by James Carnac
Every meal was, to me, an ordeal and I marvel that I managed to conceal my irritation. At breakfast-time he devoured large quantities of toast. He was passionately fond of toast, but not the toast of the ordinary Christian feeder. He liked his toast very thick (it always looked to me nearly two inches thick), the crust toasted to the consistency of hard stone, and the whole soaked in and dripping with butter. This toast he would attack in the manner characteristic of his attack upon most food; taking up his knife, he would raise his elbow to the level of his shoulder and force his knife-blade into the toast with, apparently, all the effort of which he was capable. Meat he divided in the same way with evidence of extreme force, so that the gratings and squeakings which his knife made upon his plate kept my teeth perpetually on edge throughout a meal. The toast, suitably divided, he conveyed in dripping lumps to his mouth and, when that organ had been adequately packed, he would commence to talk. He always filled his mouth before opening up a conversation, and in talking he had a habit of leaning over the table towards me, one fist holding a knife in a vertical position, and dribbles of fluid butter falling over his chin.
Whenever I hear a reference to a person “enjoying his food” my mind leaps back instantly to the thought of my uncle eating toast.
Dinner was an even worse ordeal than breakfast for it lasted longer. My uncle attacked each course vigorously and with the entire abandon of an animal, guzzling, grinding away at his plate, slapping his lips and talking throughout with his mouth full. And, a meal finished, it would linger in his memory for hours. Quite late in the afternoon (we dined at mid-day at that period), when he and I were sitting over the fire, or walking together if the weather happened to be fine, he would suddenly say, apropos of nothing at all: “That was a lovely bit of pork we had, lad!” And he would smack his lips reminiscently.
It may be thought strange that I should dwell upon this relatively trivial matter of my uncle’s gluttonous table habits; but to me the matter was not trivial. I am one of those people who cannot tolerate the sounds and sights attendant upon careless eating; to this day I have become no more tolerant in that connection. I am not alone in that prejudice; was it not Byron who stated that he could not bear to see food pass the lips of the most beautiful woman? And, generally speaking, I have decided that the table manners prevalent amongst the lower-middle-classes in this country are extremely objectionable. Carelessness in eating is, I think, even more general to-day than it was at the time of my youth; or does it seem so on account of the more general habit of eating in public? I do not mean only the legitimate eating in “popular” restaurants, but the constant mastication of sweets in which women indulge everywhere. Nowadays one of my pet amusements, the cinema, in the artistic and technical side of which I take great interest, is impaired by the inseparable sweet-eating of the female portion of the audience. I cannot enjoy a good German film without being incessantly annoyed by the noisy chewing of adjacent women.
But I am falling into a weakness of old age; I am wandering. Let me return to my life with my gross-feeding uncle.
Chapter 9
When I had been living with my uncle for some time he suddenly decided, after scrutinizing me one morning, that it was about time I began to shave. And I was forced to agree with him. My hair was dark, and a noticeable fluffy down was appearing on my jaws.
My uncle said he would buy me a razor. “Do you think you can use it without cutting your throat?” he asked, jocularly; and then pulled his face straight with a jerk. The old chap evidently remembered the tactlessness of referring to throat-cutting. I thought I could manage the operation of shaving without accident, but in order to “see how it was done” it was decided that my first shave should be conducted by a professional, and I paid a visit to a neighbouring barber.
I think it was on first handling the razor presented to me by my uncle that I realized the existence of a curious feeling which had been growing upon me for some time in connection with knives. How can I possibly explain that feeling? It was not a fear of knives; it was more nearly an attraction. I had a special sensitiveness to knives which I had not for any other inanimate objects. Let me put it in the form of an analogy. I believe that a man in the early stages of locomotor ataxia is conscious to an exaggerated extent of the effort necessary in walking. I do not mean simply that he finds it difficult to use his legs, but simply that he is conscious of using them. The normal person walks with sub-conscious action; the man suffering from a disease such as I have mentioned exercises, and knows that he is exercising, definite mental effort in using his legs. He is conscious of them.
