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diff --git a/75172-0.txt b/75172-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..412f6bb --- /dev/null +++ b/75172-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2002 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75172 *** + + + + + + _The Nature of + a Crime_ + + BY + JOSEPH CONRAD + AND + FORD MADOX FORD + (F. M. HUEFFER) + + [Illustration] + + GARDEN CITY NEW YORK + DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + 1924 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY + DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES + AT + THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. + + _First Edition_ + + + + + _The Nature of + a Crime_ + + + + +BOOKS BY JOSEPH CONRAD + + ALMAYER’S FOLLY + AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS + THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS” + TALES OF UNREST + LORD JIM: A ROMANCE + YOUTH: A NARRATIVE + TYPHOON + FALK, AND OTHER STORIES + NOSTROMO: A TALE OF THE SEABOARD + THE MIRROR OF THE SEA + THE SECRET AGENT + A SET OF SIX + UNDER WESTERN EYES + A PERSONAL RECORD + ’TWIXT LAND AND SEA + CHANCE + WITHIN THE TIDES + VICTORY + THE SHADOW-LINE + THE ARROW OF GOLD + THE RESCUE + NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS + THE ROVER + +_With Ford Madox Ford_ (_Hueffer_) + + ROMANCE: A NOVEL + THE INHERITORS: AN EXTRAVAGANT STORY + THE NATURE OF A CRIME + + + + +PREFACES + + +I + +For years my consciousness of this small piece of collaboration has +been very vague, almost impalpable, like fleeting visits from a ghost. +If I ever thought of it, and I must confess that I can hardly remember +ever doing it on purpose till it was brought definitely to my notice +by my Collaborator, I always regarded it as something in the nature +of a fragment. I was surprised and even shocked to discover that it +was rounded. But I need not have been. Rounded as it is in form, using +the word form in its simplest sense--printed form--it remains yet a +fragment from its very nature and also from necessity. It could never +have become anything else. And even as a fragment it is but a fragment +of something else that might have been--of a mere intention. + +But, as it stands, what impresses me most is the amount this fragment +contains of the crudely materialistic atmosphere of the time of its +origin, the time when the _English Review_ was founded. It emerges from +the depths of a past as distant from us now as the square-skirted, long +frock-coats in which unscrupulous, cultivated, high-minded _jouisseurs_ +like ours here attended to their strange business activities and +cultivated the little blue flower of sentiment. No doubt our man was +conceived for purposes of irony; but our conception of him, I fear, is +too fantastic. + +Yet the most fantastic thing of all, it seems to me, is that we two +who had so often discussed soberly the limits and methods of literary +composition should have believed for a moment that a piece of work in +the nature of an analytical confession (produced _in articulo mortis_ +as it were) could have been developed and achieved in collaboration! + +What optimism! But it did not last long. I seem to remember a moment +when I burst into earnest entreaties that all these people should be +thrown overboard without more ado. This, I believe, _is_ the real +nature of the crime. Overboard. The neatness and dispatch with which it +is done in Chapter VIII was wholly the act of my Collaborator’s good +nature in the face of my panic. + +After signing these few prefatory words I will pass the pen to him in +the hope that he may be moved to contradict me on every point of fact, +impression, and appreciation. I said “the hope.” Yes, eager hope. For +it would be delightful to catch the echo of the desperate, earnest and +funny quarrels which enlivened those old days. The pity of it is that +there comes a time when all the fun of one’s life must be looked for in +the past. + + J. C. + + +II + +No, I find nothing to contradict, for, the existence of this story +having been recalled to my mind by a friend, the details of its birth +and its attendant circumstances remain for me completely forgotten, a +dark, blind-spot on the brain. I cannot remember the houses in which +the writing took place, the view from the windows, the pen, the table +cloth. At a given point in my life I forgot, literally, all the books +I had ever written; but, if nowadays I re-read one of them, though I +possess next to none and have re-read few, nearly all the phrases come +back startlingly to my memory and I see glimpses of Kent, of Sussex, of +Carcassonne--of New York, even; and fragments of furniture, mirrors, +who knows what? So that, if I didn’t happen to retain, almost by a +miracle, for me, of retention, the marked up copy of “Romance” from +which was made the analysis lately published in a certain periodical, +I am certain that I could have identified the phrases exactly as they +there stand. Looking at the book now I can hear our voices as we read +one passage or another aloud for purposes of correction. Moreover +I could say: This passage was written in Kent and hammered over in +Sussex; this, written in Sussex and worked on in Kent; or this again +was written in the downstairs café and hammered in the sitting room on +the first-floor, of an hotel that faces the sea on the Belgian coast. + +But of “The Nature of a Crime” no phrase at all suggests either the +tones of a voice or the colour of a day. When an old friend, last +year, on a Parisian Boulevard said: “Isn’t there a story by yourself +and Collaborator buried in the So & So?” I repudiated the idea with a +great deal of heat. Eventually I had to admit the, as it were, dead +fact. And, having admitted that to myself, and my Collaborator having +corroborated it, I was at once possessed by a sort of morbid craving to +get the story re-published in a definitive and acknowledged form. One +may care infinitely little for the fate of one’s work and yet be almost +hypochondriacally anxious as to the form its publication shall take--if +the publication is likely to occur posthumously. I became at once +dreadfully afraid that some philologist of that Posterity for which one +writes, might, in the course of his hyena occupations, disinter these +poor bones and, attributing sentence one to writer A and sentence two +to B, maul at least one of our memories. With the nature of _those_ +crimes one is only too well acquainted. Besides, though one may never +read comments one desires to get them over. It is indeed agreeable to +hear a storm rage in the distance and rumble eventually away. + +Let me, however, since my Collaborator wishes it and in the name of +Fun that is to-day hardly an echo, differ from him for a shade as to +the nature of those passages of time. I protest against the word: +quarrels. There were not any. And I should like to make the note that +our collaboration was almost purely oral. We wrote and read aloud the +one to the other. Possibly in the end we even wrote _to_ read aloud the +one to the other: for it strikes me very forcibly that “The Nature of a +Crime” is for the most part prose meant for recitation, or of that type. + +Anyhow, as the memory comes back to me overwhelmingly, I would read +on and read on. One begins with a fine propulsion. Sometimes that +would last to the end. But, as often as not, by a real telepathy, with +my eyes on the page and my voice going on I would grow aware of an +exaggerated stillness on the part of my Collaborator in the shadows. +It was an extraordinary kind of stillness: not of death: not of an ice +age. Yes, it was the stillness of a prisoner on the rack determined +to conceal an agony. I would read on, my voice gradually sticking to +my jaws. When it became unbearable I would glance up. On the other +side of the hearth I would have a glimpse of a terribly sick man, +of a convulsed face, of fingers contorted. Guido Fawkes beneath the +_peine forte et dure_ looked like that. You are to remember that we +were very serious about writing. I would read on. After a long time it +would come: “Oh!... Oh, oh!... Oh my God.... My dear Ford.... My dear +faller....” (That in those days was the fashionable pronunciation of +“fellow”.) + +For myself, I would listen always with admiration. Always with an +admiration that I have never since recaptured. And if there were +admirablenesses that did not seem to me to fit in with the given +scene I could at least, at the end of the reading, say with perfect +sincerity: “Wonderful! _How_ you do things!...” before beginning on: +“But don’t you perhaps think....” + +And I really do not believe that either my Collaborator or myself +ever made an objection which was not jointly sustained. That is not +quarrels. When I last looked through the bound proofs of _Romance_ +I was struck with the fact that whereas my Collaborator eliminated +almost every word of action and eighty percent of the conversations by +myself, I supplied almost all the descriptive passages of the really +collaborated parts--and such softer sentiment as was called for. And +my Collaborator let them get through. + +All this took place long ago; most of it in another century during +another reign; whilst an earlier but not less haughty and proud +generation were passing away. + + F. M. F. + + + + +_The Nature of a Crime_ + + + + +_The Nature of a Crime_ + + +I + +You are, I suppose, by now in Rome. It is very curious how present +to me are both Rome and yourself. There is a certain hill--you, and +that is the curious part of it, will never go there--yet, yesterday, +late in the evening, I stood upon its summit and you came walking +from a place below. It is always midday there: the seven pillars of +the Forum stand on high, their capitals linked together, and form one +angle of a square. At their bases there lie some detritus, a broken +marble lion, and I think but I am not certain, the bronze she-wolf +suckling the two bronze children. Your dress brushed the herbs: it was +grey and tenuous: I suppose you do not know how you look when you are +unconscious of being looked at? But I looked at you for a long time--at +my You. + +I saw your husband yesterday at the club and he said that you would +not be returning till the end of April. When I got back to my chambers +I found a certain letter. I will tell you about it afterwards--but I +forbid you to look at the end of what I am writing now. There is a +piece of news coming: I would break it to you if I could--but there +is no way of breaking the utterly unexpected. Only, if you read this +through you will gather from the tenor, from the tone of my thoughts, +a little inkling, a small preparation for my disclosure. Yes: it is a +“disclosure.” + +... Briefly, then, it was this letter--a business letter--that set me +thinking: that made that hill rise before me. Yes, I stood upon it +and there before me lay Rome--beneath a haze, in the immense sea of +plains. I have often thought of going to Rome--of going with you, in a +leisurely autumn of your life and mine. Now--since I have received that +letter--I know that I shall never see any other Rome than that from an +imagined hilltop. And when, in the wonderful light and shadelessness +of that noon, last evening, you came from a grove of silver poplars, +I looked at you--_my_ you--for a very long while. You had, I think, +a parasol behind your head, you moved slowly, you looked up at the +capitals of those seven pillars.... And I thought that I should +never--since you will not return before the end of April--never see you +again. I shall never see again the you that every other man sees.... + +You understand everything so well that already you must understand the +nature of my disclosure. It is, of course, no disclosure to tell you +that I love you. A very great reverence is due to youth--and a very +great latitude is due to the dead. For I am dead: I have only lived +through you for how many years now! And I shall never speak with you +again. Some sort of burial will have been given to me before the end +of April. I am a spirit. I have ended my relations with the world. +I have balanced all my books, my will is made. Only I have nothing +to leave--save to you, to whom I leave all that is now mine in the +world--my memory. + +It is very curious--the world now. I walked slowly down here from +Gordon Square. I walked slowly--for all my work is done. On the way I +met Graydon Bankes, the K. C. It would have astonished him if he could +have known how unreal he looked to me. He is six feet high, and upon +his left cheek there is a brown mole. I found it difficult to imagine +why he existed. And all sorts of mists hurried past him. It was just +outside the Natural History Museum. He said that his Seaford Railway +Bill would come before Committee in June. And I wondered: what is +June?... I laughed and thought: why June will never come! + +June will never come. Imagine that for a moment. We have discussed the +ethics of suicide. You see why June will never come! + +You remember that ring I always wear? The one with a bulging, greenish +stone. Once or twice you have asked me what stone it was. You thought, +I know, that it was in bad taste and I told you I wore it for the sake +of associations. I know you thought--but