I do not know which of us got into the carriage first. Indeed I did
not know he was in the carriage at all for some time. It was the last
train from London to a Midland town--a stopping train, an infinitely
leisurely train, one of those trains which give you an understanding of
eternity. It was tolerably full when it started, but as we stopped at
the suburban stations the travellers alighted in ones and twos, and by
the time we had left the outer ring of London behind I was alone--or,
rather, I thought I was alone.
There is a pleasant sense of freedom about being alone in a carriage
that is jolting noisily through the night. It is liberty and
unrestraint in a very agreeable form. You can do anything you like.
You can talk to yourself as loud as you please and no one will hear
you. You can have that argument out with Jones and roll him
triumphantly in the dust without fear of a counter-stroke. You can
stand on your head and no one will see you. You can sing, or dance a
two-step, or practise a golf stroke, or play marbles on the floor
without let or hindrance. You can open the window or shut it without
provoking a protest. You can open both windows or shut both. Indeed,
you can go on opening them and shutting them as a sort of festival of
freedom. You can have any corner you choose and try all of them in
turn. You can lie at full length on the cushions and enjoy the luxury
of breaking the regulations and possibly the heart of D.O.R.A. herself.
Only D.O.R.A. will not know that her heart is broken. You have escaped
even D.O.R.A.
On this night I did not do any of these things. They did not happen to
occur to me. What I did was much more ordinary. When the last of my
fellow-passengers had gone I put down my paper, stretched my arms and
my legs, stood up and looked out of the window on the calm summer night
through which I was journeying, noting the pale reminiscence of day
that still lingered in the northern sky; crossed the carriage and
looked out of the other window; lit a cigarette, sat down and began to
read again. It was then that I became aware of my fellow traveller.
He came and sat on my nose.... He was one of those wingy, nippy,
intrepid insects that we call, vaguely, mosquitoes. I flicked him off
my nose, and he made a tour of the compartment, investigated its three
dimensions, visited each window, fluttered round the light, decided
that there was nothing so interesting as that large animal in the
corner, came and had a look at my neck.
I flicked him off again. He skipped away, took another jaunt round the
compartment, returned, and seated himself impudently on the back of my
hand. It is enough, I said; magnanimity has its limits. Twice you
have been warned that I am someone in particular, that my august person
resents the tickling impertinences of strangers. I assume the black
cap. I condemn you to death. Justice demands it, and the court awards
it. The counts against you are many. You are a vagrant; you are a
public nuisance; you are travelling without a ticket; you have no meat
coupon. For these and many other misdemeanours you are about to die.
I struck a swift, lethal blow with my right hand. He dodged the attack
with an insolent ease that humiliated me. My personal vanity was
aroused. I lunged at him with my hand, with my paper; I jumped on the
seat and pursued him round the lamp; I adopted tactics of feline
cunning, waiting till he had alighted, approaching with a horrible
stealthiness, striking with a sudden and terrible swiftness.
It was all in vain. He played with me, openly and ostentatiously, like
a skilful matador finessing round an infuriated bull. It was obvious
that he was enjoying himself, that it was for this that he had
disturbed my repose. He wanted a little sport, and what sport like
being chased by this huge, lumbering windmill of a creature, who tasted
so good and seemed so helpless and so stupid? I began to enter into
the spirit of the fellow. He was no longer a mere insect. He was
developing into a personality, an intelligence that challenged the
possession of this compartment with me on equal terms. I felt my heart
warming towards him and the sense of superiority fading. How could I
feel superior to a creature who was so manifestly my master in the only
competition in which we had ever engaged? Why not be magnanimous
again? Magnanimity and mercy were the noblest attributes of man. In
the exercise of these high qualities I could recover my prestige. At
present I was a ridiculous figure, a thing for laughter and derision.
By being merciful I could reassert the moral dignity of man and go back
to my corner with honour. I withdraw the sentence of death, I said,
returning to my seat. I cannot kill you, but I can reprieve you. I do
it.
I took up my paper and he came and sat on it. Foolish fellow, I said,
you have delivered yourself into my hands. I have but to give this
respectable weekly organ of opinion a smack on both covers and you are
a corpse, neatly sandwiched between an article on "Peace Traps" and
another on "The Modesty of Mr. Hughes." But I shall not do it. I have
reprieved you, and I will satisfy you that when this large animal says
a thing he means it. Moreover, I no longer desire to kill you.
Through knowing you better I have come to feel--shall I say?--a sort of
affection for you. I fancy that St. Francis would have called you
"little brother." I cannot go so far as that in Christian charity and
civility. But I recognise a more distant relationship. Fortune has
made us fellow travellers on this summer night. I have interested you
and you have entertained me. The obligation is mutual and it is
founded on the fundamental fact that we are fellow mortals. The
miracle of life is ours in common and its mystery too. I suppose you
don't know anything about your journey. I'm not sure that I know much
about mine. We are really, when you come to think of it, a good deal
alike--just apparitions that are and then are not, coming out of the
night into the lighted carriage, fluttering about the lamp for a while
and going out into the night again. Perhaps...
"Going on to-night, sir?" said a voice at the window. It was a
friendly porter giving me a hint that this was my station. I thanked
him and said I must have been dozing. And seizing my hat and stick I
went out into the cool summer night. As I closed the door of the
compartment I saw my fellow traveller fluttering round the lamp....