The whole of the following day Arthur was bound to his bed by illness. A slight access of delirium during the night had been followed by prostrating weakness, and a headache so severe that it was agony even to move. Throughout these long hours of pain he was haunted perpetually by the memory of last night’s horrors, only broken at intervals by a burst of passionate grief when he painfully raised his head and looked round the desolate room. One of Carrie’s dresses still hung behind the door, and so distressing did he find the constant reverting of his eyes to this object, that he rose for a moment and removed it out of sight. He tried to sleep, but wholly in vain; he endeavoured to read, but the letters struck in through his eyeballs upon his brain with the painfulness of a violent blow. His only resource was to lie and think.
The next night he again slept little. Rising early, he packed his large trunk with what,clothing he possessed, adding a few of his favourite books, and one or two small remembrances of Carrie. This done, he sat down and wrote a brief letter to Mark Challenger, merely saying he was compelled to leave London very suddenly, and begging that Mark would take away and retain till it should be redemanded all the property left behind in the room in Huntley Street. The letter sealed and directed, he went down and gave Mrs. Oaks notice of his intention to leave immediately, making some plausible excuse to explain his wife’s absence. After that he removed his boxes by means of a cab to the nearest railway station, depositing it in the left-luggage office till he should have found himself another lodging. This object he effected before the afternoon, and the evening saw him seated in a garret which he had taken in a dreary part of Islington.
No criminal in fear of the gallows could have effected a more complete escape from the eyes of all who knew him; yet Arthur was urged to this step by no sense of guilt, merely by overwhelming shame and’ a blind, unreasoning desire to remove himself entirely from the scene of his sufferings. Once established in the wretched garret, which on account of its quietness and security seemed a very haven of refuge for his storm-beaten soul, he breathed more freely. Even his body seemed to benefit by the change, for a long night of profound sleep left him altogether free from fever and with a more temperate pulse than he had known for many days. He rose shortly after six o’clock, and, throwing open his lattice, drank in the fresh breath of the July morning with an effect upon his spirits almost exhilarating. The narrow street below, bordered on either side with neglected gardens, was absolutely still, and grass growing here and there between the paving stones seemed to show that traffic was almost unknown. For the moment Arthur felt that he would ask nothing more than to live and die, unknown, in such retirement as this.
first of all it behoved him to consider how he should find employment. To return to his old place was, of course, impossible. He had absented himself too long, and, even had this been no objection, he was determined to shake off completely every trace of his former life. In his purse, moreover, he had five pounds still, and he calculated that, by exercising economy, he could live nearly ten weeks on this sum, for he only paid half-a-crown a week for his garret. The prospect of so long a period of absolute freedom was so delightful to him that he embraced it forthwith. Why should he trouble to seek for work immediately? When the time of need came a good workman like himself could have no difficulty in finding a place. For a while, at least, he would allow himself to taste the rare sweets of liberty.
Throughout the day he occupied himself pleasantly enough in reading. He was surprised at the sudden calm which had come over him, which allowed him to put aside all his gloomy and painful thoughts and drink once more of his old delights, finding the draught the sweeter from his long abstinence. Then, towards evening, he issued forth and wandered about the back streets of Islington, quite sure of meeting no one who would recognise him. When it grew dark he found himself irresistibly attracted towards the thronging life of the larger thoroughfares. He experienced a delight in mingling with the crowd greater than he could have conceived, a delight of which he had enjoyed but a brief foretaste on the fatal evening when Carrie’s voice first became known to him. By degrees he drew towards the City, into the Strand. Here the glittering doorways of the theatres began to attract him, and, after standing near one of them for a long time, exciting his fancy by a perusal of the play-bill, he yielded to the voice of the charmer and entered. A comic opera was being played, one of those thrice-warmed French rago?ts, slightly unspiced to suit the less discriminating English palate, a dazzling mélange of tinsel, and dance and song, where lovely English faces come and go against a background of roses and melody, and taper limbs whirl gracefully hither and thither amid a mist of muslin. To Arthur, who had never even witnessed the legitimate drama, this was the veritable cup of Circe; his senses were rapt; without a thought of resistance he yielded to the intoxicating influences of the spell.
