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

of life.

Surely the gods had loved him a little, and had let

him die young! Better a thousand times that he

should pass into utter nothingness than that he

should live and be the Gadfly—the Gadfly, with

his faultless neckties and his doubtful witticisms,

his bitter tongue and his ballet girl! No, no! It

was all a horrible, senseless fancy; and she had

vexed her heart with vain imaginings. Arthur

was dead.

 

“May I come in?” asked a soft voice at the

door.

 

She started so that the portrait fell from her

hand, and the Gadfly, limping across the room,

picked it up and handed it to her.

 

“How you startled me!” she said.

 

“I am s-so sorry. Perhaps I am disturbing

you?”

 

“No. I was only turning over some old

things.”

 

She hesitated for a moment; then handed him

back the miniature.

 

“What do you think of that head?”

 

While he looked at it she watched his face as

though her life depended upon its expression; but

it was merely negative and critical.

 

“You have set me a difficult task,” he said.

“The portrait is faded, and a child’s face is always

hard to read. But I should think that child would

grow into an unlucky man, and the wisest thing

he could do would be to abstain from growing into

a man at all.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Look at the line of the under-lip. Th-th-that

is the sort of nature that feels pain as pain and

wrong as wrong; and the world has no r-r-room

for such people; it needs people who feel nothing

but their work.”

 

“Is it at all like anyone you know?”

 

He looked at the portrait more closely.

 

“Yes. What a curious thing! Of course it

is; very like.”

 

“Like whom?”

 

“C-c-cardinal Montan-nelli. I wonder whether

his irreproachable Eminence has any nephews, by

the way? Who is it, if I may ask?”

 

“It is a portrait, taken in childhood, of the

friend I told you about the other day–-”

 

“Whom you killed?”

 

She winced in spite of herself. How lightly,

how cruelly he used that dreadful word!

 

“Yes, whom I killed—if he is really dead.”

 

“If?”

 

She kept her eyes on his face.

 

“I have sometimes doubted,” she said. “The

body was never found. He may have run away

from home, like you, and gone to South America.”

 

“Let us hope not. That would be a bad memory

to carry about with you. I have d-d-done

some hard fighting in my t-time, and have sent

m-more than one man to Hades, perhaps; but if

I had it on my conscience that I had sent any l-living

thing to South America, I should sleep badly–-”

 

“Then do you believe,” she interrupted, coming

nearer to him with clasped hands, “that if he were

not drowned,—if he had been through your experience

instead,—he would never come back and

let the past go? Do you believe he would NEVER

forget? Remember, it has cost me something,

too. Look!”

 

She pushed back the heavy waves of hair from

her forehead. Through the black locks ran a

broad white streak.

 

There was a long silence.

 

“I think,” the Gadfly said slowly, “that the

dead are better dead. Forgetting some things is

a difficult matter. And if I were in the place of

your dead friend, I would s-s-stay dead. The

REVENANT is an ugly spectre.”

 

She put the portrait back into its drawer and

locked the desk.

 

“That is hard doctrine,” she said. “And now

we will talk about something else.”

 

“I came to have a little business talk with you,

if I may—a private one, about a plan that I have

in my head.”

 

She drew a chair to the table and sat down.

“What do you think of the projected press-law?”

he began, without a trace of his usual stammer.

 

“What I think of it? I think it will not be of

much value, but half a loaf is better than no

bread.”

 

“Undoubtedly. Then do you intend to work

on one of the new papers these good folk here are

preparing to start?”

 

“I thought of doing so. There is always a

great deal of practical work to be done in starting

any paper—printing and circulation arrangements

and–-”

 

“How long are you going to waste your mental

gifts in that fashion?”

 

“Why ‘waste’?”

 

“Because it is waste. You know quite well

that you have a far better head than most of the

men you are working with, and you let them make

a regular drudge and Johannes factotum of you.

Intellectually you are as far ahead of Grassini and

Galli as if they were schoolboys; yet you sit correcting

their proofs like a printer’s devil.”

 

“In the first place, I don’t spend all my time

in correcting proofs; and moreover it seems to me

that you exaggerate my mental capacities. They

are by no means so brilliant as you think.”

 

“I don’t think them brilliant at all,” he answered

quietly; “but I do think them sound and

solid, which is of much more importance. At

those dreary committee meetings it is always you

who put your finger on the weak spot in everybody’s logic.”

 

“You are not fair to the others. Martini, for

instance, has a very logical head, and there is no

doubt about the capacities of Fabrizi and Lega. Then

Grassini has a sounder knowledge of Italian economic

statistics than any official in the country, perhaps.”

 

“Well, that’s not saying much; but let us lay

them and their capacities aside. The fact remains

that you, with such gifts as you possess, might do

more important work and fill a more responsible

post than at present.”

