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as immovably as though he had been the mouthpiece of abstract wisdom, but at this point he heightened the effect of detachment by beginning to twirl his thumbs slowly. ā€œItā€™s evidentā€”

parbleu!ā€ he continued; ā€œfor, make up your mind as much as you like, even a simple headache or a fit of indigestion (un derangement dā€™estomac) is enough to ā€¦ Take me, for instanceā€”I have made my proofs. Eh bien! I, who am speaking to you, once ā€¦ā€

 

ā€˜He drained his glass and returned to his twirling. ā€œNo, no; one does not die of it,ā€ he pronounced finally, and when I found he did not mean to proceed with the personal anecdote, I was extremely disappointed; the more so as it was not the sort of story, you know, one could very well press him for. I sat silent, and he too, as if nothing could please him better. Even his thumbs were still now.

Suddenly his lips began to move. ā€œThat is so,ā€ he resumed placidly.

ā€œMan is born a coward (Lā€™homme est ne poltron). It is a difficultyā€”

parbleu! It would be too easy other vise. But habitā€”habitā€”necessityā€”

do you see?ā€”the eye of othersā€”voila. One puts up with it.

And then the example of others who are no better than yourself, and yet make good countenanceā€¦ .ā€

 

ā€˜His voice ceased.

 

ā€˜ ā€œThat young manā€”you will observeā€”had none of these inducementsā€”at least at the moment,ā€ I remarked.

 

ā€˜He raised his eyebrows forgivingly: ā€œI donā€™t say; I donā€™t say.

The young man in question might have had the best dispositionsā€”

the best dispositions,ā€ he repeated, wheezing a little.

 

ā€˜ ā€œI am glad to see you taking a lenient view,ā€ I said. ā€œHis own feeling in the matter wasā€”ah!ā€”hopeful, and ā€¦ā€

 

ā€˜The shuffle of his feet under the table interrupted me. He drew up his heavy eyelids. Drew up, I sayā€”no other expression can describe the steady deliberation of the actā€”and at last was disclosed completely to me. I was confronted by two narrow grey circlets, like two tiny steel rings around the profound blackness of the pupils. The sharp glance, coming from that massive body, gave a notion of extreme efficiency, like a razor-edge on a battle-axe.

ā€œPardon,ā€ he said punctiliously. His right hand went up, and he swayed forward. ā€œAllow me ā€¦ I contended that one may get on knowing very well that oneā€™s courage does not come of itself (ne vient pas tout seul). Thereā€™s nothing much in that to get upset about. One truth the more ought not to make life impossibleā€¦ .

But the honourā€”the honour, monsieur! ā€¦ The honour ā€¦ that is realā€”that is! And what life may be worth whenā€ ā€¦ he got on his feet with a ponderous impetuosity, as a startled ox might scramble up from the grass ā€¦ ā€œwhen the honour is goneā€”ah ca! par exempleā€”I can offer no opinion. I can offer no opinionā€”becauseā€”

monsieurā€”I know nothing of it.ā€

 

ā€˜I had risen too, and, trying to throw infinite politeness into our attitudes, we faced each other mutely, like two china dogs on a mantelpiece. Hang the fellow! he had pricked the bubble. The blight of futility that lies in wait for menā€™s speeches had fallen upon our conversation, and made it a thing of empty sounds. ā€œVery well,ā€ I said, with a disconcerted smile; ā€œbut couldnā€™t it reduce itself to not being found out?ā€ He made as if to retort readily, but when he spoke he had changed his mind. ā€œThis, monsieur, is too fine for meā€”much above meā€”I donā€™t think about it.ā€ He bowed heavily over his cap, which he held before him by the peak, between the thumb and the forefinger of his wounded hand. I bowed too.

We bowed together: we scraped our feet at each other with much ceremony, while a dirty specimen of a waiter looked on critically, as though he had paid for the performance. ā€œServiteur,ā€ said the Frenchman. Another scrape. ā€œMonsieurā€ ā€¦ ā€œMonsieur.ā€ ā€¦

The glass door swung behind his burly back. I saw the southerly buster get hold of him and drive him down wind with his hand to his head, his shoulders braced, and the tails of his coat blown hard against his legs.

 

ā€˜I sat down again alone and discouragedā€”discouraged about Jimā€™s case. If you wonder that after more than three years it had preserved its actuality, you must know that I had seen him only very lately. I had come straight from Samarang, where I had loaded a cargo for Sydney: an utterly uninteresting bit of business,ā€”what Charley here would call one of my rational transactions,ā€”and in Samarang I had seen something of Jim. He was then working for De Jongh, on my recommendation. Water-clerk. ā€œMy representative afloat,ā€ as De Jongh called him. You canā€™t imagine a mode of life more barren of consolation, less capable of being invested with a spark of glamourā€”unless it be the business of an insurance canvasser.

