Despair's Last Journey

by David Christie Murray

‘I don’t smoke, thank you.’

‘And that again is a very sensible thing,’ said the stranger, laughing. ‘I am a slave to tobacco. Smoking has ceased to be a pleasure since it became a necessity.’

The man’s speech had a faintly foreign sound, but his English was faultless. The very slight peculiarity which marked it was rather a level flatness in the tone than an accent It suggested a time when it had cost him an effort to speak the language, though the time had long passed away. The good-nature with which he accepted Paul’s rebuff lulled the youngster’s suspicions, and lulled it the more completely that the man turned away with a smiling nod and made no further attempt to enter into conversation.

The lion comique was followed by a juggler, who appeared in the guise of a hotel waiter, and laid a table as if for breakfast. The table arranged, he began to perform the most extraordinary tricks with the things he had placed upon it Eggs, egg-cups, teapot, cream-jug, sugar-basin, breakfast bacon, loaf, bread-trencher, table-napkins, plates, knives, forks, and spoons spouted in a fountain from his hands. They seemed to be thrown into the air at random, and the man darted hither and thither about the stage to catch them. Then he was back at the table again amidst a storm of crockeryware, cutlery, and provisions, and each article as it descended was caught with an astonishing dexterity and set in its proper place with a swift exactness which looked like magic. The artist had a perfect aplomb, and he put off the catching of each article till the last fraction of the inevitable second, so that he seemed secure in perfect triumph and yet on the edge of instant failure. The house howled with excited laughter and applause, and Paul roared as loud as any. He was as sober as a judge so far as balance of body and clearness of speech and thought were concerned, but the wine was in his blood. He stamped, clapped hands, and shouted until the performer left the stage, and had twice returned and bowed He felt that the applause would not cease until he ceased to lead it.

‘That’s better, eh?’ said the man at Paul’s side when the tumult was over.

‘Yes, by Jingo!’ said Paul ‘It was better. Look here, I’m afraid I was rather rude to you a little while ago. Come and have a drink with me.’

‘With all the pleasure in life,’ the stranger answered.

They rose and pushed their way to the bar together. The stranger would like a brandy-and-soda. Paul would take a brandy-and-soda. They talked, and Paul thought his chance-found companion a remarkably agreeable fellow. He seemed to have been everywhere. He spoke familiarly of many European countries and of the United States. But somehow he faded away in a sort of mist, and Paul’s last remembrance of him was that he was laughingly pulling at his arm and advising him to go home. He seemed to be blotted out suddenly in that very act.

The Exile flashed back from his memories to himself, and awoke with a faint, gasping cry, for his mind had led him to the hour of the lost innocence. There are thousands on thousands of men who have lived purer lives than he who would yet deride the shaft which struck him, and laugh to think of its poignant power to wound. For the pure soul in the frail body, for the high hope and the will of burned cord, for the passion which hurries the senses and has no power to blind the conscience, there is a lasting purgatory open. How many a time since that hour of loss he had groaned in the silence of the night to think of it, and had taken his pillow in his teeth! To live the purer for the shame which bit so deep and keen? Ah, no; to overlay it with new shames, to groan over in new vigils.

Easy for the callous good, who know neither sin nor virtue in extremes, who live somewhere about the level of a passable rectitude, and neither sink nor soar far from it—easy for them to dismiss this bitter truth for a mere sentimentalism; but there is a virginity of the soul which evil custom cannot deflower. Woe to him who knows it, the chaste in wish and the unchaste in act, the rogue who values honour, the poltroon who would fain be brave! Ah, the goat-hoofed Satyr dancing there, drunk and leering, goatish in odour, unwashed and foul! Is it I? Is it I? And the anguished angel who weeps to look upon him. Is it I? Woe, woe is me, for I am each and both of these!