The Gadfly by E. L. Voynich (latest novels to read .txt) 📖

to come on every evening, about dusk;

and in the afternoon I used to lie alone, and watch

the sun get lower and lower–- Oh, you can’t

understand! It makes me sick to look at a sunset now!”

 

A long pause.

 

“Well, then I went up country, to see if I could

get work anywhere—it would have driven me mad

to stay in Lima. I got as far as Cuzco, and

there–– Really I don’t know why I’m inflicting

all this ancient history on you; it hasn’t even the

merit of being funny.”

 

She raised her head and looked at him with deep

and serious eyes. “PLEASE don’t talk that way,”

she said.

 

He bit his lip and tore off another piece of the

rug-fringe.

 

“Shall I go on?” he asked after a moment.

 

“If—if you will. I am afraid it is horrible to

you to remember.”

 

“Do you think I forget when I hold my tongue?

It’s worse then. But don’t imagine it’s the thing

itself that haunts me so. It is the fact of having

lost the power over myself.”

 

“I—don’t think I quite understand.”

 

“I mean, it is the fact of having come to the

end of my courage, to the point where I found

myself a coward.”

 

“Surely there is a limit to what anyone can bear.”

 

“Yes; and the man who has once reached

that limit never knows when he may reach it

again.”

 

“Would you mind telling me,” she asked, hesitating,

“how you came to be stranded out there alone at twenty?”

 

“Very simply: I had a good opening in life, at

home in the old country, and ran away from it.”

 

“Why?”

 

He laughed again in his quick, harsh way.

 

“Why? Because I was a priggish young cub,

I suppose. I had been brought up in an overluxurious

home, and coddled and faddled after till

I thought the world was made of pink cotton-wool

and sugared almonds. Then one fine day I found

out that someone I had trusted had deceived me.

Why, how you start! What is it?”

 

“Nothing. Go on, please.”

 

“I found out that I had been tricked into believing

a lie; a common bit of experience, of course;

but, as I tell you, I was young and priggish, and

thought that liars go to hell. So I ran away from

home and plunged into South America to sink or

swim as I could, without a cent in my pocket or a

word of Spanish in my tongue, or anything but

white hands and expensive habits to get my bread

with. And the natural result was that I got a dip

into the real hell to cure me of imagining sham

ones. A pretty thorough dip, too—it was just

five years before the Duprez expedition came

along and pulled me out.”

 

“Five years! Oh, that is terrible! And had

you no friends?”

 

“Friends! I”—he turned on her with sudden

fierceness—“I have NEVER had a friend!”

 

The next instant he seemed a little ashamed of

his vehemence, and went on quickly:

 

“You mustn’t take all this too seriously; I dare

say I made the worst of things, and really it wasn’t

so bad the first year and a half; I was young and

strong and I managed to scramble along fairly

well till the Lascar put his mark on me. But after

that I couldn’t get work. It’s wonderful what an

effectual tool a poker is if you handle it properly;

and nobody cares to employ a cripple.”

 

“What sort of work did you do?”

 

“What I could get. For some time I lived by

odd-jobbing for the blacks on the sugar plantations,

fetching and carrying and so on. It’s one of

the curious things in life, by the way, that slaves

always contrive to have a slave of their own, and

there’s nothing a negro likes so much as a white

fag to bully. But it was no use; the overseers

always turned me off. I was too lame to be

quick; and I couldn’t manage the heavy loads.

And then I was always getting these attacks

of inflammation, or whatever the confounded

thing is.

 

“After some time I went down to the silver-mines

and tried to get work there; but it was all

no good. The managers laughed at the very

notion of taking me on, and as for the men, they

made a dead set at me.”

 

“Why was that?”

 

“Oh, human nature, I suppose; they saw I had

only one hand that I could hit back with. They’re

a mangy, half-caste lot; negroes and Zambos

mostly. And then those horrible coolies! So at

last I got enough of that, and set off to tramp the

country at random; just wandering about, on the

chance of something turning up.”

 

“To tramp? With that lame foot!”

 

He looked up with a sudden, piteous catching

of the breath.

 

“I—I was hungry,” he said.

 

She turned her head a little away and rested her

chin on one hand. After a moment’s silence he

began again, his voice sinking lower and lower as

he spoke:

 

“Well, I tramped, and tramped, till I was nearly

mad with tramping, and nothing came of it. I

got down into Ecuador, and there it was worse

than ever. Sometimes I’d get a bit of tinkering

to do,—I’m a pretty fair tinker,—or an errand to

run, or a pigstye to clean out; sometimes I

did—oh, I hardly know what. And then at last,

one day––”

 

The slender, brown hand clenched itself suddenly

on the table, and Gemma, raising her head,

glanced at him anxiously. His side-face was

turned towards her, and she could see a vein on

the temple beating like a hammer, with quick,

irregular strokes. She bent forward and laid a

gentle hand on his arm.

 

“Never mind the rest; it’s almost too horrible

to talk about.”

