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.Then their problems will be over.It's you who want them to live in the world of illusion.I want to free them by truth.Death is the end.What is the use of these tawdry loves, as you call them, and such? Aren't they always disappointed? Doesn't that prove that it's shameful degrading nonsense.It's nonsense they sell them so they won't look straight ahead and see where it is all leading.""That we are all going to die, is news from nowhere.Is that your great truth?""My great truth is freedom from illusion, from lies, deceptions, from hypocrisy, from all those shameful loves, the opium of the heart.I want them to come to me and learn, come to me; I can teach them that there is only one way, and they must find it in pain, but I can help."He crooned, "And so you dabble in their lives as if their lives were puddles, just to cool off your emotions a bit, Nell; and you talk about death and moonshine the way the old man used to talk about poltergeists and bodiless footsteps; just to get an audience.And one of these days you'll bitterly regret it, because I know you.You don't mean an ounce of harm by it; you don't know what you're saying.You're just trying to get a lot of personal influence so that you can see yourself having a big wailing at your funeral and a big piece in the papers." He laughed kindly.She continued her flurry, snapped, "Eh, sweetheart, I'm afraid time will prove you a false prophet.It's not my funeral but Caroline's I'm worried about.She thinks she can't escape from her loneliness.It's the bloody men, Tom.It was like the morning of the world, she says; I trusted him.He's only a human being like myself; no more trustworthy than myself.So the victim forgives the executioner.And it makes me smile to think that it would mean nothing to him if I died; she says that.Tom, it's unbearable.That's a crazy wicked obsession, I keep telling her, to be thinking of extinction when you haven't first unraveled the secret of life.I talk to her every night—aye, I've been over, when you've been running out after your temptations.We're friends, let's think this thing over, face it, get to know it, find out what it is in yourself that courts misery, makes you fail with humanity, it must be something in you, not in them—""Every night? You went over every night to nag her? Where is she now? In the attic? I'm going to her when we get back."She ignored him: she said savagely, "Men with dead hearts don't want you, I said.Live with the living, live with me.Confide in your friend.She doesn't sleep.You can sleep if you want to, I said.It's a damn insult to me to be howling at night for the love of dead men who've rejected you.That's the way to make a new one in the company of the lost.With me you'll never be lost.""Do you really think you have the power? It's unlucky to call on powers: they come.That's no philosophy of consolation.Do you remember the Indian boy? In Bridgehead? One of Jago's circle.He was attracted by Jago's scraps of philosophy.""Yes," she said sulkily, mumbling her cigarette."He talked about death all the time and do you remember what happened?""No, pet, I don't.""You do remember, Nell.You had got us separated by then, Estelle and me.I was sleeping in a cot in the same room and Estelle had adopted that fellow, that returned soldier who couldn't get a job, a misfit.He had no room and we had him sleeping on the floor; then he found a place and went.His name was Bob, Robert."One night after he'd gone, when I was dead tired, I woke up to hear Estelle dreaming and calling out, 'Bob! Bob!' She had had a nightmare.She saw Bob in flames.'He's burning!' she said to me.It took me a long time to get her calm.As it happened, that same night someone else, that Indian boy, was burned to death in the house he had just moved into in Bridgehead.You remember, he had money and we all went to his place to eat and drink.He bought records and food just to make friends.But he couldn't make friends, he was too miserable.The evening would start off gay; we'd be there singing and dancing; and it would gradually get quieter and quieter, with him giving us the food and then standing there, quiet and miserable.He spent all his money on us; and he moved to a cheaper place; and in the end he moved to a condemned house they were trying to get the people out of.They let him a top room secretly.The man on the ground floor used to booze.He came in and upset a lamp and the place went up in a few minutes.Right at the end they heard someone screaming.The Indian boy was standing right on the roof calling and shouting and before anyone could do anything, the roof fell in and he fell backwards."Tom put his hand over his eyes, took them away, looked at her with his large globular china blue eyes, shining and staring, "You used to talk death with him, Nellie; isn't that where you got this black stuff? You should never have brought her here.""She needs me.I'll cure her.I made her promise to give up that office job.Otherwise, we might see another bout of sheep's-eyes."Tom was aghast.Throwing up jobs was one of Nellie's own ways of purifying herself.Nellie answered him, "You judge too fast and you judge by yourself.You wheedle and coax.I don't.I have something to say; it is to make them see the truth as it is.It's given to me to see the truth.""What