TALES OF UNREST ..........................................................................................................................................1

JOSEPH CONRAD.................................................................................................................................1

Of the five stories in this volume, "The Lagoon," the last in order, is the earliest in date. It is the first short

story I ever wrote and marks, in a manner of speaking, the end of my first phase, the Malayan phase with its

special subject and its verbal suggestions. Conceived in the same mood which produced "Almayer's Folly"

and "An Outcast of the Islands," it is told in the same breath (with what was left of it, that is, after the end of

"An Outcast"), seen with the same vision, rendered in the same methodif such a thing as method did exist

then in my conscious relation to this new adventure of writing for print. I doubt it very much. One does one's

work first and theorises about it afterwards. It is a very amusing and egotistical occupation of no use

Anybody can see that between the last paragraph of "An Outcast" and the first of "The Lagoon" there has

been no change of pen, figuratively speaking. It happened also to be literally true. It was the same pen: a

common steel pen. Having been charged with a certain lack of emotional faculty I am glad to be able to say

that on one occasion at least I did give way to a sentimental impulse. I thought the pen had been a good pen

and that it had done enough for me, and so, with the idea of keeping it for a sort of memento on which I could

look later with tender eyes, I put it into my waistcoat pocket. Afterwards it used to turn up in all sorts of

placesat the bottom of small drawers, among my studs in cardboard boxestill at last it found permanent

rest in a large wooden bowl containing some loose keys, bits of sealing wax, bits of string, small broken

chains, a few buttons, and similar minute wreckage that washes out of a man's life into such receptacles. I

would catch sight of it from time to time with a distinct feeling of satisfaction till, one day, I perceived with

horror that there were two old pens in there. How the other pen found its way into the bowl instead of the

fireplace or wastepaper basket I can't imagine, but there the two were, lying side by side, both encrusted with

ink and completely undistinguishable from each other. It was very distressing, but being determined not to

share my sentiment between two pens or run the risk of sentimentalising over a mere stranger, I threw them

both out of the window into a flower bed which strikes me now as a poetical grave for the remnants of

But the tale remained. It was first fixed in print in the "Cornhill Magazine", being my first appearance in a

serial of any kind; and I have lived long enough to see it guyed most agreeably by Mr. Max Beerbohm in a

volume of parodies entitled "A Christmas Garland," where I found myself in very good company. I was

immensely gratified. I began to believe in my public existence. I have much to thank "The Lagoon" for.

My next effort in shortstory writing was a departureI mean a departure from the Malay Archipelago.

Without premeditation, without sorrow, without rejoicing, and almost without noticing it, I stepped into the

very different atmosphere of "An Outpost of Progress." I found there a different moral attitude. I seemed able

to capture new reactions, new suggestions, and even new rhythms for my paragraphs. For a moment I fancied

myself a new mana most exciting illusion. It clung to me for some time, monstrous, half conviction and

half hope as to its body, with an iridescent tail of dreams and with a changeable head like a plastic mask. It

was only later that I perceived that in common with the rest of men nothing could deliver me from my fatal

"An Outpost of Progress" is the lightest part of the loot I carried off from Central Africa, the main portion

being of course "The Heart of Darkness." Other men have found a lot of quite different things there and I

have the comfortable conviction that what I took would not have been of much use to anybody else. And it

must be said that it was but a very small amount of plunder. All of it could go into one's breast pocket when

folded neatly. As for the story itself it is true enough in its essentials. The sustained invention of a really

"The Idiots" is such an obviously derivative piece of work that it is impossible for me to say anything about it

here. The suggestion of it was not mental but visual: the actual idiots. It was after an interval of long groping

amongst vague impulses and hesitations which ended in the production of "The Nigger" that I turned to my

third short story in the order of time, the first in this volume: "Karain: A Memory."

Reading it after many years "Karain" produced on me the effect of something seen through a pair of glasses

from a rather advantageous position. In that story I had not gone back to the Archipelago, I had only turned

for another look at it. I admit that I was absorbed by the distant view, so absorbed that I didn't notice then that

the motif of the story is almost identical with the motif of "The Lagoon." However, the idea at the back is

very different; but the story is mainly made memorable to me by the fact that it was my first contribution to

"Blackwood's Magazine" and that it led to my personal acquaintance with Mr. William Blackwood whose

guarded appreciation I felt nevertheless to be genuine, and prized accordingly. "Karain" was begun on a

sudden impulse only three days after I wrote the last line of "The Nigger," and the recollection of its

difficulties is mixed up with the worries of the unfinished "Return," the last pages of which I took up again at

the time; the only instance in my life when I made an attempt to write with both hands at once as it were.

Indeed my innermost feeling, now, is that "The Return" is a lefthanded production. Looking through that

story lately I had the material impression of sitting under a large and expensive umbrella in the loud

drumming of a heavy rainshower. It was very distracting. In the general uproar one could hear every

individual drop strike on the stout and distended silk. Mentally, the reading rendered me dumb for the

remainder of the day, not exactly with astonishment but with a sort of dismal wonder. I don't want to talk

disrespectfully of any pages of mine. Psychologically there were no doubt good reasons for my attempt; and

it was worth while, if only to see of what excesses I was capable in that sort of virtuosity. In this connection I

should like to confess my surprise on finding that notwithstanding all its apparatus of analysis the story

consists for the most part of physical impressions; impressions of sound and sight, railway station, streets, a

trotting horse, reflections in mirrors and so on, rendered as if for their own sake and combined with a

sublimated description of a desirable middleclass townresidence which somehow manages to produce a

sinister effect. For the rest any kind word about "The Return" (and there have been such words said at

different times) awakens in me the liveliest gratitude, for I know how much the writing of that fantasy has

We knew him in those unprotected days when we were content to hold in our hands our lives and our

property. None of us, I believe, has any property now, and I hear that many, negligently, have lost their lives;

but I am sure that the few who survive are not yet so dimeyed as to miss in the befogged respectability of

their newspapers the intelligence of various native risings in the Eastern Archipelago. Sunshine gleams

between the lines of those short paragraphssunshine and the glitter of the sea. A strange name wakes up

memories; the printed words scent the smoky atmosphere of today faintly, with the subtle and penetrating

perfume as of land breezes breathing through the starlight of bygone nights; a signal fire gleams like a jewel

on the high brow of a sombre cliff; great trees, the advanced sentries of immense forests, stand watchful and

still over sleeping stretches of open water; a line of white surf thunders on an empty beach, the shallow water

foams on the reefs; and green islets scattered through the calm of noonday lie upon the level of a polished

There are faces toofaces dark, truculent, and smiling; the frank audacious faces of men barefooted, well

armed and noiseless. They thronged the narrow length of our schooner's decks with their ornamented and

barbarous crowd, with the variegated colours of checkered sarongs, red turbans, white jackets, embroideries;

with the gleam of scabbards, gold rings, charms, armlets, lance blades, and jewelled handles of their

weapons. They had an independent bearing, resolute eyes, a restrained manner; and we seem yet to hear their

soft voices speaking of battles, travels, and escapes; boasting with composure, joking quietly; sometimes in

wellbred murmurs extolling their own valour, our generosity; or celebrating with loyal enthusiasm the

virtues of their ruler. We remember the faces, the eyes, the voices, we see again the gleam of silk and metal;

the murmuring stir of that crowd, brilliant, festive, and martial; and we seem to feel the touch of friendly

brown hands that, after one short grasp, return to rest on a chased hilt. They were Karain's peoplea devoted

following. Their movements hung on his lips; they read their thoughts in his eyes; he murmured to them

nonchalantly of life and death, and they accepted his words humbly, like gifts of fate. They were all free men,

and when speaking to him said, "Your slave." On his passage voices died out as though he had walked

guarded by silence; awed whispers followed him. They called him their warchief. He was the ruler of three

villages on a narrow plain; the master of an insignificant foothold on the earthof a conquered foothold that,

From the deck of our schooner, anchored in the middle of the bay, he indicated by a theatrical sweep of his

arm along the jagged outline of the hills the whole of his domain; and the ample movement seemed to drive

back its limits, augmenting it suddenly into something so immense and vague that for a moment it appeared

to be bounded only by the sky. And really, looking at that place, landlocked from the sea and shut off from

the land by the precipitous slopes of mountains, it was difficult to believe in the existence of any

neighbourhood. It was still, complete, unknown, and full of a life that went on stealthily with a troubling

effect of solitude; of a life that seemed unaccountably empty of anything that would stir the thought, touch

the heart, give a hint of the ominous sequence of days. It appeared to us a land without memories, regrets, and

hopes; a land where nothing could survive the coming of the night, and where each sunrise, like a dazzling

Karain swept his hand over it. "All mine!" He struck the deck with his long staff; the gold head flashed like a

falling star; very close behind him a silent old fellow in a richly embroidered black jacket alone of all the

Malays around did not follow the masterful gesture with a look. He did not even lift his eyelids. He bowed

his head behind his master, and without stirring held hilt up over his right shoulder a long blade in a silver

scabbard. He was there on duty, but without curiosity, and seemed weary, not with age, but with the

possession of a burdensome secret of existence. Karain, heavy and proud, had a lofty pose and breathed

The bay was like a bottomless pit of intense light. The circular sheet of water reflected a luminous sky, and

the shores enclosing it made an opaque ring of earth floating in an emptiness of transparent blue. The hills,

purple and arid, stood out heavily on the sky: their summits seemed to fade into a coloured tremble as of

ascending vapour; their steep sides were streaked with the green of narrow ravines; at their foot lay

ricefields, plantainpatches, yellow sands. A torrent wound about like a dropped thread. Clumps of

fruittrees marked the villages; slim palms put their nodding heads together above the low houses; dried

palmleaf roofs shone afar, like roofs of gold, behind the dark colonnades of treetrunks; figures passed

vivid and vanishing; the smoke of fires stood upright above the masses of flowering bushes; bamboo fences

glittered, running away in broken lines between the fields. A sudden cry on the shore sounded plaintive in the

distance, and ceased abruptly, as if stifled in the downpour of sunshine. A puff of breeze made a flash of

darkness on the smooth water, touched our faces, and became forgotten. Nothing moved. The sun blazed

It was the stage where, dressed splendidly for his part, he strutted, incomparably dignified, made important

by the power he had to awaken an absurd expectation of something heroic going to take placea burst of

action or songupon the vibrating tone of a wonderful sunshine. He was ornate and disturbing, for one

could not imagine what depth of horrible void such an elaborate front could be worthy to hide. He was not

maskedthere was too much life in him, and a mask is only a lifeless thing; but he presented himself

essentially as an actor, as a human being aggressively disguised. His smallest acts were prepared and

unexpected, his speeches grave, his sentences ominous like hints and complicated like arabesques. He was

treated with a solemn respect accorded in the irreverent West only to the monarchs of the stage, and he

accepted the profound homage with a sustained dignity seen nowhere else but behind the footlights and in the

condensed falseness of some grossly tragic situation. It was almost impossible to remember who he

wasonly a petty chief of a conveniently isolated corner of Mindanao, where we could in comparative

safety break the law against the traffic in firearms and ammunition with the natives. What would happen

should one of the moribund Spanish gunboats be suddenly galvanized into a flicker of active life did not

trouble us, once we were inside the bayso completely did it appear out of the reach of a meddling world;

and besides, in those days we were imaginative enough to look with a kind of joyous equanimity on any

chance there was of being quietly hanged somewhere out of the way of diplomatic remonstrance. As to

Karain, nothing could happen to him unless what happens to allfailure and death; but his quality was to

appear clothed in the illusion of unavoidable success. He seemed too effective, too necessary there, too much

of an essential condition for the existence of his land and his people, to be destroyed by anything short of an

earthquake. He summed up his race, his country, the elemental force of ardent life, of tropical nature. He had

its luxuriant strength, its fascination; and, like it, he carried the seed of peril within.

In many successive visits we came to know his stage wellthe purple semicircle of hills, the slim trees

leaning over houses, the yellow sands, the streaming green of ravines. All that had the crude and blended

colouring, the appropriateness almost excessive, the suspicious immobility of a painted scene; and it enclosed

so perfectly the accomplished acting of his amazing pretences that the rest of the world seemed shut out

forever from the gorgeous spectacle. There could be nothing outside. It was as if the earth had gone on

spinning, and had left that crumb of its surface alone in space. He appeared utterly cut off from everything

but the sunshine, and that even seemed to be made for him alone. Once when asked what was on the other

side of the hills, he said, with a meaning smile, "Friends and enemiesmany enemies; else why should I buy

your rifles and powder?" He was always like thiswordperfect in his part, playing up faithfully to the

mysteries and certitudes of his surroundings. "Friends and enemies"nothing else. It was impalpable and

vast. The earth had indeed rolled away from under his land, and he, with his handful of people, stood

surrounded by a silent tumult as of contending shades. Certainly no sound came from outside. "Friends and

enemies!" He might have added, "and memories," at least as far as he himself was concerned; but he

neglected to make that point then. It made itself later on, though; but it was after the daily performance in

the wings, so to speak, and with the lights out. Meantime he filled the stage with barbarous dignity. Some ten

years ago he had led his peoplea scratch lot of wandering Bugisto the conquest of the bay, and now in

his august care they had forgotten all the past, and had lost all concern for the future. He gave them wisdom,

advice, reward, punishment, life or death, with the same serenity of attitude and voice. He understood

irrigation and the art of warthe qualities of weapons and the craft of boatbuilding. He could conceal his

heart; had more endurance; he could swim longer, and steer a canoe better than any of his people; he could

shoot straighter, and negotiate more tortuously than any man of his race I knew. He was an adventurer of the

sea, an outcast, a rulerand my very good friend. I wish him a quick death in a standup fight, a death in

sunshine; for he had known remorse and power, and no man can demand more from life. Day after day he

appeared before us, incomparably faithful to the illusions of the stage, and at sunset the night descended upon

him quickly, like a falling curtain. The seamed hills became black shadows towering high upon a clear sky;

above them the glittering confusion of stars resembled a mad turmoil stilled by a gesture; sounds ceased, men

slept, forms vanishedand the reality of the universe alone remaineda marvellous thing of darkness and

But it was at night that he talked openly, forgetting the exactions of his stage. In the daytime there were

affairs to be discussed in state. There were at first between him and me his own splendour, my shabby

suspicions, and the scenic landscape that intruded upon the reality of our lives by its motionless fantasy of

outline and colour. His followers thronged round him; above his head the broad blades of their spears made a

spiked halo of iron points, and they hedged him from humanity by the shimmer of silks, the gleam of

weapons, the excited and respectful hum of eager voices. Before sunset he would take leave with ceremony,

and go off sitting under a red umbrella, and escorted by a score of boats. All the paddles flashed and struck

together with a mighty splash that reverberated loudly in the monumental amphitheatre of hills. A broad

stream of dazzling foam trailed behind the flotilla. The canoes appeared very black on the white hiss of water;

turbaned heads swayed back and forth; a multitude of arms in crimson and yellow rose and fell with one

movement; the spearmen upright in the bows of canoes had variegated sarongs and gleaming shoulders like

bronze statues; the muttered strophes of the paddlers' song ended periodically in a plaintive shout. They

diminished in the distance; the song ceased; they swarmed on the beach in the long shadows of the western

hills. The sunlight lingered on the purple crests, and we could see him leading the way to his stockade, a

burly bareheaded figure walking far in advance of a straggling cortege, and swinging regularly an ebony staff

taller than himself. The darkness deepened fast; torches gleamed fitfully, passing behind bushes; a long hail

or two trailed in the silence of the evening; and at last the night stretched its smooth veil over the shore, the

Then, just as we were thinking of repose, the watchmen of the schooner would hail a splash of paddles away

in the starlit gloom of the bay; a voice would respond in cautious tones, and our serang, putting his head

down the open skylight, would inform us without surprise, "That Rajah, he coming. He here now." Karain

appeared noiselessly in the doorway of the little cabin. He was simplicity itself then; all in white; muffled

about his head; for arms only a kriss with a plain buffalohorn handle, which he would politely conceal

within a fold of his sarong before stepping over the threshold. The old swordbearer's face, the wornout and

mournful face so covered with wrinkles that it seemed to look out through the meshes of a fine dark net,

could be seen close above his shoulders. Karain never moved without that attendant, who stood or squatted

close at his back. He had a dislike of an open space behind him. It was more than a dislikeit resembled

fear, a nervous preoccupation of what went on where he could not see. This, in view of the evident and fierce

loyalty that surrounded him, was inexplicable. He was there alone in the midst of devoted men; he was safe

from neighbourly ambushes, from fraternal ambitions; and yet more than one of our visitors had assured us

that their ruler could not bear to be alone. They said, "Even when he eats and sleeps there is always one on

the watch near him who has strength and weapons." There was indeed always one near him, though our

informants had no conception of that watcher's strength and weapons, which were both shadowy and terrible.

We knew, but only later on, when we had heard the story. Meantime we noticed that, even during the most

important interviews, Karain would often give a start, and interrupting his discourse, would sweep his arm

back with a sudden movement, to feel whether the old fellow was there. The old fellow, impenetrable and

weary, was always there. He shared his food, his repose, and his thoughts; he knew his plans, guarded his

secrets; and, impassive behind his master's agitation, without stirring the least bit, murmured above his head

It was only on board the schooner, when surrounded by white faces, by unfamiliar sights and sounds, that

Karain seemed to forget the strange obsession that wound like a black thread through the gorgeous pomp of

his public life. At night we treated him in a free and easy manner, which just stopped short of slapping him

on the back, for there are liberties one must not take with a Malay. He said himself that on such occasions he

was only a private gentleman coming to see other gentlemen whom he supposed as well born as himself. I

fancy that to the last he believed us to be emissaries of Government, darkly official persons furthering by our

illegal traffic some dark scheme of high statecraft. Our denials and protestations were unavailing. He only

smiled with discreet politeness and inquired about the Queen. Every visit began with that inquiry; he was

insatiable of details; he was fascinated by the holder of a sceptre the shadow of which, stretching from the

westward over the earth and over the seas, passed far beyond his own hand'sbreadth of conquered land. He

multiplied questions; he could never know enough of the Monarch of whom he spoke with wonder and

chivalrous respectwith a kind of affectionate awe! Afterwards, when we had learned that he was the son of

a woman who had many years ago ruled a small Bugis state, we came to suspect that the memory of his

mother (of whom he spoke with enthusiasm) mingled somehow in his mind with the image he tried to form

for himself of the faroff Queen whom he called Great, Invincible, Pious, and Fortunate. We had to invent

details at last to satisfy his craving curiosity; and our loyalty must be pardoned, for we tried to make them fit

for his august and resplendent ideal. We talked. The night slipped over us, over the still schooner, over the

sleeping land, and over the sleepless sea that thundered amongst the reefs outside the bay. His paddlers, two

trustworthy men, slept in the canoe at the foot of our sideladder. The old confidant, relieved from duty,

dozed on his heels, with his back against the companiondoorway; and Karain sat squarely in the ship's

wooden armchair, under the slight sway of the cabin lamp, a cheroot between his dark fingers, and a glass of

lemonade before him. He was amused by the fizz of the thing, but after a sip or two would let it get flat, and

with a courteous wave of his hand ask for a fresh bottle. He decimated our slender stock; but we did not

begrudge it to him, for, when he began, he talked well. He must have been a great Bugis dandy in his time,

for even then (and when we knew him he was no longer young) his splendour was spotlessly neat, and he

dyed his hair a light shade of brown. The quiet dignity of his bearing transformed the dimlit cuddy of the

schooner into an audiencehall. He talked of interisland politics with an ironic and melancholy shrewdness.

He had travelled much, suffered not a little, intrigued, fought. He knew native Courts, European Settlements,

the forests, the sea, and, as he said himself, had spoken in his time to many great men. He liked to talk with

me because I had known some of these men: he seemed to think that I could understand him, and, with a fine

confidence, assumed that I, at least, could appreciate how much greater he was himself. But he preferred to

talk of his native countrya small Bugis state on the island of Celebes. I had visited it some time before, and

he asked eagerly for news. As men's names came up in conversation he would say, "We swam against one

another when we were boys"; or, "We hunted the deer togetherhe could use the noose and the spear as well

as I." Now and then his big dreamy eyes would roll restlessly; he frowned or smiled, or he would become

pensive, and, staring in silence, would nod slightly for a time at some regretted vision of the past.

His mother had been the ruler of a small semiindependent state on the seacoast at the head of the Gulf of

Boni. He spoke of her with pride. She had been a woman resolute in affairs of state and of her own heart.

After the death of her first husband, undismayed by the turbulent opposition of the chiefs, she married a rich

trader, a Korinchi man of no family. Karain was her son by that second marriage, but his unfortunate descent

had apparently nothing to do with his exile. He said nothing as to its cause, though once he let slip with a

sigh, "Ha! my land will not feel any more the weight of my body." But he related willingly the story of his

wanderings, and told us all about the conquest of the bay. Alluding to the people beyond the hills, he would

murmur gently, with a careless wave of the hand, "They came over the hills once to fight us, but those who

got away never came again." He thought for a while, smiling to himself. "Very few got away," he added, with

proud serenity. He cherished the recollections of his successes; he had an exulting eagerness for endeavour;

when he talked, his aspect was warlike, chivalrous, and uplifting. No wonder his people admired him. We

saw him once walking in daylight amongst the houses of the settlement. At the doors of huts groups of

women turned to look after him, warbling softly, and with gleaming eyes; armed men stood out of the way,

submissive and erect; others approached from the side, bending their backs to address him humbly; an old

woman stretched out a draped lean arm"Blessings on thy head!" she cried from a dark doorway; a

fieryeyed man showed above the low fence of a plantainpatch a streaming face, a bare breast scarred in

two places, and bellowed out pantingly after him, "God give victory to our master!" Karain walked fast, and

with firm long strides; he answered greetings right and left by quick piercing glances. Children ran forward

between the houses, peeped fearfully round corners; young boys kept up with him, gliding between bushes:

their eyes gleamed through the dark leaves. The old swordbearer, shouldering the silver scabbard, shuffled

hastily at his heels with bowed head, and his eyes on the ground. And in the midst of a great stir they passed

In his council hall he was surrounded by the gravity of armed chiefs, while two long rows of old headmen

dressed in cotton stuffs squatted on their heels, with idle arms hanging over their knees. Under the thatch roof

supported by smooth columns, of which each one had cost the life of a straightstemmed young palm, the

scent of flowering hedges drifted in warm waves. The sun was sinking. In the open courtyard suppliants

walked through the gate, raising, when yet far off, their joined hands above bowed heads, and bending low in

the bright stream of sunlight. Young girls, with flowers in their laps, sat under the widespreading boughs of

a big tree. The blue smoke of wood fires spread in a thin mist above the highpitched roofs of houses that had

glistening walls of woven reeds, and all round them rough wooden pillars under the sloping eaves. He

dispensed justice in the shade; from a high seat he gave orders, advice, reproof. Now and then the hum of

approbation rose louder, and idle spearmen that lounged listlessly against the posts, looking at the girls,

would turn their heads slowly. To no man had been given the shelter of so much respect, confidence, and

awe. Yet at times he would lean forward and appear to listen as for a faroff note of discord, as if expecting

to hear some faint voice, the sound of light footsteps; or he would start half up in his seat, as though he had

been familiarly touched on the shoulder. He glanced back with apprehension; his aged follower whispered

inaudibly at his ear; the chiefs turned their eyes away in silence, for the old wizard, the man who could

command ghosts and send evil spirits against enemies, was speaking low to their ruler. Around the short

stillness of the open place the trees rustled faintly, the soft laughter of girls playing with the flowers rose in

clear bursts of joyous sound. At the end of upright spearshafts the long tufts of dyed horsehair waved

crimson and filmy in the gust of wind; and beyond the blaze of hedges the brook of limpid quick water ran

invisible and loud under the drooping grass of the bank, with a great murmur, passionate and gentle.

After sunset, far across the fields and over the bay, clusters of torches could be seen burning under the high

roofs of the council shed. Smoky red flames swayed on high poles, and the fiery blaze flickered over faces,

clung to the smooth trunks of palmtrees, kindled bright sparks on the rims of metal dishes standing on fine

floormats. That obscure adventurer feasted like a king. Small groups of men crouched in tight circles round

the wooden platters; brown hands hovered over snowy heaps of rice. Sitting upon a rough couch apart from

the others, he leaned on his elbow with inclined head; and near him a youth improvised in a high tone a song

that celebrated his valour and wisdom. The singer rocked himself to and fro, rolling frenzied eyes; old women

hobbled about with dishes, and men, squatting low, lifted their heads to listen gravely without ceasing to eat.

The song of triumph vibrated in the night, and the stanzas rolled out mournful and fiery like the thoughts of a

hermit. He silenced it with a sign, "Enough!" An owl hooted far away, exulting in the delight of deep gloom

in dense foliage; overhead lizards ran in the attap thatch, calling softly; the dry leaves of the roof rustled; the

rumour of mingled voices grew louder suddenly. After a circular and startled glance, as of a man waking up

abruptly to the sense of danger, he would throw himself back, and under the downward gaze of the old

sorcerer take up, wideeyed, the slender thread of his dream. They watched his moods; the swelling rumour

of animated talk subsided like a wave on a sloping beach. The chief is pensive. And above the spreading

whisper of lowered voices only a little rattle of weapons would be heard, a single louder word distinct and

For two years at short intervals we visited him. We came to like him, to trust him, almost to admire him. He

was plotting and preparing a war with patience, with foresightwith a fidelity to his purpose and with a

steadfastness of which I would have thought him racially incapable. He seemed fearless of the future, and in

his plans displayed a sagacity that was only limited by his profound ignorance of the rest of the world. We

tried to enlighten him, but our attempts to make clear the irresistible nature of the forces which he desired to

arrest failed to discourage his eagerness to strike a blow for his own primitive ideas. He did not understand

us, and replied by arguments that almost drove one to desperation by their childish shrewdness. He was

absurd and unanswerable. Sometimes we caught glimpses of a sombre, glowing fury within hima brooding

and vague sense of wrong, and a concentrated lust of violence which is dangerous in a native. He raved like

one inspired. On one occasion, after we had been talking to him late in his campong, he jumped up. A great,

clear fire blazed in the grove; lights and shadows danced together between the trees; in the still night bats

flitted in and out of the boughs like fluttering flakes of denser darkness. He snatched the sword from the old

man, whizzed it out of the scabbard, and thrust the point into the earth. Upon the thin, upright blade the silver

hilt, released, swayed before him like something alive. He stepped back a pace, and in a deadened tone spoke

fiercely to the vibrating steel: "If there is virtue in the fire, in the iron, in the hand that forged thee, in the

words spoken over thee, in the desire of my heart, and in the wisdom of thy makers,then we shall be

victorious together!" He drew it out, looked along the edge. "Take," he said over his shoulder to the old

swordbearer. The other, unmoved on his hams, wiped the point with a corner of his sarong, and returning

the weapon to its scabbard, sat nursing it on his knees without a single look upwards. Karain, suddenly very

calm, reseated himself with dignity. We gave up remonstrating after this, and let him go his way to an

honourable disaster. All we could do for him was to see to it that the powder was good for the money and the

But the game was becoming at last too dangerous; and if we, who had faced it pretty often, thought little of

the danger, it was decided for us by some very respectable people sitting safely in countinghouses that the

risks were too great, and that only one more trip could be made. After giving in the usual way many

misleading hints as to our destination, we slipped away quietly, and after a very quick passage entered the

bay. It was early morning, and even before the anchor went to the bottom the schooner was surrounded by

The first thing we heard was that Karain's mysterious swordbearer had died a few days ago. We did not

attach much importance to the news. It was certainly difficult to imagine Karain without his inseparable

follower; but the fellow was old, he had never spoken to one of us, we hardly ever had heard the sound of his

voice; and we had come to look upon him as upon something inanimate, as a part of our friend's trappings of

statelike that sword he had carried, or the fringed red umbrella displayed during an official progress.

Karain did not visit us in the afternoon as usual. A message of greeting and a present of fruit and vegetables

came off for us before sunset. Our friend paid us like a banker, but treated us like a prince. We sat up for him

till midnight. Under the stern awning bearded Jackson jingled an old guitar and sang, with an execrable

accent, Spanish lovesongs; while young Hollis and I, sprawling on the deck, had a game of chess by the

light of a cargo lantern. Karain did not appear. Next day we were busy unloading, and heard that the Rajah

was unwell. The expected invitation to visit him ashore did not come. We sent friendly messages, but, fearing

to intrude upon some secret council, remained on board. Early on the third day we had landed all the powder

and rifles, and also a sixpounder brass gun with its carriage which we had subscribed together for a present

for our friend. The afternoon was sultry. Ragged edges of black clouds peeped over the hills, and invisible

thunderstorms circled outside, growling like wild beasts. We got the schooner ready for sea, intending to

leave next morning at daylight. All day a merciless sun blazed down into the bay, fierce and pale, as if at

white heat. Nothing moved on the land. The beach was empty, the villages seemed deserted; the trees far off

stood in unstirring clumps, as if painted; the white smoke of some invisible bushfire spread itself low over

the shores of the bay like a settling fog. Late in the day three of Karain's chief men, dressed in their best and

armed to the teeth, came off in a canoe, bringing a case of dollars. They were gloomy and languid, and told us

they had not seen their Rajah for five days. No one had seen him! We settled all accounts, and after shaking

hands in turn and in profound silence, they descended one after another into their boat, and were paddled to

the shore, sitting close together, clad in vivid colours, with hanging heads: the gold embroideries of their

jackets flashed dazzlingly as they went away gliding on the smooth water, and not one of them looked back

once. Before sunset the growling clouds carried with a rush the ridge of hills, and came tumbling down the

inner slopes. Everything disappeared; black whirling vapours filled the bay, and in the midst of them the

schooner swung here and there in the shifting gusts of wind. A single clap of thunder detonated in the hollow

with a violence that seemed capable of bursting into small pieces the ring of high land, and a warm deluge

descended. The wind died out. We panted in the close cabin; our faces streamed; the bay outside hissed as if

boiling; the water fell in perpendicular shafts as heavy as lead; it swished about the deck, poured off the

spars, gurgled, sobbed, splashed, murmured in the blind night. Our lamp burned low. Hollis, stripped to the

waist, lay stretched out on the lockers, with closed eyes and motionless like a despoiled corpse; at his head

Jackson twanged the guitar, and gasped out in sighs a mournful dirge about hopeless love and eyes like stars.

Then we heard startled voices on deck crying in the rain, hurried footsteps overhead, and suddenly Karain

appeared in the doorway of the cabin. His bare breast and his face glistened in the light; his sarong, soaked,

clung about his legs; he had his sheathed kriss in his left hand; and wisps of wet hair, escaping from under his

red kerchief, stuck over his eyes and down his cheeks. He stepped in with a headlong stride and looking over

his shoulder like a man pursued. Hollis turned on his side quickly and opened his eyes. Jackson clapped his

He breathed heavily, wildeyed, while we looked at him in silence. Water dripped from him, made a dark

pool, and ran crookedly across the cabin floor. We could hear Jackson, who had gone out to drive away our

Malay seamen from the doorway of the companion; he swore menacingly in the patter of a heavy shower, and

there was a great commotion on deck. The watchmen, scared out of their wits by the glimpse of a shadowy

figure leaping over the rail, straight out of the night as it were, had alarmed all hands.

Then Jackson, with glittering drops of water on his hair and beard, came back looking angry, and Hollis, who,

being the youngest of us, assumed an indolent superiority, said without stirring, "Give him a dry

saronggive him mine; it's hanging up in the bathroom." Karain laid the kriss on the table, hilt inwards, and

"Ceremonious beggar. Tell him we forgive a friend . . . on such a night," drawled out Hollis. "What's wrong?"

Karain slipped the dry sarong over his head, dropped the wet one at his feet, and stepped out of it. I pointed to

the wooden armchairhis armchair. He sat down very straight, said "Ha!" in a strong voice; a short shiver

shook his broad frame. He looked over his shoulder uneasily, turned as if to speak to us, but only stared in a

curious blind manner, and again looked back. Jackson bellowed out, "Watch well on deck there!" heard a

faint answer from above, and reaching out with his foot slammedto the cabin door.

Karain's lips moved slightly. A vivid flash of lightning made the two round sternports facing him glimmer

like a pair of cruel and phosphorescent eyes. The flame of the lamp seemed to wither into brown dust for an

instant, and the lookingglass over the little sideboard leaped out behind his back in a smooth sheet of livid

light. The roll of thunder came near, crashed over us; the schooner trembled, and the great voice went on,

threatening terribly, into the distance. For less than a minute a furious shower rattled on the decks. Karain

looked slowly from face to face, and then the silence became so profound that we all could hear distinctly the

two chronometers in my cabin ticking along with unflagging speed against one another.

