The Dead Immortal

: The Blue Germ

When I reached home, Sarakoff was out. He had left a message to say he

would not be in until after midnight, as he was going to hear Leonora

sing at the opera, and purposed to take her to supper afterwards. Dinner

was therefore a solitary meal for me, and when it was all over I

endeavoured to plunge into some medical literature. The hours passed

slowly. It was almost impossible to read, for the process, to me, was

simi ar to trying to take an interest in a week-old newspaper.



The thought of the bacillus made the pages seem colourless; it dwarfed

all meaning in the words. I gave up the attempt and set myself to

smoking and gazing into the fire. What was I to do about Alice?



Midnight came and my mind was still seething. I knew sleep was out of

the question and the desire to walk assailed me. I put on a coat and

hat and left the house. It was a cold night, clear with stars. Harley

Street was silent. My footsteps led me south towards the river. I walked

rapidly, oblivious of others. The problem of Alice was beyond solution,

for the simple reason that I found it impossible to think of her

clearly. She was overshadowed by the wonder of the bacillus. But the

picture of her father haunted me. It filled me with strange emotions,

and at moments with stranger misgivings.



There are meanings, dimly caught at the time, which remain in the mind

like blind creatures, mewing and half alive. They pluck at the brain

ceaselessly, seeking birth in thought. Old Annot's face peering into the

hall mirror--what was it that photographed the scene so pitilessly in my

memory? I hurried along, scarcely noticing where I went, and as I went I

argued with myself aloud.



On the Embankment I returned to a full sense of my position in space.

The river ran beneath me, cold and dark. I leaned over the stone

balustrade and stared at the dark forms of barges. Yes, it was true

enough that I had not realized that the germ would keep Mr. Annot alive

indefinitely. Sarakoff's significant whistle that morning came to my

mind, and I saw that I had been guilty of singular denseness in not

understanding its meaning.



And now old Annot would live on and on, year after year. Was I glad? It

is impossible to say. It was that expression in the old man's face that

dominated me. I tried to think it out. It had been a triumphant look;

and more than that ... a triumphant toothless look. Was that the

solution? I reflected that triumph is an expression that belongs to

youth, to young things, to all that is striving upwards in growth.

Surely old people should look only patient and resigned--never

triumphant--in this world? Some strong action with regard to Alice's

position would be necessary. It was absurd to think that her father

should eternally come between her and me. It would be necessary to go

down to Cambridge and make a clean confession to Alice. And then, when

forgiven, I would insist on an immediate arrangement concerning our

marriage. Marriage! The word vibrated in my soul. The solemnity of that

ceremony was great enough to mere mortals, but what would it mean to us

when we were immortals? Sarakoff had hinted at a new marriage system.

Was such a thing possible? On what factors did marriage rest? Was it

merely a discipline or was it ultimately selfishness?





My agitation increased, and I hurried eastwards, soon entering an area

of riverside London that, had I been calmer, might have given me some

alarm. It must have been about two o'clock in the morning when the

pressure of thoughts relaxed in my mind. I found myself in the great

dock area. The forms of giant cranes rose dimly in the air. A distant

glare of light, where nightshifts were at work, illuminated the huge

shapes of ocean steamers. The quays were littered with crates and bales.

A clanking of buffers and the shrill whistles of locomotives came out of

the darkness. For some time I stood transfixed. In my imagination I saw

these big ships, laden with cargo, slipping down the Thames and out into

the sea, carrying with them an added cargo to every part of the earth.

For by them would the Blue Germ travel over the waterways of the world

and enter every port. From the ports it would spread swiftly into the

towns, and from the towns onwards across plain and prairie until the

gift of Immortality had been received by every human being. The vision

thrilled me....



A commotion down a side street on my right shattered this glorious

picture. Hoarse cries rang out, and a sound of blows. I could make out a

small dark struggling mass which seemed to break into separate parts and

then coalesce again. A police whistle sounded. The mass again broke up,

and some figures came rushing down the street in my direction. They

passed me in a flash, and vanished. At the far end of the street two

twinkling lights appeared. After a period of hesitation--what doctor

goes willingly into the accidents of the streets?--I walked slowly in

their direction.



When I reached them I found two policemen bending over the body of a

man, which lay in the gutter face downwards.



"Good evening," I said. "Can I be of any service? I am a doctor."



They shone their lamps on me suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"



"Walking," I replied. Exercise had calmed me. I felt cool and collected.

"I often walk far at nights. Let me see the body."



I stooped down and turned the body over. The policemen watched me in

silence. The body was that of a young, fair-haired sailor man. There was

a knife between his ribs. His eyes were screwed up into a rigid state of

contraction which death had not yet relaxed. His whole body was rigid. I

knew that the knife had pierced his heart. But the most extraordinary

thing about him was his expression. I have never looked on a face either

in life or death that expressed such terror. Even the policemen were

startled. The light of their lamps shone on that monstrous and distorted

countenance, and we gazed in horrified silence.



"Is he dead?" asked one at last.



"Quite dead," I replied, "but it is odd to find this rigidity so early."

I began to press his eyelids apart. The right eye opened. I uttered a

cry of astonishment.



"Look!" I cried.



They stared.



"Blest if that ain't queer," said one. "It's that Blue Disease. He must

'ave come from Birmingham."



