 Chapter 2 Part 8 of THE STORY OF AN AFRICAN FARM BY OLLIPSHRIENER THE COPY Good morning! Im, who was in the storeroom measuring the Kaffir's rations, looked up and saw her former lover standing betwixt her and the sunshine. For some days after that evening on which he had ridden home whistling, he had shunned her. She might wish to enter into explanations, and he, Gregory Rose, was not the man for that kind of thing. If a woman had once thrown him overboard, she must take the consequences and stand by them. When, however, she showed no inclination to revert to the past, and shunned him more than he shunned her, Gregory softened. You must let me call you Im still, and be like a brother to you till I go, he said, and Im thanked him so humbly that he wished she hadn't. It wasn't so easy after that to think of himself as an injured man. On that morning he stood some time in the doorway, switching his whip and moving rather restlessly from one leg to the other. I think I'll just take a walk up to the camps and see how your birds are getting on. Now a world has gone, you've no one to see after things. Last morning, isn't it? Then he added suddenly, I'll just go round to the house and get a drink of water first, and somewhat awkwardly walked off. He might have found water in the kitchen, but he never glanced towards the buckets. In the front room a monkey and two tumblers stood on the centre table, but he merely looked round, peeped into the parlour, looked round again, and then walked out at the front door, and found himself again at the storeroom without having satisfied his thirst. Awfully nice this morning, he said, trying to pose himself in a graceful and indifferent attitude against the door. It isn't hot and it isn't cold. It's awfully nice." "'Yes,' said him." "'Your cousin now,' said Gregory, in an aimless sort of way. I suppose she's shut up in her room writing letters.' "'No,' said him. "'Gone for a drive? I expect. Nice morning for a drive.' "'No.' "'Gone to see the ostriches, I suppose?' "'No.' "'After a little silence,' M. added. I saw her go by the crawls to the copy. Gregory crossed and uncrossed his legs. "'Well, I think I'll just go and have a look about,' he said, and see how things are getting on before I go to the camps. Good-bye! So long!' M. left for a while the bag she was folding and went to the window, the same through which he as before Burnapot had watched the slouching figure cross the yard. Gregory walked the pigsty first and contemplated the pigs for a few seconds, then turned round and stood looking fixedly at the wall of the fuel-house as though he thought it wanted repairing. Then he started off suddenly with the evident intention of going to ostrich camps, then paused, hesitated, and finally walked off in the direction of the copy. Then M. went back to the corner and folded more sacks. On the other side of the copy Gregory caught sight of a white tail waving among the stones, and a succession of short, frantic barks told where Doss was engaged in harling imploringly to a lizard who had crept between two stones and who had not the slightest intention of resunning himself at that particular moment. The dog's mistress sat higher up under the shelving rock, her face bent over a volume of plays upon her knee. As Gregory mounted the stones, she started violently and looked up, then resumed her book. I hope I'm not troubling you, said Gregory as he reached her side. If I am, I will go away. I just know you may stay. I fear I startled you. Yes, your step was firmer than it generally is. I thought it was that of someone else. Who could it be but me?" asked Gregory, seating himself on a stone at her feet. Do you suppose you are the only man who would find anything to attract him to this copy? Oh, no, said Gregory. He was not going to argue that point with her, nor any other. But no old boor was likely to take the trouble of climbing the copy, and who else was there? She continued the study of her book. Miss Lindell, he said at last, I don't know why it is you never talk to me. We had a long conversation yesterday, she said, without looking up. Yes, but you ask me questions about sheep and oxen. I don't call that talking. You used to talk to Waldo now, he said, in an aggrieved turn of voice. I've heard you when I came in, and then you just left off. You treated me like that from the first day, and you couldn't tell from just looking at me that I couldn't talk about the things you like. I'm sure I know as much about such things as Waldo does, said Gregory, in exceeding bitterness of spirit. I do not know what things you refer to. If you will enlighten me, I'm quite prepared to speak of them. She said, reading as she spoke, oh, you never used to ask Waldo like that, said Gregory, in a more sorely aggrieved turn than ever. You used just to begin. Well, let me see, she said, closing her book and folding her hands on it. There at the foot of the copy goes a kaffa. He has nothing on but a blanket. He's a splendid filler, six feet high, with a magnificent pair of legs. In his leather bag he is going to fetch his rations, and I suppose to kick his wife with his beautiful legs when he gets home. He has a right to. He bought her for two oxen. There is a lean dog going after him, to whom I suppose he never gives more than a burn from which he has sucked them arrow. But his dog loves him, as his wife does. There is something of the master about him in spite of his blackness and wool. See how he brandishes his stick and holds up his head. Oh, but aren't you making fun, said Gregory, looking doubtfully from her to the kaffa-herd who rounded the copy. No, I'm very serious. He is the most interesting and intelligent thing I can see just now, except, perhaps, Doss. He is profoundly suggestive. Will his race melt away in the heat of a collision with Ahaya? Are the men of the future to see his bones only in museums? A vestige of one link that spanned between the dog and the white man? He wakes thoughts that run far out into the future and back into the past. Gregory was not quite sure how to take these remarks. Being about a kaffa they appeared to be the nature of a joke, but being seriously spoken they appeared earnest, so he half laughed and half not to be on the safe side. I've often thought so myself. It's funny we should both think the same. I knew we should if once we talked, but there are other things. Love, now, he added. I wonder if we would think alike about that. I wrote an essay on love once. The master said it was the best I ever wrote, and I can remember the first sentence still. Love is something that you feel in your heart. That was a trenchant remark. Can you remember any more? No, said Gregory regretfully. I've forgotten the rest. But tell me what you think about love. A look, half abstraction, half amusement, played on her lips. I don't know much about love, she said, and I do not like to talk of things I do not understand, but I have heard two opinions. Some say the devil carried the seed from hell and planted it on earth to plague men and make them sin, and some say when all the plants in the garden of Eden were pulled up by the roots one bush that the angels had planted was left growing, and its spreaded seed over the whole earth and its name is love. I do not know which is right, perhaps both. There are different species that go under the same name. There is a love that begins in the head that goes down to the heart and grows slowly, but it lasts till death and asks less than it gives. There is another love that blots out wisdom. That is sweet with the sweetness of life and bitter with the bitterness of death, lasting for an hour, but it is worth having lived a whole life for that hour. I cannot tell. Perhaps the old monks were right when they tried to root love out. Perhaps the poets are right when they tried to water it. It is a blood-red flower with the colour of sin, but there is always the scent of a God about it. Gregory would have made a remark, but she said without noticing, there are as many kinds of loves as there are flowers, everlastings that never wither, speed-wells that wait for the wind to fan them out of life, blood-red mountain lilies that pour their voluptuous sweetness out for one day and lie in the dust of night. There is no flower has the charm of all, the speed-wells purity, the everlasting strength, the mountain lilies warmth, but who knows whether there is no love that holds all friendship, passion, worship? Such a love, she said in her sweetest voice, will fall on the surface of strong, cold, selfish life as the sun falls on a torpid winter-world, there where the trees are bare and the ground frozen, till it rings to the step like iron, and the water is solid, and the air is sharp as a two-edged knife that cuts the unwary. But when the sun shines on it, through its whole dead crust a throbbing yearning wakes, the trees feel him, and every knot and bud swell aching to open to him. The brown seeds who have slept deep under the ground feel him, and he gives them strength till they break through the frozen earth, and lift two tiny trembling green hands in love to him. And he touches the water till down to its depths it feels him and melts, and it flows, and the things, strange sweet things that were locked up in it, sings as it runs, for love of him. Each plant tries to bear at least one fragrant little flower for him, and the world that was dead lives. And the heart that was dead and self-centred throbs with an upward, outward yearning, and it has become that which it seemed impossible ever to become. There! Does that satisfy