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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-07 10:28:57 -0800 |
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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-07 10:28:57 -0800 |
| commit | a0f6eaf69e9ab95bbeac6abdf13a9de815b0ee1d (patch) | |
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| parent | 794c34e067cd243c6238b6dda75511a8c419a8b6 (diff) | |
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diff --git a/old/54931-h/54931-h.htm b/old/54931-h/54931-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index b4873ce..0000000 --- a/old/54931-h/54931-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,14402 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" -"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> -<head> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> -<title>Mendel: A Story of Youth, by Gilbert Cannan</title> -<meta name="author" content="Gilbert Cannan" /> -<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> -<style type="text/css"> -body { - font-family:serif; - margin-left: 15%; - margin-right: 15%; - color: black; - background-color: white; - } - -a { - text-decoration: none; - } -p { - text-align: justify; - text-indent: 1.1em; - margin-top: 0; - line-height: 120%; - margin-bottom: 0.4em; - padding-bottom:0 - } -span.pagenum { - position: absolute; 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- } -.top1 { - padding-top: 1em; - } -.top3 { - padding-top: 3em; - } -.top6 { - padding-top: 6em; - } -.top8 { - padding-top: 8em; - } - -small { - font-size: 80%; - } -.biggerfont { - font-size: 230%; - } -.bigfont { - font-size: 140%; - } -.slightlybigfont { - font-size: 115%; - } -.smallfont { - font-size: 88%; - } -.smallerfont { - font-size: 80%; - } -.reallysmall { - font-size: 70%; - } -.tinyfont { - font-size: 65%; - } -.reallytinyfont { - font-size: 55%; - } -.no_bottom { - margin-bottom: 0; - padding-bottom: 0; - } - -blockquote.verse { - padding-top: 0.25em; - padding-bottom: 0.25em; - margin-left:5%; - margin-right:4% - } -.verse p { - text-align: left; - margin-left: 4em; - font-size: 90%; - padding-bottom: 0em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - line-height:110% - } - -blockquote.letter { - padding-top: 0.25em; - padding-bottom: 0.25em; - margin-left: 0em; - margin-right: 0em; - } -.letter p { - font-size: 90%; - padding-bottom: 0em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - line-height:110% - } -.greeting { - text-indent: 1.22em; - } -.letter_body { - text-indent: 3em - } -.closing { - margin-right: 5em; - text-align: right; - } -.signature { - margin-right: 1em; - text-align: right; - } - -.transition { - padding-top: 0.1em; - padding-bottom: 0.1em; - text-indent: 0em; - text-align: center; - } - -div.tnote { - padding-bottom:0.5em; - padding-top:0.25em; - padding-left:0.5em; - padding-right:0.5em; - margin-right: 1.1em; - margin-left: 1.1em; - margin-top: 1em; - font-size: 90%; - background: #eeeeee; - border: solid 0.075em - } -h3.tnote { - font-style:italic; - font-size: 110%; - font-weight: bold; - padding-top:0em; - padding-bottom:0.5em; - } -ul { - margin-top: 0.5em; - margin-bottom: 0.25em - } -li { - margin-bottom: 0.5em; - } -p.link { - text-indent: 0em; - text-align: center; - padding-top: 0.4em; - line-height: 100%; - padding-bottom: 0.4em - } - -</style> -</head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mendel, by Gilbert Cannan - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Mendel - A Story of Youth - -Author: Gilbert Cannan - -Release Date: June 19, 2017 [EBook #54931] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MENDEL *** - - - - -Produced by Paul Haxo with special thanks to the University -of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Hathi Trust Digital -Library, the University of California, and the Internet -Archive. - - - - - - -</pre> - -<div class="image"> -<p class="center"><img alt="Cover" src="images/cover.jpg" title="Cover" height="100%" -/></p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Front_matter"> - -<p class="title1">MENDEL</p> - -<div class="pagebreak"></div> - -<p class="blocktext15 noindent italics smallfont top3">BY THE SAME AUTHOR</p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">ROUND THE CORNER</p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">OLD MOLE</p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">YOUNG EARNEST</p> - -<p class="blocktext10 noindent italics smallfont">LONDON, T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.</p> - -<p><br /> -<br /></p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">PETER HOMUNCULUS</p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">LITTLE BROTHER</p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">THREE PRETTY MEN</p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">SAMUEL BUTLER</p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">WINDMILLS</p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">SATIRE</p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">THE JOY OF THE THEATRE</p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">FOUR PLAYS</p> - -<p class="blocktext15 smallfont">ADVENTUROUS LOVE (P<small>OEMS</small>)</p> - -<div class="pagebreak"></div> - -<div id="Title_Page"> -<p class="title2"><span class="biggerfont">MENDEL</span></p> - -<p class="subtitle">A STORY OF YOUTH</p> - -<p class="subtitle">BY GILBERT CANNAN</p> - -<p class="top8 publisher"><small>LONDON</small></p> - -<p class="publisher">T. FISHER UNWIN LTD</p> - -<p class="publisher"><small>ADELPHI TERRACE</small></p> -</div> - -<div class="pagebreak"></div> - -<p class="top3 center italics smallerfont">First published in 1916</p> - -<p class="top8 center smallerfont">(<i>All rights reserved</i>)</p> - -<div class="pagebreak"></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> - -<p class="dedication italics">To D. C.</p> - -<blockquote class="dedicatory_verse"> -<p class="i3">Shall tears be shed because the blossoms fall,</p> - -<p class="i3">Because the cloudy cherry slips away,</p> - -<p class="i3">And leaves its branches in a leafy thrall</p> - -<p class="i3">Till ruddy fruits do hang upon the spray?</p> - -<p class="i3 top1">Shall tears be shed because the youthful bloom</p> - -<p class="i3">And all th’excess of early life must fade</p> - -<p class="i3">For larger wealth of joy in smaller room</p> - -<p class="i3">To dwell contained in love of man and maid?</p> - -<p class="i3 top1">Nay, rather leap, O heart, to see fulfilled</p> - -<p class="i3">In certain joy th’uncertain promised glee,</p> - -<p class="i3">To have so many mountain torrents spilled</p> - -<p class="i3">For one fair river moving to the sea.</p> -</blockquote> - -<div class="pagebreak"></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> - -<div class="contents"> -<h3 class="toc" id="contents_hdg">CONTENTS</h3> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" class="toc" summary="Table of Contents"> -<tbody> -<tr> -<td class="tdc no_bottom" colspan="4" id="Chapter100_toc"><a href="#Chapter100_hdg">BOOK -I: EAST</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdr no_bottom"><span class="reallysmall"> </span></td> - -<td class="tdr no_bottom"> </td> - -<td class="tdr no_bottom"> </td> - -<td class="tdr no_bottom"><span class="reallysmall">PAGE</span></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>I</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter101_toc"><a href="#Chapter101_hdg"><small>LONDON WHERE THE KING -LIVES</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">11</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>II</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter102_toc"><a -href="#Chapter102_hdg"><small>POVERTY</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">21</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>III</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter103_toc"><a -href="#Chapter103_hdg"><small>PRISON</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">34</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>IV</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter104_toc"><a href="#Chapter104_hdg"><small>FIRST -LOVE</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">52</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>V</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter105_toc"><a href="#Chapter105_hdg"><small>A -TURNING-POINT</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">63</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>VI</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter106_toc"><a href="#Chapter106_hdg"><small>EDGAR FROITZHEIM AND -OTHERS</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">74</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>VII</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter107_toc"><a href="#Chapter107_hdg"><small>THE -DETMOLD</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">83</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>VIII</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter108_toc"><a href="#Chapter108_hdg"><small>HETTY -FINCH</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">96</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>IX</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter109_toc"><a href="#Chapter109_hdg"><small>THE -QUINTETTE</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">109</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>X</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter110_toc"><a -href="#Chapter110_hdg"><small>MORRISON</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">134</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdc top1" colspan="4" id="Chapter200_toc"><a href="#Chapter200_hdg">BOOK II: -BOHEMIA</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>I</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter201_toc"><a href="#Chapter201_hdg"><small>THE -POT-AU-FEU</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">145</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>II</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter202_toc"><a -href="#Chapter202_hdg"><small>LOGAN</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">156</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>III</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter203_toc"><a href="#Chapter203_hdg"><small>LOGAN SETS TO -WORK</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">167</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>IV</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter204_toc"><a href="#Chapter204_hdg"><small>BURNHAM -BEECHES</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">183</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>V</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter205_toc"><a href="#Chapter205_hdg"><small>HAPPY -HAMPSTEAD</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">196</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>VI</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter206_toc"><a href="#Chapter206_hdg"><small>CAMDEN -TOWN</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">209</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>VII</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter207_toc"><a href="#Chapter207_hdg"><small>MR. TILNEY -TYSOE</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">221</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>VIII</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter208_toc"><a href="#Chapter208_hdg"><small>THE -MERLIN</small>’<small>S CAVE</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">235</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>IX</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter209_toc"><a -href="#Chapter209_hdg">“<small>GOOD-BYE</small>”</a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">247</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>X</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter210_toc"><a -href="#Chapter210_hdg"><small>PARIS</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">259</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdc top1" colspan="4" id="Chapter300_toc"><a href="#Chapter300_hdg">BOOK III: -THE PASSING OF YOUTH</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>I</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter301_toc"><a href="#Chapter301_hdg"><small>EDWARD -TUFNELL</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">283</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>II</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter302_toc"><a href="#Chapter302_hdg"><small>THE CAMPAIGN -OPENS</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">295</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>III</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter303_toc"><a -href="#Chapter303_hdg"><small>SUCCESS</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">306</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>IV</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter304_toc"><a -href="#Chapter304_hdg"><small>REACTION</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">320</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>V</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter305_toc"><a href="#Chapter305_hdg"><small>LOGAN GIVES A -PARTY</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">331</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>VI</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter306_toc"><a -href="#Chapter306_hdg"><small>REVELATION</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">346</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>VII</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter307_toc"><a -href="#Chapter307_hdg"><small>CONFLICT</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">364</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>VIII</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter308_toc"><a -href="#Chapter308_hdg"><small>OLIVER</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">382</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>IX</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter309_toc"><a href="#Chapter309_hdg"><small>LOGAN MAKES AN -END</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">404</td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td class="tdrch"><small>X</small>.</td> - -<td class="tdl" id="Chapter310_toc"><a -href="#Chapter310_hdg"><small>PASSOVER</small></a></td> - -<td class="tdl"> </td> - -<td class="tdrpg">415</td> -</tr> -</tbody> -</table> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter101"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="Chapter100_hdg"><a href="#Chapter100_toc">BOOK ONE<br /> -<br /> -<span class="slightlybigfont">EAST</span></a></h3> - -<div class="pagebreak"></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter101_hdg"><a href="#Chapter101_toc">I<br /> -<span class="chap_title">LONDON WHERE THE KING LIVES</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">T<small>HE</small> boat-train had disgorged its passengers, who had -huddled together in a crowd round the luggage as it was dragged out of the vans, and then -had jostled their way out into the London they had been so long approaching. When the -crowd scattered it left like a deposit a little knot of strange-looking people in -brilliant clothes who stared about them pathetically and helplessly. There were three old -men who seemed to be strangers to each other and a handsome Jewess with her family—two -girls and three boys. The two elder boys carried on their backs the family bedding, and -the youngest clung to his mother’s skirts and was frightened by the noise, the hurrying -crowds of people, the vastness and the ugly, complicated angular lines of the station. The -woman looked disappointed and hurt. Her eyes searched through the crowds, through every -fresh stream of people. She was baffled and anxious. Once or twice she was accosted, but -she could not understand a word of what was said to her. At last she produced a piece of -paper and showed it to a railway official, who came up thinking it was time these -outlandish folk moved on. He could not read what was written on it, for the paper was very -dirty and the characters were crabbed and awkwardly written. He turned to the old men, one -of whom said excitedly the only English words he knew—“London—Jewish—Society.” The -official looked<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-12"> [Pg 12]</a></span> relieved. These people did -not look like Jews, and the eldest girl and the little boy were lovely. He went away, and -the woman, whose hopes had risen, once more looked disconsolate. The little boy buried his -face in her apron and wept.</p> - -<p>A suburban train came wheezing into the platform, which was at once alive with hurrying -men in silk hats and tail-coats. Catching sight of the brilliantly attired group, the -handsome woman and the lovely girl, the boys with their heads bowed beneath the billowing -piles of feather bedding, some of them stopped. The little boy looked up with tears in his -eyes. One man put his hand in his pocket and threw down a few coppers. Others followed his -example, and the little boy ran after the showering pennies as they bounced in the air, -and rolled, span, and settled. He danced from penny to penny and a crowd gathered; for, in -his bright jerkin and breeches and little top-boots, dancing like a sprite, gay and wild, -he was an astonishing figure to find in the grime and ugliness of the station. Silver was -thrown among the pennies to keep him dancing, but at last he was exhausted and ran to his -mother with his fists full of money, and the men hurried on to their offices.</p> - -<p>The official returned with an interpreter, who discovered that the woman’s name was -Kühler, that she had expected to be met by her husband, that she had come from Austrian -Poland, and that the address written on the piece of paper was Gun Street. The number was -indecipherable.</p> - -<p>The three old men were given instructions and they went away. The interpreter took -charge of the family and led them to a refuge, where he left them, saying that he would go -and find Mr. Kühler. With a roof over her head and food provided for her children, Mrs. -Kühler sat stoically to wait for the husband she had not seen for two years. She had no -preconceived idea of London, and this bleak,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-13">[Pg 13]</a></span> bare room was London to her, quite acceptable. The stress -and the anxiety of the detestable journey were over. This was peace and good. Her husband -would find her. He had come to make a home in London. He had sent for her. He would -come.</p> - -<p>Hours passed. They slept, ate, talked, walked about the room, and still Mr. Kühler did -not come. The peace of the refuge was invaded with memories of the journey, the rattle, -rattle, rattle of the train-wheels, the brusque officials who treated the poor travellers -like parcels, the soldiers at the frontiers, the wet, bare quay in Holland, the first -sight of the sea, immense, ominous, heaving, heaving up to the sky; the stinking ship that -heaved like the sea and made the brain oscillate like milk in a pan; the solidity of the -English quay, wet and bare, and of the English train, astonishingly comfortable. -. . . And still Mr. Kühler did not come.</p> - -<p>The girls were cold and miserable. The boys wrestled and practised feats of strength -with each other to keep warm, and looked to their mother for applause. She gave it them -mechanically as she sat by the little boy, whom she had laid to sleep on the bedding. He -would be hungry, she thought, when he woke up, and she must get him food. There was the -money which had been thrown to him, but she did not know its value. People do not throw -much money away. At home people do not throw even small money away. There such a thing -could not happen. There money, like everything else, avoids the poor. But this was rich -England, where it rained money.</p> - -<p>When the boy woke up she would go out and buy him something good to eat, and if Mr. -Kühler did not come to-morrow she would find some work and a room, or a corner of a room, -to live in. Perhaps Jacob had gone to America again.<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-14">[Pg 14]</a></span> He had been there twice, and both times -suddenly. People always went to America suddenly. He went out and bought a clean collar, -and said he was going and would send money for her as soon as he had enough. -. . . Poor Jacob, he could not endure their poverty and he would not steal, but -he would always fight the soldiers and the bailiffs when they came to take the bedding. -. . . The sea heaved, and it rained money. The two boys began to fight, a sudden -fury in both of them. Their sisters rushed to part them and Mrs. Kühler rose.</p> - -<p>At the end of the long room she saw Jacob peering from group to group. He looked white -and ill, as he had done when he came again and again to implore her to marry him, and she -felt half afraid of him, as she had done when the violent fury of love in him had broken -down her resistance and dragged her from her comfortable home to the bare life he had to -offer her. He came to her now with the same ungraciousness that had marked his wooing, -explained to her that he had just got a job and could not get away to meet her, and turned -from her to the children. The boys were grown big and strong, and the eldest girl was a -beauty. He was satisfied, stooped and picked up little Mendel in his strong arms. The -child woke up, gave a little grunt of pleasure as he recognized the familiar smell of his -father, and went to sleep again.</p> - -<p>“He’s heavy,” said Mrs. Kühler. “You cannot carry him all the way.”</p> - -<p>“His face is like a flower,” said Jacob.</p> - -<p>He went first, carrying the boy, and his family followed him into the roaring streets. -The lamps were lit and the shops were dazzling. There were barrows of fruit, fish, old -iron, books, cheap jewellery, all lit up with naphtha flares. The children were half -frightened, half delighted. The smells and the noise of the streets excited them. -Every<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-15">[Pg 15]</a></span> now and then -they heard snatches of their own language and were comforted. They came to shops bearing -Yiddish characters and London no longer seemed to them forbiddingly foreign, though they -began to feel conscious of their clothes, which made them conspicuous. The boys cursed and -growled under the bedding and began to complain that they had so far to go. Mr. Kühler -found the child too heavy and had to put him down. Mendel took his mother’s hand and -trotted along by her side.</p> - -<p>They turned into a darkish street which ran for some length between very tall houses. -It was obscure enough to allow the clear sky to be seen, patched with cloud and deep blue, -starry spaces. At the end of it was a building covered with lights and illuminated signs. -They shone golden and splendid. Never had Mendel seen anything so glorious, so rich, so -dream-like, so clearly corresponding to that marvellous region where all his thoughts -ended, passed out of his reach, and took on a brilliant and mighty life of their own, a -glory greater than that of the Emperor at home. But this was England and had only a -King.</p> - -<p>“Does the King live there?” he asked his mother.</p> - -<p>“No; that is a shop.”</p> - -<p>“Has father got a shop like that?”</p> - -<p>“Not yet.”</p> - -<p>“Will he soon have a shop like that?”</p> - -<p>“Very soon.”</p> - -<p>Mendel would have liked to have stood and gazed at the glorious, glittering shop. He -felt sure the King must buy his boots there, and he thought that if he stayed long enough -he would see the King drive up in his crystal coach, with his crown on his head, and go -into the shop. But his father led the way out of the darkish street into another that was -still darker, very narrow, and<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-16">[Pg -16]</a></span> flanked with little low houses. One of these they entered, and in a small, -almost unfurnished room they had supper, and Mendel went to sleep hearing his father say -to his mother, “Thirteen shillings.” Just before that his father had held his hands out -under the candle, and they were raw and bleeding.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>One room was luxury to them. At home in Austria they had had a corner of a room, and -the three other corners were occupied by the carpenter, the stableman, and the potter. In -the centre of the room stood the common water-bucket and the common refuse-tub. London had -showered money on them and provided them with a whole room. They felt hopeful.</p> - -<p>Mr. Kühler made thirteen shillings a week polishing walking-sticks, and when that trade -was bad he could sometimes get work as a furrier. He had intended to take his family over -to America, but finding work in London, he thought it better to stay there. Besides, he -had a grudge against America, for while there he had invented a device for twisting tails -of fur, but his invention had been stolen from him and he had missed his chance of making -a fortune. America was evil and living was very dear. London was the more comfortable -place for the struggle. And in London he had found Abramovich, the friend of his boyhood, -the one creature in the world upon whom he relied. He had no reason for his faith. -Abramovich had never done him any good, but he was not of those who pass. He might -disappear for years, but he always came back again, and time made no difference. He was -always the same. If help was needed he gave it, and if he needed help he asked for it. -Abramovich was a very strong reason for staying in London. . . . The boys would -soon be working and the eldest girl was a beauty. The match-makers would be busy with her. -Another<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-17">[Pg 17]</a></span> two years, -and the match-makers would find her a rich man who would help them all and put money into -a business. That was Jacob’s desire, to have a business of his own, for he loathed working -for another man. He could not do it for long. Always he ended with a quarrel, perhaps with -blows, or he simply walked out and would not return.</p> - -<p>He was a devout Jew and despised Christians, as he despised luxury, pleasure, comfort, -not actively nor with any hatred. He simply did not need them. He had lived without them, -and he asked nothing of life. He was alive; that was enough. Passions seized him and he -followed them. Without passion he never moved, never stirred a finger except to keep -himself alive. Passion had chosen his wife for him. Golda, the beautiful, was his wife. In -her he was bound more firmly to his race and his faith, and there was no need to look -beyond. He was rooted. She had borne him children, but he had no more ambition for them -than for himself. Leah, the beauty, should wed a rich man, not for ambitious reasons, but -because, in life, beauty and riches were proper mates. There is a certain orderliness -about life, and certain things can only be prevented by an irruption of passion. If that -happens, then life takes its revenge and becomes hard and bleak, but it is still life, and -only a fool will complain. Jacob never complained, and he took his Golda’s reproaches in -silence, unless she became unjust, and then he silenced her brutally and callously. She -bore with him, because she prized his honesty, his steadfast simplicity, and because she -knew that his passion had never wakened a profound answer in herself. She had very slowly -been roused to love, which had flowered in her with the birth of her youngest child, in -whom she had learned a power of acceptance almost equal to her husband’s. Like him,<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-18">[Pg 18]</a></span> she clung to her race -and her faith and never looked beyond.</p> - -<p>In London she found that she was left alone and her life was no longer hemmed in by a -menacing world of soldiers and police and peasants, who swore the Jews cheated them and -spread terrifying tales of Jewish practices upon Christian children. Christian London was -indifferent to the Jews, and she could be indifferent to Christian London. She had no -curiosity about it and never went above a mile from her house. She made no attempt to -learn English, but could not help gleaning a few words from her children as they picked it -up at school. The synagogue was the centre of her life, and from it came all the life she -cared to have outside her family. She was absorbed in little Mendel, by whom her world was -coloured. If he was happy, that was sunshine to her. If he was oppressed and tearful, her -sky was overcast. If he was ill, it seemed to her a menace of the end.</p> - -<p>He was a strange child and very slow in growing into a boy. The other children had -seemed to shoot into independence almost as soon as they could walk. But Mendel clung to -her, would not learn to feed himself, and would not go to sleep at night unless she sang -to him and rocked him in the cradle, in which he slept even after he went to school. As -long as he could curl up in it he slept in his cradle, and he made her learn as much as -she could of an English song which had caught his fancy. It was the only English song she -ever knew, and night after night she had to sing it over and over again as she rocked the -heavy cradle:—</p> - -<blockquote class="verse"> -<p class="i3">Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do;</p> - -<p class="i3">I’m half crazy, all for the love of you.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>She had no idea what the words meant, but the boy loved the tune and her funny accent -and<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-19">[Pg 19]</a></span> intonation, -and even when she was ill and tired she would sing him to sleep, and then sit brooding -over him with her fingers just touching his curly hair. And in her complete absorption in -his odd, unchildlike childhood she was perfectly content, and entirely indifferent to all -that happened outside him. Brutal things, terrible things happened, but they never touched -the child, and if she could, she hid the knowledge of them from him.</p> - -<p>Abramovich collected a little capital and persuaded Mr. Kühler to join him in a -furrier’s business. They were not altogether unsuccessful, and Mr. Kühler took a whole -house in Gun Street and bought a piano, but soon their capital was exhausted and they had -given more credit than they were accorded and the business trickled through their fingers. -Mr. Kühler took to his bed, for he could sleep at will and almost indefinitely, and so -could avoid seeing poverty once more creeping up like a muddy sea round his wife and -children. It had been bad enough when that happened at home, where at the worst there were -his relations to help, and there were the potato fields to be despoiled, and, at least, -the children could be happy playing in the roads or by the river, or on the sides of the -mountain. But here in London poverty was black indeed, and there was no one but Abramovich -to help, and he was in almost as bad case as himself. Yet astonishingly Abramovich came -again and again to the rescue. He was a little squat, ugly man, the stunted product of -some obscure Russian ghetto, and he seemed to live by and for his enthusiasm for the -Kühler family. In their presence he glowed, greedily drank in every word that Jacob or -Golda said, and was always loud in his praises of the beautiful children. . . . -“The sky is dark now,” he used to say, “but they will be rich, and they will give you -horses and carriages, and Turkey carpets, and footmen, and flowers in the winter, and they -will<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-20">[Pg 20]</a></span> bring English -gentlemen to the house and what you want, that you shall have. . . .” “I want -nothing,” Jacob would say. “I want nothing. I will work and be my own master. I will not -steal or help other men to steal.” “You wait,” Abramovich would reply. “These children -have only to go out into London and all will be given to them.”</p> - -<p>Only the eldest girl listened to these conversations, and she used to hold her head -high, and her face would go pale as ferociously she followed up the ideas they suggested -to her.</p> - -<p>But Abramovich could bring no consolation. Jacob would not go back to the -stick-polishing, and at last he could bear it no longer, went out and bought a clean -collar, clipped his beard, and without a word of farewell, went to America.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter102"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter102_hdg"><a href="#Chapter102_toc">II<br /> -<span class="chap_title">POVERTY</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">T<small>HEN</small> followed, for Golda, the blackest years of her -life. She removed once more to one room in Gun Street, and she and the two boys earned -enough to keep body and soul together. She found work in other people’s houses, helped at -parties, and when nothing else was available she went to a little restaurant to assist as -scullery-maid, and stayed after closing-time to scrub the tables and sweep the floor. For -this she was given crusts of bread and scraps from the plates. She never had a word from -her husband, and she knew she would not hear unless he made money. If he failed again, as -of course he would, he would live in silence, solitary, proud, avoiding his fellow-men, -who would have nothing to do with him except he made the surrender of dignity which it was -impossible for him to make. She would not hear from him, and he would return one day -unannounced, without a word, as though he had come from the next street; and as likely as -not he would have given the coat off his back to some one poorer than himself. -. . . Jacob was like that. He would give away on an impulse things that it had -cost him weeks of saving to acquire. Low as he stood in the world, he seemed always to be -looking downwards, as though he could believe in what came up from the depths but not in -anything that went beyond him. Golda could not understand him, but she believed in him -absolutely. She knew that he suffered even more than she, and she had learned<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-22"> [Pg -22]</a></span> from him not to complain. The Jews had always suffered. That was made clear -in the synagogue, where, in wailing over the captivity in Babylon, Golda found a vent for -her own sorrows. She would weep over the sufferings of her race as she wept for those who -were dead, her father and her mother, and her father’s father and her little brother, on -the anniversary of their death. However poor she might be she had money to buy candles for -them, and whatever the cost she kept the observances of her religion.</p> - -<p>So she lived isolated and proud, untouched by the excitements her children found in the -houses of their friends and in the streets.</p> - -<p>Very wild was the life in the neighbourhood of Gun Street. There were constant feuds -between Jews and Christians, battles with fists and sticks and stones. Old Jews were -insulted and pelted by Christian youths, and the young Jews would take up their cause. -There were violent disputes between landlords and tenants, husbands and wives, prostitutes -and their bullies. Any evening, walking along Gun Street, you might hear screaming and -growling in one of the little houses. Louder and louder it would grow. Suddenly the male -voice would be silent, the female would rise to a shriek, the door would open, and out -into the street would be propelled a half-naked woman. She would wail and batter on the -door, and, if that were of no avail, she would go to the house of a friend and silence -would come again. . . . Or sometimes a door would open and a man would be shot -out to lie limp and flabby in the gutter.</p> - -<p>Harry, the second boy, took to this wild life like a duck to water. He practised with -dumb-bells and learned the art of boxing, and so excited Mendel with his feats of strength -that he too practised exercises and learned to stand on his hands, and cheerfully allowed -his brother to knock him down over and over again in his ambition to<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-23">[Pg 23]</a></span> learn the elements of -defence and the use of the straight left. In vain: his brain was not quick enough, or was -too quick. His hands would never obey him in time, but he dreamed of being a strong man, -the strongest man in the world, who by sheer muscle should compel universal admiration and -assume authority.</p> - -<p>In the family the child’s superiority was acknowledged tacitly. He had his way in -everything. He wanted such strange things, and was adamant in his whims. If he were not -allowed to do as he wished, he lay on the ground and roared until he was humoured; or he -would refuse to eat; or he would go out of the house with the intention of losing himself. -As he was known all through the neighbourhood for his beauty that was impossible. He was -an object of pride to the neighbours, and whenever he was found far from home, there was -always some one who knew him to take him back. But Golda could not realize this, and she -suffered tortures.</p> - -<p>The boy loved the streets and the shops, the markets with their fruit-stalls and -fish-barrows, the brilliant colours in Petticoat Lane. He would wander drinking in with -his eyes colour and beauty, shaking with emotion at the sight of the pretty little girls -with their little round faces, their ivory skins, and their brilliant black eyes. Ugliness -hurt him not at all. It was the condition of things, the dark chaos out of which flashed -beauty. But cruelty could drive him nearly mad, and he would tremble with rage and terror -at the sight of a woman with a bloody face or a man kicking a horse.</p> - -<p>He had a friend, a Christian boy, named Artie Beech, who adored him even as Abramovich -adored his father. Golda was alarmed by this friendship, thinking no good could come out -of the Christians, and she tried to forbid it, but the boy had his way, and he loved Artie -Beech as a child loves a doll<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-24">[Pg -24]</a></span> or a king his favourite. Together the two boys used to creep home from -school gazing into the shop windows. One day they saw a brightly coloured advertisement of -a beef extract: a picture of a man rending a lion. “It will make you stronger than a -lion,” said Mendel. “Yes,” said Artie, “one drop on the tip of your tongue.” “I would be -stronger than Harry if I ate a whole bottle,” replied Mendel, and they decided to save up -to buy the strength-giving elixir. It took them seven weeks to save the price of it. Then -with immense excitement they bought the treasure, took it home, and, loathing the taste of -it, gulped it down and tossed a button for the right to lick the cork. Feeling rather -sick, they gazed at each other with frightened eyes, half expecting to swell so that they -would burst their clothes. But nothing happened. Mendel took off his coat and felt his -biceps and swore that they had grown. Artie took off his coat: yes, his biceps had grown -too.</p> - -<p>They went through the streets with growing confidence, and at school they were not -afraid. Mendel’s new arrogance led him into the only fight he ever had and he was laid -low. Aching with humiliation, he shunned Artie Beech and went alone to gaze at the picture -of the man rending the lion. It took him a week of hard concentrated thought to realize -that the picture and its legend were not to be taken literally, and his close study led -him to another and a strangely emotional interest in the picture. His eyes would travel up -the line of the man’s body along his arms to the lion’s jaws, and then down its taut back -to its paws clutching the ground. The two lines springing together, the two forms locked, -gave an impression of strength, of tremendous impact, which, as the boy gazed, became so -violent as to make his head ache. At the same time he began to develop an appetite for -this shock, and unconsciously used his eyes so<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-25">[Pg 25]</a></span> as to obtain it. It would sometimes spring up in him -suddenly, without his knowing the cause of it, when he watched his mother sitting with her -hands folded on her stomach, or cooking with her hand—her big, strong, working hand—on a -fish or a loaf of bread.</p> - -<p>One day in Bishopsgate, that lordly and splendid thoroughfare which led from the dark -streets to the glittering world, he came on a man kneeling on the pavement with coloured -chalks. First of all the man dusted the stones with his cap, and then he laid another cap -full of little pieces of chalk by his side, and then he drew and smudged and smudged and -drew until a slice of salmon appeared. By the side of the salmon he drew a glass of beer -with a curl of froth on it and a little bunch of flowers. On another stone he drew a ship -at sea in a storm, a black and green sea, and a brown and black sky. Mendel watched him -enthralled. What a life! What a career! To go out into the streets and make the dull -stones lovely with colour! He saw the man look up and down and then lay a penny on the -salmon. A fine gentleman passed by and threw down another penny. . . . Oh, -certainly, a career! To make the streets lovely, and immediately to be rewarded!</p> - -<p>From school Mendel stole some chalk and decorated the stones in the yard at Gun Street. -He drew a bottle and an onion and a fish, though this he rather despised, because it was -so easy. Always he had amused himself with drawing. As a tiny child, the first time his -father went to America, he drew a picture of a watch to ask for that to be sent him, and -this picture had been kept by his mother. And after that he often drew, but chiefly -because it made his father and mother proud of him, and they laughed happily at everything -he did. The pavement artist filled him with pride and pleasure in the doing of it: and -every minute out of school and away from the Rabbi<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-26">[Pg 26]</a></span> he devoted to drawing. His brothers bought him a box of -colours, and he painted imaginary landscapes of rivers and swans and cows and castles. -Every picture he made was treasured by his mother. They seemed to her, as they did to -himself, perfectly beautiful. He used his water-colours as though they were oils, and laid -them on thick, to get as near the pavement artist’s colours as possible. At school there -were drawing-lessons, but they seemed to have no relation to this keen private pleasure of -his.</p> - -<p>In the evenings he would lie on the ground in the kitchen and paint until his eyes and -his head ached. Sometimes his perpetual, silent absorption would so exasperate his -brothers that they would kick his paints away and make him get up and talk to them. Then -he would curse them with all the rich curses of the Yiddish language, and rush away and -hide himself; for days he would live in a state of gloom and dark oppression, feeling -dimly aware of a difference between him and them which it was beyond his power to explain. -He would try to tell his mother what was the matter with him, but she could not -understand. His happiness in painting, the keen delight that used to fill him, were to her -compensation enough for her anxiety and the stress and strain of her poverty.</p> - -<p>His little local fame procured her some relief. At school he won a prize accorded by -vote for the most popular boy. This had amazed him, for he had very little traffic with -the others, and during playtime used to stand with his back to the wall and his arms -folded, staring with unseeing eyes. When his sister asked one of the boys why Mendel had -won the vote, the answer she received was: “He <i>can</i> draw.” As a result his brothers -were helped and his mother was able to get work as a sempstress. They were relieved from -the poverty that paralyses. They could go from day to day<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-27">[Pg 27]</a></span> and carry their deficit from week to week. -They could afford friends, and the visits of friends on a ceremonious basis, and -Abramovich was always trying to interest rich men in the wonderful family.</p> - -<p>It was Abramovich who bought Mendel his first box of oil-paints, not so much to give -the boy pleasure as with the idea that he might learn to paint portraits from photographs. -That, however, was not in the boy’s idea. He abandoned his imaginary landscapes and began -to paint objects, still in the manner of the pavement artist, thrilled with the discovery -that he could more and more exactly reproduce what he saw. He painted a loaf of bread and -a cucumber so like the originals that Abramovich was wildly excited and rushed off to -bring Mr. Jacobson, a Polish Jew, a timber-merchant and very rich, to see the marvel.</p> - -<p>Mendel was unprepared. He sat painting in the kitchen with his mother and Lotte, his -younger sister. Abramovich and Mr. Jacobson came in. Jacobson was ruddy, red-haired, with -a strange broad face and a flat nose, almost negroid about the nostrils. He wore a -frock-coat, a white waistcoat with a cable-chain across it, and rings upon his fingers. -Mendel had a horror of him, and was overcome with shyness. Mr. Jacobson put on his -spectacles, stared at the picture. “Ye-es,” he said. “That bread could be eaten. That -cucumber could be cut and put into the soup. The boy is all right. Eh? Ye-es, and a -beautiful boy, too.” Mendel writhed. Golda was almost as overcome with shyness as he. In -silence she produced all the boy’s drawings and pictures and laid them before the -visitors. Abramovich was loud in his praises, but not too loud, for he knew that Mr. -Jacobson loved to talk. And indeed it seemed that Mr. Jacobson would never stop. He stood -in the middle of the room and wagged his fat, stumpy hands and held forth:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> - -<p>“In my country, Mrs. Kühler, there was once a poor boy. He was always drawing. Give him -a piece of paper and a pencil and he would draw anything in the world. The teacher at -school had to forbid him to draw, for he would learn nothing at all. So one day the -teacher could not find that boy. And where do you think they find him? Under the table. -The teacher pulled him out and found in his hand a piece of paper—a piece of paper. The -teacher looked down at the piece of paper and fainted away. The boy had drawn a picture of -the teacher so like that he fainted away. Well, when the teacher came to himself, he said: -‘Boy, did you do that?’ ‘Yes,’ said the boy, ‘I did that.’ ‘Then, said the teacher, ‘I -will tell you what you must do. You must paint a portrait of the King and take it to the -King, and he will give you money, and carriages, and houses, and rings, and watches, for -you and your father, and your uncles and all your family. Ahin and aher. The boy did that. -He painted a portrait of the King and he took it to the palace. He went to the front door -and knock, knock, knock. A lady opened the door and she said: ‘What do you want, little -boy?’ ‘I want to see the King. I have something to show him.’ ‘I am the Queen,’ said the -lady. ‘You can show it to me.’ The boy showed the picture and the Queen fainted away. The -servants and the King came running in to see what had happened, and they stood like stone. -‘Who did that?’ said the King. ‘I did,’ said the boy. ‘I don’t believe him,’ said the -King. ‘Shut him up for a day and a night, give him paint and brushes, and we will see what -he can do.’ Well, they shut the boy up for a day and a night, and in the morning the door -was opened and the King and the Queen came in. The King took off his hat and put it on the -table and it fell to the ground. That boy had painted a picture of a table so like that -the King thought it was a real table and tried to put his hat on it. It<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-29">[Pg 29]</a></span> is true, and the boy -painted the King’s portrait every Saturday until he died, and he had houses and money and -footmen and statues in his garden, and his father and mother drove in their carriages and -wore sables even in the summer. And some day, Mrs. Kühler, we shall see you in your -carriage and this boy painting the portrait of the King.”</p> - -<p>The story was received in silence. The emotions it aroused in Golda and her son were so -profound, so violent that they were dazed. The tension was relieved by a giggle from -Lotte, who knew that kings do not wear hats. Mendel sat staring at his picture, which, try -as he would, he could not connect with the story.</p> - -<p>Abramovich said: “I told you so, Mrs. Kühler. I told you something would come of it.” -Already he was convinced that Mendel only had to go out into London to make the family’s -fortune.</p> - -<p>But Golda replied: “There’s time enough for that, and don’t go putting ideas into the -boy’s head.”</p> - -<p>There was no danger of that. Mendel’s was not the kind of head into which ideas are -easily put. He was slow of comprehension, powerful in his instincts, and everything he -perceived had to be referred to them. School was to him a perfectly extraneous experience. -What he learned there was of so little use to any purpose of which he was conscious, and -it could not be shared with his mother. To her schooling was the law of the land. A -strange force took her boy from her every day and, as it were, imprisoned him. When he was -fourteen he would be free. She must endure his captivity as she had learned to endure so -much else.</p> - -<p>When Mr. Jacobson had gone she said: “There have been boys like that, and a good boy -never forgets his father and mother.”</p> - -<p>Mendel looked puzzled and said: “When <i>I</i> drew a picture of teacher he caned -me.”</p> - -<p>“Caned you?” cried Golda, horrified.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> - -<p>“He often does.”</p> - -<p>“Thrashed you!” cried Golda; “on the hands?”</p> - -<p>“No,” replied Mendel, “on the seat and the back.”</p> - -<p>Golda made him undress, and she gave a gasp of anger when she saw the weals and bruises -on his back. “But what did you do?” she cried.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” answered Mendel. This was true. At school he would suddenly find the -teacher towering over him in a fury; he would be told to stay behind, and then he would be -flogged. He had suffered more from the humiliation than from the pain inflicted. He could -never understand why this fury should descend upon him out of his happy dreams. And now as -his mother wept over the marks upon his body the suffering in him was released. All the -feeling suppressed in him by his inability to understand came tearing out of him and he -shook with rage. He could find no words to express these new emotions, which were terrible -and frightened him.</p> - -<p>Lotte came up and felt the weals on his back with her fingers, and she said: “They -don’t do that to girls.”</p> - -<p>“Be quiet, Lotte,” said Golda. “Don’t touch him. You will hurt him.” And she stood -staring in amazement at the boy’s back. “That’s an awful mess,” she said to herself, and -her thoughts flew back to men who had been flogged by the soldiers in Austria. But this -was England, where everybody was left alone. She could not understand it. She did not know -what to do. The boy could not be kept from school, for they would come and drag him to it. -There were often dreadful scenes in Gun Street when children were dragged off to school. -She made Lotte sit at the table and write: “Please, teacher, you must not beat my son. His -back is like a railway-line, and it is not good to beat children.” She could think of no -threat which could intimidate the teacher, no power she could invoke to her aid. Her -powerlessness<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-31">[Pg 31]</a></span> -appalled her. She signed the letter and thought she would go to the Rabbi and ask him what -she must do. “Yes,” she said, “the Rabbi will tell me, and perhaps the Rabbi will write to -the teacher also.” She could feel the torture in the boy, and she knew that it must be -stopped. It was all very well to knock Harry or Issy about. They could put up with any -amount of violence. But Mendel was different. With him pain went so deep. That was what -made it horrible. He was like a very little child. It was wicked to hurt him. His silence -now was almost more than she could bear.</p> - -<p>There came a knock at the door. Lotte went to open it and gave a little scream. It was -her father come back from America. He came into the room, not different by a hair from -when he went away; thinner, perhaps, a little more haggard and hollow under the eyes, so -that the slight squint in his right eye, injured to avoid conscription, was more -pronounced. He came in as though he had returned from his day’s work, nodded to his wife, -and looked at the boy’s back.</p> - -<p>“Who has done that?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“At school,” replied Golda. “The teacher.”</p> - -<p>Jacob took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, picked up a chair and smashed it on the -floor. Mendel put on his shirt and coat again and said: “It is like when you knocked the -soldier over with the glass.”</p> - -<p>Jacob gave a roar: “Ah, you remember that? Ah! yes. That was when I had the inn near -the barracks. He was an officer. Two of them came in. They were drunk, the swine! The man -made for your mother and the officer for your sister. The glasses were big, with a heavy -base. I took one of them . . .”</p> - -<p>“And the man spun round three times and fell flat on the floor,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Ah! you remember that? Yes. And I lifted him out into the street and left him there in -the snow. I was a strong man then. I wanted nothing from them, but if they touch what is -mine . . . !” He seized Mendel and lifted him high over his head. He was -tremendously excited and could not be got to sit down or to talk of his doings in America -or of his voyage. That was his way. He would talk in his own time. His doings would come -out piecemeal, over years and years. Now he was entirely absorbed with his fury. He was -nearly ill with it and could not eat. Up and down the room he walked, lashing up his rage. -Mendel was sent to bed, and until he went to sleep he could hear his father pacing up and -down and his mother talking, explaining, entreating.</p> - -<p>Next morning Mendel had almost forgotten the excitement and went to school as usual. In -the middle of an arithmetic lesson in walked Jacob, very white, with his head down. He -went quickly up to the teacher and spoke to him quietly. The class was stunned into -silence. Jacob raised his fist and the teacher went down. Jacob picked him up, shook him, -and threw him into a corner. Then he shouted: “You won’t touch my boy again!” shook -himself like a dog, and walked out, closing the door very quietly. The teacher hurried out -and did not return. The class slowly recovered from its astonishment, shrill voices grew -out of the silence like a strong wind, and books and inkpots began to fly. Soon the walls -were streaked and spattered with ink and when it became known that it was Kühler’s father -who had done it, Mendel found himself a hero. But he took no pride in it. He was haunted -by the teacher’s white, terrified face. He had always thought of the teacher as a nice -man. The thrashings inflicted on him had always seemed to him impersonal and outside -humanity altogether. Yet because it was his father who had<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-33">[Pg 33]</a></span> thrashed the teacher he accepted it as -right. At home his father, even in his absence, was the law, and could do no wrong. The -violent scene seemed to Mendel to have nothing to do with himself, and he resented having -become the centre of attention.</p> - -<p>The head master hurried in, quelled the class, went on with the lesson where it had -been interrupted. Mendel could not attend. He was bewildered by a sudden realization of -life outside himself. It was no longer a procession of events, figures, scenes, colours, -shapes, light and darkness passing before his eyes, always charming, sometimes terrifying, -but something violent which met another something in himself with a fearful impact. It -could hurt him, and he knew that it was merciless, for the thing in himself that answered -to it and rushed out to meet it was wild and knew no mercy either. He had heard of a thing -called the maelstrom in the sea, a kind of spout, with whirling sides, down which great -ships were sucked. And he felt that he was being sucked down such a spout, in which he -could see all that he had ever known, the mountain and the river in Austria, the train, -the telegraph wires, towns, buses, faces, the street, the school, Artie Beech, Abramovich, -his father. . . . Only his mother stood firm, and from her came a force to -counteract that other force which was dragging him towards the whirlpool.</p> - -<p>He became conscious of the discomfort in which he lived and was acutely aware of the -people by whom he was surrounded.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter103"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter103_hdg"><a href="#Chapter103_toc">III<br /> -<span class="chap_title">PRISON</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">T<small>HIS</small> time in America Jacob had fared better, and by -dint of half-starving himself and sleeping when he had nothing to do, he had managed to -save over fifty pounds. Abramovich borrowed another fifty, and once again they set up in -business as furriers. They took one of the old Georgian houses off Bishopsgate, started a -workshop in the top rooms, and in the lower rooms the Kühler family lived, with Abramovich -in lodgings round the corner. They were only twenty yards from the synagogue and Golda was -happy; Jacob too, for in such a house he felt a solid man. And, indeed, amid the extreme -poverty with which they were surrounded he could pass for wealthy. He had his name on a -brass plate on the door and was always proud when he wrote it on a cheque. He took his -eldest son into his workshop to rescue him from the fate of working for another master, -and he assumed a patriarchal authority over his family. His sons were never allowed out -after half-past nine, and, tall youths though they were, if they crossed his will he -thrashed them. The girls were forbidden to go out alone. They were kept at home to await -their fate.</p> - -<p>The eldest boy flung all his ardour into dancing, and was the champion slow waltzer of -the neighbourhood. With egg-shells on his heels to show that he never brought them to the -ground, he could keep it up for hours and won many prizes. Harry scorned this polite -prowess. For him the<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-35">[Pg -35]</a></span> romance of the streets was irresistible: easy amorous conquests, battles of -tongues and fists, visits to the prize-ring, upon which his young ambition centred. A bout -between a Jew and a Christian would lead to a free-fight in the audience, for the Jews -yelled in Yiddish to their champion, and the British would suspect insults to them or vile -instructions, and would try to enforce silence . . . And Harry would bring gruff -young men to the house, youths with puffy eyes and swollen or crooked or broken noses, and -he would treat them with an enthusiastic deference which found no echo in any member of -the family save Mendel, who found the world opened up to him by Harry large and -adventurous, like the open sea stretching away and away from the whirlpool.</p> - -<p>There was one extraordinarily nice man whom Harry brought to the house. His name was -Kuit, and he had failed as a boxer and had become a thief, a trade in which he was an -expert. His talk fascinated Mendel, and indeed the whole family. None could fail to listen -when he told of his adventures and his skill. He had begun as a pickpocket, plying his -trade in Bishopsgate or the Mile End Road, and to show his expertise he would run his -hands over Jacob’s pockets without his feeling it, and tell him what they contained. Or he -would ask Golda to let him see her purse, and she would grope for it only to find that he -had already taken it. He had advanced from picking pockets to the higher forms of theft: -plundering hotels or dogging diamond merchants, and he was keenly interested in America. -It was through him that the family knew the little that was ever revealed to them of -Jacob’s doings there.</p> - -<p>Kuit said he would go to America and not return until he had ten thousand pounds, all -made by honest theft, for he would only rob the rich, and, indeed, he was most generous -with his earnings,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-36">[Pg 36]</a></span> -and gave Golda many handsome pieces of jewellery, and he lent Jacob money when he badly -needed it. That, however, was not Jacob’s reason for admitting Kuit to his family circle. -He liked the man, was fascinated by him, and thought his morals were his own affair. He -knew his race and the poor too well to be squeamish, and never dreamed of extending his -authority beyond his family. He warned Harry that if he took to Kuit’s practices he would -no longer be a son of his, and as the accounts of prison given to Harry by some of his -acquaintances were not cheering, Harry preferred not to run any risks. Instead, he devoted -himself to training for the glory of the prize-ring.</p> - -<p>For Mendel the moral aspect of Kuit’s profession had been settled once and for all by -his seeing the Rabbi with his face turned to the wall, in the middle of the most terrible -of prayers, filch some pennies from an overcoat. Religion therefore was one thing, life -was another, and life included theft. Kuit was the only man who could think of painting -apart from money, and it was Kuit who gave him a new box of oil colours, stolen from a -studio which he broke into on purpose, and <i>en passant</i> from one rich house in -Kensington to another. Kuit used to say: “One thing is true for one man and another for -another. And what is true for a man is what he does best. For Harry it is boxing, for Issy -it is women and dancing, and for Mr. Kühler it is being honest. For me it is showing the -business thieves that they cannot have things all their own way, and outwitting the -police. Oh yes! They know me and I know them, but they will never catch me.”</p> - -<p>So charming was Mr. Kuit that Jacob could not object to taking care from time to time -of the property that passed through his hands, and the kitchen was often splendid with -marble clocks and Oriental china and Sheffield plate, which never<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-37">[Pg 37]</a></span> looked anything but out of place among the -cheap oleographs and the sideboard with its green paper frills round the flashing gilt -china that was never used. The kitchen was the living-room of the house, for Jacob only -ate when he was hungry, and it was rarely that two sat down to a meal together.</p> - -<p>As often as not Mendel had his paints on the table, and the objects he was painting -were not to be moved. He clung to his painting as the only comfort in his distress, and he -would frequently work away with his brushes though he could hardly see what he was at, and -knew that he was entirely devoid of the feeling that until the discomfort broke out in his -soul had never failed him. He dared not look outside his circumstances for comfort, and -within them was the most absolute denial of that cherished feeling for loveliness and -colour. Beyond certain streets he never ventured. He felt lost outside the immediate -neighbourhood of his home, and only Mr. Kuit reassured him with the confidence with which -he spoke of such remote regions as Kensington and Bayswater and Mayfair. The rest clung to -the little district where the shops and the language and the smells were Jewish. Yet -there, too, Mendel felt lost, though he had an immense reverence for the old Jews, for the -Rabbis who pored all day long over their books, and the ancient bearded men who, like his -mother, could sit for hours together doing nothing at all. He loved their tragic, wrinkled -faces and their steadfast peace, so stark a contrast to the chatter and the wrangling and -the harshness that filled his home.</p> - -<p>There were constant rows. Harry upset the household for weeks after his father forbade -him to pursue his prize-fighting ambitions. Jacob would not have a son of his making a -public show of himself. To that disturbance was added<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-38">[Pg 38]</a></span> another when Issy began to court, or was -courted by, a girl who was thought too poor and base-born. If he was out a minute later -than half-past nine Jacob would go out and find him at the corner of the street with the -girl in his arms. Issy would be dragged away. Then he would sulk or shout that he was a -man, and Jacob would tell him in a cold, furious voice that he could go if he liked, but, -if he went, he must never show his face there again. For a time Issy would submit. Poor -though the home was, he could not think of leaving it except to make another for himself. -But there was no keeping the girl away, and he would be for ever peeping into the street -to see if she were there, and if she were he could not keep away from her.</p> - -<p>Leah, the eldest girl, had her courtships too. The match-makers were busy with her, and -a number of men, young and old, were brought to view her. She was dressed up to look fine, -and Jacob and Golda would sit together to inspect the suitors, and at last they chose a -huge, ugly Russian Jew, named Moscowitsch—Abraham Moscowitsch, a timber-merchant, who had -pulled himself up out of the East End and had a house at Hackney. He was a friend of -Kuit’s and was willing to take the girl without a dowry. Leah hid herself away and wept. -It was in vain that Golda, primed by Jacob, told her that she would be rich, and would -have servants and carriages, and could buy at the great shops: she could not forget the -Russian’s bristling hair and thick lips and coarse, splayed nostrils. The tears were of no -avail; the marriage had been offered and accepted. The wedding was fixed, and nothing was -spared to make it a social triumph. The bride was decked out in conventional English -white, with a heavy veil and a bouquet: and very lovely she looked. Jacob wore his first -frock-coat and a white linen collar, Golda had a dress made<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-39">[Pg 39]</a></span> of mauve cashmere, with a bodice heavily -adorned with shining beads, and Mendel had a new sailor suit with a mortar-board cap. -There were three carriages to drive the party the twenty yards to the synagogue. The -wedding group was photographed, and a hall was taken for the feast and the dance in the -evening. The wedding cost Jacob the savings of many years and more, but he grudged not a -penny of it, because he had a rich son-in-law and wished it to be known. There were over -fifty guests at the feast.</p> - -<p>Within a week Leah came home again, pale, thin, and shrunken. Moscowitsch had been -arrested. He had gone bankrupt and had done “something with his books.”</p> - -<p>“Bankrupt!” said Jacob; “bankrupt!”</p> - -<p>He stood in front of his weeping daughter and beat against the air with his clenched -fists. She moaned and protested that she would never go back to him. Jacob shook her till -her teeth chattered together.</p> - -<p>“You dare talk like that! He is your husband. You are his wife. It is a misfortune. You -should be with the lawyers to find out when you can see him. I am to lose everything -because he is unfortunate! A dog will not turn from a man in his misery, and must a woman -learn from a dog? You are a soft girl! Go, I say, and find out when you can see him. Was -ever a man so crossed by Fate! Where I go, there luck takes wings.”</p> - -<p>His violence shook Leah out of the dazed misery in which she had come home, having no -other idea, no other place to which to go. Jacob was at first for making his daughter wait -in her new home until her husband was returned to her. His simple imagination seized on -the idea and visualized it. It seemed to him admirable, and Golda had hard work to shake -it out of his head. As a piece of unnecessary cruelty he could<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-40">[Pg 40]</a></span> not realize it, but when it was brought -home to him that he would have to pay the rent of the house in Hackney, he yielded and -allowed the girl to stay at home.</p> - -<p>Moscowitsch was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, and a gloom, such as not the -darkest days of poverty had been able to create, descended upon the house. Jacob was -ashamed and irritable. He insisted upon the most scrupulous observance of all the rites of -his religion, and he forbade Mendel to paint. Painting had nothing to do with religion and -he would have none of it. He trampled on Mendel’s friendship with Artie Beech. The -Christian world of police and judges and the law had destroyed his happiness, and not the -faintest smell of Christendom should cross his door. Friction between the father and his -two sons was exasperated, and it seemed to Mendel that Hell was let loose. He was nearly -of an age to leave school, and he dreamed by the hour of the freedom he would have when he -went to work. He would go out early in the morning and come home late in the evening. He -would stay in the streets and look at the shops and watch the girls go by. He would go one -day out beyond London to see what the world was like there. He would find a place where -there were pictures, and he would feast on them: for when he went to work he would paint -no more, since painting would be shed with the miserable childhood that was so fast -slipping away from him.</p> - -<p>Yet a worse calamity was to happen. Once again the Christian world of police, law, and -judges was to invade the home of the Kühlers, and this time it was Jacob himself who was -taken. He was charged with receiving stolen goods. A detective-inspector and two -constables invaded the house and took possession of an ormolu clock, a number of silver -knives, and a brooch which Mr. Kuit had given to Golda.<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-41">[Pg 41]</a></span> Five of Mr. Kuit’s friends had been -arrested, but Mr. Kuit himself was not implicated. He paid for the defence of the -prisoners and took charge of the Kühler family, transferred the business into Issy’s name, -and advanced money to keep it going. He spared neither time nor trouble to try to -establish Jacob’s innocence, but it looked almost as though some one else was taking an -equal amount of trouble to prove his guilt, for every move of Mr. Kuit’s was countered, -and Jacob himself was so bewildered and enraged that he could not give a coherent answer -to the questions put to him. He babbled and raved of an enemy who had done this thing, of -a rival who had plotted his ruin, but as he could not give a satisfactory account of the -articles found in his possession, his passionate protestations and his fanatical belief in -his own honesty were of no avail. From the dock in which he was placed with Mr. Kuit’s -other friends he delivered a vehement harangue in broken English, not more than ten words -of which were intelligible to the judge and jury. The judge was kindly, the jury -somnolent. Jacob was the only member of the party with a clean record, and he received the -light sentence of eighteen months; the rest had double that term and more. In the Sunday -papers they were described as a dangerous gang, and their portraits were drawn like -profiles on a coin by an artist whose business it was to make villains look villainous for -the delectation of the sober millions who tasted the joys of wickedness only in print. -Golda was staggered by the blank indifference of the world to her husband’s honesty. His -word to her was law, but the judge and the newspapers swept it aside, and he was regarded -as one with the wicked men whose crooked dealings had involved the innocent. This was the -worst disaster that had ever broken upon her: husband and son-in-law both swept away from -her, as it<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-42">[Pg 42]</a></span> seemed -now, in one moment. The sympathy she received from the neighbours touched her profoundly, -and she accepted their view that the sudden abstraction of male relatives was a natural -calamity, like sickness or fire. Thanks to Mr. Kuit the business would be kept together, -and thanks to Abramovich she never lacked company. That faithful friend would come in in -the evenings and go over the trial, every moment of which he had heard, and recount every -word of Jacob’s speech, which to him was a piece of magnificent oratory. “Not a tear was -left in my eyes,” he said. “Not a throb was left in my heart, and the judge was moved, for -his face sank into his hands and I could see that he knew how unjust he must be.” And he -spent many days ferreting out a villain to be the cause of it all, some inveterate, -implacable enemy who had plotted the downfall of the most honest man in London. He fixed -on a certain Mr. Rosenthal, who years ago had tried to sell them machines for the business -when they had already bought all that were necessary. He was quite sure it was Mr. -Rosenthal who had bribed the thieves to hold their tongues, when any one of them could -have cleared Jacob in a moment. And Golda believed that it was Mr. Rosenthal and dreamed -of unattainable acts of revenge.</p> - -<p>Mendel used to listen to them talking, and their voices seemed to him to come from very -far away. The upheaval had stunned him, had destroyed his volition and paralysed his -dreams. He felt as though a tight band were fixed round his head. He had neither desire -nor will. The world could do as it liked with him. If the world could suddenly invade his -home and brand its head and lawgiver as thief, then the world was empty and foolish and it -did not matter what happened. It amazed him that his brothers and sisters could go about -as usual: that Harry could come home<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-43">[Pg 43]</a></span> and talk of prize-fighters and sit writing to girls, and -that Issy could go out to meet his Rosa at the corner of the street. It was astonishing -that his mother could still cook and they could still eat, and that every morning Harry -could go down and open the door to let in the workpeople to clatter up the stairs. -. . . And Harry disliked getting out of bed in the morning. In his father’s -absence he ventured to apply his considerable ingenuity to the problem, and rigged up a -wire from his bed to the knob of the front-door. Nor was this the only sign of the removal -of the centre of authority from the family, for Issy actually brought his girl Rosa to the -house and made his mother be pleasant to her. . . . Golda felt that her children -were growing beyond her, and she thought it was time Issy was thinking of getting married, -though not to Rosa, whose father was a poor cobbler and could give her no money.