prompt:
Chapter: I ONCE happened to spend a couple of weeks in a Cossack village on our
left flank. A battalion of infantry was stationed there; and it was the
custom of the officers to meet at each other's quarters in turn and play
cards in the evening.

On one occasion--it was at Major S----'s--finding our game of Boston not
sufficiently absorbing, we threw the cards under the table and sat
on for a long time, talking. The conversation, for once in a way, was
interesting. The subject was the Mussulman tradition that a man's fate
is written in heaven, and we discussed the fact that it was gaining many
votaries, even amongst our own countrymen. Each of us related various
extraordinary occurrences, pro or contra.

"What you have been saying, gentlemen, proves nothing," said the old
major. "I presume there is not one of you who has actually been a
witness of the strange events which you are citing in support of your
opinions?"

"Not one, of course," said many of the guests. "But we have heard of
them from trustworthy people."...

"It is all nonsense!" someone said. "Where are the trustworthy people
who have seen the Register in which the appointed hour of our death is
recorded?... And if predestination really exists, why are free will
and reason granted us? Why are we obliged to render an account of our
actions?"

At that moment an officer who was sitting in a corner of the room stood
up, and, coming slowly to the table, surveyed us all with a quiet and
solemn glance. He was a native of Servia, as was evident from his name.

The outward appearance of Lieutenant Vulich was quite in keeping with
his character. His height, swarthy complexion, black hair, piercing
black eyes, large but straight nose--an attribute of his nation--and the
cold and melancholy smile which ever hovered around his lips, all seemed
to concur in lending him the appearance of a man apart, incapable of
reciprocating the thoughts and passions of those whom fate gave him for
companions.

He was brave; talked little, but sharply; confided his thoughts and
family secrets to no one; drank hardly a drop of wine; and never dangled
after the young Cossack girls, whose charm it is difficult to realise
without having seen them. It was said, however, that the colonel's
wife was not indifferent to those expressive eyes of his; but he was
seriously angry if any hint on the subject was made.

There was only one passion which he did not conceal--the passion for
gambling. At the green table he would become oblivious of everything. He
usually lost, but his constant ill success only aroused his obstinacy.
It was related that, on one occasion, during a nocturnal expedition,
he was keeping the bank on a pillow, and had a terrific run of luck.
Suddenly shots rang out. The alarm was sounded; all but Vulich jumped up
and rushed to arms.

"Stake, va banque!" he cried to one of the most ardent gamblers.

"Seven," the latter answered as he hurried off.

Notwithstanding the general confusion, Vulich calmly finished the
deal--seven was the card. By the time he reached the cordon a violent
fusillade was in progress. Vulich did not trouble himself about the
bullets or the sabres of the Chechenes, but sought for the lucky
gambler.

"Seven it was!" he cried out, as at length he perceived him in the
cordon of skirmishers who were beginning to dislodge the enemy from the
wood; and going up to him, he drew out his purse and pocket-book and
handed them to the winner, notwithstanding the latter's objections on
the score of the inconvenience of the payment. That unpleasant duty
discharged, Vulich dashed forward, carried the soldiers along after him,
and, to the very end of the affair, fought the Chechenes with the utmost
coolness.

When Lieutenant Vulich came up to the table, we all became silent,
expecting to hear, as usual, something original.

"Gentlemen!" he said--and his voice was quiet though lower in tone than
usual--"gentlemen, what is the good of futile discussions? You wish for
proofs? I propose that we try the experiment on ourselves: whether a man
can of his own accord dispose of his life, or whether the fateful moment
is appointed beforehand for each of us. Who is agreeable?"

"Not I. Not I," came from all sides.

"There's a queer fellow for you! He does get strange ideas into his
head!"

"I propose a wager," I said in jest.

"What sort of wager?"

"I maintain that there is no such thing as predestination," I said,
scattering on the table a score or so of ducats--all I had in my pocket.

"Done," answered Vulich in a hollow voice. "Major, you will be judge.
Here are fifteen ducats, the remaining five you owe me, kindly add them
to the others."

"Very well," said the major; "though, indeed, I do not understand what
is the question at issue and how you will decide it!"

Without a word Vulich went into the major's bedroom, and we followed
him. He went up to the wall on which the major's weapons were hanging,
and took down at random one of the pistols--of which there were several
of different calibres. We were still in the dark as to what he meant
to do. But, when he cocked the pistol and sprinkled powder in the pan,
several of the officers, crying out in spite of themselves, seized him
by the arms.

"What are you going to do?" they exclaimed. "This is madness!"

"Gentlemen!" he said slowly, disengaging his arm. "Who would like to pay
twenty ducats for me?"

They were silent and drew away.

Vulich went into the other room and sat by the table; we all followed
him. With a sign he invited us to sit round him. We obeyed in
silence--at that moment he had acquired a certain mysterious authority
over us. I stared fixedly into his face; but he met my scrutinising
gaze with a quiet and steady glance, and his pallid lips smiled. But,
notwithstanding his composure, it seemed to me that I could read the
stamp of death upon his pale countenance. I have noticed--and many old
soldiers have corroborated my observation--that a man who is to die in
a few hours frequently bears on his face a certain strange stamp of
inevitable fate, so that it is difficult for practised eyes to be
mistaken.

"You will die to-day!" I said to Vulich.

He turned towards me rapidly, but answered slowly and quietly:

"May be so, may be not."...

Then, addressing himself to the major, he asked:

"Is the pistol loaded?"

The major, in the confusion, could not quite remember.

"There, that will do, Vulich!" exclaimed somebody. "Of course it must be
loaded, if it was one of those hanging on the wall there over our heads.
What a man you are for joking!"

"A silly joke, too!" struck in another.

"I wager fifty rubles to five that the pistol is not loaded!" cried a
third.

A new bet was made.

I was beginning to get tired of it all.

"Listen," I said, "either shoot yourself, or hang up the pistol in its
place and let us go to bed."

"Yes, of course!" many exclaimed. "Let us go to bed."

"Gentlemen, I beg of you not to move," said Vulich, putting the muzzle
of the pistol to his forehead.

We were all petrified.

"Mr. Pechorin," he added, "take a card and throw it up in the air."

I took, as I remember now, an ace of hearts off the table and threw
it into the air. All held their breath. With eyes full of terror and
a certain vague curiosity they glanced rapidly from the pistol to the
fateful ace, which slowly descended, quivering in the air. At the moment
it touched the table Vulich pulled the trigger... a flash in the pan!

"Thank God!" many exclaimed. "It wasn't loaded!"

"Let us see, though," said Vulich.

He cocked the pistol again, and took aim at a forage-cap which was
hanging above the window. A shot rang out. Smoke filled the room; when
it cleared away, the forage-cap was taken down. It had been shot right
through the centre, and the bullet was deeply embedded in the wall.

For two or three minutes no one was able to utter a word. Very quietly
Vulich poured my ducats from the major's purse into his own.

Discussions arose as to why the pistol had not gone off the first
time. Some maintained that probably the pan had been obstructed; others
whispered that the powder had been damp the first time, and that,
afterwards, Vulich had sprinkled some fresh powder on it; but I
maintained that the last supposition was wrong, because I had not once
taken my eyes off the pistol.

"You are lucky at play!" I said to Vulich...

"For the first time in my life!" he answered, with a complacent smile.
"It is better than 'bank' and 'shtoss.'" [23]

"But, on the other hand, slightly more dangerous!"

"Well? Have you begun to believe in predestination?"

"I do believe in it; only I cannot understand now why it appeared to me
that you must inevitably die to-day!"

And this same man, who, such a short time before, had with the greatest
calmness aimed a pistol at his own forehead, now suddenly fired up and
became embarrassed.

"That will do, though!" he said, rising to his feet. "Our wager is
finished, and now your observations, it seems to me, are out of place."

He took up his cap and departed. The whole affair struck me as being
strange--and not without reason. Shortly after that, all the officers
broke up and went home, discussing Vulich's freaks from different points
of view, and, doubtless, with one voice calling me an egoist for having
taken up a wager against a man who wanted to shoot himself, as if he
could not have found a convenient opportunity without my intervention.

I returned home by the deserted byways of the village. The moon, full
and red like the glow of a conflagration, was beginning to make its
appearance from behind the jagged horizon of the house-tops; the stars
were shining tranquilly in the deep, blue vault of the sky; and I was
struck by the absurdity of the idea when I recalled to mind that once
upon a time there were some exceedingly wise people who thought that the
stars of heaven participated in our insignificant squabbles for a slice
of ground, or some other imaginary rights. And what then? These lamps,
lighted, so they fancied, only to illuminate their battles and triumphs,
are burning with all their former brilliance, whilst the wiseacres
themselves, together with their hopes and passions, have long been
extinguished, like a little fire kindled at the edge of a forest by a
careless wayfarer! But, on the other hand, what strength of will
was lent them by the conviction that the entire heavens, with
their innumerable habitants, were looking at them with a sympathy,
unalterable, though mute!... And we, their miserable descendants,
roaming over the earth, without faith, without pride, without enjoyment,
and without terror--except that involuntary awe which makes the heart
shrink at the thought of the inevitable end--we are no longer capable
of great sacrifices, either for the good of mankind or even for our own
happiness, because we know the impossibility of such happiness; and,
just as our ancestors used to fling themselves from one delusion to
another, we pass indifferently from doubt to doubt, without possessing,
as they did, either hope or even that vague though, at the same time,
keen enjoyment which the soul encounters at every struggle with mankind
or with destiny.

