And from the broken fragments of description that Benham let fall, White had an impression of him hunting for all those three days through the strange places of a Chinese city, along narrow passages, over queer Venetian-like bridges, through the vast spaces of empty warehouses, in the incense-scented darkness of temple yards, along planks that passed to the dark hulls of secret barges, in quick-flying boats that slipped noiselessly among the larger craft, and sometimes he hunted alone, sometimes in company, sometimes black figures struggled in the darkness against dim-lit backgrounds and sometimes a swarm of shining yellow faces screamed and shouted through the torn paper windows....And then at the end of this confused effect of struggle, this Chinese kinematograph film, one last picture jerked into place and stopped and stood still, a white wall in the sunshine come upon suddenly round a corner, a dirty flagged passage and a stiff crumpled body that had for the first time an inexpressive face....
14
Benham sat at a table in the smoking-room of the Sherborough Hotel at Johannesburg and told of these things.White watched him from an armchair.And as he listened he noted again the intensification of Benham's face, the darkness under his brows, the pallor of his skin, the touch of red in his eyes.For there was still that red gleam in Benham's eyes; it shone when he looked out of a darkness into a light.And he sat forward with his arms folded under him, or moved his long lean hand about over the things on the table.
"You see," he said, "this is a sort of horror in my mind.Things like this stick in my mind.I am always seeing Prothero now, and it will take years to get this scar off my memory again.Once before--about a horse, I had the same kind of distress.And it makes me tender, sore-minded about everything.It will go, of course, in the long run, and it's just like any other ache that lays hold of one.
One can't cure it.One has to get along with it....
"I know, White, I ought to have sent that money, but how was I to know then that it was so imperative to send that money?...
"At the time it seemed just pandering to his vices....
"I was angry.I shall never subdue that kind of hastiness altogether.It takes me by surprise.Before the messenger was out of sight I had repented....
"I failed him.I have gone about in the world dreaming of tremendous things and failing most people.My wife too...."He stopped talking for a little time and folded his arms tight and stared hard in front of himself, his lips compressed.
"You see, White," he said, with a kind of setting of the teeth, "this is the sort of thing one has to stand.Life is imperfect.
Nothing can be done perfectly.And on the whole--" He spoke still more slowly, "I would go through again with the very same things that have hurt my people.If I had to live over again.I would try to do the things without hurting the people, but I would do the things anyhow.Because I'm raw with remorse, it does not follow that on the whole I am not doing right.Right doing isn't balm.If I could have contrived not to hurt these people as I have done, it would have been better, just as it would be better to win a battle without any killed or wounded.I was clumsy with them and they suffered, I suffer for their suffering, but still I have to stick to the way I have taken.One's blunders are accidents.If one thing is clearer than another it is that the world isn't accident-proof....
But I wish I had sent those dollars to Prothero....God! White, but I lie awake at night thinking of that messenger as he turned away....Trying to stop him....
"I didn't send those dollars.So fifty or sixty people were killed and many wounded....There for all practical purposes the thing ends.Perhaps it will serve to give me a little charity for some other fool's haste and blundering....
"I couldn't help it, White.I couldn't help it....
"The main thing, the impersonal thing, goes on.One thinks, one learns, one adds one's contribution of experience and understanding.
The spirit of the race goes on to light and comprehension.In spite of accidents.In spite of individual blundering.
"It would be absurd anyhow to suppose that nobility is so easy as to come slick and true on every occasion....
"If one gives oneself to any long aim one must reckon with minor disasters.This Research I undertook grows and grows.I believe in it more and more.The more it asks from me the more I give to it.
When I was a youngster I thought the thing I wanted was just round the corner.I fancied I would find out the noble life in a year or two, just what it was, just where it took one, and for the rest of my life I would live it.Finely.But I am just one of a multitude of men, each one going a little wrong, each one achieving a little right.And the noble life is a long, long way ahead....We are working out a new way of lihere is no honour nor pride for a man until he refers his life to ends and purposes beyond himself.An aht rise instantly out of all this squalor and evil temper....What does all this struggle here amount to? On one side unintelligent greed, unintelligent resentment on the other; suspicion everywhere....
"And you know, White, at bottom THEY ALL WANT TO BE DECENT!
