 section 15 of Tales of Unrest, fourth part of The Return. 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 Ray. Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad. Fourth part of The Return. He said, with villainous composure, But any raid isn't enough for me. I want to know more if you're going to stay. There's nothing more to tell, she answered, sadly. It struck him as so very true that he did not say anything. She went on. He wouldn't understand. No, he said quietly. He held himself tight, not to burst into howls and implications. I tried to be faithful, she began again. And this, he exclaimed, pointing at the fragments of her letter. This is a failure, she said. I should think so. He muttered bitterly. I tried to be faithful to myself, Alvin, and honest to you. If you had tried to be faithful to me, it would be more to the purpose. He interrupted, angrily. I've been faithful to you, and you have spoiled my life, both our lives. Then after a pause, the unconquerable preoccupation of self came out, and he raised his voice to ask resentfully. And pray for how long have you been making a fool of me. She seemed horribly shocked by that question. He did not wait for an answer, but went on moving about all the time, now and then coming up to her, then wandering off restlessly to the other end of the room. I want to know. Everybody knows, I suppose, but myself. And that's her honesty. I've told you there is nothing to know, she said, speaking unsteadily as if in pain. Nothing of what you suppose. You don't understand me. This letter is the beginning and the end. The end. This thing has no end, he clamoured unexpectedly. Can't you understand that? I can. The beginning. He stopped, and looked into her eyes with concentrated intensity, with the desire to see, to penetrate, to understand, that made him positively hold his breath till he gasped. By heavens, he said, standing perfectly still in a peering attitude, and within less than a foot from her. By heavens, he repeated, slowly, and in a tone whose involuntary strangeness was a complete mystery to himself. By heavens, I could believe you. I could believe anything now. He turned short on his heel and began to walk up and down the room, with an air of having disburdened himself of the final pronouncement of his life, of having said something on which he would not go back, even if he could. She remained as if rooted to the carpet. Her eyes followed the restless movements of the man who avoided looking at her. Her wide stare clung to him, inquiring, wandering, and doubtful. But the fellow was forever sticking in here, he burst out, distractedly. He made love to you, I suppose, and—and— He lowered his voice. And you let him, and I let him. She murmured, catching his intonation, so that her voice sounded unconscious, sounded far off, and slavish, like an echo. He said twice, You, you, violently, then calmed down. What could you see in the fellow? he asked, with unaffected wonder. An effeminate fat ass! What could you— Weren't you happy? Didn't you have all you wanted? Now, frankly, did I deceive your expectations in any way? Were you disappointed with our position, or with our prospects, perhaps? You know you couldn't be. There are much better than you could hope for when you married me. He forgot himself so far as to gesticulate a little while he went on with animation. What could you expect from such a fellow? He's an outsider, a rank outsider. If it hadn't been for my money, do you hear, for my money, he wouldn't know where to turn. His people won't have anything to do with him. The fellow's no class, no class at all. He's useful, certainly. That's why I— I thought you had enough intelligence to see it. And you— No, it's incredible. What did he tell you? Do you care for no one's opinion? Is there no restraining influence in the world for you women? Did you ever give me a thought? I tried to be a good husband. Did I fail? Tell me, what have I done? Carried away by his feelings, he took his head in both his hands and repeated wildly. What have I done? Tell me what? Nothing, she said. Ah, you see, you can't. Began triumphantly, walking away. Then suddenly, as though he had been flung back at her by something invisible he had met, he spun round and shouted with exasperation, What on earth did you expect me to do? Without a word she moved slowly towards the table, Anne, sitting down, leaned on her elbow, shading her eyes with her hand. All that time he glared at her watchfully, as if expecting every moment to find in her deliberate movements an answer to his question. But he could not read anything. He could gather no hint of her thought. He tried to subress his desire to shout, and after waiting a while, said with incisive scorn, Did you want me to write absurd verses, to sit and look at you for hours, to talk to you about your soul? You ought to have known I wasn't that sort. I had something better to do. But if you think I was totally blind, he perceived in a flash that he could remember an infinity of enlightening occurrences. He could recall ever so many distinct occasions when he came upon them. He remembered the absurdly interrupted gesture of his fat white hand, the rapt expression of her face, the glitter of unbelieving eyes, snatches of incomprehensible conversations not worth listening to, silences that had meant nothing at the time and seemed now illuminating like a burst of sunshine. He remembered all that. He had not been blind. Oh no! And to know this was an exquisite relief. It brought back all his composure. I thought it beneath me to suspect you. He said, laugh dilly. The sound of that sentence evidently possessed some magical power because as soon as he had spoken he felt wonderfully at ease, and directly afterwards he experienced a flash of joyful amazement at the discovery that he could be inspired to such noble and truthful utterance. He watched the effect of his words. They caused her to glance to him quickly over her shoulder. He caught a glimpse of wet eyelashes, of a red cheek with a tear running down swiftly, and then she turned away again and sat as before, covering her face with her hands. You ought to be perfectly frank with me, he said, slowly. You know everything, she answered, indistinctly through her fingers. This letter, yes, but—and I came back, she exclaimed in a stifled voice. You know everything. I'm glad of it for your sake, he said with impressive gravity. He listened to himself with solemn emotion. It seemed to him that something inexpressibly momentous was in progress within the room, that every word and every gesture had the importance of events puredain from the beginning of all things, and summing up in their finality the whole purpose of creation. For your sake, he repeated. Her shoulders shook as though she had been sobbing, and he forgot himself in the contemplation of her hair. Suddenly he gave a start, as if waking up, and asked very gently and not much above a whisper, have you been meeting him often? Never, she cried into the palms of her hands. This answer seemed for a moment to take from him the power of speech. His lips moved for some time before any sound came. You prefer to make love here, under my very nose, he said, furiously. He calmed down instantly and felt regretfully uneasy, as though he had let himself down in her estimation by that outburst. She rose and with her hand on the back of the chair confronted him with eyes that were perfectly dry now. There was a red spot on each of her cheeks. When I made up my mind to go to him, I wrote, she said. But you didn't go to him. You took up the same tone. How far did you go? What made you come back? I didn't know myself, she murmured. Nothing of her moved but her lips. He fixed her sternly. Did he expect this? Was he waiting for you? He asked. She answered him by an almost imperceptible nod, and he continued to look at her for a good while without making a sound. Then at last. And I suppose he's waiting yet? He asked quickly. Again she seemed to nod at him. For some reason he felt he must know at the time. He consulted his watch gloomily. Half past seven. Is he? He muttered, putting the watch in his pocket. He looked up at her and, as of suddenly overcome by his sense of sinister fun, gave a short, harsh laugh directly repressed. No, it's the most unheard. He mumbled while she stood before him, biting her lower lip, as of plunged in deep thought. He laughed again in one low burst, and was as spiteful as an imprecation. He did not know why he felt such an overpowering and sudden distaste, for the facts of existence, for facts in general, such an immense disgust at the thought of all the many days already lived through. He was weary. Thinking seemed a labour beyond his strength. He said, You deceived me. Now you make a fool of him. It's awful. Why? I deceived myself, she exclaimed. Oh, nonsense, he said impatiently. I am ready to go, if you wish it. She went on quickly. It was due to you to be told to know. No, I could not, she cried, and stood still, wringing her hand stealthily. I am glad you repented before it was too late. He said in a dull tone and looking at his boots. I am glad. Some spark of better feeling, he muttered as if to himself. He lifted up his head after a moment of brooding silence. I am glad to see that there is some sense of decency left in you. He added a little louder. Looking at her, he appeared to hesitate, as of estimating the possible consequences of what he wished to say, and at last blurted out, After all, I loved you. I did not know, she whispered. Good God, he cried. Why do you imagine I married you? The indelicacy of his obtuseness angered her. Oh, why? she said through her teeth. He appeared overcome with horror, and watched her lips intently as though in fear. I imagined many things, she said slowly, and paused. He watched, holding his breath. At last she went on musingly, as if thinking out loud. I tried to understand. I tried honestly. Why? To do the usual thing, I suppose. Please yourself. He walked away smartly, and when he came back close to her, he had a flushed face. You seemed pretty well pleased too at the time. He hissed, with scathing fury, and he didn't ask whether you loved me. I know now I was perfectly incapable of such a thing, she said calmly. If I had, perhaps you would not have married me. It's very clear that I would not have done it if I had known you, as I know you now. He seemed to see himself proposing to her, ages ago. They were strolling up the slope of a lawn. Groups of people were scattered in sunshine. The shadows of leafy boughs lay still on the short grass. The coloured sunshades far off, passing between trees, resemble deliberate and brilliant butterflies moving without a flutter. Men smiling amably, or as very grave, with any impeccable shelter of their black coats, stood by the side of women who, clustered in clear summer toilets, recalled all the fabulous tales of enchanted gardens where animated flowers smile at bewitched nights. There was a sumptuous serenity in it all, a thin, vibrating excitement, a perfect security, as of an invincible ignorance that evoked within him a transcendent belief in velocity as a lot of all mankind, a recklessly picturesque desire to get promptly something for himself only, out of that splendour unmarred by an any shadow of a thought. The girl walked by his side across an open space. No one was near, and suddenly he stood still, as if inspired, and spoke. He remembered looking at her pure eyes, at her candid brow. He remembered glancing about quickly to see if they were being observed, and thinking that nothing could go wrong in a world of so much charm, purity, and distinction. He was proud of it. He was one of its makers, of its possessors, of its guardians, of its extollers. He wanted to grasp it solidly, to get as much gratification as he could out of it, and in view of its incomparable quality of its unstained atmosphere, of its nearness to the heaven of its choice, this gust of brutal desire seemed the most noble of aspirations. In a second he lived again through all these moments, and then all the pathos of his failure presented itself to him with such vividness, that there was a suspicion of tears in his tone when