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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.05/20/01*END* +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +This etext was produced by Charles Franks, Johannes Blume +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + +To-morrow? + +By + +Victoria Cross + + + + +"Cras te victurum, cras dicis Postume semper +Dic mihi cras istud, Postume quando venit? +Quam longe cras istud, ubi est? aut unde petendum? +Cras istud quanti dic mihi, possit emi? +Cras vives? hodie jam vivere, Postume, serum est +Ille sapit, quisquis Postume, vixit heri." + +MART. v. lviii. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +"REJECTED! rejected!" + +I crushed the letter spasmodically in my hand as I walked +mechanically up and down the length of the dining-room, a rage of +anger filling my brain and the blood thundering in my ears. + +"Rejected! and that not for the first time. Another year and a +half's work flung away--simply flung away, and I am no nearer +recognition than ever. Incredible it seems that they won't accept +that." + +I stopped under the gasalier and glanced again through the letter I +had just received. + +"DEAR SIR,--With reference to your last MS., we regret to say we +cannot undertake its publication, owing to the open way in which you +express your unusual religious views and your contempt for existing +institutions. + +"At the same time, our reader expresses his admiration for your +style, and his regret that your unmistakably brilliant genius should +be directed towards unsatisfactory subjects.--We are," etc., etc. + +The blood flowed hotly over my face, and my teeth closed hard upon +my lip. + +Always the same thing! rejection from every quarter. + +The last clause in the letter, which might have brought some +momentary gratification to a man less certain, less absolutely sure +of his own powers than I was, could bring none to me. + +It only served to make sharper the edge of my keen disappointment. +Brilliant genius! I read the words with the shadow of a satirical +smile. + +What need to tell me that I possessed a power that inflamed every +vein, that heated all the blood in my system, that filled, till they +seemed buoyant, every cell of my brain? As much need as to tell the +expectant mother she has a life within her own. + +I was tired of praise, tired of being called gifted, tired of +hearing reiterated by others that which I knew so well myself. + +We are invariably little grateful for anything freely and constantly +offered to us, and I cared now simply nothing for compliments, +praise, or felicitation. + +These had been given to me from my childhood upwards, and yet here, +at six and twenty, I was still unknown, unrecognized, obscure, and +not a single line of my writing had met the public eye. + +I craved and thirsted after success far more than a fever-stricken +man in the desert can crave after water, for the longings and +desires of the body are finite, and when a fixed pitch in them has +been surpassed, death grants us a merciful cessation of all desire, +but the longings of the mind are infinite, absolutely without limit +and without period; and where a physical desire, ungratified, must +eventually destroy itself as it wears away the matter that has given +it birth, a mental desire does not wane with the flesh it wastes, +but remains ravening to the last, and reigns supreme over the death +agony, up to the final moment of actual dissolution. + +I had done what I could to attain my own wishes; I was not one of +those idle, clever fellows who imagine talent independent of work, +and who are too lazy to throw into words and commit to paper the +brilliant but vague, unformed inspirations that visit them between +the circling rings of smoke from their cigar. + +I had no thought, no expectation, no wish even to be offered that +celebrated sweet condition of the palm without the dust of the +struggle in the arena. + +But for me it had been dust, dust, and nothing but dust, and there +were times when it seemed to blind, choke, overpower me. + +My capacity for work was unlimited; labour was comparatively no +labour to me. The mechanical work of embodying an idea in a +manuscript was as nothing to me. + +To write came to me as naturally as to speak. + +Therefore work had not been wanting. Manuscript after manuscript had +been completed, submitted to various publishers, and returned with +thanks, with commendation, and regrets that I had not written +something totally different. + +And there they all stood in a pile, an irritating, distracting pile, +a monument of unrequited labour, an unrealised capital, a silent +testimony to the exceeding narrowness of the limits of British +indulgence to talent. + +My persistent ill-luck was all the more aggravating as I was not +handicapped by poverty, as so many authors are. The question of +terms had not been one to present a difficulty. + +I had no need to ask a publisher to accept my MSS. at his own +financial risk. + +I was not the traditional struggling young writer of the lady +novelist who treats poverty and genius as convertible terms, making +up with the former quality whatever her hero lacks of the other. + +No; although the combination may be very romantic, I confess, +notwithstanding that I was an unrecognised author, I was not living +in a garret, nor writing my MSS. by the proverbially flaring candle, +nor going without my dinner in order to pay for foolscap. + +But my feelings were as bitter, and the sense of disappointment as +sharp, as any attic-dwelling genius' could have been, even if we +suppose the lady novelist to have thrown in a conventionally +consumptive wife. + +In fact they were stronger because more absolute, more concentrated +in themselves. + +There were no pangs of hunger to distract my attention, no +traditionally patient wife to look sadly at me, no responsibilities +for others lying upon me and my rejected MSS. + +Simply all my own desires for myself centred in them. + +There was one side issue which at times seemed to include +everything, to be everything in itself, but the moments when this +forced itself in overwhelming prominence upon my brain were few. + +The wish that I had to publish my works could not be traced to +distinct motives; it did not spring from a desire to gain money, nor +yet celebrity. + +I was not particularly keen on fame while I lived, and I certainly +had no sentimental ideas of my name surviving me. + +I cared little in fact whether my name ever reached the public, +provided only my works were known and read. The wish to give them +out was not a thing of motive, nor thought, nor will. It was the +fierce, instinctive impulse that accompanies all creative power, the +tremendous impetus towards production that is an integral part of +all conceptive capacity. The same driving necessity that compels a +writer in the middle of the night to rise and take his pen and +commit to paper some thought or thoughts that are racing about in +his brain, trying to find an outlet, that compels him to produce +them as far as he is able, this same urgent impulse forces him to +complete his manuscript, and when completed, to strain his utmost to +give it actual life in the thoughts and brains of the public. + +The pressing want to produce is as wholly natural, as innate, as +independent of the individual's volition as the conceptive impulse +itself. + +And it was thus with me. + +I could not be said to wish to publish from this or that motive, +because of this, that, or the other. I was simply dominated by the +instinct to do so, which grew more and more urgent as it found no +gratification. + +It had risen now rampant at this last rebuff, and it seemed to rage +about in my brain like a Bengal tiger in a net. + +I walked up and down the long dining-room, backwards and forwards, +from the grate where the fire blazed to the glass-panelled sideboard +at the other end, where its reflection sparkled, yawning every now +and then from sheer nervous irritation. "Cursed, infernal nuisance!" + +I had just muttered this when the door was pushed open, but the +enterer, on hearing my exclamation, promptly drew it to again, and +would have shut it, but that I caught the handle. + +It was the butler. + +"What do you want, Simmonds," I said. + +"Nothing, sir. I was told to enquire if you was in." + +"Well, I am." + +"Yes, sir. Please, Mr. Hilton said was you ready for dinner?" + +"Certainly; and, Simmonds, where's Nous?" + +"Tied up, sir, in the stable." + +"Tied up! Again! I gave orders he was never to be tied up!" + +"Yes, sir; but please, sir, he was that dirty and muddy to go +scrimmaging over the house, and it's the ruination of the furniture- +-" + +"The dog is not to be tied up," I interrupted. + +"Have him let loose at once, and in future remember, if he comes in +wet and muddy, and chooses to lie on the drawing-room couch, let +him." + +The man disappeared, and I walked over to the hearth. + +A minute or two later there was a scratching and whining outside the +door, and I went to it and let Nous in. + +He bounded over me, licked my face furiously, and scratched +enthusiastically at my shirt front. + +He was wet, and his fur laden with mud, as the butler had said, and +my clothes suffered from his demonstrativeness, but his feelings +were of more import than a dress-coat, and I would not have hurt +them by checking his greeting. + +"Dear old boy," I said, taking the collar off with which he had been +chained up,--and just then my father came into the room. + +"Ah, got back, Victor?" + +"Yes," I said, looking up. + +"They've rejected your last, eh?" he said at once. + +"Yes. Why? Have they sent it? How did you know it was rejected?" + +"By your face, my dear boy," answered my father. + +"It's odd that these failures knock you up still. You must be +accustomed to them now!" + +That was cutting, and it cut. + +"One does not easily get accustomed to anything that is against +natural law," I said, coldly. + +"Oh! and you mean that it is against the natural law of things that +so brilliant a genius as yourself should be perpetually rejected?" + +I nodded. "Just so," I answered. + +"It is a pity they will not take your estimation of your own +powers!" + +"There is very little difference in the estimation," I said. "The +difference is in the courage. I have the courage to write things +they have not the courage to print. There is no question as to my +powers. No one, except yourself, perhaps, has ever denied those." + +"Well, why the dickens don't you write something that they will +accept? Why not make up something quite conventional?" + +I looked across the hearth at him with a half amused, half ironical +smile, and said nothing. It is so hard to explain to an outsider the +involuntariness of all real talent. + +This great leading characteristic is invariably but imperfectly +grasped by others. + +They cannot realise it. + +I was too flat in spirits and too tired in body to feel inclined to +enter then into an abstruse discussion with him, and I would have +let the matter slide. + +His last remark to the ear of anyone who has genuine talent, whether +artist or author or poet, or what you please, sounds like a +sacrilegious blasphemy. + +"Make up something!" + +Great heavens! What an expression! + +Is a writer, then, a cook, preparing a new dish? Is he a nursery +maid soothing a refractory child? Is he a woman's dressmaker taking +her mistress's orders? + +Dinner was served just then, and we took our seats at the table in +silence. + +I thought I should have no need to answer. + +However, when the butler had deposited the soup and shut the door +after him, my father returned to the attack. + +"Yes, Victor," he said in a friendly way, as if a happy solution of +my difficulties had just occurred to him, "why don't you make up +something quite orthodox and keep your own opinions out of it?" + +I sighed and took half a glass of claret to fortify me. I saw I was +in for propounding my views upon genius, and I did not feel up to +it. + +I could have avoided the argument, doubtless, by seeming to assent, +by promising to "make up something," and saved myself a number of +words. + +But there is a strong impulse in me to revolt against allowing +myself to seem to accept a false statement or opinion that I do not +really hold. + +And I pulled myself together with an effort. + +"I don't think you understand in the least my view of a writer and +his writings," I said. "It is not a voluntary thing, led up to by +pre-determination. There can be no question of making up. I never +try to write nor to think. I do not invoke my own ideas. They spring +into being of themselves, quite unsought. And, in a measure, they +are uncontrollable." + +My father was staring at me in silence. + +"Eh?" he said merely as I paused. + +I laughed. + +"What I mean is, that a man, as a man, endowed with will, control, +wishes, and so on, ceases to exist, you may say, while he is +writing. He becomes then the tool of that peculiar, mysterious power +that is moving in his brain. He writes as a clerk writes from +dictation. He is the clerk pro tem of the impulse stirring his +being, which dictates to him what it pleases. There is no +consideration in his mind--'I will write this or that' or 'I won't +write the other.' He simply feels he must write a particular thing; +it crowds off his pen before he can stop it. He does not know where, +whence, how, or why the idea came to him. But it is there, +clamouring to be written, and he writes it because he must. The +expression, very often, of a thought is as uncontrollable as a +physical spasm, and the man who writes it cannot always be held +responsible for it." + +"My dear Victor!" + +"No, really," I said, laughing, "I am simply stating ordinary facts. +I believe any writer, any acknowledged writer of talent, will bear +me out, more or less. It is the old idea of inspiration--one cannot +express it better--a breathing into. It is exactly that. The man of +genius, in any form, feels at times-that is to say, when his fit is +on, that there is a breathing into his brain. It becomes full of +images he is unfamiliar with, crowded with thoughts that are quite +foreign perhaps to the man himself, to his life, to his habits, and +invested with a peculiar knowledge of things he has had no personal +experience of. Then as suddenly as it came the fit goes; it is over, +and he can write no more. Should he be so foolish as to try, his +sentences become mere linked chains of nouns and verbs; his +inspiration has gone. He cannot invoke it, cannot restrain it, +cannot retain it, cannot recall it, and only very slightly control +it." + +"Ha!" said my father reflectively, going on with his soup, "deuced +inconvenient." + +"Inconvenient it may be," I said quietly. "All the same, that which +is written under inspiration is the only stuff worth reading. The +Greeks expressed the peculiar feeling that a man has when his +inspiration comes upon him by the phrase, entheos eimi, and we can +hardly find a better one, only unfortunately we don't believe in +gods. Otherwise, entheos eimi contains everything, for the man who +was only common clay before his inspiration, and will be common clay +when it departs, feels, for the time, as if a god had descended, and +was within him. And when, afterwards, he looks at what he has +written he feels it is something not wholly his own, but that it is +the work of some powerful influence he can hardly comprehend, and +cannot certainly rule." + +"But really I don't see that this has much relation to what I said +about your writing something to please the British public!" + +"It is the whole gist of the matter," I said. "I am proving to you +that I am, to a certain extent, helpless in what I write; that it is +impossible for me to think of publics, British or otherwise, of +publishers or critics, when I am writing. I have no time to consider +them, no space in my brain for them, no memory that such things, or +anything outside of what I am describing, exists even. My only +thought is to drive along my pen fast enough, in obedience to the +strenuous impulse urging me. I do not 'make up,' as your phrase is, +anything. I simply put down on paper, as fast as I can, the thoughts +that are pouring into my brain, like the waves of a flood flowing +over it. I am whirled away on the stream myself; my identity is +lost, submerged. Now look here, I'll give you a cut and dried +instance which will make clear how it is that I offend the +prejudices, or the proprieties, or whatever you call it, in my +books; at least I imagine it is in this way: Suppose I have a death +scene to write. My MS. is waiting for that to complete it. I don't +say to myself beforehand, Now there shall be a bed with Tomkins +dying in it; there shall be Maria at the left-hand corner, and Jane +at the right. The wife and doctor shall be grouped artistically at +the foot. Tomkins shall make two speeches before he dies; no, three- +-three is more natural--uneven number. Now what shall Tomkins say? +Yes. Ah--hum--what the deuce shall I make him say? It must not be +too much like what a dying man would say, because the British public +is dead against realism. It must not either show any strong contempt +for religion; a little mild contempt, of course, goes down and is +fashionable, but I must not express it forcibly. He must not either +evince a disbelief in immortality--at least that's dangerous ground. +Some publishers will accept it and some won't.--Better leave it out. +Ah--hum--what shall Tomkins say? I have it! A retrospect of his past +life! And yet--No, stay! that won't do. Something that sounds like +something that might possibly be immoral might turn up in it, and +that would be fatal--damn the MS. utterly. Well, look here, Tomkins +has got to die, and I've got to finish the book, so I must get +something down. 'Darling Mabel, this parting is terrible, but still +I feel we shall meet in another world.' Now, is that safe? Has a +similar phrase been put in heaps of novels before? Because the +British public won't have anything too new. It likes to head over +again what it has heard at least fifty thousand times before, and +then it knows it won't be shocked. Yes, that sentence will do. Now I +must put in a few more and then, thank goodness, the scene will be +done! Now," I said, springing up from the table, "do you call that +art? do you call it genius? Is a collection of bald phrases and +second-hand sentiments, hooked together like that, worth anything +when it's done?" + +"My dear boy, don't excite yourself like that," my father answered +deliberately. "Sit down and finish your soup." + +"Oh, hang the soup!" I said, resuming my seat. "Shall I sound the +gong? I have not told you my way yet, but I'm coming to it when the +man's gone." I sounded the gong, and the butler came in with the +next course. + +There was no carving ever done at our table, so my father had only +to tranquilly continue eating while I talked. He had forced me into +the discussion, and now he should hear it to the end. + +"Of course, if you do write the death of Tomkins like that you can +keep your scenes orthodox, or whatever word you have in view. But, +supposing my MS. is lying incomplete;--I have a conviction that I am +going to write of death, but the method of the man's death is at +present unknown to me, unthought of.--Then, some afternoon, I happen +to be sitting smoking, and just perhaps wondering whether I shall go +round to the club or not, when suddenly a scene, a death scene, the +scene I have been waiting for, comes rushing through my head. It +comes upon me with tremendous impetus; mechanically, almost +unconsciously, I take up a pen and write. Space opens before me and +I see a hospital ward. A blaze of light floods it. Rows of narrow +beds are there, and on one I see Tomkins--dying. I make my way to +him: now I am by his bed. I see him stretched beneath my eyes. I see +the pillow dark with the sweat of his death agony--the night-shirt +torn at his throat to get air. Have I time to consider then whether +the British public like the word night-shirt, and whether it would +not be safer to put Tomkins into a dressing-gown? The man is there +before me, dying, and he is in his night-shirt, and I must write it. +Besides, my pen is tearing on. I cannot stop--he is dying. Will he +speak before he dies? I do not know yet. His eyelids quiver, the +black veins in his throat knot up, he gasps. I bend lower: 'his +breath comes hurriedly: his eyes open and fix upon me: they are red, +vitreous but conscious: then I know he will speak, he is going to-- +the next moment his half-strangled voice reaches my ear. He is +speaking, and that which I hear him say, I write: no more, no less, +no different. His voice dies away, inarticulate. I see his lips +whiten and draw back upon his teeth. His hands clutch me as a +convulsive spasm wrenches his muscles. There is a tense, rigid +silence, and then one deep-drawn groan. Nerve, limb, muscle, and +flesh collapse as the Life is set loose. The damp body sinks back, +leaving its death sweat on my arms, its gasp in my ears. Tomkins is +dead. But the impulse is not done with me yet. I cannot get out of +that hospital ward till I have done everything, passed through all +the circumstances that crop up naturally from the death of Tomkins. +There is no ' making up.' The scene is being enacted before me. It +is. It exists. It is the truth for the time being, and, as the +truth, I write it. There is the miserable girl, sobbing +convulsively, with her arms out-stretched in the bed-clothes. Can I +leave her without some words of consolation? I must write down that +she is there, because I see her there. There are some arrangements +to be made with the nurse, and then, when I am leaving the ward, or +at least intend to, my brain hurries the doctor up the ward to me. I +don't ' make him up.' I had not the remotest idea of the head doctor +appearing when I sat down to write. But now I see him approaching me +between the beds, and before I can pass him, as I want to, he +button-holes me and proceeds to explain that Tomkins never would +have died if he had undergone an operation that the doctor had +perceived from the very first moment was necessary. After a long +talk with him, perhaps, my pen stops. I pause: and when I pause I +know the inspiration has gone. As the ancients would say, the Muse +or the God has departed and dictates no more. I fling aside the +paper and look at my watch. Several hours passed in the hospital, +but I'll go round to the club now. And I go. I know Tomkins is dead. +It only occurs to me afterwards, as a secondary consideration, that +in consequence the MS. is finished. Tomkins was not for the +manuscript, but the manuscript for Tomkins. Now the point is--Can I +be held responsible for that scene? It is not my fault that I have +mentally seen a private soldier dying in hospital. The whole thing +was involuntary." + +"Very extraordinary views!" muttered my father. + +I shrugged my shoulders in silence, and called up Nous to give him +my untouched dinner. + +"The best joke of it is, too," I said, suspending a strip of sirloin +over the collie's nose, "the publishers admit if I had less talent +they would print my things. I could not understand why my 'Laura +Dean' was refused, so I went down to the publishers to try and find +out. I saw the reader himself, and an awfully nice fellow he is, +too. In reply to my question, he said the objection to the book was +that it dealt with a wife leaving her husband. I stared at him in +amazement. 'But, great Scott!' I said, 'that's a good old-fashioned +theme enough. It's as old as the hills. It's the subject of--' and I +gave him a list of about a dozen eminent novels. 'Yes,' he admitted. +'But they are not written in the same way.' 'Is there anything +coarse or low in the writing?' 'Oh, no! I should not say that!' +'Well, what is the matter with it, then?' 'The thing is too much +brought before you. Of course, in these books you have mentioned the +wife runs away, but it does not make much impression. You have put +it all so forcibly, and given the characters and episode so much +life, and driven the idea of her infidelity so far home to one, +that, well, it becomes a different thing--one realises it.' 'Oh, +then you admit the immoral theme and the language to be +unobjectionable, and the book would have been accepted by the +British public provided only it had been less well written?' 'Yes, I +suppose it comes to that.' And then I caught his eye, and we both +laughed. He is a clever fellow himself, I should think, and the +ludicrousness of the idea tickled him as much as it did me. I came +away. His admission was quite the truth. It is the British way to +take the second-rate in every art and scout the best. Write a book +poorly and feebly, and it passes. Write the same thing powerfully +and well, and the cry is--It's improper! It's just the same thing in +painting. Paint a nude woman snowy white, without a shade or a +shadow, and looking altogether as no mortal woman ever did look, and +the picture will be hung at the Academy, and people will say, 'How +charming! So artistic!' But paint a woman with a glow on her neck +and bosom, and the warm blood running in her arms, dare to make her +a living, breathing thing on canvas, and your picture will be +rejected. 'Excellent, unequalled, perfect, but--it cannot be seen!' +And what is British art as a consequence? Justly is it looked down +upon by the other nations. We simply set our heel upon the best men. +And look at our productions! Look at the rot and the trash that +floods the libraries every year! Look at the average novel! It's a +disgrace to our intellect! Look at the woodeny dolls that are its +men and women! And behold our Academy! See our pictures!" + +"Don't rock your chair like that, Victor; it annoys me." + +"Very good," I said, bringing my chair down on its fore legs again. +"Are you ready for the cheese?" + +"Yes; but won't you eat anything?" + +"No, thanks. I am fed upon annoyance just now." + +"You are getting thin on it, too," he answered, looking at me. "It's +a pity you are so excitable!" + +"It's a pity I was born in this confounded Britain! I should have +got on all right with Parisian readers. But I don't despair even +here. They can reject my MSS., but they can't take out my brains. I +daresay I shall stumble across some man at last with courage enough +to stand by me in the beginning and help me force open the British +public's jaws and cram my ideas down its throat; and that once done, +it will digest them perfectly, for it's a tough old beast, though +very blind. Why on earth has that fellow carried off the champagne?" + +"You finished the bottle yourself just this minute!" returned my +father, in surprise. + +"Did I? Oh, very likely! Absence of mind!" + +"It seems to me if you had a little less of this talent you boast of +you would be considerably the gainer." + +"Possibly," I rejoined. "But a gift is a gift. You can't say to +nature, take this back and let me have something more paying! +Besides, I can't admit that for any earthly reason I would change. I +have no desire to be a second-rate writer when I know I am a first!" + +"By Jove! if conceit could carry the day!" + +"No, there is no conceit," I persisted. "Is it conceit to say my +hair is black? It is black, and everybody can see it is. I have +nothing to do with it. Nature made it black, and black it is, and I +know it. Should I gain anything by contending that it was red? I +don't see that I should. However," I added, laughing, "The point is +of no consequence. Put me down as a fifth-rate writer, if you like, +until I become the fashion!" + +"It does not seem you ever will, at this pace," he said quietly. + +"Very good," I answered, equally quietly. + +"Then you will not have the trouble of changing your opinion." + +There was a long silence then. We each smoked without a word. At +twenty minutes to ten my father got up. He always went to bed +horribly early. + +"What are you going to do, Victor?" + +"I am going out," I answered, getting up and stretching myself. + +"Will you be late?" + +"Probably. I got no sleep last night, nor the night before. It's no +earthly use my going to bed when I feel like this. I can't get to +sleep by repeating hymns, as some fellow suggested the other day." + +"Why don't you take morphia or something to help you?" + +"I don't care to begin taking drugs," I said, "I would rather wear +myself out, and induce sleep in that way. I shall take a three +hours' walk or so." + +"Well, good-night." + +"Good-night." + +When he was gone, I sat a few minutes in the easy chair, with my +head in my hands thinking. I had meant to ask him a question at +dinner, but that argument on talent had put it on one side. Well, it +would do later. + +"Coming out, Nous?" I said to the collie. The dog started and +pricked his ears. + +"Out?" I repeated, and he leapt to his feet and gave himself a +joyful shake, and then stood on the hearth-rug in front of me, +swaying slowly his great brush of a tail and poising his head at an +intelligent angle. I got up, felt for my latch-key, and went into +the hall. Nous waited impatiently while I put on my hat and +overcoat, and then we went out together. The night was cold, wet, +and foggy. It was late in November, and a light mist veiled the end +of each black, deserted street. + +I took no heed of anything, neither the atmosphere round me nor the +direction in which my feet carried me. I was wrapped up in a maze of +thoughts, and there was not a decently pleasant one in the whole +lot. + +They were warmed and brightened every now and then as a form that I +loved glided amongst them, but even that form dragged after it a +chain of painful, fettering considerations, and the gleams of light +that it threw round it were only like those weak, pallid flashes of +sun that flit through the clouds of thunder and storm in a +hurricane. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The next morning when I came down to breakfast it was late, and my +father had already withdrawn to his own library. I had missed again +speaking to him, as I could not seek and disturb him there. + +He also was a writer, though quite of a different school from +myself. He wrote ardently upon politics, political economy, and +statistics, things which I took no interest in. + +The nation might arrange itself how it pleased for all I cared. What +I wanted to arrange was my own life. I had no ambition to set my +country's affairs straight, my own thoughts were too much engaged in +tugging my own into some sort of order. + +There were some letters for me, and I turned them over listlessly, +balancing them tip in succession against the toast-rack in front of +me, without opening any. The last I came to was quite different from +any of the others, and being the last, it stood foremost before me, +and I looked at it while I went on with my breakfast. + +It is curious how representative a letter generally is of its +writer. The mere outside is like a psychological photograph. Of +course it does not give details, but it presents you with a +wonderfully accurate outline of the cut of a person's identity. This +envelope was square, and looked as hard, white and clean as if a +stone-tablet had passed through the post. It bore a delicate, weak, +feminine superscription, hurried and careless; the writing unformed, +but graceful and distinguished; and on the other side of the letter, +stamped in grey, stood a crest, and the motto subscrolled. + +Yes, the woman who had written it was very like the letter. +Immaculate and perhaps somewhat hard, delicate, and in will a little +weak, impulsive and undecided, well-bred, and strikingly typical of +the class to which she belonged. + +I broke the letter open after a minute and read-- + +"DEAREST VICTOR,--Do come and see me as soon as you possibly can. A +scheme for the next canvas occurred to me last night, but I want you +to help me execute it. What about the manuscripts? If you can't +come, tell me. Bring Nous. LUCIA." + +I smiled as I replaced the letter. The composition was rather +defective, and left the meaning decidedly indistinct. If I could not +come I was to tell her. Tell her what? About the MS., or that I +couldn't come? + +And under what circumstances was I to take Nous? Apparently if I +could not do so. + +I was not sneering at the little note, and it went into my breast +pocket, but it amused me. + +"That is the way I ought to write for the British, I suppose?" I +muttered, with a yawn. "Muddle all one's language up until nobody +has the faintest idea of what the author's sentiments are, and then +they don't know whether he means anything heterodox or not." + +I got up. I might as well obey the orders I had just received. + +There was a tired confusion of thought in my brain--a floating mass +of half-formed embryonic ideas, wishes, plans and suggestions filled +it that were quite useless for prompting or guiding any definite +resolution as to what I should do in the immediate future. + +Everything seemed to depend on something else, and it was impossible +to find any positive basis upon which I could found a resolve. + +If I could succeed as an author, my way was clear, but if I could +not, and if . . . and if . . . And so on through a wearying, +perplexing series of conditions. + +Just then I felt unequal to regulating and giving order to this +inward chaos, and I abandoned the attempt. + +Meanwhile I would go over to the house in South Kensington, whence +the letter had come. + +It was about eleven when I arrived there, and I was told Miss Grant +was "upstairs, as usual." + +I nodded, and went up the necessary six flights of stairs to a +familiar landing on the third floor. + +A door in front of me stood ajar, and with a sign to Nous to remain +on the stairs, I knocked at it. + +There was no answer and no sound from within, and thinking the room +was empty after all, I pushed the door wide and went in. + +It was a huge room, used as a studio, facing the north light, and +with three large windows. + +Before the middle one there was an easel, and the girl was in the +room, standing there in front of the canvas between me and the +light. She was seemingly entirely abstracted and absorbed. She was +completely motionless, and for the moment she communicated her +stillness to me. + +I paused, silent, looking at her. + +She was standing directly in front of me, facing the canvas, that +was perfectly blank at present. + +One hand rested on her hip, the other was raised and pressed to her +head, as when a person looks into distance, and the arm and elbow +and wrist traced a delicate curve against the dull grey square of +London window pane. + +A twist of hair about as thick as my arm fell nearly to her waist. +It was decidedly not gold; that is, it did not suggest dye and the +Haymarket; but it was fair and curly, and seemed to hold light +imprisoned amongst it. + +The figure was tall, and erred, perhaps, on the side of slightness. + +Certainly it would have been too slight for those men whose scale of +admiration runs--so much in the pound. But the architecture of the +form was perfect. Each line was worthy of study in itself as a thing +of beauty, and the harmony of them all in the whole figure, whether +it moved or was at rest, gave an indefinable pleasure to the eye. + +What a lovely thing it was this form, seeming to hold in itself the +light and pleasure and glow of life, as it stood, the only brilliant +thing in that cold north room. + +And it might be mine, might have belonged to me long since if . . . +well if . . . that was just it. + +I made a step forward and she turned. + +"Oh, I'm so glad you've come," she said, laying her hand in mine. "I +want you so much." + +We shook hands. + +Although we were cousins, and had been engaged for the last two +years, this was our invariable method of greeting and leave-taking. + +I had never kissed her, nor was I sure whether I ever really desired +to. + +There were times when the thought that precedes the impulse or the +impulse that gives birth to the thought came to me, but always when +I was away from her and not with her, and consequently the desire +culminated in nothing. + +When I was actually beside her all my own feelings seemed suddenly +held in suspension, just as one stops with feet chained when one +discovers one has come abruptly upon sacred ground. + +There had been times when I had hurried to this girl with words +eager to be spoken on my lips, and at the first sight of her they +had died unuttered on my tongue, just as words die into silence in +the presence of a somnambulist. + +"Why am I specially necessary?" I said, smiling, as we stood in +front of the easel. "Will you let me paint you as Hyacinthus?" I +went into a fit of laughter. "My dear girl! anything to oblige you, +but consider," I said, looking down into her eager eyes; "you ought +not to have a model of six-and-twenty. Hyacinthus was probably +sixteen." + +"You don't know how old he was!" she said, mockingly, her azure, +sunny eyes lighting up with laughter, too, as she leant on the +bending maul-stick and looked up at me. + +"No, I don't know," I answered; "but I can infer it. If we only went +upon what we actually know we should not go very far." + +"Well, he might have been as much as nineteen, and you don't look +quite six-and-twenty; and the remaining difference I can soften +down. Have you any other excuse to make to get out of the bother of +sitting?" + +"You are a horrid little wretch to put it like that," I answered, +"and I won't say another word of advice. Paint your Greek youth as +you please. Of course, you'll give him this mustache with waxed +ends? It's very appropriate!" + +"No; of course I shan't. Now, Victor, do be sensible. You can be so +nice at times!" + +"Can I really? You are kind!" + +"I want to hear about the manuscript. Was it accepted?" she said +very gently, with her hand on mine. + +"Well, that's soon told," I answered. "It wasn't." + +She said nothing. Probably she knew that the mere expression "I am +sorry" would be inadequate to say to a man who felt every failure as +keenly as I did, and I hastened to remove her difficulty. + +"Don't let us talk of it," I said. "Tell me of the new conception." + +"It is to be called 'The Death of Hyacinthus,'" she said, glancing +at the vast, vacant canvas, on which, doubtless, her eye saw the +whole vision already. "The scene is to be flooded with sunlight, +that pours in upon a green, open glade. The life-sized figure of +Hyacinthus will be standing three-quarters towards the spectator, +and a little towards the rush of light from the setting sun. His +eyes are to be fixed upon the quoit which will be here, at this end +of the canvas, opposite him. It will be tinged blood-red in the +sun's rays, and seem a little above him." + +She paused, with her eyes on the canvas. She had drifted away on the +stream of her idea. "And what about the two gods?" I asked. + +She started. + +"Oh yes, I was going to tell you. Zephyrus will only be represented +by the effect of the wind seen on the bushes, on the trees, and +every blade of grass or fern in the picture. These small tamarisk +trees that fringe the glade will be bent nearly double. The spirit +of the wind must be in the whole painting. That will be the great +effect, of course." + +"And Apollo?" + +"I cannot put him in. You see, I do want this to be taken at the +Academy next year, and though they have scores of nude women, they +would not have a nude god at any price: and it would be too +inartistic to clothe Apollo. So I have supposed him invisible; being +a god, he would be so to all except Hyacinthus. Simply his hand, +holding the quoit, will be faintly suggested, and the light allowed +to fall through it." + +There was silence. "Do you like it?" she said suddenly to me. + +"Yes. I think the idea is unconventional: but on that account you +will probably be rejected." + +"I must risk it. Hyacinthus is to be in white, and must look +radiantly, gloriously happy." + +"I say, do you want me to look radiantly, gloriously happy-because +that will be rather difficult just now." + +"As far as you can. You see, the point is that he was struck and +killed in the moment of supreme confidence and light-hearted joy." + +"How very uncomfortable! Is that to be my fate?" I said laughing. + +"Well, will you, Victor?" + +"Will I what?" + +"Take your seat here, now, and let me sketch you?" + +"Certainly; but I thought you said he was to be standing?" + +"I don't think I can take you for the whole figure. You are too much +occupied to be able to spare the time. And I can find another model +for the figure. I should like to take you for the whole, but you may +be going away or something before the painting is finished. But in +any case I have set my heart on giving him your head and neck." + +"You flatter me awfully," I returned. "You shall have them--but that +wretched Nous is outside all this time. May I let him in?" + +"Oh yes! I did not know you had brought him!" she exclaimed, and ran +herself to the door and called him in. + +He came in meekly. And I stood where she had left me by the easel, +and watched her bend over him and caress him, and I thought I was +badly used. + +"Now, will you sit there?" she said, coming back and indicating a +chair. + +I took it in silence. Then she paused, looking at me. + +"What is it?" I said, enquiringly. + +"Would you--" and she hesitated. + +"Continue: command me." + +"Could you take off your collar?" + +"I think, perhaps, I could," I said, looking up into her serious +face. "I am not aware that it is an absolute fixture!" + +She laughed, but she was seldom chaffed out of a reply. + +"It might have been in one with the shirt!" she said. + +"Far-seeing intuitiveness! I admit it might; but fortunately in this +case it's not. Then you'll excuse me if I take off my coat?" + +"Yes, I want you to--coat, collar, and tie; so that I can sketch +your neck down to the base of the throat." + +"Ah!" I said, drawing off my coat, "I was wondering how you were +going to fix up Hyacinthus with a lavender tie!" + +She deigned no answer to that, and sat down just in front of me. A +piece of plain drawing paper was put upon the easel before the +canvas. + +"Will you raise your head more? and throw your eyes up? higher, +above my head!" + +"May I not look straight at you?" + +"No: up! up! to the window above me!" + +"Won't you come and put me in the right position?" + +"No. I am sure you have intellect enough to understand verbal +directions." + +"Well there," I said, throwing myself into the position she wanted; +"that is easy: but how about that jolly expression? where's that to +come from?" + +"Can't you imagine for a moment that you are successful, and we are +married?" + +"A pretty good stretch of the imagination that!" I muttered, "as +things are at present!" + +And involuntarily I brought my eyes down from the window to the +pale, delicate, abstracted face opposite me. I did not intend to +convey any reproach to her, but perhaps she thought so, for she +seemed to answer that which she took to be in my mind. + +"But, Victor, you know," she said, laying down the pencil she had +just taken up, "it is in your own hands. I am willing to marry you +when you like!" + +She said it very gently, but with just a touch of cold