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diff --git a/old/laidr10.txt b/old/laidr10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..581b027 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/laidr10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1160 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of A. V. Laider, by Max Beerbohm** +#3 in our series by Max Beerbohm + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +A. V. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Benedictine University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +A. V. Laider + +By MAX BEERBOHM + + + + + +I UNPACKED my things and went down to await luncheon. + +It was good to be here again in this little old sleepy hostel by the +sea. Hostel I say, though it spelt itself without an "s" and even placed a +circumflex above the "o." It made no other pretension. It was very cozy +indeed. + +I had been here just a year before, in mid-February, after an attack +of influenza. And now I had returned, after an attack of influenza. +Nothing was changed. It had been raining when I left, and the waiter-- +there was but a single, a very old waiter--had told me it was only a +shower. That waiter was still here, not a day older. And the shower had +not ceased. + +Steadfastly it fell on to the sands, steadfastly into the iron-gray sea. +I stood looking out at it from the windows of the hall, admiring it very +much. There seemed to be little else to do. What little there was I did. I +mastered the contents of a blue hand-bill which, pinned to the wall just +beneath the framed engraving of Queen Victoria's Coronation, gave +token of a concert that was to be held--or, rather, was to have been held +some weeks ago--in the town hall for the benefit of the Life-Boat Fund. I +looked at the barometer, tapped it, was not the wiser. I wandered to the +letter-board. + +These letter-boards always fascinate me. Usually some two or three +of the envelops stuck into the cross-garterings have a certain newness +and freshness. They seem sure they will yet be claimed. Why not? Why +SHOULDN'T John Doe, Esq., or Mrs. Richard Roe turn up at any +moment? I do not know. I can only say that nothing in the world seems +to me more unlikely. Thus it is that these young bright envelops touch +my heart even more than do their dusty and sallowed seniors. Sour +resignation is less touching than impatience for what will not be, than the +eagerness that has to wane and wither. Soured beyond measure these old +envelops are. They are not nearly so nice as they should be to the young +ones. They lose no chance of sneering and discouraging. Such dialogues +as this are only too frequent: + +A Very Young Envelop: Something in me whispers that he +will come to-day! + +A Very Old Envelop: He? Well, that's good! Ha, ha, ha! +Why didn't he come last week, when YOU came? What reason +have you for supposing he'll ever come now? It isn't as if he were a +frequenter of the place. He's never been here. His name is utterly +unknown here. You don't suppose he's coming on the chance of finding +YOU? + +A. V. Y. E.: It may seem silly, but--something in me +whispers-- + +A. V. O. E.: Something in YOU? One has only to +look at you to see there's nothing in you but a note scribbled to him by a +cousin. Look at ME! There are three sheets, closely written, in +ME. The lady to whom I am addressed-- + +A. V. Y. E.: Yes, sir, yes; you told me all about her +yesterday. + +A. V. O. E.: And I shall do so to-day and to-morrow and +every day and all day long. That young lady was a widow. She stayed +here many times. She was delicate, and the air suited her. She was poor, +and the tariff was just within her means. She was lonely, and had need +of love. I have in me for her a passionate avowal and strictly honorable +proposal, written to her, after many rough copies, by a gentleman who +had made her acquaintance under this very roof. He was rich, he was +charming, he was in the prime of life. He had asked if he might write to +her. She had flutteringly granted his request. He posted me to +her the day after his return to London. I looked forward to being torn +open by her. I was very sure she would wear me and my contents next to +her bosom. She was gone. She had left no address. She never returned. +This I tell you, and shall continue to tell you, not because I want any of +your callow sympathy,--no, THANK you!--but that you may judge +how much less than slight are the probabilities that you yourself-- + +But my reader has overheard these dialogues as often as I. He +wants to know what was odd about this particular letter-board before +which I was standing. At first glance I saw nothing odd about it. But +presently I distinguished a handwriting that was vaguely familiar. It was +mine. I stared, I wondered. There is always a slight shock in seeing an +envelop of one's own after it has gone through the post. It looks as if it +had gone through so much. But this was the first time I had ever seen an +envelop of mine eating its heart out in bondage on a letter-board. This +was outrageous. This was hardly to be believed. Sheer kindness had +impelled me to write to "A. V. Laider, Esq.," and this was the result! I +hadn't minded receiving no answer. Only now, indeed, did I remember +that I hadn't received one. In multitudinous London the memory of A. V. +Laider and his trouble had soon passed from my mind. But--well, what a +lesson not to go out of one's way to write to casual acquaintances! + +My envelop seemed not to recognize me as its writer. Its gaze was +the more piteous for being blank. Even so had I once been gazed at by a +dog that I had lost and, after many days, found in the Battersea Home. +"I don't