you? she asked, looking down at Gregory. Is that how you like me to talk? Oh, yes! said Gregory. That is what I have already thought. We have the same thoughts about everything. How strange! Very, said Lindl, working with her little toe at a stone in the ground before her. Gregory felt he must sustain the conversation. The only thing he could think of was to recite a piece of poetry. He knew he had learnt many about love, but the only thing that would come into his mind now was the battle of Hoenn Linden, and not a drum was heard, neither of which seemed to bear directly on the subject on hand. That unexpected relief came to him from Doss, who, too deeply lost in contemplation of his crevice, was surprised by the sudden descent of the stone Lindl's foot had loosened, which, rolling against his little front paw, carried away a piece of white skin. Doss stood on three legs, holding up his paw with an expression of extreme self-commiseration. He then proceeded to hop slowly upwards in search of sympathy. You have hurt that dog, said Gregory. Have I? She replied indifferently and reopened the book as though to resume her study of the play. He's a nasty, snappish little cur, said Gregory, calculating from her manner that the remark would be endorsed. He snapped at my horse's tail yesterday and nearly made it throw me. I wonder his master didn't take him instead of leaving him here to be a nuisance to all of us. Lindl seemed absorbed in her play, but he ventured another remark. Do you think now, Miss Lindl, that he'll ever have anything in the world, that German, I mean, money enough to support a wife on and all that sort of thing? I don't. He's what I call a soft. She was spreading her skirt out softly with her left hand for the dog to lie down on it. I think I should be rather astonished if he ever became a respectable member of society, she said. I don't expect to see him the possessor of bank shares, the chairman of a divisional council and the father of a large family, wearing a black hat and going to church twice on a Sunday. He would rather astonish me if he came to such an end. Yes, I don't expect anything of him either," said Gregory zealously. Well, I don't know, said Lindl. There are some small things I'd rather look to him for, if he were to invent wings, or carve a statue that one might look at for half an hour without wanting to look at something else, I should not be surprised. He may do some little thing of that kind, perhaps, when he has done fermenting and the sediment has all gone to the bottom. Gregory felt that what she said was not wholly intended as blame. Well, I don't know, he said selfily. To me he looks like a fool. To walk about always in that dead and alive sort of way, mattering to himself like an old kaffa-witch-doctor. He works hard enough, but it's always as though he didn't know what he was doing. You don't know how he looks to a person who sees him for the first time. Lindl was softly touching the little sore foot as she read, and Dost to show he liked it licked her hand. But Miss Lindl persisted Gregory. What do you really think of him? I think, said Lindl, that he is like a thorn-tree, which grows up very quietly without anyone's caring for it, and one day suddenly breaks out into yellow blossoms. And what do you think I am like? asked Gregory, hopefully. Lindl looked up from her book. Like a little tin duck floating on a dish of water that comes after a piece of bread stuck on a needle, and the more the needle pricks it, the more it comes on. Oh, you are making fun of me now. You really are, said Gregory, feeling Richard. You are making fun, aren't you now? Partly it is always diverting to make comparisons. Yes, but you don't compare me to anything nice, and you do other people. What is M like now? The accompaniment of a song. She fills up the gaps in other people's lives, and is always number two. But I think she is like many accompaniments. A great deal better than the song she is to accompany. She is not half so good as you are, said Gregory, with a burst of uncontrollable ardour. She is so much better than I that her little finger has more goodness in it than my whole body. I hope you may not live to find out the truth of that fact. You are like an angel, he said, the blood rushing to his head and face. Yes, probably. Angels are of many orders. You are the one being that I love, said Gregory quivering. I thought I loved before, but I know now. Do not be angry with me. I know you could never like me, but if I might but always be near you to serve you, I would be utterly, utterly happy. I would ask nothing in return. If you could only take everything I have and use it, I want nothing but to be of use to you. She looked at him for a few minutes. How do you know, she said slowly, that you could not do something to serve me? You could serve me by giving me your name. He started and turned his burning face to her. You are very cruel. You are ridiculing me, he said. No, I am not Gregory. What I am saying is plain matter-of-fact business. If you are willing to give me your name within three weeks' time, I am willing to marry you. If not, well, I want nothing more than your name. That is a clear proposal, is it not? He looked up. Was it contempt, loathing, pity, that moved in the eyes above? He could not tell, but he stooped over the little foot and kissed it. She smiled. Do you really mean it? He whispered. Yes. You wish to serve me, and to have nothing in return? You shall have what you wish. She held out her fingers for Dostelik. Do you see this dog? He licks my hand because I love him, and I allow him to. Where I do not love, I do not allow it. I believe you love me. I too could love so, that to lie under the foot of the thing I loved would be more than heaven than to lie in the breast of another. Come, let us go. Carry the dog," she added. He will not bite you if I put him in your arms. So do not let his foot hang down. They descended the copy. At the bottom he whispered, Would you not take my arm? The path is very rough. She rested her fingers lightly on it. I may yet change my mind about marrying you before the time comes. It is very likely, Mark you," she said, turning round on him. I remember your words. You will give everything and expect nothing. The knowledge that you are serving me is to be your reward. And you will have that. You will serve me and greatly. The reason I have for marrying you I need not inform you of now. You will probably discover some of them before long. I only want to be of some use to you," he said. It seemed to Gregory that there were pulses in the soles of his feet, and the ground shimmered as on a summer's day. They walked round the foot of the copy and passed the kaffa-huts. An old kaffa-maid knelt at the door of one, grinding meelies. That she should see him walking so made his heart beat so fast that the hand on his arm felt its pulsation. It seemed that she must envy him. Just then M. looked out again at the back window and saw them coming. She cried bitterly all the while, she sorted the skins. But that night, when Lindle had blown her candle out and half turned round to sleep, the door of M's bedroom opened. I want to say good night to you, Lindle," she said, coming to the bedroom and kneeling down. I thought you were asleep," Lindle replied. Yes, I have been asleep, but I had such a vivid dream," she said, holding the other's hands. And that awoke me. I have never had so vivid a dream before. It seemed I was a little girl again, and I came somewhere into a large room. On a bed in the corner there was something lying dressed in white, and its little eyes were shut, and its little face was like wax. I thought it was a doll, and I ran forward to take it, but someone held up her finger and said, Hush! It is a little dead baby. And I said, Oh! I must go and call Lindle, that she may look at it also. And they put their faces close down to my ear and whispered, It is Lindle's baby. And I said, She cannot be grown up, yet she's only a little girl. Where is she? And I went to look for you, but I couldn't find you. And when I came to some people who were dressed in black, I asked them where you were, and they looked down at their black clothes and shook their heads and said nothing, and I could not find you anywhere. And then I awoke. Lindle, she said, putting her face down upon the hands she held. It made me think about that time when we were little girls and used to play together, when I loved you better than anything else in the world. It isn't any one's fault that they love you, they can't help it. And it isn't your fault, you don't make them love you, I know it. Thank you, dear, Lindle said, it is nice to be loved, but it would be better to be good. Then they wished good night, and M went back to her room. Long after, Lindle lay in the dark, thinking, thinking, and as she turned round whereily to sleep she muttered. There is some wiser in their sleeping than in their waking. End of Chapter 2, Part 8 Chapter 2, Part 9 of the story of an African farm by Olive Shreiner. