الفصل الفصل 20 · ‘Late in the evening I entered his study, after traversing an imposing

. ‘Late in the evening I entered his study, after traversing an imposing

but empty dining-room very dimly lit. The house was silent. I was

preceded by an elderly grim Javanese servant in a sort of livery of

white jacket and yellow sarong, who, after throwing the door open,

exclaimed low, “O master!” and stepping aside, vanished in a mysterious

way as though he had been a ghost only momentarily embodied for that

particular service. Stein turned round with the chair, and in the same

movement his spectacles seemed to get pushed up on his forehead. He

welcomed me in his quiet and humorous voice. Only one corner of the vast

room, the corner in which stood his writing-desk, was strongly lighted

by a shaded reading-lamp, and the rest of the spacious apartment melted

into shapeless gloom like a cavern. Narrow shelves filled with dark

boxes of uniform shape and colour ran round the walls, not from floor

to ceiling, but in a sombre belt about four feet broad. Catacombs of

beetles. Wooden tablets were hung above at irregular intervals. The

light reached one of them, and the word Coleoptera written in gold

letters glittered mysteriously upon a vast dimness. The glass cases

containing the collection of butterflies were ranged in three long rows

upon slender-legged little tables. One of these cases had been removed

from its place and stood on the desk, which was bestrewn with oblong

slips of paper blackened with minute handwriting.

‘“So you see me--so,” he said. His hand hovered over the case where

a butterfly in solitary grandeur spread out dark bronze wings, seven

inches or more across, with exquisite white veinings and a gorgeous

border of yellow spots. “Only one specimen like this they have in _your_

London, and then--no more. To my small native town this my collection I

shall bequeath. Something of me. The best.”

‘He bent forward in the chair and gazed intently, his chin over the

front of the case. I stood at his back. “Marvellous,” he whispered, and

seemed to forget my presence. His history was curious. He had been born

in Bavaria, and when a youth of twenty-two had taken an active part in

the revolutionary movement of 1848. Heavily compromised, he managed

to make his escape, and at first found a refuge with a poor republican

watchmaker in Trieste. From there he made his way to Tripoli with a

stock of cheap watches to hawk about,--not a very great opening truly,

but it turned out lucky enough, because it was there he came upon a

Dutch traveller--a rather famous man, I believe, but I don’t remember

his name. It was that naturalist who, engaging him as a sort of

assistant, took him to the East. They travelled in the Archipelago

together and separately, collecting insects and birds, for four years or

more. Then the naturalist went home, and Stein, having no home to go to,

remained with an old trader he had come across in his journeys in the

interior of Celebes--if Celebes may be said to have an interior. This

old Scotsman, the only white man allowed to reside in the country at the

time, was a privileged friend of the chief ruler of Wajo States, who

was a woman. I often heard Stein relate how that chap, who was slightly

paralysed on one side, had introduced him to the native court a short

time before another stroke carried him off. He was a heavy man with

a patriarchal white beard, and of imposing stature. He came into

the council-hall where all the rajahs, pangerans, and headmen were

assembled, with the queen, a fat wrinkled woman (very free in her

speech, Stein said), reclining on a high couch under a canopy. He

dragged his leg, thumping with his stick, and grasped Stein’s arm,

leading him right up to the couch. “Look, queen, and you rajahs, this is

my son,” he proclaimed in a stentorian voice. “I have traded with your

fathers, and when I die he shall trade with you and your sons.”

‘By means of this simple formality Stein inherited the Scotsman’s

privileged position and all his stock-in-trade, together with a

fortified house on the banks of the only navigable river in the country.

Shortly afterwards the old queen, who was so free in her speech, died,

and the country became disturbed by various pretenders to the throne.

Stein joined the party of a younger son, the one of whom thirty years

later he never spoke otherwise but as “my poor Mohammed Bonso.” They

both became the heroes of innumerable exploits; they had wonderful

adventures, and once stood a siege in the Scotsman’s house for a month,

with only a score of followers against a whole army. I believe the

natives talk of that war to this day. Meantime, it seems, Stein never

failed to annex on his own account every butterfly or beetle he could

lay hands on. After some eight years of war, negotiations, false truces,

sudden outbreaks, reconciliation, treachery, and so on, and just as

peace seemed at last permanently established, his “poor Mohammed

Bonso” was assassinated at the gate of his own royal residence while

dismounting in the highest spirits on his return from a successful

deer-hunt. This event rendered Stein’s position extremely insecure,

but he would have stayed perhaps had it not been that a short time

afterwards he lost Mohammed’s sister (“my dear wife the princess,” he

used to say solemnly), by whom he had had a daughter--mother and child

both dying within three days of each other from some infectious fever.

