02

WEBVTT
1
00:00:01.159 --> 00:00:06.799
Part two of Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad. This LibriVox
2
00:00:06.839 --> 00:00:13.560
recording is in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times,
3
00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:19.800
Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad, Section two. He must have
4
00:00:19.879 --> 00:00:22.559
been a real adventurer at heart, for how many of
5
00:00:22.600 --> 00:00:25.800
the greatest enterprises in the conquest of the earth had
6
00:00:25.839 --> 00:00:28.960
for their beginning just such a bargaining away of the
7
00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:33.039
paternal cow for the mirage or true gold far away.
8
00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:36.280
I have been telling you, more or less in my
9
00:00:36.359 --> 00:00:39.960
own words, what I learned fragmentarily in the course of
10
00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:43.159
two or three years, during which I seldom missed an
11
00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:46.880
opportunity of a friendly chat with him. He told me
12
00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:50.359
the story of his adventure, with many flashes of white
13
00:00:50.399 --> 00:00:54.399
teeth and lively glances of black eyes, at first in
14
00:00:54.479 --> 00:00:58.320
a sort of anxious baby talk, then as he acquired
15
00:00:58.359 --> 00:01:02.479
the language with great flot tullency, but always with that singing,
16
00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:07.840
soft and at the same time vibrating intonation that instilled
17
00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:11.680
a strangely penetrating power into the sound of the most
18
00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:15.040
familiar English words, as if they had been the words
19
00:01:15.079 --> 00:01:19.159
of an unearthly language. And he always would come to
20
00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:23.200
an end with many emphatic shakes of his head upon
21
00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:27.319
that awful sensation of his heart melting within him. Directly
22
00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:31.120
he set foot on board that ship. Afterwards there seemed
23
00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:34.879
to come for him a period of blank ignorance. At
24
00:01:34.920 --> 00:01:39.079
any rate as to facts, no doubt he must have
25
00:01:39.159 --> 00:01:45.319
been abominably sea sick, and abominably unhappy, this soft and
26
00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:50.159
passionate adventurer, taken thus out of his knowledge, and feeling
27
00:01:50.159 --> 00:01:54.239
bitterly as he lay in his emigrant bunk his utter loneliness,
28
00:01:54.840 --> 00:01:58.920
for his was a highly sensitive nature. The next thing
29
00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:01.319
we know of him for certain is that he had
30
00:02:01.319 --> 00:02:04.480
been hiding in Hammond's pig Pound, by the side of
31
00:02:04.519 --> 00:02:07.879
the road to Norton, six miles as the crow flies
32
00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:12.159
from the sea. Of these experiences, he was unwilling to speak.
33
00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:16.400
They seemed to have seared into his soul a somber
34
00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:22.000
sort of wonder and indignation. Through the rumors of the countryside,
35
00:02:22.120 --> 00:02:24.879
which lasted for a good many days after his arrival,
36
00:02:25.240 --> 00:02:28.840
we know that the fishermen of West Colebrook had been
37
00:02:28.879 --> 00:02:32.719
disturbed and startled by heavy knocks against the walls of
38
00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:37.960
weatherboard cottages and by a voice crying piercingly strange words
39
00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:41.400
in the night several of them had turned out even
40
00:02:42.280 --> 00:02:45.400
but no doubt he had fled in sudden alarm at
41
00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:48.520
their rough, angry tones handling each other in the darkness.
