03

WEBVTT
1
00:00:01.280 --> 00:00:07.160
Part three of Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad. This LibriVox
2
00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:12.119
recording is in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times,
3
00:00:13.240 --> 00:00:19.120
Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad, Section three. If it hadn't
4
00:00:19.160 --> 00:00:21.960
been for the still cross at Miss Swaffer's belt, he
5
00:00:22.039 --> 00:00:24.920
would not, he confessed, have known whether he was in
6
00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:28.280
a Christian country at all. He used to cast stealthy
7
00:00:28.399 --> 00:00:32.399
glances at it and feel comforted. There's nothing here the
8
00:00:32.439 --> 00:00:35.840
same as in his country. The earth and the water
9
00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:38.880
were different. There were no images of the Redeemer by
10
00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:42.240
the roadside. The very grass was different, and the trees,
11
00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:46.159
all the trees but the three old Norway pines on
12
00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:50.000
the bit of lawn before Swaffer's house, and these reminded
13
00:00:50.039 --> 00:00:54.320
him of his country. He had been detected once after dusk,
14
00:00:54.679 --> 00:00:57.000
with his forehead against the trunk of one of them,
15
00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:01.240
sobbing and talking to himself. They had been like brothers
16
00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:05.159
to him. At that time he affirmed everything else was strange,
17
00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:10.319
conceiving the kind of existence overshadowed, oppressed by the every
18
00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:14.599
day material appearances, as if by the visions of a nightmare.
19
00:01:15.159 --> 00:01:17.719
At night when he could not sleep, he kept on
20
00:01:17.799 --> 00:01:20.159
thinking of the girl who gave him the first piece
21
00:01:20.200 --> 00:01:23.560
of bread he had eaten in this born land. She
22
00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:27.879
had been neither fierce, nor angry, nor frightened. Her face
23
00:01:27.959 --> 00:01:31.599
he remembered as the only comprehensible face amongst all these
24
00:01:31.599 --> 00:01:35.840
faces that were as closed, as mysterious, and as mute
25
00:01:35.840 --> 00:01:38.640
as the faces of the dead, who were possessed of
26
00:01:38.680 --> 00:01:43.159
a knowledge beyond the comprehension of the living. I wonder
27
00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:46.760
whether the memory of her compassion prevented him from cutting
28
00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:51.480
his throat. But there I suppose I am an old sentimentalist,
29
00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:54.879
and forget the instinctive love of life, which it takes
30
00:01:54.959 --> 00:01:59.319
all the strength of an uncommon despair to overcome. He
31
00:01:59.359 --> 00:02:02.280
did the work which was given him with an intelligence
32
00:02:02.719 --> 00:02:06.959
which surprised Old Swaffer. By and by it was discovered
33
00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:09.800
that he could helpe at the plowing, could milk the cows,
34
00:02:10.159 --> 00:02:12.919
feed the bullocks and the cattle yard, and was of
35
00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:15.840
some use with the sheep. He began to pick up
36
00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:20.080
words too, very fast, and suddenly, one fine morning in
37
00:02:20.159 --> 00:02:24.159
spring he rescued from an untimely death. A grandchild of
38
00:02:24.199 --> 00:02:29.400
Old Swaffer. Swaffer's younger daughter is married to Wilcox, a solicitor,
39
00:02:29.479 --> 00:02:33.199
and the town clerk of Colbruk. Regularly twice a year
40
00:02:33.560 --> 00:02:35.719
they come to stay with the old man for a
41
00:02:35.759 --> 00:02:39.240
few days. Their only child, a little girl not three
42
00:02:39.319 --> 00:02:42.520
years old at the time, ran out of the house
43
00:02:42.599 --> 00:02:46.240
alone in her little white penafore, and toddling across the
44
00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:50.120
grass of a terrace garden, pitched herself over a low wall,
45
00:02:50.319 --> 00:02:53.680
head first into the horse pond in the yard below.
46
00:02:54.680 --> 00:02:57.199
Our man was out with the wagoner and the plow
47
00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:00.360
in the field nearest to the house, and as he
48
00:03:00.520 --> 00:03:03.360
was leading the team round to begin a fresh furrow,
49
00:03:03.759 --> 00:03:06.439
he saw through the gap of the gate what for
50
00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:10.159
anybody else would have been a mere flutter of something white.
