Episode 19
It was as if an invisible wave had swept over him. The veins stood out sharply on the knuckles of the hand clutching the sheet. It was the prelude to pain. He could not even groan.
Rose looked around Ezekiel once more. The spilled liquid and shards of glass scattered in every direction hinted at the full story of what had happened in this room. Most likely, while unconscious, he had reached for the medicine bottle and brought it to his lips, only to suddenly come to his senses and hurl the whole thing away, shattering it.
So that, even if he lost his reason again, he would not be able to put anything in his mouth.
So that if he drank anything, he would have to be prepared to lick the shards of glass instead.
Before she knew it, he had steeled himself to that extent.
No wonder he had told her to tie his body to the bed.
“As you must have guessed, miss, it is no easy thing for an addict to quit a drug. It cannot be explained with an ordinary word like ‘habit’… Yes, perhaps one might call it craving. It is like placing food before someone who has starved for an entire week and forbidding him to eat. It is like showing an oasis to a man crossing the desert and forbidding him to drink. A temptation of the devil—perhaps even worse than the devil.”
There had been something terribly chilling about Dr. Briman’s analogy.
To prepare for the worst, Rose had gone straight into Ezekiel’s bedroom without telling anyone and emptied out all the wine and medicine bottles. She had judged that if she asked permission rashly, she might wound the pride of Ezekiel, who was confident in his self-control as a soldier.
Filling glass bottles with sleeping tea and placing them there had been part of the same measure. It would be best if he did not touch them, and even if he reached for one without realizing it, she could rest easy knowing it was not opium. Besides, though the sleeping tea had not shown much effect until now, who knew if this time might be different?
“Don’t worry. There was nothing in this room. I secretly cleared it all away. What you drank was sleeping tea. The taste was different, so you know that…”
She had to stay calm. She had to be firm. She must not be shaken. Only then, she had been told, could they endure it together. Dr. Briman had clearly said as much.
“His nerves will become extremely sensitive. Gradually, he will pass the line where he can control himself. No matter how remarkable his restraint is, most people cannot endure it.”
As the doctor had warned, this was only the beginning.
“Cold sweat will pour from his entire body, quite literally like rain.”
In that short time, the air had grown even more humid.
As if all the moisture in his body were being wrung out at once, the man became soaked in an instant. His damp nightclothes clung tightly to his shoulders and back, revealing the rugged contours beneath. Only today did Rose learn that a person could sweat so much.
“He will not be able to sleep.”
If she had to choose the most familiar symptom among those Dr. Briman had predicted, it would have been insomnia. He had never been able to sleep peacefully to begin with.
“Pain will follow, as if his body is being broken into pieces.”
But now there was not even medicine to soothe his insomnia and pain. The pain that surged not only in his eyes, but abruptly from his stomach and throughout his muscles, he would have to endure while suffering from sleeplessness and oversensitivity of the nerves.
“He will shiver so hard his teeth chatter, then suddenly burn with fever.”
“…What on earth goes wrong in the body to make that happen?”
“Well. I do not know for certain. I have merely seen a few cases where, upon quitting the drug to escape the delirious symptoms you described, phenomena that had never appeared before manifested all at once.”
It had been immediately after Rose had detained Dr. Briman and confided in him about Ezekiel’s delirious symptoms. The doctor had listened to her far more seriously than she had expected. So much so that Rose, who had been the one to bring it up, grew unnecessarily anxious.
“But I’ve taken laudanum once or twice myself when I was sick. Nothing much happened to me.”
“Taking it once in a while poses no great problem. If something went wrong after only one or two doses, would that be medicine? It would be poison. Few sedatives are as effective in as many ways as laudanum, and I myself prescribe it to patients with strict limitations in small doses. What I am wary of is when someone, like the Major, has been taking large quantities steadily. Such people are in danger.”
“Then would it be better to simply let him keep taking the medicine? If these abnormalities appear even when he quits…”
If taking the medicine was bad, yet quitting it was agony, was things remaining as they were the next best option? Was she supposed to close her eyes and cover her ears, pretending not to know?
But Dr. Briman shook his head at this opinion as well.
