Ahime, Morire?
Written for Lynn in the LXG/LoEG Ficathon.
Edward tells me lately that soon, soon, I shall disappear entirely. He will wait for a moment when I receive a shock and am not thinking clearly, and then he will come out and stay out for-ever, and I shall never be able to hide him away again.
There were times when he used to make that threat often. Something would happen, and... Once, when I first brought him out, he said it. Once, when I began to keep him from coming. When he first found out that they wanted to separate us. Again, when Griffin began to cut the rope of the balloon before the others came. Edward says he meant to get rid of us. He was furious, and he shouted and stormed around my room for hours, over and over, telling me all the things he plans to do to Griffin someday, when he has taken over me. He hates me.
He hates me.
But I wonder, often, if he hates the others more than me. Is hate stronger when it is silent, or when it is constant and present? Presently, he is incessant in hating the others aloud to me; hating Griffin, hating Nemo, hating Quatermain; not hating Miss Murray. Not yet? I wonder, or does he truly find something in her which stops him from hating her? I wish I knew what it was. As for me, he is quiet but certain in his hate of me. I wish he was not.
Then I wonder, is that absurd? If evil hates good, ought I not be proud of his hating me? But I am not good, and I know that too well. Cowardice and desire of self-preservation are both transgressions; hesitation and fear are both bad habits. Memory, of all things, is a curse, and I think my memory is better than his. Perhaps he forgets things more quickly, like an animal, and that is therefore how he has no conscience. But that cannot be true--he remembers. When he is out, he is always sitting down and telling me things--horrible things--in vivid detail. He remembers them perfectly, and his conscience dictates that they are good, that the smells and the things he sees are good, that screaming is good, that death is good; and that is why he seeks those things. He knows what he wants, and he pursues it.
I do understand him. He is part of me. He came from me. I understand him, sometimes, far better than I understand myself. I share part of myself with him, and he is not an it, and he is not a creature. He is a man, though he doesn't look very like one any longer. In his head, in his mind, which is mine as well, he sometimes comes up with strange thoughts of exquisite beauty. It seems an impossibility, but he is a man, and like men, he has joys and pleasures; it is just that they are often horrible joys and sickening pleasures.
Yesterday night it rained. We left our room in the Nautilus and came up on the flat part of the deck for an hour while he stood in it. That was all. It rained all about him and he tipped back his head and laughed softly, for an hour, and that pleased him. Of course, for it to please him, it could not please me, and I was quite miserable. I hate the rain almost as much as I hate the cold.
Perhaps, though, I should say I dislike the rain and the cold. I do not hate things. I am not capable of that. Before, I said that if something pleased him, it displeased me; but this formula works both ways. If he is the one who possesses the ability to hate, to have fierce thoughts, then I do not possess that ability. If someone speaks sharply to me, I always feel wretched and guilty and shameful. If someone strikes me, I don't protest; that is Edward's right. He is also the one who can love, although he has never taken advantage of this; and can also feel joy; but I am the one who can sorrow.
Sorrow. I keep it like a precious thing, the way some men hoard their gold. I cannot be entirely whole or safe without it, in the way Nemo would be without his Nautilus, or Quatermain seems to feel without a gun; the way Miss Murray goes nowhere and does nothing without her scarf. I do not understand the significance behind a scarf, but likely she would not understand my reason for treating sorrow like the dearest thing in the world. It is mine. It is something that, when my body and my capabilities were divided up between Edward and me, fell to me; something strong which is not his. That makes it almost worthy of reverence.
So I cannot hate the rain, but Edward can hate me. I must only listen when he says he will murder my part in him, and push me inside, and never let me out again. Once I would hardly have believed him, and now, I find myself wondering how long I have left.
~~~
"Dr. Jekyll? I say, are you all right?"
