The Purple Cloud
Page 35
yesterday, returning to Imbros from an hour'saimless cruise, discovered it there behind a chest.
I find now considerable difficulty in guiding the pencil, and these fewlines now written have quite an odd look, like the handwriting of a mannot very proficient in the art: it is seventeen years, seventeen,seventeen ... ah! And the expression of my ideas is not fluent either: Ihave to think for the word a minute, and I should not be surprised ifthe spelling of some of them is queer. My brain has been thinkinginarticulately perhaps, all these years: and the English words andletters, as they now stand written, have rather an improbable andforeign air to me, as a Greek or Russian book might look to a man whohas not so long been learning those languages as to forget theimpossibly foreign impression received from them on the first day oftackling them. Or perhaps it is only my fancy: for that I have fancies Iknow.
But what to write? The history of those seventeen years could not be putdown, my good God: at least, it would take me seventeen more to do it.If I were to detail the building of the palace alone, and how it killedme nearly, and how I twice fled from it, and had to return, and becameits bounden slave, and dreamed of it, and grovelled before it, andprayed, and raved, and rolled; and how I forgot to make provision on thewest side for the contraction and expansion of the gold in the colderweather and the heats of summer, and had to break down nine months'work, and how I cursed Thee, how I cursed Thee; and how the lake of wineevaporated faster than the conduits replenished it, and the threejourneys which I had to take to Constantinople for shiploads of wine,and my frothing despairs, till I had the thought of placing thereservoir in the platform; and how I had then to break down the southside of the platform to the very bottom, and of the month-long nightmareof terror that I had lest the south side of the palace would undergosubsidence; and how the petrol failed, and of the three-weeks' searchfor petrol along the coast; and how, after list-rubbing all the jet, Ifound that I had forgotten the necessary rouge for polishing; and how,in the third year, I found the fluate, which I had for water-proofingthe pores of the platform-stone, nearly all leaked away in the_Speranza's_ hold, and I had to get silicate of soda at Gallipoli; andhow, after two years' observation, I had to come to the conclusion thatthe lake was leaking, and discovered that this Imbros sand was notsuitable for mixing with the skin of Portland cement which covered thecement concrete, and had to substitute sheet-bitumen in three places;and how I did all, all for the sake of God, thinking: 'I will work, andbe a good man, and cast Hell from me: and when I see it stand finished,it will be an Altar and a Testimony to me, and I shall find peace, andbe well': and how I have been cheated--seventeen years, long years of mylife--for there is no God; and how my plasterers'-hair failed me, and Ihad to use flock, hessian, scrym, wadding, wood-street paving-blocks,and whatever I could find, for filling the interspaces between theplatform cross-walls; and of the espagnolette bolts, how a number ofthem mysteriously disappeared, as if snatched to Hell by harpies, and Ihad to make them; and how the crane-chain would not reach two of thesilver-panel castings when they were finished, and they were too heavyfor me to lift, and the wringing of the hands of my despair, and mybiting of the earth, and the transport of my fury; and how, for a wholewild week, I searched in vain for the text-book which describes theambering process; and how, when all was nearly over, in the blastingaway of the forge and crane with dynamite, a long crack appeared downthe gold of the east platform-steps, and how I would not be consoled,but mourned and mourned; and how, in spite of all my tribulations, itwas sweetly interesting to watch my power slowly grow from the firstfeeble beginnings of the landing of materials and unloading them fromthe motor, a hundred-weight at a time, till I could swing four tons--seethe solid metals flow--enjoy the gliding sounds of the handle,crank-shaft, and system of levers, forcing inwards the mould-end, andthe upper and lower plungers, for pressing the material--build at easein a travelling-cage--and watch from my hut-door through sleeplesshours, under the electric moonlight of this land, the three piles ofgold stones, the silver panels, the two-foot squares of jet, and becomforted; and how the putty-wash--but it is past, it is past: and notto live over again that vulgar nightmare of means and ends have I takento this writing again--but to put down something else, if I dare.
