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The thought of Lawrence now destroyed everything. It was as if the icy wind off the sea had frozen his heart. Something had happened in that tomb, something Henry did not dare to confess to him. And Ramsey knew it. And no matter what else happened in this dangerous little venture, Elliott was going to discover the truth of the matter.
Y THE fourth day out, Elliott realized that Julie would not dine again in the public rooms; that she would take all her meals in her stateroom from now on, and that Ramsey was probably dining with her. Henry had also disappeared from view altogether. Sullen, drunk, he remained in his room round the clock, seldom wearing anything other than trousers, a shirt and a smoking jacket. However, this did not prevent him from running a fairly steady card game with members of the crew, who were not anxious to be discovered gambling with a first-class passenger. The gossip was that Henry was winning quite a lot. But that had always been the gossip about Henry. He would lose sooner or later, and probably everything that he had made; that had been the rhythm of his descent since the beginning.
Elliott could also see that Julie was going out of her way to be gentle with Alex. She and Alex took their afternoon walk on the deck, rain or shine. She and Alex danced now and then in the ballroom after supper. Ramsey was always there, watching with surprising equanimity, and ready at any moment to step in and become Julie's partner. But clearly it had been agreed that Alex should not be neglected by Julie.
On brief shore excursions, which Elliott could not physically endure, Julie, Samir, Ramsey and Alex always traveled together. Alex invariably came back faintly repelled. He didn't like foreigners very much; Julie and Samir had been thoroughly entertained; and Ramsey was overwhelmed with enthusiasm for the things he'd seen, especially if he'd been able to find a cinema or an English-language bookshop.
Elliott appreciated Julie's kindness to Alex. After all, this ship was no place for Alex to understand the full truth, and clearly Julie realized it. On the other hand, perhaps Alex already sensed that he'd lost the first major battle of his life; the truth was Alex was too pleasant and agreeable a person to reveal what he was feeling. Probably he did not know himself, Elliott figured.
The real adventure of the voyage for Elliott was getting to know Ramsey, and watching Ramsey from afar, and realizing things about Ramsey which others didn't appear to notice. It helped immensely that Ramsey was a ferociously social being.
By the hour Ramsey, Elliott, Samir and Alex played billiards together, during which time Ramsey discoursed on all manner of subjects and asked all kinds of questions.
Modern science in particular interested him, and Elliott found himself rambling on by the hour about theories of the cell, the circulatory system, germs and other causes of disease. The whole concept of inoculation fascinated Ramsey.
Almost every night Ramsey was in the library, poring over Darwin and Malthus or popular compendiums on electricity, the telegraph, the automobile and astronomy.
Modern art was also of more than passing interest. He was powerfully intrigued by the Pointillists and the Impressionists, and the novels of the Russians--Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, only newly translated into English--swept him up utterly. Clearly the speed of his reading and absorption was magical.
About the sixth day out, Ramsey acquired a typewriter. With the captain's permission he borrowed it from the ship's offices and thereafter he typed by the hour lists of what he meant to do, some of which Elliott managed to glimpse on trips to Ramsey's cabin. Common enough were entries such as "Visit the Prado in Madrid; ride in an aeroplane as soon as possible."
Elliott finally realized something. This man never slept. He didn't have to. At any hour of the night Elliott could find Ramsey doing something somewhere. If he was not in the cinema or in the library--or typing away in his room--then he was with the crew in the map room or the radio room. They had not been on board two days before Ramsey knew all the crew by name; and most of the staff as well. His capacity to seduce people into almost anything could not be overestimated.
On one very eerie morning, Elliott entered the ballroom to see a handful of musicians playing steadily for Ramsey, who danced alone, a curious slow and primitive dance much like that of Greek men today in their seaside tavernas. The figure of the lone dancing man, his white long-sleeve shirt open to the waist, had torn at Elliott's heart. It seemed a crime to spy on such a thing which came so totally from the soul. Elliott had turned away, going out on the deck to smoke in his own solitude.
That Ramsey was so accessible, that was a great surprise. But the oddest part of the whole exhilarating affair was how much Elliott was coming to like this mysterious creature.
In fact, if he dwelt on that aspect of it, he would feel real pain. He thought back many times on his hasty words before they'd left--"I want to know you." How true that had been. How tantalizing all this; how wondrously satisfying.
And then the agony; the fear: something beyond all imagining is here! Elliott did not wish to be closed off from it.
And how remarkable that his son, Alex, found Ramsey only peculiar and "funny" and not at all genuinely intriguing. But then what did Alex find intriguing? He'd made fast friends of the type of fast friends he always made with dozens of other passengers. He was having a good time, it seemed, as he always did, no matter what else was happening. And that will be his salvation, Elliott thought. That he feels nothing too deeply.
As for Samir, he was silent by nature; and he never said much no matter how the conversation raged between Elliott and Ramsey. But there was an almost religious quality about his attitude towards Ramsey. And he had become a complete servant to the man, that was obvious. He became agitated only when Elliott pressed Ramsey for opinions on the subject of history. And so did Julie.
"Explain what you mean," Elliott asked when Ramsey said that Latin made possible a whole new kind of thinking. "Surely the ideas came first and then the language to express them."
"No, that's not true. Even in Italy itself where the tongue was born, the language made possible the evolution of ideas which would have been impossible otherwise. Same partnership of languages and ideas in Greece as well, undoubtedly.
"But I shall tell you the strange thing about Italy. It is that culture developed there at all, for the climate is so pleasant. One must usually have a radical change of weather during the year for civilization to progress. Look at the people of the jungles and the far north, utterly limited, because the climate is the same all year round...."
Julie would almost invariably interrupt these lectures. Elliott could hardly bear it.
Julie and Samir also became uneasy when Ramsey burst out with statements from the heart, such as "Julie, we must be done with the past as quickly as we can. There is so much to be discovered. X-rays, Julie, do you know what they are! And we must go to the North Pole in an aeroplane."
These remarks amused other people mightily. In fact, other passengers, charmed and seduced to a one, seemed to regard Ramsey as not a superintelligent being so much as one who was slightly retarded. Overly sophisticated themselves, never guessing the reason behind his odd exclamations, they treated him tenderly and indulgently, never availing themselves of the information he would give out at a moment's provocation.
Not so with Elliott, who pumped him mercilessly. "Ancient battle. What was it really like! I mean, we've seen the great reliefs on the temple of Ramses the Third...."
"Ah, now that was a brilliant man, a worthy namesake...."
"What did you say?"
"A worthy namesake of Ramses the Second, that's all, go on."
&nbs
p; "But did a Pharaoh himself truly fight!"
