“Yes, thanks! that was all right,” said I. “He could get them then when he came back; they might contain matters of importance. Good morning.”
When I got outside, I came to a standstill and said loudly in the open street, as I clenched my hands: “I will tell you one thing, my good Lord God, you are a bungler!” and I nod furiously, with set teeth, up to the clouds; “I will be hanged if you are not a bungler.”
Then I took a few strides, and stopped again. Suddenly, changing my attitude, I fold my hands, hold my head on one side, and ask, with an unctuous, sanctimonious tone of voice: “Hast thou appealed also to him, my child?” It did not sound right!
With a large h, I say, with an h as big as a cathedral! once again, “Hast thou invoked Him, my child?” and I incline my head, and I make my voice whine, and answer, No!
That didn’t sound right either.
You can’t play the hypocrite, you idiot! Yes, you should say, I have invoked God my Father! and you must set your words to the most piteous tune you have ever heard in your life. So‑o! Once again! Come, that was better! But you must sigh like a horse down with the colic. So‑o! that’s right. Thus I go, drilling myself in hypocrisy; stamp impatiently in the street when I fail to succeed; rail at myself for being such a blockhead, whilst the astonished passersby turn round and stare at me.
I chewed uninterruptedly at my shaving, and proceeded, as steadily as I could, along the street. Before I realised it, I was at the railway square. The clock on Our Saviour’s pointed to half-past one. I stood for a bit and considered. A faint sweat forced itself out on my face, and trickled down my eyelids. Accompany me down to the bridge, said I to myself—that is to say, if you have spare time!—and I made a bow to myself, and turned towards the railway bridge near the wharf.
The ships lay there, and the sea rocked in the sunshine. There was bustle and movement everywhere, shrieking steam-whistles, quay porters with cases on their shoulders, lively “shanties” coming from the prams. An old woman, a vendor of cakes, sits near me, and bends her brown nose down over her wares. The little table before her is sinfully full of nice things, and I turn away with distaste. She is filling the whole quay with her smell of cakes—phew! up with the windows!
I accosted a gentleman sitting at my side, and represented forcibly to him the nuisance of having cake-sellers here, cake-sellers there. … Eh? Yes; but he must really admit that. … But the good man smelt a rat, and did not give me time to finish speaking, for he got up and left. I rose, too, and followed him, firmly determined to convince him of his mistake.
“If it was only out of consideration for sanitary conditions,” said I; and I slapped him on the shoulders.
“Excuse me, I am a stranger here, and know nothing of the sanitary conditions,” he replied, and stared at me with positive fear.
Oh, that alters the case! if he was a stranger. … Could I not render him a service in any way? show him about? Really not? because it would be a pleasure to me, and it would cost him nothing. …
But the man wanted absolutely to get rid of me, and he sheered off, in all haste, to the other side of the street.
I returned to the bench and sat down. I was fearfully disturbed, and the big street organ that had begun to grind a tune a little farther away made me still worse—a regular metallic music, a fragment of Weber, to which a little girl is singing a mournful strain. The flute-like sorrowfulness of the organ thrills through my blood; my nerves vibrate in responsive echo. A moment later, and I fall back on the seat, whimpering and crooning in time to it.
Oh, what strange freaks one’s thoughts are guilty of when one is starving. I feel myself lifted up by these notes, dissolved in tones, and I float out, I feel so clearly. How I float out, soaring high above the mountains, dancing through zones of light! …
“A halfpenny,” whines the little organ-girl, reaching forth her little tin plate; “only a halfpenny.”
“Yes,” I said, unthinkingly, and I sprang to my feet and ransacked all my pockets. But the child thinks I only want to make fun of her, and she goes away at once without saying a word.
This dumb forbearance was too much for me. If she had abused me, it would have been more endurable. I was stung with pain, and recalled her.
“I don’t possess a farthing; but I will remember you later on, maybe tomorrow. What is your name? Yes, that is a pretty name; I won’t forget it. Till tomorrow, then. …”
But I understood quite well that she did not believe me, although she never said one word; and I cried with despair because this little street wench would not believe in me.
Once again I called her back, tore open my coat, and was about to give her my waistcoat. “I will make up to you for it,” said I; “wait only a moment” … and lo! I had no waistcoat.
What in the world made me look for it? Weeks had gone by since it was in my possession. What was the matter with me, anyway? The astonished child waited no longer, but withdrew fearsomely, and I was compelled to let her go. People throng round me and laugh aloud, and a policeman thrusts his way through to me, and wants to know what is the row.
“Nothing!” I reply, “nothing at all; I only wanted to give the little girl over there my waistcoat … for her father … you needn’t stand there and laugh at that … I have only to go home and put on
