HAVE YOU EVER by accident placed your hand on a strong battery, and got through your fingers a shock that for a moment bereaves you of your very reason? If so, you can have but a faint impression of what I felt when the bottle slipped out of my hands.
I saw it clearly—just as things grow in fast movies— how shards of glass, mixed with scarlet drops, gushed everywhere. As if under the action of a strong electric current, distracted by terror, I started. I was not afraid of Stevens, of course. He was a short man, with very weak nerves, an inveterate smoker, too. As weak and irritable people are wont to do, all his accumulated irritability made him waste his breath on threats. But Mantrousse... We have met before — he was very closely associated with some of my father's deals. Mantrousse had been one of the most powerful ends that ever were in the government, and his build was as solid as his social standing. Needless to say, I felt an immense fear for him.
A long familiar feeling of stupor came over me. Time itself seemed to stand still and I felt as though I would remain immobilized for eternity. This was, obviously, an illusion—a vision of my over-heated fancy. For as soon as I shifted, the world came alive and began spinning with a new, frightening force.
Mantrousse startled up and stared down at his feet. His pant leg was stained with wine. Stevens stood up from his armchair, glanced at Mantrousse, then at me. The appearance of most genuine fear in his eyes made me feel dizzy. A dreadful terror came over me at last, and I felt like I would faint from a bone-chilling presentiment. Suddenly Mantrousse turned to Stevens and looked at him strangely, as if waiting impatiently for something. I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his dress coat. I began moving my tongue with difficulty and articulating indistinctly, trying to say at least something. Mantrousse turned around, stepped over the puddle of wine and grabbed me by my hair.
"Ah, vil esclave!" he yelled in a frenzy. "What have you done?"
I gazed down and trembled.
"Forgive me, forgive me," faltered I, shaken to and fro by my hair. "I shall clean everything up, everything..."
"Clean everything up, huh? A worm, that's what you are, if you don't know how to handle your own hands!"
He raised his fist, but did not strike; at this very moment, Stevens, who was previously observing the scene from his seat, came along.
"René!" he cried. 'Enough! Stop! Leave him be..."
Mantrousse looked wildly and fixedly for some time on me, and then let go.
"John," Stevens put his hand on my shoulder. "Clean this mess up. Now."
I got down on my hands and knees and began picking up the shards of glass. A terrible vision was mixing itself up with whatever I tried to be doing. Stevens, holding my head still; Mantrousse, ripping out my tongue. I was unwilling to leave the situation without a proper apology, but thought it unnecessary to say anything more. Stevens already had the air of a positively ashamed man, and to no surprise. I must admit, I was happy with this kind of outcome. I did not wish to smear the whole story around.
"I am sorry," gabbled Stevens. "For perhaps I seem to be taking part in this shameful foolery. I made a mistake in believing that even a thing like him would understand what was due on a visit of so honored a personage. I did not suppose I should have to apologize simply for..."
"Don't worry, please." Mantrousse drew out a cambric handkerchief reeking of scent and began to dab his pant leg. "I am completely certain that you will teach him a lesson... After I leave."
I shuddered and looked at him, frightened.
"Oh, look, I scared him," said he, as if reading my mind. "I would never think that he is... Such a coward."
Stevens looked at him in a way that made me feel quite uncomfortable.
"Yes..." answered he, getting a cigar out of his pocket. "Upbringing, upbringing is what matters. Those who live carelessly under a parent wing usually grow up to be..."
"Spineless?"
"Exactly."
"I suppose it's not that."
"What is it, then?" echoed Stevens.
I set the glass down on the coffee table.
"Here, listen." Mantrousse let his hand rest on the back of the armchair. "In our business we have to observe slaves, whether you like or not. Of course, that would not be gentlemanly to observe too closely. And yet, few instances are worth special attention: but not otherwise than taking all this filth as its own sort of as a performance set up for our amusement. However, you oughtn't to observe too closely: again that would not be gentlemanly, because in any case the spectacle isn't worth too great or close an inspection... Anyway, back to what I was saying. For the first years after my proclamations went into effect, I was still planning a book and every day seriously prepared to write it. I believe you remember about it?"
Apparently, Mantrousse enjoyed delivering long speeches.
"I do."
