________________________________________________
_ BOOK V. THE POLICEMEN
CHAPTER XVI
WHEN he knocked at the barracks door it was opened by a man with
tousled, red hair, who looked as though he had just awakened from sleep.
"What do you want at this hour of the night?" said he.
"I want to give myself up," said the Philosopher. The policeman looked
at him "A man as old as you are," said he, "oughtn't to be a fool. Go
home now, I advise you, and don't say a word to any one whether you did
it or not. Tell me this now, was it found out, or are you only making a
clean breast of it?"
"Sure I must give myself up," said the Philosopher.
"If you must, you must, and that's an end of it. Wipe your feet on the
rail there and come in--I'll take your deposition."
"I have no deposition for you," said the Philosopher, "for I didn't do a
thing at all."
The policeman stared at him again.
"If that's so," said he, "you needn't come in at all, and you needn't
have wakened me out of my sleep either. Maybe, tho', you are the man
that fought the badger on the Naas Road--Eh?"
"I am not," replied the Philosopher: "but I was arrested for killing my
brother and his wife, although I never touched them."
"Is that who you are?" said the policeman; and then, briskly, "You're as
welcome as the cuckoo, you are so. Come in and make yourself comfortable
till the men awaken, and they are the lads that'll be glad to see you.
I couldn't make head or tail of what they said when they came in last
night, and no one else either, for they did nothing but fight each other
and curse the banshees and cluricauns of Leinster. Sit down there on the
settle by the fire and, maybe, you'll be able to get a sleep; you look
as if you were tired, and the mud of every county in Ireland is on your
boots."
The Philosopher thanked him and stretched out on the settle. In a short
time, for he was very weary, he fell asleep.
Many hours later he was awakened by the sound of voices, and found on
rising, that the men who had captured him on the previous evening were
standing by the bed. The sergeant's face beamed with joy. He was dressed
only in his trousers and shirt. His hair was sticking up in some places
and sticking out in others which gave a certain wild look to him, and
his feet were bare. He took the Philosopher's two hands in his own and
swore if ever there was anything he could do to comfort him he would do
that and more. Shawn, in a similar state of unclothedness, greeted the
Philosopher and proclaimed himself his friend and follower for ever.
Shawn further announced that he did not believe the Philosopher had
killed the two people, that if he had killed them they must have richly
deserved it, and that if he was hung he would plant flowers on his
grave; for a decenter, quieter, and wiser man he had never met and never
would meet in the world.
These professions of esteem comforted the Philosopher, and he replied to
them in terms which made the red-haired policeman gape in astonishment
and approval.
He was given a breakfast of bread and cocoa which he ate with his
guardians, and then, as they had to take up their outdoor duties, he
was conducted to the backyard and informed he could walk about there
and that he might smoke until he was black in the face. The policemen
severally presented him with a pipe, a tin of tobacco, two boxes of
matches and a dictionary, and then they withdrew, leaving him to his own
devices.
The garden was about twelve feet square, having high, smooth walls on
every side, and into it there came neither sun nor wind. In one corner a
clump of rusty-looking sweet-pea was climbing up the wall--every leaf
of this plant was riddled with holes, and there were no flowers on it.
Another corner was occupied by dwarf nasturtiums, and on this plant,
in despite of every discouragement, two flowers were blooming, but its
leaves also were tattered and dejected. A mass of ivy clung to the third
corner, its leaves were big and glossy at the top, but near the ground
there was only grey, naked stalks laced together by cobwebs. The fourth
wall was clothed in a loose Virginia creeper every leaf of which looked
like an insect that could crawl if it wanted to. The centre of this
small plot had used every possible artifice to cover itself with grass,
and in some places it had wonderfully succeeded, but the pieces of
broken bottles, shattered jampots, and sections of crockery were so
numerous that no attempt at growth could be other than tentative and
unpassioned.
Here, for a long time, the Philosopher marched up and down. At one
moment he examined the sweet-pea and mourned with it on a wretched
existence. Again he congratulated the nasturtium on its two bright
children; but he thought of the gardens wherein they might have bloomed
and the remembrance of that spacious, sunny freedom saddened him.