And we three, strangely moved, could not take our eyes from him. He had become enigmatical and touching,

in virtue of that mysterious cause that had driven him through the night and through the thunderstorm to the

shelter of the schooner's cuddy. Not one of us doubted that we were looking at a fugitive, incredible as it

appeared to us. He was haggard, as though he had not slept for weeks; he had become lean, as though he had

not eaten for days. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes sunk, the muscles of his chest and arms twitched slightly

as if after an exhausting contest. Of course it had been a long swim off to the schooner; but his face showed

another kind of fatigue, the tormented weariness, the anger and the fear of a struggle against a thought, an

ideaagainst something that cannot be grappled, that never restsa shadow, a nothing, unconquerable and

immortal, that preys upon life. We knew it as though he had shouted it at us. His chest expanded time after

time, as if it could not contain the beating of his heart. For a moment he had the power of the possessedthe

power to awaken in the beholders wonder, pain, pity, and a fearful near sense of things invisible, of things

dark and mute, that surround the loneliness of mankind. His eyes roamed about aimlessly for a moment, then

"I came here . . . I leaped out of my stockade as after a defeat. I ran in the night. The water was black. I left

him calling on the edge of black water. . . . I left him standing alone on the beach. I swam . . . he called out

He trembled from head to foot, sitting very upright and gazing straight before him. Left whom? Who called?

The sound of my voice seemed to steady him into a sudden rigidity, but otherwise he took no notice. He

"He cannot come heretherefore I sought you. You men with white faces who despise the invisible voices.

"There's no one here but youand we three," said Hollis, quietly. He reclined with his head supported on

"I know," said Karain. "He has never followed me here. Was not the wise man ever by my side? But since the

old wise man, who knew of my trouble, has died, I have heard the voice every night. I shut myself upfor

many daysin the dark. I can hear the sorrowful murmurs of women, the whisper of the wind, of the running

waters; the clash of weapons in the hands of faithful men, their footstepsand his voice! . . . Near . . . So! In

my ear! I felt him near . . . His breath passed over my neck. I leaped out without a cry. All about me men

slept quietly. I ran to the sea. He ran by my side without footsteps, whispering, whispering old

wordswhispering into my ear in his old voice. I ran into the sea; I swam off to you, with my kriss between

my teeth. I, armed, I fled before a breathto you. Take me away to your land. The wise old man has died,

and with him is gone the power of his words and charms. And I can tell no one. No one. There is no one here

faithful enough and wise enough to know. It is only near you, unbelievers, that my trouble fades like a mist

"With you I go!" he cried in a contained voice. "With you, who know so many of us. I want to leave this

He pointed a shaking finger at random over his shoulder. It was hard for us to bear the intensity of that

"Everywhere outside this place," he answered, mournfully. "In every place where I am. He waits for me on

He looked round the little cabin, at the painted beams, at the tarnished varnish of bulkheads; he looked round

as if appealing to all its shabby strangeness, to the disorderly jumble of unfamiliar things that belong to an

inconceivable life of stress, of power, of endeavour, of unbeliefto the strong life of white men, which rolls

on irresistible and hard on the edge of outer darkness. He stretched out his arms as if to embrace it and us. We

waited. The wind and rain had ceased, and the stillness of the night round the schooner was as dumb and

complete as if a dead world had been laid to rest in a grave of clouds. We expected him to speak. The

necessity within him tore at his lips. There are those who say that a native will not speak to a white man.

Error. No man will speak to his master; but to a wanderer and a friend, to him who does not come to teach or

to rule, to him who asks for nothing and accepts all things, words are spoken by the campfires, in the shared

solitude of the sea, in riverside villages, in restingplaces surrounded by forestswords are spoken that take

no account of race or colour. One heart speaksanother one listens; and the earth, the sea, the sky, the

passing wind and the stirring leaf, hear also the futile tale of the burden of life.

He spoke at last. It is impossible to convey the effect of his story. It is undying, it is but a memory, and its

vividness cannot be made clear to another mind, any more than the vivid emotions of a dream. One must have

seen his innate splendour, one must have known him beforelooked at him then. The wavering gloom of the

little cabin; the breathless stillness outside, through which only the lapping of water against the schooner's

sides could be heard; Hollis's pale face, with steady dark eyes; the energetic head of Jackson held up between

two big palms, and with the long yellow hair of his beard flowing over the strings of the guitar lying on the

table; Karain's upright and motionless pose, his toneall this made an impression that cannot be forgotten.

He faced us across the table. His dark head and bronze torso appeared above the tarnished slab of wood,

gleaming and still as if cast in metal. Only his lips moved, and his eyes glowed, went out, blazed again, or

stared mournfully. His expressions came straight from his tormented heart. His words sounded low, in a sad

murmur as of running water; at times they rang loud like the clash of a wargongor trailed slowly like

"It was after the great trouble that broke the alliance of the four states of Wajo. We fought amongst ourselves,

and the Dutch watched from afar till we were weary. Then the smoke of their fireships was seen at the

mouth of our rivers, and their great men came in boats full of soldiers to talk to us of protection and peace.

We answered with caution and wisdom, for our villages were burnt, our stockades weak, the people weary,

and the weapons blunt. They came and went; there had been much talk, but after they went away everything

seemed to be as before, only their ships remained in sight from our coast, and very soon their traders came

amongst us under a promise of safety. My brother was a Ruler, and one of those who had given the promise. I

was young then, and had fought in the war, and Pata Matara had fought by my side. We had shared hunger,

danger, fatigue, and victory. His eyes saw my danger quickly, and twice my arm had preserved his life. It was

his destiny. He was my friend. And he was great amongst usone of those who were near my brother, the

Ruler. He spoke in council, his courage was great, he was the chief of many villages round the great lake that

is in the middle of our country as the heart is in the middle of a man's body. When his sword was carried into

a campong in advance of his coming, the maidens whispered wonderingly under the fruittrees, the rich men

consulted together in the shade, and a feast was made ready with rejoicing and songs. He had the favour of

the Ruler and the affection of the poor. He loved war, deer hunts, and the charms of women. He was the

possessor of jewels, of lucky weapons, and of men's devotion. He was a fierce man; and I had no other friend.

"I was the chief of a stockade at the mouth of the river, and collected tolls for my brother from the passing

boats. One day I saw a Dutch trader go up the river. He went up with three boats, and no toll was demanded

from him, because the smoke of Dutch warships stood out from the open sea, and we were too weak to

forget treaties. He went up under the promise of safety, and my brother gave him protection. He said he came

to trade. He listened to our voices, for we are men who speak openly and without fear; he counted the number

of our spears, he examined the trees, the running waters, the grasses of the bank, the slopes of our hills. He

went up to Matara's country and obtained permission to build a house. He traded and planted. He despised

our joys, our thoughts, and our sorrows. His face was red, his hair like flame, and his eyes pale, like a river

mist; he moved heavily, and spoke with a deep voice; he laughed aloud like a fool, and knew no courtesy in

his speech. He was a big, scornful man, who looked into women's faces and put his hand on the shoulders of

free men as though he had been a nobleborn chief. We bore with him. Time passed.

"Then Pata Matara's sister fled from the campong and went to live in the Dutchman's house. She was a great

and wilful lady: I had seen her once carried high on slaves' shoulders amongst the people, with uncovered

face, and I had heard all men say that her beauty was extreme, silencing the reason and ravishing the heart of

the beholders. The people were dismayed; Matara's face was blackened with that disgrace, for she knew she

had been promised to another man. Matara went to the Dutchman's house, and said, 'Give her up to dieshe

is the daughter of chiefs.' The white man refused and shut himself up, while his servants kept guard night and

day with loaded guns. Matara raged. My brother called a council. But the Dutch ships were near, and watched

our coast greedily. My brother said, 'If he dies now our land will pay for his blood. Leave him alone till we

grow stronger and the ships are gone.' Matara was wise; he waited and watched. But the white man feared for

"He left his house, his plantations, and his goods! He departed, armed and menacing, and left allfor her!

She had ravished his heart! From my stockade I saw him put out to sea in a big boat. Matara and I watched

him from the fighting platform behind the pointed stakes. He sat crosslegged, with his gun in his hands, on

the roof at the stern of his prau. The barrel of his rifle glinted aslant before his big red face. The broad river

was stretched under himlevel, smooth, shining, like a plain of silver; and his prau, looking very short and

black from the shore, glided along the silver plain and over into the blue of the sea.

"Thrice Matara, standing by my side, called aloud her name with grief and imprecations. He stirred my heart.

It leaped three times; and three times with the eyes of my mind I saw in the gloom within the enclosed space

of the prau a woman with streaming hair going away from her land and her people. I was angryand sorry.

Why? And then I also cried out insults and threats. Matara said, 'Now they have left our land their lives are

mind. I shall follow and strikeand, alone, pay the price of blood.' A great wind was sweeping towards the

setting sun over the empty river. I cried, 'By your side I will go!' He lowered his head in sign of assent. It was

his destiny. The sun had set, and the trees swayed their boughs with a great noise above our heads.

"The sea met usthe sea, wide, pathless, and without voice. A sailing prau leaves no track. We went south.

The moon was full; and, looking up, we said to one another, 'When the next moon shines as this one, we shall

return and they will be dead.' It was fifteen years ago. Many moons have grown full and withered and I have

not seen my land since. We sailed south; we overtook many praus; we examined the creeks and the bays; we

saw the end of our coast, of our islanda steep cape over a disturbed strait, where drift the shadows of

shipwrecked praus and drowned men clamour in the night. The wide sea was all round us now. We saw a

great mountain burning in the midst of water; we saw thousands of islets scattered like bits of iron fired from

a big gun; we saw a long coast of mountain and lowlands stretching away in sunshine from west to east. It

was Java. We said, 'They are there; their time is near, and we shall return or die cleansed from dishonour.'

"We landed. Is there anything good in that country? The paths run straight and hard and dusty. Stone

campongs, full of white faces, are surrounded by fertile fields, but every man you meet is a slave. The rulers

live under the edge of a foreign sword. We ascended mountains, we traversed valleys; at sunset we entered

villages. We asked everyone, 'Have you seen such a white man?' Some stared; others laughed; women gave

us food, sometimes, with fear and respect, as though we had been distracted by the visitation of God; but

some did not understand our language, and some cursed us, or, yawning, asked with contempt the reason of

"We went on. Concealing our weapons, we stood humbly aside before the horsemen on the road; we bowed

low in the courtyards of chiefs who were no better than slaves. We lost ourselves in the fields, in the jungle;

and one night, in a tangled forest, we came upon a place where crumbling old walls had fallen amongst the

trees, and where strange stone idolscarved images of devils with many arms and legs, with snakes twined

round their bodies, with twenty heads and holding a hundred swordsseemed to live and threaten in the light

of our camp fire. Nothing dismayed us. And on the road, by every fire, in restingplaces, we always talked of

her and of him. Their time was near. We spoke of nothing else. No! not of hunger, thirst, weariness, and

faltering hearts. No! we spoke of him and her! Of her! And we thought of themof her! Matara brooded by

the fire. I sat and thought and thought, till suddenly I could see again the image of a woman, beautiful, and

young, and great and proud, and tender, going away from her land and her people. Matara said, 'When we

find them we shall kill her first to cleanse the dishonourthen the man must die.' I would say, 'It shall be so;

"We came back to the coast. Our feet were bleeding, our bodies thin. We slept in rags under the shadow of

stone enclosures; we prowled, soiled and lean, about the gateways of white men's courtyards. Their hairy

dogs barked at us, and their servants shouted from afar, 'Begone!' Lowborn wretches, that keep watch over

the streets of stone campongs, asked us who we were. We lied, we cringed, we smiled with hate in our hearts,

and we kept looking here, looking there for themfor the white man with hair like flame, and for her, for the

woman who had broken faith, and therefore must die. We looked. At last in every woman's face I thought I

could see hers. We ran swiftly. No! Sometimes Matara would whisper, 'Here is the man,' and we waited,

crouching. He came near. It was not the manthose Dutchmen are all alike. We suffered the anguish of

deception. In my sleep I saw her face, and was both joyful and sorry. . . . Why? . . . I seemed to hear a

whisper near me. I turned swiftly. She was not there! And as we trudged wearily from stone city to stone city

I seemed to hear a light footstep near me. A time came when I heard it always, and I was glad. I thought,

walking dizzy and weary in sunshine on the hard paths of white men I thought, She is therewith us! . . .

"We sold the carved sheaths of our krissesthe ivory sheaths with golden ferules. We sold the jewelled hilts.

But we kept the bladesfor them. The blades that never touch but killwe kept the blades for her. . . .

Why? She was always by our side. . . . We starved. We begged. We left Java at last.

"We went West, we went East. We saw many lands, crowds of strange faces, men that live in trees and men

who eat their old people. We cut rattans in the forest for a handful of rice, and for a living swept the decks of

big ships and heard curses heaped upon our heads. We toiled in villages; we wandered upon the seas with the

Bajow people, who have no country. We fought for pay; we hired ourselves to work for Goram men, and

were cheated; and under the orders of rough white faces we dived for pearls in barren bays, dotted with black

rocks, upon a coast of sand and desolation. And everywhere we watched, we listened, we asked. We asked

traders, robbers, white men. We heard jeers, mockery, threatswords of wonder and words of contempt. We

never knew rest; we never thought of home, for our work was not done. A year passed, then another. I ceased

to count the number of nights, of moons, of years. I watched over Matara. He had my last handful of rice; if

there was water enough for one he drank it; I covered him up when he shivered with cold; and when the hot

sickness came upon him I sat sleepless through many nights and fanned his face. He was a fierce man, and

my friend. He spoke of her with fury in the daytime, with sorrow in the dark; he remembered her in health, in

sickness. I said nothing; but I saw her every dayalways! At first I saw only her head, as of a woman

walking in the low mist on a river bank. Then she sat by our fire. I saw her! I looked at her! She had tender

eyes and a ravishing face. I murmured to her in the night. Matara said sleepily sometimes, 'To whom are you

talking? Who is there?' I answered quickly, 'No one' . . . It was a lie! She never left me. She shared the

warmth of our fire, she sat on my couch of leaves, she swam on the sea to follow me. . . . I saw her! . . . I tell

you I saw her long black hair spread behind her upon the moonlit water as she struck out with bare arms by

the side of a swift prau. She was beautiful, she was faithful, and in the silence of foreign countries she spoke

to me very low in the language of my people. No one saw her; no one heard her; she was mine only! In

daylight she moved with a swaying walk before me upon the weary paths; her figure was straight and flexible

like the stem of a slender tree; the heels of her feet were round and polished like shells of eggs; with her

round arm she made signs. At night she looked into my face. And she was sad! Her eyes were tender and

frightened; her voice soft and pleading. Once I murmured to her, 'You shall not die,' and she smiled . . . ever

after she smiled! . . . She gave me courage to bear weariness and hardships. Those were times of pain, and

she soothed me. We wandered patient in our search. We knew deception, false hopes; we knew captivity,

He cried out the last words and paused. His face was impassive, and he kept still like a man in a trance. Hollis

sat up quickly, and spread his elbows on the table. Jackson made a brusque movement, and accidentally

touched the guitar. A plaintive resonance filled the cabin with confused vibrations and died out slowly. Then

Karain began to speak again. The restrained fierceness of his tone seemed to rise like a voice from outside,

like a thing unspoken but heard; it filled the cabin and enveloped in its intense and deadened murmur the

"We were on our way to Atjeh, where there was war; but the vessel ran on a sandbank, and we had to land in

Delli. We had earned a little money, and had bought a gun from some Selangore traders; only one gun, which

was fired by the spark of a stone; Matara carried it. We landed. Many white men lived there, planting tobacco

on conquered plains, and Matara . . . But no matter. He saw him! . . . The Dutchman! . . . At last! . . . We

crept and watched. Two nights and a day we watched. He had a housea big house in a clearing in the midst

of his fields; flowers and bushes grew around; there were narrow paths of yellow earth between the cut grass,

and thick hedges to keep people out. The third night we came armed, and lay behind a hedge.

"A heavy dew seemed to soak through our flesh and made our very entrails cold. The grass, the twigs, the

leaves, covered with drops of water, were gray in the moonlight. Matara, curled up in the grass, shivered in

his sleep. My teeth rattled in my head so loud that I was afraid the noise would wake up all the land. Afar, the

watchmen of white men's houses struck wooden clappers and hooted in the darkness. And, as every night, I

saw her by my side. She smiled no more! . . . The fire of anguish burned in my breast, and she whispered to

me with compassion, with pity, softlyas women will; she soothed the pain of my mind; she bent her face

over methe face of a woman who ravishes the hearts and silences the reason of men. She was all mine, and

no one could see herno one of living mankind! Stars shone through her bosom, through her floating hair. I

was overcome with regret, with tenderness, with sorrow. Matara slept . . . Had I slept? Matara was shaking

me by the shoulder, and the fire of the sun was drying the grass, the bushes, the leaves. It was day. Shreds of

"Was it night or day? I saw nothing again till I heard Matara breathe quickly where he lay, and then outside

the house I saw her. I saw them both. They had come out. She sat on a bench under the wall, and twigs laden

with flowers crept high above her head, hung over her hair. She had a box on her lap, and gazed into it,

counting the increase of her pearls. The Dutchman stood by looking on; he smiled down at her; his white

teeth flashed; the hair on his lip was like two twisted flames. He was big and fat, and joyous, and without

fear. Matara tipped fresh priming from the hollow of his palm, scraped the flint with his thumbnail, and

"He whispered into my ear, lying on his stomach, 'I shall creep close and then amok . . . let her die by my

hand. You take aim at the fat swine there. Let him see me strike my shame off the face of the earthand then

. . . you are my friendkill with a sure shot.' I said nothing; there was no air in my chestthere was no air

in the world. Matara had gone suddenly from my side. The grass nodded. Then a bush rustled. She lifted her

"I saw her! The consoler of sleepless nights, of weary days; the companion of troubled years! I saw her! She

looked straight at the place where I crouched. She was there as I had seen her for yearsa faithful wanderer

by my side. She looked with sad eyes and had smiling lips; she looked at me . . . Smiling lips! Had I not

"She was far off and I felt her near. Her touch caressed me, and her voice murmured, whispered above me,

around me. 'Who shall be thy companion, who shall console thee if I die?' I saw a flowering thicket to the left

"She leaped up; the box fell; the pearls streamed at her feet. The big Dutchman by her side rolled menacing

eyes through the still sunshine. The gun went up to my shoulder. I was kneeling and I was firmfirmer than

the trees, the rocks, the mountains. But in front of the steady long barrel the fields, the house, the earth, the

sky swayed to and fro like shadows in a forest on a windy day. Matara burst out of the thicket; before him the

petals of torn flowers whirled high as if driven by a tempest. I heard her cry; I saw her spring with open arms

in front of the white man. She was a woman of my country and of noble blood. They are so! I heard her

shriek of anguish and fearand all stood still! The fields, the house, the earth, the sky stood stillwhile

Matara leaped at her with uplifted arm. I pulled the trigger, saw a spark, heard nothing; the smoke drove back

into my face, and then I could see Matara roll over head first and lie with stretched arms at her feet. Ha! A

sure shot! The sunshine fell on my back colder than the running water. A sure shot! I flung the gun after the

shot. Those two stood over the dead man as though they had been bewitched by a charm. I shouted at her,

"Behind me there were great shouts, the running of many feet; strange men surrounded me, cried meaningless

words into my face, pushed me, dragged me, supported me . . . I stood before the big Dutchman: he stared as

if bereft of his reason. He wanted to know, he talked fast, he spoke of gratitude, he offered me food, shelter,

goldhe asked many questions. I laughed in his face. I said, 'I am a Korinchi traveller from Perak over there,

and know nothing of that dead man. I was passing along the path when I heard a shot, and your senseless

people rushed out and dragged me here.' He lifted his arms, he wondered, he could not believe, he could not

understand, he clamoured in his own tongue! She had her arms clasped round his neck, and over her shoulder

stared back at me with wide eyes. I smiled and looked at her; I smiled and waited to hear the sound of her

voice. The white man asked her suddenly. 'Do you know him?' I listenedmy life was in my ears! She

looked at me long, she looked at me with unflinching eyes, and said aloud, 'No! I never saw him before.' . . .

What! Never before? Had she forgotten already? Was it possible? Forgotten already after so many

yearsso many years of wandering, of companionship, of trouble, of tender words! Forgotten already! . . . I

tore myself out from the hands that held me and went away without a word . . . They let me go.

"I was weary. Did I sleep? I do not know. I remember walking upon a broad path under a clear starlight; and

that strange country seemed so big, the ricefields so vast, that, as I looked around, my head swam with the

fear of space. Then I saw a forest. The joyous starlight was heavy upon me. I turned off the path and entered

Karain's tone had been getting lower and lower, as though he had been going away from us, till the last words

sounded faint but clear, as if shouted on a calm day from a very great distance. He moved not. He stared

fixedly past the motionless head of Hollis, who faced him, as still as himself. Jackson had turned sideways,

and with elbow on the table shaded his eyes with the palm of his hand. And I looked on, surprised and

moved; I looked at that man, loyal to a vision, betrayed by his dream, spurned by his illusion, and coming to

us unbelievers for helpagainst a thought. The silence was profound; but it seemed full of noiseless

phantoms, of things sorrowful, shadowy, and mute, in whose invisible presence the firm, pulsating beat of the

two ship's chronometers ticking off steadily the seconds of Greenwich Time seemed to me a protection and a

relief. Karain stared stonily; and looking at his rigid figure, I thought of his wanderings, of that obscure

Odyssey of revenge, of all the men that wander amongst illusions faithful, faithless; of the illusions that give

joy, that give sorrow, that give pain, that give peace; of the invincible illusions that can make life and death

A murmur was heard; that voice from outside seemed to flow out of a dreaming world into the lamplight of

"She came no more. Never! Never once! I lived alone. She had forgotten. It was well. I did not want her; I

wanted no one. I found an abandoned house in an old clearing. Nobody came near. Sometimes I heard in the

distance the voices of people going along a path. I slept; I rested; there was wild rice, water from a running

streamand peace! Every night I sat alone by my small fire before the hut. Many nights passed over my

"Then, one evening, as I sat by my fire after having eaten, I looked down on the ground and began to

remember my wanderings. I lifted my head. I had heard no sound, no rustle, no footstepsbut I lifted my

head. A man was coming towards me across the small clearing. I waited. He came up without a greeting and

squatted down into the firelight. Then he turned his face to me. It was Matara. He stared at me fiercely with

his big sunken eyes. The night was cold; the heat died suddenly out of the fire, and he stared at me. I rose and

"I walked all that night, all next day, and in the evening made up a big blaze and sat downto wait for him.

He had not come into the light. I heard him in the bushes here and there, whispering, whispering. I

understood at lastI had heard the words before, 'You are my friendkill with a sure shot.'

"I bore it as long as I couldthen leaped away, as on this very night I leaped from my stockade and swam to

you. I ranI ran crying like a child left alone and far from the houses. He ran by my side, without footsteps,

whispering, whisperinginvisible and heard. I sought peopleI wanted men around me! Men who had not

died! And again we two wandered. I sought danger, violence, and death. I fought in the Atjeh war, and a

brave people wondered at the valiance of a stranger. But we were two; he warded off the blows . . . Why? I

wanted peace, not life. And no one could see him; no one knewI dared tell no one. At times he would leave

me, but not for long; then he would return and whisper or stare. My heart was torn with a strange fear, but

"You all knew him. People here called him my sorcerer, my servant and swordbearer; but to me he was

father, mother, protection, refuge and peace. When I met him he was returning from a pilgrimage, and I heard

him intoning the prayer of sunset. He had gone to the holy place with his son, his son's wife, and a little child;

and on their return, by the favour of the Most High, they all died: the strong man, the young mother, the little

childthey died; and the old man reached his country alone. He was a pilgrim serene and pious, very wise

and very lonely. I told him all. For a time we lived together. He said over me words of compassion, of

wisdom, of prayer. He warded from me the shade of the dead. I begged him for a charm that would make me

safe. For a long time he refused; but at last, with a sigh and a smile, he gave me one. Doubtless he could

command a spirit stronger than the unrest of my dead friend, and again I had peace; but I had become

restless, and a lover of turmoil and danger. The old man never left me. We travelled together. We were

welcomed by the great; his wisdom and my courage are remembered where your strength, O white men, is

forgotten! We served the Sultan of Sula. We fought the Spaniards. There were victories, hopes, defeats,

sorrow, blood, women's tears . . . What for? . . . We fled. We collected wanderers of a warlike race and came

here to fight again. The rest you know. I am the ruler of a conquered land, a lover of war and danger, a fighter

and a plotter. But the old man has died, and I am again the slave of the dead. He is not here now to drive

away the reproachful shadeto silence the lifeless voice! The power of his charm has died with him. And I

know fear; and I hear the whisper, 'Kill! kill! kill!' . . . Have I not killed enough? . . ."

For the first time that night a sudden convulsion of madness and rage passed over his face. His wavering

glances darted here and there like scared birds in a thunderstorm. He jumped up, shouting

"By the spirits that drink blood: by the spirits that cry in the night: by all the spirits of fury, misfortune, and

He looked so dangerous that we all three leaped to our feet, and Hollis, with the back of his hand, sent the

kriss flying off the table. I believe we shouted together. It was a short scare, and the next moment he was

again composed in his chair, with three white men standing over him in rather foolish attitudes. We felt a

little ashamed of ourselves. Jackson picked up the kriss, and, after an inquiring glance at me, gave it to him.

He received it with a stately inclination of the head and stuck it in the twist of his sarong, with punctilious

care to give his weapon a pacific position. Then he looked up at us with an austere smile. We were abashed

and reproved. Hollis sat sideways on the table and, holding his chin in his hand, scrutinized him in pensive

"You must abide with your people. They need you. And there is forgetfulness in life. Even the dead cease to

"Am I a woman, to forget long years before an eyelid has had the time to beat twice?" he exclaimed, with

bitter resentment. He startled me. It was amazing. To him his lifethat cruel mirage of love and

peaceseemed as real, as undeniable, as theirs would be to any saint, philosopher, or fool of us all. Hollis

"You know us. You have lived with us. Why?we cannot know; but you understand our sorrows and our

thoughts. You have lived with my people, and you understand our desires and our fears. With you I will go.

To your landto your people. To your people, who live in unbelief; to whom day is day, and night is

nightnothing more, because you understand all things seen, and despise all else! To your land of unbelief,

"I can toil, and fightand be faithful," he whispered, in a weary tone, "but I cannot go back to him who

waits for me on the shore. No! Take me with you . . . Or else give me some of your strengthof your

"Yes, take him home," said Hollis, very low, as if debating with himself. "That would be one way. The ghosts

there are in society, and talk affably to ladies and gentlemen, but would scorn a naked human beinglike our

princely friend. . . . Naked . . . Flayed! I should say. I am sorry for him. Impossibleof course. The end of

all this shall be," he went on, looking up at us"the end of this shall be, that some day he will run amuck

amongst his faithful subjects and send 'ad patres' ever so many of them before they make up their minds to

I nodded. I thought it more than probable that such would be the end of Karain. It was evident that he had

been hunted by his thought along the very limit of human endurance, and very little more pressing was

needed to make him swerve over into the form of madness peculiar to his race. The respite he had during the

He lifted his head suddenly; we had imagined for a moment that he had been dozing.

Again his chin fell on his breast. We looked at him, then looked at one another with suspicious awe in our

eyes, like men who come unexpectedly upon the scene of some mysterious disaster. He had given himself up

to us; he had thrust into our hands his errors and his torment, his life and his peace; and we did not know

what to do with that problem from the outer darkness. We three white men, looking at the Malay, could not

find one word to the purpose amongst usif indeed there existed a word that could solve that problem. We

pondered, and our hearts sank. We felt as though we three had been called to the very gate of Infernal

Regions to judge, to decide the fate of a wanderer coming suddenly from a world of sunshine and illusions.

"By Jove, he seems to have a great idea of our power," whispered Hollis, hopelessly. And then again there

was a silence, the feeble plash of water, the steady tick of chronometers. Jackson, with bare arms crossed,

leaned his shoulders against the bulkhead of the cabin. He was bending his head under the deck beam; his fair

beard spread out magnificently over his chest; he looked colossal, ineffectual, and mild. There was something

lugubrious in the aspect of the cabin; the air in it seemed to become slowly charged with the cruel chill of

helplessness, with the pitiless anger of egoism against the incomprehensible form of an intruding pain. We

had no idea what to do; we began to resent bitterly the hard necessity to get rid of him.

Hollis mused, muttered suddenly with a short laugh, "Strength . . . Protection . . . Charm." He slipped off the

table and left the cuddy without a look at us. It seemed a base desertion. Jackson and I exchanged indignant

glances. We could hear him rummaging in his pigeonhole of a cabin. Was the fellow actually going to bed?

Then Hollis reappeared, holding in both hands a small leather box. He put it down gently on the table and

looked at us with a queer gasp, we thought, as though he had from some cause become speechless for a

moment, or were ethically uncertain about producing that box. But in an instant the insolent and unerring

wisdom of his youth gave him the needed courage. He said, as he unlocked the box with a very small key,

Probably we looked only surprised and stupid, for he glanced over his shoulder, and said angrily

"This is no play; I am going to do something for him. Look serious. Confound it! . . . Can't you lie a little . . .

Karain seemed to take no notice of us, but when Hollis threw open the lid of the box his eyes flew to itand

so did ours. The quilted crimson satin of the inside put a violent patch of colour into the sombre atmosphere;

Hollis looked smiling into the box. He had lately made a dash home through the Canal. He had been away six

months, and only joined us again just in time for this last trip. We had never seen the box before. His hands

hovered above it; and he talked to us ironically, but his face became as grave as though he were pronouncing

"Every one of us," he said, with pauses that somehow were more offensive than his words"every one of us,

you'll admit, has been haunted by some woman . . . And . . . as to friends . . . dropped by the way . . . Well! . .

He paused. Karain stared. A deep rumble was heard high up under the deck. Jackson spoke seriously

"Ah! You are without guile," said Hollis, sadly. "You will learn . . . Meantime this Malay has been our friend

He repeated several times thoughtfully, "Friend . . . Malay. Friend, Malay," as though weighing the words

"A good fellowa gentleman in his way. We can't, so to speak, turn our backs on his confidence and belief

"You know him best," he said, in a practical tone. "Do you think he is fanaticalI mean very strict in his

"It's on account of its being a likenessan engraved image," muttered Hollis, enigmatically, turning to the

box. He plunged his fingers into it. Karain's lips were parted and his eyes shone. We looked into the box.

There were there a couple of reels of cotton, a packet of needles, a bit of silk ribbon, dark blue; a cabinet

photograph, at which Hollis stole a glance before laying it on the table face downwards. A girl's portrait, I

could see. There were, amongst a lot of various small objects, a bunch of flowers, a narrow white glove with

many buttons, a slim packet of letters carefully tied up. Amulets of white men! Charms and talismans!

Charms that keep them straight, that drive them crooked, that have the power to make a young man sigh, an

old man smile. Potent things that procure dreams of joy, thoughts of regret; that soften hard hearts, and can

temper a soft one to the hardness of steel. Gifts of heaventhings of earth . . .

And it seemed to me, during that moment of waiting, that the cabin of the schooner was becoming filled with

a stir invisible and living as of subtle breaths. All the ghosts driven out of the unbelieving West by men who

pretend to be wise and alone and at peaceall the homeless ghosts of an unbelieving worldappeared

suddenly round the figure of Hollis bending over the box; all the exiled and charming shades of loved

women; all the beautiful and tender ghosts of ideals, remembered, forgotten, cherished, execrated; all the

castout and reproachful ghosts of friends admired, trusted, traduced, betrayed, left dead by the waythey

all seemed to come from the inhospitable regions of the earth to crowd into the gloomy cabin, as though it

had been a refuge and, in all the unbelieving world, the only place of avenging belief. . . . It lasted a

secondall disappeared. Hollis was facing us alone with something small that glittered between his fingers.

He held it up. It was a sixpencea Jubilee sixpence. It was gilt; it had a hole punched near the rim. Hollis

"A charm for our friend," he said to us. "The thing itself is of great powermoney, you knowand his

imagination is struck. A loyal vagabond; if only his puritanism doesn't shy at a likeness . . ."

We said nothing. We did not know whether to be scandalized, amused, or relieved. Hollis advanced towards

Karain, who stood up as if startled, and then, holding the coin up, spoke in Malay.

"This is the image of the Great Queen, and the most powerful thing the white men know," he said, solemnly.

