II
AS I have said, I was unpacking my
luggage after a journey from London
into Ukraine. The MS. of "Almayer's Folly"—my companion already for some
three years or more, and then in the ninth
chapter of its age—was deposited unostentatiously on the writing-table placed between
two windows. It didn't occur to me to put
it away in the drawer the table was fitted with,
but my eye was attracted by the good form of
the same drawer's brass handles. Two candelabra, with four candles each, lighted up festally the room which had waited so many years
for the wandering nephew. The blinds were
down.
Within five hundred yards of the chair on
which I sat stood the first peasant hut of the
village—part of my maternal grandfather's
estate, the only part remaining in the possession of a member of the family; and beyond
the village in the limitless blackness of a winter's night there lay the great unfenced fields—
not a flat and severe plain, but a kindly bread-giving land of low rounded ridges, all white
now, with the black patches of timber nestling
in the hollows. The road by which I had
come ran through the village with a turn just
outside the gates closing the short drive.
Somebody was abroad on the deep snow-track; a quick tinkle of bells stole
gradually
into the stillness of the room like a tuneful
whisper.
My unpacking had been watched over by
the servant who had come to help me, and,
for the most part, had been standing attentive but unnecessary at the door of the room.
I did not want him in the least, but I did not
like to tell him to go away. He was a young
fellow, certainly more than ten years younger
than myself; I had not been—I won't say in
that place, but within sixty miles of it, ever
since the year '67; yet his guileless physiognomy of the open peasant type seemed
strangely familiar. It was quite possible
that he might have been a descendant, a son,
or even a grandson, of the servants whose
friendly faces had been familiar to me in my
early childhood. As a matter of fact he had
no such claim on my consideration. He was
the product of some village near by and
was there on his promotion, having learned
the service in one or two houses as pantry-boy. I know this because I asked the worthy
V— next day. I might well have spared the
question. I discovered before long that all
the faces about the house and all the faces in
the village: the grave faces with long mustaches of the heads of families, the downy
faces of the young men, the faces of the little
fair-haired children, the handsome, tanned,
wide-browed faces of the mothers seen at the
doors of the huts, were as familiar to me as
though I had known them all from childhood
and my childhood were a matter of the day
before yesterday.
The tinkle of the traveller's bells, after
growing louder, had faded away quickly, and
the tumult of barking dogs in the village had
calmed down at last. My uncle, lounging in
the corner of a small couch, smoked his long
Turkish chibouk in silence.
"This is an extremely nice writing-table
you have got for my room," I remarked.
"It is really your property," he said,
keeping his eyes on me, with an interested
and wistful expression, as he had done ever
since I had entered the house. "Forty years
ago your mother used to write at this very
table. In our house in Oratow, it stood in
the little sitting-room which, by a tacit arrangement, was given up to the girls—I mean
to your mother and her sister who died so
young. It was a present to them jointly
from your uncle Nicholas B. when your
mother was seventeen and your aunt two
years younger. She was a very dear, delightful girl, that aunt of yours, of whom I
suppose you know nothing more than the
name. She did not shine so much by personal beauty and a cultivated mind in which
your mother was far superior. It was her
good sense, the admirable sweetness of her
nature, her exceptional facility and ease in
daily relations, that endeared her to everybody. Her death was a terrible grief and a
serious moral loss for us all. Had she lived
she would have brought the greatest blessings
to the house it would have been her lot to
enter, as wife, mother, and mistress of a
household. She would have created round
herself an atmosphere of peace and content
which only those who can love unselfishly
are able to evoke. Your mother—of far
greater beauty, exceptionally distinguished
in person, manner, and intellect—had a less
easy disposition. Being more brilliantly gifted,
she also expected more from life. At that
trying time especially, we were greatly concerned about her state. Suffering in her
health from the shock of her father's death
(she was alone in the house with him when
he died suddenly), she was torn by the inward struggle between her love for the man
