The Diary of a Pilgrimage/A Pathetic Story

by Jerome Klapka Jerome

A PATHETIC STORY.

A PATHETIC STORY.

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" Oh! I want you to write the pathetic story for the Christmas number, if you will, old man," said the editor of the ——— Weekly Journal to me, as I poked my head into his den one sunny July morning, some years ago. "Thomas is anxious to have the comic sketch. He says he overheard a joke last week, that he thinks he can work up. I expect I shall have to do the cheerful love story, about the man that everybody thinks is dead and that turns up on Christmaseve and marries the girl, myself. I was hoping to get out of it this time, but I'm afraid I can't. Then I shall get Miggs to do the charitable appeal business. I think he's the most experienced man we have now for that; and Skittles can run off the cynical column, about the Christmas bills, and the indigestion: he's always very good in a cynical article, Skittles is; he's got just the correct don't-know-what-he-means-himself sort of touch for it, if you understand."

"Skittles," I may mention, was the nickname we had given to a singularly emotional and seriously inclined member of the staff, whose correct cognomen was Beherhend.

Skittles himself always waxed particularly sentimental over Christmas. During the week preceding that sacred festival, he used to go about literally swelling with geniality and affection for all man and womankind. He would greet comparative strangers with a burst of delight that other men would have found difficult to work up in the case of a rich relation, and would shower upon them the good wishes, always so plentiful and cheap at that season, with such an evident conviction that practical benefit to the wishee would ensue therefrom as to send them away labouring under a vague sense of obligation.

The sight of an old friend at that period was almost dangerous to him. His feelings would quite overcome him. He could not speak. You feared that he would burst.

He was generally quite laid up on Christmas-day itself, owing to having drunk so many sentimental toasts on Christmas-eve. I never saw such a man as Skittles for proposing and drinking sentimental toasts. He would drink to "dear old Christmas-time," and to "dear old England;" and then he would drink to his mother, and all his other relations, and to "lovely woman," and "old chums," or he would propose "Friendship," in the abstract, "may it never grow cool in the heart of a true-born Briton," and "Love—may it ever look out at us from the eyes of our sweethearts and wives," or even "The Sun—that is ever shining behind the clouds, dear boys,—where we can't see it, and where it is not of much use to us." He was so full of sentiment, was Skittles!

But his favourite toast, and the one over which he would become more eloquently lugubrious than over any other, was always "absent friends." He appeared to be singularly rich in "absent friends." And it must be said for him that he never forgot them. Whenever and wherever liquor was to his hand, Skittles's "absent friends" were sure of a drink, and his present friends, unless they displayed great tact and firmness, of a speech calculated to give them all the blues for a week.

Folks did say at one time that Skittles's eyes usually turned in the direction of the county jail when he pledged this toast; but on its being ascertained that Skittles's kindly remembrance was not intended to be exclusive, but embraced everybody else's absent friends as well as his own, the uncharitable suggestion was withdrawn.

Still, we had too much of these "absent friends," however comprehensive a body they may have been. Skittles overdid the business. We all think highly of our friends when they are absent,—more highly, as a rule, than we do of them when they are not absent. But we do not want to be always worrying about them. At a Christmas party, or a complimentary dinner to somebody, or at a shareholders' meeting, where you naturally feel good and sad, they are in place, but Skittles dragged them in at the most inappropriate seasons. Never shall I forget his proposing their health once at a wedding. It had been a jolly wedding. Everything had gone off splendidly, and everybody was in the best of spirits. The breakfast was over, and quite all the necessary toasts had been drunk. It was getting near the time for the bride and bridegroom to depart, and we were just thinking about collecting the rice and boots with which to finally bless them, when Skittles rose in his place, with a funereal expression on his countenance and a glass of wine in his hand.

I guessed what was coming in a moment. I tried to kick him under the table. I do not mean, of course, that I tried to kick him there altogether; though I am not at all sure whether, under the circumstances, I should not have been justified in going even to that length. What I mean is, that the attempt to kick him took place under the table.

It failed, however. True, I did kick somebody; but it evidently could not have been Skittles, for he remained unmoved. In all probability it was the bride, who was sitting next to him. I did not try again; and he started, uninterfered with, on his favourite theme.

