by Isak Dinesen
To Elishama, who had come into the room last and had sat down silently on a chair at one end of it, the two diners and the servants going to and fro noiselessly, waiting on them, all looked like human figures in a picture seen at a great distance.
Mr. Clay had been helped into his pillow-filled armchair by the table, and here sat as erect as in the carriage. But the young sailor, slowly gazing round him, seemed afraid to touch anything in the room, and had had to be invited two or three times to sit down before he did so.
The old man by a movement of his hand told his butler to pour out wine for his companion, watched him as he drank, and all through the meal had his glass refilled. To keep him company he did even, against his habit, sip a little wine himself.
The first glass of wine had a quick and strong effect on the boy. As he put down the empty glass he suddenly blushed so deeply that his eyes seemed to water with the heat from his burning cheeks.
Mr. Clay in his armchair drew one profound sigh and coughed twice. When he began to speak his voice was low and a little hoarse; as he spoke, it became shriller and stronger. But all the time he spoke very slowly.
“Now, my young friend,” he said, “I am going to tell why I have fetched you, a poor sailor-boy, from a street by the harbor. I am going to tell you why I have brought you to this house of mine, into which few people, even amongst the richest merchants of Canton, are ever allowed. Wait, and you shall hear all. For I have many things to tell you.”
He paused a little, drew in his breath, and continued:
“I am a rich man. I am the richest man in Canton. Some of the wealth which in the course of a long life I have made, is here in my house; more is in my storehouses, and more even is on the rivers and on the sea. My name in China is worth more money than you have ever heard of. When, in China or in England, they name me, they name a million pounds.”
Again there was a short pause.
Elishama reflected that so far Mr. Clay had recorded only such facts as had been long stored up in his mind, and he wondered how he would get on when he should have to move from the world of reality into that of imagination. For the old man, who in his long life had heard one story told, in his long life had never himself told a story, and had never pretended or dissimulated to anybody. When, however, Mr. Clay again took up his account, the clerk understood that he had on his mind more things of which he meant to clear it. Deep down within it there were ideas, perceptions, emotions even, of which he had never spoken and of which he could never have spoken, to any human being except to the nameless, barefooted boy before him. Elishama began to realize the value of what is named a comedy, in which a man may at last speak the truth.
“A million pounds,” Mr. Clay repeated. “That million pounds is me myself. It is my days and my years, it is my brain and my heart, it is my life. I am alone with it in this house. I have been alone with it for many years, and I have been happy that it should be so. For the human beings whom in my life I have met and dealt with I have always disliked and despised. I have allowed few of them to touch my hand; I have allowed none of them to touch my money.
“And I have never,” he added thoughtfully, “like other rich merchants, dreaded that my fortune should not last as long as myself. For I have always known how to keep it tight, and how to make it multiply.
“But then lately,” he went on, “I have comprehended that I myself shall not last as long as my fortune. The moment will come, it is approaching, when we two shall have to part, when one half of me must go and the other half live on. Where and with whom, then, will it live on? Am I to let it fall into the hands which till now I have managed to keep off it, to be fingered and meddled with by those greedy and offensive hands? I would as soon let my body be fingered and meddled with by them. When at night I think of it I cannot sleep.
“I have not troubled,” he said, “to look for a hand into which I might like to deliver my possessions, for I know that no such hand exists in the world. But it has, in the end, occurred to me that it might give me pleasure to leave them in a hand which I myself had caused to exist.
“Had caused to exist,” he repeated slowly. “Caused to exist, and called forth. As I have begotten my fortune, my million pounds.
“For it was not my limbs that ached in the tea fields, in the mist of morning and the burning heat of midday. It was not my hand that was scorched on the hot iron-plates upon which the tea-leaves are dried. Not my hands that were torn in hauling taut the braces of the clipper, pressing her to her utmost speed. The starving coolies in the tea-fields, the dog-tired seamen on the middle watch, never knew that they were contributing to the making of a million pounds. To them the minutes only, the pain in their hands, the hail-showers in their faces, and the poor copper coins of their wages had real existence. It was in my brain and by my will that this multitude of little things were combined and set to co-operate to make up one single thing: a million pounds. Have I not, then, legally begotten it?
“Thus, in combining the things of life and by making them co-operate according to my will, I may legally beget the hand into which I can with some pleasure leave my fortune, the lasting part of me.”
He was silent for a long time. Then he dipped his own old, skinny hand deep into his pocket, drew it out and looked at it. “Have you ever seen gold?” he asked the sailor.
“No,” said the boy. “I have heard of it from captains and supercargoes, who have seen it. But I have not seen it myself.”
“Hold out your hand,” said Mr. Clay.
The boy held out his big hand. On the back of it a cross, a heart and an anchor were tattooed.
“This,” said Mr. Clay, “is a five-guinea piece. The five guineas which you are to earn. It is gold.”
The sailor kept the coin on the flat of his hand, and for a while both looked at it concernedly. When Mr. Clay took his eyes off it he drank a little wine.
