‘No doubt of that, but I am content to be indebted to morbidness. One must have a rest from misery somehow. Another kind of man would have taken to drinking; that has tempted me now and then, I assure you. But I couldn’t afford it. Did you ever feel tempted to drink merely for the sake of forgetting trouble?’
‘Often enough. I have done it. I have deliberately spent a certain proportion of the money that ought to have gone for food in the cheapest kind of strong liquor.’
‘Ha! that’s interesting. But it never got the force of a habit you had to break?’
‘No. Partly, I dare say, because I had the warning of poor Sykes before my eyes.’
‘You never see that poor fellow?’
‘Never. He must be dead, I think. He would die either in the hospital or the workhouse.’
‘Well,’ said Reardon, musing cheerfully, ‘I shall never become a drunkard; I haven’t that diathesis, to use your expression. Doesn’t it strike you that you and I are very respectable persons? We really have no vices. Put us on a social pedestal, and we should be shining lights of morality. I sometimes wonder at our inoffensiveness. Why don’t we run amuck against law and order? Why, at the least, don’t we become savage revolutionists, and harangue in Regent’s Park of a Sunday?’
‘Because we are passive beings, and were meant to enjoy life very quietly. As we can’t enjoy, we just suffer quietly, that’s all. By-the-bye, I want to talk about a difficulty in one of the Fragments of Euripides. Did you ever go through the Fragments?’
This made a diversion for half an hour. Then Reardon returned to his former line of thought.
‘As I was entering patients yesterday, there came up to the table a tall, good-looking, very quiet girl, poorly dressed, but as neat as could be. She gave me her name, then I asked “Occupation?” She said at once, “I’m unfortunate, sir.” I couldn’t help looking up at her in surprise; I had taken it for granted she was a dressmaker or something of the kind. And, do you know, I never felt so strong an impulse to shake hands, to show sympathy, and even respect, in some way. I should have liked to say, “Why, I am unfortunate, too!” such a good, patient face she had.’