CHAPTER I

There were four of us – George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were – bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.

We were all feeling unwell, and we were getting quite nervous about it. Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of lighth-headedness, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that he had fits of light-headedness too, and hardly knew what he was doing. With me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my liver, because I had read a liver-pill leaflet, in which the symptoms were described by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all.

It is the most extraordinary thing, but whenever I read a medicine advertisement I always make a conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease. I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight illness – hay fever¹. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then I turned the leaves, and began to study diseases. I came to typhoid fever – read the symptoms – discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it – wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance² – found, as I expected, that I had that too, – began to get interested in my case, and so started alphabetically. Cholera I had, with serious complications; and diphtheria I was born with. I patently studied the twenty-six letters, and the only disease I had not got was housemaid’s knee³.

I sat and thought it over. What an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view, what a gift I should be to a class! Students would have no need to “walk the hospitals,” if they had me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need to do would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their diploma.

Then I wondered how long I had to live. I tried to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I could not at first feel any pulse at all. Then, suddenly, it started off. I pulled out my watch and counted. I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute. I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. It had stopped beating. I patted myself all over my front, from what I call my waist up to my head, and I went a bit round each side, and a little way up the back. But I could not feel or hear anything. I tried to look at my tongue. I stuck it out as far as ever, and I shut one eye, and tried to examine it with the other. I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a weak wreck.

I went to my medical man. He is my old friend, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, when I fancy I’m ill; so I thought I would do him a good turn⁴ by going to him now. “What a doctor wants,” I said, “is practice. He shall have me. He will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary, usual patients, with only one or two diseases each.” So I went straight up and saw him, and he said: “Well, what’s the matter with you?”

I said: “I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. But I will tell you what is not the matter with me. I have not got housemaid’s knee. Why I have not got housemaid’s knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I have got.”

And I told him how I discovered it all. Then he examined me. After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it to me, and I put it in my pocket and went out. I did not open it. I took it to the nearest chemist’s, and handed it in. The man read it, and then handed it back. He said he didn’t keep it.

I said: “You are a chemist?”

He said: “I am a chemist. If I was a store and family hotel combined, I might be able to help you. But I am only a chemist.”

I read the prescription. It ran:

“1 lb.⁵ beefsteak, with 1 pt.⁶ bitter beer every 6 hours. 1 ten-mile walk every morning.

1 bed at 11 every night.

And don’t stuff up your head with things you don’t understand.⁷”

I followed the directions and my life is still going on.

In the present instance, going back to the liver-pill leaflet, I had all the symptoms, the chief among them was “a general dislike of any work.” As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. My parents did not know, then, that it was my liver and they used to put it down to laziness. “You lazy little devil, you,” they used to say, “get up and do something for your living, can’t you?” – not knowing, of course, that I was ill. And they didn’t give me pills; they gave me clumps on the side of the head. And those clumps on the head often cured me better than a whole box of pills does now.

We sat there for half-an-hour, describing to each other our diseases. I explained to George and William Harris how I felt when I got up in the morning, and William Harris told us how he felt when he went to bed; and George illustrated us by acting how he felt at night.

At this point, Mrs. Poppets knocked at the door and brought in the tray with supper. I must have been very weak at the time; because after the first half-hour or so, I seemed to take no interest in my food – an unusual thing for me – and I didn’t want any cheese.

After the supper, we refilled our glasses, lit our pipes, and continued to discuss our state of health. What was the matter with us we couldn’t be sure of;

but all of us believed that it – whatever it was – was a result of overwork.

“What we want is rest,” said Harris.

“Rest and a complete change,” said George. “Change of scene and no necessity for thought.”

I agreed with George, and suggested that we should look for some quiet place, far from the noisy world, and spend there a sunny week.

“If you want rest and change, you can’t beat a sea trip,” said Harris.

I objected to the sea trip strongly. A sea trip does you good when you are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for a week, it is wicked. You start on Monday thinking that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus⁸ all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn’t come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea⁹, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a faint, sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now. On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food. And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you are getting ready to step on the shore, you begin to really like it.

