Father and son, hands death-clasped, as they feared
The river's disuniting, and, above,
Swooping through clouds, the ghost of a black dove,
And cleft by rocks a melon with black teeth,
While an old signpost rose from underneath
The joyous waters, with outlandish script
I could not read. Then, with their grey hides stripped
As from an ancient beating, bloated dogs
Sailed on their backs…
"I cannot very well laugh at something I fail altogether to understand."
"I do not understand it either," John said cheerfully. "But it is not the poet's task to be clear, even to the poet. Hens lay eggs but can say nothing of the richness of yolk and airy blandness of albumen. Talking of eggs, I think I could -" Then he started to cough. He shrugged at it, coughing, as at a transient nuisance. Then the coughing increased and became paroxysmal. John's eyes showed fear, his nails grappled A World of Words in panic. Severn breathed fast and shallow. Scarlet gushed out and John moaned, choking. He tried madly to use his manuscript as a cup. The inky quill fell from the knee desk and wrote briefly on the coverlet. Severn was quick with the cup that had held milk. John filled it and groaned "Oh God God." There was a thick bubbling in his chest, then throat. Severn opened the casement and threw the rich red out like slops. He shut it again against the mild chill and was in time to offer the vessel for another filling of crimson. Severn looked at it fascinated and said calmly:
"I must get Clark." There was no more gushing, merely a few blobs and strings of phlegmy red to lace the brimming cup. John lay back, wretched, ashamed, fearful, disappointed. "I will go find him now. Or I will ask Signora Angeletti." There was no blood, though the breathing rattled, now, two cups enough, more than. John lay back very pale.
"You fetch him. We do not want. This is our little. Play."
"I'll wait. I'll wait five minutes."
"There'll be no more. Not yet. Get him. Though what he can do I. Know not. We must fulfill. The prop prop." A World of Words fell ponderously to the floor. "I'm cold. I must have blankets. Or a."
"I'll light a fire when I get back. Huddle under the clothes. Our two greatcoats will help. I shall be back in no time."
Clark, when he came, said nothing. He shook his head sadly at John and then nodded encouragingly. Meanwhile Severn, with old newspapers, candle ends, twigs, branchlets, tried to make a fire in the small grate. "Relieve inflammation." Clark said three or four times like a cantrip. Meanwhile he got some spirit alight with a spill from Severn's fire. He swirled the spirit about in a glass cup he had taken from his bag.
"Have I not already. Lost enough. Blood to relieve."
"Rest. Dinna, don't tire yoursel, self."
Clark clamped the heated cup with its roughened edges to the skin of John's left forearm. It adhered. It cooled. The air it held contracted. Surprised at the diminution of the surface pressure, deep-seated blood rose to the skin. Clark removed the cup, took his knife, incised. Blood came royally up, richly red.
"I have proof. It is not my. Stomach. The blood that came up had. Air bubbles. Air."
"It gathered that on its journey frae the stomach. Rest." He packed his bag, grinned at Severn's smoky troubles, then said seriously to John: "Excitement. Michelangelo and wine, I doot not. Blathering aboot poetry. There'll be no more of that for a wee while. I'll be back." Then he went clattering down the marble stairs. Severn, looking up from his little flames, was very surprised to see John out of the bed, tottering, scarlet and grey phlegm on his nightshirt like paint on a smock.
"No more, Severn. This is my. Last day."
Severn was up then and with him, fighting him with some difficulty, God knew where he got the strength from, bled out as he was. "What is it you're after, what are you seeking? Back to bed, John, you've lost enough -"
The great rabid eyes lighted on the penknife and flashed. "If you won't. Let me have my." Severn got the knife first. "Laudanum. Laudanum."
"Into that bed, into it. I have no laudanum. Clark has your laudanum." John fainted, falling on the bed, then almost at once recovered. He was persuaded to lie in it. Severn added blankets from his own bed. The fire crackled feebly. John lay awake with his eyes shut.
"John, listen to me, John, you are not to think of that wickedness. I know you've thought of it before, you thought of it even on the voyage. There will be no point in your looking for the means of self-destruction, do you hear me? There will be no knives or scissors or razors about, do you hear me? You are to lie still and get well."
"I'll not get well, Severn. This day shall be my last."
"A man does not take his own life. The law of Christ and the civil codes of the world alike forbid it. Be calm. I'll bring you milk. The room will be warm soon, you will see."
"Oh, damn and bugger your civil code and your cold Christ, Severn. I want no more of this. Dying in bloody cack and sweat and shivers. I think of you as well as of myself." The clarity and energy of his articulation were surprising. Severn looked at the clear open rolling eyes with awe, penknife in his fist. "Do you want that then, weeks maybe months, wiping up shit and blood and vomit? Let me be out of it like a." He grinned viciously. "I am more an antique Roman than a. It's easy enough, the quietus, Severn. The wrist-cutting is messy, throat-cutting too much Drury Lane. I ask only laudanum. A sufficient dose and tuck me in for the night. I will pass and you will scarce notice. I will void bladder and bowels like a good boy first. Give it to me, Severn."
"I told you, I no longer have it, Clark has it."
"Well, fuck, fuck, it is in shops, it is in druggists. God knows we have hardly enough money left for living but there must be enough for the other commodity. There is a druggist's shop on the Corso, very near to here. Get it for me, Severn."
"You know I cannot. It would be a kind of murder."
"This is the true murder, Severn. Must I abide this murder by the evil spirits in control? It is a human duty to cheat them."
"You're raving, John. It is the lack of blood. You must rest, you must, truly."
"I desire rest, can you not see that, damned fool? I am not permitted rest. The malignancies are on me."
"You must respect my faith, John. The Lord forbids suicide. He forbids the abetting of suicide. It is the final wickedness, to take one's own life."
"Your damnable Lord did it. He knew he was to die and he did not avoid it. He did not wish to escape. He let himself be crucified. I call that self-slaughter."
"He was killed by the Jews and the Romans. And he rose from the dead. We all rise, remember that. There is life after death for us all. But we forfeit that resurrection through grave sin. There is no sin graver than -"
"You believe this. I do not. My ghost be with the old philosophers." He was better. The blood loss had cleared his brain. He was ready, mad as it all was, for intellectual argument.
"Because you do not believe it does not mean it is not all true. If I do not believe that Florence or Naples exists it does not prevent their existing. Eternal life, eternal damnation – these are real, whether you believe or not." John listened to that. "Now rest," Severn said. John howled out:
"Brainless fool. There are men come back from Florence. We have smelt Naples, stinking hole of sea rats. There is no traveller back from your. After this there is nothing but a great blackness and I wish to engage it today, now. My body to the worms and what is human in me to what of humanity may take it. I am all disease, Severn, and disease is to be burnt out. I am a living tumour, a kind of devil. Fuck and shit to your lying gentle Jesus and your stupid false hopes. If you will not buy me laudanum I will buy it myself." And he got out of bed, despite Severn's pushing of him back into it. He fought hard with Severn, gasping raucously, and even got as far as his stockings, which lay on a chair with his shirt and breeches. Tottering and hopping to get one stocking on, he nearly fell into the fire which, feeble yet, could scarcely harm him. "I cannot," he panted. "I must wait till the blood is back in me. You will not?"