The Autobiography of an Individualist: Ii
I
A JOURNEY of a few hundred miles in any country is usually sufficient to separate a boy from his home props and influences, and to impress upon his mind, in some degree, the necessity for independent thought and action. But the separation in such a case is seldom complete. He may still find himself among friends and, at the worst, his neighbors will understand his needs, and be able to speak his language. But let him once put an ocean between himself and everybody he has ever spoken to or loved in this world, and immediately time and space, and the void in his own heart, become almost immeasurable. Such was the situation I was called upon to face on my return to the steamer, after my adventurous and very clarifying experience on the streets of Lisbon.
And just at this point in my narrative, a word of explanation should be given. It must not be imagined by my readers, or, assumed for an instant by myself, that in the stage which I am now attempting to describe there was, to begin with, any suspicion of philosophy in my mental composition. In Lisbon I had received a sudden and somewhat rude awakening. After a long period of intellectual and religious cramming, I suddenly found myself face to face with example and illustration in the concrete. It is impossible to describe the mental change that accompanied this awakening. In a very matter-of-fact way, I began to recognize in my environment a number of other dangers of a very practical and personal nature, and in order to steer clear of them all, I fell back upon the only resource of which, at the time, I had any knowledge, and that was prayer.
At the present day, I am afraid prayer has very little intellectual or spiritual reality. In polite society, and in the public schools, for example, it is seldom mentioned in a spiritual way, or even as an intellectual or moral exercise, although, we may as well confess, no substitute for it has ever been proposed. Its educational value, however, has always seemed to me immense.
From the fact, then, that I have given this period of my life very serious consideration, I think I am justified in concluding that my understanding of the situation is, in the main, correct: that when I returned to the ship, after a visit to the city of Lisbon, it was simply fear that took possession of me; for the most part, moral fear, which one of those biblical expressions, so pregnant with practical insight, reminds us is ‘the beginning of wisdom.’
I wish to be clearly understood in my defense of these natural safeguards under the protection of which I was preparing to face the world and its problems, for the reason that fear also, as a moral and educative force, is now frequently looked upon as a relic of religious barbarism. In the new dispensation, love is to take the place of fear. By all means let us welcome the change, but there is danger in haste. As a practical factor in life, fear is still of the greatest economic and spiritual value. The natural order of spiritual progress seems to be, fear, purification, and then love. In the biblical text, ‘Perfect love casteth out fear,’the emphasis is on the word ‘perfect.’
The day after leaving Lisbon, I made the acquaintance of some of my shipmates. Besides myself there were three telegraph clerks on board, and with one of them, in particular, this narrative has considerable to do. His name was Broadbent. He was then about thirty years of age. He was a widelyinformed man, particularly well-posted in all matters relating to his profession. He was one of those intellectually clever men who sometimes find it difficult to settle down anywhere. He had filled responsible positions in the cable service in all parts of the world, and he was then on his way to Brazil as clerk in charge of the cable office at Santos, where I expected to be located for a time; consequently I lost no time in making his acquaintance. He proved to be a man of ideas, as well as of great practical experience. He had also read a great deal, and knew how to utilize his information conversationally.
It didn’t take Broadbent long to look me over and take my measure. In a day or two after leaving Lisbon I had shaken myself clear of any desire I might have had for introspection or solitude. Physically I was in splendid condition, and this led naturally to mental and bodily enthusiasm of every description. I distinctly remember, after my first night on board ship, with what an all-absorbing curiosity in regard to myself and my surroundings I ventured on deck. I felt a great desire to know people, to mingle with them, and to find out what they were talking about, and I began with Broadbent.
He seemed to enjoy my frankness and simplicity of manner. I was making my first appearance in the world, and he found me unusually interested in everything and everybody. I made no secret of my religious training and convictions, and the ingenuous, matter-of-fact way in which I expressed myself on the subject seemed to arouse no end of amusement and interest. I can never forget Broadbent’s remark at the end of our first interview; he said, ‘You are a strange fish in muddy waters.’