 

He stared doubtfully at the hand, shook his

head, and went on steadily:

 

“Then one day I met a travelling variety show.

You remember that one the other night; well, that

sort of thing, only coarser and more indecent.

The Zambos are not like these gentle Florentines;

they don’t care for anything that is not foul or

brutal. There was bull-fighting, too, of course.

They had camped out by the roadside for the

night; and I went up to their tent to beg. Well,

the weather was hot and I was half starved, and

so—I fainted at the door of the tent. I had a

trick of fainting suddenly at that time, like a

boarding-school girl with tight stays. So they

took me in and gave me brandy, and food, and so

on; and then—the next morning—they offered

me–-”

 

Another pause.

 

“They wanted a hunchback, or monstrosity of

some kind; for the boys to pelt with orange-peel

and banana-skins—something to set the blacks

laughing–– You saw the clown that night—

well, I was that—for two years. I suppose you

have a humanitarian feeling about negroes and

Chinese. Wait till you’ve been at their mercy!

 

“Well, I learned to do the tricks. I was not

quite deformed enough; but they set that right

with an artificial hump and made the most of this

foot and arm–- And the Zambos are not critical;

they’re easily satisfied if only they can get

hold of some live thing to torture—the fool’s dress

makes a good deal of difference, too.

 

“The only difficulty was that I was so often ill

and unable to play. Sometimes, if the manager

was out of temper, he would insist on my coming

into the ring when I had these attacks on; and I

believe the people liked those evenings best.

Once, I remember, I fainted right off with the pain

in the middle of the performance–- When I

came to my senses again, the audience had got

round me—hooting and yelling and pelting me

with––”

 

“Don’t! I can’t hear any more! Stop, for

God’s sake!”

 

She was standing up with both hands over her

ears. He broke off, and, looking up, saw the

glitter of tears in her eyes.

 

“Damn it all, what an idiot I am!” he said

under his breath.

 

She crossed the room and stood for a little while

looking out of the window. When she turned

round, the Gadfly was again leaning on the table

and covering his eyes with one hand. He had evidently

forgotten her presence, and she sat down

beside him without speaking. After a long silence

she said slowly:

 

“I want to ask you a question.”

 

“Yes?” without moving.

 

“Why did you not cut your throat?”

 

He looked up in grave surprise. “I did not expect

YOU to ask that,” he said. “And what about

my work? Who would have done it for me?”

 

“Your work–- Ah, I see! You talked just

now about being a coward; well, if you have come

through that and kept to your purpose, you are

the very bravest man that I have ever met.”

 

He covered his eyes again, and held her hand in

a close passionate clasp. A silence that seemed to

have no end fell around them.

 

Suddenly a clear and fresh soprano voice rang

out from the garden below, singing a verse of a

doggerel French song:

 

“Eh, Pierrot! Danse, Pierrot!

Danse un peu, mon pauvre Jeannot!

Vive la danse et l’allegresse!

Jouissons de notre bell’ jeunesse!

Si moi je pleure ou moi je soupire,

Si moi je fais la triste figure—

Monsieur, ce n’est que pour rire!

Ha! Ha, ha, ha!

Monsieur, ce n’est que pour rire!”

 

At the first words the Gadfly tore his hand from

Gemma’s and shrank away with a stifled groan.

She clasped both hands round his arm and pressed

it firmly, as she might have pressed that of a person

undergoing a surgical operation. When the

song broke off and a chorus of laughter and applause

came from the garden, he looked up with

the eyes of a tortured animal.

 

“Yes, it is Zita,” he said slowly; “with her

officer friends. She tried to come in here the

other night, before Riccardo came. I should have

gone mad if she had touched me!”

 

“But she does not know,” Gemma protested

softly. “She cannot guess that she is hurting

you.”

 

“She is like a Creole,” he answered, shuddering.

“Do you remember her face that night when we

brought in the beggar-child? That is how the

half-castes look when they laugh.”

 

Another burst of laughter came from the garden.

Gemma rose and opened the window. Zita, with

a gold-embroidered scarf wound coquettishly

round her head, was standing in the garden path,

holding up a bunch of violets, for the possession

of which three young cavalry officers appeared

to be competing.

 

“Mme. Reni!” said Gemma.

 

Zita’s face darkened like a thunder-cloud.

“Madame?” she said, turning and raising her

eyes with a defiant look.

 

“Would your friends mind speaking a little

more softly? Signor Rivarez is very unwell.”

 

The gipsy flung down her violets. “Allez-vous

en!” she said, turning sharply on the astonished

officers. “Vous m’embetez, messieurs!”

 

She went slowly out into the road. Gemma

closed the window.

 

“They have gone away,” she said, turning to

him.

 

“Thank you. I—I am sorry to have troubled

you.”

 

“It was no trouble.” He at once detected the

hesitation in her voice.

 

“‘But?’” he said. “That sentence was not

finished, signora; there was an unspoken ‘but’ in

the back of your mind.”

 

“If you look into the backs of people’s minds,

you mustn’t be offended at what you read there.

It is not my