Джозеф Конрад - Suspense

“Really!” exclaimed the young man, and laughed again in a low, pleasant note. “I remember hearing of an old man who called us a nation of traders.”

“ Nazione di mercante ,” repeated the man slowly. “Well, that may be true too. Different men, different wisdoms.”

“This didn’t occur to me,” said Cosmo, seating himself with a little spring on the stone parapet of the tower. He rested one foot on the massive gun–carriage and fixed his clear eyes on the dark red streak on the western sky left by the retreating sun like a long gash inflicted on the suffering body of the universe…. “Different men, different wisdoms,” he repeated, musingly. “I suppose it must be. People’s lives are so very different…. And of what kind was the wisdom of your old man?”

“The wisdom of a great plain as level almost as the sea,” said the other gravely. “His voice was as unexpected when I heard it as your own, signore. The evening shadows had closed about me just after I had seen to the west, on the edge of the world as it were, a lion miss his spring on a bounding deer. They went away right into the glow and vanished. It was as though I had dreamed. When I turned round there was the old man behind me no further away than half the width of this platform. He only smiled at my startled looks. His long silver locks stirred in the breeze. He had been watching me, it seems, from folds of ground and from amongst reed–beds for nearly half a day wondering what I might be at. I had come ashore to wander on the plain. I like to be alone sometimes. My ship was anchored in a bight of this deserted coast a good many miles away, too many to walk back in the dark for a stranger like me. So I spent the night in that old man’s ranch, a hut of grass and reeds, near a little piece of water peopled by a multitude of birds. He treated me as if I had been his son. We talked till dawn, and when the sun rose I did not go back to my ship. What I had on board of my own was not of much value, and there was certainly no one there to address me as ‘My son’ in that particular tone—you know what I mean, signore.”

“I don’t know—but I think I can guess,” was the answer, whose light–hearted yet earnest frankness was particularly boyish and provoked a smile on the part of the older man. In repose his face was grave. His English interlocutor went on after a pause: “You deserted from your ship to join a hermit in a wilderness simply because the tone of his voice appealed to your heart. Is that your meaning?”

“You have guessed it, signorino. Perhaps there was more in it than that. There is no doubt about it that I did desert from ship.”

“And where was that?”

“On the coast of South America,” answered the man from the other side of the big gun, with sudden curtness. “And now it is time for us to part.”

But neither of them stirred, and for some time they remained silent, growing shadowy to each other on the massive tower, which itself in the advancing night was but a grey shadow above the dark and motionless sea.

“How long did you stay with that hermit in the desert?” asked Cosmo. “And how did you leave him?”

“Signore, it was he who left me. After I had buried his body, I had nothing more to do there. I had learned much during that year.”

“What is it you learned, my friend? I should like to know.”

“Signore, his wisdom was not like that of other men, and it would be too long to explain to you here on this tower, and at this late hour of the day. I learned many things. How to be patient, for instance…. Don’t you think, signore, that your friends or the servants at the inn may become uneasy at your long absence?”

“I tell you I haven’t been much more than two hours in this town, and I have spoken to nobody in it till I came upon you, except, of course, to the people at the inn.”

“They may start looking for you.”

“Why should they trouble their heads? It isn’t late yet. Why should they notice my absence?”

“Why? … Simply because your supper may be ready by this time,” retorted the man impatiently.

“It may be, but I am not hungry yet,” said the young man casually. “Let them search for me all over the town, if they like.” Then in a tone of interest, “Do you think they would think of looking for me here?” he asked.

“No. This is the last spot anybody would think of,” muttered the other as if to himself. He raised his voice markedly. “We must part, indeed. Good–night, signore.”

“Good–night.”

The man in the seaman’s jacket stared for a moment, then with a brusque movement cocked his cap with the strange tassel more on the side of his head. “I am not going away from this spot,” he said.

“I thought you were. Why did you wish me good–night, then?”

“Because we must part.”

“I suppose we must, some time or other,” agreed Cosmo in a friendly voice. “I should like to meet you again.”

“We must part at once, this moment, on this tower.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be left alone,” answered the other after the slightest of pauses.

“Oh, come! Why on earth do you want to be left alone? What is it you could do here?” protested the other with great good humour. Then as if struck by an amusing notion, “Unless indeed you want to practise incantations,” he continued lightly, “and perhaps call the Evil One to your side.” He paused. “There are people, you know, that think it can be done,” he added in a mocking tone.

“They are not far wrong,” was the other’s ominous reply. “Each man has a devil not very far from his elbow. Don’t argue, signore, don’t call him up in me! You had better say no more, and go in peace from here.”

The young traveller did not change his careless attitude. The man in the cap heard him say quietly, almost in a tone of self–communion:

“I prefer to stay in peace here.”

It was indeed a wonderful peace. The sound of their quiet voices did not seem to affect it in the least. It had an enormous and overpowering amplitude which seemed rather to the man in the cap to take the part of the Englishman’s calm obstinacy against his growing anger. He couldn’t repress an impulsively threatening movement in the direction of his inconvenient companion, but it died out in perplexity. He pushed his cap still more on one side, and simply scratched his head.

“You’re one of those people that are accustomed to have their own way. Well, you can’t have your way this time. I have asked you quietly to leave me alone on this tower. I asked you as man to man. But if you won’t listen to reason I … ”

Cosmo, putting the palms of his hands against the edge of the parapet, sprang lightly nearly to the middle of the platform, and landed without a stagger. His voice was perfectly even.

“Reason is my only guide,” he declared. “But your request looks like mere caprice. For what can you possibly have to do here? The sea–birds are gone to sleep, and I have as much right to the air up here as you. Therefore … ”

A thought seemed to strike him. “Surely this can’t be your trysting–place,” he commented in a changed tone through which pierced a certain sympathy.

A short scornful laugh from the other checked him, and he muttered to himself soberly, “No. Altogether unfit … amongst those grim old guns.” He raised his voice. “All I can do is to give you all the room.” He backed away from the centre of the platform and perched himself this time on the massive breech of a sixty–pounder. “Go on with your incantations,” he said then to the tall and dim figure whose immobility appeared helpless for a moment. It broke the short period of silence, saying deliberately:

“I suppose you are aware that at any time since we have begun to talk together it was open to me to fling myself upon you unawares as you sat on the parapet and knock you over to the bottom of this tower?” He waited a moment, then in a deeper tone, “Will you deny it?” he said.