To tell the truth, this kind of reception flattered my vanity, and started a current of self-esteem. I understand now that right here are to be noticed the first indications of a definite philosophy, which in a few days, with the assistance of Broadbent, was brought out into clear relief.
After mingling with people on the ship for a day or two, I was very much surprised to note that practically everybody was either ignorant or neglectful of what may be called the biblical treatment of the problems of correct living. It was just at this point, and in this manner, that I first got it into my head that I was an individual representing something that differed essentially from the spiritual stock-in-trade of the people in whose company I was. And thus, in the most natural way, and at the outset of my career, I found myself face to face with the philosophy of personal conduct in its relation to life in general,
Broadbent soon found out what I was driving at, and singled me out for his intellectual quarry. He told me in plain English that he had met me before in different shapes and sizes, that he looked upon all such people as interesting mediæval survivals, emotional for the most part, but not lasting. In fact, in his opinion, all that was wanting to convert me into a reasonable and useful member of society, was to put me into actual touch with people and conditions, and then to instill into my callow and superficial understanding, a little knowledge in regard to the biological and sociological discoveries with which scientists and philosophers were then busily enlightening the world.
Broadbent was altogether too big forme at this game. I had neither the knowledge nor the ability to meet him on his own ground in an argument of this description. Furthermore, I actually admired the man. I absorbed the information he imparted to me, by the chapter. It was all so new to me and, withal, so fascinating. I could see no reason to doubt the truth or underestimate the value to society, of the discoveries of science which he championed so eloquently. But down in my heart my satisfaction was tempered with a sort of secret determination to find out, as soon as possible, just what effect all this wisdom had had in the past, and was having in the present, upon Broadbent the man. This was the issue that my individuality and budding philosophy were preparing to test him with, and later on he was called upon to answer these personal inquiries.
At that time, however, he had little idea of the nature of the soil he was trying to cultivate. He looked upon me as a precocious greenhorn, and he proceeded cleverly, and with design, to draw me out for the edification of our little ship-board audience. But I was not so green as he imagined. My mental experience was considerable, and my contact with life, and with Broadbent, was converting my reveries into expression and ideas of a practical nature. Unavoidably those were idle days on board ship, and a week spent in Broadbent’s company was probably equal to a year’s intercourse with people whom one meets in the usual way. Broadbent, I think, was a little flattered, or at any rate amused, at the tribute I paid by my attention to his intellectual attainments, and our discussions became the talk of the ship. On several occasions the cabin of one of the officers, in which our conversations took place, was crowded to the door.
The reasons I have for remembering these discussions are much more than personal. My experience was only an illustration, on a small scale, of the intellectual excitement that was being aroused at the time, all over the world. It was finding practical and theoretical expression in a great wave of miscellaneous experiment and discussion. For one thing, the Book of Genesis and miracles of every description in biblical history were on trial at the bar of the ‘Missing Link.’ As it seems to me, nothing has ever aroused and stimulated the intellectual, and particularly the critical, faculties of mankind so universally and permanently as this simple biological investigation. Hitherto, in Broadbent’s own words, the mind of society, in its treatment of human knowledge had been, intellectually speaking, like a closed oyster, and now Darwin and Lyell and Tyndall and Huxley and Herbert Spencer were opening it with cold-blooded indifference to people’s feelings or opinions. A more auspicious point of time for any young man to make his entry into the world of science, religion, and practical affairs cannot be imagined.
The abruptness of this intellectual split cannot, I think, be appreciated to its full extent by the present generation. It was not so much a mere question of evolution on the one hand and creation on the other. The movement itself, represented by the men I have mentioned, signalized the bursting of all barriers, and the complete enfranchisement of the mind in every department of human inquiry.
I remember in what a clever and fascinating manner Broadbent imparted to his listeners the latest marvels of sociological and biological experiment. I recognize now, in connection with it, his distinct foreshadowing of the doctrines of socialism. But these revelations, which in fact I little understood, did not disturb me in the least. Nearly every word the man uttered enriched my mind and widened my horizon.
