Testimonies: A Novel (25 page)

Authors: Patrick O'Brian

BOOK: Testimonies: A Novel

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But then in the utter stillness I heard a sobbing, sobbing stifled and kept down, but hopeless, hopeless sobbing that would never stop.

Gray and silent, that is sadness. This was tearing, bitter, so shockingly painful it filled the house; far, far beyond sadness.

All night in that damned chair, with the unfeeling light of the moon: wild, mad schemes tearing through my head in a nightmare, and somewhere in the house that hopeless sobbing, just audible, irregular, killing with pain.

One moment I was on my feet, a Samson and a Hercules, then back in my chair, my rack, whining What can I do, what can I do. What did I do that night long, the only time in my life when I could have been some use? The night long with my love breaking in agony? Nothing. Sat there biting my nails, and sniveled.

I slept some time after the dawn had come in. There are some men who sleep before they are to be hanged. They have to be shaken awake and told to get ready.

Nain brought in my breakfast. I could not talk to her; there were her manners and her deference: an impenetrable wall. I did not come out of my room until nearly twelve. I had heard them in the kitchen. As I opened my door Emyr came in by the outside door: I could not see his face—the sun was behind him—but he was bowed like an old man. I heard Bronwen’s voice, low and hard, say, “Out,” the word they use to dogs in Welsh; he hesitated, and went, stumbling.

She was standing with her hands on the table. It was another woman there: her face was gray—gray, no color even in her lips, and her enormous eyes were ringed dark. The old people were huddled over by the fire and the child with them. They were frightened. I was still in the bit of passage and as I looked at her I knew what he had done.

When she saw me she smiled, and a human look came into her face.

I stuttered out something about going for a walk, not being hungry. She nodded; there was all of her there. I was to follow her. In the little pantry she cut bread, food wrapped in a paper, and at the door she put her hand on my arm and said, “It will be all right.”

I was at the top of Cwm Erchyll, in the dark haunted valley. At one time I must have been deep in the mud of the bog, for it was black and caking on my jacket. Up there there were no clouds, the huge sky and calm: I walked over to where Carnedd and Y Brenin point up, black triangles. They are higher than me; and below was the lake—an easy death down there, the rocks so jagged and the clear air below. But I was not an ineffectual man any more. I had strength too. There were two ravens below me, wheeling in the emptiness, but I had strength now and for me it was clear, plain, no madness or ranting.

The mountains and soft grass, I crossed the mountains and the soft grass. The lake, I passed that, and the dam. The path now: I was stumbling, lurching with tiredness: stupid with exhaustion I fell—blood somewhere—that quenches your towering fire, and there are hours to go.

It is hard for a man to outrun his body, and train it over twenty miles of mountain, sick at that.

I was talking: you do when you are so beat. Here is the corner; see the good bank of fern. You can kneel down in that and then on all fours you can retch your heart out; you will go better without it. Come on my hero, you have better to do than that, with the long shale ahead. The counties of England; Monmouth and Wales: Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught; and the States of America.

Then doggerel, any sort, in hope of a rhythm for my feet. Never no never no never again: never no never no never again. Never no never no never again.

The ruined sheep-pen and the river. You fall: it is shallow, is another fall important?

They have lit the lamps and from this distance (it is a mile and a half exactly on the Ordnance Survey) there is the usual effect of dancing lights. That comes with fatigue: it can be controlled with resolution. That is the mark, is it not? The effectual man is resolute.

An hour more up there staring over to Carnedd and you would have lain out the night on the mountain.

This is the cart track and level: the rhythm of movement is so important; it will get you there, you know. Never no never no never again never no never no never again.

Yes. The dogs. The door is in front.

In the kitchen there was a ghastly pretense of normality. She was in bed: Emyr had brought the doctor. He had said she must go to bed. It was the nerves.

Yes, I said, I had fallen in the water. It was of no consequence. I was going to change. Yes, it was late.

It is hard for a man to outrun his body. It will lie there and not train after him any more then, in the end. I was unconscious across my bed because I had sat for five minutes to gather that famous strength I had found up there, and my resolution.

So I was asleep and in the next day they woke me and the people who woke me were the people who had come hurrying to see her dead.

First Norton edition 1992.

First published as a Norton paperback 1995.

Printed in the United States of America

The text of this book is composed in 11 /15 New Baskerville, with the display set in Bernhard Modern Roman.

Composition and manufacturing by the Haddon Craftsmen, Inc.

Book design by Jo Anne Metsch.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

O’Brian Patrick, 1914–Testimonies / Patrick O’Brian.

p. cm.

I. Title.

PR6029.B55T47 1993