Читать книгу The Map of Time and The Turn of the Screw - Генри Джеймс, Felix J. Palma, Henry Foss James - Страница 20

Chapter XII

Wells began to hear about Merrick the moment he set foot in the biology classrooms at South Kensington. For those studying the workings of the human body, Merrick was something akin to Nature’s most amazing achievement, its finest-cut diamond, living proof of the scope of its inventiveness. The so-called Elephant Man suffered from a disease that had horribly deformed his body, turning him into a shapeless, almost monstrous creature. This strange affliction, which had the medical profession scratching its heads, had caused the limbs, bones and organs on his right side to grow uncontrollably, leaving his left side practically unaffected. An enormous swelling on the right side of his skull, for example, distorted the shape of his head, squashing his face into a mass of folds and bony protuberances, and even dislodging his ear. Because of this, Merrick was unable to express anything more than the frozen ferocity of a totem. Owing to this lopsidedness, his spinal column curved to the right, where his organs were markedly heavier, lending all his movements a grotesque air. As if this were not enough, the disease had also turned his skin into a coarse, leathery crust, like dried cardboard, covered with hollows and swellings and wart-like growths.

To begin with Wells could scarcely believe that such a creature existed, but the photographs secretly circulating in the classroom soon revealed to him the truth of the rumours. The photographs had been stolen or purchased from staff at the London Hospital, where Merrick now resided, having spent half his life being displayed in side-shows at third-rate fairs and travelling circuses. As they passed from hand to hand, the blurred, shadowy images in which Merrick was scarcely more than a blotch caused a similar thrill to the photographs of scantily clad women they became mixed up with, although for different reasons.

The idea of having been invited to tea with this creature filled Wells with a mixture of awe and apprehension. Even so, he arrived on time at the London Hospital, a solid, forbidding structure located in Whitechapel. In the entrance a steady stream of doctors and nurses went about their mysterious business. Wells looked for a place where he would not be in the way, his head spinning with the synchronised activity in which everyone seemed to be engaged, like dancers in a ballet. Perhaps one of the nurses he saw carrying bandages had just left an operating theatre where some patient was hovering between life and death. If so, she did not quicken her step beyond the brisk but measured pace evolved over years of dealing with emergencies. Amazed, Wells had been watching the non-stop bustle from his vantage-point for some time when Dr Trêves, the surgeon responsible for Merrick, finally arrived.

Trêves was a small, excitable man of about thirty-five who masked his childlike features behind a bushy beard, clipped neatly like a hedge. ‘Mr Wells?’ he enquired, trying unsuccessfully to hide the evident dismay he felt at the author’s offensive youthfulness.

Wells nodded, and gave an involuntary shrug as if apologising that he did not demonstrate the venerable old age Trêves apparently required of those visiting his patient. He instantly regretted his gesture, for he had not requested an audience with the hospital’s famous guest.

‘Thank you for accepting Mr Merrick’s invitation,’ said Trêves. The surgeon had quickly recovered from his initial shock and reverted to the role of intermediary.

With extreme respect, Wells shook his capable, agile hand, which was accustomed to venturing into places out of bounds to most other mortals. ‘How could I refuse to meet the only person who has read my story?’ he retorted.

Trêves nodded vaguely, as though the vanity of authors and their jokes were of no consequence to him. He had more important things to worry about. Each day, new and ingenious diseases emerged that required his attention, the extraordinary dexterity of his hands, and his vigorous resolve in the operating theatre. He gestured to Wells with an almost military nod that he should follow him up a staircase to the upper floors of the hospital. A relentless throng of nurses descending in the opposite direction hampered their ascent, nearly causing Wells to lose his footing on more than one occasion.

‘Not everybody accepts Joseph’s invitations, for obvious reasons,’ Trêves said, raising his voice almost to a shout, ‘although, strangely, this does not sadden him. Sometimes I think he is more than satisfied with the little he gets out of life. Deep down, he knows his bizarre deformities are what enable him to meet any bigwig he wishes to in London, something unthinkable for your average commoner from Leicester.’

Wells thought Treves’s observation in rather poor taste, but refrained from making any comment because he had immediately realised he was right: Merrick’s appearance, which had hitherto condemned him to a life of ostracism and misery, now permitted him to hobnob with the cream of London society, although it remained to be seen whether or not he considered his various deformities too high a price to pay for rubbing shoulders with the aristocracy.