whom she was to marry in the end and her
knowledge of her dead father's declared
objection to that match. Unable to bring
herself to disregard that cherished memory
and that judgment she had always respected
and trusted, and, on the other hand, feeling
the impossibility to resist a sentiment so
deep and so true, she could not have been
expected to preserve her mental and moral
balance. At war with herself, she could
not give to others that feeling of peace
which was not her own. It was only later,
when united at last with the man of her
choice, that she developed those uncommon
gifts of mind and heart which compelled
the respect and admiration even of our
foes. Meeting with calm fortitude the cruel
trials of a life reflecting all the national and
social misfortunes of the community, she
realized the highest conceptions of duty as
a wife, a mother, and a patriot, sharing the
exile of her husband and representing nobly
the ideal of Polish womanhood. Our uncle
Nicholas was not a man very accessible to
feelings of affection. Apart from his worship for Napoleon the Great, he loved really,
I believe, only three people in the world:
his mother—your great-grandmother, whom
you have seen but cannot possibly remember; his brother, our father, in whose house
he lived for so many years; and of all of
us, his nephews and nieces grown up around
him, your mother alone. The modest, lovable qualities of the youngest sister he did
not seem able to see. It was I who felt
most profoundly this unexpected stroke of
death falling upon the family less than a
year after I had become its head. It was
terribly unexpected. Driving home one wintry afternoon to keep me company in our
empty house, where I had to remain permanently administering the estate and attending to the complicated affairs—(the girls
took it in turn week and week about)—
driving, as I said, from the house of the
Countess Tekla Potocka, where our invalid
mother was staying then to be near a doctor,
they lost the road and got stuck in a snow-drift. She was alone with the coachman and
old Valery, the personal servant of our late
father. Impatient of delay while they were
trying to dig themselves out, she jumped out
of the sledge and went to look for the road
herself. All this happened in '51, not ten
miles from the house in which we are sitting now. The road was soon found, but
snow had begun to fall thickly again, and
they were four more hours getting home.
Both the men took off their sheepskin-lined greatcoats and used all their own rugs
to wrap her up against the cold, notwithstanding her protests, positive orders, and
even struggles, as Valery afterward related
to me. 'How could I,' he remonstrated with
her, 'go to meet the blessed soul of my late
master if I let any harm come to you while
there's a spark of life left in my body?'
When they reached home at last the poor
old man was stiff and speechless from exposure, and the coachman was in not much
better plight, though he had the strength to
drive round to the stables himself. To my
reproaches for venturing out at all in such
weather, she answered, characteristically, that
she could not bear the thought of abandoning me to my cheerless solitude. It is incomprehensible how it was that she was
allowed to start. I suppose it had to be!
She made light of the cough which came on
next day, but shortly afterward inflammation of the lungs set in, and in three weeks
she was no more! She was the first to be
taken away of the young generation under
my care. Behold the vanity of all hopes and
fears! I was the most frail at birth of all
the children. For years I remained so delicate that my parents had but little hope of
bringing me up; and yet I have survived
five brothers and two sisters, and many of
my contemporaries; I have outlived my wife
and daughter, too—and from all those who
have had some knowledge at least of these
old times you alone are left. It has been
my lot to lay in an early grave many honest
hearts, many brilliant promises, many hopes
full of life."
He got up briskly, sighed, and left me
saying, "We will dine in half an hour."
Without moving, I listened to his quick
steps resounding on the waxed floor of the
next room, traversing the anteroom lined
with bookshelves, where he paused to put
his
chibouk in the pipe-stand before passing
into the drawing-room (these were all
en
suite), where he became inaudible on the
thick carpet. But I heard the door of his
study-bedroom close. He was then sixty-two years old and had been for a
quarter
of a century the wisest, the firmest, the most
indulgent of guardians, extending over me a
paternal care and affection, a moral support
which I seemed to feel always near me in the
most distant parts of the earth.
