The Gadfly by E. L. Voynich (ebook reader android TXT) 📕

a man that has betrayed

you? You see yourself, he wasn’t so particular

as to what he said about you.”

 

A faint shade of something like mockery had

crept into the colonel’s voice. Arthur looked

up with a start; a sudden light flashed upon his

mind.

 

“It’s a lie!” he cried out. “It’s a forgery! I

can see it in your face, you cowardly–-You’ve

got some prisoner there you want to compromise,

or a trap you want to drag me into. You are a forger,

and a liar, and a scoundrel–-”

 

“Silence!” shouted the colonel, starting up in a

rage; his two colleagues were already on their

feet. “Captain Tommasi,” he went on, turning to

one of them, “ring for the guard, if you please,

and have this young gentleman put in the punishment

cell for a few days. He wants a lesson, I see,

to bring him to reason.”

 

The punishment cell was a dark, damp, filthy

hole under ground. Instead of bringing Arthur

“to reason,” it thoroughly exasperated him. His

luxurious home had rendered him daintily fastidious

about personal cleanliness, and the first effect

of the slimy, vermin-covered walls, the floor

heaped with accumulations of filth and garbage,

the fearful stench of fungi and sewage and rotting

wood, was strong enough to have satisfied the

offended officer. When he was pushed in and the

door locked behind him he took three cautious

steps forward with outstretched hands, shuddering

with disgust as his fingers came into contact with

the slippery wall, and groped in the dense blackness

for some spot less filthy than the rest in which

to sit down.

 

The long day passed in unbroken blackness and

silence, and the night brought no change. In the

utter void and absence of all external impressions,

he gradually lost the consciousness of time; and

when, on the following morning, a key was turned

in the door lock, and the frightened rats scurried

past him squeaking, he started up in a sudden

panic, his heart throbbing furiously and a roaring

noise in his ears, as though he had been shut

away from light and sound for months instead of

hours.

 

The door opened, letting in a feeble lantern

gleam—a flood of blinding light, it seemed to him

—and the head warder entered, carrying a piece of

bread and a mug of water. Arthur made a step

forward; he was quite convinced that the man

had come to let him out. Before he had time to

speak, the warder put the bread and mug into his

hands, turned round and went away without a

word, locking the door again.

 

Arthur stamped his foot upon the ground. For

the first time in his life he was savagely angry.

But as the hours went by, the consciousness of time

and place gradually slipped further and further

away. The blackness seemed an illimitable thing,

with no beginning and no end, and life had, as it

were, stopped for him. On the evening of the

third day, when the door was opened and the head

warder appeared on the threshold with a soldier,

he looked up, dazed and bewildered, shading his

eyes from the unaccustomed light, and vaguely

wondering how many hours or weeks he had been

in this grave.

 

“This way, please,” said the cool business voice

of the warder. Arthur rose and moved forward

mechanically, with a strange unsteadiness, swaying

and stumbling like a drunkard. He resented the

warder’s attempt to help him up the steep, narrow

steps leading to the courtyard; but as he reached

the highest step a sudden giddiness came over him,

so that he staggered and would have fallen backwards

had the warder not caught him by the shoulder.

 

… . .

 

“There, he’ll be all right now,” said a cheerful

voice; “they most of them go off this way coming

out into the air.”

 

Arthur struggled desperately for breath as another

handful of water was dashed into his face.

The blackness seemed to fall away from him in

pieces with a rushing noise; then he woke suddenly

into full consciousness, and, pushing aside

the warder’s arm, walked along the corridor and

up the stairs almost steadily. They stopped for a

moment in front of a door; then it opened, and before

he realized where they were taking him

he was in the brightly lighted interrogation

room, staring in confused wonder at the table and

the papers and the officers sitting in their accustomed places.

 

“Ah, it’s Mr. Burton!” said the colonel. “I

hope we shall be able to talk more comfortably

now. Well, and how do you like the dark cell?

Not quite so luxurious as your brother’s drawing

room, is it? eh?”

 

Arthur raised his eyes to the colonel’s smiling

face. He was seized by a frantic desire to spring

at the throat of this gray-whiskered fop and tear it

with his teeth. Probably something of this kind

was visible in his face, for the colonel added immediately,

in a quite different tone:

 

“Sit down, Mr. Burton, and drink some water;

you are excited.”

 

Arthur pushed aside the glass of water held out

to him; and, leaning his arms on the table, rested

his forehead on one hand and tried to collect his

thoughts. The colonel sat watching him keenly,

noting with experienced eyes the unsteady hands

and lips, the hair dripping with water, the dim

gaze that told of physical prostration and disordered nerves.

 

“Now, Mr. Burton,” he said after a few minutes;

“we will start at the point where we left off; and

as there has been a certain amount of unpleasantness

between us, I may as well begin by saying that

I, for my part, have no desire to be anything but

indulgent with you. If you will behave properly

and reasonably, I assure you that we shall not

treat you with any unnecessary harshness.”

