Captures - Sách nói Miễn phí

2 §

Late—299, with a book under his arm, entered Kew Gardens and sat down on a bench. A nursery governess with her charges came and settled down beside him.

“Peter, Joan, and Michael,” said Late—299, “quite in the fashion, for names.”

The governess stirred uneasily; the gentleman looked funny, smiling there!

“And what are you teaching them?”

“Reading, writing, and arithmetic, sir, and Bible stories.”

“Intelligent?... Ah! Not very. Truthful?... No! No children are.”

The governess twisted her hands. “Peter!” she said, “where’s your ball? We must go and look for it.”

“But I’ve got it, Miss Somers.”

“Oh, well, it’s too sharp, sitting here. Come along!”

She passed away, and Peter, Joan, and Michael trailed after her.

Late—299 smiled on; and a Pekinese, towing a stout old lady, smelled at his trousers.

“It’s my cat,” said Late—299. “Dogs and cats their pleasure is——”

Picking up the Pekinese, the stout old lady pressed it under her arm as though it were a bagpipe, and hurried on like a flustered goose.

Some minutes passed. A workman and his wife sat down beside him, and gazed at the Pagoda.

“Queer building!” said Late—299.

“Ah!” said the workman. “Japanese, they say!”

“Chinese, my friend. Good people, the Chinese—no regard for human life.”

“What’s that? Good—did you say?”

“Quite!”

“Eh?”

The workman’s wife peered round him.

“Come on, John! The sun gits in me eyes ’ere.”

The workman rose. “‘Good,’ you said, didn’t you? Good people?”

“Yes.”

The workman’s wife drew at his arm. “There, don’t get arguin’ with strangers. Come on!” The workman was drawn away....

A clock struck twelve. Late—299 got up and left the Gardens. Walking between small houses, he rang at the side entrance of a little shop.

“If your father’s still blind—I’ve come to read to him again.”

“Please, sir, he’ll always be.”

“So I supposed.”

On a horsehair sofa, below the dyed-red plumes of pampas grass, a short and stocky man was sitting, whittling at a wooden figure. He sniffed, and turned his sightless eyes towards his visitor; his square face in every line and bump seemed saying: ‘You don’t down me.’

“What are you making?” said Late—299.

“Christmas Eve. I’m cuttin’ out our Lord. I make ’em rather nice. Would you like this one?”

“Thank you.”

“Kep’ His end up well, our Lord, didn’t He? ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’—that means you got to love yourself. And He did, I think; not against Him, neither.”

“Easier to love your neighbours when you can’t see them, eh?”

“What’s that? D’you mind lendin’ me your face a minute? It’ll help me a lot with this ’ere. I make ’em lifelike, you know.”

Late—299 leaned forward, and the tips of the blind man’s fingers explored his features.

“’Igh cheekbones, eyes back in the ’ead, supraorbital ridges extra special, rather low forehead slopin’ to thick hair. Comin’ down, two ’ollers under the cheekbones, thin nose a bit ’ooky, chin sharpish, no moustache. You’ve got a smile, ’aven’t you? And your own teeth? I should say you’d make a very good model. I don’t ’old with ’Im always ’avin’ a beard. Would you like the figure ’angin’, or carryin’ the cross?”

“As you wish. D’you ever use your own face?”

“Not for ’Im—for statesmen or ’eroes I do. I done one of Captain Scott with my face. Rather pugnacious, my style; yours is sharp, bit acid, suitable to saints, martyrs, and that. I’ll just go over you once more—then I’ll ’ave it all ’ere. Sharp neck; bit ’unchy in one shoulder; ears stick up a bit; tallish thin man, ain’t you, and throw your feet forward when you walk? Give us your ’and a minute. Bite your fingers, I see. Eyes blue, eh—with pin-points to ’em—yes? Hair a bit reddish before it went piebald—that right? Thank you, much obliged. Now, if you like to read, I’ll get on with it.”

Late—299 opened the book.

... “‘But at last in the drift of time Hadleyburg had the ill-luck to offend a passing stranger, possibly without knowing it, certainly without caring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself and cared not a rap for strangers and their opinions. Still, it would have been well to make an exception in this one’s case, for he was a bitter man and revengeful.’”

“Ah!” interjected the blind man deeply, “there you ’ave it. Talkin’ of feelin’s, what gave you a fellow-feelin’ for me, if I may ask?”

“I can look at you, my friend, without your seeing me.”

“Eh! What about it with other people, then?”

“They can look at me without my seeing them.”

“I see! Misanthropical. Any reason for that?”

“Prison.”

“What oh! Outcast and rejected of men.”

“No. The other way on.”

The blind man ceased to whittle and scoop.

“I like independence,” he said; “I like a man that can go his own way. Ever noticed cats? Men are like dogs, mostly; only once in a way you get a man that’s like a cat. What were you, if it’s not a rude question. In the taxes?”

“Medico.”

“What’s a good thing for ’eartburn?”

“Which kind?”

“Wind, ain’t it? But I see your meanin’. Losin’ my sight used to burn my ’eart a lot; but I got over that. What’s the use? You couldn’t have any worse misfortune. It gives you a feelin’ of bein’ insured—like.”

“You’re right,” said Late—299, rising to go.

The blind man lifted his face in unison. “Got your smile on?” he said. “Just let me ’ave another feel at it, will you?”

Late—299 bent to the outstretched fingers.

“Yes,” said the blind man, “same with you—touched bottom. Next time you come I’ll ’ave something on show that’ll please you, I think; and thank you for readin’.”

“Let me know if it bores you.”

“I will,” said the blind man, following without movement the footsteps of his visitor that died away.