is the truth then? I'd like to know myself!""Ah, lad, but you won't face it.It's like asking for a foothold in quicksand.Under you it's bottomless, but you keep afloat because you're a feather.You have no real heart; you can't despair.""Is that all? To despair? You don't despair.""We're all different.We go by different paths." She seemed serious.He lighted another cigarette, threw himself back and smoked upwards."She's too honest, Nell.You oughtn't to play with her.""It wasn't me," she said in a deep voice."Leave her alone.She'll get out of it.We all do.""She didn't want to get out of it.She wanted to understand.She sent me a cry for help."He murmured, "Day and night she cried on me, Fair Helen of Kirk-connell Lea.""I had to go, pet.It was an emotional morass.She was getting confused and taking false steps and ready to sink in.When I got her back here from Roseland, I thought she was safe.That fellow with his phony book on housing.""How do you know it was phony?"She yelped, "Can you help the workingman living in the slums with a book? It's the landlords! They're glad to see your books and your commissions.Nothing will be done if there are enough books.It's the penpushers justifying themselves with a bit of type; me name's there as a champion of the down-and-outers.So I explained it to her: it's no good.What you're doing is useless.It's hopeless.It's getting nowhere.And that fellow tearing her the other way.And she took that and took his bloody flirtation and thought, I'm guilty, I'm not good enough for a man who writes a book.I can't bear it: ah, the poor waif.I got her out of that mess and at once here some humbugging man starts in again and she can't understand it.She asks me advice.You can't take it again, pet, I said.You'll never take it again.So on my advice she promised to quit the job.""You're succeeding better than I thought," said Tom."What do you mean by that?" asked Nellie sharply.He began in their horrible croon, "However fast she makes connections with real things, and real people, you cut them away one by one, and soon the whole spider web will be adrift.""I don't know what you're talking about.""I'm talking about the soul you're saving.Where did you get the idea that you could save souls?"Nellie mumbled quickly, "It's no such thing.I need someone of me own, Tom.Where is George and where is Bob? They're saving their own souls and you too, Tom.Ye all have no hearts.It makes me sick and shudder, to see the selfish striving.It's so patent.I have a friend I've been with tonight.There I found understanding; but she's cured of the world, the cruel mean hearts, the bloodsuckers and flesh-eaters [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Then their problems will be over.It's you who want them to live in the world of illusion.I want to free them by truth.Death is the end.What is the use of these tawdry loves, as you call them, and such? Aren't they always disappointed? Doesn't that prove that it's shameful degrading nonsense.It's nonsense they sell them so they won't look straight ahead and see where it is all leading.""That we are all going to die, is news from nowhere.Is that your great truth?""My great truth is freedom from illusion, from lies, deceptions, from hypocrisy, from all those shameful loves, the opium of the heart.I want them to come to me and learn, come to me; I can teach them that there is only one way, and they must find it in pain, but I can help."He crooned, "And so you dabble in their lives as if their lives were puddles, just to cool off your emotions a bit, Nell; and you talk about death and moonshine the way the old man used to talk about poltergeists and bodiless footsteps; just to get an audience.And one of these days you'll bitterly regret it, because I know you.You don't mean an ounce of harm by it; you don't know what you're saying.You're just trying to get a lot of personal influence so that you can see yourself having a big wailing at your funeral and a big piece in the papers." He laughed kindly.She continued her flurry, snapped, "Eh, sweetheart, I'm afraid time will prove you a false prophet.It's not my funeral but Caroline's I'm worried about.She thinks she can't escape from her loneliness.It's the bloody men, Tom.It was like the morning of the world, she says; I trusted him.He's only a human being like myself; no more trustworthy than myself.So the victim forgives the executioner.And it makes me smile to think that it would mean nothing to him if I died; she says that.Tom, it's unbearable.That's a crazy wicked obsession, I keep telling her, to be thinking of extinction when you haven't first unraveled the secret of life.I talk to her every night—aye, I've been over, when you've been running out after your temptations.We're friends, let's think this thing over, face it, get to know it, find out what it is in yourself that courts misery, makes you fail with humanity, it must be something in you, not in them—""Every night? You went over every night to nag her? Where is she now? In the attic? I'm going to her when we get back."She ignored him: she said savagely, "Men with dead hearts don't want you, I said.Live with the living, live with me.Confide in your friend.She doesn't sleep.You can sleep if you want to, I said.It's a damn insult to me to be howling at night for the love of dead men who've rejected