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218 Walter de la Mare
do next. And suddenly memory rendered up the one thing wanting
— the master touch.
Why, of course, of course! Jacobs must have kicked a chair
down. You couldn't hang yourself like that without a drop. It was
impossible. The boy's valour, after all, was only a little shaken by
the embrace. Into the kitchen he walked victorious. The gas was
still singing, as it had sung all the evening, shedding its dismal flar-
ing light on wall and clock and blind and ceiling and wide array of
glossy crockery. The puckered clay-coloured face looked stupidly
at him with bolting, dull, dull-lidded eyes. What was now to be
done must be done quickly. He ducked sharply and upset the chair
— a little too sharply, for a light spring-side boot had tapped him on
the cheek. He leapt back, hot and panting. The effect was masterly.
It was a triumph. And yet. . . . He stared, with clenched fists, and
whispered over his shoulder to a now absent accomplice. But no,
he was alone! Only Jacobs was there — with that drowsy slit of eye
— tremulously dangling. And as if, even for him, as if even for
his
clear bold young spirit, this last repulsive spectacle, that last minute
assault of a helpless enemy, overwhelming some secret stronghold
in his mind, had suddenly proved intolerable, his energy, enterprise,
courage wilted within him. The whisper in the dark outside of the
uncertain wind, the soft bubbling whistle of the gas, the thousand
and one minute dumb things around him in the familiar kitchen —
nothing had changed. Yet
now
every object had become suddenly
real, stark, menacing, and hostile. Panic seized him. He ran out to
the front door and bawled into the dark after the woman.
No answer came. The rain was falling softly on the sodden turf;
and here, beneath the porch, in large ponderous drops. The wide-
spread palms of the cedar tree under the clouded midnight lay
prone and motionless. The whole world was gone out — black.
Nothing, nothing; he was alone.
He ran back again into the house - as if he had been awakened
out of a dream - leaving the door agape behind him, and whimper-
ing 'Mother!' Then louder — louder. And all the blind things of the
house took wooden voices. So up and down this white-shirted
raider ran, his clumsy poniard clapping against sudden corners, his
tongue calling in vain, and at last - as he went scuttling upstairs at
sound of cab-horse and wheels upon the sodden gravel - falling
dumb for very terror of its own noise.
W. S O M E R S E T MAUGHAM • 1 8 7 4 - 1 9 6 5
An Official Position
He was a sturdy broad-shouldered fellow, of the middle height;
though his bones were well covered as became his age, which was
fifty, he was not fat; he had a ruddy complexion which neither the
heat of the sun nor the unwholesomeness of the climate had af-
fected. It was good rich blood that ran through his veins. His hair
was brown and thick, and only at the temples touched with grey;
he was very proud of his fair, handsome moustache and he kept it
carefully brushed. There was a pleasant twinkle in his blue eyes.
You would have said that this was a man whom life had treated
well. There was in his appearance an air of good nature and in his
vigour a glow of health that gave you confidence. He reminded you
of one of those well-fed, rubicund burghers in an old Dutch picture,
with their pink-cheeked wives, who made money and enjoyed the
good things with which their industry provided them. He was,
however, a widower. His name was Louis Remire, and his number
68763.
He was serving a twelve-year sentence at St Laurent de Ma-
roni, the great penal settlement of French Guiana, for killing his
wife, but partly because he had served in the police force at Lyons,
his native town, and partly on account of his good character, he
had been given an official position. He had been chosen among
nearly two hundred applicants to be the public executioner.
That was why he was allowed to sport the handsome moustache
of which he took so much care. He was the only convict who wore
one. It was in a manner of speaking his badge of office. That also
was why he was allowed to wear his own clothes. The convicts
wear pyjamas in pink and white stripes, round straw hats and
clumsy boots with wooden soles and leather tops. Louis Remire
wore espadrilles on his bare feet, blue cotton trousers, and a khaki
shirt the open neck of which exposed to view his hairy and virile
chest. When you saw him strolling about the public garden, with a
kindly eye looking at the children, black or half-caste, who played
there, you would have taken him for a respectable shopkeeper who
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