These and many other similar thoughts passed through my mind, but I
did not follow them up, because I do not like to dwell upon abstract
ideas--for what do they lead to? In my early youth I was a dreamer; I
loved to hug to my bosom the images--now gloomy, now rainbowhued--which
my restless and eager imagination drew for me. And what is there left to
me of all these? Only such weariness as might be felt after a battle by
night with a phantom--only a confused memory full of regrets. In that
vain contest I have exhausted the warmth of soul and firmness of will
indispensable to an active life. I have entered upon that life after
having already lived through it in thought, and it has become wearisome
and nauseous to me, as the reading of a bad imitation of a book is to
one who has long been familiar with the original.

The events of that evening produced a somewhat deep impression upon me
and excited my nerves. I do not know for certain whether I now believe
in predestination or not, but on that evening I believed in it firmly.
The proof was startling, and I, notwithstanding that I had laughed at
our forefathers and their obliging astrology, fell involuntarily into
their way of thinking. However, I stopped myself in time from following
that dangerous road, and, as I have made it a rule not to reject
anything decisively and not to trust anything blindly, I cast
metaphysics aside and began to look at what was beneath my feet. The
precaution was well-timed. I only just escaped stumbling over something
thick and soft, but, to all appearance, inanimate. I bent down to see
what it was, and, by the light of the moon, which now shone right upon
the road, I perceived that it was a pig which had been cut in two with
a sabre... I had hardly time to examine it before I heard the sound of
steps, and two Cossacks came running out of a byway. One of them came up
to me and enquired whether I had seen a drunken Cossack chasing a pig.
I informed him that I had not met the Cossack and pointed to the unhappy
victim of his rabid bravery.

"The scoundrel!" said the second Cossack. "No sooner does he drink his
fill of chikhir [24] than off he goes and cuts up anything that comes in
his way. Let us be after him, Eremeich, we must tie him up or else"...

They took themselves off, and I continued my way with greater caution,
and at length arrived at my lodgings without mishap.

I was living with a certain old Cossack underofficer whom I loved,
not only on account of his kindly disposition, but also, and more
especially, on account of his pretty daughter, Nastya.

Wrapped up in a sheepskin coat she was waiting for me, as usual, by the
wicket gate. The moon illumined her charming little lips, now turned
blue by the cold of the night. Recognizing me she smiled; but I was in
no mood to linger with her.

"Good night, Nastya!" I said, and passed on.

She was about to make some answer, but only sighed.

I fastened the door of my room after me, lighted a candle, and threw
myself on the bed; but, on that occasion, slumber caused its presence
to be awaited longer than usual. By the time I fell asleep the east was
beginning to grow pale, but I was evidently predestined not to have
my sleep out. At four o'clock in the morning two fists knocked at my
window. I sprang up.

"What is the matter?"

"Get up--dress yourself!"

I dressed hurriedly and went out.

"Do you know what has happened?" said three officers who had come for
me, speaking all in one voice.

They were deadly pale.

"No, what is it?"

"Vulich has been murdered!"

I was petrified.

"Yes, murdered!" they continued. "Let us lose no time and go!"

"But where to?"

"You will learn as we go."

We set off. They told me all that had happened, supplementing their
story with a variety of observations on the subject of the strange
predestination which had saved Vulich from imminent death half an hour
before he actually met his end.

Vulich had been walking alone along a dark street, and the drunken
Cossack who had cut up the pig had sprung out upon him, and perhaps
would have passed him by without noticing him, had not Vulich stopped
suddenly and said:

"Whom are you looking for, my man?"

"You!" answered the Cossack, striking him with his sabre; and he cleft
him from the shoulder almost to the heart...

The two Cossacks who had met me and followed the murderer had arrived on
the scene and raised the wounded man from the ground. But he was already
at his last gasp and said these three words only--"he was right!"

I alone understood the dark significance of those words: they referred
to me. I had involuntarily foretold his fate to poor Vulich. My instinct
had not deceived me; I had indeed read on his changed countenance the
signs of approaching death.

The murderer had locked himself up in an empty hut at the end of the
village; and thither we went. A number of women, all of them weeping,
were running in the same direction; at times a belated Cossack, hastily
buckling on his dagger, sprang out into the street and overtook us at a
run. The tumult was dreadful.

At length we arrived on the scene and found a crowd standing around the
hut, the door and shutters of which were locked on the inside. Groups of
officers and Cossacks were engaged in heated discussions; the women were
shrieking, wailing and talking all in one breath. One of the old
women struck my attention by her meaning looks and the frantic despair
expressed upon her face. She was sitting on a thick plank, leaning her
elbows on her knees and supporting her head with her hands. It was the
mother of the murderer. At times her lips moved... Was it a prayer they
were whispering, or a curse?

Meanwhile it was necessary to decide upon some course of action and to
seize the criminal. Nobody, however, made bold to be the first to rush
forward.

I went up to the window and looked in through a chink in the shutter.
The criminal, pale of face, was lying on the floor, holding a pistol in
his right hand. The blood-stained sabre was beside him. His expressive
eyes were rolling in terror; at times he shuddered and clutched at his
head, as if indistinctly recalling the events of yesterday. I could not
read any sign of great determination in that uneasy glance of his, and
I told the major that it would be better at once to give orders to the
Cossacks to burst open the door and rush in, than to wait until the
murderer had quite recovered his senses.

At that moment the old captain of the Cossacks went up to the door and
called the murderer by name. The latter answered back.

"You have committed a sin, brother Ephimych!" said the captain, "so all
you can do now is to submit."

"I will not submit!" answered the Cossack.

"Have you no fear of God! You see, you are not one of those cursed
Chechenes, but an honest Christian! Come, if you have done it in an
unguarded moment there is no help for it! You cannot escape your fate!"

"I will not submit!" exclaimed the Cossack menacingly, and we could hear
the snap of the cocked trigger.

"Hey, my good woman!" said the Cossack captain to the old woman. "Say a
word to your son--perhaps he will lend an ear to you... You see, to go
on like this is only to make God angry. And look, the gentlemen here
have already been waiting two hours."

The old woman gazed fixedly at him and shook her head.

"Vasili Petrovich," said the captain, going up to the major; "he will
not surrender. I know him! If it comes to smashing in the door he will
strike down several of our men. Would it not be better if you ordered
him to be shot? There is a wide chink in the shutter."

At that moment a strange idea flashed through my head--like Vulich I
proposed to put fate to the test.

"Wait," I said to the major, "I will take him alive."

Bidding the captain enter into a conversation with the murderer and
setting three Cossacks at the door ready to force it open and rush to my
aid at a given signal, I walked round the hut and approached the fatal
window. My heart was beating violently.

"Aha, you cursed wretch!" cried the captain. "Are you laughing at us,
eh? Or do you think that we won't be able to get the better of you?"

He began to knock at the door with all his might. Putting my eye to the
chink, I followed the movements of the Cossack, who was not expecting an
attack from that direction. I pulled the shutter away suddenly and threw
myself in at the window, head foremost. A shot rang out right over my
ear, and the bullet tore off one of my epaulettes. But the smoke which
filled the room prevented my adversary from finding the sabre which was
lying beside him. I seized him by the arms; the Cossacks burst in; and
three minutes had not elapsed before they had the criminal bound and led
off under escort.

The people dispersed, the officers congratulated me--and indeed there
was cause for congratulation.

After all that, it would hardly seem possible to avoid becoming a
fatalist? But who knows for certain whether he is convinced of anything
or not? And how often is a deception of the senses or an error of the
reason accepted as a conviction!... I prefer to doubt everything. Such a
disposition is no bar to decision of character; on the contrary, so far
as I am concerned, I always advance more boldly when I do not know what
is awaiting me. You see, nothing can happen worse than death--and from
death there is no escape.

On my return to the fortress I related to Maksim Maksimych all that
I had seen and experienced; and I sought to learn his opinion on the
subject of predestination.

At first he did not understand the word. I explained it to him as well
as I could, and then he said, with a significant shake of the head:

"Yes, sir, of course! It was a very ingenious trick! However, these
Asiatic pistols often miss fire if they are badly oiled or if you don't
press hard enough on the trigger. I confess I don't like the Circassian
carbines either. Somehow or other they don't suit the like of us: the
butt end is so small, and any minute you may get your nose burnt! On the
other hand, their sabres, now--well, all I need say is, my best respects
to them!"

Afterwards he said, on reflecting a little:

"Yes, it is a pity about the poor fellow! The devil must have put it
into his head to start a conversation with a drunken man at night!
However, it is evident that fate had written it so at his birth!"

