Levkas Man Read Online Free Page B

appraising stare, his eyes grey like pebbles as they caught the light from the windows. ‘But perhaps that’s an advantage—that you know nothing about his world.’ And then he surprised me by saying, ‘I met your mother once. In London during the last war—1942, I think; I was up for a meeting of the Royal Society and he brought her to see me at my hotel. A charming woman, very good for him. Gave him confidence. They should have married.’ He was smiling to himself, a gentle, quiet smile. ‘Companionship of that sort would have made all the difference. She had a strong, unselfish personality.’
    â€˜He has a strong personality, too,’ I said, wondering at his reference to a sense of uneasiness.
    â€˜Yes, but not unselfish.’ And then abruptly he said, ‘He kept a journal. Has done for many years. Did you know that?’
    â€˜A leather-covered book?’
    He nodded.
    â€˜Yes,’ I said. ‘There’s a secret cavity in the bureau over there. That’s where he kept it.’ And without thinking I told him how I had once surprised him writing in it.
    He nodded. ‘Yes, that would be it. A very personal document.’
    â€˜Well, it’s not in the usual place,’ I said, thinking that that was what he had come for. ‘I imagine he’s taken it with him.’
    But he shook his head, ‘No, I have it. And there are altogether three volumes of it now. I’ve just read them. That’s why I wanted to see him. It’s a very strange, very disturbing record—not a diary exactly, something much deeper, more personal. It covers about twenty years of his life—intermittent entries, about himself, his thoughts, his inmost fears and hopes. And then suddenly, when he was ill …’ He stopped there and turned to the girl. ‘You tell him, Miss Winters. It will have more immediacy coming from you.’
    She nodded. ‘He was going to burn it. That was the night I telephoned for a doctor. He had me light a fire here in the study. He was in bed at the time. I thought perhaps he was feeling better, and then he sent me out for something. When I came back, I found him down here, half-collapsed in his chair, and the Journals were lying on the floor. Several pages had already been ripped out and their charred remains were lying in the grate. When I asked him why he had done it, he said, “I don’t want him to have it. I don’t want anybody to have it.” And he asked me to put it on the fire for him. “That’s the best place for it”.’
    She was sitting very tense, her hands clasped tight in her lap. And when I asked her who it was he wanted to conceal the journal from, she looked at me, her eyes wide. ‘Why, from you, of course.’ And she added, ‘But I wouldn’t do it. I refused. And when he began to recover, I think he was glad. In the end he sent it to Dr Gilmore. I posted it for him just before he left. He was up half the night writing a letter of explanation.’
    Gilmore nodded, ‘It needed explanation. In toto it amounts to an indictment of Man based on a self portrait as it were.’ He hesitated. ‘This is something it may be difficult for you to understand. A practical man, you’re naturally impatient of the sort of introspective self-analysis on which Pieter Van der Voort was engaged. “Probing the ultimate depths of Man’s aggressive instincts,” he called it, and he talked of the Devil and a spiritual struggle. It’s all there, all his instinctual urges—the good and the bad. It goes back to his original thesis.’ And he added a little wistfully, ‘I should have come here before—as soon as I had read it. A man like that—alone, delving into the fundamental problems of mankind … I should have come at once.’
    â€˜Then why didn’t you?’ I asked.
    â€˜My dear fellow, if one did everything one ought to