 Section 6 of Tales of Unrest, Chapter 6 of Corraine, A Memory Hollis looked smiling into the box. He had lately made a dash home through the canal. He had been away six months, and only joined us again just in time for this last trip. We had never seen the box before. His hands hovered above it, and he talked to us ironically, but his face became as grave as though he were pronouncing a powerful incantation over the things inside. Every one of us, he said, with pauses that somehow were more offensive than his words, every one of us, you'll admit, has been haunted by some woman, and as to friends dropped by the way. Well, ask yourselves. He paused. Corraine stared. A deep rumble was heard high up under the deck. Jackson spoke seriously. Don't be so beastly cynical. Ah! you are without guile, said Hollis, sadly. You will learn. Meantime, this Malay has been our friend. He repeated several times thoughtfully, friend, Malay, friend, Malay, as though weighing the words against one another. Then went on more briskly. A good fellow, a gentleman in his way. We can't, so to speak, turn our backs on his confidence and belief in us. His Malays are easily impressed. All nerves, you know. Therefore, he turned to me sharply. You know him best, he said, in a practical tone. Do you think he is fanatical? I mean very strict in his faith. I stammered in profound amazement that I did not think so. It's on account of its being a likeness, an engraved image, muttered Hollis enigmatically turning to the box. He plunged his fingers into it. Coraine's lips were parted, and his eyes shone. We looked into the box. There were there a couple of reels of cotton, a packet of needles, a bit of silk ribbon, dark blue, a cabinet photograph at which Hollis stole a glance before laying it on the table face downwards, a girl's portrait I could see. There were, amongst a lot of various small objects, a bunch of flowers, a narrow white glove with many buttons, a slim packet of letters carefully tied up, amulets of white men, charms and talismans, charms that keep them straight, that drive them crooked, that have the power to make a young man sigh, an old man smile, potent things that procure dreams of joy, thoughts of regret, that soften hard hearts and can temper a soft one to the hardness of steel, gifts of heaven, things of earth. Hollis rummaged in the box. And it seemed to me, during that moment of waiting, that the cabin of the schooner was becoming filled with a stir invisible and living as of subtle breaths. All the ghosts driven out of the unbelieving west by men who pretend to be wise and alone and at peace, all the homeless ghosts of an unbelieving world, appeared suddenly round the figure of Hollis, bending over the box. All the exiled and charming shades of loved women, all the beautiful and tender ghosts of ideals, remembered, forgotten, cherished, execrated, all the cast out and reproachful ghosts of friends admired, trusted, traduced, betrayed, left dead, by the way. They all seemed to come from the inhospitable regions of the earth to crowd into the gloomy cabin as though it had been a refuge and, in all the unbelieving world, the only place of avenging belief. It lasted a second. All disappeared. Hollis was facing us alone with something small that glittered between his fingers. It looked like a coin. Ah! Here it is, he said. He held it up. It was a sixpence. A jubilee sixpence. It was guilt. It had a hole punched near the rim. Hollis looked towards Corraine. A charm for our friend, he said to us. The thing itself is of great power, money, you know, and his imagination is struck. A loyal vagabond, if only his puritanism doesn't shy at a likeness. We said nothing. We did not know whether to be scandalised, amused or relieved. Hollis advanced towards Corraine who stood up as if startled and then holding the coin up spoke in Malay. This is the image of the great queen and the most powerful thing the white men know, he said solemnly. Corraine covered the handle of his chris in sign of respect and stared at the crowned head. The invincible, the pious, he muttered. She is more powerful than Suleiman the Wise, who commanded the genie, as you know, said Hollis gravely, I shall give this to you. He held the sixpence in the palm of his hand and, looking at it thoughtfully, spoke to us in English. She commands the spirit too, the spirit of her nation, a masterful, conscientious, unscrupulous, unconquerable devil that does a lot of good, incidentally, a lot of good, at times, and wouldn't stand any fuss from the best ghost out for such a little thing as our friend shot. Don't look thunderstruck, you fellows, help me to make him believe. Everything's in that. His people will be shocked, I murmured. Hollis looked fixedly at Corraine who was the incarnation of the very essence of still excitement. He stood rigid with head thrown back, his eyes rolled wildly, flashing, the dilated nostrils quivered. Hang it all, said Hollis at last. He's a good fellow. I'll give him something that I shall really miss. He took the ribbon out of the box, smiled at it scornfully, then, with a pair of scissors, cut out a piece from the palm of the glove. I shall make him a thing like those Italian peasants were, you know. He sewed the coin in the delicate leather, sewed the leather to the ribbon, tied the ends together. He worked with haste. Corraine watched his fingers all the time. Now then, he said, then stepped up to Corraine. They looked close into one another's eyes. Those of Corraine stared in a lost glance, but Hollis's seemed to grow darker and looked out, masterful and compelling. They were in violent contrast together, one motionless and the colour of bronze, the other dazzling white and lifting his arms, where the powerful muscles rolled slightly under a skin that gleamed like satin. Jackson moved near with the air of a man closing up to a chum in a tight place. I said impressively pointing to Hollis. He is young, but he is wise. Believe him. Corraine bent his head. Hollis threw lightly over it the dark blue ribbon and stepped back. Forget and be at peace, I cried. Corraine seemed to wake up from a dream. He said, ha! Shook himself as if throwing off a burden. He looked round with assurance. Someone on deck dragged off the skylight cover and a flood of light fell into the cabin. It was morning already. Time to go on deck, said Jackson. Hollis put on a coat and we went up, Corraine leading. The sun had risen beyond the hills and their long shadows stretched far over the bay in the pearly light. The air was clear, stainless and cool. I pointed at the curved line of yellow sands. He's not there, I said emphatically to Corraine. He waits no more. He has departed for ever. A shaft of bright hot rays darted into the bay between the summits of two hills and the water all round broke out as if by magic into a dazzling sparkle. No. He is not there waiting, said Corraine after a long look over the beach. I do not hear him. He went on slowly. No. He turned to us. He has departed again. For ever. He cried. We assented vigorously, repeatedly and without compunction. The great thing was to impress him powerfully to suggest absolute safety the end of all trouble. We did our best. And I hope we affirmed our faith in the power of Hollis's charm efficiently enough to put the matter beyond the shadow of a doubt. Our voices rang around him joyously in the still air, and above his head the sky, perlucid, pure, stainless, arched its tender blue from shore to shore and over the bay as if to envelop the water, the earth and the man in the caress of its light. The anchor was up, the sails hung still, and half a dozen big boats were seen sweeping over the bay to give us a tow out. The paddlers in the first one that came alongside lifted their heads and saw their ruler standing amongst us. A low murmur of surprise arose, then a shout of greeting. He left us and seemed straight way to step into the glorious splendour of his stage to wrap himself in the illusion of unavoidable success. For a moment he stood erect, one foot over the gangway, one hand on the hilt of his crease in a martial pose, and, relieved from the fear of outer darkness, he held his head high. He swept a serene look over his conquered foothold on the earth. The boats far off took up the cry of greeting, a great clamour rolled on the water, the hills echoed it, and seemed to toss back at him the words invoking long life and victories. He descended into a canoe, and as soon as he was clear of the side we gave him three cheers. They sounded faint and orderly after the wild tumult of his loyal subjects, but it was the best we could do. He stood up in the boat, lifted up both his arms, then pointed to the infallible charm. We cheered again, and the malaise in the boat stared, very much puzzled and impressed. I wondered what they thought, what he thought. What the reader thinks. We towed out slowly. We saw him land, and watch us from the beach. A figure approached him humbly but openly, not at all like a ghost with a grievance. We could see other men running towards him. Perhaps he had been missed. At any rate there was a great stir. A group formed itself rapidly near him, and he walked along the sands, followed by a growing cortege, and kept nearly abreast of the schooner. With our glasses we could see the blue ribbon on his neck, and a patch of white on his brown chest. The bay was waking up, the smokes of morning fire stood in faint spirals higher than the heads of palms. People moved between the houses. A herd of buffaloes galloped clumsily across a green slope. The slender figures of boys brandishing sticks appeared black and leaping in the long grass. A coloured line of women, with water bamboos on their heads, moved swaying through a thin grove of fruit trees. Coraine stopped in the midst of his men, and waved his hand. Then, detaching himself from the splendid group, walked alone to the water's edge, and waved his hand again. The schooner passed out to sea between the steep headlands that shut in the bay, and at the same instant Coraine passed out of our life, forever. But the memory remains. Some years afterwards I met Jackson in the strand. He was magnificent as ever. His head was high above the crowd, his beard was gold, his face red, his eyes blue. He had a wide brimmed grey hat, and no collar or waistcoat. He was inspiring. He had just come home, had landed that very day. Our meeting caused an eddy in the current of humanity. Horrid people would run against us, then walk round us, and turn back to look at that giant. We tried to compress seven years of life into seven exclamations. Then, suddenly appeased, walked sedately along, giving one another the news of yesterday. Jackson gazed about him like a man who looks for landmarks, then stopped before bland's window. He always had a passion for firearms. So he stopped short and contemplated the row of weapons, perfect and severe, drawn up in a line behind the black-framed panes. I stood by his side. Suddenly he said, Do you remember Coraine? I nodded. The sight of all this made