He left the country, which this cruel loss had made unbearable to

him. Thus ended the first and adventurous part of his existence. What

followed was so different that, but for the reality of sorrow which

remained with him, this strange part must have resembled a dream. He

had a little money; he started life afresh, and in the course of years

acquired a considerable fortune. At first he had travelled a good deal

amongst the islands, but age had stolen upon him, and of late he seldom

left his spacious house three miles out of town, with an extensive

garden, and surrounded by stables, offices, and bamboo cottages for

his servants and dependants, of whom he had many. He drove in his buggy

every morning to town, where he had an office with white and Chinese

clerks. He owned a small fleet of schooners and native craft, and dealt

in island produce on a large scale. For the rest he lived solitary,

but not misanthropic, with his books and his collection, classing and

arranging specimens, corresponding with entomologists in Europe, writing

up a descriptive catalogue of his treasures. Such was the history of

the man whom I had come to consult upon Jim’s case without any definite

hope. Simply to hear what he would have to say would have been a relief.

I was very anxious, but I respected the intense, almost passionate,

absorption with which he looked at a butterfly, as though on the bronze

sheen of these frail wings, in the white tracings, in the gorgeous

markings, he could see other things, an image of something as perishable

and defying destruction as these delicate and lifeless tissues

displaying a splendour unmarred by death.

‘“Marvellous!” he repeated, looking up at me. “Look! The beauty--but

that is nothing--look at the accuracy, the harmony. And so fragile! And

so strong! And so exact! This is Nature--the balance of colossal forces.

Every star is so--and every blade of grass stands so--and the mighty

Kosmos ib perfect equilibrium produces--this. This wonder; this

masterpiece of Nature--the great artist.”

‘“Never heard an entomologist go on like this,” I observed cheerfully.

“Masterpiece! And what of man?”

‘“Man is amazing, but he is not a masterpiece,” he said, keeping his

eyes fixed on the glass case. “Perhaps the artist was a little mad. Eh?

What do you think? Sometimes it seems to me that man is come where he is

not wanted, where there is no place for him; for if not, why should

he want all the place? Why should he run about here and there making

a great noise about himself, talking about the stars, disturbing the

blades of grass? . . .”

‘“Catching butterflies,” I chimed in.

‘He smiled, threw himself back in his chair, and stretched his legs.

“Sit down,” he said. “I captured this rare specimen myself one very fine

morning. And I had a very big emotion. You don’t know what it is for a

collector to capture such a rare specimen. You can’t know.”

