The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale E-Book

Joseph Conrad

• Herausgeber: Joseph Conrad
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

To his friends and family Adolf Verloc is a typical London businessman. But in reality he is a secret agent for a foreign government. His assignment has been to stir up trouble among the local anarchist groups, but when his handlers become frustrated with his lack of progress, they demand a new course of action: Verloc will bomb the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.

A masterpiece of intricate plotting and dark realism, The Secret Agent skips backward and forward in time as the repercussions of its central event are felt by every character—from the radicals who think Verloc is one of their own to the wife and brother-in-law he traps in his whirlwind of destruction. This is one of Joseph Conrad’s finest novels, and a portrait of the devastating effects of extremism, as relevant today as when it was first published more than a century ago.

This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

Leseprobe

Joseph Conrad

The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale

First digital edition 2017 by Anna Ruggieri

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER I

Mr Verloc, going out in themorning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-in-law. It could be done, because there was very little business at any time, and practically none at all before the evening. Mr Verloc cared but little about his ostensible business. And, moreover, his wife was in charge of his brother-in-law.

The shop was small, and so was the house. It was one of those grimy brick houses which existed in large quantities before the era of reconstruction dawned upon London. The shop was a square box of a place, with the front glazed in small panes. In the daytime the door remained closed; in the evening it stood discreetly but suspiciously ajar.

The window contained photographs of more or less undressed dancing girls; nondescript packages in wrappers like patent medicines; closed yellow paper envelopes, very flimsy, and marked two-and-six in heavy black figures; a few numbers of ancient French comic publications hung across a string as if to dry; a dingy blue china bowl, a casket of black wood, bottles of marking ink, and rubber stamps; a few books, with titles hinting at impropriety; a few apparently old copies of obscure newspapers, badly printed, with titles likeThe Torch,The Gong—rousing titles. And the two gas jets inside the panes were always turned low, either for economy’s sake or for the sake of the customers.

These customers were either very young men, who hung about the window for a time before slipping in suddenly; or men of a more mature age, but looking generally as if they were not in funds. Some of that last kind had the collars of their overcoats turned right up to their moustaches, and traces of mud on the bottom of their nether garments, which had the appearance of being much worn and not very valuable. And the legs inside them did not, asa general rule, seem of much account either. With their hands plunged deep in the side pockets of their coats, they dodged in sideways, one shoulder first, as if afraid to start the bell going.

The bell, hung on the door by means of a curved ribbon of steel, was difficult to circumvent. It was hopelessly cracked; but of an evening, at the slightest provocation, it clattered behind the customer with impudent virulence.

It clattered; and at that signal, through the dusty glass door behind the painted deal counter, Mr Verloc would issue hastily from the parlour at the back. His eyes were naturally heavy; he had an air of having wallowed, fully dressed, all day on an unmade bed. Another man would have felt such an appearance a distinct disadvantage. In a commercial transaction of the retail order much depends on the seller’s engaging and amiable aspect. But Mr Verloc knew his business, and remained undisturbed by any sort of æsthetic doubt about his appearance. With a firm, steady-eyed impudence, which seemed to hold back the threat of some abominable menace, he would proceed to sell over thecounter some object looking obviously and scandalously not worth the money which passed in the transaction: a small cardboard box with apparently nothing inside, for instance, or one of those carefully closed yellow flimsy envelopes, or a soiled volume in paper covers with a promising title. Now and then it happened that one of the faded, yellow dancing girls would get sold to an amateur, as though she had been alive and young.

Sometimes it was Mrs Verloc who would appear at the call of the cracked bell. Winnie Verloc was a young woman with a full bust, in a tight bodice, and with broad hips. Her hair was very tidy. Steady-eyed like her husband, she preserved an airof unfathomable indifference behind the rampart of the counter. Then the customer of comparatively tender years would get suddenly disconcerted at having to deal with a woman, and with rage in his heart would proffer a request for a bottle of marking ink,retail value sixpence (price in Verloc’s shop one-and-sixpence), which, once outside, he would drop stealthily into the gutter.

The evening visitors—the men with collars turned up and soft hats rammed down—nodded familiarly to Mrs Verloc, and with a muttered greeting, lifted up the flap at the end of the counter in order to pass into the back parlour, which gave access to a passage and to a steep flight of stairs. The door of the shop was the only means of entrance to the house in which Mr Verloc carriedon his business of a seller of shady wares, exercised his vocation of a protector of society, and cultivated his domestic virtues. These last were pronounced. He was thoroughly domesticated. Neither his spiritual, nor his mental, nor his physical needswere of the kind to take him much abroad. He found at home the ease of his body and the peace of his conscience, together with Mrs Verloc’s wifely attentions and Mrs Verloc’s mother’s deferential regard.