me think of him, he went on, with his face near the glass. And I could see another man, powerful and bearded, peering at him intently from amongst the dark and polished tubes that can cure so many illusions. Yes, it made me think of him, he continued slowly. I saw a paper this morning. They are fighting over there again. He's sure to be in it. He will make it hot for the caballeros. Well, good luck to him, poor devil. He was perfectly stunning. We walked on. I wonder whether the charm worked. You remember, Hollis's charm, of course. If it did, never was a sixpence wasted to better advantage. Poor devil, I wonder whether he got rid of that friend of his. Hope so. Do you know, I sometimes think that I stood still and looked at him. Yes, I mean, whether the thing was so, you know, whether it really happened to him. What do you think? My dear chap, I cried, you've been too long away from home. What a question to ask. Only look at all this. A watery gleam of sunshine flashed from the west, and went out between two long lines of walls. And then the broken confusion of roofs, the chimney stacks, the gold letters sprawling over the fronts of houses, the somber polish of windows stood resigned and sullen under the falling gloom. The whole length of the street, deep as a well and narrow like a corridor, was full of a somber and ceaseless stir. Our ears were filled by a headlong shuffle and beat of rapid footsteps, and by an underlying rumour. A rumour vast, faint, pulsating, as of panting breaths, of beating hearts, of gasping voices. Enumerable eyes stared straight in front, feet moved hurriedly, blank faces flowed, arms swung. Overall a narrow ragged strip of smoky sky wound about between the high roofs, extended and motionless like a soiled streamer flying above the route of a mob. Yes, said Jackson meditatively. The big wheels of hansoms turned slowly along the edge of sidewalks. A pale-faced youth strolled, overcome by weariness, by the side of his stick and with the tails of his overcoat flapping gently near his heels. Horses stepped gingerly on the greasy pavement, tossing their heads. Two young girls passed by, talking vivaciously and with shining eyes. A fine old fellow strutted, red-faced, stroking a white mustache, and a line of yellow boards with blue letters on them approached us slowly, tossing on high behind one another, like some queer wreckage adrift upon a river of hats. Yes! repeated Jackson. His clear blue eyes looked about contemptuous, amused and hard, like the eyes of a boy. A clumsy string of red, yellow and green omnibuses rolled swaying, monstrous and gaudy. Two shabby children ran across the road, a knot of dirty men with red neckerchiefs round their bare throats lurched along, discussing filthily. A ragged old man with a face of despair yelled horribly in the mud the name of a paper. While far off, amongst the tossing heads of horses, the dull flash of harnesses, the jumble of lustrous panels and roofs of carriages, we could see a policeman, helmeted and dark, stretching out a rigid arm at the crossing of the streets. Yes, I see it, said Jackson slowly. It is there. It pants. It runs. It rolls. It is strong and alive. It would smash you if you didn't look out. But I'll be hanged if it is yet as real to me as the other thing. Say, Carain's story. I think that, decidedly, he had been too long away from home. End of story. Section 7 of Tales of Unrest, First Part of the Idiots This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad, The Idiots We were driving along the road from Trigir to Corvanda. We passed out a smart trot between the hedges topping an earth wall on each side of the road, then at the foot of the steep ascent before Ploughmar. The horse dropped into a walk, and the driver jumped down heavily from the box. He flicked his whip and climbed the incline, stepping clumsily uphill by the side of the carriage, one hand on the footboard, his eyes on the ground. After a while he lifted his head, pointed up the road with the end of the whip and said, The Idiot! The sun was shining violently upon the undulating surface of the land. The rises were taught by clumps of meager trees, with their branches showing high on the sky as if they had been perched upon stilts. The small fields, cut up by hedges and stone walls that zigzagged over the slopes, lay in rectangular patches of vivid greens and yellows, resembling the unskillful dobs of a naive picture. And the landscape was divided into by the white streak of a road stretching in long loops far away, like a river of dust crawling out of the hills on its way to the sea. Here he is! said the driver again. In the long grass bordering the road, a face glided past the carriage at the level of the wheels as we drove slowly by. The imbecile face was red and the bullet head with close cropped hair seemed to lie alone, its chin in the dust. The body was lost in the bushes growing thick along the bottom of the deep ditch. It was a boy's face. He might have been 16 judging from the size, perhaps less, perhaps more. Such creatures are forgotten by time and live untouched by years till death gathers them up into its compassionate bosom. The faithful dead that never forgets in the press of work the most insignificant of its children. Ah, there's another! said the man, with a certain satisfaction in his tone, as if he had caught sight of something expected. There was another. That one stood nearly in the middle of the road in the blaze of sunshine at the end of his own short shadow. And he stood with hands pushed into the opposite sleeves of his long coat. His head sunk between the shoulders, all hunched up in the flood of heat. From a distance he had the aspect of one suffering from intense cold. Those are twins, explained the driver. The idiot shuffled two paces out of the way and looked at us over his shoulder when we brushed past him. The glance was unseeing and staring, a fascinating glance. But he did not turn to look after us. Probably the image passed before the eyes without leaving any trace on the misshapen brain of the creature. When we had topped the ascent I looked over the hood. He stood in the road, just where we had left him. The driver clamored into his seat, clicked his tongue, and went downhill. The brakes squeaked horribly from time to time. At the foot he eased off the noisy mechanism and said, turning half-round on his box, we shall see more of them by and by. More idiots? How many of them are there then? I asked. There's four of them. Children of a farmer near Ploughmar here. The parents are dead now, he added after a while. The grandmother lives on the farm. In the daytime they knock about on this road and they come home at dusk along with the cattle. It's a good farm. We saw the other two, a boy and a girl, as the driver said. They were dressed exactly alike in shapeless garments with petticoat-like skirts. The imperfect thing that lived within them moved those beings to howl at us from the top of the bank, where they sprawled amongst the tough stalks of furs. Their cropped black heads stuck out from the bright yellow wall of countless small blossoms. The faces were purple with a strain of yelling. The voices sounded blank and cranked like a mechanical imitation of old people's voices and suddenly ceased when we turned into a lane. I saw them many times in my wandering about the country. They lived on that road, drifting along its length here and there, according to the inexplicable impulses of their monstrous darkness. They were an offense to the sunshine, a reproach to empty heaven, a blight on the concentrated and purposeful vigor of the wild landscape. In time, the story of their parent shaped itself before me out of the listless answers to my questions. Out of the indifferent words heard in wayside ends or on the very road those idiots haunted. Some of it was told by an emaciated and skeptical old fellow with a tremendous whip, while we trudged together over the sands by the side of a two-wheeled cart loaded with dripping seaweed. Then at other times, other people confirmed and completed the story. Till it stood at last before me, a tale formidable and simple. As they always are, those disclosures of obscure trials endured by ignorant hearts. When he returned from his military service, Jean-Pierre Buckadoe found the old people very much aged. He remarked with pain that the work of the farm was not satisfactorily done. The father had not the energy of old days. The hands did not feel over them the eye of the master. Jean-Pierre noted with sorrow that the heap of manure in the courtyard before the only entrance to the house was not so large as it should have been. The fences were out of repair and the cattle suffered from neglect. At home the mother was practically bedridden and the girls chattered loudly in the big kitchen, unrebuted, from morning to night. He said to himself, We must change all this. He talked the matter over with his father one evening when the rays of the setting sun entering the yard between the outhouses ruled the heavy shadows with luminous streaks. Over the manure heap floated a mist, opal tinted in odorous, and the marauding hens would stop in their scratching to examine with a sudden glance of their round eye the two men, both lean and tall, talking in hoarse tones. The old man, all twisted with rheumatism and bowed with years of work. The younger, bony and straight, spoke without gestures in the indifferent manner of peasants, grave and slow. But before the sun had set the father had submitted to the sensible arguments of the sun. It is not for me that I am speaking in Cisse Jean-Pierre. It is for the land. It's a pity to see it badly used. I am not impatient for myself. The old fellow nodded over his stick. I dare say, I dare say, he muttered. You may be right. Do what you like. It's the mother that will be pleased. The mother was pleased with her daughter-in-law. Jean-Pierre brought the two-wheeled spring cart with a rush into the yard. The gray horse galloped clumsily, and the bride and bridegroom, sitting side by side, were jerked backwards and forwards by the up and down motion of the shafts, in a manner regular and brusque. On the road the distant wedding guests straggled in pairs and groups. The men advanced with heavy steps, swinging their idle arms. They were clad in town clothes, jackets cut with clumsy smartness, hard black hats, and men's boots polished highly. Their women all in simple black, with white caps and shawls of faded tints folded triangularily on the back, strolled lightly by their side. In front the violin sang a strident tune, and the Beniu snored and hummed, while the player capered solemnly, lifting high his heavy clogs. The somber procession drifted in and out of the narrow lanes, through sunshine and through shade, between fields and hedgerows, scaring the little birds that darted away in troops right and left. In the yard of Bakadou's farm, the dark ribbon wound itself into a mass of men and women pushing out the door with cries and greetings. The wedding dinner was remembered for