51
00:03:10.639 --> 00:03:15.080
But he had straight, glancing, quick, far reaching eyes that
52
00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:18.719
only seemed to flinch and lose their amazing power before
53
00:03:18.759 --> 00:03:22.639
the immensity of the sea. He was barefooted and looking
54
00:03:22.680 --> 00:03:27.159
as outlandish as the heart of squaffer could desire. Leaving
55
00:03:27.199 --> 00:03:31.080
the horses on the turn to the inexpressible disgust of
56
00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:34.879
the wagoner, he bounded off, going over the plowed ground
57
00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:38.639
in long leaps, and suddenly appeared before the mother thrust
58
00:03:38.680 --> 00:03:42.759
the child into her arms and strode away. The pond
59
00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:46.639
was not very deep, but still if he had not
60
00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:51.120
had such good eyes, the child would have perished miserably,
61
00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:54.960
suffocated in the foot or so of sticky mud. At
62
00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:59.599
the bottom, Old Swaffer walked out slowly into the field,
63
00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:02.840
waited till the plow came over to his side, had
64
00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:05.520
a good look at him, and without saying a word,
65
00:04:05.879 --> 00:04:08.759
went back to the house. But from that time they
66
00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:11.439
laid out his meals on the kitchen table, and at
67
00:04:11.479 --> 00:04:15.759
first Miss Swaffer, all in black and with an inscrutable face,
68
00:04:16.040 --> 00:04:18.240
would come and stand in the doorway of the living
69
00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:20.720
room to see him make a big sign of the
70
00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:23.879
cross before he fell to I believe that from that
71
00:04:24.040 --> 00:04:29.199
day too, Swaffer began to pay him regular wages. I
72
00:04:29.279 --> 00:04:33.240
can't follow step by step his development. He cut his
73
00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:36.399
hair short, was seen in the village and along the
74
00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:39.319
road going to and fro to his work like any
75
00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:43.519
other man. Children ceased to shout after him. He became
76
00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:46.839
aware of social differences, but remained for a long time
77
00:04:46.879 --> 00:04:50.199
surprised at the bare poverty of the churches among so
78
00:04:50.319 --> 00:04:53.759
much wealth. He couldn't understand either why they were kept
79
00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:57.160
shut up on week days. There was nothing to steal
80
00:04:57.240 --> 00:05:00.600
in them. Was it to keep people from praying? Too often.
81
00:05:01.480 --> 00:05:04.720
The rectory took much notice of him about that time,
82
00:05:04.879 --> 00:05:07.319
and I believe the young ladies attempted to prepare the
83
00:05:07.319 --> 00:05:11.639
ground for his conversion. They could not, however, break him
84
00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:14.680
of his habit of crossing himself, but he went so
85
00:05:14.759 --> 00:05:17.720
far as to take off the string with a couple
86
00:05:17.759 --> 00:05:20.920
of brass metals the size of a sixpence, a tiny
87
00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:24.879
metal cross, and a square sort of scapulary, which he
88
00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:27.800
wore round his neck. He hung them on the wall
89
00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:30.160
by the side of his bed, and he was still
90
00:05:30.160 --> 00:05:34.199
to be heard every evening reciting the large prayer in
91
00:05:34.199 --> 00:05:38.920
incomprehensible words and in a slow, fervent tone, as he
92
00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:41.879
had heard his old father do at the head of
93
00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:45.399
all the knailing family, big and little, on every evening
94
00:05:45.439 --> 00:05:48.759
of his life. And though he wore corduroys at work
95
00:05:49.120 --> 00:05:53.600
and a slop made pepper and salt suit on Sundays,
96
00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:56.879
strangers would turn round to look after him on the road.
97
00:05:57.560 --> 00:06:02.519
His foreignness had a peculiar and indelible stamp. At last
98
00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:06.120
people became used to see him, but they never became
99
00:06:06.279 --> 00:06:10.600
used to him, his rapid skimming walk, his swarthy complexion,
100
00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:14.079
his hat cocked on the left, ear, his habit on
101
00:06:14.199 --> 00:06:17.600
warm evenings, of wearing his coat over one shoulder like
102
00:06:17.639 --> 00:06:21.759
a hussar's dullmen, his manner of leaping over the stiles,
103
00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:25.360
not as a feat of agility, but in the ordinary
104
00:06:25.399 --> 00:06:30.040
course of progression. All these peculiarities were, as one may say,
105
00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:33.879
so many causes of scorn and offense to the inhabitants
106
00:06:33.959 --> 00:06:37.399
of the village. They wouldn't, in their dinner hour, lie
107
00:06:37.439 --> 00:06:40.160
flat on their backs on the grass to stare at
108
00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:43.560
the sky. Neither did they go about the fields screaming
109
00:06:43.639 --> 00:06:47.759
dismal tunes. Many times have I heard his high pitched
110
00:06:47.839 --> 00:06:51.240
voice from behind the rich of some sloping sheep walk,
111
00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:54.439
a voice light and soaring like a lark's, but with
112
00:06:54.519 --> 00:06:58.120
a melancholy human note over our fields, that hear only
113
00:06:58.199 --> 00:07:03.120
the song of birds, and I should be startled myself. Ah.
