I'll Never Be Young Again by Daphne du Maurier

colony at one time.’
    ‘Hell.’
    ‘I know - youthful, wasn’t it? That’s the sort of chap he was. I loved watching him with the cattle; he knew instinctively how to handle one of them when it got sick. He knew what to do. He was fond of horses too. He’d have liked this trip.’
    There was something terrible in the way Jake talked about the man he had murdered. It seemed impossible and unreal. He did not appear to mind. It was as though the years of suffering in prison had done away with feeling.
    ‘I don’t know how you could have done it,’ I said.
    ‘Done what? Oh! killed him, you mean. No - I ought to have hanged for it, of course.’
    ‘Jake - don’t.’
    ‘You think this is all very cold-blooded, don’t you? You see, it happened so long ago.’
    ‘Seven years?’ I said.
    ‘It doesn’t sound much to you, but then you see, you’ve never been in prison.’
    ‘Jake . . .’
    ‘You have time to worry everything out then.’
    ‘Go on telling me,’ I said.
    ‘We went to England after a while,’ he said. ‘I took up boxing, I hung around with a moving fair. I enjoyed all that. I didn’t see much of him, though; he was in London. I felt he’d be doing something great, wherever he was.We’d never quite given up the thought of the leper scheme, and I was ready to break away whenever he was. I wrote to him after a while, asking him how things were. Got a funny letter back. Said now he was in London life and people had made him feel different. He laughed at the leper business, said I must have been crazy to think he’d meant it seriously. He was going about a lot. Somebody must have lent him the money; he was always broke.’
    Jake smiled as he said this. He leant back, his head against his hands. I saw the firelight reflected on his face.
    ‘What did you feel about it?’ I said.
    ‘Oh! I didn’t think much. In a way I imagined the whole letter was a joke. Then I heard about the girl.’
    ‘Who told you?’
    ‘A fellow I’d known in America came to see me fight one day. He was amused at this circus life I was leading.We got talking about things, vaguely, you know. He was quite a nice chap, but spoilt himself by drinking and running after women who didn’t want him. He suddenly showed me a letter from some girl - written out in Switzerland. Terrible letter it was. She’d got consumption, and everything was hopeless. And this little fellow, who wasn’t anything much himself, mark you, got white in the face and said to me - I remember the exact words - “I knew that girl when she was hardly more than a kid - and now she’s dying, all because of some swine like you or me.” He told me she’d led a hell of a life for about two years. He seemed to have all the details. It was an unattractive story.’
    I wanted to know everything though.
    ‘Go on,’ I said to Jake.
    ‘I listened - much as you’re listening now, Dick, but it wasn’t from curiosity, it was something more. I hated the thought of this world that must be lived in - the sordid pitiful lives of men and women, who can’t get beyond their own bodies. I could see this girl, living as she did without the excuse of poverty - she wasn’t any prostitute having to keep herself, but spoiling her beauty, her health, and her own precious individuality, which is greater than anything in life, Dick, because some man had taught her to be self-indulgent. There wasn’t anything more in it than that.’
    ‘But look here, Jake, damn it - life, I mean . . .’
    ‘Oh! I know. The same thing happens every day and night. But there didn’t seem to me to be any need for a girl to die out in Switzerland because of it. Animals are wiser. Making love is a physical necessity to them, and they have young.’
    ‘Yes - but, Jake . . .’
    ‘That’s the way I looked at it, Dick, sitting over a drink with this fellow. He said: “I’d like to wring the necks of all the men who’ve had her,” and I couldn’t help smiling to myself, for, thought I,