Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (19 page)

“Who is there?” she asked, in an unsteady voice, while her imagination peopled the solitude of the riverside with ghost-like forms.  “Who is there?” she repeated faintly.

There was no answer: only the voice of the river murmuring in sad monotone behind the white veil seemed to swell louder for a moment, to die away again in a soft whisper of eddies washing against the bank.

Mrs. Almayer shook her head as if in answer to her own thoughts, and walked quickly away from the bushes, looking to the right and left watchfully.  She went straight towards the cooking-shed, observing that the embers of the fire there glowed more brightly than usual, as if somebody had been adding fresh fuel to the fires during the evening.  As she approached, Babalatchi, who had been squatting in the warm glow, rose and met her in the shadow outside.

“Is she gone?” asked the anxious statesman, hastily.

“Yes,” answered Mrs. Almayer.  “What are the white men doing?  When did you leave them?”

“They are sleeping now, I think.  May they never wake!” exclaimed Babalatchi, fervently.  “Oh! but they are devils, and made much talk and trouble over that carcase.  The chief threatened me twice with his hand, and said he would have me tied up to a tree.  Tie me up to a tree!  Me!” he repeated, striking his breast violently.

Mrs. Almayer laughed tauntingly.

“And you salaamed and asked for mercy.  Men with arms by their side acted otherwise when I was young.”

“And where are they, the men of your youth?  You mad woman!” retorted Babalatchi, angrily.  “Killed by the Dutch.  Aha!  But I shall live to deceive them.  A man knows when to fight and when to tell peaceful lies.  You would know that if you were not a woman.”

But Mrs. Almayer did not seem to hear him.  With bent body and outstretched arm she appeared to be listening to some noise behind the shed.

“There are strange sounds,” she whispered, with evident alarm.  “I have heard in the air the sounds of grief, as of a sigh and weeping.  That was by the riverside.  And now again I heard — ”

“Where?” asked Babalatchi, in an altered voice.  “What did you hear?”

“Close here.  It was like a breath long drawn.  I wish I had burnt the paper over the body before it was buried.”

“Yes,” assented Babalatchi.  “But the white men had him thrown into a hole at once.  You know he found his death on the river,” he added cheerfully, “and his ghost may hail the canoes, but would leave the land alone.”

Mrs. Almayer, who had been craning her neck to look round the corner of the shed, drew back her head.

“There is nobody there,” she said, reassured.  “Is it not time for the Rajah war-canoe to go to the clearing?”

“I have been waiting for it here, for I myself must go,” explained Babalatchi.  “I think I will go over and see what makes them late.  When will you come?  The Rajah gives you refuge.”

“I shall paddle over before the break of day.  I cannot leave my dollars behind,” muttered Mrs. Almayer.

They separated.  Babalatchi crossed the courtyard towards the creek to get his canoe, and Mrs. Almayer walked slowly to the house, ascended the plankway, and passing through the back verandah entered the passage leading to the front of the house; but before going in she turned in the doorway and looked back at the empty and silent courtyard, now lit up by the rays of the rising moon.  No sooner she had disappeared, however, than a vague shape flitted out from amongst the stalks of the banana plantation, darted over the moonlit space, and fell in the darkness at the foot of the verandah.  It might have been the shadow of a driving cloud, so noiseless and rapid was its passage, but for the trail of disturbed grass, whose feathery heads trembled and swayed for a long time in the moonlight before they rested motionless and gleaming, like a design of silver sprays embroidered on a sombre background.

Mrs. Almayer lighted the cocoanut lamp, and lifting cautiously the red curtain, gazed upon her husband, shading the light with her hand.

Almayer, huddled up in the chair, one of his arms hanging down, the other thrown across the lower part of his face as if to ward off an invisible enemy, his legs stretched straight out, slept heavily, unconscious of the unfriendly eyes that looked upon him in disparaging criticism.  At his feet lay the overturned table, amongst a wreck of crockery and broken bottles.  The appearance as of traces left by a desperate struggle was accentuated by the chairs, which seemed to have been scattered violently all over the place, and now lay about the verandah with a lamentable aspect of inebriety in their helpless attitudes.  Only Nina’s big rocking-chair, standing black and motionless on its high runners, towered above the chaos of demoralised furniture, unflinchingly dignified and patient, waiting for its burden.

