The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

Heavens and earth, man! Haven’t I enough as it is, without your laying your responsibilities on my shoulders? Go back to your Jesus; he exacted the uttermost farthing, and you’d better do the same. After all, you’ll only be killing an atheist⁠—a man who boggles over ‘shibboleth’; and that’s no great crime, surely!”

He broke off, panting for breath, and then burst out again:

“And you to talk of cruelty! Why, that p-p-pudding-headed ass couldn’t hurt me as much as you do if he tried for a year; he hasn’t got the brains. All he can think of is to pull a strap tight, and when he can’t get it any tighter he’s at the end of his resources. Any fool can do that! But you⁠—‘Sign your own death sentence, please; I’m too tenderhearted to do it myself.’ Oh! it would take a Christian to hit on that⁠—a gentle, compassionate Christian, that turns pale at the sight of a strap pulled too tight! I might have known when you came in, like an angel of mercy⁠—so shocked at the colonel’s ‘barbarity’⁠—that the real thing was going to begin! Why do you look at me that way? Consent, man, of course, and go home to your dinner; the thing’s not worth all this fuss. Tell your colonel he can have me shot, or hanged, or whatever comes handiest⁠—roasted alive, if it’s any amusement to him⁠—and be done with it!”

The Gadfly was hardly recognizable; he was beside himself with rage and desperation, panting and quivering, his eyes glittering with green reflections like the eyes of an angry cat.

Montanelli had risen, and was looking down at him silently. He did not understand the drift of the frenzied reproaches, but he understood out of what extremity they were uttered; and, understanding that, forgave all past insults.

“Hush!” he said. “I did not want to hurt you so. Indeed, I never meant to shift my burden on to you, who have too much already. I have never consciously done that to any living creature⁠—”

“It’s a lie!” the Gadfly cried out with blazing eyes. “And the bishopric?”

“The⁠—bishopric?”

“Ah! you’ve forgotten that? It’s so easy to forget! ‘If you wish it, Arthur, I will say I cannot go. I was to decide your life for you⁠—I, at nineteen! If it weren’t so hideous, it would be funny.”

“Stop!” Montanelli put up both hands to his head with a desperate cry. He let them fall again, and walked slowly away to the window. There he sat down on the sill, resting one arm on the bars, and pressing his forehead against it. The Gadfly lay and watched him, trembling.

Presently Montanelli rose and came back, with lips as pale as ashes.

“I am very sorry,” he said, struggling piteously to keep up his usual quiet manner, “but I must go home. I⁠—am not quite well.”

He was shivering as if with ague. All the Gadfly’s fury broke down.

“Padre, can’t you see⁠—”

Montanelli shrank away, and stood still.

“Only not that!” he whispered at last. “My God, anything but that! If I am going mad⁠—”

The Gadfly raised himself on one arm, and took the shaking hands in his.

“Padre, will you never understand that I am not really drowned?”

The hands grew suddenly cold and stiff. For a moment everything was dead with silence, and then Montanelli knelt down and hid his face on the Gadfly’s breast.

When he raised his head the sun had set, and the red glow was dying in the west. They had forgotten time and place, and life and death; they had forgotten, even, that they were enemies.

“Arthur,” Montanelli whispered, “are you real? Have you come back to me from the dead?”

“From the dead⁠—” the Gadfly repeated, shivering. He was lying with his head on Montanelli’s arm, as a sick child might lie in its mother’s embrace.

“You have come back⁠—you have come back at last!”

The Gadfly sighed heavily. “Yes,” he said; “and you have to fight me, or to kill me.”

“Oh, hush, carino! What is all that now? We have been like two children lost in the dark, mistaking one another for phantoms. Now we have found each other, and have come out into the light. My poor boy, how changed you are⁠—how changed you are! You look as if all the ocean of the world’s misery had passed over your head⁠—you that used to be so full of the joy of life! Arthur, is it really you? I have dreamed so often that you had come back to me; and then have waked and seen the outer darkness staring in upon an empty place. How can I know I shall not wake again and find it all a dream? Give me something tangible⁠—tell me how it all happened.”

“It happened simply enough. I hid on a goods vessel, as stowaway, and got out to South America.”

“And there?”

“There I⁠—lived, if you like to call it so, till⁠—oh, I have seen something else besides theological seminaries since you used to teach me philosophy! You say you have dreamed of me⁠—yes, and much! You say you have dreamed of me⁠—yes, and I of you⁠—”

He broke off, shuddering.

“Once,” he began again abruptly, “I was working at a mine in Ecuador⁠—”

“Not as a miner?”

“No, as a miner’s fag⁠—odd-jobbing with the coolies. We had a barrack to sleep in at the pit’s mouth; and one night⁠—I had been ill, the same as lately, and carrying stones in the blazing sun⁠—I must have got lightheaded, for I saw you come in at the doorway. You were holding a crucifix like that one on the wall. You were praying, and brushed past me without turning. I cried out to you to help me⁠—to give me poison or a knife⁠—something to put an end to it all before I went mad. And you⁠—ah⁠—!”

He drew one hand across his eyes. Montanelli was still clasping the other.

“I saw in your face that you had heard, but you never looked round; you went on with your prayers. When you had finished, and kissed the crucifix, you glanced