The Gadfly - E. L. Voynich (phonics readers .txt) 📗
- Author: E. L. Voynich
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Surely the gods had loved him a little, and had let
him die young! Better a thousand times that he
should pass into utter nothingness than that he
should live and be the Gadfly—the Gadfly, with
his faultless neckties and his doubtful witticisms,
his bitter tongue and his ballet girl! No, no! It
was all a horrible, senseless fancy; and she had
vexed her heart with vain imaginings. Arthur
was dead.
“May I come in?” asked a soft voice at the
door.
She started so that the portrait fell from her
hand, and the Gadfly, limping across the room,
picked it up and handed it to her.
“How you startled me!” she said.
“I am s-so sorry. Perhaps I am disturbing
you?”
“No. I was only turning over some old
things.”
She hesitated for a moment; then handed him
back the miniature.
“What do you think of that head?”
While he looked at it she watched his face as
though her life depended upon its expression; but
it was merely negative and critical.
“You have set me a difficult task,” he said.
“The portrait is faded, and a child’s face is always
hard to read. But I should think that child would
grow into an unlucky man, and the wisest thing
he could do would be to abstain from growing into
a man at all.”
“Why?”
“Look at the line of the under-lip. Th-th-that
is the sort of nature that feels pain as pain and
wrong as wrong; and the world has no r-r-room
for such people; it needs people who feel nothing
but their work.”
“Is it at all like anyone you know?”
He looked at the portrait more closely.
“Yes. What a curious thing! Of course it
is; very like.”
“Like whom?”
“C-c-cardinal Montan-nelli. I wonder whether
his irreproachable Eminence has any nephews, by
the way? Who is it, if I may ask?”
“It is a portrait, taken in childhood, of the
friend I told you about the other day–-”
“Whom you killed?”
She winced in spite of herself. How lightly,
how cruelly he used that dreadful word!
“Yes, whom I killed—if he is really dead.”
“If?”
She kept her eyes on his face.
“I have sometimes doubted,” she said. “The
body was never found. He may have run away
from home, like you, and gone to South America.”
“Let us hope not. That would be a bad memory
to carry about with you. I have d-d-done
some hard fighting in my t-time, and have sent
m-more than one man to Hades, perhaps; but if
I had it on my conscience that I had sent any l-living
thing to South America, I should sleep badly–-”
“Then do you believe,” she interrupted, coming
nearer to him with clasped hands, “that if he were
not drowned,—if he had been through your experience
instead,—he would never come back and
let the past go? Do you believe he would NEVER
forget? Remember, it has cost me something,
too. Look!”
She pushed back the heavy waves of hair from
her forehead. Through the black locks ran a
broad white streak.
There was a long silence.
“I think,” the Gadfly said slowly, “that the
dead are better dead. Forgetting some things is
a difficult matter. And if I were in the place of
your dead friend, I would s-s-stay dead. The
REVENANT is an ugly spectre.”
She put the portrait back into its drawer and
locked the desk.
“That is hard doctrine,” she said. “And now
we will talk about something else.”
“I came to have a little business talk with you,
if I may—a private one, about a plan that I have
in my head.”
She drew a chair to the table and sat down.
“What do you think of the projected press-law?”
he began, without a trace of his usual stammer.
“What I think of it? I think it will not be of
much value, but half a loaf is better than no
bread.”
“Undoubtedly. Then do you intend to work
on one of the new papers these good folk here are
preparing to start?”
“I thought of doing so. There is always a
great deal of practical work to be done in starting
any paper—printing and circulation arrangements
and–-”
“How long are you going to waste your mental
gifts in that fashion?”
“Why ‘waste’?”
“Because it is waste. You know quite well
that you have a far better head than most of the
men you are working with, and you let them make
a regular drudge and Johannes factotum of you.
Intellectually you are as far ahead of Grassini and
Galli as if they were schoolboys; yet you sit correcting
their proofs like a printer’s devil.”
“In the first place, I don’t spend all my time
in correcting proofs; and moreover it seems to me
that you exaggerate my mental capacities. They
are by no means so brilliant as you think.”
“I don’t think them brilliant at all,” he answered
quietly; “but I do think them sound and
solid, which is of much more importance. At
those dreary committee meetings it is always you
who put your finger on the weak spot in everybody’s logic.”
“You are not fair to the others. Martini, for
instance, has a very logical head, and there is no
doubt about the capacities of Fabrizi and Lega. Then
Grassini has a sounder knowledge of Italian economic
statistics than any official in the country, perhaps.”
“Well, that’s not saying much; but let us lay
them and their capacities aside. The fact remains
that you, with such gifts as you possess, might do
more important work and fill a more responsible
post than at present.”
