The Chequers | Page 9

and though one of
us saw two moons, he felt a dull pain at the heart as he remembered
days long ago, when the pale splendour brought gladness. When we
had solemnly decided that it was a fine night, we went back to our
reeking room again, and pursued our conversation on the principle that
each man should select his own subject and try to howl down the other
two. This exercise soon palled on us, and one by one we sank to sleep.
The clear light was pouring in when I woke, but the very sight of the
straight beams made me doleful. When a man is in training, that gush
of brightness makes him joyous; but a night with the fiend poisons the
light, the air, the soul. Bob lay on the floor under the full glare of the
window. What a fine fellow he was! His chest bulged strongly under
his fleecy sweater; his neck was round and muscular, and every limb of
him seemed compact and hard. His curls were all dishevelled, and his
face was miserably puffy, but he had not had time to become bloated.
No wonder that girls liked him.
Presently we were all awake, and a more wretched company could not
very well be found. Novelists talk about "a debauch" in a way that
makes novices think debauchery has something grand and mysterious
about it. "We must have orgies; it's the proper thing," says Tom Sawyer
the delightful. The raw lad finds "debauches" mentioned with majestic
melancholy, and he naturally fancies that, although a debauch may be
wicked, it is neither nasty nor contemptible. Why cannot some good
man tell the sordid truth? I suppose he would be accused of Zolaism,
but he would frighten away many a nice lad from the wrong road. Let
any youngster who reads this try to remember his worst sick headache;
let him (if he has been to sea) remember that moment when he longed
for someone to come and throw him overboard; let him then imagine
that he has committed a deadly crime; let him also fancy what he would
feel if he knew that some awful irreparable calamity must inevitably
fall on him within an hour. Then he will understand that state of mind
and body which makes men loathe beauty, loathe goodness, loathe life;
then he will understand what jolly fellows endure.

We glowered glassily on each other, and we were quite ready either to
quarrel or to shed tears on the faintest provocation. Presently Bob
laughed in a forced way, and said, "God, what a head! Let's come out.
Those yellow shades make me bilious." The glory of full day flooded
the lovely banks, but the light pained our eyes, and we sought refuge in
the cool, dim shades of the parlour. Our conversation was exactly like
that of passengers on board ship when they are just about to collapse.
The minutes seemed like hours; our limbs were listless, as if we had
been beaten into helplessness. So passed one doleful hour. I mentioned
breakfast, and Bob shuddered, while Coney rushed from the room.
What a pleasant thing is a jovial night!
"Let's see if we can manage some champagne," said Darbishire, and the
"merry" three were soon mournfully gazing on a costly magnum. Sip
by sip we contrived to drink a glass each; then the false thirst woke, the
nausea departed, and we were started again for the day.
I persisted in taking violent exercise, but Darbishire seemed to have
lost all his muscular aptitudes, and although I implored him to exert
himself, he sank into a lethargy that was only varied by mad fits, during
which he performed the freaks of a lunatic. After the sixth day's
drinking I proposed to go away. Bob looked queerly at me, and said in
a whisper, "Don't you try it on! See that!" and he showed me a little
Derringer. I laughed; but I was not really amused. You always notice
that, when a man is about to go wrong, he thinks of killing those whom
he likes best. That night Bob's hands flew asunder with a jerk while we
were playing cards; the cards flew about; then he flung a decanter
violently into the fireplace, and sat down trembling and glaring. I
sprang to his side, and found that the sweat was running down his neck.
I pulled off his shoes--his socks were drenched! I said, "I thought you'd
get them, old fellow. Now, have some beef-tea, and I'll send right away
for a sleeping draught." Bob trembled still more.
"No beef-tea. I've had nothing these three days, as you know. It would
kill me to swallow." Then he said, in a horrible whisper, "The brute's
coming down the chimney again. There's a