’At that moment it was difficult to believe
in Jim’s existence—starting from
a country parsonage, blurred by crowds of men as by
clouds of dust, silenced by the clashing claims of
life and death in a material world—but
his imperishable reality came to me with a convincing,
with an irresistible force! I saw it vividly,
as though in our progress through the lofty silent
rooms amongst fleeting gleams of light and the sudden
revelations of human figures stealing with flickering
flames within unfathomable and pellucid depths, we
had approached nearer to absolute Truth, which, like
Beauty itself, floats elusive, obscure, half submerged,
in the silent still waters of mystery. “Perhaps
he is,” I admitted with a slight laugh, whose
unexpectedly loud reverberation made me lower my voice
directly; “but I am sure you are.”
With his head dropping on his breast and the light
held high he began to walk again. “Well—I
exist, too,” he said.
’He preceded me. My eyes followed his movements,
but what I did see was not the head of the firm, the
welcome guest at afternoon receptions, the correspondent
of learned societies, the entertainer of stray naturalists;
I saw only the reality of his destiny, which he had
known how to follow with unfaltering footsteps, that
life begun in humble surroundings, rich in generous
enthusiasms, in friendship, love, war—in
all the exalted elements of romance. At the door
of my room he faced me. “Yes,” I
said, as though carrying on a discussion, “and
amongst other things you dreamed foolishly of a certain
butterfly; but when one fine morning your dream came
in your way you did not let the splendid opportunity
escape. Did you? Whereas he . . .”
Stein lifted his hand. “And do you know
how many opportunities I let escape; how many dreams
I had lost that had come in my way?” He shook
his head regretfully. “It seems to me that
some would have been very fine—if I had
made them come true. Do you know how many?
Perhaps I myself don’t know.” “Whether
his were fine or not,” I said, “he knows
of one which he certainly did not catch.”
“Everybody knows of one or two like that,”
said Stein; “and that is the trouble—the
great trouble. . . .”
’He shook hands on the threshold, peered into
my room under his raised arm. “Sleep well.
And to-morrow we must do something practical—practical.
. . .”
’Though his own room was beyond mine I saw him
return the way he came. He was going back to
his butterflies.’
CHAPTER 21
‘I don’t suppose any of you have ever
heard of Patusan?’ Marlow resumed, after a silence
occupied in the careful lighting of a cigar. ’It
does not matter; there’s many a heavenly body
in the lot crowding upon us of a night that mankind
had never heard of, it being outside the sphere of
its activities and of no earthly importance to anybody
but to the astronomers who are paid to talk learnedly
about its composition, weight, path—the