months. It was a splendid feast in the orchard. Farmers of considerable means and excellent repute were to be found sleeping in ditches, all along the road to Trégir, even as late as the afternoon of the next day. All the countryside anticipated in the happiness of Jean-Pierre. He remained sober and together with his quiet wife kept out of the way, letting father and mother reap their due of honor and thanks. But the next day he took hold strongly and the old folks felt a shadow, precursor of the grave, fall upon them finally. The world is to the young. When the twins were born there was plenty of room in the house, for the mother of Jean-Pierre had gone away to dwell under a heavy stone in the cemetery of Ploughmar. On that day, for the first time since his son's marriage, the elder Bakadou, neglected by the cackling lot of strange women who thronged the kitchen, left in the morning his seat under the mantle of the fireplace and went into the empty cowhouse, shaking his white locks dismally. Grandson's were all very well, but he wanted his soup at midday. When shown the babies, he stared at them with a fixed gaze and muttered something like, it's too much. Whether he meant too much happiness or simply commented upon the number of his descendants, it is impossible to say. He looked offended, as far as his old wooden face could express anything and for days afterwards could be seen, almost any time of the day sitting at the gate, with his nose over his knees, a pipe between his gums and gathered up into a kind of raging concentrated sulkiness. Once he spoke to his son, alluding to the newcomers with a groan, they will quarrel over the land. Don't be bothered about that father, answered Jean-Pierre stolidly, and passed, bent double, towing a recalcitrant cow over his shoulder. He was happy and so was Susan, his wife. It was not an ethereal joy welcoming new souls to struggle, per chance to victory. In fourteen years, both boys would be a help, and later on, Jean-Pierre pictured two big sons striding over the land from patch to patch, ringing tribute from the earth beloved and fruitful. Susan was happy too, for she did not want to be spoken of as the unfortunate woman, and now she had children no one could call her that. Both herself and her husband had seen something of the larger world, he during the time of his service, while she had spent a year or so in Paris with a Breton family, but had been too homesick to remain longer away from the hilly and green country, set in a barren circle of rocks and sands, where she had been born. She thought that one of the boys ought perhaps to be a priest, but said nothing to her husband, who was a Republican, and hated the crows, as he called the ministers of religion. The christening was a splendid affair, all the commune came to it, for the backadoos were rich and influential, and now and then did not mine the expense. The grandfather had a new coat. Some months afterwards, one evening when the kitchen had been swept, and the door locked, Jean Pierre, looking at the cot, asked his wife, what's the matter with those children? And as if these words, spoken calmly, had been the portent of misfortune, she answered with a loud wail that must have been heard across the yard in the pigsty. For the pigs, the backadoos had the finest pigs in the country, stirred and grunted complainingly in the night. The husband went on grinding his bread and butter slowly, gazing at the wall, the soup plate smoking under his chin. He had returned late from the market, where he had overheard, not for the first time, whispers behind his back. He revolved the words in his mind as he drove back. Simple, both of them, never any use. Well, maybe, maybe. One must see, would ask his wife. This was her answer. He felt like a blow on his chest, but said only, Go, draw me some cider. I am thirsty. She went out moaning, an empty jug in her hand. Then he arose, took up the light, and moved slowly towards the cradle. They slept. He looked at them sideways, finished his mouthful there, went back heavily and sat down before his plate. When his wife returned, he never looked up, but swallowed a couple spoonfuls noisily and remarked in a dull manner. When they sleep, they are like other people's children. She sat down suddenly on a stool nearby, and shook with a silent tempest of sobs, unable to speak. He finished his meal and remained idly thrown back in his chair, his eyes lost amongst the black rafters of the ceiling. Before him, the tallow candle flared red and straight, sending up a slender thread of smoke. The light lay on the rough sunburned skin of his throat. The sunk cheeks were like patches of darkness, and his aspect was mournfully stalled, as if he had ruminated with difficulty endless ideas. Then he said deliberately, We must see. Consult people. Don't cry. They won't all be like that, surely? We must sleep now. After the third child, also a boy, was born. Jean-Pierre went about his work with tense hopefulness. His lips seemed more narrow, more tightly compressed than before, as if for fear of letting the earth he tilled hear the voice of hope that murmured within his breast. He watched the child stepping up to the cot with a heavy clang of sabbats on the stone floor, and glanced in, along his shoulder, with that indifference which is like a deformity of peasant humanity. Like the earth they master and serve, those men, slow of eye and speech, do not show the inner fire, so that, at last, it becomes a question with them as with the earth, what there is in the core. Heat, violence, a force mysterious and terrible, or nothing but a clawed, a mass fertile and inert, cold and unfeeling, ready to bear a crop of plants that sustain life or give death. The mother watched with other eyes, listened with otherwise expectant ears, under the high hanging shells supporting great sides of bacon overhead. Her body was busy by the great fireplace, a tenet to the pot swinging on iron gallows, scrubbing the long table where the field hands would sit down directly to their evening meal. Her mind remained by the cradle, night and day on the watch, to hope and suffer. That child, like the other two, never smiled, never stretched its hands to her, never spoke. Never had a glance of recognition for her in its big black eyes, which could only stare fixedly at any glitter, but failed hopelessly to follow the brilliance of a sun ray slipping slowly along the floor. When the men were at work, she spent long days between her three idiot children and the childish grandfather, who sat grim, angular and inmovable, with his feet near the warm ashes of the fire. The feeble old man seemed to suspect that there was something wrong with his grandsons. Only once, moved either by affection or by the sense of properties, he attempted to nurse the youngest. He took the boy up from the floor, clicked his tongue at him, and assayed a shaky gallop of his bony knees. Then he looked closely with his misty eyes at the child's face, and deposited him down gently on the floor again. And he sat, his lean shanks crossed, nodding at the steam escaping from the cooking pot with a gaze senile and worried. Then, mute affliction dwelt in Bakadu's farmhouse, sharing the breath and the bread of its inhabitants, and the priest of the Ploughmar parish had great cause for congratulation. He called upon the rich landowner, the Marquis de Chauvain's, on purpose to deliver himself with joyful unction of solemn platitudes about the inscrutable ways of Providence. In the vast dimness of the curtain drawing room, the little man, resembling a black bolster, leaned towards the couch, his hat on his knees, and jesculated with a fat hand at the elongated, gracefully flowing lines of the clear Parisian toilette from which the half-amused, half-board Marquis listened with gracious languor. He was exulting and humble, proud and odd. The impossible had come to pass. Jean-Pierre Bakadu, the enraged Republican farmer, had been to Mass last Sunday. He had proposed to entertain the visiting priest at the next festival of Ploughmar. It was a triumph for the church and for the good cause. I thought I would come at once to tell Monsieur Le Marquis. I know how anxious he is for the welfare of our country, declared the priest, wiping his face. He was asked to stay for dinner. The Chauvain's returning that evening, after seeing their guests to the main gate of the park, discussed the matter while they strolled in the moonlight, trailing their long shadows up the straight avenue of Chestnuts. The Marquis, a royalist, of course, had been mayor of the commune, which includes the Ploughmar. The scattered hamlets of the coast and the stony islands that fringe the yellow flatness of the sands. He had felt his position insecure, for there was a strong Republican element in that part of the country. But now the conversion of Jean-Pierre made him safe. He was very pleased. You have no idea how influential those people are, he explained to his wife. Now I am sure the next communal election will go all right. I shall be re-elected. Your ambition is perfectly insatiable, Charles, exclaimed the Marquis scaly. But, Macherie Amie, argue the husband seriously, it's most important that the right man should be mayor this year, because of the elections to the chamber. If you think it amuses me, end of the first part of The Idiots. Section 8 of Tales of Unrest, second part of The Idiots. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anne Boulet. Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad, second part of The Idiots. Jean-Pierre had surrendered to his wife's mother. Madame Laval was a woman of business, known and respected within a radius of at least 15 miles. Fixed set in stout, she was seen about the country, on foot or in an acquaintances cart, perpetually moving, in spite of her 58 years, in steady pursuit of business. She had houses in all the hamlets. She wore quarries of granite. She freighted coasters with stone, even traded with the Channel Islands. She was broad-cheeked, wide-eyed, persuasive in speech, carrying her point with the placid and invincible obstancy of an old woman who knows her own mind. She very seldom slept for two nights together in the same house. And the wayside ends were the best places to inquire in as to her whereabouts. She had either passed, or was expected to pass there at six, or somebody coming in had seen her in the morning, or expected to meet her that evening. After the ends that command the road, the churches were the buildings she frequented most. Men of liberal opinions would induce small children to run into sacred edifices to see whether Madame Laval was there, and to tell her that so-and-so was in the road waiting to speak to her about potatoes, or flower, or stones, or houses. And she would curtail her devotions, coming out blinking and crossing herself into the sunshine, ready to discuss business matters in a calm, sensible way across the table in the kitchen of the inn opposite. Laterally, she had stayed for a few days several times with her son-in-law, arguing against sorrow and misfortune with composed face and gentle tones. Jean Pierre felt the convictions imbibed in the regiment torn out of his breast, not by arguments, but by facts. Striding over his fields, he thought it over. There were three of them, three, all alike. Why? Such things did not happen to everybody, to nobody he ever heard of. One might pass, but three, all three, forever useless to be fed while he lived, and what would become of the land when he died? This must be seen to. He would sacrifice his convictions. One day, he told his wife, See what your God will do for us. Pay for some masses. Susan embraced her man. He stood unbending, then turned on his heels and went out. But afterwards, when a black sotain darkened his doorway, he did not object, even offered some cider himself to the priest. He listened to the talk meekly, went to mass between the two women, accomplished what the priest called his religious duties at Easter. That morning he felt like a man who had sold his soul. In the afternoon, he fought ferociously with an old friend and neighbor who had remarked that the priest had the best of it and were now going to eat the priest-eater. He came home disheveled and bleeding, and happening to catch sight of his children. They were kept generally out of the way, cursed and swore incoherently, banging the table. Susan wept. Madame Laval sat serenely unmoved. She assured her daughter that it will pass. And taking up her thick umbrella, departed in haste to see after a schooner she was going to load with granite from her quarry. A year or so afterwards, the girl was born. A girl. Jean-Pierre heard of it in the fields and was so upset by the news that he sat down on the boundary wall and remained there till the evening, instead of going home as he was urged to do. A girl. He felt half-cheated. However, when he got home he was partly reconciled to his fate. One could marry her to a good fellow, not to a good for nothing, but to a fellow with some understanding and a good pair of arms. Besides, the next may be a boy, he thought. Of course they would be all right. His new credulity knew of no doubt. The ill luck was broken. He spoke cheerily to his wife. She was also hopeful. Three priests came to that christening and Madame Leveille was godmother. The child turned out to be an idiot too. Then on market days, Jean-Pierre was seen bargaining bitterly, quarrelsome and greedy, then getting drunk with taciturn earnestness, then driving home in the dusk at a rate fit for a wedding, but with a face gloomy enough for a funeral. Sometimes he would insist on his wife coming with him and they would drive in the early morning, shaking side by side on the narrow seat above the helpless pig, that, with tied legs, grunted a melancholy sigh at every rut. The morning drives were silent, but in the evening, coming home, Jean-Pierre, tipsy, was viciously muttering and growled at the confounded woman who could not rear children that were like anybody else's. Susan, holding on against the erratic swings of the cart, pretended not to hear. Once as they were driving through ploughmar, some obscure and drunken impulse caused him to pull up sharply opposite the church. The moon swam amongst light-white clouds, the tombstones gleam pale under the fretted shadows of the trees in the churchyard. Even the village dogs slept. Only the nightingales, awake, spun out the thrill of their song above the silence of graves. Jean-Pierre said thickly to his wife, What do you think is there? He pointed his whip at the tower, in which the big dial of the clock appeared high in the moonlight like a pallid face without eyes, and, getting out carefully, fell down at once by the wheel. He picked himself up and climbed one by one the few steps to the iron gate of the churchyard. He put his face to the bars and called out indistinctly, Hey there! Come out! Jean! Return! Return! entreated his wife in low tones. He took no notice and seemed to wait there. The song of nightingales beat on all sides against the high walls of the church and flowed back between stone crosses and flat grey slabs engraved with words of hope and sorrow. Hey! Come out! Shouted Jean-Pierre loudly. The nightingale ceased to sing. Nobody went on Jean-Pierre. Nobody there? A swindle of the crows. That's what this is. Nobody anywhere. I despise it. A lez. Hoop! He shook the gate with all his strength and the iron bars rattled with a frightful clanging, like a chain dragging over stone steps. A dog nearby barked hurriedly. Jean-Pierre staggered back and after three successive dashes got into his cart. Susan sat very quiet and still. He said to her with drunken severity, See? Nobody. I've been made a fool. Mall hair. Somebody will pay for it. The next one I see near the house I will lay my whip on. On the black spine I will. I don't want him in there. He only helps the carrion crows to rob poor folk. I am a man. We will see if I can't have children like anybody else. Now you mind. They won't be all, all, we'll see. She burst out through the fingers that hid her face. Don't say that, Jean. Don't say that, my man. He struck her a swinging blow on the head with the back of his hand and knocked her into the bottom of the cart where she crouched, thrown about lamentably by every jolt. He drove furiously, standing up, brandishing his whip, shaking the reins over the gray horse that galloped ponderously, making the heavy harness leap upon his broad quarters. The country rang clamorous in the night with the irritated barking of farm dogs that followed the rattle of wheels all along the road. A couple of belated wayfarers had just time to step into the ditch. At his own gate he caught the post and was shot out of the cart head first. The horse went on slowly to the door. As Susan's piercing cries the farm hands rushed out. She thought him dead, but he was only sleeping where he fell and cursed his men, who hastened to him for disturbing his slumbers. Autumn came. The clouded sky descended low upon the black contours of the hills and the dead leaves danced in spiral whirls under naked trees, till the wind, sighing profoundly, laid them to rest in the hollows of bare valleys. And from morning till night one could see all over the land black denuded boughs, the boughs gnarled and twisted, as if contorted with pain, swaying sadly between the wet clouds and the soaked earth. The clear and gentle streams of summer days rushed discoloured and raging at the stones that barred the way to the sea, with the fury of madness bent upon suicide. From horizon to horizon the great road to the sands lay between the hills, in a dull glitter of empty curves, resembling an unnavigable river of mud. Jean Pierre went from field to field, moving blurred and tall in the drizzle, or striding on the crests of rises, lonely and high upon the gray curtain of drifting clouds, as if he had been pacing along the very edge of the universe. He looked at the black earth, at the earth mute and promising, at the mysterious earth doing its work of life in death-like stillness under the veil sorrow of the sky. And it seemed to him that to a man worse than childless there was no promise in the fertility of the fields, that from him the earth escaped, defied him, frowned at him like the clouds, somber and hurried above his head. Having to face alone his own fields he felt the inferiority of man who passes away before the cloud that remains. Must he give up the hope of having by his side a son who would look at the turned-up clouds with a master's eye? A man that would think as he thought, that would feel as he felt, a man who would be part of himself and yet remain to trample masterfully on that earth when he was gone? He thought of some distant relations and felt savage enough to curse them aloud. They never. He turned homewards, going straight at the roof of his dwelling, visible between the inlay skeletons of trees. As he swung his legs over the style a culling flock of birds settled slowly on the field, dropped down behind his back, noiselessly and fluttering, like flakes of soot. That day, Madam Lavelle had gone early in the afternoon to the house she had near Curvanian. She had to pay some of the men who worked in her granite quarry there, and she went in good time because her little house contained a shop where the workmen could spend their wages without the trouble of going to town. The house stood alone amongst rocks. A lane of mud and stones ended at the door. The sea winds coming ashore on Stonecutter's point, fresh from the fierce turmoil of the waves, hallowed violently at the unmoved heaps of black boulders holding up steadily short armed. High crosses against the tremendous rush of the invisible. In the sweep of the gales, the shelter-dwelling stood in a calm, resonant and disquieting, like the calm in the center of a hurricane. On stormy nights, when the tide was out, the Bay of Faugair, 50 feet below the house, resembled an immense black pit, from which ascended mutterings in sizes if the sands down there had been alive in complaining. At high tide, the returning water assaulted the ledges of rock in short rushes, ending in bursts of livid light and columns of spray that flew inland, stinging to death the grass of pastures. The darkness came from the hills, flowed over the coast, put out the red fires of sunset, and went on to seaward pursuing the retiring tide. The wind dropped with the sun, leaving a maddened sea and a devastated sky. The heavens above the house seemed to be draped in black rags, held up here and there by pins of fire. Madam LaVale, for this evening, the servant of her own workmen, tried to induce them to depart. An old woman like me ought to be in bed at this late hour, she good-humoredly repeated. The quarry men drank, asked for more. They shouted over the table as if they had been talking across a field. At one end, four of them played cards, banging the wood with their hard knuckles and swearing at every lead. One sat with a lost gaze, humming a bar of some song, which he repeated endlessly. Two others, in a corner, were quarreling confidentially and fiercely over some woman, looking close into one another's eyes as if they had wanted to tear them out. But speaking in whispers that promised violence and murder discreetly, in a venomous cibulation of subdued words. The atmosphere in there was thick enough to slice with a knife. Three candles burning about the long room glowed red and dull, like sparks expiring in ashes. The slight click of the iron latch was at that late hour as unexpected and startling as a thunder clap. Madame LaVale put down a bottle she held above a liqueur glass. The players turned their heads. The whispered quarrels ceased. Only the singer, after darting a glance at the door, went on humming with a stolid face. Susan appeared in the doorway, stepped in, flung the door to, and put her back against it, saying half aloud, Mother! Madame LaVale, taking up the bottle again, said calmly, Here you are, my girl! What a stink you are in! The neck of the bottle rang on the rim of the glass, for