I could not get anything more out of Maksim Maksimych; generally
speaking, he had no liking for metaphysical disputations.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In a Cossack village, Pechorin and the other officers get tired of playing boston, a card game. They start talking about predestination. Some of the men are for it, and some believe that men make their own destinies. Each side provides stories to support their stances. Vulich, a lieutenant with a penchant for gambling, gets into the discussion. He once gambled through gunfire between natives and Russian officers. Vulich tells the men that he has a way to prove whether predestination exists or not. Pechorin bets twenty gold coins on the premise that predestination does not exist. Vulich bets on the opposite, and then reveals his plan. Vulich's plan involves him risking his life. The men try to stop him, but they eventually give up and watch the lieutenant's crazy scheme play out. As Pechorin studies Vulich's face, Pechorin sees the mark of death on Vulich's face. Pechorin tells Vulich, "You're going to die today" . Vulich continues with his plans anyway. He has a pistol in his hand. He has no idea if it is loaded or not, and no one else seems to know as well. Vulich takes the gun and aims it at his head. Everyone holds their breath. Vulich shoots, but the gun misfires. The other officers believe the gun to be empty. Vulich aims the gun again, this time at the wall. A bullet flies into the wall. Everyone is stunned, and Vulich collects his money. Pechorin walks home and thinks of the incident. On his way home, Pechorin runs into a slain pig and two Cossacks who ask him if he has seen a drunken man. Pechorin thinks nothing of these two scenes until four in the morning, when three officers awaken him. They tell him that Vulich has been killed. A drunken Cossack had cut both a pig and Vulich in half with a sword. Vulich essentially dies thirty minutes after winning the bet. The three officers bring Pechorin to the cottage where Vulich's murderer has barricaded himself, and Pechorin overhears the murderer's name from an old Cossack captain. It is Yefimich. Yefimich disregards pleas urging him to surrender. His mother is on the scene, but she refuses to cooperate with the officers trying to arrest him. The old Cossack captain and the major do not want to send men into cottage because Yefimich is armed. Pechorin has an idea, and he acts on it. He sneaks into the cottage through a window in the back and surprises Yefimich. Pechorin manages to subdue Yefimich and makes it through the situation with a bullet only " an epaulette from shoulder" . The last scene of this short story brings back Maxim Maximych. Pechorin leaves the Cossack village and returns to the fort where he and Maxim Maximych have formed a bond. He tells Maxim Maximych about Vulich's death. Pechorin tries to get Maxim Maximych's input on predestination, but Maxim Maximych does not offer a strong discourse. Pechorin realizes that Maxim Maximych is "not at all keen on metaphysical discussions" .


prompt:
Chapter: It is a cause of very great regret to me that this task has taken so
much longer a time than I had expected for its completion. It is
now many months--over a year, in fact--since I wrote to Georgetown
announcing my intention of publishing, IN A VERY FEW MONTHS, the whole
truth about Mr. Abel. Hardly less could have been looked for from his
nearest friend, and I had hoped that the discussion in the newspapers
would have ceased, at all events, until the appearance of the promised
book. It has not been so; and at this distance from Guiana I was not
aware of how much conjectural matter was being printed week by week in
the local press, some of which must have been painful reading to Mr.
Abel's friends. A darkened chamber, the existence of which had never
been suspected in that familiar house in Main Street, furnished
only with an ebony stand on which stood a cinerary urn, its surface
ornamented with flower and leaf and thorn, and winding through it all
the figure of a serpent; an inscription, too, of seven short words which
no one could understand or rightly interpret; and finally the disposal
of the mysterious ashes--that was all there was relating to an untold
chapter in a man's life for imagination to work on. Let us hope that
now, at last, the romance-weaving will come to an end. It was, however,
but natural that the keenest curiosity should have been excited; not
only because of that peculiar and indescribable charm of the man, which
all recognized and which won all hearts, but also because of that hidden
chapter--that sojourn in the desert, about which he preserved silence.
It was felt in a vague way by his intimates that he had met with unusual
experiences which had profoundly affected him and changed the course of
his life. To me alone was the truth known, and I must now tell, briefly
as possible, how my great friendship and close intimacy with him came
about.

When, in 1887, I arrived in Georgetown to take up an appointment in a
public office, I found Mr. Abel an old resident there, a man of means
and a favourite in society. Yet he was an alien, a Venezuelan, one
of that turbulent people on our border whom the colonists have always
looked on as their natural enemies. The story told to me was that about
twelve years before that time he had arrived at Georgetown from some
remote district in the interior; that he had journeyed alone on foot
across half the continent to the coast, and had first appeared among
them, a young stranger, penniless, in rags, wasted almost to a skeleton
by fever and misery of all kinds, his face blackened by long exposure
to sun and wind. Friendless, with but little English, it was a hard
struggle for him to live; but he managed somehow, and eventually letters
from Caracas informed him that a considerable property of which he had
been deprived was once more his own, and he was also invited to return
to his country to take his part in the government of the Republic. But
Mr. Abel, though young, had already outlived political passions and
aspirations, and, apparently, even the love of his country; at all
events, he elected to stay where he was--his enemies, he would say
smilingly, were his best friends--and one of the first uses he made of
his fortune was to buy that house in Main Street which was afterwards
like a home to me.

I must state here that my friend's full name was Abel Guevez de
Argensola, but in his early days in Georgetown he was called by his
Christian name only, and later he wished to be known simply as "Mr.
Abel."

I had no sooner made his acquaintance than I ceased to wonder at the
esteem and even affection with which he, a Venezuelan, was regarded in
this British colony. All knew and liked him, and the reason of it was
the personal charm of the man, his kindly disposition, his manner with
women, which pleased them and excited no man's jealousy--not even
the old hot-tempered planter's, with a very young and pretty and
light-headed wife--his love of little children, of all wild creatures,
of nature, and of whatsoever was furthest removed from the common
material interests and concerns of a purely commercial community.
The things which excited other men--politics, sport, and the price of
crystals--were outside of his thoughts; and when men had done with
them for a season, when like the tempest they had "blown their fill" in
office and club-room and house and wanted a change, it was a relief to
turn to Mr. Abel and get him to discourse of his world--the world of
nature and of the spirit.

It was, all felt, a good thing to have a Mr. Abel in Georgetown. That
it was indeed good for me I quickly discovered. I had certainly
not expected to meet in such a place with any person to share my
tastes--that love of poetry which has been the chief passion and delight
of my life; but such a one I had found in Mr. Abel. It surprised me
that he, suckled on the literature of Spain, and a reader of only ten or
twelve years of English literature, possessed a knowledge of our modern
poetry as intimate as my own, and a love of it equally great. This
feeling brought us together and made us two--the nervous olive-skinned
Hispano-American of the tropics and the phlegmatic blue-eyed Saxon of
the cold north--one in spirit and more than brothers. Many were the
daylight hours we spent together and "tired the sun with talking"; many,
past counting, the precious evenings in that restful house of his where
I was an almost daily guest. I had not looked for such happiness; nor,
he often said, had he. A result of this intimacy was that the vague idea
concerning his hidden past, that some unusual experience had profoundly
affected him and perhaps changed the whole course of his life, did not
diminish, but, on the contrary, became accentuated, and was often in
my mind. The change in him was almost painful to witness whenever our
wandering talk touched on the subject of the aborigines, and of the
knowledge he had acquired of their character and languages when
living or travelling among them; all that made his conversation most
engaging--the lively, curious mind, the wit, the gaiety of spirit
tinged with a tender melancholy--appeared to fade out of it; even the
expression of his face would change, becoming hard and set, and he would
deal you out facts in a dry mechanical way as if reading them in a book.
It grieved me to note this, but I dropped no hint of such a feeling, and
would never have spoken about it but for a quarrel which came at last to
make the one brief solitary break in that close friendship of years.
I got into a bad state of health, and Abel was not only much concerned
about it, but annoyed, as if I had not treated him well by being ill,
and he would even say that I could get well if I wished to. I did not
take this seriously, but one morning, when calling to see me at the
office, he attacked me in a way that made me downright angry with him.
He told me that indolence and the use of stimulants was the cause of
my bad health. He spoke in a mocking way, with a presence of not quite
meaning it, but the feeling could not be wholly disguised. Stung by his
reproaches, I blurted out that he had no right to talk to me, even
in fun, in such a way. Yes, he said, getting serious, he had the best
right--that of our friendship. He would be no true friend if he kept his
peace about such a matter. Then, in my haste, I retorted that to me the
friendship between us did not seem so perfect and complete as it did to
him. One condition of friendship is that the partners in it should be
known to each other. He had had my whole life and mind open to him, to
read it as in a book. HIS life was a closed and clasped volume to me.

His face darkened, and after a few moments' silent reflection he got up
and left me with a cold good-bye, and without that hand-grasp which had
been customary between us.

After his departure I had the feeling that a great loss, a great
calamity, had befallen me, but I was still smarting at his too candid
criticism, all the more because in my heart I acknowledged its truth.
And that night, lying awake, I repented of the cruel retort I had made,
and resolved to ask his forgiveness and leave it to him to determine
the question of our future relations. But he was beforehand with me, and
with the morning came a letter begging my forgiveness and asking me to
go that evening to dine with him.