114
00:07:03.160 --> 00:07:06.279
He was different, innocent of heart and full of good will,
115
00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:11.079
which nobody wanted. This castaway, that, like a man transplanted
116
00:07:11.079 --> 00:07:15.439
into another planet, was separated by an immense space from
117
00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:19.240
his past and by an immense ignorance from his future.
118
00:07:20.199 --> 00:07:25.879
His quick, fervent utterance positively shocked everybody. An excitable devil,
119
00:07:26.160 --> 00:07:29.560
they called him one evening in the tap room of
120
00:07:29.600 --> 00:07:33.240
the Coach and Horses, having drunk some whisky, he upset
121
00:07:33.319 --> 00:07:35.959
them all by singing a love song of his country.
122
00:07:36.680 --> 00:07:40.279
They hooted him down, and he was pained. But Prebble,
123
00:07:40.560 --> 00:07:44.600
the lame Wheelwright, and Vincent, the fat Blacksmith, and the
124
00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:48.480
other notables too wanted to drink their evening beer in peace.
125
00:07:49.399 --> 00:07:52.560
On another occasion he tried to show them how to dance.
126
00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:56.439
The dust rose in clouds from the sanded floor. He
127
00:07:56.560 --> 00:08:01.240
leaped straight up amongst the deal tables, druck his heels together,
128
00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:05.279
squatted on one heel in front of old Prebble, shooting
129
00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:09.120
out the other leg, uttered wild and exulting cries, jumped
130
00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:12.319
up to whirl on one foot, snapping his fingers above
131
00:08:12.360 --> 00:08:15.920
his head, and a strange carter, who was having a
132
00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:19.480
drink in there, began to swear and cleared out with
133
00:08:19.639 --> 00:08:22.720
his half pinte in his hand into the bar. But
134
00:08:23.240 --> 00:08:26.720
when suddenly he sprang upon a table and continued to
135
00:08:26.800 --> 00:08:31.040
dance among the glasses, the landlord interfered he didn't want
136
00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:35.000
any acrobat tricks in the tap room. They laid their
137
00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:39.240
hands on him, having had a glass or two. Mister
138
00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:45.279
Swaffer's foreigner tried to expostulate, was ejected forcibly got a
139
00:08:45.279 --> 00:08:49.799
black eye. I believe he felt the hostility of his
140
00:08:49.919 --> 00:08:54.080
human surroundings, but he was tough, tough in spirit too,
141
00:08:54.360 --> 00:08:57.240
as well as in body. Only the memory of the
142
00:08:57.279 --> 00:09:00.399
sea frightened him with that vague terror that is left
143
00:09:00.399 --> 00:09:03.480
by a bad dream. His home was far away, and
144
00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:06.960
he did not want now to go to America. I
145
00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:10.080
had often explained to him that there is no place
146
00:09:10.120 --> 00:09:13.360
on earth where true gold can be found, lying ready
147
00:09:13.639 --> 00:09:17.440
and to be got for the trouble of the picking up. How, then,
148
00:09:17.679 --> 00:09:20.919
he asked, could he ever return home with empty hands,
149
00:09:21.279 --> 00:09:24.879
when there had been sold a cow, two ponies, and
150
00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:27.759
a bit of land to pay for his going. His
151
00:09:27.879 --> 00:09:32.559
eyes would fill with tears, and, averting them from the
152
00:09:32.639 --> 00:09:36.080
immense shimmer of the sea, he would throw himself face
153
00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:41.120
down on the grass, but sometimes cocking his hat with
154
00:09:41.159 --> 00:09:45.000
a little conquering air. He would defy my wisdom. He
155
00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:48.600
had found his bit of true gold. That was Amy
156
00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:52.720
Foster's heart, which was a golden heart and soft to
157
00:09:52.759 --> 00:09:57.320
people's misery, he would say, in the accents of overwhelming conviction.
158
00:09:58.879 --> 00:10:02.320
He was called Yank. He had explained that this meant
159
00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:06.120
little John, But as he would also repeat very often,
160
00:10:06.440 --> 00:10:09.600
that he was a mountaineer, some word sounding in the
161
00:10:09.639 --> 00:10:13.360
dialect of his country, like Gurral. He got it for
162
00:10:13.440 --> 00:10:16.879
his surname. And this is the only trace of him
163
00:10:17.159 --> 00:10:20.159
that the succeeding ages may find in the marriage register
164
00:10:20.679 --> 00:10:25.279
of the parish. There it stands Yanko Gurral in the
165
00:10:25.519 --> 00:10:30.720
rector's handwriting, the crooked cross made by the castaway, a
166
00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:33.840
cross whose tracing, no doubt, seemed to him the most
167
00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:37.360
solemn part of the whole ceremony. Is all that remains
168
00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:41.879
now to perpetuate the memory of his name. His courtship
169
00:10:41.960 --> 00:10:45.919
had lasted some time ever since he got his precarious
170
00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:48.919
footing in the community. It began by his buying for
171
00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:53.519
Amy Foster a green satin ribbon in Darnfort. This was
172
00:10:53.639 --> 00:10:56.600
what you did in his country. You bought a ribbon
173
00:10:56.799 --> 00:10:59.600
at a jew's stall on a fair day. I don't
174
00:10:59.600 --> 00:11:02.120
suppose the girl knew what to do with it, but
175
00:11:02.200 --> 00:11:05.759
he seemed to think that his honorable intentions could not
176
00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:10.759
be mistaken. It was only when he declared his purpose
177
00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:14.240
to get married that I fully understood how for a
178
00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:20.120
hundred futile and inappreciable reasons, how shall I say odious?