"So. The new turn of affairs struck me at first in a rather favourable light in spite of some fresh and troublesome complications. But soon I had gotten so tired and helpless, that my soul involuntarily yearned for rest. I had an attack of spleen all of a sudden. I seemed to be ready for work, my materials were collected, yet the work did not get done. I even took a trip to Virginia, to renew my strength."
"And?"
"Listen, listen. Meanwhile, I've had thirty heads on my plantation. Everything used to be running like clockwork: everyone was on duty in time, and there weren't any illnesses, as it often the case in hot climates. But, as soon I sank into dejection, something changed. Work slowed down, complaints began going around... And above all, the sales dropped. In other words, my slaves had a similar spleen attack."
Stevens visibly tensed up: he was literally chewing on his cigar. By that moment I had managed to collect all the shards and was now about to go grab the washing cloth. Needless to say, I absolutely refused to stay in the parlor. The long time I had spent in a slave-owning family had left ineradicable traces in my heart. The official history of the Slave Theory was fairly familiar to me; but I could never understand the real meaning of it. Now I felt like a man lost in a forest, among the wolves. Every instinct told me that there was something in Mantrousse's words utterly incongruous, anomalous, and grotesque. "Though there's no telling what may happen because of his convictions," I mused, lost in perplexity.
"And then I came to thinking," continued Mantrousse. "Is an inanimate soul, in all its filth and meanness, able to adopt certain traits of its master? To me personally it seemed that all this was very much worth quite a close inspection, especially for someone who wants to grasp the nature of slaves... I believe I wrote this down somewhere."
"What's the object of this farce?" Stevens interrupted, losing patience. "I'm too familiar with all of your theories — it's beyond boring. As for innermost moral convictions of yours, in regard to my slaves and my present reflections there is, of course, no place for them."
"Do people pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?"
"What?"
"Use your head. Than means that a slave is, in fact, able to do so. Thus, if your serf is a weak coward, you are the one to blame. You and your weak temper."
"Are you calling me a coward?"
Stevens turned positively green. His vanity was wounded.
"That's not what I said. And yet you have full power, but do nothing," Mantrousse obstinately insisted on some point. "Eugene, you are so devoted to me, but cannot handle a simple advice."
"I beg you to leave me alone," Stevens began with agitated haste, obviously anxious to avoid some previous conversation.
"You always say witty things, and sleep in peace satisfied with what you've said, but then recant. You are weak, and the slave is your mere reflection. Admit that!"
"He's not that weak, for that matter." Stevens objected.
"Are you defending him? This vicious young man? You're such a hypocrite..."
They seemed to forget about my presence. I clenched my fists.
"René, you've sworn to torment me..."
"Expelled from an academy on suspicion of transvestism and plots against the government. He has been under supervision, and undoubtedly still is so. An insignificant abolitionist, who fancies himself a hero and a liberator. You are losing your chance of distinction by letting slip the real criminal. Moreover, you indulge his whims, dressing him up as a transvestite he desires to be."
Stevens shuddered, but did not give up.
"Look, his father is a senator; a worthy man..."
"But you are mixing up the father and the son. The son openly laughs at his father."
"That's only a mask."
"You are a coward!" Mantrousse said, losing his self-restraint at once. "And your slave is the same. You punished him with cross-dressing..."
He smirked.
"And even then, only because you find a certain perverted pleasure in it."
"Enough! Enough, René!" cried Stevens. "Allow me... On second thought, you know what? John!"
Either because he really took Mantrousse's last outbreak as a direct permission to act as he wanted, or whether he was sure that such action will satisfy his overwhelming self-absorption— I do not know. He cast a haughty and offended glance at me, as though my very presence was an affront to him. I swallowed a lump in my throat.
"Yes, Mr. Stevens?"
He took a step forward and grabbed me by my ear. I yelped in surprise.
"Go get a whip from the dressing room."
Such a requirement caught me off guard.
"What? What for?"
"Hurry. Go get it before I tear your ear off."
He darted a terrible glance of wrath at me, and at once I understood how serious he actually was. I had never seen Stevens— this weak, nervous snob— in such a frenzied rage. Perhaps if Mantrousse was not in the room I would not hesitate to fly at him and at once set myself free from a terrible burden of slavery. But, Intensely unpleasant as it was, I was forced little by little to accept everything as a fact beyond recall.
As I mounted the stairs I felt so weak and exhausted that it seemed as if I were walking in a trance. "God, how loathsome it all is! And can he, can he possibly.... No, it's nonsense! And how could such an atrocious thing come into his head?"