he said almost unthinkingly, my God, I did love you. She seemed touched by the emotion of his voice. Her lips quivered a little, and she made one faltering step towards him, putting out her hands in a beseeching gesture. When she perceived just in time that being absorbed by the tragedy of his life, he had absolutely forgotten her very existence. She stopped, and her outstretched arms fell slowly. He, with his features distorted by the bitterness of his thought, saw neither her movement nor her gesture. He stamped his foot in the vexation, rubbed his head, then exploded. What the devil am I to do now? He was still again. She seemed to understand, and moved to the door firmly. It's very simple. I'm going, she said aloud. At the sound of her voice he gave a start of surprise, looked at her wildly and asked in a piercing tone, you? Where? To him? No, alone. Goodbye. The door handle rattled under her groping hand as though she had been trying to get out of some dark place. No, stay! he cried. She heard him faintly. He saw her shoulder touch the lintel of the door. She swayed as if dazed. There was less than a second of suspense, while they both felt as if poised on the very edge of moral annihilation, ready to fall into some devouring nowhere. Then, almost simultaneously, he shouted, come back! And she let go the handle of the door. She turned round in peaceful desperation like one who deliberately has thrown away the last chance of life, and for a moment the room she faced appeared terrible and dark and safe, like a grave. He said very hoarse and abrupt. He can't end like this. Sit down. And while she crossed the room again to the low-backed chair before the dressing-table, he opened the door and put his head out to look and listen. The house was quiet. He came back pacified and asked, Do you speak the truth? She nodded. You have lived a lie, though, he said suspiciously. Ah, you made it so easy, she answered. You reproach me. Me? How could I, she said? I would have you no other now. What do you mean by—? He began, and checked himself, and without waiting for an answer went on. I won't ask any questions. Is this letter the worst of it? She had a nervous movement of her hands. I must have a plain answer, he said, hotly. Then no, the worst is my coming back. There followed a period of dead silence during which they exchanged searching glances. He said authoritatively, You don't know what you are saying. Your mind is unhinged. You are beside yourself, or you would not say such things. You can't control yourself, even in your remorse. He paused a moment, then said with a doctoral air. Self-restraint is everything in life, you know. It's happiness. It's dignity. It's everything. She was pulling nervously at her handkerchief while he went on watching anxiously to see the effect of his words. Nothing satisfactory happened. Only as he began to speak again, she covered her face with both her hands. You see where the want of self-restraint leads to? Pain, humiliation, loss of respect, of friends, of everything that enables life, that— All kinds of horrors, he concluded abruptly. She made no stir. He looked at her pensively for some time as though he had been concentrating the melancholy thoughts evoked by the sight of that abased woman. His eyes became fixed and dull. He was profoundly penetrated by the solemnity of the moment. He felt deeply the greatness of the occasion, and more than ever the walls of the house seemed to enclose the sacredness of ideals to which he was about to offer a magnificent sacrifice. He was the high priest of that temple, the severe guardian of formulas, of rights, of the pure ceremonial concealing the black doubts of life. And he was not alone. Other men, too, the best of them, kept watch and ward by the hearthstones that were the altars of their profitable persuasion. He understood confusedly that he was part of an immense and beneficent power which had a reward ready for every discretion. He dwelt within the invincible wisdom of silence. He was protected by indestructible faith that would last forever, that would withstand unshaken all the assaults, the loud execrations of apostates, and the secret weariness of its confessors. He was in league with the universe of untold advantages. He represented the moral strength of a beautiful reticence that could vanquish all the deplorable crudities of life, fear, disaster, sin, even death itself. It seemed to him that he was on the point of sweeping triumphantly away all the illusory mysteries of existence. It was simplicity itself, and a fourth part of the return. RECORDING by Ray I hope you see now the folly, the utter folly of wickedness. He began in a dull, solemn manner. You must respect the conditions of your life, or lose all it can give you. All, everything. He waved his arm once, and three exact replicas of his face, of his clothes, of his dull severity, of his solemn grief, repeated the wide gesture that in its comprehensive sweep indicated an infinity of morrow sweetness embraced the walls, the hangings, the whole house, all the crowd of houses outside, or the flimsy and inscrutable graves of the living, with their doors numbered like the doors of prison cells, and as impenetrable as the granite of tombstones. Yes, restraint, duty, fidelity, unswerving fidelity to what is expected of you. This only this secures the reward, the peace. Everything else we should labour to subdue to destroy. It's misfortune. It's disease. It is terrible, terrible. We must not know anything about it. We needn't. It is our duty to ourselves, to others. You do not live all alone in the world, and if you have no respect for the dignity of life others have, life is a serious matter. If you don't conform to the highest standards, you are no one. It's a kind of death. Didn't this occur to you? You've only to look around you to see the truth of what I am saying. Did you live without noticing anything, without understanding anything? From a child you had examples before your eyes. You could see daily the beauty, the blessings of morality, of principles. His voice rose and fell pompously in a strange chant. His eyes were still, his stare exalted and sullen. His face was set, was hard, was woodenly exalting over the grim inspiration that secretly possessed him, seetheed within him, lifted him up into a stealthy frenzy of belief. Now and then he would stretch out his right arm over her head, as it were, and he spoke down at that sinner from a height, and with a sense of avenging virtue, with a profound and pure joy as though he could from a steep pinnacle see every weighty word strike and hurt like a punishing stone. Rigid principles, adherence to what is right, he finished after a pause. What is right, she said distinctly, without uncovering her face. Your mind is diseased, he cried upright and austere. Such a question is wrought, utter wrought. Look around you, there's your answer, if you only care to see. Nothing that outrageous the received beliefs can be right. Your conscience tells you that, they are the received beliefs because they are the best, the noblest, the only possible, they survive. He could not help noticing with pleasure the philosophic breath of his view. But he could not pause to enjoy it for his inspiration the call of Auguste Truth carried him on. You must respect the moral foundations of a society that has made you what you are. Be true to it. That's duty, that's honour, that's honesty. He felt a great glow within him as though he had swallowed something hot. He made a step nearer. She sat up and looked at him with an ardour expectation that stimulated his sense of the supreme importance of that moment. And as if forgetting himself, he raised his voice very much. What's right, you ask me? Think only. What would you have been if you had gone off with that infernal vagabond? What would you have been? You, my wife! He caught sight of himself in the pure glass, drawn up to his full height, and with a face so white that his eyes, at the distance, resembled the black cavities in a skull. He saw himself as if about to launch imprecations with arms uplifted above her bowed head. He was ashamed of that unseemly posture and put his hands in his pockets hurriedly. She murmured faintly as if to herself, ah, what am I now? As it happens, you're still, Mrs. Alvin Hervey, uncommonly lucky for you, let me tell you. He sat in a conversational tone. He walked up to the furthest corner of the room and, turning back, saw her sitting there upright, her hands clasped on her lap, and with a lost, unswerving gaze of her eyes, which stared unwinking like the eyes of the blind, at the crude gas flame, blazing and still, between the jaws of the bronze dragon. He came up quite close to her, and, straddling his legs a little, stood looking down at her face for some time without taking his hands out of his pockets. He seemed to be turning over in his mind a heap of words, piecing his next speech out of an overpowering abundance of thoughts. You've tried me to the utmost, he said at last, and as soon as he said these words, you lost his moral footing, and felt himself swept away from his pinnacle by a flood of passionate resentment against the bungling nature that had come so near to spoiling his life. Yes, I've been tried more than any man ought to be. He went on with righteous bitterness. It was unfair. What possessed you to? What possessed you? Write such a— after five years of perfect happiness, upon my word, no one would believe. Didn't you feel you couldn't? Because you couldn't. It was impossible, you know. Wasn't it? Think. Wasn't it? It was impossible. She whispered, obediently. This submissive assent, given with such readiness, did not soothe him, did not elate him. It gave him, inexplicably, that sense of terror we experienced when, in the midst of conditions, we had learned to think absolutely safe, we'd discover all at once the presence of a near and unsuspected danger. It was impossible, of course. He knew it. She knew it. She confessed it. It was impossible. That man knew it, too, as well as anyone, couldn't help knowing it. And yet those two had been engaged in conspiracy against his peace, in a criminal enterprise for which there could be no sanction of belief within themselves. There could not be. There could not be. And yet how near to— With a short thrill, he saw himself an exiled, fallen figure in a realm of ungovernable, of unrestrained folly. Nothing could be foreseen, foretold, guarded against, and the sensation was intolerable, had something of the withering horror that may be conceived as following upon the utter extinction of all hope. In the flash of thought, the dishonouring episode seemed to disengage itself from everything actual, from earthly conditions, and even from earthly suffering. It became purely a terrifying knowledge, an annihilating knowledge of a blind and infernal force. Something desperate and vague, a flicker of an insane desire to abase himself before the mysterious impulses of evil, to ask for mercy in some way, passed through his mind. And then came the idea, the persuasion, the certitude that the evil must be forgotten, must be resolutely ignored to make life possible, that the knowledge must be kept out of mind, out of sight, like the knowledge of certain death is kept out of the daily existence of men. He stiffened himself inwardly for the effort, and next moment it appeared very easy, amazingly feasible if one only kept strictly to facts, gave one's mind to their perplexities and not to their meaning. Becoming conscious of a long silence he cleared his throat warningly, and said in a steady voice, I'm glad you feel this. Uncommonly glad you felt this in time. For don't you see? Unexpectedly he hesitated. Yes, I see. She murmured. Of course you would, he said, looking at the carpet and speaking like one who thinks of something else. He lifted his head. I cannot believe, even after this, even after this, that you are altogether, altogether other than what I thought you. It seems impossible, to me. And to me, she breathed out. Now, yes, he said. But this morning, and tomorrow, this is what. He started at the drift of his words and broke off abruptly. Every train of thought seemed to lead into the