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Created by Sally McConnell in Betty's Bay in March 2010. LINDLE STRANGER A fire is burning in the unused heart of the cabin. The fuel blazes up, and lights the black rafters and warms the faded red lions on the quilt, and fills the little room with the glow of warmth and light, made brighter by contrast, for outside the night is chill and misty. Before the open fireplace sits a stranger, his tall, slight figure reposing in the broken armchair, his keen blue eyes studying the fire from beneath delicately penciled, drooping eyelids. One white hand plays thoughtfully with a heavy, flaxen moustache. Yet once he starts, and for an instant the languid flits raise themselves, there is a keen, intent look upon the face as he listens for something. Then he leans back in his chair, fills his glass from the silver flask in his bag, and resumes his old posture. Presently the door opens noiselessly. It is Lindle, followed by Doss. Quietly as she enters, he hears her and turns. I thought you were not coming. I waited till all had gone to bed, I could not come before. She removed the shawl that enveloped her, and the stranger rose to offer her his chair, but she took her seat on a low pile of sacks before the window. I hardly see why I should be outlawed after this fashion. He said, reseating himself and drawing his chair a little nearer to her. These are hardly the quarters one expects to find after travelling a hundred miles in answer to an invitation. I said, come if you wish. And I did wish. You give me a cold reception. I could not take you to the house. Questions would be asked, which I could not answer without pre-varication. Your conscience is growing to have a certain virgin tenderness. He said in a low, melodious voice. I have no conscience. I spoke one deliberate lie this evening. I said the man who had come looked rough. We had best not have him in the house. Therefore I brought him here. It was a deliberate lie, and I hate lies. I tell them if I must, but they hurt me. Well, you do not tell lies to yourself at all events. You are candid so far. She interrupted him. You got my letter? Yes, that's why I came. You sent a very foolish reply. You must take it back. Who is this fellow you talk of marrying? A young farmer. Lives here? Yes, he's gone to town to get things for our wedding. What kind of fellow is he? A fool. And you would rather marry him than me? Yes, because you are not one. That is a novel reason for refusing to marry a man, he said, leaning his elbow on the table and watching her keenly. It's a wise one, she said shortly. If I marry him I shall shake him off my hand when it suits me. If I remained with him for twelve months he would never have dared to kiss my hand, as far as I wish he should come he comes and no further. Would you ask me what you might and what you might not do? A companion raised the moustache with the caressing movement from his lip and smiled. It was not a question that stood in need of any answer. Why do you wish to enter on this semblance of marriage? Because there is only one point on which I have a conscience. I have told you so. Then why not marry me? Because if once you have me you would hold me fast I shall never be free again. She drew a long, low breath. What have you done with the ring I gave you, he asked? Sometimes I wear it, then I take it off and wish to throw it into the fire. The next day I put it on again, and sometimes I kiss it. So you do love me a little. If you are not something more to me than any other man in the world, do you think she paused? I love you when I see you, but when you are away from me I hate you. Then I fear I must be singularly invisible at the present moment, he said. Possibly if you were to look less fixedly into the fire you might perceive me. He moved his chair slightly so as to come between her and the firelight. She raised her eyes to his face. If you do love me, he asked her, why will you not marry me? Because if I had been married to you for a year, I should have come to my senses and seen that your hands and your voice are like the hands and the voice of any other man. I cannot quite see that now, but it is all madness. You call into activity one part of my nature. There is a higher part that you know nothing of, that you never touch. If I married you, afterwards it would arise and assert itself, and I should hate you always as I do now sometimes. I like you when you grow metaphysical and analytical, he said, leaning his face upon his hand. Go a little further in your analysis. Say, I love you with the right ventricle of the heart, but not the left, and with the left oracle of my heart, but not the right. And this being the case, my affection for you is not of a duly elevated intellectual and spiritual nature. I like you when you get philosophical. She looked quietly at him. He was trying to turn her own weapons against her. You are acting foolishly, Lindell, he said suddenly, changing his manner and speaking earnestly, most foolishly. You are acting like a little child, I am surprised at you. It is all very well to have ideals and theories, but you know as well as any one can that they must not be carried into the practical world. I love you. I do not pretend that it is in any high superhuman sense. I do not say that I should like you as well if you were ugly and deformed, or that I should continue to prize you whatever your treatment of me might be, or to love you though you were a spirit without any body at all. That is sentimentality for beardless boys. Everyone not a mere child, and you are not a child except in years, knows what love between a man and a woman means. I love you with that love. I should not have believed it possible that I could have brought myself twice to ask of any woman to be my wife, more especially one without wealth, without position, and who, yes, go on, do not grow sorry for me, say what you were going to, who has put herself into my power, and who has lost the right of meeting me on equal terms. Say what you think, at least we too may speak the truth to one another. Then she added after a pause. I believe you do love me, as much as you possibly could love anything, and I believe that when you ask me to marry you, you are performing the most generous act you have ever performed in the course of your life, or ever will. But at the same time, if I had required your generosity, it would not have been shown to me. If, when I got your letter a month ago hinting at your willingness to marry me, I had at once written, impuring you to come, you would have read the letter. Poor little devil you would have said, and torn it up. The next week you would have sailed for Europe, and sent me a check for a hundred and fifty pounds, which I would have thrown into the fire, and I would have heard no more of you. The stranger smiled. But because I declined your proposal, and wrote that in three weeks I should be married to another, then what you call love woke up. Your man's love is a child's love for butterflies. You follow till you have the thing, and break it. If you have broken one wing and the thing flies still, then you love it more than ever, and follow till you break both. Then you are satisfied when it lies still on the ground. You are profoundly wise in the ways of the world. You have seen far into life, he said. He might as well have sneered at the fire-light. I have seen enough to tell me that you love me because you cannot bear to be resisted, and want to master me. You like me at first because I treated you and all men with indifference. You resolved to have me because I seemed unattainable. That is all your love means. He felt a strong inclination to stoop down, and to kiss the little lips that defied him, but he restrained himself. He said quietly, and you loved me? Because you are strong. You are the first man I ever was afraid of. And the dreamy look came into her face. Because I like to experience, I like to try. You don't understand that. He smiled. Well, since you will not marry me, may I inquire what your intentions are? The plan you wrote of. You asked me to come and hear it, and I have come. I said, come if you wish. If you agree to it. Well, if not, I marry on Monday. Well, she was still looking beyond to met the fire. I cannot marry you, she said slowly, because I cannot be tired. But if you wish, you may take me away with you, and take care of me. Then when we do not love any more, we can say good-bye. I will not go down country, she added. I will not go to Europe. You must take me to the transfer. That is out of the world. People we meet there, we need not see again in our future lives. Oh, my darling, he said, bending tenderly and holding his hand out to her. Why will you not give yourself entirely to me? One day you will desert me and go to another. She shook her head without looking at him. No, life is too long. But I will go with you. When? Tomorrow. I have told them that before daylight I go to the next farm. I will write from the town and tell them the facts. I do not want them to trouble me. I want to shake myself free of these old surroundings. I want them to lose sight of me. You can understand that that is necessary for me. He seemed lost in consideration. Then he said, It is better to have you on those conditions than not at all. If you will have it, let it be so. He sat looking at her. On her face was the wary look that rested there so often now when she sat alone. Two months had not passed since they were parted, but the time had set its mark on her. He looked at her carefully, from the brown smooth head to the little crossed feet on the floor. A worn look had grown over the little face, and it made its charm for him stronger. For pain and time, which trace deep lines and write a story on a human face, have a strangely different effect on one face and another. The face that is only fair, even very fair, they maw and flaw. But to the face whose beauty is the harmony between that which speaks from within and the form through which it speaks, power is added by all that causes the utter man to bear more deeply the impress