</p> - -<p>At regular intervals. Golda swallowed down her dread of the busy streets and went to -Pentonville, where through the bars of the visitors’-room Jacob received her report and -gave his instructions. He decreed against Rosa, who accordingly was forbidden to enter the -house again. He had orders for every one of his children except Mendel, as to whom Golda -did not consult him. Deep in her inmost heart she was in revolt against her husband, for -she had begun to see that he had carried pride to the point of folly, and all her hopes, -all her dreams, all her ambitions were centred upon her darling boy. Her ambitions were -not worldly. She knew nothing at all about the world, and did not believe three parts of -what she heard of it. Only she longed for him to escape the bitterness and bareness that -had been her portion. The boy was so beautiful and could be so gay and could dance so -lightly, and would sometimes be so tempestuous and masterful. It would be a sin if he were -to be cramped over a board or<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-44">[Pg -44]</a></span> were sent to work in a tailoring shop. She herself had a love of flowers -and of moonlight and the stars shining through the smoky sky, and she would sometimes find -herself being urged to the use of strange words, which would make Mendel raise his head -and cock his ears as though he were listening to the very beat of her heart. To that no -one in the world had ever listened, and her life seemed very full and worthy when Mendel -in his childish fashion was awake to it. . . . Pentonville seemed to suit Jacob. -He looked almost fat and said the cocoa was very good.</p> - -<p>The time came for Mendel to leave school and Issy said he had better be taken into the -workshop. Harry wanted him in the timber-yard in which he loafed away his days. Abramovich -was for getting Mr. Jacobson to take him into his office, for Mr. Jacobson never failed to -ask after the boy who painted the pictures. Now it so happened that Mendel had found a -bookshop, outside which he had discovered a life of W. P. Frith, R.A. In daily visits over -a period of three weeks he had read it from cover to cover, the story of a poor boy who -had become an artist, rising to such fame that he had painted the portrait of the Queen. -There it was in print, and must be true. Mr. Jacobson’s boy was only in a story, but here -it was set down in a book, with reproductions of the artist’s wonderful pictures—“The -Railway Station,” “Derby Day.” The book said they were wonderful. The book spoke with -reverence and enthusiasm of pictures and the men who painted them.</p> - -<p>With tremulous excitement he secretly produced his box of paints again, and squeezed -out the colours on to the plate he used for a palette. He adored the colours and amused -himself with painting smooth strips of blue, yellow, green, red, orange, grey, for the -sheer delight of handling the delicious stuff. It was a new pleasure, the joy<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-45">[Pg 45]</a></span> of colours in -themselves without reference to any object, or any feeling inside himself except this -simple thrilling delight. He could forget everything in it, for it was his first taste of -childish glee. Nothing would ever be the same again. Nothing could ever again so oppress -and overwhelm him as distasteful and even pleasant things had done in the past. He would -be an artist, a wonderful artist, like W. P. Frith, R.A.</p> - -<p>So when he was called into the kitchen one night and they told him he was to go into -Mr. Jacobson’s office, he looked as though their words had no meaning for him, and he -said:—</p> - -<p>“I want to be an artist.”</p> - -<p>An artist? Nobody knew quite what that meant. Golda thought it meant painting pictures, -but she could not imagine a man devoting all his time to it—a child’s pastime.</p> - -<p>“He means the drawing!” said Abramovich. “I had a friend at home who used to paint the -flowers on the cups.”</p> - -<p>“I’m going to be an artist,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“But you’ve got to make your money like everybody else,” replied Issy.</p> - -<p>Mendel retorted with details of what he could remember of the career of his idol. Issy -said that was a <i>Christlicher kop.</i> There weren’t such things as Jewish artists; -whereon Harry threw in the word “Rubinstein.” Asked to explain what he meant, he did not -know, but had just remembered the name.</p> - -<p>Abramovich said he thought Rubinstein was a conductor at the Opera, and there were -Jewish singers and actors.</p> - -<p>“My father,” said Harry, “won’t hear of that. He won’t have a son of his making a -public show of himself.”</p> - -<p>Mendel by this time was white in the face, and his eyes were glaring out of his head. -He knew that not one of them had understood his meaning,<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-46">[Pg 46]</a></span> and he felt that Issy was bent on having -his way with him. He was in despair at his helplessness, and at last, when he could endure -no more, he flung himself down on the floor and howled. Issy lost his temper with him, -picked him up, and carried him, kicking and biting, upstairs, and flung him on his -bed.</p> - -<p>The subject was dropped for a time, but Mendel refused to eat, or to sleep, or to leave -the house. He was afraid that if he put his nose outside the door Abramovich would pounce -on him and drag him off to Mr. Jacobson’s office.</p> - -<p>However, the matter could not be postponed for long, because money was very scarce and -the boy must be put into the way of providing for himself. Golda asked Abramovich to find -out what an artist was and how much a week could be made at the trade. Abramovich came in -one evening with a note-book full of facts and figures. He had read of a picture being -sold for tens of thousands of pounds, and this had made a great impression on him. Mendel -was called down from the room in which he had exiled himself.</p> - -<p>“Well?” said Abramovich kindly. “So you want to be an artist? But how?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. I shall paint pictures.”</p> - -<p>“But who will feed you? Who will buy you paints, brushes?”</p> - -<p>“I shall sell my pictures.”</p> - -<p>“Where, then? How?”</p> - -<p>“To the shops.”</p> - -<p>“Where are the shops? Tell me of any shop near here, for I don’t know a single -one.”</p> - -<p>Again Mendel felt that they were too clever for him, and he was on the brink of another -fit of despair when, fortunately for him, Mr. Macalister, a commercial traveller in furs, -came in. When he was in London he made a point of calling on the Kühlers, whom he liked, -much as he liked strong drink. He was a man of some attainments, a<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-47">[Pg 47]</a></span> student of Edinburgh, who had found the -ordinary walks and the ordinary people of life too tame for his chaotic and vigorous -temper, and he went from place to place collecting just such strange people as these -Polacks, as he used to call them. He looked for passion in men and women, and accepted it -gratefully and even greedily wherever he found it. . . . He had red hair and a -complexion like a white-heart cherry, with little twinkling eyes as blue as -forget-me-nots.</p> - -<p>He kindled at once to the passion with which Mendel was bursting, stooped over Golda’s -hand and kissed it—for he knew that was how foreigners greeted a lady—and then he sat -heavily waiting for the situation to be explained to him. Mendel instinctively appealed to -him. . . . Oh yes! he knew what an artist was, and some painters had made tidy -fortunes, though they were not the best of them. There were Reynolds, and Lawrence, and -Raeburn, and Landseer, and some young fellows at Glasgow, and Michael Angelo—a tidy lot, -indeed. Never a Jew, that he had heard of.</p> - -<p>“I told you so!” said Abramovich.</p> - -<p>Golda showed Mr. Macalister the boy’s pictures, and he was genuinely impressed, -especially by a picture of three oranges in a basket.</p> - -<p>“It’s not,” he said, “that they make you want to eat them, as that they make you look -at them as you look at oranges. I’ll look closer at every orange I see now. That’s talent. -Yes. That’s talent. Aye.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was so grateful to him that he forgot the others and began to point out to him -how well the oranges were painted, with all their fleshiness and rotundity brought out. -And very soon they were all laughing at him, and that made the meeting happier.</p> - -<p>Mr. Macalister explained that in old days artists used to take boys into their studios, -but that now there were Schools of Art where only very talented<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-48">[Pg 48]</a></span> people could survive. He certainly thought -that Mendel ought to be given a chance, and if it were a question of money, he, poor -though he was, would be only too glad to help. Golda would not hear of that, and -Abramovich protested that, in an unhappy time like this, he regarded himself as the -representative of his unfortunate friend.</p> - -<p>The corner was turned. Feeling was now all with Mendel, and he went to bed singing in -head and heart: “I’m an artist! I’m an artist! I’m an artist!”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>So the ball was set rolling. Jacob, seen behind the bars, raised no objection. He had -had time to think, and, to the extent of his capacity, availed himself of it. When he was -told that his youngest son wanted to be an artist and wept at the suggestion of anything -else, he thought: “Who am I to say ‘Yea’ or ‘Nay’?” and he said “Yea.” “Let the boy have a -little happiness while he may, for the Christians are very powerful and will take all that -he cherishes from him.”</p> - -<p>The question of ways and means was considered, and here Abe Moscowitsch took charge. -His business had prospered during his enforced absence, and his bankruptcy had been very -profitable. He was a decent man, and anxious to make amends to his young wife and her -family for the trouble his adventurousness had brought on them. To please her he took a -new house with bow-windows and a garage, and to please them he jumped at the opportunity -of helping Mendel, and offered to pay his fees at a School of Art. When the boy heard this -he ran to his brother-in-law’s office and, before all his workmen, flung his arms round -his neck and embraced him.</p> - -<p>“That’ll do. That’ll do,” said Moscowitsch. “Don’t forget us if you’re a rich man -before I am.”</p> - -<p>“I shall never leave home,” said Mendel. “I shall never marry. I shall live all my days -with my mother, painting.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> - -<p>There arose the difficulty that no one had ever heard of a School of Art. Mr. -Macalister was deputed to look into the matter. He inquired, and was recommended to the -Polytechnic as being cheap and good, and the Polytechnic was decided on.</p> - -<p>Mr. Kuit came in at the tail of all this excitement, and added to it by saying that he -was just off to America, first-class by the Cunard Line, for he was going to start in -style, live in style, and come back in style. He was delighted to hear of the brilliant -future opening up before Mendel, and told wonderful stories of famous pictures that had -been stolen, cut out of their frames and taken away under the very noses of the owners. He -was wonderfully overdressed, not loudly or vulgarly, but through his eagerness to be and -to look first-class. He produced a pack of cards and showed how he could shuffle them to -suit himself, and three times out of five, through the fineness of the touch, he could -“spot” a card. He was a wonderful man. The Kühlers gaped at him, and Moscowitsch, in -emulation, was led on to brag of his smartness in business, and how he had thrice burned -down his timber-yard and made the insurance people pay up. Yet, though he warmed up as he -boasted, he lacked the magic of Mr. Kuit and could not conceal the meanness of his deeds -behind their glamour. He lumbered along like a great bear behind Mr. Kuit, and was vexed -because he could not overtake him, and when the glittering little Jew, who seemed more -magician than thief, said he would give Mendel a new suit of clothes for his entry into -the world of art, Moscowitsch promised to provide a new pair of boots. Mr. Kuit countered -with two new hats, Moscowitsch with underclothes. On they went in competition until Mendel -was magnificently equipped, and at last Moscowitsch laid two new sovereigns on the table -and said they were for the boy’s pocket-money.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-50">[Pg 50]</a></span> Not to be outdone, Mr. Kuit produced a five-pound note and -gave it to Golda to be put into the Post Office Savings Bank.</p> - -<p>In her inmost heart Golda was alarmed. For the first time she began to realize the vast -powerful London with which she was surrounded. At home, in Austria, people stole because -they were poor, because they were starving. She herself had often sent Harry and Issy out -into the market with a sack and a spiked stick with which to pick up potatoes and cabbages -and bread, but here the old simplicity was lacking. The swagger and the magnitude of Mr. -Kuit’s operations and her son-in-law’s frauds alarmed her, and she felt that no good could -come of it. They belonged to some power which moved too fast for her, and it was being -invoked for Mendel, her youngest-born, her treasure. Truly it was a black day that took -Jacob from her. Where he was, there was simplicity. Everything was kept in its place when -he was in authority. Everything was kept down on the earth. There was the good smell of -the earth in all his dealings, all his emotions. Never in him was the easy fantastic -excitement of Kuit and Moscowitsch . . . They were mad. Surely they were mad. -Their excitement infected everybody. Golda could feel it creeping in her veins like a -poison. It came from the world to which these men belonged, the world of prison. That one -word expressed it all for Golda. She had only been out into it to go to the prison, and to -her that seemed to be the cold empty centre of it all. The bustle and glitter of the -streets led to the prison, and she had always to fight to get back into her own life, -where things were simple and definite—ugly, maybe—but clear and actual. . . . -And now into that world of hectic excitement playing about the prison and about Mendel was -to go, to be she knew not what, to learn to play with brushes and colours, to practise -tricks which<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-51">[Pg 51]</a></span> -seemed to her not essentially different from Mr. Kuit’s sleight with the cards. She was -sure no good could come of it; but for the present the boy had his happiness, and to that -she yielded.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter104"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter104_hdg"><a href="#Chapter104_toc">IV<br /> -<span class="chap_title">FIRST LOVE</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">F<small>OR</small> Mendel every day became romantic, though he -suffered tortures of shyness and used to bolt like a rabbit through the doors of the -Polytechnic, rush upstairs to his easel, and never raise his eyes from it except to gaze -at the objects placed before him. He worked in a frenzy, convinced that it was his -business to translate the object on to the canvas. When he had done that he felt that the -object had no further existence. It ought to vanish as completely as his consuming -interest in it. As a matter of fact, it never did vanish, but it was lost in the praises -of Mr. Sivwright, and the young women and old ladies who attended the class. The first -task set the class after he joined it was a ginger-beer bottle, of which his rendering was -declared to be a marvel, even to the high light on the marble in the neck of the -bottle.</p> - -<p>He was rather small for his age and was almost absurdly beautiful, with his curly hair, -round Austrian head, and amusing pricked ears. His eyes were set very wide apart. They -were blue. His nose was straight, and very slightly tip-tilted, and his lips were as -delicately modelled as the petals of a rose. They were always tremulous as he shrank under -the vivid impressions that poured in on him in bewildering profusion. He began to grow -physically and spiritually, though not at all mentally, and he lived in a state of -bewilderment, retaining shrewdness enough to cling to the necessary plain fact that he was -at the school to<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-53">[Pg 53]</a></span> -be a success, for if he failed he would sink back into the already detestable world -inhabited by Issy and Harry.</p> - -<p>He created quite a stir at the school. Mr. Sivwright, a Lancashire Scotsman, whose -youthful revolt against commerce and grime had carried him in the direction of art only so -far as the municipal school, said he was an infant prodigy and made a show of him. To -Mendel’s disgust Mr. Sivwright assured the other pupils that he was a Pole. This was his -first intimation that there was, in the splendid free Christian world, a prejudice against -Jews. He was rather shocked and disgusted, for never in his life had he found occasion to -call anything by other than its right name. It took him weeks to conquer his shyness -sufficiently to protest.</p> - -<p>“I am a Jew,” he said to Mr. Sivwright. “Why do you call me a Pole?”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Mr. Sivwright, “there’s Chopin, you know, and Paderewski, don’t you know, -and Kosciusko, and the Jews don’t stand for anything but money. And, after all, you do -come from Poland.”</p> - -<p>“But I am a Jew.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t look it, and there’s some swing about being a Pole. There’s no swing about -being a Jew. It stops dead, you know. I don’t know why it is, but it stops dead.”</p> - -<p>The words frightened Mendel. How awful it would be if he were to stop dead, to reach -the Polytechnic and to go no further!</p> - -<p>He was soon taken beyond the Polytechnic, for Mr. Sivwright led him to the National -Gallery and showed him the treasures there. The boy was at once prostrate before Greuze. -Ah! there were softness, tenderness, charm: all that he had lacked and longed for. It was -in vain that Mr. Sivwright took him to the Van Eycks and the Teniers and the Franz Hals, -striking an attitude and saying:<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-54">[Pg -54]</a></span> “Fine! Dramatic! That’s the real stuff!” The boy would return to his Greuze -and pour out on the pretty maidens all the longings for emotion with which he was filled, -and the yearning seemed to him to be the irresistible torrent of art which carried those -who felt it to the pinnacles of fame. . . . Yet he knew that Mr. Sivwright was a -shoddy failure of a man, and he knew that Mr. Sivwright’s ecstasies were forced and had -small connection with the pictures before him. He also knew that he had not the least -desire to paint like Greuze, but he could not resist the fascination of the pretty maidens -and the gush of feeling he had in front of them. The Italians he did not understand and -Velasquez and El Greco repelled him. Also, the pictures as a whole excited him so that -they ran into each other and he could not extricate them, and Greuze became his stand-by. -He felt safe with Greuze.</p> - -<p>Every day he used to go home and tell his mother of the day’s doings, from the moment -when he mounted the bus in the morning to the time when he walked home in the evening. He -gave her minute accounts of all the people in the class, of the cheap restaurant where he -had lunch, of the marvels of the streets: the old women selling flowers at Oxford Circus; -the gorgeous shop-windows; the illuminated signs and advertisements, green, red, and -yellow; the theatres; the posters of the comic men outside the music-halls; the rich -people in their motor-cars; the marvellous ladies in their silks and their furs; the poor -men selling matches; the scarlet soldiers and blue sailors; the big policemen who stopped -the traffic with their white hands; the awful, endless desolation of Portland Place, with -trees—actually trees—at the end of it; the whirl, the glitter, the roar, the splendour of -London. And he used to mimic for her the strange people he saw, the mincing ladies and the -lordly shopwalkers, the tittering girls<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-55">[Pg 55]</a></span> and the men working in the streets. The more excited he -was the more depressed was Golda. What was it all for? Why could not people live a decent -quiet life? Why was all this whirligig revolving round the prison? . . . But she -smiled and laughed and applauded him, and believed him when he said none of the Christians -could draw as well as he.</p> - -<p>He began to win prizes. It became his whole object to beat the Christians. What they -told him to paint he would paint better than any of them. And by sheer will and -concentration he succeeded.</p> - -<p>Mr. Sivwright said there was no holding him, and very soon declared he had nothing more -to learn.</p> - -<p>This was taken by Mendel and his family to mean that he was now an artist. In all good -faith he established himself in a room below the workshop at home, called it his studio, -and set to work. For a few months he painted apples, fish, oranges, portraits of his -mother, brothers, and sisters, and for a time was able to sell them among his -acquaintance. He had one or two commissions for portraits and could always make a few -shillings by painting from photographs. But appreciation of art among his own people was -limited; he soon came to an end of it, and there was that other world calling to him. Art -lay beyond that other world. He felt sure of that. It lay beyond Mr. Sivwright. If he -stayed among his own people he would stop dead; for he knew now that it was true that the -Jews stopped dead.</p> - -<p>And then to his horror he stopped. For no reason at all his skill, his enthusiasm, his -eagerness left him. He forced himself to paint, transferred innumerable idiotic faces from -photographs to cigar-box lids, made his mother neglect her work to sit to him, bribed -Lotte to be his model, but hated and loathed everything that he did.<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-56">[Pg 56]</a></span> He was listless, -sometimes feverish, sometimes leaden and cold. Often he thought he was going to die—to die -before anything had happened, before anything had emerged from the chaos of his painful -vivid impressions.</p> - -<p>To make things worse, his father came home and said that he would give him six months -in which to make his living, and at the end of that time, if he had failed, he would have -to go into the workshop.</p> - -<p>He felt hopeless. He went to see Mr. Sivwright and poured out his woes to him, who -wrote a letter to Jacob saying that his son was a genius and would be one of the greatest -of painters. Jacob said: “What is a genius? I do not know. I know what a man is, and a man -works for his living. In six months, if you can make fifteen shillings a week I will -believe in this painting. If not, what is there to believe? What will you do when you are -to marry, heh? Tell me that. Will your little tubes of paint keep a wife, heh? Tell me -that.”</p> - -<p>Mendel could say nothing. He could do nothing. He gave up even trying to paint, for he -might as well have played with mud-pies. He borrowed money from his brothers and prowled -about the streets, and went to the National Gallery. Greuze meant nothing to him now. He -began to feel, very faintly, the force of Michael Angelo, but the rest only filled him -with despair. He knew nothing—nothing at all. He could not even begin to see how the -pictures were painted. They were miraculous and detestable. . . . He went home -and comforted himself with a little picture of some apples on a plate. He had painted it -two years before in an ecstasy—a thrilling love for the form, the colour, the texture of -the fruit and the china. It was good. He knew it was good, but he knew he could do nothing -like it now—never again, perhaps.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> - -<p>And how disgusting the streets had become! Such a litter, such a noise, such aimless, -ugly people! He could understand his mother’s horror of them. Ah! she never failed him. To -her his words were always music, his presence was always light. Half-dead and miserable as -he was, she could know and love the aching heart of him that lived so furiously behind all -the death and the misery and the ashes of young hopes that crusted him. She was like the -sky and the trees. She was like the young grass springing and waving so delicately in the -wind. She was like the water and the rolling hills. . . . He had discovered -these things at Hampstead, whither he had gone out of sheer aimlessness. He had never been -in the Tube, and one day, with a shilling borrowed from Harry, it seemed appropriate to -him to plunge into the bowels of the earth. The oppression of the air, the roar of the -train, the flash of the stations as he moved through them, suited his mood, fantastic and -futile. He got out at Hampstead.</p> - -<p>It was his first sight of the country. He could hardly move at first for emotion. He -found himself laughing, and he stooped and touched the grass tenderly, almost timidly, as -though he were afraid of hurting it. He was fearful at first of walking on it, but that -seemed to him childish, and he strode along with his quick, light-footed stride and lost -himself in the willow groves. He made a posy of wild-flowers and took them back to his -mother, carrying them unashamedly in his hand, entirely oblivious of the smiles of the -passers-by. He knew he could not tell his mother of the happiness of that day, and the -flowers could say more than any words.</p> - -<p>Yet the happiness only made his misery more acute. He suffered terribly from the pious -narrowness of his home, the restricted, cramped life of his brothers and sisters, who -seemed to him to be<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-58">[Pg -58]</a></span> stealing such life as they had from the religious observances to which they -were bound by their father’s rigid will. Prayers at home, prayers in the synagogue: the -dreadful monotony of the home, of the talk, of the squabbles: human life forced to be as -dull as that of the God who no longer interfered in human life. . . . There was -a tragedy in the street. There had been a scandal. A young Rabbi, a gloriously handsome -creature, who sang in the synagogue, had fallen in love with a little girl of fourteen who -lived opposite the Kühlers. Golda had watched the intrigue from her windows, and she said -it was the girl’s fault. The Rabbi used to go every day when her father was out and she -used to let him in. Jacob wrote to the girl’s father, and the Rabbi left his lodgings and -took a room over a little restaurant round the corner. He had his dinner and went upstairs -and sat up all night singing, in his lovely tenor voice, love songs and religious chants, -so sweetly that the neighbours threw their windows open and there was a little crowd of -people in the street listening. And in the morning they found him with his throat cut.</p> - -<p>“It was the girl’s fault,” said Golda, but Jacob said: “A man should know better than -to melt when a little girl practises her eyes on him.”</p> - -<p>This tragedy relaxed the nervous strain which had been set up in Mendel by his -troubles. New forces stirred in him which often made him hectic and light-headed. Women -changed their character for him. They were no longer soothing ministrants, but creatures -charged with a mysterious, a maddening charm. He trembled at the rustle of their skirts -and his eyes were held riveted by their movements. He was suffocated by his new curiosity -about them.</p> - -<p>Sometimes, in his despair over his painting and the apparently complete disappearance -of his talent, he would fill in the day in his father’s<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-59">[Pg 59]</a></span> workshop, stretching rabbit-skins on a -board. Girls and men worked together, busily, quietly, dexterously, for the most part in -silence, for they were paid by the piece and were unwilling to waste time. There was a -girl who had just been taken into the workshop to learn the trade. She was small and plump -and swarthy, but her face was beautiful, the colour of rich old ivory. Her eyes were black -and golden from a ruddy tinge in her eyelashes. Her lips were full and pouting, and she -had long blue-black hair, which she was always tossing back over her shoulder. When Mendel -was there she rarely took her eyes off him, and even when her head was bent he could feel -that she was watching him.</p> - -<p>He waited for her one evening, and with his knees almost knocking together he asked if -she would come to his studio and let him draw her. With a silly giggle she said she would -come, and she ran away before he could get out another word.</p> - -<p>The next evening he waited in his studio for her, but she did not come. So again the -next and the next, and it was a whole week before she knocked at the door. He pulled her -in. Neither could speak a word. At last he stammered out:</p> - -<p>“I—I haven’t got my drawing things ready.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind,” she said, and she gave a little shiver.</p> - -<p>“Are you cold?” he asked, and he touched her neck.</p> - -<p>She threw up her head, seemed to fall towards him, and their lips met.</p> - -<p>Thrilling and sweet were the hours they spent, lost in the miracle of desire, finding -themselves again, laughing happily, weeping happily, breaking through into the enchanted -world, where the few words that either knew had lost their meaning. They were hardly -conscious of each<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-60">[Pg 60]</a></span> -other. They knew nothing of each other, and wished to know nothing except the lovely -mystery they shared. It was some time before he even knew her name, or where she lived, or -what her people were. She existed for him only in the enchantment she brought into his -life, in the release from his burden, in the marvellous free life of the body. Royal he -felt, like a king, like a master, and she was a willing slave. From home she would steal -good things to eat, and she would sit with shining eyes watching him eat; and then she -would wait until he had need of her. . . . Strange, silent, happy hours they -spent, free together in the dark little room, free as birds in their nest, happy in warm -contact, utterly quiescent, utterly oblivious. . . .</p> - -<p>Soon their silence became oppressive to them, but neither could break it, so far beyond -their years and their childish minds was the experience in which they were joined. When -the first ecstasy passed and they became conscious and deliberate in their delight, they -had unhappy moments, to escape from which he began to draw her. Into this work poured a -strong cool passion altogether new to him, a joy so magnificent that he would forget her -altogether. He was tyrannical, and kept her so still that she would almost weep from -fatigue and boredom. But he was not satisfied until he had drawn every line of her, and -had translated her from the world of the body to the world of vision and the spirit. He -knew nothing of that. He was only concerned to draw her as he had drawn the ginger-beer -bottle at the Polytechnic. Certain parts of her body—her little budding breasts and her -round arms—especially delighted him, and he drew them over and over again. Her head he -drew twenty times, and he found a shop in the West End where he could sell every one. And -each time he bought her a little present.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> - -<p>She was not satisfied with that. She wanted to display him to her friends. She wanted -him to take her to music-halls and to join the parade of boys and girls. He refused. That -would be profanation. He and she had nothing to do with the world. He and she were the -world. Outside it was only his drawing. He could not see that she was unable to share it. -Did he not draw her? Did he dream of drawing anything but her? . . . . To go -from that to restaurants, the lascivious pleasantries of the streets, the garish -music-halls, was to him unthinkable.</p> - -<p>She said he cared more for his drawing than for her, and indeed he would sometimes draw -for a couple of hours and then kiss her almost absent-mindedly, just as she was going. He -was so happy and satisfied and could not imagine her being anything less, or that she -might wish to express in music-halls and “fun” what he expressed in his work.</p> - -<p>He felt gloriously confident, and naïvely told his mother how happy he was. Everything -had come back. He could draw better than ever. He would be a great artist.</p> - -<p>Once more he took to painting in the kitchen. The studio was dedicated to the girl, -Sara, who came to him in spite of her disappointment. He had spoiled her for other -boys.</p> - -<p>He painted all day long in the kitchen, and his life became ordered and regular. He -went for a walk in the morning, then worked all day long until the workpeople began to -clatter downstairs, when he would pack up his paint-box and run up to the studio to wait -for Sara to come tapping softly at his door.</p> - -<p>Golda was overjoyed at his new happiness and the budding manhood in him, but she knew -that this springtime of his youth could not be without a cause. She knew that he was in -love and was fearful of consequences, and dreaded his being<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-62">[Pg 62]</a></span> fatally entangled. She kept watch and saw -Sara stealthily leave the house hours after the other workpeople had gone. She told Jacob, -and Sara was dismissed and forbidden ever to come near the house again.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter105"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter105_hdg"><a href="#Chapter105_toc">V<br /> -<span class="chap_title">A TURNING-POINT</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">A<small>T</small> first Mendel hardly noticed the passing of Sara. He -waited anxiously for her to come, but when she never appeared he went on working, only -gradually to discover that the first glorious impulse had faded away. However, the habit -of regular work was strong with him, and he could go on like a carpenter or a mason or any -other good journeyman. But there was no one to buy what he produced, and his father began -to talk gloomily and ominously of the workshop.</p> - -<p>“Never!” said Mendel. “If I am not a great artist by the time I am twenty-three I will -come and work. If I have done nothing by the time I am twenty-three I shall know that I am -no good.”</p> - -<p>“I can see no reason,” said Jacob, “why you should not work like any other man and -paint in your spare time. Issy is a good dancer in his spare time, and Harry is good at -the boxing. Why should you not paint in your spare time and work like an honest man?”</p> - -<p>Mendel turned on his father and rent him.</p> - -<p>“You do not know what work is. You work with your hands. Yes. But do you ever work till -your head swims, and your eyes ache because they can see more inside than they can -outside? If I cannot paint I shall die. I shall be like a bird that cannot sing, like a -woman that has no child, like a man that has no strength. I tell you I shall die if I -cannot paint.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, he will die,” said Golda. “He will surely die.”</p> - -<p>“He will die of starvation if he goes on painting,” replied Jacob.</p> - -<p>“And if you had not been able to sleep you would have died of starvation for all that -work ever did for you,” cried Golda, convinced that Mendel was speaking the truth.</p> - -<p>Shortly before this crisis Mendel had discovered a further aspect of the Christian -world. A good young man from an Oxford settlement had heard of him and had sought him out. -This young man’s name was Edward Tufnell. He was the son of a rich Northern manufacturer, -and he believed that the cultured classes owed something to the masses. He believed there -must be mute, inglorious Miltons in the slums, and that they only needed fertilization. -When, therefore, he heard of the poor boy who sat in his mother’s kitchen painting oranges -and fish and onions, he was excited to bring the prodigy within reach of culture. He made -him attend lectures on poetry and French classes. These duties gave Mendel a good excuse -for escaping from home in the evenings, and he attended the classes, but hardly understood -a word of what was said. He liked and admired Edward Tufnell, who was very nearly what he -imagined a gentleman to be—generous and kind, and quick to appreciate the human quality of -any fellow-creature, no matter what his outward aspect might be. Edward Tufnell treated -Golda exactly as he would have treated an elderly duchess.</p> - -<p>To Edward Tufnell, therefore, Mendel bore his difficulty, and Edward took infinite -pains and at last, through his interest with the Bishop of Stepney, procured him a -situation in a stained-glass factory, where he was set to trace cartoons of the Virgin -Mary and S. John the Baptist and other figures of whom he had never heard. But,<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-65">[Pg 65]</a></span> though he had never -heard of them, yet he understood that they were figures worthy of respect, and it shocked -him to hear the workmen say: “Billy, chuck us down another Mary,” or “Jack, heave up that -there J. C. . . .” He was acutely miserable. To draw without impulse or delight -was torture to him, and he could not put pencil to paper without a thrill of eagerness and -desire, which was immediately baffled when his pencil had to follow out the conventional -lines of the stained-glass windows. And the draughtsmen with whom he worked were empty, -foul-mouthed men, who seemed to strive to give the impression that they lived only for the -mean pleasures of the flesh. They knew nothing, nothing at all, and he hated them.</p> - -<p>He was paid five shillings a week, and was told that if he behaved himself, by the time -he was twenty or twenty-one he would be making thirty shillings a week. Jacob was very -pleased with this prospect, and told his unhappy son that he would soon settle down to it, -and he even began to upbraid him for not painting in the evenings. Mendel could not touch -his brushes. He tried hard to think of himself as an ordinary working boy, and he -endeavoured to pursue the pleasures of his kind. He went with Harry to boxing matches and -joined him in the raffish pleasures of the streets, which, however, left him weary and -disgusted. He had known something truer and finer, and he could not help a little -despising Harry, who pursued girls as game, and directly they were kindled and moved -towards him he lost interest in them, and, indeed, was rather horrified by them.</p> - -<p>Strange in contrast was Mendel’s relation with Edward Tufnell, who was entirely -innocent and could see nothing in his protégé but a touching sensitiveness to beauty. The -urchin with his complete and unoffended knowledge of the life<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-66">[Pg 66]</a></span> of the gutter was hidden from him. Edward -found, and was rejoiced to find, that the boy was sensitive to intellectual beauty and to -ideas. He gave him poetry to read—Keats and the odes of Milton—and was very happy to -explain to him the outlines of Christianity and the difference that the coming of Christ -had made to the world. He did not aim at making a convert, but only at feeding the boy’s -appetite for tenderness and kindness and all fair things. Mendel was striving most loyally -to be resigned to his horrible fate, and the teachings of Christ seemed to fortify his -endeavour. When, therefore, he asked if he might read the New Testament, Edward lent it to -him without misgiving.</p> - -<p>The result was disastrous. Mendel pored over the book and it seemed to let light into -his darkness. He read of the conversion of S. Paul and his own illumination was apparently -no less complete. The notion of holding out the other cheek appealed to him, for he felt -that the whole world was his enemy. It had insulted him with five shillings a week, and if -he were meek it would presently add another five. . . . And then what a prospect -it opened up of a world where people loved each other and treated each other kindly and -lived without the rasping anger and suspicion and jealousy that filled his home.</p> - -<p>He went to the National Gallery and began to understand the Italians. He would become a -Christian and paint Madonnas, mothers suckling their children, with kindly saints like -Edward Tufnell looking on. Yet the new spirituality jarred with his life at home and was -not strong enough to combat it. That life contained a quality as essential to him as air. -It stank in his nostrils, but it was the food of his spirit and he could not, though his -new enthusiasm bade him do it, sentimentalize his relation with his mother. Her relation -with his father forbade it, and his father<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-67">[Pg 67]</a></span> cast a shadow over the greater life illuminated by the -figure of Christ. Yet because of the pictures he could not abandon the struggle, and he -tried to find support by proselytizing Harry. That roisterer had begun to find his life -very unsatisfying, and he gulped down the new idea simply because it was new. He got drunk -on it, refused to go to the synagogue, and performed a number of acts that he thought -Christian, as wasting his money on useless and hideous presents for his mother and -sisters. Also he took a delight in talking of the Messiah, and ascribed all the -misfortunes of the family to its adherence to an exploded faith.</p> - -<p>Jacob was furious. This soft Christian nonsense was revolting to him.</p> - -<p>“Say another word,” he shouted, “say another word and I turn you out of the house. -Jeshua! I will tell you. In America it has been proved, absolutely proved in a court of -law, that this Jeshua was nothing better than a pimp. It was proved by a very learned -Rabbi before a Christian judge, and when the judge saw that it was proved he broke down -and wept like a woman.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve only your word for it,” said Harry, already rather dashed.</p> - -<p>“I tell you I’ve seen it in print. If you like I will send for the book to -America.”</p> - -<p>Harry held his peace. That settled it for him, and even Mendel was shaken by the storm -his Christian inclinations had let loose.</p> - -<p>“The Christians are liars,” said Jacob. “Every one of them is a liar, and they eat -filth.”</p> - -<p>There was a passion of belief in his father which Mendel could not but honour, and that -other faith, so far as he knew, was held but mildly. It was charming in its results, but -its spirit was unsatisfying to him who had been bred on stronger fare. All the same, his -attitude towards his father’s authority was changed. His simple<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-68">[Pg 68]</a></span> acceptance was shaken, and he was in -revolt against the repression of his dearest desires enjoined by it. His tongue was loosed -and he began to talk enthusiastically to Edward Tufnell about his ambitions.</p> - -<p>“I beat them all at the school,” he used to say, “and I would never let anybody beat -me. I can see more clearly than anybody. I can see colour where they can see none, and -shadows where they can see none. And when I have painted them, then they can see -them.”</p> - -<p>He was entirely unconscious in his egoism, and Edward was so generous a creature that -he was not shocked or offended by it. He was a Quaker and as simple in his faith as a -peasant, and he was young enough to know how difficult it was for the boy to expose his -thoughts. After he had listened to his outpourings he would lead the boy on to talk of his -experiences at the stained-glass factory. Mendel had a wonderful gift of vivid narration. -Everything was so real to him, he had no reason to respect anything in the outside world -unless it compelled the homage of his instinct, and in his broken Cockney English he could -give the most dramatic descriptions of everything he saw and did. When he was engaged upon -such tales, helping them out with wonderful mimicry, he had no shyness and laid bare his -feelings as though they were also a part of the external scene.</p> - -<p>Edward knew nothing at all about painting, but he could respond to quality in a human -being, and he recognized that here was no ordinary boy. His first impulse was to rescue -him from his surroundings, support him, send him to school. But what a Hell that would be -for the sensitive foreigner brought face to face with the ruthless force of an ancient -tradition! Edward himself had suffered enough from being such an oddity as a Quaker, but -to send this Jew, who had learned nothing and had none but his natural<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-69">[Pg 69]</a></span> manners, to a Public -School would be an act of cruelty. Besides, the boy would not hear of being parted from -his mother, whom he was never tired of praising. He told Edward quite solemnly that his -mother had said things far more beautiful than anything in Keats or Milton and that no -book could ever have held anything more moving than her descriptions of the life at home -in Austria, with the Jews in their gaberdines with their long curls hanging by their ears, -and the foolish peasants in their bright clothes, and the splendid officers who clapped -children into prison if they splashed their great shining boots with mud. . . . -As he listened Edward felt more and more convinced that it was his duty not to allow this -rich nature to be swallowed up in the grey squalor of the slums. He had begun his -philanthropic work believing that Oxford had much to give to the poor, and he had come in -time to realize that the world of which Oxford was the romantic symbol stood sorely in -need of much that the poor had to give. Mendel confirmed and strengthened an impression -which had for some time been disturbing Edward’s peace of mind. He felt that if he could -help the boy he would be translating his perception into action.</p> - -<p>He discussed the matter with his friends, who smiled at his solemnity. “Dear old -Edward” was always a joke to them, so seriously did he take the problems with which he was -faced. They said that, of course, if the boy was a genius he would find his way out and -would be all the greater for the struggle. Edward protested that young talent was easily -snuffed out, but again they laughed and said that if it were so then it was no great loss. -Edward then said that the boy had a fine nature which might easily be crippled by evil -circumstances. That they refused to believe either, and Edward made no progress until he -told his tale to a rich young Jew who had lately<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-70">[Pg 70]</a></span> come to the settlement. This young man, Maurice Birnbaum, -was at once fired. His father was a member of a committee for aiding young Jews of talent. -With Edward he swooped down on the Kühlers in his motor-car, and Golda showed him all her -son’s work, from the watch he drew at the age of three to a study of Sara’s breasts. -Birnbaum knew no Yiddish, and Golda scorned a Jew who could not speak the language of his -race. He was also extremely gauche and talked to her rather in the manner of a -parliamentary candidate canvassing for votes. He patronized her and told her that her son -had talent, but that she must not expect Fortune to wait on him immediately. “A Christian -Jew!” said Golda scornfully when he had gone. “He stinks of money and shell-fish. If you -are going to eat pork, eat till the grease runs down your chin.” And she had a sudden -horror that Mendel might grow like that, all flesh and withered, uneasy spirit. She felt -inclined to destroy all the pictures, and when Mendel came in she told him of her visitor -and of her alarm, and he reassured her, saying: “What I am I will always be, for without -you I am nothing. . . .” It was only from Mendel that Golda had such sayings. No -one else ever acknowledged in words her quality or her power for sweetness in their lives, -and she was terrified at the thought of his going. The big motor-car would come and take -him and all his pictures away, she imagined, and he would be swept up into glittering -circles of which alone he was worthy, though they were quite unworthy of him. And some -rich woman would be enraptured with him, and she would take him to her arms and her bed, -and he would be lost for ever. Mendel told her it meant nothing, that such people forgot -those who were poor and never really helped them, because they could never know what it -was like to need help: but he had a premonition that he had done with the stained-glass -factory. He<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-71">[Pg 71]</a></span> took -up his brushes again and cleaned them, and chattered gaily of the things he would do when -the motor-car fetched him and he was asked to paint the portraits of lords and -millionaires.</p> - -<p>Edward inquired further of Birnbaum, and he brought Mendel a paper to fill up, stating -his age, circumstances, parentage, etc., etc. He was to send this, with a letter, to Sir -Julius Fleischmann, who was a famous financier and connoisseur. Edward drafted a letter, -but Mendel found it servile, and wrote as follows:—</p> - -<blockquote class="letter"> -<p class="greeting">D<small>EAR</small> S<small>IR</small>,—</p> - -<p class="letter_body">I send you my paper filled up. My father is a poor man and I wish -to be a painter. I have won prizes at a school, but I cannot make my living by my art. I -am not asking for charity. I am only asking that my work shall be judged. If it is good -painting, then let me paint. Give me my opportunity, please. If it is bad painting, then -it is no great matter, and I will go on until I can paint well, and then I will show you -my work again. If money is given me I will pay every penny of it back when I am as -successful as I shall be. I am sending three drawings and two paintings.</p> - -<p class="closing">Yours faithfully,</p> - -<p class="signature">M<small>ENDEL</small> K<small>ÜHLER</small>.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>This letter was sent enclosed in a parcel made up with trembling hands. He knew that -the great moment had come, that at last he had attained the desired contact with the -outside world. He was wildly elated, and had fantastic and absurd visions of Sir Julius -himself driving down at once in his motor-car, knocking at the door and saying: “Does Mr. -Mendel Kühler live here?” Then he would enter and embrace him and cry: “You are a great -artist.” And he would turn to Golda and say: “You are the mother of a great artist. You -shall no longer live in poverty.” And he would sit down and write a cheque for a hundred -pounds. The story swelled and swelled like a balloon. It rose and soared aloft with -Mendel<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-72">[Pg 72]</a></span> clinging -desperately to it. But every now and then it came swooping down to earth again, and then -Mendel would imagine his drawings and pictures being sent back without a word. Elated or -despondent, he passed through life in a dream, and was hardly conscious of his -surroundings either at the factory or at home.</p> - -<p>This went on for weeks, during which he composed letters of savage insult to Sir -Julius, to Birnbaum, and even to Edward Tufnell, telling them that he needed no help, that -he was a Jewish artist and would stay among the Jews, the real Jews, those who kept -themselves to themselves and to the faith of their fathers, and had no truck with the -light and frivolous world outside. But he tore all these letters up, for he knew that the -answer he desired would come.</p> - -<p>At last one morning there was a note for him. The secretary of the committee wrote -asking him to take more specimens of his work to Mr. Edgar Froitzheim, the famous artist, -at his studio in Hampstead. Mendel had never heard of Froitzheim, but it seemed to him an -enormous step towards fame to be going to see a real artist in a real studio. He felt -happier, too, at having this intermediary appointed, for he knew that artists always knew -each other by instinct and helped each other for the sake of the work they loved.</p> - -<p>Golda made him put on his best clothes, and washed him and brushed his hair. He packed -up half a dozen drawings and his picture of the apples, which had been too precious to -trust to the post or to Sir Julius, and he set out for Hampstead. To cool his excitement -he walked across the Heath, remembering vividly the day when he had first seen it, and -again it seemed to him a place of freedom and surpassing loveliness, the sweet, -comfortable quality of the grass only accentuated by the bare patches of ground, which -were here and there of an amazing colour, purple and brown. A rain-cloud<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-73">[Pg 73]</a></span> came up on the gusty -wind and shed its slanting shower, and its shadow fell on the rounding slopes. He became -aware of the form of the Heath beneath its verdure and colour. Between himself and the -scene he felt an intimacy, as though he had known it always and would always know it. It -amused him and filled him with a pleasant glee, which, when it passed, left him shy for -the encounter with the famous Froitzheim, the arbiter of his immediate fortunes.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter106"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter106_hdg"><a href="#Chapter106_toc">VI<br /> -<span class="chap_title">EDGAR FROITZHEIM AND OTHERS</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">V<small>ERY</small> bright was the brass on Mr. Froitzheim’s front -door, very bright the face of the smiling maid who opened it. Mendel blushed and stammered -inaudibly.</p> - -<p>“Will you come in?” said the maid, “and I will ask Mr. Froitzheim.”</p> - -<p>She left Mendel in the hall and disappeared. This was a very large house, marvellously -clean and light and airy. The wallpaper and the woodwork were white. On the stairs was a -brilliant blue carpet. Through the window at the end of the passage were seen trees and a -vast panorama of London—roofs, chimneys, steeples, domes—under a shifting pall of blue -smoke.</p> - -<p>The maid went into the studio and told Mr. Froitzheim that a boy was waiting for him—a -boy who looked like an Italian. She thought he might be selling images, and he had a -package under his arm. Mr. Froitzheim told her to bring the visitor in. He was arranging -draperies, Persian and Indian coats, yellow and red and blue, and he did not look up when -Mendel was shown in. He was a little dark Jew, neat and dapper in figure and very sprucely -dressed, but so Oriental that he looked out of place in Western clothes. But that -impression was soon lost in Mendel’s awe of the studio. Here was a place where real -pictures were painted. There were easels, a table full of paints, an etching plant, a -model’s throne, a lay figure, pictures on the walls, stacks of pictures behind the door, -and<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-75">[Pg 75]</a></span> the little man -standing there, fingering the silks, was a real artist.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, boy!” said Mr. Froitzheim.</p> - -<p>“M-Mendel Kühler.”</p> - -<p>“Something to show me, eh?”</p> - -<p>“Ye-yes. Pictures.”</p> - -<p>“What did you say your name was?”</p> - -<p>“Kühler. Mendel Kühler.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes. I remember. You know Maurice Birnbaum?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Eh? . . . What do you think of these? Lovely, eh? Bought them in India. You -should go there. You don’t know what sunlight is until you’ve been there—to the East. Ah, -the East! Fills you with sunlight, opens your eyes to colour. . . . Persian -prints! What do you think of these?”</p> - -<p>He showed Mendel a whole series of exquisite things which moved him so profoundly that -he forgot altogether why he had come and began to stammer out his rapture, a condition of -delight to which Mr. Froitzheim was so unaccustomed that he stepped back and stared at his -visitor. There was a glow in the boy’s face which gave it a seraphic expression. Mr. -Froitzheim tiptoed to the door and called, “Edith! Edith!” And his wife came rustling in. -She was a thin little woman with a friendly smile and an air of being only too amiable for -a world that needed sadly little of the kindness with which she was bursting. They stood -by the door and talked in whispers, and Mendel was brought back to earth by hearing her -say, “Poor child!” He knew she meant himself, and his inclination was to fly from the -room, but they barred the door. She came undulating towards him, and she seemed to him -terrifyingly beautiful, the most lovely lady he had ever seen. He thought Mr. Froitzheim -must be a very wonderful artist to have such a studio, such a house, and such a woman to -live with him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mrs. Froitzheim made him sit down and drew his attention to a bowl of flowers—tulips -and daffodils. Mendel touched them with his fingers, lovingly caressed the fleshy petals -of a tulip. Mrs. Froitzheim went over to her husband and whispered to him, who said:—</p> - -<p>“Yes. Yes. It is true. He responds to beauty like a flower to the sun.”</p> - -<p>In the centre of the studio was a large picture nearly finished of three children and a -rocking-horse, cleverly and realistically painted. Mendel looked at it enviously, with a -sinking in the pit of his stomach, partly because he could not like it, and partly because -he felt how impossible it would be for him to cover so vast a canvas.</p> - -<p>“Like it?” said Mr. Froitzheim, wheeling it about to catch the best light.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mendel, horrified at his own insincerity and unhappy at the vague notion -possessing him that the picture was too large for him, whose notion of art was -concentration upon an object until by some inexplicable process it had yielded up its -beauty in paint. Composing and making pictures he could not understand.</p> - -<p>“Well, well,” said Mr. Froitzheim. “So you want to be an artist? Art, as Michael Angelo -said, is a music and mystery that very few are privileged to understand. I have been asked -by the committee to give my opinion, and I feel that it is a serious responsibility. It is -no light thing to advise a young man to take up an artistic career.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Edgar, that is very true,” said his wife, with a wide reassuring smile at Mendel, -whom she thought a very charming, very touching little figure, standing there drinking in -the words as they fell from Edgar’s lips.</p> - -<p>Mr. Froitzheim produced a pair of spectacles and balanced them on his nose.</p> - -<p>“It is a serious thing, not only for the sake of<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-77">[Pg 77]</a></span> the young man but also for Art’s sake. The -sense of beauty is a dangerous possession. It is like a razor, safe enough when it is -sharp, injurious when it is blunted. Your future, it seems, depends upon my word. I am to -say whether I think your work promising enough to justify your being sent to a school. I -asked you to bring more of your work to confirm the impression made by what I have already -seen.”</p> - -<p>He spoke in an alert, sibilant voice so quickly that his words whirled through Mendel’s -mind and conveyed very little meaning. Only the words “a music and mystery” lingered and -grew. They were such lovely words, and expressed for him something very living in his -experience, something that lay, as he would have said, below his heart. He loosened the -string of his untidy parcel and took out the picture of the apples. There were music and -mystery in it, and he held it very lovingly as he offered it to Mrs. Froitzheim, much as -she had just offered him the bowl of flowers.</p> - -<p>“Very well painted indeed,” said she, and Mendel winced. He turned to the artist as to -an equal, expecting not so much praise as recognition. Mr. Froitzheim took the picture -from him and went near the window. He became more solemn than ever.</p> - -<p>“This is much better than the drawings. Have you always painted still-life?”</p> - -<p>“I painted what there was at home.”</p> - -<p>“Have you studied the still-life in the galleries? Do you know Fantin-Latour’s -work?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Mendel blankly.</p> - -<p>“Of course, there is no doubt that you must go on.”</p> - -<p>Mendel had never had any doubt of it, and he began to feel more at his ease. That was -settled then. There would be no more factory for him. He was to be an artist, a great -artist. He knew that Mr. Froitzheim was more excited than he let<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-78">[Pg 78]</a></span> himself appear. The apples could no more -be denied than the sun outside or the flowers on the table. . . . He looked with -more interest at Mr. Froitzheim’s picture. It amused him, much as the drawings in the -illustrated papers amused him, and he was pleased with the quality of the paint. He was -still alarmed by the hugeness of it. His eyes could not focus it, nor could his mind grasp -the conception.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Froitzheim asked him to stay to tea and encouraged him to talk, and he told her in -his vivid childish way about Golda and Issy and Harry and Leah and Lotte. She found him -delightfully romantic and told him that he must not be afraid to come again, and that they -would be only too glad to help him. Mr. Froitzheim said:—</p> - -<p>“I will write to the committee. There is only one school in London, the Detmold. You -should begin there next term, six weeks from now. Don’t be afraid, work hard, and we will -make an artist of you. In time to come we shall be proud of you. I will write to your -mother, and one of these days I will give myself the pleasure of calling on her. -. . . You must come and see me again, and I will take you to see pictures.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was in too much of a whirl to remember to say “Thank you.” He had an enormous -reverence for Mr. Froitzheim as a real artist, but as a man he instinctively distrusted -him. It takes a Jew to catch a Jew, and Mendel scented in Mr. Froitzheim the Jew turned -Englishman and prosperous gentleman. And in his childish confidence he was aware of -uneasiness in his host, but of course Mr. Froitzheim could easily bear down that -impression, though he could not obliterate it. He was an advanced artist and was just -settling down after an audacious youth. He had been one of a band of pioneers who had -defied the Royal Academy, and he had reached the awkward age in a pioneer’s life when he -is forced to realize<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-79">[Pg -79]</a></span> that there are people younger than himself. He believed in his “movement,” -and wished it to continue on the lines laid down by himself and his friends. To achieve -this he deemed it his business to be an influence among the young people and to see that -they were properly shepherded into the Detmold, there to learn the gospel according to S. -Ingres. He had suffered so much from being a Jew, had been tortured with doubts as to -whether he were not a mere calculating fantastic, and here in this boy’s work he had found -a quality which took his mind back to his own early enthusiasm. That seemed so long ago -that he was shocked and unhappy, and hid his feelings behind the solemnity which he had -developed to overawe the easy, comfortable, and well-mannered Englishmen among whom he -worked for the cause of art.</p> - -<p>He was the first self-deceiver Mendel had met, and the encounter disturbed him greatly -and depressed him not a little, so that he was rather overawed than elated by the prospect -in front of him. He felt strangely flung back upon himself, and that this help given to -him was not really help. He was still, as always, utterly alone with his obscure desperate -purpose for sole companion. Nobody knew about that purpose, since he could never define it -except in his work, and that to other people was simply something to be looked at with -pleasure or indifference, as it happened. He used to try and explain it to his mother, and -she used to nod her head and say: “Yes. Yes. I understand. That is God. He is behind -everybody, though it is given to few to know it. It is given to you, and God has chosen -you, as He chose Samuel. . . . Yes. Yes. God has chosen you.” And he found it a -relief sometimes to think that God had chosen him, though he was disturbed to find Golda -much less moved by that idea than by the letter which Mr. Froitzheim<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-80">[Pg 80]</a></span> wrote to her, in which -he said that her son had a very rare talent, a very beautiful nature, and that a day would -come when she would be proud of his fame.</p> - -<p>Yet there were unhappy days of waiting. Jacob would not hear of his leaving the factory -until everything was settled, and when Mendel told the foreman he was probably going to -leave to be an artist, that worthy drew the most horrible picture of the artist’s life as -a mixture of debauchery and starvation, and told a story of a friend of his, a marvellous -sculptor, who had come down to carving urns for graves—all through the drink and the -models; much better, he said, to stick to a certain income and the saints.</p> - -<p>At last Maurice Birnbaum came in his motor-car. Everything was settled. The fees at the -Detmold would be paid as long as the reports were satisfactory, and Mendel would be -allowed five shillings a week pocket-money, but he must be well-behaved and clean, and he -must read good literature and learn to write good English. “I will see to that,” said -Maurice. “I am to take him now with some of his work to see Sir Julius. His fortune is -made, Mrs. Kühler. Isn’t it wonderful? He is a genius. He has the world at his feet. -Everything is open to him. I have been to Oxford, Mrs. Kühler, but I shall never have -anything like the opportunities that he will have. It is marvellous to think of his -drawing like that in your kitchen.” Maurice was really excited. His heart was as full of -kindness as a honeycomb of honey, but he had no tact. His words fell on Golda and Mendel -like hailstones. They nipped and stung and chilled. Golda looked at Mendel, he at her, and -they stood ashamed. “We must hurry,” said Maurice. “Sir Julius must not be kept waiting. -He is a stickler for punctuality.”</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact, Maurice only knew Sir Julius officially. His family had never -been<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-81">[Pg 81]</a></span> admitted to -the society in which Sir Julius was a power and a light. The entrance to the house of the -millionaire was a far greater event to him than it was to Mendel.</p> - -<p>The splendid motor-car rolled through the wonderful crowded streets, Maurice fussing -and telling Mendel to take care his parcel did not scratch the paint, and swung up past -the Polytechnic into the desolation of Portland Place. At a corner house they stopped. The -double door was swung open by two powdered footmen, and by the inner door stood a bald, -rubicund butler. Maurice gave his name, told Mendel to wait, and followed the butler up a -magnificent marble staircase with an ormolu balustrade. Mendel was left standing with his -parcel, while one of the footmen mounted guard over him. He stood there for a long time, -still ashamed, bewildered, smelling money, money, money, until he reeled. It made him -think of Mr. Kuit, who alone of his acquaintance could have been at his ease in such -splendour. He felt beggarly, but he was stiffened in his pride.</p> - -<p>The butler appeared presently and conducted him upstairs to a vast apartment all -crystal and cloth of gold. In the far corner sat a group of people, among whom, in his -confusion, Mendel could only distinguish Maurice Birnbaum and a small, wrinkled, bald old -man with a beard, whose eyes were quick and black, peering out from under the yellow -skull, peering out and taking nothing in. For the purposes of taking in his nose seemed -more than sufficient. It was like a beak, like an inverted scoop. And yet his features -were not so very different from those of the old men at home whom Mendel reverenced. There -was a strange dignity in them, yet not a trace of the fine quality of the old faces he -loved that looked so sorrowfully out on the world, and through their eyes and through -every line seemed to absorb from the world all its suffering, all its vileness, and to -transmute<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-82">[Pg 82]</a></span> it into -strong human beauty. There were some women present, but they made no impression whatever -on Mendel, who was entirely occupied with Sir Julius and with resisting the feeling of -helplessness with which he was inspired in his presence. He heard Maurice Birnbaum talking -about him, describing his life, his mother’s kitchen, the street where he lived, and then -he was told to exhibit his pictures. A footman appeared and put out a chair for him, and -on this, one after another, he placed his drawings and pictures. Not a word was said. Even -the apples were received in silence. Sir Julius gave a grunt and began to talk to one of -the women. Maurice gave Mendel to understand that the interview was over, and the poor boy -was conducted downstairs by the butler. He had not a penny in his pocket and had to walk -all the way home with his parcel, which his arms were hardly long enough to hold.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter107"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter107_hdg"><a href="#Chapter107_toc">VII<br /> -<span class="chap_title">THE DETMOLD</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">F<small>LUNG</small> into the art school, he was like a leggy colt in -a new field, very shy of it at first, of the trees in the hedges, of the shadows cast by -the trees. This place was very different from the Polytechnic. There were fewer old -ladies, and more boys of his own age. The teachers were Professors, and the pupils held -them in awe and respect. There were real models in the life-class, male and female, and -the students, male and female, worked together. No ginger-beer bottles here, where art was -a practical business. The school existed for the purpose of teaching the craft of making -pictures, and its law was that the basis of the mystery was drawing.</p> - -<p>Mendel’s first attitude towards the other students was that he was there to beat them -all. He would swell with eagerness and enthusiasm, and tell himself that he had something -that they all lacked. He would watch their movements, their heads bending over their work, -their hands scratching away at the paper, and he could see that they had none of them the -vigour that was in himself. And by way of showing how much stronger he was he would use -his pencil almost as though it were a chisel and his paper a block of stone out of which -he was to carve the likeness of the model. He was rudely taken down when the Professor -stood and stared with his melancholy eyes at his production and said:—</p> - -<p>“Is that the best you can do?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Why do it?”</p> - -<p>This was a stock phrase of the Professor’s, but Mendel did not know that, and he was -ashamed and outraged when the class tittered.</p> - -<p>“No,” said the Professor. “I don’t know what that is. It certainly isn’t drawing.” And -with his pencil he made a lovely easy sketch of the model, alongside Mendel’s black, -forbidding scrawl. It was a masterly thing and it baffled him, and humiliated him because -the Professor moved on to the next pupil without another word. Not another line could -Mendel draw that day. He sat staring at the Professor’s sketch and at his own drawing, -which, while he had been doing it, had meant so much to him, and he still preferred his -own. The Professor’s drawing had no meaning for him. He could not understand it, except -that it was accurate. That he could see, but then his own was accurate too, and true to -what he had seen. The light gave the model a distorted shoulder, and he had laboured to -render that distortion, which the Professor had either ignored or had corrected.</p> - -<p>Mendel cut out the Professor’s drawing and took it home and copied it over and over -again, but still he could not understand it. He was in despair and told Golda he would -never learn.</p> - -<p>“I shall never learn to draw, and the Christian kops will all beat me,” he said.</p> - -<p>“But they sent you to the school because you can draw. Didn’t Mr. Froitzheim say that -you could draw!”</p> - -<p>“The Professor looks at me with his gloomy face, like an undertaker asking for the -body, and he says: ‘I mean to say, that isn’t drawing. It isn’t impressionism. I don’t -know what it is.’”</p> - -<p>“It can’t be a very good school,” said Golda.</p> - -<p>“But it is. It is the only school. All the best painters have been there, and Mr. -Froitzheim sent<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-85">[Pg 85]</a></span> -his own brother to it. The Professor says I shall never paint a picture if I don’t learn -to draw, and I can’t do it, I can’t do it!”</p> - -<p>To console himself he painted hard every evening and regarded the Detmold entirely as a -place to which his duty condemned him—a place where he had to learn this strange wizardry -called drawing, which he did not understand. He went there every day and never spoke to a -soul, because he realized that his speech was different from that of the others, and he -would not open his mouth until he could speak without betraying himself. He listened -carefully to their pronunciation and intonation, and practised to himself in bed and as he -walked through the streets.</p> - -<p>So woeful were his attempts to emulate the Detmold style of drawing, that at last the -Professor asked him if he was doing any work at home. To this Mendel replied eagerly that -he was painting a portrait of his mother.</p> - -<p>“Hum,” said the Professor. “May I see it?”</p> - -<p>So Mendel brought the picture, and the Professor said:—</p> - -<p>“I mean to say, young man, that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if you gave up work a -little. I don’t want to have to send in a bad report, but what can I do? There’s something -in you, plenty of grit and all that, but you’re young, and, I mean to say, you’re here to -learn what we can teach you. When we’ve done with you, you can go your own way and be -hanged to you. If you want to smudge about with paint and fake what you can’t draw, -there’s the Academy.”</p> - -<p>At this awful suggestion Mendel shuddered. He was imbued enough with the Detmold -tradition to regard the Academy as Limbo.</p> - -<p>He gave up painting at home, and hurled himself desperately at the task of producing a -drawing that should satisfy the Professor. Towards the end of his first term he succeeded, -and had<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-86">[Pg 86]</a></span> his reward -in words of praise in front of the class.</p> - -<p>The Professor had meanwhile taken one of the pupils aside and asked him not to leave -the poor little devil so utterly alone. “After all,” he said, “the school doesn’t exist -only for drawing. It has its social side as well, and I don’t like to see any one -cold-shouldered unless he deserves it. I mean to say, you other fellows have advantages -which don’t necessarily entitle you to mop up all the good things and leave none for your -fellow-creatures.”