Fear gained more and more mastery over me. Suddenly I sensed that I was suffocating. "Maybe if I could climb down the wall, and then run till I reach the city... No, it's no good."
I stood before the window for some time. I wished for nothing, and could not reason about anything coolly. There was a sort of heaviness in my face, especially under my eyes, my forehead felt drawn tight like elastic. I wiped my cheeks, entered the dressing room and began searching. Quite soon I found the whip — those kinds of whips were used to flog slaves on plantations and factories.
My father possessed a similar instrument. In my childhood I happened to witness enough horrifying scenes: I had often seen slaves straining their utmost under a heavy load, and father would beat them so cruelly, sometimes even about their faces, and I felt so sorry, so sorry for them that I cried, and my mother always used to take me away. That's how my father was. I was born first, born of a comparatively healthy mother, and so I was finer and sturdier than all the other Keyle sons. I can remember my father correcting me, or, to speak plainly, beating me before I was five years old. He used to thrash me with a burch, pull my ears, and even beat me on the head.
Childhood memories made me feel sick. I went down the stairs, looking about me anxiously and abscently. I strode slowly and deliberately, feverish but not conscious of it, entirely absorbed in a new overwhelming sensation. This sensation might be compared to that of a man condemned to death who has suddenly been pardoned. All my ideas now seemed to be circling round some single circumstance, and I felt that now I was left facing it one-on-one. However, my resentment was almost as discomforting as my fear. Perhaps it was my fault: I must remind the reader again that Mantrousse was one of those planters that know nothing of mercy, and, of course, It was not wise of me to anger him. "It is clear as day," I mused. "Stevens acts by his command."
To my great astonishment, the parlor was empty (at least that's how it seemed). I froze in the doorway and gazed round the room. "Could it be that they did not await me?" I mused. "Weird. There must have been an object. Were they simply trying to scare me?"
However, as soon as I released my breath and crossed the threshold, all of my doubts gave way.
Someone sprang at me from behind and squeezed me in such a way that I almost screamed. Of course, Stevens was lurking behind the very door. I panicked.
"Wait! Let me go!"
"I cannot."
Apparently he was going to beat me on the spot, with no hesitation. I cried out loud, for he hoisted my arm behind my back painfully. Mantrousse stood near us, by he door.
"Why? Stop, stop, what are you doing?"
"Calm down!"
My voice broke and the words came in shrieks from my panting chest.
"Be silent! No need! I know what you want to say!" cried Stevens. "René, for God's sake..."
"Why, are you crazy?" Mantrousse huffed. "Deal with him yourself."
Here I swung my elbow, with all my might struck Stevens in the face and managed to break free. Though he was quick enough to snatch the whip from me.
"Madman, you've almost strangled me!" I yelled. "I say, what's this you're doing?"
We stood opposite from one another on both sides of the doorway.
"What I choose. Come back here!"
"What do you choose?"
"The same as before. I could do as I like and I can still do as I like, for I am the master"
I turned to Mantrousse. He watched us intently and did not say a single word.
"You made up your mind long ago to take my life," hissed I. "Is that what you choose? Huh?"
"I oughtn't to explain. The law bounds you to obey."
"Hang your explanation, and who the devil am I bound to?"
"Really?" he eyed me up and down. "Why, it does indeed amuse me to see you in a fury. You ought to pay for the fact alone that I allow you to make such surmises..."
"I do indeed consider it my right to put all sorts of questions to you," I persisted. "Precisely because you, all of you," I squinted at Mantrousse. "You care nothing for the lives of others. I am an abolitionist, and I shall stay an abolitionist."
Perhaps I went a bit too far, because Stevens went off into his hysterical laughter immediately.
"What? How are you going to achieve that?"
"How achieve it? What, you don't even understand. Nevermind, one day you will look at me otherwise than as a slave..." I felt breathless. "Corrupted, decaying motherfuckers, that's what you are! Just as ignorant as this damned country."
A moment's silence followed. Stevens' face was pale and distorted, and a bitter, wrathful and malignant smile appeared on his lips. I was hoping that he would argue, hotly and for a long time, in return for my insult. The idea had occurred to me to say nothing else and walk away proudly, and so give the two men a sharp and emphatic lesson. But I could not bring myself to do this.