"Indeed, poor creatures!" said he, "ye also are in gaol."
The blank, soundless yard troubled him so much that at last he called to
the red-haired policeman and begged to be put into a cell in preference;
and to the common cell he was, accordingly, conducted.
This place was a small cellar built beneath the level of the ground. An
iron grating at the top of the wall admitted one blanched wink of light,
but the place was bathed in obscurity. A wooden ladder led down to the
cell from a hole in the ceiling, and this hole also gave a spark of
brightness and some little air to the room. The walls were of stone
covered with plaster, but the plaster had fallen away in many places
leaving the rough stones visible at every turn of the eye.
There were two men in the cell, and these the Philosopher saluted; but
they did not reply, nor did they speak to each other. There was a low,
wooden form fixed to the wall, running quite round the room, and on
this, far apart from each other, the two men were seated, with their
elbows resting on their knees, their heads propped upon their hands,
and each of them with an unwavering gaze fixed on the floor between his
feet.
The Philosopher walked for a time up and down the little cell, but soon
he also sat down on the low form, propped his head on his hands and
lapsed to a melancholy dream.
So the day passed. Twice a policeman came down the ladder bearing three
portions of food, bread and cocoa; and by imperceptible gradations the
light faded away from the grating and the darkness came. After a great
interval the policeman again approached carrying three mattresses and
three rough blankets, and these he bundled through the hole. Each of the
men took a mattress and a blanket and spread them on the floor, and the
Philosopher took his share also.
By this time they could not see each other and all their operations were
conducted by the sense of touch alone. They laid themselves down on the
beds and a terrible, dark silence brooded over the room.
But the Philosopher could not sleep, he kept his eyes shut, for the
darkness under his eyelids was not so dense as that which surrounded
him; indeed, he could at will illuminate his own darkness and order
around him the sunny roads or the sparkling sky. While his eyes were
closed he had the mastery of all pictures of light and colour and
warmth, but an irresistible fascination compelled him every few minutes
to reopen them, and in the sad space around he could not create any
happiness. The darkness weighed very sadly upon him so that in a short
time it did creep under his eyelids and drowned his happy pictures until
a blackness possessed him both within and without "Can one's mind go to
prison as well as one's body?" said he.
He strove desperately to regain his intellectual freedom, but he could
not. He could conjure up no visions but those of fear. The creatures of
the dark invaded him, fantastic terrors were thronging on every side:
they came from the darkness into his eyes and beyond into himself, so
that his mind as well as his fancy was captured, and he knew he was,
indeed, in gaol.
It was with a great start that he heard a voice speaking from the
silence--a harsh, yet cultivated voice, but he could not imagine which
of his companions was speaking. He had a vision of that man tormented
by the mental imprisonment of the darkness, trying to get away from his
ghosts and slimy enemies, goaded into speech in his own despite lest he
should be submerged and finally possessed by the abysmal demons. For a
while the voice spoke of the strangeness of life and the cruelty of
men to each other--disconnected sentences, odd words of selfpity and
self-encouragement, and then the matter became more connected and a
story grew in the dark cell "I knew a man," said the voice, "and he was
a clerk. He had thirty shillings a week, and for five years he had never
missed a day going to his work. He was a careful man, but a person with
a wife and four children cannot save much out of thirty shillings a
week. The rent of a house is high, a wife and children must be fed, and
they have to get boots and clothes, so that at the end of each week
that man's thirty shillings used to be all gone. But they managed to get
along somehow--the man and his wife and the four children were fed and
clothed and educated, and the man often wondered how so much could
be done with so little money; but the reason was that his wife was a
careful woman... and then the man got sick. A poor person cannot afford
to get sick, and a married man cannot leave his work. If he is sick
he has to be sick; but he must go to his work all the same, for if he
stayed away who would pay the wages and feed his family? and when he
went back to work he might find that there was nothing for him to do.
