There were now just two doubtful points which checked him in his first impulse to swallow the deadly elixir11 at once,—two questions needing further thought before he would have a clear conscience about it; he must convince himself a trifle more clearly that he shifted nothing to the load of those he left behind, and he must make sure that no element of fear entered into his act. That phrase of Barstow's, "It's quitting not to stay," smarted a bit.
In spite of these vital problems, Donaldson was keenly conscious, even with his wild freedom still nothing but a conception, of sharpened senses which responded keenly to the lights and sounds about him. This bottle which he held made him feel like some old time king's messenger who carried a warrant making him exempt12 from local laws. He moved among people whose perplexed13 thoughts wandered restlessly down the everlasting14 vista15 of the days ahead, and he alone of them all knew the secret of being untroubled beyond the week. The world had not for ten years appeared so gay to him. He felt the exhilarating sting of life as he had when it first surged in upon him at twenty. The very fact that he held even a temporary solution to his barren days was enough. In the joy of his almost august scorn of circumstance he forgot the minor16 difficulties which still lay before him.
He turned aside from the direct course to his room into Broadway. It was the last of May and early evening. The month revealed itself in the warm night sky and the buoyant spirits of those below its velvet17 richness. Spring was in the air—a stimulation18 as of etherialized champagne19. The spirit of adventure, the spirit of renaissance20, the spirit of creation was abroad once more. Not a cranny in even this sprawling21 section of denaturalized earth but thrilled for the time being with budding hopes, sap-swollen courage, and bright, colorful dreams. Walking beneath the spitting glare of the arc-lights, through the golden mist flooding from the store windows, Donaldson hazily22 saw again the careless unburdened world of his early youth. He caught the spirit of Broadway and all Broadway means in the spring. It was a marionette23 world where marionettes dance their gayest. Yesterday this would have been to him nothing but a dead bioscope picture; now, though he still sat an onlooker24 in the pit, it was a living human drama at which he gazed.
Two dark-haired grisettes passed him, their cheeks aglow25 and their eyes dancing. They appeared so full of life, so very gay, that he turned to glance back at them. He found the eyes of the prettier one upon him; she had turned to look at him. It was long since even so trifling26 an intrigue27 as this had quickened his life.
As a matter of fact Donaldson always attracted more interest in feminine eyes than, in his self engrossment, he was ever aware. Even in his shiny blue serge suit, baggy28 at the knees and sagging29 at the shoulders, even in his shabby hat, he carried himself with an air. Two things about his person were always as fine and immaculate as though he were a gentleman of some fortune, his linen30 and his shoes. But in addition to such slight externals Donaldson, although not a large man, had good shoulders, a well-poised head, and walked with an Indian stride from the hips31 that made him noticeable among the flat-footed native New Yorkers. He might have been mistaken for an ambitious actor of the younger school; even for a forceful young cleric, save for the fact that he smoked his cigarette with evident satisfaction.
He followed an aimless course—but a course fairly prickling with new sensations—until he stood before one of the popular cafés, now effervescing32 with sprightly33 life. He paused here a moment to listen to the music. A group of well-groomed men and women laughingly clambered out of a big touring car and passed in before the obsequious34 attendants. He watched them with some envy. Music, good food, good wines, laughter, and bright eyes—the flimsiest vanities of life to be sure—and yet there was something in his hungry heart that craved35 them all. Well, ten years from now perhaps,—his hand fell upon the vial. No. Not ten years from now, but to-morrow, even tomorrow, he might claim these luxuries!
He jumped on a car and in thirty minutes stood in the lean, quiet street into which for three years he had stared from his third floor room. These quarters seemed now more than ever a parody36 on home. This row of genteel structures which had degenerated37 into boarding houses for the indigent38 and struggling younger generation, and the wrecks39 of the past, embodied40, in even the blank stare of their exteriors41, stupid mediocrity. He fumbled42 nervously43 in his pocket for his latch-key, and opening the door climbed the three stale flights to his room. He lighted both gas-jets, but even then the gloom remained. He craved more light—the dazzling light of arc-lamps, the glare reflected from polished mirrors. Better absolute darkness than this. He turned out the gas and throwing open his window leaned far out over the sill. Then he concentrated his thoughts upon the issue confronting him.
At the end of other colorless days, when he had come back here only to be tortured by the stretch of gray road before him, he had considered as a possibility that which now was almost a reality. He had always been checked by this desire to have first his taste of life and by the troublesome conviction that there was something unfair about seizing it in this way. Furthermore, though he could, without Barstow's discovery, have lived his week and closed it by any one of a dozen effective means, he realized that he could not trust even himself to fulfill44 at the end—no matter how binding45 the oath—so fearful a decree. A few deep draughts46 of joyous47 life might turn his head. It was as dangerous an experiment as taking the first smoke of opium48, as tampering49 with the first injection of morphine, upon the promise of stopping there. No, before beginning he must set at work some power outside himself which should be operative even against his will; which should be as final as death itself. Until to-night this had seemed an impossibility. Now, with that chief obstruction50 removed, he had but to consider the ethics51 of the question.