hopeless realm of ungovernable folly, to recall the knowledge and the terror of forces that must be ignored. He said rapidly, my position is very painful, difficult. I feel— He looked at her, fixedly, with a pained air, as though frightfully oppressed by a sudden inability to express his pent-up ideas. I am ready to go, she said very low. I full-featured everything. To learn, to learn. Her chin fell on her breast. Her voice died out in a sigh. He made a light gesture of impatient ascent. Yes, yes, it's all very well, of course. Forfeited. Morally forfeited, only morally forfeited. I am to believe you. She startled him by jumping up. Oh, I believe—I believe, he said hastily, and she sat down as suddenly as she had got up. He went on gloomily. I've suffered. I suffer now. You can't understand how much. So much that when you propose a parting, I almost think— But no. There is duty. You've forgotten it. I never did. Before heaven, I never did. But in a horrid exposure like this, the judgment of mankind goes astray. At least for a time. You see, you and I—at least I feel that you and I are one before the world. It is as it should be. The world is right, in the main, or else it couldn't be. Couldn't be what it is. And we are part of it. We have our duty to—to our fellow beings who don't want to—to—uh— He stammered. She looked up at him with wide eyes, and her lips were slightly parted. He went on mumbling. Pain. Indignation. Sure to misunderstand. I've suffered enough. If there has been nothing irreparable, as you assure me, then— Alvin! she cried. What! he said morosely. He gazed down at her for a moment with a sombre stare, as one looks at ruins, at the devastation of some natural disaster. Then he continued after a short pause. The best thing is—the best for us. For—for everyone. Yes. Least pain. Most unselfish. His voice faltered, and she heard only detached words. Duty. Burden. Ourselves. Silent. A moment of perfect stillness ensued. This is an appeal I am making to your conscience, he said, certainly in an explanatory tone. Not to add to the wretchedness of all this. To try loyally and help me to live it down somehow. Without any reservations, you know, loyally. You can't deny I've been cruelly wronged, and after all, my affection deserves— He paused, with evident anxiety, to hear her speak. I make no reservations, she said, mournfully. How could I? I found myself out, and came back to—her eyes flashed scornfully for an instant. To what—to what you propose? You see, I—I can be trusted, now. He listened to every word with profound attention, and when she seized, seemed to wait for more. Is that all you've got to say? he asked. She was startled by his tone and said faintly. I spoke the truth. What more can I say? Confounded, you might say something human, he burst out. It isn't being truthful, it's being brazen, if you want to know. Not a word to show you feel your position, and—and mine. Not a single word of acknowledgement, or regret, or remorse, or something. Words. She whispered in a tone that irritated him. He stamped his foot. This is awful, he exclaimed. Words? Yes, words. Words mean something. Yes, they do, for all this infernal affection. They mean something to me, to everybody, to you. What the devil did you use to express those sentiments? Sentiments, bah! Which made you forget me. Duty. Shame. He foamed at the mouth while she stared at him, appalled by this sudden fury. Did you two talk? Did you two talk only with your eyes? He spluttered savagely. She rose. I can't bear this, she said, trembling from head to foot. I am going. They stood facing one another for a moment. Not you, he said, with conscious roughness, and began to walk up and down the room. She remained very still, with an air of listening anxiously to her own heartbeats, then sank down on the chair slowly, and sighed, as if giving up a task beyond her strength. You misunderstand everything, I say, he began quietly. But I prefer to think that, just now, you are not accountable for your actions. He stopped again before her. Your mind is unhinged, he said, with unction. To go now would be adding crime, yes, crime, to folly. I'll have no scandal in my life, no matter what's the cost. And why? You are sure to misunderstand me, but I'll tell you, as a matter of duty. Yes, but you're sure to misunderstand me, recklessly. Women always do, they are too—too narrow-minded. He waited for a while, but she made no sound, didn't even look at him. He felt uneasy, painfully uneasy, like a man who suspects he is unreasonably mistrusted. To combat that exasperating sensation he recommenced talking very fast. The sound of his words excited his thoughts, and in the play of darting thoughts he had glimpses now and then of the expungible rock of his convictions, towering in solitary grandeur above the unprofitable waste of errors and passions. For it is self-evident, he went on with anxious vivacity, it is self-evident that on the highest ground we haven't the right—no, we haven't the right— to intrude our miseries upon those who naturally expect better things from us. Everyone wishes his own life and the life around him to be beautiful and pure. Now a scandal amongst people of our position is disastrous for the morality, a fatal influence, don't you see, upon the general tone of the class. Very important, the most important, I very believe, in the community. I feel this profoundly. This is the broad view. In time you'll give me, when you become again the woman I loved and trusted. He stopped short, as though unexpectedly suffocated, then in a completely changed voice said, for I did love and trust you, and again was silent for a moment. She put her handkerchief to her eyes. You give me credit for my motives. It's mainly loyalty to the larger conditions of our life, where you, you, of all women, failed. One doesn't usually talk like this, of course, but in this case you admit and consider the innocent suffer with the guilty. The world is pitiless in its judgments. Unfortunately there are always those in it who are only too eager to misunderstand. Before you and before my conscience I am guiltless, but any, any disclosure would impair my usefulness in this sphere, in the larger sphere in which I hope soon to—I believe you fully shared my views in that matter. I don't want to say any more, on, on that point, but believe me, true unselfishness is to bear one's burdens in, in silence. The ideal must, must be preserved, for others at least. It's clear as daylight. If I have a loathsome sore to gratuitously display it would be abominable, abominable, and often in life in the highest conception of life, outspokenness in certain circumstances is nothing less than criminal. Temptation, you know, excuses no one. There is no such thing really if one looks steadily to one's welfare, which is grounded in duty, but there are the weak. His tone became ferocious for an instant, and there are the fools and the envious especially for people in our position. I am guiltless of this terrible, terrible estrangement, but there has been nothing irreparable. Something gloomy, like a deep shadow, passed over his face. Nothing irreparable—you see, even now I am ready to trust you implicitly—then our duty is clear. He looked down. A change came over his expression, and straight away from the outward impetus of his locosity he passed into the dull contemplation of all the appeasing truths that, not without some wonder, he had so recently been able to discover within himself. During this profound and soothing communion with his innermost beliefs, he remained staring at the carpet, with a portentously solemn face and with a dull vacuity of eyes that seemed to gaze into the blackness of an empty hole. Then, without staring in the least, he continued. Yes, perfectly clear. I've been tried to the utmost, and I can't pretend that, for a time, the old feelings—the old feelings are not—he sighed, but I forgive you. She made a slight movement without uncovering her eyes. In his profound scrutiny of the carpet he noticed nothing, and there was silence—silence within and silence without. As though his words had stilled the beat and tremor of all the surrounding life, and the house had stood alone, the only dwelling upon a deserted earth, he lifted his head and repeated solemnly. I forgive you. From a sense of duty, and in the hope, end a fifth part of the return. 6. THE RETURN He heard a laugh, and it not only interrupted his words, but also destroyed the peace of his self-absorption with the vile pain of reality intruding upon the beauty of a dream. He couldn't understand whence the sound came. He could see, foreshortened the tear-stained, dolerous face of the woman stretched out, and with her head thrown over the back of the seat. He thought the piercing noise was a delusion, but another shrill peel followed by a deep sob, and succeeded by another shriek of mirth positively seemed to tear him out from where he stood. He bounded to the door. It was closed. He turned the key and thought, That's no good. Stop this, he cried, and perceived with alarm that he could hardly hear his own voice in the midst of her screaming. He darted back with the idea of stifling that unbearable noise with his hands, but stood still distracted, finding himself as unable to touch her as though she had been on fire. He shouted, Enough of this! Like men shout in the tumult of a riot, with a red face and starting eyes. Then, as if swept away before another burst of laughter, he disappeared in a flash out of three looking glasses, vanished suddenly from before her. For a time the woman gasped and laughed at no one in the luminous stillness of the empty room. He reappeared, striding at her, and with a tumbler of water in his hand. He stammered, Hysterics, stop. They were here. Drink this. She laughed at the ceiling. Stop this, he cried. He flung the water in her face, putting into the action all the secret brutality of his spite, yet still felt that it would have been perfectly excusable in anyone to send the tumbler after the water. He restrained himself, but at the same time was so convinced nothing could stop the horror of those mad shrieks that when the first sensation of relief came it did not even occur to him to doubt the impression of having become suddenly deaf. When next moment he became sure that she was sitting up and really very quiet, it was as though everything—men, things, sensations—had come to a rest. He was prepared to be grateful. He could not take his eyes off her, fearing, yet unwilling to admit, the possibility of her beginning again. For the experience, however contemptuously he tried to think of it, had left the bewilderment of a mysterious terror. Her face was streaming with water and tears. There was a wisp of hair on her forehead. Another stuck to her cheek. Her hat was on one side, undecoriously tilted. Her soaked veil resembled a sordid rack for stoning her forehead. There was an utter unreserve in her aspect, an abandonment of safeguards, that ugliness of truth which can only be kept out of daily life by unremitting care for appearances. He did not know why, looking at her, he thought suddenly of tomorrow, and why the thought called out a deep feeling of unutterable, discouraged weariness, a fear of facing the succession of days. Tomorrow, it was as far as yesterday, ages elapsed between sunrises. Sometimes he scant her features like one looks at a forgotten country. They were not distorted. He recognised landmarks, so to speak, but it was only a resemblance that he could see not the woman of yesterday, or was it perhaps more than a woman of yesterday? Who could tell? Was it something new? A new expression, or a new shade of expression, or something deep, an old truth unveiled, a fundamental and hidden truth, some unnecessary accursed certitude. He became aware that he was trembling very much, that he had an empty tumbler in his hand that time was passing. Still looking at her with lingering mistrust, he reached towards the table to put the glass down, and was startled to feel it apparently go through the wood. He had missed the edge. To surprise, the slight jingling noise of the accident annoyed him beyond expression. He turned to her, irritated. What's the