you.That's the way to make a new one in the company of the lost.With me you'll never be lost.""Do you really think you have the power? It's unlucky to call on powers: they come.That's no philosophy of consolation.Do you remember the Indian boy? In Bridgehead? One of Jago's circle.He was attracted by Jago's scraps of philosophy.""Yes," she said sulkily, mumbling her cigarette."He talked about death all the time and do you remember what happened?""No, pet, I don't.""You do remember, Nell.You had got us separated by then, Estelle and me.I was sleeping in a cot in the same room and Estelle had adopted that fellow, that returned soldier who couldn't get a job, a misfit.He had no room and we had him sleeping on the floor; then he found a place and went.His name was Bob, Robert."One night after he'd gone, when I was dead tired, I woke up to hear Estelle dreaming and calling out, 'Bob! Bob!' She had had a nightmare.She saw Bob in flames.'He's burning!' she said to me.It took me a long time to get her calm.As it happened, that same night someone else, that Indian boy, was burned to death in the house he had just moved into in Bridgehead.You remember, he had money and we all went to his place to eat and drink.He bought records and food just to make friends.But he couldn't make friends, he was too miserable.The evening would start off gay; we'd be there singing and dancing; and it would gradually get quieter and quieter, with him giving us the food and then standing there, quiet and miserable.He spent all his money on us; and he moved to a cheaper place; and in the end he moved to a condemned house they were trying to get the people out of.They let him a top room secretly.The man on the ground floor used to booze.He came in and upset a lamp and the place went up in a few minutes.Right at the end they heard someone screaming.The Indian boy was standing right on the roof calling and shouting and before anyone could do anything, the roof fell in and he fell backwards."Tom put his hand over his eyes, took them away, looked at her with his large globular china blue eyes, shining and staring, "You used to talk death with him, Nellie; isn't that where you got this black stuff? You should never have brought her here.""She needs me.I'll cure her.I made her promise to give up that office job.Otherwise, we might see another bout of sheep's-eyes."Tom was aghast.Throwing up jobs was one of Nellie's own ways of purifying herself.Nellie answered him, "You judge too fast and you judge by yourself.You wheedle and coax.I don't.I have something to say; it is to make them see the truth as it is.It's given to me to see the truth.""What is the truth then? I'd like to know myself!""Ah, lad, but you won't face it.It's like asking for a foothold in quicksand.Under you it's bottomless, but you keep afloat because you're a feather.You have no real heart; you can't despair.""Is that all? To despair? You don't despair.""We're all different.We go by different paths." She seemed serious.He lighted another cigarette, threw himself back and smoked upwards."She's too honest, Nell.You oughtn't to play with her.""It wasn't me," she said in a deep voice."Leave her alone.She'll get out of it.We all do.""She didn't want to get out of it.She wanted to understand.She sent me a cry for help."He murmured, "Day and night she cried on me, Fair Helen of Kirk-connell Lea.""I had to go, pet.It was an emotional morass.She was getting confused and taking false steps and ready to sink in.When I got her back here from Roseland, I thought she was safe.That fellow with his phony book on housing.""How do you know it was phony?"She yelped, "Can you help the workingman living in the slums with a book? It's the landlords! They're glad to see your books and your commissions.Nothing will be done if there are enough books.It's the penpushers justifying themselves with a bit of type; me name's there as a champion of the down-and-outers.So I explained it to her: it's no good.What you're doing is useless.It's hopeless.It's getting nowhere.And that fellow tearing her the other way.And she took that and took his bloody flirtation and thought, I'm guilty, I'm not good enough for a man who writes a book.I can't bear it: ah, the poor waif.I got her out of that mess and at once here some humbugging man starts in again and she can't understand it.She asks me advice.You can't take it again, pet, I said.You'll never take it again.So on my advice she promised to quit the job.""You're succeeding better than I thought," said Tom."What do you mean by that?" asked Nellie sharply.He began in their horrible croon, "However fast she makes connections with real things, and real people, you cut them away one by one, and soon the whole spider web will be adrift.""I don't know what you're talking about.""I'm talking about the soul you're saving.Where did you get the idea that you could save souls?"Nellie mumbled quickly, "It's no such thing.I need someone of me own, Tom.Where is George and where is Bob? They're saving their own souls and you too, Tom.Ye all have no hearts.It makes me sick and shudder, to see the selfish striving.It's so patent.I have a friend I've been with tonight.There I found understanding; but she's cured of the world, the cruel mean hearts, the bloodsuckers and flesh-eaters [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]