E. F. Benson - The Complete Short Stories of E. F. Benson - 70+ Titles in One Edition

He finished his whisky as he spoke, and instantly poured himself out another glass.

“That’s the fourth,” said his friend.

“Is it? I never count. It shows a sordid attention to uninteresting detail. Funnily enough, too, alcohol does not have the smallest effect on me now.”

“Why drink then?”

“Because if I give it up this entrancing vividness of colour and clarity of outline is a little diminished.

“Can’t be good for you,” said the doctor.

Dick laughed.

“My dear fellow, look at me carefully,” he said, “and then if you can conscientiously declare that I show any signs of indulging in stimulants, I’ll give them up altogether.”

Certainly it would have been hard to find a point in which Dick did not present the appearance of perfect health. He had paused, and stood still a moment, his glass in one hand, the whisky-bottle in the other, black against the front of his shirt, and not a tremor of unsteadiness was there. His face of wholesome sun-burnt hue was neither puffy nor emaciated, but firm of flesh and of a wonderful clearness of skin. Clear too was his eye, with eyelids neither baggy nor puckered; he looked indeed a model of condition, hard and fit, as if he was in training for some athletic event. Lithe and active too was his figure, his movements were quick and precise, and even Merwick, with his doctor’s eye trained to detect any symptom, however slight, in which the drinker must betray himself, was bound to confess that no such was here present. His appearance contradicted it authoritatively, so also did his manner; he met the eye of the man he was talking to without sideway glances; he showed no signs, however small, of any disorder of the nerves. Yet Dick was altogether an abnormal fellow; the history he had just been recounting was abnormal, those weeks of depression, followed by the sudden snap in his brain which had apparently removed, as a wet cloth removes a stain, all the memory of his love and of the cruel bitterness that resulted from it. Abnormal too was his sudden leap into high artistic achievement from a past of very mediocre performance. Why should there then not be a similar abnormality here?

“Yes, I confess you show no sign of taking excessive stimulant,” said Merwick, “but if I attended you professionally—ah, I’m not touting—I should make you give up all stimulant, and go to bed for a month.”

“Why in the name of goodness?” asked Dick.

“Because, theoretically, it must be the best thing you could do. You had a shock, how severe, the misery of those weeks of depression tells you. Well, common sense says, ‘Go slow after a shock; recoup.’ Instead of which you go very fast indeed and produce. I grant it seems to suit you; you also became suddenly capable of feats which—oh, it’s sheer nonsense, man.”

“What’s sheer nonsense?”

“You are. Professionally, I detest you, because you appear to be an exception to a theory that I am sure must be right. Therefore I have got to explain you away, and at present I can’t.”

“What’s the theory?” asked Dick.

“Well, the treatment of shock first of all. And secondly, that in order to do good work, one ought to eat and drink very little and sleep a lot. How long do you sleep, by the way?”

Dick considered.

“Oh, I go to bed about three usually,” he said; “I suppose I sleep for about four hours.”

“And live on whisky, and eat like a Strasburg goose, and are prepared to run a race tomorrow.”

“Go away, or at least I will. Perhaps you’ll break down, though. That would satisfy me.

“But even if you don’t, it still remains quite interesting.”

Merwick found it more than quite interesting in fact, and when he got home that night he searched in his shelves for a certain dusky volume in which he turned up a chapter called “Shock.” The book was a treatise on obscure diseases and abnormal conditions of the nervous system. He had often read it before, for in his profession he was a special student of the rare and curious. And the following paragraph which had interested him much before, interested him more than ever this evening.

“The nervous system also can act in a way that must always even to the most advanced student be totally unexpected. Cases are known, and well-authenticated ones, when a paralytic person has jumped out of bed on the cry of ‘Fire.’ Cases too are known when a great shock, which produces depression so profound as to amount to lethargy, is followed by abnormal activity, and the calling into use of powers which were previously unknown to exist, or at any rate existed in a quite ordinary degree. Such a hyper-sensitised state, especially since the desire for sleep or rest is very often much diminished, demands much stimulant in the way of food and alcohol. It would appear also that the patient suffering from this rare form of the after-consequences of shock has sooner or later some sudden and complete break-down. It is impossible, however, to conjecture what form this will take. The digestion, however, may become suddenly atrophied, delirium tremens may, without warning, supervene, or he may go completely off his head…”

But the weeks passed on, the July suns made London reel in a haze of heat, and yet Alingham remained busy, brilliant, and altogether exceptional. Merwick, unknown to him, was watching him closely, and at present was completely puzzled. He held Dick to his word that if he could detect the slightest sign of over-indulgence in stimulant, he would cut it off altogether, but he could see absolutely none. Lady Madingley meantime had given him several sittings, and in this connection again Merwick was utterly mistaken in the view he had expressed to Dick as to the risks he ran. For, strangely enough, the two had become great friends. Yet Dick was quite right, all emotion with regard to her on his part was dead, it might have been a piece of still-life that he was painting, instead of a woman he had wildly worshipped.

One morning in mid-July she had been sitting to him in his studio, and contrary to custom he had been rather silent, biting the ends of his brushes, frowning at his canvas, frowning too at her.

Suddenly he gave a little impatient exclamation.

“It’s so like you,” he said, “but it just isn’t you. There’s a lot of difference! I can’t help making you look as if you were listening to a hymn, one of those in four sharps, don’t you know, written by an organist, probably after eating muffins. And that’s not characteristic of you!”

She laughed.

“You must be rather ingenious to put all that in,” she said.

“I am.”

“Where do I show it all?”

Dick sighed.

“Oh, in your eyes of course,” he said. “You show everything by your eyes, you know. It is entirely characteristic of you. You are a throw-back; don’t you remember we settled that ever so long ago, to the brute creation, who likewise show everything by their eyes.”

“Oh-h. I should have thought that dogs growled at you, and cats scratched.”

“Those are practical measures, but short of that you and animals use their eyes only, whereas people use their mouths and foreheads and other things. A pleased dog, an expectant dog, a hungry dog, a jealous dog, a disappointed dog—one gathers all that from a dog’s eyes. Their mouths are comparatively immobile, and a cat’s is even more so.

“You have often told me that I belong to the genus cat,” said Lady Madingley, with complete composure.

“By Jove, yes,” said he. “Perhaps looking at the eyes of a cat would help me to see what I miss. Many thanks for the hint.”

He put down his palette and went to a side table on which stood bottles and ice and syphons.

“No drink of any kind on this Sahara of a morning?” he asked.