This man fell sick, but he made no change in his way of life: he got up
at the same time and went to the office as usual, and he got through the
day somehow without attracting his employer's attention. He didn't know
what was wrong with him: he only knew that he was sick. Sometimes he had
sharp, swift pains in his head, and again there would be long hours of
languor when he could scarcely bear to change his position or lift a
pen. He would commence a letter with the words 'Dear Sir,' forming the
letter 'D' with painful, accurate slowness, elaborating and thickening
the up and down strokes, and being troubled when he had to leave that
letter for the next one; he built the next letter by hair strokes and
would start on the third with hatred. The end of a word seemed to that
man like the conclusion of an event--it was a surprising, isolated,
individual thing, having no reference to anything else in the world,
and on starting a new word he seemed bound, in order to preserve its
individuality, to write it in a different handwriting. He would sit with
his shoulders hunched up and his pen resting on the paper, staring at a
letter until he was nearly mesmerized, and then come to himself with a
sense of fear, which started him working like a madman, so that he might
not be behind with his business. The day seemed to be so long. It rolled
on rusty hinges that could scarcely move. Each hour was like a great
circle swollen with heavy air, and it droned and buzzed into an
eternity. It seemed to the man that his hand in particular wanted to
rest. It was luxury not to work with it. It was good to lay it down on
a sheet of paper with the pen sloping against his finger, and then watch
his hand going to sleep--it seemed to the man that it was his hand
and not himself wanted to sleep, but it always awakened when the pen
slipped. There was an instinct in him somewhere not to let the pen
slip, and every time the pen moved his hand awakened, and began to work
languidly. When he went home at night he lay down at once and stared
for hours at a fly on the wall or a crack on the ceiling. When his wife
spoke to him he heard her speaking as from a great distance, and he
answered her dully as though he was replying through a cloud. He only
wanted to be let alone, to be allowed to stare at the fly on the wall,
or the crack on the ceiling.
"One morning he found that he couldn't get up, or rather, that he didn't
want to get up. When his wife called him he made no reply, and she
seemed to call him every ten seconds--the words, 'get up, get up,' were
crackling all round him; they were bursting like bombs on the right hand
and on the left of him: they were scattering from above and all around
him, bursting upwards from the floor, swirling, swaying, and jostling
each other. Then the sounds ceased, and one voice only said to him
'You are late!' He saw these words like a blur hanging in the air, just
beyond his eyelids, and he stared at the blur until he fell asleep."
The voice in the cell ceased speaking for a few minutes, and then it
went on again.
"For three weeks the man did not leave his bed--he lived faintly in a
kind of trance, wherein great forms moved about slowly and immense
words were drumming gently for ever. When he began to take notice again
everything in the house was different. Most of the furniture, paid for
so hardly, was gone. He missed a thing everywhere--chairs, a mirror,
a table: wherever he looked he missed something; and downstairs was
worse--there, everything was gone. His wife had sold all her furniture
to pay for doctors, for medicine, for food and rent. And she was changed
too: good things had gone from her face; she was gaunt, sharp-featured,
miserable--but she was comforted to think he was going back to work
soon.
"There was a flurry in his head when he went to his office. He didn't
know what his employer would say for stopping away. He might blame him
for being sick--he wondered would his employer pay him for the weeks he
was absent. When he stood at the door he was frightened. Suddenly the
thought of his master's eye grew terrible to him: it was a steady, cold,
glassy eye; but he opened the door and went in. His master was there
with another man and he tried to say 'Good morning, sir,' in a natural
and calm voice; but he knew that the strange man had been engaged
instead of himself, and this knowledge posted itself between his tongue
and his thought. He heard himself stammering, he felt that his whole
bearing had become drooping and abject. His master was talking swiftly
and the other man was looking at him in an embarrassed, stealthy, and
pleading manner: his eyes seemed to be apologising for having supplanted
him--so he mumbled 'Good day, sir,' and stumbled out.
"When he got outside he could not think where to go. After a while he
went in the direction of the little park in the centre of the city. It
was quite near and he sat down on an iron bench facing a pond. There
were children walking up and down by the water giving pieces of bread to
the swans. Now and again a labouring man or a messenger went by quickly;
now and again a middleaged, slovenly-dressed man drooped past aimlessly:
sometimes a tattered, self-intent woman with a badgered face flopped by
him. When he looked at these dull people the thought came to him that
they were not walking there at all; they were trailing through hell,
and their desperate eyes saw none but devils around them. He saw himself
joining these battered strollers... and he could not think what he would
tell his wife when he went home. He rehearsed to himself the terms of
his dismissal a hundred times. How his master looked, what he had said:
and then the fine, ironical things he had said to his master. He sat in
the park all day, and when evening fell he went home at his accustomed
hour.