So, although I laced my boots, used a pen, combed my hair without any but a sub-conscious regard for the laces, the pen or the comb, as soon as I took a knife into my hand I became definitely aware of the properties and uses of a knife. It was something special, something with the attributes of novelty without being novel, something distinct from anything else which I handled. I fear I cannot hope to make this feeling clear; the person oppressed by some special fear—such as a fear of cats or thunder-storms—may possibly comprehend me, the person with normal reactions probably will not.
When I handled my new razor and commenced, with some hesitation, to shave myself, I realized that the feeling, which I have tried to indicate, had been steadily growing in me, and the discovery set me thinking. I tried to analyse it. I decided, at once, that I was not afraid of knives in the sense that I feared I might cut myself; I applied my razor to my cheek without any sense of apprehension whatever. Nevertheless it was the cutting properties of the razor which gave it distinction, and it was the fact that the razor possessed greater efficiency in its cutting properties than a table-knife or a pen-knife which had suddenly brought home to me the appreciation of my special “sense” for cutting edges generally.
Once I had perceived this curious “sense” for knives—or, perhaps, “fascination” will more clearly express my sensations—I began to watch it. I became increasingly aware of my feeling whenever I picked up my knife at the table; I handled it as I might have handled some rare and precious object; I fondled the handle and looked (I may say almost lovingly) at the sleek shininess of the blade and the thread of special brightness running along the edge. (Though our table-knives were usually deficient in sharpness owing to my uncle’s plate-sawing habit.) And then came my second realization. For in watching with disgust my uncle’s feeding I became aware that what appealed to me about knives was not only that they would cut, but what they would cut. And the association of that cutting—the flowing of blood. Whenever my uncle introduced a portion of food into his mouth on the tip of his knife, I paused in my own eating, furtively watching for the slitting of his mouth. When, using his knife as a squeejee, he scraped up a mass of thick gravy and tossed it into his mouth, I waited expectantly for the sudden cry and the gushing of blood. But it never came; long practice had made my uncle dexterous. He always succeeded in withdrawing the knife without accident.
I think it was this fascination of knives which clinched my decision to embrace my father’s profession. I had no desire to doctor mumps or measles nor, I will admit, any wish to alleviate human suffering. But I wanted to dissect. I wanted to cut flesh, not cooked meat but human flesh. How ghoulish it must seem, set down in black and white.
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Soon after we moved into the New Cross house, I learned from my uncle that the sum of money which my father had inherited from his aunt—but the bulk of which he had never handled—would descend to me. My uncle took up my financial affairs energetically, and he and I had several interviews with a firm of solicitors who were dealing with the estate. My uncle, upon the information he received, estimated that I could rely on an income of about two-hundred and fifty pounds a year and his estimate subsequently proved to be fairly accurate. My uncle, by the way, had been nominated by my father as the sole executor of his will.
I have forgotten exactly what arrangement was come to in the matter of m
y inheritance; whether my uncle was appointed my trustee either by the terms of my father’s will or by the courts, or whether he simply “minded” my money. I do remember that he allowed me very lavish pocket money and that it was an understood thing that when occasion arose for my use of any larger sum the money was available for me.
After my parents’ deaths I did not return to school; my uncle was no believer in “book-learning” and in those days a high degree of education was not considered so essential as it is to-day. But my uncle held very strongly the opinion that, in spite of the fact that I had an independent income, I should embrace some calling. He had a great contempt for what he called “idle young loafers” and suggested to me that as the means were available I should qualify in some “respectable profession.” He was aware of my passion for drawing, but he viewed it indulgently as a rather childish pastime and could not be made to accept it as a definite occupation. He was of the opinion that I could not do better than enter my father’s profession, and as I could not think of anything else and was, as I have previously indicated, biased by certain feelings, I agreed that my uncle might make enquiries as to the procedure of learning to be a doctor. I was somewhat dismayed to learn, as a result of the enquiries, that I should have to commit myself to a course of study covering five years before I could qualify; but still, that study promised to be interesting. I fell in with my uncle’s scheme if not with absolute enthusiasm, at least with a certain pleasurable anticipation, and so the thing was settled. I succeeded in passing the preliminary examination required, and was duly entered at a London medical school which there is no need for me to specifically mention.
