The Journal of a Disappointed Man Part 21

B---- continues whoring, drinking, sneering. R---- as usual, devoid of emotion, cold, pa.s.sionless, Shavian, and self-absorbed, still t.i.tillates his mind with etching, sociology, music, etc., and I have at last ceased to bore him with what he probably calls the febrile utterances of an overwrought mind.

Such is my world! Oh! I forgot--on the floor below me is a corpse--that of an old gentleman who pa.s.sed away suddenly in the night. In the small hours, the landlady went for the Doctor over the way, but he refused to come, saying the old man was too aged. So the poor gentleman died alone--in this rat hole of a place.

_February_ 7.

Intending to buy my usual 3d. packet of Goldflakes, entered a tobacconist's in Piccadilly, but once inside surprised to find myself in a cla.s.sy west-end establishment, which frightened my flabby nature into buying De Reszke's instead. I hadn't the courage to face the aristocrat behind the counter with a request for Goldflakes--probably not stocked.

What would he think of me? Besides, I shrank from letting him see I was not perfectly well-to-do.

_February_ 14.

I wonder what this year has in store for me? The first twenty-four years of my life have hunted me up and down the keyboard--I have been right to the top and also to the bottom--very happy and very miserable. Yet I prefer the life that is a hunt and an adventure. I don't really mind being chased like this. I almost thrive on the excitement. If I knew always where to look with any degree of certainty for my next day's life I should yawn! "What if to-day be sweet," I say, and never look ahead.

To me, next week is next century.

The danger and uncertainty of my life make me cherish and hug closely to my heart various little projects that otherwise would seem unworthy. I work at them quickly, frantically, sometimes, afraid to whisper to a living soul what expectations I dare to harbour in my heart. What if _now_ the end be near? Not a word! Let me go onward.

_February_ 15.

To-day I have reviewed the situation carefully, exhaustively. I have peered into every aspect of my life and achievements and everything I have seen nauseates me. I can find no ray of comfort in anything I have done or in anything I might do. My life seems to have been a wilderness of futile endeavour. I started wrong from the very beginning. At the moment of my birth I was coming into the world in the wrong place and under wrong conditions. Why seek to overcome such colossal initial disadvantages? In this mood I found fault with my parentage, my inheritance, all my mental and physical disabilities....

This must be a form of incipient insanity. Even as a boy, I can remember being preternaturally absorbed in myself and preternaturally discontented. I was accustomed to exhaust my mind by the most hara.s.sing cross-examinations--no Counsel at the Bar ever treated a witness more mercilessly. After a day of this sort of thing, when silently and morbidly in every spare moment, at meals, in school, or on a walk, I would incessantly ply the questions, "What is the ultimate value of your work, _cui bono_?" etc. I went to bed in the evening with a feeling of hopelessness and dissatisfaction--haggard with considerations and reconsiderations of my outlook, my talent, my character, my future. In bed, I tossed from side to side, mentally exhausted with my efforts to obtain some satisfying conclusion--always hopeful, determined to the last to be able to square up my little affairs before going to sleep.

But out of this mazy, vertiginous ma.s.s of thinking no satisfaction ever came. _Now_, I thought--or the _next moment_--or as soon as I review and revise myself in this or in that aspect, I shall be content. And so I went on, tearing down and reforming, revising and reviewing, till finally from sheer exhaustion and very unhappy I fell asleep.

Next morning I was all right.

_February_ 20.

Am feeling very unwell. My ill-health, my isolation, baulked ambitions, and daily breadwinning all conspire to bring me down. The idea of a pistol and the end of it grows on me day by day.

_February_ 21.

After four days of the most profound depression of spirits, bitterness, self-distrust, despair, I emerged from the cloud to-day quite suddenly (probably the a.r.s.enic and strychnine begins to take effect) and walked up Exhibition Road with the intention of visiting the Science Museum Library so as to refer to Schafer's _Essentials of Histology_ (I have to watch myself carefully so that I may act _at once_ as soon as the balance of mind is restored). In the lobby was a woman screaming as if in pain, with a pa.s.ser-by at her side saying sternly, "What is the matter with you?" as if she were making herself ridiculous by suffering pain in public.