Winnie’s mother was a stout, wheezy woman, with a large brown face. She wore a black wig under a white cap. Her swollen legs rendered her inactive. She considered herself to be of French descent, which might have been true; and after a good many years of married life with a licensed victualler of the more common sort, she provided for the years of widowhood by letting furnished apartments for gentlemen near Vauxhall Bridge Road in a square once of some splendour and still included in the district of Belgravia. This topographical fact was of some advantage in advertising her rooms; but the patrons of the worthy widow were not exactly of the fashionable kind. Such as they were, her daughter Winnie helped to look after them. Traces of the French descent which the widow boasted of were apparent in Winnie too. They were apparent in the extremely neat and artistic arrangement of her glossy dark hair. Winnie had also other charms: her youth; her full, rounded form; her clear complexion; the provocation of her unfathomable reserve, which never went so far asto prevent conversation, carried on on the lodgers’ part with animation, and on hers with an equable amiability. It must be that Mr Verloc was susceptible to these fascinations. Mr Verloc was an intermittent patron. He came and went without any very apparent reason. He generally arrived in London (like the influenza) from the Continent, only he arrived unheralded by the Press; and his visitations set in with great severity. He breakfasted in bed, and remained wallowing there with an air of quiet enjoyment till noon every day—and sometimes even to a later hour. But when he went out he seemed to experience a great difficulty in finding his way back to his temporary home inthe Belgravian square. He left it late, and returned to it early—as early as three or four in the morning; and on waking up at ten addressed Winnie, bringing in the breakfast tray, with jocular, exhausted civility, in the hoarse, failing tones of a man who had been talking vehemently for many hours together. His prominent, heavy-lidded eyes rolled sideways amorously and languidly, the bedclothes were pulled up to his chin, and his dark smooth moustache covered his thick lips capable of much honeyed banter.

In Winnie’s mother’s opinion Mr Verloc was a very nice gentleman. From her life’s experience gathered in various “business houses” the good woman had taken into her retirement an ideal of gentlemanliness as exhibited by the patrons of private-saloon bars. Mr Verloc approached that ideal; he attained it, in fact.

“Of course, we’ll take over your furniture, mother,” Winnie had remarked.

The lodging-house was to be given up. It seems it would not answer to carry it on. It would have been too much trouble for Mr Verloc. It would not have been convenient for his other business. What his business was he did not say; but after his engagement to Winnie he took the trouble to get up before noon, and descending the basement stairs, make himself pleasant to Winnie’s mother in the breakfast-room downstairs where she had her motionless being. He stroked the cat, poked the fire, had his lunch served to him there. He left its slightly stuffy cosiness with evident reluctance, but, all the same, remained out till the night was far advanced. He never offered to take Winnie to theatres, as such anice gentleman ought to have done. His evenings were occupied. His work was in a way political, he told Winnie once. She would have, he warned her, to be very nice to his political friends.

And with her straight, unfathomable glance she answered that she would be so, of course.

How much more he told her as to his occupation it was impossible for Winnie’s mother to discover. The married couple took her over with the furniture. The mean aspect of the shop surprised her. The change from the Belgravian square to the narrow street in Soho affected her legs adversely. They became of an enormous size. On the other hand, she experienced a complete relief from material cares. Her son-in-law’s heavy good nature inspired her with a sense of absolute safety. Her daughter’s future was obviously assured, and even as to her son Stevie she need have no anxiety. She had not been able to conceal from herself that he was a terrible encumbrance, that poor Stevie. But in view of Winnie’s fondness for her delicate brother, and of Mr Verloc’s kind and generous disposition, she felt that the poor boy was pretty safe in this rough world. And in her heart of hearts she was not perhaps displeased that the Verlocs had no children. As that circumstance seemed perfectly indifferent to Mr Verloc, and as Winnie found an object of quasi-maternal affection in her brother, perhaps this was just as well for poor Stevie.

For he was difficult to dispose of, that boy. He was delicate and, in a frail way, good-looking too, except for the vacant droop of his lower lip. Under our excellent system of compulsory education he had learned to read and write, notwithstanding the unfavourable aspect of the lower lip. But as errand-boy he did not turn out a great success. He forgot his messages; he was easily diverted from the straight path of duty by the attractions of stray cats and dogs,which he followed down narrow alleys into unsavoury courts; by the comedies of the streets, which he contemplated open-mouthed, to the detriment of his employer’s interests; or by the dramas of fallen horses, whose pathos and violence induced him sometimes to shriek pierceingly in a crowd, which disliked to be disturbed by sounds of distress in its quiet enjoyment of the national spectacle. When led away bya grave and protecting policeman, it would often become apparent that poor Stevie had forgotten his address—at least for a time. A brusque question caused him to stutter to the point of suffocation. When startled by anything perplexing he used to squinthorribly. However, he never had any fits (which was encouraging); and before the natural outbursts of impatience on the part of his father he could always, in his childhood’s days, run for protection behind the short skirts of his sister Winnie. On the other hand, he might have been suspected of hiding a fund of reckless naughtiness. When he had reached the age of fourteen a friend of his late father, an agent for a foreign preserved milk firm, having given him an opening as office-boy, he was discoveredone foggy afternoon, in his chief’s absence, busy letting off fireworks on the staircase. He touched off in quick succession a set of fierce rockets, angry catherine wheels, loudly exploding squibs—and the matter might have turned out very serious. An awful panic spread through the whole building. Wild-eyed, choking clerks stampeded through the passages full of smoke, silk hats and elderly business men could be seen rolling independently down the stairs. Stevie did not seem to derive any personal gratification from what he had done. His motives for this stroke of originality were difficult to discover. It was only later on that Winnie obtained from him a misty and confused confession. It seems that two other office-boys in the building had worked upon his feelings by tales of injustice and oppression till they had wrought his compassion to the pitch of that frenzy. But his father’s friend, of course, dismissed him summarily as likely to ruin his business. After that altruistic exploit Stevie was putto help wash the dishes in the basement kitchen, and to black the boots of the gentlemen patronising the Belgravian mansion. There was obviously no future in such work. The gentlemen tipped him a shilling now and then. Mr Verloc showed himself the mostgenerous of lodgers. But altogether all that did not amount to much either in the way of gain or prospects; so that when Winnie announced her engagement to Mr Verloc her mother could not help wondering, with a sigh and a glance towards the scullery, whatwould become of poor Stephen now.

It appeared that Mr Verloc was ready to take him over together with his wife’s mother and with the furniture, which was the whole visible fortune of the family. Mr Verloc gathered everything as it came to his broad, good-natured breast. The furniture was disposed to the best advantage all over the house, but Mrs Verloc’s mother was confined to two back rooms on the first floor. The luckless Stevie slept in one of them. By this time a growth of thin fluffy hair had cometo blur, like a golden mist, the sharp line of his small lower jaw. He helped his sister with blind love and docility in her household duties. Mr Verloc thought that some occupation would be good for him. His spare time he occupied by drawing circles with compass and pencil on a piece of paper. He applied himself to that pastime with great industry, with his elbows spread out and bowed low over the kitchen table. Through the open door of the parlour at the back of the shop Winnie, his sister, glancedat him from time to time with maternal vigilance.

CHAPTER II

Such was the house, the household, and the business Mr Verlocleft behind him on his way westward at the hour of half-past ten inthe morning. It was unusually early for him; his whole personexhaled the charm of almost dewy freshness; he wore his blue clothovercoat unbuttoned; his boots were shiny; his cheeks, freshlyshaven, had a sort of gloss; and even his heavy-lidded eyes,refreshed by a night of peaceful slumber, sent out glances ofcomparative alertness. Through the park railings theseglances beheld men and women riding in the Row, couples canteringpast harmoniously, others advancing sedately at a walk, loiteringgroups of three or four, solitary horsemen looking unsociable, andsolitary women followed at a long distance by a groom with acockade to his hat and a leather belt over his tight-fittingcoat. Carriages went bowling by, mostly two-horse broughams,with here and there a victoria with the skin of some wild beastinside and awoman’s face and hat emerging above the foldedhood. And a peculiarly London sun—against which nothingcould be said except that it looked bloodshot—glorified allthis by its stare. It hung at a moderate elevation above HydePark Corner with an air of punctual and benign vigilance. Thevery pavement under Mr Verloc’s feet had an old-gold tinge inthat diffused light, in which neither wall, nor tree, nor beast,nor man cast a shadow. Mr Verloc was going westward through atown without shadows in an atmosphere of powdered old gold. There were red, coppery gleams on the roofs of houses, on thecorners of walls, on the panels of carriages, on the very coats ofthe horses, and on the broad back of Mr Verloc’s overcoat,where they produced a dull effect of rustiness. But Mr Verlocwas not in the least conscious of having got rusty. Hesurveyed through the park railings the evidences of thetown’s opulence and luxury with an approving eye. Allthese people had to be protected. Protection is the firstnecessity of opulence and luxury. They had to be protected;and their horses, carriages, houses, servants had to be protected;and the source of their wealth had to be protected in the heart ofthe city and the heart of the country; the whole social orderfavourable to their hygienic idleness had to be protected againstthe shallow enviousness of unhygienic labour. It hadto—and Mr Verloc would have rubbed his hands withsatisfaction had he not been constitutionally averse from everysuperfluous exertion. Hisidleness was not hygienic, but itsuited him very well. He was in a manner devoted to it with asort of inert fanaticism, or perhaps rather with a fanaticalinertness. Born of industrious parents for a life of toil, hehad embraced indolence from an impulse as profound as inexplicableand as imperious as the impulse which directs a man’spreference for one particular woman in a given thousand. Hewas too lazy even for a mere demagogue, for a workman orator, for aleader of labour. It was too much trouble. He requireda more perfect form of ease; or it might have been that he was thevictim of a philosophical unbelief in the effectiveness of everyhuman effort. Such a form of indolence requires, implies, acertain amount of intelligence. Mr Verloc wasnot devoid ofintelligence—and at the notion of a menaced social order hewould perhaps have winked to himself if there had not been aneffort to make in that sign of scepticism. His big,prominenteyes were not well adapted to winking. They were ratherof thesort that closes solemnly in slumber with majestic effect.

Undemonstrative and burly in a fat-pig style, Mr Verloc, withouteither rubbing his hands with satisfaction or winking scepticallyat his thoughts, proceeded on his way. He trod the pavementheavily with his shiny boots, and his general get-up was that of awell-to-do mechanic in business for himself. He might havebeen anything from a picture-frame maker to a lock-smith; anemployer of labour in a small way. But there was also abouthim an indescribable air which no mechanic could have acquired inthe practice of his handicraft however dishonestly exercised: theair common to men who live on the vices, the follies, or the baserfears of mankind; the air of moral nihilism common to keepersofgambling hells and disorderly houses; to private detectives andinquiry agents; to drink sellers and, I should say, to the sellersof invigorating electric belts and to the inventors of patentmedicines. But of that last I am not sure, not having carriedmy investigations so far into the depths. For all I know, theexpression of these last may be perfectly diabolic. Ishouldn’t be surprised. What I want to affirm is thatMr Verloc’s expression was by no means diabolic.

