"FOR EVER WILT THOU LOVE."

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2605, 23 March 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

"FOR EVER WILT THOU LOVE."

Not very long ago I was in London, a medical student. In my third year I proaected ; that is, I was engaged in preparing the bodies for the professor to lecture on. There was a man named Caiger wiio did the proseoting with me. We were generally behindhand with our work, and often had to be up early in consequence of having been up late. One morning, towards the end of November, my alarum awakened me while it was still quite dark, and, after clutching that alarum and drowning the noise beneath the bed-clothes, I stretched myself and remembered that I had the arteries of the axilla to prepare for that day's lecture. 1 got up, and, after contemplating tho cold, dark, foggy morning boiled au egg and heated some coffee over a small spirit lamp. Warmed internally by these I put the first volume of Quain's Anatomy under my arm, my hands in my pockets, and started off for the College at a trot. When I got to the College I saw a woman with a broom who quickly disappeared iuto a medical library. There was no one else about, not even the medical beadle, whom I was rather inclined to regard as a fixture. The place was cold and silent, A solitary gas lamp gave out a pale yellow light that flickered on the stone floor. I executed a small war dance, just to enliven the place, and passed on to tjie small dissecting-room. There were two dissecting-room—the dissecting-room, and the small dissecting room, We prosectors had the small room all to ourselves and the. corpse we were engaged on, except when the demonstrators intruded and gave demonstrations. I entered the dissecting room and let the door bang to behiud me. I had it to myself that morning, corpse and all. I stood for a few minutes with the " Quain " still under my arm, examining the body stretched out on the table, as a u oman examines a fowl. It was a freah one, a male, brought in the day before for us to begin the arteries on. It hadn't been in pickle very long and was nice and fresh with very little fat on it. Rejoicing over having such a fine body, I prepared to get to work. I had told James —James was the man who injected the bodies and looked after the dissecting rooms an 3 retailed candles at a high figure—that I should be early that morning, and I thought he might have got the stove lightel, but he hadn't; thu big, square, iron stove was as cold as the high whitewashed walls and stone floor. I got out my scalpels and hooks and a candle, for it was too dark to work by day-light yet, put on an old overcoat that I used to dissect in, and looked around for some matches. I found au empty match-box, but no matches. Then I went in search of James, I went to the step 3 that led down to the vaults under the anatomy theatre, and called " James !" "James," sounding startlingly loud in the stillness of the vaults, so I didn't call again, but went down the steps and searched about for matches. I found many things; a pile of small carpal and tarsal bones, which James was

