In Warsaw,where I spent two days,those wandering pages were never exposed to the light,except once to candle-light,while the bag lay open on the chair.I was dressing hurriedly to dine at a sporting club.A friend of my childhood (he had been in the Diplomatic Service,but had turned to growing wheat on paternal acres,and we had not seen each other for over twenty years)was sitting on the hotel sofa waiting to carry me off there.
"You might tell me something of your life while you are dressing,"he suggested,kindly.
I do not think I told him much of my life story either then or later.The talk of the select little party with which he made me dine was extremely animated and embraced most subjects under heaven,from big-game shooting in Africa to the last poem published in a very modernist review,edited by the very young and patronized by the highest society.But it never touched upon "Almayer's Folly,"and next morning,in uninterrupted obscurity,this inseparable companion went on rolling with me in the southeast direction toward the government of Kiev.
At that time there was an eight hours'drive,if not more,from the railway station to the country-house which was my destination.
"Dear boy"(these words were always written in English),so ran the last letter from that house received in London--"Get yourself driven to the only inn in the place,dine as well as you can,and some time in the evening my own confidential servant,factotum and majordomo,a Mr.V.S.(I warn you he is of noble extraction),will present himself before you,reporting the arrival of the small sledge which will take you here on the next day.I send with him my heaviest fur,which I suppose with such overcoats as you may have with you will keep you from freezing on the road."
Sure enough,as I was dining,served by a Hebrew waiter,in an enormous barn-like bedroom with a freshly painted floor,the door opened and,in a travelling costume of long boots,big sheepskin cap,and a short coat girt with a leather belt,the Mr.V.S.(of noble extraction),a man of about thirty-five,appeared with an air of perplexity on his open and mustached countenance.I got up from the table and greeted him in Polish,with,I hope,the right shade of consideration demanded by his noble blood and his confidential position.His face cleared up in a wonderful way.
It appeared that,notwithstanding my uncle's earnest assurances,the good fellow had remained in doubt of our understanding each other.He imagined I would talk to him in some foreign language.
I was told that his last words on getting into the sledge to come to meet me shaped an anxious exclamation:
"Well!Well!Here I am going,but God only knows how I am to make myself understood to our master's nephew."
We understood each other very well from the first.He took charge of me as if I were not quite of age.I had a delightful boyish feeling of coming home from school when he muffled me up next morning in an enormous bearskin travelling-coat and took his seat protectively by my side.The sledge was a very small one,and it looked utterly insignificant,almost like a toy behind the four big bays harnessed two and two.We three,counting the coachman,filled it completely.He was a young fellow with clear blue eyes;the high collar of his livery fur coat framed his cheery countenance and stood all round level with the top of his head.
"Now,Joseph,"my companion addressed him,"do you think we shall manage to get home before six?"His answer was that we would surely,with God's help,and providing there were no heavy drifts in the long stretch between certain villages whose names came with an extremely familiar sound to my ears.He turned out an excellent coachman,with an instinct for keeping the road among the snow-covered fields and a natural gift of getting the best out of his horses.
"He is the son of that Joseph that I suppose the Captain remembers.He who used to drive the Captain's late grandmother of holy memory,"remarked V.S.,busy tucking fur rugs about my feet.
I remembered perfectly the trusty Joseph who used to drive my grandmother.Why!he it was who let me hold the reins for the first time in my life and allowed me to play with the great four-in-hand whip outside the doors of the coach-house.
"What became of him?"I asked."He is no longer serving,I suppose."
"He served our master,"was the reply."But he died of cholera ten years ago now--that great epidemic that we had.And his wife died at the same time--the whole houseful of them,and this is the only boy that was left."
The MS.of "Almayer's Folly"was reposing in the bag under our feet.