Mantrousse cleared his throat. I glanced at him and was surprised at his gaze: it seemed purposeless and inexplicable. He looked guilty, unforgivably guilty—as if he had just got some poor girl with child. I did not understand why. But at this moment a strange incident occurred, something unexpected. Stevens held out his hand and dropped the whip, his eyes remaining riveted on me. I stood facing him in perplexity.
"John." said he, lifting up his head defiantly as if he were facing the whole world. My cheeks had now assumed a deep tropical burn. "Pick it up, please."
I frowned and stared at him for a time, warily. The intention was obvious, though: he was trying to mock me. I clenched my fists and shook my head.
"I will not."
"You will not?"
"No way."
If usually Stevens could have been depressed by a mere sideway glance, now he did not even flinch from a direct affront; the fact that he asked me to do such a bizarre thing was really less surprising than that.
"You must have not understood something," said he. His voice, dropping an octave lower, filled the parlor with thrilling scorn."What do you think, that I'll feel sorry for you? Well, no. I'll order you to do something vile, and stay out of it myself. Can you bear that? No, how could you. How are you better than we are? You, presumptuous chatterbox, are playing the hero, and yet you might probably kill on orders. Let us see: a stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful soul of a liberator, not simply useless but doing actual mischief — so many lives thrown away! Let me ask you this: where are all those whom you saved from 'corruption and decay'?"
"I do not understand," mumbled I. Something heavy was griping at my heart.
"You are no hero," pushed Stevens. "One life, and a dozen lives in exchange—it's simple arithmetic! And what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured liberator then? No more than the life of a louse, of a worm, less in fact because you are doing harm. You are the one who is wearing out the lives of others. It's all about egoism. Tell me, was I the one who killed 12 slaves?"
I staggered in the middle of the room. The floor seemed to be giving way under my feet. Perhaps I could have handled a painful reminder of my guilt, if not this cold, piercing gaze. My hands were trembling like aspen leaves—nay, my whole body was quivering.
"Anyhow, you do not own my mind. You cannot handle my thoughts." muttered I, taken by a complete void already.
Stevens listened with not so much as a blink.
"Like I need your lousy thoughts. Body would be enough. I could set dogs on you. Cut your finger off. Beat you. Make you eat slops. Do you wish to eat slops?"
I shook my head.
"Well, I have the right to do so. Don't be stupid, John," He pointed at the whip. "Pick it up."
There was so much contempt, so much condemnation in his gaze and his voice, that I did not dare to protest. A reminder of my crime (though I did not view it as a crime) struck a nerve. A burning guilt, which had begun torturing me long before the events described, came to live and devoured all the other thoughts. Crushed and even humiliated, I came to Stevens, bent over and picked up the whip, whilst he kept his eyes fixed upon me, dark and alarming. It made me worse.
"Very good." Stevens took the whip and smiled. "You may leave now."
My eyes opened wide.
"It must be some sort of sick joke..."
Stevens looked at Mantrousse, who had been watching us from his armchair the entire time.
"Perhaps it would be enough," said he. "It's a lesson."
In such a moment I could not bring myself to calm down, and yet I felt like a weight had been lifted off of me. Stevens seemed worried, still, which contravened the usual dryness of his manners.
"Do you really forgive him? After such words?" said Mantrousse with irritable impatience. "Allow me... He did not even apologize."
"I apologize." I made haste to get a word in.
"What a shame. You have not proven anything, then."
A pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders Stevens remarked:
"Anything?"
It was said with such bitterness that I suddenly got scared. I was about to recoil, but he caught me by my shoulder.
"Well, well," reasoned Mantrousse. "No need."
"But it's injust..."
"Mr. Stevens," Mantrousse interrupted him. "If you would not do it, there's no justice about it... We have nothing to talk about. I get it now."
I suddenly realised that the events took the wrong turn. What did I do? I really don't know. I must have said something—I must have done something, but I have not the slightest recollection of what it was. I only recollect how I was pushed, and how I fell into the puddle of wine. I recollect how a sharp heel pressed against the back of my head. I tried to leap up, tried to cry out with all my might, and to run in haste to escape. But no sound came from my chest, and my legs would not obey me.
