The Song of the Flea (28 page)

“No need at all. When can I move in?”

“Whenever you like.”

“In that case, I’ll move in to-night.”

“There are certain formalities. It is customary to take up references….”

“Well, if you want references there’s Mr. Steeple, Features Editor of the
Sunday
Special,
and Mr. Proudfoot, a director of Thurtell Hunt, Mayerling & Company. Will they be sufficient?’

“Quite sufficient.”

“Well, look. Here’s the month’s rent, and I’ll ring you a little later in the day. They have pots, pans, and all that sort of thing?”

“I think so, yes. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather view the place first?”

“No,” said Pym, “I’m prepared to take your word for it. If you say it’s all right, that’s all right. What do I do? Do I give you the money now?”

“Thank you, sir,” said the estate agent, “I think it would be just as well, if you don’t mind. But really, hadn’t you better have a look at it?”

“No need, no need. A place is a place,” said Pym. “Go ahead.”

“There’s likely to be a delay of two or three days, you know, while we take up references. I suppose that’s all right?”

“Oh, quite all right. You get in touch with me, I suppose. Pym. P-Y-M, care of Steeple, the
Sunday
Special.
And my address will be 35, Leopold Crescent, Battersea—is that right?”

The agent was uneasy. He said: “You mustn’t blame
me
if it doesn’t quite suit, sir.”

“I’ll blame nobody,” said Pym. “I’ve no time to bother.”

“Very good, sir.”

As the door closed behind Pym the agent telephoned Steeple at the
Sunday
Special.
Steeple said: “Mr. Pym? Don’t worry about him. He’s all right.”

Proudfoot said: “My dear sir, I have not the slightest hesitation in assuring you that Mr. Pym is in every way a thoughly desirable tenant. I have known him since his infancy. You need have no hesitation in recommending him strongly to your client.”

They both knew that this kind of reference left them free of obligation. It cost nothing, and made them feel good.

*

Pym took Dr. Weissensee’s typescript out of his wardrobe and walked slowly to Proudfoot’s office. At the corner of the street he paused, smoked a cigarette, and walked away again. He drank three cups of coffee before he found courage to go on,
and then he threw himself rather than walked into Thurtell Hunt, Mayerling & Co. and said to Joanna Bowman:

“I want to see Proudfoot.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Pym, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait,” she said. “Mr. Proudfoot is engaged.”

“Oh, I see. Engaged. Engaged for long?”

“I couldn’t say. Mr. Proudfoot is with a lady.”

“I wonder if you would mind telling Mr. Proudfoot that I am here?” said Pym.

“Not at all.”

She opened a door and disappeared; opened it again, came back, and said: “Would you like to go in?”

“Oh, by the way,” said Pym, “it begins to occur to me that I am by way of falling in love with you. What do you say to that?”

“Pym, don’t be stupid—go in.”

Pym went into Proudfoot’s office. Dr. Weissensee was there, and she looked old and unhappy.

“Well, my dear fellow?” said Proudfoot.

After a pause Pym said: “Proudfoot. I’m sorry, but no. No, Proudfoot, I can’t do it. I don’t like it, and I can’t do it. You’ve got to forgive me, Proudfoot, but it isn’t possible.”

“My dear fellow, my dear Pym; I beg your pardon—what isn’t possible? What can’t you do?”

Pym pointed to the folder under his arm and said: “This.”

“Do I understand that you cannot put Dr. Weissensee’s opus into clear English?”

“You must excuse me, Proudfoot, but I can’t.”

“But why not?”

Pym looked at Dr. Weissensee, and he looked at Proudfoot, and shrugged his shoulders and said: “I’m sorry, Proudfoot.”

“Let us go into this,” said Proudfoot.

H
E
put his brand new respectable black elbows on the edge of the brand new desk, and carefully placed the fingertips of his right hand on the fingertips of his left until he had made a little triangle. Pym observed two things: Proudfoot had been manicured; and Proudfoot had already taken three or four strong drinks.

