The Desert Islander

The Desert Islander
by Stella Benson

CONSTANTINE hopefully followed the Chinese servant through the
unknown house. He felt hopeful of success in his plan of begging this
Englishman for help, for he knew that an Englishman, alone among
people of a different colour (as this Englishman was alone in this South
China town), treated the helping of stray white men almost as part of
the White Man's Burden. But even without his claim of one lonely
white man upon another, Constantine would have felt hopeful. He
knew himself to be a man of compelling manner in spite of his ugly,
too long face, and his ugly, too short legs.
As Constantine stumped in on his hobnailed soles, Mr. White--who was
evidently not a very tactful man--said, "Oh, are you another deserter
from the Foreign Legion?"
"I am Constantine Andreievitch Soloviev," said Constantine, surprised.
He spoke and understood English almost perfectly (his mother had
been English), yet he could not remember ever having heard the word
another applied to himself. In fact it did not--could not possibly--so
apply. There was only one of him, he knew.
Of course, in a way there was some sense in what this stupid
Englishman said. Constantine had certainly been a légionnaire in
Tonkin up till last Thursday--his narrow pipe-clayed helmet, stiff khaki
greatcoat, shabby drill uniform, puttees, brass buttons, and inflexible
boots were all the property of the French Government. But the
core--the pearl inside this vulgar, horny shell--was Constantine
Andreievitch Soloviev. That made all the difference.
Constantine saw that he must take this Didymus of an Englishman in
hand at once and tell him a few exciting stories about his dangerous

adventures between the Tonkin border and this Chinese city. Snakes,
tigers, love-crazed Chinese princesses and brigands passed rapidly
through his mind, and he chose the last, because he had previously
planned several impressive things to do if he should be attacked by
brigands. So now, though he had not actually met a brigand, those
plans would come in useful. Constantine intended to write his
autobiography some day when he should have married a rich wife and
settled down. Not only did his actual life seem to him a very rare one
but, also, lives were so interesting to make up.
Constantine was a desert islander--a spiritual Robinson Crusoe. He
made up everything himself and he wasted nothing. Robinson Crusoe
was his favourite book--in fact, almost the only book he had ever
read--and he was proud to be, like his hero, a desert islander. He
actually preferred clothing his spirit in the skins of wild thoughts that
had been the prey of his wits and sheltering it from the world's weather
in a leaky hut of his brain's own contriving, to enjoying the good
tailoring and housing that dwellers on the mainland call experience and
education. He enjoyed being barbarous, he enjoyed living alone on his
island, accepting nothing, imitating nothing, believing nothing,
adapting himself to nothing--implacably home-made. Even his tangible
possessions were those of a marooned man rather than of a civilized
citizen of this well-furnished world. At this moment his only luggage
was a balalaika that he had made himself out of cigar-boxes, and to this
he sang songs of his own composition--very imperfect songs. He would
not have claimed that either his songs or his instrument were better than
the songs and instruments made by song-makers and balalaika-makers;
they were, however, much more rapturously his than any acquired
music could have been and, indeed, in this as in almost all things, it
simply never occurred to him to take rather than make. There was no
mainland on the horizon of his desert island.
"I am not a beggar," said Constantine. "Until yesterday I had sixty
piastres which I had saved by many sacrifices during my service in the
Legion. But yesterday, passing through a dark forest of pines in the
twilight, about twenty versts from here, I met---"

"You met a band of brigands," said Mr. White. "Yes, I know you all
say that."
Constantine stared at him. He had not lived, a desert islander, in a
crowded and over-civilized world without meeting many rebuffs, so
this one did not surprise him--did not even offend him. On the contrary,
for a minute he almost loved the uncompromising Mr. White, as a
sportsman almost loves the chamois on a peculiarly inaccessible crag.
This was a friend worth a good deal of trouble to secure, Constantine
saw. He realized at once that the desert islander's line here was to
discard the brigands and to discard noble independence.
"Very well then," said Constantine. "I did not meet brigands. I am a
beggar. I started without a penny and I still have no penny. I hope you
will give me something. That is why I have