"His wife asked him questions as to how he had got on, and wanted to
know was there any chance of being paid for the weeks of absence; the
man answered her volubly, ate his supper and went to bed: but he did
not tell his wife that he had been dismissed and that there would be no
money at the end of the week. He tried to tell her, but when he met her
eye he found that he could not say the words--he was afraid of the look
that might come into her face when she heard it--she, standing terrified
in those dismantled rooms...!
"In the morning he ate his breakfast and went out again--to work, his
wife thought. She bid him ask the master about the three weeks' wages,
or to try and get an advance on the present week's wages, for they were
hardly put to it to buy food. He said he would do his best, but he
went straight to the park and sat looking at the pond, looking at the
passers-by and dreaming. In the middle of the day he started up in
a panic and went about the city asking for work in offices, shops,
warehouses, everywhere, but he could not get any. He trailed back
heavy-footed again to the park and sat down.
"He told his wife more lies about his work that night and what his
master had said when he asked for an advance. He couldn't bear the
children to touch him. After a little time he sneaked away to his bed.
"A week went that way. He didn't look for work any more. He sat in the
park, dreaming, with his head bowed into his hands. The next day would
be the day he should have been paid his wages. The next day! What would
his wife say when he told her he had no money? She would stare at him
and flush and say-'Didn't you go out every day to work?'--How would he
tell her then so that she could understand quickly and spare him words?
"Morning came and the man ate his breakfast silently. There was no
butter on the bread, and his wife seemed to be apologising to him for
not having any. She said, 'We'll be able to start fair from to-morrow,'
and when he snapped at her angrily she thought it was because he had to
eat dry bread.
"He went to the park and sat there for hours. Now and again he got up
and walked into a neighbouring street, but always, after half an hour
or so, he came back. Six o'clock in the evening was his hour for going
home. When six o'clock came he did not move, he still sat opposite the
pond with his head bowed down into his arms. Seven o'clock passed. At
nine o'clock a bell was rung and every one had to leave. He went also.
He stood outside the gates looking on this side and on that. Which
way would he go? All roads were alike to him, so he turned at last and
walked somewhere. He did not go home that night. He never went home
again. He never was heard of again anywhere in the wide world."
The voice ceased speaking and silence swung down again upon the little
cell. The Philosopher had been listening intently to this story, and
after a few minutes he spoke "When you go up this road there is a turn
to the left and all the path along is bordered with trees--there are
birds in the trees, Glory be to God! There is only one house on that
road, and the woman in it gave us milk to drink. She has but one son, a
good boy, and she said the other children were dead; she was speaking of
a husband who went away and left her--'Why should he have been afraid to
come home?' said she--'sure, I loved him.'"
After a little interval the voice spoke again "I don't know what became
of the man I was speaking of. I am a thief, and I'm well known to the
police everywhere. I don't think that man would get a welcome at the
house up here, for why should he?"
Another, a different, querulous kind of voice came from the silence "If
I knew a place where there was a welcome I'd go there as quickly as I
could, but I don't know a place and I never will, for what good would
a man of my age be to any person? I am a thief also. The first thing I
stole was a hen out of a little yard. I roasted it in a ditch and ate
it, and then I stole another one and ate it, and after that I stole
everything I could lay my hands on. I suppose I will steal as long as I
live, and I'll die in a ditch at the heel of the hunt. There was a time,
not long ago, and if any one had told me then that I would rob, even
for hunger, I'd have been insulted: but what does it matter now? And
the reason I am a thief is because I got old without noticing it.
Other people noticed it, but I did not. I suppose age comes on one so
gradually that it is seldom observed. If there are wrinkles on one's
face we do not remember when they were not there: we put down all kind
of little infirmities to sedentary living, and you will see plenty of
young people bald. If a man has no occasion to tell any one his age,
and if he never thinks of it himself, he won't see ten years' difference
between his youth and his age, for we live in slow, quiet times, and
nothing ever happens to mark the years as they go by, one after the
other, and all the same.