42
00:02:49.639 --> 00:02:52.639
A sort of frenzy must have helped him up the
43
00:02:52.800 --> 00:02:57.000
steep Norton Hill. It was he, no doubt, who, early
44
00:02:57.199 --> 00:03:00.800
the following morning, had been seen lying in a swoon,
45
00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:04.560
I should say, on the roadside grass by the Brinsit carrier,
46
00:03:05.080 --> 00:03:08.000
who actually got down to have a nearer look, but
47
00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:13.000
drew back, intimidated by the perfect immobility, and by something
48
00:03:13.080 --> 00:03:16.599
queer in the aspect of that tramp sleeping so still
49
00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:20.759
under the showers. As the day advanced, some children came
50
00:03:20.879 --> 00:03:24.080
dashing into school at Norton in such a fright that
51
00:03:24.159 --> 00:03:28.560
the schoolmistress went out and spoke indignantly to a horrid
52
00:03:28.599 --> 00:03:32.599
looking man on the road. He edged away, hanging his
53
00:03:32.719 --> 00:03:36.000
head for a few steps, and then suddenly ran off
54
00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:40.919
with extraordinary fleetness. The driver of mister Bradley's moat cart
55
00:03:41.240 --> 00:03:44.240
made no secret of it that he had lashed with
56
00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:48.000
his whip at a hairy sort of gypsy fellow, who,
57
00:03:48.199 --> 00:03:51.080
jumping up at a turn of the road by the vnce,
58
00:03:51.719 --> 00:03:54.719
made a snatch at the pony's bridle, and he caught
59
00:03:54.840 --> 00:03:57.360
him a good one too, right over the face. He
60
00:03:57.400 --> 00:04:00.039
said that made him drop down in the mud a
61
00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:03.479
jolly sight, quicker than he had jumped up. But it
62
00:04:03.599 --> 00:04:06.360
was a good half a mile before he could stop
63
00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:10.479
the pony. Maybe that, in his desperate endeavors to get help,
64
00:04:10.919 --> 00:04:13.319
and in his need to get in touch with someone,
65
00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:17.240
the poor devil had tried to stop the cart. Also,
66
00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:20.879
three boys confessed afterwards to thrung stones at a funny
67
00:04:20.920 --> 00:04:24.920
tramp knocking about, all wet and muddy, and it seemed
68
00:04:25.240 --> 00:04:29.399
very drunk in the narrow deep lane by the limbcounts.
69
00:04:30.399 --> 00:04:33.240
All this was the talk of three villages for days.
70
00:04:33.560 --> 00:04:37.000
But we have missus Finn's, the wife of Smith's wagoner,
71
00:04:37.519 --> 00:04:41.079
unimpeachable testimony that she saw him get over the low
72
00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:44.560
wall of Hammond's pig Pound and lurch straight at her,
73
00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:47.480
babbling aloud in a voice that was enough to make
74
00:04:47.519 --> 00:04:51.480
one die of fright. Having the baby with her in
75
00:04:51.759 --> 00:04:55.720
a perambulator, missus Finn called out to him to go away,
76
00:04:56.240 --> 00:04:59.319
and as he persisted in coming nearer, she hit him
77
00:04:59.519 --> 00:05:03.519
courageous with her umbrella over the head, and without once
78
00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:07.040
looking back, ran like the wind with a perambulator, as
79
00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:10.639
far as the first house in the village. She stopped then,
80
00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:14.360
out of breath, and spoke to Old Lewis, hammering there
81
00:05:14.399 --> 00:05:17.600
at a heap of stones, and the old chap, taking
82
00:05:17.639 --> 00:05:21.240
off his immense black wire goggles, got up on his
83
00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:25.120
shaky legs to look where she pointed. Together they followed
84
00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:27.399
with their eyes the figure of the man running over
85
00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:31.120
a field. They saw him fall down, pick himself up,
86
00:05:31.279 --> 00:05:34.839
and run on again, staggering and waving his long arms
87
00:05:34.879 --> 00:05:39.360
above his head, in the direction of the new Barnes Farm.
88
00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:41.800
From that moment he is plainly in the tolls of
89
00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:45.639
his obscure and touching destiny. There is no doubt after
90
00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:48.800
this of what happened to him. All is certain now
91
00:05:49.439 --> 00:05:54.920
Missus Smith's intense terror, amy Foster's stolid conviction held against
92
00:05:54.959 --> 00:05:58.519
the other's nervous attack that the man meant no harm.
93
00:05:58.879 --> 00:06:03.879
Smith's exhausted aspiration, on his return from Darnford Market at
94
00:06:03.879 --> 00:06:07.519
finding the dog barking himself into a fit the back door,
95
00:06:07.639 --> 00:06:11.600
locked his wife in hysterics, and all for an unfortunate
96
00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:14.959
dirty tramp supposed to be even then lurking in his
97
00:06:15.040 --> 00:06:18.839
stackyard was he, he would teach him to frighten women.