the old woman was startled, and the idea that the farm had caught fire had entered her head. She could think of no other cause for her daughter's appearance. Susan, soaked in muddy, stared the whole length of the room towards the men at the far end. Her mother asked, What has happened? God guard us from misfortune! Susan moved her lips. No sound came. Madame LaVale stepped to her daughter, took her by the arm, looked into her face. In God's name, she said shakily, What's the matter? You have been rolling in mud! Why did you come? Where's Jean? The men had all got up and approached slowly, staring with dull surprise. Madame LaVale jerked her daughter away from the door, swung her round upon a seat, close to the wall. Then she turned fiercely to the men. Enough of this! Out you go! You others! I close! One of them observed, looking down at Susan, collapsed on the seat. She is, one may say, half dead. Madame LaVale flung the door open. Get out! March! She cried, shaking nervously. They dropped out into the night, laughing stupidly. Outside, the two Lotharios broke out into loud shouts. The others tried to soothe them, all talking at once. The noise went away, up the lane with the men, who staggered together in a tight knot, remonstrating with one another foolishly. Speak, Susan! What is it? Speak! And treated Madame LaVale as soon as the door was shut. Susan pronounced some incomprehensible words, glaring at the table. The old woman clapped her hands above her head, let them drop, and stood looking at her daughter with disconsole eight eyes. Her husband had been deranged in his head for a few years before he died, and now she began to suspect her daughter was going mad. She asked, pressingly, Does Jean know where you are? Where is Jean? He knows. He is dead. What? cried the old woman. She came up near and peering at her daughter, repeated three times. What did you say? What did you say? What did you say? Susan sat dry-eyed and stony before Madame LaVale, who contemplated her, feeling a strange sense of inexplicable horror creep into the silence of the house. She had hardly realized the news, further than to understand that she had been brought in one short moment face to face with something unexpected and final. It did not even occur to her to ask for any explanation. She thought, Accident, terrible accident, blood to the head, fell down a trapped door in the loft. She remained there, distracted in mute, blinking her old eyes. Suddenly Susan said, I have killed him. For a moment the mother stood still, almost unbreathing, but with composed face. The next second, she burst out into a shout. You miserable mad woman! They will cut your throat. She fancied the gendemares entering the house, saying to her, We want your daughter, give her up. The gendemares with the severe hard faces of men on duty. She knew the brigadier well, an old friend, familiar and respectful, saying heartily, to your good health, madam, before lifting to his lips the small glass of cognac. Out of the special bottle, she kept for friends. And now, was she losing her head? She rushed here and there, as if looking for something urgently needed. Gave that up, stood stock still in the middle of the room, and screamed at her daughter. Why? Say! Say why! The other seemed to leap out of her strange apathy. Do you think I am made of stone? She shouted back, striding towards her mother. No! It's impossible, said Madame Laval in a convinced tone. End of Second Part of the Idiots. Section 9 of Tales of Unrest, Third Part of the Idiots. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ann Boulet. Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad. Part 3 of the Idiots. You go and see mother, retorted Susan, looking at her with blazing eyes. There's no money in heaven! No justice! No! I didn't know! Do you think I have no heart? Do you think I have never heard people jeering at me, pitying me, wondering at me? Do you know how some of them are calling me? The mother of idiots! That's my nickname and my children would never know me. Never speak to me! They would know nothing, neither men, nor God. Haven't I prayed? But the mother of God herself would not hear me. A mother who was accursed, I, or the man who is dead? Tell me! I took care of myself. Do you think I would defy the anger of God and have my house full of those things that are worse than animals who know the hand that feeds them? Who blasphemed in the night at the very church door? Was it I? I only wept and prayed for mercy and I feel the curse at every moment of the day. I see it round me from morning to night. I've got to keep them alive to take care of my misfortune and shame and he would come. I begged him in heaven for mercy. No, then we shall see. He came this evening. I thought to myself, ah, again, I had my long scissors. I heard him shouting. I saw him near. I must. Must I? Then take. And I struck him in the throat above the breastbone. I never heard him even sigh. I left him standing. It was a minute ago. How did I come here? Madam Lavelle shivered. A wave of coal ran down her back. Down her fat arms under her tight sleeves made her stamp gently where she stood. Quivers ran over the broad cheeks. Across the thin lips ran amongst the wrinkles at the corners of her steady old eyes. She stammered. You wicked woman. You disgrace me. But there, you always resembled your father. What do you think will become of you in the other world in this oh misery? She was very hot now. She felt burning inside. She wrung her perspiring hands and suddenly starting in great haste began to look for her big shawl and umbrella feverishly never once glancing at her daughter who stood in the middle of the room following her with a gaze distracted and cold. Nothing worse than in this said Susan. Her mother umbrella in hand and trailing the shawl over the floor grown profoundly. I must go to the priest. She burst out passionately. I do not know whether you even speak the truth. You are a horrible woman. They will find you anywhere. You must stay here or go. There is no room for you in this world. Ready now to depart. She yet wandered aimlessly about the room. Putting the bottles on the shelf. Trying to fix with trembling hands the corners on cardboard boxes. Whenever the real sense of what she had heard emerged for a second from the haze of her thoughts she would fancy that something had exploded in her brain without unfortunately bursting her head to pieces which would have been a relief. She blew the candles out one by one without knowing it and was horribly startled by the darkness. She fell on a bench and began to whimper. After a while she ceased and sat listening to the breathing of her daughter whom she could hardly see still and upright giving no other sign of life. She was becoming old rapidly at last during those minutes. She spoke in tones unsteady cut about by the rattle of teeth like one shaken by a deadly cold fit of agieu. I wish you had died little. I will never dare to show my old head in the sunshine again. There are worse misfortunes than idiot children. I wish you had been born to me simple like your own. She saw the figure of her daughter pass before the faint and livid clearness of a window. Then it appeared in the doorway for a second and the door swung to with a clang. Madame Laval as if awakened by the noise from a long nightmare rushed out. Susan! she shouted from the doorstep. She heard a stone roll a long way down the declivity of the rocky beach above the sands. She stepped forward cautiously one hand on the wall of the house and peered down into the smooth darkness of the empty bay. Once again she cried, Susan! you will kill yourself there! The stone had taken its last leap in the dark and she heard nothing now. A sudden thought seemed to strangle her and she called no more. She turned her back upon the black silence of the pit and went up the lane towards Ploughmar, stumbling along with somber determination as if she had started on a desperate journey that would last perhaps to the end of her life. A sullen and periodic clamor of waves rolling over reefs followed her far inland between the high hedges sheltering the gloomy solitude of the fields. Susan had run out, swerving sharp to the left at the door and on the edge of the slope crouched down behind a boulder. A dislodged stone went on downwards, rattling as it leaped. When Madame Laval called out, Susan could have by stretching her hand touched her mother's skirt had she had the courage to move a limb. She saw the old woman go away and she remained still, closing her eyes and pressing her side to the hard and rugged surface of the rock. After a while a familiar face with fixed eyes and an open mouth became visible in the intense obscurity amongst the boulders. She uttered a low cry and stood up. The face vanished, leaving her to gasp and shiver alone in the wilderness of stone heaps. But as soon as she had crouched down again to rest with her head against the rock, the face returned, came very near, appeared eager to finish the speech that had been cut short by death, only a moment ago. She scrambled quickly to her feet and said, go away or I will do it again. The thing wavered, swung to the right to the left. She moved this way and that, stepped back, fancied herself screaming at it and was appalled by the unbroken stillness of the night. She tottered on the brink, felt the steep declivity under her feet and rushed down blindly to save herself from a headlong fall. The shingle seemed to wake up, the pebbles began to roll before her, pursued her from above, raised down with her on both sides, rolling past with an increasing clatter. In the piece of the night the noise grew, deepening to a rumor, continuous and violent, as if the whole semi-circle of the Stony Beach had started to tumble down into the bay. Susan's feet hardly touched the slope that seemed to run down with her. At the bottom she stumbled, shot forward, throwing her arms out and fell heavily. She jumped up at once and turned swiftly to look back, her clenched hands full of sand she had clutched in her fall. The face was there, keeping its distance, visible in its own sheen that made a pale stain in the night. She shouted, Go away! She shouted at it with pain, with fear, with all the rage of that useless stab that could not keep him quiet, keep him out of her sight. What did he want now? He was dead. Dead men have no children. Would he never leave her alone? She shrieked at it, waved her outstretched hands. She seemed to feel the breath of parted lips and, with a long cry of discouragement, fled across the level bottom of the bay. She ran lightly, unaware of any effort of her body. High sharp rocks that, when the bay is full, show above the glittering plain of blue water like pointed towers of submerged churches, glided past her, rushing to the land at a tremendous pace. To the left, in the distance, she could see something shining, a broad disc of light in which narrow shadows pivoted round the center like the spokes of a wheel. She heard a voice calling, Hey! There! In answer