But assuming the existence of this “Black” and this “White” being—and supposing it to be a fact that my reaching the Pole had any connection with the destruction of my race, according to the notions of that extraordinary Scotch parson—then it must have been the power of “the Black” which carried me, in spite of all obstacles, to the Pole. So far I can understand.
But after I had reached the Pole, what further use had either White or Black for me? Which was it—White or Black—that preserved my life through my long return on the ice—and why? It could not have been “the Black!” For I readily divine that from the moment when I touched the Pole, the only desire of the Black, which had previously preserved, must have been to destroy me, with the rest. It must have been “the White,” then, that led me back, retarding me long, so that I should not enter the poison-cloud, and then openly presenting me the Boreal to bring me home to Europe. But his motive? And the significance of these recommencing wrangles, after such a silence? This I do not understand!
Curse Them, curse Them, with their mad tangles! I care nothing for Them! Are there any White Idiots and Black Idiots—at all? Or are these Voices that I hear nothing but the cries of my own strained nerves, and I all mad and morbid, morbid and mad, mad, my good God?
This inertia here is not good for me! This stalking about the palace! and long thinkings about Earth and Heaven, Black and White, White and Black, and things beyond the stars! My brain is like bursting through the walls of my poor head.
Tomorrow, then, to Constantinople.
Descending to go to the ship, I had almost reached the middle of the east platform-steps, when my foot slipped on the smooth gold: and the fall, though I was not walking carelessly, had, I swear, all the violence of a fall caused by a push. I struck my head, and, as I rolled downward, swooned. When I came to myself, I was lying on the very bottom step, which is thinly washed by the wine-waves: another roll and I suppose I must have drowned. I sat there an hour, lost in amazement, then crossed the causeway, came down to the Speranza with the motor, went through her, spent the day in work, slept on her, worked again today, till four, at both ship and time-fuses (I with only 700 fuses left, and in Stamboul alone must be 8,000 houses, without counting Galata, Tophana, Kassim-pacha, Scutari, and the rest), started out at 5:30, and am now at 11 p.m. lying motionless two miles off the north coast of the island of Marmora, with moonlight gloating on the water, a faint north breeze, and the little pale land looking immensely stretched-out, solemn and great, as if that were the world, and there were nothing else; and the tiny island at its end immense, and the Speranza vast, and I only little. Tomorrow at 11 a.m. I will moor the Speranza in the Golden Horn at the spot where there is that low damp nook of the bagnio behind the naval magazines and that hill where the palace of the Capitan Pacha is.
I found that great tangle of ships in the Golden Horn wonderfully preserved, many with hardly any moss-growths. This must be due, I suppose, to the little Ali-Bey and Kezat-Hanah, which flow into the Horn at the top, and made no doubt a constant current.
Ah, I remember the place: long ago I lived here some months, or, it may be, years. It is the fairest of cities—and the greatest. I believe that London in England was larger: but no city, surely, ever seemed so large. But it is flimsy, and will burn like tinder. The houses are made of light timber, with interstices filled by earth and bricks, and some of them look ruinous already, with their lovely faded tints of green and gold and red and blue and yellow, like the hues of withered flowers: for it is a city of paints and trees, and all in the little winding streets, as I write, are volatile almond-blossoms, mixed with maple-blossoms, white with purple. Even the most splendid of the Sultan’s palaces are built in this combustible way: for I believe that they had a notion that stone-building was presumptuous, though I have seen some very thick stone-houses in Galata. This place, I remember, lived in a constant state of sensation on account of nightly flares-up; and I have come across several tracts already devastated by fires. The ministers-of-state used to attend them, and if the fire would not go out, the Sultan himself was obliged to be there, in order to encourage the firemen. Now it will burn still better.
But I have been here six weeks, and still no burning: for the place seems to plead with me, it is so ravishing, so that I do not know why I did not live here, and spare my toils during those sixteen nightmare years; for two whole weeks the impulse to burn was quieted; and since then there has been an irritating whisper at my ear which said: “It is not really like the great King that you are, this burning, but like a foolish child, or a savage, who liked to see fireworks: or at least, if you must burn, do not burn poor Constantinople, which is so charming, and so very