As to Mr. Nicholas B., sub-lieutenant of
1808, lieutenant of 1813 in the French army,
and for a short time Officier d'Ordonnance
of Marshal Marmont; afterward captain in
the 2d Regiment of Mounted Rifles in the
Polish army—such as it existed up to 1830
in the reduced kingdom established by the
Congress of Vienna—I must say that from
all that more distant past, known to me
traditionally and a little de visu, and called
out by the words of the man just gone away,
he remains the most incomplete figure. It
is obvious that I must have seen him in '64,
for it is certain that he would not have
missed the opportunity of seeing my mother
for what he must have known would be the
last time. From my early boyhood to this
day, if I try to call up his image, a sort of
mist rises before my eyes, mist in which I
perceive vaguely only a neatly brushed head of
white hair (which is exceptional in the case
of the B. family, where it is the rule for
men to go bald in a becoming manner before
thirty) and a thin, curved, dignified nose,
a feature in strict accordance with the physical
tradition of the B. family. But it is not by
these fragmentary remains of perishable mortality that he lives in my memory. I knew,
at a very early age, that my granduncle
Nicholas B. was a Knight of the Legion of
Honour and that he had also the Polish Cross
for valour
Virtuti Militari. The knowledge of
these glorious facts inspired in me an admiring
veneration; yet it is not that sentiment, strong
as it was, which resumes for me the force and
the significance of his personality. It is over-borne by another and complex impression of
awe, compassion, and horror. Mr. Nicholas
B. remains for me the unfortunate and miserable
(but heroic) being who once upon a time
had eaten a dog.
It is a good forty years since I heard the
tale, and the effect has not worn off yet.
I believe this is the very first, say, realistic,
story I heard in my life; but all the same I
don't know why I should have been so
frightfully impressed. Of course I know what
our village dogs look like—but still. . . .
No! At this very day, recalling the horror and compassion of my childhood, I
ask myself whether I am right in disclosing
to a cold and fastidious world that awful
episode in the family history. I ask myself
—is it right?—especially as the B. family had
always been honourably known in a wide
country-side for the delicacy of their tastes
in the matter of eating and drinking. But
upon the whole, and considering that this
gastronomical degradation overtaking a gallant young officer lies really at the door of
the Great Napoleon, I think that to cover it
up by silence would be an exaggeration of
literary restraint. Let the truth stand here.
The responsibility rests with the Man of
St. Helena in view of his deplorable levity
in the conduct of the Russian campaign. It
was during the memorable retreat from Moscow that Mr. Nicholas B., in company of
two brother officers—as to whose morality
and natural refinement I know nothing—
bagged a dog on the outskirts of a village
and subsequently devoured him. As far as
I can remember the weapon used was a
cavalry sabre, and the issue of the sporting
episode was rather more of a matter of life
and death than if it had been an encounter
with a tiger. A picket of Cossacks was
sleeping in that village lost in the depths of
the great Lithuanian forest. The three sportsmen had observed them from a hiding-place
making themselves very much at home among
the huts just before the early winter darkness
set in at four o'clock. They had observed
them with disgust and, perhaps, with despair.
Late in the night the rash counsels of hunger
overcame the dictates of prudence. Crawling
through the snow they crept up to the fence
of dry branches which generally encloses a
village in that part of Lithuania. What they
expected to get and in what manner, and
whether this expectation was worth the risk,
goodness only knows. However, these Cossack parties, in most cases wandering without
an officer, were known to guard themselves
badly and often not at all. In addition, the
village lying at a great distance from the line
of French retreat, they could not suspect the
presence of stragglers from the Grand Army.
The three officers had strayed away in a
blizzard from the main column and had been
lost for days in the woods, which explains
sufficiently the terrible straits to which they
were reduced. Their plan was to try and
attract the attention of the peasants in that
one of the huts which was nearest to the enclosure; but as they were preparing to venture into the very jaws of the lion, so to
speak, a dog (it is mighty strange that there
was but one), a creature quite as formidable
under the circumstances as a lion, began to
bark on the other side of the fence. . . .
At this stage of the narrative, which I
heard many times (by request) from the
lips of Captain Nicholas B.'s sister-in-law,
my grandmother, I used to tremble with
excitement.
The dog barked. And if he had done no
more than bark, three officers of the Great
Napoleon's army would have perished honourably on the points of Cossacks' lances,
or perchance escaping the chase would have
died decently of starvation. But before they
had time to think of running away that
fatal and revolting dog, being carried away
by the excess of the zeal, dashed out through
a gap in the fence. He dashed out and died.
His head, I understand, was severed at one
blow from his body. I understand also that
later on, within the gloomy solitudes of the
snow-laden woods, when, in a sheltering hollow, a fire had been lit by the party, the
condition of the quarry was discovered to
be distinctly unsatisfactory. It was not thin
—on the contrary, it seemed unhealthily
obese; its skin showed bare patches of an
unpleasant character. However, they had
not killed that dog for the sake of the pelt.