I remember my brother-in-law going for a short sea trip once, for the benefit of his health. He took a return ticket from London to Liverpool; and when he got to Liverpool, the only thing he was anxious about was to sell that return ticket. It was offered round the town at a tremendous reduction, so I am told; and was eventually sold for eighteen-pence to a bilious-looking youth who had just been advised by his medical men to go to the sea-side, and take exercise.

“Sea-side!” said my brother-in-law, pressing the ticket affectionately into his hand; “why, you’ll have enough to last you a lifetime; and as for exercise! why, you’ll get more exercise, sitting down on that ship, than you would on dry land.” He himself – my brother-in-law – came back by train. He said the North-Western Railway was healthy enough for him.

Another fellow I knew went for a week’s voyage round the coast, and, before they started, the steward came to him to ask whether he would pay for each meal as he had it, or arrange beforehand for the whole series. The steward recommended the latter course, as it would come so much cheaper. He said they would do him for the whole week at two pounds five. He said for breakfast there would be fish, followed by a grill. Lunch was at one, and consisted of four courses. Dinner at six – soup, fish, entree, joint, poultry, salad, sweets, cheese, and dessert. And a light meat supper at ten.

Lunch came just as they were off Sheerness. He didn’t feel so hungry as he thought he should, and so contented himself with a bit of boiled beef, and some strawberries and cream. He thought a good deal during the afternoon, and at one time it seemed to him that he had been eating nothing but boiled beef for weeks¹⁰, and at other times it seemed that he must have been living on strawberries and cream for years. Neither the beef nor the strawberries and cream seemed happy, either – seemed discontented like.

At six, they came and told him dinner was ready. The announcement aroused no enthusiasm within him, but he felt that there was some of that two-pound-five to be worked off, and he held on to ropes and things and went down. A pleasant odour of onions and hot ham, mixed with fried fish and greens, greeted him at the bottom of the ladder; and then the steward came up with an oily smile, and said:

“What can I get you, sir?”

“Get me out of this,” was the faint reply.

And they helped him to get upstairs, and left him. For the next four days he lived a simple life on thin captain’s biscuits (I mean that the biscuits were thin, not the captain) and soda-water; but, towards Saturday, he felt better, and went in for weak tea and dry toast, and on Monday he was gorging himself on chicken broth. He left the ship on Tuesday, and as it steamed away he gazed after it regretfully.

“There she goes,” he said, “there she goes, with two pounds’ worth of food on board that belongs to me, and that I haven’t had.” He said that if they had given him another day he thought he could have put it right¹¹.

So I was against the sea trip. Not, as I explained, upon my own account. But I was afraid for George. George said he should be all right, and would rather like it, but he would advise Harris and me not to think of it, as he felt sure we should both be ill. Harris said that, to himself, it was always a mystery how people managed to get sick at sea – said he thought people must do it on purpose – said he had often wished to be, but had never been able. Then he told us the anecdote of how he had gone across the Channel when it was so rough that the passengers had to be tied into their berths, and he and the captain were the only two people on board who were not ill.

It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick – on land. At sea, you come across plenty of people¹² very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick. Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery.

If most men were like a fellow I saw on the Yarmouth boat one day, I could account for the seeming mystery easily enough. It was just off Southend Pier, I recollect, and he was leaning out through one of the port-holes in a very dangerous position. I went up to him to try and save him.

“Hi! come further in,” I said, shaking him by the shoulder. “You’ll be overboard.”

“Oh my! I wish I was,” was the only answer I could get; and there I had to leave him.

Three weeks afterwards, I met him in the coffee-room of a Bath hotel, talking about his voyages, and explaining, with enthusiasm, how he loved the sea.

“Good sailor!” he replied in answer to a young man’s envious question; “well, I did feel a little queer once, I confess. It was off Cape Horn. The vessel was wrecked the next morning.”

I said:

“Weren’t you a little shaky by Southend Pier one day, and wanted to be thrown overboard?”

“Southend Pier!” he replied, with a puzzled expression.

“Yes; going down to Yarmouth, last Friday three weeks.”

“Oh, ah – yes,” he answered, brightening up; “I remember now. I did have a headache that afternoon. It was the food, you know. It was the most disgraceful food I ever tasted in a respectable boat. Did you have any?”