no: there has never been any +woman but you. + +You must have felt a long time ago that there was not, that there could +not have been another woman. The associations of the ring are not +with the past of a finished affection, or hate, or passion, with all +these forms of unrest that have a term in life: they looked forward to +where there is no end--whether there is rest in it God alone knows. +If it were not bad taste to use big words in extremities I would say +there was Eternity in the ring--Eternity which is the negation of all +that life may contain of losses and disappointments. Perhaps you have +noticed that there was one note in our confidence that never responded +to your touch. It was that note of universal negation contained within +the glass film of the ring. It is not you who brought the ring into my +life: I had it made years ago. It was in my nature always to anticipate +a touch on my shoulder, to which the only answer could be an act of +defiance. And the ring is my weapon. I shall raise it to my teeth, bite +through the glass: inside there is poison. + +I haven’t concealed anything from you. Have I? And, with the great +wisdom for which I love you, you have tolerated these other things. You +would have tolerated this too, you who have met so many sinners and +have never sinned.... + +Ah, my dear one--that is why I have so loved you. From our two poles we +have met upon one common ground of scepticism--so that I am not certain +whether it was you or I who first said: “Believe nothing: be harsh to +no one.” But at least we have suffered. One does not drag around with +one such a cannon-ball as I have done all these years without thinking +some wise thoughts. And well I know that in your dreary and terrible +life you have gained your great wisdom. You have been envied; you too +have thought: Is any prospect fair to those among its trees? And I +have been envied for my gifts, for my talents, for my wealth, for my +official position, for the letters after my name, for my great and +empty house, for my taste in pictures--for my ... for my opportunities. + +Great criminals and the very patient learn one common lesson: Believe +in nothing, be harsh to no one! + +But you cannot understand how immensely leisurely I feel. It is one +o’clock at night. I cannot possibly be arrested before eleven to-morrow +morning. I have ten hours in which, without the shadow of a doubt, I +can write to you: I can put down my thoughts desultorily and lazily. I +have half a score of hours in which to speak to you. + +The stress of every secret emotion makes for sincerity in the end. +Silence is like a dam. When the flood is at its highest the dam +gives way. I am not conceited enough to think that I can sweep you +along, terrified, in the rush of my confidences. I have not the +elemental force. Perhaps it is just that form of “greatness” that I +have lacked all my life--that profound quality which the Italians +call _terribilita_. There is nothing overpowering or terrible in the +confession of a love too great to be kept within the bounds of the +banality which is the safeguard of our daily life. Men have been nerved +to crime for the sake of a love that was theirs. The call of every +great passion is to unlawfulness. But your love was not mine, and my +love for you was vitiated by that conventional reverence which, as to +nine parts in ten, is genuine, but as to the last tenth a solemn sham +behind which hide all the timidities of a humanity no longer in its +youth. I have been of my time--altogether of my time--lacking courage +for a swoop, as a bird respects a ragged and nerveless scarecrow. +Altogether a man of my time. Observe, I do not say “our time.” You are +of all time--you are the loved Woman of the first cry that broke the +silence and of the last song that shall mark the end of this ingenious +world to which love and suffering have been given, but which has in the +course of ages invented for itself all the virtues and all the crimes. +And being of this world and of my time I have set myself to deal +ingeniously with my suffering and my love. + +Now everything is over--even regrets. Nothing remains of finite things +but a few days of life and my confession to make to you--to you alone +of all the world. + +It is difficult. How am I to begin? Would you believe it--every time I +left your presence it was with the desire, with the necessity to forget +you. Would you believe it? + +This is the great secret--the heart of my confession. The distance did +not count. No walls could make me safe. No solitude could defend me; +and having no faith in the consolations of eternity I suffered too +cruelly from your absence. + +If there had been kingdoms to conquer, a crusade to preach--but no. +I should not have had the courage to go beyond the sound of your +voice. You might have called to me any time! You never did. Never. +And now it is too late. Moreover, I am a man of my time, the time is +not of great deeds but of colossal speculations. The moments when I +was not with you had to be got through somehow. I dared not face them +empty-handed lest from sheer distress I should go mad and begin to +execrate you. Action? What form of action could remove me far enough +from you whose every thought was referred to your existence? And as you +were to me a soul of truth and serenity I tried to forget you in lies +and excitement. My only refuge from the tyranny of my desire was in +abasement. Perhaps I was mad. I gambled. I gambled first with my own +money and then with money that was not mine. You know my connection +with the great Burden fortune. I was trustee under my friend’s, +Alexander Burden’s will. I gambled with a determined recklessness, +with closed eyes. You understand now the origin of my houses, of my +collections, of my reputation, of my taste for magnificence--which +you deigned sometimes to mock indulgently with an exquisite flattery +as at something not quite worthy of me. It was like a break-neck ride +on a wild horse, and now the fall has come. It was sudden. I am alive +but my back is broken. Edward Burden is going to be married. I must +pay back what I have borrowed from the Trust. I cannot. Therefore I am +dead. (A mouse has just come out from beneath one of the deed-boxes. +It looks up at me. It may have been eating some of the papers in the +large cupboard. To-morrow morning I shall tell Saunders to get a cat. +I have never seen a mouse here before. I have never been here so +late before. At times of pressure, as you know, I have always taken +my papers home. So that these late hours have been, as it were, the +prerogative of the mouse. No. I shall not get a cat. To that extent +I am still a part of the world: I am master of the fate of mice!) I +have, then, ten hours, less the time it has taken me to chronicle the +mouse, in which to talk to you. It is strange, when I look back on it, +that in all the years we have known each other--seven years, three +months and two days--I have never had so long as ten hours in which I +might talk to you. The longest time was when we came back from Paris +together, when your husband was in such a state that he could neither +see nor hear. (I’ve seen him, by-the-bye, every day since you have been +gone. He’s really keeping away from it wonderfully well; in fact, I +should say that he has not once actually succumbed. I fancy, really, +that your absence is good for him in a way: it creates a new set of +circumstances, and a change is said to be an excellent aid in the +breaking of a habit. He has, I mean, to occupy himself with some of the +things, innumerable as they are, that you do for him. I find that he +has even had his pass-book from the bank and has compared it with his +counterfoils. I haven’t, on account of this improvement, yet been round +to his chemist’s. But I shall certainly tell them that they _must_ +surreptitiously decrease the strength of it.) That was the longest +time we have ever really talked together. And, when I think that in +all these years I haven’t once so much as held your hand for a moment +longer than the strictest of etiquette demanded! And I loved you within +the first month. + +I wonder why that is. Fancy, perhaps. Habit perhaps--a kind of +idealism, a kind of delicacy, a fastidiousness. As you know very well +it is not on account of any moral scruples.... + +I break off to look through what I have already written to you. There +is, first, the question of why I never told you my secret: then, +the question of what my secret really is; I have started so many +questions and have not followed one of them out to the very end. But +all questions resolve themselves into the one question of our dear and +inestimable relationship. + +I think it has been one of the great charms of our relationship that +all our talks have been just talks. We have discussed everything under +the sun, but we have never discussed anything _au fond_. We have +strayed into all sorts of byways and have never got anywhere. I try to +remember how many evenings in the last five years we have not spent +together. I think they must be less than a hundred in number. You know +how, occasionally, your husband would wake out of his stupors--or +walk _in_ his stupor and deliver one of his astonishingly brilliant +disquisitions. But remember how, always, whether he talked of free +love or the improvement in the breed of carriage-horses, he always +thrashed his subject out to the bitter end. It was not living with a +man: it was assisting at a performance. And, when he was sunk into +his drugs or when he was merely literary, or when he was away, how +lazily we talked. I think no two minds were ever so fitted one into +another as yours and mine. It is not of course that we agree on all +subjects--or perhaps upon any. In the whole matter of conduct we are so +absolutely different--you are always for circumspection, for a careful +preparation of the ground, for patience; and I am always ready to act, +and afterwards draw the moral from my own actions. But somehow, in the +end, it has all worked out in our being in perfect agreement. Later I +will tell you why that is. + + * * * * * + +Let me return to my mouse. For you will observe that the whole question +revolves, really, around that little allegorical mite. It is an omen: +it is a symbol. It is a little herald of the Providence that I do not +believe in--of the Providence you so implicitly seek to obey. For +instinctively you believe in Providence--in God, if you will. I as +instinctively disbelieve. Intellectually of course you disbelieve in a +God. You say that it is impossible for Reason to accept an Overlord; I +that Reason forces one to accept an Overlord; that Reason forces one +to believe in an Omnipotent Ruler--only I am unable to believe. We, my +dear, are in ourselves evidence of a design in creation. For we are the +last word of creation. It has taken all the efforts, all the birthpangs +of all the ages to evolve--you and me. And, being evolved, we are +intellectually so perfectly and so divinely fashioned to dovetail +together. And, physically too, are we not divinely meant the one for +the other? Do we not react to the same causes: should not we survive +the same hardships or succumb to the same stresses? Since you have +been away I have gone looking for people--men, women, children, even +animals--that could hold my attention for a minute. There has not been +one. And what purer evidence of design could you ask for than that? + +I have made this pact with the Providence that I argue for, with the +Providence in whose existence I cannot believe--that if, from under +the castle of black metal boxes, the mouse reappear and challenge +death--then there is no future state. And, since I can find no +expression save in you, if we are not reunited I shall no longer exist. +So my mouse is the sign, the arbitrament, a symbol of an eternal life +or the herald of nothingness. + +I will make to you the confession that since this fancy, this profound +truth, has entered my mind, I have not raised my eyes from the paper. I +dread--I suppose it is dread--to look across the ring of light that my +lamp casts. But now I will do so. I will let my eyes travel across the +bundles of dusty papers on my desk. Do you know I have left them just +as they were on the day when you came to ask me to take your railway +tickets? I will let my eyes travel across that rampart of blue and +white dockets.... The mouse is not there. + +But that is not an end of it. I am not a man to be ungenerous in my +dealings with the Omnipotent: I snatch no verdict. + + + + +II + + +Last night it was very late and I grew tired, so I broke off my +letter. Perhaps I was really afraid of seeing that mouse again. Those +minute superstitions are curious things. I noticed, when I looked at +the enumeration of these pages to-night, I began to write upon the +thirteenth sheet--and that gives me a vague dissatisfaction. I read, +by-the-bye, a paragraph in a newspaper: it dealt with half-mad authors. +One of these, the writer said, was Zola; he was stated to be half mad +because he added together the numbers on the backs of cabs passing him +in the street. Personally, I do that again and again--and I know very +well that I do it in order to dull my mind. It is a sort of narcotic. +Johnson, we