Before reaching Knightsbridge,Mr Verloc took a turn to the leftout of the busy main thoroughfare, uproarious with the traffic ofswaying omnibuses and trotting vans, in the almost silent, swiftflow of hansoms. Under his hat, worn with a slight backwardtilt, his hair had been carefully brushed into respectfulsleekness; for his business was with an Embassy. And MrVerloc, steady like a rock—a soft kind of rock—marchednow along a street which could with every propriety be described asprivate. In its breadth, emptiness, and extentit had themajesty of inorganic nature, of matter that never dies. Theonly reminder of mortality was a doctor’s brougham arrestedin august solitude close to the curbstone. The polishedknockers of the doors gleamed as far as the eye could reach, theclean windows shone with a dark opaque lustre. And all wasstill. But a milk cart rattled noisily across the distantperspective; a butcher boy, driving with the noble recklessness ofa charioteer at Olympic Games, dashed round the corner sitting highabove a pair of red wheels. A guilty-looking cat issuing fromunder the stones ran for a while in front of Mr Verloc, then divedinto another basement; and a thick police constable, looking astranger to every emotion, as if he too were part of inorganicnature, surging apparently out of a lamp-post, took not theslightest notice of Mr Verloc. With a turn to the left MrVerloc pursued his way along a narrow street by the side of ayellow wall which, for some inscrutable reason, had No. 1 CheshamSquare written on it in black letters. Chesham Square was atleast sixty yards away, and Mr Verloc, cosmopolitan enough not tobe deceived by London’s topographical mysteries, held onsteadily, without a sign of surprise or indignation. At last,with business-like persistency, he reached the Square, and madediagonally for the number 10. This belonged to an imposingcarriage gate in a high, clean wall between two houses, of whichone rationally enough bore the number 9 and the other was numbered37; but the fact thatthis last belonged to Porthill Street, astreet well known in the neighbourhood, was proclaimed by aninscription placed above the ground-floor windows by whateverhighly efficient authority is charged with the duty of keepingtrack of London’s strayed houses. Why powers are notasked of Parliament (a short act would do)for compelling thoseedifices to return where they belong is one of the mysteries ofmunicipal administration. Mr Verloc did not trouble his headabout it, his mission in life being theprotection of the socialmechanism, not its perfectionment or even its criticism.

It was so early that the porter of the Embassy issued hurriedlyout of his lodge still struggling with the left sleeve of hislivery coat. His waistcoat was red, and he woreknee-breeches,but his aspect was flustered. Mr Verloc, aware of the rush onhis flank, drove it off by simply holding out an envelope stampedwith the arms of the Embassy, and passed on. He produced thesame talisman also to the footman who opened thedoor, and stoodback to let him enter the hall.

A clear fire burned in a tall fireplace, and an elderly manstanding with his back to it, in evening dress and with a chainround his neck, glanced up from the newspaper he was holding spreadout in both hands before his calm and severe face. Hedidn’t move; but another lackey, in brown trousers andclaw-hammer coat edged with thin yellow cord, approaching Mr Verloclistened to the murmur of his name, and turning round on his heelin silence, began to walk, without looking back once. MrVerloc, thus led along a ground-floor passage to the left of thegreat carpeted staircase, was suddenly motioned to enter a quitesmall room furnished with a heavy writing-table and a fewchairs. The servant shut the door, and Mr Verloc remainedalone. He did not take a seat. With his hat and stickheld in one hand he glanced about, passing his other podgy handover his uncovered sleek head.

Another door opened noiselessly, and Mr Verloc immobilising hisglance in that direction saw at first only black clothes, the baldtop of a head, and a drooping dark grey whisker on each side of apair of wrinkled hands. The person who had entered washolding a batch of papers before his eyes and walked up to thetable with a rather mincing step, turning the papers over thewhile. Privy Councillor Wurmt, Chancelier d’Ambassade,was rather short-sighted. This meritorious official layingthe papers on the table, disclosed a face of pasty complexion andof melancholy ugliness surrounded bya lot of fine, long dark greyhairs, barred heavily by thick and bushy eyebrows. He put ona black-framed pince-nez upon a blunt and shapeless nose, andseemed struck by Mr Verloc’s appearance. Under theenormous eyebrows his weak eyes blinked pathetically through theglasses.

He made no sign of greeting; neither did Mr Verloc, whocertainly knew his place; but a subtle change about the generaloutlines of his shoulders and back suggested a slight bending of MrVerloc’s spine under the vast surface of his overcoat. The effect was of unobtrusive deference.

“I have here some of your reports,” said thebureaucrat in an unexpectedly soft and weary voice, and pressingthe tip of his forefinger on the papers with force. Hepaused; and Mr Verloc, who had recognised his own handwriting verywell, waited in an almost breathless silence. “We arenot very satisfied with the attitude of the police here,” theother continued, with every appearance of mental fatigue.

The shoulders of Mr Verloc, without actuallymoving, suggested ashrug. And for the first time since he left his home thatmorning his lips opened.

“Every country has its police,” he saidphilosophically. But as the official of the Embassy went onblinking at him steadily he felt constrained to add: “Allowme to observe that I have no means of action upon the policehere.”

“What is desired,” said the man of papers, “isthe occurrence of something definite which should stimulate theirvigilance. That is within your province—is it notso?”

Mr Verlocmade no answer except by a sigh, which escaped himinvoluntarily, for instantly he tried to give his face a cheerfulexpression. The official blinked doubtfully, as if affectedby the dim light of the room. He repeated vaguely.

“The vigilance of the police—and the severity of themagistrates. The general leniency of the judicial procedurehere, and the utter absence of all repressive measures, are ascandal to Europe. What is wished for just now is theaccentuation of the unrest—of the fermentation whichundoubtedly exists—”

“Undoubtedly, undoubtedly,” broke in Mr Verloc in adeep deferential bass of an oratorical quality, so utterlydifferent from the tone in which he had spoken before that hisinterlocutor remained profoundly surprised. “It existstoa dangerous degree. My reports for the last twelve monthsmake it sufficiently clear.”

“Your reports for the last twelve months,” StateCouncillor Wurmt began in his gentle and dispassionate tone,“have been read by me. I failed to discover why youwrotethem at all.”

