as may happen, would you not wish for a memorial to be left behind, so that the next voyagers to make landfall here, whoever they may be, may read and learn about us, and perhaps shed a tear? For surely, with every day that passes, our memories grow less certain, as even a statue in marble is worn away by rain, till at last we can no longer tell what shape the sculptor’s hand gave it. What memories do you even now preserve of the fatal storm, the prayers of your companions, your terror when the waves engulfed you, your gratitude as you were cast up on the shore, your first stumbling explorations, your fear of savage beasts, the discomforts of those first nights (did you not tell me you slept in a tree?)? Is it not possible to manufacture paper and ink and set down what traces remain of these memories, so that they will outlive you; or, failing paper and ink, to bum the story upon wood, or engrave it upon rock? We may lack many things on this island, but certainly time is not one of them.”
‘I spoke fervently, I believe, but Cruso was unmoved. “Nothing is forgotten,” said he; and then: “Nothing I have forgotten is worth the remembering.”
‘“You are mistaken!” I cried. “I do not wish to dispute, but you have forgotten much, and with every day that passes you forget more! There is no shame in forgetting: it is our nature to forget as it is our nature to grow old and pass away. But seen from too remote a vantage, life begins to lose its particularity. All shipwrecks become the same shipwreck, all castaways the same castaway, sunburnt, lonely, clad in the skins of the beasts he has slain. The truth that makes your story yours alone,. that sets you apart from the old mariner by the fireside spinning yarns of sea-monsters and mermaids, resides in a thousand touches which today may seem of no importance, such as: When you made your needle (the needle you store in your belt), by what means did you pierce the eye? When you sewed your hat, what did you use for thread? Touches like these will one day persuade your countrymen that it is all true, every word, there was indeed once an island in the middle of the ocean where the wind blew and the gulls cried from the cliffs and a man named Cruso paced about in his apeskin clothes, scanning the horizon for a sail.”
‘Cruso’s great head of tawny hair and his beard that was never cut glowed in the dying light. He opened and closed his hands, sinewy, rough-skinned hands, toil-hardened.
‘“There is the bile of seabirds,” I urged. “There are cuttlefish bones. There are gulls’ quills.”
‘Cruso raised his head and cast me a look full of defiance. “I will leave behind my terraces and walls,” he said. “They will be enough. They will be more than enough.” And he fell silent again. As for myself, I wondered who would cross the ocean to see terraces and walls, of which we surely had an abundance at home; but I held my peace.
‘We continued to sleep in the hut together, he and I, he on his bed, I on the bed of grass Friday laid for me and changed every third day, very thick and comfortable. When the nights grew cold I would draw a cover of skins over me, for all this time I had no more clothes than the petticoat I had come ashore in ; but I preferred not to have the skins upon me, for to my nostrils their smell was still very strong.
‘Sometimes Cruso kept me awake with the sounds he made in his sleep, chiefly the grinding of his teeth. For so far had his teeth decayed that it had grown a habit with him to grind them together constantly, those that were left, to still the ache. Indeed, it was no pretty sight to see him take his food in his unwashed hands and gnaw at it on the left side, where it hurt him less. But Bahia, and the life I had lived there, had taught me not to be dainty.
‘I dreamed of the murdered ship’s-master. In my dream I saw him floating southward in his puny boat with the oars crossed on his breast and the ugly spike sticking out of his eye. The sea was tossed with huge waves, the wind howled, the rain beat down; yet the boat did not sink, but drifted slowly on toward the province of the iceberg, and would drift there, it seemed to me, caked in ice, till the day of our resurrection. He was a kindly man — let me say so now, lest I forget — who deserved a better end.
‘Cruso’s warning against the apes made me chary of leaving the encampment. Nevertheless, on the third day of my marooning, after Cruso and Friday had gone off to their labours, I ventured out and searched the descent till I found the path up which Friday had where I trod, for I still had no shoes. I roamed along the beach awhile, keeping an eye out to sea, though it seemed early yet for rescue to come. I waded in the water, amused by the gay- coloured little fish that stopped to nibble my toes and taste what kind of creature I was. Cruso’s island is no bad place to be cast away, I thought, if one must be cast away. Then about noon I climbed the slope and set about collecting firewood, as I had undertaken to do, mightily pleased with my excursion.