know who you are, but, whoever you are, claim me, take me out +of this!" That was my dog's appeal. This was the appeal of my envelop. + +I raised my hand to the letter-board, meaning to effect a swift and +lawless rescue, but paused at sound of a footstep behind me. The old +waiter had come to tell me that my luncheon was ready. I followed him +out of the hall, not, however, without a bright glance across my shoulder +to reassure the little captive that I should come back. + +I had the sharp appetite of the convalescent, and this the sea air had +whetted already to a finer edge. In touch with a dozen oysters, and with +stout, I soon shed away the unreasoning anger I had felt against A. V. +Laider. I became merely sorry for him that he had not received a letter +which might perhaps have comforted him. In touch with cutlets, I felt +how sorely he had needed comfort. And anon, by the big bright fireside +of that small dark smoking-room where, a year ago, on the last evening +of my stay here, he and I had at length spoken to each other, I reviewed +in detail the tragic experience he had told me; and I simply reveled in +reminiscent sympathy with him. + +A. V. LAIDER--I had looked him up in the visitors'-book on the night of +his arrival. I myself had arrived the day before, and had been rather sorry +there was no one else staying here. A convalescent by the sea likes to +have some one to observe, to wonder about, at meal-time. I was glad +when, on my second evening, I found seated at the table opposite to mine +another guest. I was the gladder because he was just the right kind of +guest. He was enigmatic. By this I mean that he did not look soldierly or +financial or artistic or anything definite at all. He offered a clean slate +for speculation. And, thank heaven! he evidently wasn't going to spoil +the fun by engaging me in conversation later on. A decently unsociable +man, anxious to be left alone. + +The heartiness of his appetite, in contrast with his extreme fragility +of aspect and limpness of demeanor, assured me that he, too, had just had +influenza. I liked him for that. Now and again our eyes met and were +instantly parted. We managed, as a rule, to observe each other indirectly. +I was sure it was not merely because he had been ill that he looked +interesting. Nor did it seem to me that a spiritual melancholy, +though I imagined him sad at the best of times, was his sole asset. +I conjectured that he was clever. I thought he might also be +imaginative. At first glance I had mistrusted him. A shock of +white hair, combined with a young face and dark eyebrows, does somehow +make a man look like a charlatan. But it is foolish to be guided by an +accident of color. I had soon rejected my first impression of my +fellow-diner. I found him very sympathetic. + +Anywhere but in England it would be impossible for two solitary +men, howsoever much reduced by influenza, to spend five or six days in +the same hostel and not exchange a single word. That is one of the +charms of England. Had Laider and I been born and bred in any other +land than Eng we should have become acquainted before the end of our +first evening in the small smoking-room, and have found ourselves +irrevocably committed to go on talking to each other throughout the rest +of our visit. We might, it is true, have happened to like each other more +than any one we had ever met. This off chance may have occurred to +us both. But it counted for nothing against the certain surrender of +quietude and liberty. We slightly bowed to each other as we entered or +left the dining-room or smoking-room, and as we met on the wide-spread +sands or in the shop that had a small and faded circulating library. That +was all. Our mutual aloofness was a positive bond between us. + +Had he been much older than I, the responsibility for our silence +would of course have been his alone. But he was not, I judged, more +than five or six years ahead of me, and thus I might without impropriety +have taken it on myself to perform that hard and perilous feat which +English people call, with a shiver, "breaking the ice." He had reason, +therefore, to be as grateful to me as I to him. Each of us, not the less +frankly because silently, recognized his obligation to the other. And +when, on the last evening of my stay, the ice actually was broken there +was no ill-will between us: neither of us was to blame. + +It was a Sunday evening. I had been out for a long last walk and +had come in very late to dinner. Laider had left his table almost directly +after I sat down to mine. When I entered the smoking-room I found him +reading a weekly review which I had bought the day before. It was a +crisis. He could not silently offer nor could I have silently accepted, six-pence. It was a +crisis. We faced it like men. He made, by word of +mouth, a graceful apology. Verbally, not by signs, I besought him to go +on reading. But this, of course, was a vain counsel of perfection. The +social code forced us to talk now. We obeyed it like men. To reassure +him that our position was not so desperate as it might seem, I took the +earliest opportunity to mention that I was going away early next morning. +In the tone of his "Oh, are you?" he tried bravely to imply that he was +sorry, even now, to hear that. In a way, perhaps, he really was sorry. We +had got on so well together, he and I. Nothing could efface the memory +of that. Nay, we seemed to be hitting it off even now. Influenza was not +our sole theme. We passed from that to the aforesaid weekly review, and +to a correspondence that was raging therein on faith and reason. + +This correspondence had now reached its fourth and penultimate +stage--its Australian stage. It