He was large. . . . He was eaten. . . .
The rest is silence. . . .
A silence in which a small boy shudders
and says firmly:
"I could not have eaten that dog."
And his grandmother remarks with a smile:
"Perhaps you don't know what it is to
be hungry."
I have learned something of it since. Not
that I have been reduced to eat dog. I have
fed on the emblematical animal, which, in
the language of the volatile Gauls, is called
la vache enragée; I have lived on ancient salt
junk, I know the taste of shark, of trepang,
of snake, of nondescript dishes containing
things without a name—but of the Lithuanian village dog—never! I wish it to be distinctly understood that it is not I, but my
granduncle Nicholas, of the Polish landed
gentry,
Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, etc.,
who in his young days, had eaten the Lithuanian dog.
I wish he had not. The childish horror
of the deed clings absurdly to the grizzled
man. I am perfectly helpless against it.
Still, if he really had to, let us charitably
remember that he had eaten him on active
service, while bearing up bravely against
the greatest military disaster of modern history, and, in a manner, for the sake of his
country. He had eaten him to appease his
hunger, no doubt, but also for the sake of
an unappeasable and patriotic desire, in the
glow of a great faith that lives still, and in
the pursuit of a great illusion kindled like
a false beacon by a great man to lead astray
the effort of a brave nation.
Pro patria!
Looked at in that light, it appears a sweet
and decorous meal.
And looked at in the same light, my own
diet of la vache enragée appears a fatuous
and extravagant form of self-indulgence; for
why should I, the son of a land which such
men as these have turned up with their
plowshares and bedewed with their blood,
undertake the pursuit of fantastic meals of
salt junk and hardtack upon the wide seas?
On the kindest view it seems an unanswerable question. Alas! I have the conviction
that there are men of unstained rectitude
who are ready to murmur scornfully the
word desertion. Thus the taste of innocent
adventure may be made bitter to the palate.
The part of the inexplicable should be allowed for in appraising the conduct of men
in a world where no explanation is final.
No charge of faithlessness ought to be lightly
uttered. The appearances of this perishable life are deceptive, like everything that
falls under the judgment of our imperfect
senses. The inner voice may remain true
enough in its secret counsel. The fidelity
to a special tradition may last through the
events of an unrelated existence, following
faithfully, too, the traced way of an inexplicable impulse.
It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance of contradictions in human
nature which makes love itself wear at times
the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no possible explanation. Indulgence—as somebody said—is the most
intelligent of all the virtues. I venture to
think that it is one of the least common,
if not the most uncommon of all. I would
not imply by this that men are foolish—or
even most men. Far from it. The barber
and the priest, backed by the whole opinion
of the village, condemned justly the conduct
of the ingenious hidalgo, who, sallying forth
from his native place, broke the head of
the muleteer, put to death a flock of inoffensive sheep, and went through very doleful
experiences in a certain stable. God forbid
that an unworthy churl should escape merited
censure by hanging on to the stirrup-leather
of the sublime caballero. His was a very
noble, a very unselfish fantasy, fit for nothing except to raise the envy of baser mortals.
But there is more than one aspect to the
charm of that exalted and dangerous figure.
He, too, had his frailties. After reading so
many romances he desired naïvely to escape
with his very body from the intolerable
reality of things. He wished to meet, eye
to eye, the valorous giant Brandabarbaran,
Lord of Arabia, whose armour is made of the
skin of a dragon, and whose shield, strapped
to his arm, is the gate of a fortified city. Oh,
amiable and natural weakness! Oh, blessed
simplicity of a gentle heart without guile!
Who would not succumb to such a consoling
temptation? Nevertheless, it was a form of
self-indulgence, and the ingenious hidalgo of
La Mancha was not a good citizen. The
priest and the barber were not unreasonable
in their strictures. Without going so far as
the old King Louis-Philippe, who used to
say in his exile, "The people are never in
fault"—one may admit that there must be
some righteousness in the assent of a whole
village. Mad! Mad! He who kept in pious
meditation the ritual vigil-of-arms by the
well of an inn and knelt reverently to be
knighted at daybreak by the fat, sly rogue
of a landlord has come very near perfection. He rides forth, his head encircled
by a halo—the patron saint of all lives
spoiled or saved by the irresistible grace of
imagination. But he was not a good citizen.
