A few feet away from him was the open porthole—an invitation to any furious man. He moved swiftly till he stood by the gaping space. Then he tore off the top few sheets, and threw them out into the darkness.
The Professor, waking from a blow which might have killed him, suddenly realized what was happening. He started forward, as if he would have attacked this much bigger man. Then he stopped, a few feet away.
"Don't, Carl!" he begged. "Stop! Please stop!"
Carl was working methodically. More pages went whirling away into the black opening, from which the sea noises, the steady hiss of their passage, now sounded loud and engulfing. Already half the manuscript—it must be the oldest part, thought Carl savagely, joyfully—had disappeared into limbo.
The Professor could only think of one thing, one hope; to achieve this, he even fell on his knees.
"Carl! Please. . . . It's twenty-five years' work. . . . It's all I have. ... If I don't publish it, I will never be free. . . . Carl!" He was beginning to sob now, as he saw the precious pages disappearing into the darkness, and more pages, newer pages, the toil of only three and four years ago, being laid bare for the slaughter. "Carl! I haven't even got a copy!"
Carl stopped, for the pure pleasure of doing so. The hissing sea outside the porthole seemed to retreat. He held in his hand the last few pages—perhaps twenty of them, almost fresh, almost new; possibly the work of the last two years, laced with much alcohol, much rheumatism, much despair, age, pain, and hope. He looked at the old man, grovelling at his feet. Then he kicked the old man, in the breast-bone, under his heart, so that he fell sideways, murmuring a word which sounded like "peace" or "please". Then he tore the last pages across and across, and tossed them through the open porthole, as if he were offering the cheapest possible sacrifice to the most alien of all gods.
The torn pages fluttered in a shaft of light, they even rose for a moment on a current of warm, errant air, before disappearing astern, for ever and ever.
11
It was one o'clock, and the ship was quietly settled for the night, when Kathy knocked at the door of Carl's cabin, and went in.
She had known that he would not be asleep; the clue was the Professor, a shocked and wandering ghost, whose iron-fisted jailer must still be alert and awake. When she came in, fresh from happier topics, she asked immediately:
"Carl, what's happened to the Professor? Did you do something to him?"
Carl was sitting on his bed, half-undressed, irresolute, afraid. The spasm of hatred and brutality which had taken possession of him, half an hour earlier, was now entirely spent; having punished the old man with such wicked cruelty, he was now left to face a shrinking world in which the only target was himself. Emptied of fury, he had nothing to put in its place. Nothing, he thought, looking up at Kathy, except love. That must be the answer.
But he could not ask for it out of the blue. He had to go through the accepted forms of intercourse, the territory which lay between recent anger and promised desire. He said, abruptly, looking down at the floor again:
"What about the Professor?"
"He was wandering down the passage. Carl, he was in the most terrible state—I doubt if he even saw me! He was holding his side, and his mouth was bleeding. When he passed me he said: 'A slave ship. A slave ship.' What's happened to him? Did you hurt him again?"
"He let me down."
"Oh, Carl!"
"Oh, Carl!" he mimicked. "What does that mean?"
"When things go wrong, you shouldn't take it out on a poor old man like the Professor. It's like hitting a child. . . . What did he do, anyway?"
"He let me down," repeated Carl. Then he looked at Kathy, more closely, searching for the welcome signs of tenderness, the hated evidence of other men, other embraces. She was unruffled, beautiful, flawlessly groomed; if she had been making love, it had scarcely moved her at all; if the light in her face were happiness, it could still be shared with himself. "Have you let me down, Kathy?"
"Of course not."
"What have you been doing, so late?"
"Talking."
"I missed you."
With rare spite, she said: "If I had come back with five thousand dollars, would that have made up for it?"
"Oh Kathy, don't be like that!"
"But when I asked you before, you wouldn't even say if you wanted me to earn the five thousand. You pretended that only the money would exist, not what I had done to get it. You wouldn't involve yourself, only me."
He rose to his feet, and crossed the few feet of space between them. Then he put his hands on her shoulders, and said: "I can tell you now—I would have hated it. Kathy—help me!"
She stiffened, involuntarily. In this context, "Help me" could only mean "Make love with me"; there was absolutely no doubt of that, and the swaying pressure of his body presently confirmed it. The idea appalled her. Everything was wrong. She did not want to. He had been cruel; perhaps a few moments ago he had been hitting the old man. It was hot. She had spent the last two hours talking to Tim—silly, cheerful nonsense which meant more than it said. Between herself and Carl, she could now feel nothing but the chasm of the twenty-eight years that divided them. It had been so for many fatal weeks. She did not want to. Not now, and not again.
She put her hands up to his chest; the powerful muscles pushed back against her palms. The message was there, and it came near to revolting her. "Carl—it's so late. I really must go to bed."
"With me, my darling."
Panic-stricken, for a whole world of reasons, she said: "You don't really want me. . . . It's so hot, it wouldn't be any good. . . . And you have all these things worrying you. . . . Let's just go to sleep."
"With you," he said. His arms were round her waist now; he was pulling her towards the bed. "I must have you, Kathy. It's been so long. Please!"
She did not want to. She hated the idea, and feared it; her whole body was coiled tight against it, her very womb was dry; she was afraid that it would make her ill, that she would vomit on the pillow. But for pity of the past, she found that she could not refuse.
As she lay down, she said, to herself and to him: Forgive me.
Even as he took her in his arms, he should have been warned. She felt utterly different; her actual skin seemed armoured, un-sensual, inimical to love. It was terribly hot. In the close cabin, visited only by moist mechanical air, the pulse of the engines faded to nothing, the ship's motion seemed to disappear. He had no allies, no help, no thudding oar-beat or gipsy music. Just himself.
He lay face downwards, his face buried deep in the pillow, refusing to meet the world's eye, or hers. His whole body ridiculously and fatally slack, was bathed in sweat. He could have shouted aloud his rebellious rage, his conviction that this could not be true, that all they need do was to wait. But shouting was reserved for potent men.
He muttered: "I'm so ashamed, Kathy."
She had never heard the words from him before. They were terrible, and wonderful; they were like sign-posts, like blessings. Presently she would found a whole future on them.
"It doesn't matter, Carl." She had said this when he was writhing, in furious and futile effort; she could say it now, when he had given in. "It's only because it's so hot. . .. And you've got so much on your mind. ... It doesn't matter."
"I must be getting old."
"No, you're not."
Lying there in the darkness, unbroached, faithful still, she could have sung for joy. It was her release—she could work none of it out yet, there must be many hills still to climb, limitless penances to be made—but it was her release, the only one he could have given her. She was free!