Anthony John

by Jerome K. Jerome

Foolish though it seemed, it was this slight episode that had finally decided him that he must speak with her this very night. Too long he had put it off, whispering to himself now one excuse, now another. It had come to him while he had been preparing his speech for the unveiling of the war memorial: How long was he going to play the coward? When was he going to answer the call of his King, his country?

When had that call first come to him? What voice—what vision had first spoken to him? He tried to think. There had been no trumpet call. No pillar of light had flashed before his eyes. It had come to him in little whispers of the wind, in little pluckings at his sleeve. Some small wild creature’s cry of pain. The sorrow of a passing face. The story of a wrong done, when or where it did not matter. Always the darkness was full of reproachful eyes accusing him of delay.

It seemed to him that he was standing beside God in some vast doorless chamber, listening to the falling of the tears of the world—the tears of all the ages that were past, the tears of the ages yet to come; and God’s sad eyes were watching him.

If he could take her with him. If only she would come with him. There had been a moment at the beginning of the war when it might have been: those days of terror when the boy lay wounded unto death; and he had heard her cry out in the night: “Oh, God, take all I have but that.” Had he urged her then? Honours, riches! In that moment she would have known their true value. But the child had lived, and all her desires were now for him. She would resent whatever might make to his detriment. No, he would have to go alone.

How was he going to put it into words? How could he hurt her least, while at the same time leaving no opening for false hope? He had purposely avoided thinking it out. It would be useless coming to her with cut and dried phrases. He would not be laying down the law. He would be pleading for forgiveness, for understanding. He could picture the bewilderment that would come into her eyes as slowly his meaning dawned upon her: giving place to anger, despair. It would seem to her that she had never known him, that she had been living with a strange man. Why had he not taken her into his confidence years ago, made her the sharer of his dreams—his visions? How did he know she would not have sympathized with him? It was his love for her that had made him false—or rather his love for himself. He had wanted to come to her always with gifts, so that she might be grateful to him, proud of him. Now it was too late. It would seem to her that all these years he had been living apart, her husband only in body. She would feel herself a woman scorned.

He smiled to himself, recalling how at the beginning of the Great War, as they had named it, the hope had come to him that after all he might not have to drink this cup. God was going to do without man’s help. Out of one stupendous sacrifice of blood and tears the world was to be born anew. Sin was to destroy her own children; man’s greed and hate was to be burned up in the fire man’s evil passions had kindled. It was a strange delusion. Others had shared it. With the bitter awakening a dumb apathy had seized him, paralysing his soul. Of what use was the struggle. The gibe was true: “Mankind would always remain a race of low intelligence and evil instincts.” Let it perish, the sooner the better.

And then, gradually, out of his despair, had arisen in him a great pity for God. It startled him at first. It was so grotesque an idea. And yet it grew upon him. The mysterious warfare between Good and Evil. It shaped itself in his brain, a thing concrete, visible. The loneliness of God. He saw Him as a Leader betrayed, deserted; his followers fleeing from him, hastening to make their peace with evil. He must find his way to God’s side. God wanted him.

It was no passing mood. The thought took possession of him. All other voices sounded to him faint and trivial.

His sorrow was for her. If he could but have spared her. For himself he felt joy that the struggle was over, that he had conquered, that nothing now could turn him from his purpose. He would get rid of all his affairs—of everything, literally. Not for the sake of the poor. If all the riches of the world were gathered together and given to the poor it would be but a stirring of the waters, a moment’s shifting of the social landmarks. Greed and selfishness would shape themselves anew. From time immemorial the rich had flung money to the poor, and the poor had ever increased in numbers, had sunk ever poorer. Money was a dead thing. It carried with it the seeds of destruction. Love, service, were the only living gifts. It was for his own sake—to escape, in the words of Timothy, from many hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdiction, that he must flee from his great possessions. No man could possess money without loving money. Only in common poverty—in common contentment with having food and raiment could there be brotherhood, love.

He had made his plans. He would rent a small house, next door to where his mother still lived in Bruton Square, and practise there as a solicitor. The old lady was still active and capable. If need be—if he had to go alone—she could keep house for him. He was keen on Bruton Square. It was where the mean part of the town began. It would not be too far for the poor to come to him. The little modest house would not frighten them with suggestion of charges beyond their means, of contemptuous indifference to their unprofitable bits of business. He would be able to help them, to keep them from falling into the hands of charlatans. They would come to trust him in their troubles. He might often be able to serve as mediator, as peacemaker between them. It would be a legitimate way of earning his living.