flattered--for, really, what else could it be? His answer, spoken in
his usual dispassionate undertone, made it clear that it was so, but
not precisely as flattering as I supposed. He thought me dangerous with
Hermann, more than with the girl herself; but, as to quarrelling, I
saw at once how inappropriate the word was. We had no quarrel. Natural
forces are not quarrelsome. You can’t quarrel with the wind that
inconveniences and humiliates you by blowing off your hat in a street
full of people. He had no quarrel with me. Neither would a boulder,
falling on my head, have had. He fell upon me in accordance with the law
by which he was moved--not of gravitation, like a detached stone, but
of self-preservation. Of course this is giving it a rather wide
interpretation. Strictly speaking, he had existed and could have existed
without being married. Yet he told me that he had found it more and
more difficult to live alone. Yes. He told me this in his low, careless
voice, to such a pitch of confidence had we arrived at the end of half
an hour.
It took me just about that time to convince him that I had never
dreamed of marrying Hermann’s niece. Could any necessity have been more
extravagant? And the difficulty was the greater because he was so hard
hit that he couldn’t imagine anybody being able to remain in a state of
indifference. Any man with eyes in his head, he seemed to think, could
not help coveting so much bodily magnificence. This profound belief was
conveyed by the manner he listened sitting sideways to the table and
playing absently with a few cards I had dealt to him at random. And the
more I saw into him the more I saw of him. The wind swayed the lights
so that his sunburnt face, whiskered to the eyes, seemed to successively
flicker crimson at me and to go out. I saw the extraordinary breadth
of the high cheek-bones, the perpendicular style of the features,
the massive forehead, steep like a cliff, denuded at the top, largely
uncovered at the temples. The fact is I had never before seen him
without his hat; but now, as if my fervour had made him hot, he had
taken it off and laid it gently on the floor. Something peculiar in
the shape and setting of his yellow eyes gave them the provoking
silent intensity which characterised his glance. But the face was thin,
furrowed, worn; I discovered that through the bush of his hair, as
you may detect the gnarled shape of a tree trunk lost in a dense
undergrowth. These overgrown cheeks were sunken. It was an anchorite’s
bony head fitted with a Capuchin’s beard and adjusted to a herculean
body. I don’t mean athletic. Hercules, I take it, was not an athlete. He
was a strong man, susceptible to female charms, and not afraid of dirt.
And thus with Falk, who was a strong man. He was extremely strong, just
as the girl (since I must think of them together) was magnificently
attractive by the masterful power of flesh and blood, expressed in
shape, in size, in attitude--that is by a straight appeal to the senses.
His mind meantime, preoccupied with respectability, quailed before
Schomberg’s tongue and seemed absolutely impervious to my protestations;
and I went so far as to protest that I would just as soon think of
marrying my mother’s (dear old lady!) faithful female cook as Hermann’s
niece. Sooner, I protested, in my desperation, much sooner; but it did
not appear that he saw anything outrageous in the proposition, and in
his sceptical immobility he seemed to nurse the argument that at all
events the cook was very, very far away. It must be said that, just
before, I had gone wrong by appealing to the evidence of my manner
whenever I called on board the Diana. I had never attempted to approach
the girl, or to speak to her, or even to look at her in any marked way.
Nothing could be clearer. But, as his own idea of--let us say--courting,
seemed to consist precisely in sitting silently for hours in the
vicinity of the beloved object, that line of argument inspired him with
distrust. Staring down his extended legs he let out a grunt--as much as
to say, “That’s all very fine, but you can’t throw dust in _my_ eyes.”
At last I was exasperated into saying, “Why don’t you put the matter at
rest by talking to Hermann?” and I added sneeringly: “You don’t expect
me perhaps to speak for you?”
To this he said, very loud for him, “Would you?”
And for the first time he lifted his head to look at me with wonder
and incredulity. He lifted his head so sharply that there could be
no mistake. I had touched a spring. I saw the whole extent of my
opportunity, and could hardly believe in it.
“Why. Speak to... Well, of course,” I proceeded very slowly, watching
him with great attention, for, on my word, I feared a joke. “Not,
perhaps, to the young lady herself. I can’t speak German, you know.
But...”