Perhaps that and nothing else was meant by
the well-remembered exclamation of my tutor.
It was in the jolly year 1873, the very
last year in which I have had a jolly holiday.
There have been idle years afterward, jolly
enough in a way and not altogether without
their lesson, but this year of which I speak
was the year of my last school-boy holiday.
There are other reasons why I should remember that year, but they are too long to
state formally in this place. Moreover, they
have nothing to do with that holiday. What
has to do with the holiday is that before
the day on which the remark was made we
had seen Vienna, the Upper Danube, Munich,
the Falls of the Rhine, the Lake of Constance,
—in fact, it was a memorable holiday of
travel. Of late we had been tramping slowly
up the Valley of the Reuss. It was a delightful time. It was much more like a
stroll than a tramp. Landing from a Lake of
Lucerne steamer in Flüelen, we found ourselves at the end of the second day, with
the dusk overtaking our leisurely footsteps,
a little way beyond Hospenthal. This is
not the day on which the remark was made:
in the shadows of the deep valley and with
the habitations of men left some way behind,
our thoughts ran not upon the ethics of
conduct, but upon the simpler human problem
of shelter and food. There did not seem
anything of the kind in sight, and we were
thinking of turning back when suddenly, at a
bend of the road, we came upon a building,
ghostly in the twilight.
At that time the work on the St. Gothard
Tunnel was going on, and that magnificent
enterprise of burrowing was directly responsible for the unexpected building, standing
all alone upon the very roots of the mountains. It was long, though not big at all;
it was low; it was built of boards, without
ornamentation, in barrack-hut style, with
the white window-frames quite flush with
the yellow face of its plain front. And yet
it was a hotel; it had even a name, which I
have forgotten. But there was no gold-laced doorkeeper at its humble door. A
plain but vigorous servant-girl answered our
inquiries, then a man and woman who owned
the place appeared. It was clear that no
travellers were expected, or perhaps even
desired, in this strange hostelry, which in its
severe style resembled the house which surmounts the unseaworthy-looking hulls of the
toy Noah's Arks, the universal possession of
European childhood. However, its roof was
not hinged and it was not full to the brim of
slab-sided and painted animals of wood. Even
the live tourist animal was nowhere in evidence. We had something to eat in a long,
narrow room at one end of a long, narrow table,
which, to my tired perception and to my sleepy
eyes, seemed as if it would tilt up like a see-saw plank, since there was no one at the other
end to balance it against our two dusty and
travel-stained figures. Then we hastened up-stairs to bed in a room smelling of pine
planks, and I was fast asleep before my head
touched the pillow.
In the morning my tutor (he was a student
of the Cracow University) woke me up early,
and as we were dressing remarked: "There
seems to be a lot of people staying in this
hotel. I have heard a noise of talking up
till eleven o'clock." This statement surprised me; I had heard no noise whatever,
having slept like a top.
We went down-stairs into the long and narrow dining-room with its long and narrow
table. There were two rows of plates on it.
At one of the many curtained windows stood
a tall, bony man with a bald head set off by
a bunch of black hair above each ear, and
with a long, black beard. He glanced up
from the paper he was reading and seemed
genuinely astonished at our intrusion. By
and by more men came in. Not one of them
looked like a tourist. Not a single woman
appeared. These men seemed to know each
other with some intimacy, but I cannot say
they were a very talkative lot. The bald-headed man sat down gravely at the head of
the table. It all had the air of a family
party. By and by, from one of the vigorous servant-girls in national costume, we discovered that the place was really a boarding-house for some English engineers engaged
at the works of the St. Gothard Tunnel; and
I could listen my fill to the sounds of the
English language, as far as it is used at a
breakfast-table by men who do not believe
in wasting many words on the mere amenities
of life.
This was my first contact with British mankind
apart from the tourist kind seen in the
hotels of Zurich and Lucerne—the kind which
has no real existence in a workaday world.
I know now that the bald-headed man spoke
with a strong Scotch accent. I have met
many of his kind ashore and afloat. The
second engineer of the steamer
Mavis, for
instance, ought to have been his twin brother.
