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diff --git a/old/1306-0.txt b/old/1306-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a57e7db --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1306-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4103 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Seven Men, by Max Beerbohm + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Seven Men + +Author: Max Beerbohm + +Posting Date: September 15, 2008 [EBook #1306] +Release Date: May, 1998 +Last Updated: October 18, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVEN MEN *** + + + + +Produced by Tom Weiss + + + + + + + + + +SEVEN MEN + +by Max Beerbohm + + + + + Transcriber’s Note: + From the version of “Seven Men” published in 1919 by William + Heinemann (London). Two of the stories have been omitted + (“James Pethel” and “A.V. Laider”) since they are available + separately from Project Gutenberg. + + In this plain ASCII version, emphasis and syllable + stress italics have been converted to capitals; foreign italics and accents + have been removed + + In “Enoch Soames:” + I added a missing closing quotation mark in the following + phrase: ‘Ten past two,’ he said. + + In “Hilary Maltby and Stephen Braxton:” + I changed the opening double quote to a single quote in: + ‘I wondered what old Mr. Abraham Hayward... + and + ‘I knew that if I leaned forward... + + + + +ENOCH SOAMES + + + + +When a book about the literature of the eighteen-nineties was given by +Mr. Holbrook Jackson to the world, I looked eagerly in the index for +SOAMES, ENOCH. I had feared he would not be there. He was not there. +But everybody else was. Many writers whom I had quite forgotten, or +remembered but faintly, lived again for me, they and their work, in Mr. +Holbrook Jackson’s pages. The book was as thorough as it was brilliantly +written. And thus the omission found by me was an all the deadlier +record of poor Soames’ failure to impress himself on his decade. + +I daresay I am the only person who noticed the omission. Soames had +failed so piteously as all that! Nor is there a counterpoise in the +thought that if he had had some measure of success he might have passed, +like those others, out of my mind, to return only at the historian’s +beck. It is true that had his gifts, such as they were, been +acknowledged in his life-time, he would never have made the bargain I +saw him make--that strange bargain whose results have kept him always in +the foreground of my memory. But it is from those very results that the +full piteousness of him glares out. + +Not my compassion, however, impels me to write of him. For his sake, +poor fellow, I should be inclined to keep my pen out of the ink. It is +ill to deride the dead. And how can I write about Enoch Soames without +making him ridiculous? Or rather, how am I to hush up the horrid fact +that he WAS ridiculous? I shall not be able to do that. Yet, sooner or +later, write about him I must. You will see, in due course, that I have +no option. And I may as well get the thing done now. + + +In the Summer Term of ‘93 a bolt from the blue flashed down on Oxford. +It drove deep, it hurtlingly embedded itself in the soil. Dons and +undergraduates stood around, rather pale, discussing nothing but it. +Whence came it, this meteorite? From Paris. Its name? Will Rothenstein. +Its aim? To do a series of twenty-four portraits in lithograph. These +were to be published from the Bodley Head, London. The matter was +urgent. Already the Warden of A, and the Master of B, and the Regius +Professor of C, had meekly ‘sat.’ Dignified and doddering old men, who +had never consented to sit to any one, could not withstand this dynamic +little stranger. He did not sue: he invited; he did not invite: he +commanded. He was twenty-one years old. He wore spectacles that flashed +more than any other pair ever seen. He was a wit. He was brimful of +ideas. He knew Whistler. He knew Edmond de Goncourt. He knew every one +in Paris. He knew them all by heart. He was Paris in Oxford. It was +whispered that, so soon as he had polished off his selection of dons, +he was going to include a few undergraduates. It was a proud day for me +when I--I--was included. I liked Rothenstein not less than I feared him; +and there arose between us a friendship that has grown ever warmer, and +been more and more valued by me, with every passing year. + +At the end of Term he settled in--or rather, meteoritically +into--London. It was to him I owed my first knowledge of that forever +enchanting little world-in-itself, Chelsea, and my first acquaintance +with Walter Sickert and other august elders who dwelt there. It was +Rothenstein that took me to see, in Cambridge Street, Pimlico, a young +man whose drawings were already famous among the few--Aubrey Beardsley, +by name. With Rothenstein I paid my first visit to the Bodley Head. +By him I was inducted into another haunt of intellect and daring, the +domino room of the Cafe Royal. + +There, on that October evening--there, in that exuberant vista of +gilding and crimson velvet set amidst all those opposing mirrors and +upholding caryatids, with fumes of tobacco ever rising to the painted +and pagan ceiling, and with the hum of presumably cynical conversation +broken into so sharply now and again by the clatter of dominoes shuffled +on marble tables, I drew a deep breath, and ‘This indeed,’ said I to +myself, ‘is life!’ + +It was the hour before dinner. We drank vermouth. Those who knew +Rothenstein were pointing him out to those who knew him only by name. +Men were constantly coming in through the swing-doors and wandering +slowly up and down in search of vacant tables, or of tables occupied by +friends. One of these rovers interested me because I was sure he wanted +to catch Rothenstein’s eye. He had twice passed our table, with a +hesitating look; but Rothenstein, in the thick of a disquisition on +Puvis de Chavannes, had not seen him. He was a stooping, shambling +person, rather tall, very pale, with longish and brownish hair. He had +a thin vague beard--or rather, he had a chin on which a large number +of hairs weakly curled and clustered to cover its retreat. He was an +odd-looking person; but in the ‘nineties odd apparitions were more +frequent, I think, than they are now. The young writers of that era--and +I was sure this man was a writer--strove earnestly to be distinct in +aspect. This man had striven unsuccessfully. He wore a soft black hat +of clerical kind but of Bohemian intention, and a grey waterproof cape +which, perhaps because it was waterproof, failed to be romantic. I +decided that ‘dim’ was the mot juste for him. I had already essayed to +write, and was immensely keen on the mot juste, that Holy Grail of the +period. + +The dim man was now again approaching our table, and this time he made +up his mind to pause in front of it. ‘You don’t remember me,’ he said in +a toneless voice. + +Rothenstein brightly focussed him. ‘Yes, I do,’ he replied after a +moment, with pride rather than effusion--pride in a retentive memory. +‘Edwin Soames.’ + +‘Enoch Soames,’ said Enoch. + +‘Enoch Soames,’ repeated Rothenstein in a tone implying that it was +enough to have hit on the surname. ‘We met in Paris two or three times +when you were living there. We met at the Cafe Groche.’ + +‘And I came to your studio once.’ + +‘Oh yes; I was sorry I was out.’ + +‘But you were in. You showed me some of your paintings, you know.... I +hear you’re in Chelsea now.’ + +‘Yes.’ + +I almost wondered that Mr. Soames did not, after this monosyllable, pass +along. He stood patiently there, rather like a dumb animal, rather like +a donkey looking over a gate. A sad figure, his. It occurred to me that +‘hungry’ was perhaps the mot juste for him; but--hungry for what? He +looked as if he had little appetite for anything. I was sorry for him; +and Rothenstein, though he had not invited him to Chelsea, did ask him +to sit down and have something to drink. + +Seated, he was more self-assertive. He flung back the wings of his cape +with a gesture which--had not those wings been waterproof--might +have seemed to hurl defiance at things in general. And he ordered an +absinthe. ‘Je me tiens toujours fidele,’ he told Rothenstein, ‘a la +sorciere glauque.’ + +‘It is bad for you,’ said Rothenstein dryly. + +‘Nothing is bad for one,’ answered Soames. ‘Dans ce monde il n’y a ni de +bien ni de mal.’ + +‘Nothing good and nothing bad? How do you mean?’ + +‘I explained it all in the preface to “Negations.”’ + +‘“Negations”?’ + +‘Yes; I gave you a copy of it.’ + +‘Oh yes, of course. But did you explain--for instance--that there was no +such thing as bad or good grammar?’ + +‘N-no,’ said Soames. ‘Of course in Art there is the good and the evil. +But in Life--no.’ He was rolling a cigarette. He had weak white hands, +not well washed, and with finger-tips much stained by nicotine. ‘In Life +there are illusions of good and evil, but’--his voice trailed away to a +murmur in which the words ‘vieux jeu’ and ‘rococo’ were faintly audible. +I think he felt he was not doing himself justice, and feared that +Rothenstein was going to point out fallacies. Anyhow, he cleared his +throat and said ‘Parlons d’autre chose.’ + +It occurs to you that he was a fool? It didn’t to me. I was young, and +had not the clarity of judgment that Rothenstein already had. Soames was +quite five or six years older than either of us. Also, he had written a +book. + +It was wonderful to have written a book. + +If Rothenstein had not been there, I should have revered Soames. Even as +it was, I respected him. And I was very near indeed to reverence when +he said he had another book coming out soon. I asked if I might ask what +kind of book it was to be. + +‘My poems,’ he answered. Rothenstein asked if this was to be the title +of the book. The poet meditated on this suggestion, but said he rather +thought of giving the book no title at all. ‘If a book is good in +itself--’ he murmured, waving his cigarette. + +Rothenstein objected that absence of title might be bad for the sale +of a book. ‘If,’ he urged, ‘I went into a bookseller’s and said simply +“Have you got?” or “Have you a copy of?” how would they know what I +wanted?’ + +‘Oh, of course I should have my name on the cover,’ Soames answered +earnestly. ‘And I rather want,’ he added, looking hard at Rothenstein, +‘to have a drawing of myself as frontispiece.’ Rothenstein admitted +that this was a capital idea, and mentioned that he was going into the +country and would be there for some time. He then looked at his watch, +exclaimed at the hour, paid the waiter, and went away with me to dinner. +Soames remained at his post of fidelity to the glaucous witch. + +‘Why were you so determined not to draw him?’ I asked. + +‘Draw him? Him? How can one draw a man who doesn’t exist?’ + +‘He is dim,’ I admitted. But my mot juste fell flat. Rothenstein +repeated that Soames was non-existent. + +Still, Soames had written a book. I asked if Rothenstein had read +‘Negations.’ He said he had looked into it, ‘but,’ he added crisply, +‘I don’t profess to know anything about writing.’ A reservation very +characteristic of the period! Painters would not then allow that any one +outside their own order had a right to any opinion about painting. This +law (graven on the tablets brought down by Whistler from the summit of +Fujiyama) imposed certain limitations. If other arts than painting were +not utterly unintelligible to all but the men who practised them, +the law tottered--the Monroe Doctrine, as it were, did not hold good. +Therefore no painter would offer an opinion of a book without warning +you at any rate that his opinion was worthless. No one is a better judge +of literature than Rothenstein; but it wouldn’t have done to tell him +so in those days; and I knew that I must form an unaided judgment on +‘Negations.’ + +Not to buy a book of which I had met the author face to face would +have been for me in those days an impossible act of self-denial. When +I returned to Oxford for the Christmas Term I had duly secured +‘Negations.’ I used to keep it lying carelessly on the table in my room, +and whenever a friend took it up and asked what it was about I would +say ‘Oh, it’s rather a remarkable book. It’s by a man whom I know.’ Just +‘what it was about’ I never was able to say. Head or tail was just what +I hadn’t made of that slim green volume. I found in the preface no clue +to the exiguous labyrinth of contents, and in that labyrinth nothing to +explain the preface. + + +‘Lean near to life. Lean very near--nearer. + +‘Life is web, and therein nor warp nor woof is, but web only. + +‘It is for this I am Catholick in church and in thought, yet do let +swift Mood weave there what the shuttle of Mood wills.’ + + +These were the opening phrases of the preface, but those which followed +were less easy to understand. Then came ‘Stark: A Conte,’ about a +midinette who, so far as I could gather, murdered, or was about to +murder, a mannequin. It was rather like a story by Catulle Mendes in +which the translator had either skipped or cut out every alternate +sentence. Next, a dialogue between Pan and St. Ursula--lacking, I felt, +in ‘snap.’ Next, some aphorisms (entitled ‘Aphorismata’ [spelled in +Greek]). Throughout, in fact, there was a great variety of form; and +the forms had evidently been wrought with much care. It was rather the +substance that eluded me. Was there, I wondered, any substance at all? +It did now occur to me: suppose Enoch Soames was a fool! Up cropped a +rival hypothesis: suppose _I_ was! I inclined to give Soames the benefit +of the doubt. I had read ‘L’Apres-midi d’un Faune’ without extracting a +glimmer of meaning. Yet Mallarme--of course--was a Master. How was I to +know that Soames wasn’t another? There was a sort of music in his +prose, not indeed arresting, but perhaps, I thought, haunting, and laden +perhaps with meanings as deep as Mallarme’s own. I awaited his poems +with an open mind. + +And I looked forward to them with positive impatience after I had had a +second meeting with him. This was on an evening in January. Going into +the aforesaid domino room, I passed a table at which sat a pale man with +an open book before him. He looked from his book to me, and I looked +back over my shoulder with a vague sense that I ought to have recognised +him. I returned to pay my respects. After exchanging a few words, I said +with a glance to the open book, ‘I see I am interrupting you,’ and was +about to pass on, but ‘I prefer,’ Soames replied in his toneless voice, +‘to be interrupted,’ and I obeyed his gesture that I should sit down. + +I asked him if he often read here. ‘Yes; things of this kind I read +here,’ he answered, indicating the title of his book--‘The Poems of +Shelley.’ + +‘Anything that you really’--and I was going to say ‘admire?’ But I +cautiously left my sentence unfinished, and was glad that I had done so, +for he said, with unwonted emphasis, ‘Anything second-rate.’ + +I had read little of Shelley, but ‘Of course,’ I murmured, ‘he’s very +uneven.’ + +‘I should have thought evenness was just what was wrong with him. A +deadly evenness. That’s why I read him here. The noise of this place +breaks the rhythm. He’s tolerable here.’ Soames took up the book and +glanced through the pages. He laughed. Soames’ laugh was a short, single +and mirthless sound from the throat, unaccompanied by any movement of +the face or brightening of the eyes. ‘What a period!’ he uttered, laying +the book down. And ‘What a country!’ he added. + +I asked rather nervously if he didn’t think Keats had more or less held +his own against the drawbacks of time and place. He admitted that there +were ‘passages in Keats,’ but did not specify them. Of ‘the older men,’ +as he called them, he seemed to like only Milton. ‘Milton,’ he said, +‘wasn’t sentimental.’ Also, ‘Milton had a dark insight.’ And again, ‘I +can always read Milton in the reading-room.’ + +‘The reading-room?’ + +‘Of the British Museum. I go there every day.’ + +‘You do? I’ve only been there once. I’m afraid I found it rather a +depressing place. It--it seemed to sap one’s vitality.’ + +‘It does. That’s why I go there. The lower one’s vitality, the more +sensitive one is to great art. I live near the Museum. I have rooms in +Dyott Street.’ + +‘And you go round to the reading-room to read Milton?’ + +‘Usually Milton.’ He looked at me. ‘It was Milton,’ he certificatively +added, ‘who converted me to Diabolism.’ + +‘Diabolism? Oh yes? Really?’ said I, with that vague discomfort and that +intense desire to be polite which one feels when a man speaks of his own +religion. ‘You--worship the Devil?’ + +Soames shook his head. ‘It’s not exactly worship,’ he qualified, sipping +his absinthe. ‘It’s more a matter of trusting and encouraging.’ + +‘Ah, yes.... But I had rather gathered from the preface to “Negations” + that you were a--a Catholic.’ + +‘Je l’etais a cette epoque. Perhaps I still am. Yes, I’m a Catholic +Diabolist.’ + +This profession he made in an almost cursory tone. I could see that what +was upmost in his mind was the fact that I had read ‘Negations.’ His +pale eyes had for the first time gleamed. I felt as one who is about to +be examined, viva voce, on the very subject in which he is shakiest. I +hastily asked him how soon his poems were to be published. ‘Next week,’ +he told me. + +‘And are they to be published without a title?’ + +‘No. I found a title, at last. But I shan’t tell you what it is,’ as +though I had been so impertinent as to inquire. ‘I am not sure that +it wholly satisfies me. But it is the best I can find. It suggests +something of the quality of the poems.... Strange growths, natural and +wild, yet exquisite,’ he added, ‘and many-hued, and full of poisons.’ + +I asked him what he thought of Baudelaire. He uttered the snort that +was his laugh, and ‘Baudelaire,’ he said, ‘was a bourgeois malgre lui.’ +France had had only one poet: Villon; ‘and two-thirds of Villon were +sheer journalism.’ Verlaine was ‘an epicier malgre lui.’ Altogether, +rather to my surprise, he rated French literature lower than English. +There were ‘passages’ in Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. But ‘I,’ he summed up, +‘owe nothing to France.’ He nodded at me. ‘You’ll see,’ he predicted. + +I did not, when the time came, quite see that. I thought the author of +‘Fungoids’ did--unconsciously, of course--owe something to the young +Parisian decadents, or to the young English ones who owed something to +THEM. I still think so. The little book--bought by me in Oxford--lies +before me as I write. Its pale grey buckram cover and silver lettering +have not worn well. Nor have its contents. Through these, with a +melancholy interest, I have again been looking. They are not much. But +at the time of their publication I had a vague suspicion that they MIGHT +be. I suppose it is my capacity for faith, not poor Soames’ work, that +is weaker than it once was.... + + + TO A YOUNG WOMAN. + + Thou art, who hast not been! + Pale tunes irresolute + And traceries of old sounds + Blown from a rotted flute + Mingle with noise of cymbals rouged with rust, + Nor not strange forms and epicene + Lie bleeding in the dust, + Being wounded with wounds. + + For this it is + That in thy counterpart + Of age-long mockeries + Thou hast not been nor art! + + +There seemed to me a certain inconsistency as between the first and last +lines of this. I tried, with bent brows, to resolve the discord. But I +did not take my failure as wholly incompatible with a meaning in Soames’ +mind. Might it not rather indicate the depth of his meaning? As for the +craftsmanship, ‘rouged with rust’ seemed to me a fine stroke, and ‘nor +not’ instead of ‘and’ had a curious felicity. I wondered who the Young +Woman was, and what she had made of it all. I sadly suspect that Soames +could not have made more of it than she. Yet, even now, if one doesn’t +try to make any sense at all of the poem, and reads it just for the +sound, there is a certain grace of cadence. Soames was an artist--in so +far as he was anything, poor fellow! + +It seemed to me, when first I read ‘Fungoids,’ that, oddly enough, the +Diabolistic side of him was the best. Diabolism seemed to be a cheerful, +even a wholesome, influence in his life. + + + NOCTURNE. + + Round and round the shutter’d Square + I stroll’d with the Devil’s arm in mine. + No sound but the scrape of his hoofs was there + And the ring of his laughter and mine. + We had drunk black wine. + + I scream’d, ‘I will race you, Master!’ + ‘What matter,’ he shriek’d, ‘to-night + Which of us runs the faster? + There is nothing to fear to-night + In the foul moon’s light!’ + + Then I look’d him in the eyes, + And I laugh’d full shrill at the lie he told + And the gnawing fear he would fain disguise. + It was true, what I’d time and again been told: + He was old--old. + + +There was, I felt, quite a swing about that first stanza--a joyous +and rollicking note of comradeship. The second was slightly hysterical +perhaps. But I liked the third: it was so bracingly unorthodox, even +according to the tenets of Soames’ peculiar sect in the faith. Not much +‘trusting and encouraging’ here! Soames triumphantly exposing the Devil +as a liar, and laughing ‘full shrill,’ cut a quite heartening figure, +I thought--then! Now, in the light of what befell, none of his poems +depresses me so much as ‘Nocturne.’ + +I looked out for what the metropolitan reviewers would have to say. They +seemed to fall into two classes: those who had little to say and those +who had nothing. The second class was the larger, and the words of the +first were cold; insomuch that + + Strikes a note of modernity throughout.... These tripping + numbers.--Preston Telegraph + +was the only lure offered in advertisements by Soames’ publisher. I had +hopes that when next I met the poet I could congratulate him on having +made a stir; for I fancied he was not so sure of his intrinsic greatness +as he seemed. I was but able to say, rather coarsely, when next I did +see him, that I hoped ‘Fungoids’ was ‘selling splendidly.’ He looked at +me across his glass of absinthe and asked if I had bought a copy. His +publisher had told him that three had been sold. I laughed, as at a +jest. + +‘You don’t suppose I CARE, do you?’ he said, with something like a +snarl. I disclaimed the notion. He added that he was not a tradesman. I +said mildly that I wasn’t, either, and murmured that an artist who gave +truly new and great things to the world had always to wait long for +recognition. He said he cared not a sou for recognition. I agreed that +the act of creation was its own reward. + +His moroseness might have alienated me if I had regarded myself as a +nobody. But ah! hadn’t both John Lane and Aubrey Beardsley suggested +that I should write an essay for the great new venture that was +afoot--‘The Yellow Book’? And hadn’t Henry Harland, as editor, accepted +my essay? And wasn’t it to be in the very first number? At Oxford I +was still in statu pupillari. In London I regarded myself as very much +indeed a graduate now--one whom no Soames could ruffle. Partly to show +off, partly in sheer good-will, I told Soames he ought to contribute to +‘The Yellow Book.’ He uttered from the throat a sound of scorn for that +publication. + +Nevertheless, I did, a day or two later, tentatively ask Harland if he +knew anything of the work of a man called Enoch Soames. Harland paused +in the midst of his characteristic stride around the room, threw up his +hands towards the ceiling, and groaned aloud: he had often met ‘that +absurd creature’ in Paris, and this very morning had received some poems +in manuscript from him. + +‘Has he NO talent?’ I asked. + +‘He has an income. He’s all right.’ Harland was the most joyous of men +and most generous of critics, and he hated to talk of anything about +which he couldn’t be enthusiastic. So I dropped the subject of Soames. +The news that Soames had an income did take the edge off solicitude. I +learned afterwards that he was the son of an unsuccessful and deceased +bookseller in Preston, but had inherited an annuity of 300 pounds from +a married aunt, and had no surviving relatives of any kind. Materially, +then, he was ‘all right.’ But there was still a spiritual pathos about +him, sharpened for me now by the possibility that even the praises of +The Preston Telegraph might not have been forthcoming had he not been +the son of a Preston man. He had a sort of weak doggedness which I +could not but admire. Neither he nor his work received the slightest +encouragement; but he persisted in behaving as a personage: always +he kept his dingy little flag flying. Wherever congregated the +jeunes feroces of the arts, in whatever Soho restaurant they had just +discovered, in whatever music-hall they were most frequenting, there was +Soames in the midst of them, or rather on the fringe of them, a dim but +inevitable figure. He never sought to propitiate his fellow-writers, +never bated a jot of his arrogance about his own work or of his contempt +for theirs. To the painters he was respectful, even humble; but for the +poets and prosaists of ‘The Yellow Book,’ and later of ‘The Savoy,’ he +had never a word but of scorn. He wasn’t resented. It didn’t occur to +anybody that he or his Catholic Diabolism mattered. When, in the autumn +of ‘96, he brought out (at his own expense, this time) a third book, his +last book, nobody said a word for or against it. I meant, but forgot, to +buy it. I never saw it, and am ashamed to say I don’t even remember +what it was called. But I did, at the time of its publication, say to +Rothenstein that I thought poor old Soames was really a rather +tragic figure, and that I believed he would literally die for want of +recognition. Rothenstein scoffed. He said I was trying to get credit for +a kind heart which I didn’t possess; and perhaps this was so. But at the +private view of the New English Art Club, a few weeks later, I beheld a +pastel portrait of ‘Enoch Soames, Esq.’ It was very like him, and very +like Rothenstein to have done it. Soames was standing near it, in his +soft hat and his waterproof cape, all through the afternoon. Anybody who +knew him would have recognised the portrait at a glance, but nobody who +didn’t know him would have recognised the portrait from its bystander: +it ‘existed’ so much more than he; it was bound to. Also, it had not +that expression of faint happiness which on this day was discernible, +yes, in Soames’ countenance. Fame had breathed on him. Twice again in +the course of the month I went to the New English, and on both occasions +Soames himself was on view there. Looking back, I regard the close of +that exhibition as having been virtually the close of his career. He had +felt the breath of Fame against his cheek--so late, for such a little +while; and at its withdrawal he gave in, gave up, gave out. He, who had +never looked strong or well, looked ghastly now--a shadow of the shade +he had once been. He still frequented the domino room, but, having lost +all wish to excite curiosity, he no longer read books there. ‘You read +only at the Museum now?’ asked I, with attempted cheerfulness. He said +he never went there now. ‘No absinthe there,’ he muttered. It was the +sort of thing that in the old days he would have said for effect; but it +carried conviction now. Absinthe, erst but a point in the ‘personality’ +he had striven so hard to build up, was solace and necessity now. He no +longer called it ‘la sorciere glauque.’ He had shed away all his French +phrases. He had become a plain, unvarnished, Preston man. + +Failure, if it be a plain, unvarnished, complete failure, and even +though it be a squalid failure, has always a certain dignity. I avoided +Soames because he made me feel rather vulgar. John Lane had published, +by this time, two little books of mine, and they had had a pleasant +little success of esteem. I was a--slight but definite--‘personality.’ +Frank Harris had engaged me to kick up my heels in The Saturday Review, +Alfred Harmsworth was letting me do likewise in The Daily Mail. I was +just what Soames wasn’t. And he shamed my gloss. Had I known that he +really and firmly believed in the greatness of what he as an artist +had achieved, I might not have shunned him. No man who hasn’t lost his +vanity can be held to have altogether failed. Soames’ dignity was an +illusion of mine. One day in the first week of June, 1897, that illusion +went. But on the evening of that day Soames went too. + +I had been out most of the morning, and, as it was too late to reach +home in time for luncheon, I sought ‘the Vingtieme.’ This little +place--Restaurant du Vingtieme Siecle, to give it its full title--had +been discovered in ‘96 by the poets and prosaists, but had now been more +or less abandoned in favour of some later find. I don’t think it lived +long enough to justify its name; but at that time there it still was, in +Greek Street, a few doors from Soho Square, and almost opposite to that +house where, in the first years of the century, a little girl, and with +her a boy named De Quincey, made nightly encampment in darkness and +hunger among dust and rats and old legal parchments. The Vingtieme was +but a small whitewashed room, leading out into the street at one end and +into a kitchen at the other. The proprietor and cook was a Frenchman, +known to us as Monsieur Vingtieme; the waiters were his two daughters, +Rose and Berthe; and the food, according to faith, was good. The tables +were so narrow, and were set so close together, that there was space for +twelve of them, six jutting from either wall. + +Only the two nearest to the door, as I went in, were occupied. On one +side sat a tall, flashy, rather Mephistophelian man whom I had seen from +time to time in the domino room and elsewhere. On the other side sat +Soames. They made a queer contrast in that sunlit room--Soames sitting +haggard in that hat and cape which nowhere at any season had I seen him +doff, and this other, this keenly vital man, at sight of whom I more +than ever wondered whether he were a diamond merchant, a conjurer, or +the head of a private detective agency. I was sure Soames didn’t want my +company; but I asked, as it would have seemed brutal not to, whether +I might join him, and took the chair opposite to his. He was smoking +a cigarette, with an untasted salmi of something on his plate and a +half-empty bottle of Sauterne before him; and he was quite silent. I +said that the preparations for the Jubilee made London impossible. (I +rather liked them, really.) I professed a wish to go right away till +the whole thing was over. In vain did I attune myself to his gloom. He +seemed not to hear me nor even to see me. I felt that his behaviour made +me ridiculous in the eyes of the other man. The gangway between the two +rows of tables at the Vingtieme was hardly more than two feet wide (Rose +and Berthe, in their ministrations, had always to edge past each other, +quarrelling in whispers as they did so), and any one at the table +abreast of yours was practically at yours. I thought our neighbour was +amused at my failure to interest Soames, and so, as I could not explain +to him that my insistence was merely charitable, I became silent. +Without turning my head, I had him well within my range of vision. I +hoped I looked less vulgar than he in contrast with Soames. I was sure +he was not an Englishman, but what WAS his nationality? Though his +jet-black hair was en brosse, I did not think he was French. To Berthe, +who waited on him, he spoke French fluently, but with a hardly native +idiom and accent. I gathered that this was his first visit to the +Vingtieme; but Berthe was off-hand in her manner to him: he had not made +a good impression. His eyes were handsome, but--like the Vingtieme’s +tables--too narrow and set too close together. His nose was predatory, +and the points of his moustache, waxed up beyond his nostrils, gave +a fixity to his smile. Decidedly, he was sinister. And my sense of +discomfort in his presence was intensified by the scarlet waistcoat +which tightly, and so unseasonably in June, sheathed his ample chest. +This waistcoat wasn’t wrong merely because of the heat, either. It was +somehow all wrong in itself. It wouldn’t have done on Christmas morning. +It would have struck a jarring note at the first night of ‘Hernani.’ +I was trying to account for its wrongness when Soames suddenly and +strangely broke silence. ‘A hundred years hence!’ he murmured, as in a +trance. + +‘We shall not be here!’ I briskly but fatuously added. + +‘We shall not be here. No,’ he droned, ‘but the Museum will still be +just where it is. And the reading-room, just where it is. And people +will be able to go and read there.’ He inhaled sharply, and a spasm as +of actual pain contorted his features. + +I wondered what train of thought poor Soames had been following. He did +not enlighten me when he said, after a long pause, ‘You think I haven’t +minded.’ + +‘Minded what, Soames?’ + +‘Neglect. Failure.’ + +‘FAILURE?’ I said heartily. ‘Failure?’ I repeated vaguely. +‘Neglect--yes, perhaps; but that’s quite another matter. Of course you +haven’t been--appreciated. But what then? Any artist who--who gives--’ +What I wanted to say was, ‘Any artist who gives truly new and great +things to the world has always to wait long for recognition’; but the +flattery would not out: in the face of his misery, a misery so genuine +and so unmasked, my lips would not say the words. + +And then--he said them for me. I flushed. ‘That’s what you were going to +say, isn’t it?’ he asked. + +‘How did you know?’ + +‘It’s what you said to me three years ago, when “Fungoids” was +published.’ I flushed the more. I need not have done so at all, for +‘It’s the only important thing I ever heard you say,’ he continued. +‘And I’ve never forgotten it. It’s a true thing. It’s a horrible truth. +But--d’you remember what I answered? I said “I don’t care a sou for +recognition.” And you believed me. You’ve gone on believing I’m above +that sort of thing. You’re shallow. What should YOU know of the feelings +of a man like me? You imagine that a great artist’s faith in himself and +in the verdict of posterity is enough to keep him happy.... You’ve never +guessed at the bitterness and loneliness, the’--his voice broke; but +presently he resumed, speaking with a force that I had never known in +him. ‘Posterity! What use is it to ME? A dead man doesn’t know that +people are visiting his grave--visiting his birthplace--putting up +tablets to him--unveiling statues of him. A dead man can’t read the +books that are written about him. A hundred years hence! Think of it! +If I could come back to life then--just for a few hours--and go to the +reading-room, and READ! Or better still: if I could be projected, now, +at this moment, into that future, into that reading-room, just for this +one afternoon! I’d sell myself body and soul to the devil, for +that! Think of the pages and pages in the catalogue: “SOAMES, +ENOCH” endlessly--endless editions, commentaries, prolegomena, +biographies’--but here he was interrupted by a sudden loud creak of the +chair at the next table. Our neighbour had half risen from his place. He +was leaning towards us, apologetically intrusive. + +‘Excuse--permit me,’ he said softly. ‘I have been unable not to hear. +Might I take a liberty? In this little restaurant-sans-facon’--he spread +wide his hands--‘might I, as the phrase is, “cut in”?’ + +I could but signify our acquiescence. Berthe had appeared at the kitchen +door, thinking the stranger wanted his bill. He waved her away with his +cigar, and in another moment had seated himself beside me, commanding a +full view of Soames. + +‘Though not an Englishman,’ he explained, ‘I know my London well, Mr. +Soames. Your name and fame--Mr. Beerbohm’s too--very known to me. Your +point is: who am _I_?’ He glanced quickly over his shoulder, and in a +lowered voice said ‘I am the Devil.’ + +I couldn’t help it: I laughed. I tried not to, I knew there was nothing +to laugh at, my rudeness shamed me, but--I laughed with increasing +volume. The Devil’s quiet dignity, the surprise and disgust of his +raised eyebrows, did but the more dissolve me. I rocked to and fro, I +lay back aching. I behaved deplorably. + +‘I am a gentleman, and,’ he said with intense emphasis, ‘I thought I was +in the company of GENTLEMEN.’ + +‘Don’t!’ I gasped faintly. ‘Oh, don’t!’ + +‘Curious, nicht wahr?’ I heard him say to Soames. ‘There is a type of +person to whom the very mention of my name is--oh-so-awfully-funny! In +your theatres the dullest comedian needs only to say “The Devil!” and +right away they give him “the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.” + Is it not so?’ + +I had now just breath enough to offer my apologies. He accepted them, +but coldly, and re-addressed himself to Soames. + +‘I am a man of business,’ he said, ‘and always I would put things +through “right now,” as they say in the States. You are a poet. Les +affaires--you detest them. So be it. But with me you will deal, eh? What +you have said just now gives me furiously to hope.’ + +Soames had not moved, except to light a fresh cigarette. He sat crouched +forward, with his elbows squared on the table, and his head just above +the level of his hands, staring up at the Devil. ‘Go on,’ he nodded. I +had no remnant of laughter in me now. + +‘It will be the more pleasant, our little deal,’ the Devil went on, +‘because you are--I mistake not?--a Diabolist.’ + +‘A Catholic Diabolist,’ said Soames. + +The Devil accepted the reservation genially. ‘You wish,’ he resumed, ‘to +visit now--this afternoon as-ever-is--the reading-room of the British +Museum, yes? but of a hundred years hence, yes? Parfaitement. Time--an +illusion. Past and future--they are as ever-present as the present, or +at any rate only what you call “just-round-the-corner.” I switch you +on to any date. I project you--pouf! You wish to be in the reading-room +just as it will be on the afternoon of June 3, 1997? You wish to find +yourself standing in that room, just past the swing-doors, this very +minute, yes? and to stay there till closing time? Am I right?’ + +Soames nodded. + +The Devil looked at his watch. ‘Ten past two,’ he said. ‘Closing time in +summer same then as now: seven o’clock. That will give you almost five +hours. At seven o’clock--pouf!--you find yourself again here, sitting +at this table. I am dining to-night dans le monde--dans le higlif. That +concludes my present visit to your great city. I come and fetch you +here, Mr. Soames, on my way home.’ + +‘Home?’ I echoed. + +‘Be it never so humble!’ said the Devil lightly. + +‘All right,’ said Soames. + +‘Soames!’ I entreated. But my friend moved not a muscle. + +The Devil had made as though to stretch forth his hand across the table +and touch Soames’ forearm; but he paused in his gesture. + +‘A hundred years hence, as now,’ he smiled, ‘no smoking allowed in the +reading-room. You would better therefore----’ + +Soames removed the cigarette from his mouth and dropped it into his +glass of Sauterne. + +‘Soames!’ again I cried. ‘Can’t you’--but the Devil had now stretched +forth his hand across the table. He brought it slowly down on--the +tablecloth. Soames’ chair was empty. His cigarette floated sodden in his +wine-glass. There was no other trace of him. + +For a few moments the Devil let his hand rest where it lay, gazing at me +out of the corners of his eyes, vulgarly triumphant. + +A shudder shook me. With an effort I controlled myself and rose from my +chair. ‘Very clever,’ I said condescendingly. ‘But--“The Time Machine” + is a delightful book, don’t you think? So entirely original!’ + +‘You are pleased to sneer,’ said the Devil, who had also risen, ‘but it +is one thing to write about an impossible machine; it is a quite other +thing to be a Supernatural Power.’ All the same, I had scored. + +Berthe had come forth at the sound of our rising. I explained to her +that Mr. Soames had been called away, and that both he and I would be +dining here. It was not until I was out in the open air that I began to +feel giddy. I have but the haziest recollection of what I did, where I +wandered, in the glaring sunshine of that endless afternoon. I remember +the sound of carpenters’ hammers all along Piccadilly, and the bare +chaotic look of the half-erected ‘stands.’ Was it in the Green Park, or +in Kensington Gardens, or WHERE was it that I sat on a chair beneath a +tree, trying to read an evening paper? There was a phrase in the leading +article that went on repeating itself in my fagged mind--‘Little is +hidden from this august Lady full of the garnered wisdom of sixty years +of Sovereignty.’ I remember wildly conceiving a letter (to reach Windsor +by express messenger told to await answer): + + +‘MADAM,--Well knowing that your Majesty is full of the garnered wisdom +of sixty years of Sovereignty, I venture to ask your advice in the +following delicate matter. Mr. Enoch Soames, whose poems you may or may +not know,’.... + + +Was there NO way of helping him--saving him? A bargain was a bargain, +and I was the last man to aid or abet any one in wriggling out of a +reasonable obligation. I wouldn’t have lifted a little finger to save +Faust. But poor Soames!--doomed to pay without respite an eternal price +for nothing but a fruitless search and a bitter disillusioning.... + +Odd and uncanny it seemed to me that he, Soames, in the flesh, in the +waterproof cape, was at this moment living in the last decade of the +next century, poring over books not yet written, and seeing and seen by +men not yet born. Uncannier and odder still, that to-night and evermore +he would be in Hell. Assuredly, truth was stranger than fiction. + +Endless that afternoon was. Almost I wished I had gone with Soames--not +indeed to stay in the reading-room, but to sally forth for a brisk +sight-seeing walk around a new London. I wandered restlessly out of the +Park I had sat in. Vainly I tried to imagine myself an ardent tourist +from the eighteenth century. Intolerable was the strain of the +slow-passing and empty minutes. Long before seven o’clock I was back at +the Vingtieme. + +I sat there just where I had sat for luncheon. Air came in listlessly +through the open door behind me. Now and again Rose or Berthe appeared +for a moment. I had told them I would not order any dinner till Mr. +Soames came. A hurdy-gurdy began to play, abruptly drowning the noise +of a quarrel between some Frenchmen further up the street. Whenever the +tune was changed I heard the quarrel still raging. I had bought another +evening paper on my way. I unfolded it. My eyes gazed ever away from it +to the clock over the kitchen door.... + +Five minutes, now, to the hour! I remembered that clocks in restaurants +are kept five minutes fast. I concentrated my eyes on the paper. I vowed +I would not look away from it again. I held it upright, at its full +width, close to my face, so that I had no view of anything but it.... +Rather a tremulous sheet? Only because of the draught, I told myself. + +My arms gradually became stiff; they ached; but I could not drop +them--now. I had a suspicion, I had a certainty. Well, what then?... +What else had I come for? Yet I held tight that barrier of newspaper. +Only the sound of Berthe’s brisk footstep from the kitchen enabled me, +forced me, to drop it, and to utter: + +‘What shall we have to eat, Soames?’ + +‘Il est souffrant, ce pauvre Monsieur Soames?’ asked Berthe. + +‘He’s only--tired.’ I asked her to get some wine--Burgundy--and whatever +food might be ready. Soames sat crouched forward against the table, +exactly as when last I had seen him. It was as though he had never +moved--he who had moved so unimaginably far. Once or twice in the +afternoon it had for an instant occurred to me that perhaps his journey +was not to be fruitless--that perhaps we had all been wrong in our +estimate of the works of Enoch Soames. That we had been horribly right +was horribly clear from the look of him. But ‘Don’t be discouraged,’ I +falteringly said. ‘Perhaps it’s only that you--didn’t leave enough time. +Two, three centuries hence, perhaps--’ + +‘Yes,’ his voice came. ‘I’ve thought of that.’ + +‘And now--now for the more immediate future! Where are you going to +hide? How would it be if you caught the Paris express from Charing +Cross? Almost an hour to spare. Don’t go on to Paris. Stop at Calais. +Live in Calais. He’d never think of looking for you in Calais.’ + +‘It’s like my luck,’ he said, ‘to spend my last hours on earth with +an ass.’ But I was not offended. ‘And a treacherous ass,’ he strangely +added, tossing across to me a crumpled bit of paper which he had been +holding in his hand. I glanced at the writing on it--some sort of +gibberish, apparently. I laid it impatiently aside. + +‘Come, Soames! pull yourself together! This isn’t a mere matter of life +and death. It’s a question of eternal torment, mind you! You don’t mean +to say you’re going to wait limply here till the Devil comes to fetch +you?’ + +‘I can’t do anything else. I’ve no choice.’ + +‘Come! This is “trusting and encouraging” with a vengeance! This is +Diabolism run mad!’ I filled his glass with wine. ‘Surely, now that +you’ve SEEN the brute--’ + +‘It’s no good abusing him.’ + +‘You must admit there’s nothing Miltonic about him, Soames.’ + +‘I don’t say he’s not rather different from what I expected.’ + +‘He’s a vulgarian, he’s a swell-mobsman, he’s the sort of man who hangs +about the corridors of trains going to the Riviera and steals ladies’ +jewel-cases. Imagine eternal torment presided over by HIM!’ + +‘You don’t suppose I look forward to it, do you?’ + +‘Then why not slip quietly out of the way?’ + +Again and again I filled his glass, and always, mechanically, he emptied +it; but the wine kindled no spark of enterprise in him. He did not eat, +and I myself ate hardly at all. I did not in my heart believe that any +dash for freedom could save him. The chase would be swift, the capture +certain. But better anything than this passive, meek, miserable waiting. +I told Soames that for the honour of the human race he ought to make +some show of resistance. He asked what the human race had ever done for +him. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘can’t you understand that I’m in his power? +You saw him touch me, didn’t you? There’s an end of it. I’ve no will. +I’m sealed.’ + +I made a gesture of despair. He went on repeating the word ‘sealed.’ +I began to realise that the wine had clouded his brain. No wonder! +Foodless he had gone into futurity, foodless he still was. I urged him +to eat at any rate some bread. It was maddening to think that he, who +had so much to tell, might tell nothing. ‘How was it all,’ I asked, +‘yonder? Come! Tell me your adventures.’ + +‘They’d make first-rate “copy,” wouldn’t they?’ + +‘I’m awfully sorry for you, Soames, and I make all possible allowances; +but what earthly right have you to insinuate that I should make “copy,” + as you call it, out of you?’ + +The poor fellow pressed his hands to his forehead. ‘I don’t know,’ he +said. ‘I had some reason, I know.... I’ll try to remember.’ + +‘That’s right. Try to remember everything. Eat a little more bread. What +did the reading-room look like?’ + +‘Much as usual,’ he at length muttered. + +‘Many people there?’ + +‘Usual sort of number.’ + +‘What did they look like?’ + +Soames tried to visualise them. ‘They all,’ he presently remembered, +‘looked very like one another.’ + +My mind took a fearsome leap. ‘All dressed in Jaeger?’ + +‘Yes. I think so. Greyish-yellowish stuff.’ + +‘A sort of uniform?’ He nodded. ‘With a number on it, perhaps?--a number +on a large disc of metal sewn on to the left sleeve? DKF 78,910--that +sort of thing?’ It was even so. ‘And all of them--men and women +alike--looking very well-cared-for? very Utopian? and smelling rather +strongly of carbolic? and all of them quite hairless?’ I was right every +time. Soames was only not sure whether the men and women were hairless +or shorn. ‘I hadn’t time to look at them very closely,’ he explained. + +‘No, of course not. But----’ + +‘They stared at ME, I can tell you. I attracted a great deal of +attention.’ At last he had done that! ‘I think I rather scared them. +They moved away whenever I came near. They followed me about at a +distance, wherever I went. The men at the round desk in the middle +seemed to have a sort of panic whenever I went to make inquiries.’ + +‘What did you do when you arrived?’ + +Well, he had gone straight to the catalogue, of course--to the S +volumes, and had stood long before SN--SOF, unable to take this volume +out of the shelf, because his heart was beating so.... At first, +he said, he wasn’t disappointed--he only thought there was some new +arrangement. He went to the middle desk and asked where the catalogue of +TWENTIETH-century books was kept. He gathered that there was still only +one catalogue. Again he looked up his name, stared at the three little +pasted slips he had known so well. Then he went and sat down for a long +time.... + +‘And then,’ he droned, ‘I looked up the “Dictionary of National +Biography” and some encyclopedias.... I went back to the middle desk +and asked what was the best modern book on late nineteenth-century +literature. They told me Mr. T. K. Nupton’s book was considered the +best. I looked it up in the catalogue and filled in a form for it. It +was brought to me. My name wasn’t in the index, but--Yes!’ he said with +a sudden change of tone. ‘That’s what I’d forgotten. Where’s that bit of +paper? Give it me back.’ + +I, too, had forgotten that cryptic screed. I found it fallen on the +floor, and handed it to him. + +He smoothed it out, nodding and smiling at me disagreeably. ‘I found +myself glancing through Nupton’s book,’ he resumed. ‘Not very easy +reading. Some sort of phonetic spelling.... All the modern books I saw +were phonetic.’ + +‘Then I don’t want to hear any more, Soames, please.’ + +‘The proper names seemed all to be spelt in the old way. But for that, I +mightn’t have noticed my own name.’ + +‘Your own name? Really? Soames, I’m VERY glad.’ + +‘And yours.’ + +‘No!’ + +‘I thought I should find you waiting here to-night. So I took the +trouble to copy out the passage. Read it.’ + +I snatched the paper. Soames’ handwriting was characteristically dim. +It, and the noisome spelling, and my excitement, made me all the slower +to grasp what T. K. Nupton was driving at. + +The document lies before me at this moment. Strange that the words +I here copy out for you were copied out for me by poor Soames just +seventy-eight years hence.... + + +From p. 234 of ‘Inglish Littracher 1890-1900’ bi T. K. Nupton, publishd +bi th Stait, 1992: + +‘Fr egzarmpl, a riter ov th time, naimd Max Beerbohm, hoo woz stil alive +in th twentieth senchri, rote a stauri in wich e pautraid an immajnari +karrakter kauld “Enoch Soames”--a thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself +a grate jeneus an maix a bargin with th Devvl in auder ter no wot +posterriti thinx ov im! It iz a sumwot labud sattire but not without +vallu az showing hou seriusli the yung men ov th aiteen-ninetiz took +themselvz. Nou that the littreri profeshn haz bin auganized az a +departmnt of publik servis, our riters hav found their levvl an hav +lernt ter doo their duti without thort ov th morro. “Th laibrer iz +werthi ov hiz hire,” an that iz aul. Thank hevvn we hav no Enoch +Soameses amung us to-dai!’ + + +I found that by murmuring the words aloud (a device which I commend to +my reader) I was able to master them, little by little. The clearer they +became, the greater was my bewilderment, my distress and horror. The +whole thing was a nightmare. Afar, the great grisly background of what +was in store for the poor dear art of letters; here, at the table, +fixing on me a gaze that made me hot all over, the poor fellow +whom--whom evidently... but no: whatever down-grade my character might +take in coming years, I should never be such a brute as to---- + +Again I examined the screed. ‘Immajnari’--but here Soames was, no more +imaginary, alas! than I. And ‘labud’--what on earth was that? (To this +day, I have never made out that word.) ‘It’s all very--baffling,’ I at +length stammered. + +Soames said nothing, but cruelly did not cease to look at me. + +‘Are you sure,’ I temporised, ‘quite sure you copied the thing out +correctly?’ + +‘Quite.’ + +‘Well, then it’s this wretched Nupton who must have made--must be going +to make--some idiotic mistake.... Look here, Soames! you know me better +than to suppose that I.... After all, the name “Max Beerbohm” is not at +all an uncommon one, and there must be several Enoch Soameses running +around--or rather, “Enoch Soames” is a name that might occur to any +one writing a story. And I don’t write stories: I’m an essayist, an +observer, a recorder.... I admit that it’s an extraordinary coincidence. +But you must see----’ + +‘I see the whole thing,’ said Soames quietly. And he added, with a touch +of his old manner, but with more dignity than I had ever known in him, +‘Parlons d’autre chose.’ + +I accepted that suggestion very promptly. I returned straight to the +more immediate future. I spent most of the long evening in renewed +appeals to Soames to slip away and seek refuge somewhere. I remember +saying at last that if indeed I was destined to write about him, the +supposed ‘stauri’ had better have at least a happy ending. Soames +repeated those last three words in a tone of intense scorn. ‘In Life and +in Art,’ he said, ‘all that matters is an INEVITABLE ending.’ + +‘But,’ I urged, more hopefully than I felt, ‘an ending that can be +avoided ISN’T inevitable.’ + +‘You aren’t an artist,’ he rasped. ‘And you’re so hopelessly not an +artist that, so far from being able to imagine a thing and make it seem +true, you’re going to make even a true thing seem as if you’d made it +up. You’re a miserable bungler. And it’s like my luck.’ + +I protested that the miserable bungler was not I--was not going to be +I--but T. K. Nupton; and we had a rather heated argument, in the thick +of which it suddenly seemed to me that Soames saw he was in the wrong: +he had quite physically cowered. But I wondered why--and now I guessed +with a cold throb just why--he stared so, past me. The bringer of that +‘inevitable ending’ filled the doorway. + +I managed to turn in my chair and to say, not without a semblance of +lightness, ‘Aha, come in!’ Dread was indeed rather blunted in me by +his looking so absurdly like a villain in a melodrama. The sheen of his +tilted hat and of his shirt-front, the repeated twists he was giving to +his moustache, and most of all the magnificence of his sneer, gave token +that he was there only to be foiled. + +He was at our table in a stride. ‘I am sorry,’ he sneered witheringly, +‘to break up your pleasant party, but--’ + +‘You don’t: you complete it,’ I assured him. ‘Mr. Soames and I want +to have a little talk with you. Won’t you sit? Mr. Soames got +nothing--frankly nothing--by his journey this afternoon. We don’t wish +to say that the whole thing was a swindle--a common swindle. On the +contrary, we believe you meant well. But of course the bargain, such as +it was, is off.’ + +The Devil gave no verbal answer. He merely looked at Soames and pointed +with rigid forefinger to the door. Soames was wretchedly rising from +his chair when, with a desperate quick gesture, I swept together two +dinner-knives that were on the table, and laid their blades across +each other. The Devil stepped sharp back against the table behind him, +averting his face and shuddering. + +‘You are not superstitious!’ he hissed. + +‘Not at all,’ I smiled. + +‘Soames!’ he said as to an underling, but without turning his face, ‘put +those knives straight!’ + +With an inhibitive gesture to my friend, ‘Mr. Soames,’ I said +emphatically to the Devil, ‘is a CATHOLIC Diabolist’; but my poor friend +did the Devil’s bidding, not mine; and now, with his master’s eyes again +fixed on him, he arose, he shuffled past me. I tried to speak. It was +he that spoke. ‘Try,’ was the prayer he threw back at me as the Devil +pushed him roughly out through the door, ‘TRY to make them know that I +did exist!’ + +In another instant I too was through that door. I stood staring all +ways--up the street, across it, down it. There was moonlight and +lamplight, but there was not Soames nor that other. + +Dazed, I stood there. Dazed, I turned back, at length, into the little +room; and I suppose I paid Berthe or Rose for my dinner and luncheon, +and for Soames’: I hope so, for I never went to the Vingtieme again. +Ever since that night I have avoided Greek Street altogether. And for +years I did not set foot even in Soho Square, because on that same night +it was there that I paced and loitered, long and long, with some such +dull sense of hope as a man has in not straying far from the place where +he has lost something.... ‘Round and round the shutter’d Square’--that +line came back to me on my lonely beat, and with it the whole stanza, +ringing in my brain and bearing in on me how tragically different from +the happy scene imagined by him was the poet’s actual experience of that +prince in whom of all princes we should put not our trust. + +But--strange how the mind of an essayist, be it never so stricken, roves +and ranges!--I remember pausing before a wide doorstep and wondering if +perchance it was on this very one that the young De Quincey lay ill and +faint while poor Ann flew as fast as her feet would carry her to Oxford +Street, the ‘stony-hearted stepmother’ of them both, and came back +bearing that ‘glass of port wine and spices’ but for which he might, so +he thought, actually have died. Was this the very doorstep that the old +De Quincey used to revisit in homage? I pondered Ann’s fate, the cause +of her sudden vanishing from the ken of her boy-friend; and presently I +blamed myself for letting the past over-ride the present. Poor vanished +Soames! + +And for myself, too, I began to be troubled. What had I better do? Would +there be a hue and cry--Mysterious Disappearance of an Author, and all +that? He had last been seen lunching and dining in my company. Hadn’t I +better get a hansom and drive straight to Scotland Yard?... They would +think I was a lunatic. After all, I reassured myself, London was a +very large place, and one very dim figure might easily drop out of it +unobserved--now especially, in the blinding glare of the near Jubilee. +Better say nothing at all, I thought. + +And I was right. Soames’ disappearance made no stir at all. He was +utterly forgotten before any one, so far as I am aware, noticed that he +was no longer hanging around. Now and again some poet or prosaist may +have said to another, ‘What has become of that man Soames?’ but I never +heard any such question asked. The solicitor through whom he was paid +his annuity may be presumed to have made inquiries, but no echo of +these resounded. There was something rather ghastly to me in the general +unconsciousness that Soames had existed, and more than once I caught +myself wondering whether Nupton, that babe unborn, were going to be +right in thinking him a figment of my brain. + +In that extract from Nupton’s repulsive book there is one point which +perhaps puzzles you. How is it that the author, though I have here +mentioned him by name and have quoted the exact words he is going to +write, is not going to grasp the obvious corollary that I have invented +nothing? The answer can be only this: Nupton will not have read the +later passages of this memoir. Such lack of thoroughness is a serious +fault in any one who undertakes to do scholar’s work. And I hope these +words will meet the eye of some contemporary rival to Nupton and be the +undoing of Nupton. + +I like to think that some time between 1992 and 1997 somebody will have +looked up this memoir, and will have forced on the world his inevitable +and startling conclusions. And I have reasons for believing that this +will be so. You realise that the reading-room into which Soames was +projected by the Devil was in all respects precisely as it will be on +the afternoon of June 3, 1997. You realise, therefore, that on that +afternoon, when it comes round, there the self-same crowd will be, and +there Soames too will be, punctually, he and they doing precisely what +they did before. Recall now Soames’ account of the sensation he made. +You may say that the mere difference of his costume was enough to make +him sensational in that uniformed crowd. You wouldn’t say so if you had +ever seen him. I assure you that in no period could Soames be anything +but dim. The fact that people are going to stare at him, and follow him +around, and seem afraid of him, can be explained only on the hypothesis +that they will somehow have been prepared for his ghostly visitation. +They will have been awfully waiting to see whether he really would come. +And when he does come the effect will of course be--awful. + +An authentic, guaranteed, proven ghost, but--only a ghost, alas! Only +that. In his first visit, Soames was a creature of flesh and blood, +whereas the creatures into whose midst he was projected were but ghosts, +I take it--solid, palpable, vocal, but unconscious and automatic ghosts, +in a building that was itself an illusion. Next time, that building and +those creatures will be real. It is of Soames that there will be but +the semblance. I wish I could think him destined to revisit the world +actually, physically, consciously. I wish he had this one brief escape, +this one small treat, to look forward to. I never forget him for long. +He is where he is, and forever. The more rigid moralists among you may +say he has only himself to blame. For my part, I think he has been +very hardly used. It is well that vanity should be chastened; and Enoch +Soames’ vanity was, I admit, above the average, and called for special +treatment. But there was no need for vindictiveness. You say he +contracted to pay the price he is paying; yes; but I maintain that he +was induced to do so by fraud. Well-informed in all things, the Devil +must have known that my friend would gain nothing by his visit to +futurity. The whole thing was a very shabby trick. The more I think of +it, the more detestable the Devil seems to me. + +Of him I have caught sight several times, here and there, since that day +at the Vingtieme. Only once, however, have I seen him at close quarters. +This was in Paris. I was walking, one afternoon, along the Rue d’Antin, +when I saw him advancing from the opposite direction--over-dressed as +ever, and swinging an ebony cane, and altogether behaving as though +the whole pavement belonged to him. At thought of Enoch Soames and the +myriads of other sufferers eternally in this brute’s dominion, a great +cold wrath filled me, and I drew myself up to my full height. But--well, +one is so used to nodding and smiling in the street to anybody whom one +knows that the action becomes almost independent of oneself: to prevent +it requires a very sharp effort and great presence of mind. I was +miserably aware, as I passed the Devil, that I nodded and smiled to him. +And my shame was the deeper and hotter because he, if you please, stared +straight at me with the utmost haughtiness. + +To be cut--deliberately cut--by HIM! I was, I still am, furious at +having had that happen to me. + + + + + +HILARY MALTBY AND STEPHEN BRAXTON + + +People still go on comparing Thackeray and Dickens, quite cheerfully. +But the fashion of comparing Maltby and Braxton went out so long ago as +1795. No, I am wrong. But anything that happened in the bland old days +before the war does seem to be a hundred more years ago than actually +it is. The year I mean is the one in whose spring-time we all went +bicycling (O thrill!) in Battersea Park, and ladies wore sleeves that +billowed enormously out from their shoulders, and Lord Rosebery was +Prime Minister. + +In that Park, in that spring-time, in that sea of sleeves, there was +almost as much talk about the respective merits of Braxton and Maltby as +there was about those of Rudge and Humber. For the benefit of my younger +readers, and perhaps, so feeble is human memory, for the benefit of +their elders too, let me state that Rudge and Humber were rival makers +of bicycles, that Hilary Maltby was the author of ‘Ariel in Mayfair,’ +and Stephen Braxton of ‘A Faun on the Cotswolds.’ + +‘Which do you think is REALLY the best--“Ariel” or “A Faun”?’ Ladies +were always asking one that question. ‘Oh, well, you know, the two are +so different. It’s really very hard to compare them.’ One was always +giving that answer. One was not very brilliant perhaps. + +The vogue of the two novels lasted throughout the summer. As both were +‘firstlings,’ and Great Britain had therefore nothing else of Braxton’s +or Maltby’s to fall back on, the horizon was much scanned for what +Maltby, and what Braxton, would give us next. In the autumn Braxton +gave us his secondling. It was an instantaneous failure. No more was he +compared with Maltby. In the spring of ‘96 came Maltby’s secondling. +Its failure was instantaneous. Maltby might once more have been compared +with Braxton. But Braxton was now forgotten. So was Maltby. + +This was not kind. This was not just. Maltby’s first novel, and +Braxton’s, had brought delight into many thousands of homes. People +should have paused to say of Braxton “Perhaps his third novel will be +better than his second,” and to say as much for Maltby. I blame people +for having given no sign of wanting a third from either; and I blame +them with the more zest because neither ‘A Faun on the Cotswolds’ nor +‘Ariel in Mayfair’ was a merely popular book: each, I maintain, was a +good book. I don’t go so far as to say that the one had ‘more of natural +magic, more of British woodland glamour, more of the sheer joy of life +in it than anything since “As You Like It,”’ though Higsby went so far +as this in the Daily Chronicle; nor can I allow the claim made for the +other by Grigsby in the Globe that ‘for pungency of satire there has +been nothing like it since Swift laid down his pen, and for sheer +sweetness and tenderness of feeling--ex forti dulcedo--nothing to be +mentioned in the same breath with it since the lute fell from the tired +hand of Theocritus.’ These were foolish exaggerations. But one must not +condemn a thing because it has been over-praised. Maltby’s ‘Ariel’ was +a delicate, brilliant work; and Braxton’s ‘Faun,’ crude though it was +in many ways, had yet a genuine power and beauty. This is not a mere +impression remembered from early youth. It is the reasoned and seasoned +judgment of middle age. Both books have been out of print for many +years; but I secured a second-hand copy of each not long ago, and found +them well worth reading again. + +From the time of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the outbreak of the war, current +literature did not suffer from any lack of fauns. But when Braxton’s +first book appeared fauns had still an air of novelty about them. We had +not yet tired of them and their hoofs and their slanting eyes and their +way of coming suddenly out of woods to wean quiet English villages from +respectability. We did tire later. But Braxton’s faun, even now, seems +to me an admirable specimen of his class--wild and weird, earthy, +goat-like, almost convincing. And I find myself convinced altogether by +Braxton’s rustics. I admit that I do not know much about rustics, +except from novels. But I plead that the little I do know about them by +personal observation does not confirm much of what the many novelists +have taught me. I plead also that Braxton may well have been right about +the rustics of Gloucestershire because he was (as so many interviewers +recorded of him in his brief heyday) the son of a yeoman farmer at Far +Oakridge, and his boyhood had been divided between that village and the +Grammar School at Stroud. Not long ago I happened to be staying in the +neighbourhood, and came across several villagers who might, I assure +you, have stepped straight out of Braxton’s pages. For that matter, +Braxton himself, whom I met often in the spring of ‘95, might have +stepped straight out of his own pages. + +I am guilty of having wished he would step straight back into them. He +was a very surly fellow, very rugged and gruff. He was the antithesis of +pleasant little Maltby. I used to think that perhaps he would have been +less unamiable if success had come to him earlier. He was thirty years +old when his book was published, and had had a very hard time since +coming to London at the age of sixteen. Little Maltby was a year +older, and so had waited a year longer; but then, he had waited under +a comfortable roof at Twickenham, emerging into the metropolis for no +grimmer purpose than to sit and watch the fashionable riders and +walkers in Rotten Row, and then going home to write a little, or to play +lawn-tennis with the young ladies of Twickenham. He had been the only +child of his parents (neither of whom, alas, survived to take pleasure +in their darling’s sudden fame). He had now migrated from Twickenham and +taken rooms in Ryder Street. Had he ever shared with Braxton the bread +of adversity--but no, I think he would in any case have been pleasant. +And conversely I cannot imagine that Braxton would in any case have been +so. + +No one seeing the two rivals together, no one meeting them at Mr. +Hookworth’s famous luncheon parties in the Authors’ Club, or at Mrs. +Foster-Dugdale’s not less famous garden parties in Greville Place, +would have supposed off-hand that the pair had a single point in common. +Dapper little Maltby--blond, bland, diminutive Maltby, with his monocle +and his gardenia; big black Braxton, with his lanky hair and his square +blue jaw and his square sallow forehead. Canary and crow. Maltby had a +perpetual chirrup of amusing small-talk. Braxton was usually silent, but +very well worth listening to whenever he did croak. He had distinction, +I admit it; the distinction of one who steadfastly refuses to adapt +himself to surroundings. He stood out. He awed Mr. Hookworth. Ladies +were always asking one another, rather intently, what they thought of +him. One could imagine that Mr. Foster-Dugdale, had he come home from +the City to attend the garden parties, might have regarded him as +one from whom Mrs. Foster-Dugdale should be shielded. But the casual +observer of Braxton and Maltby at Mrs. Foster-Dugdale’s or elsewhere was +wrong in supposing that the two were totally unlike. He overlooked one +simple and obvious point. This was that he had met them both at Mrs. +Foster-Dugdale’s or elsewhere. Wherever they were invited, there +certainly, there punctually, they would be. They were both of them +gluttons for the fruits and signs of their success. + +Interviewers and photographers had as little reason as had hostesses to +complain of two men so earnestly and assiduously ‘on the make’ as Maltby +and Braxton. Maltby, for all his sparkle, was earnest; Braxton, for all +his arrogance, assiduous. + +‘A Faun on the Cotswolds’ had no more eager eulogist than the author of +‘Ariel in Mayfair.’ When any one praised his work, Maltby would lightly +disparage it in comparison with Braxton’s--‘Ah, if I could write like +THAT!’ Maltby won golden opinions in this way. Braxton, on the +other hand, would let slip no opportunity for sneering at Maltby’s +work--‘gimcrack,’ as he called it. This was not good for Maltby. +Different men, different methods. + +‘The Rape of the Lock’ was ‘gimcrack,’ if you care to call it so; but it +was a delicate, brilliant work; and so, I repeat, was Maltby’s ‘Ariel.’ +Absurd to compare Maltby with Pope? I am not so sure. I have read +‘Ariel,’ but have never read ‘The Rape of the Lock.’ Braxton’s +opprobrious term for ‘Ariel’ may not, however, have been due to jealousy +alone. Braxton had imagination, and his rival did not soar above fancy. +But the point is that Maltby’s fancifulness went far and well. In +telling how Ariel re-embodied himself from thin air, leased a small +house in Chesterfield Street, was presented at a Levee, played the part +of good fairy in a matter of true love not running smooth, and worked +meanwhile all manner of amusing changes among the aristocracy before he +vanished again, Maltby showed a very pretty range of ingenuity. In one +respect, his work was a more surprising achievement than Braxton’s. For +whereas Braxton had been born and bred among his rustics, Maltby knew +his aristocrats only through Thackeray, through the photographs and +paragraphs in the newspapers, and through those passionate excursions +of his to Rotten Row. Yet I found his aristocrats as convincing as +Braxton’s rustics. It is true that I may have been convinced wrongly. +That is a point which I could settle only by experience. I shift my +ground, claiming for Maltby’s aristocrats just this: that they pleased +me very much. + +Aristocrats, when they are presented solely through a novelist’s sense +of beauty, do not satisfy us. They may be as beautiful as all that, +but, for fear of thinking ourselves snobbish, we won’t believe it. We do +believe it, however, and revel in it, when the novelist saves his face +and ours by a pervading irony in the treatment of what he loves. The +irony must, mark you, be pervading and obvious. Disraeli’s great ladies +and lords won’t do, for his irony was but latent in his homage, and +thus the reader feels himself called on to worship and in duty bound +to scoff. All’s well, though, when the homage is latent in the irony. +Thackeray, inviting us to laugh and frown over the follies of Mayfair, +enables us to reel with him in a secret orgy of veneration for those +fools. + +Maltby, too, in his measure, enabled us to reel thus. That is mainly +why, before the end of April, his publisher was in a position to state +that ‘the Seventh Large Impression of “Ariel in Mayfair” is almost +exhausted.’ Let it be put to our credit, however, that at the same +moment Braxton’s publisher had ‘the honour to inform the public that +an Eighth Large Impression of “A Faun on the Cotswolds” is in instant +preparation.’ + +Indeed, it seemed impossible for either author to outvie the other in +success and glory. Week in, week out, you saw cancelled either’s every +momentary advantage. A neck-and-neck race. As thus:--Maltby appears as +a Celebrity At Home in the World (Tuesday). Ha! No, Vanity +Fair (Wednesday) has a perfect presentment of Braxton by ‘Spy.’ +Neck-and-neck! No, Vanity Fair says ‘the subject of next week’s cartoon +will be Mr. Hilary Maltby.’ Maltby wins! No, next week Braxton’s in the +World. + +Throughout May I kept, as it were, my eyes glued to my field-glasses. +On the first Monday in June I saw that which drew from me a hoarse +ejaculation. + +Let me explain that always on Monday mornings at this time of year, when +I opened my daily paper, I looked with respectful interest to see what +bevy of the great world had been entertained since Saturday at Keeb +Hall. The list was always august and inspiring. Statecraft and Diplomacy +were well threaded there with mere Lineage and mere Beauty, with Royalty +sometimes, with mere Wealth never, with privileged Genius now and then. +A noble composition always. It was said that the Duke of Hertfordshire +cared for nothing but his collection of birds’ eggs, and that the +collections of guests at Keeb were formed entirely by his young +Duchess. It was said that he had climbed trees in every corner of every +continent. The Duchess’ hobby was easier. She sat aloft and beckoned +desirable specimens up. + +The list published on that first Monday in June began ordinarily enough, +began with the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador and the Portuguese Minister. +Then came the Duke and Duchess of Mull, followed by four lesser Peers +(two of them Proconsuls, however) with their Peeresses, three Peers +without their Peeresses, four Peeresses without their Peers, and a dozen +bearers of courtesy-titles with or without their wives or husbands. The +rear was brought up by ‘Mr. A. J. Balfour, Mr. Henry Chaplin, and Mr. +Hilary Maltby.’ + +Youth tends to look at the darker side of things. I confess that my +first thought was for Braxton. + +I forgave and forgot his faults of manner. Youth is generous. It does +not criticise a strong man stricken. + +And anon, so habituated was I to the parity of those two strivers, I +conceived that there might be some mistake. Daily newspapers are printed +in a hurry. Might not ‘Henry Chaplin’ be a typographical error for +‘Stephen Braxton’? I went out and bought another newspaper. But Mr. +Chaplin’s name was in that too. + +‘Patience!’ I said to myself. ‘Braxton crouches only to spring. He will +be at Keeb Hall on Saturday next.’ + +My mind was free now to dwell with pleasure on Maltby’s great +achievement. I thought of writing to congratulate him, but feared this +might be in bad taste. I did, however, write asking him to lunch with +me. He did not answer my letter. I was, therefore, all the more sorry, +next Monday, at not finding ‘and Mr. Stephen Braxton’ in Keeb’s week-end +catalogue. + +A few days later I met Mr. Hookworth. He mentioned that Stephen Braxton +had left town. ‘He has taken,’ said Hookworth, ‘a delightful bungalow on +the east coast. He has gone there to WORK.’ He added that he had a great +liking for Braxton--‘a man utterly UNSPOILT.’ I inferred that he, too, +had written to Maltby and received no answer. + +That butterfly did not, however, appear to be hovering from flower +to flower in the parterres of rank and fashion. In the daily lists of +guests at dinners, receptions, dances, balls, the name of Maltby figured +never. Maltby had not caught on. + +Presently I heard that he, too, had left town. I gathered that he had +gone quite early in June--quite soon after Keeb. Nobody seemed to know +where he was. My own theory was that he had taken a delightful bungalow +on the west coast, to balance Braxton. Anyhow, the parity of the two +strivers was now somewhat re-established. + +In point of fact, the disparity had been less than I supposed. While +Maltby was at Keeb, there Braxton was also--in a sense.... It was a +strange story. I did not hear it at the time. Nobody did. I heard it +seventeen years later. I heard it in Lucca. + + +Little Lucca I found so enchanting that, though I had only a day or two +to spare, I stayed there a whole month. I formed the habit of walking, +every morning, round that high-pitched path which girdles Lucca, that +wide and tree-shaded path from which one looks down over the city wall +at the fertile plains beneath Lucca. There were never many people there; +but the few who did come came daily, so that I grew to like seeing them +and took a mild personal interest in them. + +One of them was an old lady in a wheeled chair. She was not less than +seventy years old, and might or might not have once been beautiful. +Her chair was slowly propelled by an Italian woman. She herself was +obviously Italian. Not so, however, the little gentleman who walked +assiduously beside her. Him I guessed to be English. He was a very stout +little gentleman, with gleaming spectacles and a full blond beard, and +he seemed to radiate cheerfulness. I thought at first that he might be +the old lady’s resident physician; but no, there was something subtly +un-professional about him: I became sure that his constancy was +gratuitous, and his radiance real. And one day, I know not how, there +dawned on me a suspicion that he was--who?--some one I had known--some +writer--what’s-his-name--something with an M--Maltby--Hilary Maltby of +the long-ago! + +At sight of him on the morrow this suspicion hardened almost to +certainty. I wished I could meet him alone and ask him if I were not +right, and what he had been doing all these years, and why he had left +England. He was always with the old lady. It was only on my last day in +Lucca that my chance came. + +I had just lunched, and was seated on a comfortable bench outside my +hotel, with a cup of coffee on the table before me, gazing across the +faded old sunny piazza and wondering what to do with my last afternoon. +It was then that I espied yonder the back of the putative Maltby. I +hastened forth to him. He was buying some pink roses, a great bunch of +them, from a market-woman under an umbrella. He looked very blank, he +flushed greatly, when I ventured to accost him. He admitted that his +name was Hilary Maltby. I told him my own name, and by degrees he +remembered me. He apologised for his confusion. He explained that he had +not talked English, had not talked to an Englishman, ‘for--oh, hundreds +of years.’ He said that he had, in the course of his long residence in +Lucca, seen two or three people whom he had known in England, but that +none of them had recognised him. He accepted (but as though he were +embarking on the oddest adventure in the world) my invitation that +he should come and sit down and take coffee with me. He laughed with +pleasure and surprise at finding that he could still speak his native +tongue quite fluently and idiomatically. ‘I know absolutely nothing,’ he +said, ‘about England nowadays--except from stray references to it in the +Corriere della Sera; nor did he show the faintest desire that I should +enlighten him. ‘England,’ he mused, ‘--how it all comes back to me!’ + +‘But not you to it?’ + +‘Ah, no indeed,’ he said gravely, looking at the roses which he had laid +carefully on the marble table. ‘I am the happiest of men.’ + +He sipped his coffee, and stared out across the piazza, out beyond it +into the past. + +‘I am the happiest of men,’ he repeated. I plied him with the spur of +silence. + +‘And I owe it all to having once yielded to a bad impulse. Absurd, the +threads our destinies hang on!’ + +Again I plied him with that spur. As it seemed not to prick him, I +repeated the words he had last spoken. ‘For instance?’ I added. + +‘Take,’ he said, ‘a certain evening in the spring of ‘95. If, on that +evening, the Duchess of Hertfordshire had had a bad cold; or if she +had decided that it WOULDN’T be rather interesting to go on to that +party--that Annual Soiree, I think it was--of the Inkwomen’s Club; or +again--to go a step further back--if she hadn’t ever written that one +little poem, and if it HADN’T been printed in “The Gentlewoman,” and if +the Inkwomen’s committee HADN’T instantly and unanimously elected her an +Honorary Vice-President because of that one little poem; or if--well, +if a million-and-one utterly irrelevant things hadn’t happened, +don’t-you-know, I shouldn’t be here.... I might be THERE,’ he smiled, +with a vague gesture indicating England. + +‘Suppose,’ he went on, ‘I hadn’t been invited to that Annual Soiree; or +suppose that other fellow,-- + +‘Braxton?’ I suggested. I had remembered Braxton at the moment of +recognising Maltby. + +‘Suppose HE hadn’t been asked.... But of course we both were. It +happened that I was the first to be presented to the Duchess.... It was +a great moment. I hoped I should keep my head. She wore a tiara. I had +often seen women in tiaras, at the Opera. But I had never talked to +a woman in a tiara. Tiaras were symbols to me. Eyes are just a human +feature. I fixed mine on the Duchess’s. I kept my head by not looking +at hers. I behaved as one human being to another. She seemed very +intelligent. We got on very well. Presently she asked whether I should +think her VERY bold if she said how PERFECTLY divine she thought my +book. I said something about doing my best, and asked with animation +whether she had read “A Faun on the Cotswolds.” She had. She said it was +TOO wonderful, she said it was TOO great. If she hadn’t been a Duchess, +I might have thought her slightly hysterical. Her innate good-sense +quickly reasserted itself. She used her great power. With a wave of her +magic wand she turned into a fact the glittering possibility that had +haunted me. She asked me down to Keeb. + +‘She seemed very pleased that I would come. Was I, by any chance, free +on Saturday week? She hoped there would be some amusing people to meet +me. Could I come by the 3.30? It was only an hour-and-a-quarter from +Victoria. On Saturday there were always compartments reserved for people +coming to Keeb by the 3.30. She hoped I would bring my bicycle with me. +She hoped I wouldn’t find it very dull. She hoped I wouldn’t forget to +come. She said how lovely it must be to spend one’s life among clever +people. She supposed I knew everybody here to-night. She asked me to +tell her who everybody was. She asked who was the tall, dark man, over +there. I told her it was Stephen Braxton. She said they had promised to +introduce her to him. She added that he looked rather wonderful. “Oh, he +is, very,” I assured her. She turned to me with a sudden appeal: “DO you +think, if I took my courage in both hands and asked him, he’d care to +come to Keeb?” + +‘I hesitated. It would be easy to say that Satan answered FOR me; easy +but untrue; it was I that babbled: “Well--as a matter of fact--since you +ask me--if I were you--really I think you’d better not. He’s very odd in +some ways. He has an extraordinary hatred of sleeping out of London. He +has the real Gloucestershire LOVE of London. At the same time, he’s very +shy; and if you asked him he wouldn’t very well know how to refuse. I +think it would be KINDER not to ask him.” + +‘At that moment, Mrs. Wilpham--the President--loomed up to us, bringing +Braxton. He bore himself well. Rough dignity with a touch of mellowness. +I daresay you never saw him smile. He smiled gravely down at the +Duchess, while she talked in her pretty little quick humble way. He made +a great impression. + +‘What I had done was not merely base: it was very dangerous. I was in +terror that she might rally him on his devotion to London. I didn’t dare +to move away. I was immensely relieved when at length she said she must +be going. + +‘Braxton seemed loth to relax his grip on her hand at parting. I feared +she wouldn’t escape without uttering that invitation. But all was +well.... In saying good night to me, she added in a murmur, “Don’t +forget Keeb--Saturday week--the 3.30.” Merely an exquisite murmur. +But Braxton heard it. I knew, by the diabolical look he gave me, that +Braxton had heard it.... If he hadn’t, I shouldn’t be here. + +‘Was I a prey to remorse? Well, in the days between that Soiree and that +Saturday, remorse often claimed me, but rapture wouldn’t give me up. +Arcady, Olympus, the right people, at last! I hadn’t realised how good +my book was--not till it got me this guerdon; not till I got it this +huge advertisement. I foresaw how pleased my publisher would be. In some +great houses, I knew, it was possible to stay without any one knowing +you had been there. But the Duchess of Hertfordshire hid her light under +no bushel. Exclusive she was, but not of publicity. Next to Windsor +Castle, Keeb Hall was the most advertised house in all England. + +‘Meanwhile, I had plenty to do. I rather thought of engaging a valet, +but decided that this wasn’t necessary. On the other hand, I felt a need +for three new summer suits, and a new evening suit, and some new white +waistcoats. Also a smoking suit. And had any man ever stayed at Keeb +without a dressing-case? Hitherto I had been content with a pair of +wooden brushes, and so forth. I was afraid these would appal the footman +who unpacked my things. I ordered, for his sake, a large dressing-case, +with my initials engraved throughout it. It looked compromisingly new +when it came to me from the shop. I had to kick it industriously, and +throw it about and scratch it, so as to avert possible suspicion. The +tailor did not send my things home till the Friday evening. I had to sit +up late, wearing the new suits in rotation. + +‘Next day, at Victoria, I saw strolling on the platform many people, +male and female, who looked as if they were going to Keeb--tall, +cool, ornate people who hadn’t packed their own things and had reached +Victoria in broughams. I was ornate, but not tall nor cool. My porter +was rather off-hand in his manner as he wheeled my things along to +the 3.30. I asked severely if there were any compartments reserved for +people going to stay with the Duke of Hertfordshire. This worked an +instant change in him. Having set me in one of those shrines, he seemed +almost loth to accept a tip. A snob, I am afraid. + +‘A selection of the tall, the cool, the ornate, the intimately +acquainted with one another, soon filled the compartment. There I +was, and I think they felt they ought to try to bring me into the +conversation. As they were all talking about a cotillion of the previous +night, I shouldn’t have been able to shine. I gazed out of the window, +with middle-class aloofness. Presently the talk drifted on to the topic +of bicycles. But by this time it was too late for me to come in. + +‘I gazed at the squalid outskirts of London as they flew by. I doubted, +as I listened to my fellow-passengers, whether I should be able to shine +at Keeb. I rather wished I were going to spend the week-end at one of +those little houses with back-gardens beneath the railway-line. I was +filled with fears. + +‘For shame! thought I. Was I nobody? Was the author of “Ariel in +Mayfair” nobody? + +‘I reminded myself how glad Braxton would be if he knew of my +faint-heartedness. I thought of Braxton sitting, at this moment, in his +room in Clifford’s Inn and glowering with envy of his hated rival in the +3.30. And after all, how enviable I was! My spirits rose. I would acquit +myself well.... + +‘I much admired the scene at the little railway station where we +alighted. It was like a fete by Lancret. I knew from the talk of my +fellow-passengers that some people had been going down by an earlier +train, and that others were coming by a later. But the 3.30 had brought +a full score of us. Us! That was the final touch of beauty. + +‘Outside there were two broughams, a landau, dog-carts, a phaeton, a +wagonette, I know not what. But almost everybody, it seemed, was going +to bicycle. Lady Rodfitten said SHE was going to bicycle. Year after +year, I had seen that famous Countess riding or driving in the Park. +I had been told at fourth hand that she had a masculine intellect and +could make and unmake Ministries. She was nearly sixty now, a trifle +dyed and stout and weather-beaten, but still tremendously handsome, and +hard as nails. One would not have said she had grown older, but merely +that she belonged now to a rather later period of the Roman Empire. I +had never dreamed of a time when one roof would shelter Lady Rodfitten +and me. Somehow, she struck my imagination more than any of these +others--more than Count Deym, more than Mr. Balfour, more than the +lovely Lady Thisbe Crowborough. + +‘I might have had a ducal vehicle all to myself, and should have liked +that; but it seemed more correct that I should use my bicycle. On the +other hand, I didn’t want to ride with all these people--a stranger in +their midst. I lingered around the luggage till they were off, and then +followed at a long distance. + +‘The sun had gone behind clouds. But I rode slowly, so as to be sure not +to arrive hot. I passed, not without a thrill, through the massive +open gates into the Duke’s park. A massive man with a cockade saluted +me--hearteningly--from the door of the lodge. The park seemed endless. +I came, at length, to a long straight avenue of elms that were almost +blatantly immemorial. At the end of it was--well, I felt like a gnat +going to stay in a public building. + +‘If there had been turnstiles--IN and OUT--and a shilling to pay, +I should have felt easier as I passed into that hall--that +Palladio-Gargantuan hall. Some one, some butler or groom-of-the-chamber, +murmured that her Grace was in the garden. I passed out through the +great opposite doorway on to a wide spectacular terrace with lawns +beyond. Tea was on the nearest of these lawns. In the central group of +people--some standing, others sitting--I espied the Duchess. She sat +pouring out tea, a deft and animated little figure. I advanced firmly +down the steps from the terrace, feeling that all would be well so soon +as I had reported myself to the Duchess. + +‘But I had a staggering surprise on my way to her. I espied in one of +the smaller groups--whom d’you think? Braxton. + +‘I had no time to wonder how he had got there--time merely to grasp the +black fact that he WAS there. + +‘The Duchess seemed really pleased to see me. She said it was TOO +splendid of me to come. “You know Mr. Maltby?” she asked Lady Rodfitten, +who exclaimed “Not Mr. HILARY Maltby?” with a vigorous grace that +was overwhelming. Lady Rodfitten declared she was the greatest of my +admirers; and I could well believe that in whatever she did she excelled +all competitors. On the other hand, I found it hard to believe she was +afraid of me. Yet I had her word