For myself, I have discovered an excellent remedy against sea-sickness, in balancing myself. You stand in the centre of the deck, and, as the ship goes up and down, you move your body about, so as to keep it always straight. When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost touches your nose;

and when its back end gets up, you lean backwards. This is all very well for an hour or two; but you can’t balance yourself for a week.

George said: “Let’s go up the river.”

He said we should have fresh air, exercise and quiet, and the hard work would give us a good appetite, and make us sleep well.

Harris and I both said it was a good idea of George’s. The only one who wasn’t inspired with the suggestion was Montmorency. He never did care for the river.

“It’s all very well for you fellows,” he says; “you like it, but I don’t. There’s nothing for me to do. I don’t admire sceneries, and I don’t smoke. If I see a rat, you won’t stop; and if I go to sleep, you get fooling about with the boat, and let me fall overboard. If you ask me, I call the whole thing incredible foolishness.”

We were three to one, however, and the decision was made¹³.

Exercises

1. Read the chapter and mark the sentences T (true), F (false) or NI (no information).

1. All the friends were feeling well.

2. The only disease the narrator had not got as he believed was cholera.

3. The narrator tried to examine himself.

4. The doctor gave the narrator the prescription which he followed.

5. The supper was not tasty.

6. Harris objected to the sea trip strongly.

7. One of the narrator’s friends paid two pounds five for his food in a sea trip and that was a waste of money.

8. The narrator was against the sea trip because of a sea-sickness he had.

9. People who are sea-sick always confirm it when they are on the shore.

10. Montmorency wasn’t inspired by the idea to travel up the river.

2. Learn the words from the text:

extraordinary, leaflet, suffer, treatment, disease, complication, crawl, prescription, necessity, swallow, faint, fancy, reduction, odour, broth, gaze, puzzled, disgraceful, remedy, recollect.

3. Practice the pronunciation of the following words.

4. Fill in the gaps using the words from the text.

1. With me, it was my liver that was … of order.

2. I sat and … it over.

3. As a boy, the disease … ever left me for a day.

4. We sat there for half-an-hour, describing to … … our diseases.

5. Lunch was at one, and … … four courses.

6. … the beef … the strawberries and cream seemed happy, either – seemed discontented like.

7. Harris said that he … never … able to get sick at sea.

8. I met him in the coffee-room of a Bath hotel, … about his voyages.

9. The hard work would give us a good appetite, and … us sleep well.

10. If I … a rat, you won’t stop.

5. Match the words with definitions.

6. Find in the text the English equivalents for:

приступы головокружения, сделать вывод, серьезные осложнения, с точки зрения медицины, нащупать пульс, следовать указаниям, состояние здоровья, огромная скидка, приятный аромат, состоящий из четырех блюд, делать что-то нарочно, восхищаться пейзажем.

7. Find the words in the text for which the following are synonyms:

remedy, recollect, sea trip, gaze, to be against, ordinary, disease, begin, main, in the present instance.

8. Explain and expand on the following.

1. I was a hospital in myself.

2. I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a weak wreck.

3. My parents did not know, then, that it was my liver and they used to put it down to laziness.

4. If you want rest and change, you can’t beat a sea trip.

5. A sea trip does you good when you are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for a week, it is wicked.

6. It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick – on land.

7. When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost touches your nose; and when its back end gets up, you lean backwards.

8. The only one who wasn’t inspired with the suggestion was Montmorency.

9. Answer the following questions.

1. How many people are there in the room? Why are they “bad”?

2. How does the narrator know about his illness?

3. Why is the narrator a good gift for a medical class?

4. Where does the narrator go after visiting the library? Why?

5. Can the chemist help the narrator? Why / why not?

6. What is the general symptom of the narrator’s disease? How did his relatives help him to cure the disease in his childhood?

7. What remedy do the friends find to cure their diseases?

8. Why is the narrator against a sea trip?

9. Who isn’t inspired by the common decision to go up the river? Why?

10. Who is Montmorency?

10. Retell the chapter for the persons of Harris, the doctor, the narrator’s brother-in-law, Montmorency.