of the inner. The pretty woman fades with the roses on her cheeks, and the girlhood that lasts an hour. The beautiful woman finds her fullness of bloom only when a past has written itself on her, and her power is then most irresistible when it seems going. From under their half-closed lids the keen eyes looked down at her. Her shoulders were bent. For a moment the little figure had forgotten its queenly bearing and drooped wearily. The wide, dark eyes watched the fire very softly. It certainly was not in her power to resist him, nor any strength in her that made his own at that moment grow soft as he looked at her. He touched the little hand that rested on her knee. Poor little thing, he said. You are only a child. She did not draw her hand away from his and looked up at him. You are very tired? Yes. She looked into his eyes as a little child might whom a long day's play had saddened. He lifted her gently up and sat her on his knee. Poor little thing, he said. She turned her face to his shoulder and buried it against his neck. He wound his strong arm about her and held her close to him. When she had sat for a long while he drew with his hand the face down and held it against his arm. He kissed it, and then put it back in its old resting place. Don't you want to talk to me? No. Have you forgotten a night in the avenue? He could feel that she shook her head. Do you want to be quiet now? Yes. They sat quite still, excepting that only sometimes he raised her fingers softly to his mouth. Doss, who had been asleep in the corner, waking suddenly, planted himself before them, his wiry legs moving nervously, his yellow eyes filled with anxiety. He was not at all sure that she was not being retained in her present position against her will, and was not a little relieved when she sat up and held out her hand for the shawl. I must go, she said. The stranger wrapped the shawl very carefully about her. Keep it close around your face, Lindel. It's very damp outside. Shall I walk with you to the house? No. Lie down and rest. I will come and wake you at three o'clock. She lifted her face that he might kiss it, and when he had kissed it once, she still held it that he might kiss it again. Then he let her out. He had seated himself at the fireplace when she reopened the door. Have you forgotten anything? No. She gave one long, lingering look at the old room. When she was gone and the door shut, the stranger filled his glass, and sat at the table, sipping it, thoughtfully. The night outside was misty and damp. The faint moonlight, trying to force its way through the thick air, made darkly visible the outlines of the buildings. The stones and walls were moist, and now and then a drop, slowly collecting, fell from the eaves to the ground. Doss, not liking the change from the cabin's warmth, ran quickly to the kitchen doorstep, but his mistress walked slowly past him, and took her way up the winding footpath that ran beside the stone wall of the camps. When she came to the end of the last camp, she threaded her way among the stones and bushes till she reached the Germans grave. Why she had come there, she hardly knew. She stood looking down. Suddenly she bent and put one hand on the face of a wet stone. I shall never come to you again, she said. Then she knelt on the ground and leaned her face upon the stones. Dear old man, good old man, I am so tired, she said, for we will come to the dead to tell secrets we would never have told to the living. I am so tired, there is light, there is warmth, she wailed. Why am I alone, so hard, so cold? I am so wary of myself, it is eating my soul to the core. Self, self, self, I cannot bear this life. I cannot breathe, I cannot live, for nothing free me from myself. She pressed her cheek against the wooden post. I want to love, I want something great and pure to lift me to itself. Dear old man, I cannot bear it any more. I am so cold, so hard, so hard. Will no one help me? The water gathered slowly on her shore and fell onto the wet stones. But she lay there, crying bitterly. For so the living soul will cry to the dead, and the creature to its God, and of all us crying there comes nothing. The lifting up of the hands brings no salvation. Redemption is from within, and neither from God nor man. It is wrought out by the soul itself, with suffering and through time. Doss, on the kitchen doorstep, shivered and wondered where his mistress stayed so long. And once, sitting sadly there in the damp, he had dropped to sleep and dreamed that old Otto gave him a piece of bread, and patted him on the head. And when he woke, his teeth chattered, and he moved to another stone to see if it was drier. At last he heard his mistress' step, and they went into the house together. She lit a candle and walked to the borewoman's bedroom. On a nail, under the lady in pink, hung the key of the wardrobe. She took it down and opened the great press. From a little drawer she took fifty pounds, all she had in the world, relocked the door, and turned to hang up the key. Then she paused, hesitated. The marks of tears were still on her face, but she smiled. Fifty pounds for her lover, a noble reward. She said and opened the wardrobe and returned the notes to the drawer where M might find them. As in her own room she arranged the few articles she intended to take to-morrow, burnt her old letters, and then went back to the front room to look at the time. There were two hours yet before she must call him. She sat down at the dressing-table to wait and leaned her elbows on it and buried her face in her hands. The glass reflected the little brown head with its even parting, and the tiny hands on which she'd rested. One day I will love something utterly, and then I will be better. She said once. Presently she looked up. The large dark eyes from the glass looked back at her, and she looked deep into them. We are all alone, you and I, she whispered. No one helps us, no one understands us, but we will help ourselves. The eyes looked back at her. There was a world of assurance in their still depths. So they had looked at her ever since she could remember when it was but a small child's face above a blue pinnacle. We shall never be quite alone, you and I, she said. We shall always be together, as we were when we were little. The beautiful eyes looked into the dips of her soul. We are not afraid. We will help ourselves, she said. She stretched out her hand and pristed over them on the glass. Dear eyes, we will never be quite alone until they part us. CHAPTER II. Gregory Rose Gregory Rose was in the loft, putting it neat. Inside the rain poured. A six-month drought had broken, and the thirsty plain was drenched with water. What it could not swallow ran often mad rivulets to the great sloot that now firmed like an angry river across the flat. Even the little furrow between the farmhouse and the cross was now a main stream, knee-deep, which almost bore away the kaffa-women who crossed it. It had rained for twenty-four hours, and still the rain poured on. The fowls had collected. A melancholy crowd, in and about the wagon-house, and the solitary gander, who alone had survived the six months' want of water, walked hither and thither, printing his webbed foot-marks on the mud, to have them washed out the next instant by the pelting rain, which at eleven o'clock still beat on the walls and roof with unabated ardour. Gregory, as he worked on the loft, took no notice of it, beyond stuffing a sack into the broken pane to keep it out. And in spite of the pelt and petter, Im's clear voice might be heard through the open trap-door from the dining-room where she sat at work, singing the blue water. And take me away, and take me away, and take me away to the blue water. That quaint, childish song of the people, that has a world of sweetness, and sad, vague yearning when sung over and over dreamily by a woman's voice, as she sits alone at her work. But Gregory heard neither that, nor yet the loud laughter of the cafe-maids that every noun again broke through from the kitchen, where they joked and worked. Of late Gregory had grown strangely impervious to the sounds and sights about him. His lease had run out, but Im had said, Do not renew it. I need one to help me. Just stay on. And she had added, Live with me. You can look after my ostriches better, so. And Gregory did not thank her. What difference did it make to him paying rent or not, living there or not? It was all one. But yet he came. Im wished that he would still sometimes talk of the strength and master-right of man, but Gregory was as one smitten on the cheekbone. She might do what she pleased. He would find no fault, had no word to say. He had forgotten that it is man's right to rule. On that rainy morning he had lighted his pipe at the kitchen fire, and when breakfast was over stood in the front door, watching the water rush down the road till the pipe died out in his mouth. Im saw she must do something for him and found him a large calico duster. She had sometimes talked of putting the loft neat, and to-day she could find nothing else for him to do. So she had the ladder put to the trap door that he need not go out in the wet, and Gregory with the broom and duster mounted to the loft. Once at work he worked hard. He dusted down the very rafters and cleaned the broken candle-molds, and bent forks that had stuck in the thatch for twenty years. He placed the black bottles neatly and rose on an old box in the corner, and piled the skins on one another, and sorted the rubbish in all the boxes, and at eleven o'clock his work was almost done. He seated himself