The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

uncomfortably hot. When Mr Verloc returned to sit in his place,

like the very embodiment of silence, the character of Mrs Verloc’s

stare underwent a subtle change, and Stevie ceased to fidget with

his feet, because of his great and awed regard for his sister’s

husband. He directed at him glances of respectful compassion. Mr

Verloc was sorry. His sister Winnie had impressed upon him (in the

omnibus) that Mr Verloc would be found at home in a state of

sorrow, and must not be worried. His father’s anger, the

irritability of gentlemen lodgers, and Mr Verloc’s predisposition

to immoderate grief, had been the main sanctions of Stevie’s self-

restraint. Of these sentiments, all easily provoked, but not

always easy to understand, the last had the greatest moral

efficiency – because Mr Verloc was GOOD. His mother and his sister

had established that ethical fact on an unshakable foundation.

They had established, erected, consecrated it behind Mr Verloc’s

back, for reasons that had nothing to do with abstract morality.

And Mr Verloc was not aware of it. It is but bare justice to him

to say that he had no notion of appearing good to Stevie. Yet so

it was. He was even the only man so qualified in Stevie’s

knowledge, because the gentlemen lodgers had been too transient and

too remote to have anything very distinct about them but perhaps

their boots; and as regards the disciplinary measures of his

father, the desolation of his mother and sister shrank from setting

up a theory of goodness before the victim. It would have been too

cruel. And it was even possible that Stevie would not have

believed them. As far as Mr Verloc was concerned, nothing could

stand in the way of Stevie’s belief. Mr Verloc was obviously yet

mysteriously GOOD. And the grief of a good man is august.

Stevie gave glances of reverential compassion to his brother-in-

law. Mr Verloc was sorry. The brother of Winnie had never before

felt himself in such close communion with the mystery of that man’s

goodness. It was an understandable sorrow. And Stevie himself was

sorry. He was very sorry. The same sort of sorrow. And his

attention being drawn to this unpleasant state, Stevie shuffled his

feet. His feelings were habitually manifested by the agitation of

his limbs.

“Keep your feet quiet, dear,” said Mrs Verloc, with authority and

tenderness; then turning towards her husband in an indifferent

voice, the masterly achievement of instinctive tact: “Are you going

out to-night?” she asked.

The mere suggestion seemed repugnant to Mr Verloc. He shook his

head moodily, and then sat still with downcast eyes, looking at the

piece of cheese on his plate for a whole minute. At the end of

that time he got up, and went out – went right out in the clatter

of the shop-door bell. He acted thus inconsistently, not from any

desire to make himself unpleasant, but because of an unconquerable

restlessness. It was no earthly good going out. He could not find

anywhere in London what he wanted. But he went out. He led a

cortege of dismal thoughts along dark streets, through lighted

streets, in and out of two flash bars, as if in a half-hearted

attempt to make a night of it, and finally back again to his

menaced home, where he sat down fatigued behind the counter, and

they crowded urgently round him, like a pack of hungry black

hounds. After locking up the house and putting out the gas he took

them upstairs with him – a dreadful escort for a man going to bed.

His wife had preceded him some time before, and with her ample form

defined vaguely under the counterpane, her head on the pillow, and

a hand under the cheek offered to his distraction the view of early

drowsiness arguing the possession of an equable soul. Her big eyes

stared wide open, inert and dark against the snowy whiteness of the

linen. She did not move.

She had an equable soul. She felt profoundly that things do not

stand much looking into. She made her force and her wisdom of that

instinct. But the taciturnity of Mr Verloc had been lying heavily