for it that she was. + +‘Her womanly charm gave place now to her masculine grip. She +eulogised me in the language of a seasoned reviewer on the staff of a +long-established journal--wordy perhaps, but sound. I revered and loved +her. I wished I could give her my undivided attention. But, whilst I sat +there, teacup, in hand, between her and the Duchess, part of my brain +was fearfully concerned with that glimpse I had had of Braxton. It +didn’t so much matter that he was here to halve my triumph. But suppose +he knew what I had told the Duchess! And suppose he had--no, surely if +he HAD shown me up in all my meanness she wouldn’t have received me +so very cordially. I wondered where she could have met him since that +evening of the Inkwomen. I heard Lady Rodfitten concluding her review +of “Ariel” with two or three sentences that might have been framed +specially to give the publisher an easy “quote.” And then I heard myself +asking mechanically whether she had read “A Faun on the Cotswolds.” The +Duchess heard me too. She turned from talking to other people and said +“I did like Mr. Braxton so VERY much.” + +‘“Yes,” I threw out with a sickly smile, “I’m so glad you asked him to +come.” + +‘“But I didn’t ask him. I didn’t DARE.” + +‘“But--but--surely he wouldn’t be--be HERE if--” We stared at each other +blankly. “Here?” she echoed, glancing at the scattered little groups of +people on the lawn. I glanced too. I was much embarrassed. I explained +that I had seen Braxton “standing just over there” when I arrived, and +had supposed he was one of the people who came by the earlier train. +“Well,” she said with a slightly irritated laugh, “you must have +mistaken some one else for him.” She dropped the subject, talked to +other people, and presently moved away. + +‘Surely, thought I, she didn’t suspect me of trying to make fun of her? +On the other hand, surely she hadn’t conspired with Braxton to make a +fool of ME? And yet, how could Braxton be here without an invitation, +and without her knowledge? My brain whirled. One thing only was clear. +I could NOT have mistaken anybody for Braxton. There Braxton had +stood--Stephen Braxton, in that old pepper-and-salt suit of his, with +his red tie all askew, and without a hat--his hair hanging over his +forehead. All this I had seen sharp and clean-cut. There he had stood, +just beside one of the women who travelled down in the same compartment +as I; a very pretty woman in a pale blue dress; a tall woman--but I had +noticed how small she looked beside Braxton. This woman was now walking +to and fro, yonder, with M. de Soveral. I had seen Braxton beside her as +clearly as I now saw M. de Soveral. + +‘Lady Rodfitten was talking about India to a recent Viceroy. She seemed +to have as firm a grip of India as of “Ariel.” I sat forgotten. I wanted +to arise and wander off--in a vague search for Braxton. But I feared +this might look as if I were angry at being ignored. Presently Lady +Rodfitten herself arose, to have what she called her “annual look +round.” She bade me come too, and strode off between me and the +recent Viceroy, noting improvements that had been made in the grounds, +suggesting improvements that might be made, indicating improvements that +MUST be made. She was great on landscape-gardening. The recent Viceroy +was less great on it, but great enough. I don’t say I walked forgotten: +the eminent woman constantly asked my opinion; but my opinion, though of +course it always coincided with hers, sounded quite worthless, somehow. +I longed to shine. I could only bother about Braxton. + +‘Lady Rodfitten’s voice sounded over-strong for the stillness of +evening. The shadows lengthened. My spirits sank lower and lower, with +the sun. I was a naturally cheerful person, but always, towards sunset, +I had a vague sense of melancholy: I seemed always to have grown weaker; +morbid misgivings would come to me. On this particular evening there was +one such misgiving that crept in and out of me again and again... a very +horrible misgiving as to the NATURE of what I had seen. + +‘Well, dressing for dinner is a great tonic. Especially if one shaves. +My spirits rose as I lathered my face. I smiled to my reflection in +the mirror. The afterglow of the sun came through the window behind +the dressing-table, but I had switched on all the lights. My new +silver-topped bottles and things made a fine array. To-night _I_ was +going to shine, too. I felt I might yet be the life and soul of the +party. Anyway, my new evening suit was without a fault. And meanwhile +this new razor was perfect. Having shaved “down,” I lathered myself +again and proceeded to shave “up.” It was then that I uttered a sharp +sound and swung round on my heel. + +‘No one was there. Yet this I knew: Stephen Braxton had just looked over +my shoulder. I had seen the reflection of his face beside mine--craned +forward to the mirror. I had met his eyes. + +‘He had been with me. This I knew. + +‘I turned to look again at that mirror. One of my cheeks was all covered +with blood. I stanched it with a towel. Three long cuts where the razor +had slipped and skipped. I plunged the towel into cold water and held it +to my cheek. The bleeding went on--alarmingly. I rang the bell. No one +came. I vowed I wouldn’t bleed to death for Braxton. I rang again. At +last a very tall powdered footman appeared--more reproachful-looking +than sympathetic, as though I hadn’t ordered that dressing-case +specially on his behalf. He said he thought one of the housemaids would +have some sticking-plaster. He was very sorry he was needed downstairs, +but he would tell one of the housemaids. I continued to dab and to +curse. The blood flowed less. I showed great spirit. I vowed Braxton +should not prevent me from going down to dinner. + +‘But--a pretty sight I was when I did go down. Pale but determined, with +three long strips of black sticking-plaster forming a sort of Z on my +left cheek. Mr. Hilary Maltby at Keeb. Literature’s Ambassador. + +‘I don’t know how late I was. Dinner was in full swing. Some servant +piloted me to my place. I sat down unobserved. The woman on either side +of me was talking to her other neighbour. I was near the Duchess’ end of +the table. Soup was served to me--that dark-red soup that you pour cream +into--Bortsch. I felt it would steady me. I raised the first spoonful to +my lips, and--my hand gave a sudden jerk. + +‘I was aware of two separate horrors--a horror that had been, a horror +that was. Braxton had vanished. Not for more than an instant had he +stood scowling at me from behind the opposite diners. Not for more than +the fraction of an instant. But he had left his mark on me. I gazed down +with a frozen stare at my shirtfront, at my white waistcoat, both dark +with Bortsch. I rubbed them with a napkin. I made them worse. + +‘I looked at my glass of champagne. I raised it carefully and drained +it at one draught. It nerved me. But behind that shirtfront was a broken +heart. + +‘The woman on my left was Lady Thisbe Crowborough. I don’t know who was +the woman on my right. She was the first to turn and see me. I thought +it best to say something about my shirtfront at once. I said it to her +sideways, without showing my left cheek. Her handsome eyes rested on the +splashes. She said, after a moment’s thought, that they looked “rather +gay.” She said she thought the eternal black and white of men’s +evening clothes was “so very dreary.” She did her best.... Lady Thisbe +Crowborough did her best, too, I suppose; but breeding isn’t proof +against all possible shocks: she visibly started at sight of me and my +Z. I explained that I had cut myself shaving. I said, with an attempt at +lightness, that shy men ought always to cut themselves shaving: it +made such a good conversational opening. “But surely,” she said after a +pause, “you don’t cut yourself on purpose?” She was an abysmal fool. I +didn’t think so at the time. She was Lady Thisbe Crowborough. This fact +hallowed her. That we didn’t get on at all well was a misfortune +for which I blamed only myself and my repulsive appearance and--the +unforgettable horror that distracted me. Nor did I blame Lady Thisbe for +turning rather soon to the man on her other side. + +‘The woman on my right was talking to the man on HER other side; so that +I was left a prey to secret memory and dread. I wasn’t wondering, wasn’t +attempting to explain; I was merely remembering--and dreading. And--how +odd one is!--on the top-layer of my consciousness I hated to be seen +talking to no one. Mr. Maltby at Keeb. I caught the Duchess’ eye once +or twice, and she nodded encouragingly, as who should say “You do look +rather awful, and you do seem rather out of it, but I don’t for a moment +regret having asked you to come.” Presently I had another chance of +talking. I heard myself talk. My feverish anxiety to please rather +touched ME. But I noticed that the eyes of my listener wandered. And +yet I was sorry when the ladies went away. I had a sense of greater +exposure. Men who hadn’t seen me saw me now. The Duke, as he came round +to the Duchess’ end of the table, must have wondered who I was. But he +shyly offered me his hand as he passed, and said it was so good of me +to come. I had thought of slipping away to put on another shirt and +waistcoat, but had decided that this would make me the more ridiculous. +I sat drinking port--poison to me after champagne, but a lulling +poison--and listened to noblemen with unstained shirtfronts talking +about the Australian cricket match.... + +‘Is Rubicon Bezique still played in England? There was a mania for it at +that time. The floor of Keeb’s Palladio-Gargantuan hall was dotted with +innumerable little tables. I didn’t know how to play. My hostess told me +I must “come and amuse the dear old Duke and Duchess of Mull,” and led +me to a remote sofa on which an old gentleman had just sat down beside +an old lady. They looked at me with a dim kind interest. My hostess had +set me and left me on a small gilt chair in front of them. Before going +she had conveyed to them loudly--one of them was very deaf--that I was +“the famous writer.” It was a long time before they understood that I +was not a political writer. The Duke asked me, after a troubled pause, +whether I had known “old Mr. Abraham Hayward.” The Duchess said I was +too young to have known Mr. Hayward, and asked if I knew her “clever +friend Mr. Mallock.” I said I had just been reading Mr. Mallock’s new +novel. I heard myself shouting a confused precis of the plot. The place +where we were sitting was near the foot of the great marble staircase. +I said how beautiful the staircase was. The Duchess of Mull said she had +never cared very much for that staircase. The Duke, after a pause, said +he had “often heard old Mr. Abraham Hayward hold a whole dinner table.” + There were long and frequent pauses--between which I heard myself +talking loudly, frantically, sinking lower and lower in the esteem of my +small audience. I felt like a man drowning under the eyes of an elderly +couple who sit on the bank regretting that they can offer NO assistance. +Presently the Duke looked at his watch and said to the Duchess that it +was “time to be thinking of bed.” + +‘They rose, as it were from the bank, and left me, so to speak, under +water. I watched them as they passed slowly out of sight up the marble +staircase which I had mispraised. I turned and surveyed the brilliant, +silent scene presented by the card-players. + +‘I wondered what old Mr. Abraham Hayward would have done in my place. +Would he have just darted in among those tables and “held” them? I +presumed that he would not have stolen silently away, quickly and +cravenly away, up the marble staircase--as _I_ did. + +‘I don’t know which was the greater, the relief or the humiliation of +finding myself in my bedroom. Perhaps the humiliation was the greater. +There, on a chair, was my grand new smoking-suit, laid out for me--what +a mockery! Once I had foreseen myself wearing it in the smoking-room +at a late hour--the centre of a group of eminent men entranced by the +brilliancy of my conversation. And now--! I was nothing but a small, +dull, soup-stained, sticking-plastered, nerve-racked recluse. Nerves, +yes. I assured myself that I had not seen--what I had seemed to see. All +very odd, of course, and very unpleasant, but easily explained. Nerves. +Excitement of coming to Keeb too much for me. A good night’s rest: that +was all I needed. To-morrow I should laugh at myself. + +‘I wondered that I wasn’t tired physically. There my grand new silk +pyjamas were, yet I felt no desire to go to bed... none while it was +still possible for me to go. The little writing-table at the foot of my +bed seemed to invite me. I had brought with me in my portmanteau a sheaf +of letters, letters that I had purposely left unanswered in order that I +might answer them on KEEB HALL note-paper. These the footman had neatly +laid beside the blotting-pad on that little writing-table at the foot +of the bed. I regretted that the notepaper stacked there had no ducal +coronet on it. What matter? The address sufficed. If I hadn’t yet made a +good impression on the people who were staying here, I could at any rate +make one on the people who weren’t. I sat down. I set to work. I wrote a +prodigious number of fluent and graceful notes. + +‘Some of these were to strangers who wanted my autograph. I was always +delighted to send my autograph, and never perfunctory in the manner of +sending it.... “Dear Madam,” I remember writing to somebody that night, +“were it not that you make your request for it so charmingly, I should +hesitate to send you that which rarity alone can render valuable.--Yours +truly, Hilary Maltby.” I remember reading this over and wondering +whether the word “render” looked rather commercial. It was in the act +of wondering thus that I raised my eyes from the note-paper and saw, +through the bars of the brass bedstead, the naked sole of a large human +foot--saw beyond it the calf of a great leg; a nightshirt; and the face +of Stephen Braxton. I did not move. + + +‘I thought of making a dash for the door, dashing out into the corridor, +shouting at the top of my voice for help. I sat quite still. + +‘What kept me to my chair was the fear that if I tried to reach the door +Braxton would spring off the bed to intercept me. If I sat quite still +perhaps he wouldn’t move. I felt that if he moved I should collapse +utterly. + +‘I watched him, and he watched me. He lay there with his body +half-raised, one elbow propped on the pillow, his jaw sunk on his +breast; and from under his black brows he watched me steadily. + +‘No question of mere nerves now. That hope was gone. No mere optical +delusion, this abiding presence. Here Braxton was. He and I were +together in the bright, silent room. How long would he be content to +watch me? + +‘Eleven nights ago he had given me one horrible look. It was this look +that I had to meet, in infinite prolongation, now, not daring to shift +my eyes. He lay as motionless as I sat. I did not hear him breathing, +but I knew, by the rise and fall of his chest under his nightshirt, +that he was breathing heavily. Suddenly I started to my feet. For he had +moved. He had raised one hand slowly. He was stroking his chin. And +as he did so, and as he watched me, his mouth gradually slackened to a +grin. It was worse, it was more malign, this grin, than the scowl that +remained with it; and its immediate effect on me was an impulse that was +as hard to resist as it was hateful. The window was open. It was nearer +to me than the door. I could have reached it in time.... + +‘Well, I live to tell the tale. I stood my ground. And there dawned on +me now a new fact in regard to my companion. I had all the while been +conscious of something abnormal in his attitude--a lack of ease in his +gross possessiveness. I saw now the reason for this effect. The pillow +on which his elbow rested was still uniformly puffed and convex; like +a pillow untouched. His elbow rested but on the very surface of it, +not changing the shape of it at all. His body made not the least furrow +along the bed.... He had no weight. + +‘I knew that if I leaned forward and thrust my hand between those brass +rails, to clutch his foot, I should clutch--nothing. He wasn’t tangible. +He was realistic. He wasn’t real. He was opaque. He wasn’t solid. + +‘Odd as it may seem to you, these certainties took the edge off my +horror. During that walk with Lady Rodfitten, I had been appalled by the +doubt that haunted me. But now the very confirmation of that doubt gave +me a sort of courage: I could cope better with anything to-night than +with actual Braxton. And the measure of the relief I felt is that I sat +down again on my chair. + +‘More than once there came to me a wild hope that the thing might be an +optical delusion, after all. Then would I shut my eyes tightly, shaking +my head sharply; but, when I looked again, there the presence was, of +course. It--he--not actual Braxton but, roughly speaking, Braxton--had +come to stay. I was conscious of intense fatigue, taut and alert though +every particle of me was; so that I became, in the course of that +ghastly night, conscious of a great envy also. For some time before the +dawn came in through the window, Braxton’s eyes had been closed; little +by little now his head drooped sideways, then fell on his forearm and +rested there. He was asleep. + +‘Cut off from sleep, I had a great longing for smoke. I had cigarettes +on me, I had matches on me. But I didn’t dare to strike a match. The +sound might have waked Braxton up. In slumber he was less terrible, +though perhaps more odious. I wasn’t so much afraid now as indignant. +“It’s intolerable,” I sat saying to myself, “utterly intolerable!” + +‘I had to bear it, nevertheless. I was aware that I had, in some degree, +brought it on myself. If I hadn’t interfered and lied, actual Braxton +would have been here at Keeb, and I at this moment sleeping soundly. But +this was no excuse for Braxton. Braxton didn’t know what I had done. He +was merely envious of me. And--wanly I puzzled it out in the dawn--by +very force of the envy, hatred, and malice in him he had projected +hither into my presence this simulacrum of himself. I had known that he +would be thinking of me. I had known that the thought of me at Keeb Hall +would be of the last bitterness to his most sacred feelings. But--I had +reckoned without the passionate force and intensity of the man’s nature. + +‘If by this same strength and intensity he had merely projected himself +as an invisible guest under the Duchess’ roof--if his feat had been +wholly, as perhaps it was in part, a feat of mere wistfulness and +longing--then I should have felt really sorry for him; and my conscience +would have soundly rated me in his behalf. But no; if the wretched +creature HAD been invisible to me, I shouldn’t have thought of Braxton +at all--except with gladness that he wasn’t here. That he was visible to +me, and to me alone, wasn’t any sign of proper remorse within me. It was +but the gauge of his incredible ill-will. + +‘Well, it seemed to me that he was avenged--with a vengeance. There I +sat, hot-browed from sleeplessness, cold in the feet, stiff in the legs, +cowed and indignant all through--sat there in the broadening daylight, +and in that new evening suit of mine with the Braxtonised shirtfront +and waistcoat that by day were more than ever loathsome. Literature’s +Ambassador at Keeb.... I rose gingerly from my chair, and caught +sight of my face, of my Braxtonised cheek, in the mirror. I heard +the twittering of birds in distant trees. I saw through my window the +elaborate landscape of the Duke’s grounds, all soft in the grey bloom of +early morning. I think I was nearer to tears than I had ever been since +I was a child. But the weakness passed. I turned towards the personage +on my bed, and, summoning all such power as was in me, WILLED him to be +gone. My effort was not without result--an inadequate result. Braxton +turned in his sleep. + +‘I resumed my seat, and... and... sat up staring and blinking, at a tall +man with red hair. “I must have fallen asleep,” I said. “Yessir,” he +replied; and his toneless voice touched in me one or two springs +of memory: I was at Keeb; this was the footman who looked after me. +But--why wasn’t I in bed? Had I--no, surely it had been no nightmare. +Surely I had SEEN Braxton on that white bed. + +‘The footman was impassively putting away my smoking-suit. I was too +dazed to wonder what he thought of me. Nor did I attempt to stifle a +cry when, a moment later, turning in my chair, I beheld Braxton leaning +moodily against the mantelpiece. “Are you unwell sir?” asked the footman. +“No,” I said faintly, “I’m quite well.”--“Yessir. Will you wear the blue +suit or the grey?”--“The grey.”--“Yessir.”--It seemed almost incredible +that HE didn’t see Braxton; HE didn’t appear to me one whit more solid +than the night-shirted brute who stood against the mantelpiece and +watched him lay out my things.--“Shall I let your bath-water run +now sir?”--“Please, yes.”--“Your bathroom’s the second door to the left +sir.”