Seventeen years, my good God, of that delusion! I could write down nosort of explanation for all those groans and griefs, at which areasoning being would not shriek with laughter. I should have lived atease in some palace of the Middle-Orient, and burned my cities: but no,I must be 'a good man'--vain thought. The words of a wild madman, thatpreaching man in England who prophesied what happened, were with me,where he says: 'the defeat of Man is _His_ defeat'; and I said tomyself: 'Well, the last man shall not be quite a fiend, just to spiteThat Other.' And I worked and groaned, saying: 'I will be a good man,and burn nothing, nor utter aught unseemly, nor debauch myself, butchoke back the blasphemies that Those Others shriek through my throat,and build and build, with moils and groans.' And it was Vanity: though Ido love the house, too, I love it well, for it is my home on the wasteearth.
I had calculated to finish it in twelve years, and I should undoubtedlyhave finished it in fourteen, instead of in sixteen and seven months,but one day, when the south, north, and east platform-steps were alreadyfinished--it was in the July of the third year, and near sunset--as Ileft off work, instead of going to the tent where my dinner lay ready, Iwalked down to the ship--most strangely--in a daft, mechanical sort ofway, without saying a word to myself, an evil-meaning smile of malice onmy lips; and at midnight I was lying off Mitylene, thirty miles to thesouth, having bid, as I thought, a last farewell to all those toils. Iwas going to burn Athens.
I did not, however: but kept on my way westward round Cape Matapan,intending to destroy the forests and towns of Sicily, if I found there asuitable motor for travelling, for I had not been at the pains to takethe motor on board at Imbros; otherwise I would ravage parts of southernItaly. But when I came thereabouts, I was confronted with an awfulhorror: for no southern Italy was there, and no Sicily was there, unlessa small new island, probably not five miles long, was Sicily; andnothing else I saw, save the still-smoking crater of Stromboli. Icruised northward, searching for land, and for a long time would notbelieve the evidence of the instruments, thinking that they wilfullymisled me, or I stark mad. But no: no Italy was there, till I came tothe latitude of Naples, it, too, having disappeared, engulfed, engulfed,all that stretch. From this monstrous thing I received so solemn a shockand mood of awe, that the evil mind in me was quite chilled and quelled:for it was, and is, my belief that a wide-spread re-arrangement of theearth's surface is being purposed, and in all that drama, O my God, howshall _I_ be found?
However, I went on my way, but more leisurely, not daring for a longtime to do anything, lest I might offend anyone; and, in this foolishcowering mind, coasted all the western coast of Spain and France duringfive weeks, in that prolonged intensity of calm weather which nowalternates with storms that transcend all thought, till I came again toCalais: and there, for the first time, landed.
Here I would no longer contain myself, but burned; and that magnificentstretch of forest that lay between Agincourt and Abbeville, coveringfive square miles, I burned; and Abbeville I burned; and Amiens Iburned; and three forests between Amiens and Paris I burned; and Paris Iburned; burning and burning during four months, leaving behind mesmoking districts, a long tract of ravage, like some being of the Pitthat blights where pass his flaming wings.
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This of city-burning has now become a habit with me more enchaining--andinfinitely more debased--than ever was opium to the smoker, or alcoholto the drunkard. I count it among the prime necessaries of my life: itis my brandy, my bacchanal, my secret sin. I have burned Calcutta,Pekin, and San Francisco. In spite of the restraining influence of thispalace, I have burned and burned. I have burned two hundred cities andcountrysides. Like Leviathan disporting himself in the sea, so I haverioted in this earth.
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After an absence of six months, I returned to Imbros: for I was forlooking again upon the work which I had done, that I might mock myselffor all that unkingly grovelling: and when I saw it, standing there as Ihad left it, frustrate and forlorn, and waiting its maker's hand, somepity and instinct to build took me--for something of God was in Man--andI fell upon my knees, and spread my arms to God, and was converted,promising to finish the palace, with prayers that as I built so Hewould build my soul, and save the last man from the enemy. And I set towork that day to list-rub the last few dalles of the jet.
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I did not leave Imbros after that during four years, except foroccasional brief trips to the coast--to Kilid-Bahr, Gallipoli, Lapsaki,Gamos, Rodosto, Erdek, Erekli, or even once to Constantinople andScutari--if I happened to want anything, or if I was