could not face the shock of the incredible drug. The nurse held him, and again Martin drank, feeling the same shudder and movement of the deep-seated tissue. He reached out and felt the woman’s arms. A sharp, sweet odor in his nose prolonged his trembling. The nurse wrapped a blanket around him, leaned over and kissed his damp forehead. Martin rested, watching her move quietly around the room. Was her kiss a gesture of sympathy? He met her gentle brown eyes and knew she understood.

The greater part of the next two days and nights he slept, only awakening to drink the bright, relieving poison. The third day he remembered Deane—her laugh, the surge of her skirts; and each thought was a torment.

That evening two psychiatrists came to talk with him. One, his own doctor, young and solemn; the other, the consulting physician, mature, shrewd, Olympian. Martin explained his fears, bringing up the residue of his experiences. During his story he caught fragments of remarks from the older man. Suggestive words such as _masochism_ and _sadism_ set fire to his imagination. When they left him without comment he was more lonely and fearful than before. In desperation he entered deeper into his mind, finding new horror with each analysis. By night the momentum had grown to such an active fear that the nurse did not dare leave the room. Martin followed her with his eyes.

The special night nurse came on duty, fresh, buxom and cheerful. Martin drew new hope out of her vitality. As he watched her straightening his bed he felt resentment at his own weakness. What was he?—to be fussed over and coddled like an old dog. He watched the strong shanks of the girl move steadily around the room. A curious thought entered his mind and he laughed. The nurse turned and looked at him, fearing new hallucinations.

“No,” said Martin, “I’m not hysterical. Come here and sit on the bed.”

“I can’t,” said the girl.

“Well, then,” said Martin, “pull that chair closer and sit here.”

She did as he requested, and Martin reached out for her hand. It was soft and warm. He pressed it tightly, looking into her eyes. The girl’s cheeks flushed but she did not pull away. Martin looked up at the ceiling, each fresh thought bringing anger—the keen, strong happiness of anger. This young animal beside him had given him a new perspective. He turned again to the nurse and held her hand more tightly, stroking it, and explaining his movements with his eyes. He reached out for her waist and smiled to see her pull away. She was afraid. Not he. What did he have to be afraid of? Phobiaphobia? How foolish! This complex, that complex——

“Listen, nurse,” he said. “I’m cured.”

“Yes. You seem to be much better.”

“Better nothing!” cried Martin. “I’m well. There isn’t anything wrong with me. I was drunk.”

The girl stared at him for a moment, then put her hand on his shoulder.

“I’ve never believed the things you’ve told me,” she said. “At first, I thought there was something a little bit—” Her cheeks turned red and she laughed. “But now, I know you’re just a normal man.”

Martin thought of the woman he loved. Deane! He could go to Deane now. There was nothing wrong. He thought of his doctors. Surely they had known. They had left him with that fear—its implication of neuroses and reference to disgusting complexities. How many lay that night, fed with bromides and sedatives; crucified on theories!

In the morning when the psychiatrists returned, Martin raised his head from the pillow.

“Good morning.”

The young doctor nodded his head briefly, blinked his eyes and faced the light from the window, his face expressionless.

“Good morning. Did you sleep?” asked the older physician, in a perfunctory tone.

“Very well indeed,” Martin said. Then sitting up a little straighter, he added, “Doctor! I don’t want to anticipate a diagnosis, but I’m not sick. You understand that I merely gave a history of the fantasies and sublimated desires that are in all our minds, but which we are rarely dyspeptic enough to publicize.”

The older doctor watched him furtively. Martin saw that he resembled a spider, and grinning to himself, thought that there were probably a few cobwebs about him. But in the younger doctor’s eyes he saw concern and liking, and even the faint touch of friendship.

“What do you mean?” asked the older man at last.

Martin climbed out of bed, put on his robe and stood before the consulting psychiatrist.

“You understand.”

“You have been a child,” said the physician sternly.

“You understand,” repeated Martin.