drying with a view to his own interests : a coffin half full of fragments, a female hody undergoing injection, a lot of red lead, and a heap of old dissecting cases, but no matches. Then I returned to the dissecting room, took my candle in my hand and went for the solitary gas-lamp in the entrance hall. Having procured a ladder, which used to stand by the door of the library, and which T brought along cautiously lest the woman with the broom should come out and find me in the act, I got a light; then, protecting my candle moEt carefully from draughts, I returned to the diarecting room. Then I placed a stool beside the table, and sat down to work. Wishing to place the candle so as to throw a good light on the pectoral muscles, I stuck it in the corpse's mouth ; but it wouldn't stand upright; so I made a little pool of grease on the table and stood the candle in it. Then I hooked back the right arm into a convenient position, and was about to commence taking the skin off, when it struck me that I might as well read up a little about the cutaneous nerves first. In an absent-minded sort of way I took np my "Quain," pulled the stool in front of the cold stove, and sat down to read with my back to the corpse. I was just getting interested in the lateral cutaneous nerve, holding my book in my left hand and, through force of habit, stretching out my right towards the stove, when suddenly I heard behind me a noise—a most peculiar and unlooked for noise, too—something spitting , . At first I only stopped reading, looked at the stove, and considered. The noise was repeated. Then I turned round, and —it was the corpse. He had turned over on his right side, and, with some peculiar contortions of his face, was spitting out the deposit left by my candle. Another thing, which I remembered afterwards but did not notice at the time, was that the candle had disappeared. There was nothing but the dull light of the morning. Startled by the occurrence, I saw most vividly in the dull light the sharp outlines of the face, and the long skinny hand raised and moved about in a vague uncertain manner. He was not an old man, but the face was thin and drawn, with sharp, regular outlines; his hand was very long, thin aud powerful; his eyes were dull, grey and gentle. Not an old man, but a man who had seen and felt a lot of life, and had done much work with those long , , powerful hands. I gazed at him for a moment while he contorted and spat and wagged his hand ; and then I started half up from my seat and said : "I say, I'm awfully sorry I stuck that candle in your mouth." The dull grey eyes were turned upon me, and the bony hand wagged depreoiatingly towards me. "It's all right," he snid. "don't yon mind. I understand it. it's all right." I sat down again and he again contorted and spat. He then turned over on to his back and lay quiet as though he were exhausted. I gripped hold of the stool, and stood still, watching him. I gripped that stool tight, with a nervous strain of uncertainty. Then I saw the face slowly turned to the right, aud I saw the fiugers of the right hand moving. The eyes were fixed on the hooks, with which I had fastened back the arm. I made a move, as though to rise, sat still again, hesitated, mid then said : "Shall I take those hooks out ?" "No. You put them there. Leave them alone," he said, etill looking at the hoolts. " It's all right." Then he turned his head round again, and lay still, and, after a pause which seemed ever so long, and during which I heard the clock on the wall over the door ticking, ticking, ticking, and during which I kept my eyes fixed on his upturned face. I said : "It's cold, isn't it?" He raised his head, and looked at me. "Yes," he said, " it's cold." I tightened my grip on the stool, and felt a peculiar sensation all over my head. I don't know what it was, but may be my hair was standing up. " James didn't light'the stove." The dull grey eyes looked at me with a peculiar expression, and he said ; " No," and then, after a pause, he added, " But it makes no difference." "Yes, it does," I said.. "If he'd lighted it, it wouldn't be cold." "I should be cold," said the corpse. "Yes," I said, "you'd be cold, but I don't think I should." " It makes no difference," said the corpse. " It makes no difference to you but it does to me." " Why to you and not to me?" " You're not like me." "Not like you!" said the corpse, raising itself up a little and lookiug at me moro intently, " why not like you ? There is a difference, but it is very little." The dull grey eyes fascinated me. I seemed to be getting to understand them. I leant lorward and was some time before I could make myself ask : " What were you boforo you became a corpse ?" " What was I ? What I am now. But I understand you. I know what you mean. I was many things." " What wan one, for example ?" said I, leaning still more forward. " A medical student." The peculiar sensation over my head increased suddenly, and I gradually assumed au upright position. Then there was a pause, during which I sat bolt upright, and the gray eyes looked at me with a kindly expression. Then, after gasping a little, I said :—• "I say, do you know lots of things, now you're a corpse ?" His head moved slowly to and fro, aud he said : "Not much more than when I was alive. It doesn't make much difference. I know some things. I used to look for a great change, but it didn't cope. Great changes don't come in men's Uvea. We just go on, slowly ou, onward. Dying didn't make any more difference to me than being born." "Dying didn't make any more difference to you than being born ! Why, were you anything before you were born?" The corpse raised itself on its left elbow and looked fixedly at me. "Weren't you anything before you were born ? Won't you be anything after you're dead ?' I looked at him vacantly|for a moment, and then said ■ "I really don't know. I don't remember auything before I was born." "Yes, you do," said the corpse; "you don't know it. I didn't undorstaud it when I was alive. I did sometimes seem to half know something, Your whole life now is built up on whal you were before you were born. Anc your future will be built up on what you are making for yourself now. W< just goon nsiug on the past that we an always adding to. Realising this, i often seems strange to me that niei should think they had no existence befon they were born, and that they will Ikivi no existence after death. Where do thej think they come from ? What tlo thei think is going tc> become of them ? 0 course, I didn't think much about it whei I was alivo, and,, most men find it difficul to tiuderstand how they got ou wlie.

