 path - the irregularities of its
conduct, the aberrations of its light - a sort of scientific scandal-mongering.
Thus with Patusan. It was referred to knowingly in the inner government circles
in Batavia, especially as to its irregularities and aberrations, and it was
known by name to some few, very few, in the mercantile world. Nobody, however,
had been there, and I suspect no one desired to go there in person - just as an
astronomer, I should fancy, would strongly object to being transported into a
distant heavenly body, where, parted from his earthly emoluments, he would be
bewildered by the view of an unfamiliar heavens. However, neither heavenly
bodies nor astronomers have anything to do with Patusan. It was Jim who went
there. I only meant you to understand that had Stein arranged to send him into a
star of the fifth magnitude the change could not have been greater. He left his
earthly failings behind him and what sort of reputation he had, and there was a
totally new set of conditions for his imaginative faculty to work upon. Entirely
new, entirely remarkable. And he got hold of them in a remarkable way.
    Stein was the man who knew more about Patusan than anybody else. More than
was known in the government circles, I suspect. I have no doubt he had been
there, either in his butterfly-hunting days or later on, when he tried in his
incorrigible way to season with a pinch of romance the fattening dishes of his
commercial kitchen. There were very few places in the Archipelago he had not
seen in the original dusk of their being, before light (and even electric light)
had been carried into them for the sake of better morality and - and - well -
the greater profit, too. It was at breakfast of the morning following our talk
about Jim that he mentioned the place, after I had quoted poor Brierly's remark:
Let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there. He looked up at me with
interested attention, as though I had been a rare insect. This could be done,
too, he remarked, sipping his coffee. Bury him in some sort, I explained. One
doesn't like to do it, of course, but it would be the best thing, seeing what he
is. Yes; he is young, Stein mused. The youngest human being now in existence, I
affirmed. Schön. There's Patusan, he went on in the same tone.... And the woman
is dead now, he added incomprehensibly.
    Of course I don'