179
00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:24.559
He was to all the countryside. Every old woman in
180
00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:28.960
the village was up in arms. Smith, coming upon him
181
00:11:29.600 --> 00:11:32.080
near the farm, promised to break his head for him
182
00:11:32.399 --> 00:11:36.120
if he found him about again. But he twisted his
183
00:11:36.279 --> 00:11:39.879
little black mustache with such a bellicose air, and rolled
184
00:11:39.919 --> 00:11:43.320
such big, black, fierce eyes at Psmith that this promise
185
00:11:43.480 --> 00:11:47.960
came to nothing. Smith, however, told the girl that she
186
00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:50.159
must be mad to take up with a man who
187
00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:53.960
was surely wrung in his head. All the same, when
188
00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:56.799
she heard him in the gloaming whistle from beyond the
189
00:11:56.960 --> 00:11:59.879
orchard a couple of bars of a weird and mourn
190
00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:03.440
full tune, she would drop whatever she had in her hand.
191
00:12:03.919 --> 00:12:06.720
She would leave Missus Smith in the middle of a sentence,
192
00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:10.759
and she would run out to his call. Missus Smith
193
00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:15.840
called her a shameless hussy. She answered nothing, She said
194
00:12:16.159 --> 00:12:18.919
nothing at all to anybody, and went on her way
195
00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:22.639
as if she had been deaf. She and I alone,
196
00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:26.039
all in the land I fancy could see his very
197
00:12:26.159 --> 00:12:30.440
real beauty. He was very good looking, and most graceful
198
00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:34.320
in his bearing, with that something wild as of a
199
00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:38.600
woodland creature in his aspect. Her mother moaned over her
200
00:12:38.679 --> 00:12:41.960
dismally whenever the girl came to see her on her
201
00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:46.879
day out. The father was surly but pretended not to know.
202
00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:51.720
And missus Finn once told her plainly that this man,
203
00:12:51.799 --> 00:12:55.159
my dear, will do you some harm some day yet.
204
00:12:55.840 --> 00:12:59.080
And so it went on. They could be seen on
205
00:12:59.159 --> 00:13:03.440
the roads, she tramping stolidly in her finery, gray dress,
206
00:13:03.759 --> 00:13:08.679
black feather stout boots, prominent white cotton gloves that caught
207
00:13:08.720 --> 00:13:12.440
your eye a hundred yards away, and he, his coat
208
00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:18.120
slung picturesquely over one shoulder, pacing by her side, gallant
209
00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:21.919
of bearing, and casting tender glances upon the girl with
210
00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:25.279
a golden heart. I wonder whether he saw how plain
211
00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:30.080
she was. Perhaps among types so different from what he
212
00:13:30.159 --> 00:13:33.080
had ever seen, he had not the power to judge.
213
00:13:33.399 --> 00:13:36.480
Or perhaps he was seduced by the divine quality of
214
00:13:36.519 --> 00:13:43.519
her pity. Uncle was in great trouble meantime in his country.
215
00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:46.840
You get an old man for an ambassador in marriage affairs.
216
00:13:47.480 --> 00:13:50.480
He did not know how to proceed. However, one day,
217
00:13:50.559 --> 00:13:53.360
in the midst of sheep in a field he was
218
00:13:53.399 --> 00:13:58.080
now suaffers under shepherd with foster. He took off his
219
00:13:58.159 --> 00:14:01.879
hat to the father and declared himself humbly, I dare
220
00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:05.440
say she's fool enough to marry you, was all Foster said.
221
00:14:06.279 --> 00:14:09.200
And then he used to relate. He puts his hat
222
00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:12.679
on his head, looks black at me as if he
223
00:14:12.799 --> 00:14:16.080
wanted to cut my throat, whistles the dog, and off
224
00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:19.879
he goes, leaving me to do the work. The Fosters,
225
00:14:19.919 --> 00:14:23.080
of course, didn't like to lose the wages the girl earned.
226
00:14:23.720 --> 00:14:26.080
Amy used to give all her money to her mother.