meaning of this? He asked grimly. She passed her hand over her face and made an attempt to get up. You're not going to be absurd again, he said. Upon my soul I did not know you could forget yourself to that extent. He didn't try to conceal his physical disgust, because he believed it to be purely moral reprobation of every unreserved of anything in the nature of his scene. I assure you it was revolting, he went on. He stared for a moment at her, positively degrading. He added with insistence. She stood up quickly as if moved by a spring and tottered. He started forward instinctively. She caught hold of the back of the chair and steadied herself. This arrested him, and they faced each other wide-eyed, uncertain, and yet coming back slowly to the reality of things with relief and wonder, as though just awakened after tossing through a long night of fevered dreams. Pray, don't begin again, he said hurriedly, seeing her open her lips. I deserve some little consideration, and such unaccountable behaviour is painful to me. I expect better things. I have the right. She pressed both her hands to her temples. Oh, nonsense, he said sharply. You are perfectly capable of coming down to dinner. No one should even suspect, not even the servants. No one. No one. I am sure you can. She dropped her arms, her face twitched. She looked straight into his eyes, and seemed incapable of pronouncing a word. He frowned at her. I wish it, he said tyrannically, for your own sake or so. He meant to carry that point without any pity. Why didn't she speak? He feared passive resistance. She must make her come. His frown deepened and began to think of some effectual violence, when most unexpectedly she said in a firm voice, Yes, I can, and clutched the chair back again. He was relieved, and all at once her attitude seized to interest him. The important thing was that their life would begin again with an everyday act, with something that could not be misunderstood, that thank God had no moral meaning, no perplexity, and yet was symbolic of their uninterrupted communion in the past, in all the future. That morning at that table they had breakfast together, and now they would dine. It was all over. What happened between could be forgotten, must be forgotten, like things that can only happen once. Death, for instance. I will wait for you, he said, going to the door. He had some difficulty with it, for he did not remember he had turned the key. He hated that delay, and his checked impatience to be gone out of the room made him feel quite ill, as, with the consciousness of her presence behind his back, he fumbled at the lock. He managed it at last, then in the doorway he glanced off his shoulder to say, It's rather late, you know, and saw her standing where he had left her, with the face white as alabaster and perfectly still, like a woman in a trance. He was afraid she would keep him waiting, but without any breathing time, he hardly knew how, he found himself sitting at table with her. He had made up his mind to eat, to talk, to be natural. It seemed to be necessary that deception should begin at home. The servants must not know, must not suspect. This intense desire of secrecy, of secrecy dark, destroying, profound, discreet, like a grave, possessed him of the strength of hallucination, seemed to spread itself to inanimate objects that had been the daily companions of his life, affected with a taint of enmity every single thing within the faithful walls that would stand forever between the shamelessness of facts and the indignation of mankind. Even when, as it happened, once or twice, both the servants left the room together, he remained carefully natural, industriously hungry, laboriously at his ease, as though he had wanted to cheat the black oak sideboard, the heavy curtains, the stiff-backed chairs, into the belief of an unstained happiness. He was mistrustful of his wife's self-control, unwilling to look at her and reluctant to speak, for it seemed to him inconceivable that she should not betray herself by the slightest movement by the very first words spoken. Then he thought the silence in the room was becoming dangerous and so excessive as to produce the effect of an intolerable uproar. He wanted to end it, as one is anxious to interrupt an indiscreet confession, but with the memory of that laugh upstairs he dared not give her an occasion to open her lips. Presently he heard her voice pronouncing in a calm tone some unimportant remark. He detached his eyes from the centre's plate, and felt excited as if on the point of looking at a wonder, there nothing could be more wonderful than her composure. He was looking at the candid eyes, at the pure brow, at what he had seen every evening for years in that place. He listened to the voice that for five years he had heard every day. Perhaps she was a little pale, but a healthy pallor had always been for him one of her chief attractions. Perhaps her face was rigidly set. But that memorial impassiveness, that magnificent stolidity, as of a wonderful statue by some great sculptor working under the curse of the gods, that imposing unthinking stillness of her features, had till then mirrored for him the tranquil dignity of a soul of which he had thought himself, as a matter of course, the inexpungable possessor. Those were the outward signs of her difference from the ignoble hurt that feels, suffers, fails, errs, but has no distinct value in the world except as a moral contrast to the prosperity of the elect. He had been proud of her appearance. It had the perfectly proper frackness of perfection, and now he was shocked to see it unchanged. She looked like this, spoke like this, exactly like this. A year ago, a month ago, only yesterday when she—what went on within made no difference. What did she think? What meant the pallor, the placid face, the candid brow, the pure eyes? What did she think during all these years? What did she think yesterday, today? What would she think tomorrow? He must find out. And yet how could he get to know? She had been false to him, to that man, to herself. She was ready to be false, for him. Always false. She looked lies, breathed lies, lived lies, would tell lies, always, to the end of life. And he would never know what she meant. Never! Never! No one could! Impossible to know! He dropped his knife and fork, brusquely, as though by the virtue of a sudden illumination he had been made aware of poison in his plate, and became positive in his mind that he could never swallow another morsel of food as long as he lived. The dinner went on in a room that had been steadily growing from some cause hotter than a furnace. He had to drink. He drank time after time, and at last recollecting himself was frightened at the quantity till he perceived that what he had been drinking was water. Out of two different wine glasses and the discovered unconsciousness of his actions affected him painfully. He was disturbed to find himself in such an unhealthy state of mind, excess of feeling, excess of feeling, and it was part of his creed that any excess of feeling was unhealthy, morally unprofitable, a taint on practical manhood, her fault, entirely her fault. Her sinful self-forgetfulness was contagious. It made him think thoughts he had never had before, thoughts disintegrating, tormenting, sapping to the very core of life, like mortal disease, thoughts that bred the fear of air, of sunshine, of men, like the whispered news of a pestilence. The maid served without noise, and to avoid looking at his wife and looking within himself, he followed with his eyes the first one, and then the other, without being able to distinguish between them. They moved silently about, without one being able to see by what means for their skirts touched the carpet all round. They glided here and there, receded, approached, rigid in black and white, with precise gestures and no life in their faces, like a pair of marionettes in mourning, and their air of wooden unconcerns struck him as unnatural, suspicious, irremediably hostile, that such people's feelings or judgment could affect one in any way had never occurred to him before. He understood they had no prospects, no principles, no refinement, and no power. But now he had become so debased that he could not even attempt to disguise from himself his yearning to know the secret thoughts of his servants. Several times he looked up covertly at the faces of those girls. Impossible to know. They changed his plates and utterly ignored his existence. What impenetrable duplicity. Women. Nothing but women around him. Impossible to know. He experienced that hard-probing fiery sense of dangerous loneliness, which sometimes assails the courage of a solitary adventurer in an unexplored country. The sight of a man's face, he felt, of any man's face would have been a profound relief. One would know then something could understand. He would engage a butler soon as possible. And then the end of that dinner, which had seemed to have been going on for hours, the end came, taking him violently by surprise, as though he had expected in the natural course of events to sit at that table for ever and ever. Put upstairs in the drawing-room, he became the victim of a restless fate, that would, on no account, permit him to sit down. She had sunk on a low, easy chair, and, taking up from a small table at her elbow, a fan with ivory leaves, shaded her face from the fire. The coals glowed without a flame, and upon the red glow the vertical bars of the grate stood out at her feet, black and curved, like the charred rips of a consumed sacrifice. Far off, a lamp purged on a slim brass rod, burned under a wide shade of crimson silk. The centre, within the shadows of the large room, of a fiery twilight that had in the warm quality of its tint something delicate, refined and infernal. His soft footfalls and the subdued beat of the clock on the high mantelpiece answered each other regularly, as if time and himself, engaged in a measured contest, had been pacing together through the infernal delicacy of twilight towards a mysterious goal. He walked from one end of the room to the other, without a pause, like a traveller who, at night, hastens doggedly upon an interminable journey. Now and then he glanced at her, impossible to know. The gross precision of that thought expressed to his practical mind something illimitable and infinitely profound, the all-embracing subtlety of a feeling, the eternal origin of his pain. This woman had accepted him, had abandoned him, had returned to him, and of all this he would never know the truth, never, not to death, not after, not on judgment day when all shall be disclosed thoughts and deeds, rewards and punishments, but the secret of hearts alone shall return forever unknown to the inscrutable creator of good and evil, to the master of doubts and impulses. He stood still to look at her. Throne back, and with her face turned away from him, she did not stir, as if asleep. What did she think? What did she feel? And in the presence of her perfect stillness, in the breathless silence, he felt himself insignificant and powerless before her, like a prisoner in chains. The fury of his impotence called out sinister images, that faculty of tormenting vision which in a moment of anguishing sense of wrong induces a man to mutter threats or make a menacing gesture in the solitude of an empty room. But the gust of passion passed at once, left him trembling a little with the wondering, reflective fear, of a man who has paused on the very verge of suicide. The serenity of truth and the peace of death can be only secured through a largeness of contempt, embracing all the profitable servitudes of life. He found he did not want to know. Better not. It was all over. It was as if it hadn't been, and it was very necessary for both of them. It was morally right that nobody should know. The best thing for us is to forget all this. She started a little and shut the fan with a click. Yes, forgive and forget. He repeated as if to himself. I'll never forget, she said in a vibrating voice, and I'll never forgive myself. But I, who have nothing to reproach myself, he began making a step towards her. She jumped up. I did not come back for your forgiveness. She