know, touched his street-posts in a certain order: that, +too, was to escape from miserable thoughts. And we all know how, as +children, we have obeyed mysterious promptings to step upon the lines +between the paving-stones in the street.... But the children have +their futures: it is well that they should propitiate the mysterious +Omnipotent One. In their day, too, Johnson and Zola had their futures. +It was well that Johnson should “touch” against the evil chance; that +Zola should rest his mind against new problems. In me it is mere +imbecility. For I have no future. + +Do you find it difficult to believe that? You know the Burdens, of +course. But I think you do not know that, for the last nine years, +I have administered the Burden estates all by myself. The original +trustees were old Lady Burden and I; but nine years ago Lady Burden +gave me a power of attorney and since then I have acted alone. It was +just before then that I had bought the houses in Gordon Square--the one +I live in, the one you live in, and the seven others. Well, rightly +speaking, those houses have been bought with Burden money, and all my +pictures, all my prints, all my books, my furniture, my reputation as +a connoisseur, my governorship of the two charities--all the me that +people envy--have been bought with the Burden money. I assure you that +at times I have found it a pleasurable excitement.... You see, I have +wanted you sometimes so terribly--so terribly that the juggling with +the Burden accounts has been as engrossing a narcotic as to Zola was +the adding up of the numbers upon the backs of cabs. Mere ordinary work +would never have held my thoughts. + +Under old Burden’s will young Edward Burden comes of age when he +reaches the age of twenty-five or when he marries with my consent. +Well, he will reach the age of twenty-five and he will marry on April +5. On that day the solicitors of his future wife will make their +scrutiny of my accounts. It is regarded, you understand, as a mere +formality. But it amuses me to think of the faces of Coke and Coke +when they come to certain figures! It was an outlaw of some sort, was +it not, who danced and sang beneath the gallows? I wonder, now, what +sort of traitor, outlaw, or stealthy politician I should have made in +the Middle Ages. It is certain that, save for this one particular of +property, I should be in very truth illustrious. No doubt the state +shall come at last in which there shall no more be any property. I was +born before my time. + +For it is certain that I am illustrious save in that one respect. +To-day young Edward Burden came here to the office to introduce me +to his _fiancée_. You observe that I have robbed her. The Burden +property is really crippled. They came, this bright young couple, to +get a cheque from me with which to purchase a motor-car. They are to +try several cars in the next three weeks. On the day before the wedding +they are to choose one that will suit them best--and on the wedding-day +in the evening they are to start for Italy. They will be coming towards +you.... Then no doubt, too, a telegram will reach them, to say that +in all probability motor-cars will be things not for them for several +years to come. What a crumbling of their lives! + +It was odd how I felt towards _her_. You know his pompous, high +forehead, the shine all over him, the grave, weighty manner. He held +his hat--a wonderful shiny, “good” hat--before his mouth, for all +the world as if he had been in church. He made, even, a speech in +introducing Miss Averies to me. You see, in a sense, he was in a +temple. My office enshrined a deity, a divinity: the law, property, +the rights of man as maintained by an august constitution. I am for +him such a wonderfully “safe” man. My dear one, you cannot imagine how +I feel towards him: a little like a deity, a little like an avenging +Providence. I imagine that the real Deity must feel towards some of His +worshippers much as I feel towards this phœnix of the divines. + +The Deity is after all the supreme Artist--and the supreme quality of +Art is surprise. + +Imagine then the feeling of the Deity towards some of those who most +confidently enter His temple. Just imagine His attitude towards +those who deal in the obvious platitudes that “honesty is the best +policy,” or “genius the capacity for taking pains.” So for days the +world appears to them. Then suddenly: honesty no longer pays; the +creature, amassing with his infinite pains, data for his Great Work, +is discovered to have produced a work of an Infinite Dulness. That is +the all-suffering Deity manifesting Himself to His worshippers. For +assuredly a day comes when two added to two no longer results in four. +That day will come on April 5 for Edward Burden. + +After all he has done nothing to make two and two become four. He has +not even checked his accounts: well: for some years now I have been +doing as much as that. But with his _fiancée_ it is different. She is +a fair, slight girl with eyes that dilate under all sorts of emotion. +In my office she appears not a confident worshipper but a rather +frightened fawn led before an Anthropomorphic Deity. And, strangely +enough, though young Burden who trusts me inspires me with a sardonic +dislike, I felt myself saying to this poor little thing that faced me: +“Why: I have wronged you!” And I regretted it. + +She, you see, has after all given something towards a right to enjoy +the Burden estates and the Burden wealth; she has given her fragile +beauty, her amiability, her worship, no doubt, of the intolerable +Edward. And all this payment in the proper coin: so she has in a sense +a right.... + +Good-night, dear one, I think you have it in your power--you _might_ +have it in your power--to atone to this little creature. To-morrow I +will tell you why and how. + + + + +III + + +I wrote last night that you have something in your power. If you wished +it you could make me live on. I am confident that you will not wish +it: for you will understand that capriciously or intolerably I am +tired of living this life. I desire you so terribly that now, even the +excitement of fooling Burden no longer hypnotizes me into an acceptance +of life without you. Frankly, I am tired out. If I had to go on living +any longer I should have to ask you to be mine in one form or other. +With that and with my ability--for of course I have great ability--I +could go on fooling Burden for ever. I could restore: I could make +sounder than ever it was that preposterous “going concern” the Burden +Estate. Unless I like to let them, I think that the wife’s solicitors +will not discover what I have done. For, frankly, I have put myself out +in this matter in order to be amusing to myself and ingenious. I have +forged whole builder’s estimates for repairs that were never executed: +I have invented whole hosts of defaulting tenants. It has not been +latterly for money that I have done this: it has been simply for the +sheer amusement of looking at Edward Burden and saying to myself: + +“Ah: you trust me, my sleek friend. Well....” + +But indeed I fancy that I am rich enough to be able to restore to +them all that I have taken. And, looking at Edward Burden’s little +_fiancée_, I was almost tempted to set upon that weary course of +juggling. But I am at the end of my tether. I cannot live without you +longer. And I do not wish to ask you. Later I will tell you. Or No--I +will tell you now. + +You see, my dear thing, it is a question of going one better. It +would be easy enough to deceive your husband: it would be easier +still to go away together. I think that neither you nor I have ever +had any conscientious scruples. But, analysing the matter down to its +very depths, I think we arrive at this, that without the motives for +self-restraint that other people have we are anxious to show more +self-restraint than they. We are doing certain work not for payment +but for sheer love of work. Do I make myself clear? For myself I have +a great pride in your image. I can say to myself: “Here is a woman, my +complement. She has no respect for the law. She does not value what a +respect for the law would bring her. Yet she remains purer than the +purest of the makers of law.” And I think it is the converse of that +feeling that you have for me. + +If you desire me to live on, I will live on: I am so swayed by you +that if you desire me to break away from this ideal of you, the breath +of a command will send me round to your side. + +I am ready to give my life for this Ideal: nay more, I am ready to +sacrifice you to it, since I know that life for you will remain a very +bitter thing. I know, a little, what renunciation means. + +And I am asking you to bear it--for the sake of my ideal of you. For, +assuredly, unless I can have you I must die--and I know that you will +not ask me to have you. And I love you: and bless you for it. + + + + +IV + + +I have just come in from _Tristan and Isolde_. + +I had to hurry and be there for the first notes because you--my +you--would, I felt, be sitting beside me as you have so often. That, +of course, is passion--the passion that makes us unaccountable in our +actions. + +I found you naturally: but I found, too, something else. It has always +a little puzzled me why we return to Tristan. There are passages in +that thing as intolerable as anything in any of the Germanic master’s +scores. But we are held--simply by the idea of the love-philtre: +it’s that alone that interests us. We do not care about the initial +amenities of Tristan and the prima donna: we do not believe in Mark’s +psychologising: but, from the moment when those two dismal marionettes +have drained unconsideringly the impossible cup, they become suddenly +alive, and we see two human beings under the grip of a passion--acting +as irrationally as I did when I promised my cabman five shillings to +get me to the theatre in time for the opening bars. + +It is, you see, the love-philtre that performs this miracle. It +interests--it is real to us--because every human being knows what it +is to act, irrationally, under the stress of some passion or other. We +are drawn along irresistibly: we commit the predestined follies or the +predestined heroisms: the other side of our being acts in contravention +of all our rules of conduct or of intellect. Here, in Tristan, we see +such madness justified with a concrete substance, a herb, a root. We +see a vision of a state of mind in which morality no longer exists: +we are given a respite, a rest: an interval in which no standard of +conduct oppresses us. It is an idea of an appeal more universal than +any other in which the tired imagination of humanity takes refuge. + +The thought that somewhere in the world there should be something that +I could give to you, or you to me, that would leave us free to do +what we wish without the drag of the thought of what we owe, to each +other, to the world! And after all, what greater gift could one give to +another? It would be the essential freedom. For assuredly, the philtre +could do no more than put it in a man’s power to do what he would do if +he were let loose. He would not bring out more than he had in him: but +he would fully and finally express himself. + +Something unexpected has changed the current of my thoughts. Nothing +can change their complexion, which is governed not by what others do +but by the action which I must face presently. And I don’t know why I +should use the word unexpected, unless because at the moment I was very +far from expecting that sort of perplexity. The correct thing to say +would be that something natural has happened. + +Perfectly natural. Asceticism is the last thing that one could expect +from the Burdens. Alexander Burden, the father, was an exuberant +millionaire, in no vulgar way, of course; he was exuberant with +restraint, not for show, with a magnificence which was for private +satisfaction mainly. I am talking here of the ascetic temperament which +is based on renunciation, not of mere simplicity of tastes, which +is simply scorn for certain orders of sensations. There have been +millionaires who have lived simply. There have been millionaires who +have lived sordidly--but miserliness is one of the supreme forms of +sensualism. + +Poor Burden had a magnificent physique. The reserved abilities of +generations of impoverished Burdens, starved for want of opportunities, +matured in his immense success--and all their starved appetites too. +But all the reserve quality of obscure Burdens has been exhausted in +him. There was nothing to come to his son--who at most could have been +a great match and is to-day looked upon in that light, I suppose, by +the relations of his future wife. I don’t know in what light that young +man looks upon himself. His time of trial is coming. + +Yesterday at eight in the evening he came to see me. I thought at first +he wanted some money urgently. But very soon I reflected that he need +not have looked so embarrassed in that case. And presently I discovered +that it was not money that he was in need of. He looked as though +he had come, with that characteristic gravity of his--so unlike his +father--to seek absolution at my hands. But that intention he judged +more decorous, I suppose, to present to me as a case of