THE COMPLETE NOVELS OF JOSEPH CONRAD (All 20 Novels in One Edition). Джозеф Конрад
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over his eyes as if to keep off the sun, and the third man he draws up his leg very slowly and makes it with one kick straight again. I watch him very carefully from my horse, but there is no more — bleibt ganz ruhig — keep still, so. And as I looked at his face for some sign of life I observed something like a faint shadow pass over his forehead. It was the shadow of this butterfly. Look at the form of the wing. This species fly high with a strong flight. I raised my eyes and I saw him fluttering away. I think — Can it be possible? And then I lost him. I dismounted and went on very slow, leading my horse and holding my revolver with one hand and my eyes darting up and down and right and left, everywhere! At last I saw him sitting on a small heap of dirt ten feet away. At once my heart began to beat quick. I let go my horse, keep my revolver in one hand, and with the other snatch my soft felt hat off my head. One step. Steady. Another step. Flop! I got him! When I got up I shook like a leaf with excitement, and when I opened these beautiful wings and made sure what a rare and so extraordinary perfect specimen I had, my head went round and my legs became so weak with emotion that I had to sit on the ground. I had greatly desired to possess myself of a specimen of that species when collecting for the professor. I took long journeys and underwent great privations; I had dreamed of him in my sleep, and here suddenly I had him in my fingers — for myself! In the words of the poet” (he pronounced it “boet”) —
“‘So halt’ ich’s endlich denn in meinen Handen,
Und nenn’ es in gewissem Sinne mein.’”
He gave to the last word the emphasis of a suddenly lowered voice, and withdrew his eyes slowly from my face. He began to charge a long-stemmed pipe busily and in silence, then, pausing with his thumb on the orifice of the bowl, looked again at me significantly.
‘“Yes, my good friend. On that day I had nothing to desire; I had greatly annoyed my principal enemy; I was young, strong; I had friendship; I had the love” (he said “lof’) “of woman, a child I had, to make my heart very full — and even what I had once dreamed in my sleep had come into my hand too!”
‘He struck a match, which flared violently. His thoughtful placid face twitched once.
‘“Friend, wife, child,” he said slowly, gazing at the small flame — “phoo!” The match was blown out. He sighed and turned again to the glass case. The frail and beautiful wings quivered faintly, as if his breath had for an instant called back to life that gorgeous object of his dreams.
‘“The work,” he began suddenly, pointing to the scattered slips, and in his usual gentle and cheery tone, “is making great progress. I have been this rare specimen describing. . . . Na! And what is your good news?”
‘“To tell you the truth, Stein,” I said with an effort that surprised me, “I came here to describe a specimen. . . . ”
‘“Butterfly?” he asked, with an unbelieving and humorous eagerness.
‘“Nothing so perfect,” I answered, feeling suddenly dispirited with all sorts of doubts. “A man!”
‘“Ach so!” he murmured, and his smiling countenance, turned to me, became grave. Then after looking at me for a while he said slowly, “Well — I am a man too.”
‘Here you have him as he was; he knew how to be so generously encouraging as to make a scrupulous man hesitate on the brink of confidence; but if I did hesitate it was not for long.
‘He heard me out, sitting with crossed legs. Sometimes his head would disappear completely in a great eruption of smoke, and a sympathetic growl would come out from the cloud. When I finished he uncrossed his legs, laid down his pipe, leaned forward towards me earnestly with his elbows on the arms of his chair, the tips of his fingers together.
‘“I understand very well. He is romantic.”
‘He had diagnosed the case for me, and at first I was quite startled to find how simple it was; and indeed our conference resembled so much a medical consultation — Stein, of learned aspect, sitting in an arm-chair before his desk; I, anxious, in another, facing him, but a little to one side — that it seemed natural to ask —
‘“What’s good for it?”
‘He lifted up a long forefinger.
‘“There is only one remedy! One thing alone can us from being ourselves cure!” The finger came down on the desk with a smart rap. The case which he had made to look so simple before became if possible still simpler — and altogether hopeless. There was a pause. “Yes,” said I, “strictly speaking, the question is not how to get cured, but how to live.”
‘He approved with his head, a little sadly as it seemed. “Ja! ja! In general, adapting the words of your great poet: That is the question. . . . ” He went on nodding sympathetically. . . . “How to be! Ach! How to be.”
‘He stood up with the tips of his fingers resting on the desk.
‘“We want in so many different ways to be,” he began again. “This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man he will never on his heap of mud keep still. He want to be so, and again he want to be so. . . . ” He moved his hand up, then down. . . . “He wants to be a saint, and he wants to be a devil — and every time he shuts his eyes he sees himself as a very fine fellow — so fine as he can never be. . . . In a dream. . . . ”
‘He lowered the glass lid, the automatic lock clicked sharply, and taking up the case in both hands he bore it religiously away to its place, passing out of the bright circle of the lamp into the ring of fainter light — into shapeless dusk at last. It had an odd effect — as if these few steps had carried him out of this concrete and perplexed world. His tall form, as though robbed of its substance, hovered noiselessly over invisible things with stooping and indefinite movements; his voice, heard in that remoteness where he could be glimpsed mysteriously busy with immaterial cares, was no longer incisive, seemed to roll voluminous and grave — mellowed by distance.
‘“And because you not always can keep your eyes shut there comes the real trouble — the heart pain — the world pain. I tell you, my friend, it is not good for you to find you cannot make your dream come true, for the reason that you not strong enough are, or not clever enough..Ja! . . . And all the time you are such a fine fellow too! Wie? Was? Gott im Himmel! How can that be? Ha! ha! ha!”
‘The shadow prowling amongst the graves of butterflies laughed boisterously.
‘“Yes! Very funny this terrible thing is. A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperienced people endeavour to do, he drowns — nicht wahr? . . . No! I tell you! The way is to the destructive element submit yourself, and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water make the deep, deep sea keep you up. So if you ask me — how to be?”
‘His voice leaped up extraordinarily strong, as though away there in the dusk he had been inspired by some whisper of knowledge. “I will tell you! For that too there is only one way.”
‘With a hasty swish-swish of his slippers he loomed up in the ring of faint light, and suddenly appeared in the bright circle of the lamp. His extended hand aimed at my breast like a pistol; his deep-set eyes seemed to pierce through me, but his twitching lips uttered no word, and the austere exaltation of a certitude seen in the dusk vanished from his face. The hand that had been pointing at my breast fell, and by-and-by, coming a step nearer, he laid it gently on my shoulder. There were things, he said mournfully, that perhaps could never be told, only he had lived so much alone that sometimes he forgot — he forgot. The light had destroyed the assurance which had inspired him in the distant shadows. He sat down and, with both elbows on the desk, rubbed his forehead. “And yet it is true — it is true. In the destructive element immerse.” . . . He spoke in a subdued tone, without looking at me, one hand on each side of his face. “That was the way. To follow the dream, and again to follow the dream — and so — ewig — usque ad finem. . . . ” The whisper of his conviction seemed to open before me a vast and uncertain expanse, as of a crepuscular horizon on a plain at dawn — or was it, perchance, at the coming of the night? One