they didn't know what they know now." "Yes," I said, "I suppose so." Then there was =i pause. After a little I said : " I say, did you—did you ever live before last time ? Will you evor live again after—at any time?" The corpse looked at mo suddenly, and said, " Live again ! What for ?" I said I really didu't know, and, after looking at me with a curious sort of expression for a few moments, his head sank back, and the white face looked upwards at the ceiling, Then, there was silence. I felt relieved. Again I heard the clock on the wall ticking ; and gradually there grew up about myself and the corpse a something that was like sympathy, a knowledge that we were on the same road. At last I said : " Were you successful in life ? Did pou make a namo ? Did you make monev ? Did you satisfy your ambition P" The corpse slowly turned his head, and [ooked at me. Then he said: " I did, what all men do, the work of my life. I didn't make a name, and if I bad I should have done no more than ather men. Meu care about the name, not about you. Make a name and give men something to titivate their selfishness with, and you may go to the Devil, [ind, as a matter of fact, you generally do. If you do great work you leave something that will breed good. But in Drder to leave something that will breed good, it is not necessary to produce great worke. There are men who write great bookfl, and men who have great books written about them. There are great artists and scientists, and there are men who lead good lives. "I didn't make money. If I had I don't suppose I should have been as happy as I was. But it doesu't seem to me to make much difference. The thing ia that they're different ; there are rich men and men who aren't rich—they are different. I wasn't rich. "I don't know what particular ambition I had. I wanted most things at times. I wanted wome's. I wanted money. I wanted brains • and force of will. I wanted to sing beautiful songs, to do great work, to sculpture a lost soul, to work mathematics and mechanics. "And while I wanted all theso things and did nothing towards getting them, I did something—l grew." " Did you ever love anyone?" "I thought I loved several times, and and generally brought on unhappiness on the object of my affections. But I did love. Yes, I think I did. I found a woman who raised good feelings in me, whose presence gave light to the beet part of me, and sho was my wife." "And you loved; were often very, very near to one another?.' '' Yes, cold and stretched out dead as I am, I loved, was full of warmth and life. Don't think it strange ;go and look at the rows of bodies stretched out in the dissecting-room, and you will seo the power of life and love in them still. In the poor cold, withered bodies you can see the past desires, passions, struggles, and in all the straining onward. And they are not dead. Look closely at them and you will feel it. Yon cau talk with them just as you talk with me now. Their functions have struggled on to fulfilment, and now they are at rest. And you, love truly that your love may rest, and when you lie out cold and stark like them ' for ever wilt tliou love and she be fair.' There, I cannot tell you much more. You are weary of following me already." " I know. I feel it. But tell me— for I am troubled often by the fear of poverty—did you endure poverty ? Is it the hell it soems to those upon its brink ?" "We were never rich. We were never stricken with poverty. We were always poor ; and we were happy." "Is the woman you loved dead ?" " She died before I did. She died. I lived, but" The souud of approaching footsteps were heard in the corridor ; the corpse stopped. I saw its face turned to the left. Its eyes were fixed intently on the door. Then the hand was raised, and the face turned towards me again. The grey eyes looked gently at mo, "They are coming," he said. "It is ended. Do you forget what I have told you of my heart—my life. But to their. —sileuce. In your heart—remember." "But the woman you loved," I cried, '■ tell me of her ? She died before you and you lived. Can you not tell me what I ask ? She did not die ? Tell me she did not die." The head dropped back on the table, the hand fell down by his side. I was conscious that the morning light was increasing suddenly, and, as it grew, I saw the face becoming the face of a dead man —fixed, lifeless. Only tho soft grey eyes . still looked at me. , I called my last words in his ear. "She did not die?' . No answer came. Suddenly the eyes were dry, shrunken, dead ; and theu boside him was my candle making a big pool of grease upon the table. " I say, Adams, wo'ro awfully late," said Caigheri as he entered hurriedly with his di.-isecting-oaso in his baud. " Yes," ho said, " let us get to work." —IT. B. Adams, in Sydney Bulletin.