</p> - -<p>Mitchell, the pupil, took his homily awkwardly enough, but promised that he would do -what he could. He seized his opportunity one day when Mendel at lunch had horrified the -company by picking up a chicken bone and tearing at it with his teeth. Mitchell took him -aside and said:—</p> - -<p>“I say, Kühler, old man, you’ll excuse my mentioning it, you know, but it isn’t done. I -mean, we eat our food with forks.”</p> - -<p>Mendel knew what was meant, for at lunch he had been conscious of horrified eyes -staring at him and had wished the floor would open and swallow him up. He muttered -incoherent words of thanks and wanted to rush away, but Mitchell caught him by the arm and -said:—</p> - -<p>“I say, we artists must hang together. There aren’t many of this crowd who will come to -anything, and the Pro thinks no end of you. Won’t you come along and have tea with me and -some of the other fellows?”</p> - -<p>Mendel went with him, delighting in the young man’s easy, condescending Public School -manner and pleasant, crisp voice, in which he spoke with an exaggerated emphasis.</p> - -<p>“Gawd!” he said. “It makes me sick to see all the fools and the women wasting their -time there, scratching away, while those of us who have any talent and could learn -anything are left to flounder along as best we may. Do you smoke?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mendel had never smoked, but he did not like to refuse. He took a cigarette, which very -soon made him feel sick and giddy. He lurched along with Mitchell until they came to a -tea-shop, where they found two other young men whose faces were familiar.</p> - -<p>“I’ve brought Kühler,” said Mitchell. “He’s a genius. This is Weldon, who is also a -genius, and Kessler, who can’t paint for nuts, and I’m a blame fool, though it’s not my -fault. My father’s a great man. Gawd! what can you do when your own father takes the shine -out of you at every turn?”</p> - -<p>They began to talk of pictures and of one Calthrop, who was apparently the greatest -painter the world had ever seen and a product of the Detmold.</p> - -<p>“Sells everything he puts his name to,” said Kessler.</p> - -<p>“What a man!” said Weldon. “Goes his own way, absolutely believing in his art. If they -like it, well and good. If they don’t like it, let ’em lump it. He’s as often drunk as -not, and as for women . . . !”</p> - -<p>Weldon and Kessler deserted pictures for women. Mitchell grew more and more glum, while -Mendel was still feeling the effects of the cigarette too strongly to be able to take in a -word.</p> - -<p>“Gawd!” said Mitchell. “There they go, talking away, absolutely incapable of keeping -anything clear of women. I can’t stand it.”</p> - -<p>He dragged Mendel away, leaving his friends to pay the bill; and, as they walked, he -explained that he was in love, and could not stand all that bawdy rubbish, and he -elaborated a theory that an artist needed to be in love to keep himself alive to the -sanctity of the human body, familiarity with which was apt to breed contempt or an -excessive curiosity. Mendel said that he also had been in love, and he gave a vivid -account of his raptures with Sara.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> - -<p>“My God!” cried Mitchell; “you don’t mean to say that she came to you—a girl like -that?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mendel; “I was never so happy.”</p> - -<p>“But, I say, weren’t you afraid?”</p> - -<p>“She was very beautiful.”</p> - -<p>Mitchell pondered this for a long time. He seemed to be profoundly shaken. At last he -said:—</p> - -<p>“But with a girl you <i>loved?</i>”</p> - -<p>“I loved her when she was there.”</p> - -<p>“But when she wasn’t there?”</p> - -<p>“I was busy painting.”</p> - -<p>“I say, you are a corker! If it were Weldon or Kessler I should say you were -lying.”</p> - -<p>“I do not lie,” replied Mendel with some heat. “It may have been wrong, but it was -good, and I was happier after it. I think I should have gone mad without it, for -everything had disappeared—everything—everything; and without painting you do not -understand how terrible and empty life is to me. I have nothing, you see. I am poor, and -my father and mother will always be poor. Their life is hard and beastly, but they do not -complain, and I should not complain if I did not have this other thing that I must -do.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m jolly glad to know you,” said Mitchell. “I’m not much of a fellow, but I’d -like you to know my people. My father’s a great man. He’ll stir you up. And you must come -along with me and Weldon and Kessler and see life while you’re young. Good-bye.”</p> - -<p>He shook hands vigorously with Mendel and strode off with his long, raking stride, -while Mendel stood glowing with the happiness of having found a friend, some one to whom -he could talk almost as he talked to Golda: a fine young Englishman, pink and oozing -robustious health, ease, refinement, and comfort. He thought with a devoted tenderness of -Mitchell’s rather absurd round face, with its tip-tilted nose and blinking eyes, its<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-89">[Pg 89]</a></span> little rosebud of a -mouth and plump round chin, on which there was hardly a trace of a beard. . . . -“My friend!” thought Mendel, “my friend!” And he gave a leap of joy. It meant for him the -end of his loneliness. No longer was he to be the poor, isolated Yiddisher, but he was to -move and have his being with these fine young men who were the leading spirits of the -school, the guardians of the tradition bequeathed to it by the great Calthrop. -. . . Oh! he would learn their way of drawing, he would do it better than any of -them. He would be gay with them and wild and merry and young. And all the while secretly -he would be working and working, following up that inner purpose until one day he appeared -with a picture so wonderful that the Professor would say, like Mr. Sivwright, that he had -nothing more to learn. And because of his wonderful work, everybody would forget that he -was a Jew, and he would move freely and easily in that wonderful England which he had -begun to perceive behind the fresh young men like Mitchell and the cool, pretty girls at -the school. That England was their inheritance and they seemed hardly aware of it. He -would win it by work and by dint of the power that was in him.</p> - -<p>Of the girls at the school he was afraid. He blushed and trembled when any one of them -spoke to him, and he never noticed them enough to distinguish one from another, so that -they existed only as a vague nuisance and a menace to his happiness. Before Mitchell he -was prostrate. He bewildered and confounded that young man with his outpourings, both by -word of mouth and by letter. He had absolutely no reserve, and poured out his thoughts and -feelings, his experiences, and Mitchell at last took up a protective attitude towards him -and defended him from the detestation which he aroused in the majority of his -fellow-students. At the same time Mitchell<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-90">[Pg 90]</a></span> often felt that of the two he was the greater child, and -he would look back upon the years he had spent at school in a rueful and puzzled state of -mind, half realizing that he had been shoved aside while the stream of life went on, and -that now he had to fight his way back into it. While Mendel had been wrestling and -struggling, he had been put away in cotton-wool, every difficulty that had cropped up had -been met, every deep desire had found its outlet in convention. And now that he had set -out to be an artist, here was this Jew with years of hard work behind him, and such a -familiarity with his medium that he could do more or less as he liked without being held -up by shyness or awkwardness. And it was the same in life. Mendel was abashed by nothing, -was ashamed of nothing. Life had many faces. He was prepared to regard them all, and to -fit his conduct to every one of them. He was critical, not because he wished to reject -anything, but because he must know the nature of everything before he accepted it. He -hated and loved simply and passionately, and if he felt no emotion he never disguised the -fact. Whereas Mitchell and the others were so eager to feel the emotions which their -upbringing had denied that they leaped before they looked and fabricated what they did not -feel. Mendel learned from them that life could be pleasant, and they became aware that -there were regions of life beyond the fringes of pleasantness. They softened him and he -hardened them. They were always together, Mendel, Mitchell, Weldon and Kessler, working -steadily enough, but out of working hours kicking up their heels and stampeding through -the pleasures of London. . . . Calthrop was the divinity they served. He was a -man of genius and had made the Detmold famous. Those, therefore, who came after him at the -school must support him in everything. That was Mitchell’s<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-91">[Pg 91]</a></span> contention, who was by now in full swing -of revolt against his Public School training, and in his adoration Mendel followed him, -and the others were dragged in their train. Calthrop dressed extravagantly: so did the -four. Calthrop smashed furniture: so did the four. And as Calthrop drank, embraced women, -and sometimes painted outrageously, the four did all these things.</p> - -<p>To Mendel it was Life—something new, rich, splendid, and thrilling. He had lived so -long cramped over his work that it was almost agony to him to move in this swift stream of -incessant excitement. There was no spirit of revolt in him. He could shed some of the -outward forms of his religion, as to Golda’s great distress he did, but against its spirit -he could not rebel. That he carried with him everywhere: the bare stubborn faith in man, -ground down by life and living in sorrow all his days. Happy he was not, nor did he expect -to be so. He might be happy one day, but he would be miserable the next. Life in him was -not greatly concerned with either, but only to have both happiness and misery in full -measure. His deepest feelings arose out of his work, the first condition of his existence; -they arose out of it and sank back into it again. His work was the visible and tangible -form of his being, which he hated and loved as it approached or receded from the terrible -power that was both beautiful and ugly, and yet something transcending either. -. . . And away there in London was the Christian world of shows. What he was -seeking lay beyond that, and not in the dark Jewishness of his home. There lay the spirit, -but the outward and visible form was to be sought yonder, where the lights flared and the -women smiled at themselves in mirrors. He hurled himself into the shows of the Christian -world in a blind desire to break through them, but always he was flung back, bruised, -aching, and weary.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> - -<p>Day after day he would spend listlessly at home or at the school until seven o’clock -came and it was time to go to the Paris Café, to sit among the painters and listen to -violent talk, talk, talk—abuse of successful men, derision of the great masters, -mysterious and awful whispers of what men were doing in Paris, terrible denunciations of -dealers, critics, and the public.</p> - -<p>The café was a kind of temple and had its ritual. It was the aim of the painters to -“put some life into dear old London.” Calthrop had given a lead. He had determined that -London should be awakened to art, as the writing folk of a past generation had aroused the -swollen metropolis to literature and poetry. London should be made aware of its painters -as Paris was aware of the Quartier Latin. Bohemia should no longer be the territory of -actresses, horse-copers, and betting touts. The Paris Café therefore became the shrine of -Calthrop’s personality, and thither every night repaired the artists and their parasites, -who saw in the place an avenue to liberty and fame. In the glitter and the excitement, the -brilliance, the colour, the women with their painted faces, the white marble-topped -tables, the mirrors along the walls, the blue wreathing tobacco-smoke, Calthrop’s -personality was magnified and concentrated as in a theatre. The café without him was -Denmark without the Prince, and Mendel found the hours before he came or the evenings when -he did not come almost insupportable. Yet it was not the man’s success or his fame or his -notoriety that fascinated the boy, whose instinct went straight to the immense vitality -which was the cause of all. Calthrop was a huge man, dark and glowering. To Mendel he was -like a figure out of the Bible—like King Saul, in his black moods and the inarticulate -fury that possessed him sometimes; and when he picked up and hurled a glass at<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-93">[Pg 93]</a></span> some artist whose face -or whose work had offended him, he was very like King Saul hurling the javelin.</p> - -<p>There was always a thrill when he entered the café. The buzz would die down. Where -would he sit and whom would he speak to? . . . It was one of the greatest -moments in Mendel’s life when one evening Calthrop came sweeping in with his cloak flung -round his shoulders and sat opposite him and his three companions and raised a finger and -beckoned.</p> - -<p>“He wants you,” said Mitchell, pushing Mendel forward.</p> - -<p>“Come here, boy,” growled Calthrop, stabbing with his pipe-stem in the direction of the -seat by his side. “Come here and bring your friends. Bought a drawing of yours this -morning. Damn good.”</p> - -<p>Mitchell, Kessler, and Weldon came and sat at the table, all too overawed to speak.</p> - -<p>“What’s your drink, heh?”</p> - -<p>Drinks were ordered.</p> - -<p>“Rotten trade, art,” said Calthrop. “Dangerous trade. Drink, women, flattery. Don’t -drink. Marry, settle down, and your wife’ll hate you because you’re always about the -place. . . . God! I wish I could be a Catholic. I’d be a monk. . . . -My boy, don’t get into the habit of doing drawings. They won’t look at your pictures if -you do, and we want pictures—my God, we do! Everybody paints pictures as though they were -for a competition. You’ve got life to draw from—real, stinking life. That’s why I have -hopes of you.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was so fluttered and flattered that he could only gulp down his drink and blink -round the café, feeling that all eyes were upon him; and indeed he was attracting such -attention as had never before been bestowed on him. A girl at the next table ogled him and -smiled. She was with a young man whom the four detested<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-94">[Pg 94]</a></span> and despised. This young man reached over -to take a bowl of sugar from their table. To take anything from the great man’s table -without so much as “By your leave” was sacrilege and was very properly resented. There was -a scuffle, the sugar was scattered on the floor, glasses fell crashing down, Mitchell and -Weldon hurled themselves on the young man, and the manager came bustling up, crying: -“If-a-you-pleess-a-gentlemen.” But there was no breaking the mêlée. A waiter was sent out -for the police, and three constables came filing in. One of them seized Mitchell, and -Mendel, half mad with drink and excitement, seeing his beloved friend, as he thought, -being taken off to prison, leaped on the policeman’s back and brought him down. In the -confusion Calthrop and the others slipped away and Mendel was arrested, still fighting -like a wild cat, and led off to the police-station, the constable whispering kindly in his -ear: “Steady, my boy, steady. A youngster like you should keep clear of the drink.”</p> - -<p>The inspector smiled at the extreme youthfulness of the offender, but decided that a -taste of the cells would do no harm and that the boy had better be sober before he was -sent home. So Mendel had four hours on a hard bench until a constable came in and asked -him if he wanted bail. He said “Yes,” and, when asked for a name, gave Calthrop’s, who -presently arrived and saw him liberated, after being told to appear in court next morning -at ten o’clock.</p> - -<p>When he reached home he found his mother waiting up for him with wet cloths in case his -head should be bad.</p> - -<p>“What now? What now?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been in prison.”</p> - -<p>“Prison!” Golda flung up her hands and sat down heavily. For her all was lost. It was -true then, that, outside in the world, at the other end<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-95">[Pg 95]</a></span> of it, was always prison, for the just and -for the unjust, for the old and for the young, for the innocent and for the guilty.</p> - -<p>He tried to make light of it. For him, too, it was a serious matter. He saw himself -figuring in the Sunday papers: “Famous Artist in the Police Court,” with his portrait in -profile as on a medallion. Birnbaum and Sir Julius would read it. He would be taken away -from the Detmold and Edward Tufnell would never speak to him again. He astonished, -embarrassed, and delighted Golda by flinging himself in her arms and sobbing out his -grief.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter108"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter108_hdg"><a href="#Chapter108_toc">VIII<br /> -<span class="chap_title">HETTY FINCH</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">G<small>OLDA</small> was passing through a very difficult time. Rosa -was hotter on the pursuit of Issy than ever. Harry had had a violent quarrel consequent on -his reiterated demand for proof of the judicial destruction of Christianity in America, -and at last, like his father, he went out and bought a clean collar and announced his -departure for Paris. He went away and not a word had been heard from him. Lotte refused to -look at any of the young men brought by the match-makers, and Leah was the only -comfortable member of the family, and she made no attempt to conceal her unhappiness with -Moscowitsch. She would come on Saturday evenings and go up to her mother’s room and fling -herself on the bed and cry her heart out, until late in the evening Moscowitsch came to -fetch her, when she would go meekly and apparently happily enough. . . . And on -the top of all these troubles, here was Mendel going to the devil at a gallop.</p> - -<p>Leah’s trouble with Moscowitsch was that he would never let her go out without him, and -he could very rarely be persuaded to go out at all. As for going away in the summer, he -could see no sense in it. He gave his wife a fine house. What more did she want? She had -her children to look after. What greater pleasure could she desire? His life was entirely -filled with his business and his home, and he would not look beyond them. The neighbours -went to the seaside? The neighbours were<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-97">[Pg 97]</a></span> fools who lived for ostentation and display. They did not -know when they were well off. . . . Moscowitsch had a great admiration for his -father-in-law as a man who knew what life was and refused to dilute its savour with folly, -and he regarded Golda as a perfect type of woman, one who left the management of life to -her husband and allowed herself to be absorbed in her duties as a wife and mother.</p> - -<p>But Leah longed to go to the seaside. It became an obsession with her, and, because she -could never talk of it, she thought of nothing else. She was sick with envy when she saw -the neighbours going off with the children carrying buckets and spades. Secretly she -bought her own children buckets and spades, though they were much too small to use -them.</p> - -<p>At last, when her worries began to tell on Golda, Leah declared that what she needed -was sea air, and offered to take her for a fortnight to Margate, and Golda, anxious to -escape from the horror of Mendel’s coming home night after night drawn and white with -dissipation, and from the dread of an explosion from Jacob, consented, and asked if Issy -might go, as that Rosa of his was making him quite ill.</p> - -<p>For Golda, Leah knew that Moscowitsch would do anything in the world, and so she -procured his consent on condition that he was not expected to accompany them, for he hated -the sea, which had made him very ill when he came to England, and he never wished to set -eyes on it again.</p> - -<p>Leah already had the address of some lodgings recommended to her by a neighbour. She -engaged them, and on a fine July day went down to Margate by the express with her -children, Golda, and Issy.</p> - -<p>The lodgings were let by a handsome, florid woman with masses of bleached golden hair, -a ruddled complexion, fat hands covered with cheap<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-98">[Pg 98]</a></span> rings, plump wrists rattling with bracelets, and a full -bosom on which brooches gleamed. Leah thought her a very fine woman, and was so fascinated -by her that she stayed indoors day after day, helping with the housework and gossiping, so -that she never once saw the sea, except from the train as she was leaving. Mrs. Finch was -a lady, by birth, but she had been unfortunate. She had an uncle in the Army and a cousin -in the War Office, and she had lived in London, in the best part of the town, where, in -her best days, she had had her flat. Also she had travelled and had been to Paris and -Vienna. But she had been unfortunate in her friends. Leah commiserated her, and, -open-mouthed, gulped down all her tales of the gentlemen she had known, while Golda, eager -for more information of the glittering world which had swallowed up her Mendel, listened -too, fascinated and shuddering. And Leah, to show that she also was a person of some -consequence, began to talk of her wonderful brother. She told of the motor-car which had -come and whirled him away, of his visit to the millionaire’s house, of the fine friends he -was making, of the men and women he knew whose names were in the papers.</p> - -<p>“Every day,” she said, “he is out to tea, and every evening he is out at theatres and -music-halls and parties and flats and hotels, and his friends are so rich that they pour -money into his pockets. He just makes a few lines on a piece of paper and they give him -twenty pounds, or he makes up some paint to look like a face or a pineapple and his -pockets are full of money.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Golda uneasily. “He will be very rich.”</p> - -<p>“Then next time you come to Margate,” said Mrs. Finch, “it will be the Cliftonville, -and you’ll despise my poor lodgings.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh no,” cried Leah, “for it is like staying with a friend.”</p> - -<p>Every day Leah added something to the legend of Mendel, Mrs. Finch urging her on with -romances of her own splendid days. But the most eager listener was Hetty, the girl who did -the rough work of the house and was never properly dressed until the evening, because, -from the moment when she woke up in the morning until after supper, she was kept running -hither and thither at Mrs. Finch’s commands. She was sufficiently like Mrs. Finch to -justify Golda in her supposition that she was that fine woman’s daughter, but nothing was -ever said in the matter. Hetty did not have her meals with them, and, indeed, there was no -evidence that she had any meals. In the evenings she was allowed to go out, and she would -come back at half-past ten or so with her big eyes shining and a flush fading from her -cheeks and leaving them whiter than ever. Very big were her eyes, very big and pathetic, -and her face was a perfect oval. She had rather full lips, always moist and red. During -the whole fortnight she never spoke a word except to Issy. Indeed, she avoided Golda and -Leah, and she alarmed Issy by what he took to be her forwardness, when she asked him to -take her to the theatre. He complied with her request, but he was much too frightened of -her to speak, and he could think of nothing to say except to offer to buy her chocolates -and cigarettes, which she accepted as though it was the natural thing for him to give her -presents. She talked to him about Mendel, and wanted to know if it was true that he knew -lords and had real gentlemen to tea with him in his studio.</p> - -<p>“There’s more goes on in his studio than I could tell you,” said Issy with a dry, -uncomfortable laugh. “Artists, you know!”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes! Artists!” said Hetty with a dreamy,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-100">[Pg 100]</a></span> wistful look in her eyes as she drew in her lower lip -with a slight sucking noise. “I wish I lived in London, I do. Ma used to live in London, -but she’s too old now to find any one to take her back there. It’s dull here. Does your -brother ever come to Margate?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Issy. “He’d go to Brighton if he went anywhere. I’ve got another brother -who’s gone to Paris.”</p> - -<p>“O-oh! Paris! Is he rich too?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>Issy shut up like an oyster. He could feel the girl probing into him, and he was sorry -he had brought her. She was spoiling his fun, the adventures he had promised himself -during his holiday from Rosa’s indefatigable attentions. Hetty was too dangerous. He knew -that if she got hold of him she would not let go.</p> - -<p>He took her home and never spoke another word to her during the remainder of his visit, -and he said to his mother once:—</p> - -<p>“That’s an awful girl.”</p> - -<p>“Worse than Rosa?” asked Golda.</p> - -<p>“Rosa would stay. That girl would be off like a cat on the tiles.”</p> - -<p>Golda retorted with a description of Rosa of the same kind, but of a more offensive -degree.</p> - -<p>Declaring that they were better for the sea air, and warmly enjoining Mrs. Finch to -visit then if ever she should come to London, the party left Margate with shells and -toffee and painted china for their friends and relations, conspicuous among their luggage -being the buckets and spades which had never been used.</p> - -<p>As Issy and his mother reached their front-door, he saw Rosa at the corner of the -street, and bolted after her, leaving Golda to enter the house and give an account of her -doings. Mendel, for once in a way, was at home. He was at work on a picture for a prize -competition at the Detmold, as<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-101">[Pg -101]</a></span> also were Mitchell and Weldon, so that they were living quietly for the -time being. Golda gave a glowing description of the beauties of Margate and of Mrs. Finch -and her jewellery. She began to talk of Hetty, but for some reason unknown to herself, -with a glance at Mendel she stopped, and went off into a vague, dreamy rhapsody concerning -Margate streets.</p> - -<p>“The streets are so clean, so nice, and the air is so strong, and the sky is so clear, -with the clouds tumbling across it, little clouds like cotton-wool and grey clouds like -blankets, almost as it was in Austria, and I was so happy my heart was full of flowers, -almost as it was in Austria.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the good of talking of Austria?” growled Jacob. “There you had a corner. Here -you have a whole house.”</p> - -<p>“But I was happy there.”</p> - -<p>Issy came in on that and announced that he was going to be married to Rosa. There was -half a house vacant in the next street, and he proposed to take it.</p> - -<p>“You shall not,” said Jacob. “I will not have that slut in the house. What sort of -children will she give you? Squat-browed and bow-legged they will be. How will she look -after them? A woman that cannot contain her love for her man will have none for the -children. She is a dirty girl, I tell you, and so is her mother and her father’s mother, -and her father’s father’s mother.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know who we are, to hold up our heads so high. You are my father, but in some -things I cannot obey you. The business is mine . . .”</p> - -<p>“It is not. It is mine!” said Jacob. “It is in your name, but it is mine. It is in your -name, but your name is my name, and you shall not give it to a woman like that, who goes -smelling about street corners like a dog. Her father has no money, and he never goes to -the synagogue.”</p> - -<p>“I am not marrying her father. I shall go out of the business, then, and I shall start -for myself.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-102">[Pg 102]</a></span> Rosa -will kill herself if I do not marry her, and I must do it.”</p> - -<p>“It is true,” said Golda quietly. “I think she will kill herself.”</p> - -<p>Jacob stormed on and Issy blustered, until at last he confessed that Rosa had caught -him, and that he had to marry her. Jacob threw up his hands and in a shrill voice of icy -contempt told Issy exactly what he thought of such marriages; they were nothing but dirt. -. . . “Because you have a little dirt on you, must you roll in the mud? You are -like dirty dogs, all of you. You, and Harry, and Mendel. I don’t know what has come to you -in this London. God gave me one woman, and I have asked for nothing else.”</p> - -<p>“You would not let me marry Rosa when I was young.”</p> - -<p>Words and feeling ran so high that Mendel, aghast, fled away to his studio, where the -sound of the storm reached him. It raged for hours, and ended in Issy flinging himself out -of the house and slamming the door.</p> - -<p>A week later Rosa was brought to see Golda, and she fawned on her like a dog that has -been whipped, sat gazing at her with her stupid brown eyes, and whimpered: “I should have -killed myself. Yes, I should have killed myself.”</p> - -<p>“You would not have been so wicked,” said Golda. “It is sinful to throw good fish after -bad. Can you cook?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Rosa. “I can make cucumber soup. I could do anything for Issy, he is so -strong and handsome.”</p> - -<p>And Golda said to Mendel after the interview: “A woman like that is like a steam bath -for a man.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>A few days later Issy and Rosa were married, without ceremony, without carriages, or -photographs, or guests, or feast. It was a wedding to<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-103">[Pg 103]</a></span> be ashamed of, but Jacob would not, and -Rosa’s father could not, lay out a penny on it. The couple took half the house in the next -street, and Issy discovered at once that he hated his wife, and was at no pains to conceal -it either from her or from his family.</p> - -<p>Mendel was profoundly depressed by this disturbance and plunge downwards, for he still -half expected his family to rise with him. He was to make all their fortunes, but, with -the rest of the family, he detested the unhappy Rosa and regarded her as little short of a -criminal. He was depressed, too, because the summer holidays were approaching and he would -be bereft of his beloved Mitchell, who was going away for three months to the country. He -would be left with his family, in whom there was no peace. Why could they not be like the -Mitchells and the Weldons, who could live together without quarrels, and could take a -happy, humorous interest in each other’s doings without these devastating passions and -cursings and denunciations? And yet when he thought of the Mitchells and the Weldons and -the Froitzheims, in their charming, comfortable houses, there was something soft and -foolish about them all—something savouring of idolatry, for instance, in the homage -Mitchell paid his father, in the assumption that Mrs. Mitchell was a very remarkable -woman, whose children could not be expected to be ordinary. More and more did Mendel value -his mother, who was content to be just a woman and to live without flattery of any kind, -and to accept everyone whom she met and to value them as human beings, without regard to -their rank, station, possessions, or achievements. Himself she esteemed no more because he -was an artist, though he had tried hard to make her give her tribute to that side of his -nature. She loved him simply, neither more for his attainments nor less for his doings, -that pained her deeply. And that<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-104">[Pg -104]</a></span> direct human contact he obtained nowhere else, and in no one else could he -find it existing so openly and frankly. Yet he loved the follies and pretences of the -outside world. He adored theatricality, and among his polite friends there was always some -drama towards. It was never drowned in incoherent passions, and he himself, among the nice -cultured folk, was always a startling dramatic figure. Sometimes they seemed to him all -slyness and insincerity, and then he loathed them; but that was generally when he had -aimed at and failed in some dramatic coup, or when they had encouraged him to talk about -himself until he bored them. On the whole, he was successful with them, as he wished to -be, easily and without calculation. It was when they made calculation necessary, by -feigning an interest that they did not feel, that he was shocked and angry. If anywhere -the atmosphere was such that he could not be frank, then he avoided that place and those -people.</p> - -<p>Now he was bored, bored to think of the hot stewing months with no relief except such -as he could find in vagrom adventures from the harsh rigidity of life among his own -people. And he was in a strange condition of physical lassitude. Even his ambition was -stagnant. In his work he had only the pleasure of dexterity. It had no meaning, and -contained no delight. When he painted apples or a dead bird or a woman, the result was -just apples or a dead bird or a woman. The paint made no difference and the subject was -still better than his rendering of it. He was only concerned with technical problems. -Fascinated by a gradated sky in a picture in the National Gallery, he practised gradated -skies until he could have done them in his sleep.</p> - -<p>And he was tired, tired in body and in soul. Both in his life and in his work he had -had to conquer a convention in order to keep his footing<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-105">[Pg 105]</a></span> in the world of his desire. Just as he -had only learned the Detmold style of drawing by a supreme effort of will, so also by a -tremendous effort he had learned the rudiments of manners and polite conversation. He had -had to overcome his tendency to fall violently in love with every charming person, male or -female, he met, and to regard with an aversion equally violent those in whom he found no -charm. Such charm must for him be genuine and not a matter of tricks, and for this reason -he had regarded every person whom he thought of as old with dislike. For him anybody above -twenty-five was “old.” He still thought he would be made or marred by the time he was -twenty-three, but that age seemed immeasurably far off. Long before then, like a -thunderbolt, his full genius would descend upon him and all the world would know his name. -He was almost innocent of conceit in this. Such, he believed, was the history of genius, -and so far nothing had happened to deny his inward consciousness of his rarity. Relieve -the pressure of circumstance and he soared upwards. . . . There was a queer, -uncomfortable pleasure in such thoughts and dreams and in imagining a fatality that should -drag him down and down to Issy’s level and lower. There was a sickening fascination in -picturing to himself a descent as swift and irresistible as his upward flight. Yet dreary -were the hours of waiting for the impetus that had once or twice so freely and so strongly -moved in him. Sick with waiting, he would work in a fury to master trick after trick and -difficulty after difficulty in painting, so as to be ready when the time came. All the -cunning and wariness of his race welled up in him as he prepared deliberately, slowly, -patiently for his opportunity.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>One afternoon, as Golda was sleeping in her kitchen, she was awakened by a knock at -the<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-106">[Pg 106]</a></span> door. Going -to open it, she found Hetty Finch waiting there, neatly clad in a brown tailor-made coat -and skirt, very smart, with a trim little feathered hat on her head. Golda’s thoughts flew -to Mendel, and her first inclination was to slam the door in Hetty’s face, but, -remembering that the boy was out, she admitted her.</p> - -<p>Hetty followed Golda into the kitchen and stood looking round it with obvious -disappointment. She had not imagined the Kühlers to be so poor.</p> - -<p>“I promised Ma I would call,” she said, taking the chair which Golda dusted for -her.</p> - -<p>“And how is your Ma?” asked Golda.</p> - -<p>“She’s given up the house and gone into a hotel as manageress,” replied Hetty, lying as -usual, for her mother had been sold up and had taken a place as barmaid in a tavern. “And -I’ve come to London to earn my living. Ma gave me fourteen shillings, and that was all she -could do for me. Still, I’m off her hands now.”</p> - -<p>Golda asked her what she was going to do, and she said she thought of going into -service until she had had a look round. Where was she living? She had taken a room with -some friends, lodgers of Ma’s, off Stepney Green.</p> - -<p>Conversation was lifeless and desultory until Issy came into the room, when she -brightened up, but he was overcome with his old terror of the girl and soon hurried away. -Then she noticed the pictures on the wall and asked if they were Mendel’s. Golda refused -flatly to talk about them, but Hetty persisted and would talk of nothing else. Jacob came -in and she made him talk about Mendel, and she made herself so charming to him and -flattered his simple vanity so grossly that presently Golda was staggered by the sight of -him making tea with his own hands and pouring it out for the visitor.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Jacob, “the boy did all those before he was fourteen. He will get on, that -boy. He is bound to get on, but I shall not live to see him in his glory.”</p> - -<p>“I think they’re lovely,” said Hetty, sipping her tea. And she went on chattering -vivaciously until Jacob was called away to the workshop, when once again conversation -became lifeless and desultory. Golda made one excuse after another to try to get rid of -her, but Hetty would not budge. At last there came the sound of Mendel’s key in the door. -Golda bustled out of the room and whispered to him:—</p> - -<p>“You must not come in. I have visitors and there are letters waiting for you -upstairs.”</p> - -<p>But Mendel had seen a girl sitting in the kitchen and he wanted to know whether she was -pretty or not. She turned and he saw that she was charmingly pretty. He brushed by his -mother. He felt at once that he had made a good impression, and, indeed, all Hetty’s -dreams and fancies were more than realized, though she was a little affronted and -disappointed by the poorness of his clothes.</p> - -<p>“It is Hetty Finch,” said Golda, “from Margate.”</p> - -<p>Mendel had had Issy’s account of Hetty and he was on his guard at once.</p> - -<p>“Yes. I’ve come to live in London,” said she.</p> - -<p>“I’ve never lived out of it,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“I thought perhaps, as you know so many people, you could help me to find some work. -There must be room somewhere in London for poor little me.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll see about it,” said Mendel, taking note of her features and figure, and rather -upset to find himself so little excited by her. Issy had given him to imagine a dashing, -overwhelming woman. He only felt vaguely sorry for Hetty and a desire to stroke her, -though he knew her at once for what<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-108">[Pg 108]</a></span> she was, and how she was drinking in the strongly -developed male in him. For the first time he felt cool and detached in the presence of a -woman: a deliciously grown-up sensation, and he wanted more of it.</p> - -<p>She soon said she must go, and in Golda’s hearing he promised to write to her, but when -he took her to the door he asked her to come to his studio, and she said she would come -the next day.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter109"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter109_hdg"><a href="#Chapter109_toc">IX<br /> -<span class="chap_title">THE QUINTETTE</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">H<small>E</small> had more of the deliciously grown-up sensation the -next day, when Hetty came to see him. She was something new. The girls of the streets he -knew, and unattainably above them were the girls at the school and his friends’ sisters, -whom he called “top-knots,” because of the way they did their hair. The “top-knots” were -hardly female at all to him, so remote were they, so entirely unapproachable; utterly -different from the girls of the streets, who were so accessible that he had but to hold -out his arms to find one of them, as if by magic, in his grasp. And now Hetty was -different again.</p> - -<p>“You are cosy up here,” she said, moving at once to the only comfortable chair and -curling up in it. “Your sister told me about you.”</p> - -<p>“Leah? What lies did she tell you?”</p> - -<p>“Well, I knew it wasn’t <i>all</i> true, about the money you were making, because you -wouldn’t live here if it was true, would you? But I suppose some of your friends make a -lot of money.”</p> - -<p>“They’re rich, some of them,” replied Mendel, aghast to find himself thinking coldly of -his friends in terms of money, his mind rushing swiftly between the two poles of his -father and Sir Julius. “Yes. There’s plenty of money in London.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what Ma said when she gave me the fourteen shillings. She said a girl with eyes -like mine had no need to go short in London.” Hetty<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-110">[Pg 110]</a></span> raised her eyes and looked full at him, -who met her stare boldly and yet with some alarm, finding himself acting a part.</p> - -<p>Hetty was flattering him by regarding him as the possessor of a key to the wealth of -London, and in spite of himself he could not help accepting the rôle. She had touched an -element of his character of which till then he had been unconscious. The knave in him -sprang into being and thrust all his other qualities aside. He began to boast of his -success and to swagger about the luxury and immorality of London life, though it was not -all braggadocio, but also a kindly desire to make Hetty happy by talking to her of the -things that interested her.</p> - -<p>He told her about Calthrop and the Paris Café, and Maurice Birnbaum and his motor-car -and richly furnished flat in Westminster, and a Lord’s son who was at the Detmold, and -Mitchell, whose father was a great man. And all the time, as he talked, he was astonished -at the sound of his own voice, so different did it sound.</p> - -<p>Hetty wriggled with pleasure in her chair and pouted up her lips. Presently she said -her hat made her head ache, and she took it off and stretched out her arms and said:—</p> - -<p>“No more pots and pans for me! I do think you’re lovely. It’s just like a story. I call -that real fun. Not like Margate. . . . Do you think I could get work as a model, -or do you have to be slap-up?”</p> - -<p>Mendel thought of the drabs who posed and he could not help smiling.</p> - -<p>“I could only tell by your figure, though your face is all right.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Very.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll show you my figure, if you like.”</p> - -<p>“All right, I’ll light the gas-stove in the bedroom. It’s a little cold in here.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> - -<p>He showed her into the bedroom, and when she was ready she called to him.</p> - -<p>She was beautifully made, but she looked so foolish with her anxiety to please him that -he could take hardly any interest in her, and he was distressed, too, because the only -background he could give her consisted of his new knavish thoughts of the wealth of -London. Yet nothing could disturb it, for the background was suitable. Her white body was -her offering.</p> - -<p>“How much would I be paid?”</p> - -<p>“A shilling an hour.”</p> - -<p>“Do you pay that?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“If you could get me work I would sit to you for nothing.”</p> - -<p>“I’d pay you,” he said. His generous qualities strove hard to reassert themselves, but -there was something about this girl that compelled just what he was giving her—hardness -for hardness, value for value. Yet she was certainly beautiful, and it was strange to him -to be unable to give her the warm homage that within himself he could not help -feeling.</p> - -<p>She sat on the bed, making no move to cover herself, and said:—</p> - -<p>“Artists <i>are</i> different. There was an artist once at Margate. It was him put the -idea into my head. But he was very poor and not a gentleman.”</p> - -<p>And now to Mendel she was an object of sheer astonishment. He stood and warmed his legs -by the gas stove and gaped at her, sitting on his bed and chattering in her clear, hard -voice of her ambitions, her dreams, the drudgery at home, while in everything she said was -a flattery which he could not resist. Worst of all, he felt that he was one of a pair with -her. His talent, her body, were shining offerings with which they both emerged from the -depths of the despised. Entering<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-112">[Pg -112]</a></span> into her spirit, he too was filled with a desire for revenge. Yet in him -this desire was charged with passion, which made their present situation ridiculous. He -thought of the poverty and the obscure suffering downstairs, the dragging penury to which, -but for his talent, he would have been condemned. Then he imagined her as Issy had -described her at Margate, lurking in the kitchen, listening behind the door as Leah spun -her yarns. He could sympathize with her, and she seemed to him almost gallant.</p> - -<p>He got out a piece of mill-board and began to draw her, but to his annoyance could not -get interested in what he was doing. He wanted to know more about her, could not rest -content that a human being should be so reduced to a cold purpose. Yet, though she talked -freely enough, nothing fell from her lips to meet his desire. She had no people, no class, -no tradition, but still she was a person. He could not dismiss her as he dismissed so -many, as “nonsensical.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t make much of you now,” he said, almost wailing. “I believe I’m tired.”</p> - -<p>And suddenly he hurled away his drawing and rushed at her and kissed her. She clung to -him and he yielded to her will, seeing clearly that this was her purpose, this her desire, -this her ambition, her all.</p> - -<p>He knew that she was using him, was making certain of being able to use him. The newly -discovered knave in him insisted on having his existence, and through it he enjoyed a -certain defiant happiness.</p> - -<p>Happiness! To be happy! That had seemed impossible. His first year at the Detmold had -been miserable. He had been discouraged and almost listless. Often he would go to his -mother and say: “I shall never be an artist.”</p> - -<p>“Not all at once,” Golda would say. “Take a boy who is apprenticed to a bootmaker. -He<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-113">[Pg 113]</a></span> cannot all at -once make good boots. He must spoil a deal of leather first. Or a tailor-boy: he must -spoil cloth. A trade must be learned, and you can learn this, for you work hard enough at -it.”</p> - -<p>For a moment or two he would see through her clear eyes and that was enough to set him -working again, half believing that he would soon master his craft. But there had been the -struggle to master what at the Detmold, with such unquestionable authority, they called -“drawing.”</p> - -<p>This now, with Hetty, was in its way happiness, though he detested it and her. It was -an escape. It was easy. It made no demands on him, save the small effort to achieve -self-forgetfulness, and in that she aided him, for she seemed superior to himself and -enviable in the clearness of her purpose. She offered herself and made no demands upon him -except of what could cost him nothing: just a few words to his friends, a start in her -chosen profession.</p> - -<p>All the same, he was horrified at himself. Every other crisis and sudden change in his -life had been attended with violent suffering, an eruption within himself, profound -depression, almost a collapse. This had been as easy as walking through a door, a slipping -from one part of his being to another. . . . Here suddenly was happiness, a -queer detached, almost indifferent condition, full of pleasure, and he rejoiced in the -novelty of it. He watched Hetty draw on her clothes again and was sickened by the sensual -languor of her movements. She was drowsy, like a cat before a fire.</p> - -<p>“No, I certainly shan’t draw you to-day.”</p> - -<p>“What about to-morrow?”</p> - -<p>“I shall be painting to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“I do think you’re a devil sometimes.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll take you to the Paris Café, if you like.”</p> - -<p>“Will you?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> - -<p>She perked up on that. She had not expected so soon to gain her desire.</p> - -<p>“Yes. If you’ve got to earn your living you should meet people, and the sooner you get -going the better.”</p> - -<p>Hetty sat with her chin in her hands, crouched in elation. Everything had turned out as -she had hoped and planned, as she had willed that it should, and she regarded him with -some contempt because he had been so easy and because he was so young. She was the same -age as he, but she thought him a little vain boy. Yet when he looked at her she was afraid -of him, for he knew so much and guessed so much more. To defend herself, her instinct -drove through to his vanity and flattered it to blind him. She feigned an animation she -was incapable of feeling to make herself more beautiful in his eyes, and he thought of his -friends, Mitchell and Weldon, and how they would be stirred with her. He thought how she -would please Calthrop, and he was lured into believing that he would gain in importance -through her.</p> - -<p>“You’ve come at a very bad time,” he said. “They’ll all be going away for the -summer.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” she looked dashed, hating to be caught out in a mistake. “Do they go away for -long?”</p> - -<p>“Three months.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well!” she drawled. “I can get a place if nothing turns up. But something always -does turn up. I’m one of the lucky ones, you know.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe in luck,” said he, with a sudden irruption of the old self that seemed -to have been left so far behind.</p> - -<p>“I must go now,” she said.</p> - -<p>They groped their way down the dark stairs, and he went out with her, feeling that he -could not face his family, from whom he knew now that his face was turned. In the street a -mood of freedom and adventure came over him, and for this mood she was a fitting mate. He -took her on the top of a bus to<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-115">[Pg -115]</a></span> the West End, among the promenading crowds, and she drank it all in with a -kind of exaltation, her big eyes glowing, her body trembling with excitement. Into one -café after another he led her, completely absorbed as he was in her purpose, and at last, -when they mounted the eastward bus, she leaned her head on his shoulder, and he could hear -her murmuring to herself: “London . . . London . . . London.”</p> - -<p>He too was thrilled as he had never been before by London. He had never so strongly -realized it before. The great city had thrilled him with its beauty and had stirred him -with its business, but never before had its spirit crept into his blood to send it -whirling and singing through his veins. He hardly slept at all that night, and the next -morning it was a long time before he could begin to work, which then seemed far removed -from the effort and almost anguish it used to cost him. The still-life with which he had -been wrestling became quite easy to do, and very soothing was the handling of brushes and -paint. Every touch was like a caress upon his aching soul.</p> - -<p>So began a period of real happiness. The pieces he painted with such soothing ease were -generally admired and readily bought. The dealer to whom he took them was also a colourman -and gave him apparently unlimited credit; and he laid in an immense stock of colours and -amused himself with experiments. It seemed that his career was to be successful without a -struggle. His patrons were delighted to find him so soon making money, and the Birnbaums -and the Fleischmanns invited him down into the country, but as he found that they put him -up in a servant’s bedroom or a gardener’s cottage he refused to go more than once, or to -any more of their kind who were not prepared to forget his poverty.</p> - -<p>He would rather stay in London with Hetty,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-116">[Pg 116]</a></span> whom he had begun to regard as a mascot. With her coming -everything had changed. She had made everything easy and happy and delightful. He had no -love for her, but he could not help feeling grateful. She had turned work into a pleasure, -pleasure into a riot of ecstasy.</p> - -<p>Alone with her in the evenings or with some chance acquaintance, during the holidays he -roamed through London, basking in the summer evenings, discovering unimagined splendours, -the Parks, the river, the Zoo, boating on the Serpentine, the promenade on the romantic -Spaniard’s Road at Hampstead. Nearly every night he wrote to Mitchell in the country, -describing his new easy happiness in his work and his discovery of the charm of nights in -London. And once a week Mitchell would write to him and give him a delightful account of -English country life in a valley, shut in by rolling hills between which wandered a slow, -pleasant stream. Here Mitchell was painting, boating, playing tennis, making love.</p> - -<p>“There’s a Detmold girl lives near here with her people—Greta Morrison. You may -remember her—glorious chestnut hair, big blue eyes, but as shy as a little mouse. I -couldn’t get a word out of her until I began to talk about you, and there’s no end to her -appetite for that. I don’t mince matters. I tell her exactly what you are, exactly what -you come from, and what a wild beast you are. She has seen you throw things about at the -Detmold, and she seems absolutely to like it. Yet she is not a fool, and I like her -enormously. She makes me feel what a rotter I am, but I can’t get on with her unless I -talk about you. I <i>have</i> heard that her work is good, but she won’t show me a -thing.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was pleased that a “top-knot” should be interested in him, but beyond the -flicker of delight he gave no thought to the idea of Greta Morrison. The “top-knots” -belonged to the world<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-117">[Pg -117]</a></span> which he was going to despoil with Hetty Finch. That world must disgorge. -It had condemned, and still condemned, his father and mother to bitter poverty, and he -remembered how on their first coming to London the whole family had slept in one room, and -how he had sat up in the middle of the night and looked at the recumbent bodies and -suffered under the indignity of it. And his brothers had grown from ruddy, bronzed boys -into pale-faced, worn young men. And behind Hetty was the dirty lodging-house and her Ma, -of whom he had a very clear idea. He used to wax violent, and his imagination would run -riot with the fantastic visions of success he conjured up.</p> - -<p>Who were the “top-knots” that they should have an easy, pleasant time in the country -while he was left to stew in London?</p> - -<p>Hetty began genuinely to admire him, and her flattery was no longer empty. There was -some sustenance in it.</p> - -<p>“O—oh!” she used to say. “You’ll get on. There’s no doubt about that. You’ll have a big -stoodio and the nobs will come up in their motor-cars, and you’ll be able to paint what -you like then.”</p> - -<p>“You’re a liar,” he would reply. “I shall always paint what I like. I never do anything -else, and never will. Once paint for the fools and you have to do it always, because you -become a fool yourself.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Golda once met Hetty coming down the stairs. She told her she was a dirty slut and was -not to show her face inside the house again. A few days later she saw her open the front -door and slip out. In her anger she informed Jacob of the danger to Mendel, and Jacob went -up to the studio.</p> - -<p>“I will not have that harlot in my house,” he said.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> - -<p>“She is not a harlot,” replied Mendel rather shakily, for, though his father’s power -had dwindled, yet he was still a figure of authority.</p> - -<p>“She is a harlot and a daughter of a harlot, and I will not have her in my house.”</p> - -<p>“She is a model, and I must have models, as I have tried to explain to you again and -again. I am allowed money for models. I must have models, just as you must have -skins.”</p> - -<p>“Then there are other models. I know this girl, what she is after, and she will ruin -you.”</p> - -<p>“Neither she nor anyone else in the whole world could ruin me,” said Mendel, “for I am -an artist, and while I have my art I ask nothing outside it.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t argue with me!” shouted Jacob. “I will not have that drab in my house.”</p> - -<p>Mendel had a great respect and regard for his father. He was silent, and Jacob went -downstairs, satisfied that he had asserted himself.</p> - -<p>He said to Golda:—</p> - -<p>“They will blow the boy’s head off his shoulder with the fuss they make of him. I know -how to take him down a peg or two.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t go too far,” said Golda. “It would be a black day for me if he went away and was -ashamed of us.”</p> - -<p>“If I saw that he was ashamed of you,” replied Jacob, “I would thrash him within an -inch of his life. Ashamed of you, among all the dirt and trumped-up people he goes -among!”</p> - -<p>However, Hetty still came to the studio and there were frequent explosions, until at -last Mendel, intent on the new independence he had won, declared that he could bear it no -longer, and he arranged with Issy to take the top floor of his house and to turn that into -a studio. This compromise was successful, and pleased both parties: Golda was happy to be -relieved from further friction and Mendel was glad to be away, for he knew that his doings -must hurt her, and that he<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-119">[Pg -119]</a></span> hated. Yet he could see no way out of it. He was done for ever with the -old simplicity of his untutored painting in her kitchen. Art was no longer a pure and -hardly-won joy. It was a trade, like any other, and, like any other, it had its sordid -aspect, and, to compensate for that, it was a career and could also be a triumph. These -things he did not expect his mother to understand. He had Mitchell to talk to now, -Mitchell to whom to impart the burden upon his soul, and Mitchell and he were to work -together and to give to the world such art as it had never seen since the primitives.</p> - -<p>Mitchell and he! That friendship was the source of his new confidence. Golda had been -and still was much to him, but when it came to painting she knew nothing at all, and -painting was the important thing. Through painting lay not only satisfied ambitions and -fame and riches, but life itself, and of that what could Golda know?</p> - -<p>It was a great thing, therefore, to be established away from home when Mitchell -returned from the country. And Mitchell approved. He had suffered from being under his -father’s shadow, and with Weldon and Kessler he had taken a studio near Fitzroy Square. He -said:—</p> - -<p>“A time will come when you will have to leave the East End.”</p> - -<p>“I shall never leave them,” replied Mendel. “What I want to paint is there. They are my -people, and all that I have belongs to them.”</p> - -<p>“Rubbish. You’ll soon be getting commissions, and you can’t ask people who can afford -to pay for portraits to a hole like that.”</p> - -<p>“They will come to my studio,” said Mendel, “or I will not take their commissions.”</p> - -<p>Though Mitchell was rather shocked by his frank conceit, he could not but admire and -envy the way his impulses came rushing to the surface and were never deterred by -considerations as to<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-120">[Pg -120]</a></span> the impression he might be making. Mendel trusted Mitchell absolutely and -hid nothing from him, neither the most scabrous of his deeds nor the most childish of his -desires. He made no secret of the new manly feeling that had come to him through Hetty, -the conviction that he could meet the West End on its own terms.</p> - -<p>When he showed Mitchell the work he had done during the holidays, his friend said:—</p> - -<p>“Gawd! The difference is absolutely startling. There’s charm in every one of them, and -they’re not fakes either.”</p> - -<p>With Hetty he was enraptured.</p> - -<p>“Gawd!” he said; “I’ll give ten years to painting her, as Leonardo did to Monna Lisa, -and then it would not be finished. Came from a Margate lodging-house, did she? Mark my -words: she’ll marry a successful artist and queen it among the best.”</p> - -<p>With Mitchell, Hetty put forth all her cajolery when she found that he knew what she -thought good people. She could look very pathetic and delicate, and middle-aged artists -were sorry for her, and thought being a model a perilous profession for her. One of them -warned her of the dangers she must run, and especially mentioned Mitchell and Kühler as -young men to be avoided. They roared with laughter when she told them.</p> - -<p>The Paris Café was Paradise to her, and she made friends with all its habitués and -attracted the attention of Calthrop, who became Mendel’s enemy for life when she told him -that the youngster had said of him that he had been a good artist once, but was now only -repeating himself.</p> - -<p>With marvellous rapidity she picked up the jargon of the place, and could quite easily -have taken her career in her own hands, but she would not surrender Mendel, who could no -more do without her than he could without Mitchell. She clung<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-121">[Pg 121]</a></span> to him and kept him a happy slave to his -three friends, to whom she devoted herself as though her existence depended on the -solidarity of the group. From morning to night she was with one or other of them, and -every evening with the four of them at the Paris, or making a row at a music-hall and -getting themselves kicked out.</p> - -<p>She was learning her trade as they were learning theirs, and she was delighted with the -ease with which Mendel picked up what she called “sense”; that is to say, he became much -more like the others, affected their speech, grew his hair long, wore corduroys, a black -shirt, and a red sash, and talked blatantly and with a slight contempt of great painters. -But even so, he was disturbing, for he did all these things with passion, so that they -tinged his soul, and were not as a mere garment upon it. Even in falsehood he was -sincere.</p> - -<p>When Hetty found Calthrop painting a self-portrait, she set her four boys painting -self-portraits, and when she found the older men talking about the beauty of roofs and -chimneys, the four were soon ecstatic about roofs and chimneys, and painting them without -knowing how it had come about. She could feel what was in the air, and had no difficulty -in making them conform to it, so that they were successful even while they were students, -and were talked of and discussed and approached by dealers as though they were persons of -consequence. Their life was one long intoxication: money, praise, wine, and debauchery -went to their heads, and of all these excitants Mendel had the largest share, and found -himself the equal even of Kessler, whose father was a millionaire soap-boiler. He attained -an extraordinary skill at doing what was expected of him, and developed an instinct as -sharp as Hetty’s for the success of the moment after next.</p> - -<p>He won scholarships at the Detmold and, carefully adapting his style, an open prize at -the Royal<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-122">[Pg 122]</a></span> -Academy. His patrons were excited and delighted. He was interviewed by the Yiddish papers -and photographed, palette and brushes in hand, in a dashing attitude. He said many foolish -things to the reporters, but the printed version made him blush. He was represented as -saying that art had been reborn during the last ten years, that the Royal Academy was -exploded and would soon close its doors, that there was no art criticism in England, that -there had never been a great Jewish artist, and that this deficiency in the most vital and -enduring race in the world would now be repaired.</p> - -<p>He thanked his stars that his friends could not read Yiddish. Two well-known Jewish -painters wrote to the paper to say that they existed and to trounce his “bumptious and -ignorant dismissal of respected and respectable art.” And he heartily agreed with them. He -was shaken out of the hectic dreams of months, yet could not feel or see clearly. His way -was with Mitchell, and Mitchell was generously rejoicing in it all as though it had -happened to himself, while Hetty was going from studio to studio spreading the news and -declaring the arrival of a genius.</p> - -<p>He wanted to go and hide his face in his mother’s skirts, but she was so happy and -elated with the congratulations of the neighbours and visits from the Rabbis of the -synagogue that he could not but keep up his part before her. For her and for all his -family he bought extravagant presents, and he went out and sought Artie Beech, whom he had -not seen for years, and gave him a box of cigars. He had a melancholy idea that he was -doing them all an injury and that he must somehow repair it. The exact nature of the -injury he did not know, but his instinct was very sure that the whole business was false. -Yet it was so actual that he could not help believing in it. He was hypnotized into -accepting it. There seemed no<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-123">[Pg -123]</a></span> reason why it should not go on for ever. Here, apparently, was what he had -always striven for—art and homage—and the idea that they could go on for ever was terrible -and paralysing. But there was not a soul in the world with whom he could share his -feeling. If he showed the least hesitation they would accuse him of ingratitude.</p> - -<p>He was filled with a smouldering rage against them all which found no vent until -Maurice Birnbaum came in his motor-car and asked him to bring some of his things to show -Sir William Hunslet, R.A., who had been much impressed with his prize picture. Once again -Mendel climbed into the motor-car, and once again he was told not to let his parcel -scratch the paint.</p> - -<p>“Now,” said Maurice, “you have the world at your feet, and I feel proud to have had my -share in bringing it about. You can have everything you want, and if you don’t grow into -something really big it won’t be our fault. Everything that money can do it shall do.”</p> - -<p>The car rolled through the streets which had been the scene of Mendel’s happy rambles, -but being carried through them in such magnificence made him feel helpless, a victim to -something stronger than his own will and that he had always detested. He was being taken -away from his mother and from Mitchell, and he knew whither motor-cars were driven. All -roads ended in Sir Julius, who could sit and look at pictures without a word. Everything -went spinning past him. This was going too fast, too fast, and he would be exhausted -before he had really known his purpose. Maurice Birnbaum’s exciting, patronizing tones, -chattering on exasperatingly, infuriated him, until he felt like stabbing him in his -already dropping stomach. What could a fat man like that have to do with art? How could so -fat a man drive down to the wretched poverty in Whitechapel and not feel ashamed?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> - -<p>But in spite of himself and his confused emotions Mendel enjoyed the drive, which -showed him more of London than the narrowed area he frequented: more to conquer, more to -know; shops, strange ugly buildings, polite, mincing people, women like dolls, men like -marionettes, wide streets and plane-trees, the gardens and squares of the polite -Southwest. Often there were Georgian houses like that in which his family lived, but so -neat and trim and newly painted that they looked like doll’s-houses, proper places for the -dolls and the marionettes. . . . And it was exhilarating to be in the heart of -the roaring traffic, bearing down upon scarlet buses, and swift darting taxi-cabs and -motor-cars as rich as Maurice Birnbaum’s. Out of the traffic they turned suddenly into a -quiet street of dead houses and vast gloomy piles of flats. Outside a house more gloomy -than the rest they stopped. Maurice got out fussily, told Mendel to be careful how he -lifted his parcel out, fussed his way into the house through a dark, luxuriously furnished -hall, and into a vast studio where there was a group of fashionably dressed women taking -tea with Sir William and exclaiming about the beauties of a portrait that stood on the -easel.</p> - -<p>Maurice stood awkwardly outside the circle and muttered apologies, while Mendel felt -utterly and crushingly foreign to the atmosphere of the place. He knew how these people -would regard him. They would stare at him with a cold interest not unmingled with horror, -and he would be conscious of bearing the marks of the place he came from, of smelling of -the gutter. Against that separation even art was powerless. And what had his work to do -with this huge, hard, brilliant portrait on the easel? If they admired that they would -never look at his dark little pictures.</p> - -<p>Sir William introduced Maurice to the ladies, but did not so much as look at the boy, -whom his<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-125">[Pg 125]</a></span> mind -had at once ticked off as a “student,” and therefore to be kept in his place. Maurice -explained spluttering: words like “scholarship,” “prize,” “genius,” “instinct,” fell in a -shower from his lips, and one of the ladies put up her lorgnette and stared at Mendel as -though he were a picture or a wax model.</p> - -<p>At last he was told to untie his parcel, and one by one he showed his pictures. Sir -William blew out his chest and his cheeks, and with a wave of his hand blurted out one -word:—</p> - -<p>“Italy.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I say,” said Maurice.</p> - -<p>Mendel scented danger. They seemed to him to be conspiring together.</p> - -<p>“Italy!” ejaculated Sir William. “Italy! Blue skies, the sun, the light. Give him light -and landscape with form in it.”</p> - -<p>“Am I ill?” thought Mendel with some alarm, for Sir William sounded to him more like a -doctor than a painter. And he decided that the Academician was not a real artist because -he showed no sign of the fellow-feeling which had been so strong in Mr. Froitzheim.</p> - -<p>Before the ladies he could say nothing. He put his pictures back in the parcel and -heard Maurice and Sir William still conspiring together to send him to Italy. He was tired -of being swung from one idea to another. At the Polytechnic they had told him that the -essential thing in a picture was “tone,” that he must remember the existence of the -atmosphere between himself and the object he was painting, and that there were no bright -colours in nature. At the Detmold little was said about “tone,” but he was told that the -essence of a picture was drawing, “the expression of form.” . . . What next? He -had a foreboding that Italy was only another name for another essence of a picture. -Besides, he wanted to live. Though he adored art, yet it did not<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-126">[Pg 126]</a></span> contain all that was precious to -him—liberty and gaiety, friendship and affection. Always until the Detmold his life had -been weighed down with poverty and with terrible obsessions like that of his dread of the -fat, curly-headed boy who, during the six long years of his schooling, had waited for him -outside the school-gates every day to give him a coward’s blow and to challenge him to -fight and to jeer at him if he refused. There had been furious, passionate loves to set -him reeling, gusts of inexplicable desires and ambitions which had often made him weep -with pain. And now, just as the world was opening out before him and he was warm with the -friendship of an Englishman (for he was proud of Mitchell’s Public School training), they -wished to take him away and send him to a far country.</p> - -<p>He had had enough of being a foreigner in England, and he loathed the idea of travel. -His father had told him that England was the best country in the world, and, if he had -suffered so much there, what would it be in others? Italy? He wanted to paint what he had -always painted, fish and onions in a London kitchen. How could Italy help him to do -that?</p> - -<p>He would not go. He would refuse to go. These Birnbaums and Fleischmanns had had their -way with him for long enough.</p> - -<p>So lost was he in this growing revolt that he was already some distance away from Sir -William’s studio before he was aware of having left it.</p> - -<p>“Our greatest painter,” said Maurice. “The greatest since Whistler.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mendel, aghast at the supersession of Calthrop and the idols of the -Detmold. If Maurice could be so ignorant there was nothing to be said and argument was -vain.</p> - -<p>“He really appreciated your work,” Maurice added.</p> - -<p>“He never looked at it!” cried Mendel, enraged.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-127">[Pg 127]</a></span> “I put them in front of him one by one, but he always -looked at the fat lady in blue.”</p> - -<p>“He could tell with one glance,” protested Maurice, who had been mightily -impressed.</p> - -<p>Mendel saw that it was useless to talk, and shut his lips tight while Maurice chattered -to him of his extraordinary good fortune in being able to go to Italy, to live among the -orange groves and with the greatest galleries of the world to roam in, the most beautiful -scenery and the most delightful food.</p> - -<p>The mention of food made Mendel think of his mother’s unsavoury dishes and sluttish -table, the most distasteful feature of his existence, but he preferred even that to the -Italy of Maurice Birnbaum and Sir William. Through such people, he knew, lay nothing that -he could ever desire.</p> - -<p>As soon as he reached home he told his mother that they wanted to send him abroad to -study. He strode about the kitchen and waved his arms, growling:—</p> - -<p>“Study? Study? I want to be an artist, not a student. I <i>am</i> an artist. I know art -students when I see them—the Academy, South Kensington, the Detmold—they are all the same. -Let them go abroad and never come back. No one will miss them, not even their fathers and -mothers, if they have anything so natural. I will not go—I will not go!”