The Centaur | Page 7

wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story We fashion an empire's glory; One man
with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And
three with a new song's measure Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with
our sighing, And Babel itself with our mirth; And o'erthrew them with
prophesying To the old of the new world's worth; For each age is a
dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth.
For this passion for some simple old-world innocence and beauty lay in
his soul like a lust--self-feeding and voracious.

III
"Lonely! Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky
Way?"
--THOREAU
March had passed shouting away, and April was whispering deliciously
among her scented showers when O'Malley went on board the coasting
steamer at Marseilles for the Levant and the Black Sea. The mistral
made the land unbearable, but herds of white horses ran galloping over
the bay beneath a sky of childhood's blue. The ship started
punctually--he came on board as usual with a bare minute's

margin--and from his rapid survey of the thronged upper deck, it seems,
he singled out on the instant this man and boy, wondering first vaguely
at their uncommon air of bulk, secondly at the absence of detail which
should confirm it. They appeared so much bigger than they actually
were. The laughter, rising in his heart, however, did not get as far as his
lips.
For this appearance of massive bulk, and of shoulders comely yet
almost humped, was not borne out by a direct inspection. It was a
mental impression. The man, though broad and well-proportioned, with
heavy back and neck and uncommonly sturdy torso, was in no sense
monstrous. It was upon the corner of the eye that the bulk and hugeness
dawned, a false report that melted under direct vision. O'Malley took
him in with attention merging in respect, searching in vain for the detail
of back and limbs and neck that suggested so curiously the sense of the
gigantic. The boy beside him, obviously son, possessed the same
elusive attributes--felt yet never positively seen.
Passing down to his cabin, wondering vaguely to what nationality they
might belong, he was immediately behind them, elbowing French and
German tourists, when the father abruptly turned and faced him. Their
gaze met. O'Malley started.
"Whew...!" ran some silent expression like fire through his brain.
Out of a massive visage, placid for all its ruggedness, shone eyes large
and timid as those of an animal or child bewildered among so many
people. There was an expression in them not so much cowed or
dismayed as "un-refuged"--the eyes of the hunted creature. That, at
least, was the first thing they betrayed; for the same second the
quick-blooded Celt caught another look: the look of a hunted creature
that at last knows shelter and has found it. The first expression had
emerged, then withdrawn again swiftly like an animal into its hole
where safety lay. Before disappearing, it had flashed a wireless
message of warning, of welcome, of explanation--he knew not what
term to use--to another of its own kind, to himself.
O'Malley, utterly arrested, stood and stared. He would have spoken, for

the invitation seemed obvious enough, but there came an odd catch in
his breath, and words failed altogether. The boy, peering at him
sideways, clung to his great parent's side. For perhaps ten seconds there
was this interchange of staring, intimate staring, between the three of
them ... and then the Irishman, confused, more than a little agitated,
ended the silent introduction with an imperceptible bow and passed on
slowly, knocking absent-mindedly through the crowd, down to his
cabin on the lower deck.
In his heart, deep down, stirred an indescribable sympathy with
something he divined in these two that was akin to himself, but that as
yet he could not name. On the surface he felt an emotion he knew not
whether to call uneasiness or surprise, but crowding past it, half
smothering it, rose this other more profound emotion. Something
enormously winning in the atmosphere of father and son called to him
in the silence: it was significant, oddly buried; not yet had it emerged
enough to be confessed and labeled. But each had recognized it in the
other. Each knew. Each waited. And it was extraordinarily disturbing.
Before unpacking, he sat for a long time on his berth, thinking....trying
in vain to catch through a thunder of surprising emotions the word that
might bring explanation. That strange impression of giant bulk,
unsupported by actual measurements; that look of startled security
seeking shelter; that other look of being sure,