conscience. + +Of course it was the case of a girl--not his _fiancée_. At first I +thought he was in an ugly scrape. Nothing of the kind. The excellent +creature who had accepted his protection for some two years past--how +dull they must have seemed to her--was perhaps for that reason +perfectly resigned to forego that advantage. At the same time, she was +not too proud to accept a certain provision, compensation--whatever you +like to call it. I had never heard of anything so proper in my life. He +need not have explained the matter to me at all. But evidently he had +made up his mind to indulge in the luxury of a conscience. + +To indulge that sort of conscience leads one almost as far as indulged +passion, only, I cannot help thinking, on a more sordid road. A luxury +snatched from the fire is in a way purified, but to find this one he +had gone apparently to the bottom of his heart. I don’t charge him with +a particularly odious degree of corruption, but I perceived clearly +that what he wanted really was to project the sinful effect of that +irregular connection--let us call it--into his regulated, reformed, +I may say lawfully blessed state--for the sake of retrospective +enjoyment, I suppose. This rather subtle, if unholy, appetite, he +was pleased to call the voice of his conscience. I listened to his +dialectic exercises till the great word that was sure to come out +sooner or later was pronounced. + +“It seems,” he said, with every appearance of distress, “that from a +strictly moral point of view I ought to make a clean breast of it to +Annie.” + +I listened to him--and, by Heaven, listening to him I _do_ feel +like the Godhead of whom I have already written to you. You know, +positively he said that at the very moment of his “fall” he had thought +of what _I_ should think of him. And I said: + +“My good Edward, you are the most debauched person I have ever met.” + +His face fell, his soft lips dropped right down into a horseshoe. He +had come to me as one of those bland optimists _would_ go to his deity. +He expected to be able to say: “I have sinned,” and to be able to hear +the Deity say: “That’s all right, your very frank confession does you +infinite credit.” His deity was, in fact, to find him some way out of +his moral hole. I was to find him some genial excuse; to make him feel +good in his excellent digestion once more. That was, absolutely, his +point of view, for at my brutal pronouncement he stuttered: + +“But--but surely ... the faults of youth ... and surely there are +plenty of others?...” + +I shook my head at him and panic was dropping out of his eyes: “Can’t +I marry Annie honourably?” he quavered. I took a sinister delight in +turning the knife inside him. I was going to let him go anyhow: the +sort of cat that I am always lets its mice go. (That mouse, by-the-bye, +has never again put in an appearance.) + +“My dear fellow,” I said, “does not your delicacy let you see the hole +you put me into? It’s to my interest that you should not marry Miss +Averies and you ask me to advise you on the point.” + +His mouth dropped open: positively he had never considered that when he +married I lost the confounded three hundred a year for administering +the Burden Trust. I sat and smiled at him to give him plenty of time to +let his mind agonize over his position. + +“Oh, hang it,” he said.... And his silly eyes rolled round my room +looking for that Providence that he felt ought to intervene in his +behalf. When they rested on me again I said: + +“There, go away. Of course it’s a fault of your youth. Of course +every man that’s fit to call himself a man has seduced a clergyman’s +daughter.” + +He said: + +“Oh, but there was not anything common about it.” + +“No,” I answered, “you had an uncommonly good time of it with your +moral scruples. I envy you the capacity. You’ll have a duller one with +Miss Averies, you know.” + +That was too much for him to take in, so he smoothed his hat. + +“When you said I was ... debauched ... you were only laughing at me. +That was hardly fair. I’m tremendously in earnest.” + +“You’re only play-acting compared with me,” I answered. He had the air +of buttoning his coat after putting a cheque into his breast pocket. +He had got, you see, the cheque he expected: my applause of his +successful seduction, my envy of his good fortune. That was what he had +come for--and he got it. He went away with it pretty bare-facedly, but +he stopped at the threshold to let drop: + +“Of course if I had known you would be offended by my having recourse +to Annie’s solicitors for the settlement....” + +I told him I was laughing at him about that too. + +“It was the correct thing to do, you know,” were the words he shut the +door upon. The ass.... + +The phrase of his--that he had thought of me at the moment of his +fall--gives you at once the measure of his respect for me. But it gave +me much more. It gave me my cue: it put it into my head to say he was +debauched. And, indeed, that is debauchery. For it is the introduction +of one’s morals into the management of one’s appetites that makes +an indulgence of them debauchery. Had my friend Edward regarded his +seduction as the thing he so much desired me to tell him it was; a +thing of youth, high spirits--a thing we all do--had he so regarded +it I could not really have called it debauchery. But--and this is +the profound truth--the measure of debauchery is the amount of joy +we get from the indulgence of our appetites. And the measure of joy +we get is the amount of excitement: if it brings into play not only +all our physical but all our moral nature then we have the crucial +point beyond which no man can go. It isn’t, in fact, the professional +seducer, the artist in seduction that gets pleasure from the pursuit +of his avocation, any more than it is the professional musician who +gets thrills from the performance of music. You cannot figure to +yourself the violinist, as he fiddles the most complicated passage of +a concerto, when he really surmounts the difficulty by dint of using +all his knowledge and all his skill--you cannot imagine him thinking of +his adviser, his mother, his God and all the other things that my young +friend says he thought about. And it is the same with the professional +seducer. He may do all that he knows to bring his object about--but +that is not debauchery. It is, by comparison, a joyless occupation: +it is drinking when you are thirsty. Putting it in terms of the most +threadbare allegory--you cannot imagine that Adam got out of the fall +the pleasure that Edward Burden got out of his bite of the apple. + +But Edward Burden, whilst he shilly-shallied with “Shall I?” and +“Sha’n’t I?” could deliciously introduce into the matter _all_ his +human relationships. He could think of me, of his mother, of the fact +that potentially he was casting to the winds the very cause for his +existence. For assuredly, if Edward Burden have a cause for existence +it is that he should not, morally or physically, do anything that would +unfit him to make a good marriage. So he had, along with what physical +pleasure there might be, the immense excitement of staking his all +along with the tremendous elation of the debate within himself that +went before. For he was actually staking his all upon the chance that +he could both take what he desired and afterwards reconcile it with +his conscience to make a good match. Well, he has staked and won. That +is the true debauchery. That, in a sense, is the compensating joy that +Puritanism gets. + + + + +V + + +I have just come in. Again you will not guess from where. From choosing +a motor-car with Burden and his _fiancée_. It seems incredible that +I should be called upon to preside at these preparations for my own +execution. I looked at hundreds of these shiny engines, with the +monstrously inflated white wheels, and gave a half-amused--but I can +assure you a half-interested--attention to my own case. For one of +these will one day--and soon now--be arrested in a long rush, by my +extinction. In it there will be seated the two young people who went +with me through the garages. They will sit in some sort of cushioned +ease--the cushions will be green, or red, or blue in shiny leather. +I think, however, that they will not be green--because Miss Averies +let slip to me, in a little flutter of shy confidence, the words: “Oh, +don’t let’s have green, because it’s an unlucky colour.” Edward Burden, +of course, suppressed her with a hurried whisper as if, in thus giving +herself away to me, she must be committing a sin against the house of +Burden. + +That, naturally, is the Burden tradition: a Burden’s wife must possess +frailties: but she must feign perfection even to a trusted adviser of +the family. She must not confess to superstitions. It was amusing, the +small incident, because it was the very first attempt that little Miss +Averies has ever made to get near me. God knows what Edward may have +made me appear to her: but I fancy that, whatever Edward may have said, +she had pierced through that particular veil: she realizes, with her +intuition, that I am dangerous. She is alarmed and possibly fascinated +because she feels that I am not “straight”--that I might, in fact, be +a woman or a poet. Burden, of course, has never got beyond seeing that +I dress better than he does and choose a dinner better than his uncle +Darlington. + +I came, of course, out of the motor-car ordeal with flying colours--on +these lines. I lived, in fact, up to my character for being orthodox in +the matter of comfort. I even suggested two little mirrors, like those +which were so comforting to us all when we sat in hansom cabs. That +struck Burden as being the height of ingenuity--and I know it proved to +Miss Averies, most finally, that I am dangerous, since no woman ever +looks in those little mirrors without some small motive of coquetry. It +was just after that that she said to me: + +“Don’t you think that the little measures on the tops of the new +canisters are extravagant for China tea?” + +That, of course, admitted me to the peculiar intimacy that women allow +to other women, or to poets, or to dangerous men. Edward, I know, +dislikes the drinking of China tea because it is against the principle +of supporting the British flag. But Miss Averies in her unequal battle +with this youth of the classical features slightly vulgarized, called +me in to show a sign of sympathy--to give at least the flicker of the +other side--of the woman, the poet, or the pessimist among men. She +asked me, in fact, not to take up the cudgels to the extent of saying +that China tea is the thing to drink--that would have been treason to +Edward--but she desired that her instinct should be acknowledged to the +extent of saying that the measures of canisters should be contrived to +suit the one kind of tea as well as the other. In his blind sort of +way Edward caught the challenge in the remark and his straight brows +lowered a very little. + +“If you don’t have more than three pounds of China tea in the house in +a year it won’t matter about the measures,” he said. “We never use more +at Shackleton.” + +“But it makes the tea too strong, Edward.” + +“Then you need not fill the measure,” he answered. + +“Oh, I wish,” she said to me, “that you’d tell Edward not to make me +make tea at all. I dread it. The servants do it so much better.” + +“So,” I asked, “Edward has arranged everything down to the last detail?” + +Edward looked to me for approval and applause. + +“You see, Annie has had so little experience, and I’ve had to look +after my mother’s house for years.” His air said: “Yes! You’ll see our +establishment will be run on the very best lines! Don’t you admire the +way I’m taming her already?” + +I gave him, of course, a significant glance. Heaven knows why: for it +is absolutely true that I am tired of appearing reliable--to Edward +Burden or any one else in the world. What I want to do is simply to +say to Edward Burden: “No, I don’t at all admire your dragging down a +little bundle of ideals and sentiments to your own fatted calf’s level.” + +I suppose I have in me something of the poet. I can imagine that if +I had to love or to marry this little Averies girl I should try to +find out what was her tiny vanity and I should minister to it. In some +way I should discover from her that she considered herself charming, +or discreet, or tasteful, or frivolous, beyond all her fellows. +And, having discovered it, I should bend all my energies to giving +her opportunities for displaying her charm, her discreetness or her +coquetry. With a woman of larger and finer mould--with you!