98
00:06:20.319 --> 00:06:23.839
Smith is notoriously hot tempered, But the sight of some
99
00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:28.480
nondescript and miry creature sitting cross legged amongst a lot
100
00:06:28.519 --> 00:06:31.879
of loose straw, and swinging itself to and fro like
101
00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:35.240
a bear in a cage made him pause. Then this
102
00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:39.079
tramp stood up silently before him, one mass of mud
103
00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:43.839
and filth from head to foot. Smith, alone amongst his stacks,
104
00:06:43.879 --> 00:06:48.399
with this apparition, in the stormy twilight ringing with the
105
00:06:48.720 --> 00:06:52.399
infuriated barking of the dog, felt the dread of an
106
00:06:52.439 --> 00:06:58.199
inexplicable strangeness. But when that being parting with his black hands,
107
00:06:58.360 --> 00:07:02.160
the long matted locks that hung before his face as
108
00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:05.000
who parted the two hovels of a curtain, looked out
109
00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:08.720
at him with glistening wild black and white eyes, the
110
00:07:08.759 --> 00:07:13.959
weirdness of this silent encounter fairly staggered him. He had admitted, since,
111
00:07:14.360 --> 00:07:18.040
for the story has been a legitimate subject of conversation
112
00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:22.240
about here for years, that he made more than one
113
00:07:22.279 --> 00:07:27.000
step backwards. Then a sudden burst of rapid, senseless speech
114
00:07:27.240 --> 00:07:30.240
persuaded him at once that he had to do with
115
00:07:30.319 --> 00:07:35.439
an escaped lunatic in fact, that impression never wore off completely.
116
00:07:36.120 --> 00:07:39.360
Smith has not in his heart given up his secret
117
00:07:39.399 --> 00:07:43.720
conviction of the man's essential insanity to this very day.
118
00:07:45.720 --> 00:07:51.120
As the creature approached him, jabbering in a most discomposing manner, Smith,
119
00:07:51.519 --> 00:07:55.160
unaware that he was being addressed as gracious Lord and
120
00:07:55.319 --> 00:07:59.120
adjured in God's name to afford food and shelter, kept
121
00:07:59.160 --> 00:08:03.360
on speaking firmly but gently to it, and retreating all
122
00:08:03.399 --> 00:08:07.920
the time into the other yard. At last, watching his chance,
123
00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:11.600
by a sudden charge, he bundled him headlong into the
124
00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:15.879
wood lodge and instantly shot the bolt. Thereupon he wiped
125
00:08:15.879 --> 00:08:19.120
his brow. Though the day was cold, he had done
126
00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:22.079
his duty to the community by shutting up a wandering
127
00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:26.759
and probably dangerous maniac. Smith isn't a hard man at all,
128
00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:29.319
but he had room in his brain only for that
129
00:08:29.480 --> 00:08:34.480
one idea of lunacy. He was not imaginative enough to
130
00:08:34.519 --> 00:08:37.960
ask himself whether the man might not be perishing with
131
00:08:38.120 --> 00:08:42.799
cold and hunger. Meantime, at first the maniac made a
132
00:08:42.799 --> 00:08:46.320
great deal of noise in the lodge. Missus Smith was
133
00:08:46.360 --> 00:08:49.919
screaming upstairs, where she had locked herself in her bedroom.
134
00:08:50.320 --> 00:08:54.159
But Amy Foster sobbed piteously at the kitchen door, wringing
135
00:08:54.159 --> 00:08:59.000
her hands and muttering don't, don't. I dare say Smith
136
00:08:59.159 --> 00:09:01.360
had a rough time of it that evening, with one
137
00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:06.159
noise and another, and this insane, disturbing voice crying obstinately
138
00:09:06.559 --> 00:09:10.039
through the door only added to his irritation. He couldn't
139
00:09:10.039 --> 00:09:14.720
possibly have connected this troublesome lunatic with the sinking of
140
00:09:14.720 --> 00:09:17.519
a ship in East Bay, of which there had been
141
00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:22.240
a rumor in the Darnford market place. And I dare
142
00:09:22.279 --> 00:09:26.320
say the man inside had been very near to insanity
143
00:09:26.360 --> 00:09:31.639
on that night, before his excitement collapsed and he became unconscious.