</p> - -<p>“But if the Maurice Birnbaum thinks you must go, then you must,” said Golda. “It is -their money that has been spent on you.”</p> - -<p>“They’ve spent enough,” cried Mendel, “without that. I don’t want their money any more. -They know that. They want to keep me in their hands and to say that they made me. They? -People like that! God made me, and they want to keep me all my life saying how grateful I -am to them. Grateful? I am not.”</p> - -<p>“But you could go for a little while.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I will not go at all.”</p> - -<p>He sat down and wrote to Maurice Birnbaum saying that he would not go to Italy, that he -did not want any more of his commissions, and that he would not be interfered with any -more. He would shortly repay every penny he had had, and he asked only to be allowed to -know best what he wanted to do.</p> - -<p>“Everything that I love is here in London, and I can only learn from what I love. I am -one kind of artist and you want to turn me into another kind. You will only waste your -money, and I will not let you do it.”</p> - -<p>Maurice never answered this letter and patronage and that of his friends was -withdrawn.</p> - -<p>Mendel plunged more ardently than ever into his career with Mitchell and the others, -but found that they were not prepared to share or to admit the new freedom which he had -begun to enjoy. The Birnbaum patronage had always to a certain extent restrained him, but -now that it was shaken off he plunged madly and wildly into every kind of extravagance. He -was no longer content to be the equal of the others. He wanted to lead them. He was the -most successful of them all, and he wanted them all to join him in forcing art upon -London. Calthrop had shown them the way, but he had unaccountably stopped short. He had -many imitators, and there were even women who looked like his type, but it all ended in -his personality. . . . Art was something else: something outside that, an -impersonal thing, which London should be made to recognize. The pictures of Kühler, -Mitchell, Weldon, and Kessler should be, as it were, only forerunners of the mighty -pictures that should be painted. . . .</p> - -<p>He was just as extreme and violent in his vices as he was in his idealism, and even -Mitchell was rather upset by his pranks and caprices. It was one thing to take a shy tame -genius among<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-129">[Pg 129]</a></span> -your acquaintance, quite another when the genius ran wild and dragged you hither and -thither and with breathless haste from the vilest human company to the most dizzily -soaring ideas. Weldon, who was uncommonly shrewd, had begun to see the danger of allowing -Hetty Finch to arrange their affairs, and when on top of that Mendel, drunk with freedom -and success, began to take charge, he thought it time to secure himself and began to -withdraw from their undertakings and adventures.</p> - -<p>At last Kessler struck, and told Mendel that he might be the greatest genius that was -ever born, but should sometimes try to remember that his friends were gentlemen and could -not always be making allowances for his birth and upbringing. This happened in the Paris -Café. Mendel fell like a shot bird, like a stone. The eager words froze on his lips, his -face visibly contracted and became haggard, his eyes blinked for a moment, then stared -glassily. He sat so for some minutes, then rose from the table and walked quickly out of -the café.</p> - -<p>He did not appear for a week, nor was anything heard of him. He sat at home working -furiously. Hetty Finch went to see him, but he turned her out, telling her that she was a -hateful, cold-hearted woman and that he would never see her again.</p> - -<p>At last he wrote to Mitchell, a letter of agony, for Mitchell, his friend, seemed to -him the worst offender, by not having warned him of what was in the air:—</p> - -<p>“You are my friend,” he wrote, “my only friend. It is no more to you what I am, where -or how I was born, than it is to me what you are. The soul of a man chooses his friend, -and I trusted you even in my folly. You could have defended me and our friendship. You -have not done so and I must live miserably without you.<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-130">[Pg 130]</a></span> Good-bye. I shall not attempt again to -enter a life in which my work is not sufficient recommendation. I was happy. I was not -happy before. I am not happy now. I have been foolish, but I was your friend.”</p> - -<p>Mitchell was irritated by this letter, but he was also moved. He valued Mendel’s -sincerity, which had continually jolted him out of his natural indolence. And, as he had a -fine talent and a fairly strong desire to use it to the full, the friendship had profited -him. It had also helped him to come to reasonable terms with that great man, his -father.</p> - -<p>On the other hand he was in this difficulty, that he too had been slipping out of the -quintette through his new friendship with Miss Greta Morrison and her friend, Miss Edith -Clowes. Knowing Mendel’s contempt for the “top-knots,” he had said nothing of this matter, -and had found it sometimes difficult to account for the afternoons and evenings given to -the dilemma of discovering whether Miss Morrison or Miss Clowes were the love of his life. -Mendel was an exacting friend, and, as he concealed nothing, expected no concealment.</p> - -<p>Mitchell, like the true Englishman he was, deplored the unpleasant complication, but -left it to time, impulse, or inspiration to unravel. Impulse, in due course, came to his -aid and he invented a plan. First of all he wrote a manly note to Mendel, confessing his -inability to understand why he should suffer for Kessler’s caddishness, and declaring that -friendship could not be so lightly broken. He received no reply to this, and proceeded by -taking Morrison and Clowes (as in the fashion of the Detmold they were called) to see the -docks at Rotherhithe. While there he gazed from Morrison to Clowes and from Clowes to -Morrison, unable to decide which he loved, for both gave him an equal contraction<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-131">[Pg 131]</a></span> of the heart, and -then he told them that ships had never been properly painted, never <i>expressed</i> in -form and colour; and then he added that it was clearly a man’s job, and then he informed -them that only a short distance away lived Mendel Kühler.</p> - -<p>“Would you like to go and see him?” he asked. “It is the queerest thing to go and see -him. A filthy street, a dark house, a ramshackle staircase, and there you are—absolutely -one of the finest painters the Detmold has ever turned out.”</p> - -<p>“Do let us go and see him!” said Clowes, who had decided in her own mind that she was -the third of the party and in the way. Morrison said nothing, and looked very solemn, as -though she regarded the visit as an event—something to be half dreaded. She had a very -charming air of diffidence, as though she were very happy and knew this to be an unusual -and peculiar condition. Often she smiled to herself, and then seemed to shake the smile -away, feeling perhaps that she, a slip of a girl, had no right to be amused by a world so -vast and so varied.</p> - -<p>She had enjoyed herself. The ships had stirred her romantically, and she could not at -all agree with Mitchell about painting them, for were they not works of art in themselves? -They moved her in the same way, arresting her eyes and delighting them, and touching her -emotions so that they began to creep and tickle their way through her whole being. -. . . O wonderful world to contain so much delight! And it pleased her that the -ships should start out of the squalor of the docks like lilies out of a dark pond.</p> - -<p>She smiled and shook the smile away when Mitchell spoke of Mendel Kühler. She -remembered once meeting Mendel on the stairs at the Detmold. She had often noticed -him—strange-looking, white-faced, romantic, with a look of suffering in his eyes that -marked him out from<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-132">[Pg -132]</a></span> all the other young men. . . . After she had passed him on the -stairs she turned to look at him, and at the same moment he turned and she trembled and -blushed, and her eyes shone as she hurried on her way.</p> - -<p>Mitchell had told her a great deal about him, and she had heard other people say that -he was detestable, an ill-mannered egoist. She supposed he was so, for she rarely -questioned what other people said, but he remained a clear figure for her, the -romantic-looking young man who had looked back on the stairs.</p> - -<p>“We’ll take him by surprise,” said Mitchell, with a sudden qualm lest they should break -in upon Mendel and Hetty Finch together. “If we told him he would hide all his work away -and put on a white shirt and have flowers on the table, for he is terrified of ladies. He -says they don’t look like women to him.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure,” said Clowes, “I don’t want to look like a woman to any man.”</p> - -<p>This was the most encouraging remark Mitchell had had from either during the day, and -he decided that he was in love with Clowes.</p> - -<p>A brisk walk through narrow dingy streets brought them, with some help from the police, -to the door of Issy’s house. Mitchell knocked and a grimy little Jewess opened to -them.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Mendel Kühler?” said Mitchell.</p> - -<p>“Upstairs to the top,” replied the Jewess as she hurried away. They climbed the -shabbily carpeted stairs and knocked at the door of the studio. Mendel opened it. He stood -with a brush in his hand, blinking. He stared at Mitchell and then beyond him at -Morrison.</p> - -<p>“Come in,” he said. “I’d just finished. I’ve been working rather hard and haven’t -spoken to a soul for three days. You must forgive me if I don’t seem very -intelligent.”</p> - -<p>They went in and he made tea for them, hardly<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-133">[Pg 133]</a></span> ever taking his eyes off Morrison. He said pointedly to -Mitchell:—</p> - -<p>“So you came down to the East End to find me.”</p> - -<p>Clowes explained:—</p> - -<p>“I’m a stranger to London and had never seen the docks, you know.”</p> - -<p>“I have never seen the docks either, though I live so near,” said he. Then, catching -Morrison glancing in the direction of his easel, he turned his work for her to see, almost -ignoring the others. Afterwards he produced drawings for her to see, and he seemed -entirely bent on pleasing her, which so embarrassed her that, when she could escape his -gaze, she looked imploringly over at the others. They could not help her, and he went on -until he had shown her every piece of work in the studio. Whenever she spoke, shyly and -diffidently, as though she knew her opinion was of no value, he gave a queer little grunt -of triumph, and his eyes glittered as he looked over at Mitchell, as though to say that he -too knew how to treat the “top-knots” and to please them.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter110"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter110_hdg"><a href="#Chapter110_toc">X<br /> -<span class="chap_title">MORRISON</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">A <small>FEW</small> days later he wired to Morrison at the Detmold to -ask her to sit for him. She made no reply and did not come.</p> - -<p>Very well then: he would not budge. He would only approach Mitchell again through the -“top-knots,” who lived in a portion of Mitchell’s world that had hitherto been closed to -him. It promised new adventure, and he was so eager for it that he would not enter upon -any other outside his work.</p> - -<p>The days went by and he began a portrait of his mother, with which he intended to make -his first appearance at an important exhibition. Golda sat dressed in her best on the -throne, and tried vainly to soothe him as he cursed and stamped and wept over his -difficulties:</p> - -<p>“I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” he wailed. “I’m a fool, a blockhead, a pig! If I could -only do one little thing more to it I could make it a great picture.”</p> - -<p>“You are always the same,” said Golda. “In Austria, when you were a little boy, the -soldiers made you a uniform like their own. They used to call you the Captain, and they -saluted you in the street, only they forgot to give you any boots, and when the soldiers -marched by, you stamped and roared because you were not allowed to go with them, and I -could not make you understand that you were not a real captain.”</p> - -<p>“But I am a real artist,” he growled. “You’ll<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-135">[Pg 135]</a></span> never make me understand that I am not a real -artist.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing good was ever done in a hurry,” said she. “If you run so fast you will break -your head against a wall.”</p> - -<p>“I shall paint many portraits of you, for I shall never be satisfied. You may as well -sit here with your hands folded as over there in the kitchen. If I’m not careful your -hands will grow all over the picture. I have put such a lot of work into them.”</p> - -<p>Then for a long time he was silent, and both were lost in a dreamlike happiness—to be -together, alone with his work, bound together in his delight as they used to be when he -was a child before the invasion of their peace.</p> - -<p>He went to the door in answer to a knock and found Morrison standing there with some -flowers in her hands.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” he said awkwardly, holding the door. “Won’t you come in? Please. I am painting my -mother.”</p> - -<p>Golda’s eyes lighted with pleasure on the fresh-looking girl and her flowers.</p> - -<p>“She is like a flower herself,” she thought, and indeed the girl looked as though she -were fresh from the country.</p> - -<p>She held out her hand to Golda, who stood up on the throne and bobbed to her, then -folded her hands on her stomach and waited patiently for the lady to break the awkwardness -that had sprung up between the three of them. Mendel could do nothing. He looked from one -to the other and felt, with a little tremor of horror, the gulf that separated the -two.</p> - -<p>At last Morrison said to Golda:—</p> - -<p>“I am very glad to see you, though I feel I know you quite well from the drawings he -has done of you.”</p> - -<p>Golda broke into inarticulate expressions of the<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-136">[Pg 136]</a></span> delight it was to her to see any of her -son’s friends, and saying that she would have a special tea sent up, she edged towards the -door and slipped out.</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you come before?” asked Mendel, when he had heard the door bang. “I sent -you a telegram. I wanted to paint your portrait, and now I have begun something else.”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t want to come,” replied she, “but something Mitchell said made me want to -come.”</p> - -<p>“What did he say?”</p> - -<p>“He told me about Kessler, and I thought it was a shame. I thought it was a horrible -shame that you should be treated like that, as if anything mattered but your work.”</p> - -<p>Her voice rather irritated him. Her accent was rather mincing and precise, and between -her sentences she gave a little gasp which he took for an affectation.</p> - -<p>“Why did Mitchell tell you that?”</p> - -<p>“He tells me a great deal about you, and he was really upset by your letter.”</p> - -<p>“Was he? Was he?”</p> - -<p>Mendel had no thought but for Mitchell. He longed to go to him, to embrace him, to tell -him that all was different now. He blurted it all out to the girl.</p> - -<p>“We were so happy, the four of us together. Every evening we met and we were like -kings. Everything that we wanted to do we did. We had money and success and all such -foolish things, and we worked hard, all of us. There were not in London four young men -like us, and I was free of the terrible people who wanted to turn me into an ordinary -successful painter—a portrait painter. I tell you, I have never had a commission in my -life that was not a failure. I only wanted to be young and to work, for I had never been -young before. And then suddenly, out of nothing, my friends turned on me and told me I was -a Jew and uneducated, and ought to treat them with more respect.<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-137">[Pg 137]</a></span> Why? The Jews are good people, and what -do I want with education? Can books teach me how to paint? I tell you the Jews are good -people.”</p> - -<p>Tea was brought up on a lacquer tray—bread, jam, and cake. They were both hungry and -fell to with a will, hardly speaking at all.</p> - -<p>When they had finished they began to talk of pictures and of the lives of the painters, -and he told her stories of Michael Angelo and Rembrandt: how Michael Angelo never took his -boots off, and was never in love in his life; and how Rembrandt was practically starved to -death. Then he showed her reproductions of Cranach and Dürer, whom at the time he adored, -and they bent over them, the chestnut head and the curly black together. Gradually she led -him on to tell of his own life, and he began at the beginning in Austria, holding her -spell-bound with his vivid, picturesque talk.</p> - -<p>“It makes me feel very quiet and dull,” she said. “I don’t think I ever regarded places -outside England as real, somehow. There was just home and London, and London seemed to be -the end of everything. All the trains stop there, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Where is your home?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“In Sussex. It is very beautiful country.”</p> - -<p>“How did you come to the Detmold?”</p> - -<p>“A girl at home had been there, and at school they said I was no good at anything but -drawing. Indeed, I was sent away from two schools, and at home I was such a trouble that -mother decided I must do something to earn my living. So I was sent up to the Detmold. I -had my hair down my back then.”</p> - -<p>“I remember,” said he. “In a plait.”</p> - -<p>She smiled with pleasure at that.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said. “In a plait. I lived in a hostel, where they bullied me because I was -so untidy and was always being late for meals. At home,<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-138">[Pg 138]</a></span> you know, there were only my brothers, -and my mother could never keep them in order, and I was always treated as if I was a boy -too. . . . And I think that’s all.”</p> - -<p>She ended so lamely that his irritation got the better of him, and he jumped to his -feet. It seemed to him that his view of the “top-knots” was confirmed. They were simply -negligible. He was baffled, and stood staring down at her. Was she no more interested in -herself than that? Comparing the smooth monotony of her life with his, he waxed impatient, -and told himself he was a fool to have invited her to come to him.</p> - -<p>He began to study her face with a view to painting it, and he was absorbed and -fascinated by it. The lines of her cheek and of her neck made him itch to draw them.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said, “I must paint you. I can do something good. I’m sure I can.”</p> - -<p>“I wanted to ask if you would mind my painting you,” she said.</p> - -<p>He was aghast at her impudence. She, a slip of a girl, a “top-knot,” paint the great -Kühler!</p> - -<p>She saw how horrified he was and added hastily:—</p> - -<p>“Of course, I won’t insist if you don’t like sitting.”</p> - -<p>She rose to go and he begged her to stay.</p> - -<p>“Don’t go yet,” he said with sudden emotion. “I don’t want you to go. Somehow I feel as -if you had been sitting there always and I don’t want you to go. If you don’t want to talk -you needn’t, but you must stay. I could see that my mother liked you at once, and she -always knows good people. You made her happy about me. It was like sunshine to her when -you came in, and I shall be wretched if you go, for I don’t know what to think about -you.”</p> - -<p>“I know what I think about you.”</p> - -<p>“What do you think?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You have made me feel that London isn’t just a place where the trains stop.”</p> - -<p>And she began to tell him about her home and the river where she bathed with her -brothers, the woods where in spring there were primroses and daffodils, and in summer -bluebells.</p> - -<p>“Opposite the house,” she said, “is a hill which is a common, all covered with gorse in -the summer, and the hot, nutty smell of it comes up and seems to burn your face. There are -snakes on the common—vipers and adders and grass-snakes. From the top you can see the -downs, and beyond them, you know, is the sea. On moonlight nights it is glorious, and I -nearly go mad sometimes with running in and out of the shadows. I believe I did go mad -once, for I sat up on the top of the hill and sang and shouted and cried, all by myself, -and I felt that my heart would break if I did not kiss something. The gorse was out, and I -buried my face in the dewy yellow flowers. . . . I often think the woods are -like churches on Easter Day. . . . And then when I get home and it is just a -house and I am just a girl living in it, you know, it all seems wrong somehow.”</p> - -<p>Mendel sat on the floor trying to puzzle out this mysterious rapture of hers. He had -never heard of gorse or of downs, but he could recognize her emotion. He had had something -like it the first time he saw a may-tree in blossom, and he had hardly been able to bear -it. He had rather resented it, for it had interfered with his work for a day or two, and -he could not help feeling that there was something indecent about an emotion with which he -could do nothing.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said heavily; “it must be very pretty.”</p> - -<p>She shivered at the grotesqueness of his words as she sank back into her normal mood of -happy diffidence. His face wore an expression of black anger as he darted quick, furious -glances at her. Here was something that he did not understand,<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-140">[Pg 140]</a></span> something that defied his mastery, and -when she smiled he thought it was at himself, and this strange power that had been behind -her appeared to him as a mocking, teasing spirit. Let it mock, let it tease! He was strong -enough to defy it. Sweep through a green girl it might, but he was not to be caught by it. -He knew better. In him it had tough simplicity to deal with and a will that had broken the -confinement of Fate, the limits of a meagre religion, to bend before no authority but that -of art. . . . He was rather contemptuous, too. Nothing as yet had resisted his -genius, and he felt it within him stronger than ever, a river with a thousand sources. -Block one channel and it would find another. Stop that and it would find yet another.</p> - -<p>Yet here he knew was no direct, no open menace, only the intolerable suggestion that -there were other streams, other sources, and the suggestion had come from this foolish, -empty girl.</p> - -<p>“I will not have it,” he said half aloud.</p> - -<p>“What did you say?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Nothing. I was thinking—I was thinking that there is nothing so good as London. They -tried to send me to Italy, but I know that there is nothing so good as London for life, -and where life is, there is art. I don’t want your pretty places and your pretty feelings. -I want to go through the streets and to see the girls in the evening leaving the shops, -and the men in their bowler-hats looking at the girls and wanting them, and the fat men in -their motor-cars, and the bookstalls on the railway stations, and the public-houses with -their rows of bottles and the white handles of the beer machines, and the plump barmaids, -and the long, straight streets going on for ever with the flat houses on either side of -them, and the markets and the timber-yards and the tall chimneys. It all fills your mind -and makes patterns and whirling thoughts that take<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-141">[Pg 141]</a></span> a spiral shape, going up and up to mysterious heights. I -want all that, and nothing shall take it from me, do you hear?”</p> - -<p>He turned on her ferociously, as though she were trying to rob him.</p> - -<p>“And inside it all is something solid,” he went on. “Do you know that my father never -loved but one woman in all his life? That’s what Jews are. They know what’s solid. If they -have to stay in the filth to keep it, then they’ll stay in the filth. And because I’m a -Jew I’m not to be caught with your pretty things and your little fancies. I shall paint -the things I understand, and I’ll leave the clouds and the rainbows and the roofs and -chimneys to fools like Mitchell.”</p> - -<p>Morrison sat very meekly while he talked. She hung her head and twitched her fingers -nervously. She was elated by his passion, but she too had her dreams and was not going to -surrender them. His strength had given her confidence in them and in herself, and she was -filled with a teasing spirit.</p> - -<p>“Jews aren’t the only people who are solid,” she said. “You see men in buses and trains -whom an earthquake wouldn’t move, and I’m sure, if an earthquake happened, my mother would -be left where she was, reading the Bible.”</p> - -<p>Mendel replied:—</p> - -<p>“In a thousand years my mother will be just as she is now.”</p> - -<p>Morrison stared at him and began to wonder if he was not a little mad. He added -simply:—</p> - -<p>“I feel like that.”</p> - -<p>And she was relieved and thought he was the only sane person she had ever met in her -life.</p> - -<p>“Will you let me come again?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“I am going to paint you,” he said; “I am going to paint you as you are. You won’t like -it.”</p> - -<p>“I shall if you make me solid,” she answered. “And you need flowers in this dark room. -You must let me send you some.”</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter201"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="Chapter200_hdg"><a href="#Chapter200_toc">BOOK TWO<br /> -<br /> -<span class="slightlybigfont">BOHEMIA</span></a></h3> - -<div class="pagebreak"></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter201_hdg"><a href="#Chapter201_toc">I<br /> -<span class="chap_title">THE POT-AU-FEU</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">A<small>T</small> the exhibition, the portrait of Golda created no -small stir. The critics, who, since Whistler, had been chary of denouncing new-comers, had -swung to the opposite extravagance and were excessively eager to discover new masters. The -youth of this Kühler made him fair game, for it supplied them with a proviso. They could -hail his talent as that of a prodigy without committing themselves.</p> - -<p>“The portrait of the artist’s mother,” wrote one of them, “has all the essentials of -great art, as the early compositions of Mozart had all the essentials of great music. Here -is real achievement, a work of art instinct with racial feeling, and therefore of true -originality. No trace here of Parisian experiments. This picture is in the direct line -from Holbein and Dürer.”</p> - -<p>Mendel took this to mean that he was as good as Holbein and Dürer, and accepted it not -as praise but as a statement of fact. The picture was bought by a well-known connoisseur, -who wrote that he was proud to have such a picture in his collection.</p> - -<p>“Now,” thought the proud painter, “my career has really begun.”</p> - -<p>For once in a way he regarded his success with his father’s eyes and much as -Moscowitsch would have regarded the successful coup in business for which he was always -vainly striving. The hectic gambling spirit introduced by Hetty Finch had disappeared, and -though he still devoted his<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-146">[Pg -146]</a></span> leisure to Mitchell, their adventurousness was tempered by the -tantalization of the “top-knots,” Morrison and Clowes. To counteract the disturbing effect -of their coolness, Mendel became very Jewish and hugged his success, gloating over it -rather like a cat over a stolen piece of fish.</p> - -<p>Morrison’s indifference to the buzz about his name was especially maddening, because he -wished to prove to her that in painting dwelt a joy beside which her trumpery little -ecstasy in woods and flowers was nothing, nothing at all. He wished to convince himself -that he had not been really disturbed by her first visit to his studio. Only the shock of -novelty he had felt, and by his success, by his triumphant work, he had obliterated it. -. . . She was nothing, he told himself, only a raw girl, smooth and polished by -her easy life, good for nothing except to be made love to by such as Mitchell.</p> - -<p>Love? They called it love when a young man clasped a maiden’s hand, or when they kissed -and rode together on the tops of buses! These Christians were rather disgusting with all -their talk of love. He had heard more talk of it in three years of contact with them than -in all his life before, and Weldon and others had talked of love in connection with Hetty -Finch.</p> - -<p>Disgusting!</p> - -<p>And now here was Mitchell babbling of his love for Morrison. When Mendel wanted to talk -of pictures and art and the old painters who had worked simply without reference to -success, Mitchell kept dragging him back to Morrison, her simplicity, her extraordinary -childlike innocence, her love of beauty, her generous trustfulness, her queer sudden -impulses.</p> - -<p>“What has such a girl as that to do with art or with artists?” said Mendel furiously. -“An artist wants women as he wants his food, when he has time for them.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Gawd!” says Mitchell, trotting along by his side; “you don’t know what you are talking -about. I tell you I never believed all that trash about a young man being redeemed by a -virtuous girl until now.”</p> - -<p>“It’s nonsense!” shouted Mendel; “nonsense, I tell you. It must be nonsense, because it -didn’t matter to you whether it was Clowes or Morrison, and for all I know, it may be -both.”</p> - -<p>“Clowes is a jolly nice girl too,” replied Mitchell, “but she’s more ordinary. I never -met anyone like Morrison before. I can’t make her out, but she does make me feel that I am -an absolute rotter. It is her fresh enjoyment of simple things that disturbs me and makes -me see what a mess I’ve made of my life. Once an artist loses that, he is finished.”</p> - -<p>They had been reading Tolstoi on “What is Art?” and their young conceit had been put -out by it. Must their extraordinary powers produce work accessible to the smallest -intelligence? Mendel had been greatly influenced by that theory in his portrait of his -mother, while Mitchell’s energy had been paralysed so that he could produce nothing at -all.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Mitchell went on, “I know now what Tolstoi means. He means that love can speak -direct to love, and, by Jove! it is absolutely true. Brains are only a nuisance to an -artist. Look at Calthrop! He hasn’t got the brains of a louse. Of course, that is why -painters are such an ignorant lot. I must tell my father that when he goes for me for not -reading.”</p> - -<p>“But Tolstoi liked bad artists!” grumbled Mendel. “And my mother does not like some of -my best things. As for my father, he wants a painted bread to look as if he could eat it: -never is he satisfied just to look at it. His love and my love are not the same and cannot -speak to each other.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You should see more of Morrison, and then you would understand,” rejoined -Mitchell.</p> - -<p>Mendel felt that Mitchell was slipping away from him, and all this Christian talk of -love was to him a corrosion upon his imagination and his nervous energy, blurring and -distorting everything that he valued. There were many things that he hated, and yet -because he hated them their interest for him was consuming. Issy’s wife, for instance, and -her squalling children; his father’s bitter tongue; and Mitchell’s odd -self-importance.</p> - -<p>He repeated:—</p> - -<p>“Tolstoi liked bad artists.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t settle a big man like Tolstoi just by repeating phrases about him.”</p> - -<p>“I can settle him by painting good pictures,” retorted Mendel. “I don’t paint pictures -to please people.”</p> - -<p>“Then why do you paint?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. To be an artist. Because there is a thing called art which matters to me -more than all the love and all the women and all the little girls in the world.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” sighed Mitchell. “You’ll soon think differently. I shall never do another stroke -of work without thinking of Greta standing on Kew Bridge and looking up the river at the -boats with their white sails.”</p> - -<p>“Will you be quiet?” cried Mendel; “will you be quiet with your little girls and white -sails?”</p> - -<p>Mitchell seemed to be slipping away from him, and he dreaded the thought of being left -alone with his success, which was blowing a bulb of glass round him, so that he felt -imprisoned in it, and wherever he looked could see nothing but reflections of himself, -Mendel Kühler, painting his mother, and his father, and old Jews and loaves and fishes for -ever and ever. While he clung to Mitchell he knew that he could not be so encased, but -Mitchell demanded that he should go out with<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-149">[Pg 149]</a></span> him into a world all glowing with love, with rivers of -milk and honey and meadows pied with buttercups and daisies; to stand on airy bridges and -gaze at innocent little girls and white sails. The contemplation of this world revolted -him, and he stiffened himself against it. Better the smells and the dirt than such -fantastical stuff. His gorge rose against it.</p> - -<p>To wean Mitchell from his amorous fancies he pretended that he was tired and wanted a -holiday, and together they went down to a village on the South Coast near Brighton. There -it was almost as it had been in the beginning. For a fortnight they were never out of each -other’s company. They slept in one bed and shared each other’s clothes, paints, and money. -They sketched the same subjects, took tremendous walks, and in the evening they talked as -though there were no London, no Paris Café, no exhibitions, no dealers, no critics, -nothing but themselves and their friendship and their artistic projects. Mendel was -supremely happy. Never had he known such intimacy since the days of Artie Beech.</p> - -<p>But Mitchell was often depressed and moody. He had letters every day, and every evening -he wrote at great length.</p> - -<p>One morning he had a letter which he crumpled up dramatically and thrust into his -trousers pocket.</p> - -<p>“Gawd!” he said. “That’s put the lid on it. I’m done for.”</p> - -<p>“What is it?” asked Mendel, aghast.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you when we get back to London. We must go back this afternoon. Eight -o’clock in the Pot-au-Feu.”</p> - -<p>The Pot-au-Feu was a little restaurant in Soho which Mitchell, Weldon, and some others -had endeavoured to render immortal by decorating it with panels. In a room above it lived -Hetty Finch.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mendel’s thoughts flew to her, a figure of ill omen. He had not seen her for some time, -and had imagined that she had so successfully got all she wanted and was so thoroughly -established in her composite profession that she had no time for the younger artists. He -had heard tales about her, and fancied she would succeed in hooking one of the older men -for a husband.</p> - -<p>He said:—</p> - -<p>“Why do you want to go back to that beastly place? Here it is good. I could stay here -for six months.”</p> - -<p>“Gawd!” said Mitchell dismally. “’Tis life. There’s absolutely no getting away from it. -Everything is swallowed up and nothing is left.”</p> - -<p>He became very solemn and added:—</p> - -<p>“If anything happens to me, Kühler, I want you to go to Greta Morrison and tell her -that through everything I never forgot my happiness with her.”</p> - -<p>“Happen!” cried Mendel. “What can happen?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you to-night,” replied Mitchell gloomily, “at the Pot-au-Feu.”</p> - -<p>And not another word did he say, neither during their morning’s work, nor during lunch, -nor in the train, nor in the taxi-cab that took them to Soho.</p> - -<p>“You wait outside,” said Mitchell mysteriously.</p> - -<p>Mendel waited outside and paced up and down, oppressed with the idea that his -friendship with Mitchell was at an end. He was left helpless and exposed, for all that had -been built on the friendship had come toppling down, and with it came the extra -personality he had developed for dealing with the Detmold and the polite world—the Kühler -who had assiduously learned manners and phrases, vices and enthusiasms, as a part to be -played at the Paris Café and in the drawing-rooms of the languid ladies who were -interested in art and artists. Hetty Finch went with it, for she had<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-151">[Pg 151]</a></span> been an adjunct of -that personality. . . . He was glad to be rid of her, and shook her off, plucked -her out of his mind like a burr that was stuck upon it.</p> - -<p>After a quarter of an hour or so Mitchell came out more mysterious than ever, took his -arm and led him into the restaurant, which was hardly bigger than an ordinary room. Full -of vigour and health as he was, Mendel felt an enormous size in it, as though he must -knock over the tables and thrust his elbows through the painted panels. Madame Feydeau, -the proprietress, greeted him with a wide smile and said she had missed him lately. At his -table was the goggle-eyed man who dined there every night with his newspaper open in front -of him. Weldon and a girl with short hair were sitting in uncomfortable silence, both with -the air of doing a secret thing. Near the counter, with its dishes of fruit and -coffee-glasses, was Hetty Finch, rather drawn and pinched in the face and very dark under -the eyes.</p> - -<p>Mendel was filled with impatience. She had no business to be sitting there, for he had -disposed of her, and she made everything seem fantastic and unreal. He shook hands with -her and sat at the table. Mitchell took the chair next to Hetty and talked to her in an -undertone, while her eyes turned on Mendel with a frightened, inquiring expression.</p> - -<p>“All right,” he said, as though he had understood her question. “I know when to hold my -tongue.”</p> - -<p>Mitchell went on whispering, and every now and then he bowed his head and clenched his -fists, as though he were racked with inexpressible emotions. He too had become fantastic. -Mendel knew that he was play-acting, and with a sickening dread he went back over all he -knew of Mitchell, recognizing this same play-acting in much that he had accepted as -genuine. Yet he would not believe it, for Mitchell was his friend, and therefore never to -be criticized.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> - -<p>Would neither of them speak? Food was laid before him, and he ate it without tasting -it. Mitchell led Hetty away to another table and talked to her impressively there. Then he -brought her back and went on with his whispering.</p> - -<p>Coffee was laid before Mendel, and he drank it without tasting it.</p> - -<p>At last Hetty said, in a loud voice that rang through the room:—</p> - -<p>“No. I will take nothing from you. I ask nothing from you, not a penny.”</p> - -<p>“By God,” said Mitchell, hanging his head, “I deserve it.”</p> - -<p>Hetty turned to Mendel and asked him sweetly to buy her a bottle of wine, as she needed -something to pick her up.</p> - -<p>“You are a devil,” she said, “sitting there as though nothing had happened. But I -always said you were a devil and no good. I always said so, but I have my friends and can -be independent.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be a fool,” said he roughly. “You’ll have a short run, and you’d better find -something to fall back on while you can.”</p> - -<p>“Get your hair cut!” she replied. “I know which side my bread’s buttered, and the old -men aren’t so sharp as the young ones. You’ve got a fool’s tongue in your clever head, -Kühler, and a fool’s tongue makes enemies.”</p> - -<p>“Shut up!” he said. “And you leave Mitchell alone. He hasn’t done you any harm.”</p> - -<p>“Ho! Hasn’t he?” she cried.</p> - -<p>Mitchell groaned, and, giving a withering glance at the two of them, Hetty gathered up -her vanity-bag and gloves and walked out of the restaurant.</p> - -<p>“She’s a slut!” said Mendel. “She always was a slut and always will be.”</p> - -<p>“Gawd!” cried Mitchell. “It was you let her loose on the town, and I shall never hold -up my<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-153">[Pg 153]</a></span> head -again. I shall never be able to face my people. I shall just let myself be swallowed up in -London. . . . But I shan’t trouble any of my friends. When I’m a pimp I shan’t -mind if you look the other way. After all, it isn’t so far to fall. There’s not much -difference between the ordinary artist and a pimp.”</p> - -<p>“What has she done to you?” cried Mendel furiously. “Why do you let yourself be put -down by a drab like that?”</p> - -<p>“She’s not a drab,” said Mitchell, in a curious thin of protest. “She is the mother of -my child.”</p> - -<p>Mendel brought his fist down on the table with a thump, so that the cups jumped from -their saucers.</p> - -<p>“She is what?”</p> - -<p>“The mother of my child,” said Mitchell, burying his face in his hands. “I have offered -to marry her, to make an honest woman of her, but she refuses, and she will take nothing -from me. Gawd! How can I ever face Morrison again? How can I face my mother?”</p> - -<p>“Rubbish! Rubbish! Rubbish!” cried Mendel. “Why you? Why not Weldon—why not Calthrop?” -He saw the goggle-eyed man listening eagerly and lowered his voice. “A drab like that -deserves all she gets. She takes her risks, and I’ll say this for her, that she does not -complain. She’s clever enough to know how to deal with it. . . .”</p> - -<p>He wanted to say a great deal more, but realized that Mitchell, intent upon his own -emotions, was not listening to him. Also, through the fantastic atmosphere, he began to be -aware of a reality powerful and horrible. Against it Hetty seemed to be of no account, and -Mitchell’s excitement was palpably false.</p> - -<p>This reality had been called into being by no one’s will, and therefore it was -horrible.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I shall have to disappear,” said Mitchell.</p> - -<p>Mendel did not hear him speak. His own will was aroused by the devastating reality. -Because it was physical he exulted in it, and his will struggled to master it. He could -not endure his friend’s helplessness and he wanted above all to help him, to make him see -that this thing was at least powerful; evil and ugly, perhaps, but much too vital to be -subdued or conquered by fantasy and theatrical emotions. He found Mitchell bewildering. -Sentimentality always baffled him, for it seemed to him so superficial as to be not worth -bothering about and so complicated as to defy unravelling. He knew that Mitchell was -horrified and afraid, and that it was natural enough, but fear was not a thing to be -encouraged.</p> - -<p>He said:—</p> - -<p>“Hetty knows perfectly well that she can manage it better without you.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” replied Mitchell. “That’s what makes me feel such an awful worm.”</p> - -<p>Mendel lost all patience. If a man was going to take pleasure in feeling a worm, there -was nothing to be done with him. He called the waiter, paid the bill, and stumped out of -the Pot-au-Feu leaving Mitchell staring blankly at the goggle-eyed man.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>A few days later he met Edgar Froitzheim leaving the National Gallery as he entered -it.</p> - -<p>“Oh! Kühler,” said Froitzheim. “The very man I wanted to see. I am very proud about the -picture—very proud. But I wanted to see you about young Mitchell. He is a friend of yours, -isn’t he? He is behaving very badly to a young model. Such a pretty girl. Hetty Finch. You -know her? She is in trouble through him, and he refuses to do anything for her. I’m told -he has Nietzschean ideas. I sent for the girl. It is a very sad story and I have raised a -subscription<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-155">[Pg 155]</a></span> for -her: fifty pounds to see her through. . . . Do try and bring Mitchell to -reason.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll do what I can,” replied Mendel, and he walked on to pay his daily homage to Van -Eyck and Chardin, who were his heroes at the time.</p> - -<p>That evening at the Paris Café he heard of another subscription having been raised for -Hetty, and Calthrop growled and grumbled and said he had given her twenty pounds.</p> - -<p>Mendel reckoned it up and he found that she was being paid for her delinquency more -than he could hope to receive for many months of painful work.</p> - -<p>As he finished his calculation he was amazed to see Mitchell come in with Morrison, -whom he had declared he could never face again, and when Mendel rose to go over and join -them she gave him only a curt little nod which told him plainly that he was not -wanted.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter202"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter202_hdg"><a href="#Chapter202_toc">II<br /> -<span class="chap_title">LOGAN</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">O<small>NCE</small> again Mendel decided that Mitchell, and with him -London life, had fallen away from him. The Paris Café could never be the same again, and -he plunged into despair, and thought seriously of accepting a Jewish girl with four -hundred pounds whom a match-maker offered to him. Four hundred pounds was not to be -sneezed at. It would keep him going for some years, so that he need not think of selling -his pictures, which he always hated to part with. And the girl was just bearable.</p> - -<p>The figure delighted his father and mother, for it showed them the high opinion of -their wonder-son held among their own people.</p> - -<p>It was terrible to him to find that he had very little pleasure in his work, which very -often gave him excruciating pain. He took it to mean that he was coming to an end of his -talent. Night after night he sat on his bed feeling that he must make an end of his life, -but always there was some piece of painting that he must do in the morning, painful though -it might be.</p> - -<p>He had letters from Mitchell, but did not answer them, and at last “the schoolboy,” as -Golda called him, turned up, gay and smiling and rather elated.</p> - -<p>“I’ve discovered a great man,” he said with the awkward, jerky gesture he used in his -more eloquent moments. “Absolutely a great man. Reminds me of Napoleon. Wonderful head, -wonderful! His name is Logan—James Logan—and<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-157">[Pg 157]</a></span> he wants to know you. He is a painter, and absolutely -independent. He comes from the North—Liverpool or one of those places. I haven’t seen his -work, but I met him at the Pot-au-Feu the other night. He asked me if I was not a friend -of yours, as he thought he had seen me with you. He said: ‘Kühler is the only painter of -genius we have.’ I spent the evening with him. I never heard such talk. It made the old -Detmold seem like a girls’ school. . . . Hallo! Still-life again? What a rum old -stick you are for never going outside your four walls!”</p> - -<p>“What I paint is inside me, not outside,” said Mendel, trembling with rage at Mitchell -looking at his work before he had offered to show it.</p> - -<p>“Will you come and see Logan?”</p> - -<p>“No. I am sick of painters. I want to know decent people.”</p> - -<p>“But I promised I would bring you, and he admires your work. He is poor too, as poor as -you are.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t he sell?”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t that so much as that he doesn’t try. He says he had almost despaired of -English painting until he saw your work.”</p> - -<p>“How old is he?”</p> - -<p>“A good deal older than us. Twenty-six, I should think.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you just stick to me?” asked Mendel. “What more do you want? Why must you -always go off on a new track? First it’s Hetty Finch, then it’s Morrison, and now it’s -this new man. We were happy enough by ourselves. Why do you want anything more? I -don’t.”</p> - -<p>“You’re used to living on dry bread. I’m not. I want butter with mine, and jam, if I -can get it.”</p> - -<p>“Then get it and don’t bother me to go chasing after it. I want to work.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, rot! All that stuff about artists starving in garrets is out of date. It only -happened<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-158">[Pg 158]</a></span> because -they couldn’t find patrons, but nowadays there are dealers and buyers. . . . -Just look at the money you are making.”</p> - -<p>“Then why is this Logan poor?”</p> - -<p>“He isn’t known yet. He doesn’t know the artists because he never went to a London -school. He was doing quite well in the North, but threw it all up because he couldn’t -stand living in such a filthy town. He had a teaching job somewhere in Hammersmith, but he -threw that up because he wanted his time to himself.”</p> - -<p>“That sounds as if painting means something to him.”</p> - -<p>“Do come and see him.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! very well.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll send him a wire and we’ll go to-night.”</p> - -<p>They dined at the Pot-au-Feu, and later made the expedition to Hammersmith, where they -came to a block of studios surrounded by a scrubby garden. These studios were large and -well-kept and did not tally with the description of Logan’s poverty. Still less did the -inside give any sign of it. There was a huge red-brick fireplace, surmounted by old brass -and blue china, with great arm-chairs on either side of it: there were Persian rugs on the -floor; two little windows were filled in with good stained glass, which Mendel knew to be -costly; there were two or three large easels; and the walls were hung with tapestry. The -whole effect was deliberately and preciously rich.</p> - -<p>Logan, who had admitted them to this vast apartment, rushed back at once to a very -large easel on which he had a very small canvas, and fell to work on it with a furious -energy, darting to and fro and stamping his right foot rather like the big trumpet man in -a German band. He was a medium-sized, plumpish man, with a big, strongly featured face, -big chin, and compressed lips, and long black hair brushed back from a round, well-shaped -brow. He frowned and scowled at his<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-159">[Pg 159]</a></span> work. A woman came out of a door and crossed the studio -behind him. He hurled his palette into the air so that it sailed up and fell with a crash -among the brass pots, and barked:—</p> - -<p>“How can I work with these constant interruptions? Damn it all, an artist must have -peace!”</p> - -<p>He flung his arms behind his back and paced moodily to and fro, with his head down and -his lips pursed up <i>à la</i> Beethoven. He extended the sphere of his pacing gradually -so that he came nearer and nearer to Mendel, yet without noticing him. Mendel was -tremendously excited and impressed with the man’s air of mystery and force. It was like -Calthrop, but without his awkwardness. Mitchell in comparison looked puny and absurdly -young.</p> - -<p>Nearer and nearer came Logan, and at last he stopped and fixed Mendel with a baleful -stare, and swung his head up and down three times.</p> - -<p>“So you are Kühler?” he said.</p> - -<p>Mendel opened his lips, but to his astonishment no sound came out of them. So -desperately anxious was he not to cut a poor figure before this remarkable man, and not to -seem, like Mitchell, pathetically young.</p> - -<p>“Good!” said Logan. “Shake hands.” And he crushed Mendel’s thin fingers together. “What -I like about you,” he went on, “is your sense of form. Design is all very well in its way, -but quite worthless without form.”</p> - -<p>Mendel, whose work was still three parts instinctive, could not attach any precise -meaning to these expressions, but he was well up in the jargon of his craft and could make -a good show.</p> - -<p>“Art,” said Logan, “is an exacting mistress. Shall we go and have a drink?”</p> - -<p>He put on his hat and led the two marvelling youngsters to a public-house, where he -became a different man altogether. The compression of his lips relaxed, his eyes twinkled -and his face shone<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-160">[Pg -160]</a></span> with good humour, and he made them and the barmaid and the two or three -men who were shyly taking their beer roar with laughter. He had an extraordinary gift of -mimicry, and told story after story, many of them against himself, most of them without -point, but in the telling exceedingly comic. Mendel sat up and bristled. It was to him -half shocking, half enviable, that a man, and an artist, should be able to laugh at -himself.</p> - -<p>“If you’ll give me free drinks for a month,” said Logan to the elderly barmaid, “I’ll -paint your portrait. Are you married? . . . No? I’ll paint you such a beautiful -portrait that it will get you a husband inside a week.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not on the marrying lay,” said the barmaid.</p> - -<p>“Terrible thing, this revolt against marriage,” replied Logan, “and bad luck on us -artists. I’m always getting babies left on my doorstep.”</p> - -<p>“What do you do with them?” said Mendel, believing him, and astonished when the others -roared with laughter.</p> - -<p>“I keep the pretty ones and sell them to childless mothers. Ah! Many’s the time I’ve -gone through the snow, like the heroine in a melodrama taking her child to the -workhouse.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! go on,” tittered the barmaid.</p> - -<p>“Certainly,” said Logan. “Come along.”</p> - -<p>As they left the public-house he took Mendel’s arm and said:—</p> - -<p>“You have to talk to people in their own language, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” replied Mendel, though this was precisely what he knew least of all.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you go on the stage?” asked Mitchell.</p> - -<p>“I have thought of it. I think I might do well on the halls. There’s a life for you! On -at eight in Bethnal Green:—</p> - -<blockquote class="verse"> -<p class="i3">My old woman’s got a wart on her nose;</p> - -<p class="i3">How she got it I will now disclose.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> - -<p class="noindent">Off again in a motor-car to the Oxford:—</p> - -<blockquote class="verse"> -<p class="i3">My old woman’s got a wart on her nose.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p class="noindent">Off again to Hammersmith or Kensal Rise:—</p> - -<blockquote class="verse"> -<p class="i3">My old woman’s got a wart on her nose.</p> -</blockquote> - -<p class="noindent">My God! What a life! But I love the halls. They are all that is left -of old England!”</p> - -<p>His parody of the low comedian was so apt and his voice had such a delicious roll that -Mendel could not help laughing, and he began to feel very happy with the man.</p> - -<p>Logan swung back to his serious mood and gripped Mendel’s arm tighter as he said:—</p> - -<p>“You have a big future before you. Only stick to it. Don’t listen to the fools who want -you to paint the same picture over and over again with a different subject. There’s more -stuff in that one little picture of yours than in all the rest of the exhibition put -together.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think so?” said Mendel, fluttering with excitement.</p> - -<p>“I was amazed when I heard you had been to the Detmold with its Calthrop and all the -little Calthrops.”</p> - -<p>Both the youngsters were silent on that. They had often abused the Detmold, but with a -profound respect in their hearts, and both had done their full share of imitating -Calthrop.</p> - -<p>When they reached the studio Mitchell suggested going, but Logan would not hear of it. -He dragged them in and produced whisky and soda, and kept them talking far into the small -hours. His bouncing energy kept Mendel awake and alert, but Mitchell was soon exhausted -and fell asleep.</p> - -<p>“Shall we put him out of the way?” said Logan suddenly. “No one would know, and the -river is handy. He is too clean, too soft, and there are<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-162">[Pg 162]</a></span> too many like him. They are in the way -of real men like you and me.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was appalled to find that he could not defend his friend. All the discontents of -his waning friendship came rushing up in him and he began to babble violently.</p> - -<p>“He is a liar and a coward, and he will never be an artist because he is too weak. He -is not true. He is not good. I have trusted him with my secrets and he tells. He is always -ashamed of me because of my clothes and because I have not been to Public School, and he -is jealous because when we meet women they like me. He is soft and deceitful with them, -but I am honest, and they like that. I wanted him to be my friend, but it is -impossible.”</p> - -<p>“He is an Englishman,” said Logan sepulchrally, with the air of a Grand Inquisitor.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you an Englishman?”</p> - -<p>“No, Scotch and French. These Englishmen have no passions, unless they are mad like -Blake. . . . No, no. We’ll drop Mitchell overboard. We’ll make him walk the -plank, and fishes in the caverns of the sea shall eat his eyes.”</p> - -<p>Logan was beginning to assume enormous proportions in Mendel’s eyes. It seemed that -there was nothing the tremendous fellow did not know. He began to talk of genius and the -stirring of the creative impulse, and he gave so powerful an account of Blake that Mendel -began to see visions of heaven and hell. Here was something which he could acknowledge as -larger than himself without self-humiliation, and, indeed, the larger it loomed the more -swiftly did he himself seem to grow. It was such a sensation as he had not known since the -days before his rapture with Sara. All that had intervened fell away. That purity of -passion returned to him and, choosing Logan for its object, rushed upon him and endowed -him with its own power and beauty. Logan talking of<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-163">[Pg 163]</a></span> Blake was to Mendel’s innocence as rare -as Blake, and he adored him.</p> - -<p>“I had almost given up art,” said Logan; “I had almost given it up as hopeless. How can -there be art in a despiritualized country like this, that lets all its traditions rot -away? I was just on the point of tossing up whether I should go on the stage or take to -spouting at the street corners; for when a country is in such a condition that its artists -are stifled, then it is ripe for revolution. I am instinctive, you know, like Napoleon. I -feel that we are on the threshold of something big, and that I am to have my share in it. -I used to think it would happen in art, but I despaired of that. It seemed to me that art -in this country could go doddering on for generations, and then I thought it needed a -political upheaval to push it into its grave. But when I saw your work, I said to myself: -Here is the real thing, alive, personal, profound, skilled. I began to hope again. And now -that I have met you I feel more hopeful still, and, let me tell you, like most painters, I -don’t find it easy to like another man’s work.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was fired. Trembling in every limb, he said:—</p> - -<p>“It has been the dream of my life to find a friend who would work with me, think with -me, go with me, share with me, not quarrelling with me because I am not this, that, and -the other, but accepting me as I am—a man who has no country, no home, no love but -art.”</p> - -<p>“That,” said Logan, with a portentous scowl and a downward jab of his thumb, “is what I -have been looking for—some one, like yourself, who was absolutely sincere, absolutely -single-minded and resolute. The spirit of art has brought us together. We will serve it -together.”</p> - -<p>They shook hands like young men on the stage, and Logan fetched a deep sigh of -relief.</p> - -<p>Mitchell woke up, saying:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Gawd! I’ve been asleep. Have you two been talking? Gawd! It’s two o’clock.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll walk home with you,” said Logan. “We can keep to the river nearly the whole way -by going from side to side.”</p> - -<p>So they walked while the tide came up, sucking and lapping, while the red dragons’ eyes -of the barges came swinging up on it, moving up and down in a slow, irregular rhythm. It -was very cold and the sky was thickly powdered with stars, whose pin-prick lights were -reflected in the smooth water.</p> - -<p>Upon the dome of the young artist’s vision that had before been black with infinite -space, stars shone with a tender light. He was in ecstasy, and seemed to be skimming above -the ground, hardly touching it with his feet. This long walk was like an exquisite dance, -while Logan’s rollings were like a pipe. . . . Often he sank into a dream that -he was upon a grassy hill in a mountainy place, he and his friend, who played upon a pipe -so mournfully yet gaily while he danced, and from the trees fell silvery dewdrops and the -songs of birds, which turned into pennies as they reached the ground and rolled away down -the hill.</p> - -<p>Both he and Logan were relieved when Mitchell, who had interrupted them with -inappropriate remarks, turned aside at Vauxhall and vanished into London.</p> - -<p>“So much for Mitchell,” said Logan. “You and I need sterner stuff. You and I are sprung -from those among whom life is lived bravely and bitterly, and we have no use for its -parasites. You and I will only emerge from the bitterness on condition that we can make of -life a spiritual thing, for we are of those who seek authority. Life has none to offer us -now, for all the forms of life are broken. Neither above us nor below is there authority, -neither in heaven nor in hell. We must seek authority within ourselves, in the<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-165">[Pg 165]</a></span> marriage of heaven -and hell, in the consummation of good and evil, the two poles of our nature. It is for us, -the artists, to bring them together, to liberate good and evil in ourselves, that they may -rush to the consummation. We are the priests and the prophets, and we must in no wise be -false to our vision.”</p> - -<p>Mendel could not fit all this in with his mood and his delicious dreams, and when it -brought him back to his sober senses, he could not see what it had to do with painting. -However, Logan put things right by saying:—</p> - -<p>“You are a poet. You are like Heine. I can see you with your little Josepha the pale, -the executioner’s daughter. God rot my soul! It is years since I had such inspiration as -you have given me. I think there must be Jewish blood in me, for I can certainly -understand you through and through, and you have waked something in me that has always -been asleep. Oh! we shall paint bonny pictures—bonny, bonny pictures.”</p> - -<p>“You must come to see me every day,” said Mendel, “and every night we will go out -together, and I must introduce you to my mother, for she too has good words.”</p> - -<p>Logan smacked his lips as they entered the grimy streets near Spitalfields.</p> - -<p>“Pah!” he said; “that’s life, that is, good dirty life. I was littered in a farm-yard -myself and I like a good smell. . . . Can you put me up to-night? I don’t mind -sleeping on the floor.”</p> - -<p>“You can have my bed,” said Mendel, “and I will sleep downstairs on my brother’s sofa. -Please—please. Do sleep in my bed.”</p> - -<p>Logan accepted the offer and asked Mendel to stay with him while he undressed. He was -unpleasantly fat, but strong and well-built.</p> - -<p>He stayed for a long time in front of the mirror.</p> - -<p>“See that bulge on the side of my head?” he said as he turned.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mendel looked, and sure enough his head had a curious bulge on its right side.</p> - -<p>“I had rickets when I was young,” said Logan, “and my skull must have got pushed over. -I expect that’s what makes me what I am—lop-sided. I need you to balance me.”</p> - -<p>He got into bed, and Mendel, reluctant to leave him, sat at his feet and devoured him -with his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Surely, surely, now,” he thought, “all is perfect now. No more disturbances, no more -Mitchells, no more Hettys, and I shall do only what I really wish to do.”</p> - -<p>He stole out into his studio, which was faintly lit from the street below, and it was -as though it were filled with some vast spiritual presence, and he imagined how he would -work, urged on by this new energy that came welling up through all that he could see, all -that he could know, all that he could remember.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter203"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter203_hdg"><a href="#Chapter203_toc">III<br /> -<span class="chap_title">LOGAN SETS TO WORK</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">I<small>N</small> the morning he was awakened by his sister-in-law, -Rosa, shaking him and saying:—</p> - -<p>“Mendel! Mendel! What are you doing on the sofa? Wake up! Wake up! There is some one in -your studio.”</p> - -<p>The house was ringing with Logan’s voice chanting the <i>Magnificat.</i> Mendel ran -upstairs and found him in bed with a box of cigarettes and the New Testament, that fatal -book, on his knees.</p> - -<p>“Hello!” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake you up. I have been awake for a couple of hours -looking at your work. I hope you don’t mind. There’s a still-life there that’s a gem, as -good as Chardin, and even better, for there’s always something sentimental about -Chardin—always the suggestion of the old folks at home, the false dramatic touch, the idea -of the hard-working French peasant coming in presently to eat the bread and drink the -wine. I think it’s time you were written up in the papers. It’s absurd for a man like you -to have to wait for success. There’s no artistic public in England, so you can’t be -successful in your own way. The British public must have its touch of melodrama. To accept -a man’s work it must first have him shrouded in legend. He must be a myth. His work must -seem to come from some supernatural source.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll just run over and tell my mother you are here,” said Mendel. “I always have -breakfast<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-168">[Pg 168]</a></span> there, -and then go for a walk while the studio is dusted.”</p> - -<p>“Right you are! I’ll be up in half a jiffy. Can I have a bath?”</p> - -<p>“No. There’s no bath.”</p> - -<p>“Very well; I can do without for once.”</p> - -<p>Mendel ran round to Golda and told her of the wonderful man who was in his studio, and -he described the adventure of the previous evening. Golda looked scared and said:—</p> - -<p>“What next? What next? Good people sleep in their own beds.”</p> - -<p>“But this man is an artist and he talks like a book.”</p> - -<p>“Talk is easy,” said Golda. “But it takes years to make a friend.”</p> - -<p>However, when Logan was brought to her she was polite to him and rather shy. He told -her that fame was coming to her son faster than the wind.</p> - -<p>“Too fast,” said she.</p> - -<p>“It can never come too fast,” replied Logan. “The thirst for fame is a curse to an -artist. Let it be satisfied and he is free for his work. I know, for I was very famous in -my own town. I sickened of it and ran away. . . . I must congratulate you on -letting your son follow his bent. I had to quarrel with my own people to get my way. I -haven’t seen them since I was fourteen.”</p> - -<p>“Not your mother?” said Golda, greatly upset.</p> - -<p>Logan saw that he had made an awkward impression and hastened to put it right by saying -lugubriously:—</p> - -<p>“My mother is dead. She forgave me.”</p> - -<p>He allowed that to sink in and was silent for a minute or two. Then he chattered on -gaily and asked Golda to come and see him, and bragged about his studio and his work and -his friends, and of a commission he had to decorate a large house in a West End square. He -talked so fast that<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-169">[Pg -169]</a></span> Golda understood very little of what he said, but she never took her eyes -off him, and when he said good-bye, Mendel noticed that she did not bob to him as she did -to Mitchell and Morrison and his other polite friends. He took that to mean that she -accepted Logan as a person above these formalities.</p> - -<p>For an hour they walked through the streets and squares of the East End, Mendel proud -to display the vivid scenes he intended later on to make into pictures.</p> - -<p>When they returned to the studio Logan insisted on seeing all the pictures and drawings -again.</p> - -<p>“Are you in touch with any dealer?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Cluny has a few pictures and a dozen drawings. He never does anything with them.”</p> - -<p>“Hum!” said Logan. “Dealers are mysterious people. They can only sell things that sell -themselves. By the way, I am giving up my studio in Hammersmith. It is too far away. I -shall come nearer in. Hammersmith was all very well while I needed isolation, but that is -all over now.”</p> - -<p>“Where shall you go to?”</p> - -<p>“Bloomsbury, I think. I like to be near the British Museum. Do you go to the British -Museum? I must show you round. It is no good going there unless you know what to look for. -By the way, I came out without any money last night. Can you lend me five pounds?”</p> - -<p>Mendel wrote a cheque and handed it to him shamefacedly.</p> - -<p>“I want to pay a bill on my way home,” said Logan. “I hate being in debt, especially -for colours.”</p> - -<p>“I get my colours from Cluny,” said Mendel, “and he sets them against anything he may -sell.”</p> - -<p>The irruption of money had depressed him, and he began to realize that he was very -tired. The springs of Rosa’s sofa had bored into him and prevented his getting any real -sleep.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> - -<p>He was not sorry when Logan went, after making him promise to meet him at the -Pot-au-Feu for dinner.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>He had a model coming at eleven, but when she arrived he sent her away. He was sore and -dissatisfied. The studio seemed dark and dismal, and he could not get enough light on to -his work. He took it right up to the window, but still there was not enough light, and his -picture looked dull and dingy. His nerves throbbed and he was troubled in spirit, for now -his old dreams of painting quietly among his own people while fame gathered about his name -had suddenly become childish and pathetic. He was ignorant, futile, conceited, a pigmy by -the side of the gigantic Logan, who would not wait upon the world, but would compel its -attention and shape it to his will. What had he said artists were? Priests and prophets? -. . . How could a man prophesy with a painting of a fish?</p> - -<p>Downstairs he heard Issy come in for his dinner, and there was the usual snarling row -because Rosa cooked so vilely. Mendel compared Issy’s life and his own: Issy working day -in, day out, earning just enough to keep himself alive. Why did he go on with it? Why did -he keep himself alive? Why did he not clear out, like Harry? There was no pleasure in his -life, neither the time nor the money for it. . . . A wretched business.</p> - -<p>But was it less wretched than this business of painting? There was more money in -painting, and that was all anybody seemed to think of. People wanted the same picture over -and over again, and if he consented to please them, his life would be just as poor a thing -as Issy’s, except that he would have pleasure, and, through his friends, an occasional -taste of luxury. At best he could be polite and gentlemanly, like Mitchell, bringing -no<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-171">[Pg 171]</a></span> more to art -and getting no more out of it than a boyish excitement, as though art were a game and -could give no more than a sensation of cleanliness, like a hot bath.</p> - -<p>No, it would not do. It would not do.</p> - -<p>It was a lie, too, to say that the Jews only cared about money. When they were overfed, -like Maurice Birnbaum, they were like all the other overfed people, but when they were -simple and normal they were better than the others, because they had always a sense of -mystery and did not waste themselves in foolish laughter.</p> - -<p>That was where Logan was true. He could laugh, because all the Christians laugh, but -when it came to solemn things he could talk about them as though he were not half ashamed. -Mitchell, for instance, always shied away from the truth. Why was he afraid of it? The -truth, good or bad, was always somehow beautiful, invigorating, and releasing. All the -pleasant things that Mitchell cared about Mendel found stifling. Nothing, he knew, could -make life altogether pleasant, and all the falsehoods which were used in that attempt were -contemptible. They strangled impulse and frankness, and without these how could there be -art?</p> - -<p>In his unhappy dreams Logan appeared like a figure of Blake, immense, looming -prophetic, beckoning to achievement and away from the chatter and fuss of the world of -artists.</p> - -<p>Yet behind Logan there was still the figure of Mitchell, young and gay, and the idea of -Mitchell led to the idea of Morrison.</p> - -<p>There were some withered flowers on his painting-table, the last she had sent him. None -had come since that evening in the Paris Café when she had nodded curtly to show him that -he was not wanted.</p> - -<p>He would not be thrust aside like that. He knew himself to be worth a thousand -Mitchells.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-172">[Pg 172]</a></span> Logan -had said that Mitchell was rubbish, and not even in the eyes of a slip of a girl would -Mendel have Mitchell set above himself. Not for one moment was it tolerable. He would keep -Morrison to her promises and make her come to have her portrait painted, and he would find -out what there was in her that made him remember her so distinctly and so clearly separate -her from all other girls. Somehow the thought of her cooled the intoxication in which he -had been left by Logan. She offered, perhaps, another way out of his present state of -congestion and dissatisfaction. Very clearly she brought back to his mind the thrilling -delight with which he had worked as a boy, and that was true, truer than anything else he -had ever known. . . . Ah! If he could only get back to that, with all the tricks -and cunning he had learned.