It
was a singular character, and an history rich in instruction. So much I
gathered from hints, which he let drop long before I had heard the end
of it. Unsympathetic as the man was to me, it was impossible not to be
interested by it. As our acquaintance advanced, it took (his character I
mean) more and more the aspect of a difficult problem in psychology, that
I was passionately interested in solving: to study it was my recreation,
after watching the fluctuating course of nitrates. So that when I had
achieved fortune, and might have started home immediately, my interest
induced me to wait more than three months, and return in the same ship with
him. It was through this delay that I am enabled to transcribe the issue of
my impressions: I found them edifying, if only for their singular irony.
From his own mouth indeed I gleaned but little; although during our
voyage home, in those long nights when we paced the deck together under
the Southern Cross, his reticence occasionally gave way, and I obtained
glimpses of a more intimate knowledge of him than the whole of our
juxtaposition on the station had ever afforded me. I guessed more, however,
than he told me; and what was lacking I pieced together later, from the
talk of the girl to whom I broke the news of his death.
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