exclaimed passionately, as if clamouring against an unjust dispersion. He only said, oh, and became silent. He could not understand this unprovoked aggressiveness of her attitude, and certainly was very far from thinking that an unpremeditated hint of something resembling emotion in the tone of his last words had caused that uncontrollable burst of sincerity. It completed his bewilderment, but he was not at all angry now. He was as if benumbed by the fascination of the incomprehensible. She stood before him, tall and indistinct, like a black phantom in the red twilight. At last, poignantly uncertain as to what would happen if he opened his lips, he muttered. But if my love is strong enough, and hesitated, he heard something snap loudly in the fiery stillness. She had broken her fan. Two thin pieces of ivory fell, one after another, without a sound on the thick carpet, and instinctively he stooped to pick them up. While he groped at her feet, it occurred to him that the woman there had in her hands an indispensable gift which nothing else on earth could give. And when he stood up, he was penetrated by an irresistible belief in an enigma, by the conviction that within his reach and passing away from him was a very secret of existence, its certitude, immaterial and precious. She moved to the door, and he followed at her elbow, casting about for a magic word that would make the enigma clear, that would compel the surrender of the gift. And there is no such word. The enigma is only made clear by sacrifice, and the gift of heaven is in the hands of every man. But they had lived in a world that abhors enigmas, and cares for no gifts, but such as can be obtained in the street. She was nearing the door, he said, hurriedly. Upon my word, I love you. I love you now. She stopped for an almost imperceptible moment to give him an indignant glance, and then moved on. That feminine penetration, so clever and so tainted by the eternal instinct of self-defense, so ready to see an obvious evil in everything it cannot understand, filled her with bitter resentment against both the men who could offer to the spiritual and tragic strife of her feelings nothing but the coarseness of their abominable materialism. In her anger against her own ineffectual self-deception, she found hate enough for them both. What did they want? What more did this one want? And as her husband faced her again with his hand on the door handle, she asked herself whether he was unpardonably stupid or simply ignoble. She said nervously and very fast, you're deceiving yourself. You never loved me. You wanted a wife, some woman, any woman that would think, speak and behave in a certain way, in a way you approved. You loved yourself. You won't believe me, he asked, slowly. If I had believed you loved me, she began passionately, then drew in a long breath, and during that pause he heard the steady beat of blood in his ears. If I had believed it, I would never have come back. She finished recklessly. He stood looking down as though he had not heard. She waited. After a moment he opened the door, and on the landing the sightless woman of Marble appeared, draped to the chin, thrusting blindly at them a cluster of lights. He seemed to have forgotten himself in a meditation so deep that on a point of going out she stopped to look at him in surprise. While she had been speaking, he had wandered on the track of the enigma out of the world of senses into the region of feeling. What did it matter what she had done, what she had said, if through the pain of her acts and words he had obtained the word of the enigma? There can be no life without faith and love, faith in a human heart, love of a human being. That touch of grace, whose help once in life is the privilege of the most undeserving, flung open for him the portals are beyond, and in contemplating there the certitude immaterial and precious, he forgot all the meaningless accidents of existence, the bliss of getting, the delight of enjoying, all the protein and enticing forms of the cupidity that rules a material world of fullest joys of contemptible sorrows, faith, love, the undoubting clear faith in the truth of a soul, the great tenderness deep as the ocean, serene and eternal, like the infinite piece of space about the short tempests of the earth. It was what he had wanted all his life, but he understood it only then for the first time. It was through the pain of losing her that the knowledge had come. She had the gift, she had the gift, and in all the world she was the only human being that could surrender it to his immense desire. He made a step forward, putting his arms out as to take her to his breast, and lifting his head was made by such a look of blank consternation that his arms fell as though they had been struck down by a blow. She started away from him, stumbled over the threshold, and once on the landing turned, swift and crouching. The train of her gown swished as it flew around her feet. It was an undisguised panic. She panted, showing her teeth and the hate of strength, the disdain of weakness, the eternal preoccupation of sex came out like a toy demon out of a box. This is odious, she screamed. He did not stir, but her look, her agitated movements, the sound of her voice were like a mist of facts thickening between him and the vision of love and faith. It vanished, and looking at that face triumphant and scornful, at that white face, stealthy and unexpected, as if discovered staring from an ambush, he was coming back slowly to the world of senses. His first clear thought was, I am married to that woman, and the next she will give nothing but what I see. He felt the need not to see, but the memory of the vision, the memory that abides forever within the seer, made him say to her with the naive austerity of a convert awed by the touch of a new creed, you haven't the gift. He turned his back on her, leaving her completely mystified. And she went upstairs slowly, struggling with the distasteful suspicion of having been confronted by something more subtle than herself, more profound than the misunderstood and tragic contest of her feelings. He shut the door of the drawing-room and moved at hazard, alone amongst the heavy shadows and in the fiery twilight as of an elegant place of perdition. She hadn't the gift, no one had. He stepped on a book that had fallen off one of the crowded little tables. He picked up the slender volume and, holding it, approached the crimson shaded lamp. The fiery tint deepened on the cover and contorted gold letters sprawling all over it in an intricate maze came out, gleaming redly. Thorns and arabasques, he read it twice, thorns and arabasques. The other spoke of verses. He dropped it at his feet, but did not feel the slightest pang of jealousy or indignation. What did he know? What? The mass of hot coals tumbled down in the grate, and he turned to look at them. Ah, that one was ready to give up everything he had for that woman who did not come, who had not the faith that loved the courage to come. What did that man expect? What did he hope and what did he want? The woman or the certitude immaterial and precious. The first unselfish thought he had ever given to any human being was for that man who had tried to do him a terrible wrong. He was not angry. He was saddened by an impersonal sorrow, by a vast melancholy as of all mankind longing for what cannot be attained. He felt his fellowship with every man, even with that man, especially with that man. What did he think now? Had he ceased to wait and hope? Would he ever cease to wait and hope? Would he understand that the woman who had no courage had not the gift? Had not the gift? The clock began to strike, and the deep-toned vibration filled the room as though with the sound of an enormous bell tolling far away. He counted the strokes. Twelve. Another day had begun. Tomorrow had come. The mysterious and lying tomorrow that lures men, distainful of love and faith, on and on through the poignant futilities of life to the fitting reward of a grave. He counted the strokes, and gazing at the great seemed to wait for more. Then, as have called out, left the room, walking firmly. When outside he heard footsteps in the hall and stood still. A bolt was shot, then another. They were locking up, shutting out his desire and his deception from the indignant criticism of a world full of noble gifts for those who proclaimed themselves without stain and without reproach. He was safe, and on all sides of his dwelling, so vile fears and so vile hopes slept, dreaming of success behind the severe discretion of doors, as impenetrable to the truth within, as the granite of tombstones. A lock snapped, a short chain rattled. Nobody shall know. Why was this assurance of safety heavier than a burden of fear? And why the day that began presented itself obstinately like the last day of all, like a today without a tomorrow? Yet nothing was changed, for nobody would know, and all would go on as before—the getting, the enjoying, the blessing of hunger that is appeased every day, the noble incentives of unappeasable ambitions, or all the blessings of life, all but the certitude in material and precious, the certitude of love and faith. He believed the shadow of it had been with him as long as he could remember, that invisible presence had ruled his life, and now the shadow had appeared and faded he could not extinguish his longing for the truth of its substance. His desire of it was naive, it was masterful like the material aspirations of uttered groundwork of existence, but, unlike these, it was unconquerable. It was the subtle despotism of an idea that suffers no rivals, that is lonely, inconsolable and dangerous. He went slowly up the stairs, nobody shall know. The days would go on, and he would go far, very far, if the idea could not be mastered, fortune could be, man could be, the whole world. He was dazzled by the greatness of the prospect, the brutality of a practical instinct shouted to him that only that which could be had was worth having. He lingered on the steps, the lights were out in the hall, and a small yellow flame flitted about down there. He felt a sudden contempt for himself which braced him up. He went on, but at the door of their room, and with his arm advanced to open it, he faltered. On the flight of stairs below, the head of the girl who had been locking up appeared. His arm fell. He thought, I'll wait till she's gone, and stepped back within the perpendicular folds of a potierre. He saw her come gradually, as of ascending from a well. At every step the feeble flame of the candle swayed before a tired, young face, and the darkness of the hall seemed to cling to her black skirt, followed her, rising like a silent flood, as though the great night of the world had broken through the discreet reserve of walls, of closed doors, of curtained windows. It rose over the steps, it leaped up the walls like an angry wave, it flowed over the blue skies, over the yellow sands, over the sunshine of landscapes, and over the pretty pathos of ragged innocence, and of meek starvation. It swallowed up the delicious idol in a boat, and the mutilated immortality of famous bar relief. It flowed from outside, it rose higher in a destructive silence, and above it the woman of marble, composed and blind on the high pedestal, seemed to ward off the devouring night with a cluster of lights. He watched the rising tide of impenetrable gloom with impatience, as evanctious for the coming of a darkness black enough to conceal a shameful surrender. It came nearer. The cluster of lights went out. The girl ascended, facing him. Behind her, the shadow of a colossal woman danced lightly on the wall. He held his breath while she passed by, noiseless and with heavy eyelids, and on her track the flowing tide of a tenebrous sea filled the house, seemed to swirl about his feet, and rising unchecked, closed silently above his head. The time had come, but he did not open the door. All was still, and instead of surrendering to the reasonable exigencies of life he stepped out, with a rebelling heart into the darkness of the house. It was the abode of an impenetrable night, as though indeed the last day had come and gone, leaving him alone