144
00:09:31.960 --> 00:09:35.600
He was throwing himself violently about in the dark, rolling
145
00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:40.440
on some dirty sacks, and biting his fists with rage, cold, hunger,
146
00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:46.600
amazement and despair. He was a mountaineer of the Eastern
147
00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:49.879
Range of the Carpathians, and the vessel sunk the night
148
00:09:49.919 --> 00:09:54.840
before in East Bay was the Hamburg immigrants ship, Herzogen
149
00:09:55.000 --> 00:10:01.000
Sophia Dorothea of appalling memory. A few months later we
150
00:10:01.080 --> 00:10:03.799
could read in the papers the accounts of the bogus
151
00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:10.039
emigration agencies among the Sclavonian peasantry in the more remote
152
00:10:10.080 --> 00:10:14.320
provinces of Austria. The object of these scoundrels was to
153
00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:17.679
get hold of the poor, ignorant people's homesteads, and they
154
00:10:17.720 --> 00:10:22.039
were in league with the local usurers. They exported their
155
00:10:22.120 --> 00:10:27.600
victims through Hamburg. Mostly as to the ship, I had
156
00:10:27.639 --> 00:10:31.120
watched her out of this very window, reaching close, hauled
157
00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:35.080
under short canvas into the bay on a dark, threatening afternoon,
158
00:10:35.840 --> 00:10:39.519
she came to an anchor correctly by the chart, off
159
00:10:39.559 --> 00:10:43.679
the Brunswick Coastguard station. I remembered before the night fell,
160
00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:46.919
looking out again at the outlines of her spars and
161
00:10:47.039 --> 00:10:50.320
rigging that stood out dark and pointed on a background
162
00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:56.200
of ragged, slady clouds like another and a slighter spire
163
00:10:56.399 --> 00:11:00.799
to the left of the Brenswick Church tower. In the evening,
164
00:11:00.919 --> 00:11:03.919
the wind rose. At midnight I could hear in my
165
00:11:04.039 --> 00:11:08.080
bed the terrific gusts and the sounds of a driving deluge.
166
00:11:08.600 --> 00:11:11.799
About that time the coast guard men thought they saw
167
00:11:11.879 --> 00:11:15.879
the lights of a steamer over the anchoring ground. In
168
00:11:15.960 --> 00:11:19.039
a moment they vanished, But it is clear that another
169
00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:21.759
vessel of some sort had tried for shelter in the
170
00:11:21.840 --> 00:11:26.480
bay on that awful blind night, had rammed the German
171
00:11:26.519 --> 00:11:30.919
ship amidships a breach, as one of the divers told
172
00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:34.720
me afterwards, that she could sail a Thames barged through
173
00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:40.480
and then had gone out either scatheless or damaged, who
174
00:11:40.679 --> 00:11:45.159
shall say, but had gone out unknown, unseen, and fatal
175
00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:49.879
to perish mysteriously at sea. Of her nothing ever came
176
00:11:49.919 --> 00:11:52.360
to light, and yet the hue and cry that was
177
00:11:52.440 --> 00:11:55.720
raised all over the world would have found her out
178
00:11:55.799 --> 00:11:59.159
if she had been in existence anywhere on the face
179
00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:04.639
of the waters. A completeless without a clew, and a
180
00:12:04.720 --> 00:12:09.799
stealthy silence as of a neatly executed crime characterized this
181
00:12:10.039 --> 00:12:14.919
murderous disaster, which, as you may remember, had its grisome celebrity.
182
00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:20.879
The wind would have prevented the loudest outcries from reaching
183
00:12:20.919 --> 00:12:25.000
the shore. There had been evidently no time for signals
184
00:12:25.039 --> 00:12:29.840
of distress. It was death without any sort of fuss.
185
00:12:30.440 --> 00:12:34.919
The Hamburg ship filling all at once, capsized as she sank,
186
00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:37.840
and at daylight there was not even the end of
187
00:12:37.879 --> 00:12:41.240
a spar to be seen above water. She was missed,
188
00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:44.840
of course, and at first the coast guardmen surmised that
189
00:12:44.919 --> 00:12:48.080
she had either dragged her anchor or parted her cable
190
00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:50.759
some time during the night and had been blown out
191
00:12:50.759 --> 00:12:55.120
to sea. Then after the tide turned, the wreck must
192
00:12:55.120 --> 00:12:58.320
have shifted a little and released some of the bodies,
193
00:12:58.559 --> 00:13:01.440
because a child, a little fair haired child in a
194
00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:06.639
red frock, came ashore abreast of the Martello tower. By
195
00:13:06.679 --> 00:13:09.720
the afternoon you could see along three miles of beach
196
00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:13.799
dark figures with bare legs dashing in and out of
197
00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:18.919
the tumbling foam, and rough looking men, women with hard faces. Children,
198
00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:24.120
mostly fair haired, were being carried stiff and dripping on stretchers,
199
00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:27.960
on wattles, on ladders in a long procession past the
200
00:13:28.039 --> 00:13:30.799
door of the ship inn, to be laid out in
201
00:13:30.840 --> 00:13:36.240
a row under the north wall of the Brinsitt Church. Officially,
202
00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:38.639
the body of the little girl in the red frock
203
00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:41.399
is the first thing that came ashore from that ship.