He interrupted me with the earnest assurance that Hermann had the
highest opinion of me; and at once I felt the need for the greatest
possible diplomacy at this juncture. So I demurred just enough to draw
him on. Falk sat up, but except for a very noticeable enlargement of the
pupils, till the irises of his eyes were reduced to two narrow yellow
rings, his face, I should judge, was incapable of expressing excitement.
“Oh, yes! Hermann did have the greatest...”
“Take up your cards. Here’s Schomberg peeping at us through the blind!”
I said.
We went through the motions of what might have been a game of écarté.
Presently the intolerable scandalmonger withdrew, probably to inform the
people in the billiard-room that we two were gambling on the verandah
like mad.
We were not gambling, but it was a game; a game in which I felt I held
the winning cards. The stake, roughly speaking, was the success of the
voyage--for me; and he, I apprehended, had nothing to lose. Our intimacy
matured rapidly, and before many words had been exchanged I perceived
that the excellent Hermann had been making use of me. That simple and
astute Teuton had been, it seems, holding me up to Falk in the light of
a rival. I was young enough to be shocked at so much duplicity. “Did he
tell you that in so many words?” I asked with indignation.
Hermann had not. He had given hints only; and of course it had not taken
very much to alarm Falk; but, instead of declaring himself, he had taken
steps to remove the family from under my influence. He was perfectly
straightforward about it--as straightforward as a tile falling on your
head. There was no duplicity in that man; and when I congratulated
him on the perfection of his arrangements--even to the bribing of the
wretched Johnson against me--he had a genuine movement of protest. Never
bribed. He knew the man wouldn’t work as long as he had a few cents in
his pocket to get drunk on, and, naturally (he said-”_naturally_”) he
let him have a dollar or two. He was himself a sailor, he said, and
anticipated the view another sailor, like myself, was bound to take.
On the other hand, he was sure that I should have to come to grief. He
hadn’t been knocking about for the last seven years up and down that
river for nothing. It would have been no disgrace to me--but he asserted
confidently I would have had my ship very awkwardly ashore at a spot two
miles below the Great Pagoda....
And with all that he had no ill-will. That was evident. This was a
crisis in which his only object had been to gain time--I fancy. And
presently he mentioned that he had written for some jewellery, real good
jewellery--had written to Hong-Kong for it. It would arrive in a day or
two.
“Well, then,” I said cheerily, “everything is all right. All you’ve got
to do is to present it to the lady together with your heart, and live
happy ever after.”
Upon the whole he seemed to accept that view as far as the girl was
concerned, but his eyelids drooped. There was still something in the
way. For one thing Hermann disliked him so much. As to me, on the
contrary, it seemed as though he could not praise me enough. Mrs.
Hermann too. He didn’t know why they disliked him so. It made everything
most difficult.
I listened impassive, feeling more and more diplomatic. His speech was
not transparently clear. He was one of those men who seem to live, feel,
suffer in a sort of mental twilight. But as to being fascinated by the
girl and possessed by the desire of home life with her--it was as clear
as daylight. So much being at stake, he was afraid of putting it to
the hazard of declaration. Besides, there was something else. And with
Hermann being so set against him...
“I see,” I said thoughtfully, while my heart beat fast with the
excitement of my diplomacy. “I don’t mind sounding Hermann. In fact, to
show you how mistaken you were, I am ready to do all I can for you in
that way.”
A light sigh escaped him. He drew his hands down his face, and it
emerged, bony, unchanged of expression, as if all the tissues had
been ossified. All the passion was in those big brown hands. He was
satisfied. Then there was that other matter. If there were anybody on
earth it was I who could persuade Hermann to take a reasonable view! I
had a knowledge of the world and lots of experience. Hermann admitted
this himself. And then I was a sailor too. Falk thought that a sailor
would be able to understand certain things best....
He talked as if the Hermanns had been living all their life in a rural
hamlet, and I alone had been capable, with my practice in life, of
a large and indulgent view of certain occurrences. That was what my
diplomacy was leading me to. I began suddenly to dislike it.
“I say, Falk,” I asked quite brusquely, “you haven’t already a wife put
away somewhere?”
The pain and disgust of his denial were very striking. Couldn’t I
understand that he was as respectable as any white man hereabouts;
earning his living honestly. He was suffering from my suspicion, and the
low undertone of his voice made his protestations sound very pathetic.
