Finally he read:
Potts Point,
— Nov., 1845
Dear Mr Voss,
I must hasten to thank you for your letter, which arrived at its destination several days ago, by Newcastle packet. If the length of time needed for mine to reach you should make you suspect an utter unwillingness on my part to reply, you must take into account great and exonerating distances, as well as the fact that I have been compelled by the substance of what you have written to give it the deepest possible consideration. Even after such thought, I confess it is not clear what answer one in my position would be expected to return, and, since it is one of my most stubborn weaknesses to try to reach conclusions without the benefit of advice, I must, I fear, remain at least temporarily confused.
Your letter was unexpected, to say the least of it: that anybody possessed of your contempt for human frailty should make so unequivocal a proposition to one so well endowed with that same frailty! For, on at least one memorable occasion, you did not attempt to conceal your opinion that I was a person quite pitiably weak in character. Having formed a similar estimate of myself, I could not very well reject your judgement, even though the truth one has perceived is, if anything, more distasteful when confirmed by the mind of another, a mind, moreover, that one has held in some esteem. That you made me suffer, I cannot deny, but the outcome or purpose of that suffering still remains to be understood. In the meantime, if nothing else, my lamentable frailty does accuse my arrogance.
Arrogance is surely the quality that caused us to recognize each other. Nobody within memory, I have realized since, dared so much as to disturb my pride, except in puppyish ways. Men, I am inclined to think, are frightened if their self-importance does not impress. You, at least, were not frightened, but ignored me so coldly that I was the one to become alarmed — of my insignificance and isolation.
So, Mr Voss, we have reached a stage where I am called upon to consider my destroyer as my saviour! I must take on trust those tender feelings you profess, and which I cannot trace clearly through the labyrinth of our relationship. Can you wonder that I am confused? All the more since I have remained almost morbidly sensitive to the welfare of one whose virtues do not outweigh the many faults I have continued to despise.
Now the question is: can two such faulty beings endure to face each other, almost as in a looking-glass? Have you foreseen the possible outcome? And have you not, perhaps, mistaken a critical monster for a compliant mouse?
I, personally, to assume a most unseemly candour, would be prepared to wrestle with our mutual hatefulness, but mutually, let it be understood. For I do respect some odd streak of humanity that will appear in you in spite of all your efforts (after reading poetry, for instance, or listening to music, while your eyes are still closed), just as I regret most humbly my own wretched failures to conquer my unworthiness.
Only on this level, let it be understood, that we may pray together for salvation, shall you ask my Uncle to accept your intentions, that is, if you still intend.
In any event, Mr Voss, I do thank you once again for your kind letter, and shall intercede as ever for your safety and your happiness.
Your sincere,
LAURA TREVELYAN
Then Boyle, who had been dozing in a pleasant apathy of tobacco and half-digested meat, opened his eyes, and asked:
‘Nothing bad, I hope, Voss?’
‘Why should it be bad? No,’ said the German, who was getting up, and mislaying and dropping other papers. ‘On the contrary, I have received nothing but favourable news.’
And he tied the string tightly and methodically on his papers.
‘I am glad of that,’ answered Boyle. ‘Nothing can upset a man’s digestion like doubtful news. For that reason, I am glad I no longer receive letters, except those in black and white.’
‘None of my acquaintances is in the habit of corresponding with coloured inks,’ said Voss. ‘I think I will turn in soon, Boyle, so as to make this early start that we have anticipated.’
Now he went out into the darkness, ostensibly to issue last orders to his men, though in fact to hide himself, and failed in his real purpose, as he embraced the past tremblingly beneath a vast audience of stars.
On his return he began to notice Palfreyman, who had been there all the time, seated within the candlelight, sketching for his own pleasure a big, dreamy lily propped in a tin mug.
‘What is this?’ asked Voss, with unduly warm interest.
‘It is a lily,’ said Palfreyman, with grave concentration on his silvery sketch, ‘which I found in the red soil along the second of the waterholes.’
Voss made a lazy guess at the variety.
‘With these seeds?’ asked Palfreyman.
Voss squinted. They were of a distinct shape, like testes, attached to the rather virginal flower.
When the German had undressed and was lying in his blanket, he and Palfreyman began to recall other botanical specimens they had found, of unorthodox seed formation. Boyle had retired by now, and it was a pleasant, drowsy conversation that drifted between the two men, containing friendship, because it made no effort to.
Perhaps it is I who am frequently to blame, Palfreyman decided, and would not move for fear of breaking the spell.
‘Will you not go to bed, Palfreyman?’ Voss yawned at last. ‘We start tomorrow early.’
‘It is the lily,’ Palfreyman said, and sighed. ‘We may never see it again in all its freshness.’
Voss yawned.
‘It may be very common.’
‘It may,’ Palfreyman agreed.
Their voices were somehow complementary to each other. Like lovers.
Then Voss began to float, and those words last received. But together. Written words take some time to thaw, but the words of lilies were now flowing in full summer water, whether it was the water or the leaves of water, and dark hairs of roots plastered on the mouth as water blew across. Now they were swimming so close they were joined together at the waist, and were the same flesh of lilies, their mouths, together, were drowning in the same love-stream. I do not wish this yet, or nie nie nie, niemals. Nein. You will, she said, if you will cut and examine the word. Together is filled with little cells. And cuts open with a knife. It is a see seed. But I do not. All human obligations are painful, Mr Johann Ulrich, until they are learnt, variety by variety. But gold is painful, crushing, and cold on the forehead, while wholly desirable, because immaculate. Only resist the Christ-thorn. Tear out the black thing by the roots before it has taken hold. She was humbly grateful for it, however. In her kneeling position, she continued to bathe her hair in all flesh, whether of imperial lilies, or the black, putrefying, human kind.
After one of those pauses, in which the sleeper dries up, in which his tongue is a little pebble, and the blanket is grafted on his side, he said:
I do accept the terms. It was the sweat that prevented me from seeing them.
You are in no position to accept. It is the woman who unmakes men, to make saints.
Mutual. It is all mutual.
It was his tongue that would not come unstuck.
You have gained that point, the mouth was laughing.
Two zusammen should gain by numbers, but lose in fact. Numbers weaken.
The weaker is stronger, O Voooos.
So that the sleeper sat up, the better to look into the mouth of the lily. Instead, he found darkness and the smell of a wick, for Palfreyman was finished, and had gone to bed.