With a last scornful look towards the sleeper, Mrs. Almayer passed behind the curtain into her own room.  A couple of bats, encouraged by the darkness and the peaceful state of affairs, resumed their silent and oblique gambols above Almayer’s head, and for a long time the profound quiet of the house was unbroken, save for the deep breathing of the sleeping man and the faint tinkle of silver in the hands of the woman preparing for flight.  In the increasing light of the moon that had risen now above the night mist, the objects on the verandah came out strongly outlined in black splashes of shadow with all the uncompromising ugliness of their disorder, and a caricature of the sleeping Almayer appeared on the dirty whitewash of the wall behind him in a grotesquely exaggerated detail of attitude and feature enlarged to a heroic size.  The discontented bats departed in quest of darker places, and a lizard came out in short, nervous rushes, and, pleased with the white table-cloth, stopped on it in breathless immobility that would have suggested sudden death had it not been for the melodious call he exchanged with a less adventurous friend hiding amongst the lumber in the courtyard.  Then the boards in the passage creaked, the lizard vanished, and Almayer stirred uneasily with a sigh: slowly, out of the senseless annihilation of drunken sleep, he was returning, through the land of dreams, to waking consciousness.  Almayer’s head rolled from shoulder to shoulder in the oppression of his dream; the heavens had descended upon him like a heavy mantle, and trailed in starred folds far under him.  Stars above, stars all round him; and from the stars under his feet rose a whisper full of entreaties and tears, and sorrowful faces flitted amongst the clusters of light filling the infinite space below.  How escape from the importunity of lamentable cries and from the look of staring, sad eyes in the faces which pressed round him till he gasped for breath under the crushing weight of worlds that hung over his aching shoulders?  Get away!  But how?  If he attempted to move he would step off into nothing, and perish in the crashing fall of that universe of which he was the only support.  And what were the voices saying?  Urging him to move!  Why?  Move to destruction!  Not likely!  The absurdity of the thing filled him with indignation.  He got a firmer foothold and stiffened his muscles in heroic resolve to carry his burden to all eternity.  And ages passed in the superhuman labour, amidst the rush of circling worlds; in the plaintive murmur of sorrowful voices urging him to desist before it was too late — till the mysterious power that had laid upon him the giant task seemed at last to seek his destruction.  With terror he felt an irresistible hand shaking him by the shoulder, while the chorus of voices swelled louder into an agonised prayer to go, go before it is too late.  He felt himself slipping, losing his balance, as something dragged at his legs, and he fell.  With a faint cry he glided out of the anguish of perishing creation into an imperfect waking that seemed to be still under the spell of his dream.

“What?  What?” he murmured sleepily, without moving or opening his eyes.  His head still felt heavy, and he had not the courage to raise his eyelids.  In his ears there still lingered the sound of entreating whisper. — ”Am I awake? — Why do I hear the voices?” he argued to himself, hazily. — ”I cannot get rid of the horrible nightmare yet. — I have been very drunk. — What is that shaking me?  I am dreaming yet — I must open my eyes and be done with it.  I am only half awake, it is evident.”

He made an effort to shake off his stupor and saw a face close to his, glaring at him with staring eyeballs.  He closed his eyes again in amazed horror and sat up straight in the chair, trembling in every limb.  What was this apparition? — His own fancy, no doubt. — His nerves had been much tried the day before — and then the drink!  He would not see it again if he had the courage to look. — He would look directly. — Get a little steadier first. — So. — Now.

He looked.  The figure of a woman standing in the steely light, her hands stretched forth in a suppliant gesture, confronted him from the far-off end of the verandah; and in the space between him and the obstinate phantom floated the murmur of words that fell on his ears in a jumble of torturing sentences, the meaning of which escaped the utmost efforts of his brain.  Who spoke the Malay words?  Who ran away?  Why too late — and too late for what?  What meant those words of hate and love mixed so strangely together, the ever-recurring names falling on his ears again and again — Nina, Dain; Dain, Nina?  Dain was dead, and Nina was sleeping, unaware of the terrible experience through which he was now passing.  Was he going to be tormented for ever, sleeping or waking, and have no peace either night or day?  What was the meaning of this?