The same hustle and bustle reigned on the upper floor, but with a few sudden turns down dimly lit corridors, Trêves had guided his guest away from the persistent clamour. Wells followed as he strode along a series of never-ending, increasingly deserted passageways. As they penetrated the furthest reaches of the hospital, the diminishing numbers of patients and nurses clearly related to the wards and surgeries becoming progressively more specialised. However, Wells could not help comparing this gradual extinction of life to the terrible desolation surrounding the monsters’ lairs in children’s fables. All that was needed were a few dead birds and some gnawed bones.

While they walked, Trêves used the opportunity to tell Wells how he had become acquainted with his extraordinary patient. In a detached, even tone that betrayed the tedium he felt at having to repeat the story yet again, Trêves explained he had met Merrick four years earlier, shortly after being appointed head surgeon at the hospital. A circus had pitched its tent on a nearby piece of wasteland, and its main attraction, the Elephant Man, was the talk of all London. If what people said about him was true, he was the most deformed creature on the planet. Trêves knew that circus owners were in the habit of creating freaks with the aid of fake limbs and makeup that were impossible to spot in the gloom, but he also acknowledged that this sort of show was the last refuge for those unfortunate enough to be born with a defect that earned them society’s contempt.

The surgeon had had few expectations when he visited the fair, motivated purely by unavoidable professional curiosity. But there was nothing fake about the Elephant Man. After a rather sorry excuse for a trapeze act, the lights dimmed and the percussion launched into a poor imitation of tribal drumming in an overlong introduction that nevertheless succeeded in giving the audience a sense of trepidation. Trêves watched, astonished, as the fair’s main attraction entered, and saw with his own eyes that the rumours circulating fell far short of reality. The appalling deformities afflicting the creature who dragged himself across the ring had transformed him into a misshapen figure resembling a gargoyle. When the performance was over, Trêves convinced the circus owner to let him meet the creature in private. Once inside his modest wagon, the surgeon thought he was in the presence of an imbecile, convinced the swellings on his head must inevitably have damaged his brain.

But he was mistaken. A few words with Merrick were enough to show Trêves that the hideous exterior concealed a courteous, educated, sensitive being. He explained to the surgeon that he was called the Elephant Man because he had had a fleshy protuberance between his nose and upper lip, a tiny trunk measuring about eight inches. It had made it hard for him to eat and had been unceremoniously removed a few years before. Trêves was moved by his gentleness, and because, despite the hardship and humiliation he had suffered, he apparently bore no resentment towards the humanity Trêves was so quick to despise when he could not get a cab or a box at the theatre.

When the surgeon left the circus an hour later, he had firmly resolved to do everything in his power to take Merrick away from there and offer him a decent life. His reasons were clear: in no other hospital records in the world was there any evidence of a human being with such severe deformities as Merrick’s. Whatever this strange disease was, of all the people in the world, it had chosen to reside in his body alone, transforming the wretched creature into a unique individual, a rare species of butterfly that had to be kept behind glass. Clearly, Merrick must leave the circus in which he was languishing at the earliest opportunity. Little did Trêves know that in order to accomplish the admirable goal he had set himself, he would have to begin a long, arduous campaign that would leave him drained.

He started by presenting Merrick to the Pathology Society, but this led only to its distinguished members subjecting the patient to a series of probing examinations and ended in them becoming embroiled in fruitless, heated debates about the nature of the mysterious illness, which invariably turned into slanging matches where someone would always take the opportunity to try to settle old scores. However, his colleagues’ disarray, far from discouraging Trêves, heartened him: ultimately it underlined the importance of Merrick’s life, making it all the more imperative to remove him from the precarious world of show-business.

His next step had been to try to get him admitted to the hospital where he worked so that he could be easily examined. Unfortunately, hospitals did not provide beds for chronic patients, and consequently, although the management applauded Treves’s idea, their hands were tied. Faced with the hopelessness of the situation, Merrick himself suggested Trêves find him a job as a lighthouse keeper, or some other occupation that would cut him off from the rest of the world.

But Trêves would not admit defeat. Out of desperation, he went to the newspapers and, in a few weeks, managed to move the whole country with the wretched predicament of the fellow they called the Elephant Man. Donations poured in, but Trêves did not only require money: he wanted to give Merrick a decent home. He decided to turn to the only people who were above society’s absurd, hidebound rules: the royal family. He persuaded the Duke of Cambridge and the Princess of Wales to agree to meet the creature. Merrick’s refined manners and extraordinarily gentle nature did the rest. That was how Merrick had come to be a permanent guest in the hospital wing where Trêves and Wells now found themselves.

