It was a relief to abandon these speculations to the task of lancing a boil on the neck of the landlord of the Spotted Cow.
IV
The weeks went on, and the rat continued, and even increased its youthful vigor. Its eyes were bright. Its coat was smooth and glossy. Its movements were lithe and swift. It was fierce, and watchful for a chance of biting. Once its teeth met in the sleeve of Dr. Merson’s coat, and the incident led him to wonder whether its new vitality could be communicated by the medium of a bite. He was aware that the thought gave him a sensation of a peril escaped, and he realized that he was already regarding his discovery with apprehension rather than pleasure. Certainly, he had no wish to have its benefits thrust upon him before he had deliberated more fully on their ultimate consequences.
Also, the rat was disconcertingly watchful for a chance of escaping from its confinement. Once it actually got its head through the closing door, and it needed a sharp blow to induce it to abandon the hope of freedom. Dr. Merson had an actual nightmare as the result of imagining that it had escaped, and that his invention was destroyed or forgotten, so that the world would pass at last to the dominion of a continually increasing army of immortal rats.
V
After that incident, Dr. Merson became more careful to lock the door of the laboratory in which the rat was confined, and to keep the key in his pocket. Considering the possibilities which might follow should it be accidentally let loose, he realized how little he yet knew of the nature of his discovery. He could not even say whether the vitality it conferred would be passed on to succeeding generations. He imagined some prolific and noxious insect inoculated to immortality, and still exercising a blind fecundity. It might become uncontrollable, and destroy everything before it. That would be a weird ending to created life on this abortive planet, which must already be a joke to all surrounding intelligences.
Yet the idea was more than remotely possible. He imagined his discovery made public, and its advantages become the common property of mankind, and then some super-criminal threatening his race with the results of such an inoculation of some hostile vermin, unless they should do his pleasure eternally.
Day by day his mind renewed its efforts to probe the consequences of his discovery, and retired bewildered, as it encountered some new problem, or some obvious result which he had not previously contemplated.
He saw that the human race would become static. Not in brain, perhaps; but, at least, in body. That alone must make profound differences, produce profound cleavages. The ugly and deformed must remain so to all eternity, perhaps with an increased vitality: but vitality would not alter structure.
There might be an agitation to eliminate the obviously unfit in brain or body, and to replace them with healthier children. But who would decide? Would those who were judged inferior be content to be sacrificed? He imagined fierce and ruthless wars of extermination. Suppose, again, that the white races should attempt to confine his discovery to their own use. He imagined the black and yellow races attacking them with a mad ferocity, to force the priceless secret from them. Would the white race yield, or would they risk their potentially immortal bodies in such a conflict? If they should yield, would not the latent animosities of race and race still remain, to break out into wars which, under such conditions, must result in servitude or extermination?
He saw that, in the absence of widespread war, the world would soon reach a maximum population, and that children must cease... or, perhaps, an occasional child might be permitted to replace an accidental death... or a large number of children to replace the wastage of war. Would the race remain capable of these occasional fertilities? Or would it arrive at a position at which its numbers would be reduced (however slowly) by occasional misadventures, and these reductions would be irreplaceable?
Or if children should remain a potential possibility, would not the desire for them become at times irresistible with at least many of the unoccupied women? Might they not welcome a war which would throw upon them the duty of replacement?
He was roused from these visions by the consciousness that he was at Mrs. Empsey’s bedside.
It was some years since Mrs. Empsey had walked across her bedroom floor. Her daughter, Ada, waited on her without complaint, and earned a little money by sewing and taking care of the neighbors’ children. It was many years since Joe Horton had asked for any rent for the cottage. They had a few shillings weekly from the parish. So they lived.
Dr. Merson had not sent in a bill for ten years past. He never thought of doing so. He had fought as hard for Mrs. Empsey’s life as for that of his wealthiest patient. It was all in the day’s work.
But he had not been able to cure her. Indeed, he had not hoped to do so. Even now, he was not certain that her damaged interior could be reconstructed, though he could give her a new vitality. But he hoped, even for that. Anyway, she would be about again, and Ada could marry the booking-clerk at Belsham station, who had courted her long enough. They were both over thirty. Here was one of the first places to which his discovery would bring a joy almost beyond imagination. Mrs. Empsey had always clung to life with a desperate cowardice. But even here he would do nothing — would say nothing — too hastily. The whole prospect was so stupendous.
He checked himself in writing a prescription which would have placed his patient beyond the power of any drug to revive her... That was another thought... The power of poisons would continue... If the certainty of death were removed, would the dread of such contingencies be increased until life would become an intolerable care to avoid them? Only experience could resolve that problem.
VI
Out of much confusion, a thought came in the end, clearly born out of chaos. If he were right that his discovery could give perpetual youth to mankind, it could only mean that a limited number of people would live long, where, otherwise, a larger number of people would have lived for a shorter time. Putting aside all theories of a future life, all the speculations or dogmatisms of religion, its only result could be to make the single life longer, and the individual lives less numerous. Finally, therefore, it could only be advantageous if it resulted in higher and happier conditions of life than those which were prevailing around him. It would abolish children. It would abolish age. It would make youth perpetual. Youth was the desire of all men. Those who were young desired to retain it. Those who were old would give anything they had to recover it. So much was clear — if he were only sure. Aiming to abolish age, might it not be found — and perhaps too late — that it was youth that had left the world?
By all outward evidences, the rat had regained its youth. Why should he doubt that it was the perpetuity of youth which he would offer to a grateful world? Perhaps he vexed himself because his own mind was too small to understand the greatness of his own discovery.
Yet, could youth be perpetual? Youth was not only of the body, it was of the spirit. He did not know... As a doctor, he was predisposed to consider the physical as dominant. But the freshness of youth—?
He considered another possibility. Perhaps age? would come, though more gradually, as the spirit tired. Then the body might be periodically inoculated to a new youth, as he had done to the rat, with all the joy of a returning springtime. “If youth but knew!” How many men had wasted youth, and longed for its return in vain, when they had gained the experience which would have valued it more highly, and used it differently! To unite the experience of age with youth’s vitality!... and then he saw his delusion... the joy of youth is not of experience, but of inexperience. It is because the adventure is new: the path untrodden.