But then again, when I retired to my cabin, after listening to Broadbent, I still, and always, found myself face to face with my own individuality, that is to say, with my own personal problems. This was inevitable for the following very practical reason. Nearly every man on the ship spent most of his time in drinking and gambling. These were facts of which, hitherto, I had not had the slightest practical knowledge. I instinctively understood that these habits were fundamental, and, looking on from day to day, I could not for the life of me understand how these great personal issues of life were simplified, or solved inany way, by the discovery that creation was a myth. In this way, in spite of my increasing enlightenment, the personal aspect of affairs acquired additional emphasis, and was not to be disturbed by any mere theory of origins.
Broadbent, however, stated his case very clearly. I remember his argument distinctly. He affirmed that character, in its best sense, is fundamentally scientific and not religious, and for this reason good behavior is bound to win out in the end. I, on the other hand, insisted on separating the issues. I contended that the end or result he looked forward to by the scientific route, was too far off for practical purposes; and that in the mean time, the personal method, guided by precepts of Christianity, must remain the thoroughfare to personal and social salvation of every description. Right here on this issue, before the end of the voyage, Broadbent and I locked horns. In his opinion the scientific interpretation and unfolding of life contained also its moral interpretation. Many people who figure in the same way at the present day, fancifully propose to refill the churches by a fairer adjustment of economic conditions. To me, then as now, it seems possible and necessary to separate the issues, and to insist, upon a clear understanding of their value and relative importance.
Be this as it may, I told Broadbent I was glad to hear his side of it for his own sake. I informed him that I was going out to Brazil in the first place, of course, to earn a living, but incidentally also, to study the lives of people, including his own, with the idea of finding out, if possible, just how our opinions on the subject stood the test of actual contact with life.
However, to do Broadbent justice, he had done me a world of good. In the short space of three weeks I had changed or been converted from a mere boy, perplexed with a mind full of emotional instincts, into an individual, with a more or less definite trade-mark, and with a certain point of view in regard to life and living in which I had become enthusiastically interested. I had stepped suddenly into the midst of the world of affairs; my impressions of people and of conduct were acute; every person on the ship was a problem of some kind to me, and every hour that passed added to my stock of practical enlightenment.
But while Broadbent and I were engaged in these sociological discussions I became, at the same time, involved in a matter of a different nature altogether, at the hands of another man who, meantime, had become interested in me and my fortunes.
II
When I look back at the outline of the past, the events worth mentioning stand out by themselves and assume a dream-like reality. Doubtless the events cut deep and the impressions were acute, hence their survival; and now distance and time have added to their enchantment. The facts and the faces are still to me intensely real; nevertheless, my casting adrift from home influences, my first sea-voyage, my first encounter with opinions and people, and my first observations of life, read to-day more like a chapter copied at random from Gulliver’s Travels, or the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, than a narrative of sober happenings that took place on a humdrum steamship.
To me, at any rate, the world in its first appearance was a tremendous situation, and I was a sort of unaccountable fact awaiting treatment of some kind, in the centre of it. My curiosity and enthusiasm, however, were only heightened by the consciousness of my personal insignificance. On this my first sea-voyage, in a most astonishing manner, practical intelligence and enlightenment were imparted to me in a series of shocks, and every increase in knowledge added to my self-importance in relation to my surroundings. Every time I came on deck I looked round for new features and new faces to investigate. I was continually on the tiptoe of expectation, and this unfeigned and exuberant interest which I took in my environment, was returned to me before long, very curiously, and in double measure.
Among the passengers on the ship was a well-to-do Spaniard, a SouthAmerican trader, as he was called, and his son José. They were returning to their home in Rosario, then as now a city of rising importance in the Argentine Republic. The merchant was a widower, some sixty years old, and his son was a pale-faced, interesting boy, of studious habits, my senior by a year or two.