We were alone, and during dinner and afterwards, when we sat smoking and
sipping black coffee in the veranda, we were unusually quiet, even to
gravity, which caused the two white-clad servants that waited on us--the
brown-faced subtle-eyed old Hindu butler and an almost blue-black young
Guiana Negro--to direct many furtive glances at their master's face.
They were accustomed to see him in a more genial mood when he had a
friend to dine. To me the change in his manner was not surprising: from
the moment of seeing him I had divined that he had determined to open
the shut and clasped volume of which I had spoken--that the time had now
come for him to speak.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: An English official in Georgetown, British Guiana, describes his friendship with a mysterious Venezuelan, Abel Guevez de Argensola, known generally in the colony as Mr. Abel. When the Englishman arrived at his post in 1887, Mr. Abel had been living in Georgetown about twelve years, and he enjoyed the respect of the British residents. The narrator, however, is the only person who has established a close relationship with Mr. Abel as a result of their mutual interest in poetry; but the British official still did not learn from his friend's own lips the explanation of his hidden past. After a minor quarrel between the two friends, Mr. Abel, stung by the other's accusation that his life was "a closed and clasped volume," invites the English official to dinner and explains the true story of his youth. Later, presumably after Mr. Abel's death, the narrator prepares to repeat his friend's story in print.


prompt:
Chapter: Now that we are cool, he said, and regret that we hurt each other, I am
not sorry that it happened. I deserved your reproach: a hundred times
I have wished to tell you the whole story of my travels and adventures
among the savages, and one of the reasons which prevented me was the
fear that it would have an unfortunate effect on our friendship. That
was precious, and I desired above everything to keep it. But I must
think no more about that now. I must think only of how I am to tell you
my story. I will begin at a time when I was twenty-three. It was early
in life to be in the thick of politics, and in trouble to the extent of
having to fly my country to save my liberty, perhaps my life.

Every nation, someone remarks, has the government it deserves, and
Venezuela certainly has the one it deserves and that suits it best. We
call it a republic, not only because it is not one, but also because a
thing must have a name; and to have a good name, or a fine name, is
very convenient--especially when you want to borrow money. If the
Venezuelans, thinly distributed over an area of half a million square
miles, mostly illiterate peasants, half-breeds, and indigenes, were
educated, intelligent men, zealous only for the public weal, it would
be possible for them to have a real republic. They have instead
a government by cliques, tempered by revolution; and a very good
government it is, in harmony with the physical conditions of the country
and the national temperament. Now, it happens that the educated men,
representing your higher classes, are so few that there are not many
persons unconnected by ties of blood or marriage with prominent members
of the political groups to which they belong. By this you will see how
easy and almost inevitable it is that we should become accustomed to
look on conspiracy and revolt against the regnant party--the men of
another clique--as only in the natural order of things. In the event
of failure such outbreaks are punished, but they are not regarded as
immoral. On the contrary, men of the highest intelligence and virtue
among us are seen taking a leading part in these adventures. Whether
such a condition of things is intrinsically wrong or not, or would be
wrong in some circumstances and is not wrong, because inevitable, in
others, I cannot pretend to decide; and all this tiresome profusion
is only to enable you to understand how I--a young man of unblemished
character, not a soldier by profession, not ambitious of political
distinction, wealthy for that country, popular in society, a lover of
social pleasures, of books, of nature actuated, as I believed, by the
highest motives, allowed myself to be drawn very readily by friends and
relations into a conspiracy to overthrow the government of the moment,
with the object of replacing it by more worthy men--ourselves, to wit.

Our adventure failed because the authorities got wind of the affair
and matters were precipitated. Our leaders at the moment happened to be
scattered over the country--some were abroad; and a few hotheaded men
of the party, who were in Caracas just then and probably feared arrest,
struck a rash blow: the President was attacked in the street and
wounded. But the attackers were seized, and some of them shot on the
following day. When the news reached me I was at a distance from the
capital, staying with a friend on an estate he owned on the River
Quebrada Honda, in the State of Guarico, some fifteen to twenty miles
from the town of Zaraza. My friend, an officer in the army, was a leader
in the conspiracy; and as I was the only son of a man who had been
greatly hated by the Minister of War, it became necessary for us both
to fly for our lives. In the circumstances we could not look to be
pardoned, even on the score of youth.

Our first decision was to escape to the sea-coast; but as the risk of a
journey to La Guayra, or any other port of embarkation on the north
side of the country, seemed too great, we made our way in a contrary
direction to the Orinoco, and downstream to Angostura. Now, when we had
reached this comparatively safe breathing-place--safe, at all events,
for the moment--I changed my mind about leaving or attempting to leave
the country. Since boyhood I had taken a very peculiar interest in that
vast and almost unexplored territory we possess south of the Orinoco,
with its countless unmapped rivers and trackless forests; and in
its savage inhabitants, with their ancient customs and character,
unadulterated by contact with Europeans. To visit this primitive
wilderness had been a cherished dream; and I had to some extent even
prepared myself for such an adventure by mastering more than one of the
Indian dialects of the northern states of Venezuela. And now, finding
myself on the south side of our great river, with unlimited time at
my disposal, I determined to gratify this wish. My companion took his
departure towards the coast, while I set about making preparations and
hunting up information from those who had travelled in the interior to
trade with the savages. I decided eventually to go back upstream and
penetrate to the interior in the western part of Guayana, and the
Amazonian territory bordering on Colombia and Brazil, and to return to
Angostura in about six months' time. I had no fear of being arrested
in the semi-independent and in most part savage region, as the Guayana
authorities concerned themselves little enough about the political
upheavals at Caracas.

The first five or six months I spent in Guayana, after leaving the city
of refuge, were eventful enough to satisfy a moderately adventurous
spirit. A complaisant government employee at Angostura had provided
me with a passport, in which it was set down (for few to read) that my
object in visiting the interior was to collect information concerning
the native tribes, the vegetable products of the country, and other
knowledge which would be of advantage to the Republic; and the
authorities were requested to afford me protection and assist me in my
pursuits. I ascended the Orinoco, making occasional expeditions to the
small Christian settlements in the neighbourhood of the right bank, also
to the Indian villages; and travelling in this way, seeing and learning
much, in about three months I reached the River Metal. During this
period I amused myself by keeping a journal, a record of personal
adventures, impressions of the country and people, both semi-civilized
and savage; and as my journal grew, I began to think that on my return
at some future time to Caracas, it might prove useful and interesting to
the public, and also procure me fame; which thought proved pleasurable
and a great incentive, so that I began to observe things more narrowly
and to study expression. But the book was not to be.

From the mouth of the Meta I journeyed on, intending to visit the
settlement of Atahapo, where the great River Guaviare, with other
rivers, empties itself into the Orinoco. But I was not destined to reach
it, for at the small settlement of Manapuri I fell ill of a low fever;
and here ended the first half-year of my wanderings, about which no more
need be told.

A more miserable place than Manapuri for a man to be ill of a low fever
in could not well be imagined. The settlement, composed of mean hovels,
with a few large structures of mud, or plastered wattle, thatched
with palm leaves, was surrounded by water, marsh, and forest, the
breeding-place of myriads of croaking frogs and of clouds of mosquitoes;
even to one in perfect health existence in such a place would have
been a burden. The inhabitants mustered about eighty or ninety, mostly
Indians of that degenerate class frequently to be met with in small
trading outposts. The savages of Guayana are great drinkers, but not
drunkards in our sense, since their fermented liquors contain so
little alcohol that inordinate quantities must be swallowed to produce
intoxication; in the settlements they prefer the white man's more potent
poisons, with the result that in a small place like Manapuri one can see
enacted, as on a stage, the last act in the great American tragedy. To
be succeeded, doubtless, by other and possibly greater tragedies. My
thoughts at that period of suffering were pessimistic in the extreme.
Sometimes, when the almost continuous rain held up for half a day, I
would manage to creep out a short distance; but I was almost past making
any exertion, scarcely caring to live, and taking absolutely no interest
in the news from Caracas, which reached me at long intervals. At the end
of two months, feeling a slight improvement in my health, and with it a
returning interest in life and its affairs, it occurred to me to get
out my diary and write a brief account of my sojourn at Manapuri. I had
placed it for safety in a small deal box, lent to me for the purpose
by a Venezuelan trader, an old resident at the settlement, by name
Pantaleon--called by all Don Panta--one who openly kept half a dozen
Indian wives in his house, and was noted for his dishonesty and greed,
but who had proved himself a good friend to me. The box was in a corner
of the wretched palm-thatched hovel I inhabited; but on taking it out I
discovered that for several weeks the rain had been dripping on it, and
that the manuscript was reduced to a sodden pulp. I flung it upon the
floor with a curse and threw myself back on my bed with a groan.

