"Nearly all day and all night, for I do not sleep much; perhaps two hours in twenty-four. Once, a long time ago, the opium made me sleep. I had nice dreams. Now it makes me wide awake. But I do not suffer, only for a few minutes. When it gets too bad, I begin again."
"What is it like—the suffering?" Angela half whispered.
"Cramps, and aching in my bones. Maybe you never had a toothache—you are too young. But it is like that all over my body. I wish to die then. And I will before long. The death will not hurt much if I keep on smoking. My heart will stop, that is all. It will give me a chance to begin again."
"In another world—yes," said Angela. "But—couldn't you stop smoking? Take medicine of some sort—have treatment from a doctor——"
"Too late, long time ago," he answered, with a calm, fatal smile. But his eyes lit with a faint spark of anticipation, and his cheeks worked with a slight twitching of the nerves, for, as he talked, in short sentences, he was quietly rolling and cooking his dose of opium. Into a large pipe, which looked to Angela like a queer, enormous flute with a metal spout halfway down its length, he pushed a pill he had rolled, ramming it in with a long pin, and cooking it in the flame of a small spirit lamp. He did not speak again until he had pulled strenuously at the pipe a few times. Then he went on talking, his face unchanged, unless it appeared rather fuller, less seamed with the wrinkles of intense nerve strain.
"You see," he said, "that is all I do. I was in a good deal of pain, but I am used to it. Now I'm contented for a few minutes. While I have this happiness, I feel willing to pay the price. But it is a big price. I warn the young men who come to see me not to begin opium smoking. It is so easy. You think you will try, to find out what it is like; and then you will stop. But you do not stop. Four weeks—six weeks—and it is finished for you. You are on the road where I am. That was the way with me. It is the way with every one who starts on that road and goes not back before the turn. Better not start, for the dreams are too good at first."
His resignation to the chains forged by himself seemed to Angela the saddest part of all. He was beyond help, and knew it, did not even think of it.
She had a strange burning behind her eyes, as she listened, though she was not inclined to cry.
"It is awful," she whispered. "Such days—such nights—such years. But—you do not lie here always?"
"Most of the time," he answered, the little spark of physical contentment beginning to dim in his eyes already. "I am very weak. I do not walk, except when I go down the passage to cook a little coffee once a day. Or sometimes I crawl out in the sun. But soon I come back. I can stand only a few minutes. I am too light in the head, when I get on my feet. When I was young I was tall and large. But a man shrinks small after the opium gets him."