CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

London, January 1855

Snow stood next to Lillian in the metallic din of the print shop. An icy draft blew from under the front door, but he didn't care. The smell of fresh ink filled his senses as he flipped through a copy of his cholera paper.

He had printed it as a pamphlet, with a red cover of the most expensive paper Lillian could afford. His secret dread had been that it would look like a methodist tract, or some swindling investment proposal. But it was all right; it had a distinctly medical air.

He handed one to Lillian and she, too, flipped through it, then handed it back to him. "I hardly need to read it. Don't I already know every word? But I can tell you want to. Go ahead. I'll wait. She smiled and turned away.

She was right. He wanted to pore over every page. His heart raced with a nervousness he couldn't explain. While he scanned the first section, absorbed, she seemed to be busy with her hands at the printer's worktable. He looked up and saw that she had taken a blank sheet of foolscap paper and folded it into a perfect white bird with outstretched wings. With a small overhand toss, like tossing a pebble into a brook, she sent the thing flying. It swooped gracefully across the room until it crashed into a bookshelf.

The printer's apprentice, a boy of about ten, looked at Lillian with admiration.

"Coo, miss, where'd you learn that?"

"In India. Here, I'll show you. It's like a little kite."

She took another piece of paper and bent over it with the boy while Snow went on reading. After half a minute he realized he hadn't read much of it; he was just too excited to concentrate. He put three copies under his arm and turned toward the door.

"Lillian, I can't think in here. Let's go for a walk. What time do we have to be back at your house?" Lillian had left Brook Street and had bought a small house in Bloomsbury Square, near the British Museum.

She looked up from her paper lesson. "Paul will be through practicing at two. We'll have lunch then." She held up another model of a bird, this one with a sweeping tail, and let it fly. The apprentice murmured with delight and ran to retrieve his prize.

Snow looked at the wall clock. Eleven. "Come on, then. I need some air."

Lillian buttoned her coat and showed the boy for a third time an important fold in the bird"s wing, then followed Snow out the door.

There was a heavy gray sky and the wind cut right through the seams of their coats. It had been a mild autumn and Christmas, but it seemed that winter was really here now.

Snow thought of the stacks of pamphlets in the office behind them. "Lillian, when the distributors start selling the pamphlet, I'll have a little more money. Won't you reconsider?"

She kept walking, looking up at the dark sky instead of at him. "Do you think it will snow?" When he didn't answer, she went on. "No. I won't marry you, not yet." She put her arm through his. "Can't you understand it? I want to try doing things a new way. I can't see that marriage helps anybody. I'm afraid it would destroy what we have. My other offer is still open."

Flakes started drifting from the sky and Snow thought over her offer, once more. To live with him, sleep with him, have children with him if he wished it. But she wouldn't sign the papers or go to a church. He looked over at her. Her eyes were wide with delight at the snowfall, and yet the concern for hurting him still showed on her face.

"I love you more than I did in those first days, if you can believe it," he said to her.

She smiled at him; a few snowflakes stuck to her hair. "Oh, I believe it. I think I can tell. Now you can trust me, at least."

"Yes." But he wasn't telling the complete truth. He knew there was a part of her that would always be hidden from him. She was not secretive, but she was private. He had grown used to it by now. The unknown parts of her made her seem larger in his presence, as if she actually took up a few extra inches of space outside the outlines of her body. It made her seem like some secret goddess, and he loved her no less for it.

The snow thickened. Their shoulders grew white with it. They were almost to Regent's Park and on a whim they decided to go in, even though the snow was worsening.

At least the wind was dying down. The place was deserted, of course. Yellow stalks of unmown grass, the last from the summer, stuck up through the thin white snow. The ducks on the pond seemed to ignore the snow, and bobbed for freezing algae, their curly tail feathers catching flakes for a minute before they melted.

They both stood for a long time at the edge of the water and watched.