“If he continues taking laudanum at the current rate, in nine cases out of ten, there is also a possibility that the Major will lose his intellectual faculties or die within a few years.”
It was an extreme forecast that far exceeded her expectations. Rose, startled, asked back.
“…Pardon?”
“For these few months, he is young and healthy, so he must have managed to endure it somehow. Even if he acted a little strangely or showed a different personality from before, everyone would have understood and let it pass, since he suffered such an unusual accident. People often say a person changes after going through something major.”
She had already heard several times from Mrs. Serva that his personality had changed. Rose asked again.
“Then are you saying that change may have been because of the laudanum? According to you, Doctor.”
“Rather than it being solely a matter of laudanum, several factors must have acted in combination. But that is not the important issue right now. The problem is that the Major is taking a truly absurd amount of an opium preparation… Moreover, if it is laudanum supplied for military use, I understand many of those products are modified with coca to maximize their effect. I have rarely seen people take this level of drug every day for years and survive unscathed.”
“…”
“Detoxifying his eyes may not be the main concern now. If delirium has appeared as well, he appears to be in a state of severe addiction.”
The loss of intellectual faculties, a state of severe addiction, death.
Not a single word failed to send a chill through her. She felt faint.
“If it destroys a person to this extent… is laudanum truly medicine?”
It was a medicine everyone in the world commonly took, and yet for Ezekiel, a fatal outcome had been pronounced. Something was wrong—terribly wrong. At this point, it would have been stranger not to question the medicine.
But in response to the doubt she expressed, Dr. Briman also answered with a question.
“What do you think medicine is, miss?”
“Isn’t it a substance that heals people?”
Rose answered exactly as ordinary people generally believed. Dr. Briman’s expression turned ambiguous.
“Well. Used properly in small amounts, mercury treats syphilis, and arsenic treats anthrax. Yet throughout history, mercury and arsenic were poisons that killed the greatest number of those in power.”
“…”
“In other words, it all depends on how something is used. Used moderately, it is medicine. Prescribed excessively, it is no different from a deadly poison. An increased dosage means a tolerance has already formed, and needing to take the drug every day means addiction. Most likely, the Major’s constitution does not respond well to medicine or alcohol. Therefore, in order to feel any effect, he would have had to take far larger amounts than ordinary people, and that would have led to addiction in a short time.”
Looking at Rose, Dr. Briman added one more thing.
“It is all the same. From the perspective of a doctor who prescribes medicinal substances… I suspect medicine and poison are ultimately separated by only the thinnest line.”
In the end, he was drinking down another poison in order to escape from poison.
Her mind grew busy of its own accord. Recalling Dr. Briman’s advice, Rose steadily steeled herself and prepared for the night. She did not forget to lock the bedroom door so people could not come and go. The adjoining room she used was, to begin with, a closed room with no way outside unless one passed through Ezekiel’s room.
Rose intended to be shut in the same room with the man.
“Imagine Lord Ezekiel, unable to bear the pain, tries to hurt himself again or lashes out violently at others. There is no one here who can handle that.”
Some time ago, Mrs. Serva had worried about the aftermath Ezekiel would face without laudanum.
There is no one who can handle it…
Tightly sealing the cracks in her heart where shadows of anxiety were creeping in, Rose firmly pressed her lips together.
I can do it. I can. Isn’t that why I came here?
Not even two or three hours after that, Ezekiel heralded the long dawn by causing a commotion, hurling away the glass bottles and teacups filled with sleeping tea.
“God… damn it…”
Even within that brief curse, she could feel his breathing breaking off in fits. It was proof that even now, his condition was worsening by the moment.
Rose hurriedly placed her hand on Ezekiel’s forehead. At the same time, she recoiled.
He had originally been a man who never seemed to feel the cold. His body temperature was high as well, so whenever she attended him, her hands would grow hot from his warmth. Now, however, he was completely cold, like a sheet of ice. Worse still, the sweat that had soaked his clothes was stealing his body heat even more quickly. It was too dark to distinguish colors, but his lips were surely blue. Continuous convulsions followed as well.
They were the typical symptoms of hypothermia.