Part 13 (1/2)

Dr. Dale completed the sentence: ”to go back.”

”Let me explain a little more,” he said, ”what I mean by 'going on.' I think that this loosening of the ties of a.s.sociation that bind a man to his everyday life and his everyday self is in nine cases out of ten a loosening of the ties that bind him to everyday sanity. One common form of this detachment is the form you have in those cases of people who are found wandering unaware of their names, unaware of their places of residence, lost altogether from themselves. They have not only lost their sense of ident.i.ty with themselves, but all the circ.u.mstances of their lives have faded out of their minds like an idle story in a book that has been read and put aside. I have looked into hundreds of such cases. I don't think that loss of ident.i.ty is a necessary thing; it's just another side of the general weakening of the grip upon reality, a kind of anaemia of the brain so that interest fades and fails. There is no reason why you should forget a story because you do not believe it--if your brain is strong enough to hold it. But if your brain is tired and weak, then so soon as you lose faith in your records, your mind is glad to let them go. When you see these lost ident.i.ty people that is always your first impression, a tired brain that has let go.”

The bishop felt extremely like letting go.

”But how does this apply to my case?”

”I come to that,” said Dr. Dale, holding up a long large hand. ”What if we treat this case of yours in a new way? What if we give you not narcotics but stimulants and tonics? What if we so touch the blood that we increase your sense of physical detachment while at the same time feeding up your senses to a new and more vivid apprehension of things about you?” He looked at his patient's hesitation and added: ”You'd lose all that craving feeling, that you fancy at present is just the need of a smoke. The world might grow a trifle--transparent, but you'd keep real. Instead of drugging oneself back to the old contentment--”

”You'd drug me on to the new,” said the bishop.

”But just one word more!” said Dr. Dale. ”Hear why I would do this! It was easy and successful to rest and drug people back to their old states of mind when the world wasn't changing, wasn't spinning round in the wildest tornado of change that it has ever been in. But now--Where can I send you for a rest? Where can I send you to get you out of sight and hearing of the Catastrophe? Of course old Brighton-Pomfrey would go on sending people away for rest and a nice little soothing change if the Day of Judgment was coming in the sky and the earth was opening and the sea was giving up its dead. He'd send 'em to the seaside. Such things as that wouldn't shake his faith in the Channel crossing. My idea is that it's not only right for you to go through with this, but that it's the only thing to do. If you go right on and right through with these doubts and intimations--”

He paused.

”You may die like a madman,” he said, ”but you won't die like a tame rabbit.”

(4)

The bishop sat reflecting. What fascinated and attracted him was the ending of all the cravings and uneasinesses and restlessness that had distressed his life for over four years; what deterred him was the personality of this gaunt young man with his long grey face, his excited manner, his shock of black hair. He wanted that tonic--with grave misgivings. ”If you think this tonic is the wiser course,” he began.

”I'd give it you if you were my father,” said Dr. Dale. ”I've got everything for it,” he added.

”You mean you can make it up--without a prescription.”

”I can't give you a prescription. The essence of it--It's a distillate I have been trying. It isn't in the Pharmacopeia.”

Again the bishop had a twinge of misgiving.

But in the end he succ.u.mbed. He didn't want to take the stuff, but also he did not want to go without his promised comfort.

Presently Dale had given him a little phial--and was holding up to the window a small medicine gla.s.s into which he was pouring very carefully twenty drops of the precious fluid. ”Take it only,” he said, ”when you feel you must.”

”It is the most golden of liquids,” said the bishop, peering at it.

”When you want more I will make you more. Later of course, it will be possible to write a prescription. Now add the water--so.

”It becomes opalescent. How beautifully the light plays in it!

”Take it.”

The bishop dismissed his last discretion and drank.

”Well?” said Dr. Dale.

”I am still here,” said the bishop, smiling, and feeling a joyous tingling throughout his body. ”It stirs me.”

(5)

The bishop stood on the pavement outside Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey's house.