restraint +that irritated me excessively. + +"Oh yes, I know it's all my own confounded fault, but that does not +make it any pleasanter. However, let all that pass. I'll look as +cheerful as I can." + +There was a long silence. She was absorbed in the drawing, and I in +my own thoughts, as I stared through the upper pane, as directed, at +the grey, drifting, hurrying November clouds. Had I descried a quoit +there about to descend upon me I should have been rather pleased +than not. At last I became conscious of an intolerable crick in my +neck. + +"May I move?" + +"Oh, one minute! one minute!" she answered, and her voice struck me. +It was faint, breathless, mechanical: the voice of a person whose +whole being is tense with some straining effort. At least fifteen +more minutes of silence passed. + +"I say! I really must turn my head now!" + +"No, no! not for worlds! Keep still!" + +I kept still, but I felt sick with the peculiar cramp in my neck. +Suddenly she dropped the crayon and started up. + +"Now you may move, Victor! I've finished!" + +I brought my head down to its ordinary level with considerable +thankfulness, and as my eyes fell upon her I was rather startled. +Her figure seemed expanded as she stood, and the white serge of her +bodice rose and fell heavily. All the blood had flowed from her +face, leaving it blanched, colourless. In her eyes the azure iris +had disappeared, the dilated pupils had brimmed over it, and left +nothing behind the lashes but shining, liquid blackness. +Unconsciously, seemingly, her left hand was pressed to her left +side, beneath the heart, and I saw it tremble; and the whole form +quivered as she leaned slightly forward with her gaze bent upon the +canvas. There was for the time being some great force lent her. Some +power had stirred in the brain, and now seemed overflowing through +the physical system--doubtless at its expense. This was inspiration, +certainly, and valuable for its creative power, but the merely +physical life and physical frame panted and fainted after its +painful throes to produce that which the brain commanded. I looked +at the girl, oblivious of me, oblivious of herself and of the pain +that forced her hand mechanically to her side--looked half with +pleasure, half with alarm. It must always bring a delight to the +human being to watch the triumph of intellect over matter, of the +mental over the physical system, of the mind over the body. The +sympathy of our own mind must go with the fellow-mind in its +struggles for freedom. It is like one captive calling to another +from behind his prison bars. But when we love the body too, and when +our reason tells us that the striving captive, if set free, must +die; when we remember that by some horrible, unnatural anomaly this +spirit, that at times seems divinity itself, is condemned to live in +this abominable prison and to perish there, with and in its fetters, +then the wave of exultant pleasure, of exuberant, arrogant triumph, +that swept over us, poor fellow-prisoners, watching those fetters +shaken and almost cast off, thunders back upon us, turned into the +bitterest humiliation. I felt it all--the pitiable mockery of man's +nature, the inexplicable, terrible union of a god and a brute in one +frame, and the god dependent on the brute, and both mortal--as I +looked at the slight, lovely form of the woman I loved, and saw it +rocked and swayed, and left pained and breathless with the struggles +of the powers within to assert and express themselves. It had so +happened that I had never seen her at work before. It was only +recently that she had been allowed to give up set studies for her +own creative fancy. For years she had been employed in acquiring the +technique of her art; and even beside these considerations, I had +not been with her in her moments of most tense application, and I +should not have been with her now but that I was needed as a tool in +the work. And as I saw her at this moment, filled with mental energy +and dominated by the pleasure of mental labour, a quick sympathetic +elation came over me, almost immediately after to be replaced by +simple fear. + +"I am afraid you have overtaxed yourself rather," I said, in +conventional phrase; "I'm afraid you're in pain." + +"Oh, that's nothing! Come and tell me what you think!" she said, +extending her hand, but not taking her eyes from the drawing. "This +is only the first study, of course. But tell me, have I got a +sufficiently--well--expectant--rapt expression? I am not quite +sure." + +I saw she was too utterly preoccupied to attend to anything I said +of herself then, so I did not insist farther, and went up to the +easel. I was not an artist nor a critic, nor in any way qualified to +be a judge of painting as painting; but of genius, who is not a +judge? In any art it is recognisable, patent, obvious to all. There +is no human clod, no boor who is utterly insensible to its +influence. It needs no education to perceive its presence, though +the ignorant could not tell you what that presence was. Genius is as +the sun itself: as universally perceptible. Even the rustic clown +feels the sun hot upon his face. Ask him what sun is, and he cannot +say, but he feels the difference between sun and no sun. And the +power in this rough drawing beat in upon my perceptions as the sun +beats on the labourer's face. + +"I think it's a triumph," I answered. "You have caught a most +startling look of concentration." + +"I am so glad!" she said, lightly. + +The strain was over, and she was descending into ordinary mundane +life again, but the hand she had put on my arm chilled through the +shirt sleeve like ice. + +"Do you recognise yourself?" + +"Ye--es," I said, slowly; "except for that very glorified nose +you've given me!" + +She laughed, and moved the paper off the easel. + +"Now I just want to give you an idea of how the tamarisk will be +swayed," she said, holding a crayon between her tiny white teeth, +and motioning me to a couch under the window. "Sit down there and +wait a minute. I'll just sketch them roughly for you to get an +approximation." + +I sat down on the couch facing her, and occupied myself by replacing +my collar, etc. The studio was fireless and uncommonly chilly. Then +I leaned back and studied the girl as she sat there, one little foot +crossed over the other, and a piece of mill-board supported on her +raised knee. The tamarisk seemed to call for little expense of the +divine energy, for she was as tranquil, smiling, and human as usual, +now, as she sketched the bushes. They were far more mechanical work, +naturally, than creating an expression and throwing it on a human +face. The light from the window behind me fell full upon her, and +seemed positively to brighten in her proximity. I wonder how, in +their canons of beauty, the Latins could possibly have inscribed +Frons minima, underrating the forehead, the sublimest feature in the +human face, the great distinction between our countenance and that +of our Simian prototypes. In this woman I thought it was, perhaps, +her chief attraction. Round the temples and summit her light hair +lay in thick loose curls. It did not "stray" anywhere. On the +contrary, it was very intelligent hair, and knew exactly what to do +with itself, how to curl upwards here and catch the light, how to +cluster together there in adorable circles and half-circles in the +shadow. And then came her forehead, a smooth band of white velvet, +upon which two bow-like eyebrows were delicately traced. Excepting +these and the vivid blue colouring in the eyes, and the rose and +white tinting of the flesh, she had no positive beauties. The nose +was a straight little nose, but very English, not the least +sculptural, and the lips were rather too thick. They looked best +when she was speaking, and their crimson was divided, and showed the +small, even teeth behind them. Sitting watching her, now that her +face was no longer flushed and animated in conversation, I noticed +it looked white and tired, and all round the eyes were faint, +discoloured shades. She looked overworked: looked as I myself looked +in the early morning when I went upstairs from a night's work in my +study to dress for breakfast. + +"What were you doing last night?" I asked, abruptly. If I +interrupted the work on the bushes, no matter; she must work less. + +She looked up with a sudden flush. + +"How did you know?" she answered, looking at me with confusion and +perplexity in her eyes. + +"I know nothing. I merely ask you. You were up all night?" + +Her face became quite pale again, and she raised her eyebrows with a +slight smile of indifference. + +"Yes, I was." + +I paled too, with annoyance. + +"Lucia! this is the one thing I asked you to do for me; to give your +nights, at least, to rest!" + +"I know you did," she said, passionately, looking at me, her lips +quivering and her face growing paler and paler. "But it is +impossible sometimes! What gain is there in discussing these things? +A perfect scheme came to me last night, and I sat here thinking of +it--planning it upon this canvas. I could not have slept had I left +this room. Besides, to close your brain to your ideas when they do +come!--it is madness! I might never have seen the picture so vividly +before me again if I had not stayed to think it out, to realise it, +to impress it, as it were, clearly on myself. I cannot promise you, +Victor--I never have, I would not before--to go to bed and try to +sleep when a plan occurs to me suddenly for a canvas, as it did last +night!" + +"But think of sitting in a room like this all night with no fire! +This studio is positively freezing!" + +"Is it? I don't feel it." + +"No. That is what I complain of. You feel nothing and think of +nothing while you are at work, and you will injure yourself +unconsciously. If you do these things you will certainly break +down." + +She merely shrugged her shoulders and looked past me through the +window, an arrogant determination filling her blue eyes. The next +minute she was speaking rapidly, and with an intonation of +impatience in her voice. + +"You know I am given over to the work--entirely, utterly. It is +useless to expect me to sacrifice it to anything. On the contrary, +everything must be sacrificed to it. Health, life itself, must be in +the second place. I only value my life for the sake of this talent. +Of course, I know if I lose my life I lose it too; but, equally, I +can produce nothing without work. If I am to succeed I must work +simply--it is necessity." + +Each word was incisive, and seemed to cut slightly like falling +steel from those soft, warm lips. A sudden desire rushed through me +to teach her--at any rate, to exert myself to the utmost to teach +her--that her life was valuable to her for other things than the +capacity it gave to work. But I checked the words and the thoughts +that rose, acting on the same principle as had guided me hitherto. +To wake her to a sense of the pleasure and the gifts life holds, +without being able to confer either--that could not be any gain. I +merely said: + +"And if you give up your life for the sake of this painting, Lucia, +is that fair to me?" + +"You would have your work," she answered. + +The tone was cold and calm, and she went on sketching. + +"Do you think that would console me?" + +"I do not think: I am convinced of it. You are a man to whom your +work, your genius, is everything. This holds the first, the ruling +place in your life, and will always do so. I am in the second, I +believe; but it is the second, and the step between is wide. It is +quite right it should be so. I am not complaining, but it is useless +to deny that it is so. Well, when one loses but the second object in +one's life--" + +A soft smile swept over her face, and she lifted the white lids and +dark lashes--that had been drooped as she looked down at the drawing +paper--with a brilliant, mocking flash in her eyes. I met them, and +though I was not looking at it, but directly back into her eyes, the +whole charming figure forced itself upon my vision. The round throat +and the fine shoulders and the delicate curves of the long figure, +sloping to the waist beneath the white serge bodice. Had she really +but a second place? If I realised at any time I was not to possess +her after all, what then? Should I be consolable? An angry denial +leapt to my lips. There was no question of first or second. These +two passions for this woman and for my own success were coordinate +forces, and their very equality it was that kept me passive, without +decisive action between them. + +There was a sort of confusion in my brain--a longing to make some +protestations. The words crowded excitedly to my lips, but I kept +them closed. The conversation was on dangerous, critical ground. If +I began to speak now, in this frame of mind, I did not know what I +might say. My own brain was not sufficiently clear and collected. I +did not know myself quite how far that which she had said was the +truth. It is useless to talk vaguely and at random, or on mere +passing sensations of the moment. Before speaking to another, before +entering on a discussion, one must know exactly what one is saying-- +be prepared to act in accordance with every statement, and accept +and realise the responsibility of each word, and all this at that +moment I was not,--far from it. I felt my thoughts disordered and +confused. Before my mental eye swam a mist of manuscript; before my +physical eye rose and fell that gently beating breast. I took out my +watch. + +"It's a quarter past twelve, Lucia," I said, rising; "I must go." + +The girl started to her feet and came in front of me. + +"Victor, are you offended at what I said?" + +I looked down at her with a slight smile. + +"I am not so easily offended," I said, quietly. + +"I will talk about all these things with you another day--not now." + +"And do forgive me for siting up at nights. I know you do not like +it. I know it ruins my looks, but I must work. Besides, all my +excitement, all my amusement, is in it too. When I am not with you +it is all I have. It is different for you, as a man, besides your +work and besides myself, you have all sorts of distractions and--" + +"What sort of distractions do you think I have?" I asked, quietly, +and looking straight into her eyes. + +Her words might mean and include a very great deal. + +"Oh, how can I say! When you feel restless and unable to work at +seven in the evening, say from then till seven the next morning your +time is your own--balls, the Empire; there are a thousand things-- +all the pleasure, or at any rate the passing excitement that you can +take in these ways, I crush into the excitement that there is in +work--in overwork." + +There was nothing in the actual words, but I felt the thoughts that +underlay them, unexpressed. I resented the opinion she held of me. +It was untrue, and I meant to remove it. I was silent an instant, +thinking how to find words passably comprehensible and yet +conventionally circumlocutory and euphemistic. After a moment I said +simply-- + +"If you think I am leading a fast life, it is a mistake. I am not. +What makes you think I have distractions, as you put it?" + +"Oh, nothing, except that I know you are constantly not at home at-- +in the evenings. But really, Victor--" she added, a scarlet flush +leaping across her face, and then leaving it pale and cold, with a +shade of reserve and pride upon it. "I have no wish to approach this +subject at all. I should never think of enquiring into or +interfering with a man's life. These are things that must rest in +his own hands." + +I looked at her, as the graceful figure seemed to expand with pride, +at the dignity of each line of her form and the pose of the +distinguished head, and an irritated flush crept into my own face. + +"I am out constantly, as you say," I answered, "because I cannot +sleep, but I walk then simply in search of fatigue. Pleasure, Lucia! +there can be none for me now until you belong to me. As for my life, +it is a hard-working and as absolutely without relief as your own-- +absolutely." + +She was silent. + +"You don't believe me?" + +"Of course I believe you," she answered, impulsively, putting her +white hand suddenly into mine. "If you say so, but--" + +"But what?" + +She hesitated and coloured. I had not the least idea of what she was +really going to say. I thought the "but" led to some condition more +or less contradictory to her expression of belief in me, or, +perhaps, to some statement she had heard, or something that she had +thought. And I pressed her. + +"But what?" I repeated. + +"I was going to say, I have no wish to make your life harder than it +is. I do not want our engagement to impose impossible laws upon you, +nor do I set up an imaginary standard for you. You have your honour +and your own self-respect, and I know I shall always be satisfied +with the standard you raise for yourself." + +The voice was very soft, and her touch and eyes caressing. She had +not said in the least what I had expected, and she had touched, as +she always did in me, the best springs in my thoughts. Her own +pride, and her unquestioning assumption of mine, stung all that I +had. + +"Even you, Lucia, could not have a higher!" I answered on the +impulse. + +She smiled. + +"That is exactly what I say," she said, and the smile went on into a +slight laugh. "When will you come again to sit for Hyacinthus?" + +"To-morrow, at the same time! Will that do?" + +"Yes. It's immensely good of you. How can I thank you?" + +I looked down at the red lips, at the delightful neck and shoulders, +for a second in silence, then I pressed her hand, whistled to Nous, +and went out. As soon as I had passed down the stairs and reached +the street the bitter rush of feelings that the sight of this girl +roused in me, and that her actual presence held in check, swept over +me unrestrained. Why had I left her like that? I asked myself +savagely. Why had I not drawn her into my arms and kissed her till +all that soft delicate face was one flame of scarlet? Then a +contemptuous smile came with the answering thought. What use were +mere empty kisses if she gave me a thousand! This state of things +could not go on. The life that I led seemed growing more and more +unendurable week by week. It was a life of perpetual restraint, of +refusal to every wish, of denial to every desire that rose in me, in +which there was a bar laid upon every impulse, and an immovable +chain upon every tendency. I was ambitious, and I could get no +recognition. I was gifted, at least in my own estimation, and I +could force open no field for my gifts. I was in love, and there was +no means of attaining its object. Patience! patience! This was what +I had been saying to myself hour by hour for two years, but there +were times when it seemed that my brain, my whole system, was +collapsing in the nervous irritation, in the chafing and the +straining of this existence, which was filled with nothing but +successless work, continuous disappointment, and unsatisfied +desires. + +Night succeeded night in which sleep was an impossibility, when my +head seemed light and turning as in delirium with the violence and +intensity of longing to shape my life differently. Could I have +obtained the fulfilment of one desire or of the other, the strength +of my nature would have flowed naturally into the channel opened +before it. Could I have seen my work succeeding I would have +foregone everything else willingly and worked with satisfied ardour, +closing my eyes to the pleasure of life. Could I have obtained Lucia +I would have been content to work and wait patiently till success +chose to come to me. But the latter desire depended on the former, +and when I thought of Lucia, her image only brought back upon me the +stunning, deadening sense of the necessity of success, and so my +thoughts were dragged round in a perpetual, wearying, dizzying +circle, like a fixed wheel revolving without motion forward. + +I had grown to hate my present daily existence. It was a state of +enforced passive inaction that seemed corroding my nerves as the +long worn fetter eats into the flesh. The current of life was +running at its swiftest and fiercest in my veins. Vitality was +ardent in the brain and blood, but there was no worthy expense of my +energies, and they simply fell back upon themselves again and again, +thwarted, baffled, unused, until existence seemed an intolerable +curse. I saw daily other men's works accepted and received, and +their talent and genius praised that could produce such a work, +which, when it drifted into my hands, I recognised was no better +than the MSS. lying in my study, unused, wasted. Sometimes the +morning of a day would pass in looking through the reviews and +criticisms of the favourite novel of the hour, the afternoon in +reading the book itself and forming a judgment of it, and then an +evening of sickly irritation would follow, in which, pacing +backwards and forwards, in the empty study, I had to admit that the +author, no more gifted, no more favoured with talent than myself, +had been successful and I had not. The very praise I received for my +powers from men who would not help me to employ them was a maddening +stimulus. + +"Talent? Yes, decidedly, but too heterodox for us." + +This was the general resume of the opinion of the publishing world +that had determined to eject me and shut its door in my face. Had it +been hinted that the rejection was on the ground of incapacity it +would have been easier to bear, but, without exception, every +declined manuscript had been accompanied with a warm commendation of +the art that the critic chose to think was so misapplied. Often, +walking up and down the length of that study with these letters of +empty compliment crowding the mantelpiece, I felt like a captured +tiger in a cage, being goaded and thrust at through the bars. And, +together with this excessive longing of the brain to employ its +power raged the useless, vehement desire for the woman, until in +those moments of silent solitude, it seemed as if two living +vultures were upon me, slowly tearing me asunder. As I walked away +from Lucia this morning, and when I reached my own steps, I was +conscious of a sense of physical illness; my head seemed light and +dizzy, as when one gets up after long fever. I was so long opening +the door that Nous, who had pushed his whole body close up against +it, looked at me with surprise. As we went in I had one clear +determination, and that was to apply once more to my father for +help. He could, if he would, enable me to marry Lucia. Success must +come with time. It was this time that would be transformed. This +time, this daily life of waiting work, that hung upon me now like a +wolf, with its fangs, gnawing my brain, would then, if I possessed +her, pass by like a dove upon wings. After luncheon, when he was +standing by the hearth, I thought, was a good time to approach the +subject, and I came up to the other end of the mantelpiece. + +"Don't you think you could," I said, striking a lucifer and lighting +up a cigar, without the least wish to smoke at that moment, "manage +to let Lucia and myself arrange something?" + +He looked at me a little ironically. + +"Have you heard that the firm have rescinded their decision, and are +going to bring out the book after all?" he asked quietly. + +I coloured with anger and annoyance at the sneer. "No," I answered, +simply, "I have not." + +"Then, my dear Victor, you know it is quite useless to re-open this +old question. I have told you before, and I can only repeat it now, +I am not going to make you an independent allowance, that you may +marry your cousin and comfortably settle down into a do-nothing +existence." + +"I never propose such an existence," I answered calmly. "Have I ever +led it? am I leading it now?" + +"No, because just now you have every incentive to work, and you have +all your energies turned in that one direction, but with a secured +income, independence, and married to this girl, I know exactly what +you would become, and if I can prevent it, I am not going to have my +son a confirmed idler about town." + +"I can't think how you can so misjudge me," I said. "If you would +make me an allowance--say 300 Pounds Sterling a year--half the rent +of this house we live in!" I added bitterly. "I should marry Lucia, +but on that account I should not neglect the work. Incentive! I +should have every inducement to work then as now!--if inducement +were necessary--Which it is not. I work now, not because I am driven +by motives and wishes, but because to write is as natural to me as +to sleep or breathe!" + +"Please remember you are talking to a sane Englishman," he answered +coldly; "and if you want me to listen to you, you must talk sense." + +"Very good," I said, bringing my teeth down nervously on the cigar. +"Put it entirely on the ground of motive if you like; I should want +to succeed then doubly, and success is only a thing of time. It will +come one day to me, as it has come to others who have had the same +difficulties at first." + +My father smiled sceptically. + +"We shall see. In any case, if you are so certain of success, you +can't object to the fulfilment of your wishes resting on so sure a +contingency!" + +"That has nothing to do with it. I did not say how long success +might not be deferred, and I am unwilling to wait in these +circumstances." + +"Ah!--delightful frankness!" he returned derisively, and I looked +away from him into the fire. + +It shot across me then, amongst my own worrying thoughts, how +strange it is that one human being should have so little sympathy +with another, that where one can, without the least annoyance to +himself, confer all that another desires, there seems always some +inexplicable impulse to withhold it. And I--if I had power to give, +if I ever possessed money, it should be to give, give freely and +without conditions to those who needed it. + +Perhaps my father guessed what I was thinking of. At any rate, he +recommenced the conversation by saying-- + +"You have had a great deal done for you, Victor, though you may +consider yourself very ill-used. You had a most expensive education. +Then you passed into the army--brilliantly, I admit, but you were +aided in every possible way. Then you had a fancy to go to India. +Well, I got your regiment changed, and you went. Six months after +you write that you have determined to become an author. I assent to +that, much against my judgment, and you send in your papers. Good. +What have you done since then? Nothing but write things no one will +print, and hang about your cousin!" + +A dull anger lit up in all my veins, and sent the blood to my head +at his words. Still, they were practically the truth, and I knew I +had no right to resent them. + +"Now," he continued, "I make you a reasonable and just proposal, and +you know that it is so. I give you every opportunity to display your +talent, if you have any, which I very seriously doubt. You have +leisure and unlimited means at your disposal. I only stipulate that +before I make you independent, and before you marry, you shall give +some proof of your powers in literature. I don't say you must wait +till you have acquired a fortune. Your first production that is +accepted and acknowledged sets you free. When I see you are really +on the way to a profession, I will take care your finances don't +trouble you, and as to marriage, you can then, of course, do what +you please. But as to assisting you now to hurry into an affair that +I don't under any circumstances particularly approve of--No." + +"Why don't you approve of it?" I said, with a faint smile; "if I +were in love with a housemaid or a ballet dancer I could understand +your objection, but a girl in our own rank, educated, pretty, +clever--what more would you have?" + +My father shrugged his shoulders and elevated his eyebrows, and +finally answered--"I should have liked a little more sanity between +you. Remember there is insanity on her side and insanity on yours, +and you both of you seem half-cracky already, to my mind. Then you +are cousins. The relationship is near, unpleasantly near. You are +both very much alike, extremely excitable, and with both your heads +stuffed full of nonsense. She is exceedingly delicate, and no +wonder, sitting up all night sketching and sitting in all day +painting! I wish you could have chosen some strong, sensible, +matter-of-fact young woman!" + +I smiled as I listened. The combination of those three adjectives +fairly set my teeth on edge, and suddenly I seemed to see Lucia's +pale brilliant face, with its dilated eyes and genius-lit pupils, +swimming in the shaft of sunlight that fell between us on the rug. + +"What the children of two such maniacs will be, I tremble to think +of!" he said after a minute. + +I laughed outright, flung my cigar end into the fire, and stretched +myself. + +"I don't think you need trouble about the children!" I said +significantly. + +His remark sounded so ludicrous to me that my answer came +spontaneously, but it was the worst thing I could have said. My +father's old-fashioned ideas were the rock upon which we invariably +split. Otherwise we should have got on very well. But he was +entirely of the school of yesterday, and I was entirely of the +school of to-morrow. His forehead contracted violently, and he said +curtly-- + +"Now, don't let me hear any of that ridiculous nonsense you were +talking the other day! I won't have these sentiments expressed in my +hearing!" + +I laughed, and said nothing. I never wish to express sentiments in +anybody's hearing that they don't want. + +"Of course," he said, finally, after a long pause, "you can please +yourself. If you like to try and find a situation as clerk or +secretary or shoe-black, and marry this girl on the proceeds, do so. +But if you do, you will get no help from me in future. Don't come to +me then for funds to bring out your MSS. If you choose to disgrace +your family and disappoint my expectations, consider yourself +entirely cut off from me, that's all." + +There was another stretch of silence, and then-- + +"Well, which is it to be, Victor? Lucia or Genius?" + +"I really hardly know," I answered, lightly. "I want them both. I'll +think it over." + +And with Nous, who had sprung to his feet as I moved, closely +following me, I crossed the dining-room and went out, upstairs to my +own writing and sitting-room. Here I flung myself into an arm-chair +and let my hand hang over the side and rest on the collie's neck. +And as I curled absently the locks of fur round my fingers, the +thought came--When would my hand play as familiarly with those +short, glistening curls on Lucia's forehead? Of course, as far as +that went, we were engaged, and I might have put our relations on a +far more intimate and familiar footing than they were now. I might +have kissed her, twisted and untwisted that great cable of hair, put +my arm round her waist, and so on and so on. No one would have +objected since we were fiances and, in addition, cousins. And it is +difficult to define exactly the impulse that had prompted me to +abstain from all of these things. Partly it was an impulse in her +defence, and partly in my own. I felt that it was difficult enough, +hard enough, to keep in perfect control my own passionate impulses +when I was with her, even now, while there was the screen and shield +between us of her abstracted calm; when there was a certain coldness +and reserve around her; when there was no beginning, no opening, no +invitation of demonstration; when her complete unconsciousness of +herself helped me to restrain and conceal all my own feelings; but +if this were dispelled; if she came to greet me with the bright +conscious flush of passion; if I saw reflected in her eyes the fire +that burnt in me; if I were permitted to take her into my arms and +cheat myself for a single illusive instant with the thought that she +was mine--what would it all mean? Only giving a sharper, more +cutting edge to the bit in my mouth and rousing in her a hunger I +could not satisfy. She was at present devoted to her art with a +devotion that left her practically indifferent to everything else, +and there was a thin frame of ice round her, which her abstraction +and her ceaseless work built up; but I was convinced that the +smouldering fire of a woman's nature lay underneath--that it was +concealed never cheated me for an instant into the belief it was not +existent. She was pure--perfectly, absolutely immaculate; but there +was another power within and transfused throughout her innocence +that swayed and subdued my will as innocence alone could never do. +She reminded me of some exquisite, delicate porcelain flagon filled +with sparkling wine, that sends its hot crimson glow through the +snowy transparent tints of its circling walls. The wine within lies, +at present, in glowing tranquillity, unshaken and unstirred, and the +beauty and the purity of the flagon grows upon one as one looks. One +would hesitate certainly to stretch an unclean hand to lift it, +hesitate to touch it with lips that were not pure--but as certainly +one sees that, if hand and lip are clean, and one may raise it to +oneself, there is intoxication within that cup. Though its brilliant +walls are white, they are not so because they hold thin water or +turgid milk or yet vacancy. Of the nature of porcelain, they are +clear and brilliant, for as such they left the potter's hands; but +that faint flush stealing through them tells us that that within is +wine. And as the purity of a cup like this is different from that of +a clean, thick, common china cup standing empty on the board, so was +Lucia different from the ordinary virtuous English girl. And for her +I would do and suffer much, and feel glad in it. I looked upon her +as this vase, and since I had known her I had kept my hand clean, +that one day I might take it without remorse. And in my treatment of +herself I acted as I did because I saw that, as yet, her passions +and her nature slumbered, just as the wine, unshaken, is steady +within the cup. + +Now, in my present helpless condition, to merely wake and rouse +them, to distract and disturb her, and lift her out of her art, to +draw her half from her own life, before I could take her wholly into +my own, seemed a sacrilegious cruelty. And this was why, from the +commencement of our engagement, I had said to myself--On this one +condition only. + +This was why, on the evening when I put the circlet of the +engagement ring over the delicate finger, I had not touched the lips +thanking me. I knew I could not kiss her coldly. These things depend +upon one's nature. Some men shake hands listlessly. I cannot. If I +take a friend's hand I grasp it warmly. How then, here, with those +passive lips under mine, could I prevent them from drawing in the +enthusiasm from my own? And this once done, I did not know how it +might stir in her, and break up her life and turn her aside from the +tranquil path of abstraction and occupation she was following now. I +am not saying that, as a rule, a woman waits for her lover's kiss to +arouse her. On the contrary, I am well aware that most women are +uncommonly wide-awake from their thirteenth year, and it is a very +old-fashioned and quite exploded idea to suppose that the springs of +their nature lie dormant until one particular individual unlocks +them. I am only saying that this girl was as yet entirely given over +to her genius, and happy in it; and I loved her too well to weaken +an impulse towards art which she could gratify, and create an +impulse towards love which I could not for so long satisfy. So with +all this in my brain, and with a guard upon myself that had never +been relaxed since, I released her hand, with my ring upon it, as +gently as I had taken it, and the quiver of nervous, painful +excitement, that had shot through me as she laid it on my knee +confirmed my resolution. Why teach her also, one moment before she +need know it, the pain of self-repression? + +"Is it not pretty," she had said. + +"Which, the hand or the ring?" + +"Why, the ring, of course," she had said, laughing. "You are too +bad, Victor!" + +"I don't know. I think the hand is decidedly the lovelier. But the +ring is useful as a sign that now there is but one man in the world +for you, as, Lucia, there is for me henceforth but one woman." + +She had looked up suddenly, and her eyes had met mine with the +passion kept out of them, and only reverence for her there. And even +at that the fugitive scarlet had stained the pale skin, and the eyes +had widened and darkened upon me, asking, Tell me, explain what this +mysterious feeling is that seems stirring faintly in me? And I had +looked back at her in silence, with a word unuttered, but still +perhaps divined by her, on my lips. + +Later! + +And now things had come to a crisis. I felt as if I could not stand +any longer, clear-headed and hard-working as I had been, against +this repeated raising, then deferring, then breaking down of hope. + +Constantly I had given rein to my thoughts and wishes; many times I +had said, "This book will certainly be accepted, and then a month or +a few weeks and she is my own." + +But the book had not been taken, the weeks passed by and Lucia was +as far from me as ever. And it could not continue. The perpetual +excitation and reaction was slowly injuring and confusing the brain +like a noxious drug administered to procure lunacy. And the +temptation swept over me now to let go my hold on work, on this +bitter effort to succeed, on this vain, useless striving for +recognition, and sink into some humble position which would supply +the necessities for a quiet obscure existence--shared with this +woman. The weeks, months, years, passed now, wasted, in a dull +torture, in a low fever, filled with long, dragging hopes, +expectations, possibilities, and no realities. Better sweep all +these away and settle into a level, solid existence, contented with +the simple natural pleasures that life offers without striving for. +Contented! I laughed as the word drifted across my brain. That was +just what I felt I could not be in any life but the one I coveted--a +life of power, recognition, distinction. Other men were. They +married the women they loved, and dropped into quiet lives of daily +work and regular incomes, and were content in them. Yes; but that +was insufficient argument. + +They had not within them the suffocating weight of a desire +ungratified, the stifling sense of a power unused. Nature, who has +appointed no greater joy for us than the exercise of the capacities +she has given us, has also no heavier, bitterer burden she can lay +upon us than these capacities barred down in us unemployed. As I +thought, my father's words recurred to me, "A secretary, a clerk or +a shoeblack." It was improbable I should descend to the shoeblack. +It was possible that I could become a secretary or a clerk. A +secretary or a clerk! The idea amused me. I leaned my elbows on my +knees, my forehead on my hands, as I sat and stared down at the +bear-skin rug at my feet and saw a vision of fifth-rate existence +pass before me. A suburban villa or squalid London lodgings; the +hurried early breakfast served by a slavey; the tram or bus to the +city; the society of seedy clerks; the pipe instead of the cigar; +the public billiard room instead of the club; the omnibus instead of +the hansom; the fortnight up the Thames instead of the spring at +Cairo. A day of uncongenial work--but at the end of it Lucia! + +The thought seemed to come suddenly and stunningly through my brain +like a bullet. The blood rushed to my face and I got up and crossed +to the window, looking out and seeing nothing. Lucia daily, hourly, +side by side with me in my life, and utterly my own possession! Yes, +it was worth it! Worth all those petty considerations that had been +passing before me, but there was another heavier than all the others +massed together. My leisure would be taken from me. It would be +impossible to write then as I was writing now. Now, I was absolutely +my own master, and disposed of my time exactly as I pleased, and +days passed constantly which were wholly spent in the preparation of +a manuscript and when my train of thought was never interrupted. If +all my days were given to monotonous business work, how then, and +when, would the writing be accomplished? My evenings and nights +would be my own--or Lucia's; and this line of reflection finished in +an ironical laugh. I walked to and fro, one word hammering +persistently on my brain-sacrifice. To accept a humble, working +position, and in it to marry a woman as lovely, as vehemently +desired, and as long waited for as Lucia, would mean the sacrifice +of my talent. It would mean a suppression, a thrusting aside of +work, and, to a certain extent, of thought. In such a life there +would be so little place for it. Between the necessity of rejecting +impersonal or imaginative thought to make room for the diurnal +business routine, and the irresistible temptations to reject it at +other times for present personal pleasure, it would be rarely +accepted or welcomed, and its impetus would gradually weaken or +lessen. Even as I thought of it, a revolt rose in me. The revolt of +all the higher instincts against enslavement by the lower. The +rebellion of all the intellectual impulses against being ruled by +the physical. What! weaken, enervate, starve, destroy the mental +sinews to gratify the passion for a woman? Crush down the mental +emotions to give reins to the physical? It would be the work of a +fool. A rooting-up fruit trees to clear a space for weeds. And what +of those twenty-six years of life that lay behind me? Did they count +for nothing? Was all the repression and the hard work they contained +to be flung aside now and wasted? Was the whole principle that had +shaped them, of living in and for the intellect, to be utterly +reversed now? And yet it was a wretched, poor, burdensome thing, +life, as it had been lived by me. The past years stared me in the +face mockingly. Clean, capable of being scrutinised in the sunlight, +estimable from a moral and mental standpoint, but absolutely barren +of pleasure, and, so far, barren of result. I looked at them with +little satisfaction or pride. They were as immaculate, as bare, as +denuded, as irritating, and as painful to contemplate as a chalk +cliff. The character that is summed up in the line "video meliora +proboque, detiora sequor" is supposed to be very common, and meets +with universal comprehension and commiseration. Mine, perhaps, would +find neither. I followed the good--that is, good as the world's +opinion goes--the straight line in life, without any of the +enthusiasm for virtue to form a consolation and support. I looked +upon vice without that repulsion that makes resistance to it easy, +pleasant, involuntary almost. I felt no sense of strong condemnation +of those acts or failings or lapses in others which I studiously +avoided myself. Therefore, I had neither the pleasure that might be +derived from the evil itself, nor the warm satisfaction and personal +pride that comes from conscious superiority to one's neighbours. I +had lived the life of a Puritan, but I had neither the heart nor +brain of one. None