on the packing-cases which had once held Waldo's books, and proceeded to examine the contents of another which he had not yet looked at. It was carelessly nailed down. He loosened one plank, and began to lift out various articles of female attire, old-fashioned caps, aprons, dresses with long pointed bodies such as he remembered to have seen his mother wear when he was a little child. He shook them out carefully to see there were no moths, and then sat down to fold them up again, one by one. They had belonged to him's mother, and the box, as packed at her death, had stood untouched and forgotten these long years. She must have been a tall woman, that mother of him's, for when he stood up to shake out a dress, the neck was on a level with his, and the skirt touched the ground. Gregory laid a night-cap out on his knee, and began rolling up the strings, but presently his fingers moved slower and slower, then his chin rested on his breast, and finally the imploring blue eyes were fixed on the frill abstractedly. When M's voice called to him from the foot of the ladder, he started, and threw the night-cap behind him. She was only come to tell him that his cup of soup was ready, and when he could hear that she was gone he picked up the night-cap again, and a great Bran's son cuppy, just such a cuppy and such a dress as one of those he remembered to have seen a sister of mercy wear. Gregory's mind was very full of thought. He took down a fragment of an old-looking glass from behind a beam, and put the cuppy on. His beard looked somewhat grotesque under it. He put up his hand to hide it. That was better. The blue eyes looked out with the mild gentleness that became eyes looking out from under a cuppy. Next he took the Bran dress, and looked Bran furtively, slipped it over his head. He had just got his arms in the sleeves, and was trying to hook up the back, when an increase in the patter of the rain at the window made him drag it off hastily. When he perceived there was no one coming, he tumbled the things back into the box, and covering it carefully went down the ladder. Em was still at her work trying to adjust a new needle in the machine. Gregory drank his soup, and then sat before her, an awful and mysterious look in his eyes. "'I am going to town to-morrow,' he said. "'I am almost afraid you won't be able to go,' said Em, who was intent on her needle. "'I don't think it's going to leave off to-day.' "'I am going,' said Gregory. Em looked up. "'But the slutes are as full as rivers. You cannot go. We can wait for the post,' she said. "'I am not going for the post,' said Gregory impressively. Em looked for an explanation. None came. "'When will you be back?' "'I am not coming back. Are you going to your friends?' Gregory waited, then caught her by the wrist. "'Look here, Em,' he said, between his teeth. "'I can't stand it any more. I'm going to her.' Since that day, when he had come home and found Lindel gone, he had never talked of her. But Em knew who it was who needed to be spoken of by no name. She said when he had released her hand, but you do not know where she is. "'Yes, I do. She was in Bloomfontein when I heard last. I will go there, and I will find out where she went then, and then, and then.' I will have her.' Em turned the wheel quickly, and the ill-adjusted needle sprang into twenty fragments. "'Gregary,' she said, "'she does not want us. She told us so clearly in the letter she wrote. A flush rose on her face as she spoke. It will only be pain to you, Gregory. Will she like to have you near her?' There was an answer he might have made, but it was his secret, and he did not choose to share it. She said only, "'I am going.' "'Will you be gone long, Gregory?' "'I do not know. Perhaps I shall never come back. Do what you please with my things. I cannot stay here.' He rose from his seat. "'People say, forget, forget,' he cried, pacing the room. "'They are mad. They are fools. Do they say so to men who are dying of thirst? Forget, forget. Why is it only to us they say so? It is a lie to say that time makes it easy. It is afterwards—afterwards that it eats in at your heart.' "'All these months,' he cried bitterly, "'I have lived here quietly day after day, as if I cared for what I ate, and what I drank, and what I did. I care for nothing. I cannot bear it. I will not. Forget. Forget!' ejaculated Gregory. You can forget all the world, but you cannot forget yourself. When one thing is more to you than yourself, how are you to forget it?' "'I read,' he said. "'Yes, and then I came to a word she used, and it is all back with me again. I go to count my sheep, and I see her face before me, and I stand and let the sheep run by. I look at you, and in your smile, as something at the corner of your lips, I see her. How can I forget her, when wherever I turn she is there, and not there? I cannot. I will not live where I do not see her. I know what you think,' he said, turning to him, "'You think I'm mad. You think I'm going to see whether she will not like me. I am not so foolish. I should have known at first she never could suffer me. Who am I? What am I, that she should look at me?' It was right that she left me—right that she should not look at me. If any one says it is not, it is a lie. I am not going to speak to her,' he added, "'only to see her, only to stand sometimes in a place where she has stood before.'" CHAPTER II PART 11 OF THE STORY OF AN AFRICAN FARM BY OLLIVE SHRINER The Slippery Vox recording is in the public domain. Created by Sally McConnell in Bettys Bay, South Africa, in April 2010. AN UNFINISHED LETTER Gregory Rose had been gone seven months. M. sat alone on a white sheepskin before the fire. The August night wind, wared and shrill, howled round the chimneys and through the crannies, and in walls and doors and uttered a long, low cry as it forced its way among the cliffs or the stones on the copy. It was a wild night. The prickly pear-tree, stiff and upright as it held its arms, felt the wind's might and knocked its flat leaves heavily together till great branches broke off. The caffers as they slipped in their straw-huts whispered to one another that before morning there would not be an armful of thatch-lift on the roofs, and the beams of the wagon-house creaked and groaned as if it were heavy work to resist the impotunity of the wind. M. had not gone to bed. Who could sleep on a night like this? So in the dining-room she had lighted a fire and sat on the ground before it, turning the roaster-cakes that lay on the coals to bake. It would save work in the morning, and she blew out the light because the wind through the window-chinks made it flicker and run, and she sat singing to herself as she watched the cakes. She lay at one end of the wide hearth on a bed of coals, and at the other end a fire burnt up steadily, casting its amber glow over M's light hair and black dress with the ruffle of crepe about the neck, and over the white curls of the sheepskin on which she sat. Louder and more fiercely yet held the storm, but M sang on and heard nothing but the words of her song, and heard them only faintly, as something restful. It was an old childish song she had often heard her mother sing long ago. Where the reeds dance by the river, where the willow's song is said, On the face of the morning water is reflected a white flower's head. She folded her hands and sang the next verse dreamily. Where the reeds shake by the river, where the morning's sheen is shed, On the face of the sleeping water two leaves of a white flower float dead, dead, dead, dead. She echoed the refrain softly till it died away, and then repeated it. It was as if, unknown to herself, it harmonized with the pictures and thoughts that sat with her there alone in the firelight. She turned the cakes over, while the wind hurled down a row of bricks from the gable, and made the walls tremble. Presently she paused and listened. There was a sound as of something knocking at the back doorway. But the wind had raised its level higher, and she went on with her work. At last the sound was repeated. Then she rose, lit the candle at the fire, and went to sea. Only to satisfy herself, she said that nothing could be out on such a night. She opened the door a little way, and held the light behind her to defend it from the wind. The figure of a tall man stood there, and before she could speak he had pushed his way in, and was forcing the door to close behind him. Waldo! she cried in astonishment. He had been gone more than a year and a half. You did not expect to see me, he answered as he turned towards her. I should have slept in the art-house and not troubled you to-night, but through the shutter I saw glimmerings of a light. Come into the fire, she said, it's a terrific night for any creature to be out. Are we not going to fit your things in first, she added? I have nothing but this, he said, motioning to the little bundle in his hand. Your horse is dead. He sat down on the bench before the fire. The cakes are almost ready, she said. I'll get you something to eat. Where have you been wandering all this while? Up and down, up and down, he answered warily, and now the women has seized me to come back here. M. he said, putting his hand on her arm as she passed him. Have you heard from Lindell lately? Yes. Said M., turning quickly from him. Where is she? I had one letter from her, but that is almost a year ago now, just when she left. Where is she? In the transfer. I will go and get you some supper, we can talk afterwards. Can you give me her exact address, I want to write to her. But M. had gone into the