‘Joseph is happy here,’ declared Trêves, in a suddenly thoughtful voice. ‘The examinations we carry out on him from time to time are fruitless, but that does not seem to worry him. He is convinced his illness was caused by an elephant knocking down his heavily pregnant mother while she was watching a parade. Sadly, Mr Wells, this is a pyrrhic victory. I have found Merrick a home but I am unable to cure his illness. His skull is growing bigger by the day, and I’m afraid that soon his neck will be unable to support the incredible weight of his head.’

Treves’s blunt evocation of Merrick’s death, with the bleak desolation that seemed to permeate that wing of the hospital, plunged Wells into a state of extreme anxiety.

‘I would like his last days to be as peaceful as possible,’ the surgeon went on, oblivious to the pallor spreading over his companion’s face. ‘But apparently this is asking too much. Every night, the locals gather under his window shouting insults at him and calling him names. They even think he is to blame for killing the whores who have been found mutilated in the neighbourhood. Have people gone mad? Merrick couldn’t hurt a fly. I have already mentioned his extraordinary sensibility. Do you know that he devours Jane Austen’s novels? And, on occasion, I’ve even surprised him writing poems. Like you, Mr Wells.’

‘I don’t write poems, I write stories,’ Wells murmured hesitantly, his increasing unease apparently making him doubt everything.

Trêves scowled at him, annoyed that he would want to split hairs over what he considered such an inconsequential subject as literature.

‘That’s why I allow these visits,’ he said, shaking his head regretfully, before resuming where he had left off, ‘because I know they do him a great deal of good. I imagine people come to see him because his appearance makes even the unhappiest souls realise they should thank God. Joseph, on the other hand, views the matter differently. Sometimes I think he derives a sort of twisted amusement from these visits. Every Saturday, he scours the newspapers, then hands me a list of people he would like to invite to tea, and I obligingly forward them his card. They are usually members of the aristocracy, wealthy businessmen, public figures, painters, actors and other more or less well-known artists … People who have achieved a measure of social success and who in his estimation have one last test to pass: confronting him in the flesh. Joseph’s deformities are so hideous they invariably evoke either pity or disgust in those who see him. I imagine he can judge from his guests’ reaction whether they are the kind-hearted type or riddled with fears and anxieties.’

They came to a door at the far end of a long passageway.

‘Here we are,’ said Trêves, plunging for a few moments into a respectful silence. Then he looked Wells in the eye, and added, in a sombre, almost threatening tone: ‘Behind this door waits the most horrific-looking creature you have probably ever seen or will ever see; it is up to you whether you consider him a monster or an unfortunate wretch.’

Wells felt a little faint.

‘It is not too late to turn back. You may not like what you discover about yourself

‘You n-need not w-worry about me,’ stammered Wells.

‘As you wish,’ said Trêves, with the detachment of one washing his hands of the matter. He took a key from his pocket, opened the door and, gently but resolutely, propelled Wells over the threshold.

Wells held his breath as he ventured inside the room. He had taken a couple of faltering steps when he heard the surgeon close the door behind him. He gulped, glancing about the place Trêves had practically hurled him into once he had fulfilled his minor role in the disturbing ceremony. He found himself in a spacious suite of rooms containing various normal pieces of furniture. The ordinariness of the furnishings combined with the soft afternoon light filtering in through the window to create a prosaic, unexpectedly cosy atmosphere that clashed with the image of a monster’s lair. Wells stood transfixed for a few seconds, thinking his host would appear at any moment. When this did not happen, and not knowing what was expected of him, he wandered hesitantly through the rooms. He was immediately overcome by the unsettling feeling that Merrick was spying on him from behind one of the screens, but continued weaving in and out of the furniture, sensing this was another part of the ritual. But nothing he saw gave away the uniqueness of the rooms’ occupant: there were no half-eaten rats strewn about, or the remains of some brave knight’s armour.

In one of the rooms, however, he came across two chairs and a small table laid out for tea. He found this innocent scene still more unsettling, for he could not help comparing it to the gallows awaiting the condemned man in the town square, its joists creaking balefully in the spring breeze.