Beginning at school and continuing until to-day, one of the greatest of my intellectual pleasures has been the study of languages; so when I found out that this young fellow was as anxious to learn English as I was to acquire a knowledge of Spanish, an acquaintance was begun between us that soon developed into a closer intimacy. We went to work systematically in our studies; twice a day, regularly, for two weeks, we came together for the purpose of adding to our vocabularies, and of engaging in conversational exercises, and during these study periods the old gentleman was always an interested listener. Under such favorable conditions our progress was remarkable. In less than two weeks, with the assistance of the dictionaries added to the very slight knowledge of the language we had acquired in school, we could worry through almost anything we wished to say.
As the days passed the old Spaniard’s interest increased, and he began to ask me all sorts of questions about my business intentions and prospects. It was customary for many of the young men on the ship to come together daily and engage in gymnastic exercises. In some of the competitions I more than held my own. This seemed to astonish the old gentleman; that one so young should be so enthusiastic physically and intellectually at the same time, seemed to him most unusual. And then again, my simple application of biblical texts to everyday life, and my interpretation of them from the personal standpoint, seemed to please him exceedingly. He had quite a fair knowledge of the English language, and had no difficulty in understanding me. The boy, also, was interested in these matters and took pleasure in my society. As for me, I knew absolutely nothing about Spanish life and character, and I did not pause long enough to give my growing intimacy with these people so much as a passing thought. I was open-minded, however, and judged appearances for just what they seemed to be worth. Without advice from anybody I trusted my own judgment and went ahead. But at night, in prayer-like reveries, I always squared up for the day’s doings, and acquired fresh courage and guidance for the days to come.
At intervals the old gentleman questioned me about the details of my situation in the telegraph service, and he seemed to think very little of the opportunities and prospects connected with it. On the other hand, with great earnestness, he and the boy tried to impress upon me ideas of the wealth and enterprise of the people in Buenos Ayres and Rosario, and of the splendid future that was in store for a part of the American continent that was just then beginning to acquire a world-wide celebrity. In his broken manner and language, and as best he could, he repeatedly broached the idea and wish that I should become interested in some enterprise more in harmony with my talents and enthusiasm.
This familiar intercourse was continued until we came in sight of the harbor at Rio dc Janeiro. I was then in that amiable and impressionable state of mind when the affectionate regard of these people took right hold of me, and I listened to the glowing story of the old Spanish merchant with unfeigned interest and delight. Just when the passengers whose destination was Rio — and I was one of them — were making ready to leave the ship, I was invited to his cabin for a farewell interview. Broken as was his language, I had no difficulty in understanding the drift and exact substance of this conversation, which culminated in a remarkable proposition.
The fact of the matter was, he was opposed to my leaving the ship at Rio. He could not bear to terminate our friendship so abruptly. Was it not a fact that José and I were getting along famously in our studies? It would be such a pity to separate us. We should make a splendid pair of workers in any business, especially in his business in Rosario, which in a few years, in the ordinary course of events, would belong to José exclusively. And then, again, there was his little daughter Amelie, who was in Rosario, awaiting his return. She was so very amiable and so very pretty. At that moment, to be sure, she was a mere child just passing her eleventh year; but what of that? By the time I should be twenty she would be a charming little woman. In short, the proposition was from his heart, honest and unmistakable, and the old trader’s hand was in mine as he made it, — so many thousands and a share in the business to begin with, and in the near future a partnership and a bride; the details regarding my baggage and the affairs of the telegraph company could easily be arranged.
From his point of view there was nothing remarkable in this seemingly generous offer. Adoptions of this kind were every-day occurrences among Spaniards in South America; in fact the people were looking forward to this blending of races as a national policy, which closely concerned their social and industrial destiny. Undoubtedly, then, under these circumstances, a career of unusual activity and usefulness, as well as of domestic happiness, was in store for me. On the other hand, he continued, if I landed in Rio, and took my chances in that unholy city, I was doomed to destruction. Not one in a score of the young Europeans who tried to live, or rather to flicker for a while in such pestilential localities, was able to weather the scourge of the climate and the riot of social conditions. As for the cities, there was actually no choice — Rio, Santos, Bahia, Pernambuco, Para, they were all the same. In six months I would certainly find myself physically wrecked and morally ruined. To Rosario then, where health and happiness awaited me!
