Falk | Page 8

trouble was little
Lena, and in due course I perceived that the health of the rag-doll was more than delicate.
This object led a sort of "in extremis" existence in a wooden box placed against the
starboard mooring-bitts, tended and nursed with the greatest sympathy and care by all the
children, who greatly enjoyed pulling long faces and moving with hushed footsteps. Only
the baby --Nicholas--looked on with a cold, ruffianly leer, as if he had belonged to
another tribe altogether. Lena perpetually sorrowed over the box, and all of them were in
deadly earnest. It was wonderful the way these children would work up their compassion
for that bedraggled thing I wouldn't have touched with a pair of tongs. I suppose they
were exercis- ing and developing their racial sentimentalism by the means of that dummy.
I was only surprised that Mrs. Hermann let Lena cherish and hug that bundle of rags to
that extent, it was so disreputably and completely unclean. But Mrs. Hermann would
raise her fine womanly eyes from her needlework to look on with amused sympathy, and
did not seen to see it, somehow, that this object of affection was a disgrace to the ship's
purity. Purity, not cleanli- ness, is the word. It was pushed so far that I seemed to detect
in this too a sentimental excess, as if dirt had been removed in very love. It is impossible
to give you an idea of such a meticulous neatness. It was as if every morning that ship
had been ardu- ously explored with--with toothbrushes. Her very bowsprit three times a
week had its toilette made with a cake of soap and a piece of soft flannel. Ar- rayed--I
MUST say arrayed--arrayed artlessly in dazzling white paint as to wood and dark green
as to ironwork the simple-minded distribution of these colours evoked the images of
simple-minded peace, of arcadian felicity; and the childish comedy of disease and sorrow
struck me sometimes as an abom- inably real blot upon that ideal state.
I enjoyed it greatly, and on my part I brought a little mild excitement into it. Our intimacy
arose from the pursuit of that thief. It was in the even- ing, and Hermann, who, contrary
to his habits, had stayed on shore late that day, was extricating him- self backwards out of
a little gharry on the river bank, opposite his ship, when the hunt passed. Realising the
situation as though he had eyes in his shoulder-blades, he joined us with a leap and took
the lead. The Chinaman fled silent like a rapid shadow on the dust of an extremely
oriental road. I followed. A long way in the rear my mate whooped like a savage. A
young moon threw a bashful light on a plain like a monstrous waste ground: the
architectural mass of a Buddhist tem- ple far away projected itself in dead black on the
sky. We lost the thief of course; but in my disap- pointment I had to admire Hermann's
presence of mind. The velocity that stodgy man developed in the interests of a complete
stranger earned my warm gratitude--there was something truly cordial in his exertions.
He seemed as vexed as myself at our failure, and would hardly listen to my thanks. He

said it was "nothings," and invited me on the spot to come on board his ship and drink a
glass of beer with him. We poked sceptically for a while amongst the bushes, peered
without conviction into a ditch or two. There was not a sound: patches of slime glim-
mered feebly amongst the reeds. Slowly we trudged back, drooping under the thin sickle
of the moon, and I heard him mutter to himself, "Himmel! Zwei und dreissig Pfund!" He
was impressed by the figure of my loss. For a long time we had ceased to hear the mate's
whoops and yells.
Then he said to me, "Everybody has his troub- les," and as we went on remarked that he
would never have known anything of mine hadn't he by an extraordinary chance been
detained on shore by Captain Falk. He didn't like to stay late ashore-- he added with a
sigh. The something doleful in his tone I put to his sympathy with my misfortune, of
course.
On board the Diana Mrs. Hermann's fine eyes expressed much interest and
commiseration. We had found the two women sewing face to face under the open
skylight in the strong glare of the lamp. Hermann walked in first, starting in the very
door- way to pull off his coat, and encouraging me with loud, hospitable ejaculations:
"Come in! This way! Come in, captain!" At once, coat in hand, he began to tell his wife
all about it. Mrs. Hermann put the palms of her plump