--I should +no doubt bring into play my own idealism. I should invest her with the +attributes that I consider the most desirable in the world. But in +either case I cannot figure myself dragging her down to my own social +or material necessities. + +That is what Edward Burden is doing for little Miss Averies. I don’t +mean to say that he does not idealize her--but he sees her transfigured +as the dispenser of his special brand of tea or the mother of the sort +of child that he was. And that seems to me a very valid reason why +women, if they were wise, should trust their fortunes cold-bloodedly +and of set reason to the class of dangerous men that now allure them +and that they flee from. + +They flee from them, I am convinced, because they fear for their +worldly material fortunes. They fear, that is to say, that the poet is +not a stable man of business: they recognise that he is a gambler--and +it seems to them that it is folly to trust to a gambler for life-long +protection. In that they are perhaps right. But I think that no woman +doubts her power to retain a man’s affection--so that it is not to +the reputation for matrimonial instability that the poet owes his +disfavour. A woman lives, in short, to play with this particular fire, +since to herself she says: “Here is a man who has broken the hearts +of many women. I will essay the adventure of taming him.” And, if she +considers the adventure a dangerous one, that renders the contest only +the more alluring, since at heart every woman, like every poet, is a +gambler. In that perhaps she is right. + +But it seems to me that women make a great mistake in the value of the +stakes they are ready to pay in order to enter this game. They will +stake, that is to say, their relatively great coin--their sentimental +lives; but they hoard with closed fingers the threepenny bit which is +merely the material future. + +They prefer, that is to say, to be rendered the mere presiding geniuses +of well-loaded boards. It is better to be a lady--which you will +remember philologically means a “loaf-cutter”--than to be an Ideal. + +And in this they are obviously wrong. If a woman can achieve the +obvious miracle of making a dangerous man stable in his affections she +may well be confident that she can persuade him to turn his serious +attention to the task of keeping a roof over her head. Certainly, +I know, if I were a woman which of the two types of men I would +choose. Upon the lowest basis it is better for all purposes of human +contracts to be married to a good liar than to a bad one. For a lie +is a figurative truth--and it is the poet who is the master of these +illusions. Even in the matter of marital relations it is probable +that the poet is as faithful as the Edward Burdens of this world--only +the Edward Burdens are more skilful at concealing from the rest of +the world their pleasant vices. I doubt whether they are as skilful +at concealing them from the woman concerned--from the woman, with her +intuition, her power to seize fine shades of coolness and her awakened +self-interest. Imagine the wife of Edward Burden saying to him, “You +have deceived me!” Imagine then the excellent youth, crimsoning, +stuttering. He has been taught all his life that truth must prevail +though the skies fall--and he stammers: “Yes: I have betrayed you.” And +that is tragedy, though in the psychological sense--and that is the +important one--Edward Burden may have been as faithful as the ravens, +who live for fifteen decades with the same mate. He will, in short, +blunder into a tragic, false position. And he will make the tragedy +only the more tragic in that all the intellectual powers he may possess +will be in the direction of perpetuating the dismal position. He will +not be able to argue that he has not been unfaithful--but he will be +able to find a hundred arguments for the miserable woman prolonging +her life with him. Position, money, the interests of the children, the +feelings of her family and of his--all these considerations will make +him eloquent to urge her to prolong her misery. And probably she will +prolong it. + +This, of course, is due to the excellent Edward’s lack of an +instinctive sympathy. The poet, with a truer vision, will in the same +case, be able to face his Miss Averies’ saying: “You have deceived +me!” with a different assurance. Supposing the deflection to have been +of the momentary kind he will be able to deny with a good conscience +since he will be aware of himself and his feelings. He will at least +be able to put the case in its just light. Or, if the deflection be +really temperamental, really permanent, he will be unable--it being +his business to look at the deeper verities--to lie himself out of the +matter. He will break, strictly and sharply. Or, if he do not, it may +be taken as a sign that his Miss Averies is still of value to him--that +she, in fact, is still the woman that it is his desire to have for his +companion. This is true, of course, only in the large sense, since +obviously there are poets whose reverence for position, the interest of +children or the feelings of their friends and relatives, may outweigh +their hatred of a false position. These, however, are poets in the +sense that they write verse: I am speaking of those who live the +poet’s life; to such, a false position is too intolerable to be long +maintained. + +But this again is only one of innumerable side-issues: let me return +to my main contention that a dinner of herbs with a dangerous man is +better than having to consume the flesh of stalled oxen with Edward +Burden. Perhaps that is only a way of saying that you would have done +better to entrust yourself to me than to---- (But no, your husband +is a better man than Edward Burden. He has at least had the courage +to revert to his passion. I went this afternoon to your chemists and +formally notified them that if they supplied him with more than the +exactly prescribed quantity of that stuff, I, as holding your power of +attorney, should do all that the law allows me to do against them.) + +Even to the dullest of men, marrying is for the most part an +imaginative act. I mean marrying as a step in life sanctioned by law, +custom and that general consent of mankind which is the hall-mark of +every irrational institution. By irrational I do not mean wrong or +stupid. Marriage is august by the magnitude of the issues it involves, +balancing peace and strife on the fine point of a natural impulse +refined by the need of a tangible ideal. I am not speaking here of +mere domestic peace or strife which for most people that count are a +question of manners and a mode of life. And I am thinking of the peace +mostly--the peace of the soul which yearns for some sort of certitude +in this earth, the peace of the heart which yearns for conquest, the +peace of the senses that dreads deception, the peace of the imaginative +faculty which in its restless quest of a high place of rest is spurred +on by these great desires and that great fear. + +And even Edward Burden’s imagination is moved by these very desires and +that very fear--or else he would not have dreamt of marrying. I repeat, +marriage is an imaginative institution. It’s true that his imagination +is a poor thing but it is genuine nevertheless. The faculty of which +I speak is of one kind in all of us. Not to every one is given that +depth of feeling, that faculty of absolute trust which _will not_ be +deceived, and the exulting masterfulness of the senses which are the +mark of a fearless lover. Fearless lovers are rare, if obstinate, and +sensual fools are countless as grains of sand by the seashore. I can +imagine that correct young man perfectly capable of setting himself +deliberately to worry a distracted girl into surrender. + + + + +VI + + +I don’t know why, to-night in particular, the fact that I am a dead man +occurs to me very insistently. I had forgotten this for two whole days. +If any one very dear to you has ever been _in extremis_ at a distance +and you have journeyed to be at the last bedside, you will know how +possible this is--how for hours at a time the mind will go wandering +away from the main fact that is drawing you onwards, till suddenly it +comes back: someone is dying at a distance. And I suppose one’s I is +the nearest friend that one has--and my I is dying at a distance. At +the end of a certain number of days is the deathbed towards which I am +hurrying--it is a fact which I cannot grasp. But one aspect grows more +clear to me every time I return to this subject. + +You remember that, when we have discussed suicide, we have agreed that +to the man of action death is a solution: to the man of thoughts it +is none. For the man of action expresses himself in action, and death +is the negation of action: the man of thought sees the world only in +thoughts, and over thought death exercises no solution of continuity. +If one dies one’s actions cease, one’s problem continues. For that +reason it is only in so far as I am a man of action that I shall be +dying. You understand what I mean--for I do not mean that it is my +actions that have killed me. It is simply because I have taken refuge +from my thoughts in action, and because after April 5 that refuge will +be closed to me, that I take refuge in a final action which, properly +speaking, is neither action nor refuge. + +And perhaps I am no man of action at all, since the action in which I +have taken refuge is properly speaking no action at all, but merely +the expression of a frame of mind. I have gambled, that is to say I +have not speculated. For the speculator acts for gain: the gambler in +order to interest himself. I have gambled--to escape from you: I have +tried to escape from my thoughts of you into divining the undivinable +future. For that is what gambling is. You try for a rise: you try for a +fall--and the rise or the fall may depend on the momentary madness of a +dozen men who declare a war, or upon the rain from heaven which causes +so many more stalks of wheat to arise upon so many million square +inches of earth. The point is that you make yourself dependent upon +caprice--upon the caprice of the weather or upon the movement in the +minds of men more insane than yourself. + +To-day I have entered upon what is the biggest gamble of my whole +life. Certain men who believe in me--they are not Edward Burdens, +nevertheless they believe in me--have proposed to me to form a corner +in a certain article which is indispensable to the daily life of the +City. I do not tell you what it is because you will assuredly witness +the effects of this inspiration. + +You will say that, when this is accomplished, it will be utterly +uninteresting. And that is literally true: when it is done it will +be uninteresting. But in the multiplicity of things that will have +to be done before the whole thing is done--in the waiting for things +to take effect, in the failures perhaps more than in the successes, +since the failures will imply new devising--in all the meticulous +thought-readings that will be necessary, the interest will lie, and in +the men with whom one is brought into contact, the men with whom one +struggles, the men whom one must bribe or trick. + +And you will say: How can I who am to die in fourteen days embark upon +an enterprise that will last many months or many years? That, I think, +is very simple. + +It is my protest against being called a man of action, the +misconception that I have had to resent all my life. And this is a +thought: not an action: a thought made up of an almost infinite number +of erring calculations. You have probably forgotten that I have founded +two towns, upon the south coast: originated four railways in tropical +climates and one in the west of England: and opened up heaven knows how +many mines of one kind or another--and upon my soul I had forgotten +these things too until I began to cast about in my mind. And now I go +to my death unmindful of these glories in so far as they are concrete. +In that sense my death is utter: it is a solution. But, in so far as +they are my refuges from you they remain problems to which, if my +ghost is to escape you, I must return again and again. + +In dying I surrender to you and thus, for the inner self of myself, +death is no ending but the commencement of who knows what tortures. It +is only in the latent hope that death is the negation of consciousness +that I shall take my life. For death, though it can very certainly end +no problem, may at least make us unconscious of how, eventually, the +problem solves itself. That, you see, is really the crux of the whole +thing--that is why the man of action will take refuge in death: the +man of thought, never. But I, I am the man of neither the one nor the +other: I am the man of love, which partakes of action and of thought, +but which is neither. + +The lover is, perhaps, the eternal doubter--simply because there is no +certain panacea for love. Travel may cure it--but travel may cause to +arise homesickness, which of all forms of love is the most terrible. To +mix with many other men may cure it--but again, to the man who really +loves, it may be a cause for still more terrible unrest, since seeing +other men and women may set one always comparing the beloved object +with the same thing. And, indeed, the form that it takes with me--for +with me love takes the form of a desire to discuss--the form which +it takes with me renders each thing that I see, each man with whom I +speak, the more torturing, since always I desire to adjust my thoughts +of them by your thoughts. I went down the other day--before I had +begun to write these letters to you and before I knew death impended +so nearly over me--to the sea at P--. I was trying to get rid of you. +I sat in the moonlight and saw the smacks come home, visible for a +minute in the track of the moon and then no more than their lights in +the darkness. The fishermen talked of death by drowning