524 



The Review ot Reviews. 



yovelittfr 1, 1906. 



were no more vague intentions swaying me this way 

 and that ; I was perfectly clear now upon what I 

 meant to do. 



I would make my protest and die. I was going 

 to kill Nettie — Xettie who had smiled and promised 

 and then given herself to another, and who stood 

 now for all the conceivable delightfulnesses, the lost 

 imaginations of the youthful heart, the unattainable 

 joys in life ; and Verrall who stood for all who 

 profited by the incurable injustice of our social 

 order. I would kill them both. And that being 

 done, I would blow my brains out and see what ven- 

 geance followed my blank refusal to live. 



So indeed T was resolved. I raged monstrously. 

 -And above me, abolishing the stars, triumphant 

 over the yellow, waning moon that followed it 

 below, the giant meteor towered up toward the 

 zenith. 



■' Let me only kill !" I cried. " Let me only kill !'' 



So I shouted in my frenzy. I was in a fever that 

 defied hunger and fatigue : for a long time I 

 prowled over the heath toward Lowchester talking 

 to myself, and now that night had fully come, I 

 was tramping homeward, walking the long seventeen 

 miles without a thought of rest. And I had eaten 

 nothing since the morning. 



I suppose I must count myself mad, but I can 

 recall my ravings. 



There were times when I walked weeping through 

 that brightness that was neither night nor day. 

 There were times when I reasoned in a topsy-turvy- 

 fashion with what I called the Spirit of All Things. 

 But always I spoke of that white glory in the sky. 



" Why am I here only to suffer ignominies ?" I 

 asked. "Why have you made me with pride that 

 cannot be satisfied, with desires that turn and rend 

 me? Is it a jest, this world — a joke you play on 

 your guests ? I — even I — have a better humour than 

 that! 



■' Whv not learn from me a certain decencv of 

 mercy? Why not undo? Have I ever tormented, 

 day bv day, some wretched worm, making filth for 

 it to trai' through, filth that disgusts it, star^'ing it, 

 bruising it, mocking it? \Miy should You? Your 

 jokes are clumsy. Trv — try some milder fun up 

 there : do you hear ? Something that doesn't hurt 

 so infernally. 



•' You say this is your purpose — your purpose with 

 me. You are making something with me — birth 

 pangs of a soul ! Ah 1 How can I believe you ? 

 You forget I have eves for other things. Let my 

 own case go, but what of that frog beneath the 

 cart wheel, God ? — and the bird the cat has torn ?" 



And after such blasphemies I would fling out a 

 ridiculous little debating-societv hand, " Answer me 

 that !'■ 



A week ago it had been moonlight, white and 

 black and hard across the spaces of the park, but 

 now the light was vivid and full of the quality of 

 haze. An extraordinarilv low, white mist, not three 



feet above the ground, drifted broodinglv across 

 the grass, and the trees rose ghostly out of that 

 phantom sea. Great and shadowy and strange was 

 the world that night. No one seemed abroad; I 

 and my little cracked voice drifted solitary through 

 the silent mysteries. Sometimes I argued as I have 

 told, sometimes I stumbled along in moodv vacuity, 

 sometimes my torment was vivid and acute. 



Abruptly, out of apathy, would come a boiling 

 paroxysm of fun,-, when I thought of Nettie mocking 

 me and laughing, and of her and Verrall clasped in 

 each other's arms. 



•' I will not have it so !' I screamed. " I will not 

 have it so !" 



And in one of these raving fits, I drew mv revol- 

 ver from my pocket and fired it into the quiet night. 

 Three times I fired it 



The bullets tore through the air, the startled trees 

 told one another in diminishing echoes the thing I 

 had done, and then, with a slow finality, the vast 

 and patient night healed again to calm. Mv shots, 

 my curses and blasphemies, mv pravers — for anon I 

 prayed — that silence took them all. 



It was — how can I express it?- — a stifled outcry 

 tranquillised, lost, amid the serene assumptions, the 

 overwhelming empire of that brightness. The noise 

 of my shots, the impact upon things, had, for the 

 instant, been enormous, then it had passed awav. 

 I found myself standing with the revolver held up, 

 astonished, my emotions penetrated by something I 

 could not understand. Then I looked over my 

 shoulder at the great star, and remained staring at 

 it. 



'■ Who are you?" I said at last. 



I was like a man in a solitary- desert who has 

 suddenly heard a voice. 



That, too, passed. 



As I came over Clayton Crest I recall that I 

 missed the multitude that now, night after night, 

 walked out to stare at the comet, and the little 

 preacher in the waste beyond the hoardings, who 

 warned sinners to repent before the Judgment, was 

 not in his usual place. 



It was long past midriight, and everyone had 

 gone home. But I did not think of this at first, and 

 the solitude perplexed me and left a memory- be- 

 hind. The gas lamps were all extinguished because 

 of the brightness of the comet, and that, too, was 

 unfamiliar. The little news agent in still High- 

 street had shut up and gone to bed, but one belated 

 board had been put out late and forgotten, and it 

 still bore its placard. 



The word upon it —there was but one word upon 

 it in staring letters — was '" WAR." 



You figure that empty, mean street, emptily echo- 

 ing to my footsteps, no soul awake and audient but 

 me. Then my halt at the placard. And amidst that 

 sleeping stillness, smeared hastily upon the board, 

 a little askew and crumpled, but quite distinct be- 



