The Light Invisible

by Robert Hugh Benson

“No, he is wonderful, but he has been like that for years. He has done a great deal all his life among poor people in London. For years he never missed his two or three nights a week in some club, or on some committee, or visiting sick people.”

I began to think that it might have been through the friendship of the priest that this man had been such a worker. But presently he began again.

“Perhaps the most wonderful thing was the way he first began to do such work. Let me see, have I mentioned his name? No? Then I can tell you, otherwise it would not be discreet; that is––” he added, “if you would care to hear.”

I told him I should be very much interested.

“Then after lunch we will have coffee in the garden, and I will tell you.”

When we had sat down under the shade of a wall, with the tall avenue of pines opposite us making a dark tangled frieze against the delicate sky, he began.

“What I am going to tell you now has been gathered partly from conversations with my friend: and partly from letters he has written to me. Years ago I jotted down the order of events, with names and dates, but that, of course, I fear I cannot show even to you. However, I know the story well, and you may rely on the main facts.

“I must tell you first that many years ago now, my friend, who was about forty years old, had lately become a partner in his father’s firm: and of course was greatly occupied with all the details of business. It was a broker’s firm, well established and did a good steady business. My friend at that time had no idea of doing any work outside his occupation. I heard him say in fact, about this time, that his work seemed to absorb all his energies and capacity. Then the first event of the series took place.

“He was coming home one frosty afternoon in December, between three and four o’clock, on the top of an omnibus. He was sitting in front and looking about him. He noticed a poorly-dressed man standing on the pavement on the right-hand side, as if he wished to cross. Then he began to cross, and came at last right up to the omnibus on which my friend was sitting, and paused a moment to let it pass. As he stood there, my friend watching him with that listless interest with which a tired man will observe details, a hansom cab moving quickly came in the opposite direction. It seemed as if the horse would run the man down. It was too sudden to warn him, but the man saw it, and to avoid the horse sprang quickly forward, his head half turned away, and his feet came between the front and back wheels of the omnibus. There was a jolt and a terrible scream, and my friend horrified leant far over the side to see. When the omnibus had passed the man stood for a moment on his crushed feet, and then swayed forward and fell on his face. My friend started up and made a movement to go to him, but several others had seen the accident and ran to the man, and a policeman was crossing quickly from the other side, so he sat down again and the omnibus carried him on.

“Now this horrible thing remained in my friend’s mind, haunted him, shocked him profoundly. He could not forget the terrible face of pain that he had seen upturned for an instant, and his imagination carried him on in spite of himself to dwell on the details of those crushed feet. He wrote me a long letter a week or two afterwards, minutely describing all that I have told you.