I cannot help thinking that he really was,
though for some reason of his own he assured
me that he never had a twin brother. Anyway, the deliberate, bald-headed Scot with the
coal-black beard appeared to my boyish eyes
a very romantic and mysterious person.
We slipped out unnoticed. Our mapped-out route led over the Furca Pass toward
the Rhône Glacier, with the further intention of following down the trend of the Häsli
Valley. The sun was already declining when
we found ourselves on the top of the pass,
and the remark alluded to was presently
uttered.
We sat down by the side of the road to
continue the argument begun half a mile or
so before. I am certain it was an argument,
because I remember perfectly how my tutor
argued and how without the power of reply
I listened, with my eyes fixed obstinately on
the ground. A stir on the road made me
look up—and then I saw my unforgettable
Englishman. There are acquaintances of
later years, familiars, shipmates, whom I
remember less clearly. He marched rapidly
toward the east (attended by a hang-dog
Swiss guide), with the mien of an ardent and
fearless traveller. He was clad in a knicker-bocker suit, but as at the same time he wore
short socks under his laced boots, for reasons
which, whether hygienic or conscientious,
were surely imaginative, his calves, exposed
to the public gaze and to the tonic air of
high altitudes, dazzled the beholder by the
splendour of their marble-like condition and
their rich tone of young ivory. He was the
leader of a small caravan. The light of a
headlong, exalted satisfaction with the world
of men and the scenery of mountains illumined his clean-cut, very red face, his short,
silver-white whiskers, his innocently eager
and triumphant eyes. In passing he cast a
glance of kindly curiosity and a friendly
gleam of big, sound, shiny teeth toward the
man and the boy sitting like dusty tramps
by the roadside, with a modest knapsack
lying at their feet. His white calves twinkled
sturdily, the uncouth Swiss guide with a
surly mouth stalked like an unwilling bear
at his elbow; a small train of three mules
followed in single file the lead of this inspiring enthusiast. Two ladies rode past, one
behind the other, but from the way they sat
I saw only their calm, uniform backs, and
the long ends of blue veils hanging behind
far down over their identical hat-brims. His
two daughters, surely. An industrious luggage-mule, with unstarched ears and guarded
by a slouching, sallow driver, brought up
the rear. My tutor, after pausing for a look
and a faint smile, resumed his earnest argument.
I tell you it was a memorable year! One
does not meet such an Englishman twice in
a lifetime. Was he in the mystic ordering
of common events the ambassador of my
future, sent out to turn the scale at a critical
moment on the top of an Alpine pass, with
the peaks of the Bernese Oberland for mute
and solemn witnesses? His glance, his smile,
the unextinguishable and comic ardour of his
striving-forward appearance, helped me to
pull myself together. It must be stated
that on that day and in the exhilarating atmosphere of that elevated spot I had been
feeling utterly crushed. It was the year in
which I had first spoken aloud of my desire
to go to sea. At first like those sounds that,
ranging outside the scale to which men's ears
are attuned, remain inaudible to our sense of
hearing, this declaration passed unperceived.
It was as if it had not been. Later on, by
trying various tones, I managed to arouse
here and there a surprised momentary attention—the "What was that funny noise?"—
sort of inquiry. Later on it was: "Did
you hear what that boy said? What an
extraordinary outbreak!" Presently a wave
of scandalized astonishment (it could not
have been greater if I had announced the
intention of entering a Carthusian monastery) ebbing out of the educational and
academical town of Cracow spread itself
over several provinces. It spread itself shallow but far-reaching. It stirred up a mass
of remonstrance, indignation, pitying wonder, bitter irony, and downright chaff. I
could hardly breathe under its weight, and
certainly had no words for an answer. People wondered what Mr. T. B. would do now
with his worrying nephew and, I dare say,
hoped kindly that he would make short work
of my nonsense.
What he did was to come down all the
way from Ukraine to have it out with me
and to judge by himself, unprejudiced, impartial, and just, taking his stand on the
ground of wisdom and affection. As far as
is possible for a boy whose power of expression is still unformed I opened the secret
of my thoughts to him, and he in return
allowed me a glimpse into his mind and
heart; the first glimpse of an inexhaustible
and noble treasure of clear thought and warm
feeling, which through life was to be mine
to draw upon with a never-deceived love and
confidence. Practically, after several exhaustive conversations, he concluded that he
would not have me later on reproach him for
having spoiled my life by an unconditional
opposition. But I must take time for serious reflection. And I must think not only
of myself but of others; weigh the claims of
affection and conscience against my own sincerity of purpose. "Think well what it all
means in the larger issues—my boy," he exhorted me, finally, with special friendliness.