‘I smiled at my ease in a rocking-chair. His eyes seemed to look far

beyond the wall at which they stared; and he narrated how, one night,

a messenger arrived from his “poor Mohammed,” requiring his presence

at the “residenz”--as he called it--which was distant some nine or ten

miles by a bridle-path over a cultivated plain, with patches of forest

here and there. Early in the morning he started from his fortified

house, after embracing his little Emma, and leaving the “princess,” his

wife, in command. He described how she came with him as far as the

gate, walking with one hand on the neck of his horse; she had on a white

jacket, gold pins in her hair, and a brown leather belt over her left

shoulder with a revolver in it. “She talked as women will talk,” he

said, “telling me to be careful, and to try to get back before dark, and

what a great wickedness it was for me to go alone. We were at war, and

the country was not safe; my men were putting up bullet-proof shutters

to the house and loading their rifles, and she begged me to have no fear

for her. She could defend the house against anybody till I returned. And

I laughed with pleasure a little. I liked to see her so brave and young

and strong. I too was young then. At the gate she caught hold of my

hand and gave it one squeeze and fell back. I made my horse stand still

outside till I heard the bars of the gate put up behind me. There was a

great enemy of mine, a great noble--and a great rascal too--roaming with

a band in the neighbourhood. I cantered for four or five miles; there

had been rain in the night, but the musts had gone up, up--and the

face of the earth was clean; it lay smiling to me, so fresh and

innocent--like a little child. Suddenly somebody fires a volley--twenty

shots at least it seemed to me. I hear bullets sing in my ear, and

my hat jumps to the back of my head. It was a little intrigue, you

understand. They got my poor Mohammed to send for me and then laid

that ambush. I see it all in a minute, and I think--This wants a little

management. My pony snort, jump, and stand, and I fall slowly forward

with my head on his mane. He begins to walk, and with one eye I could

see over his neck a faint cloud of smoke hanging in front of a clump

of bamboos to my left. I think--Aha! my friends, why you not wait long

enough before you shoot? This is not yet gelungen. Oh no! I get hold of

my revolver with my right hand--quiet--quiet. After all, there were only

seven of these rascals. They get up from the grass and start running

with their sarongs tucked up, waving spears above their heads, and

yelling to each other to look out and catch the horse, because I was

dead. I let them come as close as the door here, and then bang, bang,

bang--take aim each time too. One more shot I fire at a man’s back, but

I miss. Too far already. And then I sit alone on my horse with the clean

earth smiling at me, and there are the bodies of three men lying on the

ground. One was curled up like a dog, another on his back had an arm

over his eyes as if to keep off the sun, and the third man he draws up

his leg very slowly and makes it with one kick straight again. I watch

him very carefully from my horse, but there is no more--bleibt ganz

ruhig--keep still, so. And as I looked at his face for some sign of life

I observed something like a faint shadow pass over his forehead. It was

the shadow of this butterfly. Look at the form of the wing. This species

fly high with a strong flight. I raised my eyes and I saw him fluttering

away. I think--Can it be possible? And then I lost him. I dismounted

and went on very slow, leading my horse and holding my revolver with one

hand and my eyes darting up and down and right and left, everywhere! At

last I saw him sitting on a small heap of dirt ten feet away. At once

my heart began to beat quick. I let go my horse, keep my revolver in one

hand, and with the other snatch my soft felt hat off my head. One step.

Steady. Another step. Flop! I got him! When I got up I shook like a leaf

with excitement, and when I opened these beautiful wings and made sure

what a rare and so extraordinary perfect specimen I had, my head went

round and my legs became so weak with emotion that I had to sit on the

ground. I had greatly desired to possess myself of a specimen of that

species when collecting for the professor. I took long journeys and

underwent great privations; I had dreamed of him in my sleep, and here

suddenly I had him in my fingers--for myself! In the words of the poet”

(he pronounced it “boet”)--

“‘So halt’ ich’s endlich denn in meinen Handen,

Und nenn’ es in gewissem Sinne mein.’”

He gave to the last word the emphasis of a suddenly lowered voice, and

withdrew his eyes slowly from my face. He began to charge a long-stemmed

pipe busily and in silence, then, pausing with his thumb on the orifice

of the bowl, looked again at me significantly.

‘“Yes, my good friend. On that day I had nothing to desire; I had

greatly annoyed my principal enemy; I was young, strong; I had

friendship; I had the love” (he said “lof”) “of woman, a child I had,

to make my heart very full--and even what I had once dreamed in my sleep

had come into my hand too!”

‘He struck a match, which flared violently. His thoughtful placid face

twitched once.

‘“Friend, wife, child,” he said slowly, gazing at the small

flame--“phoo!” The match was blown out. He sighed and turned again to

the glass case. The frail and beautiful wings quivered faintly, as if

his breath had for an instant called back to life that gorgeous object

of his dreams.

‘“The work,” he began suddenly, pointing to the scattered slips, and in

his usual gentle and cheery tone, “is making great progress. I have been

this rare specimen describing. . . . Na! And what is your good news?”

‘“To tell you the truth, Stein,” I said with an effort that surprised

me, “I came here to describe a specimen. . . .”

‘“Butterfly?” he asked, with an unbelieving and humorous eagerness.

‘“Nothing so perfect,” I answered, feeling suddenly dispirited with all

sorts of doubts. “A man!”

‘“Ach so!” he murmured, and his smiling countenance, turned to me,

became grave. Then after looking at me for a while he said slowly,

“Well--I am a man too.”

‘Here you have him as he was; he knew how to be so generously

encouraging as to make a scrupulous man hesitate on the brink of

confidence; but if I did hesitate it was not for long.

