1 §
“It can’t go on, Mother. It simply can’t. I feel an absolute worm
whenever I’m with him. I shall have to clear out, like Beryl. He has
just one object all the time--to make everyone feel small and mean.”
“Remember what he’s been through!”
“I don’t see why _we_ should be part of his revenge. We’ve done
nothing, except suffer through him.”
“He doesn’t want to hurt us or anyone.”
“Well, whenever people talk to him they dry up at once, as if he’d
skinned them. It’s a disease.”
“One can only pity him.”
“He’s perfectly happy, Mother. He’s getting his own back.”
“If only that first night----”
“We tried. It’s no good. He’s absolutely self-sufficient. What about
to-morrow night?”
“We can’t leave him on Christmas Day, Jack.”
“Then we must take him to Beryl’s. I can’t stick it here. Look! He’s
just going out!”
Late--299 passed the window where they stood, loping easily, a book
under his arm.
“He must have seen us. We mightn’t exist!...”
2 §
Late--299, with a book under his arm, entered Kew Gardens and sat down
on a bench. A nursery governess with her charges came and settled down
beside him.
“Peter, Joan, and Michael,” said Late--299, “quite in the fashion, for
names.”
The governess stirred uneasily; the gentleman looked funny, smiling
there!
“And what are you teaching them?”
“Reading, writing, and arithmetic, sir, and Bible stories.”
“Intelligent?... Ah! Not very. Truthful?... No! No children are.”
The governess twisted her hands. “Peter!” she said, “where’s your ball?
We must go and look for it.”
“But I’ve got it, Miss Somers.”
“Oh, well, it’s too sharp, sitting here. Come along!”
She passed away, and Peter, Joan, and Michael trailed after her.
Late--299 smiled on; and a Pekinese, towing a stout old lady, smelled
at his trousers.
“It’s my cat,” said Late--299. “Dogs and cats their pleasure is----”
Picking up the Pekinese, the stout old lady pressed it under her arm as
though it were a bagpipe, and hurried on like a flustered goose.
Some minutes passed. A workman and his wife sat down beside him, and
gazed at the Pagoda.
“Queer building!” said Late--299.
“Ah!” said the workman. “Japanese, they say!”
“Chinese, my friend. Good people, the Chinese--no regard for human
life.”
“What’s that? Good--did you say?”
“Quite!”
“Eh?”
The workman’s wife peered round him.
“Come on, John! The sun gits in me eyes ’ere.”
The workman rose. “‘Good,’ you said, didn’t you? _Good_ people?”
“Yes.”
The workman’s wife drew at his arm. “There, don’t get arguin’ with
strangers. Come on!” The workman was drawn away....
A clock struck twelve. Late--299 got up and left the Gardens. Walking
between small houses, he rang at the side entrance of a little shop.
“If your father’s still blind--I’ve come to read to him again.”
“Please, sir, he’ll always be.”
“So I supposed.”
On a horsehair sofa, below the dyed-red plumes of pampas grass, a short
and stocky man was sitting, whittling at a wooden figure. He sniffed,
and turned his sightless eyes towards his visitor; his square face in
every line and bump seemed saying: ‘You don’t down me.’
“What are you making?” said Late--299.
“Christmas Eve. I’m cuttin’ out our Lord. I make ’em rather nice. Would
you like this one?”
“Thank you.”
“Kep’ His end up well, our Lord, didn’t He? ‘Love your neighbour as
yourself’--that means you got to love yourself. And He did, I think;
not against Him, neither.”
“Easier to love your neighbours when you can’t see them, eh?”
“What’s that? D’you mind lendin’ me your face a minute? It’ll help me a
lot with this ’ere. I make ’em lifelike, you know.”
Late--299 leaned forward, and the tips of the blind man’s fingers
explored his features.
“’Igh cheekbones, eyes back in the ’ead, supraorbital ridges extra
special, rather low forehead slopin’ to thick hair. Comin’ down, two
’ollers under the cheekbones, thin nose a bit ’ooky, chin sharpish,
no moustache. You’ve got a smile, ’aven’t you? And your own teeth? I
should say you’d make a very good model. I don’t ’old with ’Im always
’avin’ a beard. Would you like the figure ’angin’, or carryin’ the
cross?”
“As you wish. D’you ever use your own face?”
“Not for ’Im--for statesmen or ’eroes I do. I done one of Captain
Scott with my face. Rather pugnacious, my style; yours is sharp, bit
acid, suitable to saints, martyrs, and that. I’ll just go over you
once more--then I’ll ’ave it all ’ere. Sharp neck; bit ’unchy in one
shoulder; ears stick up a bit; tallish thin man, ain’t you, and throw
your feet forward when you walk? Give us your ’and a minute. Bite your
fingers, I see. Eyes blue, eh--with pin-points to ’em--yes? Hair a bit
reddish before it went piebald--that right? Thank you, much obliged.
