The Janeites by Nicolas Freeling Read Free Book Online

studying how the patient puts himself together. Question of experience. It’s a happy-pill, a feel-good, and on the same level really as any of the ecstasy drugs? Not really; they aren’t in the strict sense habit forming and can be in the long run a necessity, almost like insulin to a diabetic.
    The experienced doctor throws a bit of cold water on these people’s tendency to enjoy their own ailments. ‘Certainly it’s a depression, but it’s a very Mild one isn’t it. Now that you understand it you can perfectly well take it in hand.’
    Ever since Dürer described Melancholia all artists do this, really. Kipling suffered a good deal from depression; wrote about it often. That is the artist’s way of exorcizing it. But if you are no artist, to become a Janeite is pretty good therapy.
    We pass it on, you know, by whatever means.

    When it comes to the point Dr Valdez doesn’t want at all to be rid of his beautiful watch; turns it over in his hands, revelling in it. Jesuitsare not encouraged to material attachments. In fact the words of Saint Teresa come to mind, as cited by one of his early professors. A new young novice asked permission to keep a pretty prayerbook, given her in childhood, of which she was very fond. ‘Fond of it, are you?’ said that formidable lady. ‘Better not come in here then.’
    Are their names not sweet symphonies?
    Lines by Dante? A sonnet by Petrarch?
    ‘Audemars-Piguet, Vacheron-Constantin,
    Girard-Perregaux, and Jaeger le Coultre,
    Piaget, and Langen-und-Söhne,
    Breguet
    And Patek Philippe.’
    No: he refuses. Be ashamed about that, will he? Have to come to a decision? Well, he’ll think about that tomorrow.
    Monsieur le Marquis had a funny story. In a moment – they are volatile – of probably drunken euphoria he had bought himself a Rolex; worn it for a few days ‘getting steadily more uneasy’. In a moment – yes, another – of extreme exasperation he had thrown it on the bathroom floor where it exploded, shattering into satisfying fragments. In the French declamatory-rhetorical mode, as when addressing the National Assembly –
    ‘Oyster – return to your native waters – by way of the plug hole.’ With that suppressed laugh from somewhere high in his sinus. ‘Vulgar thing.’
    A jeweller, for Jesuits are like jackdaws and collect anything that glitters, had told him that stainless steel – ‘the 316 L which is used for the best surgical instruments’ – is the thing to have. ‘Gold’ magnificently ‘always looks cheap’. And for a fine movement steel gives the best protection. Ray had wondered, ever so little, whether he wasn’t getting led up the garden path.
    ‘It was Patek Philippe who first set steel with diamonds.’
    ‘Mine has no diamonds.’
    ‘On that very account,’ said the old man charmingly, ‘yours is the best there is. It is with the greatest simplicity that one reaches the greatest elegance.’
    ‘What about those people with ice on their beards, in the National Geographic ?’
    ‘It pays to advertise.’
    Raymond put his watch back on. Buckled the strap. Keeping.

    Evening; dusk. Alleyway, a few steps from home. No one, then someone, looming. A colossal shock. An extreme, excruciating pain. Blindness. Vertigo. He was on the deck, on his knees. His hands trying to keep his face off the street. Face? Or what is left of it. Vomit? Do, by all means; be my guest. Retch, mostly. After a long time, perhaps a minute or two of pain unspeakable, pulled himself up. Didn’t stay up; sat or rolled on to a step. Keep that way, head between your knees. Heard footsteps, fast, then slow, then fast again. A drunk, inna gutter, better not interfere. A while later, Raymond got up, could walk; just about. End of alleyway are bright lights, main road, people. Don’t want people, want reason. Want help, want first-aid. Can’t see anything much; shadows, lights in streaks. Pharmacy, that’s it. Need kind people but need professionals, that’s instinct.