frank and as open as the day himself. What did they mean by
pretending then? Unlike his sister, who put her trust in face
values, he wished to go to the bottom of the matter. He carried on
his inquiry by means of an angry challenge.
“What for are they then, Winn? What are they for? Tell me.”
Winnie disliked controversy. But fearing most a fit of black
depression consequent on Stevie missing his mother very much at
first, she did not altogether decline the discussion. Guiltless of
all irony, she answered yet in a form which was not perhaps
unnatural in the wife of Mr Verloc, Delegate of the Central Red
Committee, personal friend of certain anarchists, and a votary of
social revolution.
“Don’t you know what the police are for, Stevie? They are there so
that them as have nothing shouldn’t take anything away from them
who have.”
She avoided using the verb “to steal,” because it always made her
brother uncomfortable. For Stevie was delicately honest. Certain
simple principles had been instilled into him so anxiously (on
account of his “queerness”) that the mere names of certain
transgressions filled him with horror. He had been always easily
impressed by speeches. He was impressed and startled now, and his
intelligence was very alert.
“What?” he asked at once anxiously. “Not even if they were hungry?
Mustn’t they?”
The two had paused in their walk.
“Not if they were ever so,” said Mrs Verloc, with the equanimity of
a person untroubled by the problem of the distribution of wealth,
and exploring the perspective of the roadway for an omnibus of the
right colour. “Certainly not. But what’s the use of talking about
all that? You aren’t ever hungry.”
She cast a swift glance at the boy, like a young man, by her side.
She saw him amiable, attractive, affectionate, and only a little, a
very little, peculiar. And she could not see him otherwise, for he
was connected with what there was of the salt of passion in her
tasteless life – the passion of indignation, of courage, of pity,
and even of self-sacrifice. She did not add: “And you aren’t
likely ever to be as long as I live.” But she might very well have
done so, since she had taken effectual steps to that end. Mr
Verloc was a very good husband. It was her honest impression that
nobody could help liking the boy. She cried out suddenly:
“Quick, Stevie. Stop that green `bus.”
And Stevie, tremulous and important with his sister Winnie on his
arm, flung up the other high above his head at the approaching
`bus, with complete success.
An hour afterwards Mr Verloc raised his eyes from a newspaper he
was reading, or at any rate looking at, behind the counter, and in
the expiring clatter of the door-bell beheld Winnie, his wife,
enter and cross the shop on her way upstairs, followed by Stevie,
his brother-in-law. The sight of his wife was agreeable to Mr
Verloc. It was his idiosyncrasy. The figure of his brother-in-law
remained imperceptible to him because of the morose thoughtfulness
that lately had fallen like a veil between Mr Verloc and the
appearances of the world of senses. He looked after his wife
fixedly, without a word, as though she had been a phantom. His
voice for home use was husky and placid, but now it was heard not
at all. It was not heard at supper, to which he was called by his
wife in the usual brief manner: “Adolf.” He sat down to consume it
without conviction, wearing his hat pushed far back on his head.
It was not devotion to an outdoor life, but the frequentation of
foreign cafes which was responsible for that habit, investing with
a character of unceremonious impermanency Mr Verloc’s steady
fidelity to his own fireside. Twice at the clatter of the cracked
bell he arose without a word, disappeared into the shop, and came
back silently. During these absences Mrs Verloc, becoming acutely
aware of the vacant place at her right hand, missed her mother very
much, and stared stonily; while Stevie, from the same reason, kept
on shuffling his feet, as though the floor under the table were