next room. When food was on the table she knelt down before the fire, turning the cakes, babbling restlessly, eagerly, now of this, now of that. She was glad to see him. Tant Sonny was coming soon to show her her new baby. He must stay on the farm now and help her. And Waldo himself was well content to eat his meal in silence, asking no more questions. Gregory is coming back next week, she said. He will have been gone just a hundred and three days tomorrow. I had a letter from him yesterday. Where has he been? But his companion stooped to lift a cake from the fire. How the wind blows! One can hardly hear one's own voice, she said. Take this warm cake. No one's cakes are like mine. Why, you have eaten nothing! I am a little wary, he said. The wind was mad to-night. He folded his arms and rested his head against the fireplace, whilst she removed the dishes from the table. On the mantelpiece stood an ink-pot and some sheets of paper. Presently he took them down and turned up the corner of the tablecloth. I will write a few lines, he said, till you are ready to sit down and talk. M as she shook out the tablecloth watched him bending intently over his paper. He had changed much. His face had grown thinner. His cheeks were almost hollow, though they were covered by a dark growth of beard. She sat down on the skin beside him and felt the little bundle on the bench. It was painfully small and soft. Perhaps it held a shirt and a book, but nothing more. The old black hat had a piece of unhemmed muslin twisted round it, and on his elbow was a large patch so fixed on with yellow thread that her heart ached. Only his hair was not changed, and hung in silky beautiful waves almost to his shoulders. Also she would take the ragged edge off his collar and put a new band round his hat. But she wondered how it was that he sat to write so intently after his long weary walk. He was not tired now. His pen hurried quickly and restlessly over the page, and his eye was bright. Presently M raised her hand to her breast, where lay the letter yesterday had brought her. Soon she had forgotten him, as entirely as he had forgotten her, each was in his own world with his own. He was writing to Lindell. He would tell her all he had seen, all he had done, though it were nothing worth relating. He seemed to have come back to her, and to be talking to her now as he sat there in the old house. And then I got to the next town, and my horse was tired, so I could go no further, and looked for work. A shopkeeper agreed to hire me as a salesman. He made me sign a promise to remain six months, and he gave me a little empty room at the store to sleep in. I still had three pounds of my own, and when you have just come from the country three pounds seems a great deal. When I had been in the shop three days I wanted to go away again. A clock in a shop has the lowest work to do of all people. It is much better to break stones. You have the blue sky above you, and only the stones to bend to. I asked my master to let me go, and I offered to give him my two pounds, and the bag of meelies I had bought with the other pound, but he would not. I found out afterwards he was only giving me half as much as he gave to the others. That was why. I had fear when I looked at the other clocks that I would at last become like them. All day they were bowing and smirking to the women who came in, smiling when all they wanted was to get their money from them. They used to run and fetch the dresses and ribbons to show them, and they seemed to me like worms with oil on. There was one respectable thing in that store. It was the kaffa storeman. His work was to load and unload, and he never needed to smile except when he liked, and he never told lies. The other clocks gave me the name of old salvation. But there was one person I liked very much. He was Clark in another store. He often went past the door. He seemed to me not like the others. His face was bright and fresh like a little child's. When he came to the shop I felt I liked him. One day I saw a book in his pocket, and that made me feel near him. I asked him if he was fond of reading, and he said yes, when there was nothing else to do. The next day he came to me and asked me if I did not feel lonely. He never saw me going out with the other fellows. He would come and see me that evening, he said. I was glad and bought some meat and flour because the gray mare and I always ate mealies. It's the cheapest thing. When you boil it hard you can't eat much of it. I made some cakes, and I folded my great-coat on the box to make it soft for him, and at last he came. You've got a rummy place here, he said. You see there was nothing in it but packing-cases for furniture, and it was rather empty. While I was putting the food on the box he looked at my books. He read their names out loud, elementary physiology, first principles. Golly, he said. I've got a lot of dry stuff like that at home I got for Sunday school prizes, but I only keep them to light my pipe with now. They come in handy for that. Then he asked me if I'd ever read a book called The Black-eyed Creole. That is the style for me, he said. There where the fellow takes the nigger-girl by the arm and the other fellow cuts off. That's what I like. But what he said after that I don't remember, only that it made me feel as if I were having a bad dream and I wanted to be far away. When he had finished eating he did not stay long. He had to go and see some girls home from a prayer meeting, and he asked how it was he never saw me walking out with any on Sunday afternoons. He said he had lots of sweethearts, and he was going to see one the next Wednesday on a farm, and he asked me to lend my mare. I told him she was very old, but he said it didn't matter. He would come the next day to fetch her. After he was gone my little room got back to its old look. I loved it so. I was so glad to get into it at night, and it seemed to be reproaching me for bringing him there. The next day he took the grey mare. On Thursday he did not bring her back, and on Friday I found the saddle and bridle standing at my door. In the afternoon he looked into the shop and called out, Hope you got your saddle, Farber. Your bag of burns kicked out six miles from this. I'll send you a couple of shillings to-morrow, though the old hide wasn't worth it. Good morning. But I sprang over the counter and got him by his throat. My father was so gentle with her he never would ride her uphill, and now this fellow had murdered her. I asked him where he had killed her, and I shook him till he slipped out of my hand. He stood in the door grinning. It didn't take much to kill that bag of bones whose master sleeps in a packing case, and waits till his company's finished to eat on the plate. Shouldn't wonder if you fed her on sugar-bags, he said, and if you think I've jumped her you'd better go and look yourself. You'll find her along the road by the asphaltles that are eating her. I caught him by his collar, and I lifted him from the ground, and I threw him out onto the street halfway across it. I heard the bookkeeper say to the clock that there was always the devil in those mum-fellows, but they never called me salvation after that. I am writing to you of very small things, but there is nothing to tell. It's all been small, and you will like it. Whenever anything has happened I've always thought I would tell it to you. The back-thought in my mind is always you. After that only one old man came to visit me. I had seen him in the streets often. He always wore very dirty black clothes, and a hat with crepe rounded, and he had one eye, so I noticed him. One day he came to my room with a subscription list for a minister's salary. When I said I had nothing to give he looked at me with his one eye. Young man, he said, how is it I never see you in the house of the Lord? I thought he was trying to do good, so I felt sorry for him, and I told him I never went to chapel. Young man, he said, it grieves me to hear such godless words from the lips of one so young, so far gone in the paths of destruction. Young man, if you forget God, God will forget you. There is a seat on the right hand side as you go at the bottom door that you may get. If you are given over to the enjoyment and frivolities of this world, what will become of your never-dying soul? He would not go till I gave him half a crown for the minister's salary. Afterwards I heard he was the man who collected the pew-rents, and got a percentage. I didn't get to know anyone else. When my time in that shop was done, I hired myself to drive one of a transport-rider's wagons. That first morning when I sat in the front and called to my oxen and saw nothing about me but the hills with the blue coming down to them, and the caroo bushes, I was drunk. I laughed. My heart was beating till it hurt me. I shut my eyes tight, that when I opened them I might see there were no shelves about me. There must be a beauty in buying and selling if there's beauty in everything, but it is very ugly to me. My life as a transport-rider would have been the best life in the world if I had only one wagon to drive. My master told me he would drive one, I the other, and he would hire another person to drive the third. But the first day I drove two to help him, and after that he let me drive all three. Whenever he came to an hotel he stopped behind to get a drink, and when he rode up to the wagons he could never stand. The hotentotten I used to lift him up. We always travelled at night, and used to outspan for five or six hours in the heat of the day to rest. I planned