with a wild scream, so he could call yet. He was calling after her to stop. Never! She tore through the night, past the startled group of seaweed gatherers who stood round their lantern paralyzed with fear at the unearthly screech coming from that fleeting shadow. The men leaned on their pitchforks staring fearfully. A woman fell on her knees, and, crossing herself, began to pray aloud. A little girl with a ragged skirt, full of slimy seaweed, began to sob despairingly, lugging her soaked burden close to the man who carried the light. Somebody said, The thing ran out towards the sea. Another voice exclaimed, And the sea is coming back. Look at the spreading puddles. Do you hear? You woman! There! Get up! Several voices cried together. Yes, let us be off. Let the accursed thing go to the sea. They moved on, keeping close round the light. Suddenly a man swore loudly. He would go and see what was the matter. It had been a woman's voice. He would go. There were shrill protests from women. But his high form detached himself from the group and went running off. They sent a unanimous call of scared voices after him. A word, insulting and mocking, came back, thrown at them through the darkness. A woman moaned. An old man said gravely, Such things ought to be left alone. They went on slower, shuffling in the yielding sand and whispering to one another that Milo feared nothing, having no religion, but that it would end badly someday. Susan met the incoming tide by the raven islet and stopped. Panting with her feet in the water. She heard the murmur and felt the cold caress of the sea and, calmer now, could see the somber and confused mass of the raven on one side and on the other the long white streak of mulling sands that were left high above the dry bottom of Fogay Bay at every ebb. She turned round and saw far away, along the starred background of the sky, the ragged outline of the coast. Above it, nearly facing her, appeared the tower of Ploughmar Church. A slender and tall pyramid shooting up dark and pointed into the cluster glitter of the stars. She felt strangely calm. She knew where she was and began to remember how she came there and why. She peered into the smooth obscurity near her. She was alone. There was nothing there, nothing near her, either living or dead. The tide was creeping in quietly, pulling out long impatient arms of strange rivulets that ran towards the land between ridges of sand. Under the night, the pools grew bigger with mysterious rapidity, while the great sea, yet far off, thundered in a regular rhythm along the indistinct line of the horizon. Susan splashed her way back for a few yards without being able to get clear of the water that murmured tenderly all around and, suddenly, with a spiteful gurgle, nearly took her off her feet. Her heart thumped with fear. This place was too big and too empty to die in. Tomorrow they would do with her what they liked, but before she died she must tell them, tell the gentlemen in black clothes that there are things no woman can bear. She must explain how it happened. She splashed through a pool, getting wet to the waist, too preoccupied to care. She must explain. He came in the same way as ever and said, just so. Do you think I am going to leave the land to those people from Moribond that I do not know? Do you? We shall see. Come along, you creature of mischance. And he put his arms out. Then, misures, I said, before God, never. And he said, striding at me with open palms, there is no God to hold me. Do you understand you useless carcass? I will do what I like. And he took me by the shoulders. Then I, misures, called to God for help. And next minute, while he was shaking me, I felt my long scissors in my hand. His shirt was unbuttoned, and by the candlelight I saw the hollow of his throat. I cried, let go. He was crushing my shoulders. He was strong, my man was. Then I thought, no, must I? Then take. And I struck in the hollow place. I never saw him fall. The old father never turned his head. He is deaf and childish, gentlemen. Nobody saw him fall. I ran out. Nobody saw. She had been scrambling amongst the boulders of the raven, and now found herself, all out of breath, standing amongst the heavy shadows of the rocky islet. The raven is connected with the mainland by a natural pier of immense and slippery stones. She intended to return home that way. Was he still standing there, at home? Home? Four idiots and a corpse. She must go back and explain. Anybody would understand. Below her, the night or the sea seemed to pronounce distinctly, Aha, I see you at last. She started, slipped, fell, and without attempting to rise, listened, terrified. She heard heavy breathing, a clatter of wooden clogs. It stopped. Where the devil did you pass? Said an invisible man, hoarsely. She held her breath. She recognized the voice. She had not seen him fall. Was he pursuing her there dead, or perhaps alive? She lost her head. She cried from the crevice where she lay huddled. Never, never! Ah, you are still there. You led me a fine dance. Wait, my beauty. I must see how you look after all this. You wait. Mila was stumbling, laughing, swearing meaninglessly out of pure satisfaction, pleased with himself for having run down that fly by night. As if there were such things as ghosts. Bah! It took an old African soldier to show those Claude hoppers. But it was curious. Who the devil was she? Susan listened, crouching. He was coming for her, this dead man. There was no escape. What a noise he made amongst the rocks. She saw his head rise up, then the shoulders. He was tall, her own man. His long arms waved about, and it was his own voice sounding a little strange. Because of the scissors. She scrambled out quickly, rushed to the edge of the causeway and turned round. The man stood still on a high stone, detaching himself in dead black on the glitter of the sky. Where are you going to? He called roughly. She answered, Home! And watched him intensely. He made a striding clumsy leave onto another boulder, and stopped again, balancing himself, then said, Ha, ha! Well, I am going with you. It's the least I can do. Ha, ha, ha! She stared at him till her eyes seemed to become glowing coals that burned deep into her brain, and yet she was in mortal fear of making out the well-known features. Below her, the sea lapsed softly against the rock with a splash continuous and gentle. The man said, advancing another step, I am coming for you. What do you think? She trembled, coming for her. There was no escape, no peace, no hope. She looked round despairingly, suddenly the whole shadowy coast, the blurred eyelets, the heaven itself, swayed about twice, then came to a rest. She closed her eyes and shouted, Can't you wait until I'm dead? She was shaken by a furious hate for that shade that pursued her in this world, unappeased even by death in its longing for an heir that would be like other people's children. Hey, what? said Milo, keeping his distance prudently. He was saying to himself, Look out, some lunatic. An accident happened soon. She went on wildly. I want to live, to live alone, for a week, for a day. I must explain to them. I would tear you to pieces. I would kill you 20 times over rather than let you touch me while I live. How many times must I kill you, you blasphemer? Satan sends you here. I am damned too. Come, said Milo, alarmed and conciliating. I am perfectly alive. Oh my God! She screamed, Alive! And at once vanished before his eyes as if the islet itself had swirred aside from under his feet. Milo rushed forward and fell flat with his chin over the edge. Far below he saw the water whitened by her struggles and heard one shrill cry for help that seemed to dart upwards along the perpendicular face of the rock and soar past straight into the high and impassive heaven. Madame Laval sat dry-eyed on the short grass of the hillside with her thick legs stretched out and her old feet turned up in their black cloth shoes. Her clog stood nearby and further off the umbrella lay on the withered sward like a weapon dropped from the clasp of a vanquished warrior. The marquee of Chavain's on horseback, one globed hand on thigh looked down at her as she got up laboriously with groans. On the narrow track of the seaweed carts four men were carrying inland Susan's body on a handbarrow while several others straggled elicitously behind. Madame Laval looked after the procession. Yes, Monsieur Le Marquis, she said, dispassionately, in her usual calm tone of a reasonable old woman. There are unfortunate people on this earth. I had only one child, only one, and they won't bury her in consecrated ground. Her eyes filled suddenly and a short shower of tears rolled down the broad cheeks. She pulled the shawl close about her. The marquee leaned slightly over in his saddle and said, It is very sad. You have all my sympathy. I shall speak to the curer. She was unquestionably insane and the fall was accidental. Milo says so distinctly, Good day, Madame. And he trotted off thinking to himself, I must get this old woman appointed guardian of those idiots and administrator of the farm. It would be much better than having hear one of those other backadoos, probably a red Republican, corrupting my commune. End of story. Section 10 Of Tales of Unrest Chapter 1 Of an Outpost of Progress There were two white men in charge of this trading station. Kayertz, the chief, was short and fat. Carlier, the assistant, was tall, with a large head and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair of slim legs. The third man of the staff was the Sierra Leona nigger, who maintains that his name was Henry Price. However, for some reason or other, the natives down the river had given him the name of Makola and it stuck to him through all his wanderings about the country. He spoke English and French with a warbling accent, wrote a beautiful hand, understood bookkeeping, and cherished in his innermost heart the worship of evil spirits. His wife was a necrace from Luanda, very large and very noisy. Three children rolled about in sunshine before the door of his loo shed like a dwelling. Makola thus turned an impenetrable, despised the two's white men. He had charge of a small clay storehouse with a dried grass roof and pretended to keep a correct account of beads, cotton clothes, red kerchiefs, brass wire, and other trade goods it contained. Besides the storehouse and Makola's hut, there was only one large building in the cleared ground of the station. It was built neatly of reeds with a veranda on all four sides. There were three rooms in it. The one in the middle was the living room and had two rough tables and a few stools in it. The other two were the bedrooms for the white men. Each had a bedstead and a mosquito net for all furniture. The plank floor was littered with the belongings of the white men, open half-empty boxes, torn veering apparel, old boots, all the things dirty and all the things broken that accumulate mysteriously round and tidy men. There was also another dwelling place some distance away from the buildings. In it, under a