Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [60]
“No.” He assumed his most innocent air. “As a matter of fact we talked about Alice in Wonderland.”
“Alice in Wonderland?”
It seemed to Treves now that his awareness of Merrick colored all his perceptions, sometimes sharpening them unbearably. As he went about his daily business he had the impression that an outer skin had been stripped away from him, leaving nerves raw that usually existed in comfortable padding. At any moment he might be pulled up short in the midst of things he took for granted, and find himself wondering, “How would this look to him?”
His comfortable home, his casual acceptance of his wife’s greeting kiss in the evening, the gentle sound of her breathing beside him at night, the enjoyable arguments with colleagues—he now saw all these afresh from within the head of an intelligent, sensitive man trapped in the body of a monster. As his pity and understanding grew, so did his pain, and he wondered how he could ever have regarded Merrick as merely a specimen.
His mind began to dwell on the fear that enough money would not come in to house Merrick somewhere, and that no home would be offered to him. If that happened, short of taking the Elephant Man to Wimpole Street (which he knew Anne would never allow), he could see no way of providing a home for him. And his dread was growing that Merrick would be returned to a life made ten times more hideous by his glimpse of something better.
While the fear grew daily more real, Treves’ own star rocketed into the firmament, and this fact troubled him more than anything else. It was irksome that the growing realization of his ambitious dreams should be spoiled by a haunting sense of guilt. After all, he had done no wrong. But the specter refused to be silenced so easily. It walked with him always. It whispered to him at night that as much cruelty was committed by single-minded men wearing blinders as by men of conscious evil. It sat down with him in the elegantly furnished dining room at the hospital, touching the heavy carpet and the walnut paneling and making the lavish table ghastly to him.
He dined there as little as possible. He hated the air of self-satisfaction that hung over his fellow doctors as they offered him their congratulations with port and cigars; hated the tempting avenue of smugness down which their oiled laughter sought to lure him. But he bore with it all reasonably well until the day after the Times printed the item that had caused him trouble at home.
The light-hearted mood that had buoyed him up the evening before had quite deserted him now. He picked irritably at his food as Mr. Stanley persisted in reading the paragraphs out to the whole table, and wondered why it had never occurred to him before that Stanley had a voice like a horse.
“… in life until he came under the kind care of the nursing staff at the London Hospital, and the surgeon who has befriended him …”
Young Atkins chipped in, “Good publicity for the hospital, at any rate.”
“Treves comes off well too, eh, Freddie.” Hill was pouring himself another glass of port at the far end of the table.
Treves grunted. He could sense that the atmosphere round this table was partly hostile to him. Some of the older men in particular were affronted at this sudden prominence of a younger colleague. He could see Carlyle now, lighting himself a cigar, his silver hair gleaming in the light from the finely wrought brass lamps above their heads. Carlyle must have been pushing sixty. He’d started at the London Hospital and he’d end there because nobody had ever wanted him anywhere else. Carlyle was much given to expounding on the value of consistency, and something he chose to call “unseen application.” Of late, “shooting stars” had made a mysterious appearance in his conversation, though nobody was so naïve as to ask his meaning. He leaned back now and regarded Treves satirically.
“It was pleasant of you to join us this evening, Frederick.”
“Your Elephant Man dining out tonight?” Hill chimed in.