that I would lie under the wagon and read for an hour or two every day before I went to sleep, and I did for the first two or three, but after that I only wanted to sleep like the rest and I packed my books away. When you have three wagons to look after all night you are sometimes so tired you can hardly stand. At first when I walked along driving my wagons in the night it was glorious. The stars had never looked so beautiful to me, and on the dark nights when we rode through the bush there were willow the wisps dancing on each side of the road. I found out that even the damp and dark are beautiful, but I soon changed and saw nothing but the road and my oxen. I only wished for a smooth piece of road so that I might sit at the front and doze. At the places where we art-span there were sometimes rare plants and flowers, the fastoons hanging from the bush-trees, and nuts and insects such as we never see here. But after a little while I never looked at them. I was too tired. I ate as much as I could and then lay down on my face under the wagon till the boy came to wake me to in-span, and then we drove on again at night. So it went. So it went. I think sometimes when we walked by my oxen I called to them in my sleep, for I know I thought of nothing. I was like an animal. My body was strong and well to work, but my brain was dead. If you have not felt it, Lindel, you cannot understand it. You may work and work and work till you are only a body, not a soul. Now, when I see one of those evil-looking men that come from Europe, navvies, with the beast-like sunken face, different from any kathers, I know what brought that look into their eyes. And if I only have one inch of tobacco, I give them half. It is work, grinding, mechanical work that they or their ancestors have done that has made them into beasts. You may work a man's body so that his soul dies. Work is good. I have worked at the old farm from the sun's rising till it's sitting, but I've had time to think and time to feel. You may work a man so that all but the animal in him is gone, and that grows stronger with physical labour. You may work a man till he is a devil. I know it because I have felt it. You will never understand the change that came over me. No one but I will ever know how great it was. But I was never miserable. When I could keep my oxen from sticking fast, and when I could find a place to lie down in, I had all I wanted. After I had driven eight months a rainy season came. For eighteen hours out of the twenty-four we worked in the wit. The mud went up to the axels sometimes, and we had to dig the wheels out, and we never went far in a day. My master swore at me more than ever, but when we had done he always offered me his brandy flask. When I first came he had offered it me, and I had always refused, but now I drank as my oxen did when I gave them water, without thinking. At last I bought brandy for myself whenever we passed to hotel. One Sunday we outspanned on the banks of a swirlen river to wait for its going down. It was drizzling still, so I lay under the wagon on the mud. There was no dry place anywhere, and all the dung was wet, so there was no fire to cook food. My little flask was filled with brandy, and I drank some, and went to sleep. When I woke it was drizzling still, so I drank some all. I was stiff and cold, and my master who lay by me offered me his flask, because mine was empty. I drank some, and then I thought I would go and see if the river was going down. I remember that I walked to the road, and it seemed to be going away from me. When I woke up I was lying by a little bush on the bank of the river. It was afternoon, all the clouds had gone, and the sky was deep blue. The bushman boy was grilling ribs at the fire. He looked at me and grinned from ear to ear. Master was a little nice, he said, and lay down in the road. Something might ride over master, so I carried him there. He grinned at me again. It was as though he said, You and I are comrades. I have lain in a road too, I know all about it. When I turned my head from him I saw the earth so pure after the rain, so green, so fresh, so blue, and I was a drunken carrier, whom his leader had picked up in the mud and laid at the roadside to sleep out his drink. I remembered my old life, and I remembered you. I saw how, one day, you would read in the papers, a German carrier named Waldo Farber was killed through falling from his wagon, being instantly crushed under the wheel. Deceased was supposed to have been drunk at the time of the accident. There are those notices in the paper every month. I sat up, and I took the brandy flask out of my pocket, and I flung it as far as I could into the dark water. The hotantock boy ran to see if he could catch it. It had sunk to the bottom. I never drank again. But Lindel, sin looks much more terrible to those who look at it than to those who do it. A convict or a man who drinks seems something so far off and horrible when we see him, but to himself he seems quite near to us and like us. We wonder what kind of a creature he is. But he is just we, ourselves. We are only the wood. The knife that carves on us is the circumstance. I do not know why I kept on working so hard for that master. I think it was as the oxen come every day and stand by the yurks. They do not know why. Perhaps I would have been with him still, but one day we started with loads for the diamond fields. The oxen were very thin now, and they had been standing about in the yurk all day without food while the wagons were being loaded. Not far from the town was a hill. When we came to the foot the first wagon stuck fast. I tried for a while to urge the oxen, but I soon saw that one span could never pull it up. I went to the other wagon to loosen that span, to join them on in front, but the transport rider who was lying at the back of the wagon jumped out. They shall bring it up the hill, and if half of them die for it they shall do it alone, he said. He was not drunk, but in a bad temper, for he had been drunk the night before. He swore at me and told me to take the whip and help him. We tried for a little time, then I told him it was no use. They could never do it. He swore larder and called to the leaders to come on with their whips, and together they lashed. There was one ox, a black ox, so thin that the ridge of his backburn almost cut through his flesh. It is you, devil, is it, that will not pull, the transport rider said. I will show you something. He looked like a devil. He told the boys to leave off flogging, and he held the ox by the horn, and took up a round stone, and knocked its nose with it till the blood came. When he had done they called to the oxen and took up their whips again, and the oxen strained with their backs bent, but the wagon did not move an inch. So you won't, won't you? He said, I'll help you. He took out his clasp-knife, and ran it into the leg of the trembling ox three times up to the hilt. Then he put the knife in his pocket, and they took their whips. The oxen's flanks quivered, and they firmed at the mouth. Straining they moved the wagon a few feet forward, then stood with bent backs to keep it from sliding back. From the black ox's nostrils firmened blood was streaming onto the ground. It turned its head in its anguish, and looked at me with its great starting eyes. It was praying for help in its agony and weakness, and they took their whips again. The creature billowed out loud. If there is a God it was calling to its maker for help. Then a stream of clear blood burst from both nostrils. It fell onto the ground, and the wagon slipped back. The man walked up to it. You're going to lie down, devil, are you? We'll see that you don't take it too easy. The thing was just dying. He opened his clasp-knife and stooped down over it. I do not know what I did then, but afterwards I know I had him on the stones, and I was kneeling on him. The boys dragged me off. I wish they had not. I left him standing in the sand in the road, shaking himself, and I walked back to town. I took nothing from that accursed wagon, so I had only two shillings, but it did not matter. The next day I got work at a wholesale store. My work was to pack and unpack goods, and to carry boxes, and I had only to work from six in the morning till six in the evening, so I had plenty of time. I hired a little room and subscribed to a library, so I had everything I needed, and in the week of Christmas holidays I went to see the sea. I walked all night for Lindle, to escape the heat, and a little after sunrise I got to the top of a high hill. Before me was a long, low, blue monotonous mountain. I walked looking at it, but I was thinking of the sea I wanted to see. At last I wondered what that curious blue thing might be. Then it struck me. It was the sea. I would have turned back again, only I was too tired. I wonder if all the things we longed to see—the churches, the pictures, the men in Europe—will disappoint us so? You see, I had dreamed of it so long. When I was a little boy, minding sheep behind the copy, I used to see the waves stretching out as far as the eye could reach in the sunlight—my sea. Is the ideal always more beautiful than the real? I got to the beach that afternoon, and I saw the water run up and down on the sand, and I saw the white, firm breakers. They were pretty, but I thought I would go back the next day. It was not my sea. But I began to like it when I sat by it that night in the moonlight, and the next day I liked it better. And before I left I loved it. It was not like the sky and stars, the talk of what has no beginning