Then he noticed an intriguing object on a table next to the wall, beneath one of the windows. It was a cardboard model of a church. Wells walked over to marvel at the exquisite craftsmanship. Fascinated by the wealth of detail in the model, he did not at first notice the crooked shadow appearing on the wall: a stiff figure, bent over to the right crowned by an enormous head.

‘It’s the church opposite. I had to make up the parts I can’t see from the window’

The voice had a laboured, slurred quality.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Wells breathed, addressing the lopsided silhouette projected on the wall.

The shadow shook its head with great difficulty, unintentionally revealing to Wells what a struggle it was for Merrick to produce even this simple gesture to play down the importance of his own work. Having completed the arduous movement, he remained silent, stooped over his cane, and Wells realised he could not go on standing there with his back to him. The moment had arrived when he must turn and look his host in the face. Trêves had warned him that Merrick paid special attention to his guests’ initial reaction – the one that arose automatically, almost involuntarily, and which he therefore considered more genuine, more revealing than the faces people hurriedly composed to dissimulate their feelings once they had recovered from the shock. For those few brief moments, Merrick was afforded a rare glimpse into his guests’ souls, and it made no difference how they pretended to act during the subsequent meeting, since their initial reaction had already condemned or redeemed them. Wells was unsure whether Merrick’s appearance would fill him with pity or disgust. Fearing the latter, he clenched his jaw as tightly as he could, tensing his face to prevent it registering any emotion. He did not even want to show surprise, but merely to gain time before his brain could process what he was seeing and reach a logical conclusion about the feelings a creature as apparently deformed as Merrick produced in a person like him. In the end, if he experienced repulsion, he would willingly acknowledge this and reflect on it later, after he had left.

Wells drew a deep breath, planted his feet firmly on the ground, which had dissolved into a soft, quaking mass, and slowly turned to face his host. What he saw made him gasp. Just as Trêves had warned, Merrick’s deformities gave him a terrifying appearance. The photographs Wells had seen of him at the university which mercifully veiled his hideousness behind a blurred gauze, had not prepared him for this. He wore a dark grey suit and was propping himself up with a cane. Ironically, these accoutrements, which were intended to humanise him, only made him look more grotesque.

Teeth firmly clenched, Wells stood stiffly before him, struggling to suppress a physical urge to shudder. He felt as if his heart was about to burst out of his chest and beads of cold sweat trickled down his back, but he could not make out whether these symptoms were caused by horror or pity. Despite the unnatural tension of his facial muscles, he could feel his lips quivering, perhaps as they tried to form a grimace of horror, yet at the same time he noticed tears welling in his eyes so did not know what to think. Their mutual scrutiny went on for ever, and Wells wished he could shed at least one tear that would encapsulate his pain and prove to Merrick, and to himself, that he was a sensitive, compassionate being, but those pricking his eyes refused to brim over.

‘Would you prefer me to wear my hood, Mr Wells?’ asked Merrick, softly.

The strange voice, which gave his words a liquid quality as if they were floating in a muddy brook, struck renewed fear into Wells. Had the time limit Merrick usually put on his guests’ response expired? ‘No … that won’t be necessary’ he murmured.

His host moved his gigantic head laboriously in what Wells assumed was a nod of agreement.

‘Then let us have our tea before it goes cold,’ he said, shuffling to the table in the centre of the room.

Wells did not respond immediately, horrified by the way Merrick was obliged to walk. Everything was an effort for him, he realised, observing the complicated manoeuvres he had to make to sit down. Wells had to suppress an urge to rush over and help him, afraid this gesture usually reserved for the elderly or infirm might upset him. Hoping he was doing the right thing, he sat down as casually as possible in the chair opposite his host. Again, he had to force himself to sit still as he watched Merrick serve the tea. He mostly tried to fulfil this role using his left hand, which was unaffected by the disease, although he still employed the right to carry out minor tasks within the ceremony. Wells could not help but silently admire the extraordinary dexterity with which Merrick was able to take the lid off the sugar bowl or offer him a biscuit with a hand as big and rough as a lump of rock.

‘I’m so glad you were able to come, Mr Wells,’ said Merrick, after he had succeeded in the arduous task of serving the tea without spilling a single drop, ‘because it allows me to tell you in person how much I enjoyed your story.’

‘You are very kind, Mr Merrick,’ replied Wells.