A sad silence reigned for a time. Mr Verloc seemed to haveswallowed his tongue, and the other gazed at the papers on thetable fixedly. At last he gave them a slight push.

“The state of affairs you expose there is assumed to existas thefirst condition of your employment. What is required atpresent is not writing, but the bringing to light of a distinct,significant fact—I would almost say of an alarmingfact.”

“I need not say that all my endeavours shall be directedto that end,” Mr Verloc said, with convinced modulations inhis conversational husky tone. But the sense of being blinkedat watchfully behind the blind glitter of these eye-glasses on theother side of the table disconcerted him. He stopped shortwith a gesture of absolute devotion. The useful,hard-working, if obscure member of the Embassy had an air of beingimpressed by some newly-born thought.

“You are very corpulent,” he said.

This observation, really of a psychological nature, and advancedwith the modest hesitationof an officeman more familiar with inkand paper than with the requirements of active life, stung MrVerloc in the manner of a rude personal remark. He steppedback a pace.

“Eh? What were you pleased to say?” heexclaimed, with husky resentment.

The Chancelier d’Ambassade entrusted with the conduct ofthis interview seemed to find it too much for him.

“I think,” he said, “that you had better seeMr Vladimir. Yes, decidedly I think you ought to see MrVladimir. Be good enough to wait here,” he added, andwent out with mincing steps.

At once Mr Verloc passed his hand over his hair. A slightperspiration had broken out on his forehead. He let the airescape from his pursed-up lips like a man blowing at a spoonful ofhot soup. But when the servant in brown appeared at the doorsilently, Mr Verloc had not moved an inch from the place he hadoccupied throughout the interview. He had remainedmotionless, as if feeling himself surrounded by pitfalls.

He walked along a passage lighted by a lonely gas-jet, then up aflight of winding stairs, and through a glazed and cheerfulcorridor on the first floor. The footman threw open a door,and stood aside. The feet of Mr Verloc felt a thickcarpet. The room was large, with three windows; and a youngman with a shaven, big face, sitting in a roomy arm-chair before avast mahogany writing-table, said in French to the Chancelierd’Ambassade, who was going out with the papers in hishand:

“You are quite right, mon cher. He’sfat—the animal.”

Mr Vladimir, First Secretary, had a drawing-room reputation asan agreeable and entertaining man. He was something of afavourite in society. His wit consisted in discovering drollconnections between incongruous ideas; and when talking in thatstrain he sat well forward of his seat, with his left hand raised,as if exhibiting his funny demonstrations between the thumb andforefinger, while his round and clean-shaven face wore anexpression of merry perplexity.

But there was no trace of merriment or perplexity in the way helookedat Mr Verloc. Lying far back in the deep arm-chair,with squarely spread elbows, and throwing one leg over a thickknee, he had with his smooth and rosy countenance the air of apreternaturally thriving baby that will not stand nonsense fromanybody.

“You understand French, I suppose?” he said.

Mr Verloc stated huskily that he did. His whole vast bulkhad a forward inclination. He stood on the carpet in themiddle of the room, clutching his hat and stick in one hand; theother hung lifelessly by his side. He muttered unobtrusivelysomewhere deep down in his throat something about having done hismilitary service in the French artillery. At once, withcontemptuous perversity, Mr Vladimir changed the language, andbegan to speak idiomatic English withoutthe slightest trace of aforeign accent.

“Ah! Yes. Of course. Let’ssee. How much did you get for obtaining the design of theimproved breech-block of their new field-gun?”

“Five years’ rigorous confinement in afortress,” Mr Verloc answered unexpectedly, but without anysign of feeling.

“You got off easily,” was Mr Vladimir’scomment. “And, anyhow, it served you right for lettingyourself get caught. What made you go in for that sort ofthing—eh?”

Mr Verloc’s husky conversational voice was heard speakingof youth, of a fatal infatuation for an unworthy—

“Aha! Cherchez la femme,” Mr Vladimir deignedto interrupt, unbending, but without affability; there was, on thecontrary, a touch of grimness in his condescension. “How long have you been employedby the Embassy here?”he asked.

“Ever since the time of the late BaronStott-Wartenheim,” Mr Verloc answered in subdued tones, andprotruding his lips sadly, in sign of sorrow for the deceaseddiplomat. The First Secretary observed this play ofphysiognomy steadily.

“Ah! ever since. Well! What have you got tosay for yourself?” he asked sharply.

Mr Verloc answered with some surprise that he was not aware ofhaving anything special to say. He had been summoned by aletter—And he plunged his hand busilyinto the side pocket ofhis overcoat, but before the mocking, cynical watchfulness of MrVladimir, concluded to leave it there.

“Bah!” said that latter. “What do youmean by getting out of condition like this? You haven’tgot even the physique of your profession. You—a memberof a starving proletariat—never! You—a desperatesocialist or anarchist—which is it?”

“Anarchist,” stated Mr Verloc in a deadenedtone.

“Bosh!” went on Mr Vladimir, without raising hisvoice. “You startled old Wurmt himself. Youwouldn’t deceive an idiot. They all are thatby-the-by, but you seem to me simply impossible. So you beganyour connection with us by stealing the French gun designs. And you got yourself caught. That must have been verydisagreeable to our Government. You don’t seem to bevery smart.”

Mr Verloc tried to exculpate himself huskily.

“As I’ve had occasion to observe before, a fatalinfatuation for an unworthy—”

Mr Vladimir raised a large white, plump hand. “Ah,yes. The unlucky attachment—of your youth. Shegot hold of the money, and then sold you to thepolice—eh?”

The doleful change in Mr Verloc’s physiognomy, themomentary drooping of his whole person, confessed that such was theregrettable case. Mr Vladimir’s hand clasped the anklereposing on hisknee. The sock was of dark blue silk.

“You see, that was not very clever of you. Perhapsyou are too susceptible.”

Mr Verloc intimated in a throaty, veiled murmur that he was nolonger young.

“Oh! That’s a failing which age does notcure,” Mr Vladimirremarked, with sinister familiarity. “But no! You are too fat for that. You could nothave come to look like this if you had been at allsusceptible. I’ll tell you what I think is the matter:you are a lazy fellow. How long have you been drawing payfrom this Embassy?”

“Eleven years,” was the answer, after a moment ofsulky hesitation. “I’ve been charged with severalmissions to London while His Excellency Baron Stott-Wartenheim wasstill Ambassador in Paris. Then by his Excellency’sinstructions I settled down in London. I amEnglish.”

“You are! Are you? Eh?”

“A natural-born British subject,” Mr Verloc saidstolidly. “But my father was French, andso—”

“Never mind explaining,” interrupted theother. “I daresay you could have been legally a Marshalof France and a Member of Parliament in England—and then,indeed, you would have been of some use to our Embassy.”

This flight of fancy provoked something like a faint smile on MrVerloc’s face. Mr Vladimir retained an imperturbablegravity.

“But, as I’ve said, you are a lazy fellow; youdon’t use your opportunities. In the time of BaronStott-Wartenheim we had a lot of soft-headed people running thisEmbassy. They caused fellows of your sort to form a falseconception of the nature of a secret service fund. It is mybusiness to correct this misapprehension by telling you what thesecret service is not. It is not a philanthropicinstitution. I’ve had you called here on purpose totell you this.”

Mr Vladimir observed the forced expression of bewilderment onVerloc’s face, and smiled sarcastically.

“I see that you understand me perfectly. I daresayyou are intelligent enough for your work. What we want now isactivity—activity.”

On repeating this last word Mr Vladimir laid a long whiteforefinger onthe edge of the desk. Every trace of huskinessdisappeared from Verloc’s voice. The nape of his grossneck became crimson above the velvet collar of his overcoat. His lips quivered before they came widely open.

“If you’ll only be good enough to look upmyrecord,” he boomed out in his great, clear oratorical bass,“you’ll see I gave a warning only three months ago, onthe occasion of the Grand Duke Romuald’s visit to Paris,which was telegraphed from here to the French police,and—”

“Tut, tut!” broke outMr Vladimir, with a frowninggrimace. “The French police had no use for yourwarning. Don’t roar like this. What the devil doyou mean?”

With a note of proud humility Mr Verloc apologised forforgetting himself. His voice,—famous for years atopen-airmeetings and at workmen’s assemblies in large halls,had contributed, he said, to his reputation of a good andtrustworthy comrade. It was, therefore, a part of hisusefulness. It had inspired confidence in hisprinciples. “I was always put up to speakby the leadersat a critical moment,” Mr Verloc declared, withobvioussatisfaction. There was no uproar above which he could notmake himself heard, he added; and suddenly he made ademonstration.

“Allow me,” he said. With lowered forehead,without looking up, swiftly and ponderously he crossed the room toone of the French windows. As if giving way to anuncontrollable impulse, he opened it a little. Mr Vladimir,jumping up amazed from the depths of the arm-chair, looked over hisshoulder; and below,across the courtyard of the Embassy, wellbeyond the open gate, could be seen the broad back of a policemanwatching idly the gorgeous perambulator of a wealthy baby beingwheeled in state across the Square.

“Constable!” said Mr Verloc, with no more effortthan if he were whispering; and Mr Vladimir burst into a laugh onseeing the policeman spin round as if prodded by a sharpinstrument. Mr Verloc shut the window quietly, and returnedto the middle of the room.

“With a voice like that,” he said, puttingon thehusky conversational pedal, “I was naturally trusted. And I knew what to say, too.”

Mr Vladimir, arranging his cravat, observed him in the glassover the mantelpiece.

“I daresay you have the social revolutionary jargon byheart well enough,” he said contemptuously. “Voxet. . . You haven’t ever studied Latin—haveyou?”

“No,” growled Mr Verloc. “You did notexpect me to know it. I belong to the million. Whoknows Latin? Only a few hundred imbeciles who aren’tfit to take care of themselves.”

Forsome thirty seconds longer Mr Vladimir studied in the mirrorthe fleshy profile, the gross bulk, of the man behind him. And at the same time he had the advantage of seeing his own face,clean-shaved and round, rosy about the gills, and with the thinsensitive lips formed exactly for the utterance of those delicatewitticisms which had made him such a favourite in the very highestsociety. Then he turned, and advanced into the room with suchdetermination that the very ends of his quaintly old-fashioned bownecktie seemed to bristle with unspeakable menaces. Themovement was so swift and fierce that Mr Verloc, casting an obliqueglance, quailed inwardly.

“Aha! You dare be impudent,” Mr Vladimirbegan, with an amazingly guttural intonation not only utterlyun-English, but absolutely un-European, and startling even to MrVerloc’s experience of cosmopolitan slums. “Youdare! Well, I am going to speak plain English to you. Voice won’t do. We have no use for your voice. Wedon’t want a voice. We want facts—startlingfacts—damn you,” he added, with a sort of ferociousdiscretion, right into Mr Verloc’s face.

“Don’t you try to come over me with your Hyperboreanmanners,” Mr Verloc defended himself huskily, looking at thecarpet. At this his interlocutor, smiling mockingly above thebristling bow of his necktie, switched the conversation intoFrench.

