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“Well, she’s my wife, ain’t she?” He put his hands on the handles of his barrow as though to take it away from one who could not see his point of view, wheeled it two yards, and stopped.
“It’s no matter what I done to her. Look ’ere!” He turned his fish-white face, and his dead eyes came suddenly to life, with a murky, yellow glare, as though letting escape the fumes within his soul. “I ought to ha’ put her to bed with a shovel long ago; and I will, too, first chance I get.”
“You are talking like a madman.”
“Look ’ere, ’as a man a right to his own wife an’ children?” His thick loose lower lip trembled. “You tell me that!”
“It depends on how he behaves himself. If you knock her about, you can’t expect her to stay with you.”
“I never done no more to her than what she deserved. I never gave her the ’alf o’ what she ought to ’ave.”
“I’ve seen her several times with your marks on her face.”
“Yes, an’ I’ll mark ’er again, I will.”
“So you have just said.”
“Because a man ’its ’is wife when he’s got a drop o’ liquor in ’im, that don’t give ’er the right to go off like this and take a man’s children from ’im, do it?”
“I think it does.”
“When I find her——”
“I hope you will not find her.”
He thrust his head forward, and the yellow in the whites of his eyes deepened and spread till his whole face seemed suffused with it.
“Look ’ere, man an’ wife is man an’ wife, and don’t you or any one come between ’em, or it’ll be the worse for you.”
“I have told you my opinion.”
“You think I don’t know the law; the law says his children belongs to a man, not to a woman.”
“We needn’t go into that.”
“Needn’t we? You think, becos I’m not a torf, I got no rights. I know what the law says. A man owns ’is wife, an’ ’e owns ’is children.”
“Do you deny that you drink?”
“You’d drink if you ’ad my life; d’you think I like this goin’ about all day with a barrer?”
“Do you deny that you’ve often struck your wife?”
“What’s it to you or any one else, what I do to ’er in private? Why don’t you come down to my place an’ order me about?”
“But I suppose you know your wife can get a separation order if she goes down to the Court?”
On his face a grin stole up.
“Separation order! Do ’er a lot o’ good, that would! D’you think that’d keep my ’ands off ’er afterwards? She knows what I’d do to ’er if she went against me.”
“What would you do?”
“She wouldn’t want to arsk for any more separation orders.”
“You would be locked up if you molested her afterwards.”
“Should I? She wouldn’t be there to speak against me.”
“I understand.”
“She knows what I’d do to ’er.”
“You’ve scared her so that she daren’t go to the Court—she daren’t stay with you; what can she do but leave you?”
“I don’t want ’er, let ’er go; I want the children.”
“Do you really mean that you don’t want her?”
“I never ’ad a woman keep me.”
“You know that her earnings have kept you all.”
“I tell you I never ’ad a woman keep me.”
“Can you support the children?”
“If I could get a proper job——”
“But can you get a proper job?”
“Well, ’oo’s fault is that; it’s not my fault, is it?”
“You’ve had plenty of chances.”
“’Oo cares if I ’ave! I’ve always been a good father to my children. I’ve worked for ’em, an’ begged for ’em, an’ stole for ’em; I’m well known to be a good father all about where I live.”
“But that won’t keep them off the parish, will it?”
“You let the parish alone! If I ’aven’t got money, I’ve got honour; that’s better than all the money. I don’t want no money to tell me what’s right and what isn’t.”
“Come, come!”
“The children’s mine—every one o’ them. Takin’ children away from their father! that’s a fine thing to be backin’ up like this!”
His eyes moved from side to side, like the eyes of an animal in pain, and his voice was hoarse as though a lump had risen in his throat.
“Look ’ere! I’m fonder of them children than what people might think. I’ll never sleep again till I know where they are.”
“How can I tell you where they are without telling you where their mother is?”
“They’re mine—the law gives ’em to me. ’Oo are you to go against the law?”
“We went over that just now.”
“When she married me she took me for better or worse, didn’t she? Man an’ wife should settle their own affairs. They don’t want no one else to interfere with them!”
“You want her back so that you can do what you like to her. Do you expect other people to help you to that?”
“Look ’ere! D’you think it’s pleasant for me when I go into the pub to ’ave ’em talk about my wife goin’ off on ’er own? D’you think I ’aven’t got enough to bear without that?”