227
00:14:26.799 --> 00:14:30.039
But there was in Foster a very genuine aversion to
228
00:14:30.120 --> 00:14:33.759
that match. He contended that the fellow was very good
229
00:14:33.799 --> 00:14:36.799
with sheep, but was not fit for any girl to marry.
230
00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:39.879
For one thing, he used to go along the hedges
231
00:14:40.159 --> 00:14:44.559
muttering to himself like a damned fool. And then these
232
00:14:44.600 --> 00:14:48.919
foreigners behave very queerly to women sometimes, and perhaps he
233
00:14:48.919 --> 00:14:52.360
would want to carry her off somewhere, or run off himself.
234
00:14:52.919 --> 00:14:56.320
It was not safe. He preached to his daughter that
235
00:14:56.360 --> 00:15:00.279
the fellow might ill use her in some way. She
236
00:15:00.399 --> 00:15:04.039
made no answer. It was, they said in the village,
237
00:15:04.279 --> 00:15:07.240
as if the man had done something to her. People
238
00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:11.000
discussed the matter. It was quite an excitement and the
239
00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:15.000
two went on walking out together in the face of opposition.
240
00:15:15.759 --> 00:15:20.720
Then something unexpected happened. I don't know whether old Swaffer
241
00:15:20.799 --> 00:15:23.360
ever understood how much he was regarded in the light
242
00:15:23.440 --> 00:15:29.279
of a father by his foreign retainer. Anyway, the relation
243
00:15:29.519 --> 00:15:34.039
was curiously feudle. So when Yanko asked formally for an
244
00:15:34.039 --> 00:15:39.200
interview and the miss too, he called the severe deaf
245
00:15:39.399 --> 00:15:44.000
Miss Swaffer simply miss it was to obtain their permission
246
00:15:44.159 --> 00:15:49.000
to marry. Swaffer heard him unmoved, dismissed him by a nod,
247
00:15:49.399 --> 00:15:53.440
and then shouted the intelligence into Miss Swaffer's best dear.
248
00:15:54.200 --> 00:15:58.080
She showed no surprise and only remarked grimly, in a veiled,
249
00:15:58.159 --> 00:16:01.360
blank voice, he certainly won't get any other girl to
250
00:16:01.399 --> 00:16:06.759
marry him. It is Miss Swaffer who has all the
251
00:16:06.840 --> 00:16:10.759
credit of the munificence. But in a very few days
252
00:16:10.799 --> 00:16:14.440
it came out that mister Swaffer had presented Yanko with
253
00:16:14.559 --> 00:16:18.799
a cottage, the cottage you've seen this morning, and something
254
00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:22.039
like an acre of ground, had made it over to
255
00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:26.919
him in absolute property. Wilcox expedited the deed, and I
256
00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:30.159
remember him telling me he had a great pleasure in
257
00:16:30.240 --> 00:16:34.320
making it ready. It recited in consideration of saving the
258
00:16:34.360 --> 00:16:39.919
life of my beloved grandchild Bertha Wilcox. Of course, after that,
259
00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:42.879
no power on earth could prevent them from getting married.
260
00:16:44.159 --> 00:16:48.000
Her infatuation endured. People saw her going out to meet
261
00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:51.879
him in the evening. She stared with unblinking, fascinated eyes
262
00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:55.679
up the road where he was expected to appear, walking
263
00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:58.799
freely with a swing from the hip, and humming one
264
00:16:58.840 --> 00:17:01.440
of the love tunes of him his country. When the
265
00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:05.240
boy was born. He got elevated at the coach and horses,
266
00:17:05.720 --> 00:17:09.799
essayed again a song and a dance, and was again ejected.
267
00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:13.480
People expressed their commiseration for a woman married to that
268
00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:17.039
jack in the box. He didn't care. There was a
269
00:17:17.160 --> 00:17:21.720
man now, he told me boastfully, to whom he could
270
00:17:21.720 --> 00:17:24.480
sing and talk in the language of his country, and
271
00:17:24.559 --> 00:17:28.839
show how to dance by and by. But I don't know.
272
00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:32.279
To me he appeared to have grown less springy of step,
273
00:17:32.720 --> 00:17:37.440
heavier in body, less keen of eye. Imagination, no doubt,
274
00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:40.039
but it seems to me now as if the net
275
00:17:40.079 --> 00:17:44.519
of fate had been drawn close around him already. One
276
00:17:44.599 --> 00:17:48.519
day I met him on the footpath over the Telford Hill.
277
00:17:49.359 --> 00:17:52.759
He told me that women are funny. I had heard
278
00:17:52.839 --> 00:17:57.400
already of domestic differences. People were saying that Amy Foster
279
00:17:57.559 --> 00:17:59.720
was beginning to find out what sort of man she
280
00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:04.039
had married. He looked upon the sea with indifferent, unseeing eyes.