“I am quite satisfied with my position. The
work I am doing is not of very much value, perhaps,
but we all do what we can.”
“Signora Bolla, you and I have gone too far to
play at compliments and modest denials now.
Tell me honestly, do you recognize that you are
using up your brain on work which persons inferior
to you could do as well?”
“Since you press me for an answer—yes, to
some extent.”
“Then why do you let that go on?”
No answer.
“Why do you let it go on?”
“Because—I can’t help it.”
“Why?”
She looked up reproachfully. “That is unkind
—it’s not fair to press me so.”
“But all the same you are going to tell me why.”
“If you must have it, then—because my life has
been smashed into pieces, and I have not the
energy to start anything REAL, now. I am about
fit to be a revolutionary cab-horse, and do the
party’s drudge-work. At least I do it conscientiously,
and it must be done by somebody.”
“Certainly it must be done by somebody; but
not always by the same person.”
“It’s about all I’m fit for.”
He looked at her with half-shut eyes, inscrutably.
Presently she raised her head.
“We are returning to the old subject; and this
was to be a business talk. It is quite useless, I
assure you, to tell me I might have done all sorts
of things. I shall never do them now. But I may
be able to help you in thinking out your plan.
What is it?”
“You begin by telling me that it is useless for
me to suggest anything, and then ask what I want
to suggest. My plan requires your help in action,
not only in thinking out.”
“Let me hear it and then we will discuss.”
“Tell me first whether you have heard anything
about schemes for a rising in Venetia.”
“I have heard of nothing but schemes for risings
and Sanfedist plots ever since the amnesty,
and I fear I am as sceptical about the one as about
the other.”
“So am I, in most cases; but I am speaking of
really serious preparations for a rising of the whole
province against the Austrians. A good many
young fellows in the Papal States—particularly in
the Four Legations—are secretly preparing to get
across there and join as volunteers. And I hear
from my friends in the Romagna–-”
“Tell me,” she interrupted, “are you quite sure
that these friends of yours can be trusted?”
“Quite sure. I know them personally, and
have worked with them.”
“That is, they are members of the ‘sect’ to
which you belong? Forgive my scepticism, but I
am always a little doubtful as to the accuracy of
information received from secret societies. It
seems to me that the habit–-”
“Who told you I belonged to a ‘sect’?” he interrupted sharply.
“No one; I guessed it.”
“Ah!” He leaned back in his chair and looked
at her, frowning. “Do you always guess people’s
private affairs?” he said after a moment.
“Very often. I am rather observant, and have
a habit of putting things together. I tell you that
so that you may be careful when you don’t want
me to know a thing.”
“I don’t mind your knowing anything so long as it
goes no further. I suppose this has not–-”
She lifted her head with a gesture of half-offended
surprise. “Surely that is an unnecessary question!” she said.
“Of course I know you would not speak of anything
to outsiders; but I thought that perhaps, to
the members of your party–-”
“The party’s business is with facts, not with
my personal conjectures and fancies. Of course
I have never mentioned the subject to anyone.”
“Thank you. Do you happen to have guessed
which sect I belong to?”
“I hope—you must not take offence at my
frankness; it was you who started this talk, you
know–- I do hope it is not the ‘Knifers.’”
“Why do you hope that?”
“Because you are fit for better things.”
“We are all fit for better things than we ever
do. There is your own answer back again. However,
it is not the ‘Knifers’ that I belong to, but
the ‘Red Girdles.’ They are a steadier lot, and
take their work more seriously.”
“Do you mean the work of knifing?”
“That, among other things. Knives are very
useful in their way; but only when you have a
good, organized propaganda behind them. That
is what I dislike in the other sect. They think a
knife can settle all the world’s difficulties; and
that’s a mistake. It can settle a good many, but
not all.”
“Do you honestly believe that it settles any?”
He looked at her in surprise.
“Of course,” she went on, “it eliminates, for
the moment, the practical difficulty caused by the
presence of a clever spy or objectionable official;
but whether it does not create worse difficulties in
place of the one removed is another question. It
seems to me like the parable of the swept and garnished
house and the seven devils. Every assassination only
makes the police more vicious and
the people more accustomed to violence and brutality,
and the last state of the community may be
worse than the first.”
“What do you think will happen when the revolution
comes? Do you suppose the people won’t
have to get accustomed to violence then? War
is war.”
“Yes, but open revolution is another matter.
It is one moment in the people’s life, and it is the
price we have to pay for all our progress. No
doubt fearful things will happen; they must in
every revolution. But they will be isolated
facts—exceptional features of an exceptional moment.
The horrible thing about this
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