Now, if you like to read, I’ll get on with it.”
Late--299 opened the book.
... “‘But at last in the drift of time Hadleyburg had the ill-luck
to offend a passing stranger, possibly without knowing it, certainly
without caring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself and cared not
a rap for strangers and their opinions. Still, it would have been well
to make an exception in this one’s case, for he was a bitter man and
revengeful.’”
“Ah!” interjected the blind man deeply, “there you ’ave it. Talkin’ of
feelin’s, what gave you a fellow-feelin’ for me, if I may ask?”
“I can look at you, my friend, without your seeing me.”
“Eh! What about it with other people, then?”
“They can look at me without my seeing them.”
“I see! Misanthropical. Any reason for that?”
“Prison.”
“What oh! Outcast and rejected of men.”
“No. The other way on.”
The blind man ceased to whittle and scoop.
“I like independence,” he said; “I like a man that can go his own
way. Ever noticed cats? Men are like dogs, mostly; only once in a way
you get a man that’s like a cat. What _were_ you, if it’s not a rude
question. In the taxes?”
“Medico.”
“What’s a good thing for ’eartburn?”
“Which kind?”
“Wind, ain’t it? But I see your meanin’. Losin’ my sight used to burn
my ’eart a lot; but I got over that. What’s the use? You couldn’t have
any worse misfortune. It gives you a feelin’ of bein’ insured--like.”
“You’re right,” said Late--299, rising to go.
The blind man lifted his face in unison. “Got your smile on?” he said.
“Just let me ’ave another feel at it, will you?”
Late--299 bent to the outstretched fingers.
“Yes,” said the blind man, “same with you--touched bottom. Next time
you come I’ll ’ave something on show that’ll please you, I think; and
thank you for readin’.”
“Let me know if it bores you.”
“I will,” said the blind man, following without movement the footsteps
of his visitor that died away.
3 §
Christmas night--wild and windy, a shower spattering down in the
street; Late--299 walking two yards before his wife, their son walking
two yards behind his mother. A light figure, furred to the ears, in a
doorway watching for them.
“Come along, darling. Sorry we had to bring him.”
“Of course you had to, Jack!”
“Look! He can’t even walk with mother. It’s a disease. He went to
church to-day, and all through the sermon never took his eyes off--the
poor old vicar nearly broke down.”
“What was it about?”
“Brotherly love. Mother says he doesn’t mean it--but it’s like--what’s
that thing that stares?”
“A basilisk. I’ve been trying to put myself in his place, Jack. He must
have swallowed blood and tears in there--ordered about like a dog, by
common men, for three years nearly. If you don’t go under, you must
become inhuman. This is better than if he’d come out crawling.”
“Perhaps. Look out--the rain! I’ll turn your hood up, darling.” A
spattering shower, the whispering hushed....
A lighted open doorway, a red hall, a bunch of hanging mistletoe, a
girl beneath, with bushy hair.
“Happy Christmas, Father!”
“Thanks. Do you want to be kissed?”
“As you like. Well, Mother darling! Hallo, you two! Come in! Roddy,
take father’s coat.”
“How are you, sir? Beastly weather!”
“That was the advantage we had in prison. Weather never troubled us.
‘Peace and Goodwill’ in holly-berries! Very neat! They used to stick
them up in there. Christianity is a really remarkable fraud, don’t you
think?” ...
Once again those four in the street; and the bells chiming for midnight
service.
“What an evening!”
“Let them get out of hearing, Jack.”
“Worse than ever! My God, he’d turn the milk sour! And I thought liquor
might make him possible. He drank quite a lot.”
“Only a few days now, and then!...”
“Do you agree with mother that he doesn’t mean it, Mabel?”
“Oh, yes, I do.”
“The way he sits and smiles! Why doesn’t he get himself a desert to
smile in?”
“Perhaps he does....”
4 §
“’Ere you are!” said the blind man. “Best I can do under the circs.
’Ad a bit o’ trouble with the cross; got it too ’eavy, I’m afraid; but
thought you’d rather carry it.”
“Quite a masterpiece!”
“Speaking serious?” said the blind man. “You could improve it with a
box o’ colours; make it more ’uman-like.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I wouldn’t touch the face, nor the cross--leave ’em wooden; but the
hair and the dress, and the blood from the crown o’ thorns might be
all the better for a bit o’ brightenin’. How’s the man that corrupted
’Adleyburg?”
Late--299 opened the book.
“‘ ... Goodson looked him over, like as if he was hunting for a place
on him that he could despise the most; then he says: “So you are the
Committee of Enquiry, are you?” Sawlsberry said that was about what
he was. “H’m! Do they require particulars, or do you reckon a kind
of _general_ answer will do?” “If they require particulars I will
come back, Mr. Goodson; I will take the general answer first.” “Very
well, then; tell them to go to hell--I reckon that’s general enough.
