Tono-Bungay - H. G. Wells (my reading book txt) 📗

queer corner of refuge out of the world, was destined to be my uncle’s deathbed. There is a background of the Pyrenees, of blue hills and sunlit houses, of the old castle of Luzon and a noisy cascading river, and for a foreground the dim, stuffy room whose windows both the religieuse and hostess conspired to shut, with its waxed floor, its four-poster bed, its characteristically French chairs and fireplace, its champagne bottles and dirty basins and used towels and packets of Somatose on the table. And in the sickly air of the confined space in behind the curtains of the bed lay my little uncle, with an effect of being enthroned and secluded, or sat up, or writhed and tossed in his last dealings of life. One went and drew back the edge of the curtains if one wanted to speak to him or look at him.

Usually he was propped up against pillows, because so he breathed more easily. He slept hardly at all.

I have a confused memory of vigils and mornings and afternoons spent by that bedside, and how the religieuse hovered about me, and how meek and good and inefficient she was, and how horribly black were her nails. Other figures come and go, and particularly the doctor, a young man plumply rococo, in bicycling dress, with fine waxen features, a little pointed beard, and the long black frizzy hair and huge tie of a minor poet. Bright and clear-cut and irrelevant are memories of the Basque hostess of my uncle’s inn and of the family of Spanish people who entertained me and prepared the most amazingly elaborate meals for me, with soup and salad and chicken and remarkable sweets. They were all very kind and sympathetic people, systematically so. And constantly, without attracting attention, I was trying to get newspapers from home.

My uncle is central to all these impressions.

I have tried to make you picture him, time after time, as the young man of the Wimblehurst chemist’s shop, as the shabby assistant in Tottenham Court Road, as the adventurer of the early days of Tono-Bungay, as the confident, preposterous plutocrat. And now I have to tell of him strangely changed under the shadow of oncoming death, with his skin lax and yellow and glistening with sweat, his eyes large and glassy, his countenance unfamiliar through the growth of a beard, his nose pinched and thin. Never had he looked so small as now. And he talked to me in a whispering, strained voice of great issues, of why his life had been, and whither he was going. Poor little man! that last phase is, as it were, disconnected from all the other phases. It was as if he crawled out from the ruins of his career, and looked about him before he died. For he had quite clear-minded states in the intervals of his delirium.

He knew he was almost certainly dying. In a way that took the burden of his cares off his mind. There was no more Neal to face, no more flights or evasions, no punishments.

“It has been a great career, George,” he said, “but I shall be glad to rest. Glad to rest!⁠ ⁠… Glad to rest.”

His mind ran rather upon his career, and usually, I am glad to recall, with a note of satisfaction and approval. In his delirious phases he would most often exaggerate this self-satisfaction, and talk of his splendours. He would pluck at the sheet and stare before him, and whisper half-audible fragments of sentences.

“What is this great place, these cloud-capped towers, these airy pinnacles.⁠ ⁠… Ilion. Sky-pointing.⁠ ⁠… Ilion House, the residence of one of our great merchant princes.⁠ ⁠… Terrace above terrace. Reaching to the heavens.⁠ ⁠… Kingdoms Caesar never knew.⁠ ⁠… A great poet, George. Zzzz. Kingdoms Caesar never knew.⁠ ⁠… Under entirely new management.

“Greatness.⁠ ⁠… Million.⁠ ⁠… Universities.⁠ ⁠… He stands on the terrace⁠—on the upper terrace⁠—directing⁠—directing⁠—by the globe⁠—directing⁠—the trade.”

It was hard at times to tell when his sane talk ceased and his delirium began. The secret springs of his life, the vain imaginations were revealed. I sometimes think that all the life of man sprawls abed, careless and unkempt, until it must needs clothe and wash itself and come forth seemly in act and speech for the encounter with one’s fellow-men. I suspect that all things unspoken in our souls partake somewhat of the laxity of delirium and dementia. Certainly from those slimy, tormented lips above the bristling grey beard came nothing but dreams and disconnected fancies.⁠ ⁠…

Sometimes he raved about Neal, threatened Neal. “What has he got invested?” he said. “Does he think he can escape me?⁠ ⁠… If I followed him up.⁠ ⁠… Ruin. Ruin.⁠ ⁠… One would think I had taken his money.”

And sometimes he reverted to our airship flight. “It’s too long, George, too long and too cold. I’m too old a man⁠—too old⁠—for this sort of thing.⁠ ⁠… You know you’re not saving⁠—you’re killing me.”

Towards the end it became evident our identity was discovered. I found the press, and especially Boom’s section of it, had made a sort of hue and cry for us, sent special commissioners to hunt for us, and though none of these emissaries reached us until my uncle was dead, one felt the forewash of that storm of energy. The thing got into the popular French press. People became curious in their manner towards us, and a number of fresh faces appeared about the weak little struggle that went on in the closeness behind the curtains of the bed. The young doctor insisted on consultations, and a motorcar came up from Biarritz, and suddenly odd people with questioning eyes began to poke in with inquiries and help. Though nothing was said, I could feel that we were no longer regarded as simple middle-class tourists; about me, as I went, I perceived almost as though it trailed visibly, the prestige of Finance and a criminal notoriety. Local personages of a plump and prosperous quality appeared in the inn making inquiries, the Luzon priest became helpful, people watched our window,