The Immortal Story Page #2

and it will be part of your work

to find me this woman.

Yes, Mr. Clay.

This clerk might well have been

a highly dangerous person

except that ambition,

desire, in any form

had been washed and bleached

and burnt out of him.

He was like some kind of insect:

hard to crush,

even to the heel of a boot.

And yet, there were things

not yet to be recounted

which moved like big

deep water fish

in the depths of his dark mind.

He had only one passion:

a craving to be left alone.

His soul was concentrated

on this one request,

that he might he might enter

his little room and shut his door

with the security that, here, no one

in the world could possibly follow him.

By the next day, he had decided

on the heroine for the story.

In the town, she was called Virginie.

She was the mistress of another clerk

in Mr. Clay's establishment,

- A young man named Simpson.

- Charlie?

You remember, he asked me

to buy you a shawl.

So I brought you some of them so

you could choose the one you like.

Yes. Charlie didn't want to be seen

in the shops buying such things for a woman.

Word of that might have got back

to his family in Europe. So he sent you.

I don't suppose you've got a family

in Europe? What's your name?

Levinsky. Elishama Levinsky.

I won't ask you what you want of me.

You can tell me when you feel like it.

If you know Charlie, I suppose you

work with him at the office...

- for the old American?

- Yes, Miss Virgine.

How is he? The old man?

I heard he was sick.

He's no well, Miss Virginie.

He does not leave his house.

Good. Is he going to die?

Oh, no.

At least he is strong enough

to make up new schemes.

With your permission,

I'll tell you one of them.

He dislikes pretense.

He dislikes prophecies.

He likes facts.

- Facts?

- Yes.

But 50 years ago, on a ship,

he heard a story told.

A sailor was walking by himself near the harbor

when a rich old gentleman drove up

in a carriage and said to him:

"You are a fine looking sailor.

Do you want earn 5 Guineas tonight?"

- That was in Benin.

- Yes?

Not here in Macao.

I heard it from a friend of mine,

an Englishman, merchant captain.

It happened to a sailor that he knew

when he first went to sea.

Miss Virginie, this is a story that lives

on ships. All sailors have told it.

It might have been left on sea and never

come ashore if it hadn't been for Mr. Clay.

He made up his mind to have it

happen in real life to real people

in order that one sailor in the world

shall be able to tell it, from begining

to end, as it actually happened to him.

If he wants to play a comedy,

a comedy with the devil,

it's a matter between the two of them.

- What's it to me?

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