tall cross, much out of the perpendicular, slept the men who had seen the beginning of all this, who had planned and had watched the construction of this outpost of progress. He had been at home, an unsuccessful painter who, weary of pursuing fame on an empty stomach, had gone out there through high protections. He had been the first chief of that station. Makola had watched the energetic artist die of fever in the just finished house, with his usual kind of, I told you so, indifference. Then, for a time, he dwelt alone with his family, his account books, and the evil spirit that rules the lands under the equator. He got on very well with his god. Perhaps he had propitiated him by a promise of more white men to play with, by and by. At any rate, the director of the great trading company, coming up in a steamer that resembled an enormous sardine box, with a flat-roofed shed erected on it, found the station in good order, and Makola, as usual, quietly diligent. The director had the cross put up over the first agent's grave, and appointed coyotes to the post. Carlier was told off a second in charge. The director was a man ruthless and efficient, who at times, but very imperceptibly, indulged in grim humor. He made a speech to coyotes and Carlier, pointing out to them the promising aspect of their station. The nearest trading post was about 300 miles away. It was an exceptional opportunity for them to distinguish themselves and to earn percentages on the trade. This appointment was a favor done to beginners. Coyotes was moved almost to tears by his director's kindness. He would, he said, by doing his best, try to justify the flattering confidence, etc., etc. Coyotes had been in the administration of the telegraphs, and knew how to express himself correctly. Carlier, an ex-known commissioned officer of cavalry in an army, guaranteed from harm by several European powers, was less impressed. If there were commissions to get so much the better, and trailing a sulky glance over the river, the forests, the impenetrable bush that seemed to cut off the station from the rest of the world, he muttered between his teeth, We shall see very soon. Next day some bales of cotton goods, and a few cases of provisions having been thrown on shore. The sardine-box steamer went off, not to return for another six months. On the deck the director touched his cap to the two agents, who stood on the bank waving their hats, and turning to an old servant of the company on his passage to headquarters, said, Look at those two imbeciles. They must be mad at home to send me such specimens. I told those fellows to plant a vegetable garden, build new storehouses and fences, and construct a landing-stage. I bet nothing will be done. They won't know how to begin. I always saw the station on this river useless, and they just fit the station. They performed themselves there, said the old stager with a quiet smile. At any rate, I am rid of them for six months, retorted the director. The two men watched the steamer round the bend. Then, ascending arm in arm the slope of the bank, returned to the station. They had been in this vast and dark country only a very short time, and as yet always in the midst of other white men, under the eye and guidance of their superiors. And now, dull as they were to the supple influences of surroundings, they felt themselves very much alone, when suddenly left, unassisted, to face the wilderness. A wilderness rendered more strange, more incomprehensible, by the mysterious glimpses of the vigorous life it contained. They were too perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals, whose existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds. Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities, and their audacities are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence, the emotions and principles, every rate and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual, but to the crowd, to the crowds that believe blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion. But the conduct with pure, unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primitive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart, to the sentiment of being alone of one's kind, to the clear perception of the loneliness of one's thoughts, of one's sensations, to the negation of the habitual, which is safe. There is added the affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous. A suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable and repulsive, whose decomposing intrusion excites the imagination and tries the civilized nerves of the foolish and the wise alike. Coyote and Carlier walked arm in arm, drawing close to one another as children do in the dark, and they had the same, not altogether unpleasant, sense of danger which one half suspects to be imaginary. They chatted persistently in familiar tones. Our station is prettily situated, said one. The other ascended with enthusiasm, enlarging volubly on the beauties of the situation. Then they passed near the grave. Poor devil, said Coyote. He died of fever, didn't he? muttered Carlier's stopping short. Why retorted Coyote's with indignation? I have been told that the fellow exposed himself recklessly to the sun. The climate here, everybody says, is not at all worse than at home, as long as you keep out of the sun. Do you hear that, Carlier? I'm chief here, and my orders are that you should not expose yourself to the sun. He assumed his superiority, jocularly, but his meaning was serious. The idea that he would, perhaps, have to bury Carlier, and remain alone, gave him an inward shiver. He felt, suddenly, that this Carlier was more precious to him here, in the center of Africa, than a brother could be anywhere else. Carlier, entering into the spirit of the thing, made a military salute and answered in a brisk tone. Your order shall be attended to, chief. Then he burst out laughing, slapped Coyote's on the back and shouted, We shall let life run easily here. Just sit still and gather in the ivory those savages will bring. This country has its good points, after all. They both loved, lovely, well Carlier thought. That poor Coyote, he is so fat and unhealthy. It would be awful if I had to bury him here. He is a man I respect. Before they reached the veranda of their house, they called one another my dear fellow. The first days they were very active, pottering about with hammers and nails and red caglico to put up curtains, makes their house habitable and pretty, resolved to settle down comfortably to their new life. For them an impossible task. To grapple effectually with even purely material problems requires more serenity of mind and more lofty courage than people generally imagine. No two beings could have been more unfitted for such struggle. Society not from any tenderness, but because of its strange needs, had taken care of those two men, forbidding them all independent thought, all initiative, all departure from routine and forbidding it under pain of death. They could only live on condition of being machines and now released from the fostering care of men with pens behind the ears, or of men with gold lace on the sleeves. They were like those lifelong prisoners who, liberated after many years, do not know what used to make of their freedom. They did not know what used to make of their faculties, being both, though through want of practice, incapable of independent thought. On the end of two months, Coyards often would say, If it was not for my Melly, you wouldn't catch me here. Melly was his daughter. He had thrown up his post in the administration of the telegraphs. Though he had been for seventeen years perfectly happy there, to earn a dowry for his girl. His wife was dead, and the child was being brought up by his sisters. He regretted his treats, the pavements, the cafés, his friends of many years, all the things he used to see, day after day, all the thoughts suggested by familiar things, the thoughts effortless, monotonous, and soothing of a government clerk. He regretted all the gossip, the small enmities, the mild venom, and the little jokes of government offices. If I had had a decent brother-in-law, Carlyard would remark, a fellow with a heart, I would not be here. He had left the army, and had made himself so obnoxious to his family, by his laziness and impudence, that an exasperated brother-in-law had made superhuman efforts to procure human appointment in the company, as a second-class agent. Having not a penny in the world, he was compelled to accept this means of livelihood, as soon as it became quite clear to him that there was nothing more to squeeze out of his relations. He, like Carlyards, regretted his old life. He regretted the clink of sabre and spurs on a fine afternoon, the barracroom veticisms, the girls of garrison towns. But besides, he had also a sense of grievance. He was evidently a much ill-used man, this made him moody at times. But the two men got on well together in the fellowship of their stupidity and laziness. Together they did nothing, absolutely nothing, and enjoyed the sense of the idleness for which they were paid. And in time they came to feel something resembling affection for one another. They lived like blind men in a large room, aware only of what came in contact with them, and of that only imperfectly, but unable to see the general aspect of things. The river, the forest, all the great lands roping with life were like a great emptiness. Even the brilliant sunshine disclosed nothing intelligible. Things appeared and disappeared before their eyes in an unconnected and aimless kind of way. The river seemed to come from nowhere and flow no hither. It flowed through a void. Out of that void at times came canoes, and men with spears in their hands would suddenly crowd the yard of the station. They were naked, glossy black, ornamented with snowy shells and glistening brass wire, perfect of limb. They made an uncoathed bebling, noise when they spoke, moved in a stately manner, and sent quick, wild glances out of their startled, never-resting eyes. Those warriors would squat in long rows, four of them or more deep, before the veranda, while their chiefs bargained for hours with Makola over an elephant tusk. Kayert sat on his chair and looked down on the proceedings, understanding nothing. He stared at them with his round blue eyes, called out to Carlyer. Here, look! Look at that fellow there, and that other one, to the left. Did you ever see your face? Oh, the funny brood! Carlyer, smoking native tobacco in a short wooden pipe, would swagger up, twirling his moustache, and surveying the warriors with haughty indulgence, would say. Fine animals! Brought any bone? Yes, it's not any too soon. Look at the muscles of that fellow, third from the end. I wouldn't care to get a punch on the nose from him. Fine arms, but legs no good below the knee. Couldn't make cavalrymen of them. And after glancing down complacently at his own shanks, he always concluded, pa, don't this, tink, you Makola, take that herd over to the fetish. The storehouse