204
00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:46.200
But I have patience amongst the seafaring population of West Colebrook,
205
00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:50.799
and unofficially I am informed that very early that morning
206
00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:54.360
two brothers who went down to look after their cobble
207
00:13:54.919 --> 00:13:59.080
hauled up on the beach, found a good way from
208
00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:03.000
brenst and ordinary ship's hen coop lying high and dry
209
00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:07.519
on the shore with eleven drowned ducks inside their families
210
00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:10.360
ate the birds, and the hen coop was split into
211
00:14:10.360 --> 00:14:13.799
firewood with a hatchet. It is possible that a man,
212
00:14:14.159 --> 00:14:16.399
supposing he happened to be on deck at the time
213
00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:19.919
of the accident, might have fluttered ashore on that hen coop.
214
00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:24.440
He might, I admit, it is improbable, But there was
215
00:14:24.600 --> 00:14:28.399
the man, and for days, nay for weeks, it didn't
216
00:14:28.559 --> 00:14:31.559
enter our heads that we had amongst us the only
217
00:14:31.639 --> 00:14:37.039
living soul that had escaped from that disaster. The man himself,
218
00:14:37.360 --> 00:14:40.840
even when he learned to speak intelligibly, could tell us
219
00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:44.559
very little. He remembered he had felt better after the
220
00:14:44.600 --> 00:14:49.559
ship had anchored, I suppose, and that the darkness, the wind,
221
00:14:49.759 --> 00:14:52.720
and the rain took his breath away. This looks as
222
00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:56.039
if he had been on deck some time during that night.
223
00:14:56.639 --> 00:14:59.360
But we mustn't forget he had been taken out of
224
00:14:59.399 --> 00:15:02.960
his knowledge, that he had been seasick and batten down
225
00:15:03.080 --> 00:15:06.639
below for four days, that he had no general notion
226
00:15:06.799 --> 00:15:09.639
of a ship or of the sea, and therefore could
227
00:15:09.639 --> 00:15:12.919
have no definite idea of what was happening to him.
228
00:15:13.799 --> 00:15:17.559
The rain, the wind, the darkness. He knew he understood
229
00:15:17.639 --> 00:15:20.480
the bleating of the sheep, and he remembered the pain
230
00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:24.600
of his wretchedness and misery, his heart broken astonishment that
231
00:15:24.679 --> 00:15:28.600
it was neither seen nor understood, his dismay at finding
232
00:15:28.679 --> 00:15:32.080
all the men angry and all the women fierce. He
233
00:15:32.159 --> 00:15:35.840
had approached them as a beggar. It is true, he said,
234
00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:39.360
But in his country, even if they gave nothing, they
235
00:15:39.399 --> 00:15:43.720
spoke gently to beggar's. The children in his country were
236
00:15:43.759 --> 00:15:47.759
not taught to throw stones at those who asked for compassion.
237
00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:53.519
Smith's strategy overcame him completely. The wood lodge presented the
238
00:15:53.559 --> 00:15:56.679
horrible aspect of a dungeon. What would be done to
239
00:15:56.759 --> 00:16:00.519
him next? No wonder that Amy Foster here to his
240
00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:04.960
eyes with the aureole of an angel in flight. The
241
00:16:05.039 --> 00:16:07.519
girl had not been able to sleep for thinking of
242
00:16:07.559 --> 00:16:10.799
the poor man, and in the morning, before the Smiths
243
00:16:10.799 --> 00:16:14.799
were up, she slipped out across the back yard, holding
244
00:16:14.840 --> 00:16:17.480
the door of the wood lodge. Ajar. She looked in
245
00:16:17.720 --> 00:16:20.559
and extended to him half a loaf of white bread,
246
00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:23.759
such bread as the rich eat in my country, he
247
00:16:23.840 --> 00:16:28.120
used to say. At this he got up slowly from
248
00:16:28.159 --> 00:16:33.600
amongst all sorts of rubbish, stiff, hungry, trembling, miserable and doubtful.