mostly: the +passage of the boats across that trail of light suggested reflections, +no doubt trite. But, without you to set my thoughts by, I could get no +more forward: I went round and round in a ring from the corpses fished +up in the nets to the track of the moon. And since walking up and down +on the parade brought me no nearer to you, I did not even care to move: +I neither meditated nor walked, neither thought nor acted. And that is +real torture. + +It was the next morning that I heard that young Burden desired that his +_fiancée’s_ solicitors should scrutinise the accounts of the Burden +Trust--and Death loomed up before me. + +You will ask: why Death? Why not some alternative? Flight or prison? +Well: prison would be an unendurable travelling through Time, flight, +an equally unendurable travelling through Time with Space added. Both +these things are familiar: Death alone, in spite of all the experience +that humanity has had of Death, is the utterly unfamiliar. For a +gambler it is a _coup_ alluring beyond belief--as we know neither what +we stake nor what we stand to win. I, personally, stand to win a great +deal, since Life holds nothing for me and I stake only my life--and +what I seek is only forgetfulness of you, or some sort of eventual and +incomprehensible union with you. For the union with you that I seek is +a queer sort of thing; hardly at all, I think, a union of the body, but +a sort of consciousness of our thoughts proceeding onwards together. +That we may find in the unending Afterwards. Or we may find the Herb +Oblivion. + +Either of these things I desire. For, in so far as we can dogmatise +about Death we may lay it down that Death is the negation of Action +but is powerless against Thought. I do not desire Action: and at the +same time I do not fear Thought. For it is not my thoughts of you that +I fear: left alone with them I can say: “What is she more than any +other material object?” It is my feelings that wear out my brain--my +feelings that make me know that you are more than every material object +living or still, and more than every faith dead or surviving. For +feeling is neither Thought nor Action: it is the very stuff of Life +itself. And, if Death be the negation of Life it may well be the end of +consciousness. + +The worst that Death can do to me is to deliver me up for ever to +unsatisfied longings for you. Well, that is all that Life has done, +that is all that Life can do, for me. + +But Life can do so much more that is worse. Believe me when I say that +I dread imprisonment--and believe me when I say that I do not dread +disgrace. For you know very well that it is true when I say that I +positively chuckle at the thought of the shock my fall would give +to all these unawakened intelligences of this world. You know how I +despise Edward Burden for trusting in me; you know how I have always +despised other people who trusted in established reputations. I don’t +mean to say that I should not have liked to keep the game up, certainly +I should, since in gambling it is more desirable to win than to lose. +And it is more amusing to fool fools than to give them eye-openers. But +I think that, in gambling, it is only a shade less desirable, _per se_, +to lose than to win. The main point is the sensation of either; and the +only valid objection to losing is that, if one loses too often one has +at last no longer the wherewithal to gamble. Similarly, to give people +eye-openers is, _per se_, nearly as desirable as to fool them. It is +not quite so desirable, since the game itself _is_ the fooling. But +the great objection in _my_ case is that the eye-opener would once and +for all put an end to the chance of my ever fooling them again. That, +however, is a very small matter and what I dread is not that. If people +no longer trusted in me I could no doubt still find an outlet for my +energies with those who sought to take advantage of my abilities, +trusting to themselves to wrest from me a sufficient share of the +plunder that they so ardently desire, that I so really have no use for. + +No, I seek in Death a refuge from exposure not because exposure +would cripple my energies: it would probably help them: and not +because exposure would mean disgrace; I should probably find ironical +satisfaction in it--but simply because it would mean imprisonment. +That I dread beyond belief: I clench my fingers when, in conversation, +I hear the words: “A long sentence.” For that would mean my being +delivered up for a long time--for ever--to you. I write “for ever” +advisedly and after reflection, since a long subjection, without +relief, to that strain would leave upon my brain a wound that must +prove ineffaceable. For to be alone and to think--those are my terrors. + +One reads that men who have been condemned for long years to solitary +imprisonment go mad. But I think that even that sad gift from +Omnipotent Fate would not be mine. As I figure the world to myself, +Fate is terrible only to those who surrender to her. If I surrendered, +to the extent of living to go to prison, then assuredly the future must +be uniformly heavy, uniformly doomed, in my eyes. For I would as soon +be mad as anything else I can think of. But I should not go mad. Men go +mad because of the opportunities they miss: because the world changes +outside their prison walls, or because their children starve. But I +have no opportunities to miss or take: the changes of the world to me +are nothing, and there is no soul between whom and starvation I could +stand. + +Whilst I am about making this final disposition of my properties--let +me tell you finally what I have done in regard to your husband himself. +It is a fact--and this I have been keeping up my sleeve as a final +surprise for you--that he is almost cured.... + +But I have just received an incomprehensible note from Edward Burden. +He asks me for some particulars as to his confounded estate and whether +I can lend him some thousands of pounds at short notice. Heaven knows +what new scrape this is that he’s in. Of course this may precipitate my +crash. But whatever happens, I shall find time to write my final words +to you--and nothing else really matters.... + + + + +VII + + +I haven’t yet discovered what Edward Burden is doing. I have found him +a good round sum upon mortgage--the irony of the position being that +the money is actually his whilst the mortgage does not actually exist. +He says that what he is doing with the money will please me. I suppose +that means that he’s embarking upon some sort of speculation which he +imagines that I would favour. It is odd that he should think that I +find gratification in his imitating myself. + +But why should I concern myself with this thing at all? Nothing in the +world can ever please or displease me any more. For I have taken my +resolve: this is my last night upon earth. When I lay down this pen +again, I shall never take up any pen more. For I have said all that I +can say to you. I am utterly tired out. To-night I shall make up into +a parcel all these letters--I must sit through the night because it is +only to-morrow morning that I shall be able to register the parcel to +you--and registering it will be my last act upon the habitable globe. +For biting through the glass in the ring will be not an action, but the +commencement of a new train of thought. Or perhaps only my final action +will come to an end when you read these words in Rome. Or will that be +only thought--the part of me that lives--pleading to you to give your +thoughts for company. I feel too tired to think the matter out! + +Let me, then, finish with this earth: I told you, when I finished +writing last night, that Robert is almost cured. I would not have +told you this for the sake of arrogating to myself the position of a +saviour. But I imagine that you would like the cure to go on and, in +the case of some accident after my death, it might go all to pieces +once more. Quite simply then: I have been doing two things. In the +first place I have persuaded your chemists to reduce very gradually the +strength of chloral, so that the bottles contain nearly half water. And +Robert perceives no difference. Now of course it is very important that +he shall not know of the trick that is being so beneficently played on +him--so that, in case he should go away or for one reason or another +change his chemists, it must be carefully seen to that instead of pure +chloral he obtains the exactly diluted mixture. In this way he may be +brought gradually to drinking almost pure water. + +But that alone would hardly be satisfactory: a comparatively +involuntary cure is of little value in comparison with an effort of the +will. You may, conceivably, expel nature with a fork, but nothing but +a passion will expel a passion. The only point to be proved is whether +there exists in your husband any other passion for the sake of which he +might abandon his passion for the clearness of vision which he always +says his chloral gives him. He has not, of course, the incentives usual +to men: you cannot, in fact, “get” him along ordinary lines.... But +apart from his physical craving for the drug he _has_ that passion +for clearness of intellect that he says the drug gives him--and it is +through that, that at last, I have managed to hit his pride. + +For I have put it to him very strongly that one view of life is just +as good as another--no better, no worse, but just the same. And I have +put it to him that his use of chloral simply limits for him the number +of views of life that he might conceivably have. And, when you come to +think of all the rhapsodies of his that we have listened to, I think +that that piece of special pleading is sufficiently justified. I do +indeed honestly believe that, for what it is worth, he is on the road +to salvation. He means to make a struggle--to attempt the great feat of +once more seeing life with the eyes that Fate originally gave to him. + +This is my legacy to _you_: if you ask me why I have presented you +with this man’s new identity--since it _will_ mean a new identity--I +must answer that I simply don’t know. Why have we kept him alive all +these years? I have done it no doubt because I had nothing to give +you. But you? If you have loved me you must have wished him--I won’t +say dead--but no more there. Yet you have tried too--and I suppose +this answer to the riddle is simply the answer to the whole riddle +of our life. We have tried to play a supremely difficult game simply +because it sanctified our love. For, after all, sanctification arises +from difficulties. Well, we have made our way very strait and we have +so narrowed the door of entrance that it has vanished altogether. We +have never had _any_ hope of a solution that could have satisfied us. +If we had cared to break the rules of the game, I suppose we could +have done it easily enough--and we could have done it the more easily +since neither you nor I ever subscribed to those rules. If we have +not it was, I think, simply because we sought the difficulty which +sanctifies.... Has it been a very imbecile proceeding? I am most +uncertain. For it is not a thing to be very proud of--to be able to say +that for a whole lifetime, one has abstained from that which one most +desired. On the other hand, we have won a curious and difficult game. +Well--there it is--and there is your legacy. I do not think that there +is anything else for me to write about. You will see that, in my will, +I have left everything I possess to--Edward Burden. This is not because +I wish to make him reparation, and it’s not because I wish to avoid +scandal: it is simply because it may show him--one very simple thing. +It will show him how very nearly I might have made things come right. +I have been balancing my accounts very carefully, and I find that, +reckoning things reasonably against myself, Edward Burden will have a +five-pound note with which to buy himself a mourning-ring. + +The being forced to attend to my accounts will make him gasp a +good deal. It will certainly shake his belief in all accepted +reputations--for he will look on the faces of many men each “as +solid as the Bank of England,” and he will think: “I wonder if you +are like----?” His whole world will crumble--not because I have been +dishonest, since he is coldblooded enough to believe that all men +may be dishonest. But he will tremble because I have been able to +be so wildly dishonest and yet to be so successfully respectable. +He won’t even dare to “expose” me, since, if he did that, half of +the shares which he will inherit from me would suffer an eclipse of +disreputability, would tumble to nothingness in value--and would damage +his poor pocket. He will have to have my estate set down at a high +figure; he will have to be congratulated on his fortunate inheritance, +and he will have, sedulously, to compound my felony. + +You will wonder how I can be capable of this final cruelty--the most +cruel thing that, perhaps, ever one man did to another. I will tell +you why it is: it is because I hate all the Edward Burdens of the +world--because, being the eternal Haves of the world, they have made +their idiotic rules of the game. And you and I suffer: you and I, the +eternal Have Nots. And we suffer, not because their rules