Your name
was the common property of the winds; it, as it were, floated naked over
the waters about the equator. I wrapped round its unhonoured form the
royal mantle of the tropics, and have essayed to put into the hollow
sound the very anguish of paternity--feats which you did not demand from
me--but remember that all the toil and all the pain were mine. In your
earthly life you haunted me, Almayer. Consider that this was taking a
great liberty. Since you were always complaining of being lost to the
world, you should remember that if I had not believed enough in your
existence to let you haunt my rooms in Bessborough Gardens, you would
have been much more lost. You affirm that had I been capable of looking
at you with a more perfect detachment and a greater simplicity, I might
have perceived better the inward marvellousness which, you insist,
attended your career upon that tiny pin-point of light, hardly visible
far, far below us, where both our graves lie. No doubt! But reflect, O
complaining Shade! that this was not so much my fault as your crowning
misfortune. I believed in you in the only way it was possible for me to
believe. It was not worthy of your merits? So be it.
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