In arguing with Barstow he had been sincere. He believed as he had said that a man had the right to end the contract so long as he cheated no one by so doing. All his life he had paid his way like a man, done his duty like a good citizen, given a fair return for everything he took. He did not feel himself indebted to his country, his state, his city, nor to any living man or woman. In one form and another, he had paid. Few men could claim this as sincerely as Donaldson. He had lived conscientiously52, so very conscientiously in fact that it was as much rebellion against self-imposed fetters53 which now drove him on to an opposite extreme as any bitterness against that society which had spurned54 his idealism. He had refused to compromise and learned that the world uses only as martyrs55 those who so refuse. The limitations of his nature were defined by the fact that he withdrew from so self sacrificing an end as that. But now if he demanded nothing more—if he was tired of this give and take—why should he not balance accounts?
Chiefly because there would still be one week to account for—that last week in which he should demand most. Like an inspiration came the solution to this, the final difficulty; economically he was wasting a life; very well, but if he could find a way of not wasting it, of giving his life to another, then he would have paid even this last bill. In the excitement of this new idea, he paced his room. If he could give his life for another! But supposing this were impossible, supposing no opportunity should offer, it would be something if he held himself open, offered himself a free instrument of Fate. He could promise—and he knew he could keep so sacred a promise as this with death approaching in so inevitable56 a form,—he could promise to offer himself upon the slightest pretext57, recklessly and without fear, instantly and without thought, to the first chance which might come to him to give his life for another. That was the bond he would give to Fate—the same Fate which had produced him—his life for the life of another. Let society use him so if such use could be found for him. He would stand ready, would live up to the spirit and the letter of the bond unhesitatingly. For one week he would live his life in the present upon that condition—one week with the eighth day a blank, one week with the whole world his plaything.
He stared with new eyes from his window to the jumble58 of houses below, to the jumble of stars above. The whole world expanded and vibrated before the intensity59 of his passion. He was to condense a possible thirty or forty years into seven days. To-day was the twenty-third of May. By to-morrow noon he could adjust all his affairs. With nothing to demand of them in the future it would be an easy matter to cut them off. On Friday, May twenty-fourth, then, he could begin. This would bring the end on the thirty-first.
He considered a moment; was it better to die at noon or at night? An odd thing for a man to decide, but such details as this might as well be fixed60 now as later. It took but a moment's deliberation; he elected to go out at high noon. There would be dark enough afterwards—possibly an eternity61 of dark. He would face the sun with his last gaze; he would have the mad riot of men and women at midday ringing last in his ears.
As he drew in deep breaths it was as if he inhaled62 the whole world. He felt as though, if he but stepped out sturdily enough, he could foot the darkness. His head was light; his brain teemed63 with wild fancies. Then pressing through this medley64 he saw for a moment the young woman who had come to Barstow's laboratory. The effect was to steady him. He remembered the sweet girlishness of her face, the freshness of it which was like the freshness of a garden in the early morning. He realized that she stood for one thing that he could never know. What was it that he saw now in those strange eyes that left him a bit wistful at thought of this? There was not a detail of her features, of her dress, of her speech, that he could not see now as vividly65 as though she were still standing66 before him. That was odd, too. He was not ordinarily so impressionable. It occurred to him that he would not like her to know what he was about to do. Bah, he was getting maudlin67!
Late as it was, he left his room and went downtown to his office. He worked here until daylight, falling asleep in his chair from four to seven. He awoke fresh, and even more eager than the night before to undertake his venture.
There remained still a few men to be seen. He transacted68 his business with a brilliant dispatch and swift decision that startled them. He disposed of all his office furniture, his books, destroyed all his letters, made a will leaving instructions for the disposal of his body, and concluded every other detail of his affairs before eleven o'clock. When he left his office to go back to his room, he had in his pocket every cent he possessed69 in the world in crisp new bank notes. It amounted to twenty-eight hundred and forty-seven dollars. Not much to scatter70 over a long life,—not much as capital. Invested it might yield some seventy dollars a year. But as ready cash, it really stood for a fortune. It was the annual income at four per cent on over seventy thousand dollars, the monthly income on eight hundred and forty thousand dollars, the weekly income on over three million. For seven days then he could squander71 the revenue of a princely estate.