is hard to see why these correspondences +spring up; one only knows that they do spring up, suddenly, like street +crowds. There comes, it would seem, a moment when the whole +English-speaking race is unconsciously bursting to have its say about +some one thing--the split infinitive, or the habits of migratory birds, or +faith and reason, or what-not. Whatever weekly review happens at such +a moment to contain a reference, however remote, to the theme in +question reaps the storm. Gusts of letters come in from all corners of the +British Isles. These are presently reinforced by Canada in full blast. A +few weeks later the Anglo-Indians weigh in. In due course we have the +help of our Australian cousins. By that time, however, we of the mother +country have got our second wind, and so determined are we to +make the most of it that at last even the editor suddenly loses patience +and says, "This correspondence must now cease.--Ed." and wonders why +on earth he ever allowed anything so tedious and idiotic to begin. + +I pointed out to Laider one of the Australian letters that had +especially pleased me in the current issue. It was from "A Melbourne +Man," and was of the abrupt kind which declares that "all your +correspondents have been groping in the dark" and then settles the whole +matter in one short sharp flash. The flash in this instance was "Reason is +faith, faith reason--that is all we know on earth and all we need to know." +The writer then inclosed his card and was, etc., "A Melbourne Man." I +said to Laider how very restful it was, after influenza, to read anything +that meant nothing whatsoever. Laider was inclined to take the letter +more seriously than I, and to be mildly metaphysical. I said that for me +faith and reason were two separate things, and as I am no good at +metaphysics, however mild, I offered a definite example, to coax the talk +on to ground where I should be safer. + +"Palmistry, for example," I said. "Deep down in my heart I believe +in palmistry." + +Laider turned in his chair. + +"You believe in palmistry?" + +I hesitated. + +"Yes, somehow I do. Why? I haven't the slightest notion. I can +give myself all sorts of reasons for laughing it to scorn. My common +sense utterly rejects it. Of course the shape of the hand means +something, is more or less an index of character. But the idea that my +past and future are neatly mapped out on my palms--" I shrugged my +shoulders. + +"You don't like that idea?" asked Laider in his gentle, rather +academic voice. + +"I only say it's a grotesque idea." + +"Yet you do believe in it?" + +"I've a grotesque belief in it, yes." + +"Are you sure your reason for calling this idea 'grotesque' isn't +merely that you dislike it?" + +"Well," I said, with the thrilling hope that he was a companion in +absurdity, "doesn't it seem grotesque to you?" + +"It seems strange." + +"You believe in it?" + +"Oh, absolutely." + +"Hurrah!" + +He smiled at my pleasure, and I, at the risk of reentanglement +in metaphysics, claimed him as standing shoulder to shoulder with me +against "A Melbourne Man." This claim he gently disputed. + +"You may think me very prosaic," he said, "but I can't believe +without evidence." + +"Well, I'm equally prosaic and equally at a disadvantage: I can't take +my own belief as evidence, and I've no other evidence to go on." + +He asked me if I had ever made a study of palmistry. I said I had +read one of Desbarolles's books years ago, and one of Heron-Allen's. +But, he asked, had I tried to test them by the lines on my own hands or on +the hands of my friends? I confessed that my actual practice in palmistry +had been of a merely passive kind--the prompt extension of my palm to +any one who would be so good as to "read" it and truckle for a few +minutes to my egoism. (I hoped Laider might do this.) + +"Then I almost wonder," he said, with his sad smile, "that you +haven't lost your belief, after all the nonsense you must have heard. +There are so many young girls who go in for palmistry. I am sure all the +five foolish virgins were 'awfully keen on it' and used to say, 'You can be +led, but not driven,' and, 'You are likely to have a serious illness between +the ages of forty and forty-five,' and, 'You are by nature rather lazy, but +can be very energetic by fits and starts.' And most of the professionals, +I'm told, are as silly as the young girls." + +For the honor of the profession, I named three practitioners whom I +had found really good at reading character. He asked whether any of +them had been right about past events. I confessed that, as a matter of +fact, all three of them had been right in the main. This seemed to amuse +him. He asked whether any of them had predicted anything +which had since come true. I confessed that all three had predicted that +I should do several things which I had since done rather unexpectedly. +He asked if I didn't accept this as, at any rate, a scrap of evidence. I said +I could only regard it as a fluke--a rather remarkable fluke. + +The superiority of his sad smile was beginning to get on my nerves. +I wanted him to see that he was as absurd as I. + +"Suppose," I said--"suppose, for the sake of argument, that you and +I are nothing but helpless automata created to do just this and that, and to +have just that and this done to us. Suppose, in fact, we HAVEN'T +any free will whatsoever. Is it likely or conceivable that the Power which +fashioned us would take the trouble to jot down in cipher on our hands +just what was in store for us?" + +Laider did not answer this question; he did but annoyingly ask me +another. + +"You believe in free will?" + +"Yes, of course. I'll be hanged if I'm an automaton." + +"And you believe in free