of the rigid bigotry, none of the exultant +delight in morality, none of the merciless joy in trampling upon +pleasure which gives him his reward. I looked round upon life and +its many devious ways with eyes listless and indifferent to its vice +and sympathetic to its pleasure, and back upon my own straight path +with something of regret that my self-respect had been strong enough +to hold me to it. And now the temptation came to sacrifice all that +I had clung to. To abolish the thought and remembrance of my talent, +muffle and stifle the powers of the brain, and remember only that I +had the pulses and senses and blood of a man. It came over me +slowly, this phase of rebellious animalism, like a mantle falling +over me. Thought followed thought insidiously, imperceptibly, like +fold upon fold of a cloth dropped upon me, as I sat in the silent +room alone. To take this girl and force back her art upon itself, to +mutilate her brain-power and drug it with her roused sensuality, to +turn her into a simple instrument of pleasure for myself, and lend +myself to her as such. To yield to this inflowing tide of desire +that beat, now, heavily through all my veins, and let the brain go +down beneath its waves. + +If I chose I could do it, and none but myself could gauge the depth +of my debasement. No eye could discern the high level ground now on +which I stood and the morass that swam before me. I should marry +this girl and the world asks no more. This other lower life that lay +in my power appealed to me in all its sweetness--this woman as she +would be when mine. Those lips with the mark of mine upon them; +those delicate nerves stung to frenzy; that form tense, and the +limbs strung with passion; those eyes terror-stricken between +anguish and ecstasy. + +The thought of the woman's personality clung to me like a viscous +web. I struggled against it, but it enwrapped me; I could not shake +it from me. + +Again and again my arm encircled those soft yielding shoulders; the +warm agitated bosom was touching mine; my hands held, and felt +within it, the smooth muscles of the white arm--a vision of the +whole indefinably supple form swam giddily before me in a +suffocating proximity, till I pressed my hands on my eyes, and the +thought came involuntarily,--Is this insanity? + +My brain gave her into my arms now as I sat there, and the blind +physical system clamoured in agony, Where is she? An hour passed, +and then I got up and laughed. The destructive wave of emotion had +risen in me, rolled through me and gone by. The struggle was over, +and I lived again but to work. I stood on the rug rolling a +cigarette, and lighted it leisurely, trying to recall a respectable +calm, and when I had fairly succeeded I went out and downstairs. I +came into the dining-room and found my father still there, looking +through a budget of political pamphlets that had just come in by the +post. + +He looked up, and I met his eyes with a laugh. + +"I have decided not to look out for a vacancy in the shoeblack +line," I said; "but to go on--up the hill. Is there any claret or +water or soda about--I don't much care what it is?" + +"There is claret and soda too--there on the cheffonier. What a pity +it is, Victor, you are so unreasonable! You make yourself look +deplorably ill about every trifle! You are certainly trying to find +a short cut out of the world! Why don't you take things more +easily?" + +"I am as I am," I muttered. "I'm going out now," I said, when I had +finished the soda. + +"I'm going to look Howard up. I have got a new plan of work if he'll +join me in it. I shall see." + +My father elevated his shoulders as much as to say, Some new phase +of dementia, I suppose, and I went out. + +I took the underground to Baker Street, and thence two minutes' walk +brought me to the house I wanted. Howard was a friend of mine, an +intimate friend, though, strictly speaking, from his character he +ought not to have been. + +As a general rule I steer clear of friendships with men who are very +much opposed to me in character; it saves a lot of bother in the +end. However, in this case, although I believed Howard to be a weak, +worthless, untrustworthy individual, I could not help liking him. He +was talented and of a pleasing--at least to me--personality. When I +came into his room he was sitting reading in a long chair by the +fire. + +"Oh! is that you, Vic? Come in," he said, turning a good-looking +discontented face towards me, not improved just now by the effects +of a severe attack of jaundice. + +"How are you?" I said, shaking his saffron-hued hand. + +"Pretty beastly. And you?" + +"Your remark might serve, I think," I said, taking a chair opposite +him. + +"Aren't you any better?" and I scanned his face closely. + +He was not more than twenty, and had a singularly fine type of +countenance. + +"Oh yes, thanks! Crawling on." + +"Any news?" + +"None, I think, except that I've broken with Kitty." + +I laughed. + +"I knew you'd have to!" I said. "Did I not say so from the first? I +felt sure you could never stand her!" + +"I am rather sorry, for she was very pretty; but the last straw she +put upon me was too much. I couldn't--after that--no, I couldn't, +really." + +"What was it?" I said, laughing, as he shook his head dubiously and +looked meditatively into the fire. + +"Why, I sent her a sonnet--at least, no, a verse--and we were +talking about it afterwards, I had written--" + + 'And leaning sideways, looks, and lifts + The tresses of her heavy hair.' + +"See?" + +I nodded. + +"Well, she objected to the adjective 'heavy,' and wanted me to +insert another. What word do you think she suggested?" + +"Can't say at all. Golden, perhaps!" + +"Worse!" he answered, with a groan. "Golden is hackneyed but still +conceivable. No--Crimpy! my dear fellow! Think of it!" + +I went into a fit of laughter. + +"Heavens! well I must say I never should have thought of that," I +said. "What a fearful girl. And what did you say?" + +"Say! I tried to explain to her the awfulness of it, the +incongruity, but no, she couldn't see it! We jawed about it for a +couple of hours with the result that our engagement is now off!" + +"Good. I am very glad to hear it; but perhaps a Breach of Promise +will come on?" + +"Can't help it. Anything would be better than to go through life +with a girl who didn't feel there are some things no fellar can do; +and one of them, that he can't put a word like crimpy in his +sonnet." + +"Been doing any work?" + +"Yes; one poem. Like to see it?" + +"Very much." + +He got up and went to a table littered all over with papers-- +written, printed, and blank. After a time he extracted the one he +wanted, handed it to me, and then flung himself into the chair +again. + +"Whew! This title won't do. 'The Hermaphrodite!' That's far too +alarming for the British public." + +"Oh, bother! Well, go on. Read the poem." + +I did so in silence. + +"First-rate," I said, when I had finished. "Not a weak line in it. +Not a single weak line. And there's nothing to prevent its being +taken even in this d----d England, I think. The title's the worst +part. You'll have to alter that." + +"Why? Swinburne has a poem, 'Hermaphroditus.'" + +"Yes--in a volume; and there it's Latinised; and then Swinburne has +made his name, which of course is everything. If you want to make +your debut before the English reading world you must do so with 'Ode +to my father's tombstone,' or something of that sort!" + +"Well, if you think Latin would improve it, let's put 'Duplexus' as +its title," he answered, laughing and trying to snatch back the +paper. + +"Not on any account!" I said. "That would sound cynical, and cynical +when you're unknown you must not be." + +"Oh, well, there! I leave it to you to find a title! I don't care +what it's called." + +I looked through the verses trying to catch an idea for a name. +Numbers suggested themselves to me, but none sufficiently vague and +indefinite to suit the English ear. At last I said-- + +"Do you think Linked Spheres would do?" + +"Linked Spheres?" replied Howard, with elevated brows. "What on +earth has that to do with the subject?" + +"Well, I have taken it from this line where you say, 'And in his +brain are two divided worlds of thought.'" + +"But I say that they are divided--divided isn't linked!" + +"No, I quite admit it. But though divided they must be linked to a +certain extent by being both within his brain. It is not quite right +though, because the walls of the skull might, by encircling the two +worlds, be said to unite them, but they could not 'link' anything. I +follow all that, and I don't think the title is particularly +artistic. It's not clear enough. Your own is much better from the +view of intrinsic fitness. But the beauty of Linked Spheres is its +indistinctness. You must not be too clear. That has been my great +fault--perspicuity--and I am beginning to see it now. It has fatally +barred my getting on. I always do try to make people see exactly +what I mean, and that is apparently a mistake. When I write about +passion everybody feels it is passion, and is shocked in +consequence. When another fellow writes about it you feel he is +trying to say something, but you are not quite sure what, and so it +doesn't matter." + +"'Muddle it! muddle it!' must be your watchword if you want to pass +muster through the British press. Linked Spheres is a splendid +muddle--very indefinite, quite void of connection with the subject +in hand, and with a pleasant tinkle about the sound, just like +Gladstone's speeches! Linked Spheres! It's impossible, for how the +deuce would you link a sphere? Metaphor all wrong, and no one will +know in the least what you mean, but it sounds pleasant and +polished, and perfectly proper, and you'll find your editor will +swallow the poem at a gulp." + +Howard laughed. + +"You're in an awful huff, Victor, with the British press, that's +clear!" + +I laughed too. + +"Yes I am, I admit it, and all this leads up to the question I came +to ask you this afternoon. Will you come over to Paris with me? I am +going." + +I got up and leant against the mantel-piece, pushing a place clear +for my elbow on it between a bottle of liqueur and a copy of "The +Holy Grail." + +"You're great at springing mines upon one. Paris? why Paris? And how +can you tear yourself away from Lucia?" + +"I wish you would not pronounce that word as if it rhymed with +Fuchsia," I said. + +"Well, how do you want me to pronounce it?" + +"You know quite well its Lu-chee-ah, and the accent is on the middle +syllable, not the first." + +"Oh, all right: Lu-CHEE-ah. Ah! what a mouthful! I would rather say +Miss Grant!" + +"It might be as well if you did," I said, coldly. + +Howard looked at me and opened his eyes. + +"You are uncommonly sticky to-day," he said, kicking a very old +slipper off his swinging foot and catching it on the toe again. + +"Well, what about Paris? Let's hear." + +"I am so sick of this rotten, wishy-washy England. They won't take +my things as they stand, and I'm not going to write 'Tales of my +First Feeding Bottle' to please them. So I'm going over to Paris. I +shall turn my MSS. into French and publish them there. The language +lends itself to perfect lucidity, and the Paris press allows men to +write as men. Besides, the French admire word-painting, which is my +particular vein. The English don't. They like composition. Here an +author's pen must remain always a stick dipped in ink. It must never +become what mine is--a painter's brush, wet, dripping, overflowing +with oil colour. It struck me you might care to come too, and do the +same with your verse. If so--come, by all means." + +I looked down at his intelligent face and hoped he would come. +Selfish, conceited, and self-sufficient as I may be, there is a +strand of weakness made up in my composition that forces me to find +the companionship of another intellect whenever possible. + +"Yes; I'll come," he answered after a minute, getting on to his feet +and thrusting both hands into his pockets with an energetic air. +"I'm rather dubious about the books and the translation business; +but anyway we can have a high old time in Paris!" + +"But look here, Howard," I returned, "whether I succeed or not, I am +not meditating having any high old time, or rather what you mean--a +low old time. I'm going there to work." + +"Oh, we all know you're a saint!" he said derisively. "But--'A +doubtful throne is ice on summer seas!' We shall see how long your +virtue lasts at La Scala and in the Champs Elysees, with Lucia +safely packed away in England!" + +I smiled and raised my eyebrows in silence. The point was not worth +discussing. Howard and I looked at some things from such an +enormously different level that conversation on them was merely +waste of time. It was as if a man upon a cliff started a +dissertation with another in a boat lying on the sea beneath. Half +the excellent arguments would drift away upon the wind, lost, +rendered nil by the mere difference of level in the two planes. The +two main chains that bound my whole psychological system--self- +control and self-respect--were entirely absent in him. He looked at +his every good action from the point of utility, at his every bad +one from the point of secrecy. He would do the first if it were +useful to him, and the last if it were secret. These, I believe, +were the only two conditions that ever occurred to him. He was weak, +even contemptible, in character, and I could not help clearly seeing +it, but my friendship to him was won over by his talents, and by a +certain good-tempered, easy, pleasant way he had. Widely different +though we were, we had never had a quarrel. We got on together +perfectly, and he might say things to me that would have offended me +from an other man. Liking! Liking! What is it? It is as difficult to +define, as impossible to imprison between the limits of motives and +reasons, of "Whys" and "becauses," as Loving. I liked Howard, or +rather I liked his society, which is not the same thing. Often the +people who are the most disappointing in the great issues of life +are the pleasantest to live with through the trifles of everyday +existence and vice versa. I would not have trusted Howard in a +crisis for any consideration, but then crises don't come every day, +and he was delightful to discuss a chapter or a sonnet with. + +"When are you going, by the way? Not to-morrow, I hope, for behold +this room!" and he glanced round helplessly. + +It was certainly in the most frightful of literary confusions. +Masses of loose papers, letters, bills, poems, drifted over the +tables; books stood in piles upon the floor; newspapers occupied the +chairs. + +"No, next week. Shall we say Saturday?" + +"All right. I'll be ready by then. Cross--evening, I suppose?" + +"Very likely. But I shall see you again," I said, looking at my +watch. "By Jove! close to seven. I must go. Try and get rid of that +confounded jaundice. Good-bye!" + +Howard extended his hand. + +"By the way, what about the tin? Can you manage?"-- + +"Oh yes! That's all right," I said. + +I was Howard's bank, upon which he drew fitfully and spasmodically: +that is to say, when any expensive little fancy seized him. He +always insisted on giving me I.O.U.'s and acknowledgments for the +sums he borrowed, which I as regularly tore in pieces and put in the +fire. I was half way down the stairs when I ran back and opened his +door again. + +"Howard!" + +"Hullo!" + +"Have you a copy of that verse? I have not half studied it this +evening." + +"What?" he said, looking round his chair back. "Your precious Linked +Spheres? Yes; take that one if you like." + +I took up the paper. + +"Thanks!" I said, and re-descended the stairs. + +Going down Baker Street, I stopped at the first lamp-post, and read +some lines of it again. A glow of admiration, almost of affection, +towards the curious lines, full of nascent genius, lit slowly in me. + +"Splendid! magnificent!" I muttered. "If not here, I'll see it's got +out in Paris." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +The next week saw myself and Howard installed in Paris. We had two +large, comfortable rooms on the second floor, opening into each +other, well furnished and upholstered in every way as sitting-rooms, +as most of the French bedrooms are. + +They faced a corner where several boulevards met and diverged, and +there was a constant stream of Paris life flowing beneath our +windows every hour of the day. A balcony ran outside, and on this in +the evening we used to stand and smoke and flick paper balls on to +the heads of the grisettes and the bonnes passing far underneath. On +the ground floor of the hotel was a cafe that extended also over the +pavement with its chairs and tables, and was open to the general +public as well as to those who were staying in the hotel. + +Howard and I got on admirably as usual. Although we were so +different we had the common ground of a similarity in intellect. On +all strictly intellectual subjects, in psychological discussions, on +points of artistic merit, we seldom differed. His brain was, when he +chose to exert it, singularly brilliant, and in a companion this +compensates me for everything else almost that is wanting. I could +not certainly have lived in the same intimacy with a fool who had +been as high principled, as moral, and as sober as Howard was the +reverse of all these. Our mode of life was very different, as +naturally it would be, since I had come with a predetermination to +do nothing but work, and he with an equally strong one to idle his +days away in the most enjoyable manner he could invent. For myself, +I was fairly content with the prospect before me. Work I was +accustomed to, and it was easy. A new idea for a manuscript had +begun to hover fitfully before my mental vision, and was gradually +absorbing my thoughts into itself. Had I been able to write to and +hear from Lucia I should have been satisfied, but my father had made +the absence of all correspondence between us a sine qua non of my +coming here. When I had heard this I had looked at him with some +little amusement. Such a stipulation as this seemed to me to have +only one interpretation--he hoped and thought I should forget her! + +"What is the meaning of this?" I asked. "What can be the benefit of +it? How can the fact of our writing or not writing be of importance? +Do you think I shall ever relinquish Lucia? I am resigned to wait as +long as must be, but I am utterly determined to have her in the +end." + +To which my father had answered grimly with a smile,-- + +"Very well, my dear Victor, see that you get her!" + +Which remark had made me grind my teeth and then laugh and shrug my +shoulders. + +"And you won't permit a letter a month?" + +"No." + +"Oh, dressed in your little brief authority!" I thought, looking at +him. Then I said-- + +"Very good--I agree." + +"I consider I have your word that you will not write, nor hear from +her, directly or indirectly, within this year?" + +"Certainly you have." + +And so the matter was settled. + +When Lucia heard of it, we met each other's eyes, and she elevated +her eyebrows, and a faint smile curved her lips. + +"It will make no difference," she murmured, and nothing more. + +After all, I don't know that I cared very greatly about the letters. +It was Lucia herself that I wanted--nothing less. It gives me very +little pleasure to read a letter, and I never have understood the +cherishing locks of hair and dead roses business. + +The desire for the presence of the living personality is too sharp- +edged to let me feel satisfaction in substitutory objects and vague +associations. To have put my hand round Lucia's living throat; yes, +that would have been a keen delight, but I was not dead set on +possessing myself of her handkerchief that I might kiss in private. +I had one portrait of her--that was all--and that I rarely looked +at. + +The first thing I did in Paris was to find a translator for Howard's +poem, which, after a time, appeared in one of the literary papers in +its French dress, and returned to its original title. He came to me +suddenly one evening with a contemporary paper in his hand, and the +flush of gratified talent, and the pride that is its first cousin, +kindling in his face. + +"Look here, Vic!" he said; "isn't this first-class? Here's a +critique on my verses, and just see how they crack them up!" + +I took the paper and read the paragraph, Howard leaning over my +shoulder and resting his knee on the arm of my chair. When I had +finished I looked up at him. + +"Not a word more than it deserves, old man!" I said. "Now you +realise, don't you, what you can be and do if you choose!" + +"Yes. Well, really, if all that's true, I ought to make some sort of +a name some day, eh?" + +And for a time it seemed that a lasting impression had been made +upon him. He seemed to feel that elation and enthusiasm stir in him +which makes it a joy to the genius to renounce all for his work. +With regard to my own manuscripts, I sent some of them, in English, +to one of the French publishing firms, and there ensued a blank of +three weeks. At the end of that time I received a peremptory note +inviting me to call at their office. When I presented myself I was +shown into a bare, square room, where an august little man was +standing, using a silver toothpick. He was short, with a large-sized +lower chest; bald, with a short, grey beard cut to a sharp point; +waxed moustache ends, sticking out ferociously; and brown eyes, keen +with intelligence. He bowed elaborately. + +I could speak French, he supposed. + +I assented, and the conversation then went on very fast. + +Monsieur's works had been read by their Anglo-French reader and +highly approved. There was no doubt that Monsieur possessed a +talent, a talent that he would say was--colossal. At the same time, +these works were all too English in tone to catch the taste of the +Parisian world, and Monsieur had seemed to put a restraint upon his +pen, that rendered his works a touch too cold. + +Great heavens! how I raised my eyebrows at that; remembering that in +England I had been always rejected on account of being too warm. + +Now, his proposition was this:--If Monsieur felt disposed to write a +manuscript, in which the scene should be laid in France, and some of +the characters, at least, be French, and also allow himself a little +greater latitude, then he should be delighted to put the manuscript +in the hands of their very best translator, and give it out to an +audience that, above all things, admired vigour. + +I heard all this with satisfaction. The offer meant a lot more work +for me, but I did not mind that, with success--dear success--in +view. I closed with his proposition at once, and after some +formalities and details had been gone into and settled, I rushed +home to tell Howard. + +So, for a time, settled into working intellectual grooves, our life +ran on quietly from day to day with a fair prospect on ahead of us. + +And then came an unlucky incident which jerked the wheels of +Howard's existence out of the narrow, hard line of effort, and after +that they ran along anyhow, sometimes on and sometimes off it, and +kept me in dread of a total smash. The Champs Elysees were full of +the late afternoon sunlight, and we sauntered slowly, criticising +the occupants of the various carriages rolling up to the great arch +of Napoleon, and arguing in a broken, desultory way on our usual +subject of talk--literature. + +Howard was on the outside, nearest the road, walking on the actual +kerb, and flicking up the leaves in the gutter, as he talked, with +the point of his cane. As we strolled, with our eyes more or less +directed on the string of vehicles moving in the centre of the sunny +road, we noticed one small, black brougham going the same way as +ourselves, that seemed conspicuous by being closed amongst the rest +of the open victorias. Suddenly it detached itself from the line of +other carriages and dashed up alongside of the pavement where we +were walking. Its wheels ground in the gutter, and I caught Howard's +arm to draw him more on to the pavement. + +"Look out!" I exclaimed. "What a way to drive!" I added, as the +coachman whipped up his horses and drove on some fifty yards, close +to the kerb. There he pulled up abruptly. The door of the brougham +was pushed open and a woman got out. Such a figure it was that +outlined itself in the sunny light, standing on the white trottoir, +and with the vista of the Champs Elysees behind it--a form seductive +in every line, with a fine hip, and a tiny arched foot that tapped +the pavement impatiently. + +"What's up?" I said to Howard. "Whom is she waiting for, I wonder?" + +A few steps more brought us up to her, and then, to our +astonishment, she turned fully towards me, and said in her own +language,-- + +"Will you come and dine with me this evening, Monsieur? The carriage +will take us home now!" + +We both stopped short. There was a second of blank amaze, and the +woman's face stamped itself on our startled vision;--the eyes, +liquid and gleaming, behind a veil of black lashes; the smooth firm +nose, with its raised and tremulous nostril; the oval of either +cheek, with the damask glow in it; and the curled mouth of deepest +crimson, with the essence of sensuous languor in its curve. + +For a second we stared at it in the sunlight, and that second +sufficed to let us take in the situation; and there was something in +her words and tone of confidence, and something of authority in the +way she pointed to her carriage, that annoyed me. + +"Thank you! I only dine with my friends," I answered coldly. + +I suppose she was not insensible to the contempt in my tone and eyes +as I looked down on her, for her next words came in a more humble, +ingratiating voice. + +"Make me one of them, then, Monsieur!--at once;" and she smiled--a +lovely smile on such a mouth. Howard stood in silence, staring at +her. I was very much amused and a little annoyed. + +"You flatter me!" I returned, satirically; "but I have as many as I +want already." + +Howard broke in. + +"Won't you extend your invitation to me?" he said, eagerly, and she +threw a quick side-glance over him. + +"I can't invite you both--at the same time!" she said, with a laugh +and a little Parisian shrug; and then she looked at me again with a +look that one would say was abominable or charming, according as +one's particular mood at the moment was. + +My mood was not such as to condemn it. + +My next words were simply said for me, as it were, by my long habit +of self-restraint. + +"My presence is not in the question at all, to embarrass you," I +said, curtly, and added to Howard-- + +"We may as well go on." + +But that was not at all his view. + +"Ask me," he said, with his shaky French accent; "I'll come!" and he +put his hand on her arm, with a glance that matched her own. She +seemed pretty well indifferent which of us it should be, and she +merely said imperiously,-- + +"Come, then!" and with a grimace over her shoulder at me, +disappeared into her brougham again. + +Howard would have followed instantly, but I seized his arm. + +"What are you doing?" I said in English. "Is it worth it, Howard? +You may regret it. She is probably some married woman!" + +Howard wrenched himself free from me. + +"Don't talk to me! I'm not the fellow to refuse a jolly good lark +when it's offered to me!" + +He flung himself into the brougham without another word, drew the +door to after him, and they were gone, whirling up the Champs +Elysees, leaving me standing on the kerb looking after the polished +black back of the brougham receding and growing small in the +distance. + +"Well!" I thought, "if another fellow had told me this tale, I +should have thought it a howler!" + +The suddenness of the whole thing had taken my breath away, and I +must have stood there many seconds in confused thought, in which a +flexible form and arched foot took a prominent part. + +When I roused myself I saw Nous was lying down beside me with the +patience of a philosopher, and catching the flies that buzzed along +the sunny pavement--to kill time. + +I called him, and went on up toward the Arc. + +"I couldn't have done otherwise," I thought. I knew I did not wish +to have done otherwise. I knew I should say again exactly the same +if the brougham were again before me, but yet-- + +"I want nothing now that I have my work on hand," I told myself, as +the arched foot went on before me up the pavement. + +"By-and-by"--but then life seemed all by-and-bys for me. + +I shortened my walk. Everything seemed to jar upon my nerves. I went +back to the hotel by a quiet way, and then up to the empty room to +work. + +Howard did not return for a couple of days. On the third I was +sitting after dinner at one of the tables outside the hotel cafe, +smoking, under the line of trees that edge the Paris kerb, when a +fiacre drew up at my very elbow, and Howard got out. He did not see +me for a minute, engaged with paying the cocher and hunting for a +pourboire, and then he was just going straight across the lighted +trottoir into the hotel when I called to him. + +"Hullo, Vic! there you are!" he said, turning back. "I didn't see +you under the tree." + +He came back and drew up a chair, with a scraping sound, to the +opposite side of my table, leant his elbows upon it, and pushed his +hat back. There was a blaze of light, all across the pavement to +where we were sitting, from the windows and open glass doors of the +cafe. He looked well and uncommonly jolly; a man who lives his life, +such as it is, without thought, without reflection, and without +philosophy--who views the passing hour without grudging, the past +without regret. + +"You look awfully seedy," he said. "Anything up?" + +"No," I answered. "Well? 'How have we sped in this contest?' How +went the dinner?" + +"I'll tell you," he said, turning round to secure a passing garcon. +"Let's get hold of a drink first. Oh, she's got a jolly place!" he +said, when the garcon, and eventually the drink, had been captured. +"Nice house and all that. She's married, as you said, and of very +good family. Received everywhere, you know." + +"Husband at the dinner?" I asked laconically. + +"No; husband gone to Tunis on business." + +"Expected back to-day, I suppose?" + +"No, to-morrow." + +"Pity." + +"Yes. You should have gone, Vic! She'd have satisfied you! Lovely +figure! I never knew a lovelier!" + +I said nothing. + +"What did you think of her stopping us like that?" he went on after +a minute. + +"I thought it consummate cheek," I said. "I should not have believed +it if it hadn't actually happened before my eyes." + +"Yes, it was cheeky; but do you know, she is not very cheeky, +really. An awfully nice woman, and very clever. But aren't these +Parisiennes queer? You can't imagine any woman doing such a thing in +England, can you?" + +"Hardly." + +"It seems she had seen us once before. It was you she wanted, not +me. Why didn't you go, you duffer? I only came in a bad second!" + +I laughed. + +"She had read my things and likes them. Do you know, I think it is +rather a good thing I have met her, it will urge me to do more-- +don't look at me 'in that tone of voice,' I am sure it will, really, +Victor!" + +"Are you going to see her again, then?" I asked. + +"Yes, oh yes!" + +"When the husband next visits Tunis, I suppose?" + +"Yes, and before that, even when he's here. She is going to +patronise my talent--see?" + +"I see." + +"I must write my next thing to her, of course. It's a nuisance being +hampered with this beastly French language!" + +And then the conversation went on. We sat there and talked and +argued from the particular to the general, and back again, until the +waiters came and cleared the chairs off the pavement and began to +turn out the lights in the cafe--and it was a conversation after +which I slept badly. + +After this incident I saw less of Howard, and our lives ran farther +and farther apart. I grew more and more absorbed in the developing +manuscript. He grew more and more taken up in the stream of +amusement he had entered. He wrote very little. A couple of lines +that had occurred to him perhaps at the theatre, and were jotted +hastily on the edge of a programme, was all that a whole week +produced. And even these would have been lost through his +carelessness but for me. + +The days were generally divided between headache and sleep; the +nights between the theatre and drink. I regretted it; and this life +that was being wasted, poured out in uselessness, within my sight +oppressed me. I should hardly have noticed it with another man, but +I knew that this one had been planned for higher things. + +I used to try and rouse in him his pride and love for himself, or, +at any rate, for his talent. I used to insist on his hearing me read +sometimes those disconnected lines that his own brain, dulled by +drink, had almost forgotten. + +"Are they not splendid?" I would say; "and you are the author! You +are their parent, Howard! Think! Any man could lead the life you are +leading! not one in a thousand could produce these lines!" + +Howard would look at me suspiciously with heavy eyes. + +"Are you sure I wrote that? I don't think I remember it!" + +What a crime! + +"I know you did," I would answer, and then urge him to give every +day and night in the week, if he liked, to pleasure except one--"let +one be sacred to work!" + +"And just think," he would answer, lazily, "if I were dying, how +those days and nights wasted would come and stare me in the face!" + +"Wasted! in the building of such lines as these?" + +"But what's the good of them when they are built? They don't make me +enjoy life!" + +And he pursued his own path and I could not stop him. I hoped and +thought he would get tired after a time of the Paris halls and +drunken nights and sick headaches, but I waited in vain. He had +gradually got intimate with the back as well as the front of the +scenes, and this I liked less than anything. The state of Howard's +finances, too, threw an extra weight of responsibility on me, for he +must have trodden a straighter road, and perhaps he would have +worked more if he had had less money. And the money--his superfluous +cash--came generally from me. His own allowance was small; just +enough to keep him and no more. Gifts, under the name of loans, from +me supplied all extras, and filled all deficiencies and gaps. What +could I answer when he used to say, "Dear old boy! let me have +another twenty!" And yet I knew it was handing him the razor to cut +his throat. I hoped the sight of another fellow working as +persistently as I did would have been an encouragement to him to +make some sort of effort himself, but he looked upon me as a +misguided creature, and took pains not to follow my example. + +"How do you know that you will ever marry Lucia? or make a success +of your books or anything?" he asked me one evening as we went +upstairs after dinner, he to dress before going to La Scarletta, I +to work on the MS. + +"You are working for an uncertainty, a dream. It may never come off, +and then where will you be. Now, at least, I know what I am going to +have this evening. Such enjoyment as there is I get it, and there's +an end of it, and no worry about it. As for you, you are all worry; +and even granted that you get, in the end, something superlatively +satisfactory, why, it will hardly make up to you for all you have +gone through to get it!" + +I said nothing. We had got up to our rooms by this time, and I flung +myself into the easy chair. + +Howard went into his room and brought back his dress shoes to put +them on in mine, that he might follow up his argument. + +"Now, look here, Vic, which of us two fellows is the most ready to +go out of the world? In the Bible or prayer-book or somewhere we are +told to live so that we may be willing and prepared to die any +minute. Well, that's just what I do. I haven't a scrap of a tie to +life. I don't think there will be anything better in it than what I +have had already. I'd go to-morrow. But you, you would not like it a +bit, and you can't deny it. You have got all the ties of your +unsatisfied desires. You want to get Lucia--you want to make your +name. You would be awfully cut up now if you were told you were +going to be bundled out of life in ten minutes; and I--I shouldn't +care!" + +Howard had finished fastening his patent shoes, and now sat back in +his chair, one leg crossed over the other, and his hands behind his +head. + +"Being brought into life is just like being invited to a feast from +which you may be called away at any minute. Well, if you have eaten +and drunk to satiety you will be only too glad to get up and go away +and sleep. But if you have sat at the table, hungering all the time +and repressing yourself, then, when the sudden call comes, and you +must rise and leave it for ever, think what a misery and bitterness +to be dragged away from the brilliant table, with all its dishes and +its wines untasted, its flowers unsmelt, and be crammed away into +the darkness--hungry, thirsty, and unsatisfied. Take my word for it, +Vic, you'll have a bad five minutes on your deathbed!" + +I listened in silence. I felt ill and dispirited and disinclined for +talk. + +"That's all Horace. I don't care much about Latin as a whole, but I +do think he is splendid. I'd have that book made the general +testament. I'd have it taught in all the Board Schools and sworn on +in the Law Courts. I'd have every fellow take it as a guide through +life; if he really acts up to it, it ensures his happiness. Its +philosophy beats all the religions hollow. ' Take the day.' 'Put no +trust in to-morrow.' ' Seek not to know the future; whatever it is, +bear it.' 'Each night be able to say I have lived.' 'Retire from +life, satisfied, as from a banquet.' And so on ad lib. You know it +all, Victor. You were brought up upon it, but you haven't profited +by it--not a scrap. Well, I'm going!" + +He leant forward, picked up his shoes, and went into his own room. +It was about twelve when he came in that night and found me just +finishing off a chapter. The fire had gone out from neglect; the +window stood open and the lace curtains waved in the damp night +wind. Howard stalked across the room and banged the glass doors +shut, and told me it was beastly cold in here. I was just fully +absorbed in the closing passages of my scene, and felt a nervous +irritation at being interrupted. + +"There's a fire-lighter behind the scuttle, throw it into the grate +and you'll soon have a blaze," I said, without looking up. + +Howard drew off his lavender gloves and flung them down on the +table. One fell on the last sheet I had written. + +"Confound you! do be careful!" I muttered, picking it up, and +noticing the great blur it left on the page. "The sheets are wet." + +"It doesn't matter, they're not a new pair!" answered Howard, +coolly, going down on his knees to light up the fire. He +accomplished this in a few minutes, and then settled down in the +long chair with a cigar. I wrote on feverishly, expecting to be +addressed and interrupted every moment. It was a great bore his +coming in just now, disturbing me. I had a difficult thing to +express, and I was just pursuing the tail end of an idea I could not +quite grasp. My pen hovered uncertainly over the paper. I could not +exactly give words to the impression in my brain, and the sense that +he was going to speak, about to speak each second, worried me. At +the same time I never wished to be ungracious to Howard when he did +return to our rooms; never wished to feel it was my execrably bad +company that induced him to stay away from them all night instead of +half. + +"I say, Vic!" + +"Well?" + +"Do you know that kissing song Embrasse moi?" + +I nodded. + +"Don't you think it awfully fetching? I like that refrain so much-- +Embrasse moi, chumph! chumph!--and then the orchestra exactly +imitates the sound of a kiss--then Encore une fois!! chumph! chumph! +Don't you?" + +"Yes; it isn't bad." + +Silence. + +"Victor!" + +"What?" + +"La Faina was there to-night!" + +"Oh!" + +"Do you know her?" + +"I've heard of her." + +Silence. + +"Vic!" + +"Yes?" + +"Do you know what Faina means?" + +"Of course I do!" + +"Do you think it a nice name?" + +"Not particularly." + +"Well, it's better than Grille d'Egout anyway, isn't it?" + +"About on a par, I should say." "How many frills do you think she +had on her petticoat?" + +"Oh, I don't know--forty!" + +"No; four. I counted them. Her figure is not much up atop, but +her"-- + +"Oh, stow all that!" I interrupted; "there's a good fellow, I'm just +doing a convent interior." + +"All right. The rest is silence. Ah!" with a yawn, and getting up to +saunter round the room, "that's a jolly good song--Embrace moi! +chumph! chumph! Encore une fois!! chumph! chumph!" + +He did not address me again, but somehow my ideas were scattered. +The convent scene went wrong. Ballet dancers seemed standing in the +aisle where nuns should have been kneeling, and, after a second or +so, I flung my pen down and pushed away the paper. + +"Done?" exclaimed Howard, delightedly. + +"Yes," I said simply, rising. + +"Come and have a smoke," he said, drawing up both easy chairs to the +fire. + +I took the cigar he offered and sat down. Howard threw himself into +the other chair, crossed his legs, and proceeded to give me an +account of his experiences. I suppose I was rather silent, for after +a time he broke in upon himself by saying abruptly,-- + +"Are you very savage with me for interrupting your work?" + +"Savage?" I repeated. "Oh, no! the work can wait, I get plenty of +time at it!" Perhaps he misunderstood me, and my words conveyed to +him more than I meant. Any way, the next afternoon he came home +early to dine with me, and afterwards, when I was speaking of the +evening's work, he came up to me where I stood at the mantelpiece +and took something out of his pocket with a confident air. + +"I've brought you something," he said, and he thrust suddenly into +my hand--under my eyes--a photograph. + +My glance fell full on it, and I saw distinctly what it was--a full- +length figure of the danseuse Faina. Traditionally, perhaps, I ought +to have flung it into the fire--any way the grate--or torn it up. +But I am not fond of throwing other, people's things into the fire, +nor of tearing them up, simply because they offend my own views. He +had no right, perhaps, to thrust it upon me as he had, but that fact +would not, in my opinion, constitute my right to destroy it. So I +merely laid it on the mantelpiece. + +"Extraordinary thing! Where did you pick that up?" + +"Faina sent it to you with her love, and an invitation to supper to- +night after the last 'turn,'" replied Howard, rolling a cigarette, +sticking it with his lips, and looking at me over it. + +"Oh! really? "I said, drily. + +"Why, Victor, you've quite coloured up!" said Howard with a sort of +derisive triumph. + +I felt I had. Why? I can hardly say. The word "love," the sudden +view of the portrait, dashed, whirling headlong over each other, +through my brain, followed by a sort of hazy cloud, out of which +looked two azure eyes. + +"She is very lovely, isn't she?" Howard remarked affectionately, +setting the card upright against the wall. + +"Very--in her own way," I assented. + +I admitted it willingly, with pleasure. Why not?