“What is it?” he said, to a rather sniffy messenger boy.
“Drunk,” said the messenger boy: except that, in unblushing cockney, he pronounced it “Drank.”
Lilly hung further back on the edge of the little crowd.
“Come on here. Where d’ you want to go?” he heard the hearty tones of the policeman.
“I’m all right. I’m all right,” came the testy drunken answer.
“All right, are yer! All right, and then some, — come on, get on your pins.”
“I’m all right! I’m all right.”
The voice made Lilly peer between the people. And sitting on the granite setts, being hauled up by a burly policeman, he saw our acquaintance Aaron, very pale in the face and a little dishevelled.
“Like me to tuck the sheets round you, shouldn’t you? Fancy yourself snug in bed, don’t you? You won’t believe you’re right in the way of traffic, will you now, in Covent Garden Market? Come on, we’ll see to you.” And the policeman hoisted the bitter and unwilling Aaron.
Lilly was quickly at the centre of the affair, unobtrusive like a shadow, different from the other people.
“Help him up to my room, will you?” he said to the constable. “Friend of mine.”
The large constable looked down on the bare-headed wispy, unobtrusive Lilly with good-humoured suspicion and incredulity. Lilly could not have borne it if the policeman had uttered any of this cockney suspicion, so he watched him. There was a great gulf between the public official and the odd, quiet little individual — yet Lilly had his way.
“Which room?” said the policeman, dubious.
Lilly pointed quickly round. Then he said to Aaron:
“Were you coming to see me, Sisson? You’ll come in, won’t you?”
Aaron nodded rather stupidly and testily. His eyes looked angry. Somebody stuck his hat on his head for him, and made him look a fool. Lilly took it off again, and carried it for him. He turned and the crowd eased. He watched Aaron sharply, and saw that it was with difficulty he could walk. So he caught him by the arm on the other side from the policeman, and they crossed the road to the pavement.
“Not so much of this sort of thing these days,” said the policeman.
“Not so much opportunity,” said Lilly.
“More than there was, though. Coming back to the old days, like. Working round, bit by bit.”
They had arrived at the stairs. Aaron stumbled up.
“Steady now! Steady does it!” said the policeman, steering his charge. There was a curious breach of distance between Lilly and the constable.
At last Lilly opened his own door. The room was pleasant. The fire burned warm, the piano stood open, the sofa was untidy with cushions and papers. Books and papers covered the big writing desk. Beyond the screen made by the bookshelves and the piano were two beds, with washstand by one of the large windows, the one through which Lilly had climbed.
The policeman looked round curiously.
“More cosy here than in the lock-up, sir!” he said.
Lilly laughed. He was hastily clearing the sofa.
“Sit on the sofa, Sisson,” he said.
The policeman lowered his charge, with a —
“Right we are, then!”
Lilly felt in his pocket, and gave the policeman half a crown. But he was watching Aaron, who sat stupidly on the sofa, very pale and semi-conscious.
“Do you feel ill, Sisson?” he said sharply.
Aaron looked back at him with heavy eyes, and shook his head slightly.
“I believe you are,” said Lilly, taking his hand.
“Might be a bit o’ this flu, you know,” said the policeman.
“Yes,” said Lilly. “Where is there a doctor?” he added, on reflection.
“The nearest?” said the policeman. And he told him. “Leave a message for you, Sir?”
Lilly wrote his address on a card, then changed his mind.
“No, I’ll run round myself if necessary,” he said.
And the policeman departed.
“You’ll go to bed, won’t you?” said Lilly to Aaron, when the door was shut. Aaron shook his head sulkily.
“I would if I were you. You can stay here till you’re all right. I’m alone, so it doesn’t matter.”
But Aaron had relapsed into semi-consciousness. Lilly put the big kettle on the gas stove, the little kettle on the fire. Then he hovered in front of the stupefied man. He felt uneasy. Again he took Aaron’s hand and felt the pulse.
