Liam O'Flaherty - Land

“I, too, am very lonely,” Fenton interrupted in a tone of wild excitement. “I can’t tell you how desperately lonely I am.”

He sat forward to the edge of his chair and began to tremble.

“Don’t let anything I said just now make any difference to our relationship,” he pleaded. “I’m not quite myself. Indeed, for some time now, I have been far from normal.”

His handsome face had suddenly become haggard. His eyes, instead of being shrewd and watchful, had become soft and appealing. The change had an unpleasing effect on his countenance. When it wore the mask of stern and contemptuous indifference, with which the imperial Englishman tries to command the respect of less disciplined races, his face was attractive. Without that mask, it was the face of a rather common man in pain.

“I shock you,” Barbara said, looking him straight in the eyes.

“That is untrue,” Fenton said. “Everything you do and everything you say is a source of passionate excitement for me. To me you are …”

“I do shock you,” Barbara said, “because you are a conventional person.”

“That is quite untrue,” Fenton asserted.

“I was never conventional,” Barbara said. “From childhood I have been attracted towards whatever was forbidden. I was an orphan, you see, embittered by the ill-treatment of those placed in charge of me. I went on the stage when I came of age, even though I disliked the theatre and had no talent for acting, simply in order to shock people of my class, who looked upon an actress as a disreputable character. Then I married an Irishman who was hopelessly in debt, a gambler, a drunkard and a duellist. That was still more shocking. We lived for seven glorious years in disreputable happiness at Monte Carlo, at Paris, at London, at Dublin, at Baden. Then money became impossible to find. My beautiful Irishman deliberately drank himself to death. Afterwards, I married Neville simply in order to get a home. You see, Mr. Fenton, that I am a very shocking woman and completely unashamed.”

With a quick twist of her wrist, like a man, she emptied her glass.

“Nothing you could say,” Fenton said earnestly, “could possibly make any difference to my feelings towards you. When a man feels in the way I do, all is understood. On a certain plane of emotion, there is nothing to condemn.”

He had become very agitated while he was speaking. Then he got to his feet unsteadily and took a pace towards her.

“Sit down and compose yourself,” Barbara said sharply.

“It’s too late now,” Fenton said thickly.

“Sit down, Mr. Fenton,” Barbara said. “I command you.”

“I came to talk to you about something else,” Fenton said “but this must come off my chest first of all.”

“Sit down,” Barbara said.

“I must speak of this, too,” said Fenton, “because the other affair would never have arisen, were it not for this.”

“We are not alone in the house,” Barbara said angrily. “Sit down at once, or I must ask you to leave.”

Fenton brought his heels together with difficulty. Then he bowed abruptly, sat down and stared at the floor, with his palms joined between his knees.

“Even the most timid man can be ruthless,” he said, talking at random and in a subdued tone. “When a certain point is reached, it is easier to be ruthless than the contrary. It’s odd how a man is thrust suddenly out of obscurity into a situation where desperate and dramatic decisions have to be made. For twelve years I led a humdrum life. You may think I did beastly things even then. Now and again, I admit, there were things that might appear shameful. Police work is like that. However, it was all according to regulations. This morning, however, I overstepped the mark. I did something really frightful. I went with ten constables to carry out an eviction at a place called Sram, the other side of Clash. The tenants to be evicted lived in a little cabin, that stood apart on a knoll above the seashore. A desolate place, really, unfit for human beings. The thatch was so old that grass and little flowers were sprouting from it. In the yard and in the tiny paddock at the back of the hut there were tall weeds. The door was closed. The two windows, ever so small, were covered with boards. The whole thing was like an abandoned doll’s house. It belonged to an old couple, entirely destitute, the children all gone to America. You know how children behave in this country among the peasants. They are entirely bereft of filial affection. In any case, I had to evict the old couple and put them in the workhouse. The wife, white-haired and very tall, a decent-looking old person, stood among the village people. She seemed to watch the whole affair with complete detachment. The old man stayed within the cabin, refusing to surrender possession. I ordered the crowbar fellows to advance and knock down the walls. It took only a few blows here and there. Down they came. Just dry mud, of course. It collapsed like a house of cards. There was the old man, on his hearthstone, barefooted, bareheaded, with a stick in his hand. It really was a pathetic sight. It’s impossible to become hardened to that sort of thing. What struck me especially was the smoke-blackened wall of the chimney place, a wisp of smoke rising from some peat ashes on the hearth and the look of shame on the old man’s face. It’s odd, but I’m ready to swear that it was shame he felt. He was ashamed of being exposed that way to the outside world, after the walls fell. It was just like being caught naked. He saw me sitting my horse outside in the road and uttered a howl of rage. Babbling and waving his stick, he made for me through the rubble. Nobody attempted to stop him, neither the constables nor the crowbar men whom he passed. He looked so odd, I suppose, with his bald skull like that of a corpse, completely devoid of flesh. Men are baffled, no matter how well trained, by that sort of thing. You really don’t ever get used to it, no matter how callous you may think you are. He came at me, muttering some nonsense. There was froth at his lips. Then I lost control and struck at him with my whip. He fell instantly. Since then I have kept asking myself whether I really hit him or whether he fell at that moment in a fit. At any rate, the terrible fact is that I wanted to strike him. That is the terrible truth, so it doesn’t really matter whether it was a fit or my whip that made him fall. I wanted to strike that old man. I hated him terribly.”

As he came to the end of his strange recital, he raised his eyes and looked at Barbara in forlorn appeal. She returned his glance with cruel composure.

“You didn’t come here to tell me about striking an old man,” she said.

Fenton made an effort to straighten himself. He succeeded to some extent in regaining his usual dignity. His lower lip, however, was now trembling. Failure to win her sympathy was a great blow to him.

“I told you about the old man,” he said in a low voice, “simply to explain my condition.”

“You really came to talk about Neville’s visit last night,” Barbara said. “Didn’t you?”

“If I were my normal self,” Fenton said, “your husband’s visit would not have disturbed me in the least. Alas! I’ve not been my normal self since I was here last. I’ve been tortured night and day by the thought that I might become an accomplice in a …”

He interrupted himself and stared at Barbara. His eyes looked frightened.

“Excuse me,” he muttered, “for talking at random.” “So that’s what it is,” Barbara said.

“Don’t let us talk about it,” Fenton said. “What would be the use?”

“He let you ponder over some wicked suggestion all this time,” Barbara said. “For six whole weeks. What a perfect devil! He let you torture yourself with indecision and qualms of conscience.”