"Yes. Yes, but thinking like Nell Ford." He sat in the chair quietly, without moving, one hand resting against his face so that the back of his fingers touched his lips. He didn't look up, but went on; thinking, apparently, of something else, so that he didn't realise he'd made an allusion to a person only he knew about.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Oh--sorry. It was an article--the only newspaper I'd read in a year, and I remember it rather clearly. Some miners in Scotland rescued a girl from a mine shaft, and she was quoted as having said that the darkness is as beautiful as the light. To tell you the truth, I think the reporters got it all wrong. They seemed to think that she hated living in the mine, but from everything she said and the photograph they printed of her, it appeared to me she would rather have stayed there."
"Hmm. All right."
"I apologise. I'm speaking of something no one would have any idea about, aren't I?"
"No--No, tell me about this girl. I've never heard of her. She lived in a mine?" The chair was pulled out carefully, and there was the sound of wood scraping on a metal floor. He almost turned, and certainly twitched, hardly perceptively, straightening his back a little.
"Yes, for many years. Some fellows rescued her when they began living there, and one of them married her. She had a great deal to say to the papers." He momentarily paused, looked embarrassed, went on: "I can remember the quotes exactly, really. It's a pity, but it was the only newspaper, and I've read it perhaps a hundred times."
"Oh? There's plenty of time now; nothing is threatening our lives presently, saving whatever it is is going to happen in a matter of minutes. They can't leave us alone long. But, you see, we have time now. What did she say?"
"Oh, she said-- 'Darkness is beautiful as well as light; if you but knew what eyes accustomed to the depths can see: shades flitting which one longs to follow; circles mingle and intertwine, and one could gaze on them for-ever; black hollows full of indefinite gleams of radiance lie deep at the bottom of the mine; and then the voice-like sounds! One must have lived down there to understand what I feel! what I can never express!'"
He had a strange way of reciting things--he made it far less of a recitation than of actual words, more of something he had said himself rather than heard someone else say. For the first time, there was something in his face, his manner, that suggested a feeling other than fear or distress. He seemed almost alive. But who had ever heard of Nell Ford!
"Queer."
"It is, isn't it? But you can see, I suppose, why all the reporters must not have understood?"
"Certainly. I see no reason they should have believed other than that she loved the dark."
"I wonder... Why? Why might they have done it?"
"Why? Because civilisation is always right, of course, Doctor. How could a person conceive of a girl who loved a dark mine rather than a fine, warm house full of lamps and daylight? Is such a thing imaginable, do you think? No, no, the exposure and the cold and the lack of human company made her half-mad, made her speak nonsense--quotable nonsense, you understand, to provide the general public with an idea of how tragically a mind is altered by isolation."
Here he paused--why, the words had made him pause!--and did turn, completely, eyes curious. "Do you advocate isolation?"
"I like it."
"I am not certain yet how I feel of it."
"Why not?"
Something in the tone of voice, some softness, some invitation, some part that was kind to him or allowed him to speak, seemed to cause him to forget himself. He answered. "It's Edward. I don't believe one is better than the other, isolation or company. To be solitary is, in theory, to protect others from Edward and to be safe, but truly it only makes him angry and restless, and he does worse things when he forces his way out again. Besides, when I'm alone, I am disquiet and I have time to... think. But to be with other persons is to be ashamed, you know; there's plenty of shame in getting up in the morning and leaving my room, and it does put Edward in a position where it's ten times easier for him to come out and hurt people. Neither is better, I think."
"No. Not then, I suppose. But then what do you do?"
"Hold my breath." He smiled shortly, almost vaguely. "Try not to think. Concentrate. I have hundreds of choices; I just go through them all day by day. It's comforting to pretend that one of them will help."
"Then you don't believe there's a solution?"
"I used to work at an antidote formula to my... 'state'... I never found anything that succeeded, because Edward always smashes my chemicals or tears up my notes, and now I don't bother any longer. There's very little object in it, and besides, I'm not really made for achieving things now. Edward has intent."
"What?"
"My old self--it's divided between us. The power of intent of purpose fell to Edward. I simply have restraint."
