The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad (best books to read for self improvement txt) đ
- Author: Joseph Conrad
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For some thirty seconds longer Mr. Vladimir studied in the mirror the fleshy profile, the gross bulk, of the man behind him. And at the same time he had the advantage of seeing his own face, clean-shaved and round, rosy about the gills, and with the thin sensitive lips formed exactly for the utterance of those delicate witticisms which had made him such a favourite in the very highest society. Then he turned, and advanced into the room with such determination that the very ends of his quaintly old-fashioned bow necktie seemed to bristle with unspeakable menaces. The movement was so swift and fierce that Mr. Verloc, casting an oblique glance, quailed inwardly.
âAha! You dare be impudent,â Mr. Vladimir began, with an amazingly guttural intonation not only utterly un-English, but absolutely un-European, and startling even to Mr. Verlocâs experience of cosmopolitan slums. âYou dare! Well, I am going to speak plain English to you. Voice wonât do. We have no use for your voice. We donât want a voice. We want factsâ âstartling factsâ âdamn you,â he added, with a sort of ferocious discretion, right into Mr. Verlocâs face.
âDonât you try to come over me with your Hyperborean manners,â Mr. Verloc defended himself huskily, looking at the carpet. At this his interlocutor, smiling mockingly above the bristling bow of his necktie, switched the conversation into French.
âYou give yourself for an âagent provocateur.â The proper business of an âagent provocateurâ is to provoke. As far as I can judge from your record kept here, you have done nothing to earn your money for the last three years.â
âNothing!â exclaimed Verloc, stirring not a limb, and not raising his eyes, but with the note of sincere feeling in his tone. âI have several times prevented what might have beenâ ââ
âThere is a proverb in this country which says prevention is better than cure,â interrupted Mr. Vladimir, throwing himself into the armchair. âIt is stupid in a general way. There is no end to prevention. But it is characteristic. They dislike finality in this country. Donât you be too English. And in this particular instance, donât be absurd. The evil is already here. We donât want preventionâ âwe want cure.â
He paused, turned to the desk, and turning over some papers lying there, spoke in a changed businesslike tone, without looking at Mr. Verloc.
âYou know, of course, of the International Conference assembled in Milan?â
Mr. Verloc intimated hoarsely that he was in the habit of reading the daily papers. To a further question his answer was that, of course, he understood what he read. At this Mr. Vladimir, smiling faintly at the documents he was still scanning one after another, murmured âAs long as it is not written in Latin, I suppose.â
âOr Chinese,â added Mr. Verloc stolidly.
âHâm. Some of your revolutionary friendsâ effusions are written in a charabia every bit as incomprehensible as Chineseâ ââ Mr. Vladimir let fall disdainfully a grey sheet of printed matter. âWhat are all these leaflets headed F. P., with a hammer, pen, and torch crossed? What does it mean, this F. P.?â Mr. Verloc approached the imposing writing-table.
âThe Future of the Proletariat. Itâs a society,â he explained, standing ponderously by the side of the armchair, ânot anarchist in principle, but open to all shades of revolutionary opinion.â
âAre you in it?â
âOne of the Vice-Presidents,â Mr. Verloc breathed out heavily; and the First Secretary of the Embassy raised his head to look at him.
âThen you ought to be ashamed of yourself,â he said incisively. âIsnât your society capable of anything else but printing this prophetic bosh in blunt type on this filthy paper eh? Why donât you do something? Look here. Iâve this matter in hand now, and I tell you plainly that you will have to earn your money. The good old Stott-Wartenheim times are over. No work, no pay.â
Mr. Verloc felt a queer sensation of faintness in his stout legs. He stepped back one pace, and blew his nose loudly.
He was, in truth, startled and alarmed. The rusty London sunshine struggling clear of the London mist shed a lukewarm brightness into the First Secretaryâs private room; and in the silence Mr. Verloc heard against a windowpane the faint buzzing of a flyâ âhis first fly of the yearâ âheralding better than any number of swallows the approach of spring. The useless fussing of that tiny energetic organism affected unpleasantly this big man threatened in his indolence.
In the pause Mr. Vladimir formulated in his mind a series of disparaging remarks concerning Mr. Verlocâs face and figure. The fellow was unexpectedly vulgar, heavy, and impudently unintelligent. He looked uncommonly like a master plumber come to present his bill. The First Secretary of the Embassy, from his occasional excursions into the field of American humour, had formed a special notion of that class of mechanic as the embodiment of fraudulent laziness and incompetency.
This was then the famous and trusty secret agent, so secret that he was never designated otherwise but by the symbol Î in the late Baron Stott-Wartenheimâs official, semiofficial, and confidential correspondence; the celebrated agent Î, whose warnings had the power to change the schemes and the dates of royal, imperial, grand ducal journeys, and sometimes caused them to be put off altogether! This fellow! And Mr. Vladimir indulged mentally in an enormous and derisive fit of merriment, partly at his own astonishment, which he judged naive, but mostly at the expense of the universally regretted Baron Stott-Wartenheim. His late Excellency, whom the august favour of his Imperial master had imposed as Ambassador upon several reluctant Ministers of Foreign Affairs, had enjoyed in his lifetime a fame for an owlish, pessimistic gullibility. His Excellency had the social revolution on the brain. He imagined himself to be a diplomatist set apart by a special dispensation to watch the end of diplomacy, and pretty nearly the end of the world, in a horrid democratic upheaval. His prophetic and doleful despatches had been for years the joke of Foreign Offices. He was said to have exclaimed on his deathbed
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