For a moment he shamed me, but, my diplomacy notwithstanding, I seemed
to develop a conscience, as if in very truth it were in my power to
decide the success of this matrimonial enterprise. By pretending hard
enough we come to believe anything--anything to our advantage. And I had
been pretending very hard, because I meant yet to be towed safely down
the river. But through conscience or stupidity, I couldn’t help alluding
to the Vanlo affair. “You acted rather badly there. Didn’t you?” was
what I ventured actually to say--for the logic of our conduct is always
at the mercy of obscure and unforeseen impulses.
His dilated pupils swerved from my face, glancing at the window with
a sort of scared fury. We heard behind the blinds the continuous
and sudden clicking of ivory, a jovial murmur of many voices, and
Schomberg’s deep manly laugh.
“That confounded old woman of a hotel-keeper then would never, never let
it rest!” Falk exclaimed. “Well, yes! It had happened two years ago.”
When it came to the point he owned he couldn’t make up his mind to trust
Fred Vanlo--no sailor, a bit of a fool too. He could not trust him,
but, to stop his row, he had lent him enough money to pay all his debts
before he left. I was greatly surprised to hear this. Then Falk could
not be such a miser after all. So much the better for the girl. For a
time he sat silent; then he picked up a card, and while looking at it he
said:
“You need not think of anything bad. It was an accident. I’ve been
unfortunate once.”
“Then in heaven’s name say nothing about it.”
As soon as these words were out of my mouth I fancied I had said
something immoral. He shook his head negatively. It had to be told.
He considered it proper that the relations of the lady should know. No
doubt--I thought to myself--had Miss Vanlo not been thirty and damaged by
the climate he would have found it possible to entrust Fred Vanlo with
this confidence. And then the figure of Hermann’s niece appeared before
my mind’s eye, with the wealth of her opulent form, her rich youth, her
lavish strength. With that powerful and immaculate vitality, her girlish
form must have shouted aloud of life to that man, whereas poor Miss
Vanlo could only sing sentimental songs to the strumming of a piano.
“And that Hermann hates me, I know it!” he cried in his undertone, with
a sudden recrudescence of anxiety. “I must tell them. It is proper that
they should know. You would say so yourself.”
He then murmured an utterly mysterious allusion to the necessity for
peculiar domestic arrangements. Though my curiosity was excited I did
not want to hear any of his confidences. I feared he might give me a
piece of information that would make my assumed role of match-maker
odious--however unreal it was. I was aware that he could have the girl
for the asking; and keeping down a desire to laugh in his face, I
expressed a confident belief in my ability to argue away Hermann’s
dislike for him. “I am sure I can make it all right,” I said. He looked
very pleased.
And when we rose not a word had been said about towage! Not a word! The
game was won and the honour was safe. Oh! blessed white cotton umbrella!
We shook hands, and I was holding myself with difficulty from breaking
into a step dance of joy when he came back, striding all the length of
the verandah, and said doubtfully:
“I say, captain, I have your word? You--you--won’t turn round?”
Heavens! The fright he gave me. Behind his tone of doubt there was
something desperate and menacing. The infatuated ass. But I was equal to
the situation.
“My dear Falk,” I said, beginning to lie with a glibness and effrontery
that amazed me even at the time--“confidence for confidence.” (He had
made no confidences.) “I will tell you that I am already engaged to an
extremely charming girl at home, and so you understand....”
He caught my hand and wrung it in a crushing grip.
“Pardon me. I feel it every day more difficult to live alone...”
“On rice and fish,” I interrupted smartly, giggling with the sheer
nervousness of a danger escaped.
He dropped my hand as if it had become suddenly red hot. A moment of
profound silence ensued, as though something extraordinary had happened.
“I promise you to obtain Hermann’s consent,” I faltered out at last, and
it seemed to me that he could not help seeing through that humbugging
promise. “If there’s anything else to get over I shall endeavour
to stand by you,” I conceded further, feeling somehow defeated and
over-borne; “but you must do your best yourself.”
“I have been unfortunate once,” he muttered unemotionally, and turning
his back on me he went away, thumping slowly the plank floor as if his
feet had been shod with iron.