"Friends," he commenced, his voice trembling with emotion, while a tear glistened in his eye, "before we part—some of us, perhaps, never to meet again on earth—before this guileless young couple, who have this day taken upon themselves the manifold trials and troubles of married life, quit the peaceful fold, as it were, to face the bitter griefs and disappointments of this weary life, there is one toast, hitherto undrunk, that I would wish to propose."

Here he wiped away the before-mentioned tear, and the people looked solemn, and endeavoured to crack nuts without making a noise.

"Friends," he went on, growing more and more impressive and dejected in his tones, "there are few of us here who have not at some time or other known what it is to lose, through death or travel, a dear beloved one—maybe two or three."

At this point, he stifled a sob; and the bridegroom's aunt, at the bottom of the table, whose eldest son had lately left the country at the expense of his relations, upon the clear understanding that he would never again return, began to cry quietly into the ice-pudding.

"The fair young maiden at my side," continued Skittles, clearing his throat, and laying his hand tenderly on the bride's shoulder, "as you are all aware, was, a few years ago, bereft of her mother. Ladies and gentlemen, what can be more sad than the death of a mother?"

This, of course, had the effect of starting the bride off sobbing. The bridegroom, meaning well, but, naturally, under the circumstances, nervous and excited, sought to console her by murmuring that he felt sure it had all happened for the best, and that no one who had ever known the old lady would for a moment wish her back again; upon which he was indignantly informed by his newly-made wife that if he was so very pleased at her mother's death, it was a pity he had not told her so before, and she would never have married him—and he sank into thoughtful silence.

On my looking up, which I had hitherto carefully abstained from doing, my eyes unfortunately encountered those of a brother journalist who was sitting at the other side of the table, and we both burst out laughing, thereupon gaining a reputation for callousness that I do not suppose either of us has outlived to this day.

Skittles, the only human being at that once festive board that did not appear to be wishing he were anywhere else, droned on, with evident satisfaction:

"Friends," he said, "shall that dear mother be forgotten at this joyous gathering? Shall the lost mother, father, brother, sister, child, friend of any of us be forgotten? No, ladies and gentlemen! Let us, amid our merriment, still think of those lost, wandering souls: let us, amid the wine-cup and the blithesome jest, remember—'Absent Friends.'"

The toast was drunk to the accompaniment of suppressed sobs and low moans, and the wedding guests left the table to bathe their faces and calm their thoughts. The bride, rejecting the proffered assistance of the groom, was assisted into the carriage by her father, and departed, evidently full of misgivings as to her chance of future happiness in the society of such a heartless monster as her husband had just shown himself to be!

Skittles has been an "absent friend" himself at that house since then.

But I am not getting on with my pathetic story.

"Do not be late with it," our editor had said. "Let me have it by the end of August, certain. I mean to be early with the Christmas number this time. We didn't get it out till October last year, you know. I don't want the Clipper to be before us again!"

"Oh, that will be all right," I had answered, airily. "I shall soon run that off. I've nothing much to do this week. I'll start it at once."

So, as I went home, I cast about in my mind for a pathetic subject to work on. But not a pathetic idea could I think of. Comic fancies crowded in upon me, until my brain began to give way under the strain of holding them; and, if I had not calmed myself down with a last week's Punch, I should, in all probability, have gone off in a fit.

"Oh, I'm evidently not in the humour for pathos," I said to myself. "It is no use trying to force it. I've got plenty of time. I will wait till I feel sad."

But as the days went on, I merely grew more and more cheerful. By the middle of August, matters were becoming serious. If I could not, by some means or other, contrive to get myself into a state of the blues during the next week or ten days, there would be nothing in the Christmas number of the ——— Weekly Journal to make the British public wretched, and its repuation as a high-class paper for the family circle would be irretrievably ruined!

I was a conscientious young man in those days. I had undertaken to write a four-and-a-half column pathetic story by the end of August; and if—no matter at what mental or physical cost to myself—the task could be accomplished, those four columns and a half should be ready. I have generally found indigestion a good breeder of sorrowful thoughts. Accordingly, for a couple of days I lived upon an exclusive diet of hot boiled pork, Yorkshire pudding, and assorted pastry, with lobster salad for supper. It gave me comic nightmare. I dreamed of elephants trying to climb trees, and of churchwardens being caught playing pitch-and-toss on Sundays, and woke up shaking with laughter!