 

“I am quite satisfied with my position. The

work I am doing is not of very much value, perhaps,

but we all do what we can.”

 

“Signora Bolla, you and I have gone too far to

play at compliments and modest denials now.

Tell me honestly, do you recognize that you are

using up your brain on work which persons inferior

to you could do as well?”

 

“Since you press me for an answer—yes, to

some extent.”

 

“Then why do you let that go on?”

 

No answer.

 

“Why do you let it go on?”

 

“Because—I can’t help it.”

 

“Why?”

 

She looked up reproachfully. “That is unkind

—it’s not fair to press me so.”

 

“But all the same you are going to tell me why.”

 

“If you must have it, then—because my life has

been smashed into pieces, and I have not the

energy to start anything REAL, now. I am about

fit to be a revolutionary cab-horse, and do the

party’s drudge-work. At least I do it conscientiously,

and it must be done by somebody.”

 

“Certainly it must be done by somebody; but

not always by the same person.”

 

“It’s about all I’m fit for.”

 

He looked at her with half-shut eyes, inscrutably.

Presently she raised her head.

 

“We are returning to the old subject; and this

was to be a business talk. It is quite useless, I

assure you, to tell me I might have done all sorts

of things. I shall never do them now. But I may

be able to help you in thinking out your plan.

What is it?”

 

“You begin by telling me that it is useless for

me to suggest anything, and then ask what I want

to suggest. My plan requires your help in action,

not only in thinking out.”

 

“Let me hear it and then we will discuss.”

 

“Tell me first whether you have heard anything

about schemes for a rising in Venetia.”

 

“I have heard of nothing but schemes for risings

and Sanfedist plots ever since the amnesty,

and I fear I am as sceptical about the one as about

the other.”

 

“So am I, in most cases; but I am speaking of

really serious preparations for a rising of the whole

province against the Austrians. A good many

young fellows in the Papal States—particularly in

the Four Legations—are secretly preparing to get

across there and join as volunteers. And I hear

from my friends in the Romagna–-”

 

“Tell me,” she interrupted, “are you quite sure

that these friends of yours can be trusted?”

 

“Quite sure. I know them personally, and

have worked with them.”

 

“That is, they are members of the ‘sect’ to

which you belong? Forgive my scepticism, but I

am always a little doubtful as to the accuracy of

information received from secret societies. It

seems to me that the habit–-”

 

“Who told you I belonged to a ‘sect’?” he interrupted sharply.

 

“No one; I guessed it.”

 

“Ah!” He leaned back in his chair and looked

at her, frowning. “Do you always guess people’s

private affairs?” he said after a moment.

 

“Very often. I am rather observant, and have

a habit of putting things together. I tell you that

so that you may be careful when you don’t want

me to know a thing.”

 

“I don’t mind your knowing anything so long as it

goes no further. I suppose this has not–-”

 

She lifted her head with a gesture of half-offended

surprise. “Surely that is an unnecessary question!” she said.

 

“Of course I know you would not speak of anything

to outsiders; but I thought that perhaps, to

the members of your party–-”

 

“The party’s business is with facts, not with

my personal conjectures and fancies. Of course

I have never mentioned the subject to anyone.”

 

“Thank you. Do you happen to have guessed

which sect I belong to?”

 

“I hope—you must not take offence at my

frankness; it was you who started this talk, you

know–- I do hope it is not the ‘Knifers.’”

 

“Why do you hope that?”

 

“Because you are fit for better things.”

 

“We are all fit for better things than we ever

do. There is your own answer back again. However,

it is not the ‘Knifers’ that I belong to, but

the ‘Red Girdles.’ They are a steadier lot, and

take their work more seriously.”

 

“Do you mean the work of knifing?”

 

“That, among other things. Knives are very

useful in their way; but only when you have a

good, organized propaganda behind them. That

is what I dislike in the other sect. They think a

knife can settle all the world’s difficulties; and

that’s a mistake. It can settle a good many, but

not all.”

 

“Do you honestly believe that it settles any?”

 

He looked at her in surprise.

 

“Of course,” she went on, “it eliminates, for

the moment, the practical difficulty caused by the

presence of a clever spy or objectionable official;

but whether it does not create worse difficulties in

place of the one removed is another question. It

seems to me like the parable of the swept and garnished

house and the seven devils. Every assassination only

makes the police more vicious and

the people more accustomed to violence and brutality,

and the last state of the community may be

worse than the first.”

 

“What do you think will happen when the revolution

comes? Do you suppose the people won’t

have to get accustomed to violence then? War

is war.”

 

“Yes, but open revolution is another matter.

It is one moment in the people’s life, and it is the

price we have to pay for all our progress. No

doubt fearful things will happen; they must in

every revolution. But they will be isolated

facts—exceptional features of an exceptional moment.

The horrible thing about this