Part 54

"Une autre fois!" says Barty.

"Allez-vous en, je vous dis!"

"Après-demain!"

"Vous ... ne ... voulez ... pas ... vous ... en ... aller?" says the soldier, on tiptoe, his chest against Barty's stomach, his nose almost up to Barty's chin, glaring up like a fiend and poising his coupe-choux for a death-stroke.

"Non, sacré petit pousse-cailloux du diable!" roars Barty.

"Eh bien, restez où vous êtes!" and the little man plunged back into the fray on the opposite side--and no blood was shed after all.

Barty dreamt of this adventure, and woke up laughing at it in the small hours of that night. Then, suddenly, in the dark, he remembered the horror of what had happened. It overwhelmed him. He realized, as in a sudden illuminating flash, what life meant for him hence-forward--life that might last for so many years.

Vitality is at its lowest ebb at that time of night; though the brain is quick to perceive, and so clear that its logic seems inexorable.

It was hell. It was not to be borne a moment longer. It must be put an end to at once. He tried to feel the north, but could not. He would kill himself then and there, while his aunt was away; so that the horror of the sight of him, after, should at least be spared her.

He jumped out of bed and struck a light. Thank Heaven, he wasn't blind yet, though he saw all the bogies, as he called them, that had made his life a burden to him for the last two years--the retina floating loose about his left eye, tumbling and deforming every lighted thing it reflected--and also the new dark spot in his right.

He partially dressed, and stole up-stairs to old Torfs's photographic studio. He knew where he could find a bottle full of cyanide of potassium, used for removing finger-stains left by silver nitrate; there was enough of it to poison a whole regiment. That was better than taking a header off the roof. He seized a handful of the stuff, and came down and put it into a tumbler by his bedside and poured some water over it.

Then he got his writing-case and a pen and ink, and jumped into bed; and there he wrote four letters: one to Lady Caroline, one to Father Louis, one to Lord Archibald, and one to me in Blaze.

The cyanide was slow in melting. He crushed it angrily in the glass with his penholder--and the scent of bitter-almonds filled the room. Just then the sense of the north came back to him in full; but it only strengthened his resolve and made him all the calmer.

He lay staring at the tumbler, watching little bubbles, revelling in what remained of his exquisite faculty of minute sight--with a feeling of great peace; and thought prayerfully; lost himself in a kind of formless prayer without words--lost himself completely. It was as if the wished-for dissolution were coming of its own accord; Nirvana--an ecstasy of conscious annihilation--the blessed end, the end of all! as though he were passing

"... du sommeil au songe-- Du songe à la mort."

It was not so....

* * * * *

He was aroused by a knock at the door, which was locked. It was broad daylight.

"Il est dix heures, savez-vous?" said little Frau outside--"voulez-vous votre café dans votre chambre?"

"O Christ!" said Barty--and jumped out of bed. "It's all got to be done now!"

But something very strange had happened.

The tumbler was still there, but the cyanide had disappeared; so had the four letters he had written. His pen and ink were on the table, and on his open writing-case lay a letter in Blaze--in his own handwriting. The north was strong in him. He called out to Finche Torfs to leave his coffee in the drawing-room, and read his blaze letter--and this is what he read:

"My dear Barty,--Don't be in the least alarmed on reading this hasty scrawl, after waking from the sleep you meant to sleep forever. There is no sleep without a live body to sleep in--no such thing as everlasting sleep. Self-destruction seems a very simple thing--more often a duty than not; but it's not to be done! It is quite impossible not to be, when once you have been.

"If I were to let you destroy your body, as you were so bent on doing, the strongest interest I have on earth would cease to exist.

"I love you, Barty, with a love passing the love of woman; and have done so from the day you were born. I loved your father and mother before you--and theirs; ça date de loin, mon pauvre ami! And especially I love your splendid body and all that belongs to it--brain, stomach, heart, and the rest; even your poor remaining eye, which is worth all the eyes of Argus!

"So I have used your own pen and ink and paper, your own right hand and brain, your own cipher, and the words that are yours, to write you this--in English. I like English better than French.

"Listen. Monsieur Noiret is a fool; and you are a poor self-deluded hypochondriac.

"I am convinced your right eye is safe for many years to come--probably for the rest of your life.