will just as in palmistry--without any +reason?" + +"Oh, no. Everything points to our having free will." + +"Everything? What, for instance?" + +This rather cornered me. I dodged out, as lightly as I could, by +saying: + +"I suppose YOU would say it's written in my hand that I +should be a believer in free will." + +"Ah, I've no doubt it is." + +I held out my palms. But, to my great disappointment, he looked +quickly away from them. He had ceased to smile. There was agitation in +his voice as he explained that he never looked at people's hands now. +"Never now--never again." He shook his head as though to beat off some +memory. + +I was much embarrassed by my indiscretion. I hastened to tide over +the awkward moment by saying that if _I_ could read hands I +wouldn't, for fear of the awful things I might see there. + +"Awful things, yes," he whispered, nodding at the fire. + +"Not," I said in self-defense, "that there's anything very awful, so +far as I know, to be read in MY hands." + +He turned his gaze from the fire to me. + +"You aren't a murderer, for example?" + +"Oh, no," I replied, with a nervous laugh. + +"_I_ am." + +This was a more than awkward, it was a painful, moment for me; +and I am afraid I must have started or winced, for he instantly begged my +pardon. + +"I don't know," he exclaimed, "why I said it. I'm usually a very +reticent man. But sometimes--" He pressed his brow. "What you must +think of me!" + +I begged him to dismiss the matter from his mind. + +"It's very good of you to say that; but--I've placed myself as well as +you in a false position. I ask you to believe that I'm not the sort of man +who is 'wanted' or ever was 'wanted' by the police. I should be bowed out +of any police-station at which I gave myself up. I'm not a murderer in +any bald sense of the word. No." + +My face must have perceptibly brightened, for, "Ah," he said, "don't +imagine I'm not a murderer at all. Morally, I am." He looked at the +clock. I pointed out that the night was young. He assured me that his +story was not a long one. I assured him that I hoped it was. He said I +was very kind. I denied this. He warned me that what he had to tell +might rather tend to stiffen my unwilling faith in palmistry, and to shake +my opposite and cherished faith in free will. I said, "Never mind." He +stretched his hands pensively toward the fire. I settled myself back in my +chair. + +"My hands," he said, staring at the backs of them, "are the hands of +a very weak man. I dare say you know enough of palmistry to see that +for yourself. You notice the slightness of the thumbs and of he two 'little' +fingers. They are the hands of a weak and over-sensitive man--a man +without confidence, a man who would certainly waver in an emergency. +Rather Hamletish hands," he mused. "And I'm like Hamlet in other respects, +too: I'm no fool, and I've rather a noble disposition, and I'm unlucky. +But Hamlet was luckier than I in one thing: he was a murderer by accident, +whereas the murders that I committed one day fourteen years ago--for I must +tell you it wasn't one murder, but many murders that I committed--were all +of them due to the wretched inherent weakness of my own wretched self. + +"I was twenty-six--no, twenty-seven years old, and rather a +nondescript person, as I am now. I was supposed to have been called to +the bar. In fact, I believe I HAD been called to the bar. I hadn't +listened to the call. I never intended to practise, and I never did practise. +I only wanted an excuse in the eyes of the world for existing. I suppose +the nearest I have ever come to practicing is now at this moment: I am +defending a murderer. My father had left me well enough provided with +money. I was able to go my own desultory way, riding my hobbies where +I would. I had a good stableful of hobbies. Palmistry was one of them. I +was rather ashamed of this one. It seemed to me absurd, as it seems to +you. Like you, though, I believed in it. Unlike you, I had done more +than merely read a book about it. I had read innumerable books +about it. I had taken casts of all my friends' hands. I had tested and +tested again the points at which Desbarolles dissented from the Gipsies, +and--well, enough that I had gone into it all rather thoroughly, and was as +sound a palmist, as a man may be without giving his whole life to +palmistry. + +"One of the first things I had seen in my own hand, as soon as I had +learned to read it, was that at about the age of twenty-six I should have a +narrow escape from death--from a violent death. There was a clean break +in the life-line, and a square joining it--the protective square, you know. +The markings were precisely the same in both hands. It was to be the +narrowest escape possible. And I wasn't going to escape without injury, +either. That is what bothered me. There was a faint line connecting the +break in the lifeline with a star on the line of health. Against that star +was another square. I was to recover from the injury, whatever it might +be. Still, I didn't exactly look forward to it. Soon after I had reached the +age of twenty-five, I began to feel uncomfortable. The thing might be +going to happen at any moment. In palmistry, you know, it is impossible +to pin an event down hard and fast to one year. This particular event was +to be when I was ABOUT twenty-six; it mightn't be till I was +twenty-seven; it might be while I was only twenty-five. + +"And I used to tell myself it mightn't be at all. My reason rebelled +against the whole notion of palmistry, just as yours does. I despised my +faith in the thing, just as you despise yours. I used to try not to be so +ridiculously careful as I was whenever I crossed a street. I lived in +London