الفصل الفصل 15 · ‘I did not start in search of Jim at once, only because I had really an

. ‘I did not start in search of Jim at once, only because I had really an

appointment which I could not neglect. Then, as ill-luck would have

it, in my agent’s office I was fastened upon by a fellow fresh from

Madagascar with a little scheme for a wonderful piece of business. It

had something to do with cattle and cartridges and a Prince Ravonalo

something; but the pivot of the whole affair was the stupidity of some

admiral--Admiral Pierre, I think. Everything turned on that, and the

chap couldn’t find words strong enough to express his confidence. He had

globular eyes starting out of his head with a fishy glitter, bumps on

his forehead, and wore his long hair brushed back without a parting.

He had a favourite phrase which he kept on repeating triumphantly, “The

minimum of risk with the maximum of profit is my motto. What?” He made

my head ache, spoiled my tiffin, but got his own out of me all right;

and as soon as I had shaken him off, I made straight for the water-side.

I caught sight of Jim leaning over the parapet of the quay. Three native

boatmen quarrelling over five annas were making an awful row at his

elbow. He didn’t hear me come up, but spun round as if the slight

contact of my finger had released a catch. “I was looking,” he

stammered. I don’t remember what I said, not much anyhow, but he made no

difficulty in following me to the hotel.

‘He followed me as manageable as a little child, with an obedient air,

with no sort of manifestation, rather as though he had been waiting

for me there to come along and carry him off. I need not have been so

surprised as I was at his tractability. On all the round earth, which to

some seems so big and that others affect to consider as rather smaller

than a mustard-seed, he had no place where he could--what shall I

say?--where he could withdraw. That’s it! Withdraw--be alone with his

loneliness. He walked by my side very calm, glancing here and there, and

once turned his head to look after a Sidiboy fireman in a cutaway coat

and yellowish trousers, whose black face had silky gleams like a lump

of anthracite coal. I doubt, however, whether he saw anything, or even

remained all the time aware of my companionship, because if I had not

edged him to the left here, or pulled him to the right there, I believe

he would have gone straight before him in any direction till stopped by

a wall or some other obstacle. I steered him into my bedroom, and sat

down at once to write letters. This was the only place in the world

(unless, perhaps, the Walpole Reef--but that was not so handy) where he

could have it out with himself without being bothered by the rest of

the universe. The damned thing--as he had expressed it--had not made

him invisible, but I behaved exactly as though he were. No sooner in my

chair I bent over my writing-desk like a medieval scribe, and, but for

the movement of the hand holding the pen, remained anxiously quiet. I

can’t say I was frightened; but I certainly kept as still as if there

had been something dangerous in the room, that at the first hint of a

movement on my part would be provoked to pounce upon me. There was not

much in the room--you know how these bedrooms are--a sort of four-poster

bedstead under a mosquito-net, two or three chairs, the table I was

writing at, a bare floor. A glass door opened on an upstairs verandah,

and he stood with his face to it, having a hard time with all possible

privacy. Dusk fell; I lit a candle with the greatest economy of movement

and as much prudence as though it were an illegal proceeding. There is

no doubt that he had a very hard time of it, and so had I, even to the

point, I must own, of wishing him to the devil, or on Walpole Reef at

least. It occurred to me once or twice that, after all, Chester was,

perhaps, the man to deal effectively with such a disaster. That strange

idealist had found a practical use for it at once--unerringly, as it

were. It was enough to make one suspect that, maybe, he really could see

the true aspect of things that appeared mysterious or utterly hopeless

to less imaginative persons. I wrote and wrote; I liquidated all the

arrears of my correspondence, and then went on writing to people who had

no reason whatever to expect from me a gossipy letter about nothing at

all. At times I stole a sidelong glance. He was rooted to the spot,

but convulsive shudders ran down his back; his shoulders would heave

suddenly. He was fighting, he was fighting--mostly for his breath, as it

seemed. The massive shadows, cast all one way from the straight flame of

the candle, seemed possessed of gloomy consciousness; the immobility of

the furniture had to my furtive eye an air of attention. I was becoming

fanciful in the midst of my industrious scribbling; and though, when the

scratching of my pen stopped for a moment, there was complete silence

and stillness in the room, I suffered from that profound disturbance

and confusion of thought which is caused by a violent and menacing

uproar--of a heavy gale at sea, for instance. Some of you may know what

I mean: that mingled anxiety, distress, and irritation with a sort of

craven feeling creeping in--not pleasant to acknowledge, but which gives

a quite special merit to one’s endurance. I don’t claim any merit

for standing the stress of Jim’s emotions; I could take refuge in the

letters; I could have written to strangers if necessary. Suddenly, as I

was taking up a fresh sheet of notepaper, I heard a low sound, the first

sound that, since we had been shut up together, had come to my ears in

the dim stillness of the room. I remained with my head down, with my

hand arrested. Those who have kept vigil by a sick-bed have heard such

faint sounds in the stillness of the night watches, sounds wrung from a

racked body, from a weary soul. He pushed the glass door with such force

that all the panes rang: he stepped out, and I held my breath, straining

my ears without knowing what else I expected to hear. He was really

taking too much to heart an empty formality which to Chester’s rigorous

criticism seemed unworthy the notice of a man who could see things as

they were. An empty formality; a piece of parchment. Well, well. As to

an inaccessible guano deposit, that was another story altogether. One

could intelligibly break one’s heart over that. A feeble burst of many

voices mingled with the tinkle of silver and glass floated up from the

dining-room below; through the open door the outer edge of the light

from my candle fell on his back faintly; beyond all was black; he stood

on the brink of a vast obscurity, like a lonely figure by the shore of

a sombre and hopeless ocean. There was the Walpole Reef in it--to

be sure--a speck in the dark void, a straw for the drowning man. My

compassion for him took the shape of the thought that I wouldn’t have

liked his people to see him at that moment. I found it trying myself.

His back was no longer shaken by his gasps; he stood straight as an

arrow, faintly visible and still; and the meaning of this stillness sank

to the bottom of my soul like lead into the water, and made it so heavy

that for a second I wished heartily that the only course left open for

me was to pay for his funeral. Even the law had done with him. To bury

him would have been such an easy kindness! It would have been so much

in accordance with the wisdom of life, which consists in putting out of

sight all the reminders of our folly, of our weakness, of our mortality;

all that makes against our efficiency--the memory of our failures, the

hints of our undying fears, the bodies of our dead friends. Perhaps he

did take it too much to heart. And if so then--Chester’s offer. . . . At

this point I took up a fresh sheet and began to write resolutely. There

was nothing but myself between him and the dark ocean. I had a sense of

responsibility. If I spoke, would that motionless and suffering youth

leap into the obscurity--clutch at the straw? I found out how difficult

it may be sometimes to make a sound. There is a weird power in a spoken

word. And why the devil not? I was asking myself persistently while I

drove on with my writing. All at once, on the blank page, under the very

point of the pen, the two figures of Chester and his antique partner,

very distinct and complete, would dodge into view with stride and

gestures, as if reproduced in the field of some optical toy. I would

watch them for a while. No! They were too phantasmal and extravagant

to enter into any one’s fate. And a word carries far--very far--deals

destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space. I said

nothing; and he, out there with his back to the light, as if bound

and gagged by all the invisible foes of man, made no stir and made no

sound.’