Proudfoot saw that Pym was nervous, anxious and miserable. Very deliberately Proudfoot waited, looking at him patiently, but reproachfully. Nearly half a minute passed while he shook his head very sadly, sighed, and assumed the dejected air of a man whose last illusion has been blown away, and who cannot even try to put on a bold front. His mouth drooped, his face sagged; his forehead broke itself into furrows as his eyebrows went up over his nose and down at the corners of his eyes. “I was relying on you, Johnny,” he said. “I’m very sorry indeed to hear you talk like this, old friend. A good deal depends on you, you see. In point of fact, my dear fellow, a great deal depends on you, now, as far as I am concerned. You see, Johnny, Mr. Sherwood has some little faith in me, and that faith is partly founded on assurances which, in their turn, had their foundation in the faith I had in you.
Sic
transit
gloria
mundi!
Poor me. How strange it is,” said Proudfoot, with a broken laugh, “how strange it is! Like flies to wanton boys are we to the gods—they slay us for their sport. Yes, Johnny, leg by leg and wing by wing they pull us to pieces. Or you might say that as mice to tired cats are we to Fate. It plays with us—it lets us go only to catch us again. Ah, Johnny Pym, Johnny Pym! Did you ever read a story by Joras Karl Huysmans, a story entitled
The
Torture
of
Hope?
It is a very good story—horrible, but very good. One day, when you have time, you must read it.”

“I’ve read it,” said Pym heavily.

“You remember, then,” said Proudfoot.

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Pym.

“Never mind, Johnny. Forget it. Banish it from your mind. We are still good friends, I hope?”

“My dear Proudfoot, try and understand this little thing. You understand so much. Understand this. I can’t rewrite this book for you. It’s a filthy book. I hate it. I couldn’t look myself in the face again if I did what you wanted me to do. Anything but that, yes. But I simply can’t help you to put that book out.”

He had forgotten that Dr. Weissensee was in the office. She rose, buzzing like a blow-fly, and said: “Vat do you mean, please? Tell me, vat is it that you are saying?”

Before Pym could reply, Proudfoot said: “Oh, nothing, nothing, Doctor. For the moment Mr. Pym does not altogether approve of your book.”

“Book?
Book?
It is more than a book. These are facts, of life the facts! You too! It is truth you do not like, murderer!”

“Put it that way if you like,” said Pym.

Turning to Proudfoot Dr. Weissensee screamed: “Liar! You tell me this is a good man! Liar! Thief! You make conspiracy vid this one, yes? So. So it is. But you shall not! I vill not! I——”

“Dr. Weissensee,” said Pym, “please try and understand me also. You’re a psychologist, and you surely must be able to understand.”

“I understand that you are laughing at me.”

Pym said: “Listen, Dr. Weissensee. If I don’t want to rewrite your book, why should I? I am a free man, and this is a free country. You must understand that surely?”

“Now you laugh at me. Free, free, free, free, free! To me, you say free! To me, I should have liberated, made free, gone into exile! Me who give myself for freedom—for
this
.”
She beat her hands on the folder that contained her typescript. “And this, my last hope! I am old, I am not vell. I have a little malignant growth down here and this little boy, he makes vid a finger at the vork of my life, and he laughs at me. Let me die.”

Proudfoot’s face was rigid but his eyes were flickering like voltmeters. He said nothing. Pym continued: “I can’t rewrite your book myself. I’m not capable. If I can’t I can’t, Dr.
Weissensee.” He spoke firmly, but when he saw a tear upon the preposterous little woman’s ugly face his will wobbled like a broken chair, and he went on: “But if you like I’ll find someone else for you who will write it much better than I could.”

Now Proudfoot cleared his throat and said:

“Pardon my obtuseness, my dear fellow, but I do not quite see what the Germans call the
Inwardness
of your morality. Let us take a hypothetical case. Let us assume for a moment that I am … let us say a physician and surgeon. You, let us say, are a young woman who has got into trouble and happens to be pregnant. You say to me: ‘It is out of the question for me to bear the child of this unknown father because my papa is the Archbishop of Kent and my mother is the daughter of the Bishop of Chelsea. Will you be so good as to procure me an abortion?’ And I say: ‘My dear Miss Muffet, in no
circumstances
will I abort you. Abortion is evil. I disapprove
profoundly
of abortion, which I regard as a species of murder—in short, a criminal act. I would cut my hand off before putting it to such an improper use. I will not do what you ask me to do because what you ask me to do is utterly detestable to me. The very thought of it repels me. I am sorry for you, but my word stands. I disapprove of abortion on principle. But go next door to Dr. So-and-So, and give him my card, and he will do whatever you ask, at a cut price.’ My dear fellow, what an extraordinary fellow you are!”