“I myself,” he said, “am hard, I am dry. I have always been so, and I would not have it otherwise. I have a distaste for the juices of the body. I do not like the sight of blood, I cannot drink milk, sweat is offensive to me, tears disgust me. In such things a man’s bones are dissolved. And in those relationships between people which they name fellowship, friendship or love, a man’s bones themselves are likewise dissolved. I did away with a partner of mine because I would not allow him to become my friend and dissolve my bones. But gold, my young sailor, is solid. It is hard, it is proof against dissolution. Gold,” he repeated, a shadow of a smile passing over his face, “is solvency.”
“You,” he went on after a pause, “are full of the juices of life. You have blood in you, you have, I suppose, tears. You long and yearn for the things which dissolve people, for friendship and fellowship, for love. Gold you have tonight seen for the first time. I can use you.
“To you, tonight, the minutes only, the pleasure of your body and the five guineas in your pocket will have real existence. You will not be aware that you are contributing to a worthy piece of work of mine. To the fine bafflement of my relations in England, who were once pleased to get rid of me, but who have now for twenty years been on the lookout for the legacy from China. May they sleep well on that.”
The sailor stuck the piece of gold into his pocket. He was by now flushed with food and wine. Big and bony, with his shaggy hair and shining eyes, he looked as strong, greedy and lusty as a bear just out of his winter lair.
“Say no more, old master,” he broke out. “I know what you are going to tell me. I have, before now, heard it told on the ships, every word. This, I know, is what happens to a sailor when he comes ashore. And you, old gentleman, are in luck tonight. If you want a strong, hearty sailor, you are in luck. You will find none stronger on any ship. Who stood by the pumps in the blizzard off Lofoten for eleven hours? It is hard on you being so old and dry. As for me, I shall know well enough what I am doing.”
Once more the boy suddenly and violently blushed crimson. He broke off his bragging and was silent for a minute.
“I am not,” he said, “in the habit of talking to rich old people. To tell you the truth, old master, I am not just now in the habit of talking to anybody at all. I shall tell you the whole story. A fortnight ago, when the schooner Barracuda picked me up and took me on board, I had not spoken a word for a whole year. For a year ago, by the middle of March, my own ship, the bark Amelia Scott, went down in a storm, and of all her crew I alone was cast ashore on an island. There was nobody but me there. It is not, tonight, more than three weeks since I walked there, on the beach of my island. There were many sounds on my island, but no one ever spoke. I myself sang a song there sometimes—you may sing to yourself. But I never spoke.”
XI. THE BOAT
The unexpected strain of adventure in his sailor, and in his story, was agreeable to Mr. Clay. He turned his half-closed eyes to the boy’s face and for a moment let them rest there with approval, almost with kindness.
“Ah,” he said, “so you have starved, slept on the ground, and dressed in rags, for a year?” He looked proudly round the rich room. “Then all this must be a change to you?”
The sailor looked round too. “Yes,” he said. “This house is very different from my island.” As he looked back at the old man, he stuck his hand into his hair. “And that is why my hair is so long,” he said. “I meant to have it cut tonight. The other two promised to take me to a barber’s shop, but they changed their mind and were going to take me to the girls instead. It was good luck to me that I did not get there, for then I should not have met you. I shall soon get used to talking to people again. I have talked before; I am not such a fool as I look.”
“A pleasant thing,” said Mr. Clay, as if to himself. “A highly pleasant thing, I should say, to be all by yourself on an island, where nobody can possibly intrude upon you.”
“It was good in many ways,” said the boy gravely. “There were birds’ eggs on the beach, and I fished there too. I had my knife with me, a good knife; I cut a mark with it in the bark of a big tree each time that I saw the new moon. I had cut nine marks, then I forgot about it, and there were two or three more new moons before the Barracuda came along.”
“You are young,” said Mr. Clay. “I presume that you were pleased when the ship came and took you back to people.”
“I was pleased,” said the sailor, “for one reason. But I had got used to the island; I had come to think that I would remain there all my life. I told you there were many sounds on the island. All night I heard the waves, and when the wind rose I would hear it round me on all sides. I heard when the seabirds woke in the morning. One time it rained for a whole month and another time for a fortnight. Both times there were great thunderstorms. The rain came from the sky like a song, and the thunder like a man’s voice, like my old captain’s voice. I was surprised; I had not heard a voice for many months.”
“Were the nights long?” asked Mr. Clay.
“They were as long as the days,” answered the sailor. “The day came, then the night, then the day. The one was as long as the other. Not like in my own country, where the nights are short in summer and long in winter.”
“What did you think of at night?” asked Mr. Clay.
“I thought mostly of one thing,” said the sailor. “I thought of a boat. Many times I also dreamed that I had got her, that I launched her and steered her. She was to be a good, strong, seaworthy boat. But she need not be big, not more than five lastages. A sloop would be the thing for me, with tall bulwarks. The stern should be blue, and I should carve stars round the cabin windows. My own home is in Marstal in Denmark. The old shipbuilder Lars Jensen Bager was a friend of my father’s; he might help me to build the boat. I should make her trade with corn from Bandholm and Skelskor to Copenhagen. I did not want to die before I had got my boat. When I was taken up by the Barracuda, I thought that this was the first bit of my way to her, and that was the reason why I was pleased, then. And when I met you, old gentleman, and you asked me if I would earn five guineas, I knew that I had been right to come away from the island. And that was why I went with you.”
