บทที่ บทที่ 17 · ‘He came in at last; but I believe it was mostly the rain that did it;

. ‘He came in at last; but I believe it was mostly the rain that did it;

it was falling just then with a devastating violence which quieted

down gradually while we talked. His manner was very sober and set; his

bearing was that of a naturally taciturn man possessed by an idea. My

talk was of the material aspect of his position; it had the sole aim of

saving him from the degradation, ruin, and despair that out there close

so swiftly upon a friendless, homeless man; I pleaded with him to

accept my help; I argued reasonably: and every time I looked up at that

absorbed smooth face, so grave and youthful, I had a disturbing sense of

being no help but rather an obstacle to some mysterious, inexplicable,

impalpable striving of his wounded spirit.

‘“I suppose you intend to eat and drink and to sleep under shelter in

the usual way,” I remember saying with irritation. “You say you won’t

touch the money that is due to you.” . . . He came as near as his sort

can to making a gesture of horror. (There were three weeks and five

days’ pay owing him as mate of the Patna.) “Well, that’s too little to

matter anyhow; but what will you do to-morrow? Where will you turn? You

must live . . .” “That isn’t the thing,” was the comment that escaped

him under his breath. I ignored it, and went on combating what I assumed

to be the scruples of an exaggerated delicacy. “On every conceivable

ground,” I concluded, “you must let me help you.” “You can’t,” he said

very simply and gently, and holding fast to some deep idea which I

could detect shimmering like a pool of water in the dark, but which

I despaired of ever approaching near enough to fathom. I surveyed his

well-proportioned bulk. “At any rate,” I said, “I am able to help what

I can see of you. I don’t pretend to do more.” He shook his head

sceptically without looking at me. I got very warm. “But I can,” I

insisted. “I can do even more. I _am_ doing more. I am trusting

you . . .” “The money . . .” he began. “Upon my word you deserve being

told to go to the devil,” I cried, forcing the note of indignation. He

was startled, smiled, and I pressed my attack home. “It isn’t a question

of money at all. You are too superficial,” I said (and at the same time

I was thinking to myself: Well, here goes! And perhaps he is, after

all). “Look at the letter I want you to take. I am writing to a man of

whom I’ve never asked a favour, and I am writing about you in terms that

one only ventures to use when speaking of an intimate friend. I make

myself unreservedly responsible for you. That’s what I am doing. And

really if you will only reflect a little what that means . . .”

‘He lifted his head. The rain had passed away; only the water-pipe went

on shedding tears with an absurd drip, drip outside the window. It was

very quiet in the room, whose shadows huddled together in corners, away

from the still flame of the candle flaring upright in the shape of a

dagger; his face after a while seemed suffused by a reflection of a soft

light as if the dawn had broken already.

‘“Jove!” he gasped out. “It is noble of you!”

‘Had he suddenly put out his tongue at me in derision, I could not have

felt more humiliated. I thought to myself--Serve me right for a sneaking

humbug. . . . His eyes shone straight into my face, but I perceived

it was not a mocking brightness. All at once he sprang into jerky

agitation, like one of those flat wooden figures that are worked by a

string. His arms went up, then came down with a slap. He became another

man altogether. “And I had never seen,” he shouted; then suddenly bit

his lip and frowned. “What a bally ass I’ve been,” he said very slow

in an awed tone. . . . “You are a brick!” he cried next in a muffled

voice. He snatched my hand as though he had just then seen it for the

first time, and dropped it at once. “Why! this is what I--you--I . . .”

he stammered, and then with a return of his old stolid, I may say

mulish, manner he began heavily, “I would be a brute now if I . . .” and

then his voice seemed to break. “That’s all right,” I said. I was almost

alarmed by this display of feeling, through which pierced a strange

elation. I had pulled the string accidentally, as it were; I did not

fully understand the working of the toy. “I must go now,” he said.

“Jove! You _have_ helped me. Can’t sit still. The very thing . . .” He

looked at me with puzzled admiration. “The very thing . . .”

‘Of course it was the thing. It was ten to one that I had saved him from

starvation--of that peculiar sort that is almost invariably associated

with drink. This was all. I had not a single illusion on that score, but

looking at him, I allowed myself to wonder at the nature of the one he

had, within the last three minutes, so evidently taken into his bosom.

I had forced into his hand the means to carry on decently the serious

business of life, to get food, drink, and shelter of the customary kind

while his wounded spirit, like a bird with a broken wing, might hop and

flutter into some hole to die quietly of inanition there. This is what

I had thrust upon him: a definitely small thing; and--behold!--by the

manner of its reception it loomed in the dim light of the candle like

a big, indistinct, perhaps a dangerous shadow. “You don’t mind me not

saying anything appropriate,” he burst out. “There isn’t anything one

could say. Last night already you had done me no end of good. Listening

to me--you know. I give you my word I’ve thought more than once the top

of my head would fly off. . .” He darted--positively darted--here and

there, rammed his hands into his pockets, jerked them out again, flung

his cap on his head. I had no idea it was in him to be so airily

brisk. I thought of a dry leaf imprisoned in an eddy of wind, while a

mysterious apprehension, a load of indefinite doubt, weighed me down in

my chair. He stood stock-still, as if struck motionless by a discovery.

“You have given me confidence,” he declared, soberly. “Oh! for God’s

sake, my dear fellow--don’t!” I entreated, as though he had hurt me.

“All right. I’ll shut up now and henceforth. Can’t prevent me thinking

though. . . . Never mind! . . . I’ll show yet . . .” He went to the

door in a hurry, paused with his head down, and came back, stepping

deliberately. “I always thought that if a fellow could begin with a

clean slate . . . And now you . . . in a measure . . . yes . . . clean

slate.” I waved my hand, and he marched out without looking back; the

sound of his footfalls died out gradually behind the closed door--the

unhesitating tread of a man walking in broad daylight.

‘But as to me, left alone with the solitary candle, I remained strangely

unenlightened. I was no longer young enough to behold at every turn

the magnificence that besets our insignificant footsteps in good and in

evil. I smiled to think that, after all, it was yet he, of us two, who

had the light. And I felt sad. A clean slate, did he say? As if the

initial word of each our destiny were not graven in imperishable

characters upon the face of a rock.’