Next morning, however, he was lively enough as man-boat, a combination
of splashing and shouting; of the insolent commotion below with the
steady overbearing glare of the silent head-piece above. He turned us
out most unnecessarily at an ungodly hour, but it was nearly eleven
in the morning before he brought me up a cable’s length from Hermann’s
ship. And he did it very badly too, in a hurry, and nearly contriving to
miss altogether the patch of good holding ground, because, forsooth,
he had caught sight of Hermann’s niece on the poop. And so did I; and
probably as soon as he had seen her himself. I saw the modest, sleek
glory of the tawny head, and the full, grey shape of the girlish print
frock she filled so perfectly, so satisfactorily, with the seduction of
unfaltering curves--a very nymph of Diana the Huntress. And Diana the
ship sat, high-walled and as solid as an institution, on the smooth
level of the water, the most uninspiring and respectable craft upon the
seas, useful and ugly, devoted to the support of domestic virtues like
any grocer’s shop on shore. At once Falk steamed away; for there was
some work for him to do. He would return in the evening.
He ranged close by us, passing out dead slow, without a hail. The beat
of the paddle-wheels reverberating amongst the stony islets, as if from
the ruined walls of a vast arena, filled the anchorage confusedly with
the clapping sounds of a mighty and leisurely applause. Abreast of
Hermann’s ship he stopped the engines; and a profound silence reigned
over the rocks, the shore and the sea, for the time it took him to raise
his hat aloft before the nymph of the grey print frock. I had snatched
up my binoculars, and I can answer for it she didn’t stir a limb,
standing by the rail shapely and erect, with one of her hands grasping a
rope at the height of her head, while the way of the tug carried slowly
past her the lingering and profound homage of the man. There was for me
an enormous significance in the scene, the sense of having witnessed
a solemn declaration. The die was cast. After such a manifestation he
couldn’t back out. And I reflected that it was nothing whatever to me
now. With a rush of black smoke belching suddenly out of the funnel, and
a mad swirl of paddle-wheels provoking a burst of weird and precipitated
clapping, the tug shot out of the desolate arena. The rocky islets lay
on the sea like the heaps of a cyclopean ruin on a plain; the centipedes
and scorpions lurked under the stones; there was not a single blade
of grass in sight anywhere, not a single lizard sunning himself on a
boulder by the shore. When I looked again at Hermann’s ship the girl
had disappeared. I could not detect the smallest dot of a bird on the
immense sky, and the flatness of the land continued the flatness of the
sea to the naked line of the horizon.
This is the setting now inseparably connected with my knowledge of
Falk’s misfortune. My diplomacy had brought me there, and now I had only
to wait the time for taking up the role of an ambassador. My diplomacy
was a success; my ship was safe; old Gambril would probably live; a
feeble sound of a tapping hammer came intermittently from the Diana.
During the afternoon I looked at times at the old homely ship, the
faithful nurse of Hermann’s progeny, or yawned towards the distant
temple of Buddha, like a lonely hillock on the plain, where shaven
priests cherish the thoughts of that Annihilation which is the worthy
reward of us all. Unfortunate! He had been unfortunate once. Well, that
was not so bad as life goes. And what the devil could be the nature
of that misfortune? I remembered that I had known a man before who had
declared himself to have fallen, years ago, a victim to misfortune; but
this misfortune, whose effects appeared permanent (he looked desperately
hard up) when considered dispassionately, seemed indistinguishable from
a breach of trust. Could it be something of that nature? Apart, however,
from the utter improbability that he would offer to talk of it even to
his future uncle-in-law, I had a strange feeling that Falk’s physique
unfitted him for that sort of delinquency. As the person of Hermann’s
niece exhaled the profound physical charm of feminine form, so her
adorer’s big frame embodied to my senses the hard, straight masculinity
that would conceivably kill but would not condescend to cheat. The thing
was obvious. I might just as well have suspected the girl of a curvature
of the spine. And I perceived that the sun was about to set.
The smoke of Falk’s tug hove in sight, far away at the mouth of the
river. It was time for me to assume the character of an ambassador, and
the negotiation would not be difficult except in the matter of keeping
my countenance. It was all too extravagantly nonsensical, and I
conceived that it would be best to compose for myself a grave demeanour.
I practised this in my boat as I went along, but the bashfulness that
came secretly upon me the moment I stepped on the deck of the Diana is
inexplicable. As soon as we had exchanged greetings Hermann asked me
eagerly if I knew whether Falk had found his white parasol.