In that desponding state I was found by my friend Panta, who was
constant in his visits at all hours; and when in answer to his anxious
inquiries I pointed to the pulpy mass on the mud floor, he turned it
over with his foot, and then, bursting into a loud laugh, kicked it out,
remarking that he had mistaken the object for some unknown reptile that
had crawled in out of the rain. He affected to be astonished that I
should regret its loss. It was all a true narrative, he exclaimed; if
I wished to write a book for the stay-at-homes to read, I could easily
invent a thousand lies far more entertaining than any real experiences.
He had come to me, he said, to propose something. He had lived twenty
years at that place, and had got accustomed to the climate, but it would
not do for me to remain any longer if I wished to live. I must go away
at once to a different country--to the mountains, where it was open and
dry. "And if you want quinine when you are there," he concluded, "smell
the wind when it blows from the south-west, and you will inhale it into
your system, fresh from the forest." When I remarked despondingly that
in my condition it would be impossible to quit Manapuri, he went on to
say that a small party of Indians was now in the settlement; that they
had come, not only to trade, but to visit one of their own tribe, who
was his wife, purchased some years ago from her father. "And the money
she cost me I have never regretted to this day," said he, "for she is a
good wife not jealous," he added, with a curse on all the others. These
Indians came all the way from the Queneveta mountains, and were of the
Maquiritari tribe. He, Panta, and, better still, his good wife would
interest them on my behalf, and for a suitable reward they would take me
by slow, easy stages to their own country, where I would be treated well
and recover my health.

This proposal, after I had considered it well, produced so good an
effect on me that I not only gave a glad consent, but, on the following
day, I was able to get about and begin the preparations for my journey
with some spirit.

In about eight days I bade good-bye to my generous friend Panta, whom I
regarded, after having seen much of him, as a kind of savage beast that
had sprung on me, not to rend, but to rescue from death; for we
know that even cruel savage brutes and evil men have at times sweet,
beneficent impulses, during which they act in a way contrary to their
natures, like passive agents of some higher power. It was a continual
pain to travel in my weak condition, and the patience of my Indians
was severely taxed; but they did not forsake me; and at last the entire
distance, which I conjectured to be about sixty-five leagues, was
accomplished; and at the end I was actually stronger and better in
every way than at the start. From this time my progress towards complete
recovery was rapid. The air, with or without any medicinal virtue blown
from the cinchona trees in the far-off Andean forest, was tonic; and
when I took my walks on the hillside above the Indian village, or later
when able to climb to the summits, the world as seen from those
wild Queneveta mountains had a largeness and varied glory of scenery
peculiarly refreshing and delightful to the soul.

With the Maquiritari tribe I passed some weeks, and the sweet sensations
of returning health made me happy for a time; but such sensations seldom
outlast convalescence. I was no sooner well again than I began to feel
a restless spirit stirring in me. The monotony of savage life in this
place became intolerable. After my long listless period the reaction had
come, and I wished only for action, adventure--no matter how dangerous;
and for new scenes, new faces, new dialects. In the end I conceived the
idea of going on to the Casiquiare river, where I would find a few small
settlements, and perhaps obtain help from the authorities there which
would enable me to reach the Rio Negro. For it was now in my mind to
follow that river to the Amazons, and so down to Para and the Atlantic
coast.

Leaving the Queneveta range, I started with two of the Indians as guides
and travelling companions; but their journey ended only half-way to the
river I wished to reach; and they left me with some friendly savages
living on the Chunapay, a tributary of the Cunucumana, which flows to
the Orinoco. Here I had no choice but to wait until an opportunity of
attaching myself to some party of travelling Indians going south-west
should arrive; for by this time I had expended the whole of my small
capital in ornaments and calico brought from Manapuri, so that I could
no longer purchase any man's service. And perhaps it will be as well
to state at this point just what I possessed. For some time I had worn
nothing but sandals to protect my feet; my garments consisted of a
single suit, and one flannel shirt, which I washed frequently, going
shirtless while it was drying. Fortunately I had an excellent blue cloth
cloak, durable and handsome, given to me by a friend at Angostura, whose
prophecy on presenting it, that it would outlast ME, very nearly came
true. It served as a covering by night, and to keep a man warm and
comfortable when travelling in cold and wet weather no better garment
was ever made. I had a revolver and metal cartridge-box in my broad
leather belt, also a good hunting-knife with strong buckhorn handle and
a heavy blade about nine inches long. In the pocket of my cloak I had a
pretty silver tinder-box, and a match-box--to be mentioned again in this
narrative--and one or two other trifling objects; these I was determined
to keep until they could be kept no longer.

During the tedious interval of waiting on the Chunapay I was told a
flattering tale by the village Indians, which eventually caused me
to abandon the proposed journey to the Rio Negro. These Indians wore
necklets, like nearly all the Guayana savages; but one, I observed,
possessed a necklet unlike that of the others, which greatly aroused my
curiosity. It was made of thirteen gold plates, irregular in form, about
as broad as a man's thumb-nail, and linked together with fibres. I was
allowed to examine it, and had no doubt that the pieces were of pure
gold, beaten flat by the savages. When questioned about it, they said
it was originally obtained from the Indians of Parahuari, and Parahuari,
they further said, was a mountainous country west of the Orinoco. Every
man and woman in that place, they assured me, had such a necklet. This
report inflamed my mind to such a degree that I could not rest by night
or day for dreaming golden dreams, and considering how to get to that
rich district, unknown to civilized men. The Indians gravely shook their
heads when I tried to persuade them to take me. They were far enough
from the Orinoco, and Parahuari was ten, perhaps fifteen, days' journey
further on--a country unknown to them, where they had no relations.

In spite of difficulties and delays, however, and not without pain and
some perilous adventures, I succeeded at last in reaching the upper
Orinoco, and, eventually, in crossing to the other side. With my life
in my hand I struggled on westward through an unknown difficult country,
from Indian village to village, where at any moment I might have been
murdered with impunity for the sake of my few belongings. It is hard for
me to speak a good word for the Guayana savages; but I must now say this
of them, that they not only did me no harm when I was at their mercy
during this long journey, but they gave me shelter in their villages,
and fed me when I was hungry, and helped me on my way when I could make
no return. You must not, however, run away with the idea that there is
any sweetness in their disposition, any humane or benevolent instincts
such as are found among the civilized nations: far from it. I regard
them now, and, fortunately for me, I regarded them then, when, as I have
said, I was at their mercy, as beasts of prey, plus a cunning or low
kind of intelligence vastly greater than that of the brute; and, for
only morality, that respect for the rights of other members of the same
family, or tribe, without which even the rudest communities cannot hold
together. How, then, could I do this thing, and dwell and travel freely,
without receiving harm, among tribes that have no peace with and no
kindly feelings towards the stranger, in a district where the white
man is rarely or never seen? Because I knew them so well. Without that
knowledge, always available, and an extreme facility in acquiring new
dialects, which had increased by practice until it was almost like
intuition, I should have fared badly after leaving the Maquiritari
tribe. As it was, I had two or three very narrow escapes.

To return from this digression. I looked at last on the famous Parahuari
mountains, which, I was greatly surprised to find, were after all
nothing but hills, and not very high ones. This, however, did not
impress me. The very fact that Parahuari possessed no imposing feature
in its scenery seemed rather to prove that it must be rich in gold: how
else could its name and the fame of its treasures be familiar to people
dwelling so far away as the Cunucumana?

But there was no gold. I searched through the whole range, which was
about seven leagues long, and visited the villages, where I talked much
with the Indians, interrogating them, and they had no necklets of
gold, nor gold in any form; nor had they ever heard of its presence in
Parahuari or in any other place known to them.

The very last village where I spoke on the subject of my quest, albeit
now without hope, was about a league from the western extremity of the
range, in the midst of a high broken country of forest and savannah and
many swift streams; near one of these, called the Curicay, the village
stood, among low scattered trees--a large building, in which all the
people, numbering eighteen, passed most of their time when not hunting,
with two smaller buildings attached to it. The head, or chief, Runi by
name, was about fifty years old, a taciturn, finely formed, and somewhat
dignified savage, who was either of a sullen disposition or not well
pleased at the intrusion of a white man. And for a time I made no
attempt to conciliate him. What profit was there in it at all? Even
that light mask, which I had worn so long and with such good effect,
incommoded me now: I would cast it aside and be myself--silent and
sullen as my barbarous host. If any malignant purpose was taking form
in his mind, let it, and let him do his worst; for when failure first
stares a man in the face, it has so dark and repellent a look that not
anything that can be added can make him more miserable; nor has he any
apprehension. For weeks I had been searching with eager, feverish
eyes in every village, in every rocky crevice, in every noisy mountain
streamlet, for the glittering yellow dust I had travelled so far to
find. And now all my beautiful dreams--all the pleasure and power to
be--had vanished like a mere mirage on the savannah at noon.

It was a day of despair which I spent in this place, sitting all day
indoors, for it was raining hard, immersed in my own gloomy thoughts,
pretending to doze in my seat, and out of the narrow slits of my
half-closed eyes seeing the others, also sitting or moving about, like
shadows or people in a dream; and I cared nothing about them, and wished
not to seem friendly, even for the sake of the food they might offer me
by and by.

