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.
Modem 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 airplane 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 airplane."
These remarks amused other people mightily. In fact, other passengers, charmed and seduced to a one, seemed to regard Ramsey as not a super intelligent 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."
"But did a Pharaoh himself truly fight!"
"Oh, yes, of course. Why, he rode at the head of his troops; he was symbol in action. Why, in one battle, the Pharaoh himself might crush two hundred skulls with his bludgeon; he might make his way across the battlefield, executing the wounded and dying in the same manner. When he retired to his tent, his arms would be drenched in blood to the elbows. But remember, it was expected, you see. If the Pharaoh fell . . . well, the battle would be over."
Silence.
Ramsey: "You don't want to know these things, do you? And yet modern warfare is ghastly. That recent war in Africa; men were blown apart by gunpowder. And the Civil War in the United States, what a horror. Things change, but they do not change. ..."
"Exactly. Could you yourself do such a thing? Crush skulls one after another?"
Ramsey smiled. "You are a brave man, aren't you, Lord Elliott, Earl of Rutherford. Yes, I could do it. So could you, if you were there, and you were Pharaoh; you could do it."
The ship plowed on through the gray sea. The coast of Africa loomed. The party was almost over.
* * *
It had been another perfect night. Alex had retired early, and Julie had been left alone to dance with Ramses for hours. She'd drunk a little too much wine.
And now as they stood in the tiny low-ceilinged passage outside her stateroom, she felt as always the wrenching, the temptation and the desperation that she mustn't give in to it.
It caught her utterly off guard when Ramses spun her around, crushed her to his chest and kissed her more roughly than usual. There was a painful urgency to it. She found herself fighting, then drawing back on the edge of tears, her hand raised to hit him. She didn't.
"Why do you try to force me?" she said.
The look in his eyes frightened her.
"I'm hungry," he said, all semblance of courtesy lost, "hungry for you, for everything. For food and drink and sunshine and life itself. But above all, for you. It is a pain in me! I grow weary of it."
"God!" she whispered. She put her hands up delicately to cover her face. Why was she resisting? For the moment, she didn't know.
"It's what it does to me, the potion in my veins," he said. "I need nothing, yet nothing fills me. Only love, perhaps. And so I wait." His voice grew quieter, "I wait for you to love me. If that is what is required."
She laughed suddenly. How clear it all was.
"Ah, but with all your wisdom, you have it backwards," she said. "What is required is that you love me."
His face went blank. Then slowly he nodded. He seemed utterly at a loss for words. She could not guess what he was really thinking.
Quickly she opened the door and went inside and sat down alone on the sofa. She put her face in her hands. How childish it had sounded. And yet it was true, it was heartbreakingly true. And she began to cry softly, hoping Rita would not hear her.