‘He heard me out, sitting with crossed legs. Sometimes his head would

disappear completely in a great eruption of smoke, and a sympathetic

growl would come out from the cloud. When I finished he uncrossed his

legs, laid down his pipe, leaned forward towards me earnestly with his

elbows on the arms of his chair, the tips of his fingers together.

‘“I understand very well. He is romantic.”

‘He had diagnosed the case for me, and at first I was quite startled to

find how simple it was; and indeed our conference resembled so much a

medical consultation--Stein, of learned aspect, sitting in an arm-chair

before his desk; I, anxious, in another, facing him, but a little to one

side--that it seemed natural to ask--

‘“What’s good for it?”

‘He lifted up a long forefinger.

‘“There is only one remedy! One thing alone can us from being ourselves

cure!” The finger came down on the desk with a smart rap. The case

which he had made to look so simple before became if possible still

simpler--and altogether hopeless. There was a pause. “Yes,” said I,

“strictly speaking, the question is not how to get cured, but how to

live.”

‘He approved with his head, a little sadly as it seemed. “Ja! ja! In

general, adapting the words of your great poet: That is the

question. . . .” He went on nodding sympathetically. . . . “How to be!

Ach! How to be.”

‘He stood up with the tips of his fingers resting on the desk.

‘“We want in so many different ways to be,” he began again. “This

magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it;

but man he will never on his heap of mud keep still. He want to be so,

and again he want to be so. . . .” He moved his hand up, then down. . . .

“He wants to be a saint, and he wants to be a devil--and every time he

shuts his eyes he sees himself as a very fine fellow--so fine as he can

never be. . . . In a dream. . . .”

‘He lowered the glass lid, the automatic lock clicked sharply, and

taking up the case in both hands he bore it religiously away to its

place, passing out of the bright circle of the lamp into the ring of

fainter light--into shapeless dusk at last. It had an odd effect--as

if these few steps had carried him out of this concrete and perplexed

world. His tall form, as though robbed of its substance, hovered

noiselessly over invisible things with stooping and indefinite

movements; his voice, heard in that remoteness where he could be

glimpsed mysteriously busy with immaterial cares, was no longer

incisive, seemed to roll voluminous and grave--mellowed by distance.

‘“And because you not always can keep your eyes shut there comes the

real trouble--the heart pain--the world pain. I tell you, my friend, it

is not good for you to find you cannot make your dream come true, for

the reason that you not strong enough are, or not clever enough. . . .

Ja! . . . And all the time you are such a fine fellow too! Wie? Was?

Gott im Himmel! How can that be? Ha! ha! ha!”

‘The shadow prowling amongst the graves of butterflies laughed

boisterously.

‘“Yes! Very funny this terrible thing is. A man that is born falls into

a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into

the air as inexperienced people endeavour to do, he drowns--nicht wahr?

. . . No! I tell you! The way is to the destructive element submit

yourself, and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water

make the deep, deep sea keep you up. So if you ask me--how to be?”

‘His voice leaped up extraordinarily strong, as though away there in

the dusk he had been inspired by some whisper of knowledge. “I will tell

you! For that too there is only one way.”

‘With a hasty swish-swish of his slippers he loomed up in the ring of

faint light, and suddenly appeared in the bright circle of the lamp. His

extended hand aimed at my breast like a pistol; his deepset eyes seemed

to pierce through me, but his twitching lips uttered no word, and the

austere exaltation of a certitude seen in the dusk vanished from his

face. The hand that had been pointing at my breast fell, and by-and-by,

coming a step nearer, he laid it gently on my shoulder. There were

things, he said mournfully, that perhaps could never be told, only he

had lived so much alone that sometimes he forgot--he forgot. The light

had destroyed the assurance which had inspired him in the distant

shadows. He sat down and, with both elbows on the desk, rubbed his

forehead. “And yet it is true--it is true. In the destructive element

immerse.” . . . He spoke in a subdued tone, without looking at me, one

hand on each side of his face. “That was the way. To follow the dream,

and again to follow the dream--and so--ewig--usque ad finem. . . .” The

whisper of his conviction seemed to open before me a vast and uncertain

expanse, as of a crepuscular horizon on a plain at dawn--or was it,

perchance, at the coming of the night? One had not the courage to

decide; but it was a charming and deceptive light, throwing the

impalpable poesy of its dimness over pitfalls--over graves. His life had

begun in sacrifice, in enthusiasm for generous ideas; he had travelled

very far, on various ways, on strange paths, and whatever he followed

it had been without faltering, and therefore without shame and without

regret. In so far he was right. That was the way, no doubt. Yet for all

that, the great plain on which men wander amongst graves and pitfalls

remained very desolate under the impalpable poesy of its crepuscular

light, overshadowed in the centre, circled with a bright edge as if

surrounded by an abyss full of flames. When at last I broke the silence

it was to express the opinion that no one could be more romantic than

himself.