--an evident fact. +The blue slime in a blocked gutter of the road is very lovely also. + +"Well, I'm going there to-night, because I admire the sister, and +you must come, too. You are killing yourself by sticking to the work +in the way you do. Come along! Where's the harm? Lucia will never +know. I won't split. God's in heaven and the Czar's a long way off! +So you may as well come and knock about a little. This monotonous +life will put an end to you!" + +I was silent. + +"Lucia won't know," he repeated. + +"There's no question of Lucia's knowing anything," I said. + +"Then why do you work as you do, and always refuse to come to a +supper, or a dance, or anything? You can't be really a quiet fellow +or you wouldn't write things the English won't have. You say it's +not a question of Lucia--then what the dickens is it that makes you +live the life you do?" + +I did not answer him. I leant in silence against the mantelpiece, +staring absently at the portrait of Faina, and Howard got tired of +waiting for my answer. He went to dress, and I sat down at the +writing-table, absently sketching women's heads on my blotting +paper. Should I go with him or not? I felt tired of writing, tired +of work. Wine, laughter, sound, smiles, other voices?--Then four +points rose before me, very distinct and clear, like sharp mountain +peaks from a valley of mist. + +FIRST. Supposing--if such a thing were possible--supposing on coming +out of this house I came face to face with Lucia, should I be +entirely pleased. + +NEXT. Should I, when the present inclination were over, have a +satisfactory memory of this supper. + +NEXT. Did I habitually mean to spend my evenings in this way? + +LAST. Was it worth while spoiling a record for the sake of a single +deviation? + +I answered No to each of these as they came before me in order, with +the upshot that I determined not to go. When Howard came in again I +looked up. He was dressed to the Enth, and as I glanced at his good- +looking, intelligent face, I thought how incongruous it seemed for +him to degrade himself with drink at this supper, and return, as he +probably would, a pitiable object to look at and listen to. + +"Going to work, eh?" + +I nodded. Howard hitched the cape of his overcoat straight, and went +out. As he shut the door I sprang suddenly to my feet. For a moment +the impulse towards distraction, amusement, relief from strain, +physical movement, overcame me. All the strong, ardent life rushed +up within me. A tremendous prompting came to shout after him, "Wait +a minute, Howard! I'll come, too, after all!" I was half way to the +door. Then I laughed and turned back. I went up to the mantelpiece +and unlocked the doors of a portrait frame that stood there, and +flung them open. It was the frame of Lucia's portrait, which, like +the temple of Janus, stood closed in times of peace and open in +times of war. Now was war, and I gazed at the picture within for +encouragement. There was equal sinuous, supple beauty in this form +as in that outline on the Paris card, that lay, perhaps, in the +pocket of every flaneur on the boulevards. I looked at the smooth, +perfect shoulders, and those soft arms that had never yet been drawn +round a lover's neck; at the extreme pride and dignity that lay in +every line of the form that had never been touched by a rough hand. +It swept from me in one gust the thoughts and tendencies struggling +to rise. It brought back all the old revolt from the lowest, all the +old admiration for the highest, in human nature. "Yes, you are worth +it," I muttered, looking hard at the chaste, exquisite pride in face +and form; "you are worth being worthy of, and I will not for an +evening, nor for an hour, make myself a brute that you would despise +if you knew his nature. Whether you ever know or not, what does that +matter? I must know. Shall I come back to feel your inferior? No! +Not a day, nor a night, shall there be, the history of which you +might not read." All my own pride was stirred as I looked at the +portrait of this woman, who, I knew, was absolutely pure, and I +would not now have followed Howard had my life depended on it. + +I gave the photograph of Faina, which still stood up against the +wall, a flick that sent it horizontal on the marble, and then, with +Lucia's eyes just above me, I sat down to write. + +Seven o'clock came, and the bright light pouring into the room over +the table covered with loose sheets of paper found me writing still. +I looked up, then back on the page, decided I need not add another +word, flung down my pen, leaned back in my chair, and proceeded to +light up a cigar. "Good!" I thought with lazy satisfaction, as my +eyes wandered over the completely covered table and the drying +sheets upon the floor. + +"It was a splendid inspiration that! Had I gone out last night, +infallibly I should have missed it." Just then I heard a blundering, +uncertain step upon the stair, and then a dig in the centre of the +door panel. + +I smiled. + +"How long will it take him to find the lock, I wonder?" I thought. + +The period was protracted. Round and round the keyhole did a shaky, +unsteady hand guide the wandering key. It scratched above, it dug at +the door beneath, while the low indistinct murmur of one repeated +word reached me within. At last, in sheer pity, I got up and opened +the door from the inside. Howard came unsteadily over the threshold, +and half blundered against me. His face was deadly pale; a bright +greenish shade lay close about his bloodshot eyes; his grey lips +shook. With difficulty he staggered to the chair opposite me and sat +down. I shut the door and resumed my seat and cigar. + +"Enjoy yourself?" I asked. + +He was not very steady on his feet, but fairly clear in his brain. + +"Yes. But it's no good--can't stand it," he murmured, pressing his +hand hard upon his head and across his eyes. + +His voice was little more than a gasp. + +"God!--this weakness"-- + +We sat without speaking. In the bright light, in a glass opposite, I +caught sight of my own face. I was as pale as he from work, as he +from pleasure. My eyes were as bloodshot as his from sleeplessness, +as his from drink. My hand shook as much as his from mental +excitement, as his from physical exhaustion. He was the +representative of those who sacrifice to-morrow for to-day. I, of +those who sacrifice to-day for to-morrow. And I wondered, as I +smoked on with his collapsed figure before me, which was the greater +fool. "Do neither" is the cry. "Take the gifts of to-day without +robbing to-morrow." Estimable rule, I agree, if you are fortunate +enough to have the chance of carrying it out. But very few of us +have. A man with Howard's constitution could only purchase the hours +last night with the hours of this morning. Success would not come to +me to-morrow unless I were willing to struggle for it to-day. + +"What did you drink?" I asked, after a pause. + +"Maraschino, cognac, and clic," he answered, and a gesture of his +hand and first finger showed he meant in the same glass. I laughed. + +"What a mixture! No wonder you're mixed yourself!" + +"Can't stand it!" he only muttered again. + +"No, you must sit it out or sleep it off now," I said, getting up +with a stretch. "Faina in good form?" + +"Magnificent--Vic, you should have been there!" + +"Thanks! yes, I think so!" I said, gathering up the precious pages +from the floor and table and piling them on a console. I wanted to +go and get my own breakfast, but the look of Howard's face, as it +lay against the chair back, bloodless, and the colour of ashes, made +me hesitate to leave him. + +"Can I get you anything?" I said. + +"No--help me into bed," he muttered, without opening his eyes, +moving his head restlessly from side to side. + +"Come along, then," I answered, bending over him; "here's my arm." + +He half raised his lids at that, and then feebly pushed a leaden +hand and arm through mine. There was a pause. He seemed unable to +make a farther movement, and sat, his head sunk into his chest, his +arm hanging through mine. + +"Come, Howard, make an effort," I said, after a minute, and he +staggered uncertainly to his feet. + +Getting him into the next room and into bed was a lengthy and +difficult matter, but at last, after protracted pauses, it was +effected, and he fell back upon the pillows--face and lips one tint +with the linen. I spoke to him, but I got no articulate answer, only +groans in response. + +"I am going to fetch you some coffee," I said, leaning over him. + +His eyes opened wide, and fixed upon me with a sort of helpless +terror. + +"No, no! don't go!--stay!" he whispered, clutching my wrist with his +damp, shaking fingers. "Stay--a minute." + +"But you want something to pull you round. I shan't be two seconds," +I answered, trying to unclasp his clinging fingers. + +"Never mind! Oh, Vic, for God's sake stay." + +There was an abject appeal in the bloodshot eyes, a desperate +tenacity in his clutch. He looked at me as if he dared look nowhere +else. Some horror seemed pressing upon his confused and weakened +brain, and I thought I could soothe him best by staying. + +"Very well--there, I'm not going," I said, reassuringly. + +Still he did not relax his grip upon me, but his eyes closed again, +and he seemed satisfied. I sat down on a chair at the bedside and +waited. The sun poured brighter and brighter through the blinds and +touched up the mantelpiece. + +The photograph of Faina's sister, surrounded by some others of her +set, was propped up in the centre of it, on a couple of paper +volumes. My own head was aching violently now, and after a time the +woman's figure on the glossy, sun-flecked surface of the card began +to sway and swim before my eyes as I looked lazily at it. + +The minutes passed by and Howard did not move. At last, I ventured +to try and withdraw my stiffening arm without rousing him, but at +the first movement his fingers tightened and his groans recommenced. + +After a time my hunger passed into drowsiness. I leant forward +gradually, and at last my head sank down on the edge of his bed, and +I drifted into oblivion. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +May had come round again. The days and weeks had glided by in a +monotony of work, varied by feverish blanks when I could do nothing, +and the pile of manuscript lay growing dusty in its corner. Then at +last the day arrived when the final line was written and the whole +despatched. That was three months back, three months of anxious +waiting, in which Howard had chaffed me daily on my looks and +health. + +"You're dwindling to a most interesting skeleton, Vic," he used to +say. "Catch me bothering myself about anything I wrote in the same +way." + +Now, however, it was over. I had just left the publisher's office. +The book had been accepted, and I was a free man. A gush of fresh +life ran through me and stirred in my veins in response to the fresh +life of spring that seemed in the sunny air, in the green leaves +fluttering round the Bourse, in the white butterflies that floated +across the dusty asphalt. + +When I got back I found Howard half asleep in the armchair. He sat +up as I came in, and regarded me with a confused stare. I saw he had +been drinking, but his brain was still tolerably clear. + +"Rejected, by Jove!" he remarked as he saw the MS. + +"No," I answered, throwing it on to a side table and myself into the +chair opposite him--"no, thank heaven, it's all right now! They've +accepted it. Congratulate me!" + +"But what on earth have you brought it back for, then?" he said, +blinking his heavy eyes and looking at me resentfully, as if he +suspected I was playing some practical joke. + +"Oh, there are a few things they want altered, that's all," I +answered. "I am to let them have it again the day after to-morrow." + +"And what about terms?" he continued, getting out a roll of +cigarette papers and beginning to roll himself some cigarettes. + +He was wide awake now, and had shaken off his intoxicated stupor. +His face was bent slightly as he made the cigarettes, so that I +could hardly see it. I sat watching his trembling fingers rolling +the papers in an absent silence. + +"Oh, terms?" I said at last. "Fairly good, I think. They pay me a +small sum and reserve me one-third of all profits from the book. I +really don't care much about the terms. Once the book is out my name +is made, and the money will come in all right in time. They've taken +it; that is the main point. If you knew the glorious relief it is to +me!" + +Howard laughed. He flung himself back in the chair and propped his +feet up against the support of the mantelpiece. + +"I think you are very lucky," he said. There was silence, then he +asked abruptly--"How much are they going to give you for it?" + +"Three thousand francs." + +Howard paled suddenly and fixed his eyes upon me. + +"And what will you do with it?" he asked, after a minute. + +"Well," I answered, without reflection, "I thought you would like +two thousand to send home and get rid of that half-yearly interest." + +The blood dyed all his face suddenly crimson, and he brought down +his feet upon the fender with a crash. + +"I wish to hell you'd wait till I asked you for it!" he said +savagely, springing up and crossing to the window. + +There he stood looking out with his hands thrust deep into his +pockets. I was fairly startled, and the colour rose uncomfortably in +my own face. + +It seemed, I almost felt, as if I had done something excessively +ill-bred. But Howard and I were on such intimate terms, and made so +little account of what we said to each other, that I had expressed +the thought uppermost in my mind at the moment of his question as a +matter of course. Then, too, he borrowed so constantly and so freely +from me that the idea of offence over money matters or mentioning +them seemed quite impossible. + +"No," I thought, glancing at him as he still stood between me and +the light; "there must be something else in his mind," and I +wondered. + +He was seldom out of temper, and seldom made himself disagreeable to +me. In conversation, in all our life together, he generally yielded +to me with an almost womanly compliance. His present tone and manner +were absolutely new to me. I did not understand them, and I liked +him well enough to take the trouble to get up after a second and +follow him to the window. + +"Howard," I said gently, "what is the matter? I am sorry if I have +annoyed you." + +He turned upon me suddenly from the window. + +"Did I ever say I wanted the money you might get from your cursed +book?" he said, passionately. "Do you suppose I couldn't get as much +for something of my own if I chose?" + +Now, considering Howard was always in want of money, and perpetually +lamenting his inability, real or imagined, to get it, the last +remark seemed rather odd, and the vehemence with which he spoke +against me was altogether incomprehensible. + +"Of course," I answered quietly, looking down into his excited face. +"I merely offered the money as a convenience, pro tem, as it +happened to be at hand, that's all. But surely it doesn't matter. +Perhaps I should not have done. I apologise. Doesn't that make it +square?" + +I thought he was out of health, irritable, disappointed that he had +not made more of his own work, and jealous of my success, and I was +willing to say anything to soften his feelings. + +Howard simply turned away from me again, and I caught a mutter of +"damned impertinence." + +Seeing it was useless to say anything further at the moment, I +strolled back into the centre of the room again, called Nous to me, +and sat down. + +"Jealous!" I thought, with contemptuous amusement; "how +extraordinary!" + +Then my thoughts rushed away in a sudden stream to Lucia, and I saw +her face, glowing with delight, look out upon me from the blank +surface of the wall. + +"How soon now shall I possess you?" was my one thought. "How long to +our marriage?" + +I began by allowing three months, but I shortened and shortened the +time till I cut it down to a fortnight. + +"Could I persuade her to let it be in a fortnight?" and I thought I +could. + +A quarter of an hour passed, and Howard had not moved from his +position in the window. A very little day-dreaming is enough for me, +especially about a woman. I yawned, stretched, and finally got up. + +"Howard," I said, "I'm going out for a turn with Nous, but I will +came back in time for dinner." + +I lingered, but he said nothing. I put on my hat, called the dog, +and went out. I started to walk to the Arc, and the distance there +and back would have taken me, as I had said, till our dinner hour, +but half way there the inclination failed. I felt tired and turned +back. + +"How utterly done up I feel!" I thought; "not worth anything. This +last book has thoroughly taken it out of me. Rest! Rest! That was +what I longed for now. My whole system seemed crying out for it. Of +all the benefits the just-accomplished work would bring, celebrity, +money, even, yes, even Lucia, seemed not so seductive in those +moments as the possibility of gratifying this intolerable mental and +physical craving for repose." + +As I walked home a sense of tranquillity, a quiet, peaceful feeling +of relief was transfused through me, and seemed communicated from +the mind to the body and to every nerve of my frame, as if I were +under the influence of some soothing drug. + +I reached the hotel considerably before the time I had mentioned to +Howard, and I supposed he would be out. However, as I came near I +saw that our window was well lighted up. In fact, there seemed an +unusually brilliant light in the room. Nous and I went up the +stairs. He seemed to know and feel his master's good spirits, and +kept licking my hand at intervals as he bounded up the stairs beside +me, and then outstripping me, he would wait on the landing above me +impatiently till I got there, in a hurry to race up the next flight. + +As I opened my door a peculiar scent of smoke reached me, and the +air was clouded and singularly warm. Howard was in the room, and I +could not make out at first what he was doing. He was crouching on +his heels in front of the grate and seemingly stirring or poking +something beneath the bars. Some, I can hardly define what, +instinct, guided my eyes to the side table where I had left my +manuscript. It was gone. At that instant: the wind from the wide +open window and door blew the lamp flame and stirred the curtains, +and a great sheet of whole black tinder drifted across the carpet up +to my feet. + +Then I knew--he was burning, or had burnt, my work. A flame was +dying down in the grate, filled and overflowing with ragged black +fragments. With a curse I sprang towards the fender, but Nous was +quicker than I. Either divining my intention, or made suspicious by +the queer, sinister look Howard's figure had, the dog flew upon him +with a growl, rolled him over and seized the clothing at his neck. + +In another instant I would have called him off, but Howard was an +inveterate coward. I saw his face turn livid with terror as the dog +pinned his throat to the floor. His hand stretched out convulsively +and grasped a long table knife that lay, together with the string +that had held my manuscript, beside him on the floor. He seized it, +and in an instant, before my eyes, he had plunged it deep into the +breast of the dog standing over him. It was all done in a second--a +flash. There was a gush of blood upon the floor, a broken moan from +Nous, and then he staggered and fell over on his side--motionless. + +Howard struggled breathless, white as death, to his feet. For one +second I stood transfixed, watching him with blazing eyes. Then one +step forward and I was upon him. My two hands closed like steel +round his throat, and by his head, thus, I dragged him from the +hearth out into the centre of the room. + +"You unutterable, unspeakable cur and devil!" I muttered, and I saw +his face blackening under my grip. + +A gust of wind passed through the room, blowing to the door with a +bang, and it whirled aloft, round us, broken and quivering pieces of +black tinder. The air was full of them. And the dead dog lay in a +pool of blood before us. It seemed to me that my brain was rocking +with the fury and rage I felt--my whole frame convulsed in it. The +loss, the irreparable loss, the killed hopes I saw in those floating +ashes round me, came home to me till my brain seemed breaking +asunder with anger. To murder him came the impulse! How? There were +a thousand ways! To grind my fingers still deeper into his throat-- +THUS! THUS! Or that long knife that lay there on the rug, driven +into and twisted round in his breast; or that sharp corner of the +fender to batter out his brains; or drag him through the long, open +window and hurl him in the darkness from that second floor balcony. +Which? Devil! devil! Then as I held him there the thought pierced +me,--Was I a brute to feel a blind rage like this? Had I ever in my +life lost my own self-command, that command which sets us where we +stand as men, as sane, highly-organised beings? And should a +miserable, worthless cur like this have the power to break that +self-control? + +My whole pride and self-respect rose within me and commanded my +passion back within its bounds. I unclosed my hands from his throat, +and dropped him upon the ground as I would have dropped a loathsome +rag. I watched him rise to his knees, trembling, livid, and +terrified, and then scramble to his feet, with satisfaction that +such a thing as he had not broken my own self-rule. + +"Go out of this room," I said, and he hurried to the communicating +door and shut and locked it securely after him. + +I heard him do so with a contemptuous smile. Had I wanted to follow +him, my weight flung against the flimsy door would have crushed it +in. And I was left standing there alone in the smoke-filled room +with nothing but the thunderings of my own pulses to break the +silence. + +"Inconceivable," I murmured, as the wind, stirring it, made the +tinder creak in the grate as it lay in thick masses; "simply +inconceivable." + +I walked to the hearth and bent over the dog. He was already growing +cold. He had not moved after his first fall. That vicious, brutal +stab must have gone straight in to the heart. The knife was wet half +way to the hilt. I lifted the dog and laid him on the sofa, and then +mechanically went towards the blowing night-air and into the +balcony. My brain seemed only just maintaining its right balance. +So: all my labour, all my confident expectations, all the triumphant +pleasure with which I had come back that afternoon, all the result +of this past year's effort were now--nothing. Marked in a little +floating dust. And not one vestige, not an outline nor portion of an +outline even, remained. There was no rough draft, no sketch, no note +or notes of the work existing. I always wrote every manuscript, from +its first word to its last, on the paper that went to the publisher. +My inspiration of the time was transferred direct to the page before +me, and there it stood, without alteration, without correction. I +never wanted to touch it or change it after it was once written. I +was struck down, back again to the foot of the hill of work up which +I had been struggling twelve months. Lucia, celebrity, pleasure, +liberty, everything I coveted was now removed, taken far off into +indefinite distance from me. For twelve months they had been coming +nearer, steadily nearer, with each accomplished page, and to-day, +only to-day, I had left the publisher's office knowing they were +close to me, almost within my very arms. Like the prisoner serving +his time in gaol, and living, as it were, in the last day that sets +him free, I had been living these twelve months in the day when the +last line should be written. Now all to be recommenced from the +wearying, sickening beginning. And why? Why had he done it? That I +could not understand. As a psychological enigma it leapt fitfully +before my brain between the spasms of personal desperation. He had +nothing to gain, everything to lose by my failure. He knew I was a +man to always do the utmost for my friend, simply because he was my +friend, and therefore from any increase of power in me he could +derive nothing but benefit. There was absolutely no motive, could be +no cause, for the act except undiluted jealousy and envy. I stepped +inside the room again and went again to the hearth. Except when I +saw the piles of black tinder I could not realise that he had done +it. It seemed incredible, as if I must be dreaming. But there they +lay, leaf upon leaf, some whole and perfect yet, sheets of black +tinder, curled round at the corners where the flames had rolled them +up, and lined still with white marks where the ink had been. Yes, it +was so. The whole of my work was a nothing, and I a dependent pauper +again. + +Where was that whole brilliant structure now that I had lived for +and so passionately loved through this past year? Along each line +had flowed the very essence of my feelings at the time the line was +written, and each one was irreplaceable. The fervour of a past +inspiration, like the fervour of a past desire, can never be +recalled. I gazed down into the grate and felt, stealthily creeping +upon me, as if it had been a beast with me in the empty room, my +intense hatred of this other man, divided from me by a few feet of +space and one slight partition. There was no outlet from his room +except into this. A few steps, force my way in, and what would +follow? + +I pressed both hands across my eyes and bowed my head till it leant +hard upon the mantelpiece, feeling the longing and the urging +towards physical violence against him rush upon me and tear me like +wolves. The mental rage diffused itself through all the physical +system till it seemed like poison pouring through my veins. Every +pulse, beating convulsively in arms and chest and neck, seemed to +clamour together in hungry fury. I leant there trying to stifle, to +kill the thoughts that came and beat down the brutal rage. And as I +stood there I heard Howard cough in the next room--that slight +effeminate cough he gave when nervous or confused. I felt my blood +leap at the sound, and it rushed in a scalding stream over my face. +I raised my head and began mechanically to pace the room. + +Even now it hardly seemed real, and my eyes kept returning and +returning to the console where the manuscript had always lain out of +work hours through the past year. "Devil! devil!" I muttered at +intervals; "what an unutterable devil." I don't know how long I +walked up and down, but suddenly a sense of physical fatigue, of +collapse, forced itself upon me. I threw myself in the corner of the +couch and took the dog's dead head upon my knee. Dead! It seemed +strange--the constant companion of ten years. I had had him from his +first earliest days. + +Even before his eyes had opened I was struck by the intelligent way +he had lain at his mother's side, and surnamed him Nous on the spot, +after my favourite quality. I admit, like all good intelligences, +because they have always their own particular views on everything, +he had given a great deal of trouble. He had gnawed up my important +business letters when cutting his teeth; he had made beds on my new +light spring suits; he had sucked his favourite, most greasy mutton +bone on the couch where my best manuscript lay drying; and out of +doors he strongly objected to follow. + +It is extremely annoying on a hot August afternoon, when you have +just time to catch the Richmond train, and a friend is with you, to +have your collie suddenly start off at a gallop in the opposite +direction to the station, and pay absolutely no attention to the +most distracted whistling and calling. Nothing for it but to start +in pursuit, to run yourself into a fever, and after lapse of time to +return with the fugitive to find your train missed and your friend +as savage as a bear. + +"If that dog were mine I'd thrash him within an inch of his life!" +was the usual remark when I got back. + +"Then I am extremely glad he is not yours," I used to answer, +fastening on the dog's collar, and making him walk at the end of a +foot of chain as a punishment. + +"You'll never teach him like that, Vic. If you gave him a good kick +in the eye now he'd remember it!" + +"Thanks very much for your advice," I returned, "but I should never +forgive myself if I kicked any animal in the eye." + +"You are a queer, weak-hearted sort of fellow!" was the general +answer, in a contemptuous tone, at which I used to shrug my +shoulders and continue to manage my dog in my own way. + +He would remember a blow, a kick, or a thrashing. I knew that. And +that was exactly what I meant to avoid, whatever it cost at times to +keep my temper with him. Besides, in all physical violence towards +another object there is a peculiar, dangerous, seductive +fascination. Once indulged in at all, it grows rapidly and +imperceptibly into a positively delicious pleasure and habit, just +as, if never indulged in, there grows up an always increasing horror +and loathing of it. + +Rage and anger, and their physical expression, become by habit a +sort of joy, similar to the joy in intoxication, but if only the +habit can be formed the other way there is an equal joy obtainable +from self-restraint. + +Control of the strongest passions is supposed to be difficult to +attain, but the whole difficulty lies in laying the first stones of +its foundation. If this is done the fabric will then go on building +itself. Day by day a brick will be added to the walls, until finally +no shock can overthrow them. + +More and more as a man holds in his passions, more and more as he +feels the pride of holding all the reins of his whole system firmly +in his hand, will he have an abhorrence of scattering them to the +idle winds at the bidding of the first fool who chances to vex him. +But if he forms the habit of holding those reins so loosely that +they drag along in the mud, and are trampled on at every instant, +more and more difficult is it to gather them up. + +The man who begins striking his dog as a punishment will proceed to +kick it when it comes accidentally in his way, and then go on to +knocking it about, simply because he feels in a bad humour. + +So I never would, when I came back from these chasings, crimson, +heated, breathless, made to look like a fool, and excessively +annoyed altogether, cheat myself with the excuse that Nous wanted +correction, or any other nonsense to cover my own ill-temper. As a +matter of fact, he soon learnt it was uninteresting to be brought +back to the very same corner from where he had started and have to +walk all the rest of the way at the end of a scrap of chain, and his +education passed happily over without a single rough word. It took +longer perhaps than a treatment by blows, but I had my reward. + +The dog conceived a limitless, boundless affection for me which more +than repaid me. Some men, of course, don't want affection. They only +care for obedience, and not at all how it is attained. + +For myself I can see no pleasure in being merely dreaded. I should +hate to see anything--man, woman, servant, dog, anything--start in +terror at my footstep; hate to feel I brought gloom wherever I came, +and left relief behind me. + +Nous was extremely quick-witted, and it used to amuse me enormously +the way he behaved when, as sometimes happened, I trod upon his foot +accidentally, or fell over him in the dark. Knowing that he had +never had a voluntary blow from me in his life, he would leap +enthusiastically over me and lick my hands after his first yelp, as +much as to say-- + +"Yes; I know it was quite an accident. I know, I am sure you didn't +mean it." + +We had been inseparable, he and I, for these ten years. He had +walked by my side, eaten from my plate, slept on my bed, and his +death now in my service left a heavy, jagged-edged wound. As I sat +there in the corner of the couch, with my hand absently stroking the +glossy black coat, there came the very soft jarring of a key in the +lock. + +I glanced towards Howard's door. The sound continued. The key was +being very slowly and gently turned, and then the handle was grasped +and cautiously revolved. He evidently hoped I was asleep, and wanted +to enter without disturbing me. I sat in silence with my eyes on the +door, which slowly opened. + +Howard stood on the threshold. He saw I was sitting there facing +him, and he seemed to pause, unable to come forward or retreat. He +did not look particularly happy as a result of his work. His face +was pallid and haggard. Fool! to have flung away a valuable friend, +and shackled himself with the fear of another man! + +"What do you want?" I said, as he did not move. + +"My manuscripts, Victor. I left them here." + +"There they are on the table. They are quite safe. Did you think I +should act as you have? Come and take them if you want them." + +He had to pass close before me to do so, and I watched his nervous, +hurried approach to the table, and the trembling of his hand as he +gathered up the papers, with contemptuous eyes. + +When he had grasped them all in his hand he gave an involuntary side +look at me and the motionless form beside me--a look that he seemed +unable to abstain from giving, though against his will. I met his +glance, and he hurried away back to his own door, and went through +it as a leper will shuffle and shamble away out of one's sight. + +As soon as the morning came, I left the hotel without having tried +the vain attempt of sleep, and did not return to it till the +evening. At noon I called upon the publisher and explained that an +unfortunate accident had occurred, and the MS. I had received back +from him yesterday had been destroyed. + +At that he beamed upon me blandly, and remarked that such a thing +was unfortunate, but that without doubt M'sieur would make all haste +to re-copy it, and would let him have a new draft as soon as +possible. + +I shook my head, feeling my lips and throat grow dry as I answered-- + +"That which you had was the original, not a copy. I have no copy of +it from which I can replace it." + +"But M'sieur will certainly have his notes, his private work, his +first scheme?" + +"None. I do not work in that way. There is not a scrap of paper +relative to it anywhere." + +Upon this the publisher rose, looked at me in a long silence, and +then said in an icy tone,-- + +"Then M'sieur wishes me to understand that he does not intend to +allow our firm to publish his work at all?" + +I flushed at the insult his words contained. They practically +intimated that he thought the whole thing an invention, and that I +was going to give the MS. elsewhere. I got up too, and said-- + +"I have told you the MS. is destroyed, and I have no means of +reproducing it, therefore it is impossible for it to be brought out +by your or any other firm." + +The man before me merely raised his shoulders over his ears, bowed, +spread out the palms of his hands, raised his eyebrows, and +muttered,-- + +"Comme vous voulez, M'sieur." + +Confound him! was he a liar that he assumed me to be one. There was +nothing to do but to bow and leave. + +As I walked out of his office into the fresh, sparkling, morning +sunlight, life to me had a very bitter savour. I walked through the +streets till I felt tired in every muscle. Then I sat thinking on a +bench in a green corner of the Champs Elysees, watching absently the +sun patches jump from leaf to neighbouring leaf as the wind elevated +and depressed them, and trying to mentally seize upon and analyse +this vile, low impulse of another man's envy. + +It was dark when I came back to the hotel. When I came up to my room +I was surprised to see quite a little crowd of figures clustered +round my door, all talking at once in their shrill French tones, all +gesticulating at each other as if about to tear off each other's +scalps. + +Angry exclamations reached me as I came towards them. + +"Mais je vous dis, je ne savais pas!" + +"Mais c'est impossible!" + +"Pas en regie!" + +"Que voulez vous? C'est un barbare!" + +Then as I came up there was a general cry of "Le voila! le voila!" +and in an instant they were all around me, all clamouring, +screaming, questioning me at once. The master of the hotel in the +greatest agitation, the manager in his shirt sleeves, two or three +waiters, a man looking like a gendarme, and another official with a +paper in his hand. For a second they shouted so--nothing could be +distinguished except broken phrases and the continual repetition of +the words "Notification" and "M'sieur le Commissionaire." + +"A vous la responsibilite!" + +"Moi? je n'en savais rien!" + +"Il veut abimer notre sante!" + +"Il partera tout de suite!" + +I looked at them for a moment in amaze, and the fellow with the +paper thundered out--"Silence," which produced the effect of cold +thrown suddenly in boiling water. The little crowd pressed in upon +me closely and listened awe-struck as the Commissionaire spoke to +me, in French, of course. + +"Monsieur," he said, in an impressive tone, "I am informed you have +a dog here!" + +I nodded. + +"A dog--dead!" and the accent on the last word was terrific. + +"My dog unfortunately has died," I said. "Yes"--and I wondered more +and more the upshot of it all. + +"Then," thundered the official, purple with excited rage, "how is +it, Monsieur, you have not sent a notification to the police?" + +I was fairly taken aback. The matter, though I barely yet +comprehended it, was evidently, in their estimation, one of serious +importance. Involuntarily, I glanced round at the others as the +Commissionaire scowled threateningly at me. They noted my glance, +and attributing it, I suppose, to guilty confusion, there were +suppressed and complacent murmurs all round me, and shakes of the +head. + +"Pas d'explication!" + +"Vous voyez ca?" + +"Point d'excuse!" + +"It is scandalous, it is shameful, it is abominable, M'sieur," +shouted the Commissionaire, "the way you have acted! Twenty-four +hours you hide the dead body of a dog in your bedroom! You hope to +escape the eye of the law! You would bring disgrace on the +gendarmerie, on the municipality of Paris! You laugh at our +regulations, M'sieur, you laugh!" and he brandished the paper +violently. "But you will find the authority of France is greater +than you! There are cells, M'sieur, there are courts, there are +judges for your education!!!" + +Matters were apparently growing serious for me. I had evidently +offended them all desperately somehow. "You go out in the morning," +he continued, furiously, "and you do not slink back here till it is +dark! You are a coward, M'sieur! a coward!" + +No Englishman likes hearing himself abused, and my own anger now was +considerably roused. But still, in my way about life, I have found +the inestimable value of conciliation. It saves one such an infinity +of trouble. I suppose I lean naturally towards it. At any rate, I +always feel this--that if you have not the power on your side it is +undignified to assume that which you cannot enforce, and if you have +the power you can then afford to be civil. + +A pleasant manner has never once failed me in bringing about an +effect which is highly convenient to oneself, and in the long run it +spares one's vanity considerably. There is hardly any human being, +however aggressive he may be at first, that does not melt into +respect before an imperturbable civility. I felt in this case, too, +that I was probably in the wrong from their point of view. It was +the question of another country's ways, and I have a lenient feeling +towards the epichortyon. So, annoyed and irritated as I was, I +checked my own feelings and said,-- + +"I think it is altogether a misunderstanding! I have no intention of +breaking any regulations. I was not aware that a dog's death would +be a matter where the law would interfere." + +The fury on the purple face opposite me subsided somewhat. + +"Is it then possible," he said, more quietly, "that you are in +ignorance of our rule, that, when any animal dies in a private +dwelling-house, the fact shall be notified within twelve hours to +the police, in order that the dead body may be immediately removed?" + +All eyes fixed upon me with breathless uncertainty. + +"Certainly," I said, "I did not know of the regulation. If I had, I +should have complied with it. There is no similar rule in England." + +A great change took place in the official's manner. His face +cleared, and he waved his arm with a gesture of magnificent +condescension. His whole attitude expressed clearly that so +enlightened and cultured a person as himself was in the habit of +making every allowance for any poor, benighted pagan like me. + +"Well, M'sieur; well, I accept your statement, and I withdraw my +expressions of a moment back. But think, M'sieur, of the risk to +which your conduct has exposed others. Think of the pollution of the +air, the contamination of the atmosphere! Think, M'sieur, of the +typhoid! the fever!! the cholera!!!" + +He looked round upon the others, and a sympathetic shudder of horror +passed over them. + +As an Englishman, of course, I felt strongly inclined to derisive +laughter. However, I merely said,-- + +"Well, what is to be done next?" + +"The body must be removed, M'sieur!" he answered, with a touch of +severity, "at once!!" + +"How?" + +"A scavenger will remove it." + +I stood silent. The idea repelled me. This thing that had been +petted and cared for by me for ten years, had slept at my side, and +often been held in my arms, now to be flung upon a dust heap, with +the rotting matter of a Paris street. The mind will not change its +associations so quickly. I looked at the man and said,-- + +"Can I not bury the dog somewhere myself?" + +"I am afraid--I hardly know--" he said. "These are the rules,--that +all dead animals are taken by the municipality." + +He spoke reluctantly now. His personal animosity against me was +evidently dead. Fortunate that I had not offended him earlier in the +interview; if I had, he would certainly now have dragged the dog +from me with every species of indignity and insult, and I could have +done nothing against him, armoured up as he was with the law. As +things stood, he was clearly on my side. + +"Perhaps this gentleman," I said, indicating the master of the +hotel, "would let me purchase a piece of ground for a grave in his +courtyard. If so, would you allow me to bury the dog there?" + +The master of the hotel, who saw now that after all there would be +no serious row with the police, nor discredit on his hotel, and +began to think his fury had been somewhat misdirected, hastened to +assure me that I need not consider the matter; that not only was a +portion, but the whole courtyard at my disposition, and not as a +purchase, but as a free gift, if M'sieur le Commissionaire +sanctioned the proceeding. + +The official hesitated, and the onlookers, their sympathies engaged, +murmured,-- + +"Ah, pauvre chien!" + +"C'est l'affection vois-tu?" + +"Il aime le chien, c'est naturel!" + +"L'affection, c'est toujours touchante!" + +The Commissionaire, his own inclination thus backed up by the +prevailing sentiment, turned to me, and said-- + +"Well, M'sieur, I ought to take your dog