She went into her room to take off her street clothes and to get herself into garments as suitable as she possessed for one of those noisome tasks that are done a dozen times a day by the bath nurses in the receiving department of a charity hospital.
When she returned, Susan too was in her chemise and ready to begin the search for the man, if man there was left deep buried in that muck.While Susan took off the stinking and rotten rags, and flung them into the hall, Clara went to the bathroom they and Mollie shared, and filled the tub with water as hot as her hand could bear.With her foot Susan pushed the rags along the hall floor and into the garbage closet.Then she and Clara lifted the emaciated, dirt-streaked, filth-smeared body, carried it to the bathroom, let it down into the water.There were at hand plenty of those strong, specially prepared soaps and other disinfectants constantly used by the women of their kind who still cling to cleanliness and health.With these they attacked him, not as if he were a human being, but as if he were some inanimate object that must be scoured before it could be used.
Again and again they let out the water, black, full of dead and dying vermin; again and again they rinsed him, attacked him afresh.Their task grew less and less repulsive as the man gradually appeared, a young man with a soft skin, a well-formed body, unusually good hands and feet, a distinguished face despite its savage wounds from dissipation, hardly the less handsome for the now fair and crisp beard which gave it a look of more years than Spenser had lived.
If Spenser recovered consciousness--and it seems hardly possible that he did not--he was careful to conceal the fact.
He remained limp, inert, apparently in a stupor.They gave him one final scrubbing, one final rinsing, one final thorough inspection."Now, he's all right," declared Clara."What shall we do with him?""Put him to bed," said Susan.
They had already dried him off in the empty tub.They now rubbed him down with a rough towel, lifted him, Susan taking the shoulders, Clara the legs, and put him in Susan's bed.
Clara ran to her room, brought one of the two nightshirts she kept for her fellow.When they had him in this and with a sheet over him, they cleaned and straightened the bathroom, then lit cigarettes and sat down to rest and to admire the work of their hands.
"Who is he?" asked Clara.
"A man I used to know," said Susan.Like all the girls in that life with a real story to tell, she never told about her past self.Never tell? They never even remember if drink and drugs will do their duty.
"I don't blame you for loving him," said Clara."Somehow, the lower a man sinks the more a woman loves him.It's the other way with men.But then men don't know what love is.And a woman don't really know till she's been through the mill.""I don't love him," said Susan.
"Same thing," replied the practical Clara, with a wave of the bare arm at the end of which smoked the cigarette."What're you going to do with him?""I don't know," confessed Susan.
She was not a little uneasy at the thought of his awakening.
Would he despise her more than ever now--fly from her back to his filth? Would he let her try to help him? And she looked at the face which had been, in that other life so long, long ago, dearer to her than any face her eyes had ever rested upon;a sob started deep down within her, found its slow and painful way upward, shaking her whole body and coming from between her clenched teeth in a groan.She forgot all she had suffered from Rod--forgot the truth about him which she had slowly puzzled out after she left him and as experience enabled her to understand actions she had not understood at the time.She forgot it all.That past--that far, dear, dead past! Again she was a simple, innocent girl upon the high rock, eating that wonderful dinner.Again the evening light faded, stars and moon came out, and she felt the first sweet stirring of love for him.She could hear his voice, the light, clear, entrancing melody of the Duke's song--La Donna e mobile Qua penna al vento--
She burst into tears--tears that drenched her soul as the rain drenches the blasted desert and makes the things that could live in beauty stir deep in its bosom.And Clara, sobbing in sympathy, kissed her and stole away, softly closing the door.
"If a man die, shall he live again?" asked the old Arabian philosopher.If a woman die, shall she live again?...
Shall not that which dies in weakness live again in strength?...
Looking at him, as he lay there sleeping so quietly, her being surged with the heaving of high longings and hopes.
If _they_ could only live again! Here they were, together, at the lowest depth, at the rock bottom of life.If they could build on that rock, build upon the very foundation of the world, then would they indeed build in strength! Then, nothing could destroy--nothing!...If they could live again! If they could build!
She had something to live for--something to fight for.Into her eyes came a new light; into her soul came peace and strength.Something to live for--someone to redeem.
