The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

seemed cast out into the gutter on account of irremediable decay.

Mrs Verloc recognised the conveyance. Its aspect was so profoundly

lamentable, with such a perfection of grotesque misery and

weirdness of macabre detail, as if it were the Cab of Death itself,

that Mrs Verloc, with that ready compassion of a woman for a horse

(when she is not sitting behind him), exclaimed vaguely:

“Poor brute:”

Hanging back suddenly, Stevie inflicted an arresting jerk upon his

sister.

“Poor! Poor!” he ejaculated appreciatively. “Cabman poor too. He

told me himself.”

The contemplation of the infirm and lonely steed overcame him.

Jostled, but obstinate, he would remain there, trying to express

the view newly opened to his sympathies of the human and equine

misery in close association. But it was very difficult. “Poor

brute, poor people!” was all he could repeat. It did not seem

forcible enough, and he came to a stop with an angry splutter:

“Shame!” Stevie was no master of phrases, and perhaps for that

very reason his thoughts lacked clearness and precision. But he

felt with greater completeness and some profundity. That little

word contained all his sense of indignation and horror at one sort

of wretchedness having to feed upon the anguish of the other – at

the poor cabman beating the poor horse in the name, as it were, of

his poor kids at home. And Stevie knew what it was to be beaten.

He knew it from experience. It was a bad world. Bad! Bad!

Mrs Verloc, his only sister, guardian, and protector, could not

pretend to such depths of insight. Moreover, she had not

experienced the magic of the cabman’s eloquence. She was in the

dark as to the inwardness of the word “Shame.” And she said

placidly:

“Come along, Stevie. You can’t help that.”

The docile Stevie went along; but now he went along without pride,

shamblingly, and muttering half words, and even words that would

have been whole if they had not been made up of halves that did not

belong to each other. It was as though he had been trying to fit

all the words he could remember to his sentiments in order to get

some sort of corresponding idea. And, as a matter of fact, he got

it at last. He hung back to utter it at once.

“Bad world for poor people.”

Directly he had expressed that thought he became aware that it was

familiar to him already in all its consequences. This circumstance

strengthened his conviction immensely, but also augmented his

indignation. Somebody, he felt, ought to be punished for it –

punished with great severity. Being no sceptic, but a moral

creature, he was in a manner at the mercy of his righteous

passions.

“Beastly!” he added concisely.

It was clear to Mrs Verloc that he was greatly excited.

“Nobody can help that,” she said. “Do come along. Is that the way

you’re taking care of me?”

Stevie mended his pace obediently. He prided himself on being a

good brother. His morality, which was very complete, demanded that

from him. Yet he was pained at the information imparted by his

sister Winnie who was good. Nobody could help that! He came along

gloomily, but presently he brightened up. Like the rest of

mankind, perplexed by the mystery of the universe, he had his

moments of consoling trust in the organised powers of the earth.

“Police,” he suggested confidently.

“The police aren’t for that,” observed Mrs Verloc cursorily,

hurrying on her way.

Stevie’s face lengthened considerably. He was thinking. The more

intense his thinking, the slacker was the droop of his lower jaw.

And it was with an aspect of hopeless vacancy that he gave up his

intellectual enterprise.

“Not for that?” he mumbled, resigned but surprised. “Not for

that?” He had formed for himself an ideal conception of the

metropolitan police as a sort of benevolent institution for the

suppression of evil. The notion of benevolence especially was very

closely associated with his sense of the power of the men in blue.

He had liked all police constables tenderly, with a guileless

trustfulness. And he was pained. He was irritated, too, by a

suspicion of duplicity in the members of the force. For Stevie was

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *