Part 17 (1/2)
SECOND INTERVIEW.
DISTILLER. (Seeing Conscience approach, and beginning to tremble.) What, so soon and so early at your post again? I did hope for a short respite.
CONSCIENCE. O, I am distressed--I cannot hold my peace. I am pained at my very heart.
DISTILLER. Do be composed, I beseech you, and hear what I have to say.
Since our last interview I have resolved to sell out, and I expect the purchaser on in a very few days.
CONSCIENCE. What will _he_ do with the establishment when he gets it?
DISTILLER. You must ask him, and not me. But whatever he may do with it, _I_ shall be clear.
CONSCIENCE. I wish I could be sure of that; but let us see. Though you will not make poison by the hundred barrels any longer yourself, you will sell this laboratory of death to another man, for the same horrid purpose. You will not, with your own hands, go on forging daggers for maniacs to use upon themselves and their friends, provided you can get some one to take your business at a fair price. You will no longer drag the car of Juggernaut over the bodies of prostrate devotees, if you can _sell out the privilege to good advantage_!
DISTILLER. Was ever any man's conscience so captious before? You seem determined not to be satisfied with any thing. But beware; by pus.h.i.+ng matters in this way you will produce a violent ”reaction.” Even professors of religion will not bear it. For myself, I wish to treat you with all possible respect; but forbearance itself must have its limits.
CONSCIENCE. Possibly you may be able to hold me in check a little longer; but I am all the while gathering strength for an onset which you cannot withstand; and if you cannot bear these kind remonstrances now, how will you grapple with ”the worm that never dies?”
DISTILLER. Enough, enough. I will obey your voice. But why so pale and deathlike?
CONSCIENCE. O, I am sick, I am almost suffocated. These tartarean fumes, these dreadful forebodings, these heart-rending sights, and above all, my horrid dreams, I cannot endure them. There comes our nearest neighbor, stealing across the lots, with his jug and half bushel of rye.
What is his errand, and where is his hungry, s.h.i.+vering family? And see there too, that tattered, half-starved boy, just entering the yard with a bottle--who sent him here at this early hour? All these barrels--where are the wretched beings who are to consume this liquid fire, and to be consumed by it?
DISTILLER. Spare me, spare me, I beseech you. By going on at this rate a little longer you will make me as nervous as yourself.
CONSCIENCE. But I cannot close this interview till I have related one of the dreams to which I just alluded. It was only last night that I suffered in this way, more than tongue can tell. The whole terrific vision is written in letters of fire upon the tablet of my memory; and I feel it all the while burning deeper and deeper.
I thought I stood by a great river of melted lava, and while I was wondering from what mountain or vast abyss it came, suddenly the field of my vision was extended to the distance of several hundred miles, and I perceived that, instead of springing from a single source, this rolling torrent of fire was fed by numerous tributary streams, and these again by smaller rivulets. And what do you think I heard and beheld, as I stood petrified with astonishment and horror? There were hundreds of poor wretches struggling and just sinking in the merciless flood. As I contemplated the scene still more attentively, the confused noise of boisterous and profane merriment, mingled with loud shrieks of despair, saluted my ears. The hair of my head stood up--and looking this way and that way, I beheld crowds of men, women, and children, thronging down to the very margin of the river--some eagerly bowing down to slake their thirst with the consuming liquid, and others convulsively striving to hold them back. Some I saw actually pus.h.i.+ng their neighbors headlong from the treacherous bank, and others encouraging them to plunge in, by holding up the fiery temptation to their view. To insure a sufficient depth of the river, so that destruction might be made doubly sure, I saw a great number of men, and some whom I knew to be members of the church, laboriously turning their respective contributions of the glowing and hissing liquid into the main channel. This was more than I could bear. I was in perfect torture. But when I expostulated with those who were nearest to the place where I stood, they coolly answered, _This is the way in which we get our living!_
But what shocked me more than all the rest, and curdled every drop of blood in my veins, was the sight which I had of this very distillery pouring out its tributary stream of fire! And O, it distracts, it maddens me to think of it. There you yourself stood feeding the torrent which had already swallowed up some of your own family, and threatened every moment to sweep you away! This last circ.u.mstance brought me from the bed, by one convulsive bound, into the middle of the room; and I awoke in an agony which I verily believe I could not have sustained for another moment.
DISTILLER. I will feed the torrent no longer. The fires of my distillery shall be put out. From this day, from this hour, I renounce the manufacture of ardent spirit for ever.
DIALOGUE II.
WHOLESALE DEALER'S COUNTING-ROOM.
CONSCIENCE. (Looking over the ledger with a serious air.) What is that last invoice from the West Indies?
RUM-DEALER. Only a few casks of fourth proof, for particular customers.
CONSCIENCE. And that domestic poison, via New Orleans; and on the next page, that large consignment, via Erie Ca.n.a.l?
DEALER. O, nothing but two small lots of prime whiskey, such as we have been selling these twenty years. But why these chiding inquiries? They disquiet me exceedingly. And to tell you the plain truth, I am more than half offended at this morbid inquisitiveness.
CONSCIENCE. Ah, I am afraid, as I have often told you, that this is a bad business; and the more I think of it, the more it troubles me.
DEALER. Why so? You are always preaching up industry as a Christian virtue, and my word for it, were I to neglect my business, and saunter about the hotels and steamboat wharves, as some do, you would fall into convulsions, as if I had committed the unpardonable sin.
CONSCIENCE. Such pettish quibbling is utterly unworthy of your good sense and ordinary candor. You know, as well as I do, the great difference between industry in some safe and honest calling, and driving a business which carries poverty and ruin to thousands of families.