at that time. Motor-cars had not yet come in, but--what hours, +all told, I must have spent standing on curbs, very circumspect, very +lamentable! It was a pity, I suppose, that I had no definite occupation-- +something to take me out of myself. I was one of the victims of private +means. There came a time when I drove in four-wheelers rather than +in hansoms, and was doubtful of four-wheelers. Oh, I assure you, I was +very lamentable indeed. + +"If a railway-journey could be avoided, I avoided it. My uncle had +a place in Hampshire. I was very fond of him and of his wife. Theirs +was the only house I ever went to stay in now. I was there for a week in +November, not long after my twenty-seventh birthday. There were other +people staying there, and at the end of the week we all traveled back to +London together. There were six of us in the carriage: Colonel Elbourn +and his wife and their daughter, a girl of seventeen; and another married +couple, the Bretts. I had been at Winchester with Brett, but had hardly +seen him since that time. He was in the Indian Civil, and was home on +leave. He was sailing for India next week. His wife was to remain in +England for some months, and then join him out there. They had been +married five years. She was now just twenty-four years old. He told me +that this was her age. The Elbourns I had never met before. They were +charming people. We had all been very happy together. The only trouble +had been that on the last night, at dinner, my uncle asked me if I still +went in for 'the Gipsy business,' as he always called it; and of course the +three ladies were immensely excited, and implored me to 'do' their hands. +I told them it was all nonsense, I said I had forgotten all I once knew, I +made various excuses; and the matter dropped. It was quite true that I +had given up reading hands. I avoided anything that might remind me of +what was in my own hands. And so, next morning, it was a great bore to +me when, soon after the train started, Mrs. Elbourn said it would be 'too +cruel' of me if I refused to do their hands now. Her daughter and Mrs. +Brett also said it would be 'brutal'; and they were all taking off their +gloves, and--well, of course I had to give in. + +"I went to work methodically on Mrs. Elbourn's hands, in the usual +way, you know, first sketching the character from the backs of them; +and there was the usual hush, broken by the usual little noises-- +grunts of assent from the husband, cooings of recognition from the +daughter. Presently I asked to see the palms, and from them I filled in +the details of Mrs. Elbourn's character before going on to the events in +her life. But while I talked I was calculating how old Mrs. Elbourn might +be. In my first glance at her palms I had seen that she could not have +been less than twenty-five when she married. The daughter was +seventeen. Suppose the daughter had been born a year later--how old +would the mother be? Forty-three, yes. Not less than that, poor woman!" + +Laider looked at me. + +"Why 'poor woman!' you wonder? Well, in that first glance I had +seen other things than her marriage-line. I had seen a very complete +break in the lines of life and of fate. I had seen violent death there. At +what age? Not later, not possibly LATER, than forty-three. While I +talked to her about the things that had happened in her girlhood, the back +of my brain was hard at work on those marks of catastrophe. I was +horribly wondering that she was still alive. It was impossible that +between her and that catastrophe there could be more than a few short +months. And all the time I was talking; and I suppose I acquitted myself +well, for I remember that when I ceased I had a sort of ovation from the +Elbourns. + +"It was a relief to turn to another pair of hands. Mrs. Brett was an +amusing young creature, and her hands were very characteristic, and +prettily odd in form. I allowed myself to be rather whimsical about her +nature, and having begun in that vein, I went on in it, somehow, even +after she had turned her palms. In those palms were reduplicated the +signs I had seen in Mrs. Elbourn's. It was as though they had been copied +neatly out. The only difference was in the placing of them; and it was +this difference that was the most horrible point. The fatal age in Mrs. +Brett's hands was--not past, no, for here SHE was. But she might +have died when she was twenty-one. Twenty-three seemed to be the +utmost span. She was twenty-four, you know. + +"I have said that I am a weak man. And you will have good proof +of that directly. Yet I showed a certain amount of strength that day--yes, +even on that day which has humiliated and saddened the rest of my life. +Neither my face nor my voice betrayed me when in the palms of Dorothy +Elbourn I was again confronted with those same signs. She was all for +knowing the future, poor child! I believe I told her all manner of things +that were to be. And she had no future--none, none in THIS +world--except-- + +"And then, while I talked, there came to me suddenly a suspicion. I +wondered it hadn't come before. You guess what it was? It made me +feel very cold and strange. I went on talking. But, also, I went on--quite +separately--thinking. The suspicion wasn't a certainty. This mother and +daughter were always together. What was to befall the one might +anywhere--anywhere--befall the other. But a like fate, in an equally near +future, was in store for that other lady. The coincidence was curious, +very. Here we all were together--here, they and I--I who was narrowly to +escape, so soon now, what they, so soon now, were to suffer. Oh, there +was an inference to be drawn. Not a sure inference, I told myself. And +always