Changeling, and Other Stories
to me to remember that she was my prisoner for the crime of murder.
And I look at myself, feel my chin, see how my suit is going. 'You
make me feel like a bum.'
"The months pass and two sails go by.
"One I see in the early evening. A few very fleecy clouds shuttle in
and out before the sun, and the great sea is purple, and the sand takes
on a deep hue like the color of a gold coin that's been in circulation
for years, mellow and reddish-like. And the green of the trees is so
green you can feel it. And on the horizon is a native boat with a
lateen sail that is orange-colored.
"I see it. I make no effort. I can do nothing. But it seems to me
that it is unreal. It is not there. It is just a dream. It is unreal
as the island is to me, unreal as my old life is to me, unreal as
everything is--except Janssen.
"But a week later another boat comes, and this time it is n't unreal.
Squat and bulky, it is a tramp steamer headed down New Zealand way. It
passes not more than three miles off, and very ugly it is upon the sea,
its funnel belching out black smoke that is like an insult to the
shining seas. I have a bonfire ready-made and go to it with my
burning-glass. And Janssen stands by and looks at me.
"'Do I have to go back, McCarthy?' she asks.
"'You got to go back and face the music, Janssen.' And I lights the
fire.
"I get everything ready to board, but the steamer pays no attention.
They go straight ahead. Maybe they think it's just natives, but at any
rate they don't put about or anything. I go to the edge of the water
and shout to them. I go into it up to my waist and whistle and snap my
fingers and call to it, as I would to a dog, but they pay no attention.
And then I give up.
"'I 'm sorry, McCarthy,' Janssen says.
"'What are you sorry for?' I asks her. 'You ought to be glad.'
"'I am glad,' she says. 'I 'm glad for myself, but I 'm sorry for your
sake, McCarthy. I 'm really sorry.'
"One night we 're setting by the fire in the moonlight, and I 'm trying
to figure out how the natives build their huts, because I want to build
one for Janssen. There 's a queer sort of rain in these islands.
Sometimes in a bright sky a cloud will pass, very high, very quick, and
the rain comes down like bullets. You can hear it thunder in the
leaves, and rattle over the sea like pistol shots. And it's not so
pleasant after a while. It's over in a minute or so, but Janssen ought
to have some place when it comes.
"And Janssen is sitting there as quiet as anything, making figures in
the sand and saying nothing. She turns to me.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'did I really kill Alec de Vries?'
"'You killed him dead.'
"'It seems like a dream to me, a bad dream in the night.'
"'If you had waited and looked at that corpse, you 'd have known it was
no dream.'
"'And because I killed a man that was no use to any one I 've got to go
back.'
"'You 've got to go back, all right,' I tell her.
"'Well, do you know, it's only fair,' she says. 'You 've called the
tune, and danced it, and you 've got to pay the fiddler. But I 'm
scared, McCarthy. I 'm terribly scared. It would be very easy for me
to jump in the water or borrow your gun some night. Think of it. They
put metal on your legs and strap you into a chair, and they put a cap
over your head. And, then a man, as human as yourself, pushes a
switch, and just as if he were putting out a light, he puts out the
light of your life, the same light that's in himself.... And all in
the cold gray morning....'
"'Tell you something, kid--' I had this on my mind for a while. 'I
don't think they 'll burn you. We 'll get you a good lawyer when we go
back and you 'll get off with a long stretch up the river.'
"'But don't you see, McCarthy,' she laughs nervously, 'that that's
worse still? A person does something, as I 've done, because his mind
and his--his self--are full of nooks and crannies, dust and cobwebs,
bad feelings, passions. And he flies away. And maybe in the desert or
the mountains a great wind comes and cleanses him. And he mends the
shattered self together.
"'But the silly judge and the silly police go after him, and they send
him to prison, and he sits there in the darkness and the wheels of his
head go around. And the cobwebs collect again, and the grime from the
other people comes off on him. And in the end he is worse than he was
in the beginning.
"'I 'd rather die, McCarthy--die, all in the cold gray morning.'
"A month after this Janssen falls ill. Perhaps it's a gust of rain
that's made her ill. Perhaps it's some of the berries or the fish or
something. But at any rate, there she lies, white and near dead, all
the life gone from her. There 's nothing I can do for her much but try
to cheer her up and move her when she 's tired of lying in one position.
"'You 've got to get well, Janssen,' I say to her. 'You 've got to
make an effort.'
"'But why?' she asks. 'Why shouldn't I die?'
"'That's no way to talk.'
"'What has life got for me?' she asks bitterly. 'The electric chair?'
"'You 've got nothing to worry about,' I say. 'It 'll be only a few
years up the river and then out again, and the good old days.'
"'I won't live for that,' she says.
"'Well, listen,' I joke with her. 'You 're not going to make me come
all the way across the world for you, and then not bring you home. You
're not going to throw me down, kid; be game.'
"'I 'd like to oblige you, McCarthy,' she smiles; 'but even for that I
won't stay alive. Can't you think of any other reason?'
"'It would be awful lonely, if you were to go,' I say; and I mean it.
'Awful, awful lonely. I 'm getting very fond of you, Janssen.'
"'That's better,' she says, and pats my hand. And she turns her head.
