thoughtful voice. ‘The examinations we carry out on him from time to time are fruitless, but that does not seem to worry him. He is convinced his illness was caused by an elephant knocking down his heavily pregnant mother while she was watching a parade. Sadly, Mr Wells, this is a pyrrhic victory. I have found Merrick a home but I am unable to cure his illness. His skull is growing bigger by the day, and I’m afraid that soon his neck will be unable to support the incredible weight of his head.’
Treves’s blunt evocation of Merrick’s death, with the bleak desolation that seemed to permeate that wing of the hospital, plunged Wells into a state of extreme anxiety.
‘I would like his last days to be as peaceful as possible,’ the surgeon went on, oblivious to the pallor spreading over his companion’s face. ‘But apparently this is asking too much. Every night, the locals gather under his window shouting insults at him and calling him names. They even think he is to blame for killing the whores who have been found mutilated in the neighbourhood. Have people gone mad? Merrick couldn’t hurt a fly. I have already mentioned his extraordinary sensibility. Do you know that he devours Jane Austen’s novels? And, on occasion, I’ve even surprised him writing poems. Like you, Mr Wells.’
‘I don’t write poems, I write stories,’ Wells murmured hesitantly, his increasing unease apparently making him doubt everything.
Trêves scowled at him, annoyed that he would want to split hairs over what he considered such an inconsequential subject as literature.
‘That’s why I allow these visits,’ he said, shaking his head regretfully, before resuming where he had left off, ‘because I know they do him a great deal of good. I imagine people come to see him because his appearance makes even the unhappiest souls realise they should thank God. Joseph, on the other hand, views the matter differently. Sometimes I think he derives a sort of twisted amusement from these visits. Every Saturday, he scours the newspapers, then hands me a list of people he would like to invite to tea, and I obligingly forward them his card. They are usually members of the aristocracy, wealthy businessmen, public figures, painters, actors and other more or less well-known artists … People who have achieved a measure of social success and who in his estimation have one last test to pass: confronting him in the flesh. Joseph’s deformities are so hideous they invariably evoke either pity or disgust in those who see him. I imagine he can judge from his guests’ reaction whether they are the kind-hearted type or riddled with fears and anxieties.’
They came to a door at the far end of a long passageway.
‘Here we are,’ said Trêves, plunging for a few moments into a respectful silence. Then he looked Wells in the eye, and added, in a sombre, almost threatening tone: ‘Behind this door waits the most horrific-looking creature you have probably ever seen or will ever see; it is up to you whether you consider him a monster or an unfortunate wretch.’
Wells felt a little faint.
‘It is not too late to turn back. You may not like what you discover about yourself
‘You n-need not w-worry about me,’ stammered Wells.
‘As you wish,’ said Trêves, with the detachment of one washing his hands of the matter. He took a key from his pocket, opened the door and, gently but resolutely, propelled Wells over the threshold.
Wells held his breath as he ventured inside the room. He had taken a couple of faltering steps when he heard the surgeon close the door behind him. He gulped, glancing about the place Trêves had practically hurled him into once he had fulfilled his minor role in the disturbing ceremony. He found himself in a spacious suite of rooms containing various normal pieces of furniture. The ordinariness of the furnishings combined with the soft afternoon light filtering in through the window to create a prosaic, unexpectedly cosy atmosphere that clashed with the image of a monster’s lair. Wells stood transfixed for a few seconds, thinking his host would appear at any moment. When this did not happen, and not knowing what was expected of him, he wandered hesitantly through the rooms. He was immediately overcome by the unsettling feeling that Merrick was spying on him from behind one of the screens, but continued weaving in and out of the furniture, sensing this was another part of the ritual. But nothing he saw gave away the uniqueness of the rooms’ occupant: there were no half-eaten rats strewn about, or the remains of some brave knight’s armour.
In one of the rooms, however, he came across two chairs and a small table laid out for tea. He found this innocent scene still more unsettling, for he could not help comparing it to the gallows awaiting the condemned man in the town square, its joists creaking balefully in the spring breeze.
Then he noticed an intriguing object on a table next to the wall, beneath one of the windows. It was a cardboard model of a church. Wells walked over to marvel at the exquisite craftsmanship. Fascinated by the wealth of detail in the model, he did not at first notice the crooked shadow appearing on the wall: a stiff figure, bent over to the right crowned by an enormous head.
‘It’s the church opposite. I had to make up the parts I can’t see from the window’
The voice had a laboured, slurred quality.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Wells breathed, addressing the lopsided silhouette projected on the wall.
The shadow shook its head with great difficulty, unintentionally revealing to Wells what a struggle it was for Merrick to produce even this simple gesture to play down the importance of his own work. Having completed the arduous movement, he remained silent, stooped over his cane, and Wells realised he could not go on standing there with his back to him. The moment had arrived when he must turn and look his host in the face. Trêves had warned him that Merrick paid special attention to his guests’ initial reaction – the one that arose automatically, almost involuntarily, and which he therefore considered more genuine, more revealing than the faces people hurriedly composed to dissimulate their feelings once they had recovered from the shock. For those few brief moments, Merrick was afforded a rare glimpse into his guests’ souls, and it made no difference how they pretended to act during the subsequent meeting, since their initial reaction had already condemned or redeemed them. Wells was unsure whether Merrick’s appearance would fill him with pity or disgust. Fearing the latter, he clenched his jaw as tightly as he could, tensing his face to prevent it registering any emotion. He did not even want to show surprise, but merely to gain time before his brain could process what he was seeing and reach a logical conclusion about the feelings a creature as apparently deformed as Merrick produced in a person like him. In the end, if he experienced repulsion, he would willingly acknowledge this and reflect on it later, after he had left.
Wells drew a deep breath, planted his feet firmly on the ground, which had dissolved into a soft, quaking mass, and slowly turned to face his host. What he saw made him gasp. Just as Trêves had warned, Merrick’s deformities gave him a terrifying appearance. The photographs Wells had seen of him at the university which mercifully veiled his hideousness behind a blurred gauze, had not prepared him for this. He wore a dark grey suit and was propping himself up with a cane. Ironically, these accoutrements, which were intended to humanise him, only made him look more grotesque.
Teeth firmly clenched, Wells stood stiffly before him, struggling to suppress a physical urge to shudder. He felt as if his heart was about to burst out of his chest and beads of cold sweat trickled down his back, but he could not make out whether these symptoms were caused by horror or pity. Despite the unnatural tension of his facial muscles, he could feel his lips quivering, perhaps as they tried to form a grimace of horror, yet at the same time he noticed tears welling in his eyes so did not know what to think. Their mutual scrutiny went on for ever, and Wells wished he could shed at least one tear that would encapsulate his pain and prove to Merrick, and to himself, that he was a sensitive, compassionate being, but those pricking his eyes refused to brim over.
‘Would you prefer me to wear my hood, Mr Wells?’ asked Merrick, softly.
The strange voice, which gave his words a liquid quality as if they were floating in a muddy brook, struck renewed fear into Wells. Had the time limit Merrick usually put on his guests’ response expired? ‘No … that won’t be necessary’ he murmured.
His host moved