I abandoned the dyspeptic scheme, and took to reading all the pathetic literature I could collect together. But it was of no use. The little girl in Wordsworth's "We are Seven" only irritated me; I wanted to slap her. Byron's blighted pirates bored me. When, in a novel, the heroine died, I was glad; and when the author told me that the hero never smiled again on earth, I did not believe it.

As a last resource, I re-perused one or two of my own concoctions. They made me feel ashamed of myself, but not exactly miserable—at least, not miserable in the way I wanted to be miserable.

Then I bought all the standard works of wit and humour that had ever been published, and waded steadily through the lot. They lowered me a good deal, but not sufficiently. My cheerfulness seemed proof against everything.

One Saturday evening I went out and hired a man to come in and sing sentimental ballads to me. He earned his money (five shillings). He sang me everything dismal there was in English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh, together with a few translations from the German; and, after the first hour and a half, I found myself unconsciously trying to dance to the different tunes. I invented some really pretty steps for "Auld Robin Grey," winding up with a quaint flourish of the left leg at the end of each verse.

At the beginning of the last week, I went to my editor and laid the case before him.

"Why, what's the matter with you?" he said. "You used to be so good at that sort of thing! Have you thought of the poor girl who loves the young man that goes away and never comes back, and she waits and waits, and never marries, and nobody knows that her heart is breaking?"

"Of course I have!" I retorted, rather irritably. "Do you think I don't know the rudiments of my profession?"

"Well," he remarked, "won't it do?"

"No," I answered. "With marriage such a failure as it seems to be all round now-a-days, how can you pump up sorrow for anyone lucky enough to keep out of it?"

"Um," he mused, "how about the child that tells everybody not to cry, and then dies?"

"Oh, and a good riddance to it!" I replied, peevishly. "There are too many children in this world. Look what a noise they make, and what a lot of money they cost in boots!"

My editor agreed that I did not appear to be in the proper spirit to write a pathetic child-story.

He inquired if I had thought of the old man who wept over the faded love-letters on Christmas-eve; and I said that I had, and that I considered him an old idiot.

"Would a dog story do?" he continued: "something about a dead dog; that's always popular."

"Not Christmassy enough," I argued.

The betrayed maiden was suggested; but dismissed, on reflection, as being too broad a subject for the pages of a "Companion for the Home Circle "—our sub-title.

"Well, think it over for another day," said my editor.

"I don't want to have to go to Jenks. He can only be pathetic as a costermonger, and our lady readers don't always like the expressions."

I thought I would go and ask the advice of a friend of mine—a very famous and popular author; in fact, one of the most famous and popular authors of the day. I was very proud of his friendship, because he was a very great man indeed: not great, perhaps, in the earnest meaning of the word; not great like the greatest men—the men who do not know that they are great—but decidedly great, according to the practical standard. When he wrote a book, a hundred thousand copies would be sold during the first week; and when a play of his was produced, the theatre was crammed for five hundred nights. And of each new work it was said that it was more clever and grand and glorious than were even the works he had written before.

Wherever the English language was spoken, his name was an honoured household word. Wherever he went, he was fêted and lionised and cheered. Descriptions of his charming house, of his charming sayings and doings, of his charming self, were in every newspaper.

Shakespeare was not one-half so famous in his day as ——— is in his.

Fortunately, he happened to be still in town; and on being ushered into his sumptuously-furnished study, I found him sitting before one of the windows, smoking an after-dinner cigar.

He offered me one from the same box. ———'s cigars are not to be refused. I know he pays half-a-crown a-piece for them by the hundred; so I accepted, lit up, and, sitting down opposite to him, told him my trouble.

He did not answer immediately after I had finished; and I was just beginning to think that he could not have been listening, when—with his eyes looking out through the open window to where, beyond the smoky city, it seemed as if the sun, in passing through, had left the gates of the sky ajar behind him—he took his cigar from his lips, and said:

"Do you want a real pathetic story? I can tell you you do. It is not very long, but it is sad enough," He spoke in so serious a tone that almost any reply seemed out of place, and I remained silent.