281
00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:07.200
His wife had snatched the child out of his arms
282
00:18:07.240 --> 00:18:09.920
one day as he sat on the doorstep crooning to
283
00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:13.359
it a song such as the mothers sing to babies
284
00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:16.599
in his mountains. She seemed to think he was doing
285
00:18:16.799 --> 00:18:21.079
it some harm. Women are funny, And she had objected
286
00:18:21.079 --> 00:18:24.920
to him praying aloud in the evening. Why he expected
287
00:18:24.920 --> 00:18:28.160
the boy to repeat the prayer aloud after him, by
288
00:18:28.240 --> 00:18:31.480
and by, as he used to do after his old
289
00:18:31.559 --> 00:18:35.359
father when he was a child in his own country.
290
00:18:36.720 --> 00:18:39.359
And I discovered he longed for their boy to grow
291
00:18:39.480 --> 00:18:42.119
up so that he could have a man to talk
292
00:18:42.160 --> 00:18:46.640
with in that language that, to our ears sounded so disturbing,
293
00:18:47.079 --> 00:18:51.279
so passionate, and so bizarre. Why his wife should dislike
294
00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:55.079
the idea? He couldn't tell. But that would pass, he said,
295
00:18:55.640 --> 00:18:59.319
and tilting his head knowingly, he tapped his breastbone to
296
00:18:59.359 --> 00:19:03.480
indicate that she had a good heart, not hard, not fierce,
297
00:19:03.880 --> 00:19:09.440
open to compassion, charitable to the poor. I walked away thoughtfully,
298
00:19:09.519 --> 00:19:13.960
and wondered whether his difference, his strangeness, were not penetrating
299
00:19:14.079 --> 00:19:19.440
with repulsion that dull naesure that had begun by irresistibly attracting,
300
00:19:19.920 --> 00:19:23.079
I wondered. The doctor came to the window and looked
301
00:19:23.119 --> 00:19:26.119
out at the frigid splendor of the sea, immense in
302
00:19:26.160 --> 00:19:29.119
the haze, as if enclosing all the earth, with all
303
00:19:29.160 --> 00:19:34.480
the hearts lost among the passions of love and fear. Physiologically, now,
304
00:19:34.799 --> 00:19:39.319
he said, turning away abruptly, it was possible, It was possible.
305
00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:45.000
He remained silent, then went on. At all events. The
306
00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:48.440
next time I saw him, he was ill, lung trouble.
307
00:19:49.119 --> 00:19:51.160
He was tough, but I dare say he was not
308
00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:55.720
acclimatized as well as I had supposed. It was a
309
00:19:55.759 --> 00:19:59.599
bad winter, and of course these mountaineers do get fits
310
00:19:59.640 --> 00:20:02.519
of hum sickness, and a state of depression would make
311
00:20:02.599 --> 00:20:06.640
him vulnerable. He was lying half dressed on a couch downstairs.
312
00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:10.640
A table covered with a dark oilcloth took up all
313
00:20:10.680 --> 00:20:13.440
the middle of the little room. There was a wicker
314
00:20:13.480 --> 00:20:17.079
cradle on the floor, a kettle spouting steam on the hob,
315
00:20:17.559 --> 00:20:20.880
and some child's linen lay drying on the fender. The
316
00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:24.160
room was warm, but the door opens right into the garden.
317
00:20:24.359 --> 00:20:28.400
As you noticed, perhaps he was very feverish and kept
318
00:20:28.440 --> 00:20:32.079
on muttering to himself. She sat on a chair and
319
00:20:32.119 --> 00:20:35.039
looked at him fixedly across the table with her brown
320
00:20:35.119 --> 00:20:39.400
blurred eyes. Why don't you have him upstairs? I asked,
321
00:20:39.880 --> 00:20:43.440
with a start and a confused stammer. She said, oh ah,
322
00:20:43.839 --> 00:20:46.680
I couldn't sit with him upstairs, sir. I gave her
323
00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:49.839
certain directions and going outside. I said again that he
324
00:20:49.920 --> 00:20:53.160
ought to be in bed upstairs. She wrung her hands.
325
00:20:53.880 --> 00:20:57.319
I couldn't. I couldn't. He can sense saying something I
326
00:20:57.359 --> 00:21:00.519
don't know what, With a memory of all the talk
327
00:21:00.599 --> 00:21:03.920
against the man that had been dead, into her ears,
328
00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:07.799
I looked at her narrowly. I looked into her short
329
00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:10.880
sighted eyes, at her dumb eyes that once in her
330
00:21:10.920 --> 00:21:15.079
life had seen an enticing shape, but seemed staring at
331
00:21:15.119 --> 00:21:18.160
me to see nothing at all now. But I saw
332
00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:22.960
she was uneasy. What's the matter with him? She asked,
333
00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:27.000
in a sort of vacant trepidation. He doesn't look very ill.