The psychiatrist took firm hold of his shoulders. There were furious lights about the man—not understanding; merely curiosity and hatred for something unintelligible. He tightened his grasp on Martin’s shoulders, shook his head angrily and stormed out of the room. But the younger doctor, with all the suns between his eyes, observed in formula Martin’s pulse and all the rest of it, dismissing his patient with a friendly, sympathetic nod as soon as he could.

When Martin left the hospital it was snowing. The medication had destroyed his orientation. He leaned against the wall of the building for a moment, then tried to walk straight while he looked for a taxi.

Inside the cab he wrapped his coat about him and held his ankles from the cold air. Sick from the drugs and weak from lack of food, he thought once more of Deane and smiled. He was tired, but he had won.

When he arrived at the apartment he stopped just inside the door. There was a woman sitting in a chair. Who was she? Where was Deane? Was this woman alive? For her face was pale, and her eyes, too large, too dark, seemed to have lost all comprehension.

“What is wrong?” he asked excitedly. “What is it?”

Deane did not answer but sank down in her chair, covering her face with hands that trembled.

Martin felt sick. The air in the room suffocated him.

“Deane! It’s Martin!” he cried.

Her hands dropped to her lap.

“I talked with your doctors,” she answered simply. “I talked with them for two hours. I was ashamed—humiliated.”

“Ashamed of what? Ashamed of me? Why! I’m all right now!”

“I spoke with your doctors,” Deane repeated, as though in fatal acceptance. “It was horrible.”

Martin took off his coat. He had on no shirt. He looked past Deane for a moment, leaning heavily against the wall.

“They have taken my girl.” He spoke bitterly. Then in a louder, more distracted voice, he repeated—“_They have taken my girl._”

He continued to look about him as though in a daze.

“What have they done to you?” he kept asking. “Damn them! Collaborators with madhouses—sucking my giddy ideas, engendering the malingerer. They’ve doped you with psychological jargon, hypnotized you with fine phrases.... Breeders of hypochondriacs! I’m not afraid of them any longer, I have nothing but contempt for them. I wanted the clear advice of mature, impersonal intellects, and I meet with personal vindictiveness.”

“They said you have a persecution complex,” replied Deane. “They tried to help you.” Her throat was dry and the room was spinning round.

“‘Persecution complex!’” repeated Martin with a contemptuous gesture. “It’s contagious. It’s a disease—an indiscriminate application of words typing an individual, placing him in a box, granting him the elasticity of brick. They are dealing with humanity—not with bricks. What do these rigid intellectualists know definitely, after all? Stumbling about in the most infantile science of the lot. A befuddled group of astrologers of the mind. The more competent admit they know little—admit that while they do the best they can, that often they must strike out blindly, hoping that nature will effect a cure.”

Deane’s eyes did not change; but the delicate lids, with their heavy lashes, gave a sudden, nervous flicker. What was this perspiring man talking about? She still felt sick. He didn’t have on a shirt. If she could only rest. She knew that her mind was bleeding. Each of Martin’s words opened a new point in her brain.

“They are dangerous because they are clever,” he went on. “And some of them are diabolical. Theirs is a subtle lechery. They love this parade of erotics. Orgasms by proxy! Intelligent, perverted and ruthless!”

Deane now looked steadily at him. The ice locking her mind moved restlessly.

“They do good, Martin. Not everyone plays with love and pain the way you do.”

“Let me rest, Deane. I want to rest.” He leaned for a moment against the divan and then got up. “You’re the only one I care about,” he said wearily. “Can these ponderous technicians, with their burden of world-pain give you happiness? Can you let their hard lines of conduct, which apply to the diseased, disturb our concept of life? Top-heavy and non-elastic—surely they cannot appeal to your ideas!”

Deane knew that he was splendid in his agony. She wanted to kiss his cheeks. She wanted to forget his tiredness, his indictment of psychiatry. She felt that his imaginings were unfair; untrue; those of a sick man. She knew that he had talked bravely and fought desperately for her. She felt all these things. But she stood up and turned away.