249
00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:37.279
Can you eat this, she asked in her soft and
250
00:16:37.399 --> 00:16:41.320
timid voice. He must have taken her for a gracious lady.
251
00:16:41.879 --> 00:16:45.639
He devoured ferociously, and tears were falling on the crust.
252
00:16:46.039 --> 00:16:49.639
Suddenly he dropped the bread, seized her wrist, and imprinted
253
00:16:49.639 --> 00:16:53.840
a kiss on her hand. She was not frightened through
254
00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:58.120
his forlorn condition. She had observed that he was good looking.
255
00:16:58.639 --> 00:17:01.480
She shut the door and walked back slowly to the kitchen.
256
00:17:02.639 --> 00:17:06.319
Much later on she told Missus Smith, who shuddered at
257
00:17:06.359 --> 00:17:10.759
the bare idea of being touched by that creature. Through
258
00:17:10.799 --> 00:17:14.359
this act of impulsive pity, he was brought back again
259
00:17:14.480 --> 00:17:18.000
within the pale of human relations, with his new surroundings.
260
00:17:18.440 --> 00:17:22.720
He never forgot it. Never. That very same morning, old
261
00:17:22.799 --> 00:17:27.480
mister Swaffer, Smith's nearest neighbor, came over to give his advice,
262
00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:32.160
and ended by carrying him off. He stood unsteady on
263
00:17:32.240 --> 00:17:36.319
his legs, meek and caked over in half dried mud,
264
00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:40.839
while the two men talked around him in an incomprehensible tongue.
265
00:17:41.279 --> 00:17:44.680
Missus Smith had refused to come downstairs till the madman
266
00:17:45.079 --> 00:17:49.079
was off the premises. Amy Foster, far from within the
267
00:17:49.160 --> 00:17:52.640
dark kitchen watched through the open back door, and he
268
00:17:52.680 --> 00:17:55.559
obeyed the signs that were made to him to the
269
00:17:55.559 --> 00:18:00.599
best of his ability. But Smith was full of mistrust. Mine, sir,
270
00:18:01.079 --> 00:18:04.960
it may be all his cunning, he cried repeatedly in
271
00:18:04.960 --> 00:18:08.680
a tone of warning. When mister Swaffer started the mare,
272
00:18:09.799 --> 00:18:14.079
the deplorable being sitting humbly by his side, through weakness,
273
00:18:14.359 --> 00:18:17.200
nearly fell out over the back of the high two
274
00:18:17.200 --> 00:18:21.880
wheeled cart. Swaffer took him straight home. And it is
275
00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:25.279
then that I come upon the scene. I was called
276
00:18:25.279 --> 00:18:28.039
in by the simple process of the old man beckoning
277
00:18:28.079 --> 00:18:31.279
to me with his forefinger over the gate of his house,
278
00:18:31.400 --> 00:18:34.200
as I happened to be driving past. I got down.
279
00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:38.680
Of course, I've got something here, he mumbled, leading the
280
00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:42.000
way to an outhouse a little distance from his other
281
00:18:42.079 --> 00:18:45.680
farm buildings. It was there that I saw him first,
282
00:18:46.119 --> 00:18:49.000
in a long, low room taken upon the space of
283
00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:53.200
that sort of coach house. It was bare and whitewashed,
284
00:18:53.519 --> 00:18:58.000
with a small square aperture, glazed with one cracked, dusty pain.
285
00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:01.240
At its further end. He was lying on his back
286
00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:04.240
upon a straw pallet. They had given him a couple
287
00:19:04.279 --> 00:19:07.480
of horse blankets, and he seemed to have spent the
288
00:19:07.519 --> 00:19:10.960
remainder of his strength in the exertion of cleaning himself.
289
00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:15.559
He was almost speechless, his quick breathing under the blankets
290
00:19:15.599 --> 00:19:19.319
pulled up to his chin. His glittering, restless black eyes
291
00:19:19.400 --> 00:19:22.279
reminded me of a wild bird caught in a snare.
