CHAPTER IX
Martin felt the hum of an elevator, fresh air in his face and the movement of an automobile. He knew that he was talking too much to an individual he’d never seen before, and suddenly found himself in a long bright corridor that smelled of medicine. He was helped into a semi-darkened room and felt a glass between his lips. He thought of Roberts, swallowed and choked.
“It’s ether,” he said.
“No, it isn’t,” said the nurse, standing by him and trying to get him into bed. “It will be good for you.”
Martin saw her for the first time. Then he felt himself falling. The nurse steadied him, and suddenly everything was clear. He felt well, stimulated. He wanted to talk some more.
“So! Martin finally reaches Hell! Our pathological bundle of yeast becomes animate in Bedlam!”
“Won’tyou get into bed?” asked the nurse. “You will be sleepy in a minute.”
“All right.” He stood up, swaying. “Martin in Hell. Being tucked in bed by an angel with wide hips. Coasting to sleep with a bellyful of ether. A true Nirvana fora true aesthete.” He stopped talking. Again hysteria struck him. But this time it was soft and languorous and he held it tightly as it moved in his groin. His breathing was quiet.
The nurse sat beside him in the darkened room. He breathed slowly now, beginning to jerk and posture. He held his hand in the air as though emphasizing a dream.
In the early morning he awakened. His hand moved over the side of the bed, reaching for a bottle of wine. His fingers went back and forth over the rug. Then he opened his eyes and saw the woman sitting beside him.
“Are you my nurse?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m your nurse. Won’t you go back to sleep?”
“I hurt,” said Martin. “I hurt all over, but my back is the worst. And I need a drink.”
“What would you like?”
“Whisky. A big one.”
“I’ll get your medication,” said the girl, and left the room.
Martin looked around him. A hospital—neurotherapy; adjacent to a madhouse! Weakened your resistance in one and shipped you into the other! His body ached and his mind still turned. On with the medication!—and then what? From dipsomania to dope in twelve treatments. Bring on the bed-straps. Damned efficient nurse, that one—watching him jump around. Patient. If only his back wouldn’t hurt so terribly. Must be the kidneys. Need flushing. Why not use a plunger?Imagine that immaculate nurse astride him, pounding his gizzard with a plunger!
The nurse returned with two glasses. One was full of orange juice. The other she held away from her nose.
“More ether?” asked Martin.
“It isn’t.”
“Well, ether or not—down the hatch!” And taking a deep breath he swallowed.
The nurse steadied him once more and he pressed his head into her breast, breathing sharply, like a man struck in the throat. He allowed himself to tremble. His feelings changed from sick horror to quietude and a faint elation. He let his head drop on the pillow. This time the paraldehyde brought relief, but no immediate sleep. Words kept ringing in his mind and he talked on, without cessation. The nurse listened to him, laughing occasionally. In the morning’s light, Martin slept.
When he awoke, the nurse was gone. He was alone on a bridge with madmen. He was afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid of fear. A word sounded in his mind—phobiaphobia, fear of fear. Nothing tangible to fight. The deep-seated root of the worm in his imagination. His feeling of isolation became complete, unbearable. He got out of bed and walked into the hall. A student nurse looked warily at him as he approached—unshaven, with bloodshot eyes, his unfastened robe trailing.
“Where’s the head nurse?” he asked. “Where is she?”
“Here I am.”
Martin turned on her, white faced and trembling.
“For God’s sake, nurse. Is this a hospital? Get me a drink. Get me something. And don’t leave me alone.”
She helped him into bed and brought the same medication. Sober, terror-stricken, Martin could not face the shock of the incredible drug. The nurse held him, and again Martin drank, feeling the same shudder and movement of the deep-seated tissue. He reached out and felt the woman’s arms. A sharp, sweet odor in his nose prolonged his trembling. The nurse wrapped a blanket around him, leaned over and kissed his damp forehead. Martin rested, watching her move quietly around the room. Was her kiss a gesture of sympathy? He met her gentle brown eyes and knew she understood.
The greater part of the next two days and nights he slept, only awakening to drink the bright, relieving poison. The third day he remembered Deane—her laugh, the surge of her skirts; and each thought was a torment.
That evening two psychiatrists came to talk with him. One, his own doctor, young and solemn; the other, the consulting physician, mature, shrewd, Olympian. Martin explained his fears, bringing up the residue of his experiences. During his story he caught fragments of remarks from the older man. Suggestive words such asmasochismandsadismset fire to his imagination. When they left him without comment he was more lonely and fearful than before. In desperation he entered deeperinto his mind, finding new horror with each analysis. By night the momentum had grown to such an active fear that the nurse did not dare leave the room. Martin followed her with his eyes.
The special night nurse came on duty, fresh, buxom and cheerful. Martin drew new hope out of her vitality. As he watched her straightening his bed he felt resentment at his own weakness. What was he?—to be fussed over and coddled like an old dog. He watched the strong shanks of the girl move steadily around the room. A curious thought entered his mind and he laughed. The nurse turned and looked at him, fearing new hallucinations.
“No,” said Martin, “I’m not hysterical. Come here and sit on the bed.”
“I can’t,” said the girl.
“Well, then,” said Martin, “pull that chair closer and sit here.”
She did as he requested, and Martin reached out for her hand. It was soft and warm. He pressed it tightly, looking into her eyes. The girl’s cheeks flushed but she did not pull away. Martin looked up at the ceiling, each fresh thought bringing anger—the keen, strong happiness of anger. This young animal beside him had given him a new perspective. He turned again to the nurse and held her hand more tightly, stroking it, and explaining his movements with his eyes. He reached out for her waistand smiled to see her pull away. She was afraid. Not he. What did he have to be afraid of? Phobiaphobia? How foolish! This complex, that complex——
“Listen, nurse,” he said. “I’m cured.”
