En route!
She’s gone! at a quarter to two in the morning, dressed to the nines, in fine array!
It was dark in the streets, as I’ve said, just a small camouflaged street-light here and there around the crossings.
We go back to sleep again, good-by!.. We’d opened the window to let out the smells, we stopped bothering about the old guy, he was choking comfortably!.. Time passed!.. Sleep, it’s easy to say.. First my ear wakes me up.. buzzings, jets of steam… I go back to sleep.. the nightmare gets me again. I’m awakened four or five times in a row!
Ah! it’s bad!.. I toss! I turn!.. twist around. two hours pass like that.. finally just about… a racket at the door.. it’s Delphine. she’s calling. There she is again!. back again!. Ah! the old hag!. All I needed!. I wanted to go back to sleep. She was in a stew!. I’m telling the truth.. Half-nuts!.. terrified!.. shivering!. out of breath!. wildlooking!
"Ah! Gentlemen!.. Gentlemen!”
She couldn’t get it out!
She was panting!
“If you’d seen that face! ”
“What face?” we ask her.
“The man’s face! ”
"Whose face?” we insist.
“The one who gave them to me.”
"Gave what?”
"The cigarettes!”
She opens her hand.. cigarettes stuck together, gummy.. in green paper, pasty..
She starts puffing again, then she explains.. she finally gets it out.. Here’s the story.. Right at the exit of the tunnel, at the Embankment. after Wapping, a man had fallen on her, just like that!.. Plunk!.. from above!.. A dark little man!.. He’d sort of tumbled down on her from the very top of the lamppost! right on her hat!. They’d rolled over one another in the tunnel! Luckily he wasn’t heavy! not at all heavy! She hadn’t been hurt at all! Fortunately! What luck!. The little man was light.. Like a kind of bag of bones!. light!.. light!.. A real bag of bones!.. He was even rattling all over while she was tussling and struggling with him!. When they’d both got to their feet the tussle continued.. The little man’s arms were like sticks.. She’d noticed that right away.. and she’d yelled! but it hadn’t done any good! There’d been no one around! Wapping Alley! just imagine!
And that wasn’t all!. The man had spoken to her!. That terrible bony ruffian! She remembered his words! not as crazy as that!. She even imitated him!. In a nasal voice, like that… in a queer kind of English besides.. She thought it was rather Scotch.. He certainly wasn’t from London..
"Don’t be frightened, pretty Delphine!” that was what he said. ‘‘I shall be the angel of your big love!”. his very words. *‘I wish you all the luck in the world!. I want to save your dear Claben!.. My gentle dove, won’t you make him smoke these magic leaves?.. Here you see them rolled up preciously ready for use in these lovely water-colored petals!
Let him inhale the three elements!. Fire!. wind!.. smoke!. How intoxicating to smell them!. Run! Run!.. Run, gentle Delphine!.. Go back to his bedside quickly!.. Don’t go any farther!.. I am the Sky Physician!.. The Magus of souls!. I can give breath to the dying!. Don’t go getting lost in the city! Don’t let yourself be lead astray by the spells of the Cloven Hoof!.. The devil is a sprite to mad maidens! Be careful, Delphine! Be careful!. The charm of the air!”
Smoke!.. Smoke!.. hardly had he uttered these words than he shriveled up, curled on the sidewalk.. there beneath her eyes!.. a piece of rag right under the lamppost!. and then nothing at all!. it hadn’t lasted long!. She’d dashed straight ahead!.. double-quick time!.. He kept shriveling as he spoke. she was still telling about it. he was curling up. finally just a tiny ball!. there under the light!. a little heap of rags!. then nothing at all!. Ah! she hadn’t shillyshallied! she’d dashed straight off! her skirts under her arms! her belly absolutely to the ground! gone back under the Thames! taken the tunnel of the depths!. She arrived home spluttering, all pooped, knocked out by the running! He was a little man all dressed in black!. That was all she knew about him… He was full of bones, supposedly. pointy everywhere..
Some hell of a story! The way he’d thrown himself on her! Plop! from the lamppost!. swooped down on her!. right at the Tunnel exit!.. with all his weight!. not heavy! just bones!. sure of that! positive!..
All the same he was strong in spite of his being so light! struggle as she did, he’d kept her in his arms!. in his bony embrace!.. covered her with kisses at the same time! and then right away the cigarettes!.. "Here, Delphine!’’. his hand full of them.. There were the cigarettes!.. no denying it!. sticky, gummy, green.. She lifted her veil to get a good look at them. there on the table. and it wasn’t an illusion!.. She couldn’t get over it!.. There was even a bit of bone with the butts!. a tiny yellow piece! A bonelet!. Ah! it was beyond dispute!.. and then the words he had uttered.. "Oh, Delphine! I’m your friend! Your friend! The Sky Physician!” She kept repeating it to us. "Your friend!. The Sky Physician! ”… His very words!..
We tried to figure it out. who could it have been? all three of us. maybe it was a vampire?. maybe a priest?.. maybe it was a German disguised as an eccentric?… a funambulist? a ghost?. some practical joker?.. But we really knew nothing!. We sniffed at the cigarettes. They had a queer smell!. not at all the smell of tobacco. rather like honey and sulphur… a mixture.. really not a tempting aroma.. But it got the old guy at once. Naturally! his taste!. He wanted to sniff at them over and over!.. Kept sticking his nose into them without a stop!.. pushing his whole face into them. stuffing them up his nostrils!. a real infatuation on the spot.. Then he wanted to chew them.. that seemed to do him good… I must say it might have worked.. Both of us tried. with a drop of cognac! but smoking them was another matter!. The dark man had told her! Ah! he’d warned her and kept repeating! that it cured the sick but would kill a healthy man outright!. Ah! no mistake! any healthy man! That left us a little puzzled.. All the same chewing made us awfully thirsty.. There was some gin in the cupboard.. more gin! it’s refreshing with water.. We tossed off a whole bottle!
and then a whole bottle of cider with it at the same time! first-class cider!. with kirsch in it!.. there goes the old boy drinking!.. That does him even more good!.. Ah, now were getting all nervous. We start arguing again! We’ve got to make up our minds!.. whether we smoke these phenomenal butts or not?… the sky weeds, God damn it!.. That’s the word for it!.. We stood there in a muddle..
Boro starts tearing one open!. he stuffs it into his pipe.. lights up… it was burning all right… It smelled all right as smoke. I wanted to try, too. it might be good for The Horror. We were always thinking about his good… it resembled eucalyptus in a way… he always smoked a lot of eucalyptus. the poor guy.. Immediately we all take a puff. then two. then three. The old guy’s inhaling the smoke all the way down. he swallows it. ours too. he’s inhaling everything… it seems to be working.. he’s breathing better.. it eases him!
"Feeling grand, boys! Feeling grand!”
He’s feeling high.. and letting us know.. Suddenly I’m happy with him..
"It’s going to my head!. I’m woozy!. I feel just delightful!”
Those were my words after about ten minutes… I remember exactly!. And then I felt like vomiting. not much, just an idea… I held it in. Plain nausea… It sure went to your head… It came out of your eyes. like sniveling. Boro said he wasn’t seeing straight either..
"You’re double!” he says to me. "You’re double, fathead!”
The Horror was getting high!.. He was inhaling more than we were… he was jumping around in his furs. He was more comfortable, too… He was lying down… it was getting him real hot. He was jumping on the bed. He was getting all passionate. even while choking away. He grabs hold of