'Don't worry, McCarthy. I 'll--I 'll live.'"
III
Without, the gray January dusk had crept into the cañons of New York
and given the narrow streets, the crenelated buildings, the moving
trucks, the pedestrians a semblance of unreality, as though they were
being seen through a mist raised by some necromancer at the call of a
wretched man. Through the windows of the court-room the Tombs were
still evident, but the building had become unreal. It was like some
ogre's castle in a fairy-tale for children, very terrible, but not
really there.
The judge, the jury, the attendants, all the court had somehow lost
entity as a court. It was no more a court than a house in a play is a
house. It was just a formula embracing a hundred or so human beings.
And one felt also that this was not in New York. There was no
atmosphere of New York. New York might be a cloak and a disguise, but
the minds and personalities of all were on a golden island on shining
seas.
And they didn't see McCarthy in the witness-box, nor Janssen in the
dock, but by the cove where the water was so translucent that one could
see, fathom on fathom deep, the rainbow fish below....
"She gets better day by day, and I 'm so glad I could sing," continued
the officer, speaking more easily as practice came after his seven
years of silence. "She sits on the beach and health comes to her with
the wind, and little by little the flush comes in her cheek, and life
ferments, and her hair that has become dank ripples and flows, as a
still sea stirs up with a breeze. And soon she 's swimming again. But
there 's little of the old Janssen left. All her movements are grave.
At times she sits thinking, and her brow is working with thought. At
other times she smiles. Just a dignified little smile.
"And soon after she gets well, she saves my life a second time.
"This is how it happens. I 'm fishing one day and my line and hook get
caught down in the coral. And I don't want to lose that hook. Hooks
are n't easy to make. So I says: 'I 'll go down after that hook.'
"I shoot in and go swimming down through the water, and I hang on to
the coral with one hand, and unloose the hook with the other. I 'm
about ready to come up when in the water between me and the sun I can
see a shadow like a boat. For a moment I think it's a boat, and come
up with a rush. But half-way up I know it's no boat. And in the warm
water I go cold as ice.
"I 'm more than half-way up, and I have no chance of shouting,
splashing, making a noise, the way you frighten them off. And suddenly
I know the big fellow sees me. I can feel the vibration of his swirl
in the water as he turns off to a point where he can come rushing at me.
"'It's good-by, McCarthy!' I say to myself, and turn to face him. And
then I hear a _plung-h_ into the water the moment he's ready to turn
over and come at me. And Janssen comes shooting down.
"She has a stone or something in her hand drawn back and lets him have
it just on the soft point of the nose, the only place you can hurt
those fellows. One crack! And the big coward turns and slinks off
just like a dog that's been kicked.
"When we get ashore I 'm just as mad as I can be. The idea of her
taking a chance like that!
"'Haven't you got any sense at all?' I bawl her out. 'What do you
mean, taking a chance like that? What do you think a shark is? A
mackerel? Maybe you think he wouldn't touch you? Maybe you think he's
a gentleman? He's not. If brains were money,' I say, 'I don't think
you could buy a subway ticket. Never do that, or anything like that
again. Mind your own business!'
"But she 's crying and laughing together. She walks off, now sobbing,
now laughing. I run after her.
"'Not that from the bottom of my heart I 'm not grateful to you, but
you must never again--'
"But she laughs and she sobs:
"'Go away, McCarthy. Go away. Please go away!'
"All this time I know I 'm very fond of Janssen, and something tells me
Janssen is of me, though God knows why. But we say nothing. At times
it's hard to talk. And I look at her and think. If things were only
different, how I could love that girl! But here she is, a prisoner,
and I 'm her keeper. It's a pity. It's a pity, even, she's changed.
It makes it awful hard for me.
"But I can't keep my eyes off her. She stands on the beach, the wind
rustling her green garment, and rippling her hair. Very beautiful.
And a little butterfly, from God knows where, is fluttering about her.
Now it's in her hair, now about her throat. And curiously it comes to
light on her lips.
"'You look awfully pretty, Janssen,' I say, 'with that butterfly.'
"She smiles at me, kind of queerly.
"'You 're a brave man, McCarthy,' she says, 'the bravest man I ever
knew. You 're strong. You 're tremendous. Yes, you 're brave. But
this little butterfly, that in all its body has n't the strength of one
single hair of your head, whose brief life is but a single day, is
braver than you, McCarthy, braver far than you.'
"'I don't understand you, Janssen.'
"But I understand her all right.
"And the days roll by, roll by, and nothing changes, nothing comes to
us. Once or twice we see sails. Once a full-rigged ship under bare
poles runs before a gale. And once in the distance we see a schooner
heeling to the breeze.
"We are not speaking much to each other. There is a feeling of
strangeness in the air. And at night I 'm worried-like. The trees
rustle. The waves lap. There is great darkness. And for all we are
the only two people in that island, yet I feel at night somehow we are
not alone. Unseen, shadowy people are about us, in the sea, in the
air. Once there were millions on these islands and now there are few.
Once they were a great strong race, and now they are a timid handful.
And I imagine that in the dark of the moon the brown tribes reassemble
and put to sea in their war-canoes, and walk on the beaches that are so
like Paradise.