Karain covered the handle of his kriss in sign of respect, and stared at the crowned head.

"She is more powerful than Suleiman the Wise, who commanded the genii, as you know," said Hollis,

He held the sixpence in the palm of his hand, and looking at it thoughtfully, spoke to us in English.

"She commands a spirit, toothe spirit of her nation; a masterful, conscientious, unscrupulous,

unconquerable devil . . . that does a lot of goodincidentally . . . a lot of good . . . at timesand wouldn't

stand any fuss from the best ghost out for such a little thing as our friend's shot. Don't look thunderstruck, you

Hollis looked fixedly at Karain, who was the incarnation of the very essence of still excitement. He stood

rigid, with head thrown back; his eyes rolled wildly, flashing; the dilated nostrils quivered.

"Hang it all!" said Hollis at last, "he is a good fellow. I'll give him something that I shall really miss."

He took the ribbon out of the box, smiled at it scornfully, then with a pair of scissors cut out a piece from the

He sewed the coin in the delicate leather, sewed the leather to the ribbon, tied the ends together. He worked

"Now then," he saidthen stepped up to Karain. They looked close into one another's eyes. Those of Karain

stared in a lost glance, but Hollis's seemed to grow darker and looked out masterful and compelling. They

were in violent contrast togetherone motionless and the colour of bronze, the other dazzling white and

lifting his arms, where the powerful muscles rolled slightly under a skin that gleamed like satin. Jackson

moved near with the air of a man closing up to a chum in a tight place. I said impressively, pointing to

Karain bent his head: Hollis threw lightly over it the darkblue ribbon and stepped back.

Karain seemed to wake up from a dream. He said, "Ha!" shook himself as if throwing off a burden. He

looked round with assurance. Someone on deck dragged off the skylight cover, and a flood of light fell into

The sun had risen beyond the hills, and their long shadows stretched far over the bay in the pearly light. The

air was clear, stainless, and cool. I pointed at the curved line of yellow sands.

"He is not there," I said, emphatically, to Karain. "He waits no more. He has departed forever."

A shaft of bright hot rays darted into the bay between the summits of two hills, and the water all round broke

"No! He is not there waiting," said Karain, after a long look over the beach. "I do not hear him," he went on,

We assented vigorously, repeatedly, and without compunction. The great thing was to impress him

powerfully; to suggest absolute safetythe end of all trouble. We did our best; and I hope we affirmed our

faith in the power of Hollis's charm efficiently enough to put the matter beyond the shadow of a doubt. Our

voices rang around him joyously in the still air, and above his head the sky, pellucid, pure, stainless, arched

its tender blue from shore to shore and over the bay, as if to envelop the water, the earth, and the man in the

The anchor was up, the sails hung still, and halfadozen big boats were seen sweeping over the bay to give

us a tow out. The paddlers in the first one that came alongside lifted their heads and saw their ruler standing

He left us, and seemed straightway to step into the glorious splendour of his stage, to wrap himself in the

illusion of unavoidable success. For a moment he stood erect, one foot over the gangway, one hand on the hilt

of his kriss, in a martial pose; and, relieved from the fear of outer darkness, he held his head high, he swept a

serene look over his conquered foothold on the earth. The boats far off took up the cry of greeting; a great

clamour rolled on the water; the hills echoed it, and seemed to toss back at him the words invoking long life

He descended into a canoe, and as soon as he was clear of the side we gave him three cheers. They sounded

faint and orderly after the wild tumult of his loyal subjects, but it was the best we could do. He stood up in

the boat, lifted up both his arms, then pointed to the infallible charm. We cheered again; and the Malays in

the boats staredvery much puzzled and impressed. I wondered what they thought; what he thought; . . .

We towed out slowly. We saw him land and watch us from the beach. A figure approached him humbly but

openlynot at all like a ghost with a grievance. We could see other men running towards him. Perhaps he

had been missed? At any rate there was a great stir. A group formed itself rapidly near him, and he walked

along the sands, followed by a growing cortege and kept nearly abreast of the schooner. With our glasses we

could see the blue ribbon on his neck and a patch of white on his brown chest. The bay was waking up. The

smokes of morning fires stood in faint spirals higher than the heads of palms; people moved between the

houses; a herd of buffaloes galloped clumsily across a green slope; the slender figures of boys brandishing

sticks appeared black and leaping in the long grass; a coloured line of women, with water bamboos on their

heads, moved swaying through a thin grove of fruittrees. Karain stopped in the midst of his men and waved

his hand; then, detaching himself from the splendid group, walked alone to the water's edge and waved his

hand again. The schooner passed out to sea between the steep headlands that shut in the bay, and at the same

But the memory remains. Some years afterwards I met Jackson, in the Strand. He was magnificent as ever.

His head was high above the crowd. His beard was gold, his face red, his eyes blue; he had a widebrimmed

gray hat and no collar or waistcoat; he was inspiring; he had just come homehad landed that very day! Our

meeting caused an eddy in the current of humanity. Hurried people would run against us, then walk round us,

and turn back to look at that giant. We tried to compress seven years of life into seven exclamations; then,

suddenly appeased, walked sedately along, giving one another the news of yesterday. Jackson gazed about

him, like a man who looks for landmarks, then stopped before Bland's window. He always had a passion for

firearms; so he stopped short and contemplated the row of weapons, perfect and severe, drawn up in a line

"The sight of all this made me think of him," he went on, with his face near the glass . . . and I could see

another man, powerful and bearded, peering at him intently from amongst the dark and polished tubes that

can cure so many illusions. "Yes; it made me think of him," he continued, slowly. "I saw a paper this

morning; they are fighting over there again. He's sure to be in it. He will make it hot for the caballeros. Well,

"I wonder whether the charm workedyou remember Hollis's charm, of course. If it did . . . Never was a

sixpence wasted to better advantage! Poor devil! I wonder whether he got rid of that friend of his. Hope so. . .

"Yes . . . I mean, whether the thing was so, you know . . . whether it really happened to him. . . . What do you

"My dear chap," I cried, "you have been too long away from home. What a question to ask! Only look at all

A watery gleam of sunshine flashed from the west and went out between two long lines of walls; and then the

broken confusion of roofs, the chimneystacks, the gold letters sprawling over the fronts of houses, the

sombre polish of windows, stood resigned and sullen under the falling gloom. The whole length of the street,

deep as a well and narrow like a corridor, was full of a sombre and ceaseless stir. Our ears were filled by a

headlong shuffle and beat of rapid footsteps and by an underlying rumoura rumour vast, faint, pulsating, as

of panting breaths, of beating hearts, of gasping voices. Innumerable eyes stared straight in front, feet moved

hurriedly, blank faces flowed, arms swung. Over all, a narrow ragged strip of smoky sky wound about

between the high roofs, extended and motionless, like a soiled streamer flying above the rout of a mob.

The big wheels of hansoms turned slowly along the edge of sidewalks; a palefaced youth strolled,

overcome by weariness, by the side of his stick and with the tails of his overcoat flapping gently near his

heels; horses stepped gingerly on the greasy pavement, tossing their heads; two young girls passed by, talking

vivaciously and with shining eyes; a fine old fellow strutted, redfaced, stroking a white moustache; and a

line of yellow boards with blue letters on them approached us slowly, tossing on high behind one another like

"Yeees," repeated Jackson. His clear blue eyes looked about, contemptuous, amused and hard, like the

eyes of a boy. A clumsy string of red, yellow, and green omnibuses rolled swaying, monstrous and gaudy;

two shabby children ran across the road; a knot of dirty men with red neckerchiefs round their bare throats

lurched along, discussing filthily; a ragged old man with a face of despair yelled horribly in the mud the name

of a paper; while far off, amongst the tossing heads of horses, the dull flash of harnesses, the jumble of

lustrous panels and roofs of carriages, we could see a policeman, helmeted and dark, stretching out a rigid

"Yes; I see it," said Jackson, slowly. "It is there; it pants, it runs, it rolls; it is strong and alive; it would smash

you if you didn't look out; but I'll be hanged if it is yet as real to me as . . . as the other thing . . . say, Karain's

We were driving along the road from Treguier to Kervanda. We passed at a smart trot between the hedges

topping an earth wall on each side of the road; then at the foot of the steep ascent before Ploumar the horse

dropped into a walk, and the driver jumped down heavily from the box. He flicked his whip and climbed the

incline, stepping clumsily uphill by the side of the carriage, one hand on the footboard, his eyes on the

ground. After a while he lifted his head, pointed up the road with the end of the whip, and said

The sun was shining violently upon the undulating surface of the land. The rises were topped by clumps of

meagre trees, with their branches showing high on the sky as if they had been perched upon stilts. The small

fields, cut up by hedges and stone walls that zigzagged over the slopes, lay in rectangular patches of vivid

greens and yellows, resembling the unskilful daubs of a naive picture. And the landscape was divided in two

by the white streak of a road stretching in long loops far away, like a river of dust crawling out of the hills on

In the long grass bordering the road a face glided past the carriage at the level of the wheels as we drove

slowly by. The imbecile face was red, and the bullet head with closecropped hair seemed to lie alone, its

chin in the dust. The body was lost in the bushes growing thick along the bottom of the deep ditch.

It was a boy's face. He might have been sixteen, judging from the sizeperhaps less, perhaps more. Such

creatures are forgotten by time, and live untouched by years till death gathers them up into its compassionate

bosom; the faithful death that never forgets in the press of work the most insignificant of its children.

"Ah! there's another," said the man, with a certain satisfaction in his tone, as if he had caught sight of

There was another. That one stood nearly in the middle of the road in the blaze of sunshine at the end of his

own short shadow. And he stood with hands pushed into the opposite sleeves of his long coat, his head sunk

between the shoulders, all hunched up in the flood of heat. From a distance he had the aspect of one suffering

The idiot shuffled two paces out of the way and looked at us over his shoulder when we brushed past him.

The glance was unseeing and staring, a fascinated glance; but he did not turn to look after us. Probably the

image passed before the eyes without leaving any trace on the misshapen brain of the creature. When we had

topped the ascent I looked over the hood. He stood in the road just where we had left him.

The driver clambered into his seat, clicked his tongue, and we went downhill. The brake squeaked horribly

from time to time. At the foot he eased off the noisy mechanism and said, turning half round on his box

"There's four of themchildren of a farmer near Ploumar here. . . . The parents are dead now," he added,

after a while. "The grandmother lives on the farm. In the daytime they knock about on this road, and they

We saw the other two: a boy and a girl, as the driver said. They were dressed exactly alike, in shapeless

garments with petticoatlike skirts. The imperfect thing that lived within them moved those beings to howl at

us from the top of the bank, where they sprawled amongst the tough stalks of furze. Their cropped black

heads stuck out from the bright yellow wall of countless small blossoms. The faces were purple with the

strain of yelling; the voices sounded blank and cracked like a mechanical imitation of old people's voices; and

I saw them many times in my wandering about the country. They lived on that road, drifting along its length

here and there, according to the inexplicable impulses of their monstrous darkness. They were an offence to

the sunshine, a reproach to empty heaven, a blight on the concentrated and purposeful vigour of the wild

landscape. In time the story of their parents shaped itself before me out of the listless answers to my

questions, out of the indifferent words heard in wayside inns or on the very road those idiots haunted. Some

of it was told by an emaciated and sceptical old fellow with a tremendous whip, while we trudged together

over the sands by the side of a twowheeled cart loaded with dripping seaweed. Then at other times other

people confirmed and completed the story: till it stood at last before me, a tale formidable and simple, as they

When he returned from his military service JeanPierre Bacadou found the old people very much aged. He

remarked with pain that the work of the farm was not satisfactorily done. The father had not the energy of old

days. The hands did not feel over them the eye of the master. JeanPierre noted with sorrow that the heap of

manure in the courtyard before the only entrance to the house was not so large as it should have been. The

fences were out of repair, and the cattle suffered from neglect. At home the mother was practically bedridden,

and the girls chattered loudly in the big kitchen, unrebuked, from morning to night. He said to himself: "We

must change all this." He talked the matter over with his father one evening when the rays of the setting sun

entering the yard between the outhouses ruled the heavy shadows with luminous streaks. Over the manure

heap floated a mist, opaltinted and odorous, and the marauding hens would stop in their scratching to

examine with a sudden glance of their round eye the two men, both lean and tall, talking in hoarse tones. The

old man, all twisted with rheumatism and bowed with years of work, the younger bony and straight, spoke

without gestures in the indifferent manner of peasants, grave and slow. But before the sun had set the father

had submitted to the sensible arguments of the son. "It is not for me that I am speaking," insisted JeanPierre.

"It is for the land. It's a pity to see it badly used. I am not impatient for myself." The old fellow nodded over

his stick. "I dare say; I dare say," he muttered. "You may be right. Do what you like. It's the mother that will

The mother was pleased with her daughterinlaw. JeanPierre brought the twowheeled springcart with a

rush into the yard. The gray horse galloped clumsily, and the bride and bridegroom, sitting side by side, were

jerked backwards and forwards by the up and down motion of the shafts, in a manner regular and brusque. On

the road the distanced wedding guests straggled in pairs and groups. The men advanced with heavy steps,

swinging their idle arms. They were clad in town clothes; jackets cut with clumsy smartness, hard black hats,

immense boots, polished highly. Their women all in simple black, with white caps and shawls of faded tints

folded triangularly on the back, strolled lightly by their side. In front the violin sang a strident tune, and the

biniou snored and hummed, while the player capered solemnly, lifting high his heavy clogs. The sombre

procession drifted in and out of the narrow lanes, through sunshine and through shade, between fields and

hedgerows, scaring the little birds that darted away in troops right and left. In the yard of Bacadou's farm the

dark ribbon wound itself up into a mass of men and women pushing at the door with cries and greetings. The

wedding dinner was remembered for months. It was a splendid feast in the orchard. Farmers of considerable

means and excellent repute were to be found sleeping in ditches, all along the road to Treguier, even as late as

the afternoon of the next day. All the countryside participated in the happiness of JeanPierre. He remained

sober, and, together with his quiet wife, kept out of the way, letting father and mother reap their due of

honour and thanks. But the next day he took hold strongly, and the old folks felt a shadowprecursor of the

When the twins were born there was plenty of room in the house, for the mother of JeanPierre had gone

away to dwell under a heavy stone in the cemetery of Ploumar. On that day, for the first time since his son's

marriage, the elder Bacadou, neglected by the cackling lot of strange women who thronged the kitchen, left in

the morning his seat under the mantel of the fireplace, and went into the empty cowhouse, shaking his white

locks dismally. Grandsons were all very well, but he wanted his soup at midday. When shown the babies, he

stared at them with a fixed gaze, and muttered something like: "It's too much." Whether he meant too much

happiness, or simply commented upon the number of his descendants, it is impossible to say. He looked

offended as far as his old wooden face could express anything; and for days afterwards could be seen,

almost any time of the day, sitting at the gate, with his nose over his knees, a pipe between his gums, and

gathered up into a kind of raging concentrated sulkiness. Once he spoke to his son, alluding to the newcomers

with a groan: "They will quarrel over the land." "Don't bother about that, father," answered JeanPierre,

He was happy, and so was Susan, his wife. It was not an ethereal joy welcoming new souls to struggle,

perchance to victory. In fourteen years both boys would be a help; and, later on, JeanPierre pictured two big

sons striding over the land from patch to patch, wringing tribute from the earth beloved and fruitful. Susan

was happy too, for she did not want to be spoken of as the unfortunate woman, and now she had children no

one could call her that. Both herself and her husband had seen something of the larger worldhe during the

time of his service; while she had spent a year or so in Paris with a Breton family; but had been too

homesick to remain longer away from the hilly and green country, set in a barren circle of rocks and sands,

where she had been born. She thought that one of the boys ought perhaps to be a priest, but said nothing to

her husband, who was a republican, and hated the "crows," as he called the ministers of religion. The

christening was a splendid affair. All the commune came to it, for the Bacadous were rich and influential,

Some months afterwards, one evening when the kitchen had been swept, and the door locked, JeanPierre,

looking at the cot, asked his wife: "What's the matter with those children?" And, as if these words, spoken

calmly, had been the portent of misfortune, she answered with a loud wail that must have been heard across

the yard in the pigsty; for the pigs (the Bacadous had the finest pigs in the country) stirred and grunted

complainingly in the night. The husband went on grinding his bread and butter slowly, gazing at the wall, the

soupplate smoking under his chin. He had returned late from the market, where he had overheard (not for

the first time) whispers behind his back. He revolved the words in his mind as he drove back. "Simple! Both

of them. . . . Never any use! . . . Well! May be, may be. One must see. Would ask his wife." This was her

answer. He felt like a blow on his chest, but said only: "Go, draw me some cider. I am thirsty!"

She went out moaning, an empty jug in her hand. Then he arose, took up the light, and moved slowly towards

the cradle. They slept. He looked at them sideways, finished his mouthful there, went back heavily, and sat

down before his plate. When his wife returned he never looked up, but swallowed a couple of spoonfuls

She sat down suddenly on a stool near by, and shook with a silent tempest of sobs, unable to speak. He

finished his meal, and remained idly thrown back in his chair, his eyes lost amongst the black rafters of the

ceiling. Before him the tallow candle flared red and straight, sending up a slender thread of smoke. The light

lay on the rough, sunburnt skin of his throat; the sunk cheeks were like patches of darkness, and his aspect

was mournfully stolid, as if he had ruminated with difficulty endless ideas. Then he said, deliberately

"We must see . . . consult people. Don't cry. . . . They won't all be like that . . . surely! We must sleep now."

After the third child, also a boy, was born, JeanPierre went about his work with tense hopefulness. His lips

seemed more narrow, more tightly compressed than before; as if for fear of letting the earth he tilled hear the

voice of hope that murmured within his breast. He watched the child, stepping up to the cot with a heavy

clang of sabots on the stone floor, and glanced in, along his shoulder, with that indifference which is like a

deformity of peasant humanity. Like the earth they master and serve, those men, slow of eye and speech, do

not show the inner fire; so that, at last, it becomes a question with them as with the earth, what there is in the

core: heat, violence, a force mysterious and terribleor nothing but a clod, a mass fertile and inert, cold and

The mother watched with other eyes; listened with otherwise expectant ears. Under the high hanging shelves

supporting great sides of bacon overhead, her body was busy by the great fireplace, attentive to the pot

swinging on iron gallows, scrubbing the long table where the field hands would sit down directly to their

evening meal. Her mind remained by the cradle, night and day on the watch, to hope and suffer. That child,

like the other two, never smiled, never stretched its hands to her, never spoke; never had a glance of

recognition for her in its big black eyes, which could only stare fixedly at any glitter, but failed hopelessly to

follow the brilliance of a sunray slipping slowly along the floor. When the men were at work she spent long

days between her three idiot children and the childish grandfather, who sat grim, angular, and immovable,

with his feet near the warm ashes of the fire. The feeble old fellow seemed to suspect that there was

something wrong with his grandsons. Only once, moved either by affection or by the sense of proprieties, he

attempted to nurse the youngest. He took the boy up from the floor, clicked his tongue at him, and essayed a

shaky gallop of his bony knees. Then he looked closely with his misty eyes at the child's face and deposited

him down gently on the floor again. And he sat, his lean shanks crossed, nodding at the steam escaping from

Then mute affliction dwelt in Bacadou's farmhouse, sharing the breath and the bread of its inhabitants; and

the priest of the Ploumar parish had great cause for congratulation. He called upon the rich landowner, the

Marquis de Chavanes, on purpose to deliver himself with joyful unction of solemn platitudes about the

inscrutable ways of Providence. In the vast dimness of the curtained drawingroom, the little man,

resembling a black bolster, leaned towards a couch, his hat on his knees, and gesticulated with a fat hand at

the elongated, gracefullyflowing lines of the clear Parisian toilette from which the halfamused, halfbored

marquise listened with gracious languor. He was exulting and humble, proud and awed. The impossible had

come to pass. JeanPierre Bacadou, the enraged republican farmer, had been to mass last Sundayhad

proposed to entertain the visiting priests at the next festival of Ploumar! It was a triumph for the Church and

for the good cause. "I thought I would come at once to tell Monsieur le Marquis. I know how anxious he is

for the welfare of our country," declared the priest, wiping his face. He was asked to stay to dinner.

The Chavanes returning that evening, after seeing their guest to the main gate of the park, discussed the

matter while they strolled in the moonlight, trailing their long shadows up the straight avenue of chestnuts.

The marquise, a royalist of course, had been mayor of the commune which includes Ploumar, the scattered

hamlets of the coast, and the stony islands that fringe the yellow flatness of the sands. He had felt his position

insecure, for there was a strong republican element in that part of the country; but now the conversion of

JeanPierre made him safe. He was very pleased. "You have no idea how influential those people are," he

explained to his wife. "Now, I am sure, the next communal election will go all right. I shall be reelected."

"Your ambition is perfectly insatiable, Charles," exclaimed the marquise, gaily. "But, ma chere amie," argued

the husband, seriously, "it's most important that the right man should be mayor this year, because of the

JeanPierre had surrendered to his wife's mother. Madame Levaille was a woman of business, known and

respected within a radius of at least fifteen miles. Thickset and stout, she was seen about the country, on

foot or in an acquaintance's cart, perpetually moving, in spite of her fiftyeight years, in steady pursuit of

business. She had houses in all the hamlets, she worked quarries of granite, she freighted coasters with

stoneeven traded with the Channel Islands. She was broadcheeked, wideeyed, persuasive in speech:

carrying her point with the placid and invincible obstinacy of an old woman who knows her own mind. She

very seldom slept for two nights together in the same house; and the wayside inns were the best places to

inquire in as to her whereabouts. She had either passed, or was expected to pass there at six; or somebody,

coming in, had seen her in the morning, or expected to meet her that evening. After the inns that command

the roads, the churches were the buildings she frequented most. Men of liberal opinions would induce small

children to run into sacred edifices to see whether Madame Levaille was there, and to tell her that soandso

was in the road waiting to speak to her about potatoes, or flour, or stones, or houses; and she would curtail

her devotions, come out blinking and crossing herself into the sunshine; ready to discuss business matters in a

calm, sensible way across a table in the kitchen of the inn opposite. Latterly she had stayed for a few days

several times with her soninlaw, arguing against sorrow and misfortune with composed face and gentle

tones. JeanPierre felt the convictions imbibed in the regiment torn out of his breastnot by arguments but

by facts. Striding over his fields he thought it over. There were three of them. Three! All alike! Why? Such

things did not happen to everybodyto nobody he ever heard of. Onemight pass. But three! All three.

Forever useless, to be fed while he lived and . . . What would become of the land when he died? This must be

Susan embraced her man. He stood unbending, then turned on his heels and went out. But afterwards, when a

black soutane darkened his doorway, he did not object; even offered some cider himself to the priest. He

listened to the talk meekly; went to mass between the two women; accomplished what the priest called "his

religious duties" at Easter. That morning he felt like a man who had sold his soul. In the afternoon he fought

ferociously with an old friend and neighbour who had remarked that the priests had the best of it and were

now going to eat the priesteater. He came home dishevelled and bleeding, and happening to catch sight of

his children (they were kept generally out of the way), cursed and swore incoherently, banging the table.

Susan wept. Madame Levaille sat serenely unmoved. She assured her daughter that "It will pass;" and taking

up her thick umbrella, departed in haste to see after a schooner she was going to load with granite from her

A year or so afterwards the girl was born. A girl. JeanPierre heard of it in the fields, and was so upset by the

news that he sat down on the boundary wall and remained there till the evening, instead of going home as he

was urged to do. A girl! He felt half cheated. However, when he got home he was partly reconciled to his

fate. One could marry her to a good fellownot to a good for nothing, but to a fellow with some

understanding and a good pair of arms. Besides, the next may be a boy, he thought. Of course they would be

all right. His new credulity knew of no doubt. The ill luck was broken. He spoke cheerily to his wife. She was

also hopeful. Three priests came to that christening, and Madame Levaille was godmother. The child turned

Then on market days JeanPierre was seen bargaining bitterly, quarrelsome and greedy; then getting drunk

with taciturn earnestness; then driving home in the dusk at a rate fit for a wedding, but with a face gloomy

enough for a funeral. Sometimes he would insist on his wife coming with him; and they would drive in the

early morning, shaking side by side on the narrow seat above the helpless pig, that, with tied legs, grunted a

melancholy sigh at every rut. The morning drives were silent; but in the evening, coming home, JeanPierre,

tipsy, was viciously muttering, and growled at the confounded woman who could not rear children that were

like anybody else's. Susan, holding on against the erratic swayings of the cart, pretended not to hear. Once, as

they were driving through Ploumar, some obscure and drunken impulse caused him to pull up sharply

opposite the church. The moon swam amongst light white clouds. The tombstones gleamed pale under the

fretted shadows of the trees in the churchyard. Even the village dogs slept. Only the nightingales, awake,

spun out the thrill of their song above the silence of graves. JeanPierre said thickly to his wife

He pointed his whip at the towerin which the big dial of the clock appeared high in the moonlight like a

pallid face without eyesand getting out carefully, fell down at once by the wheel. He picked himself up and

climbed one by one the few steps to the iron gate of the churchyard. He put his face to the bars and called out

He took no notice, and seemed to wait there. The song of nightingales beat on all sides against the high walls

of the church, and flowed back between stone crosses and flat gray slabs, engraved with words of hope and

"Nobody?" went on JeanPierre. "Nobody there. A swindle of the crows. That's what this is. Nobody

He shook the gate with all his strength, and the iron bars rattled with a frightful clanging, like a chain dragged

over stone steps. A dog near by barked hurriedly. JeanPierre staggered back, and after three successive

dashes got into his cart. Susan sat very quiet and still. He said to her with drunken severity

"See? Nobody. I've been made a fool! Malheur! Somebody will pay for it. The next one I see near the house I

will lay my whip on . . . on the black spine . . . I will. I don't want him in there . . . he only helps the carrion

crows to rob poor folk. I am a man. . . . We will see if I can't have children like anybody else . . . now you

He struck her a swinging blow on the head with the back of his hand and knocked her into the bottom of the

cart, where she crouched, thrown about lamentably by every jolt. He drove furiously, standing up,

brandishing his whip, shaking the reins over the gray horse that galloped ponderously, making the heavy

harness leap upon his broad quarters. The country rang clamorous in the night with the irritated barking of

farm dogs, that followed the rattle of wheels all along the road. A couple of belated wayfarers had only just

time to step into the ditch. At his own gate he caught the post and was shot out of the cart head first. The

horse went on slowly to the door. At Susan's piercing cries the farm hands rushed out. She thought him dead,

but he was only sleeping where he fell, and cursed his men, who hastened to him, for disturbing his slumbers.

Autumn came. The clouded sky descended low upon the black contours of the hills; and the dead leaves

danced in spiral whirls under naked trees, till the wind, sighing profoundly, laid them to rest in the hollows of

bare valleys. And from morning till night one could see all over the land black denuded boughs, the boughs

gnarled and twisted, as if contorted with pain, swaying sadly between the wet clouds and the soaked earth.

The clear and gentle streams of summer days rushed discoloured and raging at the stones that barred the way

to the sea, with the fury of madness bent upon suicide. From horizon to horizon the great road to the sands lay

between the hills in a dull glitter of empty curves, resembling an unnavigable river of mud.

JeanPierre went from field to field, moving blurred and tall in the drizzle, or striding on the crests of rises,

lonely and high upon the gray curtain of drifting clouds, as if he had been pacing along the very edge of the

universe. He looked at the black earth, at the earth mute and promising, at the mysterious earth doing its work

of life in deathlike stillness under the veiled sorrow of the sky. And it seemed to him that to a man worse

than childless there was no promise in the fertility of fields, that from him the earth escaped, defied him,

frowned at him like the clouds, sombre and hurried above his head. Having to face alone his own fields, he

felt the inferiority of man who passes away before the clod that remains. Must he give up the hope of having

by his side a son who would look at the turnedup sods with a master's eye? A man that would think as he

thought, that would feel as he felt; a man who would be part of himself, and yet remain to trample masterfully

on that earth when he was gone? He thought of some distant relations, and felt savage enough to curse them

aloud. They! Never! He turned homewards, going straight at the roof of his dwelling, visible between the

enlaced skeletons of trees. As he swung his legs over the stile a cawing flock of birds settled slowly on the

field; dropped down behind his back, noiseless and fluttering, like flakes of soot.

That day Madame Levaille had gone early in the afternoon to the house she had near Kervanion. She had to

pay some of the men who worked in her granite quarry there, and she went in good time because her little

house contained a shop where the workmen could spend their wages without the trouble of going to town.

The house stood alone amongst rocks. A lane of mud and stones ended at the door. The seawinds coming

ashore on Stonecutter's point, fresh from the fierce turmoil of the waves, howled violently at the unmoved

heaps of black boulders holding up steadily shortarmed, high crosses against the tremendous rush of the

invisible. In the sweep of gales the sheltered dwelling stood in a calm resonant and disquieting, like the calm

in the centre of a hurricane. On stormy nights, when the tide was out, the bay of Fougere, fifty feet below the

house, resembled an immense black pit, from which ascended mutterings and sighs as if the sands down there

had been alive and complaining. At high tide the returning water assaulted the ledges of rock in short rushes,

ending in bursts of livid light and columns of spray, that flew inland, stinging to death the grass of pastures.

The darkness came from the hills, flowed over the coast, put out the red fires of sunset, and went on to

seaward pursuing the retiring tide. The wind dropped with the sun, leaving a maddened sea and a devastated

sky. The heavens above the house seemed to be draped in black rags, held up here and there by pins of fire.

Madame Levaille, for this evening the servant of her own workmen, tried to induce them to depart. "An old

woman like me ought to be in bed at this late hour," she goodhumouredly repeated. The quarrymen drank,

asked for more. They shouted over the table as if they had been talking across a field. At one end four of

them played cards, banging the wood with their hard knuckles, and swearing at every lead. One sat with a lost

gaze, humming a bar of some song, which he repeated endlessly. Two others, in a corner, were quarrelling

confidentially and fiercely over some woman, looking close into one another's eyes as if they had wanted to

tear them out, but speaking in whispers that promised violence and murder discreetly, in a venomous

sibillation of subdued words. The atmosphere in there was thick enough to slice with a knife. Three candles

The slight click of the iron latch was at that late hour as unexpected and startling as a thunderclap. Madame

Levaille put down a bottle she held above a liqueur glass; the players turned their heads; the whispered

quarrel ceased; only the singer, after darting a glance at the door, went on humming with a stolid face. Susan

appeared in the doorway, stepped in, flung the door to, and put her back against it, saying, half aloud

Madame Levaille, taking up the bottle again, said calmly: "Here you are, my girl. What a state you are in!"

The neck of the bottle rang on the rim of the glass, for the old woman was startled, and the idea that the farm

had caught fire had entered her head. She could think of no other cause for her daughter's appearance.

Susan, soaked and muddy, stared the whole length of the room towards the men at the far end. Her mother

Susan moved her lips. No sound came. Madame Levaille stepped up to her daughter, took her by the arm,

"In God's name," she said, shakily, "what's the matter? You have been rolling in mud. . . . Why did you

The men had all got up and approached slowly, staring with dull surprise. Madame Levaille jerked her

daughter away from the door, swung her round upon a seat close to the wall. Then she turned fiercely to the

One of them observed, looking down at Susan collapsed on the seat: "She isone may sayhalf dead."

They dropped out into the night, laughing stupidly. Outside, the two Lotharios broke out into loud shouts.

The others tried to soothe them, all talking at once. The noise went away up the lane with the men, who

"Speak, Susan. What is it? Speak!" entreated Madame Levaille, as soon as the door was shut.

Susan pronounced some incomprehensible words, glaring at the table. The old woman clapped her hands

above her head, let them drop, and stood looking at her daughter with disconsolate eyes. Her husband had

been "deranged in his head" for a few years before he died, and now she began to suspect her daughter was

"What!" cried the old woman. She came up near, and peering at her daughter, repeated three times: "What do

Susan sat dryeyed and stony before Madame Levaille, who contemplated her, feeling a strange sense of

inexplicable horror creep into the silence of the house. She had hardly realised the news, further than to

understand that she had been brought in one short moment face to face with something unexpected and final.

It did not even occur to her to ask for any explanation. She thought: accidentterrible accidentblood to

the headfell down a trap door in the loft. . . . She remained there, distracted and mute, blinking her old

For a moment the mother stood still, almost unbreathing, but with composed face. The next second she burst

She fancied the gendarmes entering the house, saying to her: "We want your daughter; give her up:" the

gendarmes with the severe, hard faces of men on duty. She knew the brigadier wellan old friend, familiar

and respectful, saying heartily, "To your good health, Madame!" before lifting to his lips the small glass of

cognacout of the special bottle she kept for friends. And now! . . . She was losing her head. She rushed

here and there, as if looking for something urgently neededgave that up, stood stock still in the middle of

"Do you think I am made of stone?" she shouted back, striding towards her mother.

