The Rue Huchette is a very narrow street near the river. Here we found a small rather noisy hotel, considering the hour. The waiter of a nearby café was setting out chairs and tables on the cobbles, so I sat while Bella went to investigate.
She soon returned without the luggage and in high spirits. A room would be ready for us in an hour; also the manageress, though the widow of a Frenchman, had been born in London and spoke fluent Cockney. She had invited Bella to wait in her office, and as it was very small would I like to sit where I was? I could wait in a foyer if I preferred, but the foyers too were very small, many overnight customers were about to leave and might tumble over me. In a dolorous voice I said I would wait outside, hiding my delight at the first chance since our elopement to be without Bella in the open air. She smiled so brightly as she whisked back into the hotel that I nearly believed she was as glad to be rid of me.
From the waiter I ordered coffee, a croissant and a cognac. These gave me courage. At last I felt strong enough to open and read the letter I had received in Gibraltar along with the money order from the Clydesdale and North of Scotland Bank. I knew that letter, addressed to me in my mother’s hand, would be full of bitter and just reproaches: reproaches I could never have faced without brandy in my guts and NO BELLA beside me, for Bella would never have left me in peace to stew in the remorse and misery I so richly deserved. Almost luxuriously I tore open the envelope and winced over its contents.
The news was more terrible than I had feared. Mother was nearly destitute. She could only afford to keep two servants now, Auld Jessy and the cook. With these two I had first discovered the pleasures of love, but they were now long past their best. Auld Jessy had grown so doddery we had meant to send her to the poor-house after Christmas. Cook was now a dipsomaniac. These served mother without pay because nobody else would give them house-room. Less tragic but more poignant was the fact that my frail lovely mother, a lonely widow of forty-six years, could no longer order clothes from London and Edinburgh, but must shop for them herself, in Glasgow. Guilt and rage brought me panting to my feet — mainly rage against Bella, for what had she done with all my money? Without thinking I strode forward down a lane like a corridor, grinding my teeth at the memory of my sufferings in the grip of that gorgeous monster.
Was it the Hand of God that steered me over that busy bridge then stopped me short before the open door of the great Cathedral? I think it was. I had never entered a Roman Catholic edifice before. What trembling hope drew me into this one?
I saw receding aisles of mighty pillars like avenues of titanic stone trees upholding an overarching dimness; I heard a glorious blast of Honestly, McCandless, his style is so sickeningly derivative that I will summarize what follows. Duncan Doubleyou has never prayed to God before but decides he’ll have a go because others are doing it here. He drops a centime into a box through a slit in the lid; lights a candle; sticks it on a spike before an altar; kneels down with tight shut eyes and tells The First Mover of All Things that Duncan Doubleyou is evil wicked rotten and wrong mainly because of Bad Bell Baxter, so please send help. Suddenly the world feels brighter. Wedderburn, opening eyes, sees sunlight beaming in on him through stained-glass window behind altar; rays through a heart-shaped crimson pane are casting a bright pink shadow on the bosom of Duncan Doubleyou’s white silk fashionable waistcoat. A personal telegram to Duncan Doubleyou from The Prime Mover? DW’s first reaction is Protestant. He wants to go somewhere private and think it over, a small intimate place with a seat and a lock on the door where he can be safe from interruption. He sees a row of cubicles with ordinary folk going in and out, each door with an indicator saying if vacant or engaged. He bolts himself into a vacancy which of course proves to be a confessional box. If I tell you that the padre behind the grille spoke English, can you guess what happened then, McCandless?”
“Not exactly.”
“Wedderburn wants to confess all his sins from the age of five (when Auld Jessy taught him masturbation) to half an hour earlier when Bella booked him into what sounded like a brothel. He also wants professional advice on the value of the Sacred Heart telegram just got from God. Priest says all who pray before that shrine get that telegram when the sun shines from a certain direction, and the message is always good if properly read. Priest says he cannot absolve Monsieur Doubleyou of his sins because Monsieur is a heretic or pagan, but if Monsieur Doubleyou will give a five-minute précis of the sins which now so afflict him, priest will give him a straight opinion. Out pours the story. Priest tells Monsieur Doubleyou to marry Bella and go home to his mother or leave Bella and go home to his mother or rot in Hell. Priest advises Monsieur Doubleyou to take instruction in the Catholic Faith when he returns to Glasgow and now Adieu Monsieur, I will pray for your soul. Wedderburn steps into the street where the sunlight shone on me like a benediction, for I felt that a hideous burden had fallen from my shoulders et cetera. In other words, he at last discovers he is sick and tired of Bella. Back to the hotel then! Bella is unpacking in the bedroom. ‘Stop!’ cries Wedderburn, and tells her he must return to Glasgow and WORK, but he cannot take her with him unless she returns as his wife. She says cheerfully, ‘That’s all right Wedder, I want to see a bit more of Paris,’ packs his things into one of the cases and gives him money for the fare home. He says, ‘Is that all?’ She says, ‘It’s all that’s left of your money, but if you need more I’ll give you what God gave me.’ She takes out her sewing-scissors, unstitches the lining of her travelling-coat, removes £500 in Bank of England notes and gives it to him saying, ‘That is to pay for all the fun you gave me. You deserve a lot more, but this is all I have. Still, it’s quite a lot, and God gave it to me because he said something like this would happen with you.’
“I now return to the letter, McCandless. Wedderburn’s description of how he acted on hearing that I knew of his elopement before it happened is of great clinical interest.”
As my brain tried at once to grasp and repel the hideous meaning of her words I came to know what madness is. Writhing my head from shoulder to shoulder and mouthing as if biting the air or silently screaming I retreated into a corner and slowly sank to the floor, frantically punching at the space around my head as if boxing with a loathsome and swarming antagonist like huge wasps or carnivorous bats; yet I knew these vermin were not really outside but INSIDE my brain and gnawing, gnawing. They gnaw there still. Bella must have called in her new friend, the manageress, but my madness multiplied these two into a jabbering crowd of dishevelled women of every age and shape, their scanty clothing displaying their sexual charms to the full as they flooded vengefully over me like all the serving-women I have ever seduced. And Bella seemed one of them! With their strong soft limbs they bound my limbs and body as tight as a baby in swaddling bands. They poured brandy down my throat. I grew stupid and passive. Bella took me by cab to the Gare du Nord, bought a ticket, put it in my waistcoat pocket, told me which other pockets held money and passport, placed me and my luggage in a train, and all the time she poured out a maddening stream of soothing chat: “—poor Wedder, poor old lad, I’ve been bad for you, I’ve over-tired you, I bet you are glad to be going home to your mother’s house and a nice long rest, think of the money you will save, but we had some good times together, I don’t regret a moment of it, I’m sure there is not a better athlete and sportsman than Duncan Wedderburn in the whole wide world but do tell God I want the candle soon do you remember our first night in the train?” et cetera, and when the train moved from the station she ran along the platform beside it shouting through the window, “GIVE MY LOVE TO BONNY SCOTLAND!”