"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 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.
|