"You go and see, mother," retorted Susan, looking at her with blazing eyes. "There's no money in

heavenno justice. No! . . . I did not know. . . . Do you think I have no heart? Do you think I have never

heard people jeering at me, pitying me, wondering at me? Do you know how some of them were calling me?

The mother of idiotsthat was my nickname! And my children never would know me, never speak to me.

They would know nothing; neither mennor God. Haven't I prayed! But the Mother of God herself would

not hear me. A mother! . . . Who is accursedI, or the man who is dead? Eh? Tell me. I took care of myself.

Do you think I would defy the anger of God and have my house full of those thingsthat are worse than

animals who know the hand that feeds them? Who blasphemed in the night at the very church door? Was it I?

. . . I only wept and prayed for mercy . . . and I feel the curse at every moment of the dayI see it round me

from morning to night . . . I've got to keep them aliveto take care of my misfortune and shame. And he

would come. I begged him and Heaven for mercy. . . . No! . . . Then we shall see. . . . He came this evening. I

thought to myself: 'Ah! again!' . . . I had my long scissors. I heard him shouting . . . I saw him near. . . . I

mustmust I? . . . Then take! . . . And I struck him in the throat above the breastbone. . . . I never heard him

even sigh. . . . I left him standing. . . . It was a minute ago. How did I come here?"

Madame Levaille shivered. A wave of cold ran down her back, down her fat arms under her tight sleeves,

made her stamp gently where she stood. Quivers ran over the broad cheeks, across the thin lips, ran amongst

"You wicked womanyou disgrace me. But there! You always resembled your father. What do you think

She was very hot now. She felt burning inside. She wrung her perspiring handsand suddenly, starting in

great haste, began to look for her big shawl and umbrella, feverishly, never once glancing at her daughter,

who stood in the middle of the room following her with a gaze distracted and cold.

Her mother, umbrella in hand and trailing the shawl over the floor, groaned profoundly.

"I must go to the priest," she burst out passionately. "I do not know whether you even speak the truth! You

are a horrible woman. They will find you anywhere. You may stay hereor go. There is no room for you in

Ready now to depart, she yet wandered aimlessly about the room, putting the bottles on the shelf, trying to fit

with trembling hands the covers on cardboard boxes. Whenever the real sense of what she had heard emerged

for a second from the haze of her thoughts she would fancy that something had exploded in her brain without,

unfortunately, bursting her head to pieceswhich would have been a relief. She blew the candles out one by

one without knowing it, and was horribly startled by the darkness. She fell on a bench and began to whimper.

After a while she ceased, and sat listening to the breathing of her daughter, whom she could hardly see, still

and upright, giving no other sign of life. She was becoming old rapidly at last, during those minutes. She

spoke in tones unsteady, cut about by the rattle of teeth, like one shaken by a deadly cold fit of ague.

"I wish you had died little. I will never dare to show my old head in the sunshine again. There are worse

misfortunes than idiot children. I wish you had been born to me simplelike your own. . . ."

She saw the figure of her daughter pass before the faint and livid clearness of a window. Then it appeared in

the doorway for a second, and the door swung to with a clang. Madame Levaille, as if awakened by the noise

She heard a stone roll a long time down the declivity of the rocky beach above the sands. She stepped

forward cautiously, one hand on the wall of the house, and peered down into the smooth darkness of the

The stone had taken its last leap in the dark, and she heard nothing now. A sudden thought seemed to strangle

her, and she called no more. She turned her back upon the black silence of the pit and went up the lane

towards Ploumar, stumbling along with sombre determination, as if she had started on a desperate journey

that would last, perhaps, to the end of her life. A sullen and periodic clamour of waves rolling over reefs

followed her far inland between the high hedges sheltering the gloomy solitude of the fields.

Susan had run out, swerving sharp to the left at the door, and on the edge of the slope crouched down behind

a boulder. A dislodged stone went on downwards, rattling as it leaped. When Madame Levaille called out,

Susan could have, by stretching her hand, touched her mother's skirt, had she had the courage to move a limb.

She saw the old woman go away, and she remained still, closing her eyes and pressing her side to the hard

and rugged surface of the rock. After a while a familiar face with fixed eyes and an open mouth became

visible in the intense obscurity amongst the boulders. She uttered a low cry and stood up. The face vanished,

leaving her to gasp and shiver alone in the wilderness of stone heaps. But as soon as she had crouched down

again to rest, with her head against the rock, the face returned, came very near, appeared eager to finish the

speech that had been cut short by death, only a moment ago. She scrambled quickly to her feet and said: "Go

away, or I will do it again." The thing wavered, swung to the right, to the left. She moved this way and that,

stepped back, fancied herself screaming at it, and was appalled by the unbroken stillness of the night. She

tottered on the brink, felt the steep declivity under her feet, and rushed down blindly to save herself from a

headlong fall. The shingle seemed to wake up; the pebbles began to roll before her, pursued her from above,

raced down with her on both sides, rolling past with an increasing clatter. In the peace of the night the noise

grew, deepening to a rumour, continuous and violent, as if the whole semicircle of the stony beach had started

to tumble down into the bay. Susan's feet hardly touched the slope that seemed to run down with her. At the

bottom she stumbled, shot forward, throwing her arms out, and fell heavily. She jumped up at once and

turned swiftly to look back, her clenched hands full of sand she had clutched in her fall. The face was there,

keeping its distance, visible in its own sheen that made a pale stain in the night. She shouted, "Go

away!"she shouted at it with pain, with fear, with all the rage of that useless stab that could not keep him

quiet, keep him out of her sight. What did he want now? He was dead. Dead men have no children. Would he

never leave her alone? She shrieked at itwaved her outstretched hands. She seemed to feel the breath of

parted lips, and, with a long cry of discouragement, fled across the level bottom of the bay.

She ran lightly, unaware of any effort of her body. High sharp rocks that, when the bay is full, show above

the glittering plain of blue water like pointed towers of submerged churches, glided past her, rushing to the

land at a tremendous pace. To the left, in the distance, she could see something shining: a broad disc of light

in which narrow shadows pivoted round the centre like the spokes of a wheel. She heard a voice calling,

"Hey! There!" and answered with a wild scream. So, he could call yet! He was calling after her to stop.

Never! . . . She tore through the night, past the startled group of seaweedgatherers who stood round their

lantern paralysed with fear at the unearthly screech coming from that fleeing shadow. The men leaned on

their pitchforks staring fearfully. A woman fell on her knees, and, crossing herself, began to pray aloud. A

little girl with her ragged skirt full of slimy seaweed began to sob despairingly, lugging her soaked burden

close to the man who carried the light. Somebody said: "The thing ran out towards the sea." Another voice

exclaimed: "And the sea is coming back! Look at the spreading puddles. Do you hearyou womanthere!

Get up!" Several voices cried together. "Yes, let us be off! Let the accursed thing go to the sea!" They moved

on, keeping close round the light. Suddenly a man swore loudly. He would go and see what was the matter. It

had been a woman's voice. He would go. There were shrill protests from womenbut his high form

detached itself from the group and went off running. They sent an unanimous call of scared voices after him.

A word, insulting and mocking, came back, thrown at them through the darkness. A woman moaned. An old

man said gravely: "Such things ought to be left alone." They went on slower, shuffling in the yielding sand

and whispering to one another that Millot feared nothing, having no religion, but that it would end badly

Susan met the incoming tide by the Raven islet and stopped, panting, with her feet in the water. She heard the

murmur and felt the cold caress of the sea, and, calmer now, could see the sombre and confused mass of the

Raven on one side and on the other the long white streak of Molene sands that are left high above the dry

bottom of Fougere Bay at every ebb. She turned round and saw far away, along the starred background of the

sky, the ragged outline of the coast. Above it, nearly facing her, appeared the tower of Ploumar Church; a

slender and tall pyramid shooting up dark and pointed into the clustered glitter of the stars. She felt strangely

calm. She knew where she was, and began to remember how she came thereand why. She peered into the

smooth obscurity near her. She was alone. There was nothing there; nothing near her, either living or dead.

The tide was creeping in quietly, putting out long impatient arms of strange rivulets that ran towards the land

between ridges of sand. Under the night the pools grew bigger with mysterious rapidity, while the great sea,

yet far off, thundered in a regular rhythm along the indistinct line of the horizon. Susan splashed her way

back for a few yards without being able to get clear of the water that murmured tenderly all around and,

suddenly, with a spiteful gurgle, nearly took her off her feet. Her heart thumped with fear. This place was too

big and too empty to die in. Tomorrow they would do with her what they liked. But before she died she

must tell themtell the gentlemen in black clothes that there are things no woman can bear. She must

explain how it happened. . . . She splashed through a pool, getting wet to the waist, too preoccupied to care. . .

. She must explain. "He came in the same way as ever and said, just so: 'Do you think I am going to leave the

land to those people from Morbihan that I do not know? Do you? We shall see! Come along, you creature of

mischance!' And he put his arms out. Then, Messieurs, I said: 'Before Godnever!' And he said, striding at

me with open palms: 'There is no God to hold me! Do you understand, you useless carcase. I will do what I

like.' And he took me by the shoulders. Then I, Messieurs, called to God for help, and next minute, while he

was shaking me, I felt my long scissors in my hand. His shirt was unbuttoned, and, by the candlelight, I saw

the hollow of his throat. I cried: 'Let go!' He was crushing my shoulders. He was strong, my man was! Then I

thought: No! . . . Must I? . . . Then take!and I struck in the hollow place. I never saw him fall. . . . The old

father never turned his head. He is deaf and childish, gentlemen. . . . Nobody saw him fall. I ran out . . .

She had been scrambling amongst the boulders of the Raven and now found herself, all out of breath,

standing amongst the heavy shadows of the rocky islet. The Raven is connected with the main land by a

natural pier of immense and slippery stones. She intended to return home that way. Was he still standing

there? At home. Home! Four idiots and a corpse. She must go back and explain. Anybody would understand.

She started, slipped, fell; and without attempting to rise, listened, terrified. She heard heavy breathing, a

She held her breath. She recognized the voice. She had not seen him fall. Was he pursuing her there dead, or

She lost her head. She cried from the crevice where she lay huddled, "Never, never!"

"Ah! You are still there. You led me a fine dance. Wait, my beauty, I must see how you look after all this.

Millot was stumbling, laughing, swearing meaninglessly out of pure satisfaction, pleased with himself for

having run down that flybynight. "As if there were such things as ghosts! Bah! It took an old African

soldier to show those clodhoppers. . . . But it was curious. Who the devil was she?"

Susan listened, crouching. He was coming for her, this dead man. There was no escape. What a noise he

made amongst the stones. . . . She saw his head rise up, then the shoulders. He was tallher own man! His

long arms waved about, and it was his own voice sounding a little strange . . . because of the scissors. She

scrambled out quickly, rushed to the edge of the causeway, and turned round. The man stood still on a high

She answered, "Home!" and watched him intensely. He made a striding, clumsy leap on to another boulder,

She stared at him till her eyes seemed to become glowing coals that burned deep into her brain, and yet she

was in mortal fear of making out the wellknown features. Below her the sea lapped softly against the rock

She trembled. Coming for her! There was no escape, no peace, no hope. She looked round despairingly.

Suddenly the whole shadowy coast, the blurred islets, the heaven itself, swayed about twice, then came to a

She was shaken by a furious hate for that shade that pursued her in this world, unappeased even by death in

"Hey! What?" said Millot, keeping his distance prudently. He was saying to himself: "Look out! Some

"I want to live. To live alonefor a weekfor a day. I must explain to them. . . . I would tear you to pieces,

I would kill you twenty times over rather than let you touch me while I live. How many times must I kill

"Come," said Millot, alarmed and conciliating. "I am perfectly alive! . . . Oh, my God!"

She had screamed, "Alive!" and at once vanished before his eyes, as if the islet itself had swerved aside from

under her feet. Millot rushed forward, and fell flat with his chin over the edge. Far below he saw the water

whitened by her struggles, and heard one shrill cry for help that seemed to dart upwards along the

perpendicular face of the rock, and soar past, straight into the high and impassive heaven.

Madame Levaille sat, dryeyed, on the short grass of the hill side, with her thick legs stretched out, and her

old feet turned up in their black cloth shoes. Her clogs stood near by, and further off the umbrella lay on the

withered sward like a weapon dropped from the grasp of a vanquished warrior. The Marquis of Chavanes, on

horseback, one gloved hand on thigh, looked down at her as she got up laboriously, with groans. On the

narrow track of the seaweedcarts four men were carrying inland Susan's body on a handbarrow, while

several others straggled listlessly behind. Madame Levaille looked after the procession. "Yes, Monsieur le

Marquis," she said dispassionately, in her usual calm tone of a reasonable old woman. "There are unfortunate

people on this earth. I had only one child. Only one! And they won't bury her in consecrated ground!"

Her eyes filled suddenly, and a short shower of tears rolled down the broad cheeks. She pulled the shawl

"It is very sad. You have all my sympathy. I shall speak to the Cure. She was unquestionably insane, and the

And he trotted off, thinking to himself: "I must get this old woman appointed guardian of those idiots, and

administrator of the farm. It would be much better than having here one of those other Bacadous, probably a

There were two white men in charge of the trading station. Kayerts, the chief, was short and fat; Carlier, the

assistant, was tall, with a large head and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair of thin legs. The third

man on the staff was a Sierra Leone nigger, who maintained that his name was Henry Price. However, for

some reason or other, the natives down the river had given him the name of Makola, and it stuck to him

through all his wanderings about the country. He spoke English and French with a warbling accent, wrote a

beautiful hand, understood bookkeeping, and cherished in his innermost heart the worship of evil spirits. His

wife was a negress from Loanda, very large and very noisy. Three children rolled about in sunshine before

the door of his low, shedlike dwelling. Makola, taciturn and impenetrable, despised the two white men. He

had charge of a small clay storehouse with a driedgrass roof, and pretended to keep a correct account of

beads, cotton cloth, red kerchiefs, brass wire, and other trade goods it contained. Besides the storehouse and

Makola's hut, there was only one large building in the cleared ground of the station. It was built neatly of

reeds, with a verandah on all the four sides. There were three rooms in it. The one in the middle was the

livingroom, and had two rough tables and a few stools in it. The other two were the bedrooms for the white

men. Each had a bedstead and a mosquito net for all furniture. The plank floor was littered with the

belongings of the white men; open halfempty boxes, torn wearing apparel, old boots; all the things dirty,

and all the things broken, that accumulate mysteriously round untidy men. There was also another

dwellingplace some distance away from the buildings. In it, under a tall cross much out of the

perpendicular, slept the man who had seen the beginning of all this; who had planned and had watched the

construction of this outpost of progress. He had been, at home, an unsuccessful painter who, weary of

pursuing fame on an empty stomach, had gone out there through high protections. He had been the first chief

of that station. Makola had watched the energetic artist die of fever in the just finished house with his usual

kind of "I told you so" indifference. Then, for a time, he dwelt alone with his family, his account books, and

the Evil Spirit that rules the lands under the equator. He got on very well with his god. Perhaps he had

propitiated him by a promise of more white men to play with, by and by. At any rate the director of the Great

Trading Company, coming up in a steamer that resembled an enormous sardine box with a flatroofed shed

erected on it, found the station in good order, and Makola as usual quietly diligent. The director had the cross

put up over the first agent's grave, and appointed Kayerts to the post. Carlier was told off as second in charge.

The director was a man ruthless and efficient, who at times, but very imperceptibly, indulged in grim humour.

He made a speech to Kayerts and Carlier, pointing out to them the promising aspect of their station. The

nearest tradingpost was about three hundred miles away. It was an exceptional opportunity for them to

distinguish themselves and to earn percentages on the trade. This appointment was a favour done to

beginners. Kayerts was moved almost to tears by his director's kindness. He would, he said, by doing his best,

try to justify the flattering confidence, &c., &c. Kayerts had been in the Administration of the Telegraphs,

and knew how to express himself correctly. Carlier, an exnoncommissioned officer of cavalry in an army

guaranteed from harm by several European Powers, was less impressed. If there were commissions to get, so

much the better; and, trailing a sulky glance over the river, the forests, the impenetrable bush that seemed to

cut off the station from the rest of the world, he muttered between his teeth, "We shall see, very soon."

Next day, some bales of cotton goods and a few cases of provisions having been thrown on shore, the

sardinebox steamer went off, not to return for another six months. On the deck the director touched his cap

to the two agents, who stood on the bank waving their hats, and turning to an old servant of the Company on

his passage to headquarters, said, "Look at those two imbeciles. They must be mad at home to send me such

specimens. I told those fellows to plant a vegetable garden, build new storehouses and fences, and construct a

landingstage. I bet nothing will be done! They won't know how to begin. I always thought the station on this

The two men watched the steamer round the bend, then, ascending arm in arm the slope of the bank, returned

to the station. They had been in this vast and dark country only a very short time, and as yet always in the

midst of other white men, under the eye and guidance of their superiors. And now, dull as they were to the

subtle influences of surroundings, they felt themselves very much alone, when suddenly left unassisted to

face the wilderness; a wilderness rendered more strange, more incomprehensible by the mysterious glimpses

of the vigorous life it contained. They were two perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals, whose

existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds. Few men realize that

their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of

their belief in the safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and

principles; every great and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the

crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals, in the power of its

police and of its opinion. But the contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primitive

man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart. To the sentiment of being alone of one's kind, to the

clear perception of the loneliness of one's thoughts, of one's sensationsto the negation of the habitual,

which is safe, there is added the affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous; a suggestion of things vague,

uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites the imagination and tries the civilized

Kayerts and Carlier walked arm in arm, drawing close to one another as children do in the dark; and they had

the same, not altogether unpleasant, sense of danger which one half suspects to be imaginary. They chatted

persistently in familiar tones. "Our station is prettily situated," said one. The other assented with enthusiasm,

enlarging volubly on the beauties of the situation. Then they passed near the grave. "Poor devil!" said

Kayerts. "He died of fever, didn't he?" muttered Carlier, stopping short. "Why," retorted Kayerts, with

indignation, "I've been told that the fellow exposed himself recklessly to the sun. The climate here, everybody

says, is not at all worse than at home, as long as you keep out of the sun. Do you hear that, Carlier? I am chief

here, and my orders are that you should not expose yourself to the sun!" He assumed his superiority jocularly,

but his meaning was serious. The idea that he would, perhaps, have to bury Carlier and remain alone, gave

him an inward shiver. He felt suddenly that this Carlier was more precious to him here, in the centre of

Africa, than a brother could be anywhere else. Carlier, entering into the spirit of the thing, made a military

salute and answered in a brisk tone, "Your orders shall be attended to, chief!" Then he burst out laughing,

slapped Kayerts on the back and shouted, "We shall let life run easily here! Just sit still and gather in the

ivory those savages will bring. This country has its good points, after all!" They both laughed loudly while

Carlier thought: "That poor Kayerts; he is so fat and unhealthy. It would be awful if I had to bury him here.

He is a man I respect." . . . Before they reached the verandah of their house they called one another "my dear

The first day they were very active, pottering about with hammers and nails and red calico, to put up curtains,

make their house habitable and pretty; resolved to settle down comfortably to their new life. For them an

impossible task. To grapple effectually with even purely material problems requires more serenity of mind

and more lofty courage than people generally imagine. No two beings could have been more unfitted for such

a struggle. Society, not from any tenderness, but because of its strange needs, had taken care of those two

men, forbidding them all independent thought, all initiative, all departure from routine; and forbidding it

under pain of death. They could only live on condition of being machines. And now, released from the

fostering care of men with pens behind the ears, or of men with gold lace on the sleeves, they were like those

lifelong prisoners who, liberated after many years, do not know what use to make of their freedom. They did

not know what use to make of their faculties, being both, through want of practice, incapable of independent

At the end of two months Kayerts often would say, "If it was not for my Melie, you wouldn't catch me here."

Melie was his daughter. He had thrown up his post in the Administration of the Telegraphs, though he had

been for seventeen years perfectly happy there, to earn a dowry for his girl. His wife was dead, and the child

was being brought up by his sisters. He regretted the streets, the pavements, the cafes, his friends of many

years; all the things he used to see, day after day; all the thoughts suggested by familiar thingsthe thoughts

effortless, monotonous, and soothing of a Government clerk; he regretted all the gossip, the small enmities,

the mild venom, and the little jokes of Government offices. "If I had had a decent brotherin law," Carlier

would remark, "a fellow with a heart, I would not be here." He had left the army and had made himself so

obnoxious to his family by his laziness and impudence, that an exasperated brotherinlaw had made

superhuman efforts to procure him an appointment in the Company as a secondclass agent. Having not a

penny in the world he was compelled to accept this means of livelihood as soon as it became quite clear to

him that there was nothing more to squeeze out of his relations. He, like Kayerts, regretted his old life. He

regretted the clink of sabre and spurs on a fine afternoon, the barrackroom witticisms, the girls of garrison

towns; but, besides, he had also a sense of grievance. He was evidently a much illused man. This made him

moody, at times. But the two men got on well together in the fellowship of their stupidity and laziness.

Together they did nothing, absolutely nothing, and enjoyed the sense of the idleness for which they were

paid. And in time they came to feel something resembling affection for one another.

They lived like blind men in a large room, aware only of what came in contact with them (and of that only

imperfectly), but unable to see the general aspect of things. The river, the forest, all the great land throbbing

with life, were like a great emptiness. Even the brilliant sunshine disclosed nothing intelligible. Things

appeared and disappeared before their eyes in an unconnected and aimless kind of way. The river seemed to

come from nowhere and flow nowhither. It flowed through a void. Out of that void, at times, came canoes,

and men with spears in their hands would suddenly crowd the yard of the station. They were naked, glossy

black, ornamented with snowy shells and glistening brass wire, perfect of limb. They made an uncouth

babbling noise when they spoke, moved in a stately manner, and sent quick, wild glances out of their startled,

neverresting eyes. Those warriors would squat in long rows, four or more deep, before the verandah, while

their chiefs bargained for hours with Makola over an elephant tusk. Kayerts sat on his chair and looked down

on the proceedings, understanding nothing. He stared at them with his round blue eyes, called out to Carlier,

"Here, look! look at that fellow thereand that other one, to the left. Did you ever such a face? Oh, the

Carlier, smoking native tobacco in a short wooden pipe, would swagger up twirling his moustaches, and

"Fine animals. Brought any bone? Yes? It's not any too soon. Look at the muscles of that fellow third from

the end. I wouldn't care to get a punch on the nose from him. Fine arms, but legs no good below the knee.

Couldn't make cavalry men of them." And after glancing down complacently at his own shanks, he always

concluded: "Pah! Don't they stink! You, Makola! Take that herd over to the fetish" (the storehouse was in

every station called the fetish, perhaps because of the spirit of civilization it contained) "and give them up

some of the rubbish you keep there. I'd rather see it full of bone than full of rags."

"Yes, yes! Go and finish that palaver over there, Mr. Makola. I will come round when you are ready, to

weigh the tusk. We must be careful." Then turning to his companion: "This is the tribe that lives down the

river; they are rather aromatic. I remember, they had been once before here. D'ye hear that row? What a

Such profitable visits were rare. For days the two pioneers of trade and progress would look on their empty

courtyard in the vibrating brilliance of vertical sunshine. Below the high bank, the silent river flowed on

glittering and steady. On the sands in the middle of the stream, hippos and alligators sunned themselves side

by side. And stretching away in all directions, surrounding the insignificant cleared spot of the trading post,

immense forests, hiding fateful complications of fantastic life, lay in the eloquent silence of mute greatness.

The two men understood nothing, cared for nothing but for the passage of days that separated them from the

steamer's return. Their predecessor had left some torn books. They took up these wrecks of novels, and, as

they had never read anything of the kind before, they were surprised and amused. Then during long days

there were interminable and silly discussions about plots and personages. In the centre of Africa they made

acquaintance of Richelieu and of d'Artagnan, of Hawk's Eye and of Father Goriot, and of many other people.

All these imaginary personages became subjects for gossip as if they had been living friends. They

discounted their virtues, suspected their motives, decried their successes; were scandalized at their duplicity

or were doubtful about their courage. The accounts of crimes filled them with indignation, while tender or

pathetic passages moved them deeply. Carlier cleared his throat and said in a soldierly voice, "What

nonsense!" Kayerts, his round eyes suffused with tears, his fat cheeks quivering, rubbed his bald head, and

declared. "This is a splendid book. I had no idea there were such clever fellows in the world." They also

found some old copies of a home paper. That print discussed what it was pleased to call "Our Colonial

Expansion" in highflown language. It spoke much of the rights and duties of civilization, of the sacredness

of the civilizing work, and extolled the merits of those who went about bringing light, and faith and

commerce to the dark places of the earth. Carlier and Kayerts read, wondered, and began to think better of

themselves. Carlier said one evening, waving his hand about, "In a hundred years, there will be perhaps a

town here. Quays, and warehouses, and barracks, andandbilliardrooms. Civilization, my boy, and

virtueand all. And then, chaps will read that two good fellows, Kayerts and Carlier, were the first civilized

men to live in this very spot!" Kayerts nodded, "Yes, it is a consolation to think of that." They seemed to

forget their dead predecessor; but, early one day, Carlier went out and replanted the cross firmly. "It used to

make me squint whenever I walked that way," he explained to Kayerts over the morning coffee. "It made me

squint, leaning over so much. So I just planted it upright. And solid, I promise you! I suspended myself with

At times Gobila came to see them. Gobila was the chief of the neighbouring villages. He was a grayheaded

savage, thin and black, with a white cloth round his loins and a mangy panther skin hanging over his back. He

came up with long strides of his skeleton legs, swinging a staff as tall as himself, and, entering the common

room of the station, would squat on his heels to the left of the door. There he sat, watching Kayerts, and now

and then making a speech which the other did not understand. Kayerts, without interrupting his occupation,

would from time to time say in a friendly manner: "How goes it, you old image?" and they would smile at

one another. The two whites had a liking for that old and incomprehensible creature, and called him Father

Gobila. Gobila's manner was paternal, and he seemed really to love all white men. They all appeared to him

very young, indistinguishably alike (except for stature), and he knew that they were all brothers, and also

immortal. The death of the artist, who was the first white man whom he knew intimately, did not disturb this

belief, because he was firmly convinced that the white stranger had pretended to die and got himself buried

for some mysterious purpose of his own, into which it was useless to inquire. Perhaps it was his way of going

home to his own country? At any rate, these were his brothers, and he transferred his absurd affection to

them. They returned it in a way. Carlier slapped him on the back, and recklessly struck off matches for his

amusement. Kayerts was always ready to let him have a sniff at the ammonia bottle. In short, they behaved

just like that other white creature that had hidden itself in a hole in the ground. Gobila considered them

attentively. Perhaps they were the same being with the otheror one of them was. He couldn't decideclear

up that mystery; but he remained always very friendly. In consequence of that friendship the women of

Gobila's village walked in single file through the reedy grass, bringing every morning to the station, fowls,

and sweet potatoes, and palm wine, and sometimes a goat. The Company never provisions the stations fully,

and the agents required those local supplies to live. They had them through the goodwill of Gobila, and

lived well. Now and then one of them had a bout of fever, and the other nursed him with gentle devotion.

They did not think much of it. It left them weaker, and their appearance changed for the worse. Carlier was

holloweyed and irritable. Kayerts showed a drawn, flabby face above the rotundity of his stomach, which

gave him a weird aspect. But being constantly together, they did not notice the change that took place

Then, one morning, as Kayerts and Carlier, lounging in their chairs under the verandah, talked about the

approaching visit of the steamer, a knot of armed men came out of the forest and advanced towards the

station. They were strangers to that part of the country. They were tall, slight, draped classically from neck to

heel in blue fringed cloths, and carried percussion muskets over their bare right shoulders. Makola showed

signs of excitement, and ran out of the storehouse (where he spent all his days) to meet these visitors. They

came into the courtyard and looked about them with steady, scornful glances. Their leader, a powerful and

determinedlooking negro with bloodshot eyes, stood in front of the verandah and made a long speech. He

There was something in his intonation, in the sounds of the long sentences he used, that startled the two

whites. It was like a reminiscence of something not exactly familiar, and yet resembling the speech of

civilized men. It sounded like one of those impossible languages which sometimes we hear in our dreams.

"What lingo is that?" said the amazed Carlier. "In the first moment I fancied the fellow was going to speak

"Yes," replied Kayerts. "Hey, Makola, what does he say? Where do they come from? Who are they?"

But Makola, who seemed to be standing on hot bricks, answered hurriedly, "I don't know. They come from

The leader, after waiting for a while, said something sharply to Makola, who shook his head. Then the man,

after looking round, noticed Makola's hut and walked over there. The next moment Mrs. Makola was heard

speaking with great volubility. The other strangersthey were six in allstrolled about with an air of ease,

put their heads through the door of the storeroom, congregated round the grave, pointed understandingly at

"I don't like those chapsand, I say, Kayerts, they must be from the coast; they've got firearms," observed

Kayerts also did not like those chaps. They both, for the first time, became aware that they lived in conditions

where the unusual may be dangerous, and that there was no power on earth outside of themselves to stand

between them and the unusual. They became uneasy, went in and loaded their revolvers. Kayerts said, "We

The strangers left in the afternoon, after eating a meal prepared for them by Mrs. Makola. The immense

woman was excited, and talked much with the visitors. She rattled away shrilly, pointing here and there at the

forests and at the river. Makola sat apart and watched. At times he got up and whispered to his wife. He

accompanied the strangers across the ravine at the back of the stationground, and returned slowly looking

very thoughtful. When questioned by the white men he was very strange, seemed not to understand, seemed

to have forgotten Frenchseemed to have forgotten how to speak altogether. Kayerts and Carlier agreed that

There was some talk about keeping a watch in turn, but in the evening everything seemed so quiet and

peaceful that they retired as usual. All night they were disturbed by a lot of drumming in the villages. A deep,

rapid roll near by would be followed by another far offthen all ceased. Soon short appeals would rattle out

here and there, then all mingle together, increase, become vigorous and sustained, would spread out over the

forest, roll through the night, unbroken and ceaseless, near and far, as if the whole land had been one

immense drum booming out steadily an appeal to heaven. And through the deep and tremendous noise

sudden yells that resembled snatches of songs from a madhouse darted shrill and high in discordant jets of

sound which seemed to rush far above the earth and drive all peace from under the stars.

Carlier and Kayerts slept badly. They both thought they had heard shots fired during the nightbut they

could not agree as to the direction. In the morning Makola was gone somewhere. He returned about noon

with one of yesterday's strangers, and eluded all Kayerts' attempts to close with him: had become deaf

apparently. Kayerts wondered. Carlier, who had been fishing off the bank, came back and remarked while he

showed his catch, "The niggers seem to be in a deuce of a stir; I wonder what's up. I saw about fifteen canoes

cross the river during the two hours I was there fishing." Kayerts, worried, said, "Isn't this Makola very queer

There were ten station men who had been left by the Director. Those fellows, having engaged themselves to

the Company for six months (without having any idea of a month in particular and only a very faint notion of

time in general), had been serving the cause of progress for upwards of two years. Belonging to a tribe from a

very distant part of the land of darkness and sorrow, they did not run away, naturally supposing that as

wandering strangers they would be killed by the inhabitants of the country; in which they were right. They

lived in straw huts on the slope of a ravine overgrown with reedy grass, just behind the station buildings.

They were not happy, regretting the festive incantations, the sorceries, the human sacrifices of their own land;

where they also had parents, brothers, sisters, admired chiefs, respected magicians, loved friends, and other

ties supposed generally to be human. Besides, the rice rations served out by the Company did not agree with

them, being a food unknown to their land, and to which they could not get used. Consequently they were

unhealthy and miserable. Had they been of any other tribe they would have made up their minds to diefor

nothing is easier to certain savages than suicideand so have escaped from the puzzling difficulties of

existence. But belonging, as they did, to a warlike tribe with filed teeth, they had more grit, and went on

stupidly living through disease and sorrow. They did very little work, and had lost their splendid physique.

Carlier and Kayerts doctored them assiduously without being able to bring them back into condition again.

They were mustered every morning and told off to different tasksgrasscutting, fencebuilding,

treefelling, &c., &c., which no power on earth could induce them to execute efficiently. The two whites had

In the afternoon Makola came over to the big house and found Kayerts watching three heavy columns of

smoke rising above the forests. "What is that?" asked Kayerts. "Some villages burn," answered Makola, who

seemed to have regained his wits. Then he said abruptly: "We have got very little ivory; bad six months'

"Those men who came yesterday are traders from Loanda who have got more ivory than they can carry

"Bad fellows," said Makola, indifferently. "They fight with people, and catch women and children. They are

bad men, and got guns. There is a great disturbance in the country. Do you want ivory?"

