Chapter Commentary of The Secret Agent - Study Guide by Joseph Conrad

and resolves "to go at once and throw herself into the river off one of the bridges". She is stumbling in that direction when a man stops her. It is Comrade Ossipon who, of course, set out for Brett Street at the end of Chapter Three, in order to exploit Winnie's widowhood. A seasoned lecher, he sweet talks to her: "A love like mine could not be concealed from a woman like you", when his real thoughts are on her money. However, he thinks that her husband died in the bomb, and is unaware that she has in fact murdered him. They talk at cross purposes until, just as they are about to leave Brett Street to escape to the continent together (Ossipon thrilled by the savings book she brandishes) Ossipon sees the body of his fellow anarchist Verloc in the front room. He is instantly terrified of Winnie, yet pretends to still want to elope with her. As she grows less hysterical they ride in a cab together to the station.

Ossipon takes all her money, saying he needs to buy tickets with it. As they sit in the train together waiting for it to depart, Winnie declares love to Ossipon and calls him as her "saviour" as she weeps on his chest. Ossipon has other ideas, and as the train begins to pull out of the station he leaps from the carriage and lands on the platform, leaving the penniless Winnie abandoned on the train. Ossipon walks home through London, and sleeps through the dawn.

Chapter 13:

This Chapter shifts to a source of all the trouble: the bomb maker himself, the Professor. Ossipon is with him, and is very dejected because he has read in a newspaper of the fate of Winnie: "Suicide of Lady Passenger from a Cross Channel Boat." The article describes how a weak and vacant woman fitting the description of Winnie Verloc disappeared overboard, leaving behind her on deck only a wedding ring. The newspaper states that the case is "an impenetrable mystery", yet Ossipon is guilty with knowledge of his part in the tragedy. He has stopped womanising, and seems deeply affected by the tragedy. However, the Professor is continuing to make bombs, and still carries them around London in his pocket, ready to cause another incident at any moment. He is the true danger, the real anarchist: a man who in his singularly vicious desires is more terrifying than lazy Verloc or sensitive Ossipon. The final lines of the novel are crucial and sum this up horrifically: "He walked frail, insignificant, shabby, miserable - and terrible in the simplicity of his idea calling madness and despair to the regeneration of the world. Nobody looked at him. He passed on unsuspected and deadly, like a pest in the street full of men". The Professor is at the core of the novel's bleak message that only the brutal and heartless side of political extremism survives while all else falls by the wayside in squabbles and deception.