--He went out with my bath-towel and sponge, leaving me alone with +Braxton. + +‘I rose to my feet, mustering once more all the strength that was in +me. Hoping against hope, with set teeth and clenched hands, I faced him, +thrust forth my will at him, with everything but words commanded him to +vanish--to cease to be. + +‘Suddenly, utterly, he vanished. And you can imagine the truly exquisite +sense of triumph that thrilled me and continued to thrill me till I went +into the bathroom and found him in my bath. + +‘Quivering with rage, I returned to my bedroom. “Intolerable,” I heard +myself repeating like a parrot that knew no other word. A bath was just +what I had needed. Could I have lain for a long time basking in very +hot water, and then have sponged myself with cold water, I should have +emerged calm and brave; comparatively so, at any rate. I should have +looked less ghastly, and have had less of a headache, and something of +an appetite, when I went down to breakfast. Also, I shouldn’t have been +the very first guest to appear on the scene. There were five or six +round tables, instead of last night’s long table. At the further end +of the room the butler and two other servants were lighting the little +lamps under the hot dishes. I didn’t like to make myself ridiculous by +running away. On the other hand, was it right for me to begin breakfast +all by myself at one of these round tables? I supposed it was. But +I dreaded to be found eating, alone in that vast room, by the first +downcomer. I sat dallying with dry toast and watching the door. It +occurred to me that Braxton might occur at any moment. Should I be able +to ignore him? + +‘Some man and wife--a very handsome couple--were the first to appear. +They nodded and said “good morning” when they noticed me on their way to +the hot dishes. I rose--uncomfortably, guiltily--and sat down again. I +rose again when the wife drifted to my table, followed by the husband +with two steaming plates. She asked me if it wasn’t a heavenly morning, +and I replied with nervous enthusiasm that it was. She then ate kedgeree +in silence. “You just finishing, what?” the husband asked, looking at +my plate. “Oh, no--no--only just beginning,” I assured him, and helped +myself to butter. He then ate kedgeree in silence. He looked like some +splendid bull, and she like some splendid cow, grazing. I envied them +their eupeptic calm. I surmised that ten thousand Braxtons would not +have prevented THEM from sleeping soundly by night and grazing steadily +by day. Perhaps their stolidity infected me a little. Or perhaps what +braced me was the great quantity of strong tea that I consumed. Anyhow +I had begun to feel that if Braxton came in now I shouldn’t blench nor +falter. + +‘Well, I wasn’t put to the test. Plenty of people drifted in, but +Braxton wasn’t one of them. Lady Rodfitten--no, she didn’t drift, she +marched, in; and presently, at an adjacent table, she was drawing a +comparison, in clarion tones, between Jean and Edouard de Reszke. It +seemed to me that her own voice had much in common with Edouard’s. Even +more was it akin to a military band. I found myself beating time to it +with my foot. Decidedly, my spirits had risen. I was in a mood to face +and outface anything. When I rose from the table and made my way to the +door, I walked with something of a swing--to the tune of Lady Rodfitten. + +‘My buoyancy didn’t last long, though. There was no swing in my walk +when, a little later, I passed out on to the spectacular terrace. I had +seen my enemy again, and had beaten a furious retreat. No doubt I should +see him yet again soon--here, perhaps, on this terrace. Two of the +guests were bicycling slowly up and down the long paven expanse, both of +them smiling with pride in the new delicious form of locomotion. There +was a great array of bicycles propped neatly along the balustrade. I +recognised my own among them. I wondered whether Braxton had projected +from Clifford’s Inn an image of his own bicycle. He may have done so; +but I’ve no evidence that he did. I myself was bicycling when next I saw +him; but he, I remember, was on foot. + +‘This was a few minutes later. I was bicycling with dear Lady Rodfitten. +She seemed really to like me. She had come out and accosted me heartily +on the terrace, asking me, because of my sticking-plaster, with whom I +had fought a duel since yesterday. I did not tell her with whom, and +she had already branched off on the subject of duelling in general. She +regretted the extinction of duelling in England, and gave cogent +reasons for her regret. Then she asked me what my next book was to be. +I confided that I was writing a sort of sequel--“Ariel Returns to +Mayfair.” She shook her head, said with her usual soundness that sequels +were very dangerous things, and asked me to tell her “briefly” the lines +along which I was working. I did so. She pointed out two or three weak +points in my scheme. She said she could judge better if I would let +her see my manuscript. She asked me to come and lunch with her next +Friday--“just our two selves”--at Rodfitten House, and to bring my +manuscript with me. Need I say that I walked on air? + +‘“And now,” she said strenuously, “let us take a turn on our bicycles.” + By this time there were a dozen riders on the terrace, all of them +smiling with pride and rapture. We mounted and rode along together. The +terrace ran round two sides of the house, and before we came to the end +of it these words had provisionally marshalled themselves in my mind: + + + TO + ELEANOR + COUNTESS OF RODFITTEN + THIS BOOK WHICH OWES ALL + TO HER WISE COUNSEL + AND UNWEARYING SUPERVISION + IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED + BY HER FRIEND + THE AUTHOR + + +‘Smiled to masonically by the passing bicyclists, and smiling +masonically to them in return, I began to feel that the rest of my visit +would run smooth, if only-- + +‘“Let’s go a little faster. Let’s race!” said Lady Rodfitten; and we did +so--“just our two selves.” I was on the side nearer to the balustrade, +and it was on that side that Braxton suddenly appeared from nowhere, +solid-looking as a rock, his arms akimbo, less than three yards ahead +of me, so that I swerved involuntarily, sharply, striking broadside the +front wheel of Lady Rodfitten and collapsing with her, and with a crash +of machinery, to the ground. + +‘I wasn’t hurt. She had broken my fall. I wished I was dead. She +was furious. She sat speechless with fury. A crowd had quickly +collected--just as in the case of a street accident. She accused me now +to the crowd. She said I had done it on purpose. She said such terrible +things of me that I think the crowd’s sympathy must have veered towards +me. She was assisted to her feet. I tried to be one of the assistants. +“Don’t let him come near me!” she thundered. I caught sight of Braxton +on the fringe of the crowd, grinning at me. “It was all HIS fault,” + I madly cried, pointing at him. Everybody looked at Mr. Balfour, +just behind whom Braxton was standing. There was a general murmur +of surprise, in which I have no doubt Mr. Balfour joined. He gave a +charming, blank, deprecating smile. “I mean--I can’t explain what I +mean,” I groaned. Lady Rodfitten moved away, refusing support, limping +terribly, towards the house. The crowd followed her, solicitous. I stood +helplessly, desperately, where I was. + +‘I stood an outlaw, a speck on the now empty terrace. Mechanically +I picked up my straw hat, and wheeled the two bent bicycles to the +balustrade. I suppose Mr. Balfour has a charming nature. For he +presently came out again--on purpose, I am sure, to alleviate my misery. +He told me that Lady Rodfitten had suffered no harm. He took me for a +stroll up and down the terrace, talking thoughtfully and enchantingly +about things in general. Then, having done his deed of mercy, this Good +Samaritan went back into the house. My eyes followed him with gratitude; +but I was still bleeding from wounds beyond his skill. I escaped down +into the gardens. I wanted to see no one. Still more did I want to be +seen by no one. I dreaded in every nerve of me my reappearance among +those people. I walked ever faster and faster, to stifle thought; but in +vain. Why hadn’t I simply ridden THROUGH Braxton? I was aware of being +now in the park, among great trees and undulations of wild green ground. +But Nature did not achieve the task that Mr. Balfour had attempted; and +my anguish was unassuaged. + +‘I paused to lean against a tree in the huge avenue that led to the huge +hateful house. I leaned wondering whether the thought of re-entering +that house were the more hateful because I should have to face my +fellow-guests or because I should probably have to face Braxton. A +church bell began ringing somewhere. And anon I was aware of another +sound--a twitter of voices. A consignment of hatted and parasoled ladies +was coming fast adown the avenue. My first impulse was to dodge behind +my tree. But I feared that I had been observed; so that what was left to +me of self-respect compelled me to meet these ladies. + +‘The Duchess was among them. I had seen her from afar at breakfast, +but not since. She carried a prayer-book, which she waved to me as I +approached. I was a disastrous guest, but still a guest, and nothing +could have been prettier than her smile. “Most of my men this week,” + she said, “are Pagans, and all the others have dispatch-boxes to go +through--except the dear old Duke of Mull, who’s a member of the Free +Kirk. You’re Pagan, of course?” + +‘I said--and indeed it was a heart-cry--that I should like very much to +come to church. “If I shan’t be in the way,” I rather abjectly added. +It didn’t strike me that Braxton would try to intercept me. I don’t know +why, but it never occurred to me, as I walked briskly along beside the +Duchess, that I should meet him so far from the house. The church was in +a corner of the park, and the way to it was by a side path that branched +off from the end of the avenue. A little way along, casting its shadow +across the path, was a large oak. It was from behind this tree, when we +came to it, that Braxton sprang suddenly forth and tripped me up with +his foot. + +‘Absurd to be tripped up by the mere semblance of a foot? But remember, +I was walking quickly, and the whole thing happened in a flash of +time. It was inevitable that I should throw out my hands and come down +headlong--just as though the obstacle had been as real as it looked. +Down I came on palms and knee-caps, and up I scrambled, very much hurt +and shaken and apologetic. “POOR Mr. Maltby! REALLY--!” the Duchess +wailed for me in this latest of my mishaps. Some other lady chased my +straw hat, which had bowled far ahead. Two others helped to brush me. +They were all very kind, with a quaver of mirth in their concern for me. +I looked furtively around for Braxton, but he was gone. The palms of my +hands were abraded with gravel. The Duchess said I must on no account +come to church NOW. I was utterly determined to reach that sanctuary. I +marched firmly on with the Duchess. Come what might on the way, I wasn’t +going to be left out here. I was utterly bent on winning at least one +respite. + +‘Well, I reached the little church without further molestation. To be +there seemed almost too good to be true. The organ, just as we entered, +sounded its first notes. The ladies rustled into the front pew. I, +being the one male of the party, sat at the end of the pew, beside the +Duchess. I couldn’t help feeling that my position was a proud one. But I +had gone through too much to take instant pleasure in it, and was beset +by thoughts of what new horror might await me on the way back to +the house. I hoped the Service would not be brief. The swelling and +dwindling strains of the “voluntary” on the small organ were strangely +soothing. I turned to give an almost feudal glance to the simple +villagers in the pews behind, and saw a sight that cowed my soul. + +‘Braxton was coming up the aisle. He came slowly, casting a tourist’s +eye at the stained-glass windows on either side. Walking heavily, yet +with no sound of boots on the pavement, he reached our pew. There, +towering and glowering, he halted, as though demanding that we should +make room for him. A moment later he edged sullenly into the pew. +Instinctively I had sat tight back, drawing my knees aside, in a shudder +of revulsion against contact. But Braxton did not push past me. What he +did was to sit slowly and fully down on me. + +‘No, not down ON me. Down THROUGH me--and around me. What befell me +was not mere ghastly contact with the intangible. It was inclusion, +envelopment, eclipse. What Braxton sat down on was not I, but the seat +of the pew; and what he sat back against was not my face and chest, but +the back of the pew. I didn’t realise this at the moment. All I knew was +a sudden black blotting-out of all things; an infinite and impenetrable +darkness. I dimly conjectured that I was dead. What was wrong with me, +in point of fact, was that my eyes, with the rest of me, were inside +Braxton. You remember what a great hulking fellow Braxton was. I +calculate that as we sat there my eyes were just beneath the roof of his +mouth. Horrible! + +‘Out of the unfathomable depths of that pitch darkness, I could yet hear +the “voluntary” swelling and dwindling, just as before. It was by this +I knew now that I wasn’t dead. And I suppose I must have craned my head +forward, for I had a sudden glimpse of things--a close quick downward +glimpse of a pepper-and-salt waistcoat and of two great hairy hands +clasped across it. Then darkness again. Either I had drawn back my head, +or Braxton had thrust his forward; I don’t know which. “Are you all +right?” the Duchess’ voice whispered, and no doubt my face was ashen. +“Quite,” whispered my voice. But this pathetic monosyllable was the last +gasp of the social instinct in me. Suddenly, as the “voluntary” swelled +to its close, there was a great sharp shuffling noise. The congregation +had risen to its feet, at the entry of choir and vicar. Braxton had +risen, leaving me in daylight. I beheld his towering back. The Duchess, +beside him, glanced round at me. But I could not, dared not, stand up +into that presented back, into that great waiting darkness. I did but +clutch my hat from beneath the seat and hurry distraught down the aisle, +out through the porch, into the open air. + +‘Whither? To what goal? I didn’t reason. I merely fled--like Orestes; +fled like an automaton along the path we had come by. And was followed? +Yes, yes. Glancing back across my shoulder, I saw that brute some +twenty yards behind me, gaining on me. I broke into a sharper run. A few +sickening moments later, he was beside me, scowling down into my face. + +‘I swerved, dodged, doubled on my tracks, but he was always at me. Now +and again, for lack of breath, I halted, and he halted with me. And +then, when I had got my wind, I would start running again, in the insane +hope of escaping him. We came, by what twisting and turning course +I know not, to the great avenue, and as I stood there in an agony of +panting I had a dazed vision of the distant Hall. Really I had quite +forgotten I was staying at the Duke of Hertfordshire’s. But Braxton +hadn’t forgotten. He planted himself in front of me. He stood between me +and the house. + +‘Faint though I was, I could almost have laughed. Good heavens! was THAT +all he wanted: that I shouldn’t go back there? Did he suppose I wanted +to go back there--with HIM? Was I the Duke’s prisoner on parole? What +was there to prevent me from just walking off to the railway station? I +turned to do so. + +‘He accompanied me on my way. I thought that when once I had passed +through the lodge gates he might vanish, satisfied. But no, he didn’t +vanish. It was as though he suspected that if he let me out of his +sight I should sneak back to the house. He arrived with me, this quiet +companion of mine, at the little railway station. Evidently he meant to +see me off. I learned from an elderly and solitary porter that the next +train to London was the 4.3. + +‘Well, Braxton saw me off by the 4.3. I reflected, as I stepped up into +an empty compartment, that it wasn’t yet twenty-four hours ago since I, +or some one like me, had alighted at that station. + +‘The guard blew his whistle; the engine shrieked, and the train jolted +forward and away; but I did not lean out of the window to see the last +of my attentive friend. + +‘Really not twenty-four hours ago? Not twenty-four years?’ + + +Maltby paused in his narrative. ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘I don’t want you +to think I overrate the ordeal of my visit to Keeb. A man of stronger +nerve than mine, and of greater resourcefulness, might have coped +successfully with Braxton from first to last--might have stayed on till +Monday, making a very favourable impression on every one all the while. +Even as it was, even after my manifold failures and sudden flight, I +don’t say my position was impossible. I only say it seemed so to me. A +man less sensitive than I, and less vain, might have cheered up after +writing a letter of apology to his hostess, and have resumed his normal +existence as though nothing very terrible had happened, after all. I +wrote a few lines to the Duchess that night; but I wrote amidst the +preparations for my departure from England: I crossed the Channel next +morning. Throughout that Sunday afternoon with Braxton at the Keeb +railway station, pacing the desolate platform with him, waiting in +the desolating waiting-room with him, I was numb to regrets, and was +thinking of nothing but the 4.3. On the way to Victoria my brain worked +and my soul wilted. Every incident in my stay at Keeb stood out clear +to me; a dreadful, a hideous pattern. I had done for myself, so far as +THOSE people were concerned. And now that I had sampled THEM, what cared +I for others? “Too low for a hawk, too high for a buzzard.” That homely +old saying seemed to sum me up. And suppose I COULD still take pleasure +in the company of my own old upper-middle class, how would that class +regard me now? Gossip percolates. Little by little, I was sure, the +story of my Keeb fiasco would leak down into the drawing-room of Mrs. +Foster-Dugdale. I felt I could never hold up my head in any company +where anything of that story was known. Are you quite sure you never +heard anything?’ + +I assured Maltby that all I had known was the great bare fact of his +having stayed at Keeb Hall. + +‘It’s curious,’ he reflected. ‘It’s a fine illustration of the loyalty +of those people to one another. I suppose there was a general agreement +for the Duchess’ sake that nothing should be said about her queer guest. +But even if I had dared hope to be so efficiently hushed up, I couldn’t +have not fled. I wanted to forget. I wanted to leap into some void, +far away from all reminders. I leapt straight from Ryder Street into +Vaule-la-Rochette, a place of which I had once heard that it was +the least frequented seaside-resort in Europe. I leapt leaving no +address--leapt telling my landlord that if a suit-case and a portmanteau +arrived for me he could regard them, them and their contents, as his own +for ever. I daresay the Duchess wrote me a kind little letter, forcing +herself to express a vague hope that I would come again “some other +time.” I daresay Lady Rodfitten did NOT write reminding me of my promise +to lunch on Friday and bring “Ariel Returns to Mayfair” with me. I +left that manuscript at Ryder Street; in my bedroom grate; a shuffle of +ashes. Not that I’d yet given up all thought of writing. But I certainly +wasn’t going to write now about the two things I most needed to forget. +I wasn’t going to write about the British aristocracy, nor about any +kind of supernatural presence.... I did write a novel--my last--while I +was at Vaule. “Mr. and Mrs. Robinson.” Did you ever come across a copy +of it? + +I nodded gravely. + +‘Ah; I wasn’t sure,’ said Maltby, ‘whether it was ever published. A +dreary affair, wasn’t it? I knew a great deal about suburban life. +But--well, I suppose one can’t really understand what one doesn’t love, +and one can’t make good fun without real understanding. Besides, what +chance of virtue is there for a book written merely to distract +the author’s mind? I had hoped to be healed by sea and sunshine and +solitude. These things were useless. The labour of “Mr. and Mrs. +Robinson” did help, a little. When I had finished it, I thought I might +as well send it off to my publisher. He had given me a large sum of +money, down, after “Ariel,” for my next book--so large that I was rather +loth to disgorge. In the note I sent with the manuscript, I gave no +address, and asked that the proofs should be read in the office. I +didn’t care whether the thing were published or not. I knew it would be +a dead failure if it were. What mattered one more drop in the foaming +cup of my humiliation? I knew Braxton would grin and gloat. I didn’t +mind even that.’ + +‘Oh, well,’ I said, ‘Braxton was in no mood for grinning and gloating. +“The Drones” had already appeared.’ + +Maltby had never heard of ‘The Drones’--which I myself had remembered +only in the course of his disclosures. I explained to him that it was +Braxton’s second novel, and was by way of being a savage indictment +of the British aristocracy; that it was written in the worst possible +taste, but was so very dull that it fell utterly flat; that Braxton +had forthwith taken, with all of what Maltby had called ‘the passionate +force and intensity of his nature,’ to drink, and had presently gone +under and not re-emerged. + +Maltby gave signs of genuine, though not deep, emotion, and cited two +or three of the finest passages from ‘A Faun on the Cotswolds.’ He even +expressed a conviction that ‘The Drones’ must have been misjudged. He +said he blamed himself more than ever for yielding to that bad impulse +at that Soiree. + +‘And yet,’ he mused, ‘and yet, honestly, I can’t find it in my heart +to regret that I did yield. I can only wish that all had turned out as +well, in the end, for Braxton as for me. I wish he could have won out, +as I did, into a great and lasting felicity. For about a year after I +had finished “Mr. and Mrs. Robinson” I wandered from place to place, +trying to kill memory, shunning all places frequented by the English. +At last I found myself in Lucca. Here, if anywhere, I thought, might a +bruised and tormented spirit find gradual peace. I determined to move +out of my hotel into some permanent lodging. Not for felicity, not for +any complete restoration of self-respect, was I hoping; only for peace. +A “mezzano” conducted me to a noble and ancient house, of which, he +told me, the owner was anxious to let the first floor. It was in much +disrepair, but even so seemed to me very cheap. According to the simple +Luccan standard, I am rich. I took that first floor for a year, had it +repaired, and engaged two servants. My “padrona” inhabited the ground +floor. From time to time she allowed me to visit her there. She was +the Contessa Adriano-Rizzoli, the last of her line. She is the Contessa +Adriano-Rizzoli-Maltby. We have been married fifteen years.’ + +Maltby looked at his watch. He rose and took tenderly from the table +his great bunch of roses. ‘She is a lineal descendant,’ he said, ‘of the +Emperor Hadrian.’ + + + + + +‘SAVONAROLA’ BROWN + + +I like to remember that I was the first to call him so, for, though he +always deprecated the nickname, in his heart he was pleased by it, I +know, and encouraged to go on. + +Quite apart from its significance, he had reason to welcome it. He had +been unfortunate at the font. His parents, at the time of his birth, +lived in Ladbroke Crescent, XV. They must have been an extraordinarily +unimaginative couple, for they could think of no better name for their +child than Ladbroke. This was all very well for him till he went to +school. But you can fancy the indignation and delight of us boys at +finding among us a newcomer who, on his own confession, had been named +after a Crescent. I don’t know how it is nowadays, but thirty-five years +ago, certainly, schoolboys regarded the possession of ANY Christian name +as rather unmanly. As we all had these encumbrances, we had to wreak our +scorn on any one who was cumbered in a queer fashion. I myself, bearer +of a Christian name adjudged eccentric though brief, had had much to put +up with in my first term. Brown’s arrival, therefore, at the beginning +of my second term, was a good thing for me, and I am afraid I was very +prominent among his persecutors. Trafalgar Brown, Tottenham Court Brown, +Bond Brown--what names did we little brutes NOT cull for him from +the London Directory? Except how miserable we made his life, I do not +remember much about him as he was at that time, and the only important +part of the little else that I do recall is that already he showed +a strong sense for literature. For the majority of us Carthusians, +literature was bounded on the north by Whyte Melville, on the south by +Hawley Smart, on the east by the former, and on the west by the latter. +Little Brown used to read Harrison Ainsworth, Wilkie Collins, and other +writers whom we, had we assayed them, would have dismissed as ‘deep.’ It +has been said by Mr. Arthur Symons that ‘all art is a mode of escape.’ +The art of letters did not, however, enable Brown to escape so far from +us as he would have wished. In my third term he did not reappear among +us. His parents had in some sort atoned. Unimaginative though they +were, it seems they could understand a tale of woe laid before them +circumstantially, and had engaged a private tutor for their boy. Fifteen +years elapsed before I saw him again. + +This was at the second night of some play. I was dramatic critic for the +Saturday Review, and, weary of meeting the same lot of people over and +over again at first nights, had recently sent a circular to the managers +asking that I might have seats for second nights instead. I found that +there existed as distinct and invariable a lot of second-nighters as of +first-nighters. The second-nighters were less ‘showy’; but then, they +came rather to see than to be seen, and there was an air, that I liked, +of earnestness and hopefulness about them. I used to write a great deal +about the future of the British drama, and they, for their part, used +to think and talk a great deal about it. People who care about books +and pictures find much to interest and please them in the present. It +is only the students of the theatre who always fall back, or rather +forward, on the future. Though second-nighters do come to see, they +remain rather to hope and pray. I should have known anywhere, by the +visionary look in his eyes, that Brown was a confirmed second-nighter. + +What surprises me is that I knew he was Brown. It is true that he +had not grown much in those fifteen years: his brow was still +disproportionate to his body, and he looked young to have become +‘confirmed’ in any habit. But it is also true that not once in the past +ten years, at any rate, had he flitted through my mind and poised on my +conscience. + +I hope that I and those other boys had long ago ceased from recurring to +him in nightmares. Cordial though the hand was that I offered him, and +highly civilised my whole demeanour, he seemed afraid that at any moment +I might begin to dance around him, shooting out my lips at him and +calling him Seven-Sisters Brown or something of that kind. It was only +after constant meetings at second nights, and innumerable entr’acte +talks about the future of the drama, that he began to trust me. In +course of time we formed the habit of walking home together as far as +Cumberland Place, at which point our ways diverged. I gathered that he +was still living with his parents, but he did not tell me where, for +they had not, as I learned by reference to the Red Book, moved from +Ladbroke Crescent. + +I found his company restful rather than inspiring. His days were +spent in clerkship at one of the smaller Government Offices, his +evenings--except when there was a second night--in reading and writing. +He did not seem to know much, or to wish to know more, about life. Books +and plays, first editions and second nights, were what he cared for. On +matters of religion and ethics he was as little keen as he seemed to be +on human character in the raw; so that (though I had already suspected +him of writing, or meaning to write, a play) my eyebrows did rise when +he told me he meant to write a play about Savonarola. + +He made me understand, however, that it was rather the name than the +man that had first attracted him. He said that the name was in itself a +great incentive to blank-verse. He uttered it to me slowly, in a voice +so much deeper than his usual voice, that I nearly laughed. For the +actual bearer of the name he had no hero-worship, and said it was by a +mere accident that he had chosen him as central figure. He had +thought of writing a tragedy about Sardanapalus; but the volume of the +“Encyclopedia Britannica” in which he was going to look up the main +facts about Sardanapalus happened to open at Savonarola. Hence a sudden +and complete peripety in the student’s mind. He told me he had read the +Encyclopedia’s article carefully, and had dipped into one or two of +the books there mentioned as authorities. He seemed almost to wish he +hadn’t. ‘Facts get in one’s way so,’ he complained. ‘History is one +thing, drama is another. Aristotle said drama was more philosophic than +history because it showed us what men WOULD do, not just what they DID. +I think that’s so true, don’t you? I want to show what Savonarola WOULD +have done if--’ He paused. + +‘If what?’ + +‘Well, that’s just the point. I haven’t settled that yet. When I’ve +thought of a plot, I shall go straight ahead.’ + +I said I supposed he intended his tragedy rather for the study than for +the stage. This seemed to hurt him. I told him that what I meant was +that managers always shied at anything without ‘a strong feminine +interest.’ This seemed to worry him. I advised him not to think about +managers. He promised that he would think only about Savonarola. + +I know now that this promise was not exactly kept by him; and he may +have felt slightly awkward when, some weeks later, he told me he had +begun the play. ‘I’ve hit on an initial idea,’ he said, ‘and that’s +enough to start with. I gave up my notion of inventing a plot in +advance. I thought it would be a mistake. I don’t want puppets on wires. +I want Savonarola to work out his destiny in his own way. Now that I +have the initial idea, what I’ve got to do is to make Savonarola LIVE. +I hope I shall be able to do this. Once he’s alive, I shan’t interfere +with him. I shall just watch him. Won’t it be interesting? He isn’t +alive yet. But there’s plenty of time. You see, he doesn’t come on at +the rise of the curtain. A Friar and a Sacristan come on and talk about +him. By the time they’ve finished, perhaps he’ll be alive. But they +won’t have finished yet. Not that they’re going to say very much. But I +write slowly.’ + +I remember the mild thrill I had when, one evening, he took me aside and +said in an undertone, ‘Savonarola has come on. Alive!’ For me the MS. +hereinafter printed has an interest that for you it cannot have, so +a-bristle am I with memories of the meetings I had with its author +throughout the nine years he took over it. He never saw me without +reporting progress, or lack of progress. Just what was going on, or +standing still, he did not divulge. After the entry of Savonarola, +he never told me what characters were appearing. ‘All sorts of people +appear,’ he would say rather helplessly. ‘They insist. I can’t prevent +them.’ I used to say it must be great fun to be a creative artist; but +at this he always shook his head: ‘I don’t create. THEY do. Savonarola +especially, of course. I just look on and record. I never know what’s +going to happen next.’ He had the advantage of me in knowing at any rate +what had happened last. But whenever I pled for a glimpse he would again +shake his head: + +‘The thing MUST be judged as a whole. Wait till I’ve come to the end of +the Fifth Act.’ + +So impatient did I become that, as the years went by, I used rather to +resent his presence at second nights. I felt he ought to be at his +desk. His, I used to tell him, was the only drama whose future ought +to concern him now. And in point of fact he had, I think, lost the true +spirit of the second-nighter, and came rather to be seen than to see. +He liked the knowledge that here and there in the auditorium, when he +entered it, some one would be saying ‘Who is that?’ and receiving the +answer ‘Oh, don’t you know? That’s “Savonarola” Brown.’ This sort of +thing, however, did not make him cease to be the modest, unaffected +fellow I had known. He always listened to the advice I used to offer +him, though inwardly he must have chafed at it. Myself a fidgety and +uninspired person, unable to begin a piece of writing before I know just +how it shall end, I had always been afraid that sooner or later Brown +would take some turning that led nowhither--would lose himself and come +to grief. This fear crept into my gladness when, one evening in the +spring of 1909, he told me he had finished the Fourth Act. Would he win +out safely through the Fifth? + +He himself was looking rather glum; and, as we walked away from the +theatre, I said to him, ‘I suppose you feel rather like Thackeray when +he’d “killed the Colonel”: you’ve got to kill the Monk.’ + +‘Not quite that,’ he answered. ‘But of course he’ll die very soon now. A +couple of years or so. And it does seem rather sad. It’s not merely that +he’s so full of life. He has been becoming much more HUMAN lately. At +first I only respected him. Now I have a real affection for him.’ + +This was an interesting glimpse at last, but I turned from it to my +besetting fear. + +‘Haven’t you,’ I asked, ‘any notion of HOW he is to die?’ + +Brown shook his head. + +‘But in a tragedy,’ I insisted, ‘the catastrophe MUST be led up to, +step by step. My dear Brown, the end of the hero MUST be logical and +rational.’ + +‘I don’t see that,’ he said, as we crossed Piccadilly Circus. ‘In actual +life it isn’t so. What is there to prevent a motor-omnibus from knocking +me over and killing me at this moment?’ + +At that moment, by what has always seemed to me the strangest of +coincidences, and just the sort of thing that playwrights ought to +avoid, a motor-omnibus knocked Brown over and killed him. + +He had, as I afterwards learned, made a will in which he appointed me +his literary executor. Thus passed into my hands the unfinished play by +whose name he had become known to so many people. + + +I hate to say that I was disappointed in it, but I had better confess +quite frankly that, on the whole, I was. Had Brown written it quickly +and read it to me soon after our first talk about it, it might in some +ways have exceeded my hopes. But he had become for me, by reason of that +quiet and unhasting devotion to his work while the years came and went, +a sort of hero; and the very mystery involving just what he was about +had addicted me to those ideas of magnificence which the unknown is said +always to foster. + +Even so, however, I am not blind to the great merits of the play as it +stands. It is well that the writer of poetic drama should be a dramatist +and a poet. Here is a play that abounds in striking situations, and I +have searched it vainly for one line that does not scan. What I nowhere +feel is that I have not elsewhere been thrilled or lulled by the same +kind of thing. I do not go so far as to say that Brown inherited his +parents’ deplorable lack of imagination. But I do wish he had been less +sensitive than he was to impressions, or else had seen and read fewer +poetic dramas ancient and modern. Remembering that visionary look in +his eyes, remembering that he was as displeased as I by the work of all +living playwrights, and as dissatisfied with the great efforts of the +Elizabethans, I wonder that he was not more immune from influences. + +Also, I cannot but wish still that he had faltered in his decision +to make no scenario. There is much to be said for the theory that a +dramatist should first vitalise his characters and then leave them +unfettered; but I do feel that Brown’s misused the confidence he reposed +in them. The labour of so many years has somewhat the air of being +a mere improvisation. Savonarola himself, after the First Act or so, +strikes me as utterly inconsistent. It may be that he is just complex, +like Hamlet. He does in the Fourth Act show traces of that Prince. I +suppose this is why he struck Brown as having become ‘more human.’ To me +he seems merely a poorer creature. + +But enough of these reservations. In my anxiety for poor Brown’s sake +that you should not be disappointed, perhaps I have been carrying +tactfulness too far and prejudicing you against that for which I +specially want your favour. Here, without more ado, is + + + + +SAVONAROLA + +A TRAGEDY + +By L. Brown + + + ACT I + + SCENE: A Room in the Monastery of San Marco, Florence. + TIME: 1490, A.D. A summer morning. + + Enter the SACRISTAN and a FRIAR. + + SACR. + Savonarola looks more grim to-day + Than ever. Should I speak my mind, I’d say + That he was fashioning some new great scourge + To flay the backs of men. + + FRI. + ‘Tis even so. + Brother Filippo saw him stand last night + In solitary vigil till the dawn + Lept o’er the Arno, and his face was such + As men may wear in Purgatory--nay, + E’en in the inmost core of Hell’s own fires. + + SACR. + I often wonder if some woman’s face, + Seen at some rout in his old worldling days, + Haunts him e’en now, e’en here, and urges him + To fierier fury ‘gainst the Florentines. + + FRI. + Savonarola love-sick! Ha, ha, ha! + Love-sick? He, love-sick? ‘Tis a goodly jest! + The CONfirm’d misogyn a ladies’ man! + Thou must have eaten of some strange red herb + That takes the reason captive. I will swear + Savonarola never yet hath seen + A woman but he spurn’d her. Hist! He comes. + + [Enter SAVONAROLA, rapt in thought.] + + Give thee good morrow, Brother. + + SACR. + And therewith + A multitude of morrows equal-good + Till thou, by Heaven’s grace, hast wrought the work + Nearest thine heart. + + SAV. + I thank thee, Brother, yet + I thank thee not, for that my thankfulness + (An such there be) gives thanks to Heaven alone. + + FRI. [To SACR.] + ‘Tis a right answer he hath given thee. + Had Sav’narola spoken less than thus, + Methinks me, the less Sav’narola he. + As when the snow lies on yon Apennines, + White as the hem of Mary Mother’s robe, + And insusceptible to the sun’s rays, + Being harder to the touch than temper’d steel, + E’en so this great gaunt monk white-visaged + Upstands to Heaven and to Heav’n devotes + The scarped thoughts that crown the upper slopes + Of his abrupt and AUStere nature. + + SACR. + Aye. + + [Enter LUCREZIA BORGIA, ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, and LEONARDO + DA VINCI. LUC. is thickly veiled.] + + ST. FRAN. + This is the place. + + LUC. [Pointing at SAV.] + And this the man! [Aside.] And I-- + By the hot blood that courses i’ my veins + I swear it ineluctably--the woman! + + SAV. + Who is this wanton? + [LUC. throws back her hood, revealing her face. SAV. starts back, + gazing at her.] + + ST. FRAN. + Hush, Sir! ‘Tis my little sister + The poisoner, right well-belov’d by all + Whom she as yet hath spared. Hither she came + Mounted upon another little sister of mine-- + A mare, caparison’d in goodly wise. + She--I refer now to Lucrezia-- + Desireth to have word of thee anent + Some matter that befrets her. + + SAV. [To LUC.] + Hence! Begone! + Savonarola will not tempted be + By face of woman e’en tho’ ‘t be, tho’ ‘tis, + Surpassing fair. All hope abandon therefore. + I charge thee: Vade retro, Satanas. + + LEONARDO + Sirrah, thou speakst in haste, as is the way + Of monkish men. The beauty of Lucrezia + Commends, not discommends, her to the eyes + Of keener thinkers than I take thee for. + I am an artist and an engineer, + Giv’n o’er to subtile dreams of what shall be + On this our planet. I foresee a day + When men shall skim the earth i’ certain chairs + Not drawn by horses but sped on by oil + Or other matter, and shall thread the sky + Birdlike. + + LUC. + It may be as thou sayest, friend, + Or may be not. [To SAV.] As touching this our errand, + I crave of thee, Sir Monk, an audience + Instanter. + + FRI. + Lo! Here Alighieri comes. + I had methought me he was still at Parma. + + [Enter DANTE.] + + ST. FRAN. [To DAN.] + How fares my little sister Beatrice? + + DAN. + She died, alack, last sennight. + + ST. FRAN. + Did she so? + If the condolences of men avail + Thee aught, take mine. + + DAN. + They are of no avail. + + SAV. [To LUC.] + I do refuse thee audience. + + LUC. + Then why + Didst thou not say so promptly when I ask’d it? + + SAV. + Full well thou knowst that I was interrupted + By Alighieri’s entry. + [Noise without. Enter Guelfs and Ghibellines fighting.] + What is this? + + LUC. + I did not think that in this cloister’d spot + There would be so much doing. I had look’d + To find Savonarola all alone + And tempt him in his uneventful cell. + Instead o’ which--Spurn’d am I? I am I. + There was a time, Sir, look to ‘t! O damnation! + What is ‘t? Anon then! These my toys, my gauds, + That in the cradle--aye, ‘t my mother’s breast-- + I puled and lisped at,--‘Tis impossible, + Tho’, faith, ‘tis not so, forasmuch as ‘tis. + And I a daughter of the Borgias!-- + Or so they told me. Liars! Flatterers! + Currying lick-spoons! Where’s the Hell of ‘t then? + ‘Tis time that I were going. Farewell, Monk, + But I’ll avenge me ere the sun has sunk. + [Exeunt LUC., ST. FRAN., and LEONARDO, followed by DAN. SAV., having + watched LUC. out of sight, sinks to his knees, sobbing. FRI. and SACR. + watch him in amazement. Guelfs and Ghibellines continue fighting as + the Curtain falls.] + + + ACT II + + TIME: Afternoon of same day. + SCENE: Lucrezia’s Laboratory. Retorts, test-tubes, etc. On small + Renaissance table, up c., is a great poison-bowl, the contents of + which are being stirred by the FIRST APPRENTICE. The SECOND APPRENTICE + stands by, watching him. + + SECOND APP. + For whom is the brew destin’d? + + FIRST APP. + I know not. + Lady Lucrezia did but lay on me + Injunctions as regards the making of ‘t, + The which I have obey’d. It is compounded + Of a malignant and a deadly weed + Found not save in the Gulf of Spezia, + And one small phial of ‘t, I am advis’d, + Were more than ‘nough to slay a regiment + Of Messer Malatesta’s condottieri + In all their armour. + + SECOND APP. + I can well believe it. + Mark how the purple bubbles froth upon + The evil surface of its nether slime! + + [Enter LUC.] + + LUC. [To FIRST APP.] + Is ‘t done, Sir Sluggard? + + FIRST APP. + Madam, to a turn. + + LUC. + Had it not been so, I with mine own hand + Would have outpour’d it down thy gullet, knave. + See, here’s a ring of cunningly-wrought gold + + That I, on a dark night, did purchase from + A goldsmith on the Ponte Vecchio. + Small was his shop, and hoar of visage he. + I did bemark that from the ceiling’s beams + Spiders had spun their webs for many a year, + The which hung erst like swathes of gossamer + Seen in the shadows of a fairy glade, + But now most woefully were weighted o’er + With gather’d dust. Look well now at the ring! + Touch’d here, behold, it opes a cavity + Capacious of three drops of yon fell stuff. + Dost heed? Whoso then puts it on his finger + Dies, and his soul is from his body rapt + To Hell or Heaven as the case may be. + Take thou this toy and pour the three drops in. + + [Hands ring to FIRST APP. and comes down c.] + + So, Sav’narola, thou shalt learn that I + Utter no threats but I do make them good. + Ere this day’s sun hath wester’d from the view + Thou art to preach from out the Loggia + Dei Lanzi to the cits in the Piazza. + I, thy Lucrezia, will be upon the steps + To offer thee with phrases seeming-fair + That which shall seal thine eloquence for ever. + O mighty lips that held the world in spell + But would not meet these little lips of mine + In the sweet way that lovers use--O thin, + Cold, tight-drawn, bloodless lips, which natheless I + Deem of all lips the most magnifical + In this our city-- + + [Enter the Borgias’ FOOL.] + + Well, Fool, what’s thy latest? + + FOOL + Aristotle’s or Zeno’s, Lady--‘tis neither latest nor last. For, + marry, if the cobbler stuck to his last, then were his latest his last + in rebus ambulantibus. Argal, I stick at nothing but cobble-stones, + which, by the same token, are stuck to the road by men’s fingers. + + LUC. + How many crows may nest in a grocer’s jerkin? + + FOOL + A full dozen at cock-crow, and something less under the dog-star, by + reason of the dew, which lies heavy on men taken by the scurvy. + + LUC. [To FIRST APP.] + Methinks the Fool is a fool. + + FOOL + And therefore, by auricular deduction, am I own twin to the Lady + Lucrezia! + + [Sings.] + + When pears hang green on the garden wall + With a nid, and a nod, and a niddy-niddy-o + Then prank you, lads and lasses all, + With a yea and a nay and a niddy-o. + + But when the thrush flies out o’ the frost + With a nid, [etc.] + ‘Tis time for loons to count the cost, + With a yea [etc.] + + [Enter the PORTER.] + + PORTER + O my dear Mistress, there is one below + Demanding to have instant word of thee. + I told him that your Ladyship was not + At home. Vain perjury! He would not take + Nay for an answer. + + LUC. + Ah? What manner of man + Is he? + + PORTER + A personage the like of whom + Is wholly unfamiliar to my gaze. + Cowl’d is he, but I saw his great eyes glare + From their deep sockets in such wise as leopards + Glare from their caverns, crouching ere they spring + On their reluctant prey. + + LUC. + And what name gave he? + + PORTER [After a pause.] + Something-arola. + + LUC. + Savon-? [PORTER nods.] Show him up. [Exit PORTER.] + + FOOL + If he be right astronomically, Mistress, then is he the greater dunce + in respect of true learning, the which goes by the globe. Argal, + ‘twere better he widened his wind-pipe. + + [Sings.] + Fly home, sweet self, + Nothing’s for weeping, + Hemp was not made + For lovers’ keeping, Lovers’ keeping, + Cheerly, cheerly, fly away. + Hew no more wood + While ash is glowing, + The longest grass + Is lovers’ mowing, + Lovers’ mowing, + Cheerly, [etc.] + + [Re-enter PORTER, followed by SAV. Exeunt PORTER, FOOL, and FIRST and + SECOND APPS.] + + SAV. + I am no more a monk, I am a man + O’ the world. + [Throws off cowl and frock, and stands forth in the costume of a + Renaissance nobleman. LUCREZIA looks him up and down.] + + LUC. + Thou cutst a sorry figure. + + SAV. + That + Is neither here nor there. I love you, Madam. + + LUC. + And this, methinks, is neither there nor here, + For that my love of thee hath vanished, + Seeing thee thus beprankt. Go pad thy calves! + Thus mightst thou, just conceivably, with luck, + Capture the fancy of some serving-wench. + + SAV. + And this is all thou hast to say to me? + + LUC. + It is. + + SAV. + I am dismiss’d? + + LUC. + Thou art. + + SAV. + ‘Tis well. + [Resumes frock and cowl.] + Savonarola is himself once more. + + LUC. + And all my love for him returns to me + A thousandfold! + + SAV. + Too late! My pride of manhood + Is wounded irremediably. I’ll + To the Piazza, where my flock awaits me. + Thus do we see that men make great mistakes + But may amend them when the conscience wakes. + [Exit.] + + LUC. + I’m half avenged now, but only half: + ‘Tis with the ring I’ll have the final laugh! + Tho’ love be sweet, revenge is sweeter far. + To the Piazza! Ha, ha, ha, ha, har! + [Seizes ring, and exit. Through open door are heard, as the Curtain + falls, sounds of a terrific hubbub in the Piazza.] + + + ACT III + + SCENE: The Piazza. + TIME: A few minutes anterior to close of preceding Act. + + The Piazza is filled from end to end with a vast seething crowd that + is drawn entirely from the lower orders. There is a sprinkling of + wild-eyed and dishevelled women in it. The men are lantern-jawed, + with several days’ growth of beard. Most of them carry rude weapons-- + staves, bill-hooks, crow-bars, and the like--and are in as excited a + condition as the women. Some of them are bare-headed, others affect a + kind of Phrygian cap. Cobblers predominate. + + Enter LORENZO DE MEDICI and COSIMO DE MEDICI. They wear cloaks of scarlet + brocade, and, to avoid notice, hold masks to their faces. + + COS. + What purpose doth the foul and greasy plebs + Ensue to-day here? + + LOR. + I nor know nor care. + + COS. + How thrall’d thou art to the philosophy + Of Epicurus! Naught that’s human I + Deem alien from myself. [To a COBBLER.] Make answer, fellow! + What empty hope hath drawn thee by a thread + Forth from the OBscene hovel where thou starvest? + + COB. + No empty hope, your Honour, but the full + Assurance that to-day, as yesterday, + Savonarola will let loose his thunder + Against the vices of the idle rich + And from the brimming cornucopia + Of his immense vocabulary pour + Scorn on the lamentable heresies + Of the New Learning and on all the art + Later than Giotto. + + COS. + Mark how absolute + The knave is! + + LOR. + Then are parrots rational + When they regurgitate the thing they hear! + This fool is but an unit of the crowd, + And crowds are senseless as the vasty deep + That sinks or surges as the moon dictates. + I know these crowds, and know that any man + That hath a glib tongue and a rolling eye + Can as he willeth with them. + [Removes his mask and mounts steps of Loggia.] + Citizens! + [Prolonged yells and groans from the crowd.] + Yes, I am he, I am that same Lorenzo + Whom you have nicknamed the Magnificent. + [Further terrific yells, shakings of fists, brandishings of bill- + hooks, insistent cries of ‘Death to Lorenzo!’ ‘Down with the + Magnificent!’ Cobblers on fringe of crowd, down c., exhibit especially + all the symptoms of epilepsy, whooping-cough, and other ailments.] + You love not me. + [The crowd makes an ugly rush. LOR. appears likely to be dragged down + and torn limb from limb, but raises one hand in nick of time, and + continues:] + Yet I deserve your love. + [The yells are now variegated with dubious murmurs. A cobbler down c. + thrusts his face feverishly in the face of another and repeats, in a + hoarse interrogative whisper, ‘Deserves our love?’] + Not for the sundry boons I have bestow’d + And benefactions I have lavished + Upon Firenze, City of the Flowers, + But for the love that in this rugged breast + I bear you. + [The yells have now died away, and there is a sharp fall in dubious + murmurs. The cobbler down c. says, in an ear-piercing whisper, ‘The + love he bears us,’ drops his lower jaw, nods his head repeatedly, and + awaits in an intolerable state of suspense the orator’s next words.] + I am not a blameless man, + [Some dubious murmurs.] + Yet for that I have lov’d you passing much, + Shall some things be forgiven me. + [Noises of cordial assent.] + There dwells + In this our city, known unto you all, + A man more virtuous than I am, and + A thousand times more intellectual; + Yet envy not I him, for--shall I name him?-- + He loves not you. His name? I will not cut + Your hearts by speaking it. Here let it stay + On tip o’ tongue. + [Insistent clamour.] + Then steel you to the shock!-- + Savonarola. + [For a moment or so the crowd reels silently under the shock. Cobbler + down c. is the first to recover himself and cry ‘Death to Savonarola!’ + The cry instantly becomes general. LOR. holds up his hand and + gradually imposes silence.] + His twin bug-bears are + Yourselves and that New Learning which I hold + Less dear than only you. + [Profound sensation. Everybody whispers ‘Than only you’ to everybody + else. A woman near steps of Loggia attempts to kiss hem of LOR.’s + garment.] + Would you but con + With me the old philosophers of Hellas, + Her fervent bards and calm historians, + You would arise and say ‘We will not hear + Another word against them!’ + [The crowd already says this, repeatedly, with great emphasis.] + Take the Dialogues + Of Plato, for example. You will find + A spirit far more truly Christian + In them than in the ravings of the sour-soul’d + Savonarola. + [Prolonged cries of ‘Death to the Sour-Souled Savonarola!’ Several + cobblers detach themselves from the crowd and rush away to read the + Platonic Dialogues. Enter SAVONAROLA. The crowd, as he makes his way + through it, gives up all further control of its feelings, and makes a + noise for which even the best zoologists might not find a good + comparison. The staves and bill-hooks wave like twigs in a storm. + One would say that SAV. must have died a thousand deaths already. He + is, however, unharmed and unruffled as he reaches the upper step of + the Loggia. LOR. meanwhile has rejoined COS. in the Piazza.] + + SAV. + Pax vobiscum, brothers! + [This does but exacerbate the crowd’s frenzy.] + + VOICE OF A COBBLER + Hear his false lips cry Peace when there is no + Peace! + + SAV. + Are not you ashamed, O Florentines, + [Renewed yells, but also some symptoms of manly shame.] + That hearken’d to Lorenzo and now reel + Inebriate with the exuberance + Of his verbosity? + [The crowd makes an obvious effort to pull itself together.] + A man can fool + Some of the people all the time, and can + Fool all the people sometimes, but he cannot + Fool ALL the people ALL the time. + [Loud cheers. Several cobblers clap one another on the back. Cries + of ‘Death to Lorenzo!’ The meeting is now well in hand.] + To-day + I must adopt a somewhat novel course + In dealing with the awful wickedness + At present noticeable in this city. + I do so with reluctance. Hitherto + I have avoided personalities. + But now my sense of duty forces me + To a departure from my custom of + Naming no names. One name I must and shall + Name. + [All eyes are turned on LOR., who smiles uncomfortably.] + No, I do not mean Lorenzo. He + Is ‘neath contempt. + [Loud and prolonged laughter, accompanied with hideous grimaces at LOR. + Exeunt LOR. and COS.] + I name a woman’s name, + [The women in the crowd eye one another suspiciously.] + A name known to you all--four-syllabled, + Beginning with an L. + [Pause. Enter hurriedly LUC., carrying the ring. She stands, + unobserved by any one, on outskirt of crowd. SAV. utters the name:] + Lucrezia! + + LUC. [With equal intensity.] + Savonarola! + [SAV. starts violently and stares in direction of her voice.] + Yes, I come, I come! + [Forces her way to steps of Loggia. The crowd is much bewildered, and + the cries of ‘Death to Lucrezia Borgia!’ are few and sporadic.] + Why didst thou call me? + [SAV. looks somewhat embarrassed.] + What is thy distress? + I see it all! The sanguinary mob + Clusters to rend thee! As the antler’d stag, + With fine eyes glazed from the too-long chase, + Turns to defy the foam-fleck’d pack, and thinks, + In his last moment, of some graceful hind + Seen once afar upon a mountain-top, + E’en so, Savonarola, didst thou think, + In thy most dire extremity, of me. + And here I am! Courage! The horrid hounds + Droop tail at sight of me and fawn away + Innocuous. + [The crowd does indeed seem to have fallen completely under the sway + of LUC.’s magnetism, and is evidently convinced that it had been about + to make an end of the monk.] + Take thou, and wear henceforth, + As a sure talisman ‘gainst future perils, + This little, little ring. + [SAV. makes awkward gesture of refusal. Angry murmurs from the crowd. + Cries of ‘Take thou the ring!’ ‘Churl!’ ‘Put it on!’ etc. + Enter the Borgias’ FOOL and stands unnoticed on fringe of crowd.] + I hoped you ‘ld like it-- + Neat but not gaudy. Is my taste at fault? + I’d so look’d forward to-- + [Sob.] No, I’m not crying, + But just a little hurt. + [Hardly a dry eye in the crowd. Also swayings and snarlings + indicative that SAV.’s life is again not worth a moment’s purchase. + SAV. makes awkward gesture of acceptance, but just as he is about to + put ring on finger, the FOOL touches his lute and sings:--] + + Wear not the ring, + It hath an unkind sting, + Ding, dong, ding. + Bide a minute, + There’s poison in it, + Poison in it, + Ding-a-dong, dong, ding. + + LUC. + The fellow lies. + [The crowd is torn with conflicting opinions. Mingled cries of ‘Wear + not the ring!’ ‘The fellow lies!’ ‘Bide a minute!’ ‘Death to the + Fool!’ ‘Silence for the Fool!’ ‘Ding-a-dong, dong, ding!’ etc.] + + FOOL [Sings.] + Wear not the ring, + For Death’s a robber-king, + Ding, [etc.] + There’s no trinket + Is what you think it, + What you think it, + Ding-a-dong, [etc.] + + [SAV. throws ring in LUC.’s face. Enter POPE JULIUS II, with Papal + army.] + POPE + Arrest that man and woman! + [Re-enter Guelfs and Ghibellines fighting. SAV. and LUC. are arrested + by Papal officers. Enter MICHAEL ANGELO. ANDREA DEL SARTO appears for a + moment at a window. PIPPA passes. Brothers of the Misericordia go by, + singing a Requiem for Francesca da Rimini. Enter BOCCACCIO, BENVENUTO + CELLINI, and many others, making remarks highly characteristic of + themselves but scarcely audible through the terrific thunderstorm + which now bursts over Florence and is at its loudest and darkest + crisis as the Curtain falls.] + + + ACT IV + + TIME: Three hours later. + SCENE: A Dungeon on the ground-floor of the Palazzo Civico. + + The stage is bisected from top to bottom by a wall, on one side of + which is seen the interior of LUCREZIA’S cell, on the other that of + SAVONAROLA’S. + + Neither he nor she knows that the other is in the next cell. The + audience, however, knows this. + + Each cell (because of the width and height of the proscenium) is of + more than the average Florentine size, but is bare even to the point + of severity, its sole amenities being some straw, a hunk of bread, and + a stone pitcher. The door of each is facing the audience. Dimish + light. + + LUCREZIA wears long and clanking chains on her wrists, as does also + SAVONAROLA. Imprisonment has left its mark on both of them. SAVONAROLA’S + hair has turned white. His whole aspect is that of a very old, old + man. LUCREZIA looks no older than before, but has gone mad. + + SAV. + Alas, how long ago this morning seems + This evening! A thousand thousand eons + Are scarce the measure of the gulf betwixt + My then and now. Methinks I must have been + Here since the dim creation of the world + And never in that interval have seen + The tremulous hawthorn burgeon in the brake, + Nor heard the hum o’ bees, nor woven chains + Of buttercups on Mount Fiesole + What time the sap lept in the cypresses, + Imbuing with the friskfulness of Spring + Those melancholy trees. I do forget + The aspect of the sun. Yet I was born + A freeman, and the Saints of Heaven smiled + Down on my crib. What would my sire have said, + And what my dam, had anybody told them + The time would come when I should occupy + A felon’s cell? O the disgrace of it + The scandal, the incredible come-down! + It masters me. I see i’ my mind’s eye + The public prints--‘Sharp Sentence on a Monk.’ + What then? I thought I was of sterner stuff + Than is affrighted by what people think. + Yet thought I so because ‘twas thought of me, + And so ‘twas thought of me because I had + A hawk-like profile and a baleful eye. + Lo! my soul’s chin recedes, soft to the touch + As half-churn’d butter. Seeming hawk is dove, + And dove’s a gaol-bird now. Fie out upon ‘t! + + LUC. + How comes it? I am Empress Dowager + Of China--yet was never crown’d. This must + Be seen to. + [Quickly gathers some straw and weaves a crown, which she puts on.] + + SAV. + O, what a degringolade! + The great career I had mapp’d out for me-- + Nipp’d i’ the bud. What life, when I come out, + Awaits me? Why, the very Novices + And callow Postulants will draw aside + As I pass by, and say ‘That man hath done + Time!’ And yet shall I wince? The worst of Time + Is not in having done it, but in doing ‘t. + + LUC. + Ha, ha, ha, ha! Eleven billion pig-tails + Do tremble at my nod imperial,-- + The which is as it should be. + + SAV. + I have heard + That gaolers oft are willing to carouse + With them they watch o’er, and do sink at last + Into a drunken sleep, and then’s the time + To snatch the keys and make a bid for freedom. + Gaoler! Ho, Gaoler! + [Sounds of lock being turned and bolts withdrawn. Enter the Borgias’ + FOOL, in plain clothes, carrying bunch of keys.] + I have seen thy face + Before. + + FOOL + I saved thy life this afternoon, Sir. + + SAV. + Thou art the Borgias’ Fool? + + FOOL + Say rather, was. + Unfortunately I have been discharg’d + For my betrayal of Lucrezia, + So that I have to speak like other men-- + Decasyllabically, and with sense. + An hour ago the gaoler of this dungeon + Died of an apoplexy. Hearing which, + I ask’d for and obtain’d his billet. + + SAV. + Fetch + A stoup o’ liquor for thyself and me. + [Exit GAOLER.] + Freedom! there’s nothing that thy votaries + Grudge in the cause of thee. That decent man + Is doom’d by me to lose his place again + To-morrow morning when he wakes from out + His hoggish slumber. Yet I care not. + [Re-enter GAOLER with a leathern bottle and two glasses.] + Ho! + This is the stuff to warm our vitals, this + The panacea for all mortal ills + And sure elixir of eternal youth. + Drink, bonniman! + [GAOLER drains a glass and shows signs of instant intoxication. SAV. + claps him on shoulder and replenishes glass. GAOLER drinks again, lies + down on floor, and snores. SAV. snatches the bunch of keys, laughs + long but silently, and creeps out on tip-toe, leaving door ajar. + LUC. meanwhile has lain down on the straw in her cell, and fallen + asleep. + Noise of bolts being shot back, jangling of keys, grating of lock, and + the door of LUC.’S cell flies open. SAV. takes two steps across the + threshold, his arms outstretched and his upturned face transfigured + with a great joy.] + How sweet the open air + Leaps to my nostrils! O the good brown earth + That yields once more to my elastic tread + And laves these feet with its remember’d dew! + [Takes a few more steps, still looking upwards.] + Free!--I am free! O naked arc of heaven, + Enspangled with innumerable--no, + Stars are not there. Yet neither are there clouds! + The thing looks like a ceiling! [Gazes downward.] And this thing + Looks like a floor. [Gazes around.] And that white bundle yonder + Looks curiously like Lucrezia. + [LUC. awakes at sound of her name, and sits up sane.] + There must be some mistake. + + LUC. [Rises to her feet.] + There is indeed! + A pretty sort of prison I have come to, + In which a self-respecting lady’s cell + Is treated as a lounge! + + SAV. + I had no notion + You were in here. I thought I was out there. + I will explain--but first I’ll make amends. + Here are the keys by which your durance ends. + The gate is somewhere in this corridor, + And so good-bye to this interior! + [Exeunt SAV. and LUC. Noise, a moment later, of a key grating in a + lock, then of gate creaking on its hinges; triumphant laughs of + fugitives; loud slamming of gate behind them. + In SAV.’s cell the GAOLER starts in his sleep, turns his face to the + wall, and snores more than ever deeply. Through open door comes a + cloaked figure.] + + CLOAKED FIGURE + Sleep on, Savonarola, and awake + Not in this dungeon but in ruby Hell! + [Stabs Gaoler, whose snores cease abruptly. Enter POPE JULIUS II, with + Papal retinue carrying torches. MURDERER steps quickly back into + shadow.] + + POPE [To body of GAOLER.] + Savonarola, I am come to taunt + Thee in thy misery and dire abjection. + Rise, Sir, and hear me out. + + MURD. [Steps forward.] + Great Julius, + Waste not thy breath. Savonarola’s dead. + I murder’d him. + + POPE + Thou hadst no right to do so. + Who art thou, pray? + + MURD. + Cesare Borgia, + Lucrezia’s brother, and I claim a brother’s + Right to assassinate whatever man + Shall wantonly and in cold blood reject + Her timid offer of a poison’d ring. + + POPE + Of this anon. + [Stands over body of GAOLER.] + Our present business + Is general woe. No nobler corse hath ever + Impress’d the ground. O let the trumpets speak it! + [Flourish of trumpets.] + This was the noblest of the Florentines. + His character was flawless, and the world + Held not his parallel. O bear him hence + With all such honours as our State can offer. + He shall interred be with noise of cannon, + As doth befit so militant a nature. + Prepare these obsequies. + [Papal officers lift body of GAOLER.] + + A PAPAL OFFICER + But this is not + Savonarola. It is some one else. + + CESARE + Lo! ‘tis none other than the Fool that I + Hoof’d from my household but two hours agone. + I deem’d him no good riddance, for he had + The knack of setting tables on a roar. + What shadows we pursue! Good night, sweet Fool, + And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! + + POPE + Interred shall he be with signal pomp. + No honour is too great that we can pay him. + He leaves the world a vacuum. Meanwhile, + Go we in chase of the accursed villain + That hath made escapado from this cell. + To horse! Away! We’ll scour the country round + For Sav’narola till we hold him bound. + Then shall you see a cinder, not a man, + Beneath the lightnings of the Vatican! + [Flourish, alarums and excursions, flashes of Vatican lightning, roll + of drums, etc. Through open door of cell is led in a large milk-white + horse, which the POPE mounts as the Curtain falls.] + + +Remember, please, before you formulate your impressions, that saying +of Brown’s: ‘The thing must be judged as a whole.’ I like to think that +whatever may seem amiss to us in these Four Acts of his would have been +righted by collation with that Fifth which he did not live to achieve. + +I like, too, to measure with my eyes the yawning gulf between stage and +study. Very different from the message of cold print to our imagination +are the messages of flesh and blood across footlights to our eyes and +ears. In the warmth and brightness of a crowded theatre ‘Savonarola’ +might, for aught one knows, seem perfect. ‘Then why,’ I hear my gentle +readers asking, ‘did you thrust the play on US, and not on a theatrical +manager?’ + +That question has a false assumption in it. In the course of the past +eight years I have thrust ‘Savonarola’ on any number of theatrical +managers. They have all of them been (to use the technical phrase) ‘very +kind.’ All have seen great merits in the work; and if I added +together all the various merits thus seen I should have no doubt that +‘Savonarola’ was the best play never produced. The point on which all +the managers are unanimous is that they have no use for a play without +an ending. This is why I have fallen back, at last, on gentle readers, +whom now I hear asking why I did not, as Brown’s literary executor, try +to finish the play myself. Can they never ask a question without a false +assumption in it? I did try, hard, to finish ‘Savonarola.’ + +Artistically, of course, the making of such an attempt was indefensible. +Humanly, not so. It is clear throughout the play--especially perhaps in +Acts III and IV--that if Brown had not steadfastly in his mind the hope +of production on the stage, he had nothing in his mind at all. Horrified +though he would have been by the idea of letting me kill his Monk, +he would rather have done even this than doom his play to everlasting +unactedness. I took, therefore, my courage in both hands, and made out a +scenario.... + +Dawn on summit of Mount Fiesole. Outspread view of Florence (Duomo, +Giotto’s Tower, etc.) as seen from that eminence.--NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, +asleep on grass, wakes as sun rises. Deplores his exile from Florence, +LORENZO’S unappeasable hostility, etc. Wonders if he could not somehow +secure the POPE’S favour. Very cynical. Breaks off: But who are these +that scale the mountain-side? | Savonarola and Lucrezia | Borgia!--Enter +through a trap-door, back c. [trap-door veiled from audience by a +grassy ridge], SAV. and LUC. Both gasping and footsore from their climb. +[Still, with chains on their wrists? or not?]--MACH. steps unobserved +behind a cypress and listens.--SAV. has a speech to the rising sun--Th’ +effulgent hope that westers from the east | Daily. Says that his hope, +on the contrary, lies in escape To that which easters not from out +the west, | That fix’d abode of freedom which men call | America! Very +bitter against POPE.--LUC. says that she, for her part, means To start +afresh in that uncharted land | Which austers not from out the antipod, +| Australia!--Exit MACH., unobserved, down trap-door behind ridge, to +betray LUC. and SAV.--Several longish speeches by SAV. and LUC. Time is +thus given for MACH. to get into touch with POPE, and time for POPE and +retinue to reach the slope of Fiesole. SAV., glancing down across ridge, +sees these sleuth-hounds, points them out to LUC. and cries Bewray’d! +LUC. By whom? SAV. I know not, but suspect | The hand of that sleek +serpent Niccolo | Machiavelli.--SAV. and LUC. rush down c., but find +their way barred by the footlights.--LUC. We will not be ta’en Alive. +And here availeth us my lore | In what pertains to poison. Yonder herb +| [points to a herb growing down r.] Is deadly nightshade. Quick, +Monk! Pluck we it!--SAV. and LUC. die just as POPE appears over ridge, +followed by retinue in full cry.--POPE’S annoyance at being foiled +is quickly swept away on the great wave of Shakespearean chivalry and +charity that again rises in him. He gives SAV. a funeral oration similar +to the one meant for him in Act IV, but even more laudatory and more +stricken. Of LUC., too, he enumerates the virtues, and hints that the +whole terrestrial globe shall be hollowed to receive her bones. Ends +by saying: In deference to this our double sorrow | Sun shall not shine +to-day nor shine to-morrow.--Sun drops quickly back behind eastern +horizon, leaving a great darkness on which the Curtain slowly falls. + + +All this might be worse, yes. The skeleton passes muster. But in the +attempt to incarnate and ensanguine it I failed wretchedly. I saw that +Brown was, in comparison with me, a master. Thinking I might possibly +fare better in his method of work than in my own, I threw the skeleton +into a cupboard, sat down, and waited to see what Savonarola and those +others would do. + +They did absolutely nothing. I sat watching them, pen in hand, ready to +record their slightest movement. Not a little finger did they raise. +Yet I knew they must be alive. Brown had always told me they were quite +independent of him. Absurd to suppose that by the accident of his +own death they had ceased to breathe.... Now and then, overcome with +weariness, I dozed at my desk, and whenever I woke I felt that these +rigid creatures had been doing all sorts of wonderful things while my +eyes were shut. I felt that they disliked me. I came to dislike them in +return, and forbade them my room. + +Some of you, my readers, might have better luck with them than I. Invite +them, propitiate them, watch them! The writer of the best Fifth Act sent +to me shall have his work tacked on to Brown’s; and I suppose I could +get him a free pass for the second night. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Seven Men, by Max Beerbohm + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVEN MEN *** + +***** This file should be named 1306-0.txt or 1306-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/0/1306/ + +Produced by Tom Weiss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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