bind us, but +because, being the finer spirits, we are forced to set ourselves rules +that are still more strict in order that, in all things, we may be the +truly gallant. + +But why do I write: “You will wonder how I can be capable of this.” You +will have understood--you who understand everything. + +_Eight in the morning._--Well: now we part. I am going to register the +parcel containing all these letters to you. We part: and it is as if +you were dropping back--the lost Eurydice of the world--into an utter +blackness. For, in a minute, you will be no more than part of my past. +Well then: good-night. + + + + +VIII + + +You will have got the telegram I sent you long before you got the +parcel of letters: you will have got the note I wrote you by the same +post as the letters themselves. If I have taken these three days to +myself before again writing to you it has been because I have needed to +recover my power of thinking. Now, in a way, I have recovered it--and +it is only fair to say that I have devoted all my thoughts to how the +new situation affects you--and you in your relations to me. + +It places me in your hands--let that be written first and foremost. You +have to decree my life or my death. For I take it that now we can never +get back again into our old position: I have spoken, you have heard me +speak. The singular unity, the silence of our old life is done with +for good. There is perhaps no reason why this should not be so: silence +is no necessary part of our relationship. But it has seemed to make a +rather exquisite bond between us. + +It must, if I am to continue to live--it must be replaced by some other +bond. In our silence we have seemed to speak in all sorts of strange +ways: we have perhaps read each other’s thoughts. I have seen words +form themselves upon your lips. But now you must--there is no way out +of it--you _must_ write to me. You must write to me fully: all your +thoughts. You must, as I have done, find the means of speech--or I can +no longer live.... + +I am reprieved! + +I don’t know if, in my note to you, I explained exactly what had +happened. It was in this way. I was anxious to be done with my world +very early and, as soon as eight o’clock struck, I set out for the +post-office at the corner to register that parcel of letters for you. +Till the task was accomplished--the last I was to perform on earth--I +noticed nothing: I was simply in a hurry. But, having given the little +fagot into the hands of a sleepy girl, I said to myself suddenly: +“Now I _am_ dead!” I began suddenly as they say of young children, to +“notice.” A weight that I had never felt before seemed to fall away +from me. I noticed, precisely, that the girl clerk was sleepy, that, as +she reached up one hand to take the parcel over the brass caging, she +placed the other over her mouth to hide a yawn. + +And out on the pavement it was most curious what had befallen the +world. It had lost all interest: but it had become fascinating, vivid. +I had not, you see, any senses left, but my eyesight and hearing. +Vivid: that is the word. I watched a newsboy throw his papers down an +area, and it appeared wonderfully interesting to discover that _that_ +was how one’s papers got into the house. I watched a milkman go up +some doorsteps to put a can of milk beside a boot-scraper and I was +wonderfully interested to see a black cat follow him. They were the +clearest moments I have ever spent upon the earth--those when I was +dead. They were so clear because nothing else weighed on my attention +but just those little things. It was an extraordinary, a luxuriant +feeling. That, I imagine, must have been how Adam and Eve felt before +they had eaten of the fruit of knowledge. + +Supposing I had tacitly arranged with myself that I would die in the +street, I think I should still have walked home simply to dally longer +with that delightful feeling of sheer curiosity. For it was sheer +curiosity to see how this world, which I had never looked at, really +performed before utterly unbiassed eyes. + +That was why, when I got home, I sent away the messenger that brought +to me Edward Burden’s letter; there was to be no answer. Whatever +Burden’s query might be I was not going to commit myself to any other +act. My last was that of sending off the parcel to you. + +My opening Burden’s letter when the messenger had gone was simply a +part of my general curiosity. I wanted to see how a Burden letter would +look when it no longer had any bearings at all for me. It was as if I +were going to read a letter from that dear Edward to a man I did not +know upon a subject of which I had never heard. + +And then I was reprieved! + +The good Edward, imagining that I was seriously hurt at his +having proposed to allow his wife’s solicitors to superintend my +stewardship--the good Edward in his concern had positively insisted +that all the deeds should be returned to me absolutely unchecked. He +said that he had had a hard fight for it and that the few thousands he +had borrowed from me had represented his settlement, which he had thus +paid in specie.... + +It chimed in wonderfully with his character, when I come to think of +it. Of course he was disciplining Miss Averies’ representatives just as +he had disciplined herself in the matter of China tea of which I have +written to you. And he had imagined that I was seriously hurt! Can you +figure to yourself such an imbecile? + +But, if you permit me to continue to live, you will be saving the poor +fool from the great shock I had prepared for him--the avalanche of +discovery, the earthquake of uncertainty. For he says in that so kind +way of his that, having thus shown his entire confidence in me--in +the fact, that is, that Providence is on the side of all Burdens--he +will choose a time in the future, convenient for me, when he will go +thoroughly with me into his accounts. And inasmuch as his wedding-tour +will take him all round the world I have at least a year in which +to set things straight. And of course I can put off his scrutiny +indefinitely or deceive him for ever. + +I did not think all these things at once. In fact, when I had read +his letter, so strong within me was the feeling that it was only a +mental phenomenon, a thing that had no relation with me--the feeling of +finality was so strong upon me that I actually found myself sitting in +that chair before I realized what had occurred. + +What had occurred was that I had become utterly and for good your +property. + +In that sense only am I reprieved. As far as Edward Burden is concerned +I am entirely saved. I stand before you and ask you to turn your thumb +up or down. For, having spoken as I have to you, I have given you a +right over me. Now that the pressing necessity for my death is over I +have to ask you whether I shall plunge into new adventures that will +lead me to death or whether I am to find some medium in which we may +lead a life of our own, in some way together. I was about to take my +life to avoid prison: now prison is no more a part of my scheme of +existence. But I must now have some means of working towards you or +I must run some new and wild risk to push you out of my thoughts. I +don’t, as you know, ask you to be my secret mistress, I don’t ask you +to elope with me. But I say that you _must_ belong to me as much in +thought as I have, in this parcel of letters, been revealed and given +over to you. Otherwise, I must once more gamble--and having tasted of +gambling in the shadow of death, I must gamble for ever in that way. I +must, I mean, feel that I am coming towards you or committing crimes +that I may forget you. + +My dear, I am a very tired man. If you know what it was to long for +you as I have longed for you all these years, you would wonder that I +did not, sitting in that chair, put the ring up to my teeth, in spite +of Burden’s letter, and end it. I have an irresistible longing for +rest--or perhaps it is only your support. To think that I must face +for ever--or for as long as it lasts--this troublesome excitement +of avoiding thoughts of you--that was almost unbearable. I resisted +because I had written these letters to you. I love you and I know you +love me--yet without them I would have inflicted upon you the wound of +my death. Having written them I cannot face the cruelty to you. I mean +that, if I had died without your knowing why, it would have been only +a death grievous to you--still it is the duty of humanity and of you +with humanity to bear and to forget deaths. But now that you must know, +I could not face the cruelty of filling you with the pain of unmerited +remorse. For I know that you would have felt remorse, and it would have +been unmerited since I gave you no chance or any time to stretch out +your hands to me. Now I give it you and wait for your verdict. + +For the definite alternatives are these: I will put Burden’s estate +absolutely clear within the year and work out, in order to make safe +money, the new and comparatively sober scheme of which I have written +to you: that I will do if you will consent to be mine to the extent of +sharing our thoughts alone. Or, if you will not, I will continue to +gamble more wildly than ever with the Burden money. And that in the +end means death and a refuge from you. + +So then, I stand reprieved--and the final verdict is in your hands. + + + + +APPENDIX + +A Note on “Romance” + + +Writing to his Collaborator in a letter published in the _Transatlantic +Review_ for January, 1924, Mr. Conrad makes the following ascription of +passages in the work above named: + + First Part, yours; Second Part, mainly yours, with a little by me on + points of seamanship and suchlike small matters; Third Part, about 60 + percent mine with important touches by you; Fourth Part, mine with + here and there an important sentence by you; Fifth Part practically + all yours, including the famous sentence at which we both exclaimed: + “This is Genius,” (Do you remember what it is?) with perhaps half a + dozen lines by me.... + +Mr. Conrad’s recollections--except for the generosity of his two +“importants”--tally well enough with those of his Collaborator if +conception alone is concerned. When it comes however to the writing the +truth is that Parts One, Two, Three and Five are a singular mosaic of +passages written alternately by one or other of the collaborators. The +matchless Fourth Part is both in conception and writing entirely the +work of Mr. Conrad. + +Below will be found the analysis of “Romance.” Any student of +literature with an ear for prose will hardly need these underlinings, +for Mr. Conrad’s definitenesses of statement stand out amongst his +Collaborator’s more English keyings down so that when one of his half +sentences bursts into the no doubt suaver prose of the other it is as +if the page comes to life and speaks. + +Every collaboration is a contest of temperaments if it be at all +thoroughly carried out; and this collaboration was carried out so +thoroughly that, even when the book came to the proof stage, the +original publishers, half way through the printing, sent the MS. back +to the authors. They were still making innumerable corrections. + +Originally conceived, in the attempt to convey realistically a real +story of adventure recorded in a State Trial, as the thin tale of a +very old man--and this before the question of collaboration arose--the +book contains of its first version only the two opening sentences--and +the single other sentence: “And, looking back, we see Romance!” In +between lay to say the least of it almost unbelievable labours--a +contest of attrition lasting over several years. For insofar as this +collaboration was a contest of wills it was a very friendly one; yet +it was the continual attempt on the part of the one collaborator to +key up and of the other to key down. And so exhausting was the contest +that in the course of the years two definite breakdowns occurred. In +the first the robuster writer let the book called “The Inheritors” just +go and it remains a monument as it were of silverpoint, delicacies +and allusiveness. The second breakdown is recorded in the Fourth Part +of “Romance,” sketches for which were written over and over--and then +over--again, until the weaker brother, in absolute exhaustion, in +turn let it go at that. So, to mark those breaking points, you have +the silverpoint of “The Inheritors” set against the, let us say, +oil-painting of this matchless Fourth Part. + +“The Nature of a Crime” should have become a novel treating of the +eternal subject of the undetected criminal--a theme which every writer +for once or twice in his life at least contemplates in a world in which +the fortunate are so very often the merely not found out. The courage +of few writers carries them even beyond the contemplation; in this case +the joint courages of the authors went as far as what you may read. + +The passage from the Fifth Part of “Romance” printed below contains the +“famous sentence” as to which Mr. Conrad writes: “We both exclaimed: +‘This is genius’.” + +Joseph Conrad in Italics; F. M. Hueffer in Roman type. + + _Part One: Chapter One._ + + _To yesterday and to-day I say my polite “vaya usted con dios.” + What are these days to me?