and no end, but it is so human. Of all the things I have ever seen, only the sea is like a human being. The sky is not, nor the earth. But the sea is always moving, always something deep in itself is stirring it. It never rests. It's always wanting, wanting, wanting. It hurries on, and then it creeps back slowly without having reached, moaning. It is always asking a question, and it never gets an answer. I can hear it in the day and in the night. The white, firm breakers are saying that which I think. I walk alone with them when there is no one to see me, and I sing with them. I lie down on the sand and watch them with my eyes half shut. The sky is bitter, but it is so high above our heads. I love the sea. Sometimes we must look down, too. After five days I went back to Gramstam. I had glorious books, and in the night I could sit in my little room and read them. But I was lonely. Books are not the same things when you are living among people. I cannot tell why, but they are dead. On the farm they would have been living beings to me. But here, where there are so many people about me, I wanted someone to belong to me. I was lonely. I wanted something that was flesh and blood. Once on this farm there came a stranger. I did not ask his name, but he sat among the caroo and talked with me. Now wherever I have travelled I have looked for him, in hotels, in streets, in passenger wagons as they rushed in. Through the open windows of houses I have looked for him, but I have not found him. Never heard a voice like his. One day I went to the Botanic Gardens. It was a half-holiday, and the band was to play. I stood in the long raised avenue and looked down. There were many flowers and ladies and children were walking about beautifully dressed. At last the music began. I had not heard such music before. At first it was slow and even, like the everyday life when we walk through it without thought or feeling. Then it grew faster. Then it paused, hesitated. Then it was quite still for an instant, and then it burst out. Lendl, they made heavenright when they made it all music. It takes you up and carries you away, away till you have the things you longed for. You are up close to them. You have got out into a large, free, open place. I could not see anything while it was playing. I stood with my head against my tree. But when it was done I saw that there were ladies sitting close to me on a wooden bench, and the stranger who had talked to me that day in the caroo was sitting between them. The ladies were very pretty and their dresses beautiful. I do not think they had been listening to the music for they were talking and laughing very softly. I heard all they said, and could even smell the rose on the breast of one. I was afraid he would see me, so I went to the other side of the tree, and soon they got up and began to pace up and down in the avenue. All the time the music played they chattered, and he carried on his arm the scarf of the prettiest lady. I did not hear the music. I tried to catch the sound of his voice each time he went by. When I was listening to the music I did not know I was badly dressed. Now I felt so ashamed of myself. I never knew before what a low, horrible thing I was, dressed in tan cord. That day on the farm when we sat on the ground under the thorn-trees I thought he quite belonged to me. Now I saw he was not mine. But he was still as beautiful. His brown eyes are more beautiful than any one's eyes, except yours. At last they turned to go, and I walked after them. When they got out of the gate he helped the ladies into the fighting, and stood for a moment with his foot on the step talking to them. He had a little cane in his hand, and an Italian greyhound ran after him. Just when they drove away one of the ladies dropped her whip. Pick it up, fellow, she said, and when I brought it her she threw sixpence on the ground. I might have gone back to the garden then, but I did not want music. I wanted clothes, to be fashionable and fine. I felt that my hands were coarse, and that I was vulgar. I never tried to see him again. I stayed in my situation four months after that, but I was not happy. I had no rest. The people about me pressed on me and made me dissatisfied. I could not forget them. Even when I did not see them they pressed on me and made me miserable. I did not love books. I wanted people. When I walked home under the shady trees in the street I could not be happy, for when I passed the houses I heard music and saw faces between the curtains. I did not want any of them, but I wanted someone for mine, for me. I could not help it. I wanted a finer life. One day something made me happy. A nurse came to the store with a little girl belonging to one of our clerks. While the maid went into the office to give a message to its father, the little girl stood looking up at me. Presently she came close to me and peeped up into my face. Nice curls. Pretty curls, she said. I like curls. She felt my hair all over with her little hands. When I put out my arm she let me take her and sit her on my knee. She kissed me with her soft mouth. We were happy till the nurse-girl came and shook her and asked her if she was not ashamed to sit on the knee of that strange man. But I do not think my little one minded. She laughed at me as she went out. If the world was all children I could like it, but men and women draw me so strangely and then press me away till I am in agony. I was not meant to live among people. Perhaps some day when I am grown older I will be able to go and live among them and look at them as I look at the rocks and bushes without letting them disturb me and take myself from me. But not now. So I grew miserable. A kind of fever seemed to eat me. I could not rest or read or think so I came back here. I knew you were not here, but it seemed as though I should be nearer you. It is you I want, you that the other people suggest to me but cannot give. He had filled all the sheets he had taken and now lifted down the last from the mantelpiece. M had dropped asleep and lay slumbering peacefully on the skin before the fire. Out of doors the storm still raged but in a fitful manner as though growing half wary of itself. He bent over his papers again with eager, flashed, cheek and wrote on, It has been a delightful journey, this journey home. I have walked on foot. The evening before last when it was just sunset I was a little foot sore and thirsty and went out of the road to look for water. I went down into a deep little clove. Little trees ran along the bottom and I thought I should find water there. The sun had quite set when I got to the bottom of it. It was very still. Not a leaf was stirring anywhere. In the bed of the mountain torrent I thought I might find water. I came to the bank and I leaped down into the dry bed. The floor on which I stood was a fine white sand and the banks rose on every side like the walls of a room. Above there was a precipice of rocks and a tiny stream of water oozed from them and fell slowly onto the flat stone below. Each drop you could hear fall like a little silver bell. There was one among the trees on the bank that stood out against the white sky. All the other trees were silent, but this one shook and trembled against the sky. Everything else was still, but those leaves were quivering. Quivering. I stood on the sand. I could not go away. When it was quite dark and the stars had come out, I clipped out. Does it seem strange to you that it should have made me so happy? It is because I cannot tell you how near I felt to things that we cannot see but we always feel. Tonight has been a wild, stormy night. I've been walking across the plain for hours in the dark. I have walked like the wind because I have seemed forcing my way through to you. I knew you were not here, but I would hear of you. When I used to sit on the transport-wagon half-sleeping, I used to start awake because your hands were on me. In my lodgings many nights I have blown the light out and sat in the dark, that I might see your face start out more distinctly. Sometimes it was the little girl's face who used to come to me behind the copy when I minded sheep, and sit by me in her blue pinafore. Sometimes it was older. I love you both. I'm very helpless. I shall never do anything, but you will work, and I will take your work for mine. Sometimes such a sudden gladness seizes me when I remember that somewhere in the world you are living and working. You are my very own. Nothing else is my own so. When I have finished I'm going to look at your room door. He wrote, and the wind which had spent its fury moaned round and round the house, most like a tired child weary with crying. Him woke up and sat before the fire rubbing her eyes and listening as it sobbed about the gables and wandered away over the long stone walls. How quiet it has grown now, she said, and sighed herself, partly from weariness and partly from sympathy with the tired wind. He did not answer her. He was lost in his letter. She rose slowly after a time and rested her hand on his shoulder. You have many letters to write, she said. No, he answered. It is only one to lindle. She turned away and stood long before the fire looking into it. If you have a deadly fruit to give, it will not grow sweeter by keeping. Well, though, dear, she said, putting her hands on his, leave all for writing. He threw back the dark hair from his forehead and looked at her. It is no use writing any more, she said. Why not, he asked. She put her hand over the papers he had written. Waldo, she said, lindle is dead. End of chapter 2, part 11.