292
00:19:23.240 --> 00:19:27.400
While I was examining him, Old Swaffers stood silently by
293
00:19:27.440 --> 00:19:30.720
the door, passing the tips of his fingers along his
294
00:19:30.759 --> 00:19:34.799
shaven upper lip. I gave some directions, promised to send
295
00:19:34.839 --> 00:19:39.759
a bottle of medicine, and naturally made some inquiries. Smith
296
00:19:40.039 --> 00:19:42.880
caught him in the stockyard at New Barnes, said the
297
00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:47.240
old chap in his deliberate, unmoved manner, and as if
298
00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:50.519
the other had been indeed a sort of wild animal.
299
00:19:51.319 --> 00:19:54.720
That's how I came by him. Quite a curiosity, isn't he?
300
00:19:55.319 --> 00:19:58.359
Now tell me, doctor, you've been all over the world.
301
00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:01.119
Don't you think that's a bit of a hindoo we've
302
00:20:01.160 --> 00:20:05.920
got hold of here? I was greatly surprised. His long
303
00:20:05.960 --> 00:20:10.000
black hair scattered over the straw bolster contrasted with the
304
00:20:10.359 --> 00:20:14.160
olive pallor of his face. It occurred to me he
305
00:20:14.279 --> 00:20:17.920
might be a basque. It didn't necessarily follow that he
306
00:20:17.960 --> 00:20:20.880
should understand Spanish. But I tried him with a few
307
00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:24.720
words I knew, and also with some French. The whispered
308
00:20:24.799 --> 00:20:27.440
sounds I caught by bending my ear to his lips
309
00:20:27.640 --> 00:20:31.880
puzzled me utterly. That afternoon, the young ladies from the rectory.
310
00:20:32.440 --> 00:20:35.680
One of them read Girppa with a dictionary, and the
311
00:20:35.720 --> 00:20:39.480
other had struggled with Dantes for years. Coming to see
312
00:20:39.480 --> 00:20:43.079
miss Waffer, tried their German and Italian on him from
313
00:20:43.119 --> 00:20:47.400
the doorway. They retreated just the least bit scared of
314
00:20:47.720 --> 00:20:51.400
by the flood of passionate speech, which, turning on his pallet,
315
00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:54.640
he let out at them. They admitted that the sound
316
00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:59.279
was pleasant, soft, musical, but in conjunction with his looks,
317
00:20:59.400 --> 00:21:04.759
perhaps it was startling, so excitable, so utterly unlike anything
318
00:21:04.839 --> 00:21:07.960
one had ever heard. The village boys climbed up the
319
00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:11.359
bank to have a peep through the little square aperture.
320
00:21:12.200 --> 00:21:15.920
Everybody was wondering what mister Swaffer would do with him.
321
00:21:16.599 --> 00:21:22.519
He simply kept him. Swaffer would be called eccentric were
322
00:21:22.559 --> 00:21:26.039
he not so much respected. They will tell you that
323
00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:29.599
mister Swaffer sits up as late as ten o'clock at
324
00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:33.160
night to read books, and they will tell you also
325
00:21:33.319 --> 00:21:36.079
that he can write a check for two hundred pounds
326
00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:39.680
without thinking twice about it. He himself would tell you
327
00:21:39.799 --> 00:21:43.200
that the Swaffers had owned a land between this and
328
00:21:43.319 --> 00:21:47.240
Darnford for these three hundred years. He must be eighty
329
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:50.240
five to day, but he does not look a bit
330
00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:53.680
older than when I first came here. He is a
331
00:21:53.720 --> 00:21:57.720
great breeder of sheep and deals extensively in cattle. He
332
00:21:57.759 --> 00:22:01.559
attends market days for miles around in every sort of weather,
333
00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:06.240
and drives sitting bowed low over the reins, his lank
334
00:22:06.359 --> 00:22:10.079
gray hair curling over the collar of his warm coat,
335
00:22:10.440 --> 00:22:13.839
and with a green plaid rug round his legs. The
336
00:22:13.880 --> 00:22:17.960
calmness of advanced age gives a solemnity to his manner.
337
00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:21.920
He is clean shaved, His lips are thin and sensitive.
338
00:22:22.519 --> 00:22:26.480
Something rigid and monocle in the set of his features
339
00:22:26.559 --> 00:22:29.319
lends a certain elevation to the character of his face.