"Yes," said Kayerts. Makola said nothing for a while. Then: "Those workmen of ours are no good at all," he

muttered, looking round. "Station in very bad order, sir. Director will growl. Better get a fine lot of ivory,

"I can't help it; the men won't work," said Kayerts. "When will you get that ivory?"

"Very soon," said Makola. "Perhaps tonight. You leave it to me, and keep indoors, sir. I think you had better

give some palm wine to our men to make a dance this evening. Enjoy themselves. Work better tomorrow.

Kayerts said "yes," and Makola, with his own hands carried big calabashes to the door of his hut. They stood

there till the evening, and Mrs. Makola looked into every one. The men got them at sunset. When Kayerts and

Carlier retired, a big bonfire was flaring before the men's huts. They could hear their shouts and drumming.

Some men from Gobila's village had joined the station hands, and the entertainment was a great success.

In the middle of the night, Carlier waking suddenly, heard a man shout loudly; then a shot was fired. Only

one. Carlier ran out and met Kayerts on the verandah. They were both startled. As they went across the yard

to call Makola, they saw shadows moving in the night. One of them cried, "Don't shoot! It's me, Price." Then

Makola appeared close to them. "Go back, go back, please," he urged, "you spoil all." "There are strange men

about," said Carlier. "Never mind; I know," said Makola. Then he whispered, "All right. Bring ivory. Say

nothing! I know my business." The two white men reluctantly went back to the house, but did not sleep. They

heard footsteps, whispers, some groans. It seemed as if a lot of men came in, dumped heavy things on the

ground, squabbled a long time, then went away. They lay on their hard beds and thought: "This Makola is

invaluable." In the morning Carlier came out, very sleepy, and pulled at the cord of the big bell. The station

hands mustered every morning to the sound of the bell. That morning nobody came. Kayerts turned out also,

yawning. Across the yard they saw Makola come out of his hut, a tin basin of soapy water in his hand.

Makola, a civilized nigger, was very neat in his person. He threw the soapsuds skilfully over a wretched little

yellow cur he had, then turning his face to the agent's house, he shouted from the distance, "All the men gone

They heard him plainly, but in their surprise they both yelled out together: "What!" Then they stared at one

another. "We are in a proper fix now," growled Carlier. "It's incredible!" muttered Kayerts. "I will go to the

huts and see," said Carlier, striding off. Makola coming up found Kayerts standing alone.

"I can hardly believe it," said Kayerts, tearfully. "We took care of them as if they had been our children."

"What do I care with whom they wentthe ungrateful brutes!" exclaimed the other. Then with sudden

Makola moved his shoulders, looking down on the ground. "What do I know? I think only. Will you come

He moved towards the store. Kayerts followed him mechanically, thinking about the incredible desertion of

"What did you give for it?" asked Kayerts, after surveying the lot with satisfaction.

"No regular trade," said Makola. "They brought the ivory and gave it to me. I told them to take what they

most wanted in the station. It is a beautiful lot. No station can show such tusks. Those traders wanted carriers

badly, and our men were no good here. No trade, no entry in books: all correct."

Kayerts nearly burst with indignation. "Why!" he shouted, "I believe you have sold our men for these tusks!"

Makola stood impassive and silent. "IIwillI," stuttered Kayerts. "You fiend!" he yelled out.

"I did the best for you and the Company," said Makola, imperturbably. "Why you shout so much? Look at

"I dismiss you! I will report youI won't look at the tusk. I forbid you to touch them. I order you to throw

"You very red, Mr. Kayerts. If you are so irritable in the sun, you will get fever and dielike the first chief!"

They stood still, contemplating one another with intense eyes, as if they had been looking with effort across

immense distances. Kayerts shivered. Makola had meant no more than he said, but his words seemed to

Kayerts full of ominous menace! He turned sharply and went away to the house. Makola retired into the

bosom of his family; and the tusks, left lying before the store, looked very large and valuable in the sunshine.

Carlier came back on the verandah. "They're all gone, hey?" asked Kayerts from the far end of the common

"Oh, yes," said Carlier, "I found one of Gobila's people lying dead before the hutsshot through the body.

Kayerts came out quickly. He found his companion staring grimly over the yard at the tusks, away by the

store. They both sat in silence for a while. Then Kayerts related his conversation with Makola. Carlier said

nothing. At the midday meal they ate very little. They hardly exchanged a word that day. A great silence

seemed to lie heavily over the station and press on their lips. Makola did not open the store; he spent the day

playing with his children. He lay fulllength on a mat outside his door, and the youngsters sat on his chest

and clambered all over him. It was a touching picture. Mrs. Makola was busy cooking all day, as usual. The

white men made a somewhat better meal in the evening. Afterwards, Carlier smoking his pipe strolled over to

the store; he stood for a long time over the tusks, touched one or two with his foot, even tried to lift the

largest one by its small end. He came back to his chief, who had not stirred from the verandah, threw himself

"I can see it! They were pounced upon while they slept heavily after drinking all that palm wine you've

allowed Makola to give them. A putup job! See? The worst is, some of Gobila's people were there, and got

carried off too, no doubt. The least drunk woke up, and got shot for his sobriety. This is a funny country.

They believed their words. Everybody shows a respectful deference to certain sounds that he and his fellows

can make. But about feelings people really know nothing. We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk

about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, selfsacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the

words. Nobody knows what suffering or sacrifice meanexcept, perhaps the victims of the mysterious

Next morning they saw Makola very busy setting up in the yard the big scales used for weighing ivory. By

and by Carlier said: "What's that filthy scoundrel up to?" and lounged out into the yard. Kayerts followed.

They stood watching. Makola took no notice. When the balance was swung true, he tried to lift a tusk into the

scale. It was too heavy. He looked up helplessly without a word, and for a minute they stood round that

balance as mute and still as three statues. Suddenly Carlier said: "Catch hold of the other end, Makolayou

beast!" and together they swung the tusk up. Kayerts trembled in every limb. He muttered, "I say! O! I say!"

and putting his hand in his pocket found there a dirty bit of paper and the stump of a pencil. He turned his

back on the others, as if about to do something tricky, and noted stealthily the weights which Carlier shouted

out to him with unnecessary loudness. When all was over Makola whispered to himself: "The sun's very

strong here for the tusks." Carlier said to Kayerts in a careless tone: "I say, chief, I might just as well give him

As they were going back to the house Kayerts observed with a sigh: "It had to be done." And Carlier said:

"It's deplorable, but, the men being Company's men the ivory is Company's ivory. We must look after it." "I

will report to the Director, of course," said Kayerts. "Of course; let him decide," approved Carlier.

At midday they made a hearty meal. Kayerts sighed from time to time. Whenever they mentioned Makola's

name they always added to it an opprobrious epithet. It eased their conscience. Makola gave himself a

halfholiday, and bathed his children in the river. No one from Gobila's villages came near the station that

day. No one came the next day, and the next, nor for a whole week. Gobila's people might have been dead

and buried for any sign of life they gave. But they were only mourning for those they had lost by the

witchcraft of white men, who had brought wicked people into their country. The wicked people were gone,

but fear remained. Fear always remains. A man may destroy everything within himself, love and hate and

belief, and even doubt; but as long as he clings to life he cannot destroy fear: the fear, subtle, indestructible,

and terrible, that pervades his being; that tinges his thoughts; that lurks in his heart; that watches on his lips

the struggle of his last breath. In his fear, the mild old Gobila offered extra human sacrifices to all the Evil

Spirits that had taken possession of his white friends. His heart was heavy. Some warriors spoke about

burning and killing, but the cautious old savage dissuaded them. Who could foresee the woe those mysterious

creatures, if irritated, might bring? They should be left alone. Perhaps in time they would disappear into the

earth as the first one had disappeared. His people must keep away from them, and hope for the best.

Kayerts and Carlier did not disappear, but remained above on this earth, that, somehow, they fancied had

become bigger and very empty. It was not the absolute and dumb solitude of the post that impressed them so

much as an inarticulate feeling that something from within them was gone, something that worked for their

safety, and had kept the wilderness from interfering with their hearts. The images of home; the memory of

people like them, of men that thought and felt as they used to think and feel, receded into distances made

indistinct by the glare of unclouded sunshine. And out of the great silence of the surrounding wilderness, its

very hopelessness and savagery seemed to approach them nearer, to draw them gently, to look upon them, to

Days lengthened into weeks, then into months. Gobila's people drummed and yelled to every new moon, as of

yore, but kept away from the station. Makola and Carlier tried once in a canoe to open communications, but

were received with a shower of arrows, and had to fly back to the station for dear life. That attempt set the

country up and down the river into an uproar that could be very distinctly heard for days. The steamer was

late. At first they spoke of delay jauntily, then anxiously, then gloomily. The matter was becoming serious.

Stores were running short. Carlier cast his lines off the bank, but the river was low, and the fish kept out in

the stream. They dared not stroll far away from the station to shoot. Moreover, there was no game in the

impenetrable forest. Once Carlier shot a hippo in the river. They had no boat to secure it, and it sank. When it

floated up it drifted away, and Gobila's people secured the carcase. It was the occasion for a national holiday,

but Carlier had a fit of rage over it and talked about the necessity of exterminating all the niggers before the

country could be made habitable. Kayerts mooned about silently; spent hours looking at the portrait of his

Melie. It represented a little girl with long bleached tresses and a rather sour face. His legs were much

swollen, and he could hardly walk. Carlier, undermined by fever, could not swagger any more, but kept

tottering about, still with a devilmaycare air, as became a man who remembered his crack regiment. He

had become hoarse, sarcastic, and inclined to say unpleasant things. He called it "being frank with you." They

had long ago reckoned their percentages on trade, including in them that last deal of "this infamous Makola."

They had also concluded not to say anything about it. Kayerts hesitated at firstwas afraid of the Director.

"He has seen worse things done on the quiet," maintained Carlier, with a hoarse laugh. "Trust him! He won't

thank you if you blab. He is no better than you or me. Who will talk if we hold our tongues? There is nobody

That was the root of the trouble! There was nobody there; and being left there alone with their weakness, they

became daily more like a pair of accomplices than like a couple of devoted friends. They had heard nothing

from home for eight months. Every evening they said, "Tomorrow we shall see the steamer." But one of the

Company's steamers had been wrecked, and the Director was busy with the other, relieving very distant and

important stations on the main river. He thought that the useless station, and the useless men, could wait.

Meantime Kayerts and Carlier lived on rice boiled without salt, and cursed the Company, all Africa, and the

day they were born. One must have lived on such diet to discover what ghastly trouble the necessity of

swallowing one's food may become. There was literally nothing else in the station but rice and coffee; they

drank the coffee without sugar. The last fifteen lumps Kayerts had solemnly locked away in his box, together

with a halfbottle of Cognac, "in case of sickness," he explained. Carlier approved. "When one is sick," he

They waited. Rank grass began to sprout over the courtyard. The bell never rang now. Days passed, silent,

exasperating, and slow. When the two men spoke, they snarled; and their silences were bitter, as if tinged by

One day after a lunch of boiled rice, Carlier put down his cup untasted, and said: "Hang it all! Let's have a

"You are no more sick than I am, and I go without," said Kayerts in a peaceful tone.

Kayerts looked up quickly. Carlier was smiling with marked insolence. And suddenly it seemed to Kayerts

that he had never seen that man before. Who was he? He knew nothing about him. What was he capable of?

There was a surprising flash of violent emotion within him, as if in the presence of something undreamtof,

"Joke!" said Carlier, hitching himself forward on his seat. "I am hungryI am sickI don't joke! I hate

hypocrites. You are a hypocrite. You are a slavedealer. I am a slavedealer. There's nothing but

slavedealers in this cursed country. I mean to have sugar in my coffee today, anyhow!"

"I forbid you to speak to me in that way," said Kayerts with a fair show of resolution.

Kayerts stood up also. "I am your chief," he began, trying to master the shakiness of his voice.

"What?" yelled the other. "Who's chief? There's no chief here. There's nothing here: there's nothing but you

"Hold your tongue. Go out of this room," screamed Kayerts. "I dismiss youyou scoundrel!"

Carlier swung a stool. All at once he looked dangerously in earnest. "You flabby, goodfornothing

Kayerts dropped under the table, and the stool struck the grass inner wall of the room. Then, as Carlier was

trying to upset the table, Kayerts in desperation made a blind rush, head low, like a cornered pig would do,

and overturning his friend, bolted along the verandah, and into his room. He locked the door, snatched his

revolver, and stood panting. In less than a minute Carlier was kicking at the door furiously, howling, "If you

don't bring out that sugar, I will shoot you at sight, like a dog. Now thenonetwothree. You won't? I

Kayerts thought the door would fall in, and scrambled through the square hole that served for a window in his

room. There was then the whole breadth of the house between them. But the other was apparently not strong

enough to break in the door, and Kayerts heard him running round. Then he also began to run laboriously on

his swollen legs. He ran as quickly as he could, grasping the revolver, and unable yet to understand what was

happening to him. He saw in succession Makola's house, the store, the river, the ravine, and the low bushes;

and he saw all those things again as he ran for the second time round the house. Then again they flashed past

Then as, weak and desperate, he thought, "Before I finish the next round I shall die," he heard the other man

stumble heavily, then stop. He stopped also. He had the back and Carlier the front of the house, as before. He

heard him drop into a chair cursing, and suddenly his own legs gave way, and he slid down into a sitting

posture with his back to the wall. His mouth was as dry as a cinder, and his face was wet with

perspirationand tears. What was it all about? He thought it must be a horrible illusion; he thought he was

dreaming; he thought he was going mad! After a while he collected his senses. What did they quarrel about?

That sugar! How absurd! He would give it to himdidn't want it himself. And he began scrambling to his

feet with a sudden feeling of security. But before he had fairly stood upright, a commonsense reflection

occurred to him and drove him back into despair. He thought: "If I give way now to that brute of a soldier, he

will begin this horror again tomorrowand the day afterevery dayraise other pretensions, trample on

me, torture me, make me his slaveand I will be lost! Lost! The steamer may not come for daysmay

never come." He shook so that he had to sit down on the floor again. He shivered forlornly. He felt he could

not, would not move any more. He was completely distracted by the sudden perception that the position was

without issuethat death and life had in a moment become equally difficult and terrible.

All at once he heard the other push his chair back; and he leaped to his feet with extreme facility. He listened

and got confused. Must run again! Right or left? He heard footsteps. He darted to the left, grasping his

revolver, and at the very same instant, as it seemed to him, they came into violent collision. Both shouted

with surprise. A loud explosion took place between them; a roar of red fire, thick smoke; and Kayerts,

deafened and blinded, rushed back thinking: "I am hitit's all over." He expected the other to come

roundto gloat over his agony. He caught hold of an upright of the roof"All over!" Then he heard a

crashing fall on the other side of the house, as if somebody had tumbled headlong over a chairthen silence.

Nothing more happened. He did not die. Only his shoulder felt as if it had been badly wrenched, and he had

lost his revolver. He was disarmed and helpless! He waited for his fate. The other man made no sound. It was

a stratagem. He was stalking him now! Along what side? Perhaps he was taking aim this very minute!

After a few moments of an agony frightful and absurd, he decided to go and meet his doom. He was prepared

for every surrender. He turned the corner, steadying himself with one hand on the wall; made a few paces,

and nearly swooned. He had seen on the floor, protruding past the other corner, a pair of turnedup feet. A

pair of white naked feet in red slippers. He felt deadly sick, and stood for a time in profound darkness. Then

Makola appeared before him, saying quietly: "Come along, Mr. Kayerts. He is dead." He burst into tears of

gratitude; a loud, sobbing fit of crying. After a time he found himself sitting in a chair and looking at Carlier,

"Yes," said Kayerts; then he added very quickly, "He ran after me to shoot meyou saw!"

"I will go and look for it," said the other, gently. He made the round along the verandah, while Kayerts sat

still and looked at the corpse. Makola came back emptyhanded, stood in deep thought, then stepped quietly

into the dead man's room, and came out directly with a revolver, which he held up before Kayerts. Kayerts

shut his eyes. Everything was going round. He found life more terrible and difficult than death. He had shot

After meditating for a while, Makola said softly, pointing at the dead man who lay there with his right eye

"He died of fever." Kayerts looked at him with a stony stare. "Yes," repeated Makola, thoughtfully, stepping

And he went away slowly to his expectant wife, leaving the two white men alone on the verandah.

Night came, and Kayerts sat unmoving on his chair. He sat quiet as if he had taken a dose of opium. The

violence of the emotions he had passed through produced a feeling of exhausted serenity. He had plumbed in

one short afternoon the depths of horror and despair, and now found repose in the conviction that life had no

more secrets for him: neither had death! He sat by the corpse thinking; thinking very actively, thinking very

new thoughts. He seemed to have broken loose from himself altogether. His old thoughts, convictions, likes

and dislikes, things he respected and things he abhorred, appeared in their true light at last! Appeared

contemptible and childish, false and ridiculous. He revelled in his new wisdom while he sat by the man he

had killed. He argued with himself about all things under heaven with that kind of wrongheaded lucidity

which may be observed in some lunatics. Incidentally he reflected that the fellow dead there had been a

noxious beast anyway; that men died every day in thousands; perhaps in hundreds of thousandswho could

tell?and that in the number, that one death could not possibly make any difference; couldn't have any

importance, at least to a thinking creature. He, Kayerts, was a thinking creature. He had been all his life, till

that moment, a believer in a lot of nonsense like the rest of mankindwho are fools; but now he thought! He

knew! He was at peace; he was familiar with the highest wisdom! Then he tried to imagine himself dead, and

Carlier sitting in his chair watching him; and his attempt met with such unexpected success, that in a very few

moments he became not at all sure who was dead and who was alive. This extraordinary achievement of his

fancy startled him, however, and by a clever and timely effort of mind he saved himself just in time from

becoming Carlier. His heart thumped, and he felt hot all over at the thought of that danger. Carlier! What a

beastly thing! To compose his now disturbed nervesand no wonder!he tried to whistle a little. Then,

suddenly, he fell asleep, or thought he had slept; but at any rate there was a fog, and somebody had whistled

He stood up. The day had come, and a heavy mist had descended upon the land: the mist penetrating,

enveloping, and silent; the morning mist of tropical lands; the mist that clings and kills; the mist white and

deadly, immaculate and poisonous. He stood up, saw the body, and threw his arms above his head with a cry

like that of a man who, waking from a trance, finds himself immured forever in a tomb. "Help! . . . . My

A shriek inhuman, vibrating and sudden, pierced like a sharp dart the white shroud of that land of sorrow.

Three short, impatient screeches followed, and then, for a time, the fogwreaths rolled on, undisturbed,

through a formidable silence. Then many more shrieks, rapid and piercing, like the yells of some exasperated

and ruthless creature, rent the air. Progress was calling to Kayerts from the river. Progress and civilization

and all the virtues. Society was calling to its accomplished child to come, to be taken care of, to be instructed,

to be judged, to be condemned; it called him to return to that rubbish heap from which he had wandered

Kayerts heard and understood. He stumbled out of the verandah, leaving the other man quite alone for the

first time since they had been thrown there together. He groped his way through the fog, calling in his

ignorance upon the invisible heaven to undo its work. Makola flitted by in the mist, shouting as he ran

"Steamer! Steamer! They can't see. They whistle for the station. I go ring the bell. Go down to the landing,

He disappeared. Kayerts stood still. He looked upwards; the fog rolled low over his head. He looked round

like a man who has lost his way; and he saw a dark smudge, a crossshaped stain, upon the shifting purity of

the mist. As he began to stumble towards it, the station bell rang in a tumultuous peal its answer to the

The Managing Director of the Great Civilizing Company (since we know that civilization follows trade)

landed first, and incontinently lost sight of the steamer. The fog down by the river was exceedingly dense;

"There is nobody down to meet us; there may be something wrong, though they are ringing. You had better

And he began to toil up the steep bank. The captain and the enginedriver of the boat followed behind. As

they scrambled up the fog thinned, and they could see their Director a good way ahead. Suddenly they saw

him start forward, calling to them over his shoulder:"Run! Run to the house! I've found one of them. Run,

He had found one of them! And even he, the man of varied and startling experience, was somewhat

discomposed by the manner of this finding. He stood and fumbled in his pockets (for a knife) while he faced

Kayerts, who was hanging by a leather strap from the cross. He had evidently climbed the grave, which was

high and narrow, and after tying the end of the strap to the arm, had swung himself off. His toes were only a

couple of inches above the ground; his arms hung stiffly down; he seemed to be standing rigidly at attention,

but with one purple cheek playfully posed on the shoulder. And, irreverently, he was putting out a swollen

The inner circle train from the City rushed impetuously out of a black hole and pulled up with a discordant,

grinding racket in the smirched twilight of a WestEnd station. A line of doors flew open and a lot of men

stepped out headlong. They had high hats, healthy pale faces, dark overcoats and shiny boots; they held in

their gloved hands thin umbrellas and hastily folded evening papers that resembled stiff, dirty rags of

greenish, pinkish, or whitish colour. Alvan Hervey stepped out with the rest, a smouldering cigar between his

teeth. A disregarded little woman in rusty black, with both arms full of parcels, ran along in distress, bolted

suddenly into a thirdclass compartment and the train went on. The slamming of carriage doors burst out

sharp and spiteful like a fusillade; an icy draught mingled with acrid fumes swept the whole length of the

platform and made a tottering old man, wrapped up to his ears in a woollen comforter, stop short in the

Alvan Hervey passed through the ticket gate. Between the bare walls of a sordid staircase men clambered

rapidly; their backs appeared alikealmost as if they had been wearing a uniform; their indifferent faces

were varied but somehow suggested kinship, like the faces of a band of brothers who through prudence,

dignity, disgust, or foresight would resolutely ignore each other; and their eyes, quick or slow; their eyes

gazing up the dusty steps; their eyes brown, black, gray, blue, had all the same stare, concentrated and empty,

Outside the big doorway of the street they scattered in all directions, walking away fast from one another with

the hurried air of men fleeing from something compromising; from familiarity or confidences; from

something suspected and concealedlike truth or pestilence. Alvan Hervey hesitated, standing alone in the

He strode firmly. A misty rain settled like silvery dust on clothes, on moustaches; wetted the faces, varnished

the flagstones, darkened the walls, dripped from umbrellas. And he moved on in the rain with careless

serenity, with the tranquil ease of someone successful and disdainful, very sure of himselfa man with lots

of money and friends. He was tall, well setup, goodlooking and healthy; and his clear pale face had under

its commonplace refinement that slight tinge of overbearing brutality which is given by the possession of

only partly difficult accomplishments; by excelling in games, or in the art of making money; by the easy

He was going home much earlier than usual, straight from the City and without calling at his club. He

considered himself well connected, well educated and intelligent. Who doesn't? But his connections,

education and intelligence were strictly on a par with those of the men with whom he did business or amused

himself. He had married five years ago. At the time all his acquaintances had said he was very much in love;

and he had said so himself, frankly, because it is very well understood that every man falls in love once in his

lifeunless his wife dies, when it may be quite praiseworthy to fall in love again. The girl was healthy, tall,

fair, and in his opinion was well connected, well educated and intelligent. She was also intensely bored with

her home where, as if packed in a tight box, her individuality of which she was very conscioushad no

play. She strode like a grenadier, was strong and upright like an obelisk, had a beautiful face, a candid brow,

pure eyes, and not a thought of her own in her head. He surrendered quickly to all those charms, and she

appeared to him so unquestionably of the right sort that he did not hesitate for a moment to declare himself in

love. Under the cover of that sacred and poetical fiction he desired her masterfully, for various reasons; but

principally for the satisfaction of having his own way. He was very dull and solemn about itfor no earthly

reason, unless to conceal his feelingswhich is an eminently proper thing to do. Nobody, however, would

have been shocked had he neglected that duty, for the feeling he experienced really was a longinga longing

stronger and a little more complex no doubt, but no more reprehensible in its nature than a hungry man's

After their marriage they busied themselves, with marked success, in enlarging the circle of their

acquaintance. Thirty people knew them by sight; twenty more with smiling demonstrations tolerated their

occasional presence within hospitable thresholds; at least fifty others became aware of their existence. They

moved in their enlarged world amongst perfectly delightful men and women who feared emotion,

enthusiasm, or failure, more than fire, war, or mortal disease; who tolerated only the commonest formulas of

commonest thoughts, and recognized only profitable facts. It was an extremely charming sphere, the abode of

all the virtues, where nothing is realized and where all joys and sorrows are cautiously toned down into

pleasures and annoyances. In that serene region, then, where noble sentiments are cultivated in sufficient

profusion to conceal the pitiless materialism of thoughts and aspirations Alvan Hervey and his wife spent five

years of prudent bliss unclouded by any doubt as to the moral propriety of their existence. She, to give her

individuality fair play, took up all manner of philanthropic work and became a member of various rescuing

and reforming societies patronized or presided over by ladies of title. He took an active interest in politics;

and having met quite by chance a literary manwho nevertheless was related to an earlhe was induced to

finance a moribund society paper. It was a semipolitical, and wholly scandalous publication, redeemed by

excessive dulness; and as it was utterly faithless, as it contained no new thought, as it never by any chance

had a flash of wit, satire, or indignation in its pages, he judged it respectable enough, at first sight.

Afterwards, when it paid, he promptly perceived that upon the whole it was a virtuous undertaking. It paved

the way of his ambition; and he enjoyed also the special kind of importance he derived from this connection

This connection still further enlarged their world. Men who wrote or drew prettily for the public came at

times to their house, and his editor came very often. He thought him rather an ass because he had such big

front teeth (the proper thing is to have small, even teeth) and wore his hair a trifle longer than most men do.

However, some dukes wear their hair long, and the fellow indubitably knew his business. The worst was that

his gravity, though perfectly portentous, could not be trusted. He sat, elegant and bulky, in the

drawingroom, the head of his stick hovering in front of his big teeth, and talked for hours with a

thicklipped smile (he said nothing that could be considered objectionable and not quite the thing) talked in

an unusual mannernot obviously irritatingly. His forehead was too loftyunusually soand under it

there was a straight nose, lost between the hairless cheeks, that in a smooth curve ran into a chin shaped like

the end of a snowshoe. And in this face that resembled the face of a fat and fiendishly knowing baby there

glittered a pair of clever, peering, unbelieving black eyes. He wrote verses too. Rather an ass. But the band of

men who trailed at the skirts of his monumental frockcoat seemed to perceive wonderful things in what he

said. Alvan Hervey put it down to affectation. Those artist chaps, upon the whole, were so affected. Still, all

this was highly propervery useful to himand his wife seemed to like itas if she also had derived some

distinct and secret advantage from this intellectual connection. She received her mixed and decorous guests

with a kind of tall, ponderous grace, peculiarly her own and which awakened in the mind of intimidated

strangers incongruous and improper reminiscences of an elephant, a giraffe, a gazelle; of a gothic towerof

an overgrown angel. Her Thursdays were becoming famous in their world; and their world grew steadily,

annexing street after street. It included also Somebody's Gardens, a Crescenta couple of Squares.

Thus Alvan Hervey and his wife for five prosperous years lived by the side of one another. In time they came

to know each other sufficiently well for all the practical purposes of such an existence, but they were no more

capable of real intimacy than two animals feeding at the same manger, under the same roof, in a luxurious

stable. His longing was appeased and became a habit; and she had her desirethe desire to get away from

under the paternal roof, to assert her individuality, to move in her own set (so much smarter than the parental

one); to have a home of her own, and her own share of the world's respect, envy, and applause. They

understood each other warily, tacitly, like a pair of cautious conspirators in a profitable plot; because they

were both unable to look at a fact, a sentiment, a principle, or a belief otherwise than in the light of their own

dignity, of their own glorification, of their own advantage. They skimmed over the surface of life hand in

hand, in a pure and frosty atmospherelike two skilful skaters cutting figures on thick ice for the admiration

of the beholders, and disdainfully ignoring the hidden stream, the stream restless and dark; the stream of life,

Alvan Hervey turned twice to the left, once to the right, walked along two sides of a square, in the middle of

which groups of tamelooking trees stood in respectable captivity behind iron railings, and rang at his door.

A parlourmaid opened. A fad of his wife's, this, to have only women servants. That girl, while she took his

hat and overcoat, said something which made him look at his watch. It was five o'clock, and his wife not at

home. There was nothing unusual in that. He said, "No; no tea," and went upstairs.

He ascended without footfalls. Brass rods glimmered all up the red carpet. On the firstfloor landing a marble

woman, decently covered from neck to instep with stone draperies, advanced a row of lifeless toes to the edge

of the pedestal, and thrust out blindly a rigid white arm holding a cluster of lights. He had artistic tastesat

home. Heavy curtains caught back, half concealed dark corners. On the rich, stamped paper of the walls hung

sketches, watercolours, engravings. His tastes were distinctly artistic. Old church towers peeped above

green masses of foliage; the hills were purple, the sands yellow, the seas sunny, the skies blue. A young lady

sprawled with dreamy eyes in a moored boat, in company of a lunch basket, a champagne bottle, and an

enamoured man in a blazer. Barelegged boys flirted sweetly with ragged maidens, slept on stone steps,

gambolled with dogs. A pathetically lean girl flattened against a blank wall, turned up expiring eyes and

tendered a flower for sale; while, near by, the large photographs of some famous and mutilated basreliefs

He looked, of course, at nothing, ascended another flight of stairs and went straight into the dressing room. A

bronze dragon nailed by the tail to a bracket writhed away from the wall in calm convolutions, and held,

between the conventional fury of its jaws, a crude gas flame that resembled a butterfly. The room was empty,

of course; but, as he stepped in, it became filled all at once with a stir of many people; because the strips of

glass on the doors of wardrobes and his wife's large pierglass reflected him from head to foot, and

multiplied his image into a crowd of gentlemanly and slavish imitators, who were dressed exactly like

himself; had the same restrained and rare gestures; who moved when he moved, stood still with him in an

obsequious immobility, and had just such appearances of life and feeling as he thought it dignified and safe

for any man to manifest. And like real people who are slaves of common thoughts, that are not even their

own, they affected a shadowy independence by the superficial variety of their movements. They moved

together with him; but they either advanced to meet him, or walked away from him; they appeared,

disappeared; they seemed to dodge behind walnut furniture, to be seen again, far within the polished panes,

stepping about distinct and unreal in the convincing illusion of a room. And like the men he respected they

could be trusted to do nothing individual, original, or startlingnothing unforeseen and nothing improper.

He moved for a time aimlessly in that good company, humming a popular but refined tune, and thinking

vaguely of a business letter from abroad, which had to be answered on the morrow with cautious

prevarication. Then, as he walked towards a wardrobe, he saw appearing at his back, in the high mirror, the

corner of his wife's dressingtable, and amongst the glitter of silvermounted objects on it, the square white

patch of an envelope. It was such an unusual thing to be seen there that he spun round almost before he

realized his surprise; and all the sham men about him pivoted on their heels; all appeared surprised; and all

He recognized his wife's handwriting and saw that the envelope was addressed to himself. He muttered,

"How very odd," and felt annoyed. Apart from any odd action being essentially an indecent thing in itself, the

fact of his wife indulging in it made it doubly offensive. That she should write to him at all, when she knew

he would be home for dinner, was perfectly ridiculous; but that she should leave it like thisin evidence for

chance discoverystruck him as so outrageous that, thinking of it, he experienced suddenly a staggering

sense of insecurity, an absurd and bizarre flash of a notion that the house had moved a little under his feet. He

He held the paper before his eyes and looked at half a dozen lines scrawled on the page, while he was stunned

by a noise meaningless and violent, like the clash of gongs or the beating of drums; a great aimless uproar

that, in a manner, prevented him from hearing himself think and made his mind an absolute blank. This

absurd and distracting tumult seemed to ooze out of the written words, to issue from between his very fingers

that trembled, holding the paper. And suddenly he dropped the letter as though it had been something hot, or

venomous, or filthy; and rushing to the window with the unreflecting precipitation of a man anxious to raise

A chill gust of wind, wandering through the damp and sooty obscurity over the waste of roofs and

chimneypots, touched his face with a clammy flick. He saw an illimitable darkness, in which stood a black

jumble of walls, and, between them, the many rows of gaslights stretched far away in long lines, like

strungup beads of fire. A sinister loom as of a hidden conflagration lit up faintly from below the mist,

falling upon a billowy and motionless sea of tiles and bricks. At the rattle of the opened window the world

seemed to leap out of the night and confront him, while floating up to his ears there came a sound vast and

faint; the deep mutter of something immense and alive. It penetrated him with a feeling of dismay and he

gasped silently. From the cabstand in the square came distinct hoarse voices and a jeering laugh which

sounded ominously harsh and cruel. It sounded threatening. He drew his head in, as if before an aimed blow,

and flung the window down quickly. He made a few steps, stumbled against a chair, and with a great effort,

pulled himself together to lay hold of a certain thought that was whizzing about loose in his head.