“You are young,” said Mr. Clay again. “Surely on the island you also thought about women?”
The boy sat silent for a long time and looked straight in front of him, as if he had in reality forgotten to speak.
“Yes,” he said. “On the Amelia Scott, and on the Barracuda too, the others talked about their girls. I know, I know very well what you are paying me to do tonight. I am as good as any sailor. You will have no reason to complain of me, Master. Your lady here, waiting for me, will have no reason to complain of me.”
Suddenly, for a third time, the blood rushed to his face; it sank back, mounted again and kept glowing darkly through the tan of his cheeks. He stood up from his chair, tall and broad and very grave.
“All the same,” he said in a new, deep voice, “I may as well now go back to my ship. And you, my old gentleman, will take on another sailor for your job.” He stuck his hand into his pocket.
The faint rosy tinge disappeared from Mr. Clay’s cheeks. “No,” he said. “No, I do not want you to go back to your ship. You have been cast on a desert island, you have not spoken to a human being for a year. I like to think of that. I can use you. I shall take on no other sailor for my job.”
Mr. Clay’s guest took one step forward and there looked so big that the old man suddenly clenched the arms of the chair with his hands. He had before now been threatened by desperate men, and had beaten them off by the weight of his wealth, or by the force of his cool, sharp brain. But the irate creature before him was too simple to give in to any of those arguments. He might have stuck his hand in his pocket to draw out the good knife of which he had just spoken. Was it, then, a matter of life and death to make a story come true?
The sailor took from his pocket the gold coin which Mr. Clay had given him, and held it toward the old man.
“You had better not try to hold me back,” he said. “You are very old, you have but little strength to stand up against me. Thank you, old master, for the food and the wine. I shall now go back to my ship. Good night, old gentleman.”
Mr. Clay in his state of surprise and alarm could speak only lowly and hoarsely, but he spoke.
“And your boat, my fine young seaman,” he said. “The boat which is to be all your own? The seaworthy smack of five lastages, which is to trade with corn from your own place to Copenhagen? What will she be, now that you are paying back your five guineas and going away? A story only, which you have been telling me—which will never come to be launched, which will never come to sail!”
After a moment the boy put the coin back in his pocket.
XII. THE SPEECH OF THE OLD GENTLEMAN IN THE STORY
While the nabob and the sailor-boy were entertaining one another in the brilliantly lighted dining room, Virginie in the bedroom, where tonight all candles had been softly shaded by rose-colored screens, was preparing herself for her own part, the heroine’s part, in Mr. Clay’s story.
She had sent away the little Chinese maid, who had helped her to arrange the room and adorn it with such objects as would make it seem an elegant lady’s bedroom. Two or three times she had suddenly stopped the work and informed the girl that they were both immediately going to leave the house. Now that she was alone, she no longer thought of leaving.
The room in which she found herself had been her parents’ bedroom, where on Sunday mornings the children were let in to play in the big bed. Her father and mother, who for a long time had seemed far away, were with her tonight; she had entered their old house with their consent. To them as to her, this night would bring about the final judgment of their old deadly enemy; the disgrace and humiliation of their daughter provided the conclusive evidence against him. The daughter, according to her vow of long ago, would not see his face at the verdict, but the dead father and mother were there to watch it.
The ornaments with which Virginie had embellished her bedroom of one night—the figurines, Chinese fans and Maquart bouquets�
��were all similar to those she remembered from her childhood, and which had been so sadly burnt or smashed up by her father before Mr. Clay ever entered the house. A few bibelots had come from her own house. In this way Virginie had joined her gloomy existence of the last ten years with her gay and guiltless past of long ago, and had had it recognized by Monsieur and Madame Dupont.
She set to dress and adorn her own person. She started on the task solemnly and darkly, the way Judith in the tent of the Babylonians adorned her face and body for the meeting with Holofernes. But she immediately and inevitably became absorbed in the process—as, very likely, Judith herself did.
Virginie was an honest person in money matters; out of Mr. Clay’s three hundred guineas she had conscientiously and generously purchased everything belonging to her role. She had a weakness for lace, and was at this moment floating in a cloud of Valenciennes, with a coral necklace round her throat, pearls in her ears and a pair of pink satin slippers on her feet. She powdered and rouged her face, blackened her eyebrows and painted her full lips; she let down her hair in rich silky ringlets over her smooth shoulders, and scented her neck, arms and bosom. When all was done, she gravely went up to one after another of the long looking-glasses in the room.
These glasses had reflected her figure as a little girl, and had told her, then, that she was pretty and graceful. As she looked into them she remembered how, at the age of twelve, she had entreated them to show her what she would be like in years to come, as a lady. The child, she felt, could never have hoped to be shown, in a sweeter or rosier light, a lovelier, a more elegant and bewitching lady. Virginie’s love of the dramatic art, inherited from her father and encouraged by him, came to her aid in the hour of need. If she was not what she appeared to be, neither had her father’s business transactions always been quite what they appeared to be.