survey. “Nor yet this couple going up the stairs now.”
The piano at the foot of the staircase clanged through a mazurka
with brazen impetuosity, as though a vulgar and impudent ghost were
showing off. The keys sank and rose mysteriously. Then all became
still. For a moment Ossipon imagined the overlighted place changed
into a dreadful black hole belching horrible fumes choked with
ghastly rubbish of smashed brickwork and mutilated corpses. He had
such a distinct perception of ruin and death that he shuddered
again. The other observed, with an air of calm sufficiency:
“In the last instance it is character alone that makes for one’s
safety. There are very few people in the world whose character is
as well established as mine.”
“I wonder how you managed it,” growled Ossipon.
“Force of personality,” said the other, without raising his voice;
and coming from the mouth of that obviously miserable organism the
assertion caused the robust Ossipon to bite his lower lip. “Force
of personality,” he repeated, with ostentatious calm. “I have the
means to make myself deadly, but that by itself, you understand, is
absolutely nothing in the way of protection. What is effective is
the belief those people have in my will to use the means. That’s
their impression. It is absolute. Therefore I am deadly.”
“There are individuals of character amongst that lot too,” muttered
Ossipon ominously.
“Possibly. But it is a matter of degree obviously, since, for
instance, I am not impressed by them. Therefore they are inferior.
They cannot be otherwise. Their character is built upon
conventional morality. It leans on the social order. Mine stands
free from everything artificial. They are bound in all sorts of
conventions. They depend on life, which, in this connection, is a
historical fact surrounded by all sorts of restraints and
considerations, a complex organised fact open to attack at every
point; whereas I depend on death, which knows no restraint and
cannot be attacked. My superiority is evident.”
“This is a transcendental way of putting it,” said Ossipon,
watching the cold glitter of the round spectacles. “I’ve heard
Karl Yundt say much the same thing not very long ago.”
“Karl Yundt,” mumbled the other contemptuously, “the delegate of
the International Red Committee, has been a posturing shadow all
his life. There are three of you delegates, aren’t there? I won’t
define the other two, as you are one of them. But what you say
means nothing. You are the worthy delegates for revolutionary
propaganda, but the trouble is not only that you are as unable to
think independently as any respectable grocer or journalist of them
all, but that you have no character whatever.”
Ossipon could not restrain a start of indignation.
“But what do you want from us?” he exclaimed in a deadened voice.
“What is it you are after yourself?”
“A perfect detonator,” was the peremptory answer. “What are you
making that face for? You see, you can’t even bear the mention of
something conclusive.”
“I am not making a face,” growled the annoyed Ossipon bearishly.
“You revolutionises,” the other continued, with leisurely self-
confidence, “are the slaves of the social convention, which is
afraid of you; slaves of it as much as the very police that stands
up in the defence of that convention. Clearly you are, since you
want to revolutionise it. It governs your thought, of course, and
your action too, and thus neither your thought nor your action can
ever be conclusive.” He paused, tranquil, with that air of close,
endless silence, then almost immediately went on. “You are not a
bit better than the forces arrayed against you – than the police,
for instance. The other day I came suddenly upon Chief Inspector
Heat at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. He looked at me very
steadily. But I did not look at him. Why should I give him more
than a glance? He was thinking of many things – of his superiors,
of his reputation, of the law courts, of his salary, of newspapers
– of a hundred things. But I was thinking of my perfect detonator
only. He meant nothing to me. He was as insignificant as – I