</p> - -<p>He would get back to it some day, but he must fight for it; with Logan he would learn -how to fight. Logan would lay his immense store of knowledge before him, and give him -books to read, and teach him how to be so easy and familiar with ideas, which at present -only frothed in his mind like waves thinning themselves out on the sea-shore.</p> - -<p>He wrote an impassioned and insolent letter to Morrison commanding her presence at his -studio and informing her that he was worth a thousand of her ordinary associates, and that -she had hurt him, and that girls ought not to hurt men of acknowledged talent. This letter -cost him a great deal of pain and time, because he was careful not to make any slip in -spelling or grammar. It was more a manifesto than a letter, and he wished to do nothing to -impair its dignity.</p> - -<p>And all the time he was puzzled to know why he should care about her at all. He was -prepared to throw everything—his success, the Detmold, his friends—to the winds to follow -Logan, but Morrison he could not throw away.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> - -<p>He decided at last not to send the letter but to go himself, and he went to the Detmold -just as the light was fading and he knew she would be leaving.</p> - -<p>She had gone already, but he met Clowes, who, he knew, lived with her. He pounced on -her and said:—</p> - -<p>“You must come to tea with me.”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid I . . .”</p> - -<p>“You must! You must!”</p> - -<p>She saw he was very excited and she had heard stories of his bursting into tears when -he was thwarted. In some alarm she consented to go with him.</p> - -<p>He led her to a teashop, a horrible place that smelt of dishwater and melted butter, -made her sit at a table, and burst at once into a tirade:—</p> - -<p>“You are Morrison’s friend. Will you tell me why she has avoided me? She came to my -studio once and she said she would come again. She sent me flowers for three weeks, but -she has sent no more.”</p> - -<p>“She—she is very forgetful,” said Clowes, who was longing for tea but did not dare to -tell him to turn to the waitress, who was hovering behind him.</p> - -<p>“But she nodded to me as if she had hardly met me before,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“She is very shy,” said Clowes, framing the word “Tea” with her lips and nodding -brightly to the waitress. She added kindly:—</p> - -<p>“I don’t think sending flowers means much with her. She gives flowers to heaps of -people. She is a very odd girl.”</p> - -<p>“Does she give flowers to Mitchell?” he asked furiously, coming at last with great -relief to the consuming thought in his mind.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Clowes. “She is very unhappy about Mitchell and that Hetty Finch -affair.”</p> - -<p>“Has he told her then?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Why did he tell her?”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you,” cried Mendel. “I’ll tell you. To make himself interesting to her, -because he is not interesting. He is nothing. And I will tell you something more. He has -been telling her things about me to excuse himself. Now, hasn’t he? . . . I can -see by your face that he has.”</p> - -<p>Clowes could not deny it, and she found it hard to conceal her distress. She was unused -to intimate affairs being dragged out into the open like this, and her modesty was -shocked. She had a pretty, intelligent face, and she looked for the moment like a startled -hare, the more so when she put her handkerchief up to her nose with a gesture like that of -a hare brushing its whiskers.</p> - -<p>“Very well, then,” Mendel continued; “you can tell her you have seen me, and you can -tell her that I shall come to explain myself. I hide nothing, for I am ashamed of nothing -that I do. I have no need to excuse myself. I am not a gentleman one moment and a cad the -next. And you can tell Morrison that if I see her with Mitchell again I shall knock him -down.”</p> - -<p>“Do please drink your tea,” said Clowes. “It is getting cold.”</p> - -<p>Mendel gulped down his tea and hastened to add:—</p> - -<p>“I am not boasting. He is bigger than I am, but I know something about boxing. My -brother was nearly a prizefighter.”</p> - -<p>Clowes began to recover from her alarm, and his immense seriousness struck her as very -comic.</p> - -<p>“Did you know that Greta has cut her hair short?”</p> - -<p>“Her hair?” cried Mendel. “Her beautiful hair?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. She looks so sweet, but the boys call after her in the streets. All the girls are -wild to do it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Her hair? Her beautiful hair? Why?”</p> - -<p>“Oh! she got sick of putting it up. She is like that. She suddenly does something you -don’t expect.”</p> - -<p>“But she must look terrible!”</p> - -<p>“Oh no. She looks too sweet. And if all the boys at the Detmold wear their hair long, I -don’t see why the girls shouldn’t wear theirs short.”</p> - -<p>“My mother had her head shaved when she married,” said he, “and she wore a wig.”</p> - -<p>“Why did she do that?”</p> - -<p>“It is the custom. The woman shows that she belongs wholly to her husband and makes -herself unattractive to all other men.”</p> - -<p>“What a horrible idea!”</p> - -<p>“It is a beautiful idea. It is the idea of love independent of everything else. That is -why I thought Morrison must have some reason for cutting her hair.”</p> - -<p>“When you know Greta, you will know that she doesn’t wait for reasons.”</p> - -<p>“Why does she like Mitchell?”</p> - -<p>“She likes nearly everybody.”</p> - -<p>“But she writes to him.”</p> - -<p>“Of course she does,” said Clowes, rather bored with his persistence.</p> - -<p>“But she doesn’t write to me.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t write to her. You can’t expect her to fall at your feet.”</p> - -<p>As she said this Clowes realized his extraordinary Orientalism. She could see him -holding up his finger and expecting a woman to come at his bidding, and for a moment she -was repelled by him. But she was a kind-hearted creature and felt very sorry for him, for -he seemed so utterly at sea and was obviously full of genuine and painful emotion.</p> - -<p>He detected her repulsion at once and perceived the effort she made to conquer it, and -was at once<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-176">[Pg 176]</a></span> -grateful to her, for, as a rule, when that happened, people let it swamp everything -else.</p> - -<p>She said:—</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell Greta what you have said to me, and I am sure she will be very sorry to have -hurt you.”</p> - -<p>“I only want her to come and sit for her portrait. It is very important to me, because -I want to try new subjects and there is some lovely drawing in her face.”</p> - -<p>“But you mustn’t knock Mitchell down. He is quite a nice boy, really, only a little -wild.”</p> - -<p>“He is rotten,” said Mendel dogmatically.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>He felt better, and until dinner-time he prowled about Tottenham Court Road and Soho, a -region of London that he particularly loved—a vibrant, nondescript region where -innumerable streams of vitality met and fused, or clashed together to make a froth and a -spume. It was like himself, chaotic and rawly alive, compounded of elements that knew no -tradition or had escaped from it. He felt at home in it, and elated because he was also -conscious of being superior to it, yet without the dizzy sense of superiority that -assailed him among his own people, while he was never shocked and humiliated, as he was -sometimes in sedate and prosperous London, by being made suddenly to realize his external -inferiority. He loved the shop-girls hurrying excitedly from their work to their pleasure, -and he sometimes spoke to them in their own slang, sometimes went home with them. -. . . They always liked him because he never wasted time over silly flirtatious -jokes or pretended to be in love with them. His interest and curiosity, like theirs, were -purely physical, and his passion gave them a delicious sense of danger.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Logan was waiting for him at the Pot-au-Feu. There was no one else in the restaurant -but the<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-177">[Pg 177]</a></span> -goggle-eyed man in his corner. Logan was sitting Napoleonically with his arms on the table -and his chin sunk on his chest, with his lips compressed.</p> - -<p>He nodded, but did not get up.</p> - -<p>“Sorry if I’m late,” said Mendel. “I went for a walk. I couldn’t work to-day. My -sister-in-law’s sofa—I feel as if I had been beaten all over.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the walk home,” said Logan. “I’m used to it. The hours I’ve spent walking about -this infernal London! I’ve slept on the Embankment, you know.”</p> - -<p>“No?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. I’ve been as far down as that, though I’m not the sort of man who can be kept -down. Did you know that Napoleon was out-at-elbows for a whole year?”</p> - -<p>“No; I don’t know much about Napoleon.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! You should. I read every book about him I can lay hands on. Gustave!”</p> - -<p>The waiter came up and Logan ordered a very special dinner with the air of knowing the -very inmost secrets of the establishment. He demanded orange bitters before the meal and a -special brand of cigarette.</p> - -<p>“My day hasn’t been wasted,” he said. “I’ve been to Cluny’s and I asked to see your -stuff. The little man there looked astonished, but I told him people were talking of no -one else but you, and quite rightly. I talked to him from the dealer’s point of view, and -assured him that there was a big boom in pictures, coming, and that he had better be -prepared for it with a handful of new men. I didn’t let him know that I was a painter, but -I got him quite excited, and I did not leave him until he had hung a picture and two -drawings.”</p> - -<p>“Which picture?”</p> - -<p>“The one of your mother’s kitchen. It is one of your best. To-morrow three men will -walk<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-178">[Pg 178]</a></span> into -Cluny’s and they will admire your work. On the day after to-morrow a real buyer will walk -in.”</p> - -<p>Mendel’s eyes grew larger and larger. Was Logan a magician, that he could direct human -beings into Cluny’s shop and conduct them straight to his work?</p> - -<p>Logan laughed at his amazement.</p> - -<p>“Lord love-a-duck!” he said, “you’re not going to sit still and wait for commercial -fools to discover that you know your job. At my first exhibition in Liverpool I put on a -false beard and went in and bought one of my own pictures, just to encourage the dealer -and the timid idiots who were too shy to go and ask him the price of the drawings. It -worked, and this is going to work too. When I’ve warmed Cluny up into selling you, then -I’m going to make him sell me. If you don’t mind we’ll have our names bracketed,—Kühler -and Logan. People will believe in two men when they won’t in one. As for three, you’ve -only got to look at the Trinity to see what they’ll believe when they get three working -together. . . . Oh! I forgot you were a Jew and brought up to believe in One is -One and all alone.”</p> - -<p>He laughed and gave a fat chuckle as he mimicked the little man in Cluny’s cocking his -head on one side and pretending to take in the beauties of Mendel’s work as they were -pointed out to him.</p> - -<p>“I have enjoyed myself,” said Logan. “By God! I wish there were a revolution. I’d have -my finger in the pie. Oh! what lovely legs there’d be to pull—all the world’s and his -wife’s as well. But it won’t come in my time.”</p> - -<p>Under Logan’s influence Mendel began to enjoy his food, which he had always treated as -a tiresome necessity before. He sat back in his chair and sipped his wine and crumbled up -his bread exactly as Logan did; and he had a delicious sense of leisure and well-being, as -though nothing<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-179">[Pg 179]</a></span> -mattered very much. And, indeed, when he came to think of it, nothing did matter. He had -years and years ahead of him, and here was good solid pleasure in front of him, so that he -had only to dip his hands in it and take and take. . . .</p> - -<p>After the dinner Logan ordered cigars, coffee, and liqueurs, and Mendel felt very -lordly. The restaurant had filled up, and among the rest were Mitchell and Morrison.</p> - -<p>Mendel turned, gave them a curt nod, and could not restrain a grin of satisfaction as -he thought that score was settled. He leaned forward and gave himself up to the pleasure -of Logan’s talk.</p> - -<p>“What I contend,” said Logan, “is this—and mind you, I let off my youthful gas years -ago. I’ve been earning my living since I was fourteen, so I know a little of what the -world’s like. I’ve been in offices and shops, and on the land, in hotels, on the railway, -on the road as a bagman, from house to house as a tallyman, and I know what I’m talking -about. The artist is a free man, and therefore an outlaw, because the world is full of -timid slaves who lie in the laps of women. If an artist is not a free man, then he is not -an artist. And I say that if the artist is outlawed, then he must use any and every means -to get out of the world what it denies him. One must live.”</p> - -<p>“That’s true,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“You may take it from me that there is less room in the world now for artists than ever -there was. In the old days you chose your patron and he provided for you, as the Pope -provided for Michael Angelo, and you devoted your art to whatever your patron stood for, -spiritual power if he happened to be a pope, secular power if he happened to be a duke or -a king. But, nowadays, suppose you had a patron—say, Sir Julius Fleischmann—and he kept -you alive, what on earth could you devote your art to? You could paint his portrait, and -his wife’s portrait, and all his<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-180">[Pg -180]</a></span> daughters’ portraits, but they’d mean nothing; they’d just be vulgar men -and women. No. Art is a bigger thing than any power left on the earth. Money has eaten up -all the other powers, and only art is left uncorrupted by it. Art cannot be patronized. It -cannot serve religion, because there is no religion vital enough to contain the spirit of -art. There is nothing left in the world worthy of such noble service, and therefore art -must be independent and artists must be free, because there is no honourable service open -to them. They must have their own values, and they must have the courage of them. The -world’s values are the values fit for the service of Sir Julius Fleischmann, but they are -not fit for men whose blood is stirring with life, whose minds are eager and active, men -who will accept any outward humiliation rather than the degradation of the loss of their -freedom.”</p> - -<p>“I met Sir Julius Fleischmann. Once,” Mendel said. “He subscribed for me when I went to -my first School of Art. They wanted to send me to Italy, but I refused, because I knew my -place was here in London. There’s more art for me in the Tottenham Court Road than in all -the blue skies in the world.”</p> - -<p>“Quite right, too!” cried Logan. “That shows how sound an artist’s instinct is. He -knows what is good for him because he is a free man. The others have to be told what is -good for them because they don’t know themselves and because, however unhappy they are, -they don’t know the way out. When you and I are unhappy we know that it is because we have -lost touch with life, or because we have lost touch with art; either the flesh or the -spirit is choked with thorns, and we set about plucking them out. When it is a question of -saving your soul, what do morals matter?”</p> - -<p>Mendel had heard people talk about morals, and he knew that his own were supposed to be -bad; but he was not certain what they were. Rather<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-181">[Pg 181]</a></span> timidly he asked Logan, who gave his fat chuckle and -replied:—</p> - -<p>“Morals, my son? No one knows. They change about a hundred years after human practice. -They are different in different times, places, and circumstances, and Sir Julius -Fleischmann, like you and me, has none, because he can afford to do without them. -. . . Well, I’ve done a good day’s work and we’ve had a good dinner, and I must -get back to my beautiful bed—unless you’d like to go to a music-hall.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was loath to let his friend go, and, weary though he was, he said he would like -the music-hall. Logan bought more cigars and they walked round to the Oxford and spent the -evening in uneasy and flat conversation with two ladies of the town, one of whom said she -knew Logan, though he swore he had never seen her before. When they were shaken off, he -told Mendel mysteriously that she was a friend of a woman of whom he went in terror, who -had been pursuing him for a couple of years.</p> - -<p>“Terrible! Terrible!” he said. “Like a wild beast. They’re awful, these prostitutes, -when they fall in love. It eats them up, body and soul.”</p> - -<p>And he went on talking of women, and from what he said it appeared that he was beset by -them. He described them lurking in the street for him, forcing their way into his studio, -clamouring for love, love, love.</p> - -<p>“It makes me sick,” he said. “I never yet met a woman who knew how to love. If a man -has an enthusiasm for anything outside themselves, they plot and scheme with their -damnable cunning to kill it. They want the carcase of a man, not the lovely life in it. -And if they’re decent they want babies, which is almost worse if you’re hard up. No, boy; -for God’s sake don’t take women seriously. If you can’t do without them, hate ’em.<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-182">[Pg 182]</a></span> They’ll lick your -boots for it. They feed on hatred, and will take it out of your hand.”</p> - -<p>He talked in this strain until they reached the Tube station in Piccadilly Circus. It -was unusually empty, and by the booking-office was standing a very pretty girl, big and -upstanding. She had a wide mouth and curious slanting eyes, plump cheeks and a roguish -tilt to her chin. She was well and neatly dressed, and Mendel judged her to be a -shop-girl.</p> - -<p>“That’s a fine lass,” said Logan. “Good-night, boy. I’ll see you to-morrow and tell you -about Cluny’s.”</p> - -<p>“Good-night,” said Mendel, still loath to see his friend go, and he suffered a pang of -jealousy as he saw Logan go up to the girl, raise his hat, and speak to her. She started, -blushed, and smiled. They stopped and talked together for a few moments, and then moved -over towards the lift.</p> - -<p>Mendel waited and watched them, Logan talking gaily, the girl smiling and watching him -intently through her smile. With her eyes she took possession of him, and Mendel was -filled with misgiving when he heard Logan’s fat chuckle and the rustle and clatter of the -gate as the lift descended. It reminded him oddly of the Demon King and the Fairy Queen in -a pantomime he had once seen with Artie Beech, whose father used to get tickets for the -gallery because he had play-bills in his shop window.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter204"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter204_hdg"><a href="#Chapter204_toc">IV<br /> -<span class="chap_title">BURNHAM BEECHES</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">F<small>OR</small> Greta Morrison as for Mendel, London life had been -opened up through Mitchell. He had been friendly and kind to her when everybody else had -been harsh, fault-finding, and indifferent. Her first year and a half at the hostel had -been a period of misery, for the girls and women there regarded her as odd, vague, and -careless, and thought it their duty to impose on her the discipline she seemed to need, -for they knew nothing of her suffering through her ambition and her work.</p> - -<p>Like Mendel, she had been overwhelmed by her inability to adapt herself easily to the -Detmold standard of drawing, for it was against her temperament and her habit of mind to -be precise, and drawing had always been to her rather a trivial thing, though extremely -pleasant for the purposes of the caricatures in which her teasing humour found an outlet. -All her girlhood had been thrillingly happy in the execution of large allegorical designs, -through which she sought to express her delight in the earth—the immense serene power of -which she became profoundly aware as she lay in the bracken at home and gazed out over the -rich valley or up into the marvellous, quivering blue sky, through which she felt that she -was being borne without a sound, without a tremor, irresistibly. Nothing could shake that -loving knowledge in her, and it hurt her that her mother’s cold, self-centred religion, -which made her demand<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-184">[Pg -184]</a></span> a fussy, sentimental attention from her children, forbade all expression -of it in her daily life. Her brothers, revolting against the sentimentality exacted of -them, treated all tenderness as ignoble rubbish, and in her rough-and-tumble with them -Greta was hardened and forced into independence. She had to play their games with them and -to suffer the same tortures of knuckle-drill, brush, dry-shave, and wrist-screw. But all -their swagger seemed to her rather fraudulent; and because they laughed at her allegorical -designs she decided that men were inferior beings. When they laughed at her designs it was -to her as though they laughed at the beauty she had tried to express in them, and the -sacrilege enraged her more than her mother’s petulance, for they were young and strong and -full of life, and they should not have been blind. It was against them that she first -found relief in caricature, and as they went through their Public Schools and were more -and more compressed into type, she pilloried them, and, as a consequence, even when she -was a young woman, big and fine, with the tender, delicate bloom of seventeen upon her, -she had to submit to the indignity of knuckle-drill, brush, dry-shave, and -wrist-screw.</p> - -<p>She was filled with a horror of men, and especially Public School men, for they seemed -to her entirely lacking in decency, humility, and honesty. They pretended to be so fine -and ignored everything that was finer than themselves. Her brothers’ foolish love-affairs -disgusted her and made her suppress in herself every emotion that tried to find its way to -a good-looking boy or young man. She was not shy of them or afraid of them, but she would -not encourage in them what she so detested in her brothers.</p> - -<p>During her first year in London she devoted herself heart and soul to her work. There -were two or three families who were kind to her as<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-185">[Pg 185]</a></span> her mother’s daughter, but their ways were her mother’s, -and she only visited them as a duty, and to break the monotony of the school and the -hostel.</p> - -<p>Her encounter with Mitchell took place at the time when Mendel’s influence on him had -set him in revolt against his Public School training. On the other hand, the sight of the -abyss of poverty into which Mendel descended so easily had set him reeling. He was shrewd -enough to know that Hetty Finch was using him as a ladder to get out of it, and that there -was a real danger of her kicking him down into it. In a state of horrible confusion he -plunged at the most obvious outlet, the “pure girl” of the tradition of his -upbringing.</p> - -<p>He made no concealment of it, but turned to Morrison with a childlike confidence that -touched her. She was feeling lonely, disappointed, and dissatisfied with herself and was -glad of his company. It was a change from the woman-ridden atmosphere of the hostel.</p> - -<p>By way of making their relationship seemly he introduced her to his family, where as -the pure young girl who was to save their hope from wild courses she was a great -success.</p> - -<p>“First sensible thing you’ve done, my boy,” said Mr. Mitchell, that great man, a -journalist who had been a correspondent in a dozen wars. “A pure friendship between a boy -and a girl has a most ennobling influence—most ennobling.”</p> - -<p>“She is truly spiritual,” sighed Mrs. Mitchell, “the type who justifies the -independence of the modern girl, whatever the Prime Minister may say.”</p> - -<p>“That scoundrel!” cried Mr. Mitchell. “That infamous buffoon who has not a grain of -Liberalism left in his toadying mind!”</p> - -<p>“My dear,” said Mrs. Mitchell, “we were talking about little Miss Morrison.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” answered Mr. Mitchell, “we took our<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-186">[Pg 186]</a></span> risk when we let the boy be an artist and we can be -thankful it is no worse. Did I tell you, my love, that I am going off to the Cocos Islands -to-morrow?”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, my dear? Then you will not be able to come to my meeting.”</p> - -<p>“No, I hear it is worse than the Congo.”</p> - -<p>“Oh dear! oh dear! I don’t know what the world is coming to. The more civilized we get -in one part of the world, the worse things are in another part. I declare such horrible -things seem to me to make it quite unimportant whether we get the vote or not.”</p> - -<p>“When you have a Tory Government calling itself Liberal,” said Mr. Mitchell very -angrily, “it means that neither reform at home nor justice abroad can receive any -attention. The country has gone to the dogs, and I thank God I spend most of my time out -of it.”</p> - -<p>“And poor Humphrey suffers. I’m sure I am a good mother to him, but I cannot be a -father as well. I’m thankful to say he seems to be dropping that Jewish friend of his. He -is a genius, of course, and quite remarkable, considering what he comes from; but with -Jews it can never be the same, can it?”</p> - -<p>“No, my love,” said Mr. Mitchell; “one would never dream of drinking out of the same -glass, would one? Still, I must say, the Jews in England are much better than they are -anywhere else, which seems to show that they can respond to decent treatment and thrive in -the air of liberty.”</p> - -<p>Both Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell had a platform manner of speaking, and as Morrison was not a -subject that suited it, she was soon dropped; but in the end they came back to her, and -agreed that she was a nice, shy little girl, and that she had no idea of marrying their -only son, or anyone else, for that matter.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> - -<p>She was much impressed with them, for she had never met important people before, and -she was given to understand that they were very important. They seemed to have their -fingers on innumerable reforms which were only suppressed by the stupidity of the -Government. Directly the Government was removed, as of course such idiots soon would be, -Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell would raise their fingers and, hey presto! women would have votes, -the slums would be pulled down, maternity would be endowed, prostitutes would be saved, -prisons would be reformed, capital punishment abolished, the working classes would be -properly housed, every able-bodied man who wished it should have his small holding, the -railways would be nationalized, site values would be taxed, divorce would be made easy and -free from social taint, and education would be made scientific and thorough. In the -meantime, as the Government did not budge, Mr. Mitchell went to the Cocos Islands and -Constantinople to procure evidence of horrors abroad and Mrs. Mitchell addressed meetings -on the subject of horrors at home.</p> - -<p>Morrison was impressed. The contrast between these people who thought of everything and -everybody but themselves and her own home, where nothing was thought of but the family, -the Church, and the Empire, shocked her into thinking and gave her a sense of liberation. -It made human beings more interesting than she had thought, and she began to see that they -did not, as she had heedlessly accepted that they did, fit infallibly into their places, -and that vast numbers had no places to fit into. She herself, she saw, did not fit into -any place, and that she had been squeezed, like paint out of a tube, out of her home for -no other reason than that she was a woman, and there was only just enough money to -establish the boys. However, she could not quite swallow Mrs. Mitchell’s view that men had -deliberately, coldly,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-188">[Pg -188]</a></span> and of set purpose ousted women from their rightful share in the sweets of -life.</p> - -<p>She had a period of despair as these revelations sank into her mind and she had to -digest Mrs. Mitchell’s awful facts and statistics about the night-life of London. Life -seemed too terrible for her powers, but, as she soon began to see how comic Mrs. Mitchell -was, she pulled herself together and found that she was strengthened by the experience, -and when Mitchell confessed the awful doings of his past, she felt immeasurably older than -he, and was thankful she was a woman and did not expect such things of herself. For she -could never quite take his word for all he said. She knew her brothers too well to accept -his plea of passionate necessity.</p> - -<p>“Gawd!” he used to say. “When I think of my past I feel that I must go on my knees and -worship your purity.”</p> - -<p>His absurdity made her blush, but she liked him. He was clever and had read much under -his father’s guidance, poetry and modern English fiction mostly, and when she went to tea -with him in his studio he used to read aloud to her, Keats and Shelley and Matthew -Arnold.</p> - -<p>“I think I only like poetry,” she said once, “when it makes pictures. When it doesn’t -do that it seems to me just words, and it doesn’t seem to matter how nice they sound.”</p> - -<p>“Gawd!” he said. “That’s like Kühler. He says nothing makes such pictures as the Bible, -and he is always quoting that about: ‘At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: where he -fell, there he lay down.’ And he says it must be the words, because his own Hebrew Bible -never gave him anything like the same—er—vision of it.”</p> - -<p>Once he had begun to talk of Mendel she would not let him leave the subject.</p> - -<p>“Do you think he’s a genius?” she would ask.</p> - -<p>“Gawd! I don’t know. He says he is a genius,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-189">[Pg 189]</a></span> and I suppose time will show whether it is true or not. -But why do you want to talk of him?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. I’m interested. Perhaps because he is different.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you’ve had tea with him. That is about as much as is good for you. If you were -my sister I wouldn’t let you know him.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“My dear girl, there are certain things in life that a young girl ought never to -know.”</p> - -<p>“What things? Is there anything worse than what your mother talks about at her -meetings? Girls know all about that nowadays, and it is no good pretending we don’t.”</p> - -<p>“Talking about them is one thing, coming in contact with them is another. Kühler is a -Jew, and he comes from the East End, where they don’t have any decent pleasures. He’s -infernally good-looking in a hurdy-gurdy sort of way. Gawd! Women look at him and off they -go.”</p> - -<p>“But he cares for poetry and the Bible and he loves pictures. . . .”</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t seem to make any difference.”</p> - -<p>During this talk he had begun to find Morrison extraordinarily pretty and lovable, and -he said tenderly:—</p> - -<p>“Won’t you take off your hat and let me see your beautiful hair?”</p> - -<p>She refused, and asked him more about Mendel, and in exasperation at the unintended -snub he told her the true story of Hetty Finch, not concealing his own share in it, but -implying that Mendel’s terrible immorality had corrupted him and led to his downfall.</p> - -<p>The story was received in silence.</p> - -<p>At last she said:—</p> - -<p>“And what is going to become of Hetty Finch?”</p> - -<p>“That’s the extraordinary part of it,” said Mitchell. “She has found someone to marry -her.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p> - -<p>He leaned against the mantelpiece and dropped his head in his hands and groaned.</p> - -<p>“Gawd!” he said. “If it weren’t for you I don’t know what would become of me.” And he -was so moved by his own thoughts that tears trickled down his nose and made dark spots on -the whitened hearth.</p> - -<p>“I can’t ask you to marry me,” he said mournfully. “I’m unworthy, but I want to be your -friend.”</p> - -<p>She made no reply, and he was forced to ask rather lamely:—</p> - -<p>“Will you be my friend?”</p> - -<p>“Of course.”</p> - -<p>“Always?”</p> - -<p>“How can I promise that?” she said.</p> - -<p>It was then that he took her to the Paris Café, where, all in a turmoil through her new -knowledge of men and women, she hardly knew what she was doing, and gave Mendel the curt -nod which had so disgruntled him.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Every summer the Detmold students went for a picnic, either up the river, or to a -Surrey common, or to one of the forests in the vicinity of London. This year Burnham -Beeches was chosen. Two charabancs met the party at Slough, and though Mendel tried very -hard to sit next to Morrison, he was outmanœuvred by Mitchell, and had to put up with -Clowes.</p> - -<p>“I wish you wouldn’t glare at Mitchell so. You make me quite uncomfortable,” said -she.</p> - -<p>“He is telling her lies about me,” growled Mendel.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be absurd,” protested Clowes. “He is not talking about you at all.” She felt -rather cross with him because he was spoiling her pleasure, and because she had wanted to -sit next someone else, and she added: “People aren’t always talking about you, and if -anybody does it’s the models, and that’s your own fault.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> - -<p>“How beastly!” he said.</p> - -<p>“I don’t blame them. They haven’t any other interest.”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t mean that. I meant this country. It is so flat and dull, regular railway -scenery. What a place to choose for a picnic!”</p> - -<p>“Wait until you get to the woods! We’re going to a place called Egypt. Don’t you think -that’s romantic? Though it reminds me more of Oberon and Titania than of Anthony and -Cleopatra.”</p> - -<p>He looked blank, and she explained:—</p> - -<p>“Shakespeare, you know.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve never read Shakespeare.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! you should.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve tried, but I can’t understand him. I suppose it’s because I’m not English. It -seems ridiculous to me, all those plots and murders.”</p> - -<p>“But the fairies in the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’!”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t read it; but what do you want with fairies? A wood’s a wood, and there’s -quite enough mystery in it for me without pretending to see things that aren’t there.”</p> - -<p>“But it’s nice to pretend,” said Clowes rather lamely, almost hating him because he -seemed so wrong in the country. She knew people like that, people she was quite fond of in -London, but in the country they were awful.</p> - -<p>The charabancs swung through Farnham Royal and they came in sight of the woods, -brilliant under a vivid blue sky patched with huge, heavy white clouds. Birds hovered -above the trees, and as they turned out of the street of seaside bungalows and along the -sandy lane leading to Egypt, they put up rabbits and pheasants.</p> - -<p>The art students looked bizarre and almost theatrical in the woods, with the -long-haired young men and the short-haired girls, many of them wearing the brightest -colours. Mendel hated the lot of them, giggling girls and bouncing boys,<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-192">[Pg 192]</a></span> and he recognized how -inappropriate they all were and how he himself was the most inappropriate of them all. He -felt ashamed, and wanted to go away and hide, to crawl away to some hole and gaze with his -eyes at the beauty he could not feel. There were too many trees, as there were too many -people. . . . What a poor thing is a man in a crowd which makes it impossible to -share his thoughts and emotions with anyone! And how bitter it is when he is full of -thoughts and emotions! It is all so bitter that the crowd must do foolish, inappropriate -things not to feel it, not to be broken up by it. . . . Yet the others seemed -happy enough. The old Professors were beaming and pretending to be young. Perhaps they -enjoyed it more than anyone because they did not want to be alone, or to steal away with a -coveted maid, as some of the young men were doing even now. . . . Had Mitchell -stolen away with Morrison? Horrible idea! No. There he was, putting up stumps for -cricket.</p> - -<p>Cricket! How Mendel loathed that fatuous game, the kind of inappropriate foolish thing -the crowd always did! How he dreaded the swift hard ball that would hurt his hand or his -shins! How humiliated he felt when he was out: and how he raged against the frantic -excitement he could not help feeling when he hit the ball and made a run. One run seemed -to him a larger score than anyone else could possibly make, and when he made a run and was -on the winning side he always felt that he had won the match. In the field, no matter -where he was placed, he went and stood by the umpire, because he had noticed that the ball -rarely went that way.</p> - -<p>He had to field now, and he went and stood by the umpire. Mitchell came swaggering in. -He hit a lovely four, a three, a two. The fielders changed at the over, but Mendel stayed -where he was. The ball came near him. He picked it<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-193">[Pg 193]</a></span> up and threw it as hard as he could at Mitchell’s head. -Fortunately he missed, and there was a roar of laughter.</p> - -<p>“I say, I mean to say,” said one of the Professors, “we are not playing rounders or—or -baseball.”</p> - -<p>And there was more laughter.</p> - -<p>Mitchell hit a three, a two, a lost ball (six), a four, and then he skied one. The ball -went soaring up. With his keen sight Mendel could see it clearly shining red against the -hot sky. With an awful sinking in his stomach he realized that it was coming down near -him. It was coming straight to him. It would fall on him, hurt him, stun him. Then he -thought that if he caught it Mitchell would be out. He never lost sight of the ball for a -moment. If he caught it Mitchell would be out. He moved back two paces, opened his hands, -and the ball fell into them.</p> - -<p>“Oh! well caught, indeed! Well caught!”</p> - -<p>Mitchell walked away from the wicket swinging his bat in a deprecating fashion. After -all, one does not expect miracles even in cricket.</p> - -<p>“Beautiful, beautiful ball!” thought Mendel, fondling it with his still tingling hands. -“You came to me like a lark to its nest, and you shone so red against the sky, you shone -so red, so red!”</p> - -<p>His dissatisfaction vanished. The crowd was a nice beast after all. It was at his feet. -At no one else had it shouted like that. . . . The woods were very beautiful, -with the bracken nodding under the trees, and the branches swaying, and the soft winds -murmuring through the leaves, through which the trees seemed to breathe and sigh and to -envy the moving wind while they were condemned to stay and grow old in one spot. Very, -very sweet were the green and yellow and blue lights hovering and swinging through the -woods, dappling the trunks of the trees, weaving an ever-changing pattern on the carpet of -moss and dead<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-194">[Pg 194]</a></span> -leaves, and the tufted bracken that sometimes almost looked like the sea, full of a life -of its own. Surely, surely there were fish swimming in the bracken.</p> - -<p>Starting out of his dreams, he saw Morrison at the wicket, very intent, with a stern -expression on her face. He knew she was desperately anxious to score.</p> - -<p>She was most palpably stumped with her second ball, but the umpire gave her “not out,” -amid general applause, for she was a favourite.</p> - -<p>She lashed out awkwardly at the next ball, which came on the leg side. It came towards -Mendel at an incredible speed. He put his foot on it, picked it up, pretended it had -passed him, and tore towards the trees in simulated pursuit; and he remained looking for -it in the bracken while Morrison ran four, five, six, seven, eight, and just as some one -cried “Lost ball!” he stooped, pretended to pick it up, and threw it back to the -bowler.</p> - -<p>He himself was bowled first ball, but, as it turned out, Morrison’s side won by three -runs.</p> - -<p>She was bubbling over with happiness, and after tea she came over to him and said:—</p> - -<p>“I say, Kühler, that <i>was</i> a good catch.”</p> - -<p>He folded his arms and cocked his chin and looked down his nose as he said:—</p> - -<p>“Oh! yes. I can play cricket.”</p> - -<p>“You made a blob,” she said with a grin.</p> - -<p>“A catch like that,” he answered, “is enough for one day. I have seen many words -written in the papers about a catch like that. Even Calthrop does not have so many words -written about his pictures.”</p> - -<p>“I shall hate to go back to London after this,” she said. “I didn’t know there was -anything so beautiful near London.”</p> - -<p>“There is Hampstead,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I’ve never been there,” she replied.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Will you let me take you to Hampstead? It has lilies and water.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes,” she said eagerly. “Do let us go into the woods now before we start. I’m sure -there must be lovely places.”</p> - -<p>He followed her, first looking round to see what had become of Mitchell, whom he saw -standing with a scowl on his face, a foolish figure.</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk!” said Morrison. “I’m sure it is lovely through here.”</p> - -<p>She led the way through a grove of pines into a beech glade, at the end of which they -found a dingle, where they stood and gazed back.</p> - -<p>“Oh, look!” she cried. “Look at the pine stems through the sea-green of the beeches. -Purple they are, and don’t they swing?”</p> - -<p>“I like the wind in the trees,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>He saw that there were tears in her eyes, and he caught some of her ecstasy. But he -could not understand it at all and it hurt him horribly. She was wonderful and beautiful -to him, the very heart of all that loveliness, the song of it, its music and its -mystery.</p> - -<p>“She is only a little girl,” he said to himself very clearly, stamping out the words in -his mind, so that it was as though someone else had spoken to him.</p> - -<p>The ecstasy grew in her, and with it the pain in him. She swayed towards him and fell -against his breast and raised her lips to him. He stooped and almost in terror just -touched them with his.</p> - -<p>He was a sorry prince for a sleeping beauty, for he was afraid lest she should -awake.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter205"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter205_hdg"><a href="#Chapter205_toc">V<br /> -<span class="chap_title">HAPPY HAMPSTEAD</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">O<small>N</small> the morning of the day fixed for their expedition to -Hampstead Heath she sent him roses—yellow roses. He took them across to his mother and -gave them to her, saying:—</p> - -<p>“I do not need flowers. I am happy.”</p> - -<p>Golda laughed at him, and said:—</p> - -<p>“You are a big little man since you made the catch at the cricket.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what it is, but I am happy. It is no longer surprising to me that there -are happy people in the world, and I think the Christians are not all such fools to wish -to be happy. I am only astonished that they are happy with such little things.”</p> - -<p>“It is nothing,” said Golda. “They are not truly happy; they are only hiding away from -themselves.”</p> - -<p>“But I am finding myself,” cried Mendel. “I shall no more paint fishes and onions. I -shall paint only what I feel, and it will be beautiful. I am so clever I can paint -anything I choose.”</p> - -<p>“Go to your work now,” said Golda. “You can boast as much as you please when the King -has sent for you and told you you are the greatest artist in England. Go to your -work.”</p> - -<p>He went back to his studio and there found a letter from Logan, giving his new address -in Camden Town, and another from Mitchell, asking him why he was so unfriendly. This he -answered at once:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You are no longer my friend. You have despised and injured me. Superior as I am to -you, you have thought it your part as a gentleman to try to keep me in my place. You have -treated me as a kind of animal. You cannot see that as an artist I am the equal of all -men, the highest and the lowest. My own poor people I do not expect to know this, but of -an educated man I do expect it. You cannot see this, and I count you lower than the -lowest, and as such I am prepared to know you, and not otherwise. I have changed -completely. I no longer believe in the Detmold or in Calthrop or in any of the things I -reverenced as a student. I prefer the Academy, for it does not pretend to be advanced, and -is honest though asleep. I am no longer a student. I am an artist. You will always be an -art student, and so I say good-bye to you, as one says good-bye to friends on a -station-platform. The train moves and all their affectionate memories and longings cannot -stop it. The train moves and I am in it, and I say good-bye to you without even looking -out of the window.”</p> - -<p>This done, he sat down to work at a portrait of his father and mother, with which he -was designing to eclipse his first exhibiting success. It seemed to him important that it -should be finished. Hearing Issy come in, he shouted to him to come and sit instead of his -father, who had given out that he was unwell and was indulging in a sleeping bout.</p> - -<p>Issy came shambling in, pale, tired, and unhappy. He sat as he was told, and said:—</p> - -<p>“I wish Harry would come back; the business is being too much for me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! I shall soon be rich and then I’ll help you.”</p> - -<p>“There’s not much help for me,” said Issy. “I’m like father. There’s always something -against me to keep me down. It seems funny to me that<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-198">[Pg 198]</a></span> people will give you so much money for -something they don’t really want.”</p> - -<p>“Come and look at it,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>Issy obeyed.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think it’s really like them. Why should anybody buy them who doesn’t know -them?”</p> - -<p>He spoke so heavily and dully that Mendel found it hard to conceal his irritation. When -Issy had gone back to his chair, he asked:—</p> - -<p>“What do you live for, Issy?”</p> - -<p>“Live?” said Issy, mystified.</p> - -<p>“Yes. What do you like best in the world?”</p> - -<p>“Playing cards. Playing cards. Every day there’s work and every night there’s Rosa, and -on Saturday I play cards. Yes. I play cards; and, of course, you are always something to -think about.”</p> - -<p>“What do you think about me?”</p> - -<p>“Oh! You will be rich and famous, and you will be able to choose among all the girls -with money. It is like having a play always going on in the family. But I would rather -play cards, and Rosa is not so bad as you all say she is. I am not a good husband to her, -for I have moods and I cannot talk to her, for I cannot talk to anyone. What is there to -say? She has her children, and she only wants more because she is a fool. It is not her -fault.”</p> - -<p>“That’ll do, Issy. I’ve got all I want. I can’t get any more from you. Some day I’ll -teach you how to be happy.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Issy, with a sly leer. “I know how to be happy. I can’t see why anyone -should want to have father and mother hanging on their walls.”</p> - -<p>He slunk away.</p> - -<p>How depressing he was! Poor old Issy! as much a part of the street as the doors and -windows of the houses. He might move a hundred yards to another exactly similar street, -but he would<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-199">[Pg 199]</a></span> -always be the same. It was not his fault. Mendel knew the depths of devotion of which his -brother was capable. It was devotion to his mother that kept him living round the corner, -devotion to his father that tied him to the unprofitable business. The name of Kühler had -attained the dignity of a brass-plate on the front door, and he would die rather than see -it removed, at any rate in his father’s lifetime.</p> - -<p>For the first time Mendel faced his circumstances squarely. With something of a shock -he thought of the family arriving at Liverpool Street and never in all these years moving -more than half a mile away from it, and that in this amazing London, with its trains and -buses to take you from end to end of it in a little over an hour. His mother had never -been west of the Bank. She did not even know where Piccadilly Circus was, or the Detmold, -or the National Gallery, or the Paris Café, or Calthrop’s studio, or any other important -centre of life. Liverpool Street she knew, and outside Liverpool Street were the sea and -Austria. . . . When there were no little happenings at home she would always -fall back on Austria and the troubled days at the inn, and the soldiers who used to come -in and ask to see the beautiful baby before they thought of ordering drinks, and her rich -uncle who used to supply the barracks with potatoes and was so mean that he refused to -give her any when she had not a penny in the world, and the neighbours who used to bring -food so that the beautiful baby should not starve. . . . They stayed where they -were, stormily passionate, yet with no sense of confinement, while he was drawn off into -the swiftly moving whirligig of London, going from house to house, studio to studio, café -to café, atmosphere to atmosphere, and all his passionate storms were spent upon nothing, -were absorbed in the general movement, leaving him, tottering and dazed, in it, yet alien -to it, discovering<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-200">[Pg -200]</a></span> no soul in it all and losing the clear knowledge of his own.</p> - -<p>Surely now that was ended. She had sent him the yellow roses, and he had given them to -his mother to join the two whom he loved. They must have touched her face before they came -to him, and Golda had buried her face in them.</p> - -<p>Impatiently he awaited the time for him to go to the Detmold. He put on a clean collar -and a black coat, but then he remembered how the old Jews whom he asked to sit for him -always put on clean clothes and clipped their beards, under the impression that he wanted -to photograph them. In his clean collar and black coat he felt as though he were going to -the photographer’s or to a wedding, and remembering how he had been dressed when he saw -her for the first time on the stairs, he took out an old black shirt, a corduroy coat and -trousers, and a red sash.</p> - -<p>He could not bring himself to wear the red sash. It reminded him of Mitchell, who had -been with him when he bought it.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>It had been very hot. The walls and the pavements gave out a dry, stifling heat. The -smell of the street outside came up in waves—a smell of women and babies, leather and -kosher meat. He must wait for the cool weather, he thought, before he asked her to the -studio again.</p> - -<p>“She is only a little girl,” he said to himself. “She is pretty, but she is only a -little girl. I will tell her that she must not see Mitchell again, because he is not true. -I will paint her portrait, and then I will not see her again, because she is only a little -girl.”</p> - -<p>He sat in the window with the clock in front of him, and directly it said half-past -four he clapped his hat on his head, seized the silver-knobbed stick which at that time -was an indispensable part of<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-201">[Pg -201]</a></span> an artist’s apparel, and bolted as though he were late for a train.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>She was waiting for him. He took off his hat, but in his nervousness he could not -speak, and as he could not remember which side of a lady he ought to walk, he bewildered -her by dodging from one side to the other with a quick, catlike tread, so that she did not -hear him, and whenever she turned to speak to him he was not there.</p> - -<p>“Wasn’t it a good picnic!” she said enthusiastically. “It’s the best picnic I’ve ever -been to.”</p> - -<p>“They are usually pretty good,” he said lamely. “I think we’d better go by bus.”</p> - -<p>They mounted a bus and sat silently side by side.</p> - -<p>When they stopped by the Cobden statue he said:—</p> - -<p>“A friend of mine has just taken a studio in Camden Town. His name is Logan.”</p> - -<p>“Was he at the Detmold?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>That settled Logan for her. She began to feel anxious. Was the afternoon going to be a -failure? Why could she never, never get the better of her shyness? She wanted to make him -happy because, on the whole, people had been beastly to him and said such horrid things -about him. She wanted him to feel for himself, and not only through her, that the world -was a very wonderful place, a place in which to be happy. He was so stiff and different, -so taut and tightly strung up, that lounging, loose-limbed Mitchell seemed graceful -compared with him. Yet there was something unforgettable about him, and he had always had -for her the vivid romantic reality of the beautiful young men on the stage, who were -creatures of a delicious, absurd world which she would never enter and never wished to -enter: a world where young men opened their arms and young women<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-202">[Pg 202]</a></span> sank into them and were provided with -happiness for ever and ever. Her vigour rejected this world, for she knew and lived in a -better, but all the same it had its charm and its curious reality. . . .</p> - -<p>She was not shy because she had kissed him. That had passed with the shifting light -through the trees and the clouds in the sky. It had been vivid and true for that moment, -but it had perished and fallen away like a drop of water, like a rainbow.</p> - -<p>He remembered it. As he sat by her side and could feel the warm life in her, it became -terribly actual to him, the cool contact of her lips, and he was glad when the bus reached -the yard with the painted swing-boats and he need no longer sit by her side. He had begun -to feel subservient to her, and he would not have that. What Rosa was to Issy, what Golda -was to his father, that should a woman be to him, for it was good and decent so. -. . . He was almost sorry he had come. He was painfully shy, and knew that she -was suffering under it.</p> - -<p>He walked so fast that she was hard put to keep up with him, but she swung out and -would not be beaten, and managed his pace without losing her breath. Over to the wooded -side of the Heath he took her, and stopped under a chestnut-tree.</p> - -<p>“Shall we sit down?” he said. “Or would you like to go on walking?”</p> - -<p>“I’d like to sit down,” she answered. “I love walking, but I can’t talk at the same -time.”</p> - -<p>He sat down at once, without waiting for her to choose a spot.</p> - -<p>“This grass is nice and cool,” he said.</p> - -<p>It was wet, but he had no thought for her thin cotton frock.</p> - -<p>She sat a couple of yards away from him on the short turf and plunged her arm into the -long, cool grass. Then she lay on her stomach and plucked a blade of grass and chewed -it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Thank you for sending me the roses. I gave them to my mother.”</p> - -<p>“I liked your mother.”</p> - -<p>“She liked you. She said: ‘That is a good girl.’ She is very quick at guessing what -people are like.”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad she liked me.”</p> - -<p>Once again conversation died away, but she seemed content to lie there with her arms in -the cool grass. Their round slenderness fascinated him. Her short hair hung over her face, -so that he could only see the tip of her chin.</p> - -<p>Suddenly he asked her:—</p> - -<p>“Do you send flowers to Mitchell?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, and her head was lowered so that the tip of her chin was hidden by her -hair.</p> - -<p>He said nothing, but he too lay on the grass, flat on his stomach, with his head on his -arms. His heart began to thump, and, though he tried to control it, it would not be still. -Without raising his head he said, in a choking voice that astonished him:—</p> - -<p>“My father fainted for love of my mother. When he heard her name he fainted away.”</p> - -<p>She said nothing, only in the long grass her fingers were still. Her white hands in the -grass fascinated him, held his eyes transfixed, the green blades coming up through the -white fingers that were so still. He stared at them as though they were some strange -flower, and for him they had nothing to do with her at all. He drew himself near to them, -never taking his eyes off them—white and green, white and green and pink at the -finger-tips. He must touch them. They were cool, soft, and firm, soft as the petals of a -rose.</p> - -<p>He grasped them like a child seizing a pretty toy, but when they were in his grasp he -was no longer like a child. A single impulse thrilled through all his body and made it -strong even as a giant. With one easy swing of his arm he pulled her to him, held her with -a vast tenderness, and held her so,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-204">[Pg 204]</a></span> gazing into her face. Her lips parted, and he kissed -them. . . .</p> - -<p>It was she who first found words:—</p> - -<p>“Oh Mendel! I do love you.”</p> - -<p>He was amazed at his own strength, at his own tenderness. . . . So that was a -kiss! And this, this, this was love! It was incredible! How sweet and easy were his -emotions. He was as free and light as the wind in the leaves.</p> - -<p>She had slipped from his arms, but she was singing through all his veins, she and no -other, she and nothing else in the world. And he was in her, perfectly, beautifully aware -of her body and of the ecstasy in it, of the tree above them, of the dove-coloured clouds, -of the cool green grass, of the yellow earth crumbling out of the mound yonder, and of the -ecstasy in them all.</p> - -<p>So for many moments they lay in silence, until as suddenly as it had come his strength -left him, and he broke into a passionate babble of words:—</p> - -<p>“You must not send flowers to Mitchell, because he cannot love you and I can. He knows -nothing, and I know a great deal. I know women and the ways of women, for many have loved -me, but I have loved none but you. No woman has been my friend except my mother. I did not -look for any woman to be like my mother. I am not an Englishman who can love with pretty -words. I love, and it is like that tree, growing silently until it dies. It has stolen on -me as softly as the night, and I sink into it as I sink into the night, to sleep. It is as -though the dark night were suddenly filled with stars and all the stars had become flowers -and poured their honey into my thoughts. When your white hands were in the grass they were -like flowers and they seemed to belong to me, as all beautiful things belong to me because -I can love them.”</p> - -<p>She came nearer to him and laid her hand on his, and she said:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I am very, very happy.”</p> - -<p>And she laughed and added:—</p> - -<p>“I <i>was</i> glad when you made that catch.”</p> - -<p>He was beyond laughter. For him laughter was for trivial things. She had stopped the -flow of his thoughts, the rush of his emotions up into his creative consciousness. Wave -upon wave of passion surged through him, racked him, tortured him, tossing his soul this -way and that, threatening to hurl it down and smash it on the hardness of his nature. He -set his teeth and would not wince. If she could laugh she could know nothing of that. She -was shallow, she was young. . . . Was it because he was a Jew that he seemed so -old compared with her? . . . What was it she lacked that she could laugh and -leave him to the torment she had provoked?</p> - -<p>But she was aware of the curious blankness that had come over his end of their twilight -silence, and she suffered from it, thinking: “Am I an awful woman? Can I give nothing?” -And she turned to him to give, and give all the rare treasures of her soul, of her heart, -to lay them before him for his delight. But what she had already given had let loose a -storm in him that blotted out all the beauty of the scene, all the loveliness of their -love, the gift and the taking of it, and left him with only the dim light of her -purity.</p> - -<p>Soon the storm passed and they had nothing but an easy delight in each other’s company, -each turning to each as to a warm fire by which to laugh and talk and make merry.</p> - -<p>He told her stories of his childhood, of his brothers and his father, and Mr. Kuit, the -thief, who had bought him his first suit; of his childish joy in painting, and there he -stopped short. Of his misery he was unable to speak.</p> - -<p>“You do believe in yourself,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Why not?” he replied; “I am a man. When I hold my hands before my eyes they are -real.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-206">[Pg 206]</a></span> They are -flesh and blood. I must believe in them. And I am all flesh and blood. I must -believe.”</p> - -<p>“And everything else is real to you.”</p> - -<p>“Everything that I love is real. And what I do not love I hate, so that is real -too.”</p> - -<p>They wandered about the Heath until night came and the stars shone, and then they -plunged into the glitter of London, where all people and things were deliciously fantastic -and comic, flat and kinematographic, as though, if you walked round to the other side, you -would discover that they were painted on one side only. It gave them the glorious illusion -of being the only two living people in the world, for they and only they had loved since -the world began, and all the other lovers were only people in a story, living happily ever -after or coming to an end of their love, neither of which could happen to them because -they were, always had been, and always would be in love.</p> - -<p>They dined at the Pot-au-Feu, where they encountered Mitchell, who had the effrontery -to come and speak to them. He was very friendly and spoke as though nothing had happened. -They told him they had been to Hampstead and recommended him to try it when he found -London too stuffy.</p> - -<p>When he had gone away, Morrison said:—</p> - -<p>“I am going away soon.”</p> - -<p>“Going away? But you mustn’t go away.”</p> - -<p>“I have to go next week. My mother has fits of anxiety about my being in London every -now and then, and she drags me off home. She has got one of them now. She can’t see that -if any harm were going to happen to me it would have happened during my first year, when I -didn’t know anything and was very lonely. I don’t think I’m very real to her, -somehow.”</p> - -<p>She gave a little shiver of distaste at the thought of going home.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But you mustn’t go away,” said Mendel. “I want you, always.”</p> - -<p>“And I want to be with you, but if I refused to go home now, I should have to go for -always, for I should have no money.”</p> - -<p>He was plunged into a dejected silence, and with hardly a word more he took her -home.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>They had a whole week of this warm happiness. He abandoned every other thought, every -other pursuit, every other friend. He put aside his work to paint her portrait, and she -came every day to his studio. At night he hardly slept at all for his longing for the next -day to come and bring her to his studio, that now seemed immense, airy, ample even for -such a giant as he felt. . . . He adored her even when she laughed, even when -she teased him. He even learned occasionally to laugh at himself. It was worth it to see -the amazing happiness he gave her.</p> - -<p>One morning as he was painting her, he said:—</p> - -<p>“I can’t believe you are going away.”</p> - -<p>“It is true, more’s the pity.”</p> - -<p>“But you are not going, for I will marry you.”</p> - -<p>He said this in a matter-of-fact tone as he went on with his painting. The picture was -coming on well and he was pleased with it. He stepped back and looked at it from different -angles. It seemed a long time before she made the expected matter-of-fact reply, and he -looked up at her. She was hanging her head and plucking at her skirt nervously. She heard -him stop in his work, and she replied:—</p> - -<p>“I don’t . . . think . . . I want to marry you, Mendel. I don’t -. . . think . . . I want to marry anybody.”</p> - -<p>“I’m making plenty of money and I can get commissions for portraits. I could make it up -with Birnbaum. We could go to Italy together.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Don’t make it harder for both of us, Mendel. . . . I don’t want -. . . to marry.”</p> - -<p>“You will go back home, then?”</p> - -<p>“Please . . . please . . .” she implored him.</p> - -<p>A fury began to rise in him. He stamped his foot on the ground and struck his brush -across the picture. He made a tremendous effort to recover himself, but before he could -say another word she had slipped through the door and was gone. He darted after her, and -reached the front-door just in time to see her running as hard as she could down the -street and round the corner.</p> - -<p>Just as he was, in his shirt-sleeves, hatless and collarless, he went in to see his -mother. He was white-hot with rage, and he walked up to her and looked her up and down as -though he were trying to persuade himself that she was to blame.</p> - -<p>“What do you think the news is now?”</p> - -<p>Golda put her hand to her heart and looked at him fearfully as she shook her head.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been refused,” he said, “refused by the Christian girl.”</p> - -<p>“Refused!” cried Golda, who had never heard of such a thing as a girl refusing to marry -a rich young man.</p> - -<p>“Yes. I proposed to her and she refused.”</p> - -<p>“The Christians are all alike,” said Golda. “They keep themselves to themselves, and -you must do the same.”</p> - -<p>She took a smoked herring from the cupboard and cut it into portions.</p> - -<p>“And when your time for marrying comes you must look among the Jews, for the Jews are -good people. No Jewish girl would serve you a trick like that. Jewish girls know that they -must marry and they are good. But she is young, and you are young, and you will both -forget.”</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter206"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter206_hdg"><a href="#Chapter206_toc">VI<br /> -<span class="chap_title">CAMDEN TOWN</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">F<small>ROM</small> the magnificent studio in Hammersmith to two rooms -in Camden Town Mr. James Logan removed his worldly goods, a paint-box, half-a-dozen -canvases, two pairs of trousers, three shirts, a “Life of Napoleon” in two volumes, and a -number of photographs of famous pictures. The magnificent studio had been lent to him by -the mistress of its owner, who had returned unexpectedly from abroad, and Mr. James -Logan’s departure from it was hurried, but unperturbed.</p> - -<p>“In my time,” he said, “I have kept Fortune busy, but her tricks leave me unmoved. She -will get tired of it some day and leave me alone.”</p> - -<p>All the same he did not relish the change. He was nearly thirty and had tasted -sufficient comfort to relish it and to prize it. Also he could not forget the ambitions -with which he had come to London five years before. In the North he had won success by -storm, and he could not understand any other tactics. He was an extraordinary man and -expected immediate recognition of the fact. Upon his own mind his personality had so -powerful an effect that he was blind to the fact that it did not have a similar effect -upon the minds of others. Women and young men he could always stir into admiration, but -men older than himself were only affronted. He knew it and used to curse them:—</p> - -<p>“These clods, these hods, these glue-faced ticks have no more sap in them than a -withered tree.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-210">[Pg 210]</a></span> -They hate me as a mule hates a stallion, and for the same reason. May God and Mary have -mercy on what little is left of their souls by the time they come to judgment!”</p> - -<p>He cursed them now as he laid his trousers on the vast new double-bed he had bought and -went into his front room to arrange his easel and canvas for work. Whatever happened to -him he would go on painting, because he saw himself like that, standing as firm as a rock -before his easel, painting, while the world, for all he cared, went to rack and ruin. What -else could happen to a world that refused to recognize its artists?</p> - -<p>Painting was truly a joy to him. He loved the actual dabbling with the colours, laying -them out on his palette, mixing them, evolving rare shades; he loved the fiery -concentration and absorption in the making of a picture; the renewed power of sight when -he turned from a picture to the world; the glorious nervous energy that came thrilling -through his fingers in moments of concentration; the feeling of the superiority of this -power to all others in the world. And so, whatever happened, he turned to his easel and -painted. Love, debt, passion, quarrels, all the disturbances of life came and went, but -painting remained, inexhaustible. So he had been happy, free, unfettered, gay, avoiding -all responsibility because it was his formula that the artist’s only responsibility is to -his art.</p> - -<p>He was doubly happy now because he knew he had made an impression on a young man whose -sincerity and vigour of purpose he could not but respect. He was himself singularly -impressionable, and like a sponge for sucking up the colour of any strong personality. And -Mendel had the further attraction for him that he was pure London, of the shifting, motley -London that Logan, as a provincial, adored. This London he had touched at many points, but -never through<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-211">[Pg 211]</a></span> a -strong living soul that had, and most loyally acknowledged, London as its home.</p> - -<p>Logan’s visit to Mendel in the East End had been one of the great events of his life. -Through it he had found his feet where he had been floundering, though, of course, happily -and excitedly enough.</p> - -<p>He told himself that now he was going to settle down to work, to the great productive -period of his life, such as was vouchsafed to every real artist who was tough enough to -pay for it in suffering. He would rescue Mendel’s genius from the Detmold and the ossified -advanced painters, and together they would smash the English habit of following French art -a generation late, and they would lay the foundations of a genuine English art, a -metropolitan art, an art that grew naturally out of the life of the central city of the -world.</p> - -<p>Logan always worked by programme, but hitherto he had changed his programme once a -week. Now he was sure that this was the programme of his life. It would be amended, of -course, by inspiration, but its groundwork was permanent. He was enthusiastic over it. -. . . Of course, this was what he had always been seeking, and hitherto he had -been fighting the London which absorbed the talents of the country, masticated them, -digested them, and evacuated them in the shape of successful painters for whom neither -life nor art had any meaning, or in the shape of vicious wrecks who crawled from -public-house to public-house and died in hospitals.</p> - -<p>It was time that was stopped. It was time for London to be made to recognize that it -had a soul, and this generation must begin the task, for never before had a generation -been so faced with the blank impossibility of accepting the work, thought, and faith of -its predecessor. Never had it been so easy to slip out of the stream of<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-212">[Pg 212]</a></span> tradition, for never -had tradition so completely disappeared underground.</p> - -<p>“‘He that hath eyes to see, let him see,’” quoth Logan, and he hurled himself into his -work, dancing to and fro, squaring his shoulders at it as though the picture were an -adversary in a boxing-match.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>At half-past four he laid down his brushes and began to arrange the room, pinning -photographs on the walls, and unpacking certain articles of furniture, as a rug, a great -chair, and mattresses to make a divan, which he had bought that morning. Every now and -then he ran to the window, threw up the sash, and looked up and down the street.</p> - -<p>At last with a tremor of excitement he leaned out and waved his hand, shut the window, -and ran downstairs. In a moment or two he returned with the girl of the Tube station. She -was wearing the same clothes, with the addition of a cheap fur boa, and she panted a -little from the run upstairs with him.</p> - -<p>“I’m glad you came,” he said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! It’s not far from where I live,” she said. “But you are in a mess.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve only just got in. I would have asked you to my old place, but I had to -leave.”</p> - -<p>“So you’re a nartist,” she said. “I thought you were something funny.”</p> - -<p>“Funny!” snorted Logan. “I call a shop-walker funny; or a banker, for that matter, or a -millionaire. An artist is the most natural thing to be in the world. . . . Take -your hat and gloves off and give me a hand, and then we’ll have tea.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! I love my tea.”</p> - -<p>“I know all about tea. I get it from a friend of mine in the City. I know how to make -it, too.”</p> - -<p>They worked together, arranging, dusting,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-213">[Pg 213]</a></span> keeping deliberately apart and eyeing each other -surreptitiously. He liked her slow, heavy, indolent movements, and she exaggerated them -for him. She liked his quick, firm, decisive actions, and he accentuated them for her; and -she liked his thick, black hair and his strong hands.