He got it at last, after more exertion than he expected; he was flushed and puffed a little as though he had

been catching it with his hands, but his mental hold on it was weak, so weak that he judged it necessary to

repeat it aloudto hear it spoken firmlyin order to insure a perfect measure of possession. But he was

unwilling to hear his own voiceto hear any sound whateverowing to a vague belief, shaping itself

slowly within him, that solitude and silence are the greatest felicities of mankind. The next moment it dawned

upon him that they are perfectly unattainablethat faces must be seen, words spoken, thoughts heard. All the

It was terriblenot the fact but the words; the words charged with the shadowy might of a meaning, that

seemed to possess the tremendous power to call Fate down upon the earth, like those strange and appalling

words that sometimes are heard in sleep. They vibrated round him in a metallic atmosphere, in a space that

had the hardness of iron and the resonance of a bell of bronze. Looking down between the toes of his boots he

seemed to listen thoughtfully to the receding wave of sound; to the wave spreading out in a widening circle,

embracing streets, roofs, churchsteeples, fieldsand travelling away, widening endlessly, far, very far,

"Andwith that . . . ass," he said again without stirring in the least. And there was nothing but humiliation.

Nothing else. He could derive no moral solace from any aspect of the situation, which radiated pain only on

every side. Pain. What kind of pain? It occurred to him that he ought to be heartbroken; but in an

exceedingly short moment he perceived that his suffering was nothing of so trifling and dignified a kind. It

was altogether a more serious matter, and partook rather of the nature of those subtle and cruel feelings which

He felt very sickphysically sickas though he had bitten through something nauseous. Life, that to a

wellordered mind should be a matter of congratulation, appeared to him, for a second or so, perfectly

intolerable. He picked up the paper at his feet, and sat down with the wish to think it out, to understand why

his wifehis wife!should leave him, should throw away respect, comfort, peace, decency, position throw

away everything for nothing! He set himself to think out the hidden logic of her actiona mental

undertaking fit for the leisure hours of a madhouse, though he couldn't see it. And he thought of his wife in

every relation except the only fundamental one. He thought of her as a wellbred girl, as a wife, as a cultured

person, as the mistress of a house, as a lady; but he never for a moment thought of her simply as a woman.

Then a fresh wave, a raging wave of humiliation, swept through his mind, and left nothing there but a

personal sense of undeserved abasement. Why should he be mixed up with such a horrid exposure! It

annihilated all the advantages of his wellordered past, by a truth effective and unjust like a calumnyand

the past was wasted. Its failure was discloseda distinct failure, on his part, to see, to guard, to understand.

It could not be denied; it could not be explained away, hustled out of sight. He could not sit on it and look

If she had only died! He was driven to envy such a respectable bereavement, and one so perfectly free from

any taint of misfortune that even his best friend or his best enemy would not have felt the slightest thrill of

exultation. No one would have cared. He sought comfort in clinging to the contemplation of the only fact of

life that the resolute efforts of mankind had never failed to disguise in the clatter and glamour of phrases. And

nothing lends itself more to lies than death. If she had only died! Certain words would have been said to him

in a sad tone, and he, with proper fortitude, would have made appropriate answers. There were precedents for

such an occasion. And no one would have cared. If she had only died! The promises, the terrors, the hopes of

eternity, are the concern of the corrupt dead; but the obvious sweetness of life belongs to living, healthy men.

And life was his concern: that sane and gratifying existence untroubled by too much love or by too much

regret. She had interfered with it; she had defaced it. And suddenly it occurred to him he must have been mad

to marry. It was too much in the nature of giving yourself away, of wearingif for a momentyour heart on

In the shock of that startling thought he looked up, and saw to the left, to the right, in front, men sitting far off

in chairs and looking at him with wild eyesemissaries of a distracted mankind intruding to spy upon his

pain and his humiliation. It was not to be borne. He rose quickly, and the others jumped up, too, on all sides.

He stood still in the middle of the room as if discouraged by their vigilance. No escape! He felt something

akin to despair. Everybody must know. The servants must know tonight. He ground his teeth . . . And he

had never noticed, never guessed anything. Every one will know. He thought: "The woman's a monster, but

everybody will think me a fool"; and standing still in the midst of severe walnutwood furniture, he felt such

a tempest of anguish within him that he seemed to see himself rolling on the carpet, beating his head against

the wall. He was disgusted with himself, with the loathsome rush of emotion breaking through all the

reserves that guarded his manhood. Something unknown, withering and poisonous, had entered his life,

passed near him, touched him, and he was deteriorating. He was appalled. What was it? She was gone. Why?

His head was ready to burst with the endeavour to understand her act and his subtle horror of it. Everything

was changed. Why? Only a woman gone, after all; and yet he had a vision, a vision quick and distinct as a

dream: the vision of everything he had thought indestructible and safe in the world crashing down about him,

like solid walls do before the fierce breath of a hurricane. He stared, shaking in every limb, while he felt the

destructive breath, the mysterious breath, the breath of passion, stir the profound peace of the house. He

looked round in fear. Yes. Crime may be forgiven; uncalculating sacrifice, blind trust, burning faith, other

follies, may be turned to account; suffering, death itself, may with a grin or a frown be explained away; but

passion is the unpardonable and secret infamy of our hearts, a thing to curse, to hide and to deny; a shameless

and forlorn thing that tramples upon the smiling promises, that tears off the placid mask, that strips the body

of life. And it had come to him! It had laid its unclean hand upon the spotless draperies of his existence, and

he had to face it alone with all the world looking on. All the world! And he thought that even the bare

suspicion of such an adversary within his house carried with it a taint and a condemnation. He put both his

hands out as if to ward off the reproach of a defiling truth; and, instantly, the appalled conclave of unreal

men, standing about mutely beyond the clear lustre of mirrors, made at him the same gesture of rejection and

He glanced vainly here and there, like a man looking in desperation for a weapon or for a hiding place, and

understood at last that he was disarmed and cornered by the enemy that, without any squeamishness, would

strike so as to lay open his heart. He could get help nowhere, or even take counsel with himself, because in

the sudden shock of her desertion the sentiments which he knew that in fidelity to his bringing up, to his

prejudices and his surroundings, he ought to experience, were so mixed up with the novelty of real feelings,

of fundamental feelings that know nothing of creed, class, or education, that he was unable to distinguish

clearly between what is and what ought to be; between the inexcusable truth and the valid pretences. And he

knew instinctively that truth would be of no use to him. Some kind of concealment seemed a necessity

because one cannot explain. Of course not! Who would listen? One had simply to be without stain and

He said to himself, "I must get over it the best I can," and began to walk up and down the room. What next?

What ought to be done? He thought: "I will travelno I won't. I shall face it out." And after that resolve he

was greatly cheered by the reflection that it would be a mute and an easy part to play, for no one would be

likely to converse with him about the abominable conduct ofthat woman. He argued to himself that decent

peopleand he knew no othersdid not care to talk about such indelicate affairs. She had gone offwith

that unhealthy, fat ass of a journalist. Why? He had been all a husband ought to be. He had given her a good

positionshe shared his prospectshe had treated her invariably with great consideration. He reviewed his

conduct with a kind of dismal pride. It had been irreproachable. Then, why? For love? Profanation! There

could be no love there. A shameful impulse of passion. Yes, passion. His own wife! Good God! . . . And the

indelicate aspect of his domestic misfortune struck him with such shame that, next moment, he caught

himself in the act of pondering absurdly over the notion whether it would not be more dignified for him to

induce a general belief that he had been in the habit of beating his wife. Some fellows do . . . and anything

would be better than the filthy fact; for it was clear he had lived with the root of it for five yearsand it was

too shameful. Anything! Anything! Brutality . . . But he gave it up directly, and began to think of the Divorce

Court. It did not present itself to him, notwithstanding his respect for law and usage, as a proper refuge for

dignified grief. It appeared rather as an unclean and sinister cavern where men and women are haled by

adverse fate to writhe ridiculously in the presence of uncompromising truth. It should not be allowed. That

woman! Five . . . years . . . married five years . . . and never to see anything. Not to the very last day . . . not

till she coolly went off. And he pictured to himself all the people he knew engaged in speculating as to

whether all that time he had been blind, foolish, or infatuated. What a woman! Blind! . . . Not at all. Could a

cleanminded man imagine such depravity? Evidently not. He drew a free breath. That was the attitude to

take; it was dignified enough; it gave him the advantage, and he could not help perceiving that it was moral.

He yearned unaffectedly to see morality (in his person) triumphant before the world. As to her she would be

forgotten. Let her be forgottenburied in oblivionlost! No one would allude . . . Refined peopleand

every man and woman he knew could be so describedhad, of course, a horror of such topics. Had they?

Oh, yes. No one would allude to her . . . in his hearing. He stamped his foot, tore the letter across, then again

and again. The thought of sympathizing friends excited in him a fury of mistrust. He flung down the small

bits of paper. They settled, fluttering at his feet, and looked very white on the dark carpet, like a scattered

This fit of hot anger was succeeded by a sudden sadness, by the darkening passage of a thought that ran over

the scorched surface of his heart, like upon a barren plain, and after a fiercer assault of sunrays, the

melancholy and cooling shadow of a cloud. He realized that he had had a shocknot a violent or rending

blow, that can be seen, resisted, returned, forgotten, but a thrust, insidious and penetrating, that had stirred all

those feelings, concealed and cruel, which the arts of the devil, the fears of mankindGod's infinite

compassion, perhapskeep chained deep down in the inscrutable twilight of our breasts. A dark curtain

seemed to rise before him, and for less than a second he looked upon the mysterious universe of moral

suffering. As a landscape is seen complete, and vast, and vivid, under a flash of lightning, so he could see

disclosed in a moment all the immensity of pain that can be contained in one short moment of human

thought. Then the curtain fell again, but his rapid vision left in Alvan Hervey's mind a trail of invincible

sadness, a sense of loss and bitter solitude, as though he had been robbed and exiled. For a moment he ceased

to be a member of society with a position, a career, and a name attached to all this, like a descriptive label of

some complicated compound. He was a simple human being removed from the delightful world of crescents

and squares. He stood alone, naked and afraid, like the first man on the first day of evil. There are in life

events, contacts, glimpses, that seem brutally to bring all the past to a close. There is a shock and a crash, as

of a gate flung to behind one by the perfidious hand of fate. Go and seek another paradise, fool or sage. There

is a moment of dumb dismay, and the wanderings must begin again; the painful explaining away of facts, the

feverish raking up of illusions, the cultivation of a fresh crop of lies in the sweat of one's brow, to sustain life,

to make it supportable, to make it fair, so as to hand intact to another generation of blind wanderers the

charming legend of a heartless country, of a promised land, all flowers and blessings . . .

He came to himself with a slight start, and became aware of an oppressive, crushing desolation. It was only a

feeling, it is true, but it produced on him a physical effect, as though his chest had been squeezed in a vice.

He perceived himself so extremely forlorn and lamentable, and was moved so deeply by the oppressive

sorrow, that another turn of the screw, he felt, would bring tears out of his eyes. He was deteriorating. Five

years of life in common had appeased his longing. Yes, longtime ago. The first five months did thatbut . .

. There was the habitthe habit of her person, of her smile, of her gestures, of her voice, of her silence. She

had a pure brow and good hair. How utterly wretched all this was. Good hair and fine eyesremarkably fine.

He was surprised by the number of details that intruded upon his unwilling memory. He could not help

remembering her footsteps, the rustle of her dress, her way of holding her head, her decisive manner of

saying "Alvan," the quiver of her nostrils when she was annoyed. All that had been so much his property, so

intimately and specially his! He raged in a mournful, silent way, as he took stock of his losses. He was like a

man counting the cost of an unlucky speculationirritated, depressedexasperated with himself and with

others, with the fortunate, with the indifferent, with the callous; yet the wrong done him appeared so cruel

that he would perhaps have dropped a tear over that spoliation if it had not been for his conviction that men

do not weep. Foreigners do; they also kill sometimes in such circumstances. And to his horror he felt himself

driven to regret almost that the usages of a society ready to forgive the shooting of a burglar forbade him,

under the circumstances, even as much as a thought of murder. Nevertheless, he clenched his fists and set his

teeth hard. And he was afraid at the same time. He was afraid with that penetrating faltering fear that seems,

in the very middle of a beat, to turn one's heart into a handful of dust. The contamination of her crime spread

out, tainted the universe, tainted himself; woke up all the dormant infamies of the world; caused a ghastly

kind of clairvoyance in which he could see the towns and fields of the earth, its sacred places, its temples and

its houses, peopled by monstersby monsters of duplicity, lust, and murder. She was a monsterhe himself

was thinking monstrous thoughts . . . and yet he was like other people. How many men and women at this

very moment were plunged in abominationsmeditated crimes. It was frightful to think of. He remembered

all the streetsthe welltodo streets he had passed on his way home; all the innumerable houses with

closed doors and curtained windows. Each seemed now an abode of anguish and folly. And his thought, as if

appalled, stood still, recalling with dismay the decorous and frightful silence that was like a conspiracy; the

grim, impenetrable silence of miles of walls concealing passions, misery, thoughts of crime. Surely he was

not the only man; his was not the only house . . . and yet no one knewno one guessed. But he knew. He

knew with unerring certitude that could not be deceived by the correct silence of walls, of closed doors, of

curtained windows. He was beside himself with a despairing agitation, like a man informed of a deadly

secretthe secret of a calamity threatening the safety of mankindthe sacredness, the peace of life.

He caught sight of himself in one of the lookingglasses. It was a relief. The anguish of his feeling had been

so powerful that he more than half expected to see some distorted wild face there, and he was pleasantly

surprised to see nothing of the kind. His aspect, at any rate, would let no one into the secret of his pain. He

examined himself with attention. His trousers were turned up, and his boots a little muddy, but he looked

very much as usual. Only his hair was slightly ruffled, and that disorder, somehow, was so suggestive of

trouble that he went quickly to the table, and began to use the brushes, in an anxious desire to obliterate the

compromising trace, that only vestige of his emotion. He brushed with care, watching the effect of his

smoothing; and another face, slightly pale and more tense than was perhaps desirable, peered back at him

from the toilet glass. He laid the brushes down, and was not satisfied. He took them up again and brushed,

brushed mechanicallyforgot himself in that occupation. The tumult of his thoughts ended in a sluggish

flow of reflection, such as, after the outburst of a volcano, the almost imperceptible progress of a stream of

lava, creeping languidly over a convulsed land and pitilessly obliterating any landmark left by the shock of

the earthquake. It is a destructive but, by comparison, it is a peaceful phenomenon. Alvan Hervey was almost

soothed by the deliberate pace of his thoughts. His moral landmarks were going one by one, consumed in the

fire of his experience, buried in hot mud, in ashes. He was coolingon the surface; but there was enough

heat left somewhere to make him slap the brushes on the table, and turning away, say in a fierce whisper: "I

He felt himself utterly corrupted by her wickedness, and the most significant symptom of his moral downfall

was the bitter, acrid satisfaction with which he recognized it. He, deliberately, swore in his thoughts; he

meditated sneers; he shaped in profound silence words of cynical unbelief, and his most cherished

convictions stood revealed finally as the narrow prejudices of fools. A crowd of shapeless, unclean thoughts

crossed his mind in a stealthy rush, like a band of veiled malefactors hastening to a crime. He put his hands

deep into his pockets. He heard a faint ringing somewhere, and muttered to himself: "I am not the only one . .

His heart leaped up into his throat, and forthwith descended as low as his boots. A call! Who? Why? He

wanted to rush out on the landing and shout to the servant: "Not at home! Gone away abroad!" . . . Any

excuse. He could not face a visitor. Not this evening. No. Tomorrow. . . . Before he could break out of the

numbness that enveloped him like a sheet of lead, he heard far below, as if in the entrails of the earth, a door

close heavily. The house vibrated to it more than to a clap of thunder. He stood still, wishing himself

invisible. The room was very chilly. He did not think he would ever feel like that. But people must be

metthey must be facedtalked tosmiled at. He heard another door, much nearerthe door of the

drawingroombeing opened and flung to again. He imagined for a moment he would faint. How absurd!

That kind of thing had to be gone through. A voice spoke. He could not catch the words. Then the voice

spoke again, and footsteps were heard on the first floor landing. Hang it all! Was he to hear that voice and

those footsteps whenever any one spoke or moved? He thought: "This is like being hauntedI suppose it

will last for a week or so, at least. Till I forget. Forget! Forget!" Someone was coming up the second flight of

stairs. Servant? He listened, then, suddenly, as though an incredible, frightful revelation had been shouted to

him from a distance, he bellowed out in the empty room: "What! What!" in such a fiendish tone as to astonish

himself. The footsteps stopped outside the door. He stood openmouthed, maddened and still, as if in the midst

of a catastrophe. The doorhandle rattled lightly. It seemed to him that the walls were coming apart, that the

furniture swayed at him; the ceiling slanted queerly for a moment, a tall wardrobe tried to topple over. He

caught hold of something and it was the back of a chair. So he had reeled against a chair! Oh! Confound it!

The flaming butterfly poised between the jaws of the bronze dragon radiated a glare, a glare that seemed to

leap up all at once into a crude, blinding fierceness, and made it difficult for him to distinguish plainly the

figure of his wife standing upright with her back to the closed door. He looked at her and could not detect her

breathing. The harsh and violent light was beating on her, and he was amazed to see her preserve so well the

composure of her upright attitude in that scorching brilliance which, to his eyes, enveloped her like a hot and

consuming mist. He would not have been surprised if she had vanished in it as suddenly as she had appeared.

He stared and listened; listened for some sound, but the silence round him was absoluteas though he had in

a moment grown completely deaf as well as dimeyed. Then his hearing returned, preternaturally sharp. He

heard the patter of a rainshower on the window panes behind the lowered blinds, and below, far below, in

the artificial abyss of the square, the deadened roll of wheels and the splashy trotting of a horse. He heard a

He thought with alarm: "I must have made that noise myself;" and at the same instant the woman left the

door, stepped firmly across the floor before him, and sat down in a chair. He knew that step. There was no

doubt about it. She had come back! And he very nearly said aloud "Of course!"such was his sudden and

masterful perception of the indestructible character of her being. Nothing could destroy her and nothing

but his own destruction could keep her away. She was the incarnation of all the short moments which every

man spares out of his life for dreams, for precious dreams that concrete the most cherished, the most

profitable of his illusions. He peered at her with inward trepidation. She was mysterious, significant, full of

obscure meaning like a symbol. He peered, bending forward, as though he had been discovering about her

things he had never seen before. Unconsciously he made a step towards herthen another. He saw her arm

make an ample, decided movement and he stopped. She had lifted her veil. It was like the lifting of a vizor.

The spell was broken. He experienced a shock as though he had been called out of a trance by the sudden

noise of an explosion. It was even more startling and more distinct; it was an infinitely more intimate change,

for he had the sensation of having come into this room only that very moment; of having returned from very

far; he was made aware that some essential part of himself had in a flash returned into his body, returned

finally from a fierce and lamentable region, from the dwellingplace of unveiled hearts. He woke up to an

amazing infinity of contempt, to a droll bitterness of wonder, to a disenchanted conviction of safety. He had a

glimpse of the irresistible force, and he saw also the barrenness of his convictionsof her convictions. It

seemed to him that he could never make a mistake as long as he lived. It was morally impossible to go

wrong. He was not elated by that certitude; he was dimly uneasy about its price; there was a chill as of death

in this triumph of sound principles, in this victory snatched under the very shadow of disaster.

The last trace of his previous state of mind vanished, as the instantaneous and elusive trail of a bursting

meteor vanishes on the profound blackness of the sky; it was the faint flicker of a painful thought, gone as

soon as perceived, that nothing but her presenceafter allhad the power to recall him to himself. He

stared at her. She sat with her hands on her lap, looking down; and he noticed that her boots were dirty, her

skirts wet and splashed, as though she had been driven back there by a blind fear through a waste of mud. He

was indignant, amazed and shocked, but in a natural, healthy way now; so that he could control those

unprofitable sentiments by the dictates of cautious selfrestraint. The light in the room had no unusual

brilliance now; it was a good light in which he could easily observe the expression of her face. It was that of

dull fatigue. And the silence that surrounded them was the normal silence of any quiet house, hardly

disturbed by the faint noises of a respectable quarter of the town. He was very cooland it was quite coolly

that he thought how much better it would be if neither of them ever spoke again. She sat with closed lips,

with an air of lassitude in the stony forgetfulness of her pose, but after a moment she lifted her drooping

eyelids and met his tense and inquisitive stare by a look that had all the formless eloquence of a cry. It

penetrated, it stirred without informing; it was the very essence of anguish stripped of words that can be

smiled at, argued away, shouted down, disdained. It was anguish naked and unashamed, the bare pain of

existence let loose upon the world in the fleeting unreserve of a look that had in it an immensity of fatigue,

the scornful sincerity, the black impudence of an extorted confession. Alvan Hervey was seized with wonder,

as though he had seen something inconceivable; and some obscure part of his being was ready to exclaim

with him: "I would never have believed it!" but an instantaneous revulsion of wounded susceptibilities

He felt full of rancorous indignation against the woman who could look like this at one. This look probed

him; it tampered with him. It was dangerous to one as would be a hint of unbelief whispered by a priest in the

august decorum of a temple; and at the same time it was impure, it was disturbing, like a cynical consolation

muttered in the dark, tainting the sorrow, corroding the thought, poisoning the heart. He wanted to ask her

furiously: "Who do you take me for? How dare you look at me like this?" He felt himself helpless before the

hidden meaning of that look; he resented it with pained and futile violence as an injury so secret that it could

never, never be redressed. His wish was to crush her by a single sentence. He was stainless. Opinion was on

his side; morality, men and gods were on his side; law, conscienceall the world! She had nothing but that

Her eyes did not waver, her lips remained closed; and for any effect of his words he might have spoken to a

dead woman, only that this one breathed quickly. He was profoundly disappointed by what he had said. It

was a great deception, something in the nature of treason. He had deceived himself. It should have been

altogether differentother wordsanother sensation. And before his eyes, so fixed that at times they saw

nothing, she sat apparently as unconscious as though she had been alone, sending that look of brazen

confession straight at himwith an air of staring into empty space. He said significantly:

One of her hands on her lap moved slightly as though his words had fallen there and she had thrown them off

on the floor. But her silence encouraged him. Possibly it meant remorseperhaps fear. Was she

thunderstruck by his attitude? . . . Her eyelids dropped. He seemed to understand ever so mucheverything!

Very wellbut she must be made to suffer. It was due to him. He understood everything, yet he judged it

She stood up. For a second he believed she intended to go away, and it was as though someone had jerked a

string attached to his heart. It hurt. He remained openmouthed and silent. But she made an irresolute step

towards him, and instinctively he moved aside. They stood before one another, and the fragments of the torn

letter lay between themat their feetlike an insurmountable obstacle, like a sign of eternal separation!

Around them three other couples stood still and face to face, as if waiting for a signal to begin some

She said: "Don'tAlvan!" and there was something that resembled a warning in the pain of her tone. He

narrowed his eyes as if trying to pierce her with his gaze. Her voice touched him. He had aspirations after

magnanimity, generosity, superiorityinterrupted, however, by flashes of indignation and anxietyfrightful

anxiety to know how far she had gone. She looked down at the torn paper. Then she looked up, and their eyes

met again, remained fastened together, like an unbreakable bond, like a clasp of eternal complicity; and the

decorous silence, the pervading quietude of the house which enveloped this meeting of their glances became

for a moment inexpressibly vile, for he was afraid she would say too much and make magnanimity

impossible, while behind the profound mournfulness of her face there was a regreta regret of things

donethe regret of delaythe thought that if she had only turned back a week soonera day sooneronly

an hour sooner. . . . They were afraid to hear again the sound of their voices; they did not know what they

might sayperhaps something that could not be recalled; and words are more terrible than facts. But the

tricky fatality that lurks in obscure impulses spoke through Alvan Hervey's lips suddenly; and he heard his

own voice with the excited and sceptical curiosity with which one listens to actors' voices speaking on the

Her eyes blazed at him for an instant; her lips trembledand then she also became the mouthpiece of the

mysterious force forever hovering near us; of that perverse inspiration, wandering capricious and

"What is the good of this, Alvan? . . . You know why I came back. . . . You know that I could not . . . "

This answer amazed him. He remained speechless, staring at her. He had half a mind to burst into a laugh. It

"A mistake . . ." he began, slowly, and then found himself unable to say another word.

"Yes . . . it was honest," she said very low, as if speaking to the memory of a feeling in a remote past.

"Curse your honesty! . . . Is there any honesty in all this! . . . When did you begin to be honest? Why are you

He walked at her, raging, as if blind; during these three quick strides he lost touch of the material world and

was whirled interminably through a kind of empty universe made up of nothing but fury and anguish, till he

came suddenly upon her facevery close to his. He stopped short, and all at once seemed to remember

She did not flinch. He perceived with fear that everything around him was still. She did not move a hair's

breadth; his own body did not stir. An imperturbable calm enveloped their two motionless figures, the house,

the town, all the worldand the trifling tempest of his feelings. The violence of the short tumult within him

had been such as could well have shattered all creation; and yet nothing was changed. He faced his wife in

the familiar room in his own house. It had not fallen. And right and left all the innumerable dwellings,

standing shoulder to shoulder, had resisted the shock of his passion, had presented, unmoved, to the

loneliness of his trouble, the grim silence of walls, the impenetrable and polished discretion of closed doors

and curtained windows. Immobility and silence pressed on him, assailed him, like two accomplices of the

immovable and mute woman before his eyes. He was suddenly vanquished. He was shown his impotence. He

was soothed by the breath of a corrupt resignation coming to him through the subtle irony of the surrounding

"At any rate it isn't enough for me. I want to know moreif you're going to stay."

"No?" he said, quietly. He held himself tight not to burst into howls and imprecations.

"If you had tried to be faithful to me it would have been more to the purpose," he interrupted, angrily. "I've

been faithful to you and you have spoiled my lifeboth our lives . . ." Then after a pause the unconquerable

preoccupation of self came out, and he raised his voice to ask resentfully, "And, pray, for how long have you

She seemed horribly shocked by that question. He did not wait for an answer, but went on moving about all

the time; now and then coming up to her, then wandering off restlessly to the other end of the room.

"I want to know. Everybody knows, I suppose, but myselfand that's your honesty!"

"I have told you there is nothing to know," she said, speaking unsteadily as if in pain. "Nothing of what you

"The endthis thing has no end," he clamoured, unexpectedly. "Can't you understand that? I can . . . The

He stopped and looked into her eyes with concentrated intensity, with a desire to see, to penetrate, to

"By Heavens!" he said, standing perfectly still in a peering attitude and within less than a foot from her.

"By Heavens!" he repeated, slowly, and in a tone whose involuntary strangeness was a complete mystery to

He turned short on his heel and began to walk up and down the room with an air of having disburdened

himself of the final pronouncement of his lifeof having said something on which he would not go back,

even if he could. She remained as if rooted to the carpet. Her eyes followed the restless movements of the

man, who avoided looking at her. Her wide stare clung to him, inquiring, wondering and doubtful.

"But the fellow was forever sticking in here," he burst out, distractedly. "He made love to you, I

"And I let him," she murmured, catching his intonation, so that her voice sounded unconscious, sounded far

He said twice, "You! You!" violently, then calmed down. "What could you see in the fellow?" he asked, with

unaffected wonder. "An effeminate, fat ass. What could you . . . Weren't you happy? Didn't you have all you

wanted? Nowfrankly; did I deceive your expectations in any way? Were you disappointed with our

positionor with our prospectsperhaps? You know you couldn't bethey are much better than you could

He forgot himself so far as to gesticulate a little while he went on with animation:

"What could you expect from such a fellow? He's an outsidera rank outsider. . . . If it hadn't been for my

money . . . do you hear? . . . for my money, he wouldn't know where to turn. His people won't have anything

to do with him. The fellow's no classno class at all. He's useful, certainly, that's why I . . . I thought you

had enough intelligence to see it. . . . And you . . . No! It's incredible! What did he tell you? Do you care for

no one's opinionis there no restraining influence in the world for youwomen? Did you ever give me a

Carried away by his feelings he took his head in both his hands and repeated wildly:

"Ah! You see . . . you can't . . ." he began, triumphantly, walking away; then suddenly, as though he had been

flung back at her by something invisible he had met, he spun round and shouted with exasperation:

Without a word she moved slowly towards the table, and, sitting down, leaned on her elbow, shading her eyes

with her hand. All that time he glared at her watchfully as if expecting every moment to find in her deliberate

movements an answer to his question. But he could not read anything, he could gather no hint of her thought.

He tried to suppress his desire to shout, and after waiting awhile, said with incisive scorn:

"Did you want me to write absurd verses; to sit and look at you for hoursto talk to you about your soul?

You ought to have known I wasn't that sort. . . . I had something better to do. But if you think I was totally

He perceived in a flash that he could remember an infinity of enlightening occurrences. He could recall ever

so many distinct occasions when he came upon them; he remembered the absurdly interrupted gesture of his

fat, white hand, the rapt expression of her face, the glitter of unbelieving eyes; snatches of incomprehensible

conversations not worth listening to, silences that had meant nothing at the time and seemed now illuminating

like a burst of sunshine. He remembered all that. He had not been blind. Oh! No! And to know this was an

The sound of that sentence evidently possessed some magical power, because, as soon as he had spoken, he

felt wonderfully at ease; and directly afterwards he experienced a flash of joyful amazement at the discovery

that he could be inspired to such noble and truthful utterance. He watched the effect of his words. They

caused her to glance to him quickly over her shoulder. He caught a glimpse of wet eyelashes, of a red cheek

with a tear running down swiftly; and then she turned away again and sat as before, covering her face with

"I am glad of itfor your sake," he said with impressive gravity. He listened to himself with solemn

emotion. It seemed to him that something inexpressibly momentous was in progress within the room, that

every word and every gesture had the importance of events preordained from the beginning of all things, and

Her shoulders shook as though she had been sobbing, and he forgot himself in the contemplation of her hair.

Suddenly he gave a start, as if waking up, and asked very gently and not much above a whisper

This answer seemed for a moment to take from him the power of speech. His lips moved for some time

"You preferred to make love hereunder my very nose," he said, furiously. He calmed down instantly, and

felt regretfully uneasy, as though he had let himself down in her estimation by that outburst. She rose, and

with her hand on the back of the chair confronted him with eyes that were perfectly dry now. There was a red

"But you didn't go to him," he took up in the same tone. "How far did you go? What made you come back?"

"I didn't know myself," she murmured. Nothing of her moved but her lips. He fixed her sternly.

She answered him by an almost imperceptible nod, and he continued to look at her for a good while without

Again she seemed to nod at him. For some reason he felt he must know the time. He consulted his watch

"Is he?" he muttered, putting the watch in his pocket. He looked up at her, and, as if suddenly overcome by a

"No! It's the most unheard! . . ." he mumbled while she stood before him biting her lower lip, as if plunged in

deep thought. He laughed again in one low burst that was as spiteful as an imprecation. He did not know why

he felt such an overpowering and sudden distaste for the facts of existencefor facts in generalsuch an

immense disgust at the thought of all the many days already lived through. He was wearied. Thinking seemed

"I am ready to go if you wish it," she went on, quickly. "It was due to youto be toldto know. No! I could

"I am glad you repented before it was too late," he said in a dull tone and looking at his boots. "I am glad . . .

some spark of better feeling," he muttered, as if to himself. He lifted up his head after a moment of brooding

silence. "I am glad to see that there is some sense of decency left in you," he added a little louder. Looking at

her he appeared to hesitate, as if estimating the possible consequences of what he wished to say, and at last

He appeared overcome with horror, and watched her lips intently as though in fear.

"I imagined many things," she said, slowly, and paused. He watched, holding his breath. At last she went on

musingly, as if thinking aloud, "I tried to understand. I tried honestly. . . . Why? . . . To do the usual thingI

He walked away smartly, and when he came back, close to her, he had a flushed face.

