Dr Ramis pursed his lips, and said, ‘With reservations,
I believe I may venture to say that I am tempted to do so. I do not commit myself, however.’
‘Now let us turn our honest tar ashore, where he is compelled to live not in the present but in the future, with reference to futurity - all joys, benefits, prosperities to be hoped for, looked forward to, the subject of anxious thought directed towards next month, next year, nay, the next generation; no slops provided by the purser, no food perpetually served out at stated intervals. And what do we find?’
‘Pox, drunkenness, a bestial dissolution of all moral principle, gross over-?eating: the liver ruined in ten days’ time.’
‘Certainly, certainly; but more than that, we find, not indeed false pregnancies, but everything short of them. Anxiety, hypochondria, displacency, melancholia, costive, delicate stomachs - the ills of the city merchant increased tenfold. I have a particularly interesting subject who was in the most robust health at sea - Hygeia’s darling - in spite of every kind of excess and of the most untoward circumstances: a short while on land, with household cares, matrimonial fancies - always in the future, observe
- and we have a loss of eleven pounds’ weight; a retention of the urine; black, compact, meagre stools; an obstinate eczema.’
‘And for you all this is the effect of solid earth beneath the subject’s feet? No more?’
Stephen held up his hands. ‘It is the foetus of a thought; but I cherish it.’
‘You speak of loss of weight. But I find that you yourself are thin. Nay, cadaverous, if I may speak as one physician to another. You have a very ill breath; your hair, already meagre two years ago, is now extremely sparse; you belch frequently; your eyes are hollow and dim. This is not merely your ill-?considered use of tobacco - a noxious substance that should be prohibited by government - and of laudanum. I should very much like to see your excrement.’
‘You shall, my dear sir, you shall. But I must leave you now. You will not forget my tincture? I shall abandon it entirely, once I am in Lerida, but until then it is necessary to me.’
‘You shall have it. And,’ said Dr Ramis, with a veiled look, ‘it is possible that I may send you a note of the first importance at the same time: I shall not know for some hours yet. If I do, it will be in system three. But pray let me feel your pulse before you go. Reedy, intermittent, my friend, just as I thought.’
‘What did he mean by that?’ said Stephen, referring not to the pulse but to the hypothetical note, and thinking again with some regret of the simplicity of his dealings with plain mercenary agents. Their motives were so clear; their loyalties were to their persons and their purse. The complexities of the entirely honest men, their sudden reticences, the interplay of conflicting loyalties, the personal sense of humour, made him feel old and tired.
‘Why, Stephen, here you are at last,’ cried Jack, starting straight out of his sleep. ‘I sat talking with Christy-? Palliere; I hope you did not wait for me.’ The subject of their conversation flooded his mind and put out its gaiety; but having gazed at the floor for a moment he looked up with at least an expression of cheerfulness and said, ‘You were very nearly taken up for a spy this morning.’
Stephen stopped in his movement towards the desk and stood motionless, unnaturally poised.
‘How I laughed when Christy-?Palliere read me out your description, looking uncomfortable and prodigious grave; but I assured him on my sacred honour that you were looking for your double-?headed eagles, and he was quite satisfied. He made an odd remark, by the way: said, was he in our shoes he should push on for Spain and not go to Porquerolles.’
‘Aye, aye? Did he, so?’ said Stephen mildly. ‘Go back to sleep now, my dear. I conceive he would not choose to traverse the street to see euphorbia praestans, let alone cross an arm of the sea. I have a few notes to write, but I shall not disturb you. Go to sleep: we have a long day head of us.’
Some hours later, in the first grey light, Jack awoke to a faint scratching on the door. His waking mind stated that this was a rat in the bread-?room, but his body instantly contradicted it - sleeping or awake his body knew whether it was afloat or not; at no time was it ever unaware of the continua) shift and heave of the sea, or of the unnatural stability of the land. He opened his eyes and saw Stephen rise from his guttering candle, open the door, receive a bottle and a folded note. He went back to his table, opened the note, slowly deciphered it, burnt both scraps of paper in the candle flame; without turning round he said, ‘Jack, you are awake, I believe?’
‘Yes. These last five minutes. A good morning to you, Stephen. Is it going to be hot?’
‘It is. And a good morning to you, my dear. Listen,’ he said, sinking his voice to no more than a whisper, ‘and do not call out or agitate yourself. Do you hear me now?’
‘Yes.’
‘War will be declared tomorrow. Bonaparte is seizing all British subjects.’
In the narrow band of shade under the northern wall of Carcassonne a compassionate gendarme halted his convoy of English prisoners - seamen from detained and captured ships for the most part, a few officers who had been caught by the declaration of war, but some civilians too, travelling gentlemen, servants, grooms and tradesmen, since for the first time in civilized warfare Bonaparte had ordered the arrest of every British subject. They were hot, disconsolate and weary; their bundles had been soaked in a thunderstorm, and at first they had not even the spirit to spread them out in the sun, let alone to take notice of the dilapidated splendour of walls and turrets behind, the view of the new town and the river before them, or even the bear and its leader in the shadow of the next tower but one. But presently the word of the arrival of the convoy spread, and the crowd that had hurried out of the old town to stare was joined by market-?women from over the bridge, bringing fruit, wine, bread, honey, sausages, pate and goat cheeses wrapped in fresh green leaves. Most of the prisoners still had some money (this was only the beginning of their march to the far north-?east) and when they had cooled a little, eaten and drunk, they put their clothes to dry and began to look about them.
‘What o, the bear,’ cried a sailor, quite happy now, with a quart of wine under his brass-?buckled belt. ‘Can he dance, mate?’
The bear-?leader, an ill-?looking brute with a patch over one eye and a fortnight’s beard, took no notice. But the sailor was not to be put off by the sullenness of foreigners, and he was soon joined by an insistent group of friends, for he was the most popular and influential member of the crew of the pink Chastity, a merchantman that had had the unlucky idea of putting into Cette for water the day war was declared. One or two of them began shying stones at the great hairy mass to wake it up, or at least to have the pleasure of seeing it move. ‘Avast the stone-?throwing,’ cried the sailor, his cheerful face clouding. ‘You don’t want to go a-?teasing of bears, cully. Remember Elisha. There’s nothing so unlucky as teasing of a bear.’
