human
We left the question pending, and went our various ways. Now and then I’d run into him, wandering about the world, as the years went by. He’s never wholly given up the search. The singular thing about it is that material fortune has fairly pursued him. He’s made a lot of money, and sunk it all in fruitless expeditions. Too bad it is that he didn’t possess a scientific bent; he knows all there is to know of the Pacific islands on their practical side—that is, on the side that isn’t worth knowing
gpt
Well, what do you think of it? he demanded
human
There he goes, now—alone, always alone. Why was he sent back to us? What’s his obscure moral? Do you get any hint?
gpt
Nichols, do you yourself believe in the reality of this island?
human
Isn’t that wholly beside the point? said he
gpt
I don’t believe the island exists to-day, if that is what you mean. But there’s a year in an open boat, back at the beginning of the record, to be explained. The point is that he believes in the island. By Jove, he remembers it—do you understand? See that droop in his back, as he stands absently looking out of the door? He’s growing old, and the woman would be past middle age to-day, and the boy would be a man; but they have a trick of remaining young in his memory. Oh, he faces the fact, of course, in his practical moments; wonders what they have come to, whether the boy ever matured, whether the woman waited, or gave him up for lost and married another man. He can speak about these things, because he’s quite determined to believe that the island is sunk under the ocean, that they’re all dead. But when the moon’s out, and he gets to dreaming, they come back to him just as he left them, a young and beautiful woman with a child at her breast, both of them perfectly alive. How can you ask me ... whether I believe in the island?