Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [117]
He wondered how he slept when he was little. He could no longer remember now. But surely, when he was a baby, he had lain backward while his mother cradled him in her arms. He was sure that he had done so, for she had rocked him gently and sung to him. It seemed to him that the time could not be long before she returned for him, for surely now she must hear of how like other men he was becoming—perhaps she would even hear about tonight—and then she would know how hard he had tried to be a good son, and she would come back. If he could just manage this last hurdle…
Slowly he removed the pillows from the bed and began to lay them on the floor, taking care to place them neatly. The window was slightly open, and a breeze billowed the curtains inward, causing them to touch his face gently. He wondered if her fingers would feel like that when she caressed his face for the first time.
He was ready now. He placed her picture where he could see it and eased himself into bed. As his head went down it lolled frighteningly, but he managed to catch it in his left hand and steady it until he was lying down. He was on his side now, his head resting on the single pillow that he had left. He thought he could have slept like this, but for the increased pain that came from the pressure on the growths on that side. He tried to relax, and to take his mind off his pain he began to repeat to himself the words of the poem he had read with Treves on that day when he had asked the doctor if he could be cured. He had returned to that poem a dozen times since, until now he could say it by heart.
“When will the stream be aweary of flowing under my eye,” he whispered. “When will the wind be aweary of blowing over the sky?”
His eyes were fixed on his mother’s picture. In the darkness he could just make out the faint smile on her lips.
“When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting?”
The pain was growing now. Any moment he knew he must roll over onto his back, where he hoped it would be easier.
“When will the heart be aweary of beating—and nature die?”
He began to ease himself over onto his back. His head seemed to pull strongly on his neck and he sucked frantically for breath. From this position he could no longer see his mother’s picture, but somehow her face was still there, just before him, her eyes looking into his with a calm smile, and it was her voice that was saying to him, “Never, oh never. Nothing will die …”
The tightness was growing ominously in his throat, but he would not move and take his eyes off her. Her smile was telling him that all would be well. “The stream flows,” she said in a voice that echoed in his head. “The wind blows, the cloud fleets, the heart beats …”
She was no longer in darkness, but surrounded now by a light that was so brilliant it blinded him. When he opened his eyes she was still there, smiling, reaching out her hand.
“Nothing will die,” she promised.
She had come for him at last.
Epilogue
John Merrick was found dead in his bed one morning in April 1890. Frederick Treves described the discovery in these words:
“He was lying on his back as if asleep and had evidently died without a struggle, since not even the coverlet of the bed was disturbed.”
The exact cause of his death has never been entirely explained, but Treves was always convinced that Merrick had tried to lie down and sleep like other people, and so choked himself.
The Elephant Man was suffering from a disorder known as neurofibromatosis, about which almost nothing was known in his day. It is doubtful whether Treves himself ever used the term or even managed to make a complete diagnosis. The condition caused tumors to grow over almost