It is impossible to look back upon this sit nation with an unbiased or fullyequipped understanding. Never before or since those memorable days on board ship has life appeared to me to be so full of hope, so temptingly dangerous, so splendor-laden. I am willing to admit that everything connected with my progress up to this point must be looked upon as unusually eventful and, in a measure, prematurely expansive. The story is none the less interesting on that account. Selecting its most prominent and typical incidents, the most humdrum existence has nearly always a dramatic outline; and for the rest, I can only judge of what I was, or of what I thought at the time, by what I actually did. For instance, did the romantic and mercenary features of this proposition appeal to me ? Certainly not, in their full significance. Did I pause to think what the folks at home would have to say about it? Under the circumstances this would have been of little use. To give a candid opinion, however, I should say that my instinctive and budding self-assertion, my love of adventure, and, above all, my insatiable curiosity to get into the world of affairs and interpret for my own use some of its riddles, were my all-powerful guides on this occasion. I accepted the proposition, in a provisional way, on the spot.
This first journey on shipboard is more important in my autobiography than the two years of work and experience in South America that followed. It was a point of departure that set me adrift on a wave of personal investigation, and intellectual adventure, that I shall now describe.
As for the proposition of the Spanish merchant, it soon died a natural death; and the story has little relation to my future, except as an illustration of the bold way in which, without premeditation, I set out to experiment with opportunity, and with my own powers in connection with it. However, I explained the affair, in part, to Broadbent, who took a business-like view of the matter, and arranged for a short leave of absence from my duties. The adventure itself soon came to an end. I remained for two or three weeks in Rosario, and, ridiculous as the affair may now seem, was beginning to think seriously of a permanent sojourn, when suddenly the old merchant died. Then a change came over the scene and the prospects; some legal and domestic complications arose, in which I had no desire to take part. To simplify matters, I withdrew from the family circle, and made the best of my way to my original destination at Santos.
III
I must pass over my two years sojourn in Brazil with a sort of feverish retrospection. My experience was too pitiful, too tragically interesting, too prolonged, to come within the limits or province of any ordinary nightmare. Looking back at it all, it may rather be likened to a chapter in Bunyan’s famous allegory in which the pilgrim, encountering unexpected temptations and pitfalls, receives his first terrible set-back. Years of progressive enlightenment have doubtless bettered the situation in Brazil, from every point of view; but when I arrived in the country, in the late seventies, the social and moral environment in which I found myself, was simply indescribable. But in order to make my own conduct appear in a measure reasonable, and to account for the mental abyss into which I was finally plunged, I must run over a few of the events, and describe some of the conditions, as briefly as possible.
The telegraph office was located in a great stone building which faced the harbor. The clerks, five or six of us, had sleeping-rooms in this block. The office-work itself was pleasant, and the salaries of the men were quite liberal. It took me about a week to get an idea of the place, and a year’s sojourn did not alter my first impressions. For a few hours during the morning there was considerable business activity, but the afternoons were usually very quiet and intensely hot. The real life of the place opened up when the offices closed, and the sun went down. Then a carnival of drinking set in. In this the Europeans were the chief participants. The natives had their faults, but excess in drinking was not one of them. The friendly advice I received on my arrival, to get intoxicated and remain in that condition, if I would escape the yellow fever, was lived up to, so far as I could make out, by everyone who could afford it. The arrival of a foreign warship, or of a man of note, called for international courtesies which frequently ended in midnight street brawls.
The local police force was helpless at the hands of these roysterers; license was not confined to mere conviviality; in the midst of it all, women were a commodity. At intervals they were imported from Europe in batches and auctioned off in the saloons, under all sorts of contracts, to the highest bidder. Single men were by no means so abandoned as those who were married and had families. This, I was assured, was a proper and reasonable state of affairs. Society was more vitally interested in the rising generation than in the behavior of those who were no longer in the matrimonial market.