340
00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:32.319
He has been known to drive miles in the rain
341
00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:35.000
to see a new kind of rose in somebody's garden,
342
00:22:35.519 --> 00:22:39.240
or a monstrous cabbage grown by a cottager. He loves
343
00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:41.880
to hear, tell of, or to be shown something that
344
00:22:41.960 --> 00:22:47.039
he calls outlandish. Perhaps it was just that outlandishness of
345
00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:51.640
the man which influenced Old Swaffer. Perhaps it was only
346
00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:55.319
an inexplicable caprice. All I know is that at the
347
00:22:55.480 --> 00:22:58.559
end of three weeks I caught sight of Psmith's lunatic
348
00:22:58.920 --> 00:23:02.279
digging in Swaffer's kitchen garden. They had found out he
349
00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:07.519
could use a spade. He dug barefooted, his black hair
350
00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:11.200
flowed over his shoulders. I suppose it was Swaffer who
351
00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:14.160
had given him the striped old cotton shirt, but he
352
00:23:14.200 --> 00:23:19.440
wore still the national brown cloth trousers in which he
353
00:23:19.480 --> 00:23:23.759
had been washed ashore, fitting to the leg almost like tights,
354
00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:28.160
was belted with a broad leathern belt studded with little
355
00:23:28.200 --> 00:23:32.279
brass discs, and had never yet ventured into the village.
356
00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:36.359
The land he looked upon seemed to him kept neatly
357
00:23:36.759 --> 00:23:40.559
like the grounds round a landowner's house. The size of
358
00:23:40.599 --> 00:23:45.039
the cart horses struck him with astonishment, the roads resembled
359
00:23:45.160 --> 00:23:49.400
garden walks, and the aspect of the people, especially on Sundays,
360
00:23:49.599 --> 00:23:53.119
spoke of opulence. He wondered what made them so hard
361
00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:56.960
hearted and their children so bold. He got his food
362
00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:00.000
at the back door, carried it in both hands carefully
363
00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:04.079
to his outhouse and sitting alone on his pallet, would
364
00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:07.640
make the sign of the Cross. Before he began beside
365
00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:10.759
the same palette, kneeling in the early darkness of the
366
00:24:10.799 --> 00:24:14.960
short days, he recited aloud the Lord's Prayer before he slept.
367
00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:19.759
Whenever he saw Old Swaffer, he would bow with veneration
368
00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:23.000
from the waist and stand erect while the old man,
369
00:24:23.200 --> 00:24:26.640
with his fingers over his upper lip, surveyed him silently.
370
00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:31.119
He bowed also to Miss Swaffer, who kept house frugally
371
00:24:31.200 --> 00:24:34.720
for her father. A broad shouldered, big boned woman of
372
00:24:34.799 --> 00:24:37.599
forty three, with a pocket of her dress full of
373
00:24:37.680 --> 00:24:42.480
keys and a great steady eye. She was church as
374
00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:45.920
people said, while her father was one of the trustees
375
00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:49.319
of the Baptist chapel, and wore a little still cross
376
00:24:49.319 --> 00:24:53.480
at her waist. She dressed severely in black in memory
377
00:24:53.559 --> 00:24:57.799
of one of the innumerable Bradleys of the neighborhood to
378
00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:00.759
whom she had been engaged some twenty five five years ago,
379
00:25:01.240 --> 00:25:04.680
a young farmer who broke his neck out hunting on
380
00:25:04.759 --> 00:25:08.200
the eve of the wedding day. She had the unmoved
381
00:25:08.279 --> 00:25:13.039
countenance of the death, spoke very solemn, and her lips
382
00:25:13.240 --> 00:25:17.559
then like her father's, astonished one, sometimes by a mysteriously
383
00:25:17.799 --> 00:25:24.400
ironic curl. These were the people to whom he owed allegiance,
384
00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:29.200
and an overwhelming loneliness seemed to fall from the leaden
385
00:25:29.240 --> 00:25:33.240
sky of that winter without sunshine. All the faces were sad.
386
00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:36.720
He could talk to no one, and had no hope
387
00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:40.359
of ever understanding anybody. It was as if these had
388
00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:43.799
been the faces of people from the other world, dead people,
389
00:25:44.279 --> 00:25:47.759
he used to tell me years afterwards, upon my word,
390
00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:51.519
I wonder He did not go mad. He didn't know
391
00:25:51.559 --> 00:25:55.880
where he was, somewhere very far from his mountains, somewhere
392
00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:02.440
over the water. Was this America? He wondered? End of
393
00:26:02.920 --> 00:26:07.519
Part two.