The Horror Of Christmas. Джером К. Джером

into his mouth, and stealthily rubbing it bright upon his shreds of dress, as he went along.

      Three times, in their progress, they were side by side. Three times they stopped, being side by side. Three times the Chemist glanced down at his face, and shuddered as it forced upon him one reflection.

      The first occasion was when they were crossing an old churchyard, and Redlaw stopped among the graves, utterly at a loss how to connect them with any tender, softening, or consolatory thought.

      The second was, when the breaking forth of the moon induced him to look up at the Heavens, where he saw her in her glory, surrounded by a host of stars he still knew by the names and histories which human science has appended to them; but where he saw nothing else he had been wont to see, felt nothing he had been wont to feel, in looking up there, on a bright night.

      The third was when he stopped to listen to a plaintive strain of music, but could only hear a tune, made manifest to him by the dry mechanism of the instruments and his own ears, with no address to any mystery within him, without a whisper in it of the past, or of the future, powerless upon him as the sound of last year’s running water, or the rushing of last year’s wind.

      At each of these three times, he saw with horror that, in spite of the vast intellectual distance between them, and their being unlike each other in all physical respects, the expression on the boy’s face was the expression on his own.

      They journeyed on for some time—now through such crowded places, that he often looked over his shoulder thinking he had lost his guide, but generally finding him within his shadow on his other side; now by ways so quiet, that he could have counted his short, quick, naked footsteps coming on behind—until they arrived at a ruinous collection of houses, and the boy touched him and stopped.

      “In there!” he said, pointing out one house where there were shattered lights in the windows, and a dim lantern in the doorway, with “Lodgings for Travellers” painted on it.

      Redlaw looked about him; from the houses to the waste piece of ground on which the houses stood, or rather did not altogether tumble down, unfenced, undrained, unlighted, and bordered by a sluggish ditch; from that, to the sloping line of arches, part of some neighbouring viaduct or bridge with which it was surrounded, and which lessened gradually towards them, until the last but one was a mere kennel for a dog, the last a plundered little heap of bricks; from that, to the child, close to him, cowering and trembling with the cold, and limping on one little foot, while he coiled the other round his leg to warm it, yet staring at all these things with that frightful likeness of expression so apparent in his face, that Redlaw started from him.

      “In there!” said the boy, pointing out the house again. “I’ll wait.”

      “Will they let me in?” asked Redlaw.

      “Say you’re a doctor,” he answered with a nod. “There’s plenty ill here.”

      Looking back on his way to the house-door, Redlaw saw him trail himself upon the dust and crawl within the shelter of the smallest arch, as if he were a rat. He had no pity for the thing, but he was afraid of it; and when it looked out of its den at him, he hurried to the house as a retreat.

      “Sorrow, wrong, and trouble,” said the Chemist, with a painful effort at some more distinct remembrance, “at least haunt this place darkly. He can do no harm, who brings forgetfulness of such things here!”

      With these words, he pushed the yielding door, and went in.

      There was a woman sitting on the stairs, either asleep or forlorn, whose head was bent down on her hands and knees. As it was not easy to pass without treading on her, and as she was perfectly regardless of his near approach, he stopped, and touched her on the shoulder. Looking up, she showed him quite a young face, but one whose bloom and promise were all swept away, as if the haggard winter should unnaturally kill the spring.

      With little or no show of concern on his account, she moved nearer to the wall to leave him a wider passage.

      “What are you?” said Redlaw, pausing, with his hand upon the broken stair-rail.

      “What do you think I am?” she answered, showing him her face again.

      He looked upon the ruined Temple of God, so lately made, so soon disfigured; and something, which was not compassion—for the springs in which a true compassion for such miseries has its rise, were dried up in his breast—but which was nearer to it, for the moment, than any feeling that had lately struggled into the darkening, but not yet wholly darkened, night of his mind—mingled a touch of softness with his next words.

      “I am come here to give relief, if I can,” he said. “Are you thinking of any wrong?”

      She frowned at him, and then laughed; and then her laugh prolonged itself into a shivering sigh, as she dropped her head again, and hid her fingers in her hair.

      “Are you thinking of a wrong?” he asked once more.

      “I am thinking of my life,” she said, with a monetary look at him.

      He had a perception that she was one of many, and that he saw the type of thousands, when he saw her, drooping at his feet.

      “What are your parents?” he demanded.

      “I had a good home once. My father was a gardener, far away, in the country.”

      “Is he dead?”

      “He’s dead to me. All such things are dead to me. You a gentleman, and not know that!” She raised her eyes again, and laughed at him.

      “Girl!” said Redlaw, sternly, “before this death, of all such things, was brought about, was there no wrong done to you? In spite of all that you can do, does no remembrance of wrong cleave to you? Are there not times upon times when it is misery to you?”

      So little of what was womanly was left in her appearance, that now, when she burst into tears, he stood amazed. But he was more amazed, and much disquieted, to note that in her awakened recollection of this wrong, the first trace of her old humanity and frozen tenderness appeared to show itself.

      He drew a little off, and in doing so, observed that her arms were black, her face cut, and her bosom bruised.

      “What brutal hand has hurt you so?” he asked.

      “My own. I did it myself!” she answered quickly.

      “It is impossible.”

      “I’ll swear I did! He didn’t touch me. I did it to myself in a passion, and threw myself down here. He wasn’t near me. He never laid a hand upon me!”

      In the white determination of her face, confronting him with this untruth, he saw enough of the last perversion and distortion of good surviving in that miserable breast, to be stricken with remorse that he had ever come near her.

      “Sorrow, wrong, and trouble!” he muttered, turning his fearful gaze away. “All that connects her with the state from which she has fallen, has those roots! In the name of God, let me go by!”

      Afraid to look at her again, afraid to touch her, afraid to think of having sundered the last thread by which she held upon the mercy of Heaven, he gathered his cloak about him, and glided swiftly up the stairs.

      Opposite to him, on the landing, was a door, which stood partly open, and which, as he ascended, a man with a candle in his hand, came forward from within to shut. But this man, on seeing him, drew back, with much emotion in his manner, and, as if by a sudden impulse, mentioned his name aloud.

      In the surprise of such a recognition there, he stopped, endeavouring to recollect the wan and startled face. He had no time to consider it, for, to his yet greater amazement, old Philip came out of the room, and took him by the hand.

      “Mr. Redlaw,” said the old man, “this is like you, this is like you, sir! you have heard of it, and have come after us to render any help you can. Ah, too late, too late!”

      Redlaw, with a bewildered look, submitted to be led into the room. A man lay there,