‘He shook his head slowly, and afterwards looked at me with a patient

and inquiring glance. It was a shame, he said. There we were sitting

and talking like two boys, instead of putting our heads together to find

something practical--a practical remedy--for the evil--for the great

evil--he repeated, with a humorous and indulgent smile. For all that,

our talk did not grow more practical. We avoided pronouncing Jim’s name

as though we had tried to keep flesh and blood out of our discussion,

or he were nothing but an erring spirit, a suffering and nameless shade.

“Na!” said Stein, rising. “To-night you sleep here, and in the morning

we shall do something practical--practical. . . .” He lit a two-branched

candlestick and led the way. We passed through empty dark rooms,

escorted by gleams from the lights Stein carried. They glided along the

waxed floors, sweeping here and there over the polished surface of

a table, leaped upon a fragmentary curve of a piece of furniture, or

flashed perpendicularly in and out of distant mirrors, while the forms

of two men and the flicker of two flames could be seen for a moment

stealing silently across the depths of a crystalline void. He walked

slowly a pace in advance with stooping courtesy; there was a profound,

as it were a listening, quietude on his face; the long flaxen locks

mixed with white threads were scattered thinly upon his slightly bowed

neck.

‘“He is romantic--romantic,” he repeated. “And that is very bad--very

bad. . . . Very good, too,” he added. “But _is he_?” I queried.

‘“Gewiss,” he said, and stood still holding up the candelabrum, but

without looking at me. “Evident! What is it that by inward pain makes

him know himself? What is it that for you and me makes him--exist?”

‘At that moment it was difficult to believe in Jim’s existence--starting

from a country parsonage, blurred by crowds of men as by clouds of

dust, silenced by the clashing claims of life and death in a material

world--but his imperishable reality came to me with a convincing, with

an irresistible force! I saw it vividly, as though in our progress

through the lofty silent rooms amongst fleeting gleams of light and

the sudden revelations of human figures stealing with flickering flames

within unfathomable and pellucid depths, we had approached nearer to

absolute Truth, which, like Beauty itself, floats elusive, obscure, half

submerged, in the silent still waters of mystery. “Perhaps he is,” I

admitted with a slight laugh, whose unexpectedly loud reverberation

made me lower my voice directly; “but I am sure you are.” With his head

dropping on his breast and the light held high he began to walk again.

“Well--I exist, too,” he said.

‘He preceded me. My eyes followed his movements, but what I did see was

not the head of the firm, the welcome guest at afternoon receptions,

the correspondent of learned societies, the entertainer of stray

naturalists; I saw only the reality of his destiny, which he had known

how to follow with unfaltering footsteps, that life begun in humble

surroundings, rich in generous enthusiasms, in friendship, love, war--in

all the exalted elements of romance. At the door of my room he faced me.

“Yes,” I said, as though carrying on a discussion, “and amongst other

things you dreamed foolishly of a certain butterfly; but when one

fine morning your dream came in your way you did not let the splendid

opportunity escape. Did you? Whereas he . . .” Stein lifted his hand.

“And do you know how many opportunities I let escape; how many dreams

I had lost that had come in my way?” He shook his head regretfully. “It

seems to me that some would have been very fine--if I had made them come

true. Do you know how many? Perhaps I myself don’t know.” “Whether his

were fine or not,” I said, “he knows of one which he certainly did not

catch.” “Everybody knows of one or two like that,” said Stein; “and that

is the trouble--the great trouble. . . .”

‘He shook hands on the threshold, peered into my room under his

raised arm. “Sleep well. And to-morrow we must do something

practical--practical. . . .”

‘Though his own room was beyond mine I saw him return the way he came.

He was going back to his butterflies.’