Towards evening the rain ceased; and rising up I went out a short
distance to the neighbouring stream, where I sat on a stone and, casting
off my sandals, laved my bruised feet in the cool running water. The
western half of the sky was blue again with that tender lucid blue
seen after rain, but the leaves still glittered with water, and the wet
trunks looked almost black under the green foliage. The rare loveliness
of the scene touched and lightened my heart. Away back in the east
the hills of Parahuari, with the level sun full on them, loomed with a
strange glory against the grey rainy clouds drawing off on that side,
and their new mystic beauty almost made me forget how these same hills
had wearied, and hurt, and mocked me. On that side, also to the north
and south, there was open forest, but to the west a different prospect
met the eye. Beyond the stream and the strip of verdure that fringed it,
and the few scattered dwarf trees growing near its banks, spread a brown
savannah sloping upwards to a long, low, rocky ridge, beyond which rose
a great solitary hill, or rather mountain, conical in form, and clothed
in forest almost to the summit. This was the mountain Ytaioa, the chief
landmark in that district. As the sun went down over the ridge, beyond
the savannah, the whole western sky changed to a delicate rose colour
that had the appearance of rose-coloured smoke blown there by some far
off-wind, and left suspended--a thin, brilliant veil showing through it
the distant sky beyond, blue and ethereal. Flocks of birds, a kind of
troupial, were flying past me overhead, flock succeeding flock, on their
way to their roosting-place, uttering as they flew a clear, bell-like
chirp; and there was something ethereal too in those drops of melodious
sound, which fell into my heart like raindrops falling into a pool to
mix their fresh heavenly water with the water of earth.

Doubtless into the turbid tarn of my heart some sacred drops had
fallen--from the passing birds, from that crimson disk which had now
dropped below the horizon, the darkening hills, the rose and blue of
infinite heaven, from the whole visible circle; and I felt purified
and had a strange sense and apprehension of a secret innocence and
spirituality in nature--a prescience of some bourn, incalculably distant
perhaps, to which we are all moving; of a time when the heavenly rain
shall have washed us clean from all spot and blemish. This unexpected
peace which I had found now seemed to me of infinitely greater value
than that yellow metal I had missed finding, with all its possibilities.
My wish now was to rest for a season at this spot, so remote and lovely
and peaceful, where I had experienced such unusual feelings and such a
blessed disillusionment.

This was the end of my second period in Guayana: the first had been
filled with that dream of a book to win me fame in my country, perhaps
even in Europe; the second, from the time of leaving the Queneveta
mountains, with the dream of boundless wealth--the old dream of gold
in this region that has drawn so many minds since the days of Francisco
Pizarro. But to remain I must propitiate Runi, sitting silent with
gloomy brows over there indoors; and he did not appear to me like one
that might be won with words, however flattering. It was clear to
me that the time had come to part with my one remaining valuable
trinket--the tinder-box of chased silver.

I returned to the house and, going in, seated myself on a log by the
fire, just opposite to my grim host, who was smoking and appeared not
to have moved since I left him. I made myself a cigarette, then drew out
the tinder-box, with its flint and steel attached to it by means of
two small silver chains. His eyes brightened a little as they curiously
watched my movements, and he pointed without speaking to the glowing
coals of fire at my feet. I shook my head, and striking the steel, sent
out a brilliant spray of sparks, then blew on the tinder and lit my
cigarette.

This done, instead of returning the box to my pocket I passed the chain
through the buttonhole of my cloak and let it dangle on my breast as
an ornament. When the cigarette was smoked, I cleared my throat in the
orthodox manner and fixed my eyes on Runi, who, on his part, made a
slight movement to indicate that he was ready to listen to what I had to
say.

My speech was long, lasting at least half an hour, delivered in
a profound silence; it was chiefly occupied with an account of my
wanderings in Guayana; and being little more than a catalogue of names
of all the places I had visited, and the tribes and chief or head men
with whom I had come in contact, I was able to speak continuously, and
so to hide my ignorance of a dialect which was still new to me.
The Guayana savage judges a man for his staying powers. To stand as
motionless as a bronze statue for one or two hours watching for a
bird; to sit or lie still for half a day; to endure pain, not seldom
self-inflicted, without wincing; and when delivering a speech to pour
it out in a copious stream, without pausing to take breath or hesitating
over a word--to be able to do all this is to prove yourself a man, an
equal, one to be respected and even made a friend of. What I really
wished to say to him was put in a few words at the conclusion of my
well-nigh meaningless oration. Everywhere, I said, I had been the
Indian's friend, and I wished to be his friend, to live with him at
Parahuari, even as I had lived with other chiefs and heads of villages
and families; to be looked on by him, as these others had looked on me,
not as a stranger or a white man, but as a friend, a brother, an Indian.

I ceased speaking, and there was a slight murmurous sound in the room,
as of wind long pent up in many lungs suddenly exhaled; while Runi,
still unmoved, emitted a low grunt. Then I rose, and detaching the
silver ornament from my cloak, presented it to him. He accepted it; not
very graciously, as a stranger to these people might have imagined; but
I was satisfied, feeling sure that I had made a favourable impression.
After a little he handed the box to the person sitting next to him, who
examined it and passed it on to a third, and in this way it went round
and came back once more to Runi. Then he called for a drink. There
happened to be a store of casserie in the house; probably the women had
been busy for some days past in making it, little thinking that it was
destined to be prematurely consumed. A large jarful was produced; Runi
politely quaffed the first cup; I followed; then the others; and the
women drank also, a woman taking about one cupful to a man's three.
Runi and I, however, drank the most, for we had our positions as the two
principal personages there to maintain. Tongues were loosened now; for
the alcohol, small as the quantity contained in this mild liquor is, had
begun to tell on our brains. I had not their pottle-shaped stomach, made
to hold unlimited quantities of meat and drink; but I was determined on
this most important occasion not to deserve my host's contempt--to be
compared, perhaps, to the small bird that delicately picks up six drops
of water in its bill and is satisfied. I would measure my strength
against his, and if necessary drink myself into a state of
insensibility.

At last I was scarcely able to stand on my legs. But even the seasoned
old savage was affected by this time. In vino veritas, said the
ancients; and the principle holds good where there is no vinum, but only
mild casserie. Runi now informed me that he had once known a white man,
that he was a bad man, which had caused him to say that all white men
were bad; even as David, still more sweepingly, had proclaimed that all
men were liars. Now he found that it was not so, that I was a good man.
His friendliness increased with intoxication. He presented me with a
curious little tinder-box, made from the conical tail of an armadillo,
hollowed out, and provided with a wooden stopper--this to be used in
place of the box I had deprived myself of. He also furnished me with a
grass hammock, and had it hung up there and then, so that I could lie
down when inclined. There was nothing he would not do for me. And at
last, when many more cups had been emptied, and a third or fourth jar
brought out, he began to unburthen his heart of its dark and dangerous
secrets. He shed tears--for the "man without a tear" dwells not in the
woods of Guayana: tears for those who had been treacherously slain long
years ago; for his father, who had been killed by Tripica, the father
of Managa, who was still above ground. But let him and all his people
beware of Runi. He had spilt their blood before, he had fed the fox and
vulture with their flesh, and would never rest while Managa lived with
his people at Uritay--the five hills of Uritay, which were two days'
journey from Parahuari. While thus talking of his old enemy he lashed
himself into a kind of frenzy, smiting his chest and gnashing his teeth;
and finally seizing a spear, he buried its point deep into the clay
floor, only to wrench it out and strike it into the earth again and
again, to show how he would serve Managa, and any one of Managa's people
he might meet with--man, woman, or child. Then he staggered out from the
door to flourish his spear; and looking to the north-west, he shouted
aloud to Managa to come and slay his people and burn down his house, as
he had so often threatened to do.

"Let him come! Let Managa come!" I cried, staggering out after him. "I
am your friend, your brother; I have no spear and no arrows, but I have
this--this!" And here I drew out and flourished my revolver. "Where is
Managa?" I continued. "Where are the hills of Uritay?" He pointed to
a star low down in the south-west. "Then," I shouted, "let this bullet
find Managa, sitting by the fire among his people, and let him fall and
pour out his blood on the ground!" And with that I discharged my pistol
in the direction he had pointed to. A scream of terror burst out from
the women and children, while Runi at my side, in an access of fierce
delight and admiration, turned and embraced me. It was the first and
last embrace I ever suffered from a naked male savage, and although
this did not seem a time for fastidious feelings, to be hugged to his
sweltering body was an unpleasant experience.

More cups of casserie followed this outburst; and at last, unable to
keep it up any longer, I staggered to my hammock; but being unable to
get into it, Runi, overflowing with kindness, came to my assistance,
whereupon we fell and rolled together on the floor. Finally I was raised
by the others and tumbled into my swinging bed, and fell at once into a
deep, dreamless sleep, from which I did not awake until after sunrise on
the following morning.

