Джозеф Конрад - Victory - An Island Tale

She made a barely perceptible movement of recoil, checked at once, and stood still. Heyst released her arm.

“Yes, perhaps I had better,” she said with unnatural deliberation, and stepped out on the veranda to stand close by his side.

Together, one on each side of the screen, they peeped between the edge of the canvas and the veranda-post entwined with creepers. A great heat ascended from the sun-smitten ground, in an ever-rising wave, as if from some secret store of earth’s fiery heart; for the sky was growing cooler already, and the sun had declined sufficiently for the shadows of Mr. Jones and his henchman to be projected towards the bungalow side by side—one infinitely slender, the other short and broad.

The two visitors stood still and gazed. To keep up the fiction of his invalidism, Mr. Jones, the gentleman, leaned on the arm of Ricardo, the secretary, the top of whose hat just came up to his governor’s shoulder.

“Do you see them?” Heyst whispered into the girl’s ear. “Here they are, the envoys of the outer world. Here they are before you—evil intelligence, instinctive savagery, arm in arm. The brute force is at the back. A trio of fitting envoys perhaps—but what about the welcome? Suppose I were armed, could I shoot these two down where they stand? Could I?”

Without moving her head, the girl felt for Heyst’s hand, pressed it and thereafter did not let it go. He continued, bitterly playful:

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. There is a strain in me which lays me under an insensate obligation to avoid even the appearance of murder. I have never pulled a trigger or lifted my hand on a man, even in self-defence.”

The suddenly tightened grip of her hand checked him.

“They are making a move,” she murmured.

“Can they be thinking of coming here?” Heyst wondered anxiously.

“No, they aren’t coming this way,” she said; and there was another pause. “They are going back to their house,” she reported finally.

After watching them a little longer, she let go Heyst’s hand and moved away from the screen. He followed her into the room.

“You have seen them now,” he began. “Think what it was to me to see them land in the dusk, fantasms from the sea—apparitions, chimeras! And they persist. That’s the worst of it—they persist. They have no right to be—but they are. They ought to have aroused my fury. But I have refined everything away by this time—anger, indignation, scorn itself. Nothing’s left but disgust. Since you have told me of that abominable calumny, it has become immense—it extends even to myself.” He looked up at her.

“But luckily I have you. And if only Wang had, not carried off that miserable revolver—yes, Lena, here we are, we two!”

She put both her hands on his shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. He returned her penetrating gaze. It baffled him. He could not pierce the grey veil of her eyes; but the sadness of her voice thrilled him profoundly.

“You are not reproaching me?” she asked slowly.

“Reproach? What a word between us! It could only be myself—but the mention of Wang has given me an idea. I have been, not exactly cringing, not exactly lying, but still dissembling. You have been hiding yourself, to please me, but still you have been hiding. All this is very dignified. Why shouldn’t we try begging now? A noble art? Yes. Lena, we must go out together. I couldn’t think of leaving you alone, and I must—yes, I must speak to Wang. We shall go and seek that man, who knows what he wants and how to secure what he wants. We will go at once!”

“Wait till I put my hair up,” she agreed instantly, and vanished behind the curtain.

When the curtain had fallen behind her, she turned her head back with an expression of infinite and tender concern for him—for him whom she could never hope to understand, and whom she was afraid she could never satisfy, as if her passion were of a hopelessly lower quality, unable to appease some exalted and delicate desire of his superior soul. In a couple of minutes she reappeared. They left the house by the door of the compound, and passed within three feet of the thunderstruck Pedro, without even looking in his direction. He rose from stooping over a fire of sticks, and, balancing himself clumsily, uncovered his enormous fangs in gaping astonishment. Then suddenly he set off rolling on his bandy legs to impart to his masters the astonishing discovery of a woman.

As luck would have it, Ricardo was lounging alone on the veranda of the former counting-house. He scented some new development at once, and ran down to meet the trotting, bear-like figure. The deep, growling noises it made, though they had only a very remote resemblance to the Spanish language, or indeed to any sort of human speech, were from long practice quite intelligible to Mr. Jones’s secretary. Ricardo was rather surprised. He had imagined that the girl would continue to keep out of sight. That line apparently was given up. He did not mistrust her. How could he? Indeed, he could not think of her existence calmly.

He tried to keep her image out of his mind so that he should be able to use its powers with some approach to that coolness which the complex nature of the situation demanded from him, both for his own sake and as the faithful follower of plain Mr. Jones, gentleman.

He collected his wits and thought. This was a change of policy, probably on the part of Heyst. If so, what could it mean? A deep fellow! Unless it was her doing; in which case—h’m—all right. Must be. She would know what she was doing. Before him Pedro, lifting his feet alternately, swayed to and fro sideways—his usual attitude of expectation. His little red eyes, lost in the mass of hair, were motionless. Ricardo stared into them with calculated contempt and said in a rough, angry voice:

“Woman! Of course there is. We know that without you!” He gave the tame monster a push. “Git! Vamos! Waddle! Get back and cook the dinner. Which way did they go, then?”

Pedro extended a huge, hairy forearm to show the direction, and went off on his bandy legs. Advancing a few steps, Ricardo was just in time to see, above some bushes, two white helmets moving side by side in the clearing. They disappeared. Now that he had managed to keep Pedro from informing the governor that there was a woman on the island, he could indulge in speculation as to the movements of these people. His attitude towards Mr. Jones had undergone a spiritual change, of which he himself was not yet fully aware.

That morning, before tiffin, after his escape from the Heyst bungalow, completed in such an inspiring way by the recovery of the slipper, Ricardo had made his way to their allotted house, reeling as he ran, his head in a whirl. He was wildly excited by visions of inconceivable promise. He waited to compose himself before he dared to meet the governor. On entering the room, he found Mr. Jones sitting on the camp bedstead like a tailor on his board, cross-legged, his long back against the wall.

“I say, sir. You aren’t going to tell me you are bored?”

“Bored! No! Where the devil have you been all this time?”

“Observing—watching—nosing around. What else? I knew you had company. Have you talked freely, sir?”

“Yes, I have,” muttered Mr. Jones.

“Not downright plain, sir?”

“No. I wished you had been here. You loaf all the morning, and now you come in out of breath. What’s the matter?”

“I haven’t been wasting my time out there,” said Ricardo. “Nothing’s the matter. I— I— might have hurried a bit.” He was in truth still panting; only it was not with running, but with the tumult of thoughts and sensations long repressed, which had been set free by the adventure of the morning. He was almost distracted by them now. He forgot himself in the maze of possibilities threatening and inspiring. “And so you had a long talk?” he said, to gain time.