from you, but still, as you +say you will bury the dog yourself, and, as I am sure this gentleman +will see that the grave is deep enough to protect the health of the +public, I believe I may safely grant you the permission you ask. It +is accorded, M'sieur!" and he bowed, full of satisfied amiable +authority and friendly feeling. + +I held out my hand to him on the impulse. + +"I am extremely obliged to you!" + +He grasped it warmly in his, and laid his left effusively on his +heart. + +"You have my sincere sympathy, M'sieur." + +Then lifting his hat and bowing, and putting out of sight the +formidable document he had shaken in my face, he retreated down the +corridor, followed by the other official, and leaving the hotel +manager with me. + +"I will have a grave dug at once, M'sieur," he said; "and you shall +be informed when it is ready." + +I thanked him and entered my own room. + +A good three hours later I was following the gardener downstairs, +the dead body of Nous, wrapped completely in one of my overcoats, in +my arms. We went into the courtyard. It was raining now, the night +quite dark, and a gusty wind blowing. We crossed the yard to where a +broad flower-bed was planted. Here a grave, wide and deep enough for +a human being, had been dug. A lantern, in which the flame blew +fitfully, was set on the huge heap of mould and sent an uncertain +light over the grave. I got down into it, and laid Nous gently, +still wrapped in the coat, on the damp earth, with a heavy heart. + +I vaulted out of the grave and stood, while the man filled it in, +listening to the steady fall of the earth and its dull thud, thud. +The rain came down steadily, and the man looked at me and said-- + +"Monsieur will be drenched through, he had better go within." + +"No, no," I said; "continue." + +And I waited while he dug away the mound, and the chilly wind +rattled the branches of a tree near, and the rain soaked with a +monotonous splashing into the earth, and the light flickered, barely +strong enough to show me the man's working figure. When he had +finished, when the grave was filled and the upper soil smoothed +over, I turned and, mentally and physically chilled, went slowly +back into the hotel. As I entered the gas-lit corridor I saw a +figure there at the door. It was Howard. He was still in the hotel, +and though I detested his proximity even, I had no influence on his +departure. He was evidently hanging about there waiting for somebody +or something, and to my intense indignation, as he caught sight of +me, he came towards me. + +"Oh, Victor," he said hurriedly, in an uncertain tone, "I must speak +to you!" + +What intolerable insolence to dare to come to me, the man he had so +mortally injured. My impulse was to stretch out my right arm and +fell him to the ground with a blow that should have the force of my +whole system in it. The colour came hot in all my face. + +"Pray don't let us have a scene here," I said, coldly. + +"Very good, then come outside. It is only for a few seconds. You +always used to say you would never refuse to hear a person once, +whatever they had done." + +It was my principle, as he said, and I controlled the loathing I had +of him, of his voice, his look, his presence, and said-- + +"Come out, then," and we went down to the door. + +There was an alley just outside the hotel, a cul de sac, black and +empty. Down this we turned, and when we had passed the side door of +the hotel he spoke. + +"Victor, I am awfully sorry about the MS.; I am really. I would give +worlds to replace it now if I could. I have been utterly wretched +since. Is there anything I can do now to help you?" + +"No," I said bitterly, "you cannot re-write my manuscript nor +resuscitate my dog." + +"Oh, why did I do it? I can't think! I can't understand it! If you +knew what I have felt since!" + +"Have you nothing more to say than this?" I asked; "because this +sort of thing is useless and leads to nothing." + +"But what do you think of me? You hate me! But it was not +premeditated, I swear. I had no motive, no gain in doing it, and we +have been great friends always; but I suppose that can never be +again now! But still it was an impulse, a sudden impulse, only +because I was so jealous of you! It was irresistible at the moment! +The thing was in flames before I realised it! You know yourself what +impulse is! You always knew I was like that!" + +"Impulse!" I repeated. "Yes, I knew you were impulsive, but that +such an impulse could ever come to you as that--to burn, irreparably +destroy the year's work, and all the hopes of a man who was an +intimate friend, and against whom you had never had the shadow of a +complaint, that I never could have believed! Impulse! It is not one +that I can conceive existing except in hell!" + +We were talking with voices moderated, rather low than otherwise; +but the hatred I felt of him I let come into each word and edge it +like a knife. + +He drew in his breath. + +"Then our friendship is at an end?" he said, in a weak nervous tone. + +"Utterly. As if it had never been. You have cut out its very roots. +I had a great friendship for you--more, a great affection. It would +have stood a great deal. I would have passed over many injuries that +you might have done. Anything almost but this, that you knew was so +completely blasting to all my own desires. This shows me what your +feelings must have been at the time, at any rate, and remember a +thick manuscript is not burnt in a minute. How long must it have +taken you to destroy those sheets upon sheets of paper in which you +knew another man's very heart, and blood, and nerve had been +infused? All that time you must have been animated with the sheer +lust of cruelly and brutally ill-using and injuring me, and in +return I"-- + +I shut and locked my lips upon the words that rose. + +To abuse or curse another is almost as degrading to oneself as to +strike him. + +We had come up to the end of the alley now, and we paused by the +blank brick wall. There was a lamp projecting from it which threw +some light upon us both, and, as his figure came distinctly before +my eyes, I felt one intolerable desire to leap upon him--this +miserable creature who had destroyed my work--fling him to the +ground, and grind his face and head to a shapeless mass in this +slimy gutter that flowed at our feet. + +Could he have faintly realised what my feelings were, coward as he +was, he would never have come up this empty alley with me. + +"Well, Victor, I am leaving Paris to-night; but I felt I could not +go without telling you how infinitely I regret it all. If you can +never be my friend again, you can forgive me. Let me hear you say +that you do before I go." + +Forgive him! Great God! Forgive an injury so wanton, so excuseless! +Every savage instinct in me leapt up at the word. + +The manuscript! I felt inclined to shout to him. The manuscript! +Give that back to me and then come and talk about forgiveness. Had +the act and the motive been as loathsome, but the injury, the actual +injury, the positive loss to me been less, I could have forgiven; +but the blow was so sharp, the damage so irremediable, I could not. +Even at his words I seemed to see staring me in the face the months +of toil awaiting me before I could rebuild--if I could ever--the +fabric he had destroyed in half-an-hour. + +And crowding upon this came the thought of what he had robbed me of, +the name, the freedom, the power that those vanished paper pages had +been pregnant with for me. He was leaving Paris, he said; and so +might I have been leaving free and successful, leaving to return to +Lucia, but for him. + +And now I was to remain--remain here, a prisoner, to work on another +twelve weary months at that most nauseating of tasks, repairing +undone work. To recommence, to take up the old burden, to start it +all over again, now when I had just made myself free! To be shackled +again with the weight of uncertainty and expectancy for another +year, through him, and by God he talked of forgiveness!--to me!-- +now! + +It was too soon. Later--later, perhaps, when I was calmer, when some +of the injury had been repaired, when a spark of hope had been +rekindled; then, if he asked, but now--The days before me stretched +such a bitter, hopeless blank! And how did I know that his act could +ever be nullified! It might so turn out that now I never should +accomplish my end. + +My health had worn thin and my brain was tired out. Either might +give way, and then--a life blasted through him! Brute and devil! +that was what he had wished, and was perhaps wishing still, even +now, when he professed to be so anxious for forgiveness. I glanced +towards his face opposite me, but it was too dark to see its +expression. A slight, steady drizzle fell between us; I only saw his +slight figure before me in the uncertain light, and again something +urged me. + +Take your revenge now while you can get it. This man may have +spoiled all your life, but when you realise it, then he may be away +and out of your power. Thrash him! Half kill him now while you have +the chance! But I did not stir. Vengeance has always seemed to me a +poor thing. Supposing . . . After? . . . If I satiated my rage then, +what after. I should have two things to regret instead of one. No. +Let him go with his vile act upon his head. + +But forgive? I could not. He had taken the inside, the best of my +life, and I hated, purely hated him. I turned a step aside, his mere +outline before my eyes sent the hate running hotly through me. + +"I can't," I muttered; "no, I can't." + +Howard sprang forward and put his hand on my arm, and at the touch I +seemed to abhor him more. + +"Victor, I wish I could say how I regret it. I wish I could express +myself, but I can't. If you knew--I would cut off my right hand now +to undo it! I would indeed!" + +"Who wants you right hand" I said, savagely, stopping and turning on +him as I shook off his detestable touch. "Fool! You can talk now! +Replace a single chapter of that book I slaved at--that would be +more to the purpose!" + +Howard's face grew paler. I saw that, even in the darkness. + +"It is not open to me, Victor, now," he said; "but it is still open +to you to forgive." + +His voice had a grave significance in it. No words that he could +have chosen would have been better. The short, quiet sentence was +like a sword to divide my hatred, and penetrate to the better part +of man. The truth, the unerring force, the reflections of this +life's chances and decrees in those words went home. It was not open +to him now to repair; later, it might not be open to me to forgive. +And later, when all these present vivid feelings were swept away in +the past, should I not wish I had forgiven. + +I stood silent, and the query went through me--What is forgiveness? +Is it to feel again as we have felt before the injury? This is +impossible. Do what I would that affection I had had for him could +never re-awaken. It was stamped out, obliterated, as a flower is +ground into the dust beneath one's heel. + +Still the loathing and the hatred I had for him now would pass. +Years would cancel it all, and bring with them mere indifference +towards him, the thought of him and of his act. To say the words +now, and let the time to come slowly fill them with truth, was +better, surely, than to reiterate my hatred of him--hatred which +years hence would seem almost foolish to me myself. + +"I can't think that my forgiveness can be of very serious import to +you," I said quietly. "However, it is yours." + +"You will shake hands with me, then, won't you?" and he held out his +hand. + +With an effort I stretched out mine and took his, and held it for a +second as in old times. + +"Good-bye, Victor," he said, in rather a strained voice, "I shall +never cease to regret what I have done." + +He hesitated, as if wondering if I should speak. I did not, and he +turned and went down the alley, and the darkness closed up after +him. I leant silent against the wall, hating myself for forgiving +him and letting him go, and yet knowing I would do the same again. + +"One must forgive, one must forgive; otherwise one is no better than +brute," I thought mechanically. "Later I shall be glad,"--and +similar phrases by which Principle excuses itself to furious, +disappointed Nature. + +After a time I grew calmer, and I went back to the hotel and up to +my room. It seemed emptier, blanker still, now that even the dead +body of the dog had gone. In the grate, and scattered over the +carpet, remained still remnants of black tinder. I felt suddenly +tired, worn out. I flung myself, dressed as I was, upon the bed, and +lay there in a sort of stupor. And the slow, dark hours of that +terrible night of depression tramped over me with leaden footsteps. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +The next morning, just as I had dropped into an uneasy doze, there +came a knocking and a hammering, and a muttering outside my door. + +"M'sieur! M'sieur!" Tap-tap-tap. "Que diable donc! Qu'il dort! +M'sieur! Profondement! Est ce qu'il est mort? Ah! c'est une bete +Anglaise!" Tap-tap-tap. + +All this came through the wall in a hazy sort of confusion, mingling +with my sleep, before it roused me to go and open the door. Finally, +however, I stumbled off the bed and unlocked the door, and threw it +open. + +"What now" I thought. "Have I broken any more of your confounded +Gallic regulations." + +It was not a Commissary of Police this time, but a uniformed +commissionaire, with a note in his hand. Possibly serenely +unconscious that I had heard his polite remarks outside, he bowed +urbanely. + +"Bonjour, M'sieur! A thousand apologies for disturbing M'sieur! But +Madame said I was to deliver this note personally." + +I looked at him with elevated eyebrows. I knew no Madame in Paris. + +"I think there is some mistake," I said. + +"But why? Monsieur Eeltone? Numero quinze, is it not?" + +"Hilton. Yes, that is my name." + +He gave me a triumphant glance, and handed me the note with a +flourish. The envelope was that of the Grand Hotel; but the writing +on it was Lucia's writing. Lucia here in Paris! Close to me! How? +Why? The blood poured over my face. With a sense of delight I tore +the envelope open:-- + +"I am at the above hotel. I shall remain at home all to-day in the +hope that you may be able to come and see me." +"LUCIA." + +I looked up the man in the doorway bowed with a deprecating air. + +"Madame said I was to wait for an answer." + +He had a subdued smile upon his face, which seemed to say--"We know +all about these little notes! We are accustomed to them here in +Paris!" + +I told him to enter, and he followed me into the room and took an +interested glance round. Probably, to his view, my pallid face and +blood-shot eyes, my last night's clothes, my boots on my feet, and +the bed unslept-in, conveyed the idea of a drunken fit only just +over in time to make room for the morning's intrigue. A young, +beautiful English madame--for the title Miss is barely recognised, +never understood in Paris--staying at the hotel and sending notes to +a young English M'sieur in another. Yes, this was plainly an +intrigue of the genuine order, and the mari would doubtless arrive +from England later. All was plain, and he stood with a patronising +smile by the table, while I scribbled a note to Lucia. + +"My Dearest Life,--I am rushing, flying to you now. I will be with +you as soon as fiacre can bring me." +"VICTOR." + +I closed it, and made him wait while I sealed it, lest he should +interfere with it. Then I handed it to him with a two-franc piece, +and with bon jours and remerciments and grins he withdrew. + +I dressed hurriedly and yet carefully, and shaved with a dangerously +trembling hand. The first fiacre that was passing as I left the +hotel I took, and was driven, through the bright sunshine that +filled the Paris boulevards, to the Grand. I sat back in it, with my +arms folded, feeling my heart like a stone within me. Lucia's +coming, that, thirty-six hours back, would have infused the extreme +of delight through me, was now useless, worthless. + +I could do nothing, say nothing. I was a prisoner again, fettered, +bound, as if I had an iron collar on my neck, and manacles on my +wrists. I looked through the shining, quivering sunlight that fell +on every side with blank, unseeing eyes, and the bitterest curses +against Howard rose to my lips, checked only by the knowledge that I +had forgiven him. + +When I reached the hotel, and mentioned her name, I was shown up to +a private sitting-room on the first floor, facing the gay Paris +boulevard, and with the bright light streaming in through its half- +closed persiennes. A figure rose at the opening of the door, and +came towards me with outstretched hands. + +"Lucia!" + +My eyes fixed on her, and my glance rushed over her in a second, and +poured with feverish haste their report back into my brain. Within +the first moment of my entry of the room, I was conscious of, I +recognised that there was a great change, an almost indefinable, but +nevertheless distinctly perceptible, metamorphosis in this woman +since I had seen her last. Lucia was a somnambulist no longer. She +had awakened. It was a lovely, living woman who crossed the room to +me now; a woman awake to her own powers, conscious of the sceptre, +and the gifts, and the kingdom that Nature puts into the hands of a +woman for a few years, I felt all this as I looked at her, saw it in +her advance towards me, heard it in the soft tones of her voice as +she said,-- + +"Well, Victor, are you glad I have come?" + +And it was with my heart suddenly beating hard, and my face pale, +and a mist before my eyes, that I came forward to her. What had been +the first slight shock to her sleeping woman's passions I had no +idea. + +Perhaps some chance glance from a man's eyes upon her as she passed +him in a crowd had suddenly struck through the ice of her +abstraction. Perhaps some pressure of an arm meaning she did not +even comprehend. Perhaps some word, overheard between two men, whose +meaning she did not even comprehend. Perhaps it was only Nature +unaided that had whispered to her,--"Life is passing, and its +greatest pleasure is as yet untried. Get up and seek it." + +Perhaps any of these, or all or none. I could not say. The change +was there. Lucia was conscious, awake. Pure, delicate, as from her +integral nature she would always, but still awake. As she stood, the +sun fell upon her light hair and seemed to get tangled there, a hot, +rose glow was in her face, and the smooth scarlet lips parted in a +faint seducing smile. + +"Now, tell me everything," she said, softly, "I am sure the +manuscript is finished by now." + +She pointed to a wicker chair for me, and drew one just opposite it +in which she threw herself, full in the morning light, but just +avoiding the stabbing sun-rays. I saw in a sort of mechanical manner +the way in which she was dressed. It was as a woman only dresses +once or twice, perhaps, in her lifetime; and that is when she is +determined to win, through the sheer strength and force of her +beauty, in the face of every obstacle, the man she desires. + +Every detail had been thought of, every beauty of her form studied +and enhanced, from the light curls on her forehead, and the curves +of her bosom rising and falling under its lace bodice, to the tiny +shoes that came from beneath the folds of her delicate-coloured +skirt. + +It was presumably of cotton, for Lucia herself had informed me that +she never wore anything in the mornings except cotton or serge; if +so, it was a glorified cotton of a clear rose tint. Film upon film +of lace hung over it in transparent folds, through which the glowing +colour deepened and blushed at her slightest movement, as the hot +colour in the heart of a rose flushes through all its leaves. + +Above her supple hips, clasping her waist, shone an open-work band +of Maltese silver, and above this rose delicate vase-like lines, +swelling and expanding at last into the rounded curves of her bosom; +here the colour seemed to glow deeper and warmer where her heart was +beating tumultuously, and then towards her neck it paled again, +beneath ruffle and ruffle of lace that lay like foam against the +soft, snow-white throat. It was a symphony of colour. A perfect +harmony of perfect tones in union with the brilliant fairness of her +skin. The sleeves, half open to the elbow, revealed a white, +rounded, downy arm, and the thousand subtle pink-and-white tints of +her flesh seemed to melt and merge themselves into a bewildering, +distracting glow within that rose-hued sleeve. She made one +exquisite, intoxicating vision to the senses. In those moments I can +hardly say I saw her. She rather seemed to sway before the dizzy +sight of my excited eyes. + +Dimly yet keenly, vaguely yet convincingly, I felt she had come as +an adorable antagonist to my resolutions. Traditionally speaking, +such a knowledge should have made me instantly on my guard. + +I ought certainly to have summoned my control, my judgment, and so +on, to say nothing of an icy reserve. But I did not. My whole heart +seemed to rush out to her, my whole being to strain towards her. I +longed to take her entirely in my arms, to kiss her on the lips and +throat, and say,-- + +"Ask whatever you will and it shall be granted." + +"The manuscript is finished, isn't it?" she repeated. + +Oh, bitter, bitter, and cruel fate that had dragged the fruits of my +labour, and with them everything, out of my hand! + +"It was finished, Lucia, a few days ago," I said, speaking calmly +with a great effort; "but an accident happened and it was +destroyed." + +I felt myself growing paler and paler as I spoke, meeting her +lovely, eager eyes fixed on mine. + +"Destroyed?" she echoed, growing white to the lips. "Oh, Victor! +How?" + +"I would rather not say, Lucia, exactly how it occurred, but it had +been accepted by a publisher here, and I was going to make one or +two trifling alterations in it to please him, and so I had it back. +Well, then, as I say, something happened, and the thing was +destroyed." + +There was a dead silence. + +I saw her heart beating painfully beneath the laces on her bosom, +and pain stamped on all her face. Then she said abruptly,-- + +"Have you Howard with you still?" + +"No. He left Paris last night," I answered. + +Her eyes met mine full across the sunlight. We looked at each other +in silence. + +She asked nothing farther. + +I believe she comprehended the whole case as it stood, because she +would know that had I lost or injured the MSS. myself I should have +no reason for concealing it. As a matter of honourable feeling I +wanted to keep the fact from her, but I could not help her guessing +it. Curiously enough her next question, after a long pause--though I +did not see that in her mind there could have been connection +between the subjects--was: + +"Where is Nous?" + +"Nous is dead." + +"How did he die?" + +"That, also, I would rather not say." + +At that, in addition to a sharper look of distress, a puzzled +surprise came into her face. She raised her delicate eyebrows and +looked at me with a perplexed, half-frightened expression. + +"Victor," she said, leaning forward a little in her chair, "was it +he that tore up the manuscript? and did you kill him in a fit of +rage?" + +I looked back at her, also with surprise, that she could suggest +such a thing of me as possible. + +"Oh, no!" I said hastily; "nothing at all of the sort. No! If either +the loss of the book or the dog's death had occurred in any way +through my fault I would tell you. I have no secrets of my own from +you, but both of these concern another man, and therefore I would +rather let them pass." + +There was silence. + +Then I asked, looking at her,-- + +"Are you alone here, Lucia?" + +"Except, of course, for my maid--Yes." + +My heart beat harder. Why? I hardly know, except that the word +"alone" has such a charm in it connected with a woman we love. + +"Of course," she said, leaning back, "it is a little unconventional +my coming here alone; but Mama was not well enough, and I--Victor," +she said, with a sudden indrawn breath, "I felt I must come and see +you. I told her I felt I should die there if they would not let me +come!" + +I saw her breast heave as she spoke, her cheek flushed and paled +alternately, the azure of her eyes deepened slowly as the pupils +widened in them, till there seemed midnight behind the lashes. + +I felt a dangerous current stirring in all my blood at her words, a +dry spasm seemed in my throat, blocking all speech. + +"I thought you must have finished by now, and I came to say--I came +to say"--she murmured. + +The blood rushed scarlet, staining all the fair skin, across the +face before me, and the bright lips fluttered in uncertain +hesitation. + +I guessed the situation. + +She had come to say to me phrases that seemed quite easy, quite +simple to her, murmuring them to herself in the silence of an empty +studio, and now face to face with me, listening and expectant, they +had become difficult, impossible. I leant forward, the blood hot in +my own cheek, a dull flame waking in every vein. + +"Darling," I said, taking her soft left hand within both my own, "I +cannot tell exactly what you wish to tell me; but listen--I had +finished all, and had things not turned out as they have I should +have been starting now to come to you and say, 'Lucia I am free now +to be your slave.' All this year we have been separated I have +thought only of you, waking and sleeping, longed for you, dreamed of +you, lived in the hour of our re-union, desired with an intensity +beyond all words that day that gives you to me; and, forty hours +back, that day, Lucia, seemed so near, but now--dearest"-- + +I stopped, choked, suffocated with the weight of hopeless, +despairing passion that fell back upon itself within me. + +Lucia leant forward, the beating, palpitating bosom was close to me, +her white, nerveless hand lay close in mine. + +"And now, Victor?" + +"Now all is vanished. I am exactly in the position where I was when +I left you in England a year ago." + +"And what do you mean--what are we--what?"-- + +"My sweet, what can we do? I must recommence. I must work on another +year." + +I felt the burning, tremulous fingers grow cold in mine. Her face +paled till it was like white stone. Then suddenly she withdrew her +hand from my clasp, and started to her feet. + +"Victor, I cannot! no, I cannot! I cannot wait another year! It will +kill me!" she said, passionately, looking away from me, and pacing a +short length of the floor backwards and forwards before me, as I +rose, too, and stood watching dizzily the incomparable figure pass +and repass, hardly master of myself. + +"Dearest," she continued; "this is what I came to say--let us marry +now. I thought you would have successfully finished your work, and +we might do so; but now, now, even as it is, let it be as it is, let +it be unfinished, and still, still let us marry. There is no real +bar as there might be. There is no question of wrong to any one. We +are to be married--it cannot matter to any one when we are. Continue +to work afterwards. I am willing to be second always, in every +thing, to your work. But don't drive me from you altogether. Let me +stay with you now I have come. Let us marry now--here. Let us go +before some official--the Maire, or some one, or English consul, no +matter whom--this afternoon! Victor, if not now, that day you desire +will never come. I shall never be your own. Think how it has receded +and receded into time! We have been engaged now more than three +years!" + +She paused in front of me, and lifted her face--brilliant, glowing, +appealing--with an intensity of passionate, eager longing in it that +defied her words to express. Her whole form quivered with +excitement, till I saw the laces of her dress tremble. On the bodice +beneath my eyes, the lace fell from the shoulders, and its folds on +each side divided slightly in the centre, leaving a depression there +in which the rose-colour glowed crimson. It riveted my eyes this +line--this channel of colour burnt fiercely beneath my lids. + +I could see nothing but it; it seemed everywhere, to fill the room, +to scorch into my brain, this palpitating, throbbing, crimson line. +That terrible impulse of blind excitement was rapidly drawing me +into itself--the impulse that counts nothing, knows nothing, reckons +nothing but itself; that will buy the present hour at any sacrifice- +-that accepts everything, ignores everything but that one moment it +feels approaching. This impulse urged me, pressed me, strained +violently upon me. + +It left me barely conscious of anything except the absorbing longing +to take her, draw her close, hard into my arms, and say, "Yes, let +all go; from this day henceforward you are mine." But almost +unconsciously to myself my reason rebelled against being thus thrust +down and trampled upon by this sudden, brute instinct rushing +furiously through my frame, and my reason clutched me and clung to +me and maintained its hold, and, feeling myself wrenched asunder by +these two opposite forces, I stood immovable and silent. + +"Victor," she said, after a minute, and the warm, white uncertain +hand sought mine again and held it, "I have been working hard since +you left, and the canvas is nearly finished, but I am willing to +relinquish it for the present, to let it go. In all this time you +have been away from me I have been slowly learning that one's own +life and one's own life's happiness is of more worth than these +abstract ideas, than one's work or talent or anything else. I have +been feeling that you and I are letting day after day go by and are +working for a to-morrow that for us may never come. Is this your +philosophy?" + +I looked down on her as she clasped my hand and drew it up to her +breast, her eyes were on mine, and all my mental perceptions were +blinded and forced down under the pressure of the physical senses. + +"Take me into your life, Victor. I swear I won't interfere with your +work. Let me sit somewhere beside you all day long while you write, +and let me lie all night long watching you while you write, if you +like! Oh, do let me! do speak to me?" + +She pressed my hand in, convulsively, upon her breast, until it +seemed to be in the midst of tremulous warmth, close upon the +throbbing heart itself. I could not think. Thought seemed slipping +from me. I felt sinking deeper each minute into the quicksand of +desire. Nothing seemed clear any longer. All within my brain was +merged into one hot, clinging haze, in which still loomed the idea +that I must not yield. It would be dishonourable to my father, +disappointing to myself, destructive to my work. I could not realise +it then, could not see it, but I knew and remembered in a dim way +that it was so, that it had been so decided, and I must adhere to +it. + +"It is impossible, Lucia." + +"Why?" + +"Because I promised my father we should not marry until I had got +out some book." + +"But rescind the promise! Say that you cannot carry it out! Give up +all help from him, and let us live our lives apart!" + +"I have no means to do it with." + +"You can make them! Surely with all your knowledge you can get some +ordinary work to do till you can get your works out!" + +"Even if I had the means I could not, after the understanding +between us, after all he has done for me, throw him over at a +moment's notice." + +"He has no right to ask such a sacrifice!" + +"It has all been thought out," I said dully, "and settled before. I +can't re-argue it all now. I decided it finally before I left +England, and I am in the same position now as I was then." + +A scarlet colour stole into the rose glow on Lucia's face. + +"You don't care for me, Victor!" she said passionately. "You can't! +No man could and speak so!" and she threw my hand from her and +herself into the long chair in a sudden, wild storm of excited +tears. + +I hardly knew what I was doing. I felt as if I had been struck +sharply on the eyes as I heard her words. I fell on my knees beside +her chair, and put both my arms up and clasped them round the soft +waist, and let them lean hard on the hips, in a spasm of angry +passion. + +"What are you thinking of? You know there is nothing I covet like +yourself," I said savagely, the blood flowing over my face as hotly +as it burnt in her own. "But we can't do this. We should both +despise ourselves afterwards. You should be the last person to urge +it on me. What do I ask you? To wait another nine months! That's +all. You should help me." + +"Help you?" she said, her eyes blazing upon me with anger, shame and +passion. "Help you in making a fatal mistake? No, I will not! You +can refuse me if you like, but all the responsibility is with you. I +warn you against it. I have come to warn you. When it is too late +you will wish this day back again. You are not tied now after a +whole year's work, and after a misfortune you could not help. If you +always wait in life until you have settled and arranged everything +just to your satisfaction you will find that you lose your desires. +They will slip like sand through your hands while you are arranging +your circumstances. Life is never, never quite as we would have it. +We must take our pleasures one by one as they are offered to us; it +is hopeless to think we can gain them all together. Oh, Victor +dearest!" she added, stretching out two rounded, glowing arms in a +sort of half-timid desperation and clasping them round my neck, +while mine still held her heaving waist, "love now, and win your +name by-and-by" + +There was delirium in my brain. The whole woman's form swam before +my sight. My arms locked themselves violently round the yielding, +pulsating waist. + +"I would if I could," I muttered, and that was as much as I could +say. + +"You can," she urged in a soft, desperate voice. "Why not? I can't +believe you love me if you let me go back now." + +"I can't believe you love me if you urge me to do what I think is +dishonourable." + +Her arms dropped from my neck. + +"Oh, it is a mistake," she said. + +"Perhaps so." + +We had both risen. The floor seemed to bend beneath my feet. I felt +her pulses still beating against my arms. I looked at her. Our eyes +met, and the gaze seemed locked, fixed, and we neither of us could +transfer it. My throat seemed rigid, dry as a desert; her voice was +choked, suffocated in tears. But "Kiss me, at least; oh, kiss me!" +was written on the whole imploring face, on the wildly quivering +lips, in the burning, distracted eyes. But what use? Rather such a +kiss, here, now, might bring an irremediable loss. In any case, the +pain of parting after would be ten times intensified for us both. +Could I then go? Would any force then be left in me? Would my will +stand beyond a certain point? I did not know. It seemed the only +safety for us both, the one rock still left in the wild ocean of our +passion--an absolute denial to the rushing feelings to find +expression in the least of acts or words. + +I did not believe nor think she could misunderstand me. I felt sure +the struggle and the suffering and the desire must be printed in my +face. I knew she must see in it that I was not cold before the +despairing, passionate longing I saw stirring all her pained, +excited frame. To me it seemed as if she must see me ageing and my +face lining before her eyes. I held her hand in mine hard for a +moment. Then I dropped it gently, and she looked at me--stunned. And +so, unkissed, untouched by my lips that ached so desperately for +hers, I left her and went out through the passages and down the +steps and out of the hotel into the brilliant streets with my nerves +strung tense to sheer agony. + +I had acted, of course, in a correct and orthodox manner. No one +could reproach me for the interview just past, but in my heart there +was a self-condemning voice. Pleasure seldom unveils her face and +offers herself to us twice, and Venus is a dangerous goddess to +offend. I said, "Wait, wait," and "to-morrow," but those ominous +lines beat dully through my brain-- + + "to daurion tis oiden; + os oun et eudi estin." + +When I reached my hotel, thought, intelligent thought, seemed +collapsing, and my brain spinning round and round within my skull. + +"The end of me," I muttered, "at this rate will certainly be a cell +in a lunatic asylum." + +For the first time, I released my rule against drugs. I sent the +hotel porter for a draught of chloral. When it came I drank it, and, +in the middle of the brilliant afternoon sunshine, threw myself on +the bed, conscious of nothing but a longing for oblivion. +Unaccustomed to it, the drug seized well upon me. For long, +merciful, quiet hours I knew nothing. + +After this there came a blank of many days: idle, barren days, in +which I did nothing, knew nothing except that I suffered. My brain +seemed blank, empty, like a quarry of black slate. The power that +seemed to dwell there at times was gone now; crushed all that +impersonal emotion of the writer's mind by the blighting personal +emotion of the man. + +A fortnight passed, and at the end of it I had done nothing; another +week, and then another, and I had still not written a line. + +At last one night, sitting idle in the cafe after dinner, I felt the +old impulse stir in me, a rush of eager inclination to write went +through me. A sudden sense of power filled me. The brain, empty and +idle a few minutes before, became charged with energy and desire to +expend it. A corresponding current of activity poured along each +vein. The old familiar impetus swayed me. + +I welcomed it gladly and went upstairs, got out paper and a pen, and +the remembrance of my own life slipped away from me. All that night +I wrote, and the next day, and the fresh manuscript was fairly +started. For a whole fortnight I wrote almost incessantly. I +snatched a little food in the cafe, hardly knowing what I ate. + +The nights passed feverishly without sleep, while the brain +revolved, excitedly, scenes written or to be written. Towards the +end of the fortnight the impulses to work steadily declined. I +forced myself to write at intervals; but, as usual, the forced work +was worthless, and I destroyed it when it was done. No, it was no +use. I could merely shrug my shoulders and smoke and wait. + +The hot, blank days of August drifted by, and as I saw the +boulevards empty themselves day by day, and Paris grow hotter and +duller each afternoon, I felt the solitary existence weigh heavier +and heavier upon me. The loss of the dog seemed to have made a +larger gap in my existence than I should have believed; his unused +collars still lay upon my mantelpiece, his plate and saucer still +stood in the corner by the hearth, and sometimes when I was climbing +the dark stairs at night to my empty room I felt as if I would have +given years of my life to have had the dog leap up into my arms in +welcome. + +One of these nights, when I came into the unlighted room, I saw a +letter lying, a white square, in the dusk, upon the table. I +supposed it was from my father, as Lucia never wrote, and I was too +occupied, or indifferent, or rather both, to keep up other +correspondents. + +In answer to the first long desperate letter that I had written to +my father after Lucia's visit, in which I told him, without +explaining farther, that an accident had happened to the MS., and +begging him to release me from the arrangement made before I left +England, I had received a derisive note from him, full of ironical +sympathy with my misfortunes, and advising me to settle down to +another year's work, with a good grace and a contented spirit. + +My appeals on behalf of Lucia and myself he simply ignored. + +I tore the letter into atoms and flung them over the balcony, and +since then my letters to him had been short notes, out of which I +studiously kept my own feelings. There was no one now to whom I +could either speak or write a word of personal matters. + +An anchorite in a cave of the desert could not have been more shut +off from that dear communication with his fellows that a man hardly +values till he loses it. + +When I had lighted the lamp I sat staring at the loose sheets of the +manuscript lying on the side table, noting painfully how far it was +from completion, and it was only when I lifted it to the middle +table for work that I glanced at the letter again. + +As my eyes fell on the superscription the blood leapt into my face-- +it was Howard's. There was a strong disinclination in me to take up +the letter, to read it, to let my thoughts flow in his direction at +all. Resolutely I had tried to banish the memory of him from my +mind, to utterly throw out his image from my recollection. The +thought of him was disagreeable, and therefore never welcomed. + +The idea of one person cherishing, as the phrase is, hatred, envy, +or anger against another, always seems to me incomprehensible. All +these are unpleasant sensations, and I sweep them out of my mind as +quickly as I possibly can, not from any exalted motives, but simply +as useless, cumbering lumber, for which I decline to use my brain at +a storehouse. Howard had injured me enough. + +Was I to waste my time and my energies in hating him? And yet the +time had not come when I could think of him with calm indifference. +Therefore, to scout the idea of him whenever it presented itself, to +refuse to dwell upon him and what he had inflicted on me, was the +only way to escape additional pain and discomfort for myself. And +now, at sight of his handwriting, the beast, the monster of +declining hate rose in me again, and I remembered him. + +It came back upon me that evening, his image, and I knew that I +hated him still. I took up the letter with a feeling of revolt and +disgust, as if it had been a filthy object, broke it open, and +read:-- + +"DEAR VICTOR,--I expect you will say to yourself it is the greatest +cheek my writing to you, and I know it is, but I am reduced to that +state of desperation when a man ceases to feel degradation." + +"I am writing to ask you for help--you will wonder how I can. So do +I. I wonder at myself. But I know you are the best of fellows, and I +feel you will help me now in spite of all that has happened. Victor +send me what you can, as near 15 Pounds Sterling as possible, to +save me from irrevocable disgrace. I have no one but yourself to +apply to. If you refuse I am done for. You will know what a +desperate position I am in, I must be in, to ask you at all.