"It is the story of a man who lost his own self," he continued, still looking out upon the dying light, as though he read the story there, "who stood by the death-bed of himself, and saw himself slowly die, and knew that he was dead—for ever.

"Once upon a time there lived a poor boy. He had little in common with other children. He loved to wander by himself, to think and dream all day. It was not that he was morose, or did not care for his comrades, only that something within kept whispering to his childish heart that he had deeper lessons to comprehend than his schoolmates had. And an unseen hand would lead him away into the solitude where alone he could learn their meaning.

"Ever amid the babel of the swarming street, would he hear strong, silent voices, speaking to him as he walked, telling him of the work that would one day be entrusted to his hands,—work for God, such as is given to only the very few to do, work for the helping of God's children in the world, for the making of them stronger and truer and higher;—and, in some dimly-lighted corner, where for a moment they were alone, he would stand and raise his boyish hands to Heaven, and thank God for this great promised gift of noble usefulness, and pray that he might ever prove worthy of the trust; and, in the joy of his coming work, the little frets of life floated like drift-wood on a deepening river; and as he grew, the voices spoke to him ever more plainly, until he saw his work before him clearly, as a traveller on the hill-top sees the pathway through the vale.

"And so the years passed, and he became a man, and his labour lay ready to his hand.

"And then a foul demon came and tempted him—the demon that has killed many a better man before, that will kill many a great man yet—the demon of worldly success. And the demon whispered evil words into his ear, and, God forgive him!—he listened.

"Of what good to you, think you, will it be, your writing mighty truths and noble thoughts? What will the world pay for them? What has ever been the reward of the earth's greatest teachers and poets—the men who have given their lives to the best service of mankind—but neglect and scorn and poverty? Look around! what are the wages of the few earnest workers of to-day but a pauper's pittance, compared with the wealth that is showered down on those who jig to the tune that the crowd shouts for? Aye, the true singers are honoured when they are dead—those that are remembered; and the thoughts from their brains once fallen, whether they themselves are remembered or not, stir, with ever-widening circles to all time, the waters of human life. But of what use is that to themselves, who starved? You have talent, genius. Riches, luxury, power can be yours—soft beds and dainty foods. You can be great in the greatness that the world can see, famous with the fame your own ears will hear. Work for the world, and the world will pay you promptly; the wages the gods give are long delayed.'

"And the demon prevailed over him, and he fell.

"And, instead of being the servant of God, he became the slave of men. And he wrote for the multitude what they wanted to hear, and the multitude applauded and flung money to him, and as he would stoop to pick it up, he would grin and touch his cap, and tell them how generous and noble they were.

"And the spirit of the artist that is handmaiden to the spirit of the prophet departed from him, and he grew into the clever huckster, the smart tradesman, whose only desire was to discover the public taste that he might pander to it.

"'Only tell me what it is you like,' he would cry in his heart, 'that I may write it for you, good people! Will you have again the old lies? Do you still love the old dead conventions, the worn-out formulas of life, the rotting weeds of evil thoughts that keep the fresh air from the flowers?

"'Shall I sing again to you the childish twaddle you have heard a million times before? Shall I defend for you the wrong, and call it right? Shall I stab Truth in the back for you, or praise it?

"'How shall I flatter you to-day, and in what way to-morrow and the next day? Only tell me what you wish me to say, what you wish me to think, that I may say it and think it, good people, and so get your pence and your plaudits!'

"Thus he became rich and famous and great; and had fine clothes to wear and rich foods to eat, as the demon had promised him, and servants to wait on him, and horses, and carriages to ride in; and he would have been happy—as happy as such things can make a man—only that at the bottom of his desk there lay (and he had never had the courage to destroy them) a little pile of faded manuscripts, written in a boyish hand, that would speak to him of the memory of a poor lad who had once paced the city's feet-worn stones, dreaming of no other greatness than that of being one of God's messengers to men, and who had died, and had been buried for all eternity, long years ago."

 

It was a very sad story, but not exactly the sort of sad story, I felt, that the public wants in a Christmas number. So I had to fall back upon the broken-hearted maiden, after all!

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