Once it had been published, curious about how little impact it had made, Wells had read and reread it at least a dozen times to try to discover why it had been so completely overlooked. Imbued with a spirit of uncompromising criticism, he had weighed up the plot’s solidity, appraised its dramatic pace, considered the order, appropriateness, and even the number of words he had used, only to regard his first and quite possibly his last work of fiction with the unforgiving, almost contemptuous, eye with which the Almighty might contemplate the tiresome antics of a capuchin monkey. It was clear to him now that the story was a worthless piece of excrement: his writing a shameless imitation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s pseudo-Germanic style, and his main character, Dr Nebogipfel, a poor, unrealistic copy of the exaggerated depictions of mad scientists already to be found in Gothic novels. Nevertheless, he thanked Merrick for his words of praise, smiling with false modesty and fearing they would be the only ones his writings ever received.

‘A time machine …’ said Merrick, delighting in the juxtaposition of words he found so evocative. ‘You have a prophetic imagination, Mr Wells.’

Wells thanked him again for this new and rather embarrassing compliment. How many more eulogies would he have to endure before he asked him to change the subject?

‘If I had a time machine like Dr Nebogipfel’s,’ Merrick went on dreamily, ‘I would travel back to ancient Egypt.’

Wells found the remark touching. Like any other person, this creature had a favourite period in history, as he must have a favourite fruit, season or song. ‘Why is that?’ he asked, with a friendly smile, providing his host with the opportunity to expound on his tastes.

‘Because the Egyptians worshipped gods with animals’ heads,’ replied Merrick, slightly shamefaced.

Wells stared at him stupidly. He was unsure what surprised him more: the naïve yearning in Merrick’s reply or the awkward bashfulness that accompanied it, as though he were chiding himself for wanting such a thing, for preferring to be a god worshipped by men instead of the despised monster he was. If anyone had a right to feel hatred and bitterness towards the world, surely he did. And yet Merrick reproached himself for his sorrow, as though the sunlight through the window-pane warming his back or the clouds scudding across the sky ought to supply reason enough for him to be happy. Lost for words, Wells took a biscuit from the plate and nibbled it with intense concentration, as though he were making sure his teeth still worked.

‘Why do you think Dr Nebogipfel didn’t use his machine to travel into the future as well?’ Merrick then asked, in that unguent voice, which sounded as if it were smeared with butter. ‘Wasn’t he curious? I sometimes wonder what the world will be like in a hundred years.’

‘Indeed …’ murmured Wells, at a loss to respond to this remark, too.

Merrick belonged to that class of reader who was able to forget with amazing ease the hand moving the characters behind the scenes of a novel. As a child Wells had also been able to read in that way. But one day he had decided he would be a writer, and from that moment on he had found it impossible to immerse himself in stories with the same innocent abandon: he was aware that characters’ thoughts and actions were not his. They answered to the dictates of a higher being, to someone who, alone in his room, moved the pieces he himself had placed on the board, more often than not with an overwhelming feeling of indifference that bore no relation to the emotions he intended to arouse in his readers. Novels were not slices of life but more or less controlled creations reproducing slices of imaginary, polished lives, where boredom and the futile, useless acts that make up any existence were replaced with exciting, meaningful episodes. At times, Wells longed to be able to read in that carefree, childlike way again but, having glimpsed behind the scenes, he could only do this with an enormous leap of his imagination. Once you had written your first story there was no turning back. You were a deceiver and you could not help treating other deceivers with suspicion.

It occurred to Wells briefly to suggest that Merrick ask Nebogipfel himself, but he changed his mind, unsure whether his host would take his riposte as the gentle mockery he intended. What if Merrick really was too naïve to tell the difference between reality and a simple work of fiction? What if this sad inability and not his sensitivity allowed him to experience the stories he read so intensely? If so, Well’s rejoinder would sound like a cruel jibe, aimed at wounding his ingenuousness. Fortunately, Merrick fired another question at him, which was easier to answer: ‘Do you think somebody will one day invent a time machine?’

‘I doubt such a thing could exist,’ replied Wells, bluntly.

‘And yet you’ve written about it!’ his host exclaimed, horrified.

‘That’s precisely why, Mr Merrick,’ he explained, trying to think of a simple way to bring together the various ideas underlying his conception of literature. ‘I assure you that if it were possible to build a time machine I would never have written about it. I am only interested in writing about what is impossible.’