“You ought to have thought of that before you drove her to it.”
“’Oo says I drove ’er? Noos-bearin’, talkin’ about ’er, like what they are? She’s lost ’er honour; d’you think that’s pleasant for me?”
“Well, then!” He came from between the handles of his barrow and stood on the edge of the pavement, and the movement of his shoulders was like the movement of a bull that is about to charge. “Look ’ere! She’s mine to do what I like with. I never injured any one that didn’t injure me; but any one that injures me’ll ’ave a funny piece o’ cake to cut, what ’e’ll never be able to swaller.”
“Who is injuring you?”
“An’ don’t you think I’m afraid o’ the police. Not all the police in the world won’t stop me!”
“Well?”
“You only listens to one side; if I was to tell you all I’d got against ’er——”
“You beat her—and you ask me to help you find her?”
“I’m arskin’ you the whereabouts o’ my children.”
“It’s the same thing. Can’t you see that no decent man would tell you?”
He plucked at his throat and stood silent, with a groping movement like a man suddenly realising that the darkness before him is not going to lift.
“It’s all like a Secret Society to me! If I can’t get ’em back, I can’t bear meself.”
“How can it be otherwise?”
“You’re all on ’er side. She’s a disgrace, that’s what she is, takin’ ’em away from their ’ome, takin’ ’em away from their father.”
“She brought them into the world.”
“When I find ’er, I’ll make ’er sorry she was ever brought into the world ’erself. I’ll let ’er know ’oo’s ’er master! She sha’n’t forget a second time! She’s mine, and the children’s mine!”
“Well, I can’t help you.”
“I stands on the law. The law gives ’em to me, and I’ll keep ’em. She knows better than to go to the Court against me—it means ’er last sleep.”
“Good-morning!”
He plucked at his neck again and ground the sole of his boot on the pavement, and the movement of his eyes was pitiful to see.
“I’m ’alf out o’ meself, that’s what I am; I’ll never sleep until I find ’em. Look ’ere! Tell me where they are, sir?”
“I am sorry, I cannot.”
In the unmoving fish-white face his dead eyes, straining in their sockets, began to glow again with that queer yellow glare, as though alive with the spirit that dwells where light has never come; the spirit that possesses those dim multitudes who know no influence but that of force, no reason, and no gentleness, since these have never come their way; who know only that they must keep that little which they have, since that which they have not is so great and so desirable; the dim multitudes who, since the world began, have lived from hand to mouth, like dogs crouched over their stale bones, snarling at such as would take those poor bones from them.
“I’m ’er ’usband, an’ I mean to ’ave ’er, alive or dead.”
And I saw that this was not a man who spoke, but the very self of the brute beast that lurks beneath the surface of our State; the very self of the chained monster whom Nature tortures with the instinct for possession, and man with whips drives from attainment. And behind his figure in the broad flowery road I seemed to see the countless masses of his fellows filing out of their dark streets, out of their alleys and foul lodgings, in a never-ending river of half-human flesh, with their faces set one way. They covered the whole road, and every inlet was alive with them; and all the air was full of the dull surging of thousands more. Of every age, in every sort of rags; on all their faces the look that said: “All my life I have been given that which will keep me alive, that, and no more. What I have got I have got; no one shall wrench it from my teeth! I live as the dogs; as the dogs shall my actions be! I am the brute beast; have I the time, the chance, the money to learn gentleness and decency? Let me be! Touch not my gnawed bones!”
They stood there—a great dark sea stretching out to the farther limits of the sight; no sound came from their lips, but all their eyes glowed with that yellow glare, and I saw that if I took my glance off them they would spring at me.
“You defy me, Guv’nor?”
“I am obliged to.”
“One day I’ll meet yer, then, for all your money, and I’ll let yer know!”
He took up the handles of his barrow, and slowly, with a sullen lurch, wheeled it away, looking neither to his right nor left. And behind him, down the road with its gardens and tall houses, moved the millions of his fellows; and, as they passed in silence, each seemed to say:
“One day I’ll meet you, and—I’ll let you know!”
The road lay empty again beneath the sun; nursemaids wheeled their perambulators, the lilac-trees dropped blossom, the policemen at the corners wrote idly in their little books.