was in every station called the fetish, perhaps because of the spirit of civilization it contained. And give them up some of the rubbish you keep there. I'd rather see it full of bones than full of rags. Carlyer's approved. Yes, yes, go and finish that paliver over there, Mr. Makola. I will come round when you are ready to weigh the tusk. We must be careful. Then turning to his companion. This is the tribe that lives down the river. They are rather aromatic. I remember there had been ones before here. Do you hear that row? What a fellow has got to put up with in this dog of a country. My head is split. Such profitable wizards were rare. For days the two pioneers of trade and progress would look on their empty courtyard in the vibrating brilliance of vertical sunshine. Below the high bank the silent river flowed on glittering and steady. On the sands in the middle of the stream hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. And stretching away in all directions, surrounding the insignificant cleared spot of the trading post, immense forests, hiding faithfully complications of fantastic life, lay in the eloquent silence of mute greatness. The two men understood nothing, cared for nothing, but for the passage of days that separated them from the steamer's return. Their predecessor had left some torn books. They took up these wrecks of novels, and as they had never read anything of the kind before, they were surprised and amused. Then during long days they were interminable and silly discussions about plots and personages. In the center of Africa they made acquaintance of Richelieu and of D'Artagnan, of Hawke's eyes and of Father Goriot and of many other people. All these imaginary personages became subjects for gossip as if they had been living friends. They discounted their virtues, suspected their motives, decried their successes, were scandalized at their duplicity, or were doubtful about their courage. The accounts of crimes filled them with indignation, while tender or pathetic passages moved them deeply. Carlyard cleared his throat and said in a solderly voice, what nonsense! Carlyard's, his round eyes, suffused with tears. His fat cheeks quivering, rubbed his bald head and declared, This is a splendid book. I had no idea there were such clever fellows in the world. They also found some odd copies of a home paper, that print discussed what it was pleased to call our colonial expansion in high-flown language. It spoke much of the rights and duties of civilization, of the sacredness of the civilizing work, and extorted the merits of those who went about bringing light and faith and commerce to the dark places of the earth. Carlyard and Carlyard's red, wondered and began to think better of themselves. Carlyard said one evening, waving his hand about, In a hundred years there will be perhaps a town here, Quays and warehouses and barracks, and and billiard rooms, civilization, my boy, and virtue, and all. And then chaps will read that two good fellows, Coyards and Carlyard, were the first civilized men to live in this very spot. Coyards nodded. Yes, it is a consolation to think of that. They seemed to forget their dead predecessor. But early one day Carlyard went out and replanted the cross firmly. It used to make me squint whenever I walked that way. He explained to Coyards over the morning coffee. It made me squint leaning over so much. So I just planted it upright. Unsolid, I promise you. I suspended myself with both hands to the cross-piece. Not a move. Oh, I did that properly. At times Gorbila came to see them. Gorbila was the chief of the neighboring villages. He was a grey-headed savage, thin and black, with a white cloth around his loins and a mannedly puncture skin hanging over his back. He came up with long strides of his skeleton legs, swinging a staff as tall as himself, and entering the common room of the station, would squat on his heels to the left of the door. There he sat, watching Coyards, and now and then making a speech which the other did not understand. Coyards, without interrupting his occupation, would from time to time say in a friendly manner, How goes it, you old image? And they would smile at one another. The two whites had a liking for that old and incomprehensible creature, and called him Father Gorbila. Gorbila's manner was paternal, and he seemed really to love all white men. They all appeared to him very young, indistinguishably alike, except for stature, and he knew that they were all brothers, and also immortal. The death of the artist, who was the first white man whom he knew intimately, did not disturb this belief, because he was firmly convinced that the white stranger had pretended to die, and got himself buried for some mysterious purpose of his own, into which it was useless to inquire. Perhaps it was his way of going home to his own country. At any rate, these were his brothers, and he transferred his absurd affection to them. They returned it in a way. Carlyerc slapped him on the back, and recklessly struck off matches for his amusement. Caillerts was always ready to let him have a sniff at the ammonia bottle. In short, they behaved just like that other white creature that had hidden itself in a hole in the ground. Gorbila considered them attentively. Perhaps they were the same being with the other, or one of them was. He couldn't decide, clear up that mystery, but he remained always very friendly. In consequence of that friendship, the woman of Gorbila's village walked in single file through the reedy cross, bringing every morning to the station, files and sweet potatoes, and palm wine, and sometimes a goat. The company never provisioned the stations fully, and the agents required those local supplies to live. They had them through the goodwill of Gorbila, and lived well. Now and then one of them had a bout of fever, and the other nursed him with gentle devotion. They did not think much of it. It left them weaker, and their appearance changed for the worse. Carlyer was hollow-eyed and irritable. Caillerts showed a drone, floppy face, about the rotindi of his stomach, which gave him a weird aspect. But being constantly together, they did not notice the change that took place gradually in their appearance, and also in their dispositions. Five months passed in that way. Then one morning, as Caillerts and Carlyer, lounging in their chairs under the veranda, talked about the approaching visitors' steamer, a knot of armed men came out of the forest, and advanced towards the station. They were strangers to that part of the country. They were tall, slight, draped clasically, from neck to heel in blue-fringed clothes, and carried percussion muskets over their bare right shoulders. Makola shone signs of excitement, and ran out of the storehouse, where he spent all his days, to meet these visitors. They came into the courtyard, and looked about them with steady, squornful glances. Their leader, a powerful and determined-looking negro, with bloodshot eyes, stood in front of the veranda, and made a long speech. He gesticulated much, and seized very suddenly. There was something in his intonation, in the sounds of the long sentences he used, that startled the two whites. It was like a reminiscence of something not exactly familiar, and yet resembling the speech of civilized men. It sounded like one of those impossible languages, which sometimes we hear in our dreams. What lingo is said, said the amazed Carlier. In the first moment I fancy the fellow was going to speak French. Anyway, is it a different kind of gibberish to what we ever heard? Yes, replied Coyards. Hey, Makola, what does he say? Where do they come from? Who are they? But Makola, who seemed to be standing on hot bricks, answered hardly. I don't know. They come from very far. Perhaps Mrs. Price will understand. They are perhaps bad men. The leader, after waiting for a while, said something sharply to Makola, who shook his head. Then the man, after looking round, noticed Makola's hut and walked over there. The next moment Mrs. Makola was heard, speaking with great vulnerability. The other strangers, there were six in all, strolled about with an air of ease, put their heads through the door of the storeroom, congregated round the grave, pointed understandably at the cross, and generally made themselves at home. I don't like those chaps, and I say, Coyards, they must be from the coast. They've got firearms, observed the sagacious Carlier. Coyards also did not like those chaps. They both for the first time became aware that they lived in conditions where the unusual may be dangerous, and that there was no power on earth outside of themselves to stand between them and the unusual. They became uneasy, went in, and loaded their revolvers. Coyards said, We must order Makola to tell them to go away before dark. The strangers left in the afternoon, after eating a meal prepared for them by Mrs. Makola. The immense woman was excited and talked much with the visitors. She rattled away shrilly, pointing here and there at the forest and at the river. Makola sat apart and watched. At times he got up and whispered to his wife. He accompanied the strangers across the ravine at the back of the station ground, and returned slowly, looking very thoughtful. When questioned by the white man, he was very strange, seemed not to understand, seemed to have forgotten French, seemed to have forgotten how to speak out together. Coyards and Carlier agreed that the nigger had had too much palm wine. There was some talk about keeping a watch in turn, but in the evening everything seemed so quiet and peaceful that they retired as usual. All nights they were disturbed by a lot of drumming in the villages. A deep rapid roll nearby would be followed by another far off, then all seized. Soon short appeals would rattle out here and there, then all mingled together in crease, become vigorous and sustained, would spread out over the forest, roll through the night, unbroken and ceaseless, near and far, as if the whole land had been one immense drum, booming out steadily and appeal to heaven. And through the deep and tremendous noise, sudden yells, that resembled snatches of songs from a madhouse, darted shrill and high in discordant jets of sound, which seemed to rush far above the earth and drive all peace from under the stars. Carlier and Coyards slept badly. They both thought they had heard shots fired during the night, but they could not agree as to the direction. In the morning Makola was gone somewhere. He returned about noon with one of yesterday's strangers, and eluded all Coyards' attempts to close with him. Had become deaf apparently. Coyards wondered. Carlier, who had been fishing off the bank, came back and remarked while he showed his catch. The niggers seemed to be in a dose of stir. I wonder what's up? I saw about fifteen canoes cross the river during the two hours I was there fishing. Coyards worried, said, Isn't this Makola very queer today? Carlier advised, Keep all our men together in case of some trouble. End of chapter 1 of an outpost of progress.