Patrick White - Voss

Afterwards, nobody remembered having seen his face. His words, though, they recalled, were cast in metal, and one of his feet had kicked a little lump of hard mud that had been lying on the carpet, and which had struck the wainscot rather loud.

When they had all gone, even poor Topp, who would have liked to stay and let the wine conduct some discussion of a philosophic nature, Voss went into the back room, took off his clothes quickly, and without thought, lay rather stiffly on the bed, as was his habit, and slept. He fell, straight, deeply into himself. It was not possible really, that anyone could damage the Idea, however much they scratched it. Some vomited words. Some coughed up their dry souls in rebounding pea-pellets. To no earthly avail. Out of that sand, through which his own feet, with reverence for velvet, had begun to pay homage, rose the Idea, its granite monolith untouched. Except by Palfreyman — was it? He could not distinguish the face, but the presence was pervading the whole dream. And now Voss was stirring on his straight bed. It was a humid night. His hands were attempting to free his body from the sweat with which it had been fastened.

On the following, and several successive mornings, which were all bright and shadowless, made keener by the red dust that would fill the street in sallies of grit, Voss went here and there in his tall, black, town hat. He decided on the pack-saddles of Mr O’Halloran. He negotiated with a Mr Pierce for an eight-inch sextant, prismatic compasses, barometers, thermometers, and sundry other instruments. Enough flour for two years was to be delivered direct to the vessel from Barden’s mill.

On the Thursday, as he noted briefly in his journal, he ‘ met Palfreyman ’, who arrived in town from Parramatta, where he had been recuperating from an illness at the property of a friend.

Palfreyman and Voss spent some time together, in fact, walking in the Botanic Gardens, talking, or in silence, accustoming themselves warily to each other, and considering some of those questions that would arise out of a partnership of many months.

Palfreyman was a shorter man than Voss, but the honest simplicity of his expression seemed to raise him to the height of most others. His face, of which the skin normally was burnt to the yellow-brown that colourless faces acquire in the sun, had been drained by his recent illness to a greenish white, the outline somewhat blurred. His eyes, of a light grey, were very straight-looking in their deep sockets, under the dark lids. Although his upper lip was exposed, whiskers of a good brown covered the lower parts of his face. He was dressed carefully, though without vanity, in several greys, with the result that the German’s hot coat and black sculptural trousers had an air of monumental slovenliness. Voss was, in fact, shamed into dusting spasmodically at his own sleeves as they walked, and once or twice twitched slightly at his cravat.

‘You will be strong enough already to undertake this journey, Mr Palfreyman?’ he asked, and frowned, at some thought, or wrinkle.

‘I am perfectly strong.’

Staring at bright sunlight the Englishman would often wear an amazed look, as if the light were too illuminating.

‘I have been fed on eggs and cream by the wife and daughters of my friend Strang for I don’t know how many weeks. It was an unfortunate business, though really no more than a slight twist to my back when the horse fell. I confess I was shaken at first. To be incapacitated permanently by some accident to my back is a fear under which I have always laboured. But here I am, perfectly recovered.’

Voss, who was also staring at the bright light, had been forced by it to smile. That is to say, the skin was tight against his teeth. He made quick, sucking noises to give Palfreyman the impression he was listening.

‘Besides,’ continued the ornithologist in his rather gentle voice, ‘it might be some time before I should receive an invitation to join another such expedition. It is an opportunity in which His Grace would, I feel, be personally interested.’

Mr Palfreyman had been commissioned by an English peer, a petulant one left over from a previous reign, who collected all manner of things, from precious stones and musical instruments, to stuffed birds and tigers. In his Palladian house, His Grace seldom looked at his possessions, except on sudden impulse, to tear out a drawer for an instant on a nest of poor eggshells, or to delight a mistress with a branch of wired humming-birds. But to collect, to possess, this was his passion. Until he was tired of all those lifeless objects. Then they were quickly swathed and handed to the nation.

In the service of this peer Mr Palfreyman had made the voyage to New South Wales. If the motive of his commission was largely whimsical, his professional integrity did not allow him to recognize it. He was a scientist. Dedication to science might have been his consolation, if it had not been for his religious faith. As it was, his trusting nature built a bridge in the form of a cult of usefulness, so that the two banks of his life were reconciled despite many an incongruous geographical feature, and it was seldom noticed that a strong current flowed between.

Now Mr Voss and Mr Palfreyman, who had been led here and there by conversation, were standing on a little, actual, rustic bridge in the Botanic Gardens. Circumstance was joining them, whether comfortably or not.

Mr Voss was saying, ‘I do not doubt you will have every opportunity, Mr Palfreyman, to further your patron’s interests, in virgin country, west of the Darling Downs. I was merely considering the question of your health.’

They were standing rather grotesquely on the ugly ornamental bridge. They were looking down, but without observing what it was that lay beneath them. (It was, in fact, a mess of dead water-lily leaves.)

‘My health,’ said Palfreyman, ‘has always been tolerably good.’

‘You are strong-willed, I see,’ laughed Voss.

For some reason, the latter knew, he-would have liked to dispose of Palfreyman, who answered:

‘It is not a question of my will, Mr Voss. It is rather the will of God that I should carry out certain chosen undertakings.’

Voss drew up his shoulder to protect himself from some unpleasantness. Then he was again normally tall, beside the smaller, but convinced Palfreyman, whose grey eyes were still engrossed beyond the withered lily leaves.

‘Your sentiments will recommend themselves to Mr Bonner,’ said Voss, ‘who is of the opinion that the rascals I have got together do not give a sufficiently moral tone to the expedition. Like most gentlemen well established in their materialism, Mr Bonner invokes moral approval.’

The German would have liked to make some further witticism, but it did not come naturally to him. Even his laughter sounded convulsive, against an agitation of banana palms, two or three of which were standing there behind them.

‘Look,’ said Palfreyman, pointing at a species of diaphanous fly that had alighted on the rail of the bridge.

It appeared that he was fascinated by the insect, glittering in its life with all the colours of decomposition, and that he had barely attended to the words of Voss.

The latter was glad, but not glad enough. He would have liked to be quite certain, not from any weakness in his own armour, but from his apparent inability to undermine his companion’s strength. Naturally it was unpleasant to realize this.

But it was only a matter of seconds. And there was the oblivious Palfreyman pointing with taut finger at the insect, which obviously was all that existed.

Immediately the fly had flown, the two men embarked on some further conversation of a practical nature, and Voss agreed to take Palfreyman to Mr Bonner the very next day.