Perhaps it will be better to render no detailed account of the few days which followed, days in which poor Arthur sounded all the depths of folly and degradation, impelled by the feverish need of distraction, of forgetting his past miseries and avoiding the thoughts of his future prospects. This was his period of Bohemianism, a phase of life from which few escape who are raised above the crowd by the fineness of their sensibilities, the warmth and strength of their imaginative powers. It lasted scarcely a week, by the end of which time every farthing was spent and every article on which money could be obtained sold or pledged. The last night was one of vulgar and brutal debauch. One does not practise economy with one’s last sixpenny-piece, and there are few depths to which those will not descend whose motto has become, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
On the morning which followed, with hideously-swollen features, with clothing filthy and torn, shaking as if in a palsy, Arthur slunk along the back streets of Islington, seeking for some means of earning a mouthful of bread. He would not have dared to present himself at any printing-office, for his own figure reflected in the windows of the shops he passed made him shudder and shrink away in disgust. He could now only hope for work of the meanest kind, and that he accordingly sought. He saw a paper in a public-house window making known the fact that a “potman” was wanted there. He offered his services, but, owing to his lack of experience, they were refused. He entered one or two warehouses, and, though at the cost of terrible struggles with his pride, asked if they wanted a porter. In each case he was contemptuously bidden to go about his business. By this time it was noon, and the odour of dinners steaming out of the cook-shops he passed excited his hunger past endurance. So famishing did he at length become that, on noticing half an apple which some child had thrown away in the .street, he waited till he thought himself unobserved, pounced upon it, and, retreating down a neighbouring alley, devoured it eagerly. Exhausted with these sufferings, he at length sat down to rest on one of the seats by the reservoir on the summit of Pentonville Hill. As all who have had the misfortune to endure semi-starvation know, the first terrible pangs of hunger are wont to be succeeded by a deadly sickness, and, when this passes away, neither hunger nor sickness is any longer felt, but the sufferer is for a brief space at rest. This stage Arthur had now reached, and for more than two hours he sat watching the passers-by, wondering at the ease he enjoyed. All the time his mind was engaged in the peculiar process of unconscious reflection. Whilst he persuaded himself that he was only looking about him in a lazy manner, he was in reality engaged in accustoming himself to face the dread necessity of begging, whether of private persons or at the workhouse. What other resource was left to him? If he had shrunk from facing his friends when only deterred by shame on another’s account, how utterly impossible was it now for him to request their aid when his very appearance bore unmistakable evidence to the degradation of his life. Rather than William Noble should see him now, he felt that he would die of hunger. Evening approached, and once more the voracious wolf, hunger, began to gnaw angrily at his vitals.’ If he was not to die in the street, he must do something now. He rose, but at first could not walk, staggering back against the wall. Turning out of Pentonville Road he went by the quieter neighbourhood in the direction of Gray’s Inn Road. Before long he arrived before a baker’s shop. No one was inside but a young girl, and she seemed to Arthur to have a pleasant look. He felt that it would be but little degradation to beg of her, and, if she refused him, he was sure she would do so gently. So, after a moment’s hesitation, he forced himself to enter the shop, and, with face burning and voice which did not seem to be his own, he begged for a penny roll. The young girl looked at him for a moment in surprise, perhaps alarm, but the next he saw her eyes lighting up with womanly compassion, and he knew that he had not begged in vain.
“Put it in your pocket, quick,” she said, as she gave him a small loaf. “If father was to come in he wouldn’t like me to give it you.”
Arthur only replied by a look of the intensest gratitude, and instantly left the shop. Never had food tasted so sweet to him as this did, but, alas! how little there was of it. Nevertheless, it, had stilled for the time the fiercest pangs of hunger, and, as he had not the courage to beg again, he began to make his way homewards, hoping to forget in sleep all the agonies of the past and the still gloomier prospect of the future.
He rose early next morning, weak and feverish, but resolved once more to set forth and endeavour to find employment. In a day or two he would have to pay his rent again; failing that, he would most likely find himself homeless as well as starving. Yes, for this one day he would do his utmost to find work. If he should again fail he had no idea what he should do. Possibly the extremity of need might drive him to the humiliation of seeking either Mark Challenger or William Noble. With no other refreshment than a glass of water, he issued forth on his hopeless task. But he had over-rated his strength. With the utmost difficulty he toiled slowly along, past the Angel and as far as the reservoir; but here his powers altogether failed him, and he was obliged once more to make use of the seats. Every limb trembled with exhaustion, his forehead bathed in a cold sweat, at his heart a feeling as though a great flood of tears was there gathering in readiness to rush resistlessly to his eyes; he sank upon the bench. As he did so a deep sob broke involuntarily from between his lips.
On the same bench was sitting an elderly gentleman, engaged in reading the newspaper. Arthur had scarcely noticed him, but, when the sob of anguish made itself heard, the old gentleman looked up from his paper and regarded Arthur curiously. The latter’s eyes were fixed upon the ground in a dull despairing gaze. After once or twice looking up from his paper, the old gentleman moved slightly nearer to his companion on the bench, and asked him if he was in trouble. Arthur stared at the speaker for a moment as if unable to collect his faculties, but then a ray of hope lit up his countenance, and he replied that he was indeed in trouble, for he had been looking for employment a long time without success. The old gentleman, still surveying him with the somewhat critical eye of one who did not lack experience in the world’s impostures, proceeded to enquire as to the kind of employment he required, and, on receiving the information, turned back calmly to his paper, and for some minutes appeared to peruse it in forgetfulness of Arthur. Such, however, was not really the case; for all at once he turned round, and handed the paper to the young man, pointing, as he did so, to an item in the advertising columns. Arthur saw that it was an advertisement for a compositor, the address being in Edgware Road.