"You seemed pretty well pleased, tooat the time," he hissed, with scathing fury. "I needn't ask whether you

"I know now I was perfectly incapable of such a thing," she said, calmly, "If I had, perhaps you would not

He seemed to see himself proposing to herages ago. They were strolling up the slope of a lawn. Groups of

people were scattered in sunshine. The shadows of leafy boughs lay still on the short grass. The coloured

sunshades far off, passing between trees, resembled deliberate and brilliant butterflies moving without a

flutter. Men smiling amiably, or else very grave, within the impeccable shelter of their black coats, stood by

the side of women who, clustered in clear summer toilettes, recalled all the fabulous tales of enchanted

gardens where animated flowers smile at bewitched knights. There was a sumptuous serenity in it all, a thin,

vibrating excitement, the perfect security, as of an invincible ignorance, that evoked within him a

transcendent belief in felicity as the lot of all mankind, a recklessly picturesque desire to get promptly

something for himself only, out of that splendour unmarred by any shadow of a thought. The girl walked by

his side across an open space; no one was near, and suddenly he stood still, as if inspired, and spoke. He

remembered looking at her pure eyes, at her candid brow; he remembered glancing about quickly to see if

they were being observed, and thinking that nothing could go wrong in a world of so much charm, purity, and

distinction. He was proud of it. He was one of its makers, of its possessors, of its guardians, of its extollers.

He wanted to grasp it solidly, to get as much gratification as he could out of it; and in view of its

incomparable quality, of its unstained atmosphere, of its nearness to the heaven of its choice, this gust of

brutal desire seemed the most noble of aspirations. In a second he lived again through all these moments, and

then all the pathos of his failure presented itself to him with such vividness that there was a suspicion of tears

She seemed touched by the emotion of his voice. Her lips quivered a little, and she made one faltering step

towards him, putting out her hands in a beseeching gesture, when she perceived, just in time, that being

absorbed by the tragedy of his life he had absolutely forgotten her very existence. She stopped, and her

outstretched arms fell slowly. He, with his features distorted by the bitterness of his thought, saw neither her

movement nor her gesture. He stamped his foot in vexation, rubbed his headthen exploded.

At the sound of her voice he gave a start of surprise, looked at her wildly, and asked in a piercing tone

The doorhandle rattled under her groping hand as though she had been trying to get out of some dark place.

She heard him faintly. He saw her shoulder touch the lintel of the door. She swayed as if dazed. There was

less than a second of suspense while they both felt as if poised on the very edge of moral annihilation, ready

to fall into some devouring nowhere. Then, almost simultaneously, he shouted, "Come back!" and she let go

the handle of the door. She turned round in peaceful desperation like one who deliberately has thrown away

the last chance of life; and, for a moment, the room she faced appeared terrible, and dark, and safelike a

He said, very hoarse and abrupt: "It can't end like this. . . . Sit down;" and while she crossed the room again to

the lowbacked chair before the dressingtable, he opened the door and put his head out to look and listen.

"What do you mean by . . ." he began, then checked himself, and without waiting for an answer went on, "I

There followed a period of dead silence, during which they exchanged searching glances.

"You don't know what you are saying. Your mind is unhinged. You are beside yourself, or you would not say

such things. You can't control yourself. Even in your remorse . . ." He paused a moment, then said with a

doctoral air: "Selfrestraint is everything in life, you know. It's happiness, it's dignity . . . it's everything."

She was pulling nervously at her handkerchief while he went on watching anxiously to see the effect of his

words. Nothing satisfactory happened. Only, as he began to speak again, she covered her face with both her

"You see where the want of selfrestraint leads to. Painhumiliationloss of respectof friends, of

everything that ennobles life, that . . . All kinds of horrors," he concluded, abruptly.

She made no stir. He looked at her pensively for some time as though he had been concentrating the

melancholy thoughts evoked by the sight of that abased woman. His eyes became fixed and dull. He was

profoundly penetrated by the solemnity of the moment; he felt deeply the greatness of the occasion. And

more than ever the walls of his house seemed to enclose the sacredness of ideals to which he was about to

offer a magnificent sacrifice. He was the high priest of that temple, the severe guardian of formulas, of rites,

of the pure ceremonial concealing the black doubts of life. And he was not alone. Other men, toothe best

of themkept watch and ward by the hearthstones that were the altars of that profitable persuasion. He

understood confusedly that he was part of an immense and beneficent power, which had a reward ready for

every discretion. He dwelt within the invincible wisdom of silence; he was protected by an indestructible

faith that would last forever, that would withstand unshaken all the assaultsthe loud execrations of

apostates, and the secret weariness of its confessors! He was in league with a universe of untold advantages.

He represented the moral strength of a beautiful reticence that could vanquish all the deplorable crudities of

lifefear, disaster, sineven death itself. It seemed to him he was on the point of sweeping triumphantly

"I hope you see now the follythe utter folly of wickedness," he began in a dull, solemn manner. "You must

respect the conditions of your life or lose all it can give you. All! Everything!"

He waved his arm once, and three exact replicas of his face, of his clothes, of his dull severity, of his solemn

grief, repeated the wide gesture that in its comprehensive sweep indicated an infinity of moral sweetness,

embraced the walls, the hangings, the whole house, all the crowd of houses outside, all the flimsy and

inscrutable graves of the living, with their doors numbered like the doors of prisoncells, and as impenetrable

"Yes! Restraint, duty, fidelityunswerving fidelity to what is expected of you. Thisonly thissecures the

reward, the peace. Everything else we should labour to subdueto destroy. It's misfortune; it's disease. It is

terribleterrible. We must not know anything about itwe needn't. It is our duty to ourselvesto others.

You do not live all alone in the worldand if you have no respect for the dignity of life, others have. Life is

a serious matter. If you don't conform to the highest standards you are no oneit's a kind of death. Didn't

this occur to you? You've only to look round you to see the truth of what I am saying. Did you live without

noticing anything, without understanding anything? From a child you had examples before your eyesyou

His voice rose and fell pompously in a strange chant. His eyes were still, his stare exalted and sullen; his face

was set, was hard, was woodenly exulting over the grim inspiration that secretly possessed him, seethed

within him, lifted him up into a stealthy frenzy of belief. Now and then he would stretch out his right arm

over her head, as it were, and he spoke down at that sinner from a height, and with a sense of avenging virtue,

with a profound and pure joy as though he could from his steep pinnacle see every weighty word strike and

"Your mind is diseased!" he cried, upright and austere. "Such a question is rotutter rot. Look round

youthere's your answer, if you only care to see. Nothing that outrages the received beliefs can be right.

Your conscience tells you that. They are the received beliefs because they are the best, the noblest, the only

He could not help noticing with pleasure the philosophic breadth of his view, but he could not pause to enjoy

"You must respect the moral foundations of a society that has made you what you are. Be true to it. That's

He felt a great glow within him, as though he had swallowed something hot. He made a step nearer. She sat

up and looked at him with an ardour of expectation that stimulated his sense of the supreme importance of

"'What's right?' you ask me. Think only. What would you have been if you had gone off with that infernal

He caught sight of himself in the pier glass, drawn up to his full height, and with a face so white that his eyes,

at the distance, resembled the black cavities in a skull. He saw himself as if about to launch imprecations,

with arms uplifted above her bowed head. He was ashamed of that unseemly posture, and put his hands in his

"As it happens you are still Mrs. Alvan Herveyuncommonly lucky for you, let me tell you," he said in a

conversational tone. He walked up to the furthest corner of the room, and, turning back, saw her sitting very

upright, her hands clasped on her lap, and with a lost, unswerving gaze of her eyes which stared unwinking

like the eyes of the blind, at the crude gas flame, blazing and still, between the jaws of the bronze dragon.

He came up quite close to her, and straddling his legs a little, stood looking down at her face for some time

without taking his hands out of his pockets. He seemed to be turning over in his mind a heap of words,

"You've tried me to the utmost," he said at last; and as soon as he said these words he lost his moral footing,

and felt himself swept away from his pinnacle by a flood of passionate resentment against the bungling

creature that had come so near to spoiling his life. "Yes; I've been tried more than any man ought to be," he

went on with righteous bitterness. "It was unfair. What possessed you to? . . . What possessed you? . . . Write

such a . . . After five years of perfect happiness! 'Pon my word, no one would believe. . . . Didn't you feel you

couldn't? Because you couldn't . . . it was impossibleyou know. Wasn't it? Think. Wasn't it?"

This submissive assent given with such readiness did not soothe him, did not elate him; it gave him,

inexplicably, that sense of terror we experience when in the midst of conditions we had learned to think

absolutely safe we discover all at once the presence of a near and unsuspected danger. It was impossible, of

course! He knew it. She knew it. She confessed it. It was impossible! That man knew it, tooas well as any

one; couldn't help knowing it. And yet those two had been engaged in a conspiracy against his peacein a

criminal enterprise for which there could be no sanction of belief within themselves. There could not be!

There could not be! And yet how near to . . . With a short thrill he saw himself an exiled forlorn figure in a

realm of ungovernable, of unrestrained folly. Nothing could be foreseen, foretoldguarded against. And the

sensation was intolerable, had something of the withering horror that may be conceived as following upon the

utter extinction of all hope. In the flash of thought the dishonouring episode seemed to disengage itself from

everything actual, from earthly conditions, and even from earthly suffering; it became purely a terrifying

knowledge, an annihilating knowledge of a blind and infernal force. Something desperate and vague, a flicker

of an insane desire to abase himself before the mysterious impulses of evil, to ask for mercy in some way,

passed through his mind; and then came the idea, the persuasion, the certitude, that the evil must be

forgottenmust be resolutely ignored to make life possible; that the knowledge must be kept out of mind,

out of sight, like the knowledge of certain death is kept out of the daily existence of men. He stiffened

himself inwardly for the effort, and next moment it appeared very easy, amazingly feasible, if one only kept

strictly to facts, gave one's mind to their perplexities and not to their meaning. Becoming conscious of a long

"I am glad you feel this . . . uncommonly glad . . . you felt this in time. For, don't you see . . ." Unexpectedly

"Of course you would," he said, looking at the carpet and speaking like one who thinks of something else. He

lifted his head. "I cannot believeeven after thiseven after thisthat you are altogetheraltogether . . .

He started at the drift of his words and broke off abruptly. Every train of thought seemed to lead into the

hopeless realm of ungovernable folly, to recall the knowledge and the terror of forces that must be ignored.

He looked at her fixedly with a pained air, as though frightfully oppressed by a sudden inability to express his

"I am ready to go," she said very low. "I have forfeited everything . . . to learn . . . to learn . . ."

Her chin fell on her breast; her voice died out in a sigh. He made a slight gesture of impatient assent.

"Yes! Yes! It's all very well . . . of course. Forfeitedah! Morally forfeitedonly morally forfeited . . . if I

"Oh! I believe, I believe," he said, hastily, and she sat down as suddenly as she had got up. He went on

"I've sufferedI suffer now. You can't understand how much. So much that when you propose a parting I

almost think. . . . But no. There is duty. You've forgotten it; I never did. Before heaven, I never did. But in a

horrid exposure like this the judgment of mankind goes astrayat least for a time. You see, you and Iat

least I feel thatyou and I are one before the world. It is as it should be. The world is rightin the

mainor else it couldn't becouldn't bewhat it is. And we are part of it. We have our duty toto our

He stammered. She looked up at him with wide eyes, and her lips were slightly parted. He went on

". . . Pain. . . . Indignation. . . . Sure to misunderstand. I've suffered enough. And if there has been nothing

"What?" he said, morosely. He gazed down at her for a moment with a sombre stare, as one looks at ruins, at

"Then," he continued after a short pause, "the best thing is . . . the best for us . . . for every one. . . . Yes . . .

least painmost unselfish. . . ." His voice faltered, and she heard only detached words. ". . . Duty. . . .

"This is an appeal I am making to your conscience," he said, suddenly, in an explanatory tone, "not to add to

the wretchedness of all this: to try loyally and help me to live it down somehow. Without any

reservationsyou know. Loyally! You can't deny I've been cruelly wronged andafter allmy affection

"I make no reservations," she said, mournfully. "How could I? I found myself out and came back to . . ." her

eyes flashed scornfully for an instant ". . . to whatto what you propose. You see . . . I . . . I can be trusted . .

He listened to every word with profound attention, and when she ceased seemed to wait for more.

"Confound it! You might say something human," he burst out. "It isn't being truthful; it's being brazenif

you want to know. Not a word to show you feel your position, andand mine. Not a single word of

"This is awful!" he exclaimed. "Words? Yes, words. Words mean somethingyesthey dofor all this

infernal affectation. They mean something to meto everybodyto you. What the devil did you use to

express those sentimentssentimentspah!which made you forget me, duty, shame!" . . . He foamed at

the mouth while she stared at him, appalled by this sudden fury. "Did you two talk only with your eyes?" he

"Not you," he said, with conscious roughness, and began to walk up and down the room. She remained very

still with an air of listening anxiously to her own heartbeats, then sank down on the chair slowly, and

"You misunderstand everything I say," he began quietly, "but I prefer to think thatjust nowyou are not

accountable for your actions." He stopped again before her. "Your mind is unhinged," he said, with unction.

"To go now would be adding crimeyes, crimeto folly. I'll have no scandal in my life, no matter what's

the cost. And why? You are sure to misunderstand mebut I'll tell you. As a matter of duty. Yes. But you're

sure to misunderstand merecklessly. Women always dothey are tootoo narrowminded."

He waited for a while, but she made no sound, didn't even look at him; he felt uneasy, painfully uneasy, like a

man who suspects he is unreasonably mistrusted. To combat that exasperating sensation he recommenced

talking very fast. The sound of his words excited his thoughts, and in the play of darting thoughts he had

glimpses now and then of the inexpugnable rock of his convictions, towering in solitary grandeur above the

"For it is selfevident," he went on with anxious vivacity, "it is selfevident that, on the highest ground we

haven't the rightno, we haven't the right to intrude our miseries upon those whowho naturally expect

better things from us. Every one wishes his own life and the life around him to be beautiful and pure. Now, a

scandal amongst people of our position is disastrous for the moralitya fatal influencedon't you

seeupon the general tone of the classvery importantthe most important, I verily believe, inin the

community. I feel thisprofoundly. This is the broad view. In time you'll give me . . . when you become

He stopped short, as though unexpectedly suffocated, then in a completely changed voice said, "For I did love

and trust you"and again was silent for a moment. She put her handkerchief to her eyes.

"You'll give me credit forformy motives. It's mainly loyalty toto the larger conditions of our

lifewhere youyou! of all womenfailed. One doesn't usually talk like thisof coursebut in this case

you'll admit . . . And considerthe innocent suffer with the guilty. The world is pitiless in its judgments.

Unfortunately there are always those in it who are only too eager to misunderstand. Before you and before

my conscience I am guiltless, but anyany disclosure would impair my usefulness in the spherein the

larger sphere in which I hope soon to . . . I believe you fully shared my views in that matterI don't want to

say any more . . . onon that pointbut, believe me, true unselfishness is to bear one's burdens inin

silence. The ideal mustmust be preservedfor others, at least. It's clear as daylight. If I've aa loathsome

sore, to gratuitously display it would be abominableabominable! And often in lifein the highest

conception of lifeoutspokenness in certain circumstances is nothing less than criminal. Temptation, you

know, excuses no one. There is no such thing really if one looks steadily to one's welfarewhich is

grounded in duty. But there are the weak." . . . His tone became ferocious for an instant . . . "And there are the

fools and the enviousespecially for people in our position. I am guiltless of this terribleterrible . . .

estrangement; but if there has been nothing irreparable." . . . Something gloomy, like a deep shadow passed

over his face. . . . "Nothing irreparableyou see even now I am ready to trust you implicitlythen our duty

He looked down. A change came over his expression and straightway from the outward impetus of his

loquacity he passed into the dull contemplation of all the appeasing truths that, not without some wonder, he

had so recently been able to discover within himself. During this profound and soothing communion with his

innermost beliefs he remained staring at the carpet, with a portentously solemn face and with a dull vacuity of

eyes that seemed to gaze into the blankness of an empty hole. Then, without stirring in the least, he

"Yes. Perfectly clear. I've been tried to the utmost, and I can't pretend that, for a time, the old feelingsthe

She made a slight movement without uncovering her eyes. In his profound scrutiny of the carpet he noticed

nothing. And there was silence, silence within and silence without, as though his words had stilled the beat

and tremor of all the surrounding life, and the house had stood alonethe only dwelling upon a deserted

He heard a laugh, and it not only interrupted his words but also destroyed the peace of his selfabsorption

with the vile pain of a reality intruding upon the beauty of a dream. He couldn't understand whence the sound

came. He could see, foreshortened, the tearstained, dolorous face of the woman stretched out, and with her

head thrown over the back of the seat. He thought the piercing noise was a delusion. But another shrill peal

followed by a deep sob and succeeded by another shriek of mirth positively seemed to tear him out from

where he stood. He bounded to the door. It was closed. He turned the key and thought: that's no good. . . .

"Stop this!" he cried, and perceived with alarm that he could hardly hear his own voice in the midst of her

screaming. He darted back with the idea of stifling that unbearable noise with his hands, but stood still

distracted, finding himself as unable to touch her as though she had been on fire. He shouted, "Enough of

this!" like men shout in the tumult of a riot, with a red face and starting eyes; then, as if swept away before

another burst of laughter, he disappeared in a flash out of three lookingglasses, vanished suddenly from

before her. For a time the woman gasped and laughed at no one in the luminous stillness of the empty room.

He reappeared, striding at her, and with a tumbler of water in his hand. He stammered:

"HystericsStopThey will hearDrink this." She laughed at the ceiling. "Stop this!" he cried. "Ah!"

He flung the water in her face, putting into the action all the secret brutality of his spite, yet still felt that it

would have been perfectly excusablein any oneto send the tumbler after the water. He restrained

himself, but at the same time was so convinced nothing could stop the horror of those mad shrieks that, when

the first sensation of relief came, it did not even occur to him to doubt the impression of having become

suddenly deaf. When, next moment, he became sure that she was sitting up, and really very quiet, it was as

though everythingmen, things, sensations, had come to a rest. He was prepared to be grateful. He could not

take his eyes off her, fearing, yet unwilling to admit, the possibility of her beginning again; for, the

experience, however contemptuously he tried to think of it, had left the bewilderment of a mysterious terror.

Her face was streaming with water and tears; there was a wisp of hair on her forehead, another stuck to her

cheek; her hat was on one side, undecorously tilted; her soaked veil resembled a sordid rag festooning her

forehead. There was an utter unreserve in her aspect, an abandonment of safeguards, that ugliness of truth

which can only be kept out of daily life by unremitting care for appearances. He did not know why, looking

at her, he thought suddenly of tomorrow, and why the thought called out a deep feeling of unutterable,

discouraged wearinessa fear of facing the succession of days. Tomorrow! It was as far as yesterday. Ages

elapsed between sunrisessometimes. He scanned her features like one looks at a forgotten country. They

were not distortedhe recognized landmarks, so to speak; but it was only a resemblance that he could see,

not the woman of yesterdayor was it, perhaps, more than the woman of yesterday? Who could tell? Was it

something new? A new expressionor a new shade of expression? or something deepan old truth

unveiled, a fundamental and hidden truthsome unnecessary, accursed certitude? He became aware that he

was trembling very much, that he had an empty tumbler in his handthat time was passing. Still looking at

her with lingering mistrust he reached towards the table to put the glass down and was startled to feel it

apparently go through the wood. He had missed the edge. The surprise, the slight jingling noise of the

"You're not going to be absurd again," he said. "'Pon my soul, I did not know you could forget yourself to

that extent." He didn't try to conceal his physical disgust, because he believed it to be a purely moral

reprobation of every unreserve, of anything in the nature of a scene. "I assure youit was revolting," he went

on. He stared for a moment at her. "Positively degrading," he added with insistence.

She stood up quickly as if moved by a spring and tottered. He started forward instinctively. She caught hold

of the back of the chair and steadied herself. This arrested him, and they faced each other wideeyed,

uncertain, and yet coming back slowly to the reality of things with relief and wonder, as though just

"Pray, don't begin again," he said, hurriedly, seeing her open her lips. "I deserve some little

considerationand such unaccountable behaviour is painful to me. I expect better things. . . . I have the

"Oh, nonsense!" he said, sharply. "You are perfectly capable of coming down to dinner. No one should even

She dropped her arms; her face twitched. She looked straight into his eyes and seemed incapable of

"Iwishit," he said, tyrannically. "For your own sake also. . . ." He meant to carry that point without any

pity. Why didn't she speak? He feared passive resistance. She must. . . . Make her come. His frown deepened,

and he began to think of some effectual violence, when most unexpectedly she said in a firm voice, "Yes, I

can," and clutched the chairback again. He was relieved, and all at once her attitude ceased to interest him.

The important thing was that their life would begin again with an everyday actwith something that could

not be misunderstood, that, thank God, had no moral meaning, no perplexity and yet was symbolic of their

uninterrupted communion in the pastin all the future. That morning, at that table, they had breakfast

together; and now they would dine. It was all over! What had happened between could be forgottenmust

"I will wait for you," he said, going to the door. He had some difficulty with it, for he did not remember he

had turned the key. He hated that delay, and his checked impatience to be gone out of the room made him feel

quite ill as, with the consciousness of her presence behind his back, he fumbled at the lock. He managed it at

last; then in the doorway he glanced over his shoulder to say, "It's rather lateyou know" and saw her

standing where he had left her, with a face white as alabaster and perfectly still, like a woman in a trance.

He was afraid she would keep him waiting, but without any breathing time, he hardly knew how, he found

himself sitting at table with her. He had made up his mind to eat, to talk, to be natural. It seemed to him

necessary that deception should begin at home. The servants must not knowmust not suspect. This intense

desire of secrecy; of secrecy dark, destroying, profound, discreet like a grave, possessed him with the strength

of a hallucinationseemed to spread itself to inanimate objects that had been the daily companions of his

life, affected with a taint of enmity every single thing within the faithful walls that would stand forever

between the shamelessness of facts and the indignation of mankind. Even whenas it happened once or

twiceboth the servants left the room together he remained carefully natural, industriously hungry,

laboriously at his ease, as though he had wanted to cheat the black oak sideboard, the heavy curtains, the

stiffbacked chairs, into the belief of an unstained happiness. He was mistrustful of his wife's selfcontrol,

unwilling to look at her and reluctant to speak, for it seemed to him inconceivable that she should not betray

herself by the slightest movement, by the very first word spoken. Then he thought the silence in the room was

becoming dangerous, and so excessive as to produce the effect of an intolerable uproar. He wanted to end it,

as one is anxious to interrupt an indiscreet confession; but with the memory of that laugh upstairs he dared

not give her an occasion to open her lips. Presently he heard her voice pronouncing in a calm tone some

unimportant remark. He detached his eyes from the centre of his plate and felt excited as if on the point of

looking at a wonder. And nothing could be more wonderful than her composure. He was looking at the

candid eyes, at the pure brow, at what he had seen every evening for years in that place; he listened to the

voice that for five years he had heard every day. Perhaps she was a little palebut a healthy pallor had

always been for him one of her chief attractions. Perhaps her face was rigidly setbut that marmoreal

impassiveness, that magnificent stolidity, as of a wonderful statue by some great sculptor working under the

curse of the gods; that imposing, unthinking stillness of her features, had till then mirrored for him the

tranquil dignity of a soul of which he had thought himselfas a matter of coursethe inexpugnable

possessor. Those were the outward signs of her difference from the ignoble herd that feels, suffers, fails,

errsbut has no distinct value in the world except as a moral contrast to the prosperity of the elect. He had

been proud of her appearance. It had the perfectly proper frankness of perfectionand now he was shocked

to see it unchanged. She looked like this, spoke like this, exactly like this, a year ago, a month agoonly

yesterday when she. . . . What went on within made no difference. What did she think? What meant the

pallor, the placid face, the candid brow, the pure eyes? What did she think during all these years? What did

she think yesterdaytoday; what would she think tomorrow? He must find out. . . . And yet how could he

get to know? She had been false to him, to that man, to herself; she was ready to be falsefor him. Always

false. She looked lies, breathed lies, lived lieswould tell liesalwaysto the end of life! And he would

He dropped his knife and fork, brusquely, as though by the virtue of a sudden illumination he had been made

aware of poison in his plate, and became positive in his mind that he could never swallow another morsel of

food as long as he lived. The dinner went on in a room that had been steadily growing, from some cause,

hotter than a furnace. He had to drink. He drank time after time, and, at last, recollecting himself, was

frightened at the quantity, till he perceived that what he had been drinking was waterout of two different

wine glasses; and the discovered unconsciousness of his actions affected him painfully. He was disturbed to

find himself in such an unhealthy state of mind. Excess of feelingexcess of feeling; and it was part of his

creed that any excess of feeling was unhealthymorally unprofitable; a taint on practical manhood. Her

fault. Entirely her fault. Her sinful selfforgetfulness was contagious. It made him think thoughts he had

never had before; thoughts disintegrating, tormenting, sapping to the very core of lifelike mortal disease;

thoughts that bred the fear of air, of sunshine, of menlike the whispered news of a pestilence.

The maids served without noise; and to avoid looking at his wife and looking within himself, he followed

with his eyes first one and then the other without being able to distinguish between them. They moved

silently about, without one being able to see by what means, for their skirts touched the carpet all round; they

glided here and there, receded, approached, rigid in black and white, with precise gestures, and no life in their

faces, like a pair of marionettes in mourning; and their air of wooden unconcern struck him as unnatural,

suspicious, irremediably hostile. That such people's feelings or judgment could affect one in any way, had

never occurred to him before. He understood they had no prospects, no principlesno refinement and no

power. But now he had become so debased that he could not even attempt to disguise from himself his

yearning to know the secret thoughts of his servants. Several times he looked up covertly at the faces of those

girls. Impossible to know. They changed his plates and utterly ignored his existence. What impenetrable

duplicity. Womennothing but women round him. Impossible to know. He experienced that heartprobing,

fiery sense of dangerous loneliness, which sometimes assails the courage of a solitary adventurer in an

unexplored country. The sight of a man's facehe feltof any man's face, would have been a profound

relief. One would know thensomethingcould understand. . . . He would engage a butler as soon as

possible. And then the end of that dinnerwhich had seemed to have been going on for hoursthe end

came, taking him violently by surprise, as though he had expected in the natural course of events to sit at that

But upstairs in the drawingroom he became the victim of a restless fate, that would, on no account, permit

him to sit down. She had sunk on a low easychair, and taking up from a small table at her elbow a fan with

ivory leaves, shaded her face from the fire. The coals glowed without a flame; and upon the red glow the

vertical bars of the grate stood out at her feet, black and curved, like the charred ribs of a consumed sacrifice.

Far off, a lamp perched on a slim brass rod, burned under a wide shade of crimson silk: the centre, within the

shadows of the large room, of a fiery twilight that had in the warm quality of its tint something delicate,

refined and infernal. His soft footfalls and the subdued beat of the clock on the high mantelpiece answered

each other regularlyas if time and himself, engaged in a measured contest, had been pacing together

He walked from one end of the room to the other without a pause, like a traveller who, at night, hastens

doggedly upon an interminable journey. Now and then he glanced at her. Impossible to know. The gross

precision of that thought expressed to his practical mind something illimitable and infinitely profound, the

allembracing subtlety of a feeling, the eternal origin of his pain. This woman had accepted him, had

abandoned himhad returned to him. And of all this he would never know the truth. Never. Not till

deathnot afternot on judgment day when all shall be disclosed, thoughts and deeds, rewards and

punishments, but the secret of hearts alone shall return, forever unknown, to the Inscrutable Creator of good

He stood still to look at her. Thrown back and with her face turned away from him, she did not stiras if

asleep. What did she think? What did she feel? And in the presence of her perfect stillness, in the breathless

silence, he felt himself insignificant and powerless before her, like a prisoner in chains. The fury of his

impotence called out sinister images, that faculty of tormenting vision, which in a moment of anguishing

sense of wrong induces a man to mutter threats or make a menacing gesture in the solitude of an empty room.

But the gust of passion passed at once, left him trembling a little, with the wondering, reflective fear of a man

who has paused on the very verge of suicide. The serenity of truth and the peace of death can be only secured

through a largeness of contempt embracing all the profitable servitudes of life. He found he did not want to

know. Better not. It was all over. It was as if it hadn't been. And it was very necessary for both of them, it was

"I'll never forget," she said in a vibrating voice. "And I'll never forgive myself. . . ."

"But I, who have nothing to reproach myself . . ." He began, making a step towards her. She jumped up.

"I did not come back for your forgiveness," she exclaimed, passionately, as if clamouring against an unjust

He only said "oh!" and became silent. He could not understand this unprovoked aggressiveness of her

attitude, and certainly was very far from thinking that an unpremeditated hint of something resembling

emotion in the tone of his last words had caused that uncontrollable burst of sincerity. It completed his

bewilderment, but he was not at all angry now. He was as if benumbed by the fascination of the

incomprehensible. She stood before him, tall and indistinct, like a black phantom in the red twilight. At last

poignantly uncertain as to what would happen if he opened his lips, he muttered:

He heard something snap loudly in the fiery stillness. She had broken her fan. Two thin pieces of ivory fell,

one after another, without a sound, on the thick carpet, and instinctively he stooped to pick them up. While he

groped at her feet it occurred to him that the woman there had in her hands an indispensable gift which

nothing else on earth could give; and when he stood up he was penetrated by an irresistible belief in an

enigma, by the conviction that within his reach and passing away from him was the very secret of

existenceits certitude, immaterial and precious! She moved to the door, and he followed at her elbow,

casting about for a magic word that would make the enigma clear, that would compel the surrender of the

gift. And there is no such word! The enigma is only made clear by sacrifice, and the gift of heaven is in the

hands of every man. But they had lived in a world that abhors enigmas, and cares for no gifts but such as can

She stopped for an almost imperceptible moment to give him an indignant glance, and then moved on. That

feminine penetrationso clever and so tainted by the eternal instinct of selfdefence, so ready to see an

obvious evil in everything it cannot understandfilled her with bitter resentment against both the men who

could offer to the spiritual and tragic strife of her feelings nothing but the coarseness of their abominable

materialism. In her anger against her own ineffectual selfdeception she found hate enough for them both.

What did they want? What more did this one want? And as her husband faced her again, with his hand on the

doorhandle, she asked herself whether he was unpardonably stupid, or simply ignoble.

"You are deceiving yourself. You never loved me. You wanted a wifesome womanany woman that

would think, speak, and behave in a certain wayin a way you approved. You loved yourself."

"If I had believed you loved me," she began, passionately, then drew in a long breath; and during that pause

he heard the steady beat of blood in his ears. "If I had believed it . . . I would never have come back," she

He stood looking down as though he had not heard. She waited. After a moment he opened the door, and, on

the landing, the sightless woman of marble appeared, draped to the chin, thrusting blindly at them a cluster of

He seemed to have forgotten himself in a meditation so deep that on the point of going out she stopped to

look at him in surprise. While she had been speaking he had wandered on the track of the enigma, out of the

world of senses into the region of feeling. What did it matter what she had done, what she had said, if through

the pain of her acts and words he had obtained the word of the enigma! There can be no life without faith and

lovefaith in a human heart, love of a human being! That touch of grace, whose help once in life is the

privilege of the most undeserving, flung open for him the portals of beyond, and in contemplating there the

certitude immaterial and precious he forgot all the meaningless accidents of existence: the bliss of getting, the

delight of enjoying; all the protean and enticing forms of the cupidity that rules a material world of foolish

joys, of contemptible sorrows. Faith!Love!the undoubting, clear faith in the truth of a soulthe great

tenderness, deep as the ocean, serene and eternal, like the infinite peace of space above the short tempests of

the earth. It was what he had wanted all his lifebut he understood it only then for the first time. It was

through the pain of losing her that the knowledge had come. She had the gift! She had the gift! And in all the

world she was the only human being that could surrender it to his immense desire. He made a step forward,

putting his arms out, as if to take her to his breast, and, lifting his head, was met by such a look of blank

consternation that his arms fell as though they had been struck down by a blow. She started away from him,

stumbled over the threshold, and once on the landing turned, swift and crouching. The train of her gown

swished as it flew round her feet. It was an undisguised panic. She panted, showing her teeth, and the hate of

strength, the disdain of weakness, the eternal preoccupation of sex came out like a toy demon out of a box.

He did not stir; but her look, her agitated movements, the sound of her voice were like a mist of facts

thickening between him and the vision of love and faith. It vanished; and looking at that face triumphant and

scornful, at that white face, stealthy and unexpected, as if discovered staring from an ambush, he was coming

back slowly to the world of senses. His first clear thought was: I am married to that woman; and the next: she

will give nothing but what I see. He felt the need not to see. But the memory of the vision, the memory that

abides forever within the seer made him say to her with the naive austerity of a convert awed by the touch of

a new creed, "You haven't the gift." He turned his back on her, leaving her completely mystified. And she

went upstairs slowly, struggling with a distasteful suspicion of having been confronted by something more

subtle than herselfmore profound than the misunderstood and tragic contest of her feelings.

