The Man Within by Graham Greene Read Free Book Online Page A

would have been, if Carlyon had been his father. Last night in the dark of the wood and far from Carlyon he had feared him. Now in more imminent danger he was torn between his fear, precipitate, unreasoning fear, and a friendship that was almost a grudging, soured love.
    Andrews believed afterwards that in another moment he would have stepped out and greeted Carlyon, but as he stared into the orange glow, fear was given an opportunity to assert itself over friendship. A shadow for an instant striped vertically the glow and vanished again without a sound . Someone had entered the mist. Andrews cowered back against the hedge and listened. There was complete stillness. Andrews felt certain that somewhere within a few feet Carlyon also was listening, striving perhaps to catch those heartbeats which sounded so betrayingly loud. Then a stone was kicked and rumbled slowly a little way down the hill. A second shadow broke the glow and disappeared.
    It was probably this second, more careless shadow, that Andrews next heard feeling along the hedge, with the noise of a small breeze through stubble. Progress was slow in a pathetic effort to be silent, pathetic with the pathos of a hippopotamus treading cautiously on dry twigs. The pathos, however, did not appeal to Andrews, who realized very clearly that in a few minutes he would inevitably be discovered. He could not fly without betraying himself, and his only hope was to step soundlessly into the middle of the road. But where was the first shadow? Carlyon? It needed a courage he was not accustomed to exercise to remove his back from the friendly firmness of the hedge and place himself defenceless in the road. He feared that if he moved he would come in contact with Carlyon. Only the slow pressure of necessity symbolized by the cautious crackling in the hedge creeping closer to him at every moment forced him at last to move.
    The two paces which he took into the road seemed soundless even to himself, but he was not comforted. He felt completely exposed. Although he could see nothing, he felt, standing there ridiculously with slack, impotent arms, that anyone could see him. He thought he could hear them coming towards him and had a wild longing to cry out to them, ‘Stop, stop, stop, please stop.’ There was a game which he had played at school, where one boy, too often himself, stood with back turned counting ten, while the other boys advanced to touch his back. Andrews had perhaps forgotten, but he had never lost, the strain of waiting, hurriedly counting, for a hand to fall upon his back. So now he began to count in haste ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,’ as though there might be some remission for him at ten. He did not know why he counted and there was no remission.
    He had a knife he remembered, in one pocket, but he could not remember which, and he did not dare to look. He was afraid even to raise a hand, lest it should make a sound in passing through the air. He let his arms hang limply at his side, like the arms of a doll empty of saw-dust. After a considerable time the rustle in the hedge ceased. Somewhere behind a whispering began, too faint for him to catch a word. Then there was a rustle in the hedge on the opposite side of the road, more rapid, almost perfunctory. Then that too ceased and the whispering returned and hovered elusively in the mist. Sometimes he thought it came from his right side, sometimes from his left, at other times from behind him. It grew more rapid, seemed to beat desperately up and down, like a lost bird in a room. He began to think that he could distinguish words. Several times he imagined his own name ‘Andrews’. Hope stirred in his heart that Carlyon would give up the search and take his escape for granted. As though to confirm this hope the whispers grew more and more careless. He could distinguish phrases. ‘Somewhere here,’ and ‘I’d swear to his step.’
    After an interval Carlyon’s voice blew like a