As a matter of fact his position was even more remarkable72; he was as wealthy—so far as his own capacity for pleasure went—as though the possessor of thirty million. This because of his limitations; he was barred from travel; barred from the purchase of future holdings; barred from everything by this time restriction73 save what he could absorb within seven days through his five senses. Being an intelligent man of decent morals and no bad habits, he was also restrained from license74 and the gross extravagance accompanying it. But within his own world, there was not a desire which need remain unsatisfied.
Back again in his room he summoned his landlady75.
"I am going away," he informed her briefly76. "I sha'n't leave any address and I 'm going to take with me only the few things I can pack into a dress-suit case. I 'll give you the rest."
The woman—she had become rather fond of the quiet, gentle third story front—looked up sympathetically.
"Have you had bad news?"
"Bad news? No," he smiled. "Very good news. I 'm going to take a sort of vacation."
"Then perhaps you 'll come back."
"So, I 'm quite sure I shall never come back."
She watched him at his packing, still puzzled by his behavior. She noticed that he took nothing but a few trinkets, a handful of linen, and a book or two. He glanced at his watch.
"Madame," he announced, offering her his hand, "it is now eleven thirty. My vacation begins in half an hour. I must hurry. The remainder of these things I bequeath to you."
In twenty minutes he was at the Waldorf. He asked for and was allotted77 one of the best rooms in the house, for which he paid the suspicious clerk in advance. When at length he was left alone in his luxurious78 apartments, it was still a few minutes before twelve. He drew the vial from his pocket without fear, without hesitation79. He placed his watch upon the table before him. Then he sat down and wrote out the following oath:
"I, Peter Donaldson, swear by all that I hold most sacred that I will offer my life freely and without question for the protection of any human being needing it during these next seven days in which I shall live."
He signed this in a bold scrawling80 hand. It was as simply and earnestly expressed as he knew how to make it.
He uncorked the vial and poured the liquid into a glass without a quaver of his hand. He mixed a little water with it and raised it to his lips. There he paused, for once again he seemed to see the big, calm eyes of the girl now staring at him as though in surprise. But this time he smiled, and with a little lift of the glass towards her swallowed the liquid at a gulp81.
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1
fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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shackles
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| 手铐( shackle的名词复数 )； 脚镣； 束缚； 羁绊 | |
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fetter
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| n./vt.脚镣，束缚 | |
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curbing
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| n.边石，边石的材料v.限制，克制，抑制( curb的现在分词 ) | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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bravado
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| n.虚张声势，故作勇敢，逞能 | |
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installments
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| 部分( installment的名词复数 ) | |
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dribbling
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| n.（燃料或油从系统内）漏泄v.流口水( dribble的现在分词 )；（使液体）滴下或作细流；运球，带球 | |
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usury
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| n.高利贷 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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elixir
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| n.长生不老药，万能药 | |
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exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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17
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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stimulation
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| n.刺激，激励，鼓舞 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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hazily
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| ad. vaguely, not clear | |
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marionette
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| n.木偶 | |
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onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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baggy
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| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
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sagging
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| 下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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31
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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32
effervescing
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| v.冒气泡，起泡沫( effervesce的现在分词 ) | |
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sprightly
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| adj.愉快的，活泼的 | |
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obsequious
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| adj.谄媚的，奉承的，顺从的 | |
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craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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degenerated
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
indigent
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的 | |
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39
wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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40
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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41
exteriors
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| n.外面( exterior的名词复数 )；外貌；户外景色图 | |
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42
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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43
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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44
fulfill
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| vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意 | |
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45
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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46
draughts
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| n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
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47
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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48
opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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49
tampering
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| v.窜改( tamper的现在分词 )；篡改；（用不正当手段）影响；瞎摆弄 | |
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50
obstruction
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| n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物 | |
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51
ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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52
conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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53
fetters
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| n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 )；束缚v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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54
spurned
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| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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56
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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57
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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58
jumble
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| vt.使混乱，混杂；n.混乱；杂乱的一堆 | |
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59
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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60
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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61
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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62
inhaled
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| v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63
teemed
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| v.充满( teem的过去式和过去分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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64
medley
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| n.混合 | |
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65
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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66
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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67
maudlin
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| adj.感情脆弱的，爱哭的 | |
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68
transacted
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| v.办理（业务等）( transact的过去式和过去分词 )；交易，谈判 | |
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69
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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70
scatter
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| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
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71
squander
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| v.浪费，挥霍 | |
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72
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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73
restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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74
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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75
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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76
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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77
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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78
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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79
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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80
scrawling
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的现在分词 ) | |
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81
gulp
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| vt.吞咽，大口地吸（气）；vi.哽住；n.吞咽 | |
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