Mr. Fortune by Sylvia Townsend Warner Read Free Book Online Page A

contents round with a spoon till they mixed. Then one formed the mixture into rocks, made each rock into a package with leaves, and baked them under the ashes. The results were quite palatable while they remained hot. And Lueli would take it as a compliment.
    He would set about it presently. Meanwhile he would lie here, looking up at the tree and taking an interest in his sensations. “I suppose it is partly reaction,” he thought, “but I do feel most extraordinarily happy. And as mild as milk—mothers’ milk.” He was not only happy, he was profoundly satisfied, and rather pleased with himself, with his new self, that is.
    â€œAnd why shouldn’t I be? It is a great improvement on the old. It would be absurd to pretend now that I am not entirely different to what I was then. I might as well refuse to feel pleased at waking from a nightmare. A nightmare, a storm of error. The heavens after a thunderstorm, and the air, are so radiant, so fresh, that they seem to be newly created. But they are not: the heavens and the eternal air were created once for all, it is only in man, that creature of a day, so ignorant and fugitive, that these changes can be wrought. The great thing, though, is not to make too much fuss about it. One should take things as they come, and keep reasonably busy. Those buns... How I must have frightened that pig!”
    This time there were no bananas round him when he woke, and no sign of Lueli. He did not fret himself; knowing how very unfrightening he was he could not seriously apprehend that his convert was much frightened of him.
    Nor was he. For hearing his name called he came out from where he had been reconnoitring in the bushes with scufflings so soft and yet so persistent that they might have been self-commendatory: serene, perfectly at his ease, with a pleasant smile and his head only slightly to one side. He showed no tactless anxiety to sound himself in Mr. Fortune’s good graces. Only when Mr. Fortune ventured on a few words of apology did he seem at a loss, frowning a little, and wriggling his toes. He made no answer, and presently introduced a new topic. But he made it quite sufficiently clear that he would prefer an act of oblivion.
    From that day the two friends lived together in the greatest amity. True, the very next week Lueli disappeared again. But this time Mr. Fortune remembered his psalm and waited with the utmost peacefulness and contentment. Indeed he found himself quite pleased to be left to the enjoyment of his own society. It had never seemed very enjoyable in old days but it was now. For on this enchanting island where everything was so gay, novel, and forthcoming, his transplanted soul had struck root enough to be responding to the favouring soil and sending up blossoms well worth inspection.
    Beyond a few romantic fancies about bathing by moonlight and a great many good resolutions to keep regular hours, Mr. Fortune had scarcely propounded to himself how he would be suited by the life of the only white man on the island of Fanua. In the stress of preparation there had been no incitement to picture himself at leisure. It seemed that between converting the islanders and dissolving soup-squares he would scarcely have an unoccupied minute. Now he found himself in possession of a great many—hours, whole days sometimes, without any particular obligation, stretching out around him waste and tranquil as the outstretched blue sky and spark-ling waves.
    Leisure can be a lonely thing; and the sense of loneliness is terrifically enhanced by unfamiliar surroundings. Some men in Mr. Fortune’s position might have been driven mad; and their madness would have been all the more deep and irrevocable because the conditions that nursed it were so paradisal. A delightful climate; a fruitful soil; scenery of extreme and fairy-tale beauty; agreeable meals to be had at the minimum of trouble; no venomous reptiles and even the mosquitoes not really