</p> - -<p>He picked up the great chair and held it at arm’s-length.</p> - -<p>“Oo! You are strong,” she said.</p> - -<p>“I could hold you up like that.”</p> - -<p>“I’d like to see you try,” and she gave a little giggle of protest.</p> - -<p>“I will if I don’t like you,” said he, “and I’ll let you drop and break your leg.”</p> - -<p>She went off into peals of laughter, and he laughed too.</p> - -<p>“It’s such a jolly day,” he said. “It only needed you to come to make everything -perfect.”</p> - -<p>“What made you speak to me the other night?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“I liked the look of you.”</p> - -<p>“But I’m not that sort, you know.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t a question of being that sort. I wanted to speak to you, and that was enough -for me. Sit down and have some tea.”</p> - -<p>The kettle was boiling, and he had already warmed the pot. He measured out the tea -carefully, poured the water onto it, and gave her a blue china cup. He produced an old -biscuit-tin containing some French pastry, and then sat on the floor while she consumed -the lot.</p> - -<p>It gave him great pleasure to see her eat, and he liked her healthy, childish greed. -She had the face of a spoiled child, a very soft skin, and plump, yielding flesh. He liked -that. It soothed and comforted him to look at her, while at the same time he was irritated -by her inward plumpness and easiness.</p> - -<p>“You’ve always had a good time,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh yes! I’ve seen to that.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You’re not a London girl.”</p> - -<p>“No; Yorkshire.”</p> - -<p>“I’m from Lancashire.”</p> - -<p>“Eeh! lad,” she said, her whole voice altering and deepening into an astonishingly full -note, “are ye fra’ Lancashire? Eeh! a’m fair clemmed wi’ London. Eeh! I am glad ye coom -fra’ Lancashire.”</p> - -<p>“What are you doing in London?”</p> - -<p>“I’m working in Oxford Street, though not one of the big shops.”</p> - -<p>“Like it?”</p> - -<p>“M’m! Well enough.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you don’t, handing out laces and ribbons——”</p> - -<p>“’Tisn’t laces and ribbons. It’s corsets.”</p> - -<p>“Corsets, then, to women who haven’t a tenth of your looks or your vitality.”</p> - -<p>“It can’t be helped if they have the money and I haven’t, can it?”</p> - -<p>“Money doesn’t matter. What’s money to you, with all the rich life in you? Money cannot -buy that, nor can it buy what will satisfy you.”</p> - -<p>“And what’s that?”</p> - -<p>“Love and freedom.”</p> - -<p>“Ooh! you are a talker.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not flirting with you. I haven’t got time for that.”</p> - -<p>He laid his hand on her foot, which was covered with a thin cotton stocking. She did -not move it.</p> - -<p>“You needn’t stare at me like that,” she said, with a curious thickness in her -voice.</p> - -<p>“I can’t help staring,” he answered, “when I mean what I say.” He pressed his lips -together and scowled, and shook her foot playfully. There was an exhilarating pleasure in -startling and mastering her by directness. It was like peeling the bark off a stick. The -thin layers of affectation came off easily and cleanly, leaving bare the white sappy -smoothness of her innocent sensuality.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I do mean what I say,” he added. “Why should we beat about the bush? I asked you to -come to-day because I wanted you. You came because you knew I wanted you.”</p> - -<p>“You asked me to tea.”</p> - -<p>“All right. And you’ll stay to dinner. People have made love to you before.”</p> - -<p>“Well, no . . . yes. . . . Not like . . .”</p> - -<p>“Don’t tell lies,” he said. “You saw me at the station long before I saw you, and you -wanted me to see you. That was why you stayed at the booking-office.”</p> - -<p>“You were with such a pretty boy,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Boy! You’re not old enough to care for pretty boys.”</p> - -<p>“But he <i>was</i> pretty.”</p> - -<p>“Be quiet!” he said, kneeling by her side. “You may want me to take weeks over making -all sorts of foolish advances to you, but I’m not going to waste time. I’ve wasted too -much time over that sort of rubbish. We both know what we want and you are going to stay -with me.”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“I say yes.”</p> - -<p>“No.” And she sprang to her feet and walked to the door. There she turned. He had -picked up her gloves.</p> - -<p>“Will you give me my gloves, please?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Will you give me my gloves?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Then I shall go without them.”</p> - -<p>“Very well. Good-bye.”</p> - -<p>“If I stay, will you promise not to talk like that?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want you to stay under those circumstances.”</p> - -<p>“You’re an insulting beast.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all. I honour your womanhood by not pretending that it isn’t there.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Will you give me my gloves?”</p> - -<p>She ran across and tried to snatch them out of his hand. He gripped and held her, and -she gave a wild laugh as he kissed her.</p> - -<p>She clung to him as he let her sink back into the great chair. She lay with her eyes -closed and her lips parted while he sat and poured himself out another cup of tea. His -hand was shaking so that he spilled some tea on his new rug.</p> - -<p>“That’s all right,” he said. “I’ll give you a week to get used to me, and if at the end -of that time you don’t like me, you can go.”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t any friends,” she said in a low voice, “and you get sick of girls and the -shop. You get sick of going out in the evening up and down the streets and into the -cinemas, and finding some damn fool to take you to a music-hall. Such a lot of people and -nobody to know.”</p> - -<p>“There’s a lot of fun in living with an artist,” he said. “You meet queer people and -amusing women, and you wouldn’t find me dull to live with.”</p> - -<p>“I felt queer as I came near the house,” she said, “as though I knew something was -going to happen. I feel very queer now.”</p> - -<p>“That’s love,” said Logan grimly. “Love isn’t what you thought it was.”</p> - -<p>“You must let me go now.”</p> - -<p>“When will you come again?”</p> - -<p>“Never.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, you will.”</p> - -<p>“Stop it!” she cried. “Stop it! I’m not going to be flummoxed by the like of you.”</p> - -<p>“But you are,” he said. “You poor darling!”</p> - -<p>He took her hand and stroked it tenderly.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you see that you are flummoxed by something that is stronger than both of us? -I’m shaken by it, and I’m whipcord. We’re poor starving people, God help us! and we can -save each other. We knew we could do it at once,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-217">[Pg 217]</a></span> when we met. . . . If I said all the pretty -things in the world it wouldn’t help. We’re too far gone for that. When you’re starving -you don’t want chocolates. . . . I’m only saying what I know. It is true of -myself. If I have made a mistake about you, I am sorry. You can go. . . . Have I -made a mistake?”</p> - -<p>For answer she turned towards him, gazed at him with glazing eyes, raised her arms, and -drew him into them.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>A week later Nelly Oliver dined with Logan and Mendel at the Pot-au-Feu. They had a -special dinner and drank champagne, for it was what Logan called the “nuptial feast.”</p> - -<p>Oliver, as they called her, was flushed with excitement, and kept on telling Mendel -that he was the prettiest boy she had ever seen. She called Logan “Pip”—“Pip darling,” -“Pip dearest,” “Pipkin” and “Pipsy”—because she said he was like an orange-pip, bitter and -hard in the midst of sweetness.</p> - -<p>“Pip says you’re a genius,” she said to Mendel. “What does he mean?”</p> - -<p>Mendel disliked her, though he tried hard to persuade himself that she was charming. He -was baffled by the solemnity with which Logan was taking her, for she seemed to him the -type made for occasional solace and not for companionship. Exploring her with his mind and -instinct, she seemed to him soft and pulpy, not unlike an orange, and if she and Logan -were to set up a common life, then he would be like a pip indeed. . . . How -could he explain to her the nature of genius? Can you explain the night to an insect that -lives but an hour in the morning?</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” he said brusquely.</p> - -<p>Logan was dimly aware that his friend and his girl were not pleasing each other, and he -set himself to keep them amused. He succeeded<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-218">[Pg 218]</a></span> fairly well, but his humour was forced, for he was under -the spell of the girl and the thought of the adventure to which she had consented. She -knew it, and was loud and shrill and triumphant, continually setting Mendel’s teeth on -edge, for the purity of his instinct was disgusted by the blurring and swamping of life by -any emotion, and the quality of hers was not such as to win indulgence.</p> - -<p>“Logan will tell you what genius is,” he said.</p> - -<p>“She’ll find that out soon enough if she lives with me,” growled Logan a little -pompously.</p> - -<p>Oliver put her head on one side and looked languishingly at Mendel as she drawled:—</p> - -<p>“It’s a pity you haven’t got a nice girl. Then there would be four of us.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be a fool!” snapped Logan. “What does he want with girls at his age?”</p> - -<p>Oliver’s lips trembled and she pouted in protest.</p> - -<p>“I only thought it would be nice to round off the party. When you’re in love you can’t -help wanting everybody else to have some too.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was torn between dislike of her and admiration of Logan’s masterful handling of -the problem of desire. . . . No nonsense about getting married or falling in -love. He saw the woman he wanted and took her and made her his property, and the woman -could not but acquiesce, as Oliver had done. In a dozen different ways she acknowledged -Logan’s lordship, even in her deliberate efforts to exasperate him. Their relationship -seemed to Mendel simple and excellent, and he envied them. How easy his life would become -if he could do the same! What freedom there would be in having a woman to throw in her lot -with his! It would settle all his difficulties, absolve him from his dependence on his -family, and deliver him from the attentions of unworthy women.</p> - -<p>“How shall we dress her?” asked Logan.</p> - -<p>Mendel took out his sketch-book and drew a<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-219">[Pg 219]</a></span> rough portrait of Oliver in a gown tight-fitting above -the waist and full in the skirt.</p> - -<p>“I should look a guy in that,” she said. “It’s nothing like the fashion.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve done with fashion,” said Logan. “You’ve done with the world of shops and snobs -and bored, idiotic women. You’re above all that now. In the first place there won’t be any -money for fashion, and in the second place there’s no room in our kind of life for -rubbish. You’re a free woman now, and don’t you forget it, or I’ll knock your head -off.”</p> - -<p>“But it’s a horrible, ugly dress,” said Oliver, almost in tears.</p> - -<p>“It’s what you’re going to wear. I’ll buy the stuff to-morrow and make it myself. What -colour would you like?”</p> - -<p>“I won’t wear it.”</p> - -<p>“Then you can go back to your shop.”</p> - -<p>“You know I can’t. I’ve said good-bye to all the girls.”</p> - -<p>“Then you’ll wear the dress.”</p> - -<p>“I shan’t.”</p> - -<p>“For God’s sake don’t quarrel,” said Mendel. “One would think you had been married for -ten years. Let her wear what she likes until she wants some new clothes.”</p> - -<p>“Highty Tighty! Little boy!” sang Oliver. “You talk as though I were a little -girl.”</p> - -<p>“You behave like one,” snapped Mendel, and her face was overcast with a cloud of -malignant sulkiness.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>They went on to a music-hall, where Logan and she sat with their arms locked and their -shoulders pressed together, whispering and babbling to each other.</p> - -<p>Mendel sat bolt upright with his arms folded, staring at the stage but seeing nothing, -so lost was he in the contemplation of the strange turn<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-220">[Pg 220]</a></span> of affairs by which the adventure which -had promised to lead him straight to art had deposited him in a muddy little pool of life. -He would not submit to it. He would not surrender Logan and all the hopes he had aroused. -Prepared as he had been to follow Logan through fire, he would not shrink when the way led -through the morass. Friendship was to him no fair-weather luxury, and nothing but -falsehood or faithlessness in his friend could make him relinquish it.</p> - -<p>He told himself that Logan would soon tire of it, that Oliver would go the way of her -kind. She was, after all, better than Hetty Finch, since she had a capacity for childish -enjoyment.</p> - -<p>She revelled in the sentimental ditties and the suggestive humours of the comedians, -pressed closer and closer to Logan, and grew elated and strangely exalted as the evening -wore on. And as they left the music-hall she gripped Mendel’s arm and brought her face -close to his and whispered:—</p> - -<p>“Do wish me luck, Kühler. Give me a kiss for luck.”</p> - -<p>He kissed her and mumbled: “Good luck!”</p> - -<p>“Come and see us to-morrow,” she said. “We shall be all right to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, come along!” cried Logan, dragging her away; and Mendel stood in the glaring light -of the portico and watched them as, arm in arm, they were swallowed up in the crowd -hurrying and jostling its way home to the dark outer regions of London.</p> - -<p>He had an appalling sense of being left out of it. Everything passed and he remained. -He lived in a circle of light into which, like moths, came timid, blinking, lovable -figures, and he loved them; but they passed on and were lost in the tumultuous, heaving -darkness of life, into which alone he could not enter. . . . Did he desire to -enter it? He did not know, but he was hungry for something that lay in it, or, perhaps, -beyond it.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter207"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter207_hdg"><a href="#Chapter207_toc">VII<br /> -<span class="chap_title">MR. TILNEY TYSOE</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">L<small>OGAN</small> with Oliver was more startling and exhilarating -than before. He was filled with a ferocious energy, and his programme was distended with -it.</p> - -<p>He said to Mendel:—</p> - -<p>“She’s an inspiration. I have found what I was seeking. You have given me the -inspiration of art. Through you I shall reach the heights of the spirit. She has given me -the inspiration of life, and through her I shall plumb the very depths of humanity. She is -marvellous. All the exasperation of modern life is in her, all the impatient brooding on -the threshold of new marvels. You think she is stupid, I know, but that is only because -she has in herself such an immense wealth of instinctive knowledge of life that she does -not need to judge it by passing outward appearances. I am amazed at her, almost afraid of -her. Something tremendous will come out of her. . . . By God! It makes me sick -to think of all the dabbling in paint that goes on, not to speak of all the dabbling in -love. Love? The word has become foolish and empty. I don’t wish to hear it uttered ever -again. . . . I swear that if it doesn’t come out in paint I shall write poetry. -Oh! I can feel the marrow in my bones again, and my veins are full of sap. . . . -But I want to talk business.”</p> - -<p>“Business?” said Mendel, who had been upset and bewildered by this outburst.</p> - -<p>“Yes. I want you to approve my programme,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-222">[Pg 222]</a></span> for you must have a programme. It is all very well to -work by the light of inspiration. That can work quite well as far as you yourself are -concerned, but what about the public? what about the other artists?—damn them! We’re going -to burst out of the groove, but we must have a good reason for doing so.”</p> - -<p>“Surely it is reason enough that one can’t work in it.”</p> - -<p>“Not enough for them. They must be mystified and impressed. They must be unable to -place us. They must feel that we are up to something, but they must be unable to say what -it is.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care what they say,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“But you must care. When we have carried out the programme, then you can do as you -like, but till then we must pull together. We must do it for the sake of art. We must make -a stand, not to found a school or to say that this and no other style of drawing is right, -but to assert the sacred duty of the artist to paint according to his vision and his -creative instinct.”</p> - -<p>This was coming very near to Mendel’s own feeling, and he remembered the torture he had -been through to learn the Detmold style of drawing, and how some virtue had gone out of -his work in the effort.</p> - -<p>“It is the artist’s business,” said Logan, “to create out of the life around him an -expression of it in form.”</p> - -<p>“I agree,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“Accurate imitation is not necessarily an expression, is it? You know it isn’t. A -picture must be a created thing. It must have a life of its own, and to have that it must -grow through the artist’s passion out of the life around him. It is all rubbish to look -back, to talk of going back to the Primitives or the Byzantines or Egypt. You can learn a -great deal from those old people about pictures, but you cannot learn how to paint -your<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-223">[Pg 223]</a></span> own -pictures from them, because you can only live in your own life and your own time, and if -you are a good artist your work will transcend both. . . . Now, tell me, where -is the work that is expressing the glorious, many-coloured life of London, where is the -work that does not give you a shock as you come to it out of the street, the thrilling, -vibrant street, making you feel that you are stepping back ten, twenty, fifty years? -. . . Why has life outstripped art?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” said Mendel, whose head had begun to ache.</p> - -<p>“It has not only outstripped it,” continued Logan. “It has begun to despise it.”</p> - -<p>The postman knocked, and Mendel ran downstairs in feverish expectation of a letter from -Morrison, to whom he had written imploring her to come again, or, if not, at least to let -him have her address in the country. There was no letter for him, and as soon as he -returned with a blank, disappointed face, Logan went on:—</p> - -<p>“People collect pictures as they collect postage-stamps, to keep themselves from being -bored. Naturally they despise pictures, and they despise us for accepting those -conditions. They are intolerable, and we must make an end of them. We are in a tight -corner, and we should leave no trick and twist and turn untried to get out of it. If we do -not do so then there will be no art, as there is no drama, no music, and no literature, -and there will be no authority among men, and humanity will go to hell. It is on the road -to it, and the artists have got to stop it.”</p> - -<p>Mendel had not heard a word. He sat with his head in his hands thinking of Morrison, -and hating her for the blank misery in which she had plunged him.</p> - -<p>“Humanity,” said Logan cheerfully, “is fast going to hell. It likes it; and, as the -democratic idea is that it should have what it likes, not a<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-224">[Pg 224]</a></span> finger, not a voice is raised to stop -it. Everything that stands in the way—ideals, decency, responsibility, passion, -love—everything is smashed. Nothing can stop it unless their eyes are opened and their -poor frozen hearts are thawed.”</p> - -<p>“What did you say?” asked Mendel, having half-caught that last phrase.</p> - -<p>“We must try to stop it,” said Logan. “We may be smashed and swept aside, but we must -try to stop it. . . . I’ve been to see Cluny to-day. He has sold all your things -except one drawing.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” replied Mendel, who had received an amazing account which showed about -two-thirds of his earnings swallowed up in colours, brushes, frames, and photographs. He -knew, but he was not interested. He was unhappy and restless and felt completely -empty.</p> - -<p>“We passionate natures,” said Logan, striding up and down like Napoleon on the -quarter-deck of the <i>Bellerophon</i>—“we passionate natures must take control. We must -be the nucleus of true fiery stuff to resist the universal corruption. We must be -dedicated to the wars of the spirit.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve got a splitting headache,” said Mendel. “Do you mind not talking so much? The -important thing for a painter is painting. What happens outside that doesn’t matter.”</p> - -<p>“You think so now,” said Logan, “but you wait. You’ll find that painting won’t satisfy -you. You will want to know what it is all for, and one of these days you will be thankful -to me for telling you. . . . Cluny has taken on some of my things, and he has -agreed to our having an exhibition together. What do you say to that?”</p> - -<p>“So long as I sell I don’t care where I exhibit. Exhibitions are always horrible. They -always make pictures look mean and insignificant.”</p> - -<p>“You are in a mood to-day.”</p> - -<p>“I tell you,” cried Mendel in a fury—“I tell you I know what art is better than -anybody. It<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-225">[Pg 225]</a></span> -touches life at one point, and one point only, and there it gives a great light. If life -is too mean and beastly to reach that point, so much the worse for life. It does not -affect art, which is another world, where everything is beautiful and true. I know it; I -have always known it. I have lived in that world. I live in it, and I detest everything -that drags me away from it and makes me live in the world of filth and thieves and -scoundrels. Yes, I detest even love, even passion, for they make a fool and a beast of a -man.”</p> - -<p>“Young!” said Logan. “Very young! You’ll learn. . . . But do be sensible and -control your beast of a temper. Never mind my programme if it doesn’t interest you. Will -you accept Cluny’s offer? It is worth it, for it will make you independent.”</p> - -<p>“How much does he want?”</p> - -<p>“A dozen exhibits each.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! very well.”</p> - -<p>“And will you come and dine to-night with my fool of a patron, Mr. Tilney Tysoe?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to know fools. I know quite enough already.”</p> - -<p>“But I’ve promised to take you. . . . He adores Bohemians, as he calls us, -and he buys pictures.”</p> - -<p>“Does he give you good food?”</p> - -<p>“Some of the best in London.”</p> - -<p>“All right.”</p> - -<p>“Meet us at the Paris Café at seven-thirty. Don’t dress. Tysoe would be dreadfully -disappointed if you didn’t turn up reeking of paint. It would be almost better not to -wash.”</p> - -<p>“Is Oliver going?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Do you mind?”</p> - -<p>“No. . . . No.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>It was an enormous relief to Mendel when Logan went. His enthusiasm was too exhausting, -and it was maddening to have him talking of<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-226">[Pg 226]</a></span> success and the triumph of art and the wars of the -spirit when life had apparently reached up and extinguished the light of art altogether. -For a brief moment, for a day or two, it had almost seemed to him that life and art were -one, that everything was solved and simple, that he would henceforth only have to paint -and pictures would flow from his brush as easily as song from a bird. This illusion had -survived even the blow of Morrison’s departure. He believed that it was enough for him to -have had that hour of illumination, and that, if go she must, he could do without her. The -flash of light had been the same, magnified a thousand times, as the inspiration that set -him at work on a picture and then left him to wrestle with the task of translating it into -terms of paint. She had appeared to him exactly in the same visionary way, an image -shining in truth and beauty, an emanation from that other world, and he had thought he -would at worst be left with the terrible ordeal of translating the vision into paint. -. . . But when he looked at his pictures they oppressed him with their -lifelessness and dark dullness, and the idea of painting disgusted him. It was even an -acute pain, almost like a wound upon his heart, to handle a brush. He could not finish the -portrait of his father and mother, and, at best, he could only force himself to paint -flower-pieces.</p> - -<p>He was incapable of deceiving himself. He had never heard of devout lovers sighing in -vain, and he had no sources of comfort within himself. Never had he shrunk from any -torment, and this was so cruel as to be almost a glory, except that it meant such a -deathly stillness and emptiness. He could not understand it, and he knew that it was past -the comprehension of all whom he knew, even his mother. But he set his teeth and vowed -that he would understand it if it took years. . . . A little girl, a little -Christian girl! How was it possible?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> - -<p>There was some relief in the thought of her, but very little. She was still too -visionary, and when he tried to think of her in life, by his side, it was impossibly -painful.</p> - -<p>Where was she? Why did she not write? Her silence was like ice upon his heart. -. . . What kind of place did she live in? Among what people? How was he to -imagine her? . . . To think of her among the trees or under the chestnut-tree -was to be torn with impulses that could find no outlet; desires for creation that made -painting seem a sham and a mockery.</p> - -<p>So keen, and fierce, and deep was his suffering that death seemed a little thing in -comparison. When he tried to think of death he knew that it was not worth thinking of, and -he was ashamed that the thought should have been in his mind.</p> - -<p>He knew that he must understand or perish. To say that he was in love was hopelessly -inadequate. He knew how people were when they were in love. They were like Rosa, like -animals, stupid and thick-sighted, with a thickening in their blood. But he was possessed -with a clairvoyance that made everything round him seem transparent and flimsy, while -thought crept stealthily, like a cat on a wall, and emotion was confounded.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>For days he had hardly left his studio, and it was only with the greatest effort that -he could bring himself to join Logan at the Paris Café. He felt weak, and the streets -looked very strange, clear and bright, as they do to a convalescent. As he entered the -café it seemed years since he had been there, ages since he had sat there trembling with -excitement as he waited for the great Calthrop to come in. He remembered that excitement -so vividly that something like it came rushing up in him, and he clutched at it for -relief. . . . Calthrop was there with his little court of<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-228">[Pg 228]</a></span> models and students. -Mendel found himself laughing nervously as he stood and waited for the great man to -recognize him. Calthrop looked up and nodded to him. He was wildly, absurdly delighted. He -rushed over to Logan and Oliver and shook them enthusiastically by the hand.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it a splendid place?” he cried.</p> - -<p>“Have something to drink,” said Logan. “You’ve been overworking.”</p> - -<p>“You must say it’s a splendid place,” insisted Mendel, “or I shall go home. Just by -that table where Calthrop is sitting is where I was arrested.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, which is Calthrop?” asked Oliver eagerly.</p> - -<p>“The big man over there,” said Mendel. “I was arrested just there, and I had to go on -my knees to the manager to make him allow me to come here again. I had to apologize to -him. At the time it was the greatest tragedy of my life.”</p> - -<p>He had forgotten his dislike for Oliver in his elation at finding himself gay again, -and he chattered on of the days when the café had seemed to him a heaven full of heroes. -Oliver listened to him like a child. She loved stories, and she leaned forward and drank -in his words, and she appeared to him as a very beautiful woman, desirable, intoxicating. -Yet because Logan was his friend he would not envy him, but rejoiced in his possession of -this rare treasure, a woman who could deliver up to him all the warm secrets of life. And -he could not help saying so, and telling them how happy it made him to be with them.</p> - -<p>Logan and Oliver glanced at each other, and their hands met in a fierce grip under the -table. Mendel could not see more than their glance, but the meeting of their eyes sent a -flame like a white-hot sword darting at his heart. The sharp pain released him, and sent -him shooting up into a wilder gaiety.</p> - -<p>He felt a hand on his shoulder, and, turning<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-229">[Pg 229]</a></span> with a start, he saw Mr. Sivwright, his first master, -standing above him. He rose and shook hands.</p> - -<p>“I am glad to see you,” said Mr. Sivwright. “I’ve been meaning to write to you, but -I’ve been away, out of London.”</p> - -<p>Mendel introduced him to his friends and asked him to sit down.</p> - -<p>“I can’t stop a moment,” said Mr. Sivwright. “I’m very busy. I have just started a club -for artists—opens at eleven. These absurd closing hours, you know. I hope you’ll join. It -has been open a week. Great fun, and I want some frescoes painted. . . . I’m -very proud of your success, Kühler. I feel I had my hand in it.”</p> - -<p>He produced a prospectus and laid it on the table, bowed awkwardly to Oliver, and with -a self-conscious swagger, as though he felt the eyes of all in the café upon him, made his -way out.</p> - -<p>“Who’s that broken-down tick?” asked Logan.</p> - -<p>“Sivwright,” answered Mendel. “He taught me when I was a boy. He’s a very bad artist, -and he thinks art ended with Corot. I learned to paint like Corot. Really! I used to go -with him to the Park and weep over the trees in the twilight: I never thought I should see -him again.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! people bob up,” said Logan. “We go on getting longer in the tooth, but people -recur, like decimals.”</p> - -<p>“Would you like to go to his club?” asked Mendel. “It says ‘Dancing.’ I feel like -dancing.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! I love dancing,” said she.</p> - -<p>Logan assumed his air of mysterious importance and said it was time to go to -Tysoe’s.</p> - -<p>“We’re twenty minutes late,” he said; “Tysoe would be dreadfully put out if we were -punctual.”</p> - -<p>As Mendel had plenty of money they took a taxi-cab.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Mr. Tilney Tysoe was an idealist, and he had no other profession. He was a very tall -man with<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-230">[Pg 230]</a></span> a long -cadaverous face, great bulging, watery eyes, and extraordinarily long hands, which hung -limply from his wrist, except when he was excited, when they shot up with extreme -violence, and carried his arms with them into a gesture so awkward that he had to find -relief from it in a shrug. He was devoted to the arts, had a stall at the opera, a study -full of books, and several rooms full of pictures. An artist was to him a great artist, a -book that pleased him was a great book, and his constant lament was over the dearth of -great men in public life. It gave him the keenest delight to see Logan, unkempt, -wild-haired, shaggy, violent and brusque, enter his daintily furnished drawing-room, and -his eyes passed eagerly to Oliver, looking just as she ought to have done, the mistress of -a Bohemian.</p> - -<p>“Delighted! Delighted!” he said as he coiled his long white hand round Mendel’s -workmanlike paw. “My wife, I regret to say, is away. She will be so sorry to have missed -you. Like me, she is tired of the shallow, artificial people we live among. We both adore -sincere, real people. I adore sincerity. Sincerity is genius.”</p> - -<p>“That is true,” said Logan in a sepulchral voice that made Mendel jump. “At least, -where you find sincerity, you may be sure that genius is not far behind.”</p> - -<p>“I bought a picture of yours the other day, Mr. Kühler,” said Tysoe. “I am ashamed to -think how little I gave for it, but works of art are priceless, are they not?”</p> - -<p>“Mine are,” said Mendel, overcoming his disgust and beginning to enjoy the game.</p> - -<p>“You think so,” rejoined Tysoe with an undulation of his long body. “And why shouldn’t -you say so? You are sincere and strong. You must force your talent upon an ungrateful -world.”</p> - -<p>A man-servant announced dinner, and Tysoe gave his arm to Oliver and led her -downstairs,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-231">[Pg 231]</a></span> -while Logan put his hand on Mendel’s shoulder and said with a chuckle:—</p> - -<p>“Be sincere.”</p> - -<p>Mendel began at once with the soup, as though he had been wound up.</p> - -<p>“I have won every possible prize for painting and drawing, and the first picture I -exhibited was the sensation of the year in art circles.”</p> - -<p>“I remember it,” said Tysoe.</p> - -<p>“Like my friend Logan, I am profoundly dissatisfied with the state of art in England, -and though I am not an Englishman I have sufficient love for the country to wish to do my -share in redeeming it. The first essential is a new technique, the second essential is a -new spirit, and the third essential is sincerity.”</p> - -<p>“Wonderfully true!” cried Tysoe. “Have some sherry. Wonderfully true! Now, take the -ordinary man. He might feel all that, but would he dare to say it? No. That is why I, as -an idealist, delight in the society of artists. You know where you are with them. Facts -are facts with them.”</p> - -<p>“I do like this sherry wine,” said Oliver, beginning to feel very comfortable in the -warm luxury of the dining-room.</p> - -<p>Logan kicked her under the table.</p> - -<p>Feeling that more was expected of him, Mendel wound himself up again and went on:—</p> - -<p>“Logan and I are going to hold an exhibition together. It will make a great stir, that -is, if London is not altogether dead to sincerity. We think it is time that independence -among artists was encouraged. Art must not be allowed to stop short at Calthrop——”</p> - -<p>He stopped dead as he realized that the wall opposite him held half a dozen drawings by -Calthrop. Logan rushed in:—</p> - -<p>“Among real artists there is no rivalry. Art is not a competition. It is a -constellation, like the Milky Way.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Ah! La Voie Lactée!” cried Tysoe, dropping into French, as he sometimes did when he -was moved. “Quite so! La Voie Lactée!”</p> - -<p>“At home in Yorkshire,” said Oliver, “there are sometimes two big stars hanging just -over the top of the moors, and they say it means love or death if you see it at half-past -nine.”</p> - -<p>Logan took charge of the conversation, frowning at Mendel and Oliver as though they -were naughty children. He described the masterpiece he was painting, and Tysoe said:—</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I shall like that. It sounds big and forceful, like yourself. Do let me have -a look at it before anyone else sees it.”</p> - -<p>Then he added:—</p> - -<p>“I saw a charming still-life of yours once. A melon, I think it was. What has become of -it?”</p> - -<p>“It was sold, I fancy,” replied Mendel, who had never painted a melon in his life.</p> - -<p>“Ah! A pity. I wanted some little thing for a wedding-present. No one I care about very -much, so it must be a little thing.”</p> - -<p>“He has two or three little things just now,” said Logan. “If you sent a messenger-boy -round to his studio he would let you see them.”</p> - -<p>And suddenly Mendel could keep the game up no longer. He began to feel choked by the -stuffy, empty luxury of the room, with its excess of plate and glass and flowers and -furniture and pictures. His head seemed to be on the point of bursting. He must get -out—out and away. He wanted to laugh, to scream with laughter, to shout, to die of -laughter, anything to shake off the oppressive folly of his host. And he began to laugh, -to shake and heave with it. He suppressed it, but at last he burst out with a roar and -rushed from the room.</p> - -<p>“Overworked,” said Logan imperturbably. “That’s what it is. The poor devil hasn’t -learned sense yet. It’s work, work, work with him, all the time. He thinks of nothing but -his art, you<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-233">[Pg 233]</a></span> -know. Never has, ever since he was a boy. . . . He’ll be a very great genius, -and I shall be left far behind.”</p> - -<p>“Not you,” said Tysoe, “not you. I know no man in whom I have greater faith than -you.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think him as good as all that?” said Oliver eagerly. “I’m always telling him -Kühler’s not a patch on him.”</p> - -<p>Meanwhile Mendel had taken refuge in the lavatory, where he shouted and shook and cried -with laughter. When he had recovered himself he crawled back to the dining-room muttering -inaudible apologies.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve not been myself lately.”</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t overdo it,” said Tysoe kindly. “You have plenty of time. You need be in no -hurry to overtake Logan. He is entering upon maturity. Your time will come.”</p> - -<p>Mendel felt disturbed. He had not thought of Logan seriously as a painter, certainly -not as a rival or a colleague. Logan was his friend. That Logan painted was incidental. It -irritated him to have to sit and listen to him holding forth about painting. He had always -liked Logan’s talk, but had never really connected it with his work. It was just talk, -like reading, or going to the cinema—a sop, a drug, soothing and pleasant when he was in -the mood for it, maddening when he was not.</p> - -<p>It was as though a spring had been touched, releasing his intelligence, which had -always been kept apart from his work. For the first time he felt, though never so little, -detached from it, while at the same moment the awful inward pressure of his emotional -crisis was relaxed. He was happier, and less wildly gay, and he began to realize that he -had astonishingly good food in front of him, good wine in plenty, delicious fruits to -come, and fragrant coffee brewing there on the<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-234">[Pg 234]</a></span> sideboard among bright-hued liqueur bottles. -. . . There was no need to listen to Logan. There was pleasure enough in eating -and drinking and watching Oliver, and thinking how good it would be to dance with her, and -perhaps with others—little women whom he would hold in his arms and feel them yield to -every movement that he made. . . .</p> - -<p>He was left alone with Oliver after dinner, while Logan and Tysoe retired to the -study.</p> - -<p>“You’ve made him very happy,” he said rather unsteadily.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes!” said she. “It was like a Fate, wasn’t it? I always had a feeling that I -wasn’t like other girls. I always thought something out of the way would happen to me, -though I never thought of anything like this.”</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t tell me about him,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“I must tell someone or I shall die. He’s so extraordinary. He says it’s something -deeper than love, and I think it must be.”</p> - -<p>“You must not talk about it,” he said.</p> - -<p>“It makes all the stuff he talks about seem silly. I don’t understand it, do you?”</p> - -<p>She lay back in her chair and swung her foot, with her eyes fixed on the door waiting -for Logan to return.</p> - -<p>Mendel’s dislike of her sprang up in him again, and he was a little afraid of her: of -her big, fleshy body, so full now of little trickling streams of pleasure; of her eyes, -watching, watching, with the strange, glassy steadiness of the eyes of a bird of prey. -. . . He decided that he would not dance with her. He would dance with the -others—the little, harmless, pretty fools.</p> - -<p>To reassure himself he told himself that Logan was happy, and strong enough to resist -the growing will in this woman.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter208"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter208_hdg"><a href="#Chapter208_toc">VIII<br /> -<span class="chap_title">THE MERLIN’S CAVE</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">L<small>OGAN</small> had cajoled twenty pounds out of Mr. Tysoe, who -stood on his doorstep, dangling his long hands, while his admired guests crept into a -taxi-cab. He swung from side to side:—</p> - -<p>“I have had a most delightful evening—most charming, most inspiring.”</p> - -<p>Inside the cab Logan waved the cheque triumphantly and Oliver tried to snatch it from -him. They had an excited scuffle, which ended in a kiss.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter with the man?” asked Mendel.</p> - -<p>“He’s just a fool,” replied Logan, “a padded fool. His only virtue is that he does -really think me a wonderful fellow, and he is kind. But how I hate such kindness, the last -virtue, the last refuge of the decrepit! It is a perfume, a herb with which they are -embalmed.”</p> - -<p>“I thought he was a very nice old gentleman,” said Oliver.</p> - -<p>“He seemed to me,” said Mendel, “the kind of man who thinks of nothing but women all -day long.”</p> - -<p>“Hit it in once!” cried Logan. “A parrot will not do more for an almond than he will -for a commodious drab. He could take a nun and by force of living with her and surrounding -her with every luxury turn her into a whore, because she would in time become only another -luxury. That is what men grow into if they lose the spirit of freedom. . . . -Where are we going to?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I told the man to go to Sivwright’s club. It is called The Merlin’s Cave.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>The club proved to be a cellar filled with little tables. There was a commissionaire at -the door and a book had to be signed. The rack of the cloakroom contained several -silk-lined overcoats and opera-hats.</p> - -<p>“It’s going to be damned expensive,” said Logan.</p> - -<p>“I’ll pay,” replied Mendel. “It’s my fault.”</p> - -<p>Two tall young men in immaculate evening dress had entered just after them. They gave -out an air of wealth and cleanliness and made Logan and Oliver look common and shabby. -Mendel hated the two young men. What had they done to look so well-fed and unruffled? -Obviously they had only to hold out their hands to have everything they wanted put into -them. . . . They looked slightly self-conscious and ashamed of themselves, and -wore a look of alarmed expectancy as they went downstairs.</p> - -<p>Why did they come there if they were ashamed? and why did they expect an Asmodean -lewdness of an artists’ club, they for whom the flesh-markets of the music-hall promenades -existed?</p> - -<p>“Real swells, aren’t they?” said Oliver, overawed.</p> - -<p>The strains of a small orchestra came floating up the stairs.</p> - -<p>“Come on,” said Mendel, “I want to dance.” And he caught her by the wrist and dragged -her downstairs.</p> - -<p>A girl was standing on a table singing an idiotic song with a syncopated chorus which a -few people took up in a half-hearted fashion. The sound of it was thin and depressing.</p> - -<p>“The same old game,” said Logan. “Playing at being wicked. Why can’t they stick to -their commercial beastliness? I should be ashamed to bring<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-237">[Pg 237]</a></span> any woman into this. I am ashamed.” He -half rose from his chair.</p> - -<p>“Oh! don’t go,” pleaded Oliver, who was entranced with her first sight of what she -called a gay life. It was to her like a stage spectacle. “Oh! there’s that Calthrop; I -suppose all those odd women with him are models.”</p> - -<p>Calthrop was surrounded by admiring students, among them Morrison, sitting prim and -astonished and obviously amazed to find herself where she was. Mendel began to tremble, -and his heart beat violently, as he stared at her—stared and stared.</p> - -<p>She had lied to him then! She had not had to go home! She could strike him down and -then come to amuse herself at such a place as this!</p> - -<p>Was she with Mitchell? No, Mitchell was not among the satellites.</p> - -<p>How strange she looked! a wild violet in a hot-house. He waited for her to glance in -his direction, but she seemed to be absorbed in the singer and in the song, and every now -and then she smiled, though obviously not at the song—at something that amused her or -pleased her in her thoughts. She could smile then and be happy, and all his wild emotions -had made no invasion into her life. . . . No; she would not look in his -direction. Perhaps she had seen him come in and refused to see him.</p> - -<p>Would the dancing never begin? The dancing took place on a slightly raised floor. If he -danced there she would have to see him.</p> - -<p>He found a warm hand placed on his leg, and turning he saw Jessie Petrie, a model, with -whom he had danced at the studios and at the Detmold.</p> - -<p>“I thought I was never going to see you again,” she said, “and Mitchell said you had -gone mad.”</p> - -<p>“Do I look it?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“No. You look bonnier than ever. I’m on my own again now. Thompson has gone to Paris. -He says the only painters are there. I think he’s<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-238">[Pg 238]</a></span> going mad, because he paints nothing but stripes and -triangles. And he <i>was</i> such a dear. . . . I’m feeling awfully lonely -because Tilly has gone to Canada. Samuelson gave her the chuck and she went out to her -cousin in Canada, who had always been wanting to marry her. . . . Are you still -down in Whitechapel? I do hate going to see you there. Why don’t you move up to the West -End? I could come and live with you then, for I do hate being at a loose end.”</p> - -<p>She was adorably pretty, dark, with eyes like damsons, lovely red lips, touched up with -carmine, and a soft white neck that trembled as she spoke like the breast of a singing -bird.</p> - -<p>“Oh! who do you think I saw the other day? Hetty Finch! She has a flat and a motor-car, -but I don’t believe she is married.” She looked suddenly solemn as she added: “The baby’s -dead.” Then she rattled on: “Isn’t she lucky? But she’s an awful snob. Would hardly speak -to me!”</p> - -<p>“She’s a beast of a woman.”</p> - -<p>“What do you think of this place? I suppose if the swells come it’ll be a success, but -they do spoil it.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mendel. “They spoil everything. When do they begin to dance?”</p> - -<p>“They’ve nearly finished the programme. They have to have a programme to make people -eat and drink.”</p> - -<p>“Let’s have some champagne.”</p> - -<p>He called the waiter and ordered a bottle.</p> - -<p>“Been selling lately?”</p> - -<p>“No,” he said; “but I want to dance. Do you hear? I want to dance.”</p> - -<p>“Dancing,” Logan threw in, “is the beginning of art. It is too primitive for me, or I’m -too old.”</p> - -<p>A thin-faced long-haired poet mounted the table and read some verses, which the popping -of corks and the clatter of knives and forks rendered inaudible. The poet went on -interminably, and at<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-239">[Pg -239]</a></span> last someone began drumming on the table and shouting “Dance! Dance! -Dance!” The poet stuck to it. Bread was thrown at him and the shouting became general.</p> - -<p>At last the orchestra struck up through the poet’s reedy chanting, couples made their -way to the stage, and the dancing began. Morrison still sat prim and preoccupied. Mendel -put his arm round Jessie’s waist, his fingers sank into her young, supple body, and he -lifted her to her feet and rushed with her over to the stage. The whole place was humming -with life, beating to the chopped rhythm of the vacant American tune.</p> - -<p>“I do love dancing with you,” said Jessie, as he swung her into the moving throng of -brilliantly dressed women and black-coated men, so locked together that they were like one -creature, a strange, grotesque quadruped. And Jessie so melted into him, so became a part -of him, that he too became another creature, an organism in the whirling circle supported -and spun round by the music. It was glorious to feel his will relaxing, to feel the lithe, -soft woman in his arms yield to every impulse, every movement. He danced with a terrific -concentration, with a wiry collected force that made Jessie feel as light as a -feather.</p> - -<p>“Oo! That was lovely,” she said when the music stopped. “You do dance lovely.”</p> - -<p>“It was pretty good,” said Mendel. “But wait until they play a waltz.”</p> - -<p>“I want to dance with you,” cried Oliver. “You said I should dance with you.”</p> - -<p>And she had the next dance with him; but there was no lightness in her, only a greedy -fumbling after sensation.</p> - -<p>“This is awful!” thought Mendel, never for a moment losing himself, and all the while -conscious of Morrison sitting there unmoved: of Morrison, whom he was trying to forget. -Oliver seemed to envelop him, to swallow him up. He was<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-240">[Pg 240]</a></span> conscious of holding an enormous woman -in his arms and her contact was distasteful. The dance seemed endless. Would the music -never stop? . . . One, two, three. . . . One, two, three. -. . . It was like a dancing class with the fat Jewesses at home. . . . -And all the time he was conscious of Morrison’s big blue eyes staring at him. Would she -never stop her damnable smiling?</p> - -<p>He returned Oliver to Logan shamefacedly, as though he were paying a long-standing -debt.</p> - -<p>Jessie returned from her other partner to him.</p> - -<p>“Oh! It isn’t anything like the same,” she said; “and that is such a lovely tune to -dance to.”</p> - -<p>Now that the dancers were warmed up they refused to allow any intervals. They had their -partners and were unwilling to stop. The orchestra was worked up into a kind of frenzy, -and Mendel and Jessie were whirled into an ecstasy. They abandoned the conventional steps -and improvised, gliding, whirling, swooping suddenly through the dancers. Sometimes he -picked her up and whirled her round, sometimes his hands were locked on her waist and she -bent backwards—back, back, until he pulled her up and she fell upon his breast, happy, -panting, deliriously happy.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Morrison sat watching. She was trembling and felt very miserable. She had been brought -there by Clowes, who had been unable to resist the flattery of Calthrop’s invitation. All -these people seemed to her to be pretending to be happy, and she was oppressed with it -all. She had not seen Mendel until he mounted the stage, and then her heart ached. She -remembered the etched phrases of his letter to her. She had written to him, but nothing -she could express on paper conveyed her feeling, her sense of being in the wrong, and her -deep, instinctive conviction of the injustice of that wrong. . . . He had placed -her in the wrong by talking of marriage so prematurely. As she<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-241">[Pg 241]</a></span> looked round the room she was oppressed -by all the men: great, hulking creatures, clumsy, cocksure, insensible, spinning their -vain thoughts and vainer emotions round the women as a spider spins its threads round a -caught fly. . . . She had often watched spiders dealing with the booty in their -webs, and Calthrop reminded her of a spider when he looked at Clowes and laid his hand on -her shoulder or fingered her arm. And Clowes lay still like a caught fly and suffered it. -. . . Morrison was in revolt against it all. She was full of sweet life, and -would not have it so treated. Her prudery was not shocked, for she had no prudery. The men -might have their women so, if the women liked it, but never, never would she be so -treated.</p> - -<p>It was because she had been able to sweep aside the sticky threads of vanity with -Mendel that the ecstasy of the woods and the Heath had been possible.</p> - -<p>As she watched him now, she knew that he was different from all the others. He had -brought an exaltation into the face of the common little girl who was his partner. He was -giving her life, not taking it from her.</p> - -<p>Yet to see him made her unhappy. The music was vulgar, the people were vulgar, and he -had no true place among them. But how he enjoyed it all!</p> - -<p>She shook with impatience at herself. It was hateful to be outside it, looking on, -looking on. A young student had pestered her to dance with him. She turned to him and -said:—</p> - -<p>“I want to dance, please.”</p> - -<p>Delighted, he sprang to his feet, gave her his arm, and whirled her into the dance.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Slowing down to take breath, Mendel looked in her direction. She was gone! A black -despair seized him, a groan escaped him; he hugged Jessie<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-242">[Pg 242]</a></span> tight against his body and plunged madly -into the dance.</p> - -<p>The musicians had been given champagne. The violinist began to embroider upon the tune -and the ’cellist followed with voluptuous thrumming chords.</p> - -<p>Jessie gave little cries of happiness to feel the growing strength in Mendel’s arms, -the waxing power of his smooth movements. She gave little cries like the call of a quail, -and he laughed gleefully every time she cried. He could feel the force rising in him. It -would surely burst out of him and break into molten streams of laughter, leaving him -deliciously light, as light and absurd as dear little Jessie, who was swinging on the -music like a dewdrop on a gossamer. . . . If only the music would last long -enough! He would be as tremulous and light as she, and while that lightness lasted he -could love her and taste life at its highest point—for her. . . . She was aware -of his desire, and swung to it. It was like a wind swaying her, thistledown as she was; -like a wind blowing her through the air on a summer’s day. O that it might never end, that -the sky might never be overcast, that the rain might never come and the night might never -fall. . . . Terrible things had happened to Jessie in the night, and she was -happy in the sun.</p> - -<p>Mendel was past all dizziness. The room had spun round until it could spin no more, and -then it had unwound itself, making him feel weak and giddy. He was very nearly -clear-headed, and every now and then he caught a glimpse of Logan sketching and of Oliver, -sitting with a sulky pout on her lips and tears in her eyes because she wanted to dance -and knew she had made a failure of it.</p> - -<p>“Lovely! lovely! lovely!” sighed Jessie.</p> - -<p>“You are like the white kernel of a nut,” said Mendel, “when the shell is broken.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Do let me come and sit for you,” she said. “I won’t want anything except my -dinner.”</p> - -<p>“Better keep to the dancing,” he answered, as he spun her round to stop her -talking.</p> - -<p>She began to stroke his neck and to press her face against his breast. At the same -moment he saw Morrison among the dancers. He slowed down and then stopped dead. The music -rose to an exultant riot of sound.</p> - -<p>“Please, please!” cried Jessie, clinging to him; but he had forgotten her.</p> - -<p>Morrison and her partner swept past him, and he watched them go the full circle. She -saw him standing, and as she approached broke away from her partner.</p> - -<p>“Why aren’t you dancing with me?” he said, shaking with eagerness to hear her -speak.</p> - -<p>“I’m no good at dancing,” she said. “I don’t enjoy it.”</p> - -<p>“Who brought you here? Calthrop?”</p> - -<p>“He brought Clowes and me. . . . You mustn’t stop dancing. Your partner. -. . .”</p> - -<p>“Please, please!” cried Jessie, stamping her foot; “the music is going to stop.”</p> - -<p>“Wait a moment,” he said, turning to Morrison. “Are you going home?”</p> - -<p>“The day after to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“I must see you.”</p> - -<p>Before she could reply her partner, who had lost his temper, seized her and made her -finish the dance, and when it was over he marched her back to Calthrop’s party, and he -never left her side again.</p> - -<p>Mendel returned to Logan and Oliver, to find them impatient to go. The end of an -evening always found them in this impatient mood.</p> - -<p>“It all bears out what I say,” said Logan. “All this night-club business. People have -to go mad in London before they can taste life at all.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Do you mind if I come home and sleep on your sofa?” asked Mendel. “I can’t face my -studio to-night.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you take Jessie home with you?” said Logan; “I’m sure she’d like to.”</p> - -<p>Mendel winced, and Jessie’s lips began to tremble. She was still suffering from the -sudden end to her happiness. She looked at him, almost hoping that he was going to make -reparation to her.</p> - -<p>“You know I can’t,” he said; “I live in my brother’s house and he is a respectable -married man.”</p> - -<p>He knew he was in for a terrible night of reaction and desperate blind emotion; at the -same time he did not wish to hurt Jessie more than he had done.</p> - -<p>“I’ll take you home in a cab,” he said. “But I won’t stay, if you don’t mind. I’m done -up. If you and Oliver walk half way, Logan, we ought to be there about the same time.”</p> - -<p>Jessie was appeased. A little kindness went a long way with her, and she hated to be a -nuisance to a man.</p> - -<p>When the cab stopped outside the door of her lodgings she flung her arms round Mendel’s -neck and kissed him, saying:—</p> - -<p>“You are a darling, and I would do anything in the world for you.”</p> - -<p>“You shall come and sit for me,” he replied. “Good-night!”</p> - -<p>“Good-night!”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Good-night! A night of tossing to and fro, of hearing terrifying noises in the -darkness, of hearing Logan and Oliver in the next room, of shutting his ears to what he -heard, of fancying he heard someone calling him . . . her voice! Surely she had -called him, and the ache and the torment in his flesh was the measure of her<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-245">[Pg 245]</a></span> need of him. -. . . Strange, blurred thoughts; gusts of defiance and revolt; glimpses of -pictures, subjects for pictures, colours and shapes. . . . His mother’s hands -clutching a fish and bringing a knife down on to it. There was a blue light on the knife. -It would be very hard to get that and to keep it subordinate to the blue in the fish’s -scales. . . . His father and mother, eternally together, in an affection that -never found any expression, harsh and bitter, but strongly savoured, like everything else -in their lives. . . . Issy and Rosa, much the same as Logan and Oliver, and to -them also he had to shut his ears. . . . The goggle-eyed man at the Pot-au-Feu. -. . . London, London, the roaring fiery furnace of London in which he was -burning alive, while flames of madness shot up above him. . . . Music. -. . . There was a music in his soul, a music and mystery that could rise with an -easy power above all the flames. . . . What did it matter that his body was -burned, if his soul could rise like that up to the stars and beyond the stars to the point -where art touched life and gave out its iridescent beneficent light? . . . Life, -flames, body, stars, all might perish and fade away, but the soul had its knowledge of -eternity and could not be quenched. . . . Eternal art, divine art, the world of -form, shaped in the knowledge of eternity, wherein life and death are but a day and a -night. . . . Sickening doubt of himself, sinking down, down into eternity to be -a part of it, never to know it, never to see the light of art, lost to eternity in -eternity. . . . He sat up in the middle of the night and imagined himself back -in the one room in Gun Street, looking at the recumbent bodies of his family, lost in -sleep, huddled together in degradation. . . . It would have been better to have -gone home with Jessie. She would have given him rest and sleep. . . . No, no, -no! . . . She was going away the day after to-morrow. He must see her -before<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-246">[Pg 246]</a></span> she went, -with her big blue eyes and short chestnut hair. She had stopped in the middle of the -dance. She had broken away from her partner, and on Hampstead Heath she had said “I love -you.”</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter209"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter209_hdg"><a href="#Chapter209_toc">IX<br /> -<span class="chap_title">“GOOD-BYE”</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">L<small>OGAN</small> came in early in the morning to make tea. He shut -the door carefully and came and sat on Mendel’s sofa.</p> - -<p>“She says you hate her,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I?” answered Mendel. “No. I. . . . What can make her say that? Because I -didn’t dance with her? I had Jessie. You ought to have danced with her.”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad she didn’t dance. It might make her break out. Women are very queer things. -You never know where they will break out. . . . You make love to them, touch a -spring in them, and God knows where it may lead you. . . . You’re not in love -with that mop-haired girl, are you?”</p> - -<p>“What if I am?”</p> - -<p>“She’s just a doll-faced miss. You’re taken with the type because you’re unused to it. -For God’s sake don’t take it seriously. You’re much too good to waste yourself on women. -She’ll drive you mad with purity and chivalrous devotion and all the other schoolgirl -twaddle. Leave all that to the schoolboy English. It’s all they’re good for. They’ve bred -it on purpose to be the mother of more schoolboys. It is the basis of the British Empire. -But what is the British Empire to you or any artist? Nothing.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“She won’t marry you,” said Logan. “She won’t live with you. She’ll give you nothing. -She’ll madden you with her conceited stupidity<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-248">[Pg 248]</a></span> and wreck your work. . . . What you want is -what every decent man wants—to take a woman and keep her in her place, so that she can’t -interfere with him. That’s what I’ve done, and it’s made a man of me, but I’m not going to -let her know it. She’d be crowing like an old hen that has laid an egg. . . . No -farmyard life for me, thanks.”</p> - -<p>Oliver bawled for her tea and Logan hastened to make it, and disappeared into the -bedroom.</p> - -<p>Mendel got up and dressed, feeling eager for the day. The sun shone in through the -window and filled the room with a dusty glow, making even the shabby bareness of the place -seem charming.</p> - -<p>“It is a good day,” he said to himself. “I shall work to-day.” And he was annoyed at -not having his canvas at hand.</p> - -<p>On an easel stood the picture which Logan had described to Tysoe, a London street scene -with a group of people gazing into a shop window. It was a clever piece of work, very -adroit in the handling of the paint and pleasing in colour, but Mendel had an odd -uncomfortable feeling of having seen it before, and yet he knew that the technique was -novel. Yet it was precisely the technique that seemed familiar. Certain liberties had been -taken with the perspective which, though they were new to him, did not surprise him.</p> - -<p>Logan came in dressed and said that Oliver would not be a minute. She appeared in a -dressing-gown.</p> - -<p>“Well?” she said; “none the worse for last night?”</p> - -<p>“No, thanks,” said Mendel. “Why should I be? I enjoyed it.”</p> - -<p>“Did Logan tell you we were going to Paris?”</p> - -<p>“No. He said nothing about it.”</p> - -<p>“I’m dying to go to Paris. He says they understand<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-249">[Pg 249]</a></span> the kind of thing we had last night in -Paris.”</p> - -<p>“You’re not going for good, are you?” asked Mendel.</p> - -<p>“No. Just a trip. I want you to come too. We’ll see some pictures and have a good time. -I can’t speak a word of French, but they say English is good enough anywhere.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’d like to go,” said Mendel. “I want a change, before I settle down to working -for the exhibition. Is that picture going to be in it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Do you like it?”</p> - -<p>“I like it. It seems to me new. Stronger than most things. All these people going in -for thin, flat colour and greens and mauves make me long for something solid.”</p> - -<p>“I’m going to show that and a portrait of Oliver.”</p> - -<p>“I want my breakfast,” said she.</p> - -<p>“Oh! shut up. We’re talking. . . . I’ve just begun the portrait. No -psychological nonsense about it. It’s just the head of a woman in paint. I don’t want any -damn fool writing about my picture: she is wiser than the chair on which she sits and the -secrets of the antimacassar are hers. A picture’s a picture and a book’s a book.”</p> - -<p>“I do want my breakfast,” sang Oliver.</p> - -<p>Logan went livid with fury.</p> - -<p>“Be silent, woman,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I shan’t, so there. I want my breakfast.”</p> - -<p>“Why the hell don’t you get the breakfast then?”</p> - -<p>“Because you said you would.”</p> - -<p>Logan began to prepare the breakfast—rashers of bacon and eggs.</p> - -<p>“You don’t mind eating pork?” he asked Mendel.</p> - -<p>“No. I like it, but I never get it at home.”</p> - -<p>“Fancy Jews being still as strict as that!” said Oliver. “Just like they were in -Shakespeare’s time.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Just as they were in the time of Moses and Aaron,” said Mendel. “They don’t alter -except that they haven’t got a country to fight for.”</p> - -<p>“Thank God!” said Logan, “or there’d be a bloody mess every other week. Fancy a Jewish -Empire, with you sent out, like David, to hit the Czar of Russia or Chaliapine in the eye -with a stone from a sling. Think of your sister-in-law luring the Kaiser into a tent and -knocking a nail through his head. I wish she could, upon my soul I do!”</p> - -<p>“I think we should only be led into captivity again,” said Mendel. “Our fighting days -are over, and someone told me the other day that many of the most advanced artists in -Paris are Jews.”</p> - -<p>“If they were all like you,” said Logan, “I shouldn’t mind. But I’m afraid they’re not. -The Jews have got all the money and they keep the other people fighting for it, and charge -them a hell of a lot for guns and uniforms to do it with. Oh! there are Christians in it -too, but they have to be nice to the Jews to be allowed to share the spoils. I don’t -wonder the Jews left the Promised Land when they found the world was inhabited by fools -who would let them plunder it.”</p> - -<p>“There’s not much plunder in my family,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>After breakfast he declared that he must go, and Logan announced that he would walk -with him to enjoy the lovely sunny day. Oliver wanted to come too, but he told her to stay -where she was, and he left her in tears.</p> - -<p>“She’s got a bad habit of crying,” he said, “and she must be broken of it. She cries if -I don’t speak to her for an hour. She cries if I go out without telling her where I am -going. She cries if I curse and swear over my work, and if I am pleased with it she cries -because I am never so happy with her. . . . I feel like hitting her -sometimes,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-251">[Pg 251]</a></span> but -it isn’t her fault. She hasn’t settled down to it yet. She says I don’t love her when she -knows she never expected to be loved so much. And she can’t get used to it.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you paint her crying?” asked Mendel maliciously.</p> - -<p>“By Jove! I will,” cried Logan. “Damned interesting drawing, with her eyes all puckered -up. . . . But it’s a shame on a day like this to be out of temper with anything. -Lord! How women do spoil the universe, to be sure! Do they give us anything to justify the -mess they make of it? . . . Women and shopkeepers. I don’t see why one should -have any mercy on either of them. I have no compunction in stealing anything I want. -Shopkeepers steal from the public all the little halfpennies and farthings of extra profit -they exact.”</p> - -<p>He led Mendel into a picture shop and asked for a reproduction of a picture by Van -Tromp, and when the girl retired upstairs to ask about that non-existent artist, he turned -over the albums and helped himself to half a dozen reproductions, rolled them up, and put -them in his pocket. When the girl came down and said they were out of Van Tromps, he -said:—</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry. Very sorry to trouble you.”</p> - -<p>When they were out of the shop he chuckled, and was as elated over his success as Mr. -Kuit had been over his exploits.</p> - -<p>“Oh! I should be an artist in anything I did,” he said. “I don’t wonder thieves can’t -go straight once they get on the lay. If I weren’t a painter I should be a criminal.”</p> - -<p>He walked with Mendel as far as Gray’s Inn, and there left him, saying he had another -picture-buying flat to go and see, and after that he must pay a visit to Uncle Cluny and -keep him up to the mark. He was in fine fettle, and went off singing at the top of his -voice.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mendel bought some flowers on the way home because he wished always to have flowers, -even if she were to send no more.</p> - -<p>He was sure of himself to-day. He was in love and glad to be in love. Surely it could -have no worse suffering than that through which he had passed, and if it did, well, so -much the worse for him. . . . He was glad it had happened. His father would not -be able to sneer at him any more, as he was always sneering at Issy and Harry—Harry, who -had deserted his father and mother for the sweetbreads of Paris. (Jacob always called -sweetmeats sweetbreads.) He had a bitter, biting tongue, had Jacob, and the habit of using -it was growing on him. Mendel knew that he had deserved many of his sneers, but now they -could touch him no longer. His life, like his art, now contained a passion as strong as -any Jacob had known in his life, and stronger, because it was wedded to beauty, to which -Jacob was a stranger.</p> - -<p>He was able to work again at his picture of his father and mother. He could make -something of it now, he knew, because he could understand his father and appreciate the -strength in him which had kept his passion alive through poverty and a life of constant -storms and upheavals. He remembered his father knocking down the schoolmaster, and the -soldier in the inn with the heavy glass. Oh yes! Jacob was a strong man, and he had nearly -died of love for Golda, the beautiful.</p> - -<p>He worked away with an extraordinary zest, and he knew that it was good. As he grew -tired during the afternoon he was overcome with a great longing for her to see it, just to -see it and to say she liked it. It would not matter much if she did not understand it, so -long as she saw it and liked it.</p> - -<p>He turned to the roughly sketched portrait of<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-253">[Pg 253]</a></span> her to ask her if she liked it, and as he did so the -door opened and she came in. Her arms were full of flowers, so that her face was resting -in them, her dear face, the sweetest of all flowers.</p> - -<p>“You said . . . you must see me, so I brought you these to say good-bye.”</p> - -<p>“Do come in and see my picture. It is nearly finished.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! It is good,” she said shyly.</p> - -<p>“I thought you’d like it. I wanted you to like it. Do stay a little and talk.”</p> - -<p>She sat down and looked about the studio, puckering up her eyebrows nervously and -making her eyes very round and large.</p> - -<p>“You never told me how old you are,” he said nervously.</p> - -<p>“I’m nineteen.”</p> - -<p>“I’m twenty. Just twenty. How long are you going away for?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. Until the winter, I expect.”</p> - -<p>“What will you do there in the country? It is important that you should tell me, -because I must know how to think of you. What shall you do? Is it a big house? Are you—are -you rich?”</p> - -<p>“No. It is not a very big house. My mother is fairly well off, but I have four -brothers, and they all have to go to Oxford and Cambridge. . . . There’s a good -garden, and I shall spend a lot of time in that, digging and looking after the flowers. -And I shall try and do some work. There’s a big barn I can have for a studio.”</p> - -<p>“A big barn. Yes. Are your brothers nice men?”</p> - -<p>“Two of them.”</p> - -<p>“And there’s a river and a common. May I write to you?”</p> - -<p>She was silent for a long time, and then she said:—</p> - -<p>“No. Please don’t.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> - -<p>His happiness vanished. It was as though a hole had opened in the floor and swallowed -it up.</p> - -<p>“Why not?” he asked. “Why not?”</p> - -<p>She shrank into herself for a moment, but shook off her cowardice and answered:—</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to hurt you.”</p> - -<p>“You said you loved me. You can do what you like with me!”</p> - -<p>“You’re so different,” she said. “Too different.”</p> - -<p>“From what? From whom? Go on, go on!”</p> - -<p>She loved his violence and gained courage from it.</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t think it mean of me. I don’t care a bit what people say, but I don’t want -to hurt you—in your work, I mean. It isn’t all that I think and mean, but it is a part of -it, a little part of it. People are furious at our being seen together. It began at the -picnic. We were seen walking over the Heath. Clowes told me. She can’t bear it. She’s a -good friend. . . . It hurt me when she told me, and I knew that I must tell you. -It isn’t only old women. It is all the important people, who can hurt your work.”</p> - -<p>“Nobody can hurt my work.”