The Meaning of Night

loved her, & that he loves her still. And this is why he can never love me.

We parted, & I asked if he would come again – as a friend – when he returned. But he only shook his head.

‘You have your kingdom now,’ was all he said. ‘And I have mine.’ Then he turned and went. I watched him walk down the path, out into the night. He did not look back.

When my employer, Mrs Daley, brought in the report from The Times, naming Edward as the suspected killer of Mr Daunt, I thought my heart would break. What a burden he must have carried with him! To do such a terrible, terrible thing, even though clear injury had been done to him! I saw then how far I had been from knowing him, still less of understanding him. It may be wrong of me to say so, but I shall always think of him fondly, though of course I cannot now regard him as I once did. I loved him truly – then; but he was cruel to me, though I believe not intentionally. He betrayed me, which I might have forgiven. But he did not love me as I deserved, which I cannot forgive.

Yours very sincerely,

ISABELLA GALLINI

Calle Espiritu Santo^*

25th November 1855

MY DEAR MR TREDGOLD, —

I can easily imagine your emotions when you open this letter. Surprise and consternation, I am sure, will be uppermost; but also, I hope, a degree of guilty pleasure, to hear again – though for the last time – from someone who esteems you more highly than any man alive, and to whom you have been a father in all but name.

I have come here, where no one will ever find me, under a name no one knows, to live out my days in a solitude of my own choosing – in a blackened and shattered landscape of extraordinary otherness, carved by a furious god, and fanned by hot African winds. I deserve no sympathy for what I have done; but you, my dear sir, deserve to know how I came here, and why.

After leaving England, on the night of December 11th last, I travelled first to Copenhagen, & then to Faborg, on the island of Funen, where I remained for nearly a month. From there I went to Germany, to revisit some of my old haunts in and around Heidelberg, before going, first, to S. Bertrand de Comminges in the Pyrenees, where there was a cathedral that I had long wished to see, & then to the island of Mallorca – my last destination until I sailed here.

I intend to say nothing concerning the reason for my exile – to spare you more pain than I have already caused you. I have not escaped punishment, as some may imagine; I am punished every hour I live for the folly of my life, and what it drove me to do. My enemy and I were mined from the same mortal seam; cast into the same furnace of creation, our images impressed on opposite sides of the same coin, separate, but not distinct, conjoined by some fatal alchemy. I killed him; but in doing so, I killed the best part of myself.

I think much of her – I mean my mother – & of how alike we were, & how we were both destroyed by believing it was in our own hands to punish those who had done wrong to us. For myself, I felt impelled by a relentless and misguided sense of fatality, which I interpreted as justifying whatever actions I chose to take. My exile has given me more wisdom. I have been immolated by my former belief in a greater Destiny, urging me ever onwards; but now I have found respite and comfort in a re-acceptance of a sterner faith: that we are all sinners, and must all come to judgment. And in this also: that we should not strive against what we cannot mend.

Of course I think also of my dear girl, whom I shall always love, as you loved my mother. Cruel, cruel! To betray me so, knowing that I loved her above all others for herself alone. Yet though she has tormented me almost beyond endurance, I cannot withhold my forgiveness from her. She will inherit what should have been mine, as I have heard; but she has lost more than she will ever gain; and, like me, she will be required to answer for what she has done.

I live here with few comforts, but enough for my simple needs. My only companion is a one-eyed cat, of superlative hideousness, who appeared on the very first morning of my arrival, and who has not left me since. I have enough of my old humour left to have christened him Jukes.

And so, my dear old Senior Partner, I come at last to what has been occupying me, as a preliminary to asking a final favour of you – if I can trespass on your goodness so far. Since coming here, six months since, I have been writing down all that has happened to me & have accumulated, as a result, a goodly number of large-quarto sheets, purchased for the purpose before I left Mallorca. Yesterday evening, quite late, I laid down my pen at last, and packed all the sheets into a locked wooden box. I now go to meet an English gentleman, a Mr John Lazarus, shipping agent, of Billiter-street, City, who has kindly agreed to deliver the box to you in Canterbury. He knows me by another name, and of course I can count on you not to disabuse him. The key I shall send to you separately.

If you are so minded – as I hope you will be – I would ask you, on receipt, to arrange for the pages to be bound up (I can recommend Mr Riviere, Great Queen-street) & then, if it can be so contrived, for the volume to be placed privily in the Library at Evenwood, where it may be found, or not, at some future date. It is a great deal to ask; but I can ask it of no one else but you.

There is much I would wish to hear about – of people I have known, and how it goes with the world I have left behind; and, most of all, of you, and how you are, and whether your collection prospers, and whether you are quite recovered. I am now a man apart, and can never again put on the life I once knew. But I pray – yes, truly – for your contentment and good health, and great long life, and beg your forgiveness for what I have done.

This, then, is what I have learned, since writing my confession on this final shore:Honour not the malice of thine enemy so much, as to say, thy misery comes from him: Dishonour not the complexion of the times so much, as to say, thy misery comes from them; justifie not the Deity of Fortune so much, as to say, thy misery comes from her; Finde God pleased with thee, and thou hast a hook in the nostrils of every Leviathan.^*

I long for sleep, and for soft English rain. But they do not come.

E.G.

^*[The following items have been bound in at this point in the manuscript. Ed.]