I was talking, talking, and the train was swinging and swaying +noisily along--to what? It was a fast train. Our carriage was near the +engine. I was talking loudly. Full well I had known what I should see in +the colonel's hands. I told myself I had not known. I told myself that +even now the thing I dreaded was not sure to be. Don't think I was +dreading it for myself. I wasn't so 'lamentable' as all that--now. It was +only of them that I thought--only for them. I hurried over the colonel's +character and career; I was perfunctory. It was Brett's hands that I +wanted. THEY were the hands that mattered. If THEY had +the marks-- Remember, Brett was to start for India in the coming week, +his wife was to remain in England. They would be apart. Therefore-- + +"And the marks were there. And I did nothing--nothing but hold +forth on the subtleties of Brett's character. There was a thing for +me to do. I wanted to do it. I wanted to spring to the window and pull +the communication-cord. Quite a simple thing to do. Nothing easier +than to stop a train. You just give a sharp pull, and the train slows down, +comes to a standstill. And the guard appears at your window. You +explain to the guard. + +"Nothing easier than to tell him there is going to be a collision. +Nothing easier than to insist that you and your friends and every other +passenger in the train must get out at once. There ARE easier +things than this? Things that need less courage than this? Some of +THEM I could have done, I dare say. This thing I was going to do. +Oh, I was determined that I would do it--directly. + +"I had said all I had to say about Brett's hands. I had brought my +entertainment to an end. I had been thanked and complimented all +round. I was quite at liberty. I was going to do what I had to do. I was +determined, yes. + +"We were near the outskirts of London. The air was gray, +thickening; and Dorothy Elbourn had said: 'Oh, this horrible old London! +I suppose there's the same old fog!' And presently I heard her father +saying something about 'prevention' and 'a short act of Parliament' and +'anthracite.' And I sat and listened and agreed and--" + +Laider closed his eyes. He passed his hand slowly through the air. + +"I had a racking headache. And when I said so, I was told not to +talk. I was in bed, and the nurses were always telling me not to talk. I +was in a hospital. I knew that; but I didn't know why I was there. One +day I thought I should like to know why, and so I asked. I was feeling +much better now. They told me by degrees that I had had concussion of +the brain. I had been brought there unconscious, and had remained +unconscious for forty-eight hours. I had been in an accident--a +railway-accident. This seemed to me odd. I had arrived quite safely at +my uncle's place, and I had no memory of any journey since that. In +cases of concussion, you know, it's not uncommon for the patient to +forget all that happened just before the accident; there may be a blank for +several hours. So it was in my case. One day my uncle was allowed to +come and see me. And somehow, suddenly, at sight of him, the blank +was filled in. I remembered, in a flash, everything. I was quite calm, +though. Or I made myself seem so, for I wanted to know how the +collision had happened. My uncle told me that the engine-driver had +failed to see a signal because of the fog, and our train had crashed into a +goods-train. + +"I didn't ask him about the people who were with me. You see, +there was no need to ask. + +"Very gently my uncle began to tell me, but--I had begun to talk +strangely, I suppose. I remember the frightened look of my uncle's face, +and the nurse scolding him in whispers. + +"After that, all a blur. It seems that I became very ill indeed, wasn't +expected to live. + +"However, I live." + +There was a long silence. Laider did not look at me, nor I at him. +The fire was burning low, and he watched it. + +At length he spoke: + +"You despise me. Naturally. I despise myself." + +"No, I don't despise you; but--" + +"You blame me." I did not meet his gaze. "You blame me," he +repeated. + +"Yes." + +"And there, if I may say so, you are a little unjust. It isn't my fault +that I was born weak." + +"But a man may conquer his weakness." + +"Yes, if he is endowed with the strength for that." + +His fatalism drew from me a gesture of disgust. + +"Do you really mean," I asked, "that because you didn't pull that +cord, you COULDN'T have pulled it?" + +"Yes." + +"And it's written in your hands that you couldn't?" + +He looked at the palms of his hands. + +"They are the hands of a very weak man," he said. + +"A man so weak that he cannot believe in the possibility of free will +for himself or for any one?" + +"They are the hands of an intelligent man, who can weigh evidence +and see things as they are." + +"But answer me: Was it foreordained that you should not pull that +cord?" + +"It was foreordained." + +"And was it actually marked in your hands that you were not going +to pull it?" + +"Ah, well, you see, it is rather the things one IS going to do +that are actually marked. The things one isn't going to do,--the +innumerable negative things,--how could one expect THEM to be +marked?" + +"But the consequences of what one leaves undone may be +positive?" + +"Horribly positive. My hand is the hand of a man who has suffered +a great deal in later life." + +"And was it the hand of a man DESTINED to suffer?" + +"Oh, yes. I thought I told you that." + +There was a pause. + +"Well," I said, with awkward sympathy, "I suppose all hands are the +hands of people destined to suffer." + +"Not of people destined to suffer so much as _I_ have +suffered--as I still suffer." + +The insistence of