in the darkness that has no tomorrow, and looming vaguely below the woman of marble, livered and still like a patient phantom, held out in the night a cluster of extinguished lights. His obedient thought traced for him the image of an uninterrupted life, the dignity and the advantages of an uninterrupted success. While his rebellious heart beat violently within his breast, as of maddened by the desire of a certitude immaterial and precious, the certitude of love and faith, what of the night within his dwelling, if outside he could find the sunshine in which meant so, in which meant reap, nobody would know. The days, the years would pass and he remembered that he had loved her, the years would pass, and then he thought of her as we think of the dead, in a tender immensity of regret, in a passionate longing for the return of idealized perfections. He had loved her, he had loved her, and he never knew the truth. The years would pass and the anguish of doubt, he remembered her smile, her eyes, her voice, her silence, as though he had lost her forever. The years would pass and he would always mistrust her smile, suspect her eyes, he would always misbelieve her voice, he would never have faith in her silence. She had no gift, she had no gift, what was she, who was she? The years would pass, the memory of this hour would grow faint, and she would share the material serenity of an unblemished life. She had no love and no faith for anyone. To give her your thought, your belief, was like whispering your confession over the edge of the world. Nothing came back, not even an echo. In the pain of that thought was born his conscience, not that fear of remorse which grows slowly and slowly decays amongst the complicated facts of life, but a divine wisdom springing full-grown, armed and severe out of a tried heart to combat the secret baseness of motives. It came to him in a flash that morality is not a method of happiness. The revelation was terrible. He saw at once that nothing of what he knew mattered in the least. The acts of men and women, success, humiliation, dignity, failure, nothing mattered. It was not a question of moral less pain, of this joy, of that sorrow. It was a question of truth or falsehood. It was a question of life or death. He stood in the revealing night, in the darkness that tries the hearts, in the night useless for the work of men, but in which their gaze, undazzled by the sunshine of covetous days, wanders sometimes as far as the stars. The perfect stillness around him had something solemn in it, but he felt it was the lying salinity of a temple devoted to the rights of a debasing persuasion. The silence within the discreet walls was eloquent of safety, but it appeared to him exciting and sinister, like the discretion of a profitable infamy. It was the prudent peace of a den of coiners, of a house of ill-fame. The years would pass and nobody would know, never, not to death, not after. Never, he said aloud to the revealing night. And he hesitated. The secret of hearts, too terrible for the timid eyes of men, shall return, veiled forever to the inscrutable creator of good and evil, to the master of doubts and impulses. His conscience was born. He heard its voice, and he hesitated, ignoring the strength within, the fateful power, the secret of his heart. It was an awful sacrifice to cast all one's life into the flame of the new belief. He wanted help against himself, against the cruel decree of salvation, the need of tacit complicity, where it had never failed himself, the habit of years affirmed itself. Perhaps she would help. He flung the door open and rushed in like a fugitive. He was in the middle of the room before he could see anything but the dazzling brilliance of the light, and then, as if detached and floating in it on the level of his eyes, appeared the head of a woman. She had jumped up when he burst into the room. For a moment they contemplated each other as if struck dumb with amazement. Her hair streaming on her shoulders glinted like burnished gold. He looked into the unfathomable candle of her eyes. Nothing within, nothing, nothing. He stammered destructedly. I want, I, I, I want to, to know. On the candid light of the eyes flitted shadows, shadows of doubt, of suspicion, the ready suspicion of an unquenchable antagonism, the pitiless mistrust of an eternal instinct of defence, the hate, the profound frightened hate of an incomprehensible, of an abominable emotion intruding its coarse materialism among the spiritual and tragic contest of her feelings. Alvin, I won't bear this. She began to pant suddenly. I have a right, a right to, to myself. He lifted one arm and appeared so menacing that she stopped in a fright and shrunk back a little. He stood with uplifted hand. The years would pass and he would have to live with that unfathomable candour where flit shadows of suspicion and hate. The years would pass and he would never know, never trust. The years would pass without faith and love. Can you stand it? he shouted as though she could have heard all his thoughts. He looked menacing. She thought of violence, of danger, and just for an instant she doubted whether there was splendours enough on earth to pay the price of such a brutal experience. He cried again. Can you stand it? And glared as if insane. Her eyes blazed too. She could not hear the appalling clamour of his thoughts. She suspected in him a sudden regret, a fresh fit of jealousy, a dishonest desire of evasion. She shouted back angrily, yes. He was shaken where he stood as if by struggle to break out of invisible bonds. She trembled from head to foot. Well, I can't. He flung both his arms out as if to push her away and strode from the room. The door swung to her with a click. She made three quick steps towards it and stood still, looking at the white and gold panels. No sound came from beyond, not a whisper, not a sigh, not even a footstep was heard outside on the thick carpet. It was as though no sooner gone he had suddenly expired, as though he had died there and his body had vanished on the instant together with a song. She listened with parted lips and irresolute eyes. Then below, far below, as if in the entrails of the earth, a door slammed heavily and the quiet house vibrated to it from roof to foundations, more than to a clap of thunder. He never returned. End of story. Recording by Ray of rarity.com r-a-e-r-i-t-y.com from Hong Kong, April 2009. Section 19 of Tales of Unrest, First Part of the Lagoon 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 David Lazarus. Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad. The Lagoon The white man, leaning with both arms over the roof of the little house in the stern of the boat, said to the steersman, We will pass the night in, our sats clearing, it is late. The Malay only grunted and went on looking fixedly at the river. The white man rested his chin on his crossed arms and gazed at the wake of the boat. At the end of the straight avenue of forests cut by the intense glitter of the river, the sun appeared unclouded and dazzling, poised low over the water that shone smoothly like a band of metal. The forests, somber and dull, stood motionless and silent on each side of the broad stream. At the foot of big towering trees, trunkless and eeper palms rose from the mud of the bank in bunches of leaves enormous and heavy that hung unsteering over the brown swirl of eddies. In the stillness of the air, every tree, every leaf, every bough, every tendril of creeper and every petal of minute blossom seemed to have been bewitched into an immobility perfect and final. Nothing moved on the river, but the eight paddles that rose flashing regularly dipped together with a single splash. While the steersmen swept right and left with a periodic and sudden flourish of his blade, describing a glinting semicircle over his head, the churned up water frothed alongside with a confused murmur, and the white man's canoe advancing upstream in the short-lived disturbance of its own making seemed to enter the portals of a land from which the very memory of motion had forever departed. The white man, turning his back upon the setting sun, looked along the empty and broad expanse of the sea reach. For the last three miles of its course, the wandering, hesitating river, as if enticed irresistibly by the freedom of an open horizon, flowed straight into the sea, flowed straight to the east, to the east that harbours both light and darkness. A stone of the boat, the reported call of some bird, a cry discordant and feeble, skipped along over the smooth water and lost itself before it could reach the other shore in the breathless silence of the world. The steersmen dug his paddle into the stream and held hard with stiffened arms. His body thrown forward. The water gurgled aloud, and suddenly the long straight reach seemed to pivot on its centre. The forests swung in a semicircle, and the slanting beams of sunset touched the broadside of the canoe with a fiery glow, throwing the slender and distorted shadows of its crew upon the streaked glitter of the river. The white man turned to look ahead. The course of the boat had been altered at right angles to the stream, and the carved dragon's head of its prow was pointing now at a gap in the fringing bushes of the bank. They glided through, brushing the overhanging twigs and disappeared from the river, like some slim and amphibious creature leaving the water for its lair in the forests. The narrow creek was like a ditch, tortuous fabulously deep, filled with gloom under the thin strip of pure and shining blue of the heaven. Immense trees soared up and visible behind the festoon draperies of creepers. Here and there, near the glistening blackness of the water, a twisted root of some tall tree showed amongst the tracery of small ferns, black and dull, writhing and motionless, like an arrested snake. The short words of the paddlers reverberated loudly between the thick and somber walls of vegetation. Darkness oozed out from between the trees through the tangled maze of the creepers, from behind the great fantastic and unsteering leaves, the darkness mysterious and invisible, the darkness scented and poisonous of impenetrable forests. The men polled in the shawling water, the creek broadened, opening out into a wide sweep of a stagnant lagoon. The forests receded from the marshy bank, leaving a level strip of bright green reedy grass to frame the reflected blueness of the sky. A fleecy pink cloud drifted high above, trailing the delicate coloring of its image under the floating leaves and the silvery blossoms of the lotus. A little house perched on high piles appeared black in the distance. Near it, two tall Nibong palms that seemed to have come out of the forests in the background leaned slightly over the ragged roof with a suggestion of sad tenderness and care in the droop of their leafy and soaring heads. The steersman, pointing with his paddle, said, Our son is there. I see his canoe farce between the piles. The polars ran along the side of the boat, glancing over their shoulder at the end of the day's journey. They would have preferred to spend the night somewhere else than on this lagoon of weird aspects and ghostly reputations. Moreover, they disliked us at first as a stranger, and also because he who repairs a ruined house and dwells in it, proclaims that he is not afraid to live amongst the spirits that haunt the places abandoned by mankind. Such a man can disturb the course of fate by glances or words, while his familiar ghosts are not easy to propitiate by casual wayfarers upon whom they long to wreak the malice of their human master. White men can not for such things being unbelievers and in league with the father of evil who leads them unharmed through the invisible dangers of this world. To the warnings of the righteous they oppose an offensive pretense of disbelief. What is there to be done? So they thought, throwing their weight on the end of their long poles, the big canoe glided on swiftly, noiselessly and smoothly towards our sats clearing, till in a great rattling of poles thrown down and the loud murmurs of alibi praised, it came with a gentle knock against the crooked piles below the house. The boatman