“He’s going to bring it to you himself directly,” I said with great
solemnity. “Meantime I am charged with an important message for which he
begs your favourable consideration. He is in love with your niece....”
“Ach So!” he hissed with an animosity that made my assumed gravity
change into the most genuine concern. What meant this tone? And I
hurried on.
“He wishes, with your consent of course, to ask her to marry him at
once--before you leave here, that is. He would speak to the Consul.”
Hermann sat down and smoked violently. Five minutes passed in that
furious meditation, and then, taking the long pipe out of his mouth,
he burst into a hot diatribe against Falk--against his cupidity, his
stupidity (a fellow that can hardly be got to say “yes” or “no” to the
simplest question)--against his outrageous treatment of the shipping in
port (because he saw they were at his mercy)--and against his manner
of walking, which to his (Hermann’s) mind showed a conceit positively
unbearable. The damage to the old Diana was not forgotten, of course,
and there was nothing of any nature said or done by Falk (even to the
last offer of refreshment in the hotel) that did not seem to have been
a cause of offence. “Had the cheek” to drag him (Hermann) into that
coffee-room; as though a drink from him could make up for forty-seven
dollars and fifty cents of damage in the cost of wood alone--not
counting two days’ work for the carpenter. Of course he would not stand
in the girl’s way. He was going home to Germany. There were plenty of
poor girls walking about in Germany.
“He’s very much in love,” was all I found to say.
“Yes,” he cried. “And it is time too after making himself and me talked
about ashore the last voyage I was here, and then now again; coming on
board every evening unsettling the girl’s mind, and saying nothing. What
sort of conduct is that?”
The seven thousand dollars the fellow was always talking about did not,
in his opinion, justify such behaviour. Moreover, nobody had seen them.
He (Hermann) seriously doubted if there were seven thousand cents, and
the tug, no doubt, was mortgaged up to the top of the funnel to the firm
of Siegers. But let that pass. He wouldn’t stand in the girl’s way. Her
head was so turned that she had become no good to them of late. Quite
unable even to put the children to bed without her aunt. It was bad for
the children; they got unruly; and yesterday he actually had to give
Gustav a thrashing.
For that, too, Falk was made responsible apparently. And looking at my
Hermann’s heavy, puffy, good-natured face, I knew he would not exert
himself till greatly exasperated, and, therefore, would thrash very
hard, and being fat would resent the necessity. How Falk had managed
to turn the girl’s head was more difficult to understand. I supposed
Hermann would know. And then hadn’t there been Miss Vanlo? It could not
be his silvery tongue, or the subtle seduction of his manner; he had no
more of what is called “manner” than an animal--which, however, on the
other hand, is never, and can never be called vulgar. Therefore it must
have been his bodily appearance, exhibiting a virility of nature
as exaggerated as his beard, and resembling a sort of constant
ruthlessness. It was seen in the very manner he lolled in the chair. He
meant no offence, but his intercourse was characterised by that sort of
frank disregard of susceptibilities a man of seven foot six, living in a
world of dwarfs, would naturally assume, without in the least wishing to
be unkind. But amongst men of his own stature, or nearly, this frank
use of his advantages, in such matters as the awful towage bills for
instance, caused much impotent gnashing of teeth. When attentively
considered it seemed appalling at times. He was a strange beast. But
maybe women liked it. Seen in that light he was well worth taming, and
I suppose every woman at the bottom of her heart considers herself as a
tamer of strange beasts. But Hermann arose with precipitation to carry
the news to his wife. I had barely the time, as he made for the cabin
door, to grab him by the seat of his inexpressibles. I begged him to
wait till Falk in person had spoken with him. There remained some small
matter to talk over, as I understood.
He sat down again at once, full of suspicion.
“What matter?” he said surlily. “I have had enough of his nonsense.
There’s no matter at all, as he knows very well; the girl has nothing in
the world. She came to us in one thin dress when my brother died, and I
have a growing family.”
“It can’t be anything of that kind,” I opined. “He’s desperately
enamoured of your niece. I don’t know why he did not say so before. Upon
my word, I believe it is because he was afraid to lose, perhaps, the
felicity of sitting near her on your quarter deck.”