Ships That Pass In The Night | Page 6

continued, "I have not the brains!"
"I never knew any writer who had," said the Disagreeable Man grimly.
"Perhaps your experience has been limited," she suggested.
"Why don't you read?" he said. "There is a good library here. It contains all the books we don't want to read."
"I am tired of reading," Bernardine said. "I seem to have been reading all my life. My uncle, with whom I live, keeps, a second-hand book-shop, and ever since I can remember, I have been surrounded by books. They have not done me much good, nor any one else either."
"No, probably not," he said. "But now that you have left off reading, you will have a chance of learning something, if you live long enough. It is wonderful how much one does learn when one does not read. It is almost awful. If you don't care about reading now, why do you not occupy yourself with cheese-mites?"
"I do not feel drawn towards cheese-mites."
"Perhaps not, at first; but all the same they form a subject which is very engaging. Or any branch of bacteriology."
"Well, if you were to lend me your microscope, perhaps I might begin."
"I could not do that," he answered quickly. "I never lend my things."
"No, I did not suppose you would," she said. "I knew I was safe in making the suggestion."
"You are rather quick of perception in spite of all your book reading," he said. "Yes, you are quite right. I am selfish. I dislike lending my things, and I dislike spending my money except on myself. If you have the misfortune to linger on as I do you will know that it is perfectly legitimate to be selfish in small things, if one has made the one great sacrifice."
"And what may that be?"
She asked so eagerly that he looked at her, and then saw how worn and tired, her face was; and the words which he was intending to speak, died on his lips.
"Look at those asses of people on toboggans," he said brusquely. "Could you manage to enjoy yourself in that way? That might do you good."
"Yes," she said; "but it would not be any pleasure to me."
She stopped to watch the toboggans flying down the road. And the Disagreeable Man went his own solitary way, a forlorn figure, with a face almost expressionless, and a manner wholly impenetrable.
He had lived nearly seven years at Petershof, and, like many others was obliged to continue staying there if he wished to continue staying in this planet. It was not probable that he had any wish to prolong his frail existence, but he did his duty to his mother by conserving his life; and this feeble flame of duty and affection was the only lingering bit of warmth in a heart frozen almost by ill health and disappointed ambitions. The moralists tell us that suffering ennobles, and that a right acceptation of hindrances goes towards forming a beautiful character. But this result must largely depend on the original character: certainly, in the case of Robert Allitsen, suffering had not ennobled his mind, nor disappointment sweetened his disposition. His title of "Disagreeable Man" had been fairly earned, and he hugged it to himself with a triumphant secret satisfaction.
There were some people in Petershof who were inclined to believe certain absurd rumours about his alleged kindness. It was said that on more than one occasion he had nursed the suffering and the dying in sad Petershof, and, with all the sorrowful tenderness worthy of a loving mother, had helped them to take their leave of life. But these were only rumours, and there was nothing in Robert Allitsen's ordinary bearing to justify such talk. So the foolish people who, for the sake of making themselves peculiar, revived these unlikely fictions, were speedily ridiculed and reduced to silence. And the Disagreeable Man remained the Disagreeable Man, with a clean record for unamiability.
He lived a life apart from others. Most of his time was occupied in photography, or in the use and study of the microscope, or in chemistry. His photographs were considered to be most beautiful. Not that he showed them specially to any one; but he generally sent a specimen of his work to the Monthly Photograph Portfolio, and hence it was that people learned to know of his skill. He might be seen any fine day trudging along in company with his photographic apparatus, and a desolate dog, who looked almost as cheerless as his chosen comrade. Neither the one took any notice of the other; Allitsen was no more genial to the dog than he was to the Kurhaus guests; the dog was no more demonstrative to Robert Allitsen than he was to any one in Petershof.
Still, they were "something" to each other, that unexplainable "something" which has to explain almost every kind