It is fortunate that casserie is manufactured by an extremely slow,
laborious process, since the women, who are the drink-makers, in the
first place have to reduce the material (cassava bread) to a pulp by
means of their own molars, after which it is watered down and put away
in troughs to ferment. Great is the diligence of these willing slaves;
but, work how they will, they can only satisfy their lords' love of
a big drink at long intervals. Such a function as that at which I had
assisted is therefore the result of much patient mastication and silent
fermentation--the delicate flower of a plant that has been a long time
growing.

Having now established myself as one of the family, at the cost of some
disagreeable sensations and a pang or two of self-disgust, I resolved
to let nothing further trouble me at Parahuari, but to live the
easy, careless life of the idle man, joining in hunting and fishing
expeditions when in the mood; at other times enjoying existence in my
own way, apart from my fellows, conversing with wild nature in that
solitary place. Besides Runi, there were, in our little community, two
oldish men, his cousins I believe, who had wives and grown-up
children. Another family consisted of Piake, Runi's nephew, his brother
Kua-ko--about whom there will be much to say--and a sister Oalava. Piake
had a wife and two children; Kua-ko was unmarried and about nineteen or
twenty years old; Oalava was the youngest of the three. Last of all,
who should perhaps have been first, was Runi's mother, called Cla-cla,
probably in imitation of the cry of some bird, for in these latitudes a
person is rarely, perhaps never, called by his or her real name, which
is a secret jealously preserved, even from near relations. I believe
that Cla-cla herself was the only living being who knew the name her
parents had bestowed on her at birth. She was a very old woman, spare
in figure, brown as old sun-baked leather, her face written over with
innumerable wrinkles, and her long coarse hair perfectly white; yet she
was exceedingly active, and seemed to do more work than any other woman
in the community; more than that, when the day's toil was over and
nothing remained for the others to do, then Cla-cla's night work would
begin; and this was to talk all the others, or at all events all the
men, to sleep. She was like a self-regulating machine, and punctually
every evening, when the door was closed, and the night fire made up, and
every man in his hammock, she would set herself going, telling the most
interminable stories, until the last listener was fast asleep; later
in the night, if any man woke with a snort or grunt, off she would go
again, taking up the thread of the tale where she had dropped it.

Old Cla-cla amused me very much, by night and day, and I seldom tired of
watching her owlish countenance as she sat by the fire, never allowing
it to sink low for want of fuel; always studying the pot when it was on
to simmer, and at the same time attending to the movements of the others
about her, ready at a moment's notice to give assistance or to dart out
on a stray chicken or refractory child.

So much did she amuse me, although without intending it, that I
thought it would be only fair, in my turn, to do something for her
entertainment. I was engaged one day in shaping a wooden foil with my
knife, whistling and singing snatches of old melodies at my work,
when all at once I caught sight of the ancient dame looking greatly
delighted, chuckling internally, nodding her head, and keeping time
with her hands. Evidently she was able to appreciate a style of music
superior to that of the aboriginals, and forthwith I abandoned my foils
for the time and set about the manufacture of a guitar, which cost
me much labour and brought out more ingenuity than I had ever thought
myself capable of. To reduce the wood to the right thinness, then to
bend and fasten it with wooden pegs and with gums, to add the arm,
frets, keys, and finally the catgut strings--those of another kind being
out of the question--kept me busy for some days. When completed it was
a rude instrument, scarcely tunable; nevertheless when I smote the
strings, playing lively music, or accompanied myself in singing, I found
that it was a great success, and so was as much pleased with my own
performance as if I had had the most perfect guitar ever made in old
Spain. I also skipped about the floor, strum-strumming at the same time,
instructing them in the most lively dances of the whites, in which the
feet must be as nimble as the player's fingers. It is true that these
exhibitions were always witnessed by the adults with a profound gravity,
which would have disheartened a stranger to their ways. They were a set
of hollow bronze statues that looked at me, but I knew that the living
animals inside of them were tickled at my singing, strumming, and
pirouetting. Cla-cla was, however, an exception, and encouraged me not
infrequently by emitting a sound, half cackle and half screech, by
way of laughter; for she had come to her second childhood, or, at all
events, had dropped the stolid mask which the young Guayana savage, in
imitation of his elders, adjusts to his face at about the age of twelve,
to wear it thereafter all his life long, or only to drop it occasionally
when very drunk. The youngsters also openly manifested their pleasure,
although, as a rule, they try to restrain their feelings in the presence
of grown-up people, and with them I became a great favourite.

By and by I returned to my foil-making, and gave them fencing lessons,
and sometimes invited two or three of the biggest boys to attack me
simultaneously, just to show how easily I could disarm and kill them.
This practice excited some interest in Kua-ko, who had a little more of
curiosity and geniality and less of the put-on dignity of the others,
and with him I became most intimate. Fencing with Kua-ko was highly
amusing: no sooner was he in position, foil in hand, than all my
instructions were thrown to the winds, and he would charge and attack me
in his own barbarous manner, with the result that I would send his foil
spinning a dozen yards away, while he, struck motionless, would gaze
after it in open-mouthed astonishment.

Three weeks had passed by not unpleasantly when, one morning, I took
it into my head to walk by myself across that somewhat sterile savannah
west of the village and stream, which ended, as I have said, in a long,
low, stony ridge. From the village there was nothing to attract the
eye in that direction; but I wished to get a better view of that great
solitary hill or mountain of Ytaioa, and of the cloud-like summits
beyond it in the distance. From the stream the ground rose in a gradual
slope, and the highest part of the ridge for which I made was about
two miles from the starting-point--a parched brown plain, with nothing
growing on it but scattered tussocks of sere hair-like grass.

When I reached the top and could see the country beyond, I was agreeably
disappointed at the discovery that the sterile ground extended only
about a mile and a quarter on the further side, and was succeeded by a
forest--a very inviting patch of woodland covering five or six square
miles, occupying a kind of oblong basin, extending from the foot of
Ytaioa on the north to a low range of rocky hills on the south. From the
wooded basin long narrow strips of forest ran out in various directions
like the arms of an octopus, one pair embracing the slopes of Ytaioa,
another much broader belt extending along a valley which cut through the
ridge of hills on the south side at right angles and was lost to sight
beyond; far away in the west and south and north distant mountains
appeared, not in regular ranges, but in groups or singly, or looking
like blue banked-up clouds on the horizon.

Glad at having discovered the existence of this forest so near home, and
wondering why my Indian friends had never taken me to it nor ever went
out on that side, I set forth with a light heart to explore it for
myself, regretting only that I was without a proper weapon for procuring
game. The walk from the ridge over the savannah was easy, as the barren,
stony ground sloped downwards the whole way. The outer part of the wood
on my side was very open, composed in most part of dwarf trees that grow
on stony soil, and scattered thorny bushes bearing a yellow pea-shaped
blossom. Presently I came to thicker wood, where the trees were much
taller and in greater variety; and after this came another sterile
strip, like that on the edge of the wood where stone cropped out from
the ground and nothing grew except the yellow-flowered thorn bushes.
Passing this sterile ribbon, which seemed to extend to a considerable
distance north and south, and was fifty to a hundred yards wide, the
forest again became dense and the trees large, with much undergrowth in
places obstructing the view and making progress difficult.

I spent several hours in this wild paradise, which was so much more
delightful than the extensive gloomier forests I had so often penetrated
in Guayana; for here, if the trees did not attain to such majestic
proportions, the variety of vegetable forms was even greater; as far
as I went it was nowhere dark under the trees, and the number of lovely
parasites everywhere illustrated the kindly influence of light and air.
Even where the trees were largest the sunshine penetrated, subdued by
the foliage to exquisite greenish-golden tints, filling the wide lower
spaces with tender half-lights, and faint blue-and-gray shadows. Lying
on my back and gazing up, I felt reluctant to rise and renew my ramble.
For what a roof was that above my head! Roof I call it, just as the
poets in their poverty sometimes describe the infinite ethereal sky by
that word; but it was no more roof-like and hindering to the soaring
spirit than the higher clouds that float in changing forms and tints,
and like the foliage chasten the intolerable noonday beams. How far
above me seemed that leafy cloudland into which I gazed! Nature, we
know, first taught the architect to produce by long colonnades the
illusion of distance; but the light-excluding roof prevents him from
getting the same effect above. Here Nature is unapproachable with her
green, airy canopy, a sun-impregnated cloud--cloud above cloud; and
though the highest may be unreached by the eye, the beams yet filter
through, illuming the wide spaces beneath--chamber succeeded by chamber,
each with its own special lights and shadows. Far above me, but not
nearly so far as it seemed, the tender gloom of one such chamber or
space is traversed now by a golden shaft of light falling through some
break in the upper foliage, giving a strange glory to everything it
touches--projecting leaves, and beard-like tuft of moss, and snaky
bush-rope. And in the most open part of that most open space, suspended
on nothing to the eye, the shaft reveals a tangle of shining silver
threads--the web of some large tree-spider. These seemingly distant yet
distinctly visible threads serve to remind me that the human artist is
only able to get his horizontal distance by a monotonous reduplication
of pillar and arch, placed at regular intervals, and that the least
departure from this order would destroy the effect. But Nature produces
her effects at random, and seems only to increase the beautiful illusion
by that infinite variety of decoration in which she revels, binding tree
to tree in a tangle of anaconda-like lianas, and dwindling down from
these huge cables to airy webs and hair-like fibres that vibrate to the
wind of the passing insect's wing.