He shouted the last words aloud.  The shadowy woman seemed to shrink and recede a little from him towards the doorway, and there was a shriek.  Exasperated by the incomprehensible nature of his torment, Almayer made a rush upon the apparition, which eluded his grasp, and he brought up heavily against the wall.  Quick as lightning he turned round and pursued fiercely the mysterious figure fleeing from him with piercing shrieks that were like fuel to the flames of his anger.  Over the furniture, round the overturned table, and now he had it cornered behind Nina’s chair.  To the left, to the right they dodged, the chair rocking madly between them, she sending out shriek after shriek at every feint, and he growling meaningless curses through his hard set teeth.  “Oh! the fiendish noise that split his head and seemed to choke his breath. — It would kill him. — It must be stopped!”  An insane desire to crush that yelling thing induced him to cast himself recklessly over the chair with a desperate grab, and they came down together in a cloud of dust amongst the splintered wood.  The last shriek died out under him in a faint gurgle, and he had secured the relief of absolute silence.

He looked at the woman’s face under him.  A real woman!  He knew her.  By all that is wonderful!  Taminah!  He jumped up ashamed of his fury and stood perplexed, wiping his forehead.  The girl struggled to a kneeling posture and embraced his legs in a frenzied prayer for mercy.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, raising her.  “I shall not hurt you.  Why do you come to my house in the night?  And if you had to come, why not go behind the curtain where the women sleep?”

“The place behind the curtain is empty,” gasped Taminah, catching her breath between the words.  “There are no women in your house any more, Tuan.  I saw the old Mem go away before I tried to wake you.  I did not want your women, I wanted you.”

“Old Mem!” repeated Almayer.  “Do you mean my wife?”

She nodded her head.

“But of my daughter you are not afraid?” said Almayer.

“Have you not heard me?” she exclaimed.  “Have I not spoken for a long time when you lay there with eyes half open?  She is gone too.”

“I was asleep.  Can you not tell when a man is sleeping and when awake?”

“Sometimes,” answered Taminah in a low voice; “sometimes the spirit lingers close to a sleeping body and may hear.  I spoke a long time before I touched you, and I spoke softly for fear it would depart at a sudden noise and leave you sleeping for ever.  I took you by the shoulder only when you began to mutter words I could not understand.  Have you not heard, then, and do you know nothing?”

“Nothing of what you said.  What is it?  Tell again if you want me to know.”

He took her by the shoulder and led her unresisting to the front of the verandah into a stronger light.  She wrung her hands with such an appearance of grief that he began to be alarmed.

“Speak,” he said.  “You made noise enough to wake even dead men.  And yet nobody living came,” he added to himself in an uneasy whisper.  “Are you mute?  Speak!” he repeated.

In a rush of words which broke out after a short struggle from her trembling lips she told him the tale of Nina’s love and her own jealousy.  Several times he looked angrily into her face and told her to be silent; but he could not stop the sounds that seemed to him to run out in a hot stream, swirl about his feet, and rise in scalding waves about him, higher, higher, drowning his heart, touching his lips with a feel of molten lead, blotting out his sight in scorching vapour, closing over his head, merciless and deadly.  When she spoke of the deception as to Dain’s death of which he had been the victim only that day, he glanced again at her with terrible eyes, and made her falter for a second, but he turned away directly, and his face suddenly lost all expression in a stony stare far away over the river.  Ah! the river!  His old friend and his old enemy, speaking always with the same voice as he runs from year to year bringing fortune or disappointment happiness or pain, upon the same varying but unchanged surface of glancing currents and swirling eddies.  For many years he had listened to the passionless and soothing murmur that sometimes was the song of hope, at times the song of triumph, of encouragement; more often the whisper of consolation that spoke of better days to come.  For so many years!  So many years!  And now to the accompaniment of that murmur he listened to the slow and painful beating of his heart.  He listened attentively, wondering at the regularity of its beats.  He began to count mechanically.  One, two.  Why count?  At the next beat it must stop.  No heart could suffer so and beat so steadily for long.  Those regular strokes as of a muffled hammer that rang in his ears must stop soon.  Still beating unceasing and cruel.  No man can bear this; and is this the last, or will the next one be the last? — How much longer?  O God! how much longer?  His hand weighed heavier unconsciously on the girl’s shoulder, and she spoke the last words of her story crouching at his feet with tears of pain and shame and anger.  Was her revenge to fail her?  This white man was like a senseless stone.  Too late!  Too late!