I pa.s.sed by quickly, pretending not to notice lest--after all--I should be done out of my _Essentials of Histology._ Even in the Library I very nearly let the opportunity slide by picking up a book on squaring the circle, the preface and introduction of which I was forced to read.

_March_ 4.

_The Entomological Society_

There were a great many Scarabees present who exhibited to one another poor little pinned insects in collecting-boxes ... It was really a one-man show, Prof. Poulton, a man of very considerable scientific attainments, being present, and shouting with a raucous voice in a way that must have scared some of the timid, una.s.suming collectors of our country's b.u.t.terflies and moths. Like a great powerful sheep-dog, he got up and barked, "Mendelian characters," or "Germ plasm," what time the obedient flock ran together and bleated a pitiful applause. I suppose, having frequently heard these and similar phrases fall from the lips of the great man at these reunions, they have come to regard them as symbols of a ritual which they think it pious to accept without any question. So every time the Professor says, "Allelomorph," or some such phrase, they cross themselves and never venture to ask him what the h.e.l.l it is all about.

_March_ 7.

_A Scots Fir_

Have been feeling very "down" of late, but yesterday I saw a fine Scots Fir by the roadside--tall, erect, as straight as a Parthenon pillar. The sight of it restored my courage. It had a tonic effect. Quite unconsciously I pulled my shoulders back and walked ahead with renewed vows never to flinch again. It is a n.o.ble tree. It has strength as a giant, and a giant's height, and yet kindly withal, the branches drooping down graciously towards you--like a kind giant extending its hands to a child.

_March_ 22.

_A Stagnant Day_

Went to bed late last night so I slept on soundly till 9 a.m. Went down to the bath-room, but found the door was shut, so went back to my bedroom again, lay down and dosed a while, thinking of nothing in particular. Went down again--door still locked--swore--returned once more to my room and reclined on the bed, with door open, so that I could hear as soon as the bath-room door opened.... Rang the bell, and Miss--brought up a jug of hot water to shave with, and a tumbler of hot water to drink (for my dyspepsia). She, on being interrogated, said there was some one in the bath-room. I said I wanted a bath too, so as she pa.s.sed on her way down she shouted, "Hurry up, Mr. Barbellion wants a bath as well." Her footsteps then died away as she descended lower into the bas.e.m.e.nt, where the family lives, sleeps, and cooks our food.

At length, hearing the door open, I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "the Lord be praised,"

rushed down, entered the bath-room and secured it from further intruders. I observed that Miss ---- senior had been bathing her members, and that the bath, tho' empty, was covered inside with patches of soap --unutterably black! Oh! Miss ----!

Dressed leisurely and breakfasted. When the table was cleared wrote a portion of my essay on _Spallanzani_....

Then, being giddy and tired, rang for dinner. Miss ---- laid the table.

She looked very clean. I said, "Good-morning," and she suitably replied, and I went on reading, the _Winning Post_. Felt too slack to be amiable.

Next time she came in, I said as pleasantly as I could, "Is it all ready?" and being informed proceeded to eat forthwith.

In the afternoon, took a 'bus to Richmond. No room outside, so had to go inside--curse--and sit opposite a row--curse again--of fat, ugly, elderly women, all off to visit their married daughters, the usual Sunday jaunt. At Hammersmith got on the outside, and at Turnham Green was caught in a hail storm. Very cold all of a sudden, so got off and took shelter in the doorway of a shop, which was of course closed, the day being Sunday. Rain, wind, and hail continued for some while, as I gazed at the wet, almost empty street, thinking, re-thinking and thinking over again the same thought, viz., that the 'bus ride along this route was exceptionally cheap--probably because of compet.i.tion with the trams.

The next 'bus took me to Richmond. Two young girls sat in front, and kept looking back to know if I was "game." I looked _through_ them.

