“Diana, for the last time, will you send that fellow away?”
For a moment, in her surprise and pain, she showed such distress that he was almost afraid. If she gave the wrong answer, if she yielded too soon, the plan would fall to pieces. That was not what he wanted. He wanted to carry it through to the end, to establish once and for all unquestioned dominion. So with some show of passion, he began to abuse MacIntyre.
“That damned fortune-hunting Scotchman,” he raved, “that damned penny-a-line hack...”
For the first time in their lives Diana looked at him with anger. Then she remembered that he was ill, and controlled herself to speak quietly.
“No,” she said.
There was long, heart-stopping silence. Then without another word Maurice thrust his foot into a crack and pulled himself onto the wall. In other circumstances, and with better health, he might have made a good actor; for by every line of his body, from the flung-back head to the nervous foot, one knew that here was a man who was going to kill himself. Diana knew it, too, and flung herself from her chair in an effort to run towards him. But just as Maurice had worked it out, so the scene unfolded. Her foot crumpled under her, and she fell impotent and tortured in a double agony. Then she began calling, imploring him, promising anything he wished; finally her cries turned to screams as she tried to summon help. Carmena was old and in the kitchen, there was music on the quay, but her terror gave her such strength that Maurice took alarm. If she went on at that rate, he reflected, someone might quite well hear; so with a final glance towards the quay (where there were still plenty of people) he shook back his hair, squared his narrow shoulders, and dropped into the bay.
But as Maurice himself had said, the islander is not like your Anglo Saxon. He has no foolish illusions as to the sanctity of human life. When the dancers saw who had fallen, they were all extremely glad. They had rescued him once before, but this time they let him drown.
The Dog and the Horse
by Voltaire
Zadig found by experience that the first month of marriage, as it is written in the book of Zend, is the moon of honey, and that the second is the moon of wormwood. He was some time after obliged to repudiate Azora, who became too difficult to be pleased; and he then sought for happiness in the study of nature.
“No man,” said he, “can be happier than a philosopher, who reads in this great book, which God hath placed before our eyes. The truths he discovers are his own; he nourishes and exalts his soul; he lives in peace; he fears nothing from men; and his tender spouse will not come to cut off his nose.”
Possessed of these ideas, he retired to a country house on the banks of the Euphrates. There he did not employ himself in calculating how many inches of water flow in a second of time under the arches of a bridge, or whether there fell a cube-line of rain in the month of the mouse more than in the month of the sheep. He never dreamed of making silk of cobwebs, or porcelain of broken bottles; but he chiefly studied the properties of plants and animals; and soon acquired a sagacity that made him discover a thousand differences where other men see nothing but uniformity.
One day, as he was walking near a little wood, he saw one of the queen’s eunuchs running toward him, followed by several officers, who appeared to be in great perplexity, and who ran to and fro like men distracted, eagerly searching for something of great value they had lost.
“Young man,” said the first eunuch, “hast thou seen the queen’s dog?”
“It is a bitch,” replied Zadig, with great modesty, “and not a dog.”
“Thou art in the right,” returned the first eunuch.
“It is a very small she-spaniel,” added Zadig; “she has lately whelped; she limps on the left forefoot, and has very long ears.”
“Thou hast seen her,” said the first eunuch, quite out of breath.
“No,” replied Zadig, “I have not seen her, nor did I so much as know that the queen had a bitch.”
Exactly at the same time, by one of the common freaks of fortune, the finest horse in the king’s stable had escaped from the jockey in the plains of Babylon. The principal huntsman, and all the other officers, ran after him with as much eagerness and anxiety as the first eunuch had done after the bitch. The principal huntsman addressed himself to Zadig and asked him if he had not seen the king’s horse passing by.
“He is the fleetest horse in the king’s stable,” replied Zadig; “he is five feet high, with very small hoofs, and a tail three feet and an half in length; the studs on his bit are gold, of twenty-three carats, and his shoes are silver of eleven pennyweights.”
“Where is he?” demanded the chief huntsman.
“I have not seen him,” replied Zadig, “and never heard talk of him before.”
The principal huntsman and the first eunuch never doubted but that Zadig had stolen the king’s horse and the queen’s dog. They therefore had him conducted before the assembly of the grand desterham, who condemned him to the knout, and to spend the rest of his days in Siberia. Hardly was the sentence passed, when the horse and the dog were both found. The judges were reduced to the disagreeable necessity of reversing their sentence; but they condemned Zadig to pay 400 ounces of gold for having said that he had not seen what he had seen. This fine he was obliged to pay; after which, he was permitted to plead his cause before the council of the grand desterham, when he spoke to the following effect:
“Ye stars of justice, abyss of sciences, mirrors of truth, who have the weight of lead, the hardness of iron, the splendor of the diamond, and many of the properties of gold; since I am permitted to speak before this august assembly, I swear to you by Oromazes, that I have never seen the queen’s respectable bitch, nor the sacred horse of the king of kings. The truth of the matter is as follows: I was walking toward the little wood, where I afterward met the venerable eunuch and the most illustrious chief huntsman. I observed on the sand the traces of an animal, and could easily perceive them to be those of a little dog. The light and long furrows impressed on little eminences of sand between the marks of the paws plainly discovered that it was a bitch, whose dugs were hanging down, and that therefore she must have whelped a few days before. Other traces of a different kind, that always appeared to have gently brushed the surface of the sand near the marks of the forefeet, showed me that she had very long ears; and as I remarked that there was always a slighter impression made on the sand by one foot than by the other three, I found that the bitch of our august queen was a little lame, if I may be allowed the expression. With regard to the horse of the king of kings, you will be pleased to know that walking in the lanes of this wood I observed the marks of a horse’s shoes, all at equal distances. This must be a horse, said I to myself, that gallops excellently. The dust on the trees in a narrow road that was but seven feet wide was a little brushed off, at the distance of three feet and a half from the middle of the road. This horse, said I, has a tail three feet and a half long, which, being whisked to the right and left, has swept away the dust. I observed under the trees that formed an arbor five feet in height that the leaves of the branches were newly fallen, from whence I inferred that the horse had touched them, and that he must therefore be five feet high. As to his bit, it must be gold of twenty-three carats, for he had rubbed its bosses against a stone which I knew to be a touchstone, and which I have tried. In a word, from a mark made by his shoes on flints of another kind, I concluded that he was shod with silver eleven derniers fine.”