with uplifted faces shouted discordantly, Arsado, Arsat! Nobody came. The white man began to climb the rude ladder, giving access to the bamboo platform before the house. The juror-gun of the boat said selfily, we will cook in the sampan and sleep on the water. Past my blankets and the baskets said the white man curtly. He knelt on the edge of the platform to receive the bundle. Then the boat shoved off, and the white man standing up confronted Arsado, who had come out through the low door of his heart. He was a man young, powerful, with broad chest and muscular arms. He had nothing on, but his sarong. His head was bare, his big, soft eyes stared eagerly at the white man. But his voice and demeanor were composed, as he asked without any words of greeting. Have you medicine to one? No, said the visitor in a startled tone. No. Why is there sickness in the house? Enter and see, replied Arsado in the same calm manner, and turning short round past again through the small doorway. The white man dropping his bundles followed. In the dim light of the dwelling, he made out on a couch of bamboos, a woman stretched on her back under a broad sheet of red cotton cloth. She lay still as if dead, but her big eyes wide open, glittered in the gloom, staring upwards at the slender rafters, motionless and unseeing. She was in a high fever and evidently unconscious. Her cheeks were sunk slightly, her lips were partly open, and on the young face there was the ominous and fixed expression, the absorbed, contemplating expression of the unconscious who are going to die. The two men stood looking down at her in silence. Has she been long ill? asked the traveller. I have not slept for five nights, answered the Malay in a deliberate tone. At first she heard voices calling her from the water and struggled against me who held her. But since the sun of today rose, she hears nothing. She hears not me. She sees nothing. She sees not me. Me! He remained silent for a minute, then asked softly, to one, will she die? I fear so, said the white man sorrowfully. He had known us at years ago in a far country in times of trouble and danger when no friendship is to be despised, and since his Malay friend had come unexpectedly to dwell in the hut on the lagoon with a strange woman, he had slept many times there in his journeys up and down the river. He liked the man who knew how to keep faith in counsel and how to fight without fear by the side of his white friend. He liked him not so much perhaps as a man likes his favorite dog, but still he liked him well enough to help and ask no questions to things sometimes vaguely and hazily in the midst of his own pursuits about the lonely man and the long-haired woman with audacious face and triumphant eyes, who lived together hidden by the forests alone and feared. The white man came out of the hut in time to see the enormous conflagration of sunset put out by the swift and stealthy shadows that rising like a black and impalpable vapor above the treetops spread over the heaven, extinguishing the crimson glow of floating clouds and the red brilliance of departing daylight. In a few moments all the stars came out, and above the intense blackness of the earth and the giant lagoon gleaming suddenly with reflected lights resembled an oval patch of night sky flung down into the hopeless and abysmal night of the wilderness. The white man had some supper out of the basket, then collecting a few sticks that lay about the platform made up a small fire, not for warmth, but for the sake of the smoke which would keep off the mosquitoes. He wrapped himself in the blankets and sat with his back against the reed wall of the house, smoking thoughtfully. Arsak came through the doorway with noiseless steps and squatted by the fire. The white man moved his outstretched legs a little. She breathes, said Arsak in a low voice, anticipating the expected question. She breathes and burns as if with great fire. She speaks not, she hears not, and burns. He paused for a moment, then asked in a quiet and curious voice, Toan, will she die? The white man moved his shoulders uneasily and muttered in a hesitating manner. If such is her fate. No, Toan, said Arsak calmly. If such is my fate I hear, I see, I wait, I remember. Toan, do you remember the old days? Do you remember my brother? Yes, said the white man. The Malay rose suddenly and went in. The other, sitting still outside, could hear the voice in the hut. Arsak said, Hear me, speak! His words were succeeded by a complete silence. Old Diamelon, he cried suddenly. After that cry there was a deep sigh. Arsak came out and sank down again in his old place. They sat in silence before the fire. There was no sound within the house, there was no sound near them. But far away on the lagoon they could hear the voices of the boatmen ringing, fitful and distinct on the calm water. The fire in the boughs of the sampan shone faintly in the distance, with a hazy red glow, then it died out. The voices ceased, the land and the water slept, invisible, unsteering, and mute. It was as though there had been nothing left in the world but the glitter of stars, streaming ceaseless and vain through the black stillness of the night. The white man gaze straight before him into the darkness with wide open eyes, the fear and fascination, the inspiration and the wonder of death, of death near, unavoidable and unseen, soothed the unrest of his race, and stirred the most indistinct, the most intimate of his thoughts. The ever-ready suspicion of evil, the gnawing suspicion that lurks in our hearts, flowed out into the stillness round him, into the stillness profound and dumb, and made it appear untrustworthy and infamous, like the placid and impenetrable mask of an unjustifiable violence. In that fleeting and powerful disturbance of his being, the earth unfolded in the starlight, peace became a shadowy country of inhuman strife, a battlefield of phantoms, terrible and charming, august or ignoble, struggling ardently for the possession of our helpless hearts, an unquiet and mysterious country of inextinguishable desires and fears. A plaintive murmur rose in the night, a murmur saddening and startling, as if the great solitudes of surrounding woods had tried to whisper into his ear the wisdom of their immense and lofty indifference. Sounds hesitating and vague floated in the air round him, shaped themselves slowly into words, and at last flowed on gently in a murmuring stream of soft and monotonous sentences. He stirred like a man waking up, and changed his position slightly. Our sad, motionless and shadowy, sitting with bowed head under the stars, was speaking in a low and dreamy tone. For where can we lay down the heaviness of our troubles but in a friend's heart? A man must speak of war and of love. You too, unknow what war is, and you have seen me in time of danger seek death as other men seek life. A writing may be lost, a lie may be written, but what the eye has seen is truth, and remains in the mind. I remember, said the white man quietly, our suck went on with mournful composure. Therefore I shall speak to you of love, speak in the night, speak before both night and love are gone, and the eye of day looks upon my sorrow and my shame, upon my blackened face, upon my burnt up heart. A sigh short and faint marked an almost imperceptible pause, and then his words flowed on without a stir, without a gesture. After the time of trouble and war was over, and you went away from my country in the pursuit of your desires, which we men of the Highlands cannot understand, I and my brother became again, as we had been before, the sword-bearers of the ruler. You know we were men of family belonging to a ruling race, and more fit than any to carry on our right shoulder the emblem of power, and in the time of prosperity C. Dendring showed us favor, as we in time of sorrow had shown to him the faithlessness of our courage. It was a time of peace, a time of deer hunts and cockfights, of idle talks and foolish squabbles between men whose bellies are full and weapons are rusty, but the sower watched the young rice shoots grow up without fear, and the traders came and went, departed lean, and returned fat into the river of peace. They brought news too, brought lies and truth mixed together, so that no man knew when to rejoice and when to be sorry. We heard from them about you also. They had seen you here, and had seen you there, and I was glad to hear, for I remember the stirring times, and I always remembered you to one. To the time came when my eyes could see nothing in the past, because they had looked upon the one who is dying there, in the house. End of First Part of the Lagoon Recording by David Lazarus Section 20 of Tales of Unrest, Second Part of the Lagoon 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 David Lazarus Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad Second Part of the Lagoon He stopped to exclaim in an intense whisper, Oh Marabaha, oh calamity! Then went on speaking a little louder. There's no worse enemy and no better friend than a brother, to one, for one brother knows another and in perfect knowledge is strength for good or evil. I loved my brother. I went to him and told him that I could see nothing but one face, hear nothing but one voice. He told me, Open your heart so that she can see what is in it, and wait. Patience is wisdom. Inchimida may die, or Arula may throw off his fear of a woman. I waited. You remember the lady with the veiled face to honor the fear of Arula before her cunning and temper, and if she wanted her servant, what could I do? But I fed the hunger of my heart on short glances and stealthy words. I loitered on the path to the bath-house in the daytime, and when the sun had fallen behind the forest, I crept along the jasmine hedges of the woman's courtyard. Unseeing, we spoke to one another through the scent of flowers, through the avail of leaves, through the blades of long grass that stood still before our lips. So great was our prudence, so faint was the murmur of our great longing. The time passed swiftly, and there were whispers amongst women and our enemies watched. My brother was gloomy, and I began to think of killing and of a fierce death. We are a people who take what they want, like you whites. There is a time when a man should forget loyalty and respect. Might and authority are given to rulers, but to all men is given love and strength and courage. My brother said, You shall take her from their midst. We are two who are like one, and I answered, Let it be soon, for I find no warmth in sunlight that does not shine upon her. Our time came when the ruler and all the great people went to the mouth of the river to fish by torchlight. There were hundreds of boats and on the white sand, between the water and the forests, dwellings of leaves were built for the households of the Rajas. The smoke of cooking fires was like a blue mist of the evening, and many voices rang in it joyfully. While they were making the boats ready to beat up the fish, my brother came to me and said, Tonight. I looked to my weapons, and when the time came, our canoe took its place in the circle of boats carrying the torches. The lights blazed on the water, but behind the boats there was darkness. When the shouting began and the excitement made them like mad, we dropped out. The water swallowed our fire, and we floated back to the shore that was dark, with only here and there the glimmer of embers. We could hear the talk of slave-girls amongst the sheds. Then we found a place deserted and silent. We waited there. She came. She came running along the shore rapid and leaving no trace, like a leaf driven by the wind into the sea. My brother said gloomily, Go and take her. Carry her into our boat. I lifted her in my arms. She panted, her heart was beating against my breast. I said, I take you from these people. You came to the cry of my heart, but my arms take you into my boat against the will of the great. It is right, said my brother. We are men who take what we want and can hold it against many. We should have taken her in daylight, I said. Let us be off. For since she was in my boat, I began to think of our rulers, many men. Yes, let's be off, said my brother. We