The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

to terror too perhaps.

That was the form of doubt he feared most. Impervious to fear!

Often while walking abroad, when he happened also to come out of

himself, he had such moments of dreadful and sane mistrust of

mankind. What if nothing could move them? Such moments come to

all men whose ambition aims at a direct grasp upon humanity – to

artists, politicians, thinkers, reformers, or saints. A despicable

emotional state this, against which solitude fortifies a superior

character; and with severe exultation the Professor thought of the

refuge of his room, with its padlocked cupboard, lost in a

wilderness of poor houses, the hermitage of the perfect anarchist.

In order to reach sooner the point where he could take his omnibus,

he turned brusquely out of the populous street into a narrow and

dusky alley paved with flagstones. On one side the low brick

houses had in their dusty windows the sightless, moribund look of

incurable decay – empty shells awaiting demolition. From the other

side life had not departed wholly as yet. Facing the only gas-lamp

yawned the cavern of a second-hand furniture dealer, where, deep in

the gloom of a sort of narrow avenue winding through a bizarre

forest of wardrobes, with an undergrowth tangle of table legs, a

tall pier-glass glimmered like a pool of water in a wood. An

unhappy, homeless couch, accompanied by two unrelated chairs, stood

in the open. The only human being making use of the alley besides

the Professor, coming stalwart and erect from the opposite

direction, checked his swinging pace suddenly.

“Hallo!” he said, and stood a little on one side watchfully.

The Professor had already stopped, with a ready half turn which

brought his shoulders very near the other wall. His right hand

fell lightly on the back of the outcast couch, the left remained

purposefully plunged deep in the trousers pocket, and the roundness

of the heavy rimmed spectacles imparted an owlish character to his

moody, unperturbed face.

It was like a meeting in a side corridor of a mansion full of life.

The stalwart man was buttoned up in a dark overcoat, and carried an

umbrella. His hat, tilted back, uncovered a good deal of forehead,

which appeared very white in the dusk. In the dark patches of the

orbits the eyeballs glimmered piercingly. Long, drooping

moustaches, the colour of ripe corn, framed with their points the

square block of his shaved chin.

“I am not looking for you,” he said curtly.

The Professor did not stir an inch. The blended noises of the

enormous town sank down to an inarticulate low murmur. Chief

Inspector Heat of the Special Crimes Department changed his tone.

“Not in a hurry to get home?” he asked, with mocking simplicity.

The unwholesome-looking little moral agent of destruction exulted

silently in the possession of personal prestige, keeping in check

this man armed with the defensive mandate of a menaced society.

More fortunate than Caligula, who wished that the Roman Senate had

only one head for the better satisfaction of his cruel lust, he

beheld in that one man all the forces he had set at defiance: the

force of law, property, oppression, and injustice. He beheld all

his enemies, and fearlessly confronted them all in a supreme

satisfaction of his vanity. They stood perplexed before him as if

before a dreadful portent. He gloated inwardly over the chance of

this meeting affirming his superiority over all the multitude of

mankind.

It was in reality a chance meeting. Chief Inspector Heat had had a

disagreeably busy day since his department received the first

telegram from Greenwich a little before eleven in the morning.

First of all, the fact of the outrage being attempted less than a

week after he had assured a high official that no outbreak of

anarchist activity was to be apprehended was sufficiently annoying.

If he ever thought himself safe in making a statement, it was then.

He had made that statement with infinite satisfaction to himself,

because it was clear that the high official desired greatly to hear

that very thing. He had affirmed that nothing of the sort could

even be thought of without the department being aware of it within

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