--Yours +in despair and everlasting regret, HOWARD." + +I read it through, and then dropped the letter and its envelope into +the fire, glad to get rid of the sight of the familiar hand. And I +watched it burn, and I thought of the manuscript which must have +curled and writhed in the same way, leaf by leaf, as he lighted it, +and I asked myself again--What is forgiveness? + +I knew that I hated him. I had now the opportunity of consigning him +to "irrevocable disgrace," as he put it. But I knew that I should +send him the help he asked for on the same principle as I had +refrained from injuring him, forgiven him, shaken hands with him. +And why? I wondered. What was my motive? Simply, I think, a mere +instinct to preserve my own self-respect. + +I enclosed a cheque for 20 Pounds Sterling in a blank sheet of +paper, put it in an envelope, and went out that same night and +posted it. When I had his letter of thanks I glanced through it +hastily and then burnt it, and tried to stamp out the re-awakened +memory of him from my brain. Weeks followed weeks of the same +colourless, monotonous existence; some of them were wasted in +physical ill-health, some in mental inactivity, but slowly a +manuscript grew and grew again into being. + +The slow winter wore away, and the ice froze or the fog pressed on +the long French windows of my room. My father invited me to run over +and spend Christmas with him, but I dreaded the interruption and the +delay in the work. I stayed and pressed forward with it, and in the +last days of March the whole book stood complete. + +It was one of the first nights of May. The first warm, spring-like +night of the season, and the seats at the Concert des Ambassadeurs +were crowded by the Parisians consuming their brandied cherries +under the canopy of fluttering light green leaves of the opening +limes. I sat, one of the audience, and heard the band clashing, and +watched the dancers flit on and off the glittering diminutive stage, +with indifferent eyes and ears. + +I was thinking of my success. The band might thunder its hardest, +but it could not drown the publisher's voice in my ears, which +repeated over and over the words I had heard that morning. "Yes, +M'sieur, your book has been accepted. We shall hope to bring it out +in September." + +I sat there at peace with all the world. Howard was entirely +forgiven now; my father's treatment forgotten. Let the past go. What +did anything matter? And I tapped my stick on the flooring at the +end of the songs I had barely heard, out of sheer good humour, and +swallowed the second-rate brandy and smoked an infamous cigar with +imperturbable complacence; and as I got up with the mass at the +finale I heard my nearest neighbour's remark to his companion, which +might be freely translated thus: + +"How jolly these pigs of English always look!" + +As I was leaving, a woman ran down the gravel walk after me, and +slipped her arm through mine. I turned and paused. She was very +small, pretty, and Parisian from her black eyebrows, cocked like one +of her own circumflex accents, to her patent shoes under her silk +skirt. + +"What do you want" I said, in her own tongue, of course. "Money?" + +"We don't put it like that!" she said, thrusting out her red lips. + +"Well, it comes to that in the end generally," I said, whirling my +cane round in my hand and smiling." It will save you trouble if you +take it now," and I offered her two five-franc pieces and withdrew +my arm. "Go to the bar and drink my health with it!" She took the +money, but still looked at me. + +"Give me a kiss!" she said in a low tone, so low that I did not +catch the last word. + +"Give you what" I asked. + +She stamped her foot. + +"Un baiser!" she said, with a little French scream. "Embrasse moi! +Stupide!" + +I laughed slightly as I looked down upon her. It seemed so +ludicrous, the proposition, just then to me. I had hardly lived the +life I had in Paris for the last thirty months, to now, in the +moment of success and freedom, mar its remembrance by even so much +as a chance kiss to a cafe chantant girl. + +For a second we looked at each other. I noted the tint and the curl +of the offered lips, damp with cosmetic, and suggestive of past +kisses, and the untouched lips of Lucia seemed almost against my own +as I looked. Then I loosened her hand, which clung to my sleeve, and +turned from her, and went on down the path. She shrieked some vile +French words after me, and sent the five-franc piece rolling after +me down the gravel slope. + +I laughed and shrugged my shoulders without looking back, and went +on out of the gardens down into the now silent streets. What a flood +of good spirits poured through my frame as I passed on! I hardly +seemed to walk. The buoyant, almost intolerable, unbearable sense of +elation within me seemed pressing me forward without volition. + +The incident just passed, the woman's hand on mine, the woman's +words, though from her they were nothing to me, had yet touched and +unlocked those impulses which, until now, had been so sternly +repressed, barred down, sepulchred and sealed. They rose upwards, +and with an exultant triumph I remembered I was free now to live and +to love. My work was done, honourably and faithfully accomplished. + +Thirty months lay behind me, an unblemished scroll in time, +recording one unbroken stretch of labour, suffering, and repression. +And now it was over, and I was at liberty. An unspeakable animation +swelled in me; and through all the excited, burning frame seemed to +run living fire that formed one thought in my brain, one loved word +on my lips--Lucia! Like two planets, at the end of each dark street +I turned, I seemed to see her eyes. To her, to her my feet seemed +carrying me. I was only returning to my empty room, but no matter! A +few days more and then England and Lucia! + +I was glad now of everything I had suffered, every emotion +repressed, every weakness vanquished. Strange, wonderful power that +lies in that slight, grey tissue which we call brain! It seemed +hardly credible that this buoyant sense of exultation, this +overflowing, stupendous joy of gratified pride and ambition, this +triumphant pleasure in my own powers and their recognition at last, +these brilliant vistas that opened in my thoughts, could come from +the movements of a little matter with a little blood flowing through +it. And yet, so soon, a few years and I, who seemed now like some +eternal being carried through worlds of space and endless cycles of +years, should be--nothing. Well, no matter; I lived now and Lucia +lived! + +The street was quite empty, and, half unconsciously, I began to sing +the song Bella Napoli, always a favourite of mine, for the sake of +the refrain, Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia! The notes echoed down the +silent street as the words flowed from my tongue in the intoxication +of pleasure--pure, simple, single, undiluted pleasure of the relief +after those weary months of strain. The ground beneath my feet +seemed buoyant air, each pulse within me beat with keen life, and +the name of the woman I loved formed itself again and again on my +lips, fluttered and lingered there, almost like the touch of a pure +and invisible kiss. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +The lamps burned in a subdued way under their dark, rose-coloured +shades, the trail of the women's skirts hardly made any sound on the +thick carpet, the room was large, and the piano that was being +played mildly at the other end of it failed to disturb our +conversation. + +"Well, now, then?" + +I leant over the back of Lucia's low easy-chair and waited eagerly +for her answer. It was the second night after my return to England. +I had dined with the Grants, and now in this dim, secluded corner of +the drawing-room I had the first opportunity of serious conversation +with her. + +"I don't know, Victor; not at present." + +"Lucia! what do you mean!" + +"What I say, dearest," she answered quietly. + +Looking down on her I could see, beneath a confusion of black +eyelashes and dark eyebrow, that the blue eyes looked straight out +in front of her, her arm lay along the wicker side-rest of the +chair, languid, indolent, relaxed. + +"But why?" I said. "Why not at once? Tell me." + +She was silent for some time, then she said,-- + +"When I came to you last year I urged our marriage, and you said it +could not be; now you urge it, and I say it cannot be. That's all." + +I bit my lips suddenly, and I was glad she was not looking at me. I +was silent, too, for a minute; then I said,-- + +"But surely you are not thinking of punishing me for that; of +avenging yourself? You knew all the circumstances, and you +acquiesced in my decision. You would not now think of revenge--it is +so unlike you!" + +"Oh no, no! You misunderstood me. How can you think I should occupy +myself with a ridiculous, petty idea of revenge?" and she laughed a +slight, fatigued laugh. "No, I merely meant that Chance had so +arranged it." + +"But how, then? There is no obstacle now." + +"Not on your side; no." + +"Then what is it, dearest, on yours?" + +She did not answer me for a long time, and then it was seemingly +with reluctance, and a slight flush crept into her pale face as she +said merely the two words,-- + +"My health." + +I hardly know exactly what sensation her answer roused in me, but I +think it was nearer relief than any other. In those few seconds of +silence all sorts of apprehensions and fears had crowded in upon me. +Her health! What barrier need that make between us? And in that +moment of selfish passion that was all I heeded. + +"What has that to do with our marriage?" I asked, laughing, and +bending down farther over her. "You don't mean that you are too ill +to go through the ceremony. Come!" + +She met my gaze fully, and then laughed too. After a second she +said,-- + +"If you disbelieve me and think I am making up, you can at any rate +tell from my looks that I am ill--any man can see that." + +I looked at her critically now, remembering my feeling of shock when +I had first seen her on my return. Yes; I remembered I had thought +her looking fearfully overworked and exhausted, and now I looked at +her again with redoubled anxiety. + +From the black lace of her dinner dress, cut as low as vanity dared +to dictate, and with but one narrow black strip supporting it on her +shoulders, her white throat and breast and light head rose like dawn +out of the night ocean. The milky arms that lay idly along the chair +were as smooth, as downy, but far less dimpled than when I had seen +them in Paris. Round the throat I could trace now the clavicles, +formerly invisible, and lower, at the edge of her bodice, the +depression in the centre of the soft breast was wider. Yes; she was +very much thinner, and the face above only confirmed the impression +of illness. It was pale, and looked slightly swollen; the eyes were +dilated and surrounded with blue shades; the lips were red, almost +unnaturally so, to the point of soreness, as they get to look in +fever. + +"Well, have you come to your conclusion?" she said, as she raised +her eyes suddenly and intercepted mine surveying her. + +I coloured slightly, looked away, and then said merely, "Yes, you +don't look well." + +She gave a little slighting laugh, as much as to say, "You might +have arrived at that before, one would think!" + +"But Lucia," I said, entreatingly, "this is all very serious; do +tell me what is wrong." + +"Ah, my health becomes a serious matter," she answered, leaning her +soft head back on my arm that was resting on the top of her chair, +and looking up at me with her brilliant, clever eyes ablaze with +indulgent derision, "if it is likely to stop our marriage when YOU +desire it!" + +I winced before the delicate thrust in her words, and hardly knew +whether the pain of them was drowned in the pleasure the confident +touch of her head transfused through my arm. + +"That is unnecessarily unkind," I answered, quietly. "Your health or +ill-health would always be a serious matter, but since you hint it-- +yes, I admit--if it prevented our marriage, if it came between us +now, Lucia, it would surpass even the importance it has at all other +times. Tell me what is the matter," I persisted. + +The little head turned restlessly on my coat sleeve, and the warmth +from the cheeks and lips came into my wrist. She seemed half +inclined to yawn, and the delicate left hand, with my ring flashing +on it, came to her lips and closed them when they had barely parted. + +"People call it hysteria," she said at last. "It is a form of +hysteria now, but it did not begin with that. It was overstrain, +nervous breakdown, a collapse of the system. See my hand when I hold +it up, how it shakes? I can't control that, and my heart beats +wildly at the slightest exertion. I am exhausted, limp, Victor, +ironed out by the events of last year, very much like what your +collar would be without its starch!" + +She was looking up at me now and half laughing. She had raised her +hand between me and the nearest lamp; it quivered violently, as she +said, and looked transparent and scarlet close against the light. I +caught it in mine and drew it up to my lips. + +"Victor!" she said, indignantly, "release it! remember where we +are!" + +"I don't care where we are!" I muttered, letting go her hand, but +not before I had kissed it passionately across the tiny knuckles and +in the palm. It fell nerveless into her lap; her face grew so +desperately pallid, even her lips, that I was startled. + +"Lucia! What is the matter?" + +The lids that seemed ready to sink over her eyes lifted again. + +"Nothing; but--I was telling you, just this minute, I am exhausted-- +done for." + +I looked at her in dismay, and I saw her heart must be beating +violently; the red geraniums against her breast rose and sank in a +series of rapid, irregular jerks. + +"I am sorry," I murmured. "Forgive me;" and my heart sank suddenly +with a vague, in definable sense of apprehension as I looked at her. + +Where was the girl who had come to me a year ago, full of +overflowing, eager, exuberant health and life, hungry for love, +longing and ardent for a kiss? Not here; somewhere in the past that +I had neglected and refused. And the contrast between the two images +struck me like a lash across the brain. The next minute I had +recovered myself. This was only a passing in disposition of Lucia's, +the sooner we were married now the better. + +"Well, dearest, if it is only hysteria and nervous strain, and so +on," I said, taking up the main thread of our conversation, "then, +for that, our marriage and a long rest, in which you would do +nothing but amuse yourself, would be the best thing. Make up your +mind, Lucia, to give yourself, trust yourself, to me, and I will +promise to get you quite well, sooner than any doctor can. I suppose +you have seen one?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, what does he do for you?" + +"Oh, I take hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid, and strychnine +through the day, and digitalis and potassium bromide at night." + +"Good heavens! Lucia! how can you be so foolish?" I exclaimed. "It's +most unwise to take all these things." + +"You are not a doctor," she answered languidly. + +"No; and therefore I can talk common sense," I said, flushing. +"Come, dearest, let us settle which is to be the happiest day in my +life." + +"Don't fuss, Victor. I can't settle any time just now." + +"But at least give me an idea!" + +"I can't give you what I have not got myself." + +"Do you mean you have no idea when we shall be married?" + +"Yes. I have just said so." + +My hand closed involuntarily on the back of the chair till the +basket-work creaked. She heard it, and felt perhaps, also, the +sudden tension in the arm beneath her head. She raised her eyes with +a gleam of the old desire in them: they were soft, and her voice was +gentle, with out any mockery in it now, as she said,-- + +"I am excessively sorry about it, Victor, but you may trust me. I +will give you some certain date the moment I can, when I am better. +You can't think I would voluntarily defer it, do you?" + +The whole lovely, inert form heaved a little as she spoke; the +eyelids and nostrils in the up-turned face quivered, the lips +parted, and, convinced, I bent over her with a hurried, desperate +murmur. + +"No! no! But, then, when? How long? Is it days, weeks, or the end of +the season?" + +"Yes; I should think about the end. I can not fix it nearer. It is +bad taste to press me any farther." + +She lifted her head from my arm and sat up right, though even then, +after a minute, her figure drooped languidly towards the side of the +chair, and she doubled one of her white, round arms on the wicker- +work to form a support. I stood silent, irritated, disappointed, +perplexed, biting my lips in nervous, absent-mindedness. She spoke +twice to me without my hearing what her words were, and I had to +apologise. + +"I was only saying I should like you to see the "Death of +Hyacinthus" now it is finished: see the result of last year's +efforts and the cause of this year's ill-health!" + +"Certainly; I want to see it very much. When may I?" + +"To-morrow, if you like, but I want you to see the Academy first. I +should like you to come to it prejudiced, with your eyes full of all +the successful pictures of the year." + +"Is it not at the Academy, Lucia?" + +"Don't look so apprehensive!" she said, with a slight laugh. "It has +not been rejected--simply, I could not get it finished in time for +presentation. I was ill, and it just missed this season by a very +little." + +"And now, what are you going to do with it?" + +"I must offer it next year, that's all." + +"What a disappointment for you!" + +"Yes, I should have thought so some time ago; but I seem to be much +more apathetic now to everything. Each year that one lives one gets +to expect less and less from life, and one grows more philosophic, +more contented with what is thrown in one's way, and less +disappointed when one's hopes and expectations are not realised. +Judging by those things which we do gain and enjoy and experience +the worth lessness of, I suppose we learn by degrees to infer that +others so longed-for and coveted would prove as valueless if +possessed." + +Her voice was low and tired, and had the sound of suppressed tears +in it. + +"You are in a depressed frame of mind," I said. + +"Yes;" then, with a cynical smile, "hysteric, as I told you. Well, +will you come to-morrow about eleven, and then afterwards we can +come back here to criticise 'Hyacinthus'?" + +"Yes; I shall be delighted." + +"I think mama is going to take our carriage, so come in yours, will +you?" + +"Very good," I answered, and there was a long silence. Not broken, +in fact, until there was the stir of some of the guests leaving. + +As the third or fourth left the room, I came round and took her hand +as I stood in front of her. + +"Good-night, Lucia, I hope you may be granted all the sleep you have +stolen from me," I said gently; then, partly influenced by the +contact of that delicious hand, and prompted by my own impulse, and +partly deliberately to excite, if possible, her own instincts as +allies to fight for me, I pressed it hard as I added,-- + +"On how many more nights is this hated formula, 'Good-night,' to be +said between us? Minimise them, my darling, for my sake!" + +Into the tone I allowed to enter all the strength of my feelings at +the moment. She only coloured painfully up to the heavy eyes, +whether from confusion or pleasure or passion I could not tell. She +made no answer, and the soft, captive hand struggled faintly to be +free. + +We were surrounded the next instant by the press of talking, +laughing guests passing down to the door, and I could do nothing but +drop her hand and leave her with a composed face, and my brain +feeling literally on fire. The perplexity, mystery, uncertainty, and +irritation which Lucia's illness and manner had poured suddenly in +upon the elation, the assured triumph, the excited expectations and +eager desire with which I had come, produced a state of thought in +which I hardly recognised my reasoning being. + +I made my way over to Mrs. Grant with the conventional smile, and +then, once without the drawing-room, hurried down to the door and +the night air. In the hall I recognised, standing waiting for his +carriage, a familiar figure. It was a man I had known intimately in +India: he was home now on furlough, and as friends we were often +invited to the same houses. + +"I say, Dick," I said, as I came up to him, "it's a lovely night. +Are you game for a walk? If so, send the carriage home and come with +me round to my place. I want your advice and condolences." + +We were at the foot of the stairs. The other men and women had +collected nearer the door. + +"Condolences! Why, yesterday you told me congratulations were the +order of the day!" he answered in a tone of good-natured raillery. + +"They are so no longer," I answered, gloomily. "My head is simply +splitting too. I can't think where I get these confounded +headaches," I muttered, pushing the hair up off my forehead, and +wishing I could push off some of the oppressing ideas. "Are you +coming with me, Dick?" + +He looked at me attentively, and possibly seeing the excitement I +tried to suppress, and the flush it drove to my face, he debated my +sobriety. I think he came to the right conclusion, for the next +moment he said,-- + +"Yes; I'll come. Just let me get my over coat and tell the +coachman." + +I had the same thing to do, and we met a second or two later at the +bottom of the steps, and turned to walk towards my place. As we +walked down the street he slipped his arm in mine and said,-- + +"You seem frightfully upset. What has happened?" + +"That's just what I want to know!" I answered. "If I knew I should +not so much mind, but this is what I hate about women, they never +will speak out nor come to the point. It is the one great fault of +the sex. I despise it utterly. It can do no good, and it is most +annoying and irritating to a person who has a right to confidence." + +"My dear fellow," he said, soothingly, "you can't expect your +fiancee, if that's what you mean, to be so uncommonly direct in +speech as you are! You have a way of very much going to the point in +everything, but you won't find it in other people, even throwing +women out of the question." + +"What is the use of wrapping things up in mystery? But women delight +in it! The more they can mystify and mislead and perplex you, and +leave their real or their possible meaning doubtful and involved, +the greater the pleasure they have. They will carry on a +conversation for hours by hints, suggestions, ambiguous terms, +allusions, phrases that may mean anything or nothing, and then leave +at the end, in obscurity, the whole matter, which could have been +explained and made perfectly clear and settled on a satisfactory +basis in a few short sentences. It's a petty, abominable trait in +their character." + +Dick raised his eyebrows considerably. + +"She has offended, evidently," he said. + +"Offended? She simply tortured me all this evening, either +intentionally or involuntarily. She said too little and too much. +And her manner was worse than her words. I could not make out +whether she was telling me the truth or a series of delicate +excuses; she herself did not calculate on my believing. Everything +she said to-night, if proved false, she might justify to-morrow by +saying, 'Oh, well, of course, I never thought you would take that +seriously; I thought you would understand that was a euphemism to +save your feelings, and so on; you know one does not say to a +person's face one is tired of him and wishes the thing off.' That is +what she may say afterwards, or, of course, what she told me may be +the truth. It may be an excuse that sounds like the truth, or the +truth that sounds like an excuse. She contrived to leave it +confoundedly indistinct, and that is what I complain of." + +"You haven't given me any clue yet as to what the conversation was," +Dick said quietly as we paced down the silent street. + +My head seemed reeling with pain and the blood that flowed to it. +The moonlight, and the black shadows it deepened, jumped together +before my eyes. + +"The accursed upshot of it was that she won't have anything to do +with our marriage at present," I returned. + +"Oh! And what reason did she assign?" + +"After considerable hesitation she said her health; but, as I say, +she would not speak out, and such an excuse between us is +monstrous!" + +"After considerable hesitation she said her health; but, as I say, +she would not speak out, and such an excuse between us is monstrous! +Ours is not a formal 'mariage de convenance;' it lies with +ourselves. She is obviously not seriously ill; if she hesitates on +her own account she must know she has nothing to fear from me; if +she hesitates on mine, then it is folly and nonsense. I don't care +about anything! I don't care what is the matter with her, I would +marry her if she were dying, rotting of leprosy to-morrow!" + +"I say, old fellow, you must not excite yourself like this! You will +be seriously ill if you don't look out," Dick answered, +remonstratingly. "It's no use working yourself up into a fever." + +"I am not working myself up; unfortunately that has been done for +me," I answered, with a short laugh. "Well, Dick, I am sick of +everything, disgusted with everything! It's the same old story +perpetually repeated. All that one fixes one's eyes on in the +distance turns into dust as one approaches it. For the last year I +have thought of this meeting this evening, and now it has come, what +is it?" + +"You are taking me by surprise to-night, Victor! I remember you in +the regiment as so deuced calm." + +"I'm never calm!" I returned. "Exteriorly, yes, of course, for one's +own convenience and self-respect, to outsiders, one is always calm; +but the exterior is not the reality. I am not one of those things +naturally which I command myself into being: existence to me is +nothing but a close-fitting, strangling, self-restraint. It drags +upon me like a prisoner's gangrening fetter, and I'm getting tired +of it. I think I'll slip it off altogether!" + +I talked straight out of the distraction of my own thoughts, the +pain in my head was acute, stunning my brain, and my vision seemed +all wrong, as when one has been drinking. I was conscious of Dick +looking at me anxiously, as he said-- + +"That's all nonsense! You are quite out of your senses this evening! +You wouldn't throw up your life now, when you are just on the point +of success, surely?" + +"If I can't force our marriage, it's likely to come to that, I +think," I muttered. "I am totally at a loss. I know nothing. I can +conjecture nothing. I have not seen her nor heard from her this past +year; and now she will say nothing. I pressed her as much, I think, +as a fellow decently could. If she had spoken clearly and definitely +it would have been different. Whatever statement a woman made to me +of any painful facts; or if she came to me with any confession of +folly, or change of feeling, or misfortune, or whatever it was, no +matter what, I should enter into it and understand her. But Lucia +to-night treated me like a stranger, fenced with me like an enemy. I +have no clue as to what to think and what to believe. Simply, I see +that she is no longer keen on the matter, and there is a large +possibility of my not having her at all. By God! if it is so"-- + +I broke off into silence. After all, there is no use in talk; and +the knives twisted backwards and forwards in my head helped to stop +speech. + +We walked on in silence. The streets were very quiet here; we had +left the Grants' late, and now it was getting towards morning. We +verged directly towards Knightsbridge; for some time our steps were +the only sound. Then, after a pause, Dick said quietly-- + +"I think, Victor, you are going on a wrong tack altogether. You +don't make enough allowance for the fact that she is a girl, and has +not seen you for a year, remember. It is all very well for you to +talk of to-the-point confessions and plain statements, but +practically, if a girl were to talk as frankly as you would like, I +am afraid the idea of modesty would rather come to grief." + +"Oh! modesty," I said impatiently, "be--Modesty! It's all very well +as a pretty, becoming, every-day fashion, but it should be laid +aside in the serious matters of life. It is an artificiality; +admirable, useful, excellent as a daily conventional rule, but it +should yield when there is a great natural question at issue. +Modesty! a fictitious, artificial, inculcated shame to intrude +itself between two people considering gravely the vital matter of +their love, their union, their future life! It's preposterous!" + +"It very often does so," remarked Dick. "I am not saying whether it +should or it shouldn't." + +"No," I answered more calmly; "and I entirely see what you mean, and +I think you are perfectly right there. Lucia is steeped in fashion, +soaked through with the prejudice and bringing up of her own rank. +And I suppose I do like it and expect it, certainly, as a general +rule; only, when the thing on hand is very important, and a society +woman fences with you behind a screen of elegant, delicate language, +you feel sometimes you would prefer the intelligible candour of a +kitchen maid." + +Dick laughed. + +"I doubt the charm of the latter individual, Vic! You must have a +little more patience with this girl, and the confidence will come by +degrees, if you don't lose your self-command with her; but I'd +advise you to be careful. The way in which you have been talking to +me now gives an impression of--well, almost brutality, that I didn't +think was in you." + +I laughed contemptuously. + +"Oh, you needn't be afraid of the word; I know there is a lot of it +in me. It's just that knowledge that enables me to keep it under. I +know if I had not kept myself, for the sake of the work, out of it, +that I should have led a brutish existence. However, you needn't +think that I am going to frighten Lucia. I have had such a deuce of +a lot of practice in patience and restraint, and all those fine +things, that I am quite sure of myself when I am with her. But as to +gaining her confidence, that is impossible before the ceremony, I +believe. She has been brought up in that monstrous idea, like the +rest of our fashionable girls, that the man into whose possession +she is to give herself utterly with the ceremony, up to the last +moment before it, is to be treated with the most absolute reserve. +The contrast is too ludicrous--driven to the point of exaggeration +to which they drive it. In Lucia's eyes an unusual, an unfashionable +word, no matter how great the necessity for it, is a crime. I +believe she would walk to the block rather than let a word pass her +lips in my hearing an hour before our marriage that in twenty-four +hours afterwards might be a common phrase between us. You may call +it modesty and charming, if you like. All I can say is, there are +limits to its charm." + +The approach of morning was distinct now. A grey light hung in a +faint misty veil over the Green Park and top of Piccadilly. As it +fell from the cloudy, neutral-tinted sky, it showed one solitary +figure, a woman with a trailing skirt and battered hat, passing Hyde +Park corner. + +In the waste of deserted street and roadway, glimmering in the dull, +grey light, that one dishevelled black figure reminded one of the +remnant of some wrecked vessel, drifting at dawn along a sullen +coast. She drifted somewhat faster up to us as we came to the corner +and touched Dick, who was next to the road, on the arm. He shook her +hand off without speaking. + +"Have you any money with you, Dick?" I asked. + +"Yes; but I am not going to give any to her," he answered. + +I would have given the woman some, but I had none. I had left it +behind when I changed my clothes for dinner. She heard Dick's answer +to me plainly, and it exasperated her. All the natural, florid, +unstudied eloquence of the lower orders was at her command, and +well-turned periods of perfect abuse and neat incisive remarks upon +our characters, our persons and attributes generally, rippled in a +smooth, unbroken stream from her lips as she followed us. Just at +that moment there was not a policeman nor any other being within +sight. + +We walked on, and the woman's curses and imprecations upon us filled +the grey silence of the street. At last a porter on his way to work +passed us, and she transferred her attentions and oratory to him. +Dick glanced at me and laughed. + +"Well, there was an extensive vocabulary, Victor! How would some of +those words sound in your fiancee's mouth?" + +I laughed too. + +"You always were good at a sophistical sneer, but vile language has +nothing to do with what I was talking about." + +"No; of course not. It does strike one as curious, doesn't it," he +added after a minute, "that a creature like that and the girl we +have been with this evening can belong to the same sex." + +"Well, I don't know," I answered; "I know there is the sort of idea +that it is funny, but somehow it does not strike me more with +reference to woman than to ourselves. I mean it does not seem more +incongruous than that a man like yourself and an offal sweeper +belong to the same sex." + +"No; perhaps not. One of those houses is yours, isn't it?" Dick +said. + +"Yes; number 2," I answered, as we went up to the door. + +"They seem to have turned the light out." + +I opened the door and Dick went in. I followed, and when the door +was shut behind us the hall was in nether darkness. We found our way +to the foot of the stairs, where an undefined heap barred our way. +Not knowing what it was I kicked it, and Dick exclaimed,-- + +"Take care! I think that's your man," and a groan confirmed the +statement. + +"Hullo, Walters! I am very sorry. I had no idea it was you. I hope I +haven't hurt you!" I said as the servant got on his feet. "Why do +you turn the lights out? However, it's just as well you are here. +Bring me upstairs the soda, champagne, and the new lot of cigars. I +suppose there is the lamp in my room?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"You won't care to turn out again, Dick, to-night, will you?" I said +as we went upstairs. "There's an awfully comfortable sofa in my +room, quite as good as a bed. Will you accept that?" + +"Oh yes; I always find I can go to sleep anywhere. Do you remember, +when we were camping out at Shikarpur, those nights on the shaky- +legged native benches?" + +"Rather! That was when I never bothered about anything. I have never +slept so well since." + +We went into my room. Two lamps were burning here, and the thick +blinds shut out all signs of the dreary dawning light. Walters +followed us in a few seconds and set a tray of glasses and bottles +on the table. I flung off my overcoat and sat down in an arm-chair, +pressing the palms of my hands hard on my forehead in the vain +effort to deaden the tearing pain. + +"Try some of those cigars," I said, after a minute, "they are not +bad, and take whatever you like to drink," and I got up and filled +my glass at the same time. + +"I think that brandy is the worst thing for your head," remarked +Dick, looking dubiously at the glass. + +"But I am so confoundedly thirsty!" + +"Take the soda without the brandy, then. Really, I would advise you +not to touch that spirit to-night." + +"Oh, I don't much care! let it be the soda;" and I filled another +tumbler with the latter and drank it. "But what is your own opinion +about this business with Lucia," I asked, when Dick had stretched +himself on the sofa and started his cigar. "What puzzles me so is +the great change in her--a change apparently in the whole tenour of +her feelings. You can't think how wide the difference is between her +now and a year ago. I told you that she came over to Paris to see +me, didn't I?" + +Dick nodded. + +"That was only twelve months back, and she was simply--well, she was +evidently very much in love then. You know what I mean, and she made +no effort to conceal it. She urged our marriage; and then, when we +decided it was impossible, she would have liked me to go any +reasonable lengths in demonstration of my love for her, and so on. I +made a mistake there, perhaps, but I thought it unwise. We hardly +knew where we were as it was. She seemed utterly weak, and I felt +she might say things in those moments she would be fearfully cut up +to remember afterwards. It seemed dishonourable in my shackled, +circumscribed position to lead her any farther on. That was my idea- +-perhaps it was mistaken--I don't know. Anyway we shook hands +merely. Then, at that time, she invited a kiss in every way short of +demanding it. Now, to-night I kissed her hand, not a very +extraordinary nor embarrassing action, and yet I thought she was +going to faint as a result. It moved some very strong sensation, +repulsion or disgust, or something, and I want to know what." + +"You see, Vic," Dick said, after a minute or two of silence, laying +down the cigar and driving his elbow into the sofa cushion, and +leaning his head on his hand. He looked past me absently towards the +fender, and spoke as a person does whose opinion has long since been +formed. "We can't hold over anything in this life, opportunities, +our own powers, health, youth, they are all things you can't store +for the future. All we can do is to use them when they are put into +our hands. Still less can we reserve and warehouse our own feelings +and emotions, and least of all, those of others. You might compare +passion to a gas. If you allow gas its expansion it diffuses itself +and is lost. If you subject it to confinement with close pressure, +it becomes a liquid and loses its original form. It is the same with +passion. It is impossible to maintain it as such. Either it +evaporates in gratification or it undergoes some metamorphosis in +suppression." + +I said nothing. There was a sort of coldness and weight in his words +and tone that increased my own apprehensions. + +"You can keep nothing up to the pitch of a crisis. We all know that. +Even a kettle of water, when it is once boiling, you cannot keep it +so. It must boil over into the flames or simmer down or dry up. And +if you reject a woman at the crisis of her passion, there is an +enormous probability that, in waiting, her virtue or her inclination +or her health will break down. Either her feelings may transport her +into some folly or they may cool. If her will is too strong to allow +the folly, and her nature too ardent to permit the cooling, then her +constitution must give way. This last is what, judging from all I +see, I should think--since you ask my opinion, old fellow, you know- +-has happened in Lucia's case." + +I looked at him with a faint feeling of surprise. His manner, voice, +and words conveyed such an idea of certainty and perfect decision in +his own mind. + +"Yes," I answered; "I suppose that is it. Well, that is what she +told me, virtually, herself." + +"You cannot wonder at it!" + +I coloured hotly as I answered,-- + +"I know it seems as if I had been a confounded prig in refusing her +last year--people may say so; but if I had given in and kept her +with me in Paris, then everybody would have been slanging me for +that!" + +Dick laughed. + +"No, Victor; I am not slanging you for one or the other course. You +acted up to your own principle--every fellow must do that; but I am +not sure your principle is the best--that perpetual denial to +impulse, that refusal to take what you can get in the moment, +because of what you may be called upon to pay hereafter. At any +rate, it may not be the luckiest nor the happiest. But still, in the +case of a man who has many equally strong wishes, it is difficult to +say what he should do. In your case the upshot of either resolution +would have been the same--as things are, you will get your book out +and be discontented; in the other case, you would have married Lucia +and been discontented!" + +"You may be as cynical as you please," I muttered, with my hands +pressed over my eyes. "I am not responsible for the complex nature +of the human brain, nor can I simplify it. I know what I am going to +do now. Having secured the work, I am going to gain Lucia too, if it +is in the power of any man--whether, as you put it, her virtue, or +her health, or her inclination, or the whole lot together, have +broken down!" + +"And if you don't get her, you will get over it: we all do, Vic," he +said, with a smile. + +"Very possibly," I assented. + +It was not worth while to discuss a contingency I had determined to +prevent. + +"A man's profession is his best friend," Dick went on, stretching +himself out on the couch. "That he can command; and for the rest-- +purchasable pleasures--those he can command. These affaires-de- +coeur, which you can't command, are always more bother than they are +worth." + +There was silence, then he added,-- + +"One good one, though, fairly early in life, is useful, like +vaccination. You are not so likely to fall in love again after it; +just as, after vaccination, you are not so likely to have smallpox. +For myself, I should prefer smallpox to being in love." + +I merely laughed, without replying. In my present state I was not +sure that he was far wrong. + +"I say," Dick remarked, after a pause; "you are looking most awfully +seedy. Hadn't you better turn in and try and get some sleep? One +always thinks one can't, but one generally does." + +"Yes; I think I had better," I said, getting up. I turned one lamp +out and the other down. + +"It's odd--I wonder what the ultimate, future event will be"-- + +"'Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere,'" answered Dick, with a +laugh, as he turned and settled himself on the couch. + +"There are a couple of rugs," I said, depositing them on his feet. +"Draw them up if you're cold." + +"All right. Thanks! Good-night!" + +"Good night!" + +I slipped off my clothes and got into bed, feeling almost uncertain +on my feet. My head seemed literally whirling and swimming in pain. +When I awoke the following morning and looked round it was past ten. +Dick had gone. I looked at the couch, it was empty, and a note was +stuck by his pin into the sofa pillow. I sat up in bed, and by +leaning forward and extending my arm I got hold of the pillow, and +thence the paper and read it. + +"8 A.M.