Angels and Insects Read Online Free Page B

process of growth. I should like to see if this can be demonstrated; I should like—I am sorry, I am talking disjointedly on and on—I forget my manners. You have been so kind in your letters, Sir, the receipt of which was one of the very rare moments of luxury in my time in the forest. Your letters, Sir, came with necessities like butter and sugar, wheat and flour which we never saw—and were more welcome. I rationed the reading, so as to savour them longer, as I rationed the sugar and flour.’
    ‘I am glad to have given so much pleasure to anyone,’ said Harald Alabaster. ‘And I hope I may be able to help you now in more material ways. In a moment we will examine what you have brought back—I will give you a good price for anything I require, a good price. But I wonder if … I ask myself … would you care to make a part of this household for a period of time sufficient to …
    ‘Had your specimens survived, I take it you would have spent a considerable time identifying and cataloguing everything—it would have been a considerable labour. Now I have in my outhouses—I am ashamed to admit it—crate upon crate I have enthusiastically purchased, from Mr Wallace, from Mr Spruce, from Mr Bates and yourself, but also from travellers in the Malay peninsula, in the Australias, in Africa—I had quite underestimated the task of setting these in order. There is something very wrong, Mr Adamson, in plundering the Earth of her beauties and curiosities and then not making use of them for what alone justifies our depredations—the promotion of useful knowledge, of human wonder. I feel like the dragon in the poem, sitting upon a hoard of treasure, which he makes no good use of. I could offer you employment in setting allthat to rights—if you would accept—and this might give you time to resume your own path in whatever way seemed to you best on reflection …’
    ‘That is an extremely generous offer,’ said William. ‘It would give me at once a roof over my head, and work I am fitted for.’
    ‘But you hesitate—’
    ‘I have always had this clear vision—a kind of picture in my head—of what I must do, of how my life should be—’
    ‘And you are not sure your vocation includes Bredely Hall.’
    William hesitated. His mind’s eye was occupied by a picture of Eugenia Alabaster, her white bust rising from the lacy sea of her ballgown like Aphrodite from the foam. But he was not going to say that. He even enjoyed the duplicity of not saying that.
    ‘I know I must find some means of fitting out another expedition.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ said Harald Alabaster carefully, ‘I might, at some future date, be of help in that regard. Not only as a buyer of specimens, but in some more substantial way. May I suggest that you make an extended visit here—and at least
look over
what I have in store—I would of course pay you some agreed salary for that work, I would put things on a professional basis. And I would not expect to take up your complete attention with these tasks—oh, no—so that you would have time also to set your ideas for writing in order. And then, in due course, a decision might be made, a ship might be found, and I might perhaps hope that some monstrous toad or savage-seeming beetle in the jungle floor might immortalise me—Bufo amazoniensis haraldii—Cheops nigrissimum alabastri—I like that, do not you?’
    ‘I do not see how I can refuse such an offer,’ said William. He was unwrapping his specimen box as he spoke. ‘I have brought you something—something very rare—which already, fortuitously, takes a name from this house into the virgin forest. Here I have a most interesting group of Heliconine and Ithomiine butterflies, andhere are several very rich Papilios—some red-spotted, some dark green. I hope to discuss with you some significant variations in the
forms
of these creatures, which do suggest the species may be in the process of modification, of change.
    ‘But here—here is