And then she kissed him, holding his face in cold hands. It was a kiss one early Christian might have bestowed on another, full of charity and good will, with a trace of mysticism. Her cheeks were cold, but her lips were warm.

"All right," he finally said. "I'll agree to your plan." He turned from the pond, holding her hand now, and kept walking, kicking the snow in front of him. "I don't know what it will do to my practice, though. If the income from my practice stays steady I insist on sharing expenses. Your fortune —"

"Good." Her voice was so soft he barely heard. She gazed at the sky; he thought she was absorbed by profound introspection until she said, "I'll come to your house; there's more room. Mrs. Jarrett might quit, you know, but I think I can win her over. And! Paul can have the upstairs maids' room—but where will we put his piano?" She dropped his hand and turned to him. "You keep walking, I've got to get back and start packing immediately." She buttoned the top button of his overcoat, kissed him again, and turned around to hurry down the white path.

Snow watched her go. As she passed a small tree she must have startled a flock of pigeons, for suddenly about forty of them burst up into the sky over her head, veering in unison to the left, before heading for another part of the park. The sky, even though snow was falling heavily, was so bright it was hard to look at the birds.

He was at the zoo now, the snow falling so thickly it was difficult to see the brick gates. Surprisingly, they were open, and he found himself going in.

Most of the animals were holed up inside, too wise to stand out in the snow and wind when they had the option of a hutch or shed. All but the elephant. The snow apparently didn't bother him. His feet were planted firmly on the packed ground as he munched hay from a manger. He used his trunk to pull the pale strands out from under the snow with complete indifference to the weather.

A keeper emerged from the brick interior. The man, an Indian, stooped to fork more hay up to the top of the manger. He was dressed only in a thin shirt and pants and was barefoot. His arms shook as he tried to straighten the pile of hay. When he noticed Snow he was so startled that he dropped the fork.

The elephant stirred at the metallic thunk the fork made against the earth.

"I'm sorry," called out Snow. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

The man said nothing, just stared at Snow. Snow stared back, until he saw the fellow give an involuntary shiver and clutch his arms to his chest.

Carefully, without any hurry, Snow took off his overcoat and folded it. He raised the coat over the railings and offered it up.

The Indian shook his head, motioning with his hand that he didn't want it. But Snow persisted, pushing the coat at him over the fence as far as he could without actually dropping it on the other side into the litter of straw and droppings.

Snow had a vision of taking off his shoes, his shirt, even his wool trousers, and offering them up. He didn't. But he could see so clearly in his mind the pink stripe he'd make against the white ground, walking naked out of the park.

Finally he left his coat draped over the railing and turned to go. There wasn't enough wind to blow the coat off. He shivered, though nothing like the Indian man had done, and turned to go. At the first tree he stood behind the trunk and turned back to look.

The man was stepping lightly over to the fence, picking his way carefully. He snatched up the coat, shook it once, and put it on. It was much too big for him, and covered his hands beyond the fingertips. Even though he couldn't have seen Snow, he made one short bow, his hands together, toward the trees. Then, opening his arms wide, he pivoted toward the elephant, his head back, moving with a dancer's energy Snow wouldn't have thought him capable of. He executed a few steps of some folk dance with his hands high, gyrating in a circle around the placid beast, until he disappeared behind the elephant.

Snow felt like an eavesdropper and stopped watching. His feet were wet. A light wind sprang up, chilling him instantly, and he almost regretted his gift. Hunching his shoulders together, moving in a trot to keep warm, he headed down the path out of the park.

The first edition of On the Mode of Communication of Cholera was published as a 31 page pamphlet in 1849 by John Churchill, New Burlington Street, London.  Snow was the sole author.  Three months after the Broad Street Pump outbreak, John Snow on December 11, 1854 submitted for publication the second edition of his book, much enlarged to 162 pages.  It was published in 1855, also by John Churchill, and also with Snow as the only author. To see this second edition. click here.