“I’m sure you aren’t well. You must go to bed,” he said. And he kneeled and unfastened his visitor’s boots. Meanwhile the kettle began to boil, he put a hot-water bottle into the bed.
“Let us get your overcoat off,” he said to the stupefied man. “Come along.” And with coaxing and pulling and pushing he got off the overcoat and coat and waistcoat.
At last Aaron was undressed and in bed. Lilly brought him tea. With a dim kind of obedience he took the cup and would drink. He looked at Lilly with heavy eyes.
“I gave in, I gave in to her, else I should ha’ been all right,” he said.
“To whom?” said Lilly.
“I gave in to her — and afterwards I cried, thinking of Lottie and the children. I felt my heart break, you know. And that’s what did it. I should have been all right if I hadn’t given in to her — ”
“To whom?” said Lilly.
“Josephine. I felt, the minute I was loving her, I’d done myself. And I had. Everything came back on me. If I hadn’t given in to her, I should ha’ kept all right.”
“Don’t bother now. Get warm and still — ”
“I felt it — I felt it go, inside me, the minute I gave in to her. It’s perhaps killed me.”
“No, not it. Never mind, be still. Be still, and you’ll be all right in the morning.”
“It’s my own fault, for giving in to her. If I’d kept myself back, my liver wouldn’t have broken inside me, and I shouldn’t have been sick. And I knew — ”
“Never mind now. Have you drunk your tea? Lie down. Lie down, and go to sleep.”
Lilly pushed Aaron down in the bed, and covered him over. Then he thrust his hands under the bedclothes and felt his feet — still cold. He arranged the water bottle. Then he put another cover on the bed.
Aaron lay still, rather grey and peaked-looking, in a stillness that was not healthy. For some time Lilly went about stealthily, glancing at his patient from time to time. Then he sat down to read.
He was roused after a time by a moaning of troubled breathing and a fretful stirring in the bed. He went across. Aaron’s eyes were open, and dark looking.
“Have a little hot milk,” said Lilly.
Aaron shook his head faintly, not noticing.
“A little Bovril?”
The same faint shake.
Then Lilly wrote a note for the doctor, went into the office on the same landing, and got a clerk, who would be leaving in a few minutes, to call with the note. When he came back he found Aaron still watching.
“Are you here by yourself?” asked the sick man.
“Yes. My wife’s gone to Norway.”
“For good?”
“No,” laughed Lilly. “For a couple of months or so. She’ll come back here: unless she joins me in Switzerland or somewhere.”
Aaron was still for a while.
“You’ve not gone with her,” he said at length.
“To see her people? No, I don’t think they want me very badly — and I didn’t want very badly to go. Why should I? It’s better for married people to be separated sometimes.”
“Ay!” said Aaron, watching the other man with fever-darkened eyes.
“I hate married people who are two in one — stuck together like two jujube lozenges,” said Lilly.
“Me an’ all. I hate ‘em myself,” said Aaron.
“Everybody ought to stand by themselves, in the first place — men and women as well. They can come together, in the second place, if they like. But no
thing is any good unless each one stands alone, intrinsically.”
“I’m with you there,” said Aaron. “If I’d kep’ myself to myself I shouldn’t be bad now — though I’m not very bad. I s’ll be all right in the morning. But I did myself in when I went with another woman. I felt myself go — as if the bile broke inside me, and I was sick.”
“Josephine seduced you?” laughed Lilly.
“Ay, right enough,” replied Aaron grimly. “She won’t be coming here, will she?”
“Not unless I ask her.”
“You won’t ask her, though?”
“No, not if you don’t want her.”
“I don’t.”
The fever made Aaron naive and communicative, unlike himself. And he knew he was being unlike himself, he knew that he was not in proper control of himself, so he was unhappy, uneasy.
“I’ll stop here the night then, if you don’t mind,” he said.
“You’ll have to,” said Lilly. “I’ve sent for the doctor. I believe you’ve got the flu.”
“Think I have?” said Aaron frightened.
“Don’t be scared,” laughed Lilly.
There was a long pause. Lilly stood at the window looking at the darkening market, beneath the street-lamps.