For a month or so I moved up and down, as it were, in the midst of this social inferno. Then I went to Broadbent. I knew from observation that he was not much better than the crowd; nevertheless, I wanted to know what he thought about it all. The personal problem with which I was surrounded seemed to me to be overwhelmingly important. Broadbent had told me on board ship that science, political and social economy, would take care of just such situations; but for the life of me, now that I was in the midst of this one,
I could n’t understand how these reforms and cures were to be initiated and kept alive without personal redemption, beginning within and bearing fruit in social and economic reforms.
The people whose conduct I am criticizing were rich enough; they were intelligent, in a way, and could reason and talk about other people’s ideas by the hour; but they lacked the acute moral sense which, in the aggregate, constitutes the social conscience. I could not help noticing at the time the close relationship that must always exist between personal and civic behavior.
On some of the side streets dead and dying Negroes were occasionally thrown out into the gutters. And again, one day I met a procession of smallpox patients, in all stages of the disease, dragging themselves through the public streets on the way to climb some Mount of Piety, to pray for intercession, while from the courtyards of every church in the city showers of rockets ascended on prayerful missions, cracking the skies with an earsplitting din.
I went to Broadbent, I say, with my troubles, but I soon discovered that in spite of his intellectuality, he was nothing but a social degenerate. His conversation was one thing, his conduct was another. In so many words, ‘Eat and drink,’ he said to me, ‘for tomorrow we shall die.' According to him, yellow fever was the cause and sufficient reason, scientifically speaking, for personal depravity. It was indeed true that at intervals the scourge descended upon the city like a murrain among cattle. If there was anything in particular that was noticeable, it was its affinity for greenhorns, fresh arrivals, and clean people. Chronic drunkards, as a rule, were immune. Broadbent laid emphasis on these facts and one day, after explaining the situation in detail, he said tome in substance,—
‘Come along, be one of us. It is either this or death, or perhaps something worse than death. You know Fillimore, of course. He works beside you in the office. But you never entered his room, did you? To begin with, conditions frightened his moral and physical nature, as they have yours. He came from a nice home, I understand. A few drinks and a little companionship would have straightened him out, but we could n’t get him to emerge from his shell. So now he comes down to the office in the morning, and sneaks back to his room in the afternoon, and in the evening he gets out into the suburbs and captures creeping things of every description. His room is alive with lizards and beetles and all kinds of reptiles running loose. His poisonous pets, such as tarantulas, he keeps under glass covers. He does his own cooking on an oil stove. He has never ventilated or cleaned his room. He is beyond the reach of the fever, for he is inconceivably filthy. He is everlastingly reading the Bible. Just think of it! This is what it is to be driven back on yourself in this forsaken country. You know what the alternative is — take your choice.’
This almost, but not quite, concluded my intercourse with Broadbent. I said to him, ‘I understand the situation, I hate your philosophy, I refuse to compromise. I, too, will fall back on myself.’
I kept the fact to myself, but to tell the truth, I was mentally and morally stunned. Broadbent had, at least, opened my eyes and given me a graphic description of the abyss of iniquity into which, with unabashed countenance, he invited me to plunge. Good people no doubt there were in that neighborhood, but I never met them or heard of them; and who could blame them, in such a maelstrom of depravity, for keeping aloof or in hiding. But the situation to me, at the time, was actually worse than it appears to be on the surface. This was my first introduction to business and social circles, and although I knew intuitively that in my own country, for example, social behavior and conditions were on an infinitely higher level, I had as yet no practical assurances on the subject except as a schoolboy; and in this, my first plunge into business and social affairs, I found the representatives of nearly every European nation engaged in social orgies that would have been a disgrace to any community in the worst days of the Roman Empire.