At this, he recalled a quote from Lucian of Samosata’s True Histories, which he could not help memorising because it perfectly summed up his thoughts on literature: ‘I write about things I have neither seen nor verified nor heard about from others and, in addition, about things that have never existed and could have no possible basis for existing.’ Yes, as he had told his host, he was only interested in writing about things that were impossible. Dickens was there to take care of the rest, he thought of adding, but did not. Trêves had told him Merrick was an avid reader. He did not want to risk offending him if Dickens happened to be one of his favourite authors.

‘Then I’m sorry that because of me you’ll never be able to write about a man who is half human, half elephant,’ murmured Merrick.

Once more, Wells was disarmed. After he had spoken, Merrick’s gaze wandered to the window. Wells was unsure whether the gesture was meant to express regret or to give him the opportunity to study Merrick’s appearance as freely as he wished. In any case, Wells’s eyes were unconsciously, irresistibly, almost hypnotically drawn to him, confirming what he already knew full well – that Merrick was right: if he had not seen him with his own eyes, he would never have believed such a creature could exist. Except, perhaps, in the fictional world of books.

‘You will be a great writer, Mr Wells,’ his host declared, continuing to stare out of the window.

‘I wish I could agree,’ replied Wells, who, following his first failed attempt, was entertaining serious doubts about his abilities.

Merrick turned to face him. ‘Look at my hands, Mr Wells,’ he said, holding them out. ‘Would you believe that these hands could make a church out of cardboard?’

Wells gazed at his host’s mismatched hands. The right was enormous and grotesque while the left looked like that of a ten-year-old girl. ‘I suppose not,’ he admitted.

Merrick nodded slowly. ‘It is a question of will, Mr Wells,’ he said, striving for a tone of authority. ‘That’s all.’

Coming from anyone else’s mouth these words might have struck Wells as trite, but uttered by the man in front of him they became an irrefutable truth. This creature was living proof that man’s will could move mountains and part seas. In that hospital wing, a refuge from the world, the distance between the attainable and the unattainable was more than ever a question of will. If Merrick had built that cardboard church with his deformed hands, what might not he, Wells, be capable of? He was only prevented from doing whatever he wanted by his lack of self-belief

He could not help agreeing, which seemed to please Merrick, judging from the way he fidgeted in his seat. In an embarrassed voice, Merrick went on to confess that the model was to be a gift for a stage actress with whom he had been corresponding for several months. He referred to her as Mrs Kendall, and from what Wells could gather she was one of his most generous benefactors. He had no difficulty in picturing her as woman of good social standing, sympathetic to the suffering of the world, so long as they were not on her doorstep. She had discovered in the Elephant Man a novel way of spending the money she usually donated to charity. When Merrick explained that he was looking forward to meeting her in person when she returned from her tour in America, Wells could not help smiling, touched by the amorous note that, consciously or not, had slipped into his voice. But at the same time he felt a pang of sorrow, and hoped Mrs Kendall’s work would delay her in America so that Merrick could go on believing in the illusion of her letters and not be faced with the discovery that impossible love was only possible in books.

After they had finished their tea, Merrick offered Wells a cigarette, which he courteously accepted. They rose from their seats and went to the window to watch the sunset. For a few moments, the two men stood staring down at the street and at the façade of the church opposite, every inch of which Merrick must have been familiar with. People came and went, a pedlar with a handcart hawked his wares, and carriages trundled over the uneven cobblestones strewn with foul-smelling dung from the hundreds of horses going by each day. Wells watched Merrick gazing at the frantic bustle with almost reverential awe. He appeared to be lost in thought.

‘You know something, Mr Wells?’ he said finally. ‘I can’t help feeling sometimes that life is like a play in which I’ve been given no part. If you only knew how much I envy all those people …’

‘I can assure you, you have no reason to envy them, Mr Merrick,’ Wells replied abruptly. ‘Those people you see are specks of dust. Nobody will remember who they were or what they did after they die. You, however, will go down in history.’

Merrick appeared to mull over his words, as he studied his misshapen reflection in the window-pane.

‘Do you think that gives me any comfort?’ he asked mournfully.

‘It ought to,’ replied Wells, ‘for the time of the ancient Egyptians has long since passed, Mr Merrick.’

His host did not reply. He continued staring down at the street, but Wells found it impossible to judge from his expression, frozen by the disease into a look of permanent rage, what effect his words, a little blunt perhaps but necessary, had had on him. He could not stand by while the other wallowed in his own tragedy. He was convinced Merrick’s only comfort could come from his deformity, which, although it had marginalised him, had also made him a singular being.

