The Whirligig of Time

by Wayland Wells Williams

He sought at first to beguile the hours with reading. He selected a number of works he had always meant to read but never quite got around to: a novel or two of Dickens, one of Thackeray, one of Meredith, "The Origin of Species," Carlyle's "French Revolution," "The Principles of Political Economy" and "Tristram Shandy." Steadily his eyes sickened of print; by the time he came to Mill his brain refused to absorb and visions of the very things he wished most to be free from hovered obstinately over the pages. "Tristram Shandy" was even more unbearable; he conceived an insane dislike for those interminable, ineffectual old people and their terrestrial-minded creator. At last he flung the book into the fireplace and strode despairingly out into the streets.

Oh, Beatrice—would she never send him word, put things definitely in motion, in no matter what direction? Oh, this confounded brain of his; would it never stop trying to re-picture old scenes, revive dead feelings, animate unborn regrets? What had he done but what he should have done, what he could not help doing, what it had been written that he should do since the first moment when thoughts above those of a beast were put into man's brain? Oh, the curse of a brain that would not live up to its own laws, but continually kept flashing those visions of outworn things across his eyes—not his two innocent physical eyes, which saw nothing but what was put before them, but that redoubtable, inescapable, ungovernable inward sight which, as he remembered some poet had said, was "the bliss of solitude." The bliss of solitude—how like a driveling ass of a poet!...

The next day he gave up and went back to his office as usual, saying that he had returned from his vacation a few days ahead of time in order to transact some business that had come up unexpectedly. Just what the business was he did not explain; he was now the head of McClellan's New York branch and did not have to explain things.

So the hours between nine and five ceased to be an intolerable burden, and the hours from five till bedtime could be whiled away at the club in discussing the baseball returns. He could always find some one who was willing to talk about professional baseball. He remembered how he had once similarly talked golf with Harry....

That left only the night hours to be accounted for, and sleep accounted for most of them, of course. Sometimes. At other times sleep refused to come and nothing stood between him and the inmost thoughts of his brain, or worse, the thoughts that he did not think, never would think, as long as a brain and a will remained to him.... Such times he would always end by turning on the light and reading. They gave him a feeling like that of which he had spoken to Beatrice about being caught in a trap, deepened and intensified; a feeling to be avoided at any price.

At last he heard, not indeed from Beatrice, but from Aunt Selina. "Beatrice arrives New York noon Thursday; for Heaven's sake do something," she telegraphed. James knew what that meant, and thanked Aunt Selina from the bottom of his heart. No scandal—nothing that would reflect on the family name! So Beatrice had determined not to accede to his last request; she was bent on rushing madly into her Tommy's arms, perhaps at the very station itself? Oh, no, nothing of that sort, if you please; he would be at the station himself to see to it.

It was extraordinary how much getting back to work had benefited him. He was no longer subject to the dreadful fits of depression that had made his idleness a torment. Only keep going, only have something to occupy hands and mind during every waking hour, and all would yet be well. Beatrice and all that she implied had only to be kept out of his mind to be rendered innocuous; all that was needed to keep her out was a little will power, and he had plenty of that. As for the sleeping hours—well, he had come to have rather a dread of the night time. No doubt some simple medical remedy, however, would put that all right—sulphonal, or something of the sort. He would consult a doctor. No unprescribed drugs for him—no careless overdose, or anything of that sort, no indeed! The time had yet to come when James Wimbourne could not keep pace with the strong ones of the earth and walk with head erect under all the burdens that a malicious fate might heap upon him.

In such a vein as this ran his thoughts as he walked from his apartment to the station that Thursday morning. It was a cool day in early September; a fresh easterly breeze blew in from the Sound bringing with it the first hint of autumn and seeming to infuse fresh blood into his veins. As he walked down Madison Avenue even the familiar sounds of the city, the clanging of the trolley cars, the tooting of motor horns, the rumbling of drays, even the clatter of steam drills or rivet machines seemed like outward manifestations of the life he felt surging anew within him. Was it not indeed something very like a new life that was to begin for him to-day, this very morning? Not the kind of new life of which the poets babbled, no youthful dream, but something far solider and nobler, a mature reconstruction, a courageous gathering together, or rather regathering—that made it all the finer—of the fragments of an outworn existence. That was what human life was, a succession of repatchings and rebuildings. He who rebuilt with the greatest promptness and courage and ingenuity was the best liver.

Viewed in this broad and health-bringing light the last months of his life appeared less of a failure than he had been wont to think. He became able to look back on this year of destiny-fighting as, if not actually successful, better than successful, since it led on to better things and gave him a chance to show his mettle, his power of reconstruction. He had made a mistake, no doubt; but he was willing to recognize it as such and do his best to rectify it. Beatrice and he were not cut out for team-mates in the business of destiny-fighting; it had become evident that they could both get on better alone. Well, at last they had come to the point of parting; to the point, he hoped, of being able to part like fellow-soldiers whose company is disbanded, in friendship and good humor, without recrimination or any of that detestable God-forgive-you business....

He wished the newsboys would not shout so loud; their shrill uncanny shrieks interrupted his line of thought, in spite of himself. It didn't matter if they were calling extras; he never bought extras. Or was it only a regular edition? They might be announcing the trump of doom for all one could understand.