"I lodged in a house for a great many years, and a little girl grew
up there, the daughter of my landlady. She used to slide down the
bannisters very well, and she used to play the piano very badly. These
two things worried me many a time. She used to bring me my meals in the
morning and the evening, and often enough she'd stop to talk with me
while I was eating. She was a very chatty girl and I was a talkative
person myself. When she was about eighteen years of age I got so used
to her that if her mother came with the food I would be worried for
the rest of the day. Her face was as bright as a sunbeam, and her lazy,
careless ways, big, free movements, and girlish chatter were pleasant to
a man whose loneliness was only beginning to be apparent to him through
her company. I've thought of it often since, and I suppose that's how it
began. She used to listen to all my opinions and she'd agree with them
because she had none of her own yet. She was a good girl, but lazy in
her mind and body; childish, in fact. Her talk was as involved as her
actions: she always seemed to be sliding down mental bannisters; she
thought in kinks and spoke in spasms, hopped mentally from one subject
to another without the slightest difficulty, and could use a lot of
language in saying nothing at all. I could see all that at the time, but
I suppose I was too pleased with my own sharp business brains, and
sick enough, although I did not know it, of my sharp-brained, business
companions--dear Lord! I remember them well. It's easy enough to have
brains as they call it, but it is not so easy to have a little gaiety
or carelessness or childishness or whatever it was she had. It is good,
too, to feel superior to some one, even a girl.
"One day this thought came to me--'It is time that I settled down.' I
don't know where the idea came from; one hears it often enough and it
always seems to apply to some one else, but I don't know what brought
it to roost with me. I was foolish, too: I bought ties and differently
shaped collars, and took to creasing my trousers by folding them under
the bed and lying on them all night--It never struck me that I was more
than three times her age. I brought home sweets for her and she was
delighted. She said she adored sweets, and she used to insist on my
eating some of them with her; she liked to compare notes as to how they
tasted while eating them. I used to get a toothache from them, but I
bore with it although at that time I hated toothache almost as much as
I hated sweets. Then I asked her to come out with me for a walk. She
was willing enough and it was a novel experience for me. Indeed, it was
rather exciting. We went out together often after that, and sometimes
we'd meet people I knew, young men from my office or from other offices.
I used to be shy when some of these people winked at me as they saluted.
It was pleasant, too, telling the girl who they were, their business and
their salaries: for there was little I didn't know. I used to tell her
of my own position in the office and what the chief said to me through
the day. Sometimes we talked of the things that had appeared in the
evening papers. A murder perhaps, some phase of a divorce case, the
speech a political person had made, or the price of stock. She was
interested in anything so long as it was talk. And her own share in the
conversation was good to hear. Every lady that passed us had a hat that
stirred her to the top of rapture or the other pinnacle of disgust.
She told me what ladies were frights and what were ducks. Under her
scampering tongue I began to learn something of humanity, even though
she saw most people as delightfully funny clowns or superb, majestical
princes, but I noticed that she never said a bad word of a man, although
many of the men she looked after were ordinary enough. Until I went
walking with her I never knew what a shop window was. A jeweller's
window especially: there were curious things in it. She told me how a
tiara should be worn, and a pendant, and she explained the kind of studs
I should wear myself; they were made of gold and had red stones in them;
she showed me the ropes of pearl or diamonds that she thought would look
pretty on herself: and one day she said that she liked me very much. I
was pleased and excited that day, but I was a business man and I said
very little in reply. I never liked a pig in a poke.
"She used to go out two nights in the week, Monday and Thursday, dressed
in her best clothes. I didn't know where she went, and I didn't ask--I
thought she visited an acquaintance, a girl friend or some such. The
time went by and I made up my mind to ask her to marry me. I had watched
her long enough and she was always kind and bright. I liked the way she
smiled, and I liked her obedient, mannerly bearing. There was something
else I liked, which I did not recognise then, something surrounding all
her movements, a graciousness, a spaciousness: I did not analyse it;
but I know now that it was her youth. I remember that when we were out
together she walked slowly, but in the house she would leap up and down
the stairs--she moved furiously, but I didn't.