I continued to live with my uncle, but in view of the fact that my new life of studentship would necessarily be accompanied by a freedom to which, up to that time, I had been unaccustomed, my uncle took an opportunity on the eve of the commencement of my studies to favour me with a few words of advice. Even after the lapse of time I can almost recall his exact words. “Now, Jim, my boy,” he said, “I know a youngster don’t take no notice of an old man’s advice, but I’m going to say it for all that. I reckon you’ll have your fling like every other lad, and by all I hear, medical students are a pretty wild lot. But go easy on the cards and the women. Playing cards for money is about the silliest way of wasting time I know of; as for women, well You’re old enough now to know what’s what and if you don’t you soon will know it. But be careful and don’t make a damned fool of yourself. For one thing don’t begin to think of getting tied up to some young woman by marrying her. A young man married is a young man marred. And above all, my boy—while we’re on the subject—do be careful. Many a youngster’s been ruined for life by catching something; you’ll soon learn all about that as You’re going to be a doctor. But remember, Jim, if you do get into any sort of trouble you’ve got an old uncle to come to; and that old uncle ain’t a canting saint.”
I have thought that fathers might do worse than give similar advice to their sons. And shall I be thought unduly cynical in saying that it has afforded me a certain amount of satisfaction to know that I have always observed my uncle’s advice on the matter of cards?
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It would be unprofitable, and would occupy too much time, for me to set down here the details of my daily life in London at that period; that life was the life of the average medical student and can have but little interest for the reader in comparison with the details of my later activities, an account of which is, after all, the main justification for this book.
I could write much on the subject of the dissecting-room, that rather uncanny, vault-like room where the “subjects” were raised out of “pickle” by means of a kind of ship’s tackle; of old Henry, the red-headed demonstrator with his wart-covered hands. Of the Hunterian museum with its pickled specimens in their large jars of spirit—a museum which, being unavailable to the ordinary sightseer, might form the subject of quite an interesting description. That museum I know well, and I recall that after my first visit to it my stomach experienced certain qualms on perceiving the nature of the meal prepared for me upon my return home. It consisted of pork-chops; white meat. Perhaps only a person who has visited the museum will appreciate the niceties of this point.
Practical anatomy which I took up in due course was, of all my studies, the branch which interested me the most. There is something fascinating to me in the very feel of the flesh under the razor-like edge of the scalpel; it cuts almost like cold ham. And the process of methodically taking to bits a human member, such as an arm, I found extraordinarily engrossing. Of course, we students were not given each an entire carcass on which to operate; “subjects” could not be purchased by the score. We had to content ourselves with an arm, a leg or, in partnership, a trunk. And a certain drawback, to my mind, lay in the absence of blood.
When, later on in my course, I attended the operating theatre to see my first operation, I was one of the few younger students who was not, judging by observation, afflicted with nausea.
Chapter 10
In reading what I have so far written I am appalled by the relatively small amount of ground I have covered; I am becoming increasingly aware of my insufficiency as a writer. When I began this autobiography I had no intention of involving myself in the compilation of several volumes of reminiscences, and it is evident that unless I can curb my tendency to dwell in detail upon what I regard as the more interesting events of my early career—which is probably a manifestation of the tendency to verbosity usual in a person of my years—I shall never maintain the energy to complete this record. I must therefore refrain from a detailed account of my life at the medical school and the few friends I made there—which would be, after all, irrelevant—and press on with my story.
I did not qualify as a doctor, for I did not complete my course of studies. Circumstances (I cannot think of a better word) conspired against me; and when I say “circumstances” I am thinking of one particular event which, in itself, was almost laughingly trivial. My uncle suddenly decided to shave off his whiskers.