</p> - -<p>“But they can. They are saying your work is bad, all the people who said it was so good -only last year, all the people who believed in you. And it’s all through me. It’s my -fault.”</p> - -<p>She began to weep silently. He was unmoved by the sight of it, so appalled was he by -the sudden devastation of his life. Suffering within himself he knew, but hostility from -without he had not had to face. . . . Many little slights were explained—men who -had given him an indifferent nod, men who had apparently not seen him in the street. In -the surprise of it he was blind even to her. It was like a sandstorm covering him up, -filling with grit every little chink and<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-255">[Pg 255]</a></span> crevice of his being. He snorted with fury and -contempt.</p> - -<p>He shook himself free of the oppression of it. This was nothing to do with her; it was -not what he wanted from her—the gossip and tittle-tattle, the sweepings of the studios. -The models sickened him of that. . . . So it was his turn now. Well, other men -had survived it.</p> - -<p>“That isn’t why you want to say good-bye.”</p> - -<p>“No. I’m not pleading to you to let me off, or anything like that. I believe in you -more than in anybody else, more than I do in myself. . . . I don’t believe in -myself much.”</p> - -<p>It had all seemed clear to her before she had come. He would understand how wrong and -twisted the whole thing had become. They would suffer together and they would see how -useless such suffering was in a world of beauty and charm and youth, and they would part -because they had to part. He would understand, even if she could not rightly understand, -for he was strong and simple and direct, and free of the soft vanity of youth.</p> - -<p>But he did not understand. He was angry and domineering.</p> - -<p>“Why do you say all this?” he said heavily, floundering for words. “What does it mean? -Nothing at all. You belong to me. You gave up Mitchell because I said you must. Have you -given up Mitchell?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Very well then. Nothing else matters. If I want a thing I will break through a Chinese -wall to get it. Nothing can stop me, because when I want a thing it is mine already. I -want it because it is mine already.”</p> - -<p>He was making it impossible for her—impossible to go, impossible to stay, impossible to -say anything.</p> - -<p>Outside in the street the heavy drays went<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-256">[Pg 256]</a></span> clattering by on the stone setts. When they had passed -there came up the shrill cries of children playing in the street, the drone of a Rabbi -taking a class of boys in Hebrew. On the hot air came the smell of the street—a smell of -women and babies and leather and kosher meat.</p> - -<p>“I know the way of women,” he said. “My mother has been my friend always. But I do not -know your ways. I only know that I love you. You are mine as that picture is mine, and you -cannot take yourself from me.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to take myself from you,” she said, half angry, half in tears. “I want to -make you understand me.”</p> - -<p>“What is there to understand? Do I understand my pictures?” he cried. “Do you want no -mystery? How can there be life without mystery? I don’t expect you to understand. I only -want you to be honest and true to me. . . . I conceal nothing. I am a Jew. I -live in this horrible place. My life is as horrible as this place. You know all that, all -there is to know, and you love me. You cannot alter me. You cannot change my nature. -. . .”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say any more,” she said. “It only becomes worse with talking.”</p> - -<p>“What becomes worse?”</p> - -<p>She could not answer him. She could not say what she felt. The woods, the Heath, -and—this; the rattle and smell of the street, the dinginess of the studio, the dinginess -of his soul—the dinginess and yet the fire of it. On the Heath he had been like a faun, -prick-eared and shaggy, but wild and free as her spirit was wild and free. Here he was -rough, coarse, harsh, and tyrannical. She could feel him battering at her with his mind, -searching her out, probing into her, and she resented it with all the passion of her -modesty. She gathered up all her forces to resist him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You are terrible! Terrible!” she cried. “Don’t you see that it must be good-bye?”</p> - -<p>“I say it must not,” he shouted. “I say it is nonsense to talk of good-bye, when we -have just met, when the kiss is yet warm on our lips. For a kiss is a holy thing, and I do -not kiss unless it is holy. I say it is not good-bye.”</p> - -<p>“I say it is and must be,” she said. “You are terrible. You hurt me beyond -endurance.”</p> - -<p>“And why should you not be hurt? Am I to have all the pain? I want to share even that -with you.”</p> - -<p>“It is impossible,” she said dully, unable to share, or deal with, or appreciate the -violence of his passion, and falling back on the mulishness which had been developed in -her through her tussles with her brothers. Through her mind shot the horrible -thought:—</p> - -<p>“We are quarrelling—already quarrelling.”</p> - -<p>To her he seemed to be dragging her down, defiling her. His eyes were glaring at her -with a passion that she took for sensuality, because it came out of the dinginess of his -soul. And he was stiffening into an iron column of egoism, on which she knew she could -make no impression. She knew, too, that her presence was aggravating the stiffening -process. . . . She felt caught, trapped, and she wanted to get away. Love must -be free—free as the wind on the heath, as the blossom of the wild cherry. Love must have -its blossoming time, and he was demanding the full heat of the summer. . . . She -must get away.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye,” she said, holding out her hand.</p> - -<p>He took her hand and pulled her to him.</p> - -<p>“No! No! No!” she cried. “No! Good-bye! Good-bye!”</p> - -<p>She turned away and was gone.</p> - -<p>Unable to contain his agony, he flung himself on his bed and sobbed out his grief.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> - -<p>“She is mine!” he moaned. “She is mine, and she cannot take herself from me.”</p> - -<p>And when his tears were shed he began to think of the other women who had come to him -without love, so easily, so gratefully, some of them, and this little girl who loved him -could tear herself away—at a fearful cost. He knew that. But if she could tear herself -away, if she could say good-bye, what could she know of love?</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter210"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter210_hdg"><a href="#Chapter210_toc">X<br /> -<span class="chap_title">PARIS</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">M<small>ENDEL</small> was able to finish his portrait of Jacob and -Golda, but only at the cost of painful and bitter labour. He was torn two ways: longing to -finish it, yet dreading the end of it, for he could not see beyond it. Every picture he -had painted had brought with it the certain knowledge that it would lead to a better, that -he was advancing further on the road to art. But there was a finality about this picture. -It was an end in itself. It was not like most of his work, one of a possible dozen or -more. A certain stream of his feeling ended in it and then disappeared, leaving him -without guide or direction.</p> - -<p>Therefore, when the picture was ended he found himself besottedly and uncontrollably in -love and in a maddeningly sensitive condition, so that any sudden glimpse of beauty—the -stars in the night sky, a girl’s face in the train, flowers in a window-box—could set him -reeling. More than once he found himself clinging to the wall or a railing, emerging with -happy laughter from a momentary lack of consciousness. In the street near his home he -found a lovely little girl, of the same type as Sara, but more beautiful. Graceful and -lively she was, fully aware of her vitality and charm, and she used to smile at him when -he went to meet her as she came out of school, or stood and watched her playing in the -street.</p> - -<p>At last he asked her shyly if she would come to his studio that he might draw her. She -consented<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-260">[Pg 260]</a></span> and -came often. She would chatter away, and, studying her, he was astonished at her -womanishness, and he was overwhelmed when she said one day:—</p> - -<p>“You don’t want to draw me. You only want to look at me.”</p> - -<p>He was thrust back into the thoughts he had been avoiding. If this child knew already -so frankly why he was attracted to her, why could not that other? Why did she seem to -insist that he should regard her with the emotions with which he approached a work of art? -A work of art could yield up its secret to the emotions, but she could only deliver hers -to love dwelling not in any abstract region, but here on earth, in the life of the body. -. . . He often thought of her with active dislike, because she seemed to him to -be lacking in frankness. If she were going to cause so much suffering, as she must have -known she would with her good-bye, then she must have her reasons for it. What did she -mean with her neither yes nor no? With women there should be either yes or no. A refusal -is unpleasant, but it could be swallowed down with other ills; and there were others. But -this girl, this short-haired Christian, blocked his way, and there were no others except -as there were cabs on the street and meals on the table.</p> - -<p>For a time he avoided Logan and Oliver. He knew that Logan would despise him for his -weakness in setting his heart on a girl who ran away from him, for he knew and admired the -tremendous force with which his friend had hurled himself into his life with the girl of -the station, constantly wooing and winning her afresh and urging her to share his own -recklessness. He admired, too, Logan’s insistence on an absolute separation of his art and -his life with Oliver, who was never for one moment admitted to his mind. Rather to his -dismay, but at the same time with a wild rush of<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-261">[Pg 261]</a></span> almost lyrical impulse, Mendel, finding himself with no -other emotion than that of being in love, set himself to paint love. He worked with an -amazing ease, painting one picture one day and covering it with another the next, feeling -elatedly convinced that everything he did was beautiful, yet knowing within himself that -he was in a bad way.</p> - -<p>He avoided Logan, but Logan needed him, and came to tell him so.</p> - -<p>“It is all very well for you to shut yourself up,” he said, “but I can’t live without -you. You know what Oliver is to me, but it is not enough. The more satisfying she is on -one plane, the more I need on the other the satisfaction that she cannot give me. Women -can’t do it. They simply can’t, and it is no good trying. If you try, it means making a -mess of both love and art. She is jealous? Very well. Let her be jealous. She enjoys it, -and it helps her to understand a man’s passion.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t stand it when you talk in that cold-blooded way about women.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not cold-blooded,” said Logan, astonished at the adjective.</p> - -<p>“I sometimes think you are, but I am apt to think that of all English people,” replied -Mendel, wondering within himself if that did not explain Morrison. “Yes. I often wonder -what you would be like if you were in an office, wearing a bowler hat, and going to and -fro by the morning and evening train.”</p> - -<p>“Why think about the impossible?” laughed Logan. “Anyhow, I’m not going to let you shut -yourself up. I want to go to Paris, and I can’t face three weeks alone with Oliver. -Twenty-one days, sixty-three meals. No. It can’t be done.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’ll go to Paris,” thought Mendel. “I will go to Paris and I will forget.”</p> - -<p>“You must come,” urged Logan. “Madame at the<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-262">[Pg 262]</a></span> Pot-au-Feu has given me the name of a hotel kept by her -sister-in-law. Very cheap. Bed and breakfast, and, of course, you feed in restaurants. -. . . You want digging out of your hole. I don’t know why, but you seem to have -insisted more on being Jewish lately. It is much more important for you to be an artist -and a man. I regard you as a sacred trust. I do really. You are the only man in England -for whom I have any respect, and I need you to keep me decent.” He added: “I need you to -keep me alive, for, without you, Oliver would gobble me up in a month.”</p> - -<p>He seemed to be joking, but Mendel could not help feeling that he was at heart serious, -and he had the unpleasant sinking of disgust which sometimes seized him when he thought of -Logan and Oliver together. He could not account for it, and the sensation gave him a -sickly pleasure which made him weaker with Logan than with anybody else. Besides, Logan -often bewildered him, and he could not tolerate his inability to grasp ideas except -through a mad rush of feeling, and he hated the fact that while Logan’s mind seemed to -move steadily on, his own crumbled to pieces just at the moment when it was on the point -of absorbing an idea.</p> - -<p>For these reasons he consented to go to Paris. The three weeks should consolidate or -destroy a friendship which had remained for him distressingly inchoate. Deep in his heart -he hoped that it would become definite enough and strong enough to drive out his -indeterminate love. To be in love without enjoying love was in his eyes a fatuous -condition, undignified, vague, a kind of cuckoldry.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Oliver was aflame with excitement over the trip to Paris. She spoke of it with an -almost religious exaltation. As usual, her emotion was entirely uncontrolled, became a -physical tremulation, and she reminded Mendel of a wobbling blanc-mange.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> - -<p>The plan was to have a fortnight in Paris and a week at Boulogne, for bathing and -gambling at the Casino.</p> - -<p>No sooner had he left London than Mendel felt his cares and anxieties fall away from -him, and he began to wish he had brought Jessie Petrie. He proposed to wire for her from -Folkestone, but Logan pointed out that Oliver could not stand women and was jealous of -them.</p> - -<p>“She’d say Jessie was making eyes at me,” he said. “And if she made eyes at you she’d -be almost as bad.”</p> - -<p>In that Mendel could sympathize with Oliver. He was himself often suddenly, -unreasonably, and violently jealous of other men over women for whom he did not care a -fig.</p> - -<p>He set himself to be nice to Oliver, and she in her holiday mood responded, so that on -the boat and in the Paris train Logan was sunk in a gloomy silence, and in the hotel at -night, in the next room, Mendel could hear him storming at her, refusing to have anything -to do with her, threatening to go home next day unless she promised to keep her claws, as -he said, off Kühler. She promised, and they embarked further upon their perilous voyage in -search of an unattainable land of satiety.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Their hotel was near the Montparnasse station, and they discovered a café in the -Boulevard Raspail which was frequented by artists and models, one or two of whom Mendel -recognized as former habitués of the Paris Café. They were soon drawn into the artist -world, and except that he went to the Louvre instead of to the National Gallery for peace -and refreshment, Mendel often thought he might just as well be in London. There was the -same feverish talk, the same abuse of successful artists, the same depreciation of old -masters, but there was more body to the talk, and sometimes a Frenchman, finding -speech<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-264">[Pg 264]</a></span> useless -with this shy, good-looking Jew, would make himself clear with what English he could -muster and a rapid, skilful drawing. For the most part, however, he had to rely on Logan’s -paraphrase, until one day in the Boulevard St. Germain he ran into that Thompson, lamented -by Jessie Petrie, the painter of stripes and triangles.</p> - -<p>Thompson was a little senior to Mendel at the Detmold, had hardly spoken to him in the -old days, but was now delighted to meet a familiar London face.</p> - -<p>“I <i>am</i> glad!” he said. “Come and see my place. How are they all in London—poor -old Calthrop and poor old Froitzheim? I should have killed myself if I’d stayed in London; -nothing but talk and women, with work left to find its way in where it can. Here work -comes first. I suppose they haven’t even heard of Van Gogh in London?”</p> - -<p>Mendel had to confess that he had never heard of Van Gogh.</p> - -<p>“A Dutchman,” explained Thompson, “and he cut off his ear and sent it to Gauguin. Ever -heard of Gauguin?”</p> - -<p>“No. But a man doesn’t make himself a great artist by cutting off his ear.”</p> - -<p>“Van Gogh was a great artist before that. He killed himself: shot himself in his bed, -and the doctor found him in bed smoking a pipe. He was quite happy, for he had done all he -could.”</p> - -<p>That sounded more like it to Mendel, more like the deed of a warrior of the spirit.</p> - -<p>“I’ll show you,” said Thompson, and they went round the galleries.</p> - -<p>Mendel’s head was nearly bursting when he came out. The riotous colour, the apparent -neglect of drawing and abuse of form, the entire absence of tone and atmosphere, shocked -him. He resented the wrench given to all his training, and he took Thompson to the Louvre -to go back to Cranach and the early Italians. Thompson would<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-265">[Pg 265]</a></span> not hear of them, and insisted on his -spending over an hour with Poussin.</p> - -<p>“I can see nothing in them. Good painting, good drawing, but dull, so dull! The flat, -papery figures mean nothing.”</p> - -<p>“They mean everything to the picture,” said Thompson, “and you have no right to go -outside the picture. Poussin kept to his picture, and so must you if you are to understand -him.”</p> - -<p>“I can see all that,” said Mendel, “but he is dull. I can’t help it, he bores me.”</p> - -<p>“It is pure art.”</p> - -<p>“Then I like it impure.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t really. But you are all like that when you first come from London. You think -that because a thing is different it must be wrong. Have you come over alone?”</p> - -<p>“No. I’m with a man called Logan and his girl. He is a great painter, or he will be -one. Anyhow, he is alive and has ideas.”</p> - -<p>“Does he know about Van Gogh?”</p> - -<p>“No; but he says the next great painter must come from England.”</p> - -<p>“Pooh! Whistler!” said Thompson in a tone of vast superiority. “Nous sommes bien loin -de ça.”</p> - -<p>“Please don’t talk French,” said Mendel. “I don’t understand a word.”</p> - -<p>“Whistler had good ideas,” continued Thompson. “It is a pity he was not a better -artist.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was beginning to feel bored. He did not understand this new painting for -painting’s sake, and did not want to understand it. To change the subject he said:—</p> - -<p>“I nearly brought Jessie Petrie with me.”</p> - -<p>“I wish you had. She is a dear little girl, and I nearly sent for her the other day, -but I’ve no use for the model now. It is perfectly futile trying to cram a living figure -into a modern picture.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why, if you can paint it.”</p> - -<p>“Really,” said Thompson, “I don’t see what<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-266">[Pg 266]</a></span> you have come to Paris for, if you haven’t come to learn -something about painting. One wouldn’t expect you to understand Picasso straight off, but -anyone who has handled paint ought to be able to grasp Van Gogh.”</p> - -<p>“He is trying for the impossible,” grunted Mendel. “The important thing in art is art. -I’ve come to Paris to have a good time.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! very well,” said Thompson. “Why didn’t you say so before? I’ll show you -round.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Mendel took Thompson round to his hotel and up to Logan’s room, where, entering without -knocking, they found Logan kneeling on the floor with Oliver in a swoon in his arms. He -had opened her blouse at the neck and unlaced her corsage.</p> - -<p>Mendel thought Oliver looked as though she was going to die, and his first idea was to -run for the doctor.</p> - -<p>“She’ll come round,” said Logan. “It’s my fault. I was brutal to her. . . .” -He nodded to Thompson. “How do you do?” and he covered up Oliver’s large bosom.</p> - -<p>She came to in a few moments, opened her eyes slowly, rolled them round, and came back -to Logan, on whom she fixed a gaze of devouring love. She put up her arms and drew his -head down and kissed his lips.</p> - -<p>Mendel drew Thompson out into the corridor.</p> - -<p>“She was shamming,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think so,” replied Thompson. “What has happened? Does he knock her about?”</p> - -<p>“Not that I know of. They’ve not been together very long. They can’t settle down.”</p> - -<p>“She’s a fine woman,” said Thompson.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>They were called in again and found Oliver sitting up on the bed eating chocolates. She -greeted Thompson with a queenly gesture, and<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-267">[Pg 267]</a></span> clapped her hands when Mendel told her they were going -out to see the sights.</p> - -<p>“I’m sick of artists,” she said. “I have quite enough of them in London. I wish to God -you weren’t an artist, Logan. You’d be quite a nice man if you worked for your -living.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk rubbish,” mumbled Logan, who was subdued and curiously ashamed of himself. -“If I were like that I should have a little dried-up wife and an enormous family, and you -wouldn’t have a look in.”</p> - -<p>“And a good job too!” cried Oliver, in her most provoking tone. “A good job too! I’d -find someone who had a respect for me.”</p> - -<p>“D’you find Paris a good place to work in?” Logan turned to Thompson.</p> - -<p>“I never knew the meaning of work till I came here. Ever heard of Rousseau?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” said Logan.</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean the writer, I mean . . .”</p> - -<p>“I know, I know,” said Logan nonchalantly. He could never admit ignorance of -anything.</p> - -<p>“A great painter,” cried Thompson eagerly. “A very great painter. I tell you he brought -Impressionism up sharp. They had overshot the mark, you know. Manet, Monet: they had -overshot the mark.”</p> - -<p>Oliver began to scream at the top of her voice.</p> - -<p>“Shut up!” said Logan. “You’ll have us turned out.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care,” she replied. “I don’t care. I can’t stand all this talk about -painting.”</p> - -<p>“What do you want us to talk about?” said Mendel, tingling with exasperation. “Love? -Three men and one woman can’t talk about love.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I didn’t come to Paris to sit in a dirty bedroom talking about pictures. I want -to go out to see the streets and the shops and the funny people.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> - -<p>“For God’s sake take us somewhere,” said Logan.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Thompson, having ascertained that they had plenty of money, took them to Enghien by the -river. Oliver was happy at once. She wanted to be amused and to be looked at, and as she -was bouncing and rowdy she had her desire.</p> - -<p>She made Logan play for her at the little horses, but, as she did not win, she was soon -bored with it. Logan was bitten and could not tear himself away. Mendel stayed with him -and she disappeared with Thompson.</p> - -<p>“I’m bound to win if I go on,” said Logan. “There’s a law of chances, you know, and -I’ve always been lucky at these things. . . . It is so exciting, too.”</p> - -<p>He changed note after note into five-franc pieces, lost them all, and at last began to -win a little; won, lost, won.</p> - -<p>Mendel dragged him away from the table, protesting:—</p> - -<p>“Come along. I have had enough. Do come along. We haven’t had a chance to talk for -days, and I hate these rooms with all the flashy, noisy people. . . . We can -come back here and find the others. Let us go and find some fun that we can share, for -this is deadly dull for me. Besides, we don’t want to be stranded without money.”</p> - -<p>“But I’m winning. My luck is in.”</p> - -<p>He rushed back to the tables and lost—twice, upon which he allowed himself to be -persuaded, and they went out into the air and sat on a terrace by the lake. Mendel -produced cigarettes and they smoked in silence for some time. Logan looked pale and worn -and was obviously smouldering with excitement.</p> - -<p>“How amazingly different everything looks here,” he said. “In London I always feel as -though I had a thumb pressing into my brain.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-269">[Pg 269]</a></span> Everybody seems indifferent and hostile and everything I -do is incongruous. I feel almost happy here. I should like to stay here. I told her so and -she began to cry. I knocked her down. I couldn’t stand her crying any more. I knocked her -down and she fainted.”</p> - -<p>“She was shamming,” thought Mendel, seeing vividly the scene in the bedroom. “He did -not hurt her. She was shamming.”</p> - -<p>“I feel a brute,” said Logan, “and yet I’m glad. I’m tremendously glad. I want to sing. -I want to get drunk. I’m tremendously glad. It has settled something. I’m her master. She -was getting on my nerves. She won’t do that any more. Ha! Ha!”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you get rid of her?” asked Mendel. “Leave her here. Come back with me -to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be a silly child,” said Logan patronizingly. “I love her. I couldn’t live -without her now, not for a single day. I could no more do without her than I could do -without the clothes on my back. I tell you she’s an inspiration. If she left me I should -lay down my brush for ever. She’s a religion—all the religion I’ve got.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t imagine stopping my work for any woman,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“Ah! that’s because you don’t know what a woman can mean. You can’t know while you are -young.”</p> - -<p>Mendel’s nerves had been throbbing in sympathy with his friend, but suddenly all that -place was filled with a soft, clear light and a bright music, the colour and the scent of -flowers, the soft murmur of flowing water, the whisper of the wind in leafy trees, and his -heart ached and grew big and seemed to burst into a thousand, thousand rivulets of love, -searching out every corner of his senses, cleansing his eyes, sharpening his hearing, -refining every sense, so that the scene before him—the white tables, the white-aproned -waiters, the<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-270">[Pg 270]</a></span> -green trees, the soft evening sky, the softer reflection of it in the water—was exquisite -and magical and full of a mysterious power that permeated even Logan’s brutal revelation -and made it worthy of beauty. . . . And this mysterious power he knew was love, -and she, the girl for whom it had arisen from the depths, was far away in England, -thinking of him, perhaps, regretting him, perhaps, but knowing nothing of the beauty she -had denied. . . .</p> - -<p>Mendel was astonished to find tears in his eyes, trembling on his lashes, trickling -down his cheeks.</p> - -<p>“What a baby you are!” said Logan. “You can’t have me all to yourself.”</p> - -<p>His divination was true. Lacking its true object, Mendel’s love had concentrated upon -his friend, with whom he longed to walk freely in the enchanted world of art, to be as -David and Jonathan. Indeed, Logan’s state of torment was to him as a wound got in battle, -over which he gave himself up to lamentation, so single and deep and pure that it obscured -even the impulse of his love. He longed to rid his friend of this devouring passion that -was consuming him and thrusting in upon his energy, but because his friend called it love, -he respected it and bore with it.</p> - -<p>“How good it is, this life out of doors!” exclaimed Logan, lolling back in his -chair.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” replied Mendel. “I think it is too deliberate, too organized. I prefer -London streets. There is nothing in the world to me to compare with London streets. Nature -is too beautiful. A tree in blossom, a garden full of flowers, a round hill with the -shadow of the clouds over them, move me too much. Left alone with them I should go mad. I -must have human nature if I am to live and work. I only want nature, just as I only want -God, through human nature.”</p> - -<p>“By Jove! you hit the nail on the head sometimes, my boy.<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-271">[Pg 271]</a></span> That is true for all of us. It is what I -meant when I said that Oliver was a religion to me.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean women or individuals,” protested Mendel. “I mean human nature in the -lump. It may be very poor stuff, stupid and foolish and vulgar, but it is all we’ve got, -and one lives in it and through it.”</p> - -<p>“That is all very well while you are young,” said Logan, “but you have to individualize -it when you are older. One person becomes a point of contact. You can’t just float through -humanity like an apparition.”</p> - -<p>Mendel had lost the thread of his argument, though not his confidence in its truth.</p> - -<p>“That is not what I meant,” he said, “and I don’t see how a person could be just a -point of contact.”</p> - -<p>“All I know is that Oliver is such a point of contact to me, and I know that unless art -is inspired with some such feeling as you have described, all the technical skill and all -the deft trickery in the world won’t make it more than a sop for fools or an interesting -survival of mediævalism. That is why I think you are going to be so valuable. You have so -little to unlearn. You have only to shake off the most antiquated religion in the world -and you can look at life and human nature without prejudice, while I have constantly to be -uprooting all sorts of prejudices in favour of certain ways of living, morally and -socially.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was beginning to feel comfortable and easy, for while his mind worked furiously -he could rarely express what he thought, and Logan in his talk often came near enough to -it to afford him some relief and to urge him on to renewed digging in the recesses of his -mind. It was a vast comfort to him to find that there were other vital thoughts besides -that of Morrison, and that for ecstasy he was not entirely dependent upon her. Warmed -up<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-272">[Pg 272]</a></span> by his -confidence in Logan, he resolved to tell him about the girl and the vast change she had -wrought in his life.</p> - -<p>“I used to think,” he said, “that if I stayed among my own people I could work my way -through the poverty and the dirt and the Jewishness of it all to art. When she came I knew -that it was impossible. She had something that I needed, something that the Jews do not -know, or never have known. It is not my poverty that denies it to me, for if the poor Jews -do not know a good thing, the rich Jews certainly do not, for the rich Jews are rubbish -who stroke the Christians with one hand and rob them with the other. It is something that -she knows almost without knowing it herself.”</p> - -<p>Logan smiled.</p> - -<p>“I am not a fool about her,” cried Mendel. “She is not particularly beautiful to me. -There is only one line in her face that I think beautiful, from the cheek-bone to the jaw. -I am not a fool about her, but I had almost given the Christian world up in despair. It -seemed to me so bad, so inhuman, so hollow, so full of plump, respectable thieves. The -simple thieves and bullies of my boyhood seemed to me infinitely preferable. And I had met -some of the most important people in the Christian world: all empty and callous and -lascivious. And the unimportant people were good enough, but dull, so dull. -. . . Then comes this little girl. She is like Cranach’s Eve among monkeys. She -becomes at once to me what Cranach’s wife must have been to him. He painted her as child, -girl, and woman. The chattering apes matter to me no more. The Christian world is no -longer empty. It is still lascivious and greedy, soft and ill-conditioned, puffy and -stale, but it is suddenly full of meaning, of beauty, of a joy which, because I am a Jew, -I cannot understand.”</p> - -<p>“Give it up,” growled Logan, “give it up. Paint<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-273">[Pg 273]</a></span> her portrait and let her go. You are a born painter. To -a painter women are either paintable or nothing. For God’s sake don’t go losing yourself -in philosophy.”</p> - -<p>“It is not philosophy!” cried Mendel indignantly. “It is what I feel.”</p> - -<p>“It will probably end in a damned good picture,” retorted Logan. “Why not be content -with that?”</p> - -<p>“Because it will not answer what I want to know, and because I feel that there is -something in the Jews, the real Jews, that she does not understand either. And she is not -a fool. She has a mind. She has a deep character. She is strong, and she can get the -better of me. She is secret and she is cruel.”</p> - -<p>Logan gave his fat chuckle.</p> - -<p>“She is just an English girl with all the raw feeling bred out of her. She is true to -type: impulsive without being sensual, kind without being affectionate; and she would let -you or any man go to hell rather than give up anything she has been brought up to believe -in or admit to her life anything that was strange, unfamiliar, and not good form, like -yourself. . . . Give it up, give it up. You are only taking it seriously because -you have been irresistible so far and it is the first setback you have received.”</p> - -<p>“I will not give it up,” said Mendel, setting his teeth. Then he laughed because the -lights had gone up and the scene was gay and amusing, and he wanted to plunge into the -merry crowd of Parisians and pleasure-seekers, to move among them and to come in contact -with the women, to watch the men strutting to please them, to delight in the procession of -excited faces, to taste the flavour of humanity which is always and everywhere the same, -rich, astonishing, comforting, satisfying in its variety.</p> - -<p>Oliver and Thompson returned with their hands<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-274">[Pg 274]</a></span> full of trinkets, toys, and pretty paper decorations -which they had bought or won at games of chance and skill. She sat on Logan’s knee and -insisted on wreathing him with paper streamers, which he removed as fast as she placed -them on his head.</p> - -<p>“Do! do!” she cried. “Do let go for once and let us all be gay. Oh! I do love this -place, with the band playing, and the lights in the water, and the wonderful deep blue -sky. Why don’t we have a sky like that in London? Do let us come here every year for the -summer. Thompson says painters have to come to Paris if they want to be any good.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve been telling her about Van Gogh,” said Thompson.</p> - -<p>“So that’s what’s gone to your head!” growled Logan, patting her cheek. “He’s been -talking to you about painting, has he?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. He’s is a nice man, and doesn’t treat me as if I was a perfect fool.”</p> - -<p>She darted a mischievous glance at Mendel, who started under it as though he had been -stung. He was horrified at the depth of his dislike of her, and he remembered with disgust -her full, coarse bosom exposed as she lay in her calculated swoon. . . . How -good it had been while she was gone with that fool Thompson, who suited her so perfectly, -that chattering ape, with his talk of Van Gogh and Gauguin and “abstract art,” who stood -now coveting her with shining eyes and fatuously smiling lips.</p> - -<p>“I’m not good enough for some people,” she said. “When I come into the room there is -silence.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, shut up!” said Logan. “Let’s go and have dinner and get back to Paris. I’m sick of -this cardboard place, where there is nothing but pleasure.”</p> - -<p>They had an excellent dinner, during which Oliver never stopped chattering and Mendel -never<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-275">[Pg 275]</a></span> once -opened his lips. His thoughts were away in England, in his studio with his work, and in -the country with Morrison, and he struggled to bring them together in his mind. How could -Logan love Oliver and keep her apart from his work? Two such passions must infallibly seek -each other out and come to grips. They must come together or be flung violently apart. -. . . Passions were to him as real as persons; they had individualities, needs, -desires; they were entities insisting upon their right to existence; they must express -themselves, must make their impression upon the circumambient world.</p> - -<p>He became critical of Logan, though he hated to be so. Logan stood to him for adventure -and freedom, independence and courage. It was incomprehensible to him that Logan should -take Oliver seriously. She was the woman for a holiday, for a wild outburst of -lawlessness, not for the morning and the evening and the day between.</p> - -<p>“Oh, do cheer up, Kühler! You are like a death’s-head at a feast.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her with a piercing glance which silenced her. No: she was no holiday -woman. She was the woman for a drab, drudging life, with no other colour or joy in it than -her own animal warmth. She was like Rosa, made for just such a dreary, simple, devoted -fool as Issy. What could she do with a strong passion? She could only absorb it like a -sponge, and nothing could kindle her. Just a drab; just a sponge.</p> - -<p>Thinking so, his dislike of her grew into a hatred so passionate that he desired to -know more of her, to watch her, to beget a clear idea of her. He went and sat by her side -and teased her, while she teased him and told him he was the prettiest boy she had ever -seen.</p> - -<p>“That night in the Tube I thought you were the prettiest boy I ever saw, and I was -quite disappointed<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-276">[Pg -276]</a></span> when Logan came to speak to me instead of you.”</p> - -<p>“I would never have taken you from the shop,” he said. “I would have taken you to my -studio, and perhaps I would have painted you, but I would have sent you back to the -shop.”</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t have gone, so there!” she said. “What would you have done then?”</p> - -<p>“I should have turned you out.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! Would you? Filthy brute! If I’m good enough for one thing I’m good enough for -another. Do you hear that, Logan? He would have turned me out!”</p> - -<p>“You leave Kühler alone,” said Logan. “You’ll never understand him, if you try for a -thousand years.”</p> - -<p>“Turned me out?” muttered Oliver. “Heuh! I like that. He’d turn me out and get another -girl in! I’ll not have any of those tricks from you, Logan.”</p> - -<p>“You can talk about them when I begin them,” he replied.</p> - -<p>She turned from Mendel to Thompson and soon had him soft in her snares.</p> - -<p>“She would like to do that with me,” thought Mendel, “and she hates me because she -knows she cannot.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>They returned to Paris by bus all sleepy and a little drunk. Oliver leaned her head on -Logan’s shoulder and dozed, smiling to herself, while Thompson, sitting by her side, -fingered her sleeve.</p> - -<p>They were carried far beyond the point where they should have descended, and finding -themselves on the boulevards, they woke up to the liveliness of the Parisian night, and -Oliver refused to go home.</p> - -<p>Thompson suggested the cabarets, and they went from one dreary vicious hole to -another<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-277">[Pg 277]</a></span> until -they came on one where a party of Americans were doing in Paris as the Parisians do. They -had brought on a number of <i>cocottes</i> from the Bal Tabarin, and were drinking, -shouting, dancing. Thompson led Oliver into the mêlée, and soon she was drinking, -shouting, dancing with the rest.</p> - -<p>Mendel was horrified and disgusted. There was no zest in the riot. It was a piece of -deliberate, cold-blooded bestialization. He trembled with rage, and turned to Logan, who -was sitting with a sickly smile on his face:—</p> - -<p>“You ought not to let her,” he cried—almost moaned. “If she were my woman I would not -let her. I would kill any man who laid hands on her like that. She is not a prostitute. I -would not let my woman be a prostitute.”</p> - -<p>But Logan did not move. He sat with his sickly smile on his face. He was drunk and -could not move.</p> - -<p>Unable to bear the scene any longer, Mendel rushed away, jumped into a taxi, and drove -back to the hotel, swearing that he would go back to London the next day. He would write -and tell Logan that he must get rid of Oliver or no longer be his friend. She was a -poisonous drab. She would be the ruin of his friend.</p> - -<p>An hour or two later Logan came back. He was very white, and his hair was dank, and -there was a cold sweat on his face.</p> - -<p>“My God!” he said, “Kühler! Are you awake? I don’t know where she is. I went to sleep. -I was so tired, and there was such a row with those blasted Americans. I went to sleep and -awoke to find a nigger shaking me and the place empty. . . . Where does Thompson -live? Do you know?”</p> - -<p>“Off the Boulevard Raspail. I went there to look at his rubbishy pictures. I think I -could find the way. Are you going to kill him?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I want to find her,” said Logan. “I must find her. It is killing me to think of her -lost in Paris. I must find her. I can’t sleep without her. I must find her.”</p> - -<p>He hardly seemed to know what he was saying.</p> - -<p>“Come along then,” said Mendel. “I think I can find where Thompson lives.”</p> - -<p>It was not far. They walked along the deserted boulevard under the new white, florid -buildings, and turned into an impasse.</p> - -<p>“That’s it,” said Mendel. “Impasse. I remember that. A tall, thin house with a big -yellow door. Here it is.”</p> - -<p>They knocked until the yellow door swung mysteriously open and then ran upstairs to the -top floor.</p> - -<p>Thompson came blinking into the passage.</p> - -<p>“Where’s Oliver? Where’s Logan’s girl?”</p> - -<p>Mendel put up his fist to hit him in the eye.</p> - -<p>“I put her into a taxi and sent her home. The Americans took us on to another place. -They were a jolly lot. A terrific place they took us to. There were negresses dancing and -a South Seas girl who said Gauguin brought her back. . . . Oliver’s all right. I -put her in a taxi and sent her back.”</p> - -<p>“You’re a liar!” shouted Logan. “She’s in there.”</p> - -<p>He rushed in, while Mendel put his arms round Thompson and laid him neatly on the -floor. In a moment Logan was out again.</p> - -<p>“You’re a shocking bad painter,” he said to Thompson, “but she isn’t there.”</p> - -<p>They left the house and walked slowly back to the hotel. Logan clung to Mendel’s arm, -saying:—</p> - -<p>“It’s my fault. She said if ever I knocked her about she’d clear out. Do you mind -walking about with me? I couldn’t go to bed. I couldn’t sleep.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> - -<p>All night they walked about; going back to the hotel every half hour to see if she was -there, talking of anything and everything, even politics, to keep Logan’s mind from the -fixed horrible idea that had taken possession of it. They saw the sun come out, and the -workers hurrying along the streets, and the waiters in the cafés push up the heavy iron -shutters that had only been pulled down an hour or two before, and the market women with -their baskets, and the tramcars glide and jolt along, the shops open and the girls go -chattering to their work through the long, leisurely Parisian day.</p> - -<p>They returned at eight and had breakfast. At half-past nine Oliver appeared, smiling -and serene.</p> - -<p>“We did have fun last night! You missed something, I tell you.”</p> - -<p>“Where have you been?” cried Logan. “I’ve been looking for you all night.”</p> - -<p>“What a fool you are! I can look after myself.”</p> - -<p>“Where have you been?”</p> - -<p>She faced him with a bold stare and said:—</p> - -<p>“I got home about half-past two, and I took another room, partly because I didn’t want -to disturb you, and partly—you know why.”</p> - -<p>“What number was your room?”</p> - -<p>“Forty-four.”</p> - -<p>From where they sat Mendel could see the keyboard in the concierge’s lodge. There were -only forty rooms in the hotel.</p> - -<p>“Have you had breakfast?” asked Logan, forcing himself to believe her.</p> - -<p>“Hours ago. In bed,” she replied. “I paid for it and the bed.”</p> - -<p>“Why did you do that?” he snapped.</p> - -<p>She caught Mendel’s eyes fixed on her, eager to see her trapped, and she smiled -insolently as she replied:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I thought it would be a good joke if I let you think I had been out all night. But you -look such a wreck that I don’t think you could see a joke. . . . What are we -going to do to-day?”</p> - -<p>“We are going home,” said Logan.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter301"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> - -<h3 id="Chapter300_hdg"><a href="#Chapter300_toc">BOOK THREE<br /> -<br /> -<span class="slightlybigfont">THE PASSING OF YOUTH</span></a></h3> - -<div class="pagebreak"></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter301_hdg"><a href="#Chapter301_toc">I<br /> -<span class="chap_title">EDWARD TUFNELL</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">A <small>WRETCHED</small> journey home, a miserable journey. There had -been a high wind, leaving a heavy swell, and Mendel shared the feelings of his -brother-in-law, Moscowitsch, concerning the sea. It made him ill, and he never wished to -see it again.</p> - -<p>Oliver sat with her eyes closed while Logan held her hand and whispered to her. The -boat was crowded, for it was the first to make the crossing for two days. Detestable -people, detestable sea, detestable evil-smelling boat! . . . How lightly they -had undertaken the trip to Paris! Only seven hours! But what hours!</p> - -<p>Mendel’s disgust endured until they reached London. This was home to him, and never, -never again would he travel. The discomfort of it was too odious, the shock to his habits -too great. In London he did at least know what to avoid, while in Paris there was no -knowing when he might be plunged into a dreary, glittering place full of prostitutes and -Americans.</p> - -<p>He was glad to part with Logan and Oliver. They had so much to settle with each other -that he felt he was an unnecessary third. Paris had done violence to their relationship. -They had gone there light of heart; they had returned oppressed and entangled. -. . . And in London it was raining; but that was good, because familiar. It was -good to go out into the friendly streets and to see them shining like black rivers, and to -see the people hurrying under their dripping umbrellas<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-284">[Pg 284]</a></span> and the women with their skirts up to -their knees.</p> - -<p>He seemed to have been away a very long time, and yet Paris seemed very far off too, an -unreal memory, like a place of which he had read or seen in photographs. He was glad when -he mounted a bus and knew that it was bearing him towards his own people.</p> - -<p>Golda was very excited. She had had a letter from Harry, who had seen his brother in -Paris, but had been too shy to speak to him because of his friends.</p> - -<p>“You should have gone to see your brother,” she said.</p> - -<p>“How could I?” asked Mendel. “I did not know where he was.”</p> - -<p>“You speak Yiddish. You could have found him. He has done very well, but he is coming -home to us. He does not like to live away from his people, and he says England is -best.”</p> - -<p>And Mendel thought that England was indeed best. For him, then, England meant his -mother’s kitchen, with its odd decorations from Tottenham Court Road, its dresser crammed -with gilded china and fringed with cut green paper, its collection of his early pictures, -almost all hanging crooked, and the hard wooden chair in which Golda sat all day long with -her hands on her stomach, dreaming and brooding of her life, which through all her -hardships had been sweet because of her beautiful child whom everybody loved and spoiled, -as she herself loved and spoiled him because he was not like other children. England was -best because it could contain that peace and that beauty, and there was nothing in England -to harm it or in envy to destroy it.</p> - -<p>Mendel could understand his brother wanting to come back to it; for he, too, from all -his adventures, returned to its simplicity for strength and comfort.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> - -<p>Moscowitsch came in with a Jewish paper. He was in a terrible state of anger and -hatred. His eyes flashed and his nostrils quivered as he read out how a Jew in Russia had -been accused of killing a Christian boy for his blood, and how over a thousand Jews had -been massacred on the instigation of the police.</p> - -<p>“It grows worse and worse,” he said. “The Jews do not kill. It is the Christians who -lust for blood. It is the Christians who are so wicked and dishonest that, when they must -be found out, they say it is the Jews, or that the Jews are more wicked than they. It is -impossible. But England is good to the Jews. England must send soldiers to Russia or the -Jews will be all murdered.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is bad in Russia,” said Golda, nodding her head. “But life is bad everywhere -for good people. Only in England one is left alone.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Mr. Artist!” said Moscowitsch genially. “Made your fortune yet?”</p> - -<p>“No,” replied Mendel; “but I have been to Paris for my holidays and I stayed in a -hotel. Three of us spent twenty pounds.”</p> - -<p>“So?” said Moscowitsch, impressed. “Have you made it up with the Birnbaum, then?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“That is not the way to get on, to quarrel with money.”</p> - -<p>“If he wants money,” said Golda, “he can always get it. What more do you want? There -are some letters for you, Mendel.”</p> - -<p>He opened his letters, and had the satisfaction of telling Moscowitsch that he was -asked to paint a portrait for thirty pounds.</p> - -<p>“Who is it?” asked Moscowitsch. “A lord?” He had an idea that only lords had their -portraits painted by hand.</p> - -<p>“That’s better,” he said. “That’s better than<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-286">[Pg 286]</a></span> painting those pictures that nobody wants. You paint -what they ask you and you’ll soon make your fortune, and be able to give your mother -dresses covered with beads and tickets for the theatre and china ornaments. And you can be -thankful you don’t live in Russia. They wouldn’t let you be an artist there. If you became -a student they would send you off to Siberia and you would die in the snow.”</p> - -<p>It was the first time Moscowitsch had spoken to him since the breach with Birnbaum, and -Mendel was at his ease with him again, and glad to be with his people. He knew that -Moscowitsch was greatly attached to Golda, and had more than once urged his being taken -away from his painting and put to some useful trade.</p> - -<p>“Oh! I shall very soon succeed,” he said boastfully. “This is only a beginning. You -keep an eye on that paper of yours. You will find something else to read besides what -Russia does to the Jews. You will see what England does for a Jew when he has talent and -honesty.”</p> - -<p>“They made Disraeli a lord,” said Moscowitsch.</p> - -<p>“I shall be something much better than a lord.”</p> - -<p>“They only make painters R.A.”</p> - -<p>“I shall be much better than that,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“It is like old times,” laughed Golda, “to hear him boasting.”</p> - -<p>Mendel opened another letter. It was an invitation to become a member of an exhibiting -club which considered itself exclusive.</p> - -<p>“I have been invited to become a member of a club.”</p> - -<p>That settled Moscowitsch. A club to him was proof of success and social distinction. He -and his wife had made the acquaintance of a member of the music-hall profession who had -two clubs, and they counted him a feather in their caps. To have a member of a club in the -family was almost<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-287">[Pg -287]</a></span> overwhelming, and he forgot the sorrows of the Jews in Russia.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>The portrait commission was from Edward Tufnell, who had lately married and had been -adopted as a candidate for Parliament for a northern constituency. Good earnest soul that -he was, he regarded himself as responsible for launching Mendel upon the world, and once -he had assumed a responsibility he never forgot it. Nothing made any difference to him. He -had heard tales of the boy’s wildness, but he accepted responsibility for that too, read -up the histories of men of genius for precedent, and acknowledged the inevitability of the -flying of sparks from the collision of a strong individuality and the habits of the -world.</p> - -<p>He had always intended to give his protégé a lift, and had tried in vain to badger his -father and his uncle, partners in a huge woollen manufactory, into having their portraits -painted. They preferred to sink their money in men with reputations. He did not see how -Mendel could acquire a reputation except by giving him work to do. On the other hand, he -shrank from what he considered the vanity of having his own portrait painted, but his -charmingly pretty wife gave him the opportunity he desired.</p> - -<p>Therefore he invited Mendel to his house in the dales to stay until the picture was -finished.</p> - -<p>A day or two later and Mendel was in the train, being whirled North through the dull, -rolling Midlands and the black, smirched valleys of the West Riding. The gloomy sky filled -him with terror. At first he thought there was going to be a storm, but there seemed to be -no life in the sky, and its strangeness oppressed him. The people in the train spoke a -language which seemed almost as foreign as French, and when the train darted through -forests of smoking chimney-stacks and he<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-288">[Pg 288]</a></span> looked down into the grimy, trough-like streets, he was -dismayed to think that here were depths of misery compared with which the East End was as -a holiday ground. This, too, was England, and he had said that England was best. He -remembered Jews in the East End who had fled from the North and said they would rather go -back to Russia than return to the tailoring shops and the boot factories. So this vile, -busy blackness was the North!</p> - -<p>For some mysterious reason it made him think of Logan and Oliver, and the thought of -them filled him with an added uneasiness. He had not thought of them once since the trip -to Paris, and now he felt bound to them, and that they were a weight upon him. They stood -out vividly against the murky, lifeless sky. He could see them standing hand in hand, -smiling a little foolishly, and a physical tremor shot through him as he thought of the -contact of their two hands, thrilling together, pressing together, to tell of their -terrible need of each other. . . . This man and this woman. Mendel was haunted -by the images of all the couples he knew, and they passed before him like a shadowy -procession of the damned, all hand in hand, across the lifeless sky, all shadowy except -Logan and Oliver, and then two others, his father and his mother; but they were not hand -in hand. They were seated side by side, like two statues, and behind them the lifeless sky -broke and opened to show the infinite blue space beyond the clouds.</p> - -<p>He had changed at the darkest of the chimneyed towns, and the shabby local train went -grinding and puffing through a tunnel into a vast green valley. At the first station he -saw Edward Tufnell on the platform. He had changed a good deal, and was no longer the -lanky, earnest youth of the Settlement, but his eyes still had their steady, serene -expression and their sunny, beautiful smile.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> - -<p>He flung up his hand as he saw Mendel, smiled, and came fussily, as though he were -meeting the Prime Minister himself. He insisted on carrying Mendel’s bag and canvases and -made him feel small and young again, as he used to when he went trotting along by Edward’s -side on his way to the French class.</p> - -<p>“It’s a long journey,” said Edward. “You must be tired.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no! I don’t mind any journey as long as I don’t have to cross the sea.”</p> - -<p>“It is only two miles now.”</p> - -<p>They climbed into a dogcart and drove, for the most part at a walk, up a long, winding -road that crept like a worm along the flanks of a huge hill.</p> - -<p>“Glorious country!” said Edward. “I love it. The South doesn’t seem to me to be country -at all—just a huge park. One is afraid to walk on the grass. But here there is room and -freedom. One understands why the North is Liberal.”</p> - -<p>“It is too big for me,” replied Mendel. “But then I can’t get used to the country. I’m -not myself in it. I feel in it as though I were on the edge of the world and in danger of -falling off. Yes. The country seems dangerous to me, and I could never walk along a road -at night.”</p> - -<p>“How odd that is!” laughed Edward. “If I am ever afraid it is in the town. The vast -masses of people do really terrify me sometimes, when I think of governing them all.”</p> - -<p>“They can look after themselves,” said Mendel simply.</p> - -<p>Over the shoulder of the hill they came on a grey stone house with a walled garden. -Edward turned in at the gate, flicked his horse into a trot up the steep drive, and drew -up by the front door, in which was standing a dainty little lady in a mauve cotton gown -and a wide Leghorn straw hat.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Here he is, my dear!” said Edward. “My wife, Kühler.”</p> - -<p>“I’m so glad you could come,” said the little lady. “My husband has told me so much -about you.”</p> - -<p>“Not half what he could tell if he only knew,” thought Mendel.</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid it is a very long way for you to come,” she said, leading him into the -house while Edward drove round to the stables. “It is very good of you. We are very quiet -here, but you can do just as you like, and I shall always be ready for you when you want -me.”</p> - -<p>She had a very charming voice that seemed to bubble with happiness, and she had the air -of being surprised at herself for being so happy. The house was pervaded with her -atmosphere, fragrant and good, and every corner seemed to be full of surprise, every piece -of furniture looked astonished at finding itself in its place—so perfectly in its place. -This fragrant perfection was the more amazing as the outside of the house was more than a -little grim, and the hill behind it was dark and ominous, while several of the trees were -blasted and chapped with the wind.</p> - -<p>Mendel had never seen such a house, and when Edward took him up to his room he almost -wept with delight at the comfort and sweetness of it all. There was a fire burning in the -grate, by the side of which was a huge easy chair. Flowered chintz curtains were drawn -across the windows, and the same gay chintz covered the bed. On the wash-hand-stand was a -shining brass can of hot water. There were books by the bedside, the carpet was of a thick -pile, and the furniture was old and exquisite. . . . He was filled with delight -and gratitude.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he thought, “England is best! Comfortable England.”</p> - -<p>And when Edward showed him the big tiled<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-291">[Pg 291]</a></span> bathroom he had a shiver of dismay, and thought what a -dirty, uncouth fellow he was to come among these exquisite people.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Mary Tufnell put him at his ease at once and encouraged him to talk about himself. He -was frank and gay and amusing, and told her about his adventures and many of his troubles, -and even ventured once or twice upon scabrous details.</p> - -<p>“He is a darling,” she said to Edward. “But how he must have suffered. He is such a -boy, but sometimes he seems to me the oldest person I have ever met.”</p> - -<p>“You must remember that he is a Jew,” said Edward.</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t let you forget it,” replied she.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>The portrait was begun the next day. Mendel took a business-like view of his visit. He -was there to paint and to make thirty pounds. Every moment that his hostess could spare he -seized upon. He painted her in her mauve cotton and Leghorn hat and would not talk while -he worked.</p> - -<p>When the light was gone he was ready for any entertainment they might propose. He did -not find either of them particularly interesting, and their unfailing kindness wearied him -not a little. They were so invariably good in every thought, word, and deed. It seemed -impossible for them to fail. There was no combination of circumstances which they could -not surmount with their smiling patience. . . . He thought of them as two people -walking along on either side of a road, smiling across it at each other. Nothing joined -them. They had never met. There had been no collision. He had overtaken her on the road -and had taken her step, her pace. . . . They had just that air. Dear Edward had -fallen in with her by the wayside, and she had smiled at him and he was content and held -for life. To their mutual<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-292">[Pg -292]</a></span> grave astonishment she would have children, and her smile would become a -little sad, and with the children she would be an ideal to Edward, like the little Italian -Madonnas of whom he had so many photographs all over the house. And between them on the -road would march the brave procession of life—kings and beggars, priests and prostitutes, -artists and peasants, chariots, and strange engines of peace and war; but they would see -nothing of it: they would see only each other, and they would smile and go smiling to the -grave.</p> - -<p>Mendel was at his ease with them and very happy, but suddenly out of nowhere there -would arise, as it were, a great stench that pricked his nostrils and set him longing for -London. And he would think of Logan and Oliver and ache to be with them, so that he knew -that he was bound to them in the flesh. They were embarked upon a great adventure in which -he must be with them to the end, for Logan was his friend, with whom he must share even -the deepest bitterness. With Edward he could share nothing at all, for Edward was -absurdly, incredibly innocent, content to smile by the wayside.</p> - -<p>He wrote to Logan and Oliver and told them how he was longing to be with them, and how -the country filled him with childish fears, and how Paris seemed a thousand miles away and -its adventures a thousand years ago. And he was hurt because they did not at once -reply.</p> - -<p>He received two letters one morning. Logan wrote telling him he ought not to waste his -time over portraits, and that he must come back to London soon, because the autumn was to -see their triumph: nothing about himself, nothing about Oliver. Mendel was disappointed: -nobody ever really answered his letters, into which he flung all his feeling.</p> - -<p>His other letter was from Morrison. His first letter from her. He knew her hand, though -he<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-293">[Pg 293]</a></span> had never -seen it before—round, big, simple. He kept her letter until his day’s work was done, and -then he went into the garden to read it. There was an arbour at the end of a mossy walk -which led to a crag above a little waterfall. Out of the crag grew a mountain ash, -brilliant in berry. This was the most beautiful spot in the garden, and so he chose it for -reading the letter.</p> - -<p>“I want you to forgive me for being so foolish. I want to try again. I hate being -beaten, and I think it was only my stupidity that beat me. I have been thinking of you all -the time, and I have been troubled about you. What people said had nothing at all to do -with it. I admire you more than I can say, and I have been very foolish.</p> - -<p>“It has been a lovely summer. I have been working hard and feel hopeless about it. -Please don’t ask to see my work. While I am at it I am wondering all the time what you are -doing.</p> - -<p>“I am to be allowed to come back to London in October. There is no reason why you -should not write to me.”</p> - -<p>She was there with him, by his side, under the glowing rowan-tree, gazing down at the -little white waterfall dashing so merrily down into the pebbled beck. She was there with -him, and his blood sang in his veins and his mind began to work, pounding along as it had -not done these many weeks. . . . Weeks? Years—more than a lifetime.</p> - -<p>He went back to his picture and thought it very, very bad. Edward and his wife came in -and looked at it dubiously.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Edward, “it is a very jolly picture, but I don’t think you have -caught all her charm.”</p> - -<p>“But the painting of the hat is wonderful,” said Mary.</p> - -<p>“What do I care?” thought Mendel. “It is you—you as you are, smiling, eternally -smiling<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-294">[Pg 294]</a></span> over -your little clean, comfortable happiness, three parts of which you have bought, with your -servants and your flowers and your bathroom.”</p> - -<p>In a day or two he was being whirled back to London, shouting every now and then from -sheer exuberance—thirty pounds in his pocket, October to look forward to: October, when -London shook off its summer listlessness; October, when She would return; and until -October he would run with his eyes on the trail of the burning, creeping passion that -bound him to Logan and Oliver.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter302"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter302_hdg"><a href="#Chapter302_toc">II<br /> -<span class="chap_title">THE CAMPAIGN OPENS</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">H<small>E</small> reached London in the afternoon, and as soon as it -was evening went to Camden Town to find Logan. Only Oliver was in. She was sitting in the -window smoking. There had been a tea-party, and the floor was littered with cups, plates -of bread and butter and cakes, fragments of biscuit, some of which had been trodden -on.</p> - -<p>Mendel surveyed this litter ruefully, and he said:—</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you wash up?”</p> - -<p>“Logan said he would. I washed up after breakfast. I’m not a servant, and he keeps on -promising to have someone in to help.”</p> - -<p>“Will you wash up if I help you?”</p> - -<p>“No, thanks. Logan’s got to do it.”</p> - -<p>“Who has been to tea?”</p> - -<p>“Oh! A funny lot. Some of Logan’s fools who think he is a great man.”</p> - -<p>“He is a great man,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“Heuh! You try living with him. What’s the good of being a great man if you don’t make -any money? It’s all very well for Calthrop to live like a pig. He makes money and can do -what he likes.”</p> - -<p>“If you don’t like it you can always clear out.”</p> - -<p>“Where to? Eh? To go the round of the studios and oblige people like you? Not much! It -isn’t as if I was married to him. I can’t make him keep me. Besides, he wouldn’t let me -go. If I went he would run after me. I suppose<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-296">[Pg 296]</a></span> you hadn’t thought of that, Mr. Kühler. You don’t know -what it is to care for anybody. I’d like to see some one play you and play you, and then -turn you down. That would teach you a lesson, that would.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter with you?”</p> - -<p>“I’m not going to stand it any longer,” she said. “I’m not going to be put on one side -like dirt while you go on with your conceited talk. You’re both so conceited you don’t -know how to hold yourselves. I’m a woman, and I stand for something in the world. A woman -is more important than the biggest picture that was ever painted.”</p> - -<p>“It depends upon the woman.”</p> - -<p>“All right, then. <i>I’m</i> more important. You talk about Logan keeping me. He can -consider himself damned lucky I stay with him.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! you’re both in luck,” snapped Mendel, and he sat down and refused to say another -word.</p> - -<p>Oliver began to whistle and then to hum. She fidgeted in her chair. She thought she had -come off rather well in the sparring match. She had been dreading Mendel’s return, for -since the Paris adventure she had been asserting herself, as she called it, beating Logan -down, bewildering him with her extraordinary sweetness and cajolery and sudden outbursts -of fury. Both had agreed to bury the memory of the last night in Paris, but the thoughts -of both were centred upon it. She rejoiced that she had served him out, but she had been -stirred to a degree that alarmed her. Her former condition of lazy sensual security had -been broken, and she dreaded Logan’s jealousy. She knew that she was not his equal in -force, but she set herself to overcome him with cunning. His force would spend itself. She -knew that. She must then bind him fast with tricks and lures, rouse the curiosity of his -senses and keep it unsatisfied.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p> - -<p>She had succeeded wonderfully. Logan crumbled and turned soft and sugary under her -arts, and only one impulse in him resisted her—his love for Mendel; and through that love -his passion for art. Therefore she dreaded and hated Mendel’s return.</p> - -<p>Presently she ceased to hum. She thought suddenly that perhaps it had been a mistake to -meet Mendel with hostility.</p> - -<p>“I say, Kühler, do give us one of your cigarettes. These are awful muck.”</p> - -<p>He threw his cigarette-case over to her.</p> - -<p>“Did you have a good time up North?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I come from there, you know. Logan was furious with you for going. He is really very -fond of you, you know.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t need you to tell me that.”</p> - -<p>“He’s very excited just now. He keeps talking about the artistic revolution and the -twentieth century, and all that, you know. He has been reading a book called ‘John -Christopher,’ and keeps on reading it aloud until I’m sick of it. I believe he thinks he -is like Christopher, though I’m sure he’s not, because Christopher could never see a joke. -It is all about women, one after another, just left anyhow. It doesn’t sound like a story -to me at all.”</p> - -<p>“It sounds true,” said Mendel, not paying much attention to what she said.</p> - -<p>To his intense relief Logan came in with a frame under his arm.</p> - -<p>“Hullo!” he said. “Got back? How did you like the swells?”</p> - -<p>“They were good people,” replied Mendel, “and wonderfully peaceful. I don’t think I -appreciated it enough while I was there, but it seems very clear and beautiful to me -now.”</p> - -<p>“Portrait any good?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>Logan put down his frame and without a word<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-298">[Pg 298]</a></span> to Oliver proceeded to wash up the tea-things. She -stayed in her chair in the window and hummed.</p> - -<p>To Mendel his friend seemed altered. He had lost his good-humour and something of his -happy recklessness, and he was more concentrated and full of a wary -self-consciousness.</p> - -<p>He came out of the bedroom when the washing up was done and flung himself on the divan, -stretched himself out, and said:—</p> - -<p>“I’m tired; done up. Lord! What fools there are in the world! No more portraits for -you, my boy; at least, not this side of thirty. Ten years good solid work ahead of -you.”</p> - -<p>He laughed.</p> - -<p>“I told Cluny he must hurry up or you would slide off into portrait-painting. Dealers -hate the mere sound of the word. He is going to hurry up. I’ve played you for all I am -worth, and Cluny is in my pocket. Oh! I’m a man of destiny, I am.”</p> - -<p>A snort and a giggle came from Oliver. Logan sat up.</p> - -<p>“Leave the room!” he said.</p> - -<p>“Shan’t.”</p> - -<p>“Leave the room. I want to talk to Kühler.”</p> - -<p>“Talk away then. I shan’t listen.”</p> - -<p>Logan walked over to her, seized her by the arms, and pushed her into the bedroom and -locked the door. It was done very quickly and dexterously, as though it were a practised -manœuvre.</p> - -<p>“I’m finding out how to treat her,” he said. “Quiet firmness does the trick.”</p> - -<p>He met Mendel’s eyes fixed on him in horrified inquiry and turned sharply away.</p> - -<p>“It isn’t as bad as it looks,” he said. “The fact is, women aren’t fit for liberty and -an artist ought to have nothing to do with them. But what can a man do? . . . -What were we talking about?”</p> - -<p>“Cluny.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh yes! He wants the exhibition to be the first fortnight in November. Can you be -ready by then? It must be a turning-point in art, the beginning of big things. I know -myself enough to realize that it is doubtful if I shall ever be a great creative artist, -but I shall be the Napoleon of the new movement—the soldier and the organizer of the -revolution in art. And it won’t be confined to art; it will spread through everything. Art -will be the central international republic from which the commonwealths which will take -the place of the present vulgar capitalistic nations will be inspired. What do you think -of that for an idea?”</p> - -<p>“Stick to art,” said Mendel. “I know nothing about the rest.”</p> - -<p>“Do you remember my saying that the music-hall was all that was left of old England? I -did not know how true it was. England has become one vast music-hall, with everybody with -any talent or brains scrambling to top the bill. It runs through everything—art, politics, -the press, literature, social reform, women’s suffrage, local government; and the people -who top the bill can’t be dislodged, just like the poor old crocks on the halls, who come -on and give the same show they were giving twenty years ago, and get applause instead of -rotten eggs because the British public is so rotten with sentiment and so stupid that it -can’t tell when a man has lost his talent. Please one generation in England and its -grandchildren will applaud you, though everything about you is changed except your name. -The result is, of course, that no talent is ever properly developed. A man reaches the -point where he can please enough people to make a living, and he sticks there. Now, I ask -you, is that a state of things which a self-respecting artist can accept?