“Yes. You seem to be much better.”
“Better nothing!” cried Martin. “I’m well. There isn’t anything wrong with me. I was drunk.”
The girl stared at him for a moment, then put her hand on his shoulder.
“I’ve never believed the things you’ve told me,” she said. “At first, I thought there was something a little bit—” Her cheeks turned red and she laughed. “But now, I know you’re just a normal man.”
Martin thought of the woman he loved. Deane! He could go to Deane now. There was nothing wrong. He thought of his doctors. Surely they had known. They had left him with that fear—its implication of neuroses and reference to disgusting complexities. How many lay that night, fed with bromides and sedatives; crucified on theories!
In the morning when the psychiatrists returned, Martin raised his head from the pillow.
“Good morning.”
The young doctor nodded his head briefly, blinked his eyes and faced the light from the window, his face expressionless.
“Good morning. Did you sleep?” asked the older physician, in a perfunctory tone.
“Very well indeed,” Martin said. Then sitting up a little straighter, he added, “Doctor! I don’t want to anticipate a diagnosis, but I’m not sick. You understand that I merely gave a history of the fantasies and sublimated desires that are in all our minds, but which we are rarely dyspeptic enough to publicize.”
The older doctor watched him furtively. Martin saw that he resembled a spider, and grinning to himself, thought that there were probably a few cobwebs about him. But in the younger doctor’s eyes he saw concern and liking, and even the faint touch of friendship.
“What do you mean?” asked the older man at last.
Martin climbed out of bed, put on his robe and stood before the consulting psychiatrist.
“You understand.”
“You have been a child,” said the physician sternly.
“You understand,” repeated Martin.
The psychiatrist took firm hold of his shoulders. There were furious lights about the man—not understanding; merely curiosity and hatred for something unintelligible. He tightened his grasp on Martin’s shoulders, shook his head angrily and stormed out of the room. But the younger doctor, with all the suns between his eyes, observed in formula Martin’s pulse and all the rest of it, dismissing his patient with a friendly, sympathetic nod as soon as he could.
When Martin left the hospital it was snowing. The medication had destroyed his orientation. He leanedagainst the wall of the building for a moment, then tried to walk straight while he looked for a taxi.
Inside the cab he wrapped his coat about him and held his ankles from the cold air. Sick from the drugs and weak from lack of food, he thought once more of Deane and smiled. He was tired, but he had won.
When he arrived at the apartment he stopped just inside the door. There was a woman sitting in a chair. Who was she? Where was Deane? Was this woman alive? For her face was pale, and her eyes, too large, too dark, seemed to have lost all comprehension.
“What is wrong?” he asked excitedly. “What is it?”
Deane did not answer but sank down in her chair, covering her face with hands that trembled.
Martin felt sick. The air in the room suffocated him.
“Deane! It’s Martin!” he cried.
Her hands dropped to her lap.
“I talked with your doctors,” she answered simply. “I talked with them for two hours. I was ashamed—humiliated.”
“Ashamed of what? Ashamed of me? Why! I’m all right now!”
“I spoke with your doctors,” Deane repeated, as though in fatal acceptance. “It was horrible.”
Martin took off his coat. He had on no shirt. He looked past Deane for a moment, leaning heavily against the wall.
“They have taken my girl.” He spoke bitterly. Then ina louder, more distracted voice, he repeated—“They have taken my girl.”
He continued to look about him as though in a daze.
“What have they done to you?” he kept asking. “Damn them! Collaborators with madhouses—sucking my giddy ideas, engendering the malingerer. They’ve doped you with psychological jargon, hypnotized you with fine phrases.... Breeders of hypochondriacs! I’m not afraid of them any longer, I have nothing but contempt for them. I wanted the clear advice of mature, impersonal intellects, and I meet with personal vindictiveness.”
“They said you have a persecution complex,” replied Deane. “They tried to help you.” Her throat was dry and the room was spinning round.
“‘Persecution complex!’” repeated Martin with a contemptuous gesture. “It’s contagious. It’s a disease—an indiscriminate application of words typing an individual, placing him in a box, granting him the elasticity of brick. They are dealing with humanity—not with bricks. What do these rigid intellectualists know definitely, after all? Stumbling about in the most infantile science of the lot. A befuddled group of astrologers of the mind. The more competent admit they know little—admit that while they do the best they can, that often they must strike out blindly, hoping that nature will effect a cure.”
Deane’s eyes did not change; but the delicate lids, with their heavy lashes, gave a sudden, nervous flicker. What was this perspiring man talking about? She stillfelt sick. He didn’t have on a shirt. If she could only rest. She knew that her mind was bleeding. Each of Martin’s words opened a new point in her brain.
“They are dangerous because they are clever,” he went on. “And some of them are diabolical. Theirs is a subtle lechery. They love this parade of erotics. Orgasms by proxy! Intelligent, perverted and ruthless!”
Deane now looked steadily at him. The ice locking her mind moved restlessly.
“They do good, Martin. Not everyone plays with love and pain the way you do.”
“Let me rest, Deane. I want to rest.” He leaned for a moment against the divan and then got up. “You’re the only one I care about,” he said wearily. “Can these ponderous technicians, with their burden of world-pain give you happiness? Can you let their hard lines of conduct, which apply to the diseased, disturb our concept of life? Top-heavy and non-elastic—surely they cannot appeal to your ideas!”
Deane knew that he was splendid in his agony. She wanted to kiss his cheeks. She wanted to forget his tiredness, his indictment of psychiatry. She felt that his imaginings were unfair; untrue; those of a sick man. She knew that he had talked bravely and fought desperately for her. She felt all these things. But she stood up and turned away.
Martin knew. He put on his coat and smiled at her. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. Instead, he left the apartment.