“I s’ll have to go to the hospital, if I have,” came Aaron’s voice.
“No, if it’s only going to be a week or a fortnight’s business, you can stop here. I’ve nothing to do,” said Lilly.
“There’s no occasion for you to saddle yourself with me,” said Aaron dejectedly.
“You can go to your hospital if you like — or back to your lodging — if you wish to,” said Lilly. “You can make up your mind when you see how you are in the morning.”
“No use going back to my lodgings,” said Aaron.
“I’ll send a telegram to your wife if you like,” said Lilly.
Aaron was silent, dead silent, for some time.
“Nay,” he said at length, in a decided voice. “Not if I die for it.”
Lilly remained still, and the other man lapsed into a sort of semi-sleep, motionless and abandoned. The darkness had fallen over London, and away below the lamps were white.
Lilly lit the green-shaded reading lamp over the desk. Then he stood and looked at Aaron, who lay still, looking sick. Rather beautiful the bones of the countenance: but the skull too small for such a heavy jaw and rather coarse mouth. Aaron half-opened his eyes, and writhed feverishly, as if his limbs could not be in the right place. Lilly mended the fire, and sat down to write. Then he got up and went downstairs to unfasten the street door, so that the doctor could walk up. The business people had gone from their various holes, all the lower part of the tall house was in darkness.
Lilly waited and waited. He boiled an egg and made himself toast. Aaron said he might eat the same. Lilly cooked another egg and took it to the sick man. Aaron looked at it and pushed it away with nausea. He would have some tea. So Lilly gave him tea.
“Not much fun for you, doing this for somebody who is nothing to you,” said Aaron.
“I shouldn’t if you were unsympathetic to me,” said Lilly. “As it is, it’s happened so, and so we’ll let be.”
“What time is it?”
“Nearly eight o’clock.”
“Oh, my Lord, the opera.”
And Aaron got half out of bed. But as he sat on the bedside he knew he could not safely get to his feet. He remained a picture of dejection.
“Perhaps we ought to let them know,” said Lilly.
But Aaron, blank with stupid misery, sat huddled there on the bedside without answering.
“Ill run round with a note,” said Lilly. “I suppose others have had flu, besides you. Lie down!”
But Aaron stupidly and dejectedly sat huddled on the side of the bed, wearing old flannel pyjamas of Lilly’s, rather small for him. He felt too sick to move.
“Lie down! Lie down!” said Lilly. “And keep still while I’m gone. I shan’t be more than ten minutes.”
“I don’t care if I die,” said Aaron.
Lilly laughed.
“You’re a long way from dying,” said he, “or you wouldn’t say it.”
But Aaron only looked up at him with queer, far-off, haggard eyes, something like a criminal who is just being executed.
“Lie down!” said Lilly, pushing him gently into the bed. “You won’t improve yourself sitting there, anyhow.”
Aaron lay down, turned away, and was quite still. Lilly quietly left the room on his errand.
The doctor did not come until ten o’clock: and worn out with work when he did come.
“Isn’t there a lift in this establishment?” he said, as he groped his way up the stone stairs. Lilly had heard him, and run down to meet him.
The doctor poked the thermometer under Aaron’s tongue and felt the pulse. Then he asked a few questions: listened to the heart and breathing.
“Yes, it’s the flu,” he said curtly. “Nothing to do but to keep warm in bed and not move, and take plenty of milk and liquid nourishment. I’ll come round in the morning and give you an injection. Lungs are all right so far.”
“How long shall I have to be in bed?” said Aaron.
“Oh — depends. A week at least.”
Aaron watched him sullenly — and hated him. Lilly laughed to himself. The sick man was like a dog that is ill but which growls from a deep corner, and will bite if you put your hand in. He was in a state of black depression.
Lilly settled him down for the night, and himself went to bed. Aaron squirmed with heavy, pained limbs, the night through, and slept and had bad dreams. Lilly got up to give him drinks. The din in the market was terrific before dawn, and Aaron suffered bitterly.