 

“What do you want me to do?”

 

Arthur spoke in a hard, sullen voice, quite different

from his natural tone.

 

“I only want you to tell us frankly, in a straightforward

and honourable manner, what you know

of this society and its adherents. First of all, how

long have you known Bolla?”

 

“I never met him in my life. I know nothing

whatever about him.”

 

“Really? Well, we will return to that subject

presently. I think you know a young man named

Carlo Bini?”

 

“I never heard of such a person.”

 

“That is very extraordinary. What about

Francesco Neri?”

 

“I never heard the name.”

 

“But here is a letter in your handwriting, addressed

to him. Look!”

 

Arthur glanced carelessly at the letter and laid it

aside.

 

“Do you recognize that letter?”

 

“No.”

 

“You deny that it is in your writing?”

 

“I deny nothing. I have no recollection of it.”

 

“Perhaps you remember this one?”

 

A second letter was handed to him, and he saw

that it was one which he had written in the autumn

to a fellow-student.

 

“No.”

 

“Nor the person to whom it is addressed?”

 

“Nor the person.”

 

“Your memory is singularly short.”

 

“It is a defect from which I have always

suffered.”

 

“Indeed! And I heard the other day from a

university professor that you are considered by no

means deficient; rather clever in fact.”

 

“You probably judge of cleverness by the police-spy

standard; university professors use words in a

different sense.”

 

The note of rising irritation was plainly audible

in Arthur’s voice. He was physically exhausted

with hunger, foul air, and want of sleep; every bone

in his body seemed to ache separately; and the

colonel’s voice grated on his exasperated nerves,

setting his teeth on edge like the squeak of a slate

pencil.

 

“Mr. Burton,” said the colonel, leaning back

in his chair and speaking gravely, “you are again

forgetting yourself; and I warn you once more

that this kind of talk will do you no good. Surely

you have had enough of the dark cell not to want

any more just for the present. I tell you plainly

that I shall use strong measures with you if you

persist in repulsing gentle ones. Mind, I have

proof—positive proof—that some of these young

men have been engaged in smuggling prohibited

literature into this port; and that you have been

in communication with them. Now, are you going

to tell me, without compulsion, what you know

about this affair?”

 

Arthur bent his head lower. A blind, senseless,

wild-beast fury was beginning to stir within him

like a live thing. The possibility of losing command

over himself was more appalling to him than

any threats. For the first time he began to realize

what latent potentialities may lie hidden beneath

the culture of any gentleman and the piety of any

Christian; and the terror of himself was strong

upon him.

 

“I am waiting for your answer,” said the colonel.

 

“I have no answer to give.”

 

“You positively refuse to answer?”

 

“I will tell you nothing at all.”

 

“Then I must simply order you back into the

punishment cell, and keep you there till you change

your mind. If there is much more trouble with

you, I shall put you in irons.”

 

Arthur looked up, trembling from head to foot.

“You will do as you please,” he said slowly; “and

whether the English Ambassador will stand your

playing tricks of that kind with a British subject

who has not been convicted of any crime is for him

to decide.”

 

At last Arthur was conducted back to his own

cell, where he flung himself down upon the bed

and slept till the next morning. He was not put

in irons, and saw no more of the dreaded dark cell;

but the feud between him and the colonel grew

more inveterate with every interrogation. It was

quite useless for Arthur to pray in his cell for grace

to conquer his evil passions, or to meditate half the

night long upon the patience and meekness of

Christ. No sooner was he brought again into the

long, bare room with its baize-covered table, and

confronted with the colonel’s waxed moustache,

than the unchristian spirit would take possession of

him once more, suggesting bitter repartees and

contemptuous answers. Before he had been a

month in the prison the mutual irritation had

reached such a height that he and the colonel

could not see each other’s faces without losing

their temper.

 

The continual strain of this petty warfare was

beginning to tell heavily upon his nerves. Knowing

how closely he was watched, and remembering

certain dreadful rumours which he had heard of

prisoners secretly drugged with belladonna that

notes might be taken of their ravings, he gradually

became afraid to sleep or eat; and if a mouse ran

past him in the night, would start up drenched

with cold sweat and quivering with terror, fancying

that someone was hiding in the room to listen

if he talked in his sleep. The gendarmes were evidently

trying to entrap him into making some

admission which might compromise Bolla; and so

great was his fear of slipping, by any inadvertency,

into a pitfall, that he was really in danger of doing

so through sheer nervousness. Bolla’s name rang

in his ears night and day, interfering even with his

devotions, and forcing its way in among the beads

of the rosary instead of the name of Mary. But

the worst thing of all was that his religion, like the

outer world, seemed to be slipping away from him

as the days went by. To this last foothold he clung

with feverish tenacity, spending several hours of

each day in prayer and meditation; but his

thoughts wandered more and more often to Bolla,

and the prayers were growing terribly