The Idiot

IX

Break­fast was very near­ly over, and it was of such ex­cep­tion­al­ly good qual­ity that very few re­marks had been made. Fi­nal­ly the ball was set rolling by the Lawyer.

“How many packs of cigarettes do you smoke a day?” he asked, as the Id­iot took one from his pock­et and placed it at the side of his cof­fee-​cup.

“Nev­er more than forty-​six,” said the Id­iot. “Why? Do you think of start­ing a cigarette stand?”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Brief. “I was on­ly won­der­ing what chance you had to live to ma­tu­ri­ty, that's all. Your ma­tu­ri­ty pe­ri­od will be in about eight hun­dred and six­ty years from now, the way I cal­cu­late, and it seemed to me that, judg­ing from the num­ber of cigarettes you smoke, you were not like­ly to last through more than two or three of those years.”

“Oh, I ex­pect to live longer than that,” said the Id­iot. “I think I'm good for at least four years. Don't you, Doc­tor?”

“I de­cline to have any­thing to say about your case,” re­tort­ed the Doc­tor, whose feel­ing to­wards the Id­iot was not sur­pass­ing­ly af­fec­tion­ate.

“In that event I shall prob­ably live five years more,” said the Id­iot.

The Doc­tor's lip curled, but he re­mained silent.

“You'll live,” put in Mr. Ped­agog, with a chuck­le. “The good die young.”

“How did you hap­pen to keep alive all this time then, Mr. Ped­agog?” asked the Id­iot.

“I have al­ways es­chewed to­bac­co in ev­ery form, for one thing,” said Mr. Ped­agog.

“I am sur­prised,” put in the Id­iot. “That's re­al­ly a bad habit, and I mar­vel great­ly that you should have done it.”

The School-​Mas­ter frowned, and looked at the Id­iot over the rims of his glass­es, as was his wont when he was in­tent up­on get­ting ex­pla­na­tions.

“Done what?” he asked, severe­ly.

“Chewed to­bac­co,” replied the Id­iot. “You just said that one of the things that has kept you lin­ger­ing in this vale of tears was that you have al­ways chewed to­bac­co. I nev­er did that, and I nev­er shall do it, be­cause I deem it a de­testable di­ver­sion.”

“I didn't say any­thing of the sort,” re­tort­ed Mr. Ped­agog, get­ting red in the face. “I nev­er said that I chewed to­bac­co in any form.”

“Oh, come!” said the Id­iot, with well-​feigned im­pa­tience, “what's the use of talk­ing that way? We all heard what you said, and I have no doubt that it came as a shock to ev­ery mem­ber of this as­sem­blage. It cer­tain­ly was a shock to me, be­cause, with all my weak­ness­es and bad habits, I think to­bac­co-​chew­ing un­ut­ter­ably bad. The worst part of it is that you chew it in ev­ery form. A man who chews chew­ing-​to­bac­co on­ly may some time throw off the habit, but when one gets to be such a vic­tim to it that he chews up cigars and cigarettes and plugs of pipe to­bac­co, it seems to me he is in­cur­able. It is not on­ly a bad habit then; it amounts to a vice.”

Mr. Ped­agog was get­ting apoplec­tic. “You know well enough that I nev­er said the words you at­tribute to me,” he said, stern­ly.

“Re­al­ly, Mr. Ped­agog,” re­turned the Id­iot, with an ir­ri­tat­ing shake of his head, as if he were con­fi­den­tial­ly hint­ing to the School-​Mas­ter to keep qui­et--“re­al­ly you pain me by these fu­tile de­nials. No­body forced you in­to the con­fes­sion. You made it en­tire­ly of your own vo­li­tion. Now I ask you, as a man and broth­er, what's the use of say­ing any­thing more about it? We be­lieve you to be a per­son of the strictest ve­rac­ity, but when you say a thing be­fore a table­ful of lis­ten­ers one minute, and de­ny it the next, we are forced to one of two con­clu­sions, nei­ther of which is pleas­ing. We must con­clude that ei­ther, re­pent­ing your con­fes­sion, you sac­ri­fice the truth, or that the habit to which you have con­fessed has en­tire­ly de­stroyed your per­cep­tion of the moral ques­tion in­volved. Un­due use of to­bac­co has, I be­lieve, driv­en men crazy. Opi­um-​eat­ing has de­stroyed all re­gard for truth in one whose word had al­ways been re­gard­ed as good as a gov­ern­ment bond. I pre­sume the un­due use of to­bac­co can ac­com­plish the same sad re­sult. By-​the-​way, did you ev­er try opi­um?”