He shut the door of the drawingroom and moved at hazard, alone amongst the heavy shadows and in the

fiery twilight as of an elegant place of perdition. She hadn't the giftno one had. . . . He stepped on a book

that had fallen off one of the crowded little tables. He picked up the slender volume, and holding it,

approached the crimsonshaded lamp. The fiery tint deepened on the cover, and contorted gold letters

sprawling all over it in an intricate maze, came out, gleaming redly. "Thorns and Arabesques." He read it

twice, "Thorns and Ar . . . . . . . ." The other's book of verses. He dropped it at his feet, but did not feel the

slightest pang of jealousy or indignation. What did he know? . . . What? . . . The mass of hot coals tumbled

down in the grate, and he turned to look at them . . . Ah! That one was ready to give up everything he had for

that woman who did not comewho had not the faith, the love, the courage to come. What did that man

expect, what did he hope, what did he want? The womanor the certitude immaterial and precious! The first

unselfish thought he had ever given to any human being was for that man who had tried to do him a terrible

wrong. He was not angry. He was saddened by an impersonal sorrow, by a vast melancholy as of all mankind

longing for what cannot be attained. He felt his fellowship with every maneven with that manespecially

with that man. What did he think now? Had he ceased to waitand hope? Would he ever cease to wait and

hope? Would he understand that the woman, who had no courage, had not the gifthad not the gift!

The clock began to strike, and the deeptoned vibration filled the room as though with the sound of an

enormous bell tolling far away. He counted the strokes. Twelve. Another day had begun. Tomorrow had

come; the mysterious and lying tomorrow that lures men, disdainful of love and faith, on and on through the

poignant futilities of life to the fitting reward of a grave. He counted the strokes, and gazing at the grate

When outside he heard footsteps in the hall and stood still. A bolt was shotthen another. They were locking

upshutting out his desire and his deception from the indignant criticism of a world full of noble gifts for

those who proclaim themselves without stain and without reproach. He was safe; and on all sides of his

dwelling servile fears and servile hopes slept, dreaming of success, behind the severe discretion of doors as

impenetrable to the truth within as the granite of tombstones. A lock snappeda short chain rattled. Nobody

Why was this assurance of safety heavier than a burden of fear, and why the day that began presented itself

obstinately like the last day of alllike a today without a tomorrow? Yet nothing was changed, for

nobody would know; and all would go on as beforethe getting, the enjoying, the blessing of hunger that is

appeased every day; the noble incentives of unappeasable ambitions. Allall the blessings of life. Allbut

the certitude immaterial and preciousthe certitude of love and faith. He believed the shadow of it had been

with him as long as he could remember; that invisible presence had ruled his life. And now the shadow had

appeared and faded he could not extinguish his longing for the truth of its substance. His desire of it was

naive; it was masterful like the material aspirations that are the groundwork of existence, but, unlike these, it

was unconquerable. It was the subtle despotism of an idea that suffers no rivals, that is lonely, inconsolable,

and dangerous. He went slowly up the stairs. Nobody shall know. The days would go on and he would go

farvery far. If the idea could not be mastered, fortune could be, man could bethe whole world. He was

dazzled by the greatness of the prospect; the brutality of a practical instinct shouted to him that only that

which could be had was worth having. He lingered on the steps. The lights were out in the hall, and a small

yellow flame flitted about down there. He felt a sudden contempt for himself which braced him up. He went

on, but at the door of their room and with his arm advanced to open it, he faltered. On the flight of stairs

below the head of the girl who had been locking up appeared. His arm fell. He thought, "I'll wait till she is

He saw her come up gradually, as if ascending from a well. At every step the feeble flame of the candle

swayed before her tired, young face, and the darkness of the hall seemed to cling to her black skirt, followed

her, rising like a silent flood, as though the great night of the world had broken through the discreet reserve of

walls, of closed doors, of curtained windows. It rose over the steps, it leaped up the walls like an angry wave,

it flowed over the blue skies, over the yellow sands, over the sunshine of landscapes, and over the pretty

pathos of ragged innocence and of meek starvation. It swallowed up the delicious idyll in a boat and the

mutilated immortality of famous basreliefs. It flowed from outsideit rose higher, in a destructive silence.

And, above it, the woman of marble, composed and blind on the high pedestal, seemed to ward off the

He watched the rising tide of impenetrable gloom with impatience, as if anxious for the coming of a darkness

black enough to conceal a shameful surrender. It came nearer. The cluster of lights went out. The girl

ascended facing him. Behind her the shadow of a colossal woman danced lightly on the wall. He held his

breath while she passed by, noiseless and with heavy eyelids. And on her track the flowing tide of a tenebrous

sea filled the house, seemed to swirl about his feet, and rising unchecked, closed silently above his head.

The time had come but he did not open the door. All was still; and instead of surrendering to the reasonable

exigencies of life he stepped out, with a rebelling heart, into the darkness of the house. It was the abode of an

impenetrable night; as though indeed the last day had come and gone, leaving him alone in a darkness that

has no tomorrow. And looming vaguely below the woman of marble, livid and still like a patient phantom,

His obedient thought traced for him the image of an uninterrupted life, the dignity and the advantages of an

uninterrupted success; while his rebellious heart beat violently within his breast, as if maddened by the desire

of a certitude immaterial and preciousthe certitude of love and faith. What of the night within his dwelling

if outside he could find the sunshine in which men sow, in which men reap! Nobody would know. The days,

the years would pass, and . . . He remembered that he had loved her. The years would pass . . . And then he

thought of her as we think of the deadin a tender immensity of regret, in a passionate longing for the return

of idealized perfections. He had loved herhe had loved herand he never knew the truth . . . The years

would pass in the anguish of doubt . . . He remembered her smile, her eyes, her voice, her silence, as though

he had lost her forever. The years would pass and he would always mistrust her smile, suspect her eyes; he

would always misbelieve her voice, he would never have faith in her silence. She had no giftshe had no

gift! What was she? Who was she? . . . The years would pass; the memory of this hour would grow

faintand she would share the material serenity of an unblemished life. She had no love and no faith for any

one. To give her your thought, your belief, was like whispering your confession over the edge of the world.

In the pain of that thought was born his conscience; not that fear of remorse which grows slowly, and slowly

decays amongst the complicated facts of life, but a Divine wisdom springing fullgrown, armed and severe

out of a tried heart, to combat the secret baseness of motives. It came to him in a flash that morality is not a

method of happiness. The revelation was terrible. He saw at once that nothing of what he knew mattered in

the least. The acts of men and women, success, humiliation, dignity, failurenothing mattered. It was not a

question of more or less pain, of this joy, of that sorrow. It was a question of truth or falsehoodit was a

He stood in the revealing nightin the darkness that tries the hearts, in the night useless for the work of men,

but in which their gaze, undazzled by the sunshine of covetous days, wanders sometimes as far as the stars.

The perfect stillness around him had something solemn in it, but he felt it was the lying solemnity of a temple

devoted to the rites of a debasing persuasion. The silence within the discreet walls was eloquent of safety but

it appeared to him exciting and sinister, like the discretion of a profitable infamy; it was the prudent peace of

a den of coinersof a house of illfame! The years would passand nobody would know. Never! Not till

And he hesitated. The secret of hearts, too terrible for the timid eyes of men, shall return, veiled forever, to

the Inscrutable Creator of good and evil, to the Master of doubts and impulses. His conscience was bornhe

heard its voice, and he hesitated, ignoring the strength within, the fateful power, the secret of his heart! It was

an awful sacrifice to cast all one's life into the flame of a new belief. He wanted help against himself, against

the cruel decree of salvation. The need of tacit complicity, where it had never failed him, the habit of years

affirmed itself. Perhaps she would help . . . He flung the door open and rushed in like a fugitive.

He was in the middle of the room before he could see anything but the dazzling brilliance of the light; and

then, as if detached and floating in it on the level of his eyes, appeared the head of a woman. She had jumped

For a moment they contemplated each other as if struck dumb with amazement. Her hair streaming on her

shoulders glinted like burnished gold. He looked into the unfathomable candour of her eyes. Nothing

On the candid light of the eyes flitted shadows; shadows of doubt, of suspicion, the ready suspicion of an

unquenchable antagonism, the pitiless mistrust of an eternal instinct of defence; the hate, the profound,

frightened hate of an incomprehensibleof an abominable emotion intruding its coarse materialism upon the

"Alvan . . . I won't bear this . . ." She began to pant suddenly, "I've a righta right totomyself . . ."

He lifted one arm, and appeared so menacing that she stopped in a fright and shrank back a little.

He stood with uplifted hand . . . The years would passand he would have to live with that unfathomable

candour where flit shadows of suspicions and hate . . . The years would passand he would never

"Can you stand it?" he shouted, as though she could have heard all his thoughts.

He looked menacing. She thought of violence, of dangerand, just for an instant, she doubted whether there

were splendours enough on earth to pay the price of such a brutal experience. He cried again:

"Can you stand it?" and glared as if insane. Her eyes blazed, too. She could not hear the appalling clamour of

his thoughts. She suspected in him a sudden regret, a fresh fit of jealousy, a dishonest desire of evasion. She

He was shaken where he stood as if by a struggle to break out of invisible bonds. She trembled from head to

"Well, I can't!" He flung both his arms out, as if to push her away, and strode from the room. The door swung

to with a click. She made three quick steps towards it and stood still, looking at the white and gold panels. No

sound came from beyond, not a whisper, not a sigh; not even a footstep was heard outside on the thick carpet.

It was as though no sooner gone he had suddenly expiredas though he had died there and his body had

vanished on the instant together with his soul. She listened, with parted lips and irresolute eyes. Then below,

far below her, as if in the entrails of the earth, a door slammed heavily; and the quiet house vibrated to it from

The white man, leaning with both arms over the roof of the little house in the stern of the boat, said to the

The Malay only grunted, and went on looking fixedly at the river. The white man rested his chin on his

crossed arms and gazed at the wake of the boat. At the end of the straight avenue of forests cut by the intense

glitter of the river, the sun appeared unclouded and dazzling, poised low over the water that shone smoothly

like a band of metal. The forests, sombre and dull, stood motionless and silent on each side of the broad

stream. At the foot of big, towering trees, trunkless nipa palms rose from the mud of the bank, in bunches of

leaves enormous and heavy, that hung unstirring over the brown swirl of eddies. In the stillness of the air

every tree, every leaf, every bough, every tendril of creeper and every petal of minute blossoms seemed to

have been bewitched into an immobility perfect and final. Nothing moved on the river but the eight paddles

that rose flashing regularly, dipped together with a single splash; while the steersman swept right and left

with a periodic and sudden flourish of his blade describing a glinting semicircle above his head. The

churnedup water frothed alongside with a confused murmur. And the white man's canoe, advancing

upstream in the shortlived disturbance of its own making, seemed to enter the portals of a land from which

The white man, turning his back upon the setting sun, looked along the empty and broad expanse of the

seareach. For the last three miles of its course the wandering, hesitating river, as if enticed irresistibly by the

freedom of an open horizon, flows straight into the sea, flows straight to the eastto the east that harbours

both light and darkness. Astern of the boat the repeated call of some bird, a cry discordant and feeble, skipped

along over the smooth water and lost itself, before it could reach the other shore, in the breathless silence of

The steersman dug his paddle into the stream, and held hard with stiffened arms, his body thrown forward.

The water gurgled aloud; and suddenly the long straight reach seemed to pivot on its centre, the forests swung

in a semicircle, and the slanting beams of sunset touched the broadside of the canoe with a fiery glow,

throwing the slender and distorted shadows of its crew upon the streaked glitter of the river. The white man

turned to look ahead. The course of the boat had been altered at rightangles to the stream, and the carved

dragonhead of its prow was pointing now at a gap in the fringing bushes of the bank. It glided through,

brushing the overhanging twigs, and disappeared from the river like some slim and amphibious creature

The narrow creek was like a ditch: tortuous, fabulously deep; filled with gloom under the thin strip of pure

and shining blue of the heaven. Immense trees soared up, invisible behind the festooned draperies of creepers.

Here and there, near the glistening blackness of the water, a twisted root of some tall tree showed amongst the

tracery of small ferns, black and dull, writhing and motionless, like an arrested snake. The short words of the

paddlers reverberated loudly between the thick and sombre walls of vegetation. Darkness oozed out from

between the trees, through the tangled maze of the creepers, from behind the great fantastic and unstirring

leaves; the darkness, mysterious and invincible; the darkness scented and poisonous of impenetrable forests.

The men poled in the shoaling water. The creek broadened, opening out into a wide sweep of a stagnant

lagoon. The forests receded from the marshy bank, leaving a level strip of bright green, reedy grass to frame

the reflected blueness of the sky. A fleecy pink cloud drifted high above, trailing the delicate colouring of its

image under the floating leaves and the silvery blossoms of the lotus. A little house, perched on high piles,

appeared black in the distance. Near it, two tall nibong palms, that seemed to have come out of the forests in

the background, leaned slightly over the ragged roof, with a suggestion of sad tenderness and care in the

The steersman, pointing with his paddle, said, "Arsat is there. I see his canoe fast between the piles."

The polers ran along the sides of the boat glancing over their shoulders at the end of the day's journey. They

would have preferred to spend the night somewhere else than on this lagoon of weird aspect and ghostly

reputation. Moreover, they disliked Arsat, first as a stranger, and also because he who repairs a ruined house,

and dwells in it, proclaims that he is not afraid to live amongst the spirits that haunt the places abandoned by

mankind. Such a man can disturb the course of fate by glances or words; while his familiar ghosts are not

easy to propitiate by casual wayfarers upon whom they long to wreak the malice of their human master.

White men care not for such things, being unbelievers and in league with the Father of Evil, who leads them

unharmed through the invisible dangers of this world. To the warnings of the righteous they oppose an

So they thought, throwing their weight on the end of their long poles. The big canoe glided on swiftly,

noiselessly, and smoothly, towards Arsat's clearing, till, in a great rattling of poles thrown down, and the loud

murmurs of "Allah be praised!" it came with a gentle knock against the crooked piles below the house.

The boatmen with uplifted faces shouted discordantly, "Arsat! O Arsat!" Nobody came. The white man began

to climb the rude ladder giving access to the bamboo platform before the house. The juragan of the boat said

He knelt on the edge of the platform to receive the bundle. Then the boat shoved off, and the white man,

standing up, confronted Arsat, who had come out through the low door of his hut. He was a man young,

powerful, with broad chest and muscular arms. He had nothing on but his sarong. His head was bare. His big,

soft eyes stared eagerly at the white man, but his voice and demeanour were composed as he asked, without

"No," said the visitor in a startled tone. "No. Why? Is there sickness in the house?"

"Enter and see," replied Arsat, in the same calm manner, and turning short round, passed again through the

In the dim light of the dwelling he made out on a couch of bamboos a woman stretched on her back under a

broad sheet of red cotton cloth. She lay still, as if dead; but her big eyes, wide open, glittered in the gloom,

staring upwards at the slender rafters, motionless and unseeing. She was in a high fever, and evidently

unconscious. Her cheeks were sunk slightly, her lips were partly open, and on the young face there was the

ominous and fixed expressionthe absorbed, contemplating expression of the unconscious who are going to

"I have not slept for five nights," answered the Malay, in a deliberate tone. "At first she heard voices calling

her from the water and struggled against me who held her. But since the sun of today rose she hears

"I fear so," said the white man, sorrowfully. He had known Arsat years ago, in a far country in times of

trouble and danger, when no friendship is to be despised. And since his Malay friend had come unexpectedly

to dwell in the hut on the lagoon with a strange woman, he had slept many times there, in his journeys up and

down the river. He liked the man who knew how to keep faith in council and how to fight without fear by the

side of his white friend. He liked himnot so much perhaps as a man likes his favourite dogbut still he

liked him well enough to help and ask no questions, to think sometimes vaguely and hazily in the midst of his

own pursuits, about the lonely man and the longhaired woman with audacious face and triumphant eyes,

The white man came out of the hut in time to see the enormous conflagration of sunset put out by the swift

and stealthy shadows that, rising like a black and impalpable vapour above the treetops, spread over the

heaven, extinguishing the crimson glow of floating clouds and the red brilliance of departing daylight. In a

few moments all the stars came out above the intense blackness of the earth and the great lagoon gleaming

suddenly with reflected lights resembled an oval patch of night sky flung down into the hopeless and abysmal

night of the wilderness. The white man had some supper out of the basket, then collecting a few sticks that

lay about the platform, made up a small fire, not for warmth, but for the sake of the smoke, which would keep

off the mosquitos. He wrapped himself in the blankets and sat with his back against the reed wall of the

Arsat came through the doorway with noiseless steps and squatted down by the fire. The white man moved

"She breathes," said Arsat in a low voice, anticipating the expected question. "She breathes and burns as if

"No, Tuan," said Arsat, calmly. "If such is my fate. I hear, I see, I wait. I remember . . . Tuan, do you

"Yes," said the white man. The Malay rose suddenly and went in. The other, sitting still outside, could hear

the voice in the hut. Arsat said: "Hear me! Speak!" His words were succeeded by a complete silence. "O

Diamelen!" he cried, suddenly. After that cry there was a deep sigh. Arsat came out and sank down again in

They sat in silence before the fire. There was no sound within the house, there was no sound near them; but

far away on the lagoon they could hear the voices of the boatmen ringing fitful and distinct on the calm water.

The fire in the bows of the sampan shone faintly in the distance with a hazy red glow. Then it died out. The

voices ceased. The land and the water slept invisible, unstirring and mute. It was as though there had been

nothing left in the world but the glitter of stars streaming, ceaseless and vain, through the black stillness of

The white man gazed straight before him into the darkness with wideopen eyes. The fear and fascination,

the inspiration and the wonder of deathof death near, unavoidable, and unseen, soothed the unrest of his

race and stirred the most indistinct, the most intimate of his thoughts. The everready suspicion of evil, the

gnawing suspicion that lurks in our hearts, flowed out into the stillness round himinto the stillness

profound and dumb, and made it appear untrustworthy and infamous, like the placid and impenetrable mask

of an unjustifiable violence. In that fleeting and powerful disturbance of his being the earth enfolded in the

starlight peace became a shadowy country of inhuman strife, a battlefield of phantoms terrible and

charming, august or ignoble, struggling ardently for the possession of our helpless hearts. An unquiet and

A plaintive murmur rose in the night; a murmur saddening and startling, as if the great solitudes of

surrounding woods had tried to whisper into his ear the wisdom of their immense and lofty indifference.

Sounds hesitating and vague floated in the air round him, shaped themselves slowly into words; and at last

flowed on gently in a murmuring stream of soft and monotonous sentences. He stirred like a man waking up

and changed his position slightly. Arsat, motionless and shadowy, sitting with bowed head under the stars,

". . . for where can we lay down the heaviness of our trouble but in a friend's heart? A man must speak of war

and of love. You, Tuan, know what war is, and you have seen me in time of danger seek death as other men

seek life! A writing may be lost; a lie may be written; but what the eye has seen is truth and remains in the

"I remember," said the white man, quietly. Arsat went on with mournful composure

"Therefore I shall speak to you of love. Speak in the night. Speak before both night and love are goneand

the eye of day looks upon my sorrow and my shame; upon my blackened face; upon my burntup heart."

A sigh, short and faint, marked an almost imperceptible pause, and then his words flowed on, without a stir,

"After the time of trouble and war was over and you went away from my country in the pursuit of your

desires, which we, men of the islands, cannot understand, I and my brother became again, as we had been

before, the swordbearers of the Ruler. You know we were men of family, belonging to a ruling race, and

more fit than any to carry on our right shoulder the emblem of power. And in the time of prosperity Si

Dendring showed us favour, as we, in time of sorrow, had showed to him the faithfulness of our courage. It

was a time of peace. A time of deerhunts and cockfights; of idle talks and foolish squabbles between men

whose bellies are full and weapons are rusty. But the sower watched the young riceshoots grow up without

fear, and the traders came and went, departed lean and returned fat into the river of peace. They brought

news, too. Brought lies and truth mixed together, so that no man knew when to rejoice and when to be sorry.

We heard from them about you also. They had seen you here and had seen you there. And I was glad to hear,

for I remembered the stirring times, and I always remembered you, Tuan, till the time came when my eyes

could see nothing in the past, because they had looked upon the one who is dying therein the house."

He stopped to exclaim in an intense whisper, "O Mara bahia! O Calamity!" then went on speaking a little

"There's no worse enemy and no better friend than a brother, Tuan, for one brother knows another, and in

perfect knowledge is strength for good or evil. I loved my brother. I went to him and told him that I could see

nothing but one face, hear nothing but one voice. He told me: 'Open your heart so that she can see what is in

itand wait. Patience is wisdom. Inchi Midah may die or our Ruler may throw off his fear of a woman!' . . .

I waited! . . . You remember the lady with the veiled face, Tuan, and the fear of our Ruler before her cunning

and temper. And if she wanted her servant, what could I do? But I fed the hunger of my heart on short

glances and stealthy words. I loitered on the path to the bathhouses in the daytime, and when the sun had

fallen behind the forest I crept along the jasmine hedges of the women's courtyard. Unseeing, we spoke to

one another through the scent of flowers, through the veil of leaves, through the blades of long grass that

stood still before our lips; so great was our prudence, so faint was the murmur of our great longing. The time

passed swiftly . . . and there were whispers amongst womenand our enemies watchedmy brother was

gloomy, and I began to think of killing and of a fierce death. . . . We are of a people who take what they

wantlike you whites. There is a time when a man should forget loyalty and respect. Might and authority

are given to rulers, but to all men is given love and strength and courage. My brother said, 'You shall take her

from their midst. We are two who are like one.' And I answered, 'Let it be soon, for I find no warmth in

sunlight that does not shine upon her.' Our time came when the Ruler and all the great people went to the

mouth of the river to fish by torchlight. There were hundreds of boats, and on the white sand, between the

water and the forests, dwellings of leaves were built for the households of the Rajahs. The smoke of

cookingfires was like a blue mist of the evening, and many voices rang in it joyfully. While they were

making the boats ready to beat up the fish, my brother came to me and said, 'Tonight!' I looked to my

weapons, and when the time came our canoe took its place in the circle of boats carrying the torches. The

lights blazed on the water, but behind the boats there was darkness. When the shouting began and the

excitement made them like mad we dropped out. The water swallowed our fire, and we floated back to the

shore that was dark with only here and there the glimmer of embers. We could hear the talk of slavegirls

amongst the sheds. Then we found a place deserted and silent. We waited there. She came. She came running

along the shore, rapid and leaving no trace, like a leaf driven by the wind into the sea. My brother said

gloomily, 'Go and take her; carry her into our boat.' I lifted her in my arms. She panted. Her heart was beating

against my breast. I said, 'I take you from those people. You came to the cry of my heart, but my arms take

you into my boat against the will of the great!' 'It is right,' said my brother. 'We are men who take what we

want and can hold it against many. We should have taken her in daylight.' I said, 'Let us be off'; for since she

was in my boat I began to think of our Ruler's many men. 'Yes. Let us be off,' said my brother. 'We are cast

out and this boat is our country nowand the sea is our refuge.' He lingered with his foot on the shore, and I

entreated him to hasten, for I remembered the strokes of her heart against my breast and thought that two men

cannot withstand a hundred. We left, paddling downstream close to the bank; and as we passed by the creek

where they were fishing, the great shouting had ceased, but the murmur of voices was loud like the humming

of insects flying at noonday. The boats floated, clustered together, in the red light of torches, under a black

roof of smoke; and men talked of their sport. Men that boasted, and praised, and jeeredmen that would

have been our friends in the morning, but on that night were already our enemies. We paddled swiftly past.

We had no more friends in the country of our birth. She sat in the middle of the canoe with covered face;

silent as she is now; unseeing as she is nowand I had no regret at what I was leaving because I could hear

He paused, listened with his ear turned to the doorway, then shook his head and went on:

"My brother wanted to shout the cry of challengeone cry onlyto let the people know we were freeborn

robbers who trusted our arms and the great sea. And again I begged him in the name of our love to be silent.

Could I not hear her breathing close to me? I knew the pursuit would come quick enough. My brother loved

me. He dipped his paddle without a splash. He only said, 'There is half a man in you nowthe other half is

in that woman. I can wait. When you are a whole man again, you will come back with me here to shout

defiance. We are sons of the same mother.' I made no answer. All my strength and all my spirit were in my

hands that held the paddlefor I longed to be with her in a safe place beyond the reach of men's anger and of

women's spite. My love was so great, that I thought it could guide me to a country where death was unknown,

if I could only escape from Inchi Midah's fury and from our Ruler's sword. We paddled with haste, breathing

through our teeth. The blades bit deep into the smooth water. We passed out of the river; we flew in clear

channels amongst the shallows. We skirted the black coast; we skirted the sand beaches where the sea speaks

in whispers to the land; and the gleam of white sand flashed back past our boat, so swiftly she ran upon the

water. We spoke not. Only once I said, 'Sleep, Diamelen, for soon you may want all your strength.' I heard

the sweetness of her voice, but I never turned my head. The sun rose and still we went on. Water fell from my

face like rain from a cloud. We flew in the light and heat. I never looked back, but I knew that my brother's

eyes, behind me, were looking steadily ahead, for the boat went as straight as a bushman's dart, when it

leaves the end of the sumpitan. There was no better paddler, no better steersman than my brother. Many

times, together, we had won races in that canoe. But we never had put out our strength as we did thenthen,

when for the last time we paddled together! There was no braver or stronger man in our country than my

brother. I could not spare the strength to turn my head and look at him, but every moment I heard the hiss of

his breath getting louder behind me. Still he did not speak. The sun was high. The heat clung to my back like

a flame of fire. My ribs were ready to burst, but I could no longer get enough air into my chest. And then I

felt I must cry out with my last breath, 'Let us rest!' . . . 'Good!' he answered; and his voice was firm. He was

A murmur powerful and gentle, a murmur vast and faint; the murmur of trembling leaves, of stirring boughs,

ran through the tangled depths of the forests, ran over the starry smoothness of the lagoon, and the water

between the piles lapped the slimy timber once with a sudden splash. A breath of warm air touched the two

men's faces and passed on with a mournful sounda breath loud and short like an uneasy sigh of the

"We ran our canoe on the white beach of a little bay close to a long tongue of land that seemed to bar our

road; a long wooded cape going far into the sea. My brother knew that place. Beyond the cape a river has its

entrance, and through the jungle of that land there is a narrow path. We made a fire and cooked rice. Then we

lay down to sleep on the soft sand in the shade of our canoe, while she watched. No sooner had I closed my

eyes than I heard her cry of alarm. We leaped up. The sun was halfway down the sky already, and coming in

sight in the opening of the bay we saw a prau manned by many paddlers. We knew it at once; it was one of

our Rajah's praus. They were watching the shore, and saw us. They beat the gong, and turned the head of the

prau into the bay. I felt my heart become weak within my breast. Diamelen sat on the sand and covered her

face. There was no escape by sea. My brother laughed. He had the gun you had given him, Tuan, before you

went away, but there was only a handful of powder. He spoke to me quickly: 'Run with her along the path. I

shall keep them back, for they have no firearms, and landing in the face of a man with a gun is certain death

for some. Run with her. On the other side of that wood there is a fisherman's houseand a canoe. When I

have fired all the shots I will follow. I am a great runner, and before they can come up we shall be gone. I will

hold out as long as I can, for she is but a womanthat can neither run nor fight, but she has your heart in her

weak hands.' He dropped behind the canoe. The prau was coming. She and I ran, and as we rushed along the

path I heard shots. My brother firedoncetwiceand the booming of the gong ceased. There was silence

behind us. That neck of land is narrow. Before I heard my brother fire the third shot I saw the shelving shore,

and I saw the water again; the mouth of a broad river. We crossed a grassy glade. We ran down to the water. I

saw a low hut above the black mud, and a small canoe hauled up. I heard another shot behind me. I thought,

'That is his last charge.' We rushed down to the canoe; a man came running from the hut, but I leaped on him,

and we rolled together in the mud. Then I got up, and he lay still at my feet. I don't know whether I had killed

him or not. I and Diamelen pushed the canoe afloat. I heard yells behind me, and I saw my brother run across

the glade. Many men were bounding after him, I took her in my arms and threw her into the boat, then leaped

in myself. When I looked back I saw that my brother had fallen. He fell and was up again, but the men were

closing round him. He shouted, 'I am coming!' The men were close to him. I looked. Many men. Then I

looked at her. Tuan, I pushed the canoe! I pushed it into deep water. She was kneeling forward looking at me,

and I said, 'Take your paddle,' while I struck the water with mine. Tuan, I heard him cry. I heard him cry my

name twice; and I heard voices shouting, 'Kill! Strike!' I never turned back. I heard him calling my name

again with a great shriek, as when life is going out together with the voiceand I never turned my head. My

own name! . . . My brother! Three times he calledbut I was not afraid of life. Was she not there in that

canoe? And could I not with her find a country where death is forgottenwhere death is unknown!"

The white man sat up. Arsat rose and stood, an indistinct and silent figure above the dying embers of the fire.

Over the lagoon a mist drifting and low had crept, erasing slowly the glittering images of the stars. And now

a great expanse of white vapour covered the land: it flowed cold and gray in the darkness, eddied in noiseless

whirls round the treetrunks and about the platform of the house, which seemed to float upon a restless and

impalpable illusion of a sea. Only far away the tops of the trees stood outlined on the twinkle of heaven, like

"I had her there! I had her! To get her I would have faced all mankind. But I had herand"

His words went out ringing into the empty distances. He paused, and seemed to listen to them dying away

A breath of wind made him shiver. High above his head, high above the silent sea of mist the drooping leaves

of the palms rattled together with a mournful and expiring sound. The white man stretched his legs. His chin

He seemed to hear a stir in the houselistenedthen stepped in noiselessly. The white man stood up. A

breeze was coming in fitful puffs. The stars shone paler as if they had retreated into the frozen depths of

immense space. After a chill gust of wind there were a few seconds of perfect calm and absolute silence.

Then from behind the black and wavy line of the forests a column of golden light shot up into the heavens

and spread over the semicircle of the eastern horizon. The sun had risen. The mist lifted, broke into drifting

patches, vanished into thin flying wreaths; and the unveiled lagoon lay, polished and black, in the heavy

shadows at the foot of the wall of trees. A white eagle rose over it with a slanting and ponderous flight,

reached the clear sunshine and appeared dazzlingly brilliant for a moment, then soaring higher, became a

dark and motionless speck before it vanished into the blue as if it had left the earth forever. The white man,

standing gazing upwards before the doorway, heard in the hut a confused and broken murmur of distracted

words ending with a loud groan. Suddenly Arsat stumbled out with outstretched hands, shivered, and stood

Before his face the sun showed its edge above the treetops rising steadily. The breeze freshened; a great

brilliance burst upon the lagoon, sparkled on the rippling water. The forests came out of the clear shadows of

the morning, became distinct, as if they had rushed nearerto stop short in a great stir of leaves, of nodding

boughs, of swaying branches. In the merciless sunshine the whisper of unconscious life grew louder,

speaking in an incomprehensible voice round the dumb darkness of that human sorrow. Arsat's eyes

"There is nothing," said the white man, moving to the edge of the platform and waving his hand to his boat. A

shout came faintly over the lagoon and the sampan began to glide towards the abode of the friend of ghosts.

"If you want to come with me, I will wait all the morning," said the white man, looking away upon the water.

"No, Tuan," said Arsat, softly. "I shall not eat or sleep in this house, but I must first see my road. Now I can

see nothingsee nothing! There is no light and no peace in the world; but there is deathdeath for many.

We are sons of the same motherand I left him in the midst of enemies; but I am going back now."

"In a little while I shall see clear enough to striketo strike. But she has died, and . . . now . . . darkness."

He flung his arms wide open, let them fall along his body, then stood still with unmoved face and stony eyes,

staring at the sun. The white man got down into his canoe. The polers ran smartly along the sides of the boat,

looking over their shoulders at the beginning of a weary journey. High in the stern, his head muffled up in

white rags, the juragan sat moody, letting his paddle trail in the water. The white man, leaning with both arms

over the grass roof of the little cabin, looked back at the shining ripple of the boat's wake. Before the sampan

passed out of the lagoon into the creek he lifted his eyes. Arsat had not moved. He stood lonely in the

searching sunshine; and he looked beyond the great light of a cloudless day into the darkness of a world of