Thus in idleness, with such thoughts for company, I spent my time, glad
that no human being, savage or civilized, was with me. It was better to
be alone to listen to the monkeys that chattered without offending; to
watch them occupied with the unserious business of their lives. With
that luxuriant tropical nature, its green clouds and illusive aerial
spaces, full of mystery, they harmonized well in language, appearance,
and motions--mountebank angels, living their fantastic lives far above
earth in a half-way heaven of their own.

I saw more monkeys on that morning than I usually saw in the course of
a week's rambling. And other animals were seen; I particularly remember
two accouries I startled, that after rushing away a few yards stopped
and stood peering back at me as if not knowing whether to regard me as
friend or enemy. Birds, too, were strangely abundant; and altogether
this struck me as being the richest hunting-ground I had seen, and it
astonished me to think that the Indians of the village did not appear to
visit it.

On my return in the afternoon I gave an enthusiastic account of my day's
ramble, speaking not of the things that had moved my soul, but only of
those which move the Guayana Indian's soul--the animal food he craves,
and which, one would imagine, Nature would prefer him to do without, so
hard he finds it to wrest a sufficiency from her. To my surprise they
shook their heads and looked troubled at what I said; and finally my
host informed me that the wood I had been in was a dangerous place; that
if they went there to hunt, a great injury would be done to them; and he
finished by advising me not to visit it again.

I began to understand from their looks and the old man's vague words
that their fear of the wood was superstitious. If dangerous creatures
had existed there--tigers, or camoodis, or solitary murderous
savages--they would have said so; but when I pressed them with questions
they could only repeat that "something bad" existed in the place, that
animals were abundant there because no Indian who valued his life dared
venture into it. I replied that unless they gave me some more definite
information I should certainly go again and put myself in the way of the
danger they feared.

My reckless courage, as they considered it, surprised them; but they had
already begun to find out that their superstitions had no effect on me,
that I listened to them as to stories invented to amuse a child, and for
the moment they made no further attempt to dissuade me.

Next day I returned to the forest of evil report, which had now a
new and even greater charm--the fascination of the unknown and the
mysterious; still, the warning I had received made me distrustful and
cautious at first, for I could not help thinking about it. When we
consider how much of their life is passed in the woods, which become
as familiar to them as the streets of our native town to us, it seems
almost incredible that these savages have a superstitious fear of all
forests, fearing them as much, even in the bright light of day, as a
nervous child with memory filled with ghost-stories fears a dark room.
But, like the child in the dark room, they fear the forest only when
alone in it, and for this reason always hunt in couples or parties.
What, then, prevented them from visiting this particular wood, which
offered so tempting a harvest? The question troubled me not a little; at
the same time I was ashamed of the feeling, and fought against it; and
in the end I made my way to the same sequestered spot where I had rested
so long on my previous visit.

In this place I witnessed a new thing and had a strange experience.
Sitting on the ground in the shade of a large tree, I began to hear a
confused noise as of a coming tempest of wind mixed with shrill calls
and cries. Nearer and nearer it came, and at last a multitude of birds
of many kinds, but mostly small, appeared in sight swarming through the
trees, some running on the trunks and larger branches, others flitting
through the foliage, and many keeping on the wing, now hovering and
now darting this way or that. They were all busily searching for and
pursuing the insects, moving on at the same time, and in a very few
minutes they had finished examining the trees near me and were gone; but
not satisfied with what I had witnessed, I jumped up and rushed after
the flock to keep it in sight. All my caution and all recollection of
what the Indians had said was now forgot, so great was my interest in
this bird-army; but as they moved on without pause, they quickly left me
behind, and presently my career was stopped by an impenetrable tangle of
bushes, vines, and roots of large trees extending like huge cables
along the ground. In the midst of this leafy labyrinth I sat down on a
projecting root to cool my blood before attempting to make my way back
to my former position. After that tempest of motion and confused noises
the silence of the forest seemed very profound; but before I had
been resting many moments it was broken by a low strain of exquisite
bird-melody, wonderfully pure and expressive, unlike any musical sound I
had ever heard before. It seemed to issue from a thick cluster of broad
leaves of a creeper only a few yards from where I sat. With my eyes
fixed on this green hiding-place I waited with suspended breath for its
repetition, wondering whether any civilized being had ever listened to
such a strain before. Surely not, I thought, else the fame of so divine
a melody would long ago have been noised abroad. I thought of the
rialejo, the celebrated organbird or flute-bird, and of the various ways
in which hearers are affected by it. To some its warbling is like the
sound of a beautiful mysterious instrument, while to others it seems
like the singing of a blithe-hearted child with a highly melodious
voice. I had often heard and listened with delight to the singing of the
rialejo in the Guayana forests, but this song, or musical phrase, was
utterly unlike it in character. It was pure, more expressive, softer--so
low that at a distance of forty yards I could hardly have heard it.
But its greatest charm was its resemblance to the human voice--a voice
purified and brightened to something almost angelic. Imagine, then, my
impatience as I sat there straining my sense, my deep disappointment
when it was not repeated! I rose at length very reluctantly and slowly
began making my way back; but when I had progressed about thirty yards,
again the sweet voice sounded just behind me, and turning quickly, I
stood still and waited. The same voice, but not the same song--not
the same phrase; the notes were different, more varied and rapidly
enunciated, as if the singer had been more excited. The blood rushed to
my heart as I listened; my nerves tingled with a strange new delight,
the rapture produced by such music heightened by a sense of mystery.
Before many moments I heard it again, not rapid now, but a soft
warbling, lower than at first, infinitely sweet and tender, sinking to
lisping sounds that soon ceased to be audible; the whole having lasted
as long as it would take me to repeat a sentence of a dozen words. This
seemed the singer's farewell to me, for I waited and listened in vain to
hear it repeated; and after getting back to the starting-point I sat for
upwards of an hour, still hoping to hear it once more!

The weltering sun at length compelled me to quit the wood, but not
before I had resolved to return the next morning and seek for the spot
where I had met with so enchanting an experience. After crossing the
sterile belt I have mentioned within the wood, and just before I came to
the open outer edge where the stunted trees and bushes die away on the
border of the savannah, what was my delight and astonishment at hearing
the mysterious melody once more! It seemed to issue from a clump of
bushes close by; but by this time I had come to the conclusion
that there was a ventriloquism in this woodland voice which made it
impossible for me to determine its exact direction. Of one thing I was,
however, now quite convinced, and that was that the singer had been
following me all the time. Again and again as I stood there listening it
sounded, now so faint and apparently far off as to be scarcely audible;
then all at once it would ring out bright and clear within a few yards
of me, as if the shy little thing had suddenly grown bold; but, far or
near, the vocalist remained invisible, and at length the tantalizing
melody ceased altogether.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Abel starts the story of his travels and adventures when, at the age of twenty-three, he takes part in an unsuccessful plot against the corrupt Venezuelan government. Instead of going into exile abroad, Abel decides to satisfy a boyhood ambition by exploring the interior of his country, south of the Orinoco river. The young man, well prepared for the dangerous excursion because of his mastery of several Indian dialects, penetrates deep into the jungles and visits isolated communities. Don Panta, an old Venezuelan trader, befriends Abel and teaches him some valuable lessons about survival in the dense forests. Rumors about gold spur Abel to undertake further explorations, and he reaches the Parahuari mountains, where his search for gold proves futile. Arriving at an Indian village, Abel is greeted sullenly by Runi, the chief, because he had suffered at the hands of the one white man whom he once met. After drinking casserie, an Indian "home brew," with his hosts, Abel makes a favorable impression on the Indians by his promise to help them defeat another tribe in battle. The Parahuari Indians, also under the influence of casserie, allow Abel to rest and to enjoy their hospitality for three weeks. During that period of idle time, Abel tries to make the acquaintance of these Indians and to understand their psychology and way of life. Unable to sympathize generally with their savage natures, Abel nevertheless enjoys the story-telling of Cla-cla, Runi's mother, and the fencing lessons he starts with Kuako, a young brave about nineteen or twenty years old. Restless and tired of the monotonous existence of the Parahuari village, Abel goes one day into the forest in order to get a better view of the solitary mountain of Ytaioa. When he returns, his host warns Abel not to visit the forest anymore because "something bad" will happen to the person who trespasses in the forest. Although Abel is impressed by the fact that these Indians never go near "this wild paradise," he is personally encouraged rather than disheartened by the challenge of the jungle mystery. On the following day, Abel sets out for "the forest of evil report" because he is completely charmed by "the fascination of the unknown and the mysterious." Wandering through the "green mansions" of trees, Abel is entranced by the melodious strains of one particular bird because of its resemblance to the human voice. Abel, in fact, is almost convinced that a "being" is the source of the delightful song; he is determined to keep on returning to the woodland until he solves the mystery.