"It's not so simple, you do realise? Restraint is nothing to be thought of lightly... it's quite as important as purpose." There was another scraping of the chair, the sound of footsteps, a hand on the window. His hand went to the lamp, as though he were using it to warm his fingers. The fish swam around, and stared with bugged eyes at his face as he watched them. With a soft sigh, he stood, pushing back his own chair. There was a band of dark thrown over the table from the place where his arm cut across the lamp, and the fish stared at that, too, utterly astounded by something that no one could fathom; the reason why it should become dark because of a man's arm. The fish made their own light, yet here was something that cast no light at all and instead blocked it; they were amazed. Suddenly, he said,--
"I wondered why you speak with me so cordially. You seem to dislike everyone else."
"Please, sir. You speak better than they do."
"No."
"Very well. You exhibit some sense, some courtesy. I appreciate it."
"Thank you. I apologise for having waylaid you and gone on about old newspaper articles."
"On the contrary. I was interested. Besides, it is good to talk, sometimes, of such things. A girl who lived in a mine shaft in Scotland is cleverer than any of Britain's esteemed newspapermen, and sometimes I think the world will never realise it. I think it is only I who realises it; that there is something to be found even in the darkness. --Beg pardon. I had no intention of speaking so freely."
"I don't believe you did."
A laugh. He flinched just a little, perhaps from the sound; perhaps because he was used to hearing the sound from someone else. That was a trite way of putting it--but one can hear someone else laugh, for some reason, so often that one finds it repulsive. The laugh was stifled quickly. "That's good of you. Tell me, do you read much?"
"No, not much. I haven't the--light." He lowered his arm to his side, taking away the dark band from the table and releasing the fish from their wide-eyed watch.
"No... Did you read much before?"
"A fair amount. Was there something--?"
"No, no; I was simply recalling... It's nothing." A brusque tone, now, because the time was coming-- "I am glad to have spoken with you; I am glad you were all right. If you'll pardon me--"
"Of course."
"--Good-night, Doctor."
"Good-night."
The door opened, and he turned his eyes upon it, stood still for a moment, lifted a hand unconsciously to the bandage over his ear and touched it gingerly--because even if he moved unconsciously, his unconscious remembered that he might hurt himself--watched the door close and disappeared behind it even before 'good-night' was fully said. There was something too awkward about rustling fabrics in a silent room, so before the sound was quite gone and emptiness took over, the door closed; and he was gone.
~~~
I think Edward will be angry when he comes out again. We don't, can't, speak to one another, but if I were to address him now, he would hear me (unless he were sleeping) and when he came out, he might answer me; and besides that, we each know and remember what the other has done. He will know that I have spoken about him to someone, and that will annoy him.
It was an odd conversation. We reached no conclusion, and we spoke of nothing real, nothing but a newspaper article I made up from a book I loved once. 'Saint Mary, benedicite, what love has done to me', as I suppose Chaucer would say. But I spoke too much, when we spoke of isolation. Far too much. That is why Edward will be angry.
Something is wrong. Something is going to happen... I feel it, now; it's getting colder. Edward is becoming stronger, and I heard something this morning of strange fires falling from the sky. It's a certainty that it will affect us. I don't want it, either. I know I must be running out of time, because Edward says more and more often that he will kill me, that I will vanish, that I will disappear, and I would be even more a fool than I am already if I doubted him. He will do as he says. How long have I left?
Suddenly, I would rather like to go outside.
It's getting colder. I believe I should be frightened, since that is usually what I am the moment that the possibility of danger arises, but--no. I don't know why, but I am not frightened. I feel... patient. I feel as though I were waiting. Perhaps I am.
The wall is covered with shadows.
Very well, I am waiting to vanish, and I cannot mind. Has Edward robbed me of all my senses? Do I not belong to myself at all? I don't think I do. I am not even sure, sometimes, that these are my hands; but they do make shadows when I move them.
Then, I am simply waiting. God or Edward knows when it will happen. My God, I feel more like an animal than people ever suppose he is.
'I was only thinking that darkness is beautiful as well as light'... and now I've realised it isn't.
Back to the Index.