‘No doubt you are right, Mr Wells,’ Merrick said, continuing to gaze at his reflection. ‘One should probably resign oneself to not expecting too much of this world we live in, where people fear anyone who is different. Sometimes I think that if an angel were to appear before a priest he would probably shoot it.’

‘I suppose that is true,’ observed Wells, the writer in him excited by the image his host had just evoked. And, seeing Merrick still caught up in his reflections, he decided to take his leave. ‘Thank you so much for the tea, Mr Merrick.’

‘Wait,’ replied Merrick. ‘There’s something I want to give you.’ He shuffled over to a small cupboard and rummaged around inside it for a few moments until he found what he had been looking for. Wells was puzzled to see him pull out a wicker basket. ‘When I told Mrs Kendall I had always dreamed of being a basket-maker, she employed a man to come and teach me,’ Merrick explained, cradling the object in his hands as though it were a new-born infant, or a bird’s nest. ‘He was a kindly, mild-mannered fellow, who had a workshop on Pennington Street, near the London docks. From the very beginning he treated me as though my looks were no different from his. But when he saw my hands, he told me I could never manage delicate work like basket-weaving. He was very sorry, but we would evidently be wasting our time. Yet striving to achieve a dream is never a waste of time, is it, Mr Wells? “Show me,” I told him. “Only then will we know whether you are right or not.”’

Wells contemplated the perfect piece of wickerwork Merrick was cupping in his deformed hands.

‘I’ve made many more since then, and have given some away to my guests. But this one is special, because it is the first I ever made. I would like you to have it, Mr Wells,’ he said, presenting him with the basket, ‘to remind you that everything is a question of will.’

‘Thank you,’ stammered Wells, touched. ‘I am honoured, Mr Merrick, truly honoured.’

He smiled warmly as he said goodbye, and walked towards the door.

‘One more question, Mr Wells,’ he heard Merrick say behind him.

Wells turned to look at him, hoping he was not going to ask for the accursed Nebogipfel’s address so that he could send him a basket, too.

‘Do you believe that the same God made us both?’ Merrick asked, with more frustration than regret.

Wells repressed a sigh of despair. What could he say to this? He was weighing up various possible replies when, all of a sudden, Merrick emitted a strange sound, as if a cough or grunt had convulsed his body from head to foot, threatening to shake him apart at the seams. Wells listened, alarmed, as the loud, hacking sound continued to rise uncontrollably from his throat, until he realised what was happening. There was nothing seriously wrong with Merrick: he was laughing.

‘It was a joke, Mr Wells, only a joke,’ he explained, cutting short his rasping chortle as he became aware of his guest’s startled response. ‘Whatever would become of me if I was unable to laugh at my own appearance?’

Without waiting for Wells to reply, he walked towards his work table, and sat in front of the model of the church.

‘Whatever would become of me?’ Wells heard him mutter, in a tone of profound melancholy. ‘Whatever would become of me?’

Wells watched him concentrate on his clumsy hands sculpting the cardboard and was seized by a feeling of deep sympathy. He found it impossible to believe Treves’s theory that this remarkably innocent, gentle creature invited public figures to tea to submit them to some sinister test. On the contrary, he was convinced that all Merrick wanted from this limited intimacy was a few meagre crumbs of warmth and sympathy. It was far more likely that Trêves had attributed him with those motives to unnerve guests to whom he took a dislike, or possibly to make allowances for Merrick’s extreme naivety by crediting him with a guile he did not possess. Or perhaps, thought Wells, who had no illusions about the sincerity of man’s motives, the surgeon’s intentions were still more selfish and ambitious: perhaps he wanted to show people that he was the only one who understood the soul of the creature to whom he clung desperately in the knowledge that he would be guaranteed a place beside him in history.

Wells was irritated by the idea of Trêves taking advantage of Merrick’s face being a terrifying mask he could never take off, a mask that could never express his true emotions, in order to attribute to him whatever motives he wished, in the knowledge that no one but Merrick could ever refute them. And now that Wells had heard him laugh, he wondered whether the so-called Elephant Man had not in fact been smiling at him from the moment he stepped into the room, a warm, friendly smile intended to soothe the discomfort his appearance produced in his guests, a smile no one would ever see.

As he left the room, he felt a tear roll down his cheek.