334
00:21:27.519 --> 00:21:31.759
I never did see anybody look like this before, do
335
00:21:31.839 --> 00:21:37.640
you think, I asked indignantly. He is shamming. I can't
336
00:21:37.720 --> 00:21:41.920
help it, sir, she said stolidly, And suddenly she clapped
337
00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:45.039
her hands and looked right and left. And there's the baby.
338
00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:48.160
I am so frightened. He wanted me just now to
339
00:21:48.200 --> 00:21:50.799
give him the baby. I can't understand what he says
340
00:21:50.839 --> 00:21:54.440
to it. Can't you ask a neighbor to come in
341
00:21:54.599 --> 00:21:59.119
to night, I asked, please, sir. Nobody seems to care
342
00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:04.440
to come, she muttered, dully, resigned. All at once. I
343
00:22:04.440 --> 00:22:08.440
impressed upon her the necessity of the greatest care, and
344
00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:11.200
then had to go. There was a good deal of
345
00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:15.240
sickness that winter. Oh I hope he won't talk, she
346
00:22:15.359 --> 00:22:19.839
exclaimed softly, just as I was going away. I don't
347
00:22:19.880 --> 00:22:23.160
know how it is. I did not see, but I didn't.
348
00:22:23.640 --> 00:22:26.480
And yet, turning in my trap, I saw her lingering
349
00:22:26.519 --> 00:22:30.480
before the door, very still, and as if meditating a
350
00:22:30.519 --> 00:22:35.440
flight up the Miry road towards the night. His fever increased.
351
00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:40.359
He tossed, moaned and now, and then muttered a complaint.
352
00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:43.640
And she sat with the table between her and the couch,
353
00:22:44.119 --> 00:22:47.319
watching every movement and every sound, with the terror, the
354
00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:51.839
unreasonable terror of that man she could not understand, creeping
355
00:22:51.880 --> 00:22:55.000
over her she had drawn the wicker cradle close to
356
00:22:55.079 --> 00:22:57.759
her feet. There was nothing in her now but the
357
00:22:57.880 --> 00:23:04.680
maternal instinct and that accountable fear. Suddenly coming to himself parched,
358
00:23:05.079 --> 00:23:09.200
he demanded a drink of water. She did not move.
359
00:23:10.359 --> 00:23:13.359
She had not understood, though he may have thought he
360
00:23:13.440 --> 00:23:18.279
was speaking in English. He waited, looking at her, burning
361
00:23:18.400 --> 00:23:22.519
with fever, amazed at her silence and immobility, and then
362
00:23:22.559 --> 00:23:27.720
he shouted, impatiently, water, Give me water. She jumped to
363
00:23:27.759 --> 00:23:30.799
her feet, snatched up the child, and stood still. He
364
00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:34.960
spoke to her, and his passionate remonstrances only increased her
365
00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:38.000
fear of that strange man. I believe he spoke to
366
00:23:38.039 --> 00:23:43.759
her for a long time, entreating, wondering, pleading, ordering, I suppose,
367
00:23:44.359 --> 00:23:46.799
she says. She bore it as long as she could,
368
00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:50.960
and then augusta ridge came over him. He sat up
369
00:23:51.039 --> 00:23:55.400
and called out terribly, one word, some word. Then he
370
00:23:55.480 --> 00:23:57.799
got up as though he hadn't been ill at all,
371
00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:02.640
she says, and as in fevered dismay, indignation and wonder,
372
00:24:02.880 --> 00:24:06.240
he tried to get to her round the table. She
373
00:24:06.279 --> 00:24:08.799
simply opened the door and ran out with the child
374
00:24:08.839 --> 00:24:12.119
in her arms. She heard him call twice after her
375
00:24:12.200 --> 00:24:16.799
down the road in a terrible voice, and fled. Ah.
376
00:24:16.839 --> 00:24:19.880
But you should have seen stirring behind the dull, blurred
377
00:24:19.880 --> 00:24:22.720
glance of these eyes, the specter of the fear which
378
00:24:22.759 --> 00:24:25.720
had hunted her on that night, three miles and a
379
00:24:25.759 --> 00:24:29.359
half to the door of Foster's cottage. I did the
380
00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:32.839
next day, and it was I who found him lying
381
00:24:32.920 --> 00:24:36.440
face down, and his body and a puddle, just outside
382
00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:40.039
the little wicket gate. I had been called out that
383
00:24:40.200 --> 00:24:43.279
night to an urgent case in the village, and on
384
00:24:43.400 --> 00:24:46.759
my way home at daybreak passed by the cottage. The
385
00:24:46.839 --> 00:24:50.880
door stood open. My men helped me to carry him in.