“You give yourself for an ‘agentprovocateur.’ The proper business of an ‘agentprovocateur’ is to provoke. As far as I can judge fromyour record kept here,you have done nothing to earn your money forthe last three years.”

“Nothing!” exclaimed Verloc, stirring not a limb,and not raising his eyes, but with the note of sincere feeling inhis tone. “I have several times prevented what mighthave been—”

“Thereis a proverb in this country which says preventionis better than cure,” interrupted Mr Vladimir, throwinghimself into the arm-chair. “It is stupid in a generalway. There is no end to prevention. But it ischaracteristic. They dislike finality in this country. Don’t you be too English. And in this particularinstance, don’t be absurd. The evil is alreadyhere. We don’t want prevention—we wantcure.”

He paused, turned to the desk, and turning over some paperslying there, spoke in a changed business-like tone, without lookingat Mr Verloc.

“You know, of course, of the International Conferenceassembled in Milan?”

Mr Verloc intimated hoarsely that he was in the habit of readingthe daily papers. To a further question his answer was that,of course,he understood what he read. At this Mr Vladimir,smiling faintly at the documents he was still scanning one afteranother, murmured “As long as it is not written in Latin, Isuppose.”

“Or Chinese,” added Mr Verloc stolidly.

“H’m. Some of your revolutionaryfriends’ effusions are written in acharabiaevery bit asincomprehensible as Chinese—” Mr Vladimir letfall disdainfully a grey sheet of printed matter. “Whatare all these leaflets headed F. P., with a hammer, pen, and torchcrossed? What does itmean, this F. P.?” Mr Verlocapproached the imposing writing-table.

“The Future of the Proletariat. It’s asociety,” he explained, standing ponderously by the side ofthe arm-chair, “not anarchist in principle, but open to allshades of revolutionary opinion.”

“Are you in it?”

“One of the Vice-Presidents,” Mr Verloc breathed outheavily; and the First Secretary of the Embassy raised his head tolook at him.

“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he saidincisively. “Isn’t your society capable ofanything else but printing this prophetic bosh in blunt type onthis filthy paper eh? Why don’t you do something? Look here. I’ve this matter in hand now, and I tell youplainly that you will have to earn your money. The good oldStott-Wartenheim times are over. No work, no pay.”

Mr Verloc felt a queer sensation of faintness in his stoutlegs. He stepped back one pace, and blew his nose loudly.

He was, in truth, startled and alarmed. The rusty Londonsunshine struggling clear of the London mist shed a lukewarmbrightness into the First Secretary’s private room; and inthe silence Mr Verloc heard against a window-pane the faint buzzingof a fly—his first fly of the year—heralding betterthan any number of swallows the approach of spring. Theuselessfussing of that tiny energetic organism affectedunpleasantly this big man threatened in his indolence.

In the pause Mr Vladimir formulated in his mind a series ofdisparaging remarks concerning Mr Verloc’s face andfigure. The fellow was unexpectedly vulgar,heavy, andimpudently unintelligent. He looked uncommonly like a masterplumber come to present his bill. The First Secretary of theEmbassy, from his occasional excursions into the field of Americanhumour, had formed a special notion of that class ofmechanic as theembodiment of fraudulent laziness and incompetency.

This was then the famous and trusty secret agent, so secret thathe was never designated otherwise but by the symbol [delta] in thelate Baron Stott-Wartenheim’s official, semi-official, andconfidential correspondence; the celebrated agent [delta], whosewarnings had the power to change the schemes and the dates ofroyal, imperial, grand ducal journeys, and sometimes caused them tobe put off altogether! This fellow! And Mr Vladimirindulged mentally in an enormous and derisive fit of merriment,partly at his own astonishment, which he judged naive, but mostlyat the expense of the universally regretted BaronStott-Wartenheim. His late Excellency, whom the august favourof his Imperial master had imposed as Ambassador upon severalreluctant Ministers of Foreign Affairs, had enjoyed in his lifetimea fame for an owlish, pessimistic gullibility. His Excellencyhad the social revolution on the brain. He imagined himselfto be a diplomatistset apart by a special dispensation to watch theend of diplomacy, and pretty nearly the end of the world, in ahorrid democratic upheaval. His prophetic and dolefuldespatches had been for years the joke of Foreign Offices. Hewas said to have exclaimed on his deathbed (visited by his Imperialfriend and master): “Unhappy Europe! Thou shalt perishby the moral insanity of thy children!” He was fated tobe the victim of the first humbugging rascal that came along,thought Mr Vladimir, smiling vaguely at Mr Verloc.

“You ought to venerate the memory of BaronStott-Wartenheim,” he exclaimed suddenly.

The lowered physiognomy of Mr Verloc expressed a sombre andweary annoyance.

“Permit me to observe to you,” he said, “thatI came here because I was summonedby a peremptory letter. Ihave been here only twice before in the last eleven years, andcertainly never at eleven in the morning. It isn’t verywise to call me up like this. There is just a chance of beingseen. And that would be no joke for me.”

Mr Vladimir shrugged his shoulders.

“It would destroy my usefulness,” continued theother hotly.

“That’s your affair,” murmured Mr Vladimir,with soft brutality. “When you cease to be useful youshall cease to be employed. Yes. Right off. Cutshort. You shall—” Mr Vladimir, frowning, paused,at a loss for a sufficiently idiomatic expression, and instantlybrightened up, with a grin of beautifully white teeth. “You shall be chucked,” he brought out ferociously.