Pym bit his lip and said nothing. Proudfoot continued:

“Johnny, I don’t know why it is but I love you like a son—and, as you know, I admire you as a master. If I had your gift of language I’d be able to make myself tolerably clear. Here is a job that is going to be done. Whatever you say or do this scientific work of Dr. Weissensee will be put into decent English and published by Thurtell Hunt, Mayerling & Co. My partners and I, together with some of the best-respected scientific thinkers in the world, consider Dr. Weissensee’s work to be a genuine contribution to Science. It will not be available, I may say, to every adolescent that pokes his, her, or its nose into a book shop. It will be published in a limited edition, carefully sealed, at three guineas a copy. It will be carefully and conspicuously
marked as being published for serious students of psychology only. There will be no attractive presentation—the readers of Dr. Weissensee’s work,
Geschlechtiche
Verirrungen
Im
Ver
haeltnis
Zur
Kunst
Im
Lauf
Der
Zeit
Einschliesslich
Spezial
Faelle
In
Der
Zeit
Zwischen
1675
Und
1935
Mit
Einer
Bemer
kung
Ueber
Auto-Erotik,
will read it as a textbook, and not as casual reading matter. But—I beg pardon. This is beside the point. Some of the deepest thinkers, some of the most
far-reaching
intellects in the world, approve strongly. You, however, disapprove of this book. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“You disapprove strongly, I take it?”

“I’m afraid I do, Proudfoot,” said Pym.

“How strange, how passing strange!” said Proudfoot, smiling and shaking his head. “I thought I knew a little of men until I met you, Johnny. And now I know that the more I know, the less I know. Disapproving as you do, you are prepared to hand the rewriting of Dr. Weissensee’s work over to someone else who, you assure me, will rewrite it more effectively than you could. In other words, you are prepared to give your blessing and your support to that which you hate and despise—provided you are not called upon directly to touch it with your fastidious fingers. Well, well, well! My dear fellow!”

Pym said: “Proudfoot, I feel indebted to you. I can assure you that I say ‘Well, well, well’ also. If you were a stranger I’d simply walkout of the office. But you’ve been good to me. You keep telling me this thing is important to you. If you’re a publisher you must have a list—there must be other books——”

“—But this is a book of the first importance,” said Proudfoot.

“—I told you once before,” said Pym, in agony, “I’m soft. I absolutely must pay back a good turn. I don’t like the book, Proudfoot. I do hate it, Dr. Weissensee. I’m sorry to have to say so to your face, but I do. But there it is. Proudfoot, you tell me it will come out in any case. All right. I’m not going to touch it myself. If I introduce you to someone who will, won’t that acquit me?”

Proudfoot moved his hands as if he were playing inaudible five-finger exercises in the air, and said: “I don’t think you
quite understand, my dear fellow. You are the man who can put this book into clean English, pure and clean English. You’re a faithful writer with a highly developed conscience. You can retain the doctor’s factual material and still keep the book clean. We have no objection whatsoever to your adding footnotes and chapter indices, or even commentaries. I believe, Johnny, that you alone can make this scientific work acceptable to the English-speaking people. And still you want to give it to a hack writer to write.”

“I’m sorry, Proudfoot: I really don’t want to write it,” said Pym. “For instance: haven’t you ever come across a brief you’d rather not have taken?”

“No,” said Proudfoot. “No, never. The harder the game the better. I, my dear fellow, am a lawyer—I am Rhadamanthus—I am impartial—I hold the scales. I defend, and I prosecute, according to the weights in the pan on my left hand or my right hand. I kill or I cure, I hang or I revive, strictly in accordance with the evidence.”