As I have already mentioned, my uncle’s red and jolly-looking face was framed in a fringe of grey chin-whiskers of the kind vulgarly known as “nitties” or, to make it plainer to the present generation, the kind of whiskers with which Dan’l Peggotty is represented in illustrations to David Copperfield. When my uncle removed his whiskers he revealed an expanse of smooth, shining throat. It was not the kind of throat usually seen in the elderly, when the flesh, having lost its elasticity, exhibits sagging folds; it was like a roll of stretched fat, bladder-like or resembling in its sleek surface a large, flat goitre.
I was curiously disturbed when I first saw this exposed throat and without offering any exposition of self-analysis I may say at once that it fascinated me to such an extent that I experienced a sudden desire to cut it.
Now I am not so foolish as to suppose that my reaction in this matter was normal; I am quite prepared to admit that in certain ways my mentality is abnormal. But the difference between the person who, say, holds an unreasoning aversion to cats, and the person with an inclination to pass a razor across a temptingly bladder-like throat is a difference only of degree. The first is not regarded as insane even by the most narrow-minded; why then should the second? The incipient throat-cutter may be homicidal, but he is not necessarily a maniac, for on all other matters of daily comportment he may be rigidly conventional. The fact of the matter is that the popular conception of insanity is graded according to the danger involved to the community. The abnormal person who is unable to resist the temptation to possess himself or herself of another person’s property is not called a lunatic but a kleptomaniac—a sort of half-way to lunacy. When apprehended the kleptomaniac is accommodated with a seat in the dock and fined a trifling amount, but is not sent to an asylum. But the person labouring under an apparently unreasonable urge to cut throats is, in the popular view, a maniac; for a human life is held to be of more value to the possessor than h
is watch. But note well, you writers of encyclopaedias, that the difference is one only of degree.
When I first became conscious of my feelings in the matter of my uncle’s throat they had not grown beyond a vague curiosity and itch as to the sensations to be derived—perhaps I should say the satisfaction to be derived—from such an enterprise. I did not feel immediately that I must cut his throat; my mind merely toyed with the idea. But even if I made any serious endeavour to dismiss the idea I did not succeed, for that fascinating throat was always before me. Particularly at meal-times was my attention directed to the object of my thoughts, for in the process of gobbling and guzzling my uncle contrived, in some indescribable way, to exhibit his throat. I could not avoid looking at it. And mixed up with my vague inclinations was my intense feeling of irritation at his table-manners, which developed into the realization that if I should actually cut his throat that irritation would cease.
At the same time I do not wish to convey the idea that my inclination was tinged with resentment towards my uncle. On the contrary, when the inclination grew into an urgent desire with which I had seriously to cope, I mastered it for some time by opposing the thought of my uncle’s excellence of character. I knew, and I told myself over and over again, and thoroughly realized, that I had no grievance against my uncle—apart from his table-habits. I had a great regard for him; he had been kind and generous; we were great friends. No; there was no question of my wishing to kill my uncle for motives of dislike or revenge. I merely felt that keen desire to cut his throat as a fascinating experiment because his throat was of a kind to affect me in that way.
Students of Edgar Allan Poe will be familiar with the tale “The Tell-Tale Heart” in which a somewhat similar urge is portrayed. In that case it was an old man’s eye of a peculiar character which led to a development of homicidal tendency in the imaginary narrator. But there the parallel ends, for Poe’s “subject” was, on his own showing, a lunatic. For, quite apart from his desire to kill the old man, he was unbalanced in every respect and, as shown in his behavior towards the investigators, quite incompetent to conduct his own affairs. I never stood for hours during the night on the threshold of my uncle’s room focusing a single ray from a dark lantern upon my uncle’s throat; I never lost sight of the fact that in the event of my succumbing to the temptation which assailed me I should be placing myself within the vengeance of the law. I knew, and did not shirk the fact, that throat-cutting is not a permissible enterprise; that if I did actually cut my uncle’s throat one night as he lay in bed I should, if caught, be undoubtedly hanged.