The Fly

by Katherine Mansfield


"You’re very comfortable in here," said old Mr. Woodfield. He looked out of the huge, green armchair next to his friend's, the boss' desk like a baby looks out of a pram. Their chat was finished; it was time for him to go. But he didn’t want to. Since he had retired, since his... illness, his wife and girls kept him in the house every day of the week except Tuesday. On Tuesday he got dressed and could return to the City for the day, although his wife and daughters couldn't imagine what he did there. He bored his friends, they thought... Well, perhaps he did. We hold on to our last enjoyments like the tree holds on to its last leaves. So old Woodfield sat there, smoking a cigar and looking at the boss in his office chair, fat, pink, five years older than he was and still strong, still at the top.

Quietly, the old voice added, "It's comfortable here; really it is!"

"Yes, it's comfortable enough," agreed the boss. He was proud of his room; he liked people to enjoy it, especially old Woodfield. It gave him a feeling of deep happiness to be there in front of that weak old man.

"I've just decorated it," he explained, as he had explained for the past – how many? – weeks. "New carpet," and he pointed to the bright red carpet. "New furniture", and he pointed towards the huge bookcase and the meeting table.

But he did not show old Woodfield the photograph on the table of a serious-looking boy in uniform. It was not new. It had been there for more than six years.

"There was something I wanted to tell you," said old Woodfield, and he tried to remember. "Now what was it? I had it on my mind when I started out this morning." His hands began to shake.

The old man was silent for a moment. But then he remembered.

"That was it," he said, pulling himself out of his chair. "I thought you'd like to know. The girls were in Belgium last week looking at poor Reggie's grave and they found your boy's. They're quite near each other, it seems."

Old Woodfield paused, but the boss made no reply. Only a look in his eyes showed that he heard.

"The girls were pleased with the way the place is kept," said the old voice. "Beautifully looked after. It couldn't be better if they were at home. You've not been, have you?"

"No, no!" For many reasons the boss had not been.

"It’s huge," said old Woodfield, "and it's as neat as a garden. Flowers growing on all the graves. Nice wide paths." It was clear from his voice how much he liked a nice wide path.

The pause came again.

"Do you know what the hotel made the girls pay for a pot of jam?" he asked. "Ten francs! Robbery, I call it. It was a little pot, so Gertrude says, no bigger than a coin. And she hadn't taken more than a spoonful when they asked her for ten francs. Gertrude took the pot away with her to teach them a lesson. Quite right, too. They think because we're over there visiting our sons, we're ready to pay anything. That's what it is." And he turned towards the door.

"Quite right, quite right!" cried the boss, though what was quite right he didn’t know. He came round by his desk and followed the old man to the door. Woodfield was gone.

For a long moment the boss stayed, looking at nothing, while the grey-haired office messenger, watching him, walked in and out. Then: "I'll see nobody for half an hour, Macey," said the boss. "Understand? Nobody at all."

"Very good, sir."

The door shut. He crossed the bright carpet, his fat body sat down in the chair and the boss covered his face with his hands. He wanted, he planned to cry...

It was a terrible shock to him when old Woodfield said that about the boy's grave. It was exactly like the earth opened and he saw the boy lying there with Woodfield's girls looking down at him. Because it was strange. Although over six years had gone, the boss never thought of the boy except as lying unchanged in his uniform, asleep for ever.

"My son!" shouted the boss. But he did not cry yet. In the past, in the first few months and even years after the boy's death, he only said those words and he cried and cried. Time, he knew then, he told everybody, could make no difference. Other men could recover, could forget their loss, but not him. How was it possible? His boy was an only son. Since his birth the boss had worked at building up this business for him; it meant nothing without the boy. Life had no other meaning. Why did he work, why did he keep going all those years without the promise of the boy carrying on when he finished?

And that promise had been so near. The boy was in the office learning the business for a year before the war. Every morning they started off together; they came back by the same train. Every man at the office loved the boy. He was just his bright natural self, with the right word for everybody, with that boyish look and his habit of saying, "Wonderful!"

But all that was finished, like it had never happened. The day had come when Macey handed him the telegram and the whole plan fell apart. "Truly sorry to tell you..." And he left the office a broken man.

Six years ago, six years... How quickly time passed! It was like it happened yesterday. The boss took his hands from his face. Something was wrong. He wasn't feeling like he wanted to feel. He decided to get up and have a look at the boy's photograph. But it wasn't a favourite photograph of his; it was cold. The boy never looked like that.

At that moment the boss noticed that a fly had fallen into his ink, and was trying weakly to climb out again. Help! Help! said those fast-moving legs. But it fell back again and began to swim. The boss took a pen, helped the fly out of the ink and put it on a piece of paper. For a second it did not move. Then the front legs started and, pulling its small, wet body up, it began the huge job of cleaning the ink from its wings. Over and under, over and under, went a leg along a wing. It managed at last and sitting down it began, like a tiny cat, to clean its face. The horrible danger was over; it had escaped; it was ready for life again.

But just then the boss had an idea. He put his pen back into the ink and, as the fly tried its wings, down came a great drop of ink. What could it do now? The fly seemed afraid to move because of what could happen next. But then, the front legs moved and, more slowly this time, the job began from the beginning.

He's brave, thought the boss, and he really liked the fly. That was the way to live life. But the fly again finished cleaning itself and the boss just had time to fill his pen again, to drop more ink on the new-cleaned body. What about it this time? A painful moment of waiting followed. But the front legs were moving again. However, there was something weak about it now and the boss decided that this time would be the last, as he put the pen into the ink.

It was. The last drop fell on the paper and the fly lay in it and did not move.

"Come on!" said the boss. And he moved it with his pen. Nothing happened or was going to happen. The fly was dead.

The boss lifted the body and threw it into the bin. But he felt so unhappy that he was frightened. He called Macey.

"Bring me some new paper," he said, “and be quick." And while the old man walked slowly away he wondered what it was he’d been thinking about before. What was it? It was... He could not remember.