386
00:24:51.559 --> 00:24:54.680
We laid him on the couch. The lamp smoked, the
387
00:24:54.759 --> 00:24:57.720
fire was out, the chill of the stormy night oozed
388
00:24:57.759 --> 00:25:01.839
from the cheerless yellow paper on the wall. Amy I
389
00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:04.920
called aloud, and my voice seemed to lose itself in
390
00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:07.599
the emptiness of this tiny house, as if I had
391
00:25:07.640 --> 00:25:12.759
cried in a desert. He opened his eyes, gone, he
392
00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:17.039
said distinctly. I had only asked for water, only for
393
00:25:17.119 --> 00:25:21.240
a little water. He was muddy. I covered him up
394
00:25:21.279 --> 00:25:25.400
and stood waiting in silence, catching a painfully gasped word.
395
00:25:25.519 --> 00:25:29.200
Now and then they were no longer in his own language.
396
00:25:29.599 --> 00:25:32.400
The fever had left him, taking with it the heat
397
00:25:32.440 --> 00:25:36.799
of life, and with his panting breast and lustrous eyes,
398
00:25:36.839 --> 00:25:39.960
he reminded me again of a wild creature under the
399
00:25:40.039 --> 00:25:43.519
nut of a bird caught in a snare. She had
400
00:25:43.599 --> 00:25:48.200
left him. She had left him sick, helpless, thirsty. The
401
00:25:48.240 --> 00:25:52.279
spear of the hunter had entered his very soul. Why
402
00:25:52.799 --> 00:25:56.079
he cried in the penetrating and indignant voice of a
403
00:25:56.119 --> 00:25:59.519
man calling to a responsible maker. A gust of wind
404
00:25:59.759 --> 00:26:03.480
and wish of rain answered, And as I turned away
405
00:26:03.519 --> 00:26:08.440
to shut the door, he pronounced the word merciful and expired.
406
00:26:09.759 --> 00:26:13.799
Eventually I certified heart failure as the immediate cause of death.
407
00:26:14.240 --> 00:26:17.279
His heart must have indeed failed him, or else he
408
00:26:17.359 --> 00:26:20.240
might have stood this night of storm and exposure too.
409
00:26:21.480 --> 00:26:25.079
I closed his eyes and drove away. Not very far
410
00:26:25.119 --> 00:26:28.400
from the cottage, I met Foster, walking sturdily between the
411
00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:32.839
dripping hedges with his Collie at his heels. Do you
412
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:37.440
know where your daughter is? I asked, don't I? He cried.
413
00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:40.079
I am going to talk to him. A bit frightening
414
00:26:40.079 --> 00:26:43.880
a poor woman like this. He won't frighten her any more,
415
00:26:44.160 --> 00:26:48.440
I said, he is dead. He struck with his stick
416
00:26:48.519 --> 00:26:53.519
at the mud, and there's the child. Then, after thinking
417
00:26:53.559 --> 00:26:56.480
deeply for a while, I don't know that it isn't
418
00:26:56.480 --> 00:27:00.799
for the best. That's what he said. And she says
419
00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:04.640
nothing at all now, not a word of him. Never
420
00:27:05.279 --> 00:27:08.000
is his image as utterly gone from her mind as
421
00:27:08.039 --> 00:27:12.039
his lithe and striding figure, his caroling voice are gone
422
00:27:12.079 --> 00:27:15.400
from our fields. He is no longer before her eyes
423
00:27:15.440 --> 00:27:19.160
to excite her imagination into a passion of love or fear,
424
00:27:19.599 --> 00:27:22.200
and his memory seems to have vanished from her dull
425
00:27:22.240 --> 00:27:25.799
brain as a shadow passes away upon a white screen.
426
00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:29.079
She lives in the cottage and works for Miss Swaffer.
427
00:27:29.599 --> 00:27:32.759
She is Amy Foster for everybody, and the child is
428
00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:37.720
Amy Foster's boy. She calls him Johnny, which means little John.
429
00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:42.079
It is impossible to say whether this name recalls anything
430
00:27:42.119 --> 00:27:45.519
to her. Does she ever think of the past? I
431
00:27:45.559 --> 00:27:48.039
have seen her hanging over the boy's cot in a
432
00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:52.799
very passion of maternal tenderness. The little fellow was lying
433
00:27:52.839 --> 00:27:56.160
on his back, a little frightened at me, but very still,
434
00:27:56.480 --> 00:27:59.640
with his big black eyes, with his fluttered air of
435
00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:03.480
a bird in a snare, and looking at him I
436
00:28:03.599 --> 00:28:07.440
seemed to see again the other one, the Father, cast
437
00:28:07.519 --> 00:28:10.759
up mysteriously by the sea, to perish in the supreme
438
00:28:10.839 --> 00:28:22.119
disaster of loneliness and despair. End of Part three, End
439
00:28:22.160 --> 00:28:25.880
of Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad