CHAPTER IX
"And the rest," said Mr. Spenlove in a colourless voice, "is by way of being an epilogue of detached and vagrant memories. They come to me now and again, a sad sequence of blurred pictures in which I can see my own figure in unfamiliar poses. There is the night which I passed in that house, a night of endless recapitulations and regrets. There was the moment when I turned from the bed, where the dead girl lay, and found the other girl, with her extraordinary vitality, close beside me, scrutinizing me as though I were a problem she found it impossible to solve. And when I walked through into the other room and sat down beyond a table on which a tiny oil lamp burned, she advanced into the circle of light, so that her shadow was gigantic on the wall and ceiling behind her, and looked across at me. There was a subtle change in her since we had met in the street outside. She seemed full of an insatiable curiosity to know my thoughts. And my thoughts just then were not for any one to know. My thoughts resembled a flock of wild birds which had been streaming steadily in one direction when a bomb had exploded among them and sent them swirling and careening in crazy circles. And she did this more than once. While I sat there in the semi-darkness beyond the circle of light she came in with some bread and a bottle of wine, and set a plate and glass beside them on the table, and then, after watching me for a moment, went away again. There was a faint murmur from below where a number of women from neighbouring houses were conversing in low tones with the old Greek woman who seemed to be the concierge, and thither no doubt the girl retired. And once while I drowsed for a spell I was aware of her as she stepped softly up to me, peered into my face, and then, as I opened my eyes, withdrew without speaking. Yes, I drowsed time and again; but toward dawn I grew wakeful and the necessity of returning to the ship became urgent once more. You will understand, of course, that it was not a fear of being killed that held me in that room. I was in a mood up there which rendered me perfectly indifferent to material risks of that nature. It was rather an illogical and irresistible instinct to play up to the event. I was intensely aware that the episode, by reason of its frustrating climax, was already standing away from me, and I was unable to relinquish my position. I felt that when I was gone away from that room I would be at the mercy of a frightful and solitary future. It may sound strange to you, spoken in cold blood, but that dead girl was nearer to me during my vigil than any living woman had ever been! I went over everything that had happened while I sat and watched the light of the three candles flicker over those exquisite features. And I discovered in the confused tangle of emotions one bright scarlet thread of gladness that no more harm could come to her. For mind you, I was wise enough to know the perilous problems in store for her, even if she had come home with us. I was under no illusions about either of us. It was the tremendous risks which had allured me. I have said I believed she would have won out, and I do. But how? Women win out in all sorts of extraordinary ways. I am not so sure some of them would not be better in their graves....
"But I went down at last. And the girl Pollyni met me in the corridor below. She said: 'Are you going on board the ship?' 'Yes,' I answered, 'I am going on board the ship. What else can I do?' She shrugged her shoulders and looked at the floor. I started to go out. I experienced a sudden irritable anger.
"'Why do you ask?' I demanded.
"'Well,' she said in a low tone, 'you know her father is sick.'
"'Oh,' I answered, 'I will come ashore again, of course. But just now, you understand, I must go back. I may be wanted.' And I went out quickly into the chill air of the dawn.
"And the intense silence of that cold, closed, steep street daunted me. I felt, as I surveyed those silent and repellent façades, with their enigmatic shutters, a sensation of extraordinary loneliness and dreary failure. I envisaged the Manola lying snug and respectable at her berth in the little harbour, all the dingy details of her stark utility apparent in the transparent morning air. I saw myself ascending the gangway, and the startled air of amused surprise on the face of the night watchman projected abruptly from the gallery. I saw Jack, asleep in his room, his mouth open, his limbs flung wide, his hairy chest showing through the open pajamas, a rumbling snore filling the neat room. And I came to the singular and illogical conviction that if I went aboard immediately I would regret it. I should carry away with me into the future a memory of shabby and furtive behaviour. And I did not want that, I can assure you. I wanted this thing to remain somewhat as I had experienced it. I felt that I must make the most of it. We grow very humble in our emotional demands as we grow older, I observe. We who go to sea especially. One of the inevitable products of our rolling existence. And I stood, irresolute, in front of the open doorway leading to the flat above, and Pollyni Sarafov stood there watching me. She came down.
"'Let me tell you something,' she began. 'I think you ought to go and see her father. Didn't you say you used to know him in America? Just think! She was all he had.'
"'What am I to say to him if I go?' I demanded. 'You know very well that he thinks she is ... eh? How shall I explain when I come in?'
"'Never mind that,' she said, shaking her head. 'You come.'