"And meantime try to get the best place
you can at the yearly examinations."
The scholastic year came to an end. I
took a fairly good place at the exams, which
for me (for certain reasons) happened to be
a more difficult task than for other boys.
In that respect I could enter with a good
conscience upon that holiday which was like
a long visit pour prendre congé of the main-land of old Europe I was to see so little
of for the next four-and-twenty years. Such,
however, was not the avowed purpose of that
tour. It was rather, I suspect, planned in
order to distract and occupy my thoughts in
other directions. Nothing had been said for
months of my going to sea. But my attachment to my young tutor and his influence
over me were so well known that he must
have received a confidential mission to talk
me out of my romantic folly. It was an excellently appropriate arrangement, as neither
he nor I had ever had a single glimpse
of the sea in our lives. That was to come
by and by for both of us in Venice, from the
outer shore of Lido. Meantime he had
taken his mission to heart so well that I
began to feel crushed before we reached
Zurich. He argued in railway trains, in lake
steamboats, he had argued away for me the
obligatory sunrise on the Righi, by Jove!
Of his devotion to his unworthy pupil there
can be no doubt. He had proved it already
by two years of unremitting and arduous care.
I could not hate him. But he had been
crushing me slowly, and when he started to
argue on the top of the Furca Pass he was
perhaps nearer a success than either he or
I imagined. I listened to him in despairing
silence, feeling that ghostly, unrealized, and
desired sea of my dreams escape from the
unnerved grip of my will.
The enthusiastic old Englishman had passed
—and the argument went on. What reward
could I expect from such a life at the end of my
years, either in ambition, honour, or conscience?
An unanswerable question. But I felt no
longer crushed. Then our eyes met and a
genuine emotion was visible in his as well as in
mine. The end came all at once. He picked
up the knapsack suddenly and got onto his feet.
"You are an incorrigible, hopeless Don
Quixote. That's what you are."
I was surprised. I was only fifteen and
did not know what he meant exactly. But
I felt vaguely flattered at the name of the
immortal knight turning up in connection
with my own folly, as some people would
call it to my face. Alas! I don't think
there was anything to be proud of. Mine
was not the stuff of protectors of forlorn
damsels, the redressers of this world's wrong
are made of; and my tutor was the man
to know that best. Therein, in his indignation, he was superior to the barber and the
priest when he flung at me an honoured name
like a reproach.
I walked behind him for full five minutes;
then without looking back he stopped. The
shadows of distant peaks were lengthening
over the Furca Pass. When I came up to him
he turned to me and in full view of the Finster-Aarhorn, with his band of giant brothers rearing
their monstrous heads against a brilliant sky,
put his hand on my shoulder affectionately.
"Well! That's enough. We will have no
more of it."
And indeed there was no more question
of my mysterious vocation between us. There
was to be no more question of it at all, nowhere or with any one. We began the
descent of the Furca Pass conversing merrily.
Eleven years later, month for month, I stood
on Tower Hill on the steps of the St. Katherine's Dockhouse, a master in the British
Merchant Service. But the man who put
his hand on my shoulder at the top of the
Furca Pass was no longer living.
That very year of our travels he took his
degree of the Philosophical Faculty—and
only then his true vocation declared itself.
Obedient to the call, he entered at once upon
the four-year course of the Medical Schools.
A day came when, on the deck of a ship
moored in Calcutta, I opened a letter telling
me of the end of an enviable existence. He
had made for himself a practice in some
obscure little town of Austrian Galicia. And
the letter went on to tell me how all the
bereaved poor of the district, Christians and
Jews alike, had mobbed the good doctor's
coffin with sobs and lamentations at the very
gate of the cemetery.
How short his years and how clear his
vision! What greater reward in ambition,
honour, and conscience could he have hoped
to win for himself when, on the top of the
Furca Pass, he bade me look well to the
end of my opening life?