Devil knows, maybe there is pleasure in the whip, when the whip comes down on your back and tears your flesh to piece. At first I writhed, bit my lips until they bled, curled my fingers against the carpet and screamed; probably wailed like crazy. At the same time horrible visions began to float before my eyes. I saw my father, saw our slaves, struggling with their legs, screaming and shrinking from the blows of a knout which were showered upon them like hail. And all at once through the chaos in my brain there flashed the terrible unbearable thought that people of plantations had to endure such pain day by day for years. How could it have happened that for more than twenty years I had not known it and had refused to know it? I knew nothing of pain. All I had just said seemed to me repulsively stupid. Why had I talked to them in a lecturing tone about my contempt? It was not clever, not interesting; it was false — childish even. But by degrees there followed that mood of indifference into which criminals sink after a severe sentence. I began thinking that, thank God! everything was at an end and that the terrible uncertainty was over; that now there was no need to anticipate, in pining, in thinking about the punishment. Everything had happened already. I did not cry at the thrashing anymore, but gave a strange sob at each blow. In spite of acute pain I imagined that the punishment was already over, and that Stevens was whipping someone else, not me. Though, I must admit, I was already in the last agony: I no longer felt the blows individually; they all merged into a single, continuous stream of searing pain.
At the same instant my wandering eyes strayed to the doorway and I saw Theodosia. Till then I had not noticed her: she was standing in the shadow. With unnatural strength I had succeeded in propping myself on my elbow. I tried to hold out my hand to her, but losing my balance fell face downwards on the carpet. When I gazed up for the second time, nobody was there. I dare say I simply imagined it.
Then all went still. The whip hit the floor, and the leather sole was no longer weighing upon my neck. I did not hear anything, and I only saw Stevens' brightly polished shoes.
"Fourteen. Anything for you, René."
I raised my head. Stevens stood, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his waistcoat pockets. I could not see Mantrousse: Stevens' shoes blocked the view.
"John, get up."
I now was in a sort of cloud, feeling as though I were not myself, but my double. My head swam and ached with fever. I tried to stand up, but suddenly a violent spasm of pain deprived me of all power and all determination, and with a loud groan I fell back on the floor. I felt as though someone had taken a sickle, thrust it into me, and turned it round several times in my back.
"Such filth," muttered Mantrousse.
Stevens helped me to my feet and signed with an obstinately downcast, as it were shamefaced, expression in his eyes. As though he realized at last what he was doing—and as though he had never, all along, intended doing anything at all. I did not care about it much, however.
"Go," he mumbled. "I'll have Theodosia clean this mess. Go upstairs."
"Fine." I answered in a hoarse, unnatural voice. I was tormented by another persistent sensation besides terror and the feeling of resentment. I could barely breathe and craved to escape from these people.
That's exactly what I did — I walked silently, unsteadily, staggering from side to side like a drunkard. Then I stumbled upstairs in the dark. It felt like going down, down into a deep well. I was still shivering nervously. I looked down at myself; the apron, stockings and gloves were all now red, and it was impossible to differ wine from blood.
I hobbled into the dressing room, closed the door and sunk to the floor. In the corner by the wall stood a long rack with clothes hanging from it. I crawled to it on my knees and perched within the chain of black and white dresses. Just like that, I sank into blank forgetfulness: on the floor, under the canopy of black skirts, bruised and miserable.
So I slept a very long while. Now and then I seemed to wake up, and at such moments I noticed that it was far into the day, but it did not occur to me to get up. Finally, at about midnight, the creak of a door woke me. For the first moment I thought it was the master of the house. A dreadful chill came over me; but the chill was from the fever that had begun long before in my sleep Someone stepped cautiously into the room, carefully closing the door after them, went up to me, and put something heavy on the floor. I had hardly opened my eyes to see who it was. There was complete stillness in the room and the faint moonlight came through the window. Vella squatted down and bent on me a long, pitiful gaze. She was the one being in the house whom I sincerely cared for. And, when she looked at me with that gaze I suddenly understood that this being I cherished was suffering. My heart skipped a beat. I felt a lump in my throat.
"I want to leave this place," faltered I. "I can't put up with this. I am not equal to it..."
"Where? You can't, you can't," whispered Vella. "Let us take that dress off."
She took a cloth out of a water bucket.
"I don't know!" I sobbed. "Miss Smith, I have to leave."
My voice broke.
"I have to!"
"I know, I know."
We sat like that for a long time. Vella was wiping the blood from my back, whilst I couldn't stop crying.