Read Short Stories 1927-1956 for Free Online

doubt if I had been ignorant that the owner, or rather user, of the room had made his last exit thence, I should have noticed nothing unusual in its stillness, its vacant calm. And yet, well, I had left a friend only that afternoon still a little breathless after his scramble up the nearer bank of the Jordan. And now – this was the last place on earth – these four walls, these colours, this bookcase, that table, that window – which Mr Bloom’s secretary had set eyes on before setting out, not to return.
    My host watched me. He would, I think, have shut and pulled the curtains over these windows too, if I had given him the opportunity.
    ‘How’s that, then? You think, you will be – but there, I hesitate to press the matter … In fact, Mr Dash, this is the only room I can offer you.’
    I mumbled my thanks and assured him not very graciously that I should be comfortable.
    ‘Capital!’ cried Mr Bloom. ‘Eureka! My only apprehension – well, you know how touchy, how sensitive people can be. Why, my dear Mr Dash, in a world as superannuated as ours is every other mouthful of air we breathe must have been some body’s last. I leave you reconciled, then. You will find me in the study, and I can promise you that one little theme shall not intrude on us again. The bee may buzz, but Mr Bloom will keep his bonnet on! The fourth door on the right – after turning to your right down the corridor . Ah! I am leaving you no light.’
    He lit the twin wax candles on his late secretary’s dressing-table, and withdrew.
    I myself stood for awhile gazing stupidly out of the window. In spite of his extraordinary fluency, Mr Bloom, I realized, was a secretive old man. I had realized all along of course that it was not my beautiful eyes he was after; nor even my mere company. The old creature – admirable mask though his outward appearance might be – was on edge. He was detesting his solitude, though until recently, at any rate, it had been the one aim of his life. It had even occurred to me that he was not much missing his secretar y. Quite the reverse. He had spoken of him with contempt, but not exactly with the contempt one feels for the completely gone and worsted. Two things appeared to have remained unforgiven in Mr Bloom’s mind indeed : some acute disagreement between them, and the fact that Mr Champneys had left him without due notice – unless inefficient lungs constitute due notice.
    I took one of the candles and glanced at the books. They were chiefly of fiction and a little poetry, but there was one on mosses, one on English birds, and a little medical handbook in green cloth. There was also a complete row of manuscript books with pigskin backs labelled Proceedings. I turned to the writing-table. Little there of interest – a stopped clock, a dried-up inkwell, a tarnished silver cup, and one or two more books: The Sentimental Journey, a Thomas à Kempis, bound in limp maroon leather. I opened the Thomas à Kempis and read the spidery inscription on the fly-leaf: ‘To darling Sidney, with love from Mother. F.C.’ It startled me, as if I had been caught spying. ‘Life surely should never come quite to this,’ some secret sentimental voice within piped out of the void. I shut the book up.
    The drawer beneath contained only envelopes and letter paper – Mon trésor ,in large pale-blue letters on a ‘Silurian’ background – and a black book, its cover stamped with the word Diary :and on the fly-leaf, ‘S.S. Champneys’. I glanced up, then turned to the last entry – dated only a few months before – just a few scribbled words: ‘Not me, at any rate: not me. But even if I could get away for —’ the ink was smudged and had left its ghost on the blank page opposite it. A mere scrap of handwriting and that poor hasty smudge of ink – they resembled an incantation. Mr Bloom’s secretary seemed also to be intent on sharing his secrets with me. I shut up that book too, and turned away. I washed my hands in