‘When Cruso returned he knew at once I had been exploring, and burst out in a passion. “While you live under my roof you will do as I instruct!” he cried, striking his spade into the earth, not even waiting till Friday was out of earshot. But if he thought by angry looks to inspire me to fear and slavish obedience, he soon found he was mistaken. “I am on your island, Mr Cruso, not by choice but by ill luck,” I replied, standing up (and I was nearly as tall as he). “I am a castaway, not a prisoner. If I had shoes, or if you would give me the means to make shoes, I would not need to steal about like a thief.”
‘Later in the day, when my temper had cooled, I asked Cruso’s pardon for these tart words, and he seemed to forgive me, though grudgingly. Then I asked again for a needle and gut, to make myself shoes. To which he replied that shoes were not made in a twinkle, like handkerchiefs, that he would himself make me shoes, in due time. Days passed, however, and still I was without shoes.
‘I asked Cruso about the apes. When he first arrived, he said, they had roamed all over the island, bold and mischievous. He had killed many, after which the remainder had retreated to the cliffs of what he called the North Bluff. On my walks I sometimes heard their cries and saw them leaping from rock to rock. In size they were between a cat and a fox, grey, with black faces and black paws. I saw no harm in them; but Cruso held them a pest, and he and Friday killed them whenever they could, with clubs, and skinned them, and cured their pelts, and sewed them together to make clothes and blankets and suchlike.
‘One evening, as I was preparing our supper, my hands being full, I turned to Friday and said, “Bring more wood, Friday.” Friday heard me, I could have sworn, but he did not stir. So I said the word “Wood” again, indicating the fire; upon which he stood up, but did no more. Then Cruso spoke. “Firewood, Friday,” he said; and Friday went off and fetched wood from the woodpile.
‘My first thought was that Friday was like a dog that heeds but one master; yet it was not so. “Firewood is the word I have taught him,” said Cruso. “Wood he does not know.” I found it strange that Friday should not understand that firewood was a kind of wood, as pinewood is a kind of wood, or poplarwood; but I let it pass. Not till after we had eaten, when we were sitting watching the stars, as had grown to be our habit, did I speak again.
‘“How many words of English does Friday know?” I asked. ‘“As many as he needs,” replied Cruso. “This is not England, we have no need of a great stock of words.”
‘“You speak as if language were one of the banes of life, like money or the pox,” said I. “Yet would it not have lightened your solitude had Friday been master of English? You and he might have experienced, all these years, the pleasures of conversation; you might have brought home to him some of the blessings of civilization and made him a better man. What benefit is there in a life of silence?”
‘To this Cruso gave no reply, but instead beckoned Friday nearer. “Sing, Friday,” he said. “Sing for Mistress Banon.”
‘Whereupon Friday raised his face to the stars, closed his eyes, and, obedient to his master, began to hum in a low voice. I listened but could make out no tune. Cruso tapped my knee. “The voice of man,” he said. I failed to understand his meaning; but he raised a finger to his lips to still me. In the dark we listened to Friday’s humming.
‘At last Friday paused. “Is Friday an imbecile incapable of speech?” I asked. “Is that what you mean to tell me?” (For I repeat, I found Friday in all matters a dull fellow.)
‘Cruso motioned Friday nearer. “Open your mouth,” he told him, and opened his own. Friday opened his mouth. “Look,” said Cruso. I looked, but saw nothing in the dark save the glint of teeth white as ivory. “La-la-la,” said Cruso, and motioned to Friday to repeat. “Ha-ha-ha,” said Friday from the back of his throat. He has no tongue,” said Cruso. Gripping Friday by the hair, he brought his face close to mine. “Do you see?” he said. “It is too dark, .. said I. “La-la-la, .. said Cruso. “Ha-ha-ha,” said Friday. I drew away, and Cruso released Friday’s hair. “He has no tongue,” he said. “That is why he does not speak. They cut out his tongue.”
‘I stared in amazement. “Who cut out his tongue?”
‘“The slavers.”
‘“The slavers cut out his tongue and sold him into slavery? The slave-hunters of Africa? But surely he was a mere child when they took him. Why would they cut out a child’s tongue?”