“Do you think it worth your while to go after it?” asked the stranger, still eyeing Arthur keenly.
“Certainly I do, sir,” he replied, with as cheerful a voice as he could command. “I shall go at once. Thank you very much for your kindness.”
The old gentleman nodded pleasantly, and Arthur rose with a fresh impulse of hope. But the first few steps showed him how miserably weak he was. Edgware Road was at the,very least three miles away. He felt that it would be impossible to walk the distance. He was on the point of falling from absolute exhaustion when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and, turning, saw again the old gentleman by his side.
“Bye-the-by,” asked the latter, “have you had any breakfast this morning?”
Arthur replied in the negative, with a sickly smile.
“Or any dinner yesterday?”
Arthur shook his head.
“Then how are you likely to get work?” asked the other. “Or what use would it be when you’d got it?”
Arthur made no reply, but he saw that his unknown friend had in the meantime taken out his purse.
“I have a mind to try an experiment,” said the old gentleman. “There’s half a sovereign, and there’s my card. If you get work and feel disposed to consider this money as a loan, you can come and pay it back to me at that address. You understand?”
“Perfectly well, thank you sir,” replied Arthur. “If I live to earn a week’s wages you will certainly see me.”
“I hope to do so,” returned the other. “Now go and get something to eat, for you look as if you wanted it.”
Arthur stammered out his thanks as well as he could, and the old gentleman, after nodding pleasantly once more, departed on his way.
Without further detail I will state that Arthur succeeded in obtaining the employment he sought, though not without great difficulty, owing to his lack of recommendations. It was a very small business, and the master was not a particularly agreeable man; but he saw that Arthur would be a useful man in his office, and took advantage of the circumstances of the case to arrange with him for the lowest possible wages. They would be just enough to live on, however, and at present this was all that Arthur cared for. The same evening he gave up his garret in Islington, exchanging it for a far less agreeable abode in Chapel Street, distant only some five minutes’ walk from his employment.
With the following day began a period of hopeless, grinding toil, of long days spent in miserably-recompensed labour, followed by nights which hunger often made hideous with restlessness or terrifying dreams. For, spite of terrible temptations, the strength of which could only be realised by one who has been in similar positions, Arthur persisted in his resolution of saving every penny he possibly could towards paying off his debt. It took him a month, with the utmost economy, to save the ten shillings. How often, as he returned from his work at night, was he tempted to spend some of his savings and enjoy the luxury of a satisfying meal; what ghastly fascination was there in the glaring fronts of the public-houses, beckoning him to enter and, in a few draughts of fiery liquor, forget at once his hunger and that vain folly which men call honour. Why should he suffer so to pay this debt? The lender did not know his name, and it was scarcely probable that he should trouble to remember the address of the advertising printer. For all that Arthur was determined to repay the debt: common gratitude, if no finer feeling, demanded that he should do so. And, after hours of fierce conflict with himself, after weeks of the most utter misery which even these few shillings could greatly have relieved, Arthur did repay the debt. He would not venture to carry the money in his pocket as far as Islington, where the old gentleman lived; the temptation on the way might prove too strong, and any little accident, such as the gentleman’s absence from home, might lead to a fatal hesitation. The difficulty was better got over by the agency of a post-office order. With a sigh of ineffable relief, Arthur addressed this from the card his benefactor had given him, and posted it.
This was on Saturday afternoon. The same evening Arthur sank into a terrible despondency, a sickness of the heart, exceeding in misery even that bodily suffering to which he was now becoming almost reconciled. With the repayment of the debt, it seemed as though an impulse to healthy exertion had been suddenly withdrawn; henceforth there was nothing to look forward to but an arid future spreading out into interminable tracts of hopeless toil. To obtain a better place was almost impossible, for he now knew his employer sufficiently well to be sure that he would not aid him the least to improve his position, but would rather do his utmost to retain him in this state of servitude. Arthur was rapidly losing all self-respect, all hope of better things, all thoughts above his every-day labour and every-day needs. He never opened a book to read a page, for he felt no longer any interest in the cultivation of his mind. To what end should he trouble? Even the recollection of the wealth of which little more than half a year would make him master brought with it no saving grace. For he had lost all faith in himself. How would he be better off when he possessed his five thousand pounds? Certainly he would not suffer from starvation, but, otherwise, how would he differ from what he was at present? Evidently fate had declared that his should be a useless, unproductive life, and it was vain to struggle against the decree. With a bitter smile he reflected upon the hopes and the aspirations of past years; already they were growing so dim, so unsubstantial to his memory, that he could with difficulty realise the power they had once exercised over his life. He thought of Helen Norman — indeed no single day passed on which he did not still think of her — and he was glad that her portrait was in the safe keeping of his friend Noble; if it had been in his own possession he could not have refrained from continually looking at it, and the indulgence could have had no consequence save perpetual self-torture. Of course,,she who was still his wife in............