In the morning he was worse. The doctor gave him injections against pneumonia.
“You wouldn’t like me to wire to your wife?” said Lilly.
“No,” said Aaron abruptly. “You can send me to the hospital. I’m nothing but a piece of carrion.”
“Carrion!” said Lilly. “Why?”
“I know it. I feel like it.”
“Oh, that’s only the sort of nauseated feeling you get with flu.”
“I’m only fit to be thrown underground, and made an end of. I can’t stand myself — ”
He had a ghastly, grey look of self-repulsion.
“It’s the germ that makes you feel like that,” said Lilly. “It poisons the system for a time. But you’ll work it off.”
At evening he was no better, the fever was still high. Yet there were no complications — except that the heart was irregular.
“The one thing I wonder,” said Lilly, “is whether you hadn’t better be moved out of the noise of the market. It’s fearful for you in the early morning.”
“It makes no difference to me,” said Aaron.
The next day he was a little worse, if anything. The doctor knew there was nothing to be done. At evening he gave the patient a calomel pill. It was rather strong, and Aaron had a bad time. His burning, parched, poisoned inside was twisted and torn. Meanwhile carts banged, porters shouted, all the hell of the market went on outside, away down on the cobble setts. But this time the two men did not hear.
“You’ll feel better now,” said Lilly, “after the operation.”
“It’s done me harm,” cried Aaron fretfully. “Send me to the hospital, or you’ll repent it. Get rid of me in time.”
“Nay,” said Lilly. “You get better. Damn it, you’re only one among a million.”
Again over Aaron’s face went the ghastly grimace of self-repulsion.
“My soul’s gone rotten,” he said.
“No,” said Lilly. “Only toxin in the blood.”
Next day the patient seemed worse, and the heart more irregular. He rested badly. So far, Lilly had got a fair night’s rest. Now Aaron was not sleeping, and he seemed to struggle in the bed.
“Keep your courage up, man,” said the doctor sharply. “You give way.”
Aaron l
ooked at him blackly, and did not answer.
In the night Lilly was up time after time. Aaron would slip down on his back, and go semi-conscious. And then he would awake, as if drowning, struggling to move, mentally shouting aloud, yet making no sound for some moments, mentally shouting in frenzy, but unable to stir or make a sound. When at last he got some sort of physical control he cried: “Lift me up! Lift me up!”
Lilly hurried and lifted him up, and he sat panting with a sobbing motion, his eyes gloomy and terrified, more than ever like a criminal who is just being executed. He drank brandy, and was laid down on his side.
“Don’t let me lie on my back,” he said, terrified. “No, I won’t,” said Lilly. Aaron frowned curiously on his nurse. “Mind you don’t let me,” he said, exacting and really terrified.
“No, I won’t let you.”
And now Lilly was continually crossing over and pulling Aaron on to his side, whenever he found him slipped down on his back.
In the morning the doctor was puzzled. Probably it was the toxin in the blood which poisoned the heart. There was no pneumonia. And yet Aaron was clearly growing worse. The doctor agreed to send in a nurse for the coming night.
“What’s the matter with you, man!” he said sharply to his patient. “You give way! You give way! Can’t you pull yourself together?”
But Aaron only became more gloomily withheld, retracting from life. And Lilly began to be really troubled. He got a friend to sit with the patient in the afternoon, whilst he himself went out and arranged to sleep in Aaron’s room, at his lodging.
The next morning, when he came in, he found the patient lying as ever, in a sort of heap in the bed. Nurse had had to lift him up and hold him up again. And now Aaron lay in a sort of semi-stupor of fear, frustrated anger, misery and self-repulsion: a sort of interlocked depression.
The doctor frowned when he came. He talked with the nurse, and wrote another prescription. Then he drew Lilly away to the door.
“What’s the matter with the fellow?” he said. “Can’t you rouse his spirit? He seems to be sulking himself out of life. He’ll drop out quite suddenly, you know, if he goes on like this. Can’t you rouse him up?”
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 313