his self-pity chilled me, and I harked back to a +question he had not straightly answered. + +"Tell me: Was it marked in your hands that you were not going to +pull that cord?" + +Again he looked at his hands, and then, having pressed them for a +moment to his face, "It was marked very clearly," he answered, "in +THEIR hands." + +Two or three days after this colloquy there had occurred to me in London +an idea--an ingenious and comfortable doubt. How was Laider to be sure +that his brain, recovering from concussion, had REMEMBERED what +happened in the course of that railway-journey? How was he to know +that his brain hadn't simply, in its abeyance, INVENTED all this for +him? It might be that he had never seen those signs in those hands. +Assuredly, here was a bright loophole. I had forthwith written to Laider, +pointing it out. + +This was the letter which now, at my second visit, I had found +miserably pent on the letter-board. I remembered my promise to rescue +it. I arose from the retaining fireside, stretched my arms, yawned, and +went forth to fulfil my Christian purpose. There was no one in the hall. +The "shower" had at length ceased. The sun had positively come out, +and the front door had been thrown open in its honor. Everything along +the sea-front was beautifully gleaming, drying, shimmering. But I was +not to be diverted from my purpose. I went to the letter-board. And--my +letter was not there! Resourceful and plucky little thing--it had escaped! +I did hope it would not be captured and brought back. Perhaps the alarm +had already been raised by the tolling of that great bell which warns the +inhabitants for miles around that a letter has broken loose from the +letter-board. I had a vision of my envelop skimming wildly along the +coast-line, pursued by the old, but active, waiter and a breathless pack of +local worthies. I saw it outdistancing them all, dodging past +coast-guards, doubling on its tracks, leaping breakwaters, unluckily +injuring itself, losing speed, and at last, in a splendor of desperation, +taking to the open sea. But suddenly I had another idea. Perhaps Laider +had returned? + +He had. I espied afar on the sands a form that was recognizably, by +the listless droop of it, his. I was glad and sorry--rather glad, because he +completed the scene of last year; and very sorry, because this time we +should be at each other's mercy: no restful silence and liberty for either of +us this time. Perhaps he had been told I was here, and had gone out to +avoid me while he yet could. Oh weak, weak! Why palter? I put on my +hat and coat, and marched out to meet him. + +"Influenza, of course?" we asked simultaneously. + +There is a limit to the time which one man may spend in talking to +another about his own influenza; and presently, as we paced the sands, I +felt that Laider had passed this limit. I wondered that he didn't break off +and thank me now for my letter. He must have read it. He ought to have +thanked me for it at once. It was a very good letter, a remarkable letter. +But surely he wasn't waiting to answer it by post? His silence about it +gave me the absurd sense of having taken a liberty, confound him! +He was evidently ill at ease while he talked. But it wasn't for me to help +him out of his difficulty, whatever that might be. It was for him to +remove the strain imposed on myself. + +Abruptly, after a long pause, he did now manage to say: + +"It was--very good of you to--to write me that letter." He told me +he had only just got it, and he drifted away into otiose explanations of +this fact. I thought he might at least say it was a remarkable letter; and +you can imagine my annoyance when he said, after another interval, "I +was very much touched indeed." I had wished to be convincing, not +touching. I can't bear to be called touching. + +"Don't you," I asked, "think it IS quite possible that your +brain invented all those memories of what--what happened before that +accident?" + +He drew a sharp sigh. + +"You make me feel very guilty." + +"That's exactly what I tried to make you NOT feel!" + +"I know, yes. That's why I feel so guilty." + +We had paused in our walk. He stood nervously prodding the hard +wet sand with his walking-stick. + +"In a way," he said, "your theory was quite right. But--it didn't go +far enough. It's not only possible, it's a fact, that I didn't see those signs +in those hands. I never examined those hands. They weren't there. +_I_ wasn't there. I haven't an uncle in Hampshire, even. I never +had." + +I, too, prodded the sand. + +"Well," I said at length, "I do feel rather a fool." + +"I've no right even to beg your pardon, but--'' + +"Oh, I'm not vexed. Only--I rather wish you hadn't told me this." + +"I wish I hadn't had to. It was your kindness, you see, that forced +me. By trying to take an imaginary load off my conscience, you laid a +very real one on it." + +"I'm sorry. But you, of your own free will, you know, exposed your +conscience to me last year. I don't yet quite understand why you did +that." + +"No, of course not. I don't deserve that you should. But I think you +will. May I explain? I'm afraid I've talked a great deal already about my +influenza, and I sha'n't be able to keep it out of my explanation. Well, +my weakest point--I told you this last year, but it happens to be perfectly +true that my weakest point--is my will. Influenza, as you know, fastens +unerringly on one's weakest point. It doesn't attempt to undermine my +imagination. That would be a forlorn hope. I have, alas! a very strong +imagination. At ordinary times my imagination allows itself to be +governed by my will. My will keeps it in check by constant nagging. +But when my will isn't strong enough