Lost Horizon Read Free Page B

as Conway continued to play. To me, of course, it was a sudden and quite mystifying glimpse into his past, the first clew of any kind that had escaped. Sieveking was naturally engrossed in the musical problem, which was perplexing enough, as you’ll realize when I remind you that Chopin died in 1849.
    “The whole incident was so unfathomable, in a sense, that perhaps I should add that there were at least a dozen witnesses of it, including a Californian university professor of some repute. Of course, it was easy to say that Conway’s explanation was chronologically impossible, or almost so; but there was still the music itself to be explained. If it wasn’t what Conway said it was, then what was it? Sieveking assured me that if those two pieces were published, they would be in every virtuoso’s repertoire within six months. Even if this is an exaggeration, it shows Sieveking’s opinion of them. After much argument at the time, we weren’t able to settle anything, for Conway stuck to his story, and as he was beginning to look fatigued, I was anxious to get him away from the crowd and off to bed. The last episode was about making some phonograph records. Sieveking said he would fix up all arrangements as soon as he reached America, and Conway gave his promise to play before the microphone. I often feel it was a great pity, from every point of view, that he wasn’t able to keep his word.”
    Rutherford glanced at his watch and impressed on me that I should have plenty of time to catch my train, since his story was practically finished. “Because that night—the night after the recital—he got back his memory. We had both gone to bed and I was lying awake when he came into my cabin and told me. His face had stiffened into what I can only describe as an expression of overwhelming sadness—a sort of universal sadness, if you know what I mean—something remote or impersonal, a Wehmut or Weltschmerz , or whatever the Germans call it. He said he could call to mind everything, that it had begun to come back to him during Sieveking’s playing, though only in patches at first. He sat for a long while on the edge of my bed, and I let him take his own time and make his own method of telling me. I said that I was glad his memory had returned, but sorry if he already wished that it hadn’t. He looked up then and paid me what I shall always regard as a marvelously high compliment. ‘Thank God, Rutherford,’ he said, ‘you are capable of imagining things.’ After a while I dressed and persuaded him to do the same, and we walked up and down the boat deck. It was a calm night, starry and very warm, and the sea had a pale, sticky look, like condensed milk. Except for the vibration of the engines, we might have been pacing an esplanade. I let Conway go on in his own way, without questions at first. Somewhere about dawn he began to talk consecutively, and it was breakfast time and hot sunshine when he had finished. When I say ‘finished’ I don’t mean that there was nothing more to tell me after that first confession. He filled in a good many important gaps during the next twenty-four hours. He was very unhappy, and couldn’t have slept, so we talked almost constantly. About the middle of the following night the ship was due to reach Honolulu. We had drinks in my cabin the evening before; he left me about ten o’clock, and I never saw him again.”
    “You don’t mean—” I had a picture in mind of a very calm, deliberate suicide I once saw on the mail-boat from Holyhead to Kingstown.
    Rutherford laughed. “Oh, Lord, no—he wasn’t that sort. He just gave me the slip. It was easy enough to get ashore, but he must have found it hard to avoid being traced when I set people searching for him, as of course I did. Afterwards I learned that he’d managed to join the crew of a banana-boat going south to Fiji.”
    “How did you get to know that?”
    “Quite straightforwardly. He wrote to me, three months later, from Bangkok,