--You are still asleep and I don't like to wake you, but I +want to be back at my place by nine, so I am departing like the +guest of an Arab. If you have nothing better to do this evening, +come and dine with me. Army and Navy. Seven." + + "Very good," I thought; I put the note and the pin on the table +beside me, and got up. The headache was gone, and the head felt none +the worse for it. The sun was streaming in through the blinds now. +The gloom, the apprehensions, the pain of the previous night, had +all cleared from the field together. I dressed and shaved with a +steady hand, thinking, in a sane, easy way, very different from the +inflamed, convulsive working of the brain last night. The work was +set afloat in Paris--I should soon find readers on the asphalt--that +quarter of my sky was clear. As for the sudden darkening squall that +had sprung up in the other quarter, formerly so serene, the quarter +over which reigned Lucia's star--it was only a squall, it would +pass. She must be capable of being roused again to those feelings +she had once known. And if I had nothing else, I had, at least, in +my favour the sheer force and intensity of my own passion--which is, +after all, the weapon under which a woman quickest sinks. I felt +that I cared more keenly for Lucia than most men of eight-and-twenty +in the nineteenth century care for the women they marry. I was +conscious of it instinctively; even if the memory of these last ten +barren, empty years that I had lived did not convince me that a +passion for any one object would be greater in myself than in men +whose multiplicity of previous loves must lessen the value of each +succeeding one. My work, which had been Lucia's successful rival, +had protected her from lesser ones. + +Nothing, except the possession of this woman, had ever been a +synonym of pleasure with me, and therefore its expectation had a +stronger hold over me than it could have had over a man who was +accustomed to acknowledge and recognise pleasure under a hundred +names. I felt the impetus of this undiffused, undissipated passion, +in its undivided strength, stir and vitalise all my energies, and +its power over my own frame made me involuntarily, instinctively +confident of the power it would have over hers. + +"We will see how long it is before you capitulate, oh my fortified +and arrogant city!" I thought, as I finished dressing and went +downstairs. My father was reading the paper, apparently waiting +breakfast for me. We were on the very best of terms now. + +He felt convinced of my capability to work, and assured of my +success. With that surprising tendency of the human mind to delegate +its own powers to another, he accepted completely the verdict of the +Parisian publisher upon qualities he had had under his own +observation for an odd twenty years. Now, forsooth, because another +man had told him so, he took it for granted that I had some talent. +And all the time we had lived together he had hesitated to form that +opinion from first-hand knowledge. Extraordinary trait in human +nature, this liking to be thought for, instead of thinking for +yourself! This waiting to take up, second-hand, ready-made, the +views of another man, even when the fresh materials are at your +hand, and you may examine them and form your own. It is a universal +tendency, of course, and displays itself everywhere; in religion, in +morality, in fashions, in vices, in simple conversation--everywhere. + +The glorious and free gift of Nature to every man, the capacity for +perception and judgment, he shamefacedly, as if it were a disgrace, +tries to shift off upon another. It always amuses me immensely when +brought before me, and it did now in my father's case. He assumed, +as innumerable people do, that success or failure proves or +disproves merit, which is such a curious opinion, as remarkable as +if a person believed the absence or presence of the hall-mark proved +or disproved the identity of gold. On no point did he and I differ +more widely than on this. + +It has always seemed to me that the formation of a judgment and +opinion is an involuntary function of the mind, not a matter of +effort, as others seem to regard it. Your judgment may be wrong, so +may your opinion; your perception may be misled. I understand that. +But can you exist without judgment, without opinion, without +perception, till another man hand you his? This is hard to realise. + +My father in all these years had not said my son is a fool and will +not succeed, nor had he said my son is clever and will succeed, but +what he had said was this, he may be a fool or he may be clever, we +will see what the publishers say. And this attitude of mind, which +repeated itself in different forms in half the men one meets, is +fascinatingly incomprehensible to me. If I have the opportunity of +seeing a man or testing a ring, what do I care, what does it matter +to me, whether he is successful or unsuccessful, whether the ring is +hall-marked or not! I have my own eyes, ears, and intelligence at +command. What more do I want? Give me the man or the metal: in a +very short time I have decided their worth to my own satisfaction. I +may be wrong in my estimate, of course, but that is another matter. + +If my brain is in a healthy state, I can do more avoid its forming +an exact, personal opinion of the man, and a computation of his +powers, than I can avoid my eye spontaneously taking his shape and +muscles into its vision. In their natural, unimpaired state, neither +organ should need artificial aid. But my father was looking at me +now through the mental spectacles of my success, which made to him +hugely big that merit which, before, he could not see at all. Thanks +to those spectacles, an easy indulgence was granted me. Little that +I could do now was wrong. Another man had thought fit to pay me for +my powers. That elevated me in his estimation as the powers +themselves never had done. He had no longer any wish apparently to +oppose me. Since my brains were now authenticated by the seal of a +publisher, he was sufficiently satisfied that they might be trusted +to decide my own life and conduct. However, besides all this, he was +strictly a man of his word, and having promised that, with my +success, all opposition to my marriage would cease, he kept his +conditions, as I had kept mine. + +"I am very sorry to be so late," I said, as we drew our chairs to +the table. "I am afraid you have waited for me." + +"My dear boy, a few minutes are of no consequence!" + +"I had rather a stiff headache last night, and only got to sleep +when it was nearly time to get up. I hope I didn't wake you coming +home last night? That idiot Walters must needs turn out the gas and +go to sleep in the hall. Of course I kicked him over. Did it disturb +you?" + +"I should think it was calculated to disturb Walters more than me!" +he returned. "No; I didn't hear you. Were you late? Will you have +sole or bacon?" + +"Sole, please," I said. "Yes; Dick and I walked back from Lucia's +place." + +"How did you find her?" he asked, stirring his tea I had just handed +him, and looking at me. "Don't you think she has deteriorated in +looks very much?" + +"Enormously," I replied, without hesitation. + +There is nothing like conceding at once to your opponent any point +that you admit yourself. It saves discussion being wasted upon that +which you are really agreed about, and gives more weight to all you +refuse to relinquish to him afterwards. + +My father looked a little surprised, and did not answer immediately, +and I continued,-- + +"She was always, as far as I remember, a girl who could look +exceedingly pretty and positively plain, and all the intermediate +gradations, within twenty-four hours, but really," I added, meeting +his eyes across the breakfast table, and the full blaze of the +sunlight falling into my own, "to me, in any one of them, she is +equally"-- + +I hesitated a second, and he put in-- + +"Attractive?" + +It was not the word I should have used, but it served, and I let it +pass. + +"I suppose it's really her talent that fetches you as much as +anything, eh?" he said, after a few minutes. + +"And her character," I answered; "her whole personality. I suppose +all those things weighed at first, but, as a matter of fact, now it +is quite enough that she is the woman I have determined upon." + +"An admission of your own obstinacy," he answered, tartly. + +"That may be the right term for it," I returned, "but I hardly think +it is. Theoretically, Lucia has belonged to me the past four years. +An idea, a habit of the mind, is full grown and has some strength at +four years of age." + +My father said nothing, but lapsed into the silence of defeat or of +contempt, and we pursued our breakfast. + +"Will you let me have the victoria this morning?" I said, after a +long silence. "She wants me to drive her to the Academy." + +"Of course; I'm glad you can find something to do here. I'm afraid +of its seeming dull to you after Paris." + +I looked up with elevated eyebrows. + +"And wherein do you imagine the gaiety of Paris consisted?" I asked. + +"Oh, I've no doubt you found plenty of amusement there," he +answered, with an indulgent smile. + +"I assure you there was not one single hour of the whole time that +was not spent in work or thought," I said, seriously. + +He laughed. + +"I am delighted to hear it, I'm sure, Victor," he said, with the air +of a person who accepts the general truth of a statement with a +large reservation of their own opinion on the details of it. +However, I did not care. I had worked for my own sake; lived +correctly for my own sake--and whether another knew it or not +mattered to me not at all. + +"No; on the contrary, I am very pleased to be back," I said. "I +always look upon the place where you are as home." + +A pleased expression came over his face as I spoke. We were +sincerely attached to each other in spite of the jarring dissonance +of character. Later that same morning when I was sitting beside +Lucia as we drove to the Academy, I studied her closely in the sharp +morning light, and I was alarmed at the pallor and exhaustion of her +face. I am not an admirer of ill-health in any form. The hectic +flush of phthisis, even, dear to the poets, has positively no charm +for me; and Lucia's illness was not phthisis, and certainly did not +enhance her looks. + +"Who is your medical man, Lucia?" I asked. + +"Why do you wish to know?" + +"That I may be satisfied that he is a good one." + +"I should prefer not to tell you his name." + +"Why?" + +"Because I object," she said simply, in her coldest tone. + +"That is not a sufficient reason." + +"I am of opinion that it is," she returned frigidly, with a +supercilious accent. + +I leant back in the carriage without answering, and looked away from +her. How I hated her in that moment! After all, I thought, why do +you trouble to get this particular woman above everything? Fifty +women that you meet in the course of a week are as pretty--possibly +of more worth--probably more civil. Why not select a more accessible +divinity? Or else content yourself with Horace's parabilem venerem +facilemque? + +Then I glanced involuntarily at her, and I knew it was impossible. +My eyes swept over the form beside me, as she sat cold, impassive; +her attitude one of quiet ease, her whole mien the essence of calm +self-possession. That excess of pride and dignity and supercilious +arrogance that in Lucia replaced, at times, her seductive plasticity +at others, had always exercised a violent attraction over me. And +now, when this pride seemed joined with a positive hostility to +myself, it failed to repel; it simply raised to its highest pitch a +savage and acrimonious determination to subdue it. + +As I sat silent, with my eyes turned away from her to the blaze of +glaring pavement and roadway, and noted mechanically the crush of +traffic on ahead, Dick's remark on my brutality recurred to me, and +I forced the most good-natured smile to my lips, and the quietest +tone to my voice, as I turned to her and said,-- + +"Of course, dearest, I will consider it sufficient if you say so." + +Perhaps she expected farther opposition, and my yielding surprised +her. She looked at me full for a minute in silence, then, failing to +discover a trace of the savage irritation I was feeling, she laid +her hand impulsively on mine, and said with a smile,-- + +"You are a dear, good-tempered fellow, Victor!" at which I laughed-- +considerably. + +The Academy is a place of all others, I should think, most +calculated to fatigue and oppress a person in nervous ill-health. It +was just twelve when Lucia and I arrived. The sun was at its +hottest, and the crowds within the rooms at their thickest. The air +seemed lifeless and laden with dust, swept up by the women's +dresses, and filled with a mixture of scents from White Rose to Eau +de Cologne. The daylight was harshly bright, and the unbroken lines +of pictures in their glaring gilt frames, annoyed and jarred upon +the eye. + +We moved very slowly with the rank of people passing down our side +of the gallery. Lucia never removed her eyes from the walls, except +to glance at me and make me refer to a name in the catalogue, and +the women who passed her were able to scrutinise her dress and face +without a return glance. This they did to the utmost limits of good +breeding, for both were sufficiently worthy of notice. + +Whether Lucia looked pretty or plain, at her best or her worst, she +always looked more or less striking. Some women are like this; they +can appear everything but quiet and common-place. Lucia would be +noticed everywhere, sometimes favourably, sometimes the reverse; but +noticed she must infallibly be. An exceptionally beautiful figure, a +certain extravagance in dress, and an unusually fair skin made her +conspicuous where far more regular faces and straight profiles +passed unnoticed. She herself was absolutely indifferent to +everything save the paintings. Twice I called her attention to men +who saluted her without being seen by her as she passed close to +them. + +"I am very sorry," she said in answer. "It is a stupid fashion to +notice one's friends here. One should not be supposed to recognise +them at the Academy any more than in church!" + +We drifted on slowly with the mass, and at last came to a standstill +before a wedge of figures in front of a prominent canvas. A nude +female figure stood upright, facing the spectator, with both arms +upraised to fasten a pomegranate blossom in the tightly twisted +hair: an indefinite heap of sketchy clothing lay upon the ground. + +"The title?" murmured Lucia; and I pressed my way a little forward +to see the number, looked it up in the catalogue, and read to her +"The Toilette." "Before the toilette! I should think," said Lucia, +in a satirical whisper. I nodded and laughed. + +We could not move on till the circle before us moved, and we stood +silent looking at the shadowy representation of human flesh and +blood smiling with fixed inanity from the canvas. + +"The most successful picture of the year!" remarked one man just in +front of us. + +"Eminently artistic!" murmured another, stifling a yawn. + +"Did you ever see such a thing?" said Lucia. "No living woman ever +looked like that!" + +"No," I answered, unguardedly. + +Lucia threw a sudden, brilliant, mocking glance over my face. + +"Come, Victor! you ought to have said you didn't know!" + +I coloured, and then laughed. + +"Ah, yes; so I ought. Well, really, I answered you in absence of +mind." + +"Oh, don't apologise! Let's sit down." + +I glanced at her face. It was white to the lips which laughed so +readily. I looked round desperately. The lounge behind was filled +completely before the most successful picture of the year. + +"Let us try another room," I said, hastily drawing her arm more +through mine. It leant heavily there, and she grew more pallid. + +"They are all alike--I can't stand the heat--we must go, I think," +she murmured. + +"It doesn't seem very easy," I said. + +Lucia threw a helpless glance round on the crown pressing up eagerly +to catch a glimpse of the popular painting, and some one in artistic +circles recognised her. + +A whisper went from one to the other of the little sets within the +crowd, and they fell back from us; heads were turned from the canvas +towards Lucia. There was an exit made, and I walked determinedly +through the staring loungers, who yielded before us. + +A voice said behind us,-- + +"They say she'll be the greatest artist of the times!" + +"How I envy her!" came a girl's answer. + +Lucia's blue-white lips smiled mockingly. + +"Take me home, Victor," she said, faintly. + + . . . . . . . + +The hot summer days dragged slowly by. + +The Grants did not leave town, and I hesitated to do as my father +suggested, and go myself. I waited, and saw Lucia daily, and hoped +daily to hear the words I thirsted for, but she persistently refused +to say anything of herself or her health or her wishes. I might see +her as often as I liked, go and come to and from her house as I +pleased, but speak of our marriage or allow me any of the privileges +of a fiance she would not. + +As the weeks passed the life became intolerable for me. I could not +expect my book to be produced till the autumn. There was no fresh +impetus in my brain toward writing another. All my thoughts centred +now round this woman, whom I saw apparently growing more listless, +languid, and indifferent to myself every day. + +The nervous strain told upon me. Night followed night in which I got +no sleep, and which left me with a blinding headache to commence the +day. Gradually these headaches lengthened, till they stretched +throughout the tedious, desultory hours; and one stifling August +afternoon, lying, dizzy with pain, on the couch, I determined to win +an answer from her or cut all the ties, dear and clinging though +they might be, and leave her finally. + +To-morrow! What was to-morrow? My brain went round when I tried to +think of the simplest thing. We had some men coming in to luncheon, +I remembered, but I would go and see her early in the morning. We +were generally alone with each other in the morning. This evening I +should have no chance of speaking as I meant to speak. When the +evening came, I felt unfit even to go and see her, and it was later +than I intended the next morning when I reached the house. I had +made myself later, too, by stopping on the way to get her some +flowers. There was little in the shop worth having but some lilies, +all price, scent, and brilliance. I took these and hurried on. They +were very fine specimens, certainly, I thought, as I glanced over +them. I care very little for flowers; they are useful, of course, +sometimes, as a present for women, and a button-hole; but there, for +me, their merits cease. Howard would have sentimentalised into two +or three verses over these. + +I found her in the drawing-room, as usual now, for the studio was +rarely ever visited, except when she went to gaze in an abstracted +way on the finished work. She was doing nothing--as usual now--she +who formerly worked without ceasing every hour of daylight. Nor was +there anything near her that suggested or made possible the +supposition of work or even occupation. Every book was ranged in +different cases in remote corners of the room. Not a newspaper, nor +blotting-book, nor pen, lay on the table. She was sitting in an +armchair facing the window, her knees crossed idly, her elbow +leaning on a table beside her, her head resting on her hand; idle, +listless. Perhaps her toilette alone, as an elaborate work, might +excuse her from any other for several hours. She looked round with a +smile, and even that was tired, as I entered and crossed to her. + +"How are you, dearest, to-day?" I said, as I took her hand. "No, +pray, don't get up," I added, as she made a movement to rise, and to +obviate her doing so, I dropped into a low wicker chair, which I +drew up close to hers, and laid the lilies on her lap. + +"I am as well as usual, thanks, Victor. These are lovely! Where did +you get them?" + +"At a shop in Regent Street. I wanted something extraordinary, but +they had nothing." + +"What could you have more beautiful than these?" + +"Beautiful? Yes; but there is no worth in beauty unless there is +some peculiarity about it to attract one. May I do that for you?" + +She had lifted the flowers and begun to fasten them into the front +of her bodice, a difficult work, covered, as it was, with an +intricate maze of lace. + +"Thank you! I am perfectly capable of achieving it myself." + +The familiar, cold pride in the tone brought an ironical smile to my +lips--suppressed, however, before she saw it. + +"You are afraid of the risk of my hand touching your breast +accidentally in fastening a flower!" I thought, satirically, as I +watched her in silence, and remembered the mission with which I had +come. I glanced at the clock and saw it was later than I thought. + +"Do you know what I have come for this morning, Lucia?" I asked, +leaning my elbow on the arm of her chair, and looking into the soft +blue eyes that seemed to have a sort of timidity in them of me now. + +"To torment me as usual, I suppose," she answered. + +"That depends upon how you take it," I said, with a slight laugh. + +"I have come to say Good-bye." + +I watched her keenly as I spoke, and I saw she was perceptibly +startled. She fixed her eyes upon me, and the colour began to recede +visibly from her face. However, she only said calmly after a +moment,-- + +"Well, if you are going away, I shall have peace at any rate." + +"Yes, dear," I answered gently, "you will have peace certainly as +far as I am concerned, for if I go now I shall consider our +engagement terminated." + +Lucia started into an upright position in her chair. + +"Victor!" she exclaimed, fixing two widely-dilated eyes upon me, +"what are you talking about? What have I done? What do you mean? You +must not go!" + +And her hand sought mine and closed over it with an appealing, +seducing touch. It went through my nerves and frame like flame. It +seemed to confuse and scatter speech, sweep it from me as some +useless trifle, and wake one intolerable burning desire for action. + +I withdrew my hand suddenly, unbent my arm, and leaning over the +intervening chair side, put it round the low exquisite waist and +tried to draw her towards me. But this most irritating of women +resented immediately that which she had just invited. + +"You must not!" she said, vehemently, trying with both hands to +disengage her waist from my arm, her face changing uncertainly from +white to scarlet, her eyes meeting mine with a fugitive alarm, which +nearly, but not entirely, overwhelmed a furtive transitory look of +pleasure at the contact. + +I had not mistaken her, I thought, she was both weak and sensual. I +must conquer the first quality, and seduce the second, and the +battle was won. But it was hard to prevent my own self-command +slipping from me, and if I did not keep that, my real object would +be lost in this useless sort of coquetry, or possibly a quarrel. I +wanted all my own judgment--and it was difficult to summon it and +keep it--to tell me exactly how far to push matters to excite her, +without driving her to get up and leave me altogether. + +"Nonsense!" I said, looking down into the changing face and on to +the heaving, panting bosom; "if we are engaged, you know, I have a +right to do much more than put my arm round your waist." + +"Right!" she repeated, scornfully, "there is no right except what I +choose! Take your arm away!" + +"Listen to me," I said quietly, paying no heed to her request, +except to tighten my clasp just so much as I dared. + +Such a waist it was, yielding, supple, and warm; it was maddening to +have to restrain the muscles in my arm and regulate their pressure. +The blood went to my brain, and it was with a severe effort I +collected my thoughts. + +"You say," I continued, "that I must not go. Lucia, there is only +one single condition on which I will stay." + +"What is it?" she murmured. + +She had ceased to resist my arm now. The colour was hot in her face, +and her eyes confused. + +"That you name some definite and definitive date for our marriage." + +"This question again! How you do torture me! It worries me to have +to think about it!" + +"I know, dearest; that is why I say, settle something, and don't +think about it any more." + +"How can you be so absurd!" she answered, leaning her head back +against the chair, and averting her soft, flushed face as far from +me as she could, so successfully that there was little view of +anything except the white throat and under-part of her chin as she +strained her head back from me. + +"Please let things go on as they are." + +The words were a positive entreaty, but they fell upon ground where +passion had blocked access to any of the tenderer, impersonal +feelings. I only felt a rage of impatience as I heard her. + +"No, dearest," I said very gently; "that is just what they cannot +do;" and I looked at the swelling neck with the faint blue veins +visible in its transparency, and thought, "You must be my own, or I +must cease to see you, otherwise I shall strangle you." + +"I cannot stand this sort of thing any longer. Not even for you, +Lucia, can I run the risk of losing the little brains I possess, +which is extremely likely to happen if I let things, as you say, go +on as they are." + +"Why?" she said, fretfully, turning her head from side to side. +"What do I do to you?" + +I did not answer this, but I raised myself so that I could look into +her face, and our eyes met. She flushed crimson, and did not repeat +the question. + +"You will kill me if you worry me like this!" she said, evasively, +and she did actually look very ill at the moment. + +"My sweet, why do you not trust me with the cause of all this +hesitation? Are you afraid of me, or do you misunderstand me? Lucia, +the woman I have once loved is the woman I must always love. +Whatever had happened, whatever she had done, whatever I had heard +of her or from her, I should love her still. Has anything occurred +since you were with me in Paris that you are afraid to tell me of? +Has anyone else come between us? If so, tell me. I shall understand +everything. If there is anything to forgive, I will forgive +everything. I swear there is nothing that can make any difference to +my love for you." + +Lucia looked me steadily in the face now. A contemptuous smile +curved her lips, all the confusion died out of her eyes, and they +filled with a limitless arrogance and self-reliance. I had my answer +in her face. It was the face of a woman whose virtue is absolutely +invulnerable, and whose honour is unshadowed, and who has suffered +too acutely in the maintenance of both to hear the faintest hint of +weakness without a smile. A fierce, delighted satisfaction ran +through me before she spoke. + +"What do you insinuate, Victor?" she said, lightly, but with pointed +directness. "That I have been in love with two men at the same time? +No; nothing of my own will nor my own action stands between us. +Forgive, forsooth!" and she gave a delightful, mocking laugh. + +"You are the person to be forgiven, if anybody, for inflicting this +year upon me! Now, I ask you to wait a little and you won't!" + +"Because I don't see any adequate reason," I returned. "Last year I +told you mine, now I demand yours." + +I kept my arm round her, and could feel the pulses in her waist +throb under it, but I turned my eyes away from her and stared +fixedly at the carpet, waiting for her to speak, with the best +patience I could command. + +"I have told you till I am tired of telling you I must get better +first," she said, pettishly. + +"But you are not getting better," I persisted. + +"On the contrary, all these four months you have been getting +steadily worse." + +So long a silence followed this that I looked into her face again +suddenly, the lips were quivering, and the eyes brimming with tears. +She turned her head away, but not before I had seen them. + +"Dearest, would you rather I released you from your promise to me?" +I said, bending nearer over her. "Do you wish that?" + +One single, violent sob shook the lovely breast beneath me and +swelled the throat. + +"No," she said, passionately; "you know I don't!" + +"There is no alternative between that or our marriage," I said, +quietly. + +I was not trying to be inflexible, nor to harden my heart against +her. It was hardened by passion, which at no time is an inspirer of +tenderness, and mine had been sufficiently irritated through four +months of alternate excitation and resistance to be determined now. +My difficulty was not to avoid being too tender, but to check myself +from being too harsh. Had I heard my own words in cool blood they +might have seemed hard, and my insistence inconsiderate and +blamable, but my calm was only artificial, and my judgment little +else than a blind clinging to the object with which I had come. + +"Why can't you go away for a time and then we can marry later, when +you come back?" she answered, in a weak, evasive tone. + +"It is not wholly a question of being away from you," I returned. +"So long as I am engaged to you, Lucia, my whole life is totally +different from that which it would be if I were not." + +"I give you permission to lead any life you please," she said +vehemently. + +"Thank you!" I thought, sarcastically; "but your permission has +nothing to do with it." + +"It is useless to discuss the matter," I said aloud. "I cannot argue +the point with you; I have said there is no third alternative." + +"I think you are most unkind," and Lucia let two lovely arms and +hands sink over the sides of the chair in gesture of weak despair. + +I noticed, indifferently, that she was unnaturally pale. + +"If you consent to our marriage, Lucia," I urged, pressing that +alluring waist, "I will promise this, if it will simplify matters-- +you shall continue to live as if you were unmarried until you +yourself put things on another footing." + +She glanced at me quickly, as I spoke, with an unexpressed surprise. + +"Then what would you gain?" she said, coldly, and the unveiled +cynicism in the words went home. + +I flushed. + +"The certainty," I answered, briefly. "This indefinite state of +things is simply intolerable." + +She was silent for a second; then she said violently, the scarlet +flowing over her face up to her eyes-- + +"No! It would be impossible to maintain such relations as those +after marriage, and you know it! That is quite out of the question!" + +I merely shrugged my shoulders in silence. + +"I am waiting for your answer, Lucia," I said, after a few moments. + +"And if I cannot give you one?" + +"Then I leave town to-morrow morning." + +She gave a fleeting glance into my face, and then suddenly burst +into a passion of convulsive sobs and tears--sobs that seemed to +tear her breast asunder, and tears that started in a blinding +torrent, drenching her eyelids and eyelashes and pale cheeks. + +"It is most unkind, it is horrible, it is cruel of you to press me +in this way!" she sobbed, trying with both hot, trembling hands to +push my arm away and to free herself from my clasp. + +The sight of her tears hurt me, the pain stamped on the soft face, +and the tumultuous rising and falling of her breast in those +agonised sobs, reproached me, but the hurt and the reproach were +dull. If she thought her tears would induce me to hesitate or to +desist, she was wrong. They were to me simply a favourable sign of +her weakness, and urged me to press my advantage. I felt +instinctively that it would not do to fail now; having gone so far, +I must go farther, and be successful. Probably I should be much +sooner forgiven by Lucia herself. Nothing is less pardonable, either +in love or war, than an unsuccessful attempt. + +Her resistance was nothing but nervous folly and weakness, and I +believed she herself would be glad to be forced to give it up. +Besides, even if my reason had not told me all this, my own feelings +would have been enough to make me relentless. + +"You may cry," I thought, looking at her as she sobbed with her head +strained away from me, "but before I go you shall speak." + +"What is your decision?" I said. + +"What am I to say?" she murmured, in a voice choked by tears. + +"Promise me some fixed date." + +"I can't--now--like this. I will tell you to-morrow." + +"No; to-day. You have deferred it from week to week. You must tell +me now." + +Silence, broken only by the sound of tears. + +I waited, determined not to lose my patience. + +"Tell me," I repeated after a pause. + +"Victor, you must lend me your handkerchief," she said, turning her +streaming eyes towards me. + +The tears rained down over her lips and chin, and fell on the silk +collar round her neck. She could not take her own handkerchief from +her pocket, sitting as she was with my arm round her. I drew out +mine and dried the wet eyes, and then pressed the soft reluctant +head against my shoulder. Once there, it remained, too weary to lift +itself again. + +"Tell me, dearest." + +"What, Victor?" + +"The date." + +"What date?" + +"The thirteenth of next month," I said, decidedly. + +I felt a startled quiver shoot through her. + +"Oh, I could not really settle it without--without--thinking." + +"Yes, you can, and must." + +"But I don't know how long that is." + +"It is exactly three weeks from now." + +"But why the thirteenth?" + +"We must appoint some date, and that is when my book appears in +Paris, that's all; but choose another, if you like." + +"The thirteenth is unlucky." + +"What do you gain by all this trifling, Lucia?" + +Some slight accent of all the angry surge of feelings within me +crept, perhaps, into my tone. She did not answer, but began to cry +again, not passionately this time, but in a weak, enervated +listlessness. + +"You are most unkind, Victor!" + +"Is it to be the thirteenth?" + +"I never knew you to be like this before." + +"May I count it as the thirteenth?" + +Silence. I waited and glanced at the clock again. The whole morning +had slipped away. I should infallibly be late for that luncheon, but +I could not help it. + +"Lucia!" + +"What, Victor?" + +"Is it the thirteenth?" + +"I don't know." + +"Then I tell you that it is." + +Almost beside myself with irritation, and uncertain whether I most +loved or detested her, I drew her violently round towards me, bent +over her and pressed my lips on hers, wet, ice-cold, and quivering. +If there is anything in magnetism, or power to subdue another's +volition, it ought to have acted fully then. I myself was at that +moment the incarnation of will. My whole system was bowed to the +intense effort to make her, by force, say what I desired. + +"Say yes," I insisted. + +She struggled violently, and the lips fluttered dumbly under mine; +her breast swelled against mine; her soft hand tried to push back my +shoulder. + +"Say it," and I pressed her lips harder. + +Either the force of the stronger will, or mere passion--and I am +inclined to think the latter--had its influence. + +"Yes, then, yes," she said, in a faint convulsive murmur, that was +only just audible, but with the whole accent of assent in it. + +"You promise?" + +"Yes, I promise, absolutely. Oh, let me go. I am suffocated." + +I released her instantly. I had no desire to keep her now that the +point was gained, and I did not believe from her character that once +having spoken she would retract. She started up, rose from the chair +apparently with difficulty, made a few steps as if to cross the +room, staggered, and, before I could reach her, fell heavily her +full length along the floor. Her head, with its soft mass of bright +hair, struck the ground almost at my feet, the pale face, drenched +with tears, turned upward to the light. God! what a brute I felt! +What had I done? I felt as if I had struck her. The first impulse of +tenderness towards her welled up over my passion and turned it to a +desperate self-reproach. A second later, Mrs. Grant came into the +room. + +"What has happened?" she said quickly, and then, as her gaze took in +Lucia's figure, she turned to me with a blaze of anger in her eyes. +"What have you been saying?" she exclaimed. "I will not have these +scenes, Victor! I shall forbid you to see her!" + +She fell on her knees beside Lucia, and unfastened the collar of her +dress, still wet and stained with tears. + +"Shall I not lift her up?" I asked, and Mrs. Grant raised her face +again to me, white with suppressed anger. + +"No," she answered, curtly. "Will you kindly leave this room. Your +presence here is not needed." + +I looked towards the fallen figure on the rug. The light head and +the stone-white face seemed to multiply into a thousand replicas, +and eddy round me. I walked out of the room. + +"It will never be," I thought over and over to myself as I went down +the stairs. + +I turned into the dining-room, and flung myself into an armchair and +waited there. Everything but Lucia herself was forgotten. My +consciousness seemed suspended almost as completely as hers. At last +the door opened, and Mrs. Grant herself came in. She started on +seeing me. + +"You still here, Victor," she said coldly. + +"How could I go?" I murmured. "Is she better?" + +"Yes; she is better." + +Mrs. Grant's face was white and composed, her tones like ice. I saw +she was unwilling to trust herself to speak to me even. + +"May I not speak to her for one minute?" + +"Certainly not. Are you not satisfied with the mischief you have +done already?" Her voice shook with suppressed indignation. "She +tells me she has fixed the thirteenth for your marriage. So that is +the subject you came to press to-day! I think your conduct is most +disgraceful." + +My attitude of mind was--I don't care two d---s what you think. +However, I merely said,-- + +"I think you do me an injustice. I did not mean to distress Lucia +to-day; but what is the use of this sort of thing going on as it has +been doing? I have offered to release her from the engagement if she +wishes, and in that case, I should go away altogether. I don't see +that to keep up our present relations is any benefit to either of +us." + +Mrs. Grant's eyebrows relaxed a little. + +"Perhaps you are right, Victor," she said, with a sigh. "Only we +must be careful, or we shall lose her altogether." + +Her voice shook now with something that was not anger. I held out my +hand. + +"I will come in the evening," I said, gently, "to hear of her if I +cannot see her. May I?" + +Mrs. Grant smiled, we shook hands, and I went out. I walked absently +up the pavement, and then stood looking out as absently for a +hansom. Now I had pushed matters to the point, I had not delayed nor +put off action in this case, and I had attained the object with +which I had come, but somehow I did not feel so satisfied as I had +anticipated I should when I came away victorious. + +Things were so different now from what they had been a year ago, and +as I stood there looking up and down for a crawler, above the noise +of the London thoroughfare, her own words to me in Paris rang with +terrible distinctness, that prophecy wrung from her in the agony of +her woman's longing--"I shall never be your own." + +I almost believed it now. + +"Looks like it," I thought, as I hailed a coming crawler and got in. + +I said nothing to the man, but I suppose he had noted my glance at +my watch before I got into the cab, and, in the hopes of an over- +fare, he began lashing his horse across the head and neck. It was +this that roused me out of a gloomy reverie, and I pushed up the +trap. + +"If you touch that animal again I'll get out," I said, angrily, as +the poor brute tossed his head from side to side. + +"Beg pardin', sir! Thought you was in a 'urry, sir!" came through +the roof. + +"Drive decently, and don't think," I muttered, relapsing into my own +thoughts, cutting as the lash on the chestnut's neck. + +I had stopped the lash, but I could not stop my thoughts. After +dinner that evening I went to see her again. In this I did not +succeed. I was told she had already gone to bed, but she had left a +message for me, and not a word was said about rescinding the promise +that had been forced from her in the morning. On the whole I went +away satisfied and relieved. + +"She will be all right," I thought, "now she has once made up her +mind. It is extraordinary; women seem to have as great an aversion +to forming a decision as children have to taking medicine." + +"What should I do with myself now?" I questioned, standing idly in +the hot, dusty London street. It was too early for me to go to bed, +and I knew the pater would have turned in before I got back. I +sauntered down two streets, and then drove to the Club. In the card- +room I found Dick and two other fellows, one of whom was a stranger +to me. As I made the convenient fourth, we played a rubber at whist. +After this it seemed generally voted that the weather was too +fatiguing for the strain of whist, and an adjournment was made to an +open window, chairs, and drinks. I was preoccupied with my own +thoughts, and I sat listening fitfully to the other men's gossip. +Sometimes a sentence came to me; at one moment I was listening +without hearing, the next I was hearing without listening. At last +the phrase struck me--"Yes; dying horribly, like a rat of +phosphorus." + +I looked across to the man sitting opposite me. He was a young +fellow, and I had gathered from to-night's conversation that he was +studying medicine. + +"Who is that?" I asked, with a sort of idle curiosity. + +"Oh, only a fellow in the hospital," he answered with a cigarette +between his teeth. "A paying patient. D. T., you know. I saw him +last night in the ward. Shan't see him there to-morrow night, I +expect," he added with a laugh, bringing down his rocking, tiled +chair on its four legs, and determining at last to light the +cigarette. + +"You wanted to see the death, I thought," remarked Dick. + +"I did; but, hang it, the fellow's been dying so long, my +curiosity's worn out. However, I may come in for the show to-morrow +morning if I am down at the hospital in time." + +There was rather a cold silence after this remark, which made the +young fellow look up and then add, hastily.-- + +"He's such an awful coward, you know, one can't feel much sympathy +for him. 'Oh, it's so hard to die,' he goes on, 'at twenty-three! +Can nothing save me? It seems so hard at twenty-three!' Well, I +suppose no one does like going out, but still if a fellow knows he's +got to"-- + +He paused. No one spoke for the minute, and then he went on,-- + +"Brought it on himself, too; I never saw a fellow so thoroughly +knocked out! And now he does nothing but whine over it--'Oh, I'd do +so differently if I had my time over again!' I said to him last +night, 'Now, look here, Johnson, why don't you try and console +yourself with thinking you enjoyed life at the time?'" + +"Did you say Johnson?" I asked. "What is his Christian name?" + +"Howard," he answered. + +The two other men started, and looked at me. The speaker glanced at +them, and then added hastily to me,-- + +"Do you know him?" + +"Slightly," I answered, coldly. + +He coloured. + +"I am sorry if I"-- + +"Not at all," I said. "All that concerns him is quite a matter of +indifference to me." + +There was a pause, and then, by tacit mutual consent, the topic was +not renewed. The men spoke of other things, and I sat in silence. + +So Howard had killed himself--was dying in this way, like a poisoned +rat. It was, as I had said, a matter of indifference to me. I did +not feel one pulse of sorrow or regret. It is strange how completely +and entirely these emotions of love, affection, friendship, hate +expire, and leave no trace of their past existence. + +I hear and read much of "lingering memories," "clinging +remembrance," but for me the tender track of a past affection does +not exist. He had, as I had told him, cut out our friendship by the +roots, and I heard now of his approaching death as that of an +absolute stranger. + +I wondered idly where was that softening influence, and on what sort +of natures did it act, that is supposed to survive all dead +attachments, all broken friendships. Certainly, according to +tradition, it seemed as if I ought now to feel some sort of emotion +at hearing the fate of a man who had once held so large a share of +my affections. + +There ought to have been some touch of sentimental sadness in my +thoughts, some recollections of first days together, and so on. But +there was none. By that night's work he had made himself as nothing +to me henceforward. + +I wondered in a desultory way whether the sudden complete +annihilation of an emotion in the human heart in this way showed the +hardness of the heart, or the magnitude of the offence, or the poor +quality of the emotion itself; and then I was roused by Dick's voice +saying Good-night to the other fellows, and he and I were left by +the window alone. + +He looked across at me, and said.