To tell the truth, I was terribly disappointed. The door through which my ambitions and aspirations pointed, seemed to shut with a bang. In a very short time, like Fillimore, I was in a class by myself, and to my surprise my religion had few consolations for me. Both religiously and socially, for the time being at any rate, I was a palpable misfit. My physical and moral enthusiasm had been stifled too suddenly. Inertia set in.
For a week or more I went about my duties mechanically; otherwise I was as listless and unresponsive as the sands of the desert. Then an idea occurred to me. I could n’t break my contract with the company, but I could go to work and learn some of the languages which up to this time, on the streets and elsewhere, I had been listening to with a dull ear. I immediately turned all my energies and enthusiasm in this direction. It proved to be a delightful and profitable occupation. I went about it almost fiercely. I penetrated into slums, offices, private houses, and clubs, hunting up words and meanings, and also people to converse with. One day I would bury myself in an underground kitchen with a Portuguese cook, and the next day, perhaps, I would take a San Paulo railroad train, get; off at a waystation, and spend an afternoon with an Indian in a canoe, learning the names of the birds, the trees, and the monkeys, as we glided through tangles of gorgeous foliage. For a stranger to be interested in one’s native tongue is always a pleasing kind of flattery. Before long I was welcomed everywhere. In less than six months, I could hold my own in ordinary conversation in Spanish, German, French, and Portuguese. I was just beginning to take some kind of interest in my surroundings, and to plan understandingly and hopefully for the future, when Broadbent again appeared on the scene, and scattered my projects to the winds.
One day I sat at the dinner table in the hotel — the Europa. I was reading, or rather trying to read, out of a book. Chico, the waiter, had just left the room with an armful of dishes. My superintendent, sleeping off the effects of his afternoon tipples, was in the next room, snoring ponderously. The guests had all departed and, but for the rats that now and then jumped up on the table and made off with a morsel of food, I was alone. It was the fevertime of the year, and as I was suffering from a bad headache I was a little uneasy about my physical condition; and, besides, I was at the lowest ebb of mental depression. The satisfaction I derived from my studies was, at best, a commercial one; otherwise, so far as progress was concerned, I was absolutely a failure.
It was my eighteenth birthday. The daylight was fading. I closed my book and, hearing a faint noise, I raised my eyes. Broadbent emerged from the superintendent’s room, crossed the hallway, and hurried down the stairs. Tucked closely under his arm was the superintendent’s hand-bag containing, as I well knew, the collections for the day — some thousands of milreis. I rushed after him down the stairway, and into the street. As I was turning the first corner, some one halted abruptly, or I ran into some one, who gave me a blow on the head that sent me sprawling into the gutter.
When I awoke, I was in bed in the hotel. The room was crowded with policemen and others; Broadbent was among them. I accused him of committing the robbery. The police received this intelligence as a joke, everybody smiled, and some one remarked, ‘He is out of his head.’ Then a burly Negro came forward and informed the police that in turning the corner I had interfered with a combat of clubs, in which he was engaged, and that I had received a whack on the head that was intended for his adversary. This explanation was entirely satisfactory to the police, although the money was not forthcoming. Then Broadbent almost shouted, ‘That boy has the yellow fever.’
In two seconds the room was deserted. I leave the problem of the headache and fever symptoms, the apparition of Broadbent on the stairway, the robbery, the affair at the corner of the street, and the statement of the Negro, to psychologists to unravel. As for me, I lay on my cot absolutely deserted until noon the next day, when a doctor appeared. Later the boys in the office got together and sent a nurse to my assistance. At the end of the second day I entered the fatal stage, and began to sink rapidly. The coffin was ordered. Later on I paid for it. But doctors and others were mistaken. I fairly hovered on the brink, as they told me afterwards, and then made a most unlooked-for rally. In less than a week I was out of danger. Meantime, however, in a fit of delirium, I had unmercifully belabored my nurse with a pillow, and in her place a professional attendant was secured, a man whose name was Peixoto.