Walked in the Park just conscious of the singing of Larks and the chatter of Jays, but hara.s.sed mentally by the question, "To whom shall I send my essay, when finished?" To shelter from the rain sat under an oak where four youths joined me and said, "Worse luck," and "Not half," and smoked cigarettes. They gossipped and giggled like girls, put their arms around each other's necks. At the dinner last night, they said, they had Duck and Tomato Soup and Beeswax ("Beesley, you know, the chap that goes about with Smith a lot") wore a fancy waistcoat with a dinner jacket.

When I got up to move on, they became convulsed with laughter. I scowled.

Had tea in the PaG.o.da tea-rooms, dry toast and brown bread and b.u.t.ter.

Two young men opposite me were quietly playing the fool.

"Hold my hand," one said audibly enough for two lovers to hear, comfortably settled up in a corner. Even at a side view I could see them kissing each other in between mouthfuls of bread and b.u.t.ter and jam.

On rising to go, one of the two hilarious youths removed my cap and playfully placed it on top of the bowler which his friend was wearing.

"My cap, I think," I said sharply, and the young man apologised with a splutter. I glared like a kill-joy of sixty.

On the 'bus, coming home, thro' streets full of motor traffic and all available s.p.a.ce plastered with advertis.e.m.e.nts that screamed at you, I espied in front three pretty girls, who gave me the "Glad Eye." One had a deep, musical voice, and kept on using it, one of the others a pretty ankle and kept on showing it.

At Kew, two Italians came aboard, one of whom went out of his way to sit among the girls. He sat level with them, and kept turning his head around, giving them a sweeping glance as he did so, to shout remarks in Italian to his friend behind. He thought the girls were prost.i.tutes, I think, and he may have been right. I was on the seat behind this man and for want of anything better to do, studied his face minutely. In short, it was fat, round, and greasy. He wore black moustachios with curly ends, his eyes were dark s.h.i.+ning, bulgy, and around his neck was wrapped a scarf inside a dirty linen collar, as if he had a sore throat. I sat behind him and hated him steadily, perseveringly.

At Hammersmith the three girls got off, and the bulgy-eyed Italian watched them go with lascivious eyes, looking over the rail and down at them on the pavement--still interested. I looked down too. They crossed the road in front of us and disappeared.

Came home and here I am writing this. This is the content of to-day's consciousness. This is about all I have thought, said, or done, or felt.

A stagnant day!

_March_ 26.

Home with a bad influenza cold. In a deplorable condition. The best I could do was to sit by the fire and read newspapers one by one from the first page to the last till the reading became mechanical. I found myself reading an account of the Lincoln Handicap and a column article on Kleptomania, while advertis.e.m.e.nts of new books were devoured with relish as delicacies. My mind became a mora.s.s of current Divorce Court News, Society Gossip--"if Sir A. goes Romeward, if Miss B. sings true"--and advertis.e.m.e.nts. I went on reading because I was afraid to be alone with myself.

B---- arrived at tea and after saying he felt very "pin-eyed" swallowed a gla.s.s of Bols gin--the Gin of Antony Bols--and recovered sufficiently to inform me delightedly that he had just won 50. He told me all the story; meanwhile, I, tired of wiping and blowing my nose, sat in the dirty armchair hunched up with elbows on knees and let it drip on to the dirty carpet. B----, of course, noticed nothing, which was fortunate.

Some kinds of d.a.m.ned fool would have been kindly and sympathetic. I must say I like old B----. I like him for his simpleness and utter absence of self-consciousness, which make him as charming as a child. Moreover, he often makes me a present of invaluable turf tips. Of course, he is a liar, but his lies are harmless and on his mouth like milk on an infant's. My own lies are much more dangerous. And when you are ill, to be treated as tho' you were well is good for hypochondriacs.

_April_ 15.

H----'s wedding. Five minutes before time, I am told I made a dramatic entry into the church clad in an audaciously light pair of Cashmere trousers, lemon-coloured gloves, with top hat and cane. The latter upset the respectability frightfully--it is not _comme il faut_.

_April_ 16.