-- + +"If you would like to see Howard, I believe Thompson could get you +admission any time." + +His voice was low and sympathetic. + +I raised my eyebrows and said,-- + +"What should I want to see him for?" + +Dick looked surprised, and then said, hesitatingly,-- + +"Surely you were very great friends at one time!" + +I laughed. + +"Yes," I answered, "but there is a great deal in that at one time!" + +A few days later my father pointed out the announcement of Howard's +death in The Times as we sat at breakfast. + +I nodded. + +"Yes; I heard at the Club he was dying." + +"What was it? They don't say here." + +"No," I said; "they would not." + +"What was it?" + +"Excess." + +We neither said anything further with reference to it, but Howard's +death was in both our thoughts, and as we got up from the table he +said, suddenly,-- + +"There's a great thing in having a quiet, moderate nature, or at +least self-control," and then he added afterwards, as if struck by a +sudden amending thought, "Well, of course, that comes virtually to +the same thing." + +"Does it?" I thought. "By Jove, not to the man himself!" + +"Would you think, then," I asked, with a smile, looking across the +rug at him as we stood by the fire, "that the existence of a lion- +tamer was quite the same as that of a maiden lady who kept cats?" + +He laid down his paper suddenly and stared at me. + +"I don't understand--I--you don't mean that you"-- + +"I mean," I said, "that it's extremely difficult to see the best +course. Howard has just died, raving mad, for giving way to his +impulses; I may die, raving mad, for controlling mine." + +He looked at me apprehensively. "I am sorry, Victor, if--You don't +think you have overworked, do you?" + +I laughed as I met his eyes scanning my face anxiously for traces of +the possible insanity. + +"No; none of the slates are loose at present," I said. "That's all +right, but I am seedy altogether; out of sorts all round--that's +all." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +One unbroken flood of golden sunlight lay like a fallen silken veil +over the points and peaks of the downs, over the swelling sides and +the soft rolling dip of the valley, and the still September blue +stretched cloudless overhead. It was the late afternoon of the +thirteenth, a day that had been hot, oppressive, stifling in town, +but here was simply warm, still, and tranquil. + +All through the early hours of the day a parallel--if one may use +the idea--oppression to the heat in the stirless air had weighed +upon me. We had been married that morning, and before the ceremony +my one sensation had been that of strain, during it tense anxiety, +and afterwards reproach, and none of these are pleasant emotions. +When I looked back to the morning, now, it seemed to be in the far +distance; I don't know why, but ages seemed to have elapsed in the +hours of this day. + +Lucia had come up to the altar, her face whiter, more absolutely +colourless than the veil over it, and my heart sank with +apprehension as I first caught sight of her. Never, except in death, +and already with the coffin enclosing it, have I seen a face so +pallid. She walked steadily--she was a woman who always walked well, +as a swan swims well, by nature--and the graceful figure passed on +calmly towards us. + +She kept the lids drooped over her eyes, and her white lips were +closed firmly in repose. It seemed like a statue moving, and for a +second I felt as if the church, the people, she, I, the whole scene +were unreal, and my own blood changing into stone. The next second +she was beside me, and then she suddenly lifted her eyes. + +They glowed upon me as if there were actual fire stirring in the +lustrous black pupils, and they gave back the joyous beat to my +pulses, and sent my blood flowing onward again. The glance made us +both human directly. But how anxious I felt all the time. Would she +faint? I asked myself, desperately, over and over again. The colour +of her face was terrifying, and the hand she gave me for the ring +was cold as the touch of snow, and trembled convulsively. How long +it all seemed! and how I loathed the prayers and the hymns, and +sickened at the address! What earthly good is it to match words +against a man's passion? As it is, it is, and no admonitions will +alter it. However, all was over at last, and we were in the vestry. +Lucia could not write her name; she tried, for no woman had less +affectation and more self-command than she had, but the +tremulousness of the fingers would not be controlled, and the mere +effort agitated her so that she fell back in the chair, quivering, +till each point of lace in her dress shook, and every eye could see +the violent heart-beats under her bodice. + +"Don't sign it, dearest!" I exclaimed, feeling like a murderer as I +looked into the blanched, nervous face, and widely-dilated eyes. + +There was a blank pause for a moment of sympathy and apprehension, +as her shaking hand dropped the pen, and then the clergyman picked +it up and finished the half-written name. I felt a sharp self- +reproach, and Dick did not mend matters as he turned from her to me +and said, in an indignant mutter,-- + +"She is not in a fit state to be married at all, Victor!" + +He looked at me as if I were committing a crime, and I coloured and +felt like a brute. Then there was the long breakfast, and the +reception, and, as I say, it seemed as if centuries were rolling +over my head in each five minutes, but now it was all done with; the +burden of other's society had slipped from us, and the weight of my +own oppression I seemed to have left, together with the sullen heat +of town air. In all the journey down Lucia had been recovering. The +scarlet had been coming back to her lips, and as the first breath of +air came to us, straight from the heart of the smiling, sun-lit +valley, they parted in a laugh, the light leapt up in the soft azure +eyes, the rose-colour under the skin, and she bent forward to me and +said, impulsively,-- + +"Victor, if you want to know, I feel perfectly happy!" + +"And I, too, you darling!" I said, smiling back into the brilliant +face. + +"It seems quite a new thing to feel. I don't ever remember feeling +happy until now, and I am five-and-twenty. Think, a whole third of +an ordinary lifetime passed before I have known it!" + +I laughed. + +"Well, you are going to begin now, at any-rate," I said. + +"Yes; I think so," she answered, both the carmine lips still curved +in smiles. "But still it is late to begin. It is not wise; one +should begin at fifteen--ten years back." + +"Begin what?" I said, laughing. + +"To be happy." + +"By all means," I answered. "Begin as soon as you get the chance; +but I think most people do. Only it is the chance that is generally +wanting!" + +"I don't know," Lucia said, looking away from me through the window, +where the flying sunny slopes of the valley sped by. "People muddle +away their chances of happiness in life. Ten years ago, when I was +fifteen and you were twenty--well, we might have married then, and +felt all that we feel now a whole ten years ago, which I have passed +without a single happy day." + +A shade of sadness came into the eyes, and darkened them as she +spoke. + +"But why do you think of that now?" I asked. "It is no use. The ten +years have gone beyond recall, and, if you have not been happy, you +have something to show for the time. You have been working." + +"Yes," Lucia repeated; "I have been working." + +There was silence. I hoped I had recalled to her thoughts the great +canvas that stood complete in her studio. For myself, I knew that +the keenest touch of pleasure that stirred my frame now was held in +the ever-present thought that this day saw the birth of my work in +Paris. Not for worlds would I have hinted this to Lucia. To have +breathed a word that assigned even a part of my pleasure at the +moment to anything but the possession of herself was the last thing +that I would have done. + +Every pleasure is kin to every other, and they each tend to enhance +and strengthen another, so that in reality this inner pleasure of my +thoughts that reverted constantly to the Paris publishers was no +enemy, not even a rival, but rather a coadjutor of the passionate, +personal pleasure in the woman beside me. The brain already +intoxicated with one pleasant emotion lends itself more, not less, +readily to another, just as a brutal lover inflames his love with +wine. In precisely the same way, my passion for Lucia was inflamed +by the wine of gratified ambition. All the same, I said nothing +touching on the book for fear lest she should misunderstand me, nor +hinted--that which I felt myself--that this scene put back ten +years, when I was full of vague ambitions and unaccomplished plans, +would not have possessed the zest it had for me now. + +Man, unfortunately, is not the desirer of one thing at a time, but +of many things, and the gratification of a single desire is not +enough to content him. If a person is both hungry and thirsty, you +cannot satisfy him, however kindly you may supply him with bread. +Another line of thought that ran side by side with this in my brain, +as I watched the shadow pass over the girl's face as she thought of +her ten lost years, was, that had we had these sensations at fifteen +and twenty they would certainly not have out-lasted us till now! But +this also I would not say. The passing of our passions, however we +may recognise it as philosophers, is not pleasant to us as lovers. + +"Oh! there is our house, I believe!" said Lucia, suddenly, as we +neared the station. + +"Yes; you can just see it from the line, I know," I answered, +looking through the window. "What a glorious evening!" + +All before our eyes lay in the still, liquid golden light, and +through the burnished haze that seemed to slope obliquely between us +and it we saw the square white house, lying a little blow the level +of the line, and all but hidden behind a delicate, intricate +profusion of light green foliage. Behind it rose a rolling slope, +clothed half-way up with a copse of young larch trees, whose slender +stems sent long shadows down the whole length of its side, falling +across the sun-baked, waving, brown-and-yellow grasses, and the red +cows, lying lower down the slope, drowsy, as all else seemed in the +mellow sunlight. + +At the side of the house stretched a lawn, shaded-in from the +carriage drive by a fringe of larch and spruce, and on this lawn, +innocent of tennis-courts and similar abominations, were planted +here and there single trees. It had been the fancy of the owner that +not one of these on the lawn should be indigenous, and almost every +country out of Europe was represented by one lovely forest denizen. + +The crytomera, the cedar of Japan, raised its delicate rosy crest +here under the blue of an English sky; a young Turkish cypress shot +like a dart from the ground and threw its narrow shadow straight as +a spear across the emerald turf; and farther on a small squat tree, +from China, unfurled smooth, glossy, polished leaves of lightest +green, and thick-lipped succulent scarlet flowers, indolently to the +kiss of the British sun. We caught a passing glimpse of it, and +Lucia drew in her breath softly, with pleasure. + +"How lovely! What a pretty house, Victor!" she said. + +"Yes; I know it is supposed to be a very charming place." + +"And don't you think so, too?" she asked, turning to me, and the +side light from the window caught the curly hair under the velvet +hat brim and turned it into gold. + +"I haven't got a very keen artistic eye, Lucia, I think. Certainly +not for houses," I answered, laughing, and looking straight into +those eyes of lapis lazuli and then away. "But I adore this one, as +it is going to give me the happiest hours in my life!" + +And I met her eyes. A slow flush mounted into Lucia's face, and then +she seemed to tear her gaze from mine with difficulty and turned to +the window, so that I could not see her face; her ear, however, +betrayed her all the same, for the painful blush reached even there, +and flooded its white, pink-tinted porcelain with scarlet. + +A second after, the train was at a standstill, drawn up at the +platform of the station. It was very quiet, and even the train +coming in hardly seemed to disturb the sleepy stillness that hung +over the strips of asphalt, the beds of hollyhocks and lilac bushes +against the whitewashed walls, where the rural fancy of the +stationmaster had gone so far as to range a row of straw bee-hives. + +There were few passengers by the train, and little luggage except +our own. The single porter, the stationmaster, some workmen, and a +few market women, with white aprons and baskets of eggs on their +arms, stared wonderingly at Lucia as she stood with the golden +sunlight pouring down upon her light hair and brilliant face, and +the glory of Parisian fashion embodied in her dress. + +My friend's carriage had come to meet the train, and I left her for +a moment to speak to the footman about our luggage. As I walked back +up the platform she was standing three-quarter ways towards me, the +attitude which displays best that most alluring line in a woman's +figure, the line from under the arms to the waist. + +In Lucia it was specially striking, not straight, but like the back +of a Z, a sharp, smooth slope to the low waist, and formed a perfect +harmony with the two curves of the hips, and the long fall of the +skirt beneath. All my frame--every limb and muscle--quickened with +keen pleasure as my eye met the familiar lines, as yet familiar to +one sense only, and then followed the inevitable, involuntary rush +of exultant remembrance of my absolute possession now. + +I let it come and flood my brain with a half-drunken satisfaction, +and the phrase formed itself on my lips, "Well, hang it, my to- +morrow has come at last!" As I came up to her I saw her eyes were +fixed upon me with a searching gaze. I thanked heaven Lucia was not +one of the horrible, modern women, if indeed they exist outside a +lady's novel, who are always analysing you and your emotions, and +testing the depth of your inferiority to themselves. I believed she +was only studying and weighing my outer appearance, of which I was +far more confident than of the inner personality. So I met the blue, +soft-shaded eyes in the flare of the sunlight without embarrassment, +and smiled back into them as I joined her. + +"Well, darling, now come," I said; "I think I have made that idiot +understand your hand-bag is not to be shaken!" + +Lucia pushed a little pale gloved hand through my arm, impetuously, +and said, as we turned to follow the decline of the platform towards +the carriage,-- + +"Victor! you are so good-looking!" + +I laughed. I was right, then. She had only been thinking of the +exterior. What a comfort! A few steps had brought us to the carriage +door, and the servant was holding it open. I waited to answer her +till we had started, but when she had got in, and I had followed, +she threw herself back on the cushions and put one hand on my +shoulder, and before I could speak she went on in a low voice,-- + +"Yes! It is very charming now, of course; but all the same you have +nearly killed me!" + +The words were spoken with such a bitter, tremulous vehemence, that +I turned and looked at her in startled silence. Her eyes still +passed keenly backwards and forwards over my face. + +"Oh, yes! if you knew one-tenth of what I have suffered this last +year! how I have coveted--longed. It doesn't matter what I say to +you now, does it! Oh, I am so glad that all this terrible repression +and restraint is done away with, and that we are free to do and say +what we like! I am so glad I am your wife at last!" + +The trembling, excited accents, springing straight from her +thoughts, and poured into my ear from her warm, parting lips, +stirred my own tolerably well-governed feelings to a painful +intensity, and I felt only too sharply that I, at any rate, had not +done with self-restraint. I said nothing. I was rendered dumb by the +riot within me, but I pushed my arm round her waist and drew her +against me. + +The violence and want of tenderness in the action pleased her, +perhaps, being a woman. The waist yielded gladly, and the whole form +sank against me with relaxed and satisfied pleasure. + +We neither of us spoke again until the carriage drew up between the +bright green of the larches, stabbed through with long shafts of +light, and before the shallow steps and open windows of the house. +On each side of the steps stood, not classic urns to remind one +irresistibly of graveyards, but honest, bright, terracotta, human- +looking flower-pots, from which rose or trailed the loveliest plants +a skilful gardener could wrest from September. A white peacock paced +majestically across the red gravel towards the larches, and +underneath these, swinging exuberantly on suspended perches, with +the strips and bars of sunlight flashing on their glittering +feathers, chattered together nearly a dozen Oriental parrots. + +Lucia looked at the scene with an artist's quick eye, and I heard an +instinctive murmur about its making a pretty sketch. + +I told her she would be otherwise occupied now than in making +sketches, and we both laughed as we passed up the steps together. + +In the hall hovered, like two evil shadows, her maid and my valet, +lying in wait for us to remind us of clothes and the serious duties +of life. I saw Lucia carried off from me with despairing eyes, +knowing it would be ages before I saw her again. + +It did not take me long to get into another suit, and then I +returned to the dining-room, and roamed about from end to end, too +restless to sit down to glance at the papers that lay on the +different tables, or even to light up a cigar. I walked about +aimlessly, longing for the woman's presence beside me again. + +It was a very large room--two, properly, knocked into one--with a +window looking to the front and the carriage-drive, and another at +the side, opening, with French glass doors, on to the low stone +terrace which overlooked the lawn. + +Through these I wandered at last on to the terrace, and rested my +arms on the low balustrade, looking with unseeing eyes across the +lawn, with its tropical trees standing motionless in the golden +haze. Everything around me was very still, and a peculiar strained +calm seemed to be upon me also--the calm of an intense desire, +hushed and expectant, in all the blood. + +A swift, hurried step came on to the terrace, and I turned +instantly. + +The light fell all over her, the living incarnation of my long drawn +out hopes and dreams. She had changed her dress to a light dinner- +silk. The bodice was modest--I mean by that, it was unobtrusive-- +very. Excess of nervous excitement, the wealth of evening sunlight, +and her fashion of dressing made her dazzling to look upon, and I +stood for a second in silence. + +She misunderstood my pause and glance, and a rush of hot colour came +into her face, and the tears suddenly started to her eyes. + +"You don't like my dress," she exclaimed. "I told Celine she was +cutting it too low!" + +A step forward and I had her in my arms. Ah! what were dreams to the +keen, sharp delight of feeling her there--alive, and in the flesh-- +throbbing and pulsating against me? I declared the dress was +perfect, that I would not have the bodice half an inch higher for +anything, that she looked adorable, and so on, until she was +comforted. The tears passed into laughter, and the flush died away; +but she trembled against me distressingly, and her lips quivered +nervously. + +I held her to me, but she seemed to flutter uncertainly in my clasp, +just as a bird flutters wildly without aim at the limit of its +tethering cord, and when I released her she sank into the wire chair +at our side with a look of exhaustion stamped on the soft, delicate +face. I saw that it would require all my tact and care to make this +evening a success, and I determined that it should be one for her. +Standing there beside her, looking down on her light head, I made a +rough, mental examination of my thoughts. I seized those that had +anything of self in them, rolled them hastily together, and thrust +them into an obscure corner of my brain out of hearing, to leave the +better part of my love for her free to guide me. + +I drew a chair close to her and sat down, letting my arm rest along +the top rail of hers, behind the soft head, which, after a minute, +sank gently back upon it with a movement of tired relief. We neither +spoke, and the perfect, sunny calm of the evening air, the silence, +and the physical rest seemed to soothe her. When the servant came on +to the terrace to announce the dinner, she had recovered, and her +arm on mine was warm and firm. + +As soon as we had finished dinner, she rose restlessly from the +table and looked at me with a hesitating air. I smiled back at her, +but it hurt me inwardly this want of confidence, this lack of +familiarity she seemed to have. This sort of hesitation before she +made the simplest request, the start and flush when I spoke suddenly +to her, this timidity of me now, hurt and puzzled me. I, who had +taught my dog implicit trust, seemed to have missed the way with the +woman. + +I remembered Paris: my own harshness to her there came back upon me +like a blow. The indelible impression of my hardness had been given +then, and she dreaded it now. She had been conquered then; her will +and desire had been broken down to mine; she had been forced to +yield and to suffer; she had appealed to me and found me inflexible, +relentless; and now I had the fruits of my victory. The woman I +loved, though she might love me, feared me instinctively, as the +once well-beaten dog ever afterwards fears its master. + +To me, who hated victory, who loathed subduing others, and the price +they bring of fear and shrinking, the realisation of her feeling +towards me was like a sudden physical pain. I got up from the table +feeling my face grow white with sharp distress. I hardly knew at the +moment how to express my thoughts; besides, I knew words would be of +no avail. An impression given is a scar upon the mind like a scar +upon the flesh. She fixed her eyes on my face with a sort of +apprehension in them, that was extremely bitter to me. + +"What were you going to say, dearest?" I said, merely, with a faint +smile; "go on." + +"Oh, nothing much!" she said, hastily, flushing and paling almost in +the same moment; "only I feel so restless. Come and show me all the +rest of the house, will you?" + +I assented, and we passed out of the dining-room into the hall and +up the shallow flight of stairs. I put my right hand on the banister +and my left arm round her waist, and the whole sweet figure beside +me, and the white neck and ear so near me, drove out the thoughts of +a minute back, and I only laughed as I felt her waist contract +convulsively as I touched it. + +"Would you like to take my arm better?" I said, mockingly, and drew +her round to me so that the soft face was just beneath my own. In +the subdued light of the staircase she lifted her lids, and I saw +her eyes, gleaming and sparkling, brimming over with gaiety and +pleasure, and the arm next me she raised and twisted close round my +neck. + +"No, Victor; here is the place for my arm now! You won't push it +away as you did in Paris, will you?" + +The words hurt cruelly. Could I never obliterate that wretched +memory? It was vivid with her; it clung to me. It seemed a shadow +dogging my present pleasure. I stopped suddenly on the staircase and +took her wholly into my arms. All the supple form yielded at my +touch, till it leaned hard against my own; the face, pallid with +excitement, was raised to mine; the glitter of her eyes swam before +my vision as I caught it from beneath the half-drooped lids; the +lips, parted in a faint breath, then closed as mine joined them. As +they touched, no consciousness was left except that both our lives +seemed mingling, panting, fainting on our lips. + +The pain that is pleasure, and the pleasure that is pain, thrilled +and pierced every nerve as I held her and felt those lips under +mine, her heart beat under my heart, her weak arms twisted round my +throat. When at last my lips set hers free, on fire with the passion +of my own, they moved in a half-delirious murmur,-- + +"Victor, you don't know how I love you!" + +I have no distinct recollection of passing up the remaining stairs, +but we did reach the landing, and a second or two later were +standing in the drawing-room. I think she said it was pretty, and so +on, but I hardly heard, my head was reeling, and all my senses dull, +her figure leant a little against me, and the pressure of her arm +was upon mine. After the drawing-room, the reading-room, and a +breakfast-room, all opening from the same corridor, had been passed +through, there were still two rooms unexplored on that floor. I +turned the handle of the nearer door, and then pushed it open. + +Lucia stepped on to the threshold, and then I felt her arm start +violently in mine, and she drew back with a sharp, instinctive +movement. + +I looked down upon her and murmured,-- + +"Our room, dearest." + +The colour blazed all over the fair skin, till it seemed scorching +it, and tears startled into the dismayed eyes, which she turned from +me confusedly, as she shrank back into the passage. + +I was startled, and a chill seemed to fall upon me, and penetrate +deeper as a grey pallor succeeded to the burning flush, and she had +to lay one trembling hand on my arm again for actual support. + +"Victor, it is nothing!" she said, hurriedly, forcing a smile to her +lips. + +"It--it--startled me." + +She made a nervous step forward, as if she would have forced herself +to enter the room with me, but I collected myself with a great +effort, and gently drew the door shut. + +"There is another sitting-room a little farther on; come and look at +it," I said, quietly, in a light, indifferent tone, as if we were +meeting in society for the first time. + +I drew her on past the door, feeling her hand fluttering on my arm, +and her feet uncertain beside my own. Inwardly I was alarmed-- +dismayed. Her extreme nervousness, and the physical effect upon her, +frightened me. With crushing force and clearness came back to me the +remembrance of the fearless, eager, unrestrained abandonment of body +and mind, the gay exuberance of careless passion, with all the +vigour of youth and health in it, that had leapt up to meet my +caress a year ago,--and been refused. We passed on to a door on the +other side of the corridor, which opened to another sitting-room. A +lovely evening had given way to a lovelier night. Beyond the long +window panes, set open to the still air, we caught sight of the +sinking golden crescent of the moon towards the south; above and all +round, to the low horizon, the sky was crowded, sparkling, and +brilliant with stars. I moved two chairs close up to the open +window, but she stood by the sill and leaned forward to the night +air. + +"You think me very silly?" she said, with her head turned away from +me. + +"I think you are not well, dearest," I said, gently. + +There was silence. Words seemed frozen on my lips. A sort of terror +filled me of exciting or embarrassing her. I stood beside the window +frame watching her. After a minute or two she dropped back into a +chair and looked up at me with a laugh. + +"I think I am all right, only you startled me! By the way, Victor, +if anything ever does happen to me, you will remember you have your +work and your talent to turn to, won't you? I mean you would not do +anything desperate. I want you to promise me that." + +She lay back in the easy chair, burying her light head and polished +white shoulder in the velvet cushion, and swinging one little foot +idly as she looked up smiling for her answer. The bright light in +the room fell full upon her, and I looked down upon this brilliant +piece of life, full of glowing tints and warm pulses and subtle +powers, and my brain flamed with the pleasure of the senses. I +hardly noted her words. + +"Dear little girl!" I said, smiling back into her eyes. "I refuse to +think of such things at all!" + +"Oh, well, it doesn't matter! I don't expect you would," she said, +laughing, the colour leaping up in her cheeks, and the vivid blue +deepening behind her lashes. "Come and make much of me now while you +have got me." + +Her whole face and form were instinct with a delicious invitation, +and I bent down to and over her, filled with the delight of the +moment. We made one chair do for both of us, and looked through the +window at intervals to escape each other's eyes, and laughed at +nothing, and talked a very extraordinary astronomy. At last, with +her soft fingers in my hair and on my throat, and her white arm +above the elbow clasped in my hand, speech, even laughter, grew +choked in dense feelings for all the command I kept upon myself; and +we sat in silence, hearing each other's breath, feeling each pulse +that beat in the other's throat and breast. + +There had been a long silence when the last star of Orion slid over +the horizon, followed by my impatient eyes. I looked at my watch. I +hardly know why I did it then. It was an involuntary action rather +than a conscious one. I did not say anything as I replaced it, but +she glanced sharply at me, and I saw her lips whitened. + +I knew the intense excitement that was moving her, it spoke to me in +every line of her form--in her eyes, torn wide open by it, in the +faint gleam of sweat that showed on the white forehead. I was not +blind to it, but the tumult within me, made all the greater by the +sight of it, left me insensible to its danger for her. + +She got up from where we were sitting, and began to walk restlessly +round the table. I wheeled my chair slightly round so that I could +watch her. Nothing struck me particularly as I did so except the +extreme grace and attraction in the moving form. The heavy silk +skirt dragged backwards and forwards over the carpet almost +soundless, the moonlight and gaslight alternately gleaming on its +folds. Each time that she came between me and the table my eyes +followed with dizzy delight the soft side curve of her breast, the +lines of the exquisite waist, the white idle hand that sometimes +touched the edge of my chair arm, sometimes not, as she passed. One +of these times I caught it and detained her, and looked up at her +face, but the light was behind her, and only fell on the bright +hair. + +"Why do you walk about so?" I asked. + +"I don't know. Victor, I feel very strange. I hope nothing is going +to happen. I never felt quite like this before;" and she broke her +hand loose from me and passed on. + +I sprang up and followed her, and put my arm round her. + +"Going to happen, dearest! What do you mean? Do you feel ill?" + +I looked at her. She was very white, and her lips were parted and +pale. There was a distressed and strangely absent look upon her face +which startled me, though I had no clue to its significance. + +"Yes, very ill," she answered, her eyes wandering away from my +anxious ones looking down at her, as we stood for a moment together. + +Then she gently pushed away my arm and continued her walk. + +"You know my heart always does beat and hurt if I am very happy, or +very excited, or any thing, but it's never been quite so bad as this +before." And then, catching the distress upon my face, she added, "I +daresay this is nothing. It will go off. I think it is only +hysterical. Don't look so unhappy!" And a faint smile swept over her +pallid face. + +She made her way to the sideboard and drank some water standing +there. Then she continued to move slowly round the room, both hands +pressed beneath her left breast, and her delicate eyebrows +contracted into one dark line across her colourless face. + +"I overworked myself so tremendously just lately," she said, after a +minute, "after--well, after I came to you in Paris. I shall take a +long rest now. I hope I shall get strong again. When one is as +delicate as this, life is not worth having." + +And then, before I could answer, she stopped suddenly, and looked +across the room at me with dilated eyes. + +"Is there any brandy I could have?" she asked, abruptly. + +My handbag stood in the corner of the room. There was a flask of +brandy there. In two seconds I had got it out and was beside her +with the traveling-glass half filled. + +She took it with a fluttering, uncertain hand, and drank a little, +but not even then did the colour come back to her lips--they were +apart and grey. She set the glass down on the table with a +wandering, undecided movement, and then turned towards me and linked +two ice-cold hands round my neck,-- + +"Hold me up! I am sinking!" and her head fell heavily against my +shoulder. + +I clasped my arm firmly round her waist. I was startled, distressed, +alarmed, but still, even then, I did not think there was any serious +danger. I thought she was hysterical, as she had said; over- +strained, and over-excited. I thought at most this was a fainting +attack. I thought--God knows what I thought. I must have been blind. + +She put her hand to her throat, and I saw she wanted air. Supporting +her, I crossed to the window, and stood where the cool night breeze +came blowing in upon her face. My hand followed hers to her bodice, +and I loosened all the delicate lace ruffles round it that it had +never been my privilege to touch till now, and that were no whiter +than the lovely breast from which I unloosed them. + +So we stood for a few seconds, her lids were drooped over her eyes. +At intervals, it seemed to me, her heart gave great single, +convulsive throbs that thudded through both our beings. + +Then suddenly she tore her eyes wide open, and fixed them in an +unreasoning agony upon me. A straining, fearful effort seemed in +them. I pressed her to me. + +"What is it, dearest?" I said quietly, trying to recall her to +herself. "Why do you look at me so?" + +"Because I cannot see you! I have lost my sight! Oh, Victor, I am +DYING!" + +The words were a strained cry of terrified anguish, and they cleft +through my brain like the stroke of an axe. With blinding suddenness +I knew then what was coming. My heart seemed turned into stone. Only +Reason rejected the truth. The gong stood on the table close beside +us. I stretched out my arm and struck it furiously, my eyes fixed in +terror on her face. The Great Change was there; the shadow already +of dissolution. The door was thrust open and a servant hurried in. + +"A doctor!" I said to him, "quick for your life." + +But I saw, before any doctor could reach us, she would have gone +from me. I strained my arms round her. + +"Speak to me, my darling, speak," I said wildly, raising the dying +head higher on my breast. + +Both her hands were clasped hard upon her heart. A frightful agony +was reflected in the bloodless face, but for the moment death +retreated. + +"Victor! To think I am dying! I shall never paint again! Oh, don't +let me go! Keep me! oh, keep me with you!" + +My brain seemed bursting as I heard her. The only prayer of my life +broke then in a frenzy from my lips, "Great God! spare her!" + +"Hold me up! oh, keep me, Victor! I am dying." + +"Dearest, you are fainting!" + +There was no answer. Heavier and heavier the pressure grew on my +breast, the arm slid heavily from my shoulders, the head fell slowly +backwards on my arm. I looked into her eyes. They were black as I +had seen them long ago in the studio. Fearfully, terribly dilated +they were, and in their depths was that look as if the soul were +listening to a far-off summons, calling, calling to it, to depart. + +"My life! Speak to me once more! One word!" + +Probably my voice did not reach her. For her already the silence +held but that one imperious command. My brief rule of this spirit +was over. It no longer heeded me. She no longer answered me. Her +eyes were still fixed upon me in helpless horror, terror, and +despair; but they knew me no longer. The unwilling soul had already +started on its journey, and its earthly love was no more to it than +its earthly form. I held her motionless, my eyes on hers, then I saw +a glaze, a slow glaze fit upon them, they set in it, and it told me +she was dead. + +Without a struggle, without a spasm, without a deeper breath to mark +the severance, her soul had drifted away from me, out of her body +that I held in my arms. Without a farewell, without a word, without +any knowledge of the second when the life had fled, without a sound +beyond that despairing, terrified appeal to me to keep her. I stood +rigid, petrified, my arms locked round her like iron bands. I heard +the door open and steps. Then I saw the doctor before me. He gave +one glance at the drooping head. + +"Lay her down flat," he said. + +I lifted her into my arms wholly, and walked through the door into +the corridor to the opposite room--our room, and laid her on the +bed. He followed me to the bedside and bent over her. I drew back +and stood beside the curtain motionless. Everything was swaying +before my eyes in darkened confusion. Was this my wedding night? +There was the room, full of warm, shaded light; there was the bed, +and on it a passive woman's figure, and another man bent over it and +tore aside the bodice and unclasped the white stays. + +I watched his hand part them and pass indifferently beneath them, +and beneath the linen, and rest over the left breast and then +beneath it. The shade grew colder on his face. There was an intense +silence in the room, then the words came across it, "Quite extinct." +My ears seemed to fill with sounds, the ground to rise upward, the +bed to heave, and I went forward blindly and tore his hand from her +breast and pushed him from the bed. + +"Then go and leave us," I said, and I heard my own voice as from a +great distance. + +He looked at me, and his face and everything around was dark before +my eyes. + +"Will you kindly go out of this room?" I repeated, and he walked to +the door. + +I opened it, he passed out, and I shut and locked it, and came back +to the bed. The weight of nerveless, passive beauty on it had +crushed a depression in its whiteness, the head had sunk down +sideways to the pillow as in tired sleep. Across the throat and +breast, over and amongst the disturbed laces of her dress, and on +the parted gleaming satin of her stays fell a flood of rose-coloured +light. One shoulder rose from it and caught a shadow; another shade +lay lower in the dimples of the elbow; the inside of the arm looked +warm. The throat, the round soft throat, seemed glowing; the fallen +head, the passive arms, the whole outstretched form seemed relaxed +in the abandonment of sleep. Had I often seen her in my dreams like +this? This was but the realisation of my dreams. I bent over her, +then threw myself wildly upon the bed beside her, and drew her into +my arms. + +"Lucia! my Lucia!" The sweet face almost seemed to smile as I drew +the head to me, and a soft curl of hair fell upon my arm as I pushed +it round her neck and pressed her breast to mine. It came softly and +unresistingly, just so much as my arm pressed it, with terrible +compliance. The throat chilled through my arm to the bone, numbed +it. + +I laid my other hand upon her neck, pushed it lower till it rested +above her heart, and enclosed one breast, nerveless, pulseless, and +cold, colder than any snow. Slowly it chilled through my fingers. I +smoothed one passive arm--how cold. Then my hand sought her waist, +and my arm leant upon her hip--as once in Paris--and here the +coldness held and froze me. + +Through her silk skirt it penetrated; the damp, eternal coldness +pierced through my quivering, living arm; it seemed dividing my +veins like steel. + +It was a dead woman that I clasped: a corpse. I strained my eyes +down upon her face, that seemed but asleep. + +"Lucia?" + +And the word was one frenzied, senseless question; and the sweet +mouth seemed to smile back, in its last eternal smile, my answer,-- + +"Yes, I am Lucia, and you possess me now." + +Like a torrent dammed up for a moment, the flood of insensate, +impotent desire flowed again, raging through all my veins, and +engulfed me; my burning arms interlaced her, my weight pressed upon +her, my trembling lips, full of torturing flame, sought hers, met, +closed upon them in a frenzy of vain, fruitless longing and stayed-- +frozen there. + +When I was hardly well from weeks of raving illness that followed, +but yet well enough to walk and go about like a rational being, I +went to the cemetery to see all that now remained to me beyond my +own fearful memory. Dick was beside me. He had insisted on coming +with me, and, when we reached the grave, he stood beside me at its +edge, as he had stood beside me at the altar. + +A huge slab of white marble lay horizontal upon the narrow, single +grave. Fools! They should have made it a double one. A heavy iron +chain, swinging great balls, studded with spikes, was linked from +post to post round the tomb. At its head rose a cross, extending its +arms against a background of cypresses. + +I looked at it all with dry and savage eyes. The illimitable regret, +the boundless, hopeless remorse for the irrevocable that has been +shaped by our own heedless hands, the unspeakable yearning for that, +once more, which has been freely ours and we have flung away, rose +like a swelling tide within me, and rolled through me in thundering, +deadening waves standing at her grave. I stared half blindly at the +words on the stone--"Wife of V. Hilton." Wife! What a mockery! + +I looked, and that slab of white marble--spotless and relentless-- +that barred her into the grave, seemed to my still half-unstable +brain symbolical of that last year of virgin purity of life that had +broken her strength to bear. That spiked iron linked round the +helpless dust seemed like the chains of repression that had tortured +and crushed the soft ardent nature. That arrogant cross, stretching +its arms threateningly above the lonely tomb, seemed the cross upon +which we had crucified--she and I--the desires of the flesh. And at +its foot, I read,--"She sleeps to waken to a glad to-morrow." And +then a bitter laugh burst from my lips. + +"Who put that?" I asked. "Great God! that that word should follow me +even here!" + +Dick took my arm. + +"We know nothing. There may be a to-morrow;" at which I merely +laughed again. + +"Wife of V. Hilton!" I repeated, reading from the stone. "If she had +been, Dick, it would not have been so hard." + +Dick said nothing. After a time he urged me to come away from the +grave. + +"Where? To what?" I asked him; and we both stood silent, gazing upon +her cross. + +. . . . . . . + +Months have passed by, and Dick consoles me still, and tells me I +shall refind the zest of life by and by, later on, in the future, +to-morrow. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of To-morrow? by Victoria Cross + diff --git a/old/tmrrw10.zip b/old/tmrrw10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bda7811 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tmrrw10.zip |