are cast out, and this boat is our country now, and the sea is our refuge. He lingered with his foot on the shore, and I entreated him to hasten, for I remembered the strokes of her heart against my breast, and thought that two men cannot withstand a hundred. We left, paddling downstream, close to the bank, and as we passed by the creek where they were fishing, the great shouting had ceased. But the murmur of voices was loud, like the humming of insects flying at noon day. The boats floated, clustered together in the red light of torches under a black roof of smoke, and men talked of their sport, men that boasted and praised and jeered, men that would have been our friends in the morning, but on that night were already our enemies. We paddled swiftly past. We had no more friends in the country of our birth. She sat in the middle of the canoe with covered face, silent as she is now, unseeing as she is now, and I had no regret at what I was leaving because I could hear her breathing close to me as I can hear her now. He paused, listened with his ear, turned to the doorway, then shook his head and went on. My brother wanted to shout the cry of challenge, one cry only, to let the people know we were freedom robbers who trusted our arms in the great sea, and again I begged him in the name of our love to be silent. Could I not hear her breathing close to me? I knew the pursuit would come quick enough. My brother loved me. He dipped his paddle without a splash. He only said, there is half a man in you now, the other half is in that woman. I can wait. When you are a whole man again, you will come back with me here to shout defiance. We are sons of the same mother. I made no answer. All my strength and all my spirits were in my hands that held the paddle, for I longed to be with her in a safe place beyond the reach of men's anger and of women's spite. My love was so great that I thought it would guide me to a country where death was unknown. If I could only escape from Inchimida's fury and from our ruler's sword. We paddled with haste, breathing through our teeth, the blades bit deep into the smooth water, we passed out of the river, we flew in clear channels amongst the shallows, we skirted the black coast, we skirted the sand, beaches where the sea speaks in whispers to the land, and the gleam of white sand flash back past our boat, so swiftly she ran upon the water. We spoke not. Only once, I said, sleep, Diamalan, for soon you may want all your strength. I heard the sweetness of her voice, but I never turned my head. The sun rose, and still we went on. Water fell from my face like rain from a cloud. We flew in the light and heat. I never looked back, but I knew that my brother's eyes behind me were looking steadily ahead, for the boat went as straight as a bushman's dart, when it leaves the end of a sumperton. There was no better paddler, no better steersman than my brother. Many times together we had won races in that canoe, but we never had put our strength as we did then, then when for the last time we paddled together. There was no braver or stronger man in our country than my brother. I could not spare the strength to turn my head and look at him, but every moment I heard the hiss of his breath, getting louder and louder behind me. Still he did not speak. The heat clung to my back like a flame of fire. My ribs were ready to burst, but I could no longer get enough air into my chest, and then I felt I must cry out with my last breath, let us rest. Good, he answered, and his voice was firm. He was strong, he was brave, he knew not fear and no fatigue, my brother. A murmur powerful and gentle, a murmur vast and faint, the murmur of trembling leaves of stirring boughs ran through the tangled depths of the forest, ran over the starry smoothness of the lagoon, and the water between the piles lapped at the slimy timber once with a sudden splash. A breath of warm air touched the two men's faces, and passed on with a mournful sound. A breath loud and short, like an uneasy sigh of the dreaming earth. Our sat went on in an even low voice. We ran our canoe on the white beach of a little bay close to a long tongue of land that seemed to bar our road, a long wooded cape going far into the sea. My brother knew that place, beyond the cape a river has its entrance, and through the jungle of that land there is a narrow path. We made a fire and cooked rice, then we lay down to sleep on the soft sand in the shade of our canoe, while she watched. No sooner had I closed my eyes than I heard her cry of alarm. We leapt up, the sun was half way down the sky already, and coming in sight in the opening of the bay we saw a prow manned by many paddlers. We knew it at once. It was one of our rajas, prows. They were watching the shore, and they saw us. They beat the gong and turned the head of the prow into the bay. I felt my heart become weak with them my breast. Diamond sat on the sand and covered her face. There was no escape by sea. My brother laughed. He had the gun you had given him to on before you went away, but there was only a handful of powder. He spoke to me quickly, run with her along the path I shall keep them back, for they have no firearms, and landing in the face of a man with a gun is certain death for some. Run with her. On the other side of the woods there is a fisherman's house and a canoe. When I have fired all the shots I will follow. I am a great runner, and before they can come up we shall be gone. I will hold out as long as I can, for she is but a woman that can neither run nor fight, but she has your heart in her weak hands. He dropped behind the canoe. The prow was coming. She and I ran, and as we rushed along the paths I heard shots. My brother fired once, twice, and the booming of the gong ceased. There was silence behind us. The neck of land is narrow. Before I heard my brother fire the third shot I saw the shelving shore, and I saw the water again, the mouth of a broad river. We crossed a grassy glade. We ran down to the water. I saw a low hut above the black mud, and a small canoe hauled up. I heard another shot behind me. I thought, that is his last charge. We rushed down to the canoe. A man came running from the hut, but I leaped on him, and we rolled together in the mud. Then I got up, and he lay still at my feet. I don't know whether I killed him or not. I and Diamalan pushed the canoe afloat. I heard yells behind me, and I saw my brother run across the glade. Many men were pounding after him. I took her in my arms and threw her into the boat, then leaped in myself. When I looked back, I saw that my brother had fallen. He fell and was up again, but the men were closing around him. He shouted, I am coming. The men were close to him. I looked. Many men. Then I looked at her. Tu'an, I pushed the canoe. I pushed it into the deep water. She was kneeling forward, looking at me, and I said, take your paddle, while I struck the water with mine. Tu'an, I heard him cry. I heard him cry my name twice, and I heard voices shouting, kill, strike. I never turned back. I heard him calling my name again with great shrieks, as when life is going out together with a voice, and I never turned my head. My own name. My brother. Three times, he called. But I was not afraid of life. Was she not there in that canoe? And could I not with her find a country where death is forgotten, where death is unknown? The white man sat up, our sat rose and stood, an indistinct and silent figure above the dying embers of the fire. Over the lagoon a mist drifting and low had crept, erasing slowly the glittering images of the stars, and now a great expanse of white vapor covered the land. It flowed cold and gray in the darkness, eddied in noiseless whirls around the tree trunks, and about the platform of the house, which seemed to float upon a restless and impulpable illusion of a sea. Only far away the tops of the trees stood outlined in the twinkle of heaven, like a somber and forbidding shore, a coast deceptive, pitiless, and black. Our sat's voice vibrated loudly in the profound peace. I had her there. I had her. To get her I would have faced all mankind, but I had her and— His words went out ringing into the empty distances. He paused and seemed to listen to them dying away very far, beyond help and beyond recall. Then he said quietly, To one, I loved my brother. A breath of wind made him shiver, high above his head, high above the silent sea of mist, the drooping leaves of the palms rattled together with a mournful and expiring sound. The white man stretched his legs. His chin rested on his chest, and he murmured sadly, without lifting his head. We all love our brothers. Our sat burst out with an intense whispering violence. What did I care who died? I wanted peace in my own heart. He seemed to hear a stir in the house, listened then, stepped in noiselessly. The white man stood up. A breeze was coming in fitful puffs. The stars shone paler as if they had retreated into the frozen depths of immense space. After a chill gust of wind, there were a few seconds of perfect calm and absolute silence. Then, from behind the black and wavy line of the forests, a column of golden light shot up into the heavens and spread over the semicircle of the eastern horizon. The sun had risen. The mist lifted, broke into drifting patches, vanished into thin flying wreaths, and the unveiled lagoon lay polished and black, in the heavy shadows at the foot of the wall of trees. A white eagle rose over it with a slantering and ponderous flight, reached the clear sunshine, and appeared dazzlingly brilliant for a moment. Then, soaring higher, became a dark and motionless speck before it vanished into the blue as if it had left the earth forever. The white man, standing gazing upwards before the doorway, heard in the heart a confused and broken murmur of distracted words, ending with a loud groan. Suddenly our sats stumbled out without stretched hands, shivered and stood still for some time with fixed eyes. Then he said, she burns no more. Before his face the sun showed its edge above the treetops rising steadily. The breeze freshened. A great brilliance burst upon the lagoon, sparkled on the rippling water. The forests came out of the clear shadows of the morning, became distinct as if they had rushed nearer to stop short in a great stir of leaves of nodding boughs of swaying branches. In the merciless sunshine the whisper of unconscious life grew louder, speaking in an incomprehensible voice around the dumb darkness of that human sorrow. Our sats' eyes wandered slowly then stared at the rising sun. I could see nothing, he said half-allowed to himself. There is nothing, said the white man, moving to the edge of the platform and waving his hand to his boat. A shout came faintly over the lagoon and the sampan began to glide toward the abode of the friend of ghosts. If you want to come with me I will wait all the morning, said the white man, looking away upon the water. No toon, said our sats softly, I shall not eat or sleep in this house, but I must first see my road. Now I can see nothing, see nothing. There is no light, no peace in the world, but there is death, death for many. We are sons of the same mother. And I left him in the midst of enemies, but I am going back now. He drew a long breath and went on in a dreamy tone. In a little while I shall see clear enough to strike, to strike, but he has died, and now darkness. He flung his arms wide open, then let them fall along his body, then stood still with unmoved face and stony eyes staring at the sun. The white man got down into his canoe. The polars ran smartly along the side of the boat, looking over their shoulders at the beginning of a weary journey. High in the stern, his head muffled up in white rags, the jurigun sat moody, letting his paddle trail in the water. The white man, leaning with both arms over the grass roof of the little cabin, looked back at the shining ripples of the boat's wake. Before the sampan passed out of the lagoon into the creek, he lifted his eyes. Our sat had not moved. He stood lonely in the searching sunshine, and he looked beyond the great light of a cloudless day into the darkness of a world of illusions. End of Story, Recording by David Lazarus