even to nag, then my imagination +stampedes. I become even as a little child. I tell myself the most +preposterous fables, and--the trouble is--I can't help telling them to my +friends. Until I've thoroughly shaken off influenza, I'm not fit company +for any one. I perfectly realize this, and I have the good sense to go right +away till I'm quite well again. I come here usually. It seems absurd, but I +must confess I was sorry last year when we fell into conversation. I knew +I should very soon be letting myself go, or, rather, very soon be swept +away. Perhaps I ought to have warned you; but--I'm a rather shy man. +And then you mentioned the subject of palmistry. You said you believed +in it. I wondered at that. I had once read Desbarolles's book about it, but +I am bound to say I thought the whole thing very great nonsense indeed." + +"Then," I gasped, "it isn't even true that you believe in palmistry?" + +"Oh, no. But I wasn't able to tell you that. You had begun by +saying that you believed in palmistry, and then you proceeded to scoff at +it. While you scoffed I saw myself as a man with a terribly good reason +for NOT scoffing; and in a flash I saw the terribly good reason; I +had the whole story--at least I had the broad outlines of it--clear before +me." + +"You hadn't ever thought of it before?" He shook his +head. My eyes beamed. "The whole thing was a sheer improvisation?" + +"Yes," said Laider, humbly, "I am as bad as all that. I don't say that +all the details of the story I told you that evening were filled in at the very +instant of its conception. I was filling them in while we talked about +palmistry in general, and while I was waiting for the moment when the +story would come in most effectively. And I've no doubt I added some +extra touches in the course of the actual telling. Don't imagine that I took +the slightest pleasure in deceiving you. It's only my will, not my +conscience, that is weakened after influenza. I simply can't help telling +what I've made up, and telling it to the best of my ability. But I'm +thoroughly ashamed all the time." + +"Not of your ability, surely?" + +"Yes, of that, too," he said, with his sad smile. "I always feel that +I'm not doing justice to my idea." + +"You are too stern a critic, believe me." + +"It is very kind of you to say that. You are very kind altogether. +Had I known that you were so essentially a man of the world, in the best +sense of that term, I shouldn't have so much dreaded seeing you just now +and having to confess to you. But I'm not going to take advantage of +your urbanity and your easy-going ways. I hope that some day we may +meet somewhere when I haven't had influenza and am a not wholly +undesirable acquaintance. As it is, I refuse to let you associate with me. +I am an older man than you, and so I may without impertinence warn you +against having anything to do with me." + +I deprecated this advice, of course; but for a man of weakened will +he showed great firmness. + +"You," he said, "in your heart of hearts, don't want to have to walk +and talk continually with a person who might at any moment try to +bamboozle you with some ridiculous tale. And I, for my part, don't want +to degrade myself by trying to bamboozle any one, especially one whom I +have taught to see through me. Let the two talks we have had be as +though they had not been. Let us bow to each other, as last year, but let +that be all. Let us follow in all things the precedent of last year." + +With a smile that was almost gay he turned on his heel, and moved +away with a step that was almost brisk. I was a little disconcerted. But I +was also more than a little glad. The restfulness of silence, the charm of +liberty--these things were not, after all, forfeit. My heart thanked Laider +for that; and throughout the week I loyally seconded him in the system he +had laid down for us. All was as it had been last year. We did not smile +to each other, we merely bowed, when we entered or left the dining-room +or smoking-room, and when we met on the wide-spread sands or in that +shop which had a small and faded but circulating library. + +Once or twice in the course of the week it did occur to me that +perhaps Laider had told the simple truth at our first interview and an +ingenious lie at our second. I frowned at this possibility. The idea of any +one wishing to be quit of ME was most distasteful. However, I +was to find reassurance. On the last evening of my stay I suggested, in +the small smoking-room, that he and I should, as sticklers for precedent, +converse. We did so very pleasantly. And after a while I happened to +say that I had seen this afternoon a great number of sea-gulls flying close +to the shore. + +"Sea-gulls?" said Laider, turning in his chair. + +"Yes. And I don't think I had ever realized how extraordinarily +beautiful they are when their wings catch the light." + +Laider threw a quick glance at me and away from me. + +"You think them beautiful?" + +"Surely." + +"Well, perhaps they are, yes; I suppose they are. But--I don't like +seeing them. They always remind me of something--rather an awful +thing--that once happened to me." + +IT was a very awful thing indeed. + + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of A. V. Laider, by Max Beerbohm + + + + + + +Note: I have closed contractions in the text, e.g., +"does n't" has become "doesn't" etc.; +in addition, on page 18, paragraph 3, line 5, +I have changed "Dyott" to "Dyatt" + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of A. V. Laider, by Max Beerbohm + diff --git a/old/laidr10.zip b/old/laidr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cdb7978 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/laidr10.zip |