“I live, Proudfoot, according to my instincts. Honest to God, I can’t write your book.”

“Yet you will let it be written?”

“Yes. For you, Proudfoot, yes—let it be written. But not by me.”

“I cannot begin to see how you, Johnny, reconcile this with your delicate conscience.”

“No more can I, Proudfoot. But you’re my very good friend. Meanwhile, now that I come to think of it, here is a five-pound note I owe you.”

Pym put a five-pound note on the desk. Proudfoot looked at it, saw that it was new, and said: “Ah. Oh-oh! I see, I see! You have come into money, is that it?”

“It isn’t that at all.”

“Ah well, there it is. You’ve come into money. If you could have brought yourself to say so before, everything might have been simpler: you would have saved my time and yours. Don’t trouble to give me the address of your friend. I daresay we’ll manage. Now let me congratulate you on your good fortune and bid you good day. This——” said Proudfoot, touching the
five-pound note with a fingertip—“this is yours. You were so good as to lend it to me. But let there be no ill feeling….”

Proudfoot took a bottle and two glasses out of a cupboard in his desk and said: “Will you, at least, have a farewell drink with me? I believe, Johnny, that we have been very good friends in our time?”

“By all means,” said Pym. “—No, no, much smaller than that, Proudfoot, please!”

Proudfoot had half-filled a tumbler. He pulled it to his side of the desk and poured half an inch of brandy for Pym. They drank. Proudfoot swallowed his drink like medicine, blew his nose into a fine linen handkerchief, and said, with a curious shudder: “We’ll leave this book in abeyance, Johnny. It’s far too important a work to scamp. Think it over carefully, my dear fellow. Think it over for a week, a month, two months if necessary.”

“All right,” said Pym, “let’s leave it at that.”

“God bless you, then,” said Proudfoot. “Will you have lunch with me to-morrow?”

“I’d love to, but I shall be working terribly hard from now on,” said Pym. “By the way, my new address is 35, Leopold Crescent, Battersea. I’ve taken a little flat. From now on I shall be working like stink on a book. Yes, I shall be working like hell.”

*

Dr. Weissensee rushed out of the office spitting and hissing
“Persecution!
Persecution!
Persecution!”
and Sherwood arrived, smoking a pipe and wearing a studiously
unconventional
suit of dark grey flannel with a yellow waistcoat. He was carrying an ashplant and a portfolio, and somehow the
ashplant
made him look like an up-and-coming energetic young publisher with plenty of nerve and an inexhaustible supply of good ideas. Proudfoot looked at him with approval and said: “God knows how you do it. You could have made a fortune on the stage, my dear fellow.”

“Well, how goes it?”

Now Thomas Paine Sherwood spoke in a hurried undertone—in
the quick, quiet voice of a man accustomed to saying a great deal as quickly and quietly as possible in public lavatories, prison corridors, and hotel lobbies. Proudfoot said:

“Very well indeed.
Auto-Erotism
In
The
Female
has gone to press. So has
Sex
Life
In
Renaissance
Italy,
and
The
Forbidden
Frescoes
At
Pompeii.
We ought to have Gee’s
Secret
Rites
of
the
Asmodeists
and
Women
and
Satan
in proof next week. I am having a little trouble with our young friend Pym. He has some qualms about rewriting Dr. Weissensee’s book.”

“For that matter, so have I.”

“My dear fellow, you need have none at all. I give you my word of honour, we’ll get away with it.”

“If you say so, all right. But look here, Proudfoot, who the hell cares whether this pipsqueak does it or not? You can find a hack in any pub in Fleet Street. Why waste time running after this one?”

Proudfoot looked at him with pity and said: “You are a very clever fellow, my friend, but not quite clever enough. This isn’t one of those smash-and-grab, snatch-and-run affairs. An average hack is just what we do not want. This young man is a real writer, a brilliant writer. Only by turning that stinking muck into literature can we get away with it. You will be guided by me in this, my dear fellow. Do you hear? You will do as I say. Have you ever known me to fail?”