Little Bob Stantonā€”Charley here knew him wellā€”had gone through that experience. The same who got drowned afterwards trying to save a ladyā€™s-maid in the Sephora disaster. A case of collision on a hazy morning off the Spanish coastā€”you may remember. All the passengers had been packed tidily into the boats and shoved clear of the ship, when Bob sheered alongside again and scrambled back on deck to fetch that girl. How she had been left behind I canā€™t make out; anyhow, she had gone completely crazyā€”wouldnā€™t leave the shipā€”held to the rail like grim death. The wrestling-match could be seen plainly from the boats; but poor Bob was the shortest chief mate in the merchant service, and the woman stood five feet ten in her shoes and was as strong as a horse, Iā€™ve been told. So it went on, pull devil, pull baker, the wretched girl screaming all the time, and Bob letting out a yell now and then to warn his boat to keep well clear of the ship.

One of the hands told me, hiding a smile at the recollection, ā€œIt was for all the world, sir, like a naughty youngster fighting with his mother.ā€ The same old chap said that ā€œAt the last we could see that Mr. Stanton had given up hauling at the gal, and just stood by looking at her, watchful like. We thought afterwards he mustā€™ve been reckoning that, maybe, the rush of water would tear her away from the rail by-and-by and give him a show to save her. We darenā€™t come alongside for our life; and after a bit the old ship went down all on a sudden with a lurch to starboardā€”plop. The suck in was something awful.

We never saw anything alive or dead come up.ā€ Poor Bobā€™s spell of shore-life had been one of the complications of a love affair, I believe. He fondly hoped he had done with the sea for ever, and made sure he had got hold of all the bliss on earth, but it came to canvassing in the end. Some cousin of his in Liverpool put up to it.

He used to tell us his experiences in that line. He made us laugh till we cried, and, not altogether displeased at the effect, undersized and bearded to the waist like a gnome, he would tiptoe amongst us and say, ā€œItā€™s all very well for you beggars to laugh, but my immortal soul was shrivelled down to the size of a parched pea after a week of that work.ā€

I donā€™t know how Jimā€™s soul accommodated itself to the new conditions of his lifeā€”I was kept too busy in getting him something to do that would keep body and soul togetherā€”but I am pretty certain his adventurous fancy was suffering all the pangs of starvation. It had certainly nothing to feed upon in this new calling. It was distressing to see him at it, though he tackled it with a stubborn serenity for which I must give him full credit. I kept my eye on his shabby plodding with a sort of notion that it was a punishment for the heroics of his fancyā€”an expiation for his craving after more glamour than he could carry. He had loved too well to imagine himself a glorious racehorse, and now he was condemned to toil without honour like a costermongerā€™s donkey. He did it very well. He shut himself in, put his head down, said never a word.

Very well; very well indeedā€”except for certain fantastic and violent outbreaks, on the deplorable occasions when the irrepressible Patna case cropped up. Unfortunately that scandal of the Eastern seas would not die out. And this is the reason why I could never feel I had done with Jim for good.

 

ā€˜I sat thinking of him after the French lieutenant had left, not, however, in connection with De Jonghā€™s cool and gloomy backshop, where we had hurriedly shaken hands not very long ago, but as I had seen him years before in the last flickers of the candle, alone with me in the long gallery of the Malabar House, with the chill and the darkness of the night at his back. The respectable sword of his countryā€™s law was suspended over his head. To-morrowā€”or was it to-day? (midnight had slipped by long before we parted)ā€”the marble-faced police magistrate, after distributing fines and terms of imprisonment in the assault-and-battery case, would take up the awful weapon and smite his bowed neck. Our communion in the night was uncommonly like a last vigil with a condemned man. He was guilty too. He was guiltyā€”as I had told myself repeatedly, guilty and done for; nevertheless, I wished to spare him the mere detail of a formal execution. I donā€™t pretend to explain the reasons of my desireā€”I donā€™t think I could; but if you havenā€™t got a sort of notion by this time, then I must have been very obscure in my narrative, or you too sleepy to seize upon the sense of my words. I donā€™t defend my morality. There was no morality in the impulse which induced me to lay before him Brierlyā€™s plan of evasionā€”I may call itā€”in all its primitive simplicity. There were the rupeesā€”

absolutely ready in my pocket and very much at his service. Oh! a loan; a loan of courseā€”and if an introduction to a man (in Rangoon) who could put some work in his way ā€¦ Why! with the greatest pleasure. I had pen, ink, and paper in my room on the first floor And even while I was speaking I was impatient to begin the letterā€”

day, month, year, 2.30 A.Mā€¦ . for the sake of our old friendship I ask you to put some work in the way of Mr. James So-and-so, in whom, &c., &cā€¦ . I was even ready to write in that strain about him. If he had not enlisted my sympathies he had done better for himselfā€”he had gone to the very fount and origin of that sentiment he had reached the secret sensibility of my egoism. I am concealing nothing from you, because were I to do so my action would appear more unintelligible than any manā€™s action has the right to be, andā€”

in the second placeā€”to-morrow you will forget my sincerity along with the other lessons of the past. In this transaction, to speak grossly and precisely, I was the irreproachable man; but the subtle intentions of my immorality were defeated by the moral simplicity of the criminal. No doubt he was selfish too, but his selfishness had a higher origin, a more lofty aim. I discovered that, say what I would, he was eager to go through the ceremony of execution, and I didnā€™t say much, for I felt that in argument his youth would tell against me heavily: he believed where I had already ceased to doubt.

There was something fine in the wildness of his unexpressed, hardly formulated hope.

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