And I’ll give you some advice, Sawlsberry; when you come back for the
particulars, fetch a basket to carry what’s left of yourself home in.”’”
The blind man chuckled.
“Ah! I like that Mark Twain. Nice sense o’ humour--nothin’ sickly.”
“Bark and quinine, eh?”
“Bark and bite,” said the blind man. “What do you think of ’uman nature
yourself?”
“Little or nothing.”
“And yet there’s a bit of all right about it, too. Look at you and
me; we got our troubles; and ’ere we are--jolly as sandboys! Be
self-sufficient, or you’ve got to suffer. That’s what you feel, ain’t
it? Am I mistook, or did you nod?”
“I did. Your eyes look as if they saw.”
“Bright, are they? You and me could ’ave sat down and cried ’em out any
time--couldn’t we? But we didn’t. That’s why I say there’s a bit of all
right about us. Put the world from you, and keep your pecker up. When
you can’t think worse of things than what you do, you’ll be ’appy--not
before. That’s right, ain’t it?”
“Quite.”
“Took me five years. ’Ow long were you about it?”
“Nearly three.”
“Well, you ’ad the advantage of birth and edjucation; I can tell that
from your voice--got a thin, mockin’ sound. _I_ started in a barber’s
shop; got mine in an accident with some ’aircurlers. What I miss most
is not bein’ able to go fishin’. No one to take me. Don’t you miss
cuttin’ people up?”
“No.”
“Well, I suppose a gent never gets a passion; I’d a perfect passion for
fishin’. Never missed Sunday, wet or fine. That’s why I learned this
carvin’--must ’ave an ’obby to go on with. Are you goin’ to write your
’istory? Am I wrong, or did you shake your ’ead?”
“I did. My hobby is watching the show go by.”
“That might ’ave suited me at one time--always liked to see the river
flowin’ down. I’m a bit of a philosopher myself. You ain’t, I should
say.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I’ve a fancy you want life to come to heel too much--misfortune
of bein’ a gent, perhaps. Am I right?”
Late--299 closed the book and rose. “Pride!” he said.
“Ah!” said the blind man, groping with his eyes, “that’s meat and drink
to you. Thought as much. Come again, if I don’t worry you.”
“And take you fishing?”
“Reelly? You will? Shake ’ands.”
Late--299 put out his hand. The blind man’s groped up and found it....
5 §
“Wednesday again, is it, partner, if I’m not troublin’ you?”
“Wednesday it is.”
At the door of his house, with the ‘catch’ in a straw bag, the blind
man stood a minute listening to his partner’s footsteps, then felt
his way in to his horsehair sofa under the pampas grass. Putting his
cold feet up under the rug, he heaved a sigh of satisfaction, and fell
asleep.
Between the bare acacias and lilac-bushes of the little villas
Late--299 passed on. Entering his house, he sought his study, and
stretched his feet towards the fire, and the cat, smelling him fishy,
sprang on to his knee.
“Philip, may I come in?”
“You may.”
“The servants have given notice. I wanted to say, wouldn’t you like to
give this up and go abroad with me?”
“Why this sudden sacrifice?”
“Oh, Philip! You make it so hard for me. What do you really want me to
do?”
“Take half my income, and go away.”
“What will you do, here, alone?”
“Get me a char. The cat and I love chars.”
“Philip!”
“Yes?”
“Won’t you tell me what’s in your heart? Do you want always to be
lonely like this?”
Late--299 looked up.
“Reality means nothing to those who haven’t lived with it. I do.”
“But why?”
“My dear Bertha--that is your name, I think?”
“Oh, God! You _are_ terrible!”
“What would you have me--a whining worm? Crawling to people I
despise--squirming from false position to false position? Do you want
humility; what is it you want?”
“I want you to be human.”
“Then you want what you have got. I _am_ so human that I’ll see the
world damned before I take its pity, or eat its salt. Leave me alone. I
am content.”
“Is there nothing I can do?”
“Yes; stand out of my firelight....”
6 §
Two figures, in the dark outside, before the uncurtained window.
“Look, Mabel!”
“Be careful! He may see. Whisper!”
“The window’s shut.”
“Oh, why doesn’t he draw the blinds--if he must sit like that?”
“‘_A desert dark without a sound...._
_And not a drop to eat or drink_
_And a dark desert all around!_’
Jack, I pity him.”
“He doesn’t suffer. It’s being fond of people makes you suffer. He’s
got all he wants. Look at him.”
The firelight on the face--its points and hollows, its shining eyes,
its stillness and intensity, its smile; and on the cat, hunched and
settled in the curve of the warm body. And the two young people,
shrinking back, pass on between small houses, clutching each other’s
hands.
1923.