“Opi­um is ru­in,” said the Doc­tor, Mr. Ped­agog's in­dig­na­tion be­ing so great that he seemed to be un­able to find the words he was ev­ident­ly de­sirous of hurl­ing at the Id­iot.

“It is, in­deed,” said the Id­iot. “I knew a man once who smoked one lit­tle pipeful of it, and, while un­der its in­flu­ence, sat down at his ta­ble and wrote a sto­ry of the su­per­nat­ural or­der that was so good that ev­ery­body said he must have stolen it from Poe or some oth­er mas­ter of the weird, and now no­body will have any­thing to do with him. To­bac­co, how­ev­er, in the sane use of it, is a good thing. I don't know of any­thing that is more sat­is­fy­ing to the tired man than to lie back on a so­fa, of an evening, and puff clouds of smoke and rings in­to the air. One of the finest dreams I ev­er had came from smok­ing. I had blown a great moun­tain of smoke out in­to the room, and it seemed to be­come re­al, and I climbed to its sum­mit and saw the most beau­ti­ful coun­try at my feet--a coun­try in which all men were hap­py, where there were no trou­bles of any kind, where no whim was left un­grat­ified, where jeal­ousies were not, and where ev­ery man who made more than enough to live on paid the sur­plus in­to the com­mon trea­sury for the use of those who hadn't made quite enough. It was a na­tion­al re­al­iza­tion of the gold­en rule, and I main­tain that if smok­ing were bad noth­ing so good, even in the ab­stract form of an idea, could come out of it.”

“That's a very nice thought,” said the Po­et. “I'd like to put that in­to verse. The idea of a peo­ple di­vid­ing up their sur­plus of wealth among the less suc­cess­ful strug­glers is beau­ti­ful.”

“You can have it,” said the Id­iot, with a pleased smile. “I don't write po­et­ry of that kind my­self un­less I work hard, and I've found that when the po­et works hard he pro­duces po­ems that read hard. You are wel­come to it. An­oth­er time I was dream­ing over my cigar, af­ter a day of the hard­est kind of trou­ble at the of­fice. Ev­ery­thing had gone wrong with me, and I was blue as in­di­go. I came home here, lit a cigar, and threw my­self down up­on my bed and be­gan to puff. I felt like a man in a deep pit, out of which there was no way of get­ting. I closed my eyes for a sec­ond, and to all in­tents and pur­pos­es I lay in that pit. And then what did to­bac­co do for me? Why, it lift­ed me right out of my prison. I thought I was sit­ting on a rock down in the depths. The stars twin­kled tan­ta­liz­ing­ly above me. They in­vit­ed me to free­dom, know­ing that free­dom was not at­tain­able. Then I blew a ring of smoke from my mouth, and it be­gan to rise slow­ly at first, and then, catch­ing in a cur­rent of air, it flew up­ward more rapid­ly, widen­ing con­stant­ly, un­til it dis­ap­peared in the dark­ness above. Then I had a thought. I filled my mouth as full of smoke as pos­si­ble, and blew forth the great­est ring you ev­er saw, and as it start­ed to rise I grasped it in my two hands. It strug­gled be­neath my weight, length­ened out in­to an el­lip­ti­cal link, and broke, and let me down with a dull thud. Then I made two rings, grasp­ing one with my left hand and the oth­er with my right--”

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “I GRASPED IT IN MY TWO HANDS”]

“And they lift­ed you out of the pit, I sup­pose?” sneered the Bib­lio­ma­ni­ac.

“I do not say that they did,” said the Id­iot, calm­ly. “But I do know that when I opened my eyes I wasn't in the pit any longer, but up-​stairs in my hall-​bed­room.”

“How aw­ful­ly mys­te­ri­ous!” said the Doc­tor, satir­ical­ly.