"One evening she dressed to go out as usual, and she called at my door
to know had I everything I wanted. I said I had something to tell her
when she came home, something important. She promised to come in early
to hear it, and I laughed at her and she laughed back and went sliding
down the bannisters. I don't think I have had any reason to laugh since
that night. A letter came for me after she had gone, and I knew by the
shape and the handwriting that it was from the office. It puzzled me to
think why I should be written to. I didn't like opening it somehow....
It was my dismissal on account of advancing age, and it hoped for my
future welfare politely enough. It was signed by the Senior. I didn't
grip it at first, and then I thought it was a hoax. For a long time I
sat in my room with an empty mind. I was watching my mind: there were
immense distances in it that drowsed and buzzed; large, soft movements
seemed to be made in my mind, and although I was looking at the letter
in my hand I was really trying to focus those great, swinging spaces in
my brain, and my ears were listening for a movement of some kind. I
can see back to that time plainly. I went walking up and down the room.
There was a dull, subterranean anger in me. I remember muttering once or
twice, 'Shameful!' and again I said, 'Ridiculous!' At the idea of age
I looked at my face in the glass, but I was looking at my mind, and
it seemed to go grey, there was a heaviness there also. I seemed to be
peering from beneath a weight at something strange. I had a feeling that
I had let go a grip which I had held tightly for a long time, and I had
a feeling that the letting go was a grave disaster... that strange face
in the glass! how wrinkled it was! there were only a few hairs on the
head and they were grey ones. There was a constant twitching of the lips
and the eyes were deep-set, little and dull. I left the glass and sat
down by the window, looking out. I saw nothing in the street: I just
looked into a blackness. My mind was as blank as the night and as
soundless. There was a swirl outside the window, rain tossed by the
wind; without noticing, I saw it, and my brain swung with the rain until
it heaved in circles, and then a feeling of faintness awakened me to
myself. I did not allow my mind to think, but now and again a word
swooped from immense distances through my brain, swinging like a comet
across a sky and jarring terribly when it struck: 'Sacked' was one word,
'Old' was another word.
"I don't know how long I sat watching the flight of these dreadful words
and listening to their clanking impact, but a movement in the street
aroused me. Two people, the girl and a young, slender man, were coming
slowly up to the house. The rain was falling heavily, but they did not
seem to mind it. There was a big puddle of water close to the kerb, and
the girl, stepping daintily as a cat, went round this, but the young man
stood for a moment beyond it. He raised both arms, clenched his fists,
swung them, and jumped over the puddle. Then he and the girl stood
looking at the water, apparently measuring the jump. I could see them
plainly by a street lamp. They were bidding each other good-bye. The
girl put her hand to his neck and settled the collar of his coat, and
while her hand rested on him the young man suddenly and violently flung
his arms about her and hugged her; then they kissed and moved apart. The
man walked to the rain puddle and stood there with his face turned back
laughing at her, and then he jumped straight into the middle of the
puddle and began to dance up and down in it, the muddy water splashing
up to his knees. She ran over to him crying 'Stop, silly!' When she came
into the house, I bolted my door and I gave no answer to her knock.
"In a few months the money I had saved was spent. I couldn't get any
work, I was too old; they put it that they wanted a younger man. I
couldn't pay my rent. I went out into the world again, like a baby,
an old baby in a new world. I stole food, food, food anywhere and
everywhere. At first I was always caught. Often I was sent to gaol;
sometimes I was let go; sometimes I was kicked; but I learned to live
like a wolf at last. I am not often caught now when I steal food. But
there is something happening every day, whether it is going to gaol or
planning how to steal a hen or a loaf of bread. I find that it is a good
life, much better than the one I lived for nearly sixty years, and I
have time to think over every sort of thing...."
When the morning came the Philosopher was taken on a car to the big
City in order that he might be put on his trial and hanged. It was the
custom. _
Read next: Book 6. The Thin Woman's Journey And The Happy March: Chapter 17
Read previous: Book 5. The Policemen: Chapter 15
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