_ But that far-off day of my romance, + when from between _the blue and white bales in Don Ramon’s darkened + storeroom, at Kingston_, I saw the door open before the figure of _an + old man with the tired, long, white face_, that day I am not likely + to forget. I remember _the chilly smell of the typical West Indian + store_, the indescribable _smell of damp gloom, of locos, of pimento, + of olive oil, of new sugar, of new rum; the glassy double sheen of + Ramon’s great spectacles, the piercing eyes in the mahogany face_, + while the tap, tap, tap of a cane on the flags went on behind the + inner door; _the click of the latch; the stream of light_. The door, + petulantly thrust inwards, struck against some barrels. I remember + the rattling of the bolts on that door, and _the tall figure_ that + appeared there, _snuff-box in hand. In that land of white clothes + that precise, ancient, Castilian in black was something to remember. + The black cane that had made the tap, tap, tap dangled by a silken + cord from the hand whose delicate blue-veined, wrinkled wrist ran + back into a foam of lawn ruffles._ The other hand paused in the act + of conveying a pinch of snuff to the nostrils of the _hooked nose + that had, on the skin stretched tight over the bridge, the polish of + old ivory; the elbow pressing the black cocked hat against the side; + the legs, one bent, the other bowing a little back_--this was the + attitude of Seraphina’s father. + + Having imperiously thrust the door of the inner room open, he + remained immovable, with no intention of entering, and called in + a harsh, aged voice: “Señor Ramon! Señor Ramon!” and then twice: + “Seraphina--Seraphina!” turning his head back. + + _Then for the first time I saw Seraphina, looking over her father’s + shoulder._ I remember her face of that day; _her eyes were grey--the + grey of black, not of blue. For a moment they looked me straight + in the face, reflectively, unconcerned, and then travelled to the + spectacles of old Ramon._ + + This glance--remember I was young on that day--had been enough to set + me wondering what they were thinking of me; what they could have seen + of me. + + “But there he is your Señor Ramon,” she said to her father, _as if + she were chiding him for a petulance in calling_; “your sight is not + very good, my poor little father--there he is, your Ramon.” + + _The warm reflection of the light behind her, gilding the curve of + her face from ear to chin, lost itself in the shadows of black lace + falling from dark hair that was not quite black. She spoke as if the + words clung to her lips; as if she had to put them forth delicately + for fear of damaging the frail things._ + + * * * * * + + _Part One: Chapter Five._ + + _Macdonald cleared his throat, with a sound resembling the coughing + of a defective pump, and a mere trickle of a voice_ asked: + + “_Hwhat evidence have ye of identitee?_” + + _I hadn’t any at all and began to finger my buttonholes as + shame-faced as a pauper before a Board. The certitude dawned upon me + suddenly that Carlos, even if he would consent to swear to me, would + prejudice my chances._ + + I cannot help thinking that _I came very near to being cast adrift + upon the streets of Kingston. To my asseverations Macdonald returned + nothing but a series of minute “humphs.” I don’t know what overcame + his scruples; he had shown no signs of yielding, but suddenly turning + on his heel_ made a motion with one of his flabby white hands. I + understood it to mean that I was to follow him aft. + + The decks were covered with a jabbering turmoil of negroes with + muscular arms and brawny shoulders. All their shining faces seemed to + be momentarily gashed open to show rows of white, and were spotted + with inlaid eyeballs. The sounds coming from them were a bewildering + noise. They were hauling baggage about aimlessly. _A large soft + bundle of bedding nearly took me off my legs._ There wasn’t room for + emotion. Macdonald laid about him with the handle of the umbrella a + few inches from the deck; but the passage that he made for himself + closed behind him. + + _Suddenly, in the pushing and hurrying, I came upon a little clear + space beside a pile of boxes. Stooping over them was the angular + figure of Nichols, the second mate. He looked up at me, screwing his + yellow eyes together._ + + _“Going ashore,” he asked, “long of that Puffing Billy?”_ + + “What business is it of yours?” I mumbled sulkily. + + _Sudden and intense threatening came into his_ yellow _eyes_. + + _“Don’t you ever come to_ you know where,” _he said; “I don’t want no + spies on what I do. There’s a man there’ll crack your little backbone + if he catches you. Don’t yeh come now. Never.”_ + + * * * * * + + _Part Four: Chapter One._ + + In my anxiety to keep clear of the schooner which, for all I know to + this day, may not have been there at all, I had come too close to + the sand, so close that I heard soft, rapid footfalls stop short in + the fog. A voice seemed to be asking me in a whisper: + + “Where, oh, where?” + + Another cried out irresistibly, “I see it.” + + It was a subdued cry, as if hushed in awe. + + My arm swung to and fro; the turn of my wrist went on imparting the + propelling motion of the oar. All the rest of my body was gripped + helplessly in the dead expectation of the end, as if in the benumbing + seconds of a fall from a towering height. And it was swift, too. + I felt a draught at the back of my neck--a breath of wind. And + instantly, as if a battering ram had been let swing past me at many + layers of stretched gauze, I beheld, through a tattered deep hole + in the fog, a roaring vision of flames, borne down and swimming up + again; a dance of purple gleams on the strip of unveiled water, and + three coal black figures in the light. + + One of them stood high on lank black legs, with long black arms + thrown up stiffly above the black shape of a hat. The two others + crouched low on the very edge of the water, peering as if from an + ambush. + + The clearness of this vision was contained by a thick and a fiery + atmosphere, into which a soft white rush and swirl of fog fell like + a sudden whirl of snow. It closed down and overwhelmed at once the + tall flutter of the flames, the black figures, the purple gleams + playing round my oar. The hot glare had struck my eyeballs once, and + that melted away again into the old, fiery stain on the mended fabric + of the fog. But the attitudes of the crouching men left no room + for doubt that we had been seen. I expected a sudden uplifting of + voices on the shore, answered by cries from the sea, and I screamed + excitedly at Castro to lay hold of his oar. + + He did not stir, and after my shouts, which must have fallen on the + scared ears with a weird and unearthly note, a profound silence + attended us--the silence of a superstitious fear: And, instead of + howls, I heard, before the boat had travelled its own short length, + a voice that seemed to be the voice of fear itself asking, “Did + you hear that?” and a trembling mutter of an invocation to all the + saints. Then a strangled throat trying to pronounce firmly, “The soul + of the dead Inglez. Crying for pain.” + + Admiral Rowley’s seamen, so miserably thrown away in the + ill-conceived attack on the bay, were making a ghostly escort to our + escape. Those dead boats’-crews were supposed to haunt the fatal + spot, after the manner of spectres that linger in remorse, regret, + or revenge, about the gates of departure. I had blundered; the fog, + breaking apart, had betrayed us. But my obscure and vanquished + country-men held possession of the outlet by memory of their courage. + In this critical moment it was they, I may say, who stood by us. + + We, on our part, must have been disclosed, dark, indistinct, utterly + inexplicable; completely unexpected; an apparition of stealthy + shades. The painful voice in the fog said: + + “Let them be. Answer not. They shall pass on, for none of them died + on the shore--all in the water. Yes, all in the water.” + + * * * * * + + _Part Five: Chapter One._ + + “_Why have I been brought here your worship?_” I asked with a great + deal of firmness. + + _There were two figures in black, the one beside, the other behind a + large black table. I was placed in front of them between two dirty + soldiers, in the centre of a large, gaunt room, with bare, dirty + walls, and the arms of Spain above the judge’s seat._ + + _“You are before the Juez de la Primera Instancia,” said the man in + black beside the table. He wore a large and shadowy tricorn. “Be + silent, and respect the procedure.”_ + + It was, without doubt, excellent advice. _He whispered some words in + the ear of the Judge of the First Instance. It was plain enough to + me that the judge was quite an inferior official, who merely decided + whether there was any case against the accused_; he had, even to his + clerk, an air of timidity, of doubt. + + _I said: “But I insist on knowing....”_ + + _The clerk said: “In good time....” And then_, in the same tone of + disinterested official routine, _he spoke to the Lugareño, who, from + beside the door_, rolled very frightened eyes _from the judges and + the clerk to myself and the soldiers_--“Advance.” + + _The judge, in a hurried, perfunctory voice, put questions to the + Lugareño; the clerk scratched with a large quill on a sheet of paper._ + + “_Where do you come from?_” + + “_The town of Rio Medio, excellency._” + + “_Of what occupation?_” + + “_Excellency--a few goats._...” + + “_Why are you here?_” + + “_My daughter, excellency, married Pepe of the posada in the + Calle._...” + + _The judge said, “Yes, yes,”_ with an unsanguine impatience. The + Lugareño’s dirty hands jumped nervously on the large rim of his limp + hat. + + “_You lodge a complaint against the señor there._” + + _The clerk pointed the end of his quill towards me._ + + _“I? God forbid, excellency,” the Lugareño bleated._ “The Alguazil + of the Criminal Court instructed me to be watchful....” + + * * * * * + + _Part Five: The End._ + + _A long time after a harsh voice said_: + + “_Your excellency, we retire, of course, from the prosecution._” + + _A different one directed_: + + “_Gentlemen of the jury you will return a verdict of ‘Not + Guilty’._...” + + _Down below they were cheering uproariously because my life was + saved. But it was I that had to face my saved life. I sat there, my + head bowed into my hands. The old judge was speaking to me in a tone + of lofty compassion_: + + “_You have suffered much, as it seems, but suffering is the lot of us + men. Rejoice now that your character is cleared; that here in this + public place you have received the verdict of your country-men that + restores you to the liberties of our country and the affection of + your kindred. I rejoice with you who am a very old man at the end of + my life._...” + + _It was rather tremendous, his deep voice, his weighted words. + Suffering is the lot of us men.... The formidable legal array, the + great powers of a nation, had stood up to teach me that, and they had + taught me that--suffering is the lot of us men!_ + + * * * * * + + _It takes long enough to realise that someone is dead at a distance. + I had done that. But how long, how long it needs to know that the + life of your heart has come back from the dead._ For years afterwards + I could not bear to have her out of my sight. + + Of our first meeting in London all I can remember is a speechlessness + that was like the awed hesitation of our overtried souls before the + greatness of a change from the verge of despair to the opening of a + supreme joy. The whole world, the whole of life, with her return had + changed all around me; it enveloped me, it enfolded me so lightly as + not to be felt, so suddenly as not to be believed in, so completely + that that whole meeting was an embrace, so softly that at last it + lapsed into a sense of rest that was like the fall of a beneficent + and welcome death. + + _For suffering is the lot of man_, but not inevitable failure or + worthless despair which is without end--suffering, the mark of + manhood, which bears within its pain a hope of felicity like a jewel + set in iron.... + + Her first words were: + + “You broke our compact. You went away from me whilst I was sleeping.” + Only the deepness of her reproach revealed the depth of her love, and + the suffering she too had endured to reach a union that was to be + without end--and to forgive. + + _And, looking back, we see Romance--that subtle thing that is + mirage--that is life. It is the goodness of the years we have lived + through, of the old time when we did this or that, when we dwelt here + or there. Looking back it seems a wonderful enough thing that I who + am this and she who is that, commencing so far away a life that after + such sufferings borne together and apart, ended so tranquilly there + in a world so stable--that she and I should have passed through so + much, good chance and evil chance, sad hours and joyful, all lived + down and swept away into the little heap of dust that is life. That, + too, is Romance._ + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: + + + Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. + + Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. + + Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75172 *** |