Once more Mr Verloc had to react with all theforce of his willagainst that sensation of faintness running down one’s legswhich once upon a time had inspired some poor devil with thefelicitous expression: “My heart went down into myboots.” Mr Verloc, aware of the sensation, raised hishead bravely.

Mr Vladimir bore the look of heavy inquiry with perfectserenity.

“What we want is to administer a tonic to the Conferencein Milan,” he said airily. “Its deliberationsupon international action for the suppression of political crimedon’t seem to getanywhere. England lags. Thiscountry is absurd with its sentimental regard for individualliberty. It’s intolerable to think that all yourfriends have got only to come over to—”

“In that way I have them all under my eye,” MrVerloc interrupted huskily.

“It would be much more to the point to have them all underlock and key. England must be brought into line. Theimbecile bourgeoisie of this country make themselves theaccomplices of the very people whose aim is to drive them out oftheir houses tostarve in ditches. And they have the politicalpower still, if they only had the sense to use it for theirpreservation. I suppose you agree that the middle classes arestupid?”

Mr Verloc agreed hoarsely.

“They are.”

“They have no imagination. They areblinded by anidiotic vanity. What they want just now is a jolly goodscare. This is the psychological moment to set your friendsto work. I have had you called here to develop to you myidea.”

And Mr Vladimir developed his idea from on high, with scornandcondescension, displaying at the same time an amount of ignoranceas to the real aims, thoughts, and methods of the revolutionaryworld which filled the silent Mr Verloc with inwardconsternation. He confounded causes with effects more thanwas excusable; the most distinguished propagandists with impulsivebomb throwers; assumed organisation where in the nature of thingsit could not exist; spoke of the social revolutionary party onemoment as of a perfectly disciplined army, where the word ofchiefswas supreme, and at another as if it had been the loosestassociation of desperate brigands that ever camped in a mountaingorge. Once Mr Verloc had opened his mouth for a protest, butthe raising of a shapely, large white hand arrested him. Verysoon hebecame too appalled to even try to protest. Helistened in a stillness of dread which resembled the immobility ofprofound attention.

“A series of outrages,” Mr Vladimir continuedcalmly, “executed here in this country; notonlyplannedhere—that would not do—they would notmind. Your friends could set half the Continent on firewithout influencing the public opinion here in favour of auniversal repressive legislation. They will not look outsidetheir backyard here.”

Mr Verloc cleared his throat, but his heart failed him, and hesaid nothing.

“These outrages need not be especially sanguinary,”Mr Vladimir went on, as if delivering a scientific lecture,“but they must be sufficientlystartling—effective. Let them be directed againstbuildings, for instance. What is the fetish of the hour thatall the bourgeoisie recognise—eh, Mr Verloc?”

Mr Verloc opened his hands and shrugged his shouldersslightly.

“You are too lazy to think,” was Mr Vladimir’scomment upon that gesture. “Pay attention to what Isay. The fetish of to-day is neither royalty norreligion. Therefore the palace and the church should be leftalone. You understand what I mean, Mr Verloc?”

The dismay and the scorn of Mr Verloc found vent in an attemptat levity.

“Perfectly. But what of the Embassies? Aseries of attacks on the various Embassies,” he began; but hecould not withstand the cold, watchful stare of the FirstSecretary.

“You can be facetious, I see,” the latter observedcarelessly. “That’s all right. It mayenliven your oratory at socialistic congresses. But this roomis no place for it. It would be infinitely safer for you tofollow carefully what I am saying. As you are being calledupon to furnish facts instead of cock-and-bull stories, you hadbetter try to make your profit off what I am taking the trouble toexplain to you. The sacrosanct fetish of to-day isscience. Why don’t you get some of your friends to gofor that wooden-faced panjandrum—eh? Is it not part ofthese institutions which must be swept away beforethe F. P. comesalong?”

Mr Verloc said nothing. He was afraid to open his lipslest a groan should escape him.

“This is what you should try for. An attempt upon acrowned head or on a president is sensational enough in a way, butnot so much as it used to be. It has entered into the generalconception of the existence of all chiefs of state. It’s almost conventional—especially since so manypresidents have been assassinated. Now let us take an outrageupon—say a church. Horrible enough at first sight,nodoubt, and yet not so effective as a person of an ordinary mindmight think. No matter how revolutionary and anarchist ininception, there would be fools enough to give such an outrage thecharacter of a religious manifestation. And that woulddetract from the especial alarming significance we wish to give tothe act. A murderous attempt on a restaurant or a theatrewould suffer in the same way from the suggestion of non-politicalpassion: the exasperation of a hungry man, an act of socialrevenge. All this is used up; it is no longer instructive asan object lesson in revolutionary anarchism. Every newspaperhas ready-made phrases to explain such manifestations away. Iam about to give you the philosophy of bomb throwing from my pointof view; from the point of view you pretend to have been servingfor the last eleven years. I will try not to talk above yourhead. The sensibilities of the class you are attacking aresoon blunted. Property seems to them an indestructiblething. You can’t count upon their emotions either ofpity or fear for very long. A bomb outrage to have anyinfluence on public opinion now must go beyond the intention ofvengeance or terrorism. It must be purely destructive. It must be that, and only that, beyond the faintest suspicion ofany other object. You anarchists should make it clear thatyou are perfectly determined to make a clean sweep of the wholesocial creation. But how to get that appallingly absurdnotioninto the heads of the middle classes so that there should be nomistake? That’s the question. By directing yourblows at something outside the ordinary passions of humanity is theanswer. Of course, there is art. A bomb in the NationalGallery would make some noise. But it would not be seriousenough. Art has never been their fetish. It̵ [...]