"Queer?" I said passionately. "Why, man, it's tragedy--unadulterated

tragedy. The man was an Immortal."



They stared at me heavily.



"Immortal?" said one.



"He would have lived for ever," I said. "In his system there is the most

marvellous germ that the world has ever known. It was circulating in his

blood. It had penetrated to every part of his body. A few minutes ago,

as he walked along the dark street, he had before him a future of

unnumbered years. And now he lies in the gutter. Can you imagine a

greater tragedy?"



The policemen transferred their gaze from me to the dead man. Then, as

if moved by a common impulse, they began to laugh. I watched them

moodily, plunged in an extraordinary vein of thought. When I moved away

they at once stopped me.



"No, you don't," said one. "We'll want you at the police station to give

your evidence. Not," he continued with a grin, "to tell that bit of

information you just gave us, about him being an angel or something."



"I didn't say he was an angel."



They laughed tolerantly. Like Mr. Clutterbuck, they thought I was mad.



"Let's hope he's an angel," said the other. "But, by his face, he looks

more like the other thing. Bill, you go round for the ambulance. I'll

stay with the gentleman."



The policeman moved away ponderously and vanished in the darkness.



"What was that you were saying, sir?" asked the policeman who remained

with me.



"Never mind," I muttered, "you wouldn't understand."



"I'm interested in religious matters," continued the policeman in a soft

voice. "You think that the Blue Disease is something out of the common?"



I am never surprised at London policemen, but I looked at this one

closely before I replied.



"You seem a reasonable man," I said. "Let me tell you that what I have

told you about the germ--that it confers immortality--is correct. In a

day or two you will be immortal."



He seemed to reflect in a calm massive way on the news. His eyes were

fixed on the dead man's face.



"An Immortal Policeman?"



"Yes."



"You're asking me to believe a lot, sir."



"I know that. But still, there it is. It's the truth."



"And what about crime?" he continued. "If we were all Immortals, what

about crime?"



"Crime will become so horrible in its meaning that it will stop."



"It hasn't stopped yet...."



"Of course not. It won't, till people realize they are immortal."



He shifted his lantern and shone it down the road.



"Well, sir, it seems to me it will be a long time before people realize

that. In fact, I don't see how anyone could ever realize it."



"Why not?"



"Just think," he said, with a large air. "Supposing crime died out, what

would happen to the Sunday papers? Where would those lawyers be? What

would we do with policemen? No, you can't realize it. You can't realize

the things you exist for all vanishing. It's not human nature." He

brooded for a time. "You can't do away with crime," he continued.

"What's behind crime? Woman and gold--one or the other, or both. Now you

don't mean to tell me, sir, that the Blue Disease is doing away with

women and gold in a place like Birmingham? Why, sir, what made

Birmingham? What do you suppose life is?"



"I have never been asked the question before by a policeman," I said. "I

do not know what made Birmingham, but I will tell you what life is. It

is ultimately a cell, containing protoplasm and a nucleus."



A low rumbling noise began somewhere in his vast bulk. It gradually

increased to a roar. I became aware that he was laughing. He held his

sides. I thought his shining belt would burst. At length his hilarity

slowly subsided, and he became sober. He surveyed the dead body at his

feet.



"No, sir," he said, "don't you believe it. Life is women and gold. It

always was that, and it always will be." He shone his lamp downwards so

that the light fell on the terrible features of the dead sailor. "Now

this man, sir, was killed because of money, I'll wager. And behind the

money I reckon you'll find a woman." He mused for a time. "Not

necessarily a pretty woman, but a woman of some sort."



"How do you account for that look of fear on his face?"



"I couldn't say. I've never seen anything like it. I've seen a lot of

dead faces, but they are usually quiet enough, as if they were asleep.

But I'll tell you one thing, sir, that I have noticed, and that is that

money--which includes diamonds and such like, makes a man die worse and

more bitter than anything else."



He turned his lantern down the street. A sound of wheels reached us.



"That's the ambulance."



"Will you really require me at the police station?" I asked.



"Yes."



"Will it be necessary to prove who I am?"



He smiled.



"You won't need to prove that you're a doctor, sir," he said genially.

"We have a lot to do with doctors. I could tell you were a doctor after

talking a minute with you. You are all the same."



"What do you mean?"



"Well--it's the things you say. Now only a doctor could have said what

you did--about life being a cell. Do you know, sir, I sometimes believe

that doctors is more innocent than parsons. It's the things they

say...."



The low rumbling began again in his interior. I waited silently until

the ambulance came up. I felt a slight shade of annoyance. But how could

I expect the enormous uneducated bulk beside me to take a really

intelligent and scientific view of life? Of course life was a cell.

Every educated person knew that--and now that cell was, for the first

time in history, about to become immortal--but what did the policeman

care? How stupid people were, I reflected. We moved off in a small

procession towards the police station. Half an hour later I was on my

way west, deeply pondering on the causes of that extraordinary

expression of fear in the dead sailor's face. Never in my life before

had I seen so agonized a countenance, but I was destined to see others

as terrible. As I walked, the strangeness of the dead man's tragedy

grew in my mind and filled me with a tremendous wonder, for who had ever

seen a dead Immortal?



On reaching home I roused Sarakoff and related to him what I had seen.