“Well, I don't ap­prove of smok­ing,” said Mr. White­chok­er. “I agree with the Lon­don di­vine who says it is the pas­time of perdi­tion. It is not prompt­ed by nat­ural in­stincts. It is on­ly the habit of ar­ti­fi­cial civ­iliza­tion. Dogs and hors­es and birds get along with­out it. Why shouldn't man?”

“Hear! hear!” cried Mr. Ped­agog, clap­ping his hands ap­prov­ing­ly.

“Where? where?” put in the Id­iot. “That's a great ar­gu­ment. Dog's don't put up in board­ing-​hous­es. Is the board­ing-​house, there­fore, the re­sult of a de­grad­ed, ar­ti­fi­cial civ­iliza­tion? I have seen ed­ucat­ed hors­es that didn't smoke, but I have nev­er seen an ed­ucat­ed horse, or an un­ed­ucat­ed one, for that mat­ter, that had even had the chance to smoke, or the kind of mouth that would en­able him to do it in case he had the chance. I have al­so ob­served that hors­es don't read books, that birds don't eat mut­ton-​chops, that dogs don't go to the opera, that don­keys don't play the pi­ano--at least, four-​legged don­keys don't--so you might as well ar­gue that since hors­es, dogs, birds, and don­keys get along with­out lit­er­ature, mu­sic, mut­ton-​chops, and pi­ano-​play­ing--”

“You've cov­ered mu­sic,” put in the Lawyer, who liked to be pre­cise.

“True; but pi­ano-​play­ing isn't al­ways mu­sic,” re­turned the Id­iot. “You might as well ar­gue be­cause the beasts and the birds do with­out these things man ought to. Fish don't smoke, nei­ther do they join the po­lice-​force, there­fore man should nei­ther smoke nor be­come a guardian of the peace.”

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “PI­ANO-​PLAY­ING ISN'T AL­WAYS MU­SIC”]

“Nev­er­the­less it is a pas­time of perdi­tion,” in­sist­ed Mr. White­chok­er.

“No, it isn't,” re­tort­ed the Id­iot. “Smok­ing is the busi­ness of perdi­tion. It smokes be­cause it has to.”

“There! there!” re­mon­strat­ed Mr. Ped­agog.

“You mean hear! hear! I pre­sume,” said the Id­iot.

“I mean that you have said enough!” re­marked Mr. Ped­agog, sharply.

“Very well,” said the Id­iot. “If I have con­vinced you all I am sat­is­fied, not to say grat­ified. But re­al­ly, Mr. Ped­agog,” he added, ris­ing to leave the room, “if I were you I'd give up the prac­tice of chew­ing--”

“Hold on a minute, Mr. Id­iot,” said Mr. White­chok­er, in­ter­rupt­ing. He was de­sirous that Mr. Ped­agog should not be fur­ther ir­ri­tat­ed. “Let me ask you one ques­tion. Does your old fa­ther smoke?”

“No,” said the Id­iot, lean­ing eas­ily over the back of his chair--“no. What of it?”

“Noth­ing at all--ex­cept that per­haps if he could get along with­out it you might,” sug­gest­ed the cler­gy­man.

“He couldn't get along with­out it if he knew what good to­bac­co was,” said the Id­iot.

“Then why don't you in­tro­duce him to it?” asked the Min­is­ter.

“Be­cause I do not wish to make him un­hap­py,” re­turned the Id­iot, soft­ly. “He thinks his sev­en­ty years have been the hap­pi­est years that any mor­tal ev­er had, and if now in his sev­en­ty-​first year he dis­cov­ered that dur­ing the whole pe­ri­od of his man­hood he had been de­prived through ig­no­rance of so great a bless­ing as a good cigar, he'd be­come like the rest of us, liv­ing in an­tic­ipa­tion of de­lights to come, and not find­ing ap­prox­imate bliss in liv­ing over the past. Trust me, my dear Mr. White­chok­er, to look af­ter him. He and my moth­er and my life are all I have.”

The Id­iot left the room, and Mr. Ped­agog put in a greater part of the next half-​hour in mak­ing per­son­al state­ments to the re­main­ing board­ers to the ef­fect that the word he used was es­chewed, and not the one at­tribut­ed to him by the Id­iot.

Strange to say, most of them were al­ready aware of that fact.