LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

to be out of the sound of their voices. The things that people laughed at were seldom clear to him; it seemed that he had been left out of some understanding to take certain things as funny and laugh at them. His mother's mirth, breaking startlingly out of unexpected incidents, out of words spoken without afterthought, out of little accidents and breakages, always puzzled him. It was as little to be understood as her tears, when she would sit silent through a long afternoon of stagnant heat, and burst suddenly into weeping when some one spoke to her.

      He came to a standstill at the point where the station roof ended and left the platform bare to the calm skies. The metals gleamed before his feet, ranging out to the veld whence the train would come. He listened for the sound of it, the low drum-note so like the call of the gourd-drum at the farmhouse door, which would herald it even before its funnel dragged its glare into view. There was nothing to be heard, and he turned to the Kafirs behind him, and spoke to one who squatted against the wall apart from the rest.

      "Is the train late?" he asked, in the "Kitchen Kafir" of his everyday commerce with natives.

      The black man raised his head at the question, but did not answer. Paul repeated it a little louder.

      The native held his head as if he listened closely or were deaf. Then he smiled, his white teeth gleaming in the black circle of his shadowed face.

      "I 'm sorry," he answered, distinctly; "I can't understand what you say. You 'll have to speak English."

      It was the voice of a negro, always vaguely musical, and running to soft full tones, but there was a note in it which made it remarkable and unfamiliar, some turn which suggested (to Paul, at any rate) that this was a man with properties even stranger than his speaking English. He thrilled with a sense of adventure, for this, of course, was the mad creature of the shepherd's tale, who sang to himself of nights when the moon rose on the veld. If a dog had answered him in set phrases, it would not have been more amazing than to hear that precise, aptly modulated voice reply in easy English from the mouth of a Kafir.

      "I – I 've heard of you," he said, stammering.

      "Have you?" He remembered how the old shepherd had spoken of the man's smile. He was smiling now, looking up at Paul.

      "You 've heard of me – I wonder what you 've heard. And I 've seen you, too."

      "Where did you see me? Who are you?" asked Paul quickly. The man was mad, according to the shepherd, but Paul was not very clear as to what it meant to be mad, beyond that it enabled one to see things unseen by the sane.

      The Kafir turned over, and rose stiffly to his feet, like a man spent with fatigue.

      "They 'll wonder if they see me sitting down while I talk to you," he said, with a motion to the group about the Cape Mounted Policeman. His gesture made a confidant of Paul and enlisted him, as it were, in a conspiracy to keep up appearances. It was possible to see him when he stood on his feet, a young man, as tall as the boy, with a skin of warm Kafir black. But the face, the foolish, tragic mask of the negro, shaped for gross, easy emotions, blunted on the grindstone of the races of mankind, was almost unexpected. Paul stared dumbly, trying to link it on some plane of reason with the quiet, schooled voice.

      "What was it you were asking me?" the Kafir inquired.

      But Paul had forgotten. "Don't you speak anything but English?" he demanded now.

      The Kafir smiled again. "A little French," he replied. "Nothing to speak of." He saw that the lad was bewildered, and turned grave at once. "Don't be frightened," he said quickly. "There 's nothing to be frightened of."

      Paul shook his head. "I 'm not frightened," he answered slowly. "It 's not that. But – you said you had seen me before?"

      "Yes," the Kafir nodded. "One evening about a fortnight ago; you didn't notice me. I was walking on the veld, and I came by a dam, with somebody sitting under the wall and trying to model in clay."

      "Oh!" Paul was suddenly illuminated.

      "Yes. I 'd have spoken to you then, only you seemed so busy," said the Kafir. "Besides, I didn't know how you 'd take it. But I went there later on and had a look at the things you 'd made. That 's how I saw you."

      "Then," said Paul, "it was you– "

      "Hush!" The Kafir touched him warningly on the arm, for the Cape Policeman had turned at his raised voice to look towards them. "Not so loud. You mean the head? Yes, I went on with it a bit. I hope you didn't mind."

      "No," replied Paul. "I did n't mind. No!"

      His mind beat helplessly among these incongruities; only one thing was clear; here was a man who could shape things in clay. Upon the brink of that world of which the station was a door, he had encountered a kindred spirit. The thought made him tremble; it was so vital a matter that he could not stay to consider that the spirit was caged in a black skin. The single fact engrossed him to the exclusion of all the other factors in the situation, just as some sight about the farm would strike him while at work, and hold him, absorbed and forgetful of all else, till either its interest was exhausted or he was recalled to his task by a shout across the kraals.

      "I did n't mind at all," he replied. "How did you do it? I tried, but it wouldn't come."

      "You were n't quite sure what you were trying for," said the Kafir. "Was n't that it?"

      "Was it?" wondered Paul.

      "I think so." The Kafir's smile shone out again. "Once you 're sure what you mean to do, it 's easy. If I had a piece of clay, I 'd show you. There 's a way of thumbing it up, just a trick, you know – "

      "I 'm there every evening," said Paul eagerly. "But tell me: do other people make things out of clay, too – over there?"

      His arm pointed along the railway; the gesture comprehended sweepingly the cities and habitations of men. The idea that there was a science of fingering clay, that it was practised and studied, excited him wildly.

      "Gently!" warned the Kafir. He looked at the boy curiously. "Yes," he said. "Lots of people do it, and lots more go to look at the things they make and talk about them. People pay money to learn to do it, and there are great schools where they are taught to model – to make things, you know, in clay, and stone, and bronze. Did you think it was all done behind dam walls?"

      Paul breathed deep. "I did n't know," he murmured.

      "Do you know Capetown?" asked the other. "No? It doesn't matter. You 've heard of Jan van Riebeck, though?"

      As it happened, Paul had heard of the Surgeon of the Fleet who first carried dominion to the shadow of Table Mountain.

      "Well," said the Kafir, "you can imagine Jan van Riebeek, shaped in bronze, standing on a high pedestal at the foot of a great street, with the water of the bay behind him, where his ships used to float, and his strong Dutch face lifted to look up to Table Mountain, as it was when he landed? Don't think of the bronze shape; think of the man. That's what clay is for – to make things like that!"

      "Yes, yes. That's what it's for," cried Paul. "But – I never saw anything like that."

      "Plenty of time," said the other. "And that's only one of the things to see. In London – "

      "You 've been in London?" asked Paul quickly.

      "Yes," said the Kafir, nodding. "Why?"

      Paul was silent for a space of seconds. When he answered it was in a low voice.

      "I 've seen nothing," he said. "I can't find out those ways to work the clay. But – but if somebody would just show me, just teach me those – those tricks you spoke about – "

      "All right." The Kafir patted his arm. "Under the dam wall, eh? In the evenings? I 'll come, and then – "

      "What?" said Paul eagerly, for he had broken off abruptly.

      "The train," said the Kafir, pointing, and sighed.

      Paul had been too intent in talk to hear it, but he could see now, floating against the distance, the bead of light which grew while he watched. The group further down the platform dissolved, and the tank-men went past at a run to their work. A voice at his elbow made Paul turn quickly. It was the Cape Mounted Policeman.

      "You

Скачать книгу