I cannot introduce Peixoto to my readers without an apology or an explanation of some kind. Physically and mentally he was a strange phenomenon, in appearance and faculties an almost unbelievable creature. Mentally he was a modern reproduction of Timon of Athens, in his last and misanthropic stage. Later on we shall glance at his pedigree and history; for the present, however, it will suffice to say that he was an albino — neither a white nor a black man, but a creamcolored creature of medium height, athletic build, and dignified carriage. In his behavior as a nurse he was methodical and strong, yet as gentle and considerate as a woman. He had one curious habit. When not engaged in conversation, he nibbled incessantly on his lower lip, as any man will once in a while, when nursing a grief or an injury. Peixoto had both — he was a social outcast. His hair was white, short, curly, and silky, and it grew in tufts; his nose was flat, his cheek-bones were high, and his skin a sickly cream-color. The pupils of his eyes were red, and the parts that should have been white were pink. Apart from this he possessed a tremendous personality, and that was just where the trouble came in. Brazilian society had no use for this man except as a caretaker in cases of virulent disease. This fact cut him to the soul, and all humanity was to him, very naturally, a gigantic farce.
As regards my own sickness, complications set in, and I was confined to the hotel for nearly three months. During this period Peixoto was my constant companion. I was in my eighteenth year, physically and mentally a weakling at the time. Peixoto was in the prime of life. To convert me to his way of thinking and of judging humanity, he extended himself. In regard to what followed, I have no excuse or justification to offer. For over two months I listened to, and absorbed, a good deal of Peixoto’s philosophy. It was founded on the personal annihilation to which society and the universe had condemned him, and it all culminated in the homeless and hopeless conclusion that there was no God. Under his tutelage my religious convictions seemed to be smothered, although it was only a storm through which I was passing. Nevertheless, when I left the hotel I looked out upon the world, to some extent, through Peixoto’s eyes.
Meanwhile, Santos had become an impossible place of residence for me, and I requested and obtained a transfer to Bahia. In a few weeks Peixoto followed me. Bahia was his birth-place, to which, periodically, he was in the habit of returning. It was a time when all the world was talking about the discovery of gold and diamonds in South Africa. Peixoto was seriously considering emigration to that country, where, he thought, among the savages, perhaps he would be able to find some kind of a social level; or where, at the worst, as a filibuster or freebooter, he could square accounts with creation in some way.
One day Peixoto and I took a walk, or rather a climb, from the lower to the upper city. As you look at it from the sea, Bahia has the appearance of a huge perpendicular rock. Some of the houses seem to be up among the clouds, others down at the water’s edge. Peixoto conducted me, by a circuitous route, to a convent situated in a narrow street in the upper section of the city. In this convent, he explained to me, he had been brought up and educated.
We entered the convent through an imposing archway, and passed into a large granite-walled hall, at one end of which was a heavily barred grating, and back of that a smooth stone pavement extending to another grating through which several nuns were passing garlands and flowers made of feathers, on long wooden shovels, to purchasers who made their wants known by long-distance signs at the outer grating. Thence we passed into a small chapel which had egress to the outside world by means of a long and very gloomy corridor. In one corner of the chapel there was a little niche or alcove in which was a cradle-shaped box. A rope attached to this cradle passed up through a wide chimney-like aperture to some chamber above. Peixoto explained to me in detail the significance of this machinery. The cradle was for the accommodation of abandoned children whom, with utmost secrecy, the depositors, or parents, wished the convent to adopt and educate. In this way, and in this very place, he, Peixoto, had made his first appearance in human society, and this was practically all he knew of his own history and antecedents.
Very soon after this visit to the convent Peixoto took ship for South Africa. I was fated to meet him again. It was several years later, in the midst of a fierce campaign which the British and their allies, the Zwasi Kaffirs, were waging against another Kaffir chieftain in the northern part of the Transvaal. Peixoto was in the service of the Zwasis. On the day of the final assault on the stronghold of the enemy, after the British had dynamited the caves, it became his duty, as he informed me, to intercept the survivors, stab them, and throw them down over the rocks. He was settling his account with creation in this way. But this is anticipating. I must return to the narrative of my own personal progress.
(To be continued.)