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Mendel. “No.”</p> - -<p>“Well. It has to be altered. And who is<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-300">[Pg 300]</a></span> to alter it if not the painters, who are less in contact -with the general public than any other artists? Painters had a comfortable time last -century, living on the North-country municipal councils, but that is all over and we are -reduced to poops like Tysoe. There are any number of them, if one only took the trouble to -dig them up, but they’re no good. I’ve lived on them for the last ten years, and they’re -no good. You might as well squeeze your paints into the sink and turn on the tap for all -the flicker of appreciation you get out of them. Then there are the snobs, the -semi-demimondaines of the political set; but they are a seedy lot, with the minds and the -interests of chorus-girls. You might whip up a little excitement at Oxford and Cambridge, -but it would only vanish as soon as the young idiots came in contact with London and fell -in love. . . . No. Behind the scenes of the music-hall is no good. We must make -a direct onslaught on the general public. They must be taught that there is such a thing -as art and that there are men devoted to the disinterested development of their -talents—men who have no desire to top the bill or to make five hundred a week; men who -recognize that art is European, universal, the invisible fabric in which human life is -contained, and are content, like simple workmen, to keep it in repair.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” said Mendel, “if my brother-in-law Moscowitsch is typical, but he -regards art which does not make money as a waste of time.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! He is a Jew and uneducated. That’s where Tolstoi went so wrong. He confused the -simplicity of art with the simplicity of the peasant, the dignity of the unsophisticated -with the dignity that is achieved through sophistication. It may seem absurd to talk of -bringing about anything so big through little Cluny, but it is not only possible, it is -inevitable. The staleness of<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-301">[Pg -301]</a></span> London cannot go on, and Paris seemed just the same to me. Stagnation is -intolerable. There must come a movement towards freedom and a grander gesture, and the -only free people are the painters. They are the only people whose work has not become -servile and vulgarized. Through them lies the natural outlet. . . . Oh! I have -been thinking and thinking, and I thank God we met before you had been spoiled by success -or I had been ruined by my rotten swindling life—though that has had its advantages too, -and I can meet the dealers on their own ground, and if necessary advertise as impudently -as any of the music-hall artists.”</p> - -<p>Oliver began to hammer on the door. He went and unlocked it and let her in.</p> - -<p>“You can talk as much as you like now,” he said. “I’ve said my say.”</p> - -<p>“I heard you,” she replied, “talking to Kühler as if he was a crowd in Hyde Park.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was lost in thought. He was baffled by this association of art with things like -politics and music-halls, which he had always accepted as part of the world’s constitution -but essentially unimportant. He had no organized mental life. His ideas came direct from -his instincts to his mind, and were either used for immediate purposes or dropped back -again to return when wanted. However, he recognized the passionate nervous energy that -made Logan’s words full and round, and he was glad to have him so accessible and so eager -and purposeful. On the whole, it did not matter to him why Logan thought his work so -important. No one else thought it so, and certainly no one else had taken so much trouble -to help it to find recognition. Logan seemed to promise him public fame, and that would -delight and reassure his father and mother more than anything else. They treasured every -mention of his name in the newspapers,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-302">[Pg 302]</a></span> pasted the cuttings in a book, and produced it for every -visitor to the house.</p> - -<p>Struggling for ideas with which to match Logan’s, he became instinctively aware that -his friend’s enthusiasm was deliberate, not in itself faked, but artificially heated. -Behind it lay a deeper passion, from which he was endeavouring to divert the energy it -claimed.</p> - -<p>Sitting between Logan and Oliver, Mendel could almost intercept the current of feeling -that ran between them. It offended him as an indecency that they should have so little -control over themselves as to reveal their condition of mutual obsession. . . . -It reminded him of his impression of the police-court, where the secret sores of society -were exposed nakedly, and queer, helpless, shameless, unrestrained creatures were dealt -with almost like parcels in a shop. And again he had the sensation of being bound to them, -of being confined with them in that little room, of a dead pressure being upon him, until -he must scream or go mad.</p> - -<p>He looked at them. Did they not feel it too? Logan was lying back with his hands -beneath his head and his lips pressed together and a scowl on his face, looking as though -his thoughts and his destiny were almost, but, of course, not quite too much for him. -Oliver was looking out of the window with her hands on her hips, humming. She laughed and -said:—</p> - -<p>“I’d sooner live with an undertaker than an artist. He would be up to a bit of fun -sometimes, and he’d do his work without making such a fuss about it.”</p> - -<p>“There’s an undertaker at the corner of the next street. You’d better ask him to take -you on.”</p> - -<p>“As a corpse?” asked Mendel, exploding and spluttering at what seemed to him a very -good joke. The others turned and looked at him solemnly, but neither of them laughed, -and<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-303">[Pg 303]</a></span> gradually -his amusement subsided and he said lamely:—</p> - -<p>“I thought it was very funny.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! for goodness’ sake let’s go and have something to eat,” said Oliver. “You’re -turning the place into a tomb with your silence. One’d think you were going to be crowned -King of England instead of just holding a potty little exhibition.”</p> - -<p>“He is going to be crowned King of Artists,” said Mendel, making another attempt at a -joke.</p> - -<p>“By God!” said Logan, “they’d kill me if they knew what I was like inside. Do you ever -feel like that, Kühler, that all the birds in the cage would peck you to death for having -got outside it? I do. I never see a policeman without feeling he is going to arrest -me.”</p> - -<p>“I used to feel like that sometimes,” replied Mendel, “until I was arrested and -realized that policemen are just people like anybody else. The man who arrested me was a -very nice man.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! I’m sick of your feelings,” cried Oliver, “and I want my dinner.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” said Logan, reaching for his hat; “we’ll go to the Pot-au-Feu and -afterwards to the Paris Café and fish for critics. I shall nobble one or two swells -through Tysoe. We’ll pick up the more crapulous and lecherous at the café, and Oliver -shall be the bait. So look your prettiest, my dear. . . . Let’s have a look at -you.”</p> - -<p>He lit the gas and made her stand beneath it.</p> - -<p>“You’ll do,” he said, patting her cheek. “Come along.”</p> - -<p>He put his arm through hers. She gave a wriggle of pleasure and pressed close to -him.</p> - -<p>Mendel followed them downstairs with an omen at his heart. He felt sure that something -violent would happen.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>But nothing violent did happen. The evening was extraordinarily light-hearted and -pleasant.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-304">[Pg 304]</a></span> Logan -was his old self again, cracking jokes, mimicking people almost to their faces, giving -absurd descriptions of his interviews with dealers and buyers, and concocting a burlesque -history of his life. Mendel had never laughed so much since he was at the Detmold. His -sides ached, and he was hard put to it to keep his countenance when at the café Logan -caught two critics and told them that they must make no mistake this time: their -reputations were at stake, nay, the reputation of art criticism was at the cross-roads, -and art was on the threshold of its greatest period, and criticism should be its herald, -not its camp-follower.</p> - -<p>“You fellows,” said Logan, “use your brains, you are articulate. We are apt to get lost -in paint, in coloured dreams of to-morrow and the spaces of the night. We lose touch with -the world, with life. We are dependent on you—even the greatest genius is dependent on -you. You are the real patrons of art. The herd follows you. Criticism must not shirk its -duty. The kind of thing that happened with Manet, with Whistler, ought not to happen -again.”</p> - -<p>The two critics were unused to such treatment from painters. Oliver used her eyes upon -them, detached one of them into a flirtation and left the other to Logan’s mercies. -Logan’s blood was up. Here was a game he dearly loved, talking, bullying, hypnotizing -another man out of his individuality. He invented monstrously, outrageously—concocted a -whole new technique of painting, the discovery of which he ascribed to Mendel’s genius, -and ended up by saying that painting should be to England what music had been to Germany, -a national and at the same time a universal art.</p> - -<p>The critic had drunk enough to take it all seriously, and he promised to call and see -the work of both painters. His colleague, on the other<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-305">[Pg 305]</a></span> hand, made arrangements to take Oliver -out to tea and won her promise to come and see him at his flat.</p> - -<p>“That’s all right,” said Logan, as they left the café at closing time. “They will -remember our names. They will forget how they came to know them and they will write about -us.”</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter303"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter303_hdg"><a href="#Chapter303_toc">III<br /> -<span class="chap_title">SUCCESS</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">I<small>T</small> was all very well for Logan to talk about modern -England being a music-hall, but his methods were almost identical with those of the -publicists whom he decried. The greater part of his energy went to find a market for his -wares, leaving very little for the production of the wares themselves. Because he was -excited and busy and full of enthusiasm, he took it for granted that he was in a vigorous -condition and that his vision of the future of art would be expressed in art. He talked -volubly of what he was doing and what he intended to do, even while he worked, and his -nerves were so overwrought that he contracted a horror of being alone. Though Oliver -jeered at him as he worked he would not let her go out, and when once or twice she -insisted, he could not work, and went round to see Mendel and prevented his working -either.</p> - -<p>Mendel knew nothing of markets and dealers and the relation of art to the world and its -habits and institutions. He was carried off his feet by his friend’s torrential energy, -believed what he said, wore his thoughts as he would have worn his hat, and lived entirely -for the exhibition which was to do such wonders for him. Twelve exhibits were required of -him. He would have had forty-eight ready if he had been asked for them. When he missed the -delight and the pure joy he had had in working, he told himself that these emotions were -childish and unworthy of a man, and a<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-307">[Pg 307]</a></span> nuisance, because they would have prevented him from -knowing clearly what he wanted to do. He dashed at his canvas with a fair imitation of -Logan’s manner, slung the paint on to it with bold strokes, saying to himself: “There! -That will astonish them! That will make them see what painting is!”</p> - -<p>And every now and then he would remember that he was in love. He must paint love as it -had never been painted before.</p> - -<p>For his subject he chose Ruth in the cornfield, but very soon tired of painting ears of -corn, so he left it looking like a square yellow block, and painted it up until it -resembled a slice of Dutch cheese. Only when he came to Ruth’s face and tried to make it -express all the love with which his heart was overflowing did he paint with the old -fastidious care, but even that could not keep him for long, and he returned to his corn, -the shape of which had begun to fascinate him, and he wanted somehow to get it into -relation with the hill on which it was set. But he could do nothing with it, and had to go -back to Ruth and love.</p> - -<p>The effect was certainly startling and novel, and Logan was enthusiastic.</p> - -<p>“That’s it,” he said. “The nearest approach to modern art is the poster, which is not -art, of course, because it is not designed by artists. But it does convey something to the -modern mind, it does jog it out of its routine and habitual rut. Now, your picture -wouldn’t do for a poster. It is too good, but it has the same kind of effect. Stop! Look! -Listen! Wake up, and see that there are beautiful women in the world and blue skies, and -love radiant over all! This woman has nothing to do with what you felt for your wife when -you proposed to her, or with what the parson said when the baby died: she is the woman the -dream of whom lives always in your heart,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-308">[Pg 308]</a></span> although you have long forgotten it. She is the beauty -you have passed by for the sake of peace and quiet and a balance at your bank.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think it is a good picture?” asked Mendel.</p> - -<p>“I think it is a good beginning. Two or three more like that and there will be a -sensation. There will have to be policemen to regulate the crowd.”</p> - -<p>Mendel caught his mood of driving excitement and really was convinced that he had -broken through to a style of his own, and to the beginning of something that might be -called modern art.</p> - -<p>He was a little dashed when, after Logan had gone, he fetched his mother over to see -it, and all she could find to say was:—</p> - -<p>“You used not to paint like that.”</p> - -<p>“No, of course not,” he said impatiently. “The old way was limited, too limited. It was -all very well for painting the life down here, just what I saw in front of me. This -picture is for an exhibition, all by myself with one other man.”</p> - -<p>“Logan?” asked Golda dubiously.</p> - -<p>“Yes. It is a great honour to give a private exhibition like that at my age. It is most -unusual. This is the beginning of a new style. I’m beginning a new life.”</p> - -<p>“You are not going away?” said Golda in a sudden panic that he was to be snatched away -from her.</p> - -<p>“I should never go away until you gave your permission,” he said. “I am not so very -different from Harry that I want to go away and leave my people.”</p> - -<p>“I never know what will come of that painting of yours.”</p> - -<p>“Success!” he said jestingly. “And fame and money, and beautiful ladies in furs and -diamonds, and carriages and motor-cars, and fine clothes and rings on everybody’s -fingers.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I would rather have you seated quietly in my kitchen than all the gold of King Solomon -and the Queen of Sheba,” said Golda.</p> - -<p>“Then please like my picture.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like it.”</p> - -<p>“Then <i>say</i> you like it.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like it.”</p> - -<p>“I shall wipe it out then.”</p> - -<p>“Your new friends will like it.”</p> - -<p>“<i>I</i> like it,” he said. “I don’t think it is a very good picture, but it means -something to me.”</p> - -<p>And he longed for Morrison to come and see it, for it was the first picture that had -directly to do with her. The portrait of her was hardly more than a drawing. What he -called an “art student” might have done it, but this Ruth, he felt, was the beginning of -his work as an artist, and he thought fantastically that when Morrison saw it she would -see that he was to be treated with respect and would fall in by his side, and they would -live happily, or at least solidly, ever after.</p> - -<p>“Solid” was his great word, and he used it in many senses. It conveyed to his mind the -quality of which he could most thoroughly approve. If a thing, or a person, or an action, -or an emotion were what he called “solid,” then it was a matter of indifference to him -whether it was in the ordinary sense good or bad. He was perfectly convinced that if -Morrison could only be brought to reason, then his life would solidify and he would be -able to go on working in peace.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile he was anything but solid. His work, his life, his ideas, his ambition had -all melted under Logan’s warm touch and were pouring towards the crucial exhibition. -Mendel looked forward to it feverishly, because it was to put an end to his present -condition, in which he was like a wax candle, luminous, but fast sinking into nothingness. -If only he could reach the exhibition in time, the wind of fame would blow out the flame -that was<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-310">[Pg 310]</a></span> -reducing him and he would be able to start afresh . . . But all the time as he -worked words of Logan’s rolled in his mind, and had no meaning whatever, except that they -made him think of music-halls and motor-buses and women’s legs in tights and newspapers -and electric sky-signs spelling out words letter by letter. Out of this hotch-potch -pictures, works of art, were to emerge. They were to take their place in it and, according -to Logan, reduce it to order. But how was it possible? . . . In the quiet, -ordered, patriarchal world of the Jews a rare nature might arise, but in that -extraordinary confusion nothing rare could survive. Beauty could never compete on equal -terms with women’s legs in tights and electric sky-signs; it could never produce an -impression on minds obsessed and crammed to overflowing with the multitudinous excitements -of the metropolis.</p> - -<p>Mendel was convinced that Logan was right, that beauty must emerge to establish -authority, and he thought of himself as engaged in a combat with a huge, terrible monster. -Every stroke of his brush was a wound upon its flanks and an abomination the less. Yet he -loved all the things against which he was fighting, because they made the world gay and -stimulating and wonderful. He could see no reason why he should change the world. It was -full enough of change already. Why, in his own time, the electric railways and the -motor-buses had brought an amazing transformation in the life of the East End. No one now -worked for such little wages as his father had done at the stick-making, and the life of -the streets had lost its terrors and dangers. The young men had better things to do than -to fight each other or to pelt old Jews with mud, and there was no reason to suppose that -such changes would stop where they were.</p> - -<p>However, he had Logan’s word for it, and Logan had given art a new importance in his -eyes. He<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-311">[Pg 311]</a></span> could -not think it out himself without getting hopelessly confused, and there was nothing for it -but to go on with his work.</p> - -<p>Other relief he had none. He had written three ardent letters to Morrison, telling her, -absolutely without restraint, of his love and his need for her, and she had not replied. -He was too much hurt to write again, and as he worked he began to hate love, being in -love, and the idea of it. He persuaded himself that it was a weakness, and he had ample -reason for thinking so, when he compared his loose condition with his old clear singleness -of purpose. What chiefly exasperated him in this indefinite unsuccessful love of his was -that it exposed him to the passion, every day growing more furious, between Logan and -Oliver. It made his own emotions seem fantastic, with the most vital current of his being -pouring out in a direction far removed from the rest of his life, apparently ignoring the -solid virtues of his Jewish surroundings and the elated vigour of his career among the -artists.</p> - -<p>“It will not do!” he told himself. “I will not have it! What is this love? Just -nonsense invented by people who are afraid of their passions. A lady indeed? <i>Is</i> -she? A lady is only a woman dressed up. She must learn that she is a woman, or I will have -nothing to do with her.”</p> - -<p>And sometimes he could persuade himself that he had driven Morrison from his thoughts. -He finished the portrait of her from memory and was convinced that it was the end of her. -It was a good picture and pretty enough to find a buyer, and there it ended. He had got -what he wanted of her and could pluck her out of his thoughts.</p> - -<p>Logan said it was a very fine picture, a real piece of creation.</p> - -<p>“And if that doesn’t make them see how damned awful their Public School system is in -its effect on women, I’ll eat my hat. You’ve had your revenge,<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-312">[Pg 312]</a></span> my boy. You have shown her up. Why don’t -you call it <i>The Foolish Virgin</i>? Of all the mischievous twaddle that is talked in -this mischievous twaddling country the notion of love is the worst. You can’t love a woman -unless you live with her, and a woman is incapable of loving a man unless he lives with -her. By Jove! We’ll hang it and my portrait of Oliver side by side in the exhibition, and -I’ll call mine <i>The Woman who Did.</i>”</p> - -<p>“I won’t have them side by side,” said Mendel. “I want our pictures kept separate. I -don’t want it said that we are working together.”</p> - -<p>“But we <i>are</i> working together.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. But along our own lines. We’re only together really in our independence. You said -yourself that we didn’t want to found a school.”</p> - -<p>“That’s true,” replied Logan, “but I don’t see why we shouldn’t have our little -joke.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t joke with art,” said Mendel grimly, and that settled the matter.</p> - -<p>It was the first time he had set his will against his friend’s, and he was surprised to -find how soft Logan was. Surely, then, it was he who was the leader, he who was blazing -the new trail for art. . . . He had to bow to the fact that Logan had a -programme while he had none. However, having once asserted his will, he became critical, -and was not again the docile little disciple he had been.</p> - -<p>Logan wanted to draw up a manifesto for the catalogue, to enunciate the first -principles of modern art, namely, that a picture must have (<i>a</i>) not merely a -subject, but a conception based on but not bounded by its subject; (<i>b</i>) form, -meaning the form dictated by the logic of the conception, which must of necessity be -different from the logic dictated by the subject, which would lead either to the -preconceptions and prejudices of the schools or to irrelevant and non-pictorial -considerations. All this was set out at some<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-313">[Pg 313]</a></span> length, and appended were a number of maxims, such -as:—</p> - -<p>“In art the important thing is art.</p> - -<p>“Abstraction precedes selection.</p> - -<p>“Art exists to keep in circulation those spiritual forces, such as æsthetic emotion, -which are denied in ordinary human communications.</p> - -<p>“Photography has released art from its ancient burden of representation,” etc., -etc.</p> - -<p>With the spirit of this manifesto Mendel was in agreement, though he could make but -little of its letter. He refused to agree to it because so much talk seemed to him -unnecessary.</p> - -<p>“If we can say what we mean to say in paint, then we need not talk. If we cannot say it -in paint, then we have no right to talk.”</p> - -<p>“You’d soon bring the world to a standstill,” said Logan, “if you limited talk to the -people who have a right to it. It is just those people who never open their mouths. I -think it is criminal of them, just out of shyness and disgust, to give the buffoons and -knaves an open field.”</p> - -<p>“All the same,” grunted Mendel, “I am not going to agree to the manifesto. People will -read it and laugh at it, and never look at the pictures. You seem to think of everything -but them. I wonder you don’t set up as a dealer.”</p> - -<p>“You’re overworking,” said Logan, “that’s what you are doing. And directly the -exhibition is open I shall pack you off to Brighton.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Already a week before the opening they began to feel that the eyes of London were upon -them. They crept about the streets half-shamefacedly like conspirators, relaxed and wary, -waiting for the moment when their triumph should send their shoulders back and their heads -up, and they would march together through a London which owed its salvation to them. Not -since his portrait had<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-314">[Pg -314]</a></span> appeared in the Yiddish paper had Mendel been so defiant and so morosely -arrogant.</p> - -<p>He was ill with excitement and could not do a stroke of work. Every minute of the day -he spent with Logan and Oliver, to whom Tysoe was often added. He dined with them at the -Pot-au-Feu, took them all out to lunch and tea at places like Richmond and Kew, had them -to his house, and was squeezed by the approaching success to buy Logan’s two largest -pictures before the public could have access to them.</p> - -<p>“They are masterpieces!” he cried, swinging his long hands, “absolute masterpieces! You -don’t know how much good it does me to be with you two. Absolutely sincere, you are! -That’s what I like about you. Sincere! One looks for sincerity in vain everywhere else. -Sincerity has vanished from the theatre, the novel, music, poetry. I suppose it is -democracy—letting the public in behind the scenes, so that they see through all the -tricks.”</p> - -<p>“An artist isn’t a conjurer!” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“That is just what artists have been,” cried Logan, “and they can’t bluff it out any -more.”</p> - -<p>“Exactly!” gurgled Tysoe, who when he was roused from his habitual weak lethargy lost -control of his voice, so that it wobbled between a shrill treble and a husky bass. -“Exactly! That’s what I like about you two. No bluff, no tricks. You do what you want to -do and damn the consequences. Ha! ha!”</p> - -<p>So ill was Mendel just before the exhibition that Logan refused to allow him anywhere -near it, and insisted that they should both go to Brighton, leaving Oliver to go to the -private view and spy out the land.</p> - -<p>Oliver protested. She wanted to go to Brighton.</p> - -<p>“You shall have a new dress and a new hat,” said Logan. “You must go to the private -view like a real lady. Cluny doesn’t know you, and you<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-315">[Pg 315]</a></span> must go up to him every now and then and -ask him in a loud voice what the prices are. You might even pretend to be a little deaf -and make him speak clearly and distinctly.”</p> - -<p>The idea tickled Mendel so that he began to laugh, could not stop himself, and was soon -almost hysterical.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter with you?” asked Oliver, shaking him.</p> - -<p>He gasped:—</p> - -<p>“I—I was laughing at the idea of your being a real lady. Ha! ha! ha!”</p> - -<p>She gave him a clout over the head that sobered him. Logan pounced on her like a -tiger.</p> - -<p>“You devil!” he said. “You she-devil! Don’t you see the poor boy’s ill?”</p> - -<p>“What’s that to me?” she screamed, with her head wobbling backwards and forwards -horribly as he shook her. “It’s n-nothing t-to m-me!”</p> - -<p>She caught Logan by the wrist and sent him spinning, for she was nearly as strong as -he.</p> - -<p>“Go to Brighton!” she shouted. “I don’t care. I’ll be glad to be rid of you both. You -won’t find me here when you come back, that’s all, you and your little hurdy-gurdy boy! -You only need a monkey and an organ to make you complete. Why don’t you try it? You’d do -better at that than out of pictures.”</p> - -<p>Logan could not contain himself. His rage burst out of him in a howl like that of a -wind in a chimney, a dismal, empty moan. He stood up, and the veins on his neck swelled -and his mouth opened and shut foolishly, for he could find nothing to say.</p> - -<p>“You slut, you squeezed-out dishclout, you sponge!” he roared at last. “Clear out, you -drab! Clear out into the streets, you trull! Draggle your skirts in the mud, you filth, -you octopus! Sell the carcase that you don’t know how to give, you marble!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p> - -<p>She flung up her hands and sank on to her knees, and let down her hair and moaned:—</p> - -<p>“O God! O God! O God!”</p> - -<p>Logan’s fury snapped.</p> - -<p>“For God’s sake! For God’s sake!” he said. “What has come over us? Oh, God help us! -What are we doing? What are we coming to? Nell! Nell! I didn’t know what I was -saying!”</p> - -<p>He went down on his knees beside her, and Mendel, who had been numbed but inwardly -elated by the storm, could not endure the craven surrender, the cowardly reconciliation, -and he left them.</p> - -<p>Out in the street he stood tottering on the curb, and spat into the gutter, with -extreme precision, between the bars of a grating.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>At Brighton, whither they went next day, Logan explained himself.</p> - -<p>“It is extraordinary how near love is to hate, and how rotten love becomes if hate is -suppressed—stale and tasteless and vapid.”</p> - -<p>“Are you talking about yourself and Oliver?” asked Mendel.</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Then please don’t. I don’t mind what happens between you and her so long as it doesn’t -happen in front of me.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry,” said Logan; “but it can’t always be prevented. I don’t see the use of -pretence.”</p> - -<p>“Neither do I. But some things are your own affair, and it is indecent to let other -people see them.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, a row’s a row!” said Logan cheerfully. “And one is all the better for it.”</p> - -<p>“But if a woman treated me like that I should never speak to her again.”</p> - -<p>“Love’s too deep for that. You can’t stand on your dignity in love.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I should make her understand once and for all that I would not have it.”</p> - -<p>“Then she would deceive you. If you played the tyrant over a girl like Oliver she would -deceive you.”</p> - -<p>Mendel stared and his jaw dropped. Had Logan forgotten the night in Paris? Was he such -a fool as to pretend he did not know, could not see that the whole liberation of frenzy in -Oliver dated from that night? . . . Oh, well! It was no affair of his.</p> - -<p>To change the subject he said:—</p> - -<p>“We ought to get the press-cuttings to-morrow. I wonder if we shall sell the lot? It’s -a good beginning, having tickets on your two.”</p> - -<p>“I bet we sell the lot in a week. Oliver has two of the critics in her pocket. What do -you say to giving a party in honour of the event? We can afford to forgive our enemies -now, and there’s a social side to the movement which we ought not to neglect.”</p> - -<p>Mendel made no reply. They were sitting on the front. The smooth, glassy sea, -reflecting the stars and the lights of the pier, soothed and comforted him. Brighton was -to him like a part of London, and he sank drowsily into the happy fantasy that he was -being thrust out of the streets towards the stars and the vast power that lay beyond them. -He was weary of the streets and the clamour, and he wanted peace and serenity, rest from -his own turbulence, the peace which has no dwelling upon earth and lives only in -eternity.</p> - -<p>“How good it would be,” he said suddenly, “if one could just paint without a thought of -what became of one’s pictures.”</p> - -<p>“That’s no good,” replied Logan. “One must live.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>The first batch of cuttings arrived in the morning. They were brief, for the most part, -quite<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-318">[Pg 318]</a></span> respectful -and appreciative. Mendel learned, to his astonishment, that he was influenced by Logan, -and one critic lamented that a promising young painter, who could so simply render the -life of his race, should have been infected with modern heresies. There was no uproar, -neither of them was hailed as a master, and Logan in more than one instance was dismissed -as an imitator of Calthrop.</p> - -<p>“Calthrop!” said Logan, gulping down his disappointment and disgust. “Calthrop! Oh -well, it is good enough for a beginning. It would have been very different if you had let -me print the manifesto. The swine need to be told, you know. They want a lead. -. . . We’ll wait for the Sunday papers.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>London was curiously unchanged when they returned. Mendel was half afraid he would be -recognized as they came out of Charing Cross Station, but no one looked at him. The -convulsion through which he had lived had left people going about their business, and he -supposed that if an earthquake happened in Trafalgar Square people would still be going -about their business in the Strand.</p> - -<p>They were eager for Oliver’s account of the private view, and took a taxi-cab to Camden -Town. She was wearing her new dress and was quite the lady: shook hands with Mendel and -asked him haughtily in a mincing tone how he was. From all these signs he judged that the -exhibition had been a success.</p> - -<p>“Quite a lot of people came,” she said. “Real swells. There were two motor-cars -outside.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Logan. “Tysoe agreed to leave his car outside for a couple of hours to -encourage people to go in.”</p> - -<p>“Kühler’s picture of the girl with short hair sold at once,” she said.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p> - -<p>His pleasure in this news was swallowed up in his dislike of hearing Morrison spoken of -by her.</p> - -<p>“All your drawings but one are gone, Logan. I listened to what people said. They wanted -to know who you were, and Cluny said you had a great reputation in the North. People -laughed out loud at Kühler’s <i>Ruth</i>, and I heard one man say it was only to be -expected. He said the Jews can never produce art. They can only produce infant -prodigies.”</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter304"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter304_hdg"><a href="#Chapter304_toc">IV<br /> -<span class="chap_title">REACTION</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">L<small>OGAN</small> made nearly two hundred pounds out of the -exhibition and Mendel over a hundred. His family rejoiced in his triumph. A hundred pounds -was a good year’s income to them. They rejoiced, but it was an oppression to him to go -back to them and to talk in Yiddish, in which there were no words for all that he cared -for most. Impossible to explain to them about art, for they had neither words nor mental -conceptions. Art was to them only a wonderful way of making money, a kind of magic that -went on in the West End, where, once a man was established, he had only to open his -pockets for money to fall into them.</p> - -<p>Up to a point he could share their elation, for in his bitter moments he too was -predatory. If the Christian world would not admit him on equal terms he had no compunction -about despoiling it.</p> - -<p>The words “infant prodigy” stuck in his throat, and with his family it seemed indeed -impossible that the Jews could produce art. How could they, when they had no care for it? -And how had he managed to find his way to it? . . . Going back over his career -step by step it seemed miraculous, and as though there were a special providence governing -his life—Mr. Kuit, the Scotch traveller, Mitchell, Logan, all were as though they had been -pushed forward at the critical moment. And for what? Merely to exploit an infant prodigy -with a skilful trick? . . . He could not, he would not believe it. The pressure -that had driven him along,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-321">[Pg -321]</a></span> the pressure within himself, had been too great for that, just to squeeze -him out into the open and to fill his pockets with money. There was more meaning in it all -than that, more shape, more design.</p> - -<p>Yet when he considered his work he was lacerated with doubt. It ended so palpably in -the portrait of his father and mother, and he knew that he could never go back to that -again. An art that was limited to Jewry was no art. Among the Jews no light could live. -They would not have it. They would snuff it out, for it was their will to dwell in dark -places and to wait upon the illumination that never came, as of course it never would -until they looked within themselves.</p> - -<p>Within himself he knew there was a most vivid light glowing, a spark which only needed -a breath of air upon it to burst into flame. He was increasingly conscious of it, and it -made him feel transparent, as though nothing could be hidden from those who looked his -way. What was there to hide? If there was evil, it lived but a little while and was soon -spent, while that which was of worth endured and grew under recognition.</p> - -<p>Thence came his devotion to Logan, who simply ignored everything that apparently gave -offence to others and saluted the rare, rich activity. It was nothing to Logan that he was -a Jew and poor and uneducated: he was educated in art, and what more did he want? Logan -was a friend indeed, and had proved it over and over again. He would take his doubts to -Logan and they would be healed, but first he must go to the exhibition, the thought of -which made him unhappy and uneasy.</p> - -<p>Cluny received him with open arms:—</p> - -<p>“A most successful exhibition. A great success. I hope you will let me have some of -your work by me. A most charming exhibition. There was only one mistake, if I may say so: -the <i>Ruth.</i>”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mendel walked miserably through the rooms. All Logan’s pictures were in the best light: -his own were half in shadow.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Logan has the making of a great reputation,” said Cluny, “a very great -reputation.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, very clever!” said Mendel, suddenly exasperated more by Logan’s pictures than by -the dealer.</p> - -<p>Indeed, “very clever” was the right description for Logan’s work. It attracted and -charmed and tickled, but it did not satisfy. The pictures gave Mendel the same odd sense -of familiarity as the picture in Camden Town had done, and turning suddenly, his eye fell -on his own unhappy <i>Ruth</i>. The figure was shockingly bad. He acknowledged the -simpering sentimentality of the face. And he had been trying to paint love! But in spite -of the figure, the picture held him. It was to him the matrix of the whole exhibition. -Wiping out of consideration his own early drawings, it explained and accounted for every -other piece of work. The least dexterous of them all, it had freshness and vitality and a -certain thrust of simplification which everything else lacked. It was “solid,” and worth -all Logan’s pictures put together.</p> - -<p>“Very good prices,” said the dealer. “Very good indeed.”</p> - -<p>Mendel paid no attention to him. He wanted to study his <i>Ruth</i>, to find out its -precise meaning for him, and, if possible, in what mysterious part of his talent it had -originated.</p> - -<p>It had made him feel happy again and had restored his confidence. He was serenely sure -of himself, without arrogance. He was almost humble, yet tantalized because he could not -think of a whole picture in the terms of that one piece of paint. He remembered the -strange excitement in which he had conceived it, the almost nonchalance with which he had -executed it. And to think that not a soul had seen it! The fools! The fools!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> - -<p>He was ashamed to be seen looking so intently at his own work. The next day he was back -again and told Cluny that it was not for sale.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think it’s a seller, Mr. Kühler,” said Cluny.</p> - -<p>“It’s not for sale,” repeated Mendel.</p> - -<p>He went every day and had no other thought. He wandered about in a dream, not seeing -people in the streets, not hearing when he was spoken to.</p> - -<p>On the fifth day as he entered Cluny’s he began to tremble, and he fell against a man -who was coming out. The blood rushed to his heart and beat at his temples. He knew why it -was. The air seemed full of an enchantment that settled upon him and drew him towards the -gallery. He knew he was going to see her, and she was there with Clowes, standing in front -of his <i>Ruth.</i> Clowes was laughing at it, but Morrison, with brows knit, obviously -angry, was trying to explain it.</p> - -<p>“I’m trying to explain the cornfield to Clowes,” she said. “Do come and help me.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t explain it myself,” he said, marvelling at the ease of the meeting. At once he -and she were together and Clowes was out of it, like a dweller in another world.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think you ought to do things you can’t explain,” said Clowes.</p> - -<p>“Then you are wiping out Michael Angelo, and El Greco, and Blake, and Piero.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mendel. “You are wiping out inspiration altogether.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! if you think you are inspired I have nothing more to say,” replied Clowes rather -tartly. She had felt instinctively that Mendel and Morrison would meet at the gallery, and -was annoyed all the same that it had happened. She knew how they were regarded, and she -herself did not approve. Morrison knew how impossible it was, and Clowes thought she ought -not to allow it to go on.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> - -<p>Clowes also recognized how completely she was out of it, and she made excuses and left -them.</p> - -<p>“You are the only one who likes it,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I don’t like it, but I know that it isn’t bad. It isn’t good either, but it is real -and it is you.”</p> - -<p>“I want no more than that,” he said, “from you.”</p> - -<p>In his mind he had prepared all sorts of reproaches for his meeting with her, but they -fell away from his lips. He could only accept that it was good and sweet and natural to be -with her.</p> - -<p>He told her quite simply how he had come to paint the picture, and how he had tried to -paint his love for her. She smiled and shook away her smile.</p> - -<p>“I’m glad it isn’t anything like that really,” she said.</p> - -<p>“I tried to tell you what it was like when I wrote to you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>That was all she could say. She had been very unhappy, often desperately wretched, -because her instinct fought so furiously against the idea of love with him whom she -loved.</p> - -<p>“The picture has made me very happy,” she added. “It means that what I have been -wanting to happen to you has happened. You <i>are</i> different, you know. I can talk to -you so much more easily.”</p> - -<p>He suggested that they should walk in the Park and spend the day together, and she -consented, glad that all the reproaches and storms she had dreaded should be so lightly -brushed away.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Happy, happy lovers, for whom nothing can defile the heavenly beauty of this earth; -happy, from whom Time streams away, bearing with it all the foolish, restless activity of -men; happy, for whom the pomps and vanities of the world are as though they had never -been! Thrice happy<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-325">[Pg -325]</a></span> two, who in your united spirit bear so easily all the beauty, all the -suffering, all the sorrow in the world, and bring it forth in joy, the flower of life that -cometh up as a vision, fades, and sheds its seed upon the rich, warm soil of humanity. -Emblem of immortality for ever shining in the union of spirits, in the enchantment of two -who are together and in love.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>So happy were they that they wandered for the most part in silence through the avenues -and over the grassy spaces of the Park.</p> - -<p>Of the two, she had the better brain, and, indeed, the stronger character. She had been -toughened in the struggle to break out of the web of hypocrisy and meaningless tradition -of gentility in which her family was enmeshed, and the freedom she had won was very -precious to her. She kept it as a touchstone by which to measure her acquaintance and her -experience, and, using it now, she realized that there were two distinct delights in being -with Mendel on this tender autumn day; one tempted her with its promise of furious joys -and wild, baffling emotions. It seduced her with its suggestion that this way lay -kindness, the gift to him of his desire, peace, and satisfaction. But behind the -suggestion of kindness lay a menace to her freedom, which, being so much more precious -than herself, she longed for him to share, as in the keen happiness of that day he had -done. That was the other delight, more serene and more rare, infinitely more powerful, and -she would not have it sacrificed to the less. The gift of herself to which she was tempted -must mean the blending of her freedom with his, for without that there would be no true -gift, only a surrender.</p> - -<p>She could not think it out or make it clear to herself, but she knew that it was -surrender he was asking, and she knew that if she surrendered she<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-326">[Pg 326]</a></span> would be no more to him in a little -while than the other women of passage with whom his life was darkened.</p> - -<p>Ought she not then to tell him, to keep him from living in false hopes? She persuaded -herself that she ought, but she did not wish to spoil this delicious day. It was such -torture to her when he blazed out at her and he became ugly with egoism.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” he said, “the <i>Ruth</i> makes all the difference. I can’t let you go -now, because you are the only one who has really understood my work. I am almost -frightened of it myself, and it makes me feel desperately lonely when I think of all I -shall have to go through to get at what it really means.”</p> - -<p>“No. If you want me like that I don’t want you to let me go,” she said, “for it is so -important.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said. “It may mean an entirely new kind of picture, for I don’t know -anybody’s work that has quite what is hammering away in my head to get out. It must be -because you love me that you can feel it when no one else can. Even to Logan it is only -like a superior poster.”</p> - -<p>How adorable he was in this mood of simplicity and humility! She could relax her -vigilance, and sway unreservedly to his mood and give him all that he required of her, her -clearness, her sensitive purity.</p> - -<p>“You are like no other woman in the world to me,” he went on. “You fill me with the -most wonderful joy, like a Cranach or a Dürer drawing. I can forget almost that you are a -woman, so that it is a most wonderful surprise that you are one after all. You are the -only person in the world whom I can place side by side with my mother.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t know what it is to me,” she said, “to have a friend so strong and frank as -you are.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p> - -<p>He put out his hand and laid it on her arm wonderingly, as if to satisfy himself that -she was really there, much as on his first visit to Hampstead he had touched the -grass.</p> - -<p>“I think I shall live to be very old,” he said, “and you will be just the same to me -then as you are now.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mendel!”</p> - -<p>“Say that again!” he said, but she could not speak. Her eyes were brimming with tears -and she hung her head. She longed to take him to her arms and to fondle him, to make him -young, to charm away the pitiful old weary helplessness that he had. Reacting from this -mood in her, which he did not understand and took for the first symptoms of surrender, he -became wild and boastful, and clowned like a silly boy to attract her attention.</p> - -<p>Her will set against him. She could not endure the sudden swoop from the highest -sympathy to the gallantry of the streets, and when he was weary of his tricks she tried to -bring him to his senses by asking him suddenly:—</p> - -<p>“Is Logan a nice man?”</p> - -<p>“He is my best friend. He has wonderful ideas and energy like a steam-engine, and he -has suffered too. He is not like the art students who expect painting pictures to be as -easy as knitting. He could have been almost anything, but he believes that art is the most -important thing of all. He has made a great difference to me, by teaching me to be -independent. . . . I will take you to see him one day.”</p> - -<p>“I should like to meet him, because he has made a great difference in you.”</p> - -<p>“He steals.”</p> - -<p>That gave Morrison a shock, for Mendel seemed to be stating the fact as a -recommendation.</p> - -<p>“Yes. When he has no money he steals. I went with him once and we stole some -reproductions.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p> - -<p>She was sorry she had mentioned Logan. Mendel was a different creature at once. Their -glamourous happiness was gone. Logan seemed to have stalked in between them and the purity -of their delight withered away.</p> - -<p>He felt it as strongly as she, but thought she was deliberately escaping from him, that -she was fickle and could not stay out the day’s happiness. Women, he knew, were like that. -They gave out just as the best was still to come.</p> - -<p>It was dusk and they were in a lonely glade. He pounced on her and drew her to -him:—</p> - -<p>“I want you to kiss me.”</p> - -<p>“No—no!”</p> - -<p>“Yes—yes—yes! I say you shall. I will not have you let it all slip away.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t! Don’t!” she said, in a passion of resentment. He was spoiling it all. How could -he be so crude and insensible after this matchless day?</p> - -<p>At last he was convinced of her anger.</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand you,” he said. “Don’t you want anything like that?”</p> - -<p>“It has spoiled the day for me,” she answered, “or almost, for nothing could really -spoil it.”</p> - -<p>She walked on and he stood still for a moment. Then he ran after her.</p> - -<p>“Did you . . . did you hate me then?”</p> - -<p>“No, I didn’t hate you. I hated myself more because I can’t say what I feel.”</p> - -<p>“If you don’t love me like that,” he said, “I love you all the same. I must see you -often—always. I can’t live, I can’t work, if you don’t let me see you. . . . No. -That isn’t true. I shall work whatever happens.”</p> - -<p>How she loved his honesty! He was making no attempt to creep behind her defences. They -had baffled him, and he counted his wounds cheerfully.</p> - -<p>“If you don’t love me like that,” he went on<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-329">[Pg 329]</a></span> excitedly, “it doesn’t make any difference. You are my -love all the same. You are in all my thoughts, in every drop of my blood, and you can do -with me as you will. If you don’t love me like that I will never touch you. I can -understand your not wanting to touch me, because I am dirty. I am dirty in my soul. I will -never touch you. I promise that I will never touch you, and what you do not like in me you -shall never see. . . .”</p> - -<p>She broke down, and burst into an unrestrained fit of weeping. Why could she not make -clear to him, to herself, what she felt so clearly? . . . Oh! She knew she ought -to tell him to go, to spare him all the suffering that he must endure, but also she knew -by the measure of her need for him how sorely he must need her. Their need of each other -was too profound, too strong, too passionate, easily to find its way to surface life, nor -could it be satisfied with sweets too easily attained. . . . She must wait. To -leave him or to surrender to him would be a betrayal of that high mystery wherein they had -their spiritual meeting.</p> - -<p>“I shall win,” she said to herself, “I shall win. I know I shall win.”</p> - -<p>And she amazed him with her sudden lightness of heart. She laughed and told him how -solemnly Clowes was taking it all, and how the loose-tongued busybodies were talking. -. . . As if it mattered what they said! He mattered more than all of them, -because they took easily what was next to hand and grew fat on it, while he fought his way -upward step by step and was never satisfied, and would fight his way always step by step -with bloody pains and suffering.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mendel!” she cried; “I’m so proud—so proud of you.”</p> - -<p>She was too swift for him. He came lumbering after her, puzzled, amazed, confounded at -finding<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-330">[Pg 330]</a></span> in this -girl something that was so much more than woman, something that could actually live on the -high level of his creative thought, something as necessary to his thought as dew to the -grass and the ripening corn.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter305"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter305_hdg"><a href="#Chapter305_toc">V<br /> -<span class="chap_title">LOGAN GIVES A PARTY</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">T<small>HE</small> impulse to take his doubts to Logan endured, and -was aggravated by the wretchedness into which Mendel was plunged by Morrison’s return and -her powerful effect upon his life. He raged against himself as an idiot and a fool for -taking her seriously and for believing that she could realize his work when as yet he -understood it so little himself. If it was love, then have the love-making and get it -over. If she refused, then let her go! What did she mean by slipping away just when the -day’s happiness began to demand utterance, closeness, intimacy, the promise of the dearest -and most comfortable joys?</p> - -<p>He knew that he was deceiving himself, that she could do just as she liked and it would -make no difference, but he also knew that he mistrusted her. In his heart he suspected her -of being one of those who like to pretend that life can be all roses and honey, that there -can be summer without winter, day without night. . . . Just a pretty English -girl, he called her, and, in his most bitter moods, he regarded himself as caught; and in -that there was a certain sardonic satisfaction. It seemed appropriate that, having known -many women without a particle of love for them, he should be in love with a woman who did -not wish to have anything to do with him.</p> - -<p>When he told Logan about it, that experienced individual smoked three cigarettes and -was silent for ten minutes by the clock.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It won’t do,” he said; “give it up. You’re in love with her. Oh yes! You were bound to -have your taste of it, being so young. But, for God’s sake, keep it clear of your work. I -know it is very delightful and all that, and like the first blush of spring, and that she -seems to understand everything. First love is always the same. She seems to understand, -but so do the violets in the woods, and the apple-blossom in an orchard, and the singing -birds on a spring morning. They all seem to understand everything. Life is solved: there -are no more problems, and the rarest flower of all is the human heart. Yet the violets and -the apple-blossoms fade and the birds sing no more: the spring passes and the summer is -infernally hot and stale, and winter comes at last. So it is with love and women. Nothing -endures but art, and that they are physically incapable of understanding. My God! Don’t I -know it? A picture of mine means no more to Oliver than my boot does—rather less, because -my boot is warmed with the warmth of my body. That’s all <i>she</i> understands.”</p> - -<p>He looked down at the boots and fidgeted with his hands.</p> - -<p>“Yes. That’s all <i>she</i> understands,” he repeated.</p> - -<p>He was very haggard, and he looked up at Mendel as though he were trying to say -something more than he could get into words; but Mendel was preoccupied with his own -perplexities, and Logan’s appealing glance was lost upon him.</p> - -<p>“I’m older than you,” Logan continued, “and of course it is difficult for me to say -anything that will be of any use to you, but a man like you ought not to let life get in -his way. It isn’t worth it. Life is only valuable to you as a condition of working. -Nothing in it ought to be valuable for its own sake. Do you hear? You ought never to have -anything in your life that you couldn’t sacrifice—couldn’t do without.”</p> - -<p>He seemed to be rather thinking aloud than<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-333">[Pg 333]</a></span> talking, and something indescribably solemn in his voice -made Mendel shiver. He had hardly heard what Logan was saying and, thinking he must be in -a draught, he looked towards the window.</p> - -<p>Logan went on:—</p> - -<p>“She’ll be back in a moment. We don’t often get the opportunity to talk like this. She -has begun to read books, and thinks she knows about pictures now. She won’t leave us -alone. That damned critic has been stuffing her up and she reads all his articles.”</p> - -<p>He made a grimace of weary disgust.</p> - -<p>“I care about you, Kühler, almost more than I do about myself, which is saying a good -deal. Don’t let this love business get mixed up with your work, especially if, as you say, -it is Platonic—that is the worst poison of all—almost, almost. . . . Still, I’d -like to see the girl. Bring her to the party. We might join up and make a quartette—if she -can stand Oliver. Women can’t, as a rule. They don’t like full-blooded people of their own -sex.”</p> - -<p>“She wants to know you,” replied Mendel half-heartedly. “I’m always talking to her -about you.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” said Logan. “Bring her to the party.”</p> - -<p>Downstairs the front door slammed and Logan gave a nervous start. His whole aspect -changed. He lost the drooping solemnity that had come come over him and was stiff, quick, -and alert, and prepared to be droll, as he was when it was a question of humbugging Tysoe -and Cluny.</p> - -<p>Oliver came in with a bottle of wine under each arm. She was in very good spirits and -looking remarkably handsome.</p> - -<p>“Hello, Kühler!” she cried. “How do you like being a success? We’re full of beans. -We’re going to take a house. Did Logan tell you?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Mendel. “I hadn’t heard of it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Well, it’s true. We’ve done with the slums and being poor and all that. We’re going to -have a house and I’m going to have a servant, and I shall have nothing to do all day but -eat chocolates and read novels and have people to tea.”</p> - -<p>“So you’re going to be a real lady.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. I’m going to wear a wedding-ring, and we’re going to give out that we’re married, -so that Mrs. Tysoe can call on me.”</p> - -<p>“You’re not going to do anything of the kind,” snapped Logan.</p> - -<p>“I am. I don’t see why I should have a beastly time just because you won’t marry me, -setting yourself up against the world and saying you don’t believe in marriage.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to be more tied to you than I am,” said Logan, endeavouring to adopt a -reasonable tone.</p> - -<p>He was curiously subdued, and never took his eyes off her. Mendel had the impression -that they must recently have had a quarrel. Logan was endeavouring to placate her, but she -was constantly aggressive. She seemed to have gained in personality and to be possessed of -a definite will. She was no longer shrouded in the mists of sensuality, but stood out -clearly, a figure of such vitality that Mendel could no longer keep his lazy contempt for -her. Almost admirable she was, yet he found her detestable. He thought she should be -thanking her lucky stars for having found such a man as Logan; she should be taking -gratefully what he chose to give her, instead of setting herself up and putting forward -her own vulgar needs. If a woman threw in her lot with an artist, she ought to revel in -her freedom from the petty interests and insignificant courtesies that made the lives of -ordinary women so humiliating.</p> - -<p>What was she up to? He knew that there was a deeper purpose in her, something very -definite, for which she had been able to summon up her<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-335">[Pg 335]</a></span> raw vitality. He could understand Logan -being fascinated. If he had been in love with the woman he would have been the same, and -his mind would have been swamped by sensual curiosity.</p> - -<p>Before, he had always been rather mystified to know what Logan saw in the woman, but -now the infatuation was comprehensible to him. His mind played about it with a strange -delight, and he was even envious of Logan to be consumed in the heart of that mystery upon -whose fringes he himself was held. And he thought that if he brought Morrison to see them -he would be able to understand her better, and might even be able to place his finger on -the weak place in her armour.</p> - -<p>“You two do give me the pip,” said Oliver. “You sit there as glum and silent as though -you were in church. Taking yourselves too seriously, I call it.”</p> - -<p>Still in his forbearing tone Logan said:—</p> - -<p>“We talk of things which are very hard to understand.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, give it up!” she said. “Leave all that to folk with brains and education. Why -can’t you just paint without talking about it? You’d get twice as much work done.”</p> - -<p>“Because, don’t you see, unless you’re a blasted amateur, you can’t paint without -rousing all sorts of questions in your mind—questions that don’t seem to have anything to -do with painting; but unless you attempt to answer them there’s no satisfaction in -working.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, cheese it!” she said; “I know what the critics look for, and it has nothing to do -with brains. It is like being in love.”</p> - -<p>“Who told you that?” asked Logan with sudden heat; but before she could answer him -Mendel had exploded:—</p> - -<p>“It is nothing at all like being in love. That is what all the beastly Christians think -of—being in<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-336">[Pg 336]</a></span> -love. And they want art always, always to remind them of that—how they have been, are, or -will be in love, as they call it. And what they call being in love is nothing but a filthy -lecherous longing, which is a thousand miles beneath love, and twenty thousand miles -beneath art, which is so rare, so noble, so beautiful a mystery that only those whom God -has chosen can understand it at all; for while you are in this state of longing you can -understand, you can feel nothing at all except a hungry delight in yourself and your own -sticky sensations. What can women know of art? It needs strength and will, and women have -neither; they have only obstinate fancies.”</p> - -<p>When he had done he was so astonished at himself that he gasped for breath. Logan and -Oliver, gaping at him, seemed ridiculous and little. Talking to them was a waste of -breath, because when she was there Logan was not himself, but only a kind of excrescence -upon her monstrous vitality. The room seemed to stink. It was airless and reeking with -sex. He must get out and away, under the sky, among the trees, upon his beloved Hampstead. -. . . Without another word he stalked away.</p> - -<p>“Well! I never!” exclaimed Oliver. “Is Kühler in love?”</p> - -<p>“Oh! shut up!” said Logan wearily.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>For the party the room was cleared and a pianola was hired. The guests were invited to -bring their own glasses and drink, and also any friends they liked. The result was that -half the habitués of the Paris Café turned up, including Jessie Petrie, Mitchell, and -Thompson, who was over for a short time from Paris, very important and mysterious because -he had something to do with a forthcoming exhibition of Modern French Art which was to -knock London silly. And there was a rumour that Calthrop himself was coming.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p> - -<p>Oliver wore a new evening dress, which she had insisted on buying because she was very -proud of her bust and arms. The dress was of emerald green silk and she looked very lovely -in it—“Like a water nymph,” said Logan, and he went out and bought her a string of red -corals to give the finishing touch.</p> - -<p>“You won’t have much of this kind of thing when we move,” he said. “It is to be -farewell to Bohemia. I’m going to settle down to work. I’ve taught Kühler a thing or two, -but he has taught me how to work.”</p> - -<p>“Damn Kühler! I hate him,” said Oliver.</p> - -<p>“You can hate him as much as you choose. It won’t hurt him or me. I’m not a Hercules, -and my work and you are about as much as I can manage.”</p> - -<p>“You’re a nice one to be giving a party. You talk as though you would be in your grave -next week.”</p> - -<p>“It is a farewell party.”</p> - -<p>“‘Farewell to the Piano,’” laughed Oliver. “That was the last piece I learned when I -had music lessons.”</p> - -<p>Mitchell was among the first to arrive. He had been ill, and looked washed-out and -unwholesome. There was very little of the Public School boy left in him.</p> - -<p>“Is Kühler coming?” he asked nervously.</p> - -<p>“I expect so,” answered Logan. “Do you know how to manage a pianola?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. We’ve got one at home.”</p> - -<p>“You might play it then, to keep things going until they liven up.”</p> - -<p>Mitchell was placed at the pianola, and was still there when Mendel arrived with -Morrison.</p> - -<p>“I’m very glad to meet you,” said Logan. “Kühler has talked about you so often.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Morrison.</p> - -<p>“I hope you don’t mind a Bohemian party. They are a mixed lot.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p> - -<p>“No,” said Morrison.</p> - -<p>“Good God!” thought Logan. “Not a word to say for herself!”</p> - -<p>Mendel introduced her to Oliver, who looked her up and down superciliously—this little -schoolgirl in her brown tweed coat and skirt.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry I didn’t dress,” said Morrison. “I didn’t know.”</p> - -<p>She shrank from the big, fleshy woman, who made her feel very unhappy. Yet she wanted -to be fair. She had heard Mendel storm and rage against Oliver and she hated to be -prejudiced. It distressed her not to like anybody, for she found most people likeable. She -tried to be amiable:—</p> - -<p>“I’m so glad the exhibition was such a success. Everybody is talking about it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! yes, yes,” said Oliver vacantly. Obviously she was not listening. She had eyes -only for the men, and she bridled with pleasure when she attracted their attention.</p> - -<p>Morrison was glad to escape to a corner, where she could watch the strange people and -be amused by them, their attitudes and gestures and queer, conceited efforts deliberately -to charm each other.</p> - -<p>She blushed when she saw Mitchell at the pianola, and thought she had been rather -foolish and weak to allow Mendel to bully her into dismissing him from her acquaintance, -and she was relieved when she saw Mendel take in the situation and go up to Mitchell and -tap him on the shoulder and enter into eager discussion of the pianola. She was less happy -when she saw Mendel take Mitchell’s place, and Mitchell make a bee-line for herself.</p> - -<p>An astonishing change came over the music, which got into Mendel’s blood. It was -maddening, it was glorious to feel that he had all that wealth of sound in his hands. He -knew nothing of music, and it was almost pure rhythm to him, and he wished to beat it out, -to accentuate<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-339">[Pg 339]</a></span> it -as much as possible. The machine confounded him every now and then by running too fast or -too slow, but he soon learned to pedal less violently, and then he was gloriously happy -and drunk with excitement.</p> - -<p>Astonishing, too, was the change in the company. Everybody began to talk and to laugh, -and space was cleared in the middle of the room, and Clowes and a young man from the -Detmold began to dance. Jessie Petrie and Weldon joined them, and soon the room was full -of whirling, gliding couples.</p> - -<p>Said Mitchell to Morrison:—</p> - -<p>“I didn’t expect to find you here. Are you going to dance?”</p> - -<p>“No. I like watching.”</p> - -<p>He sat on the floor by her side, and, hanging his head, he said woefully:—</p> - -<p>“So Kühler’s won! Gawd! He always gets what he wants. There’s no resisting him.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be absurd,” said Morrison. “I hear you’ve been ill.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. I’ve been going to the dogs, absolutely to the dogs. I had to pull up. -. . . I didn’t know you knew Logan; but, of course, as he’s so thick with -Kühler——!”</p> - -<p>“I met him for the first time to-night. What do you think of his work?”</p> - -<p>“Flashy!” said Mitchell. “Very flashy. . . . Will you let me come and see you -again?”</p> - -<p>“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you dislike me so much?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t dislike you. I can’t trust you not to be silly.”</p> - -<p>“Gawd! I bet I’m not half so silly as Kühler!”</p> - -<p>“He is never silly!”</p> - -<p>“Ah! Now you’re offended!”</p> - -<p>She turned away from him and refused to speak again. His half-flirtatious, -half-patronizing manner offended her deeply, and was far more<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-340">[Pg 340]</a></span> of an affront to her than Logan’s almost -open scorn of her as a little bread-and-butter miss. She wished Mendel would leave the -pianola, but he was enthralled and could not tear himself away. He played the same tune -over and over again, or went straight from one to another, swaying to and fro, beating -time with his hands, swinging his head up and down.</p> - -<p>Mitchell went very red in the face and slipped away. Presently she saw him dancing with -Oliver.</p> - -<p>After a few moments she found Logan by her side, and he said kindly:—</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid you are not enjoying yourself much.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes!” she gasped, in a frightened voice.</p> - -<p>“I was thinking you were not used to this kind of thing.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes! I often go to parties in people’s studios.”</p> - -<p>“I remember, I saw you at the Merlin’s Cave one night.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I remember. I didn’t enjoy that a bit. It all seemed such a sham.”</p> - -<p>“So it was,” said Logan. “So is most of this. These people aren’t really wicked, though -they like to pretend they are. I don’t dance myself. I’m too clumsy. Clog-dancing I can -do, but not dancing with anybody else. . . . But perhaps I am keeping -you——?”</p> - -<p>“Oh no! I’m very happy looking on.”</p> - -<p>“Kühler’s worth watching, isn’t he?”</p> - -<p>This was said with such insolent meaning that Morrison wilted like a sensitive plant. -She managed to gasp out “Yes,” and went on asking wild, pointless questions, with her -thoughts whirling far removed from her words.</p> - -<p>Why were all these people so impertinent, with their trick of plunging into intimate -life without waiting for intimacy? She felt that in a moment Logan would be telling her -all about himself and<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-341">[Pg -341]</a></span> Oliver by way of luring her on to discuss Mendel. That she had no -intention of doing, with him or with any one else.</p> - -<p>“She’s just a shy little fool,” thought Logan, “and hopelessly, hopelessly young.”</p> - -<p>“I’m unhappy!” thought Morrison, and it seemed to her foolish and mean to be so. Her -loyalty resented her weakness. She owed it to Mendel to enjoy herself and to share as far -as she could his friends. But there was in the atmosphere of that gathering something that -repelled her and roused the fighting quality in her, something indecent, something that -hurt her as the picture of the flayed man in the anatomy book hurt her.</p> - -<p>Mendel was playing a wild rag-time tune.</p> - -<p>“I think I’d like to dance to this tune. You must dance with me. I don’t think you -ought to be out of your own party,” she said to Logan, who caught her up in a great bear’s -hug, trod on her toes, knocked her knees, pressed his fingers so tight into her back that -she could hardly bear it, and at last, as the music ceased, deposited her by Mendel’s -side.</p> - -<p>“It is a marvellous thing, this machine,” he said. “I should like to go on at it all -night. Have you been dancing? You look hot. You said you weren’t going to dance.”</p> - -<p>“I made Logan dance. He nearly killed me!”</p> - -<p>“How did you get on?”</p> - -<p>“Not—not very well.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t like him?”</p> - -<p>Jessie Petrie came running up: “Kühler, Kühler!” she cried. “Do, do dance with me!”</p> - -<p>He was very angry with Morrison for daring not to like Logan, for making up her mind in -two minutes that she did not like him. He gave her a furious glance as Weldon took his -place and started a waltz, put his arms round Jessie’s waist, and swung into the -dance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, Kühler!” said Jessie in her pretty birdlike voice, “I heard the most awful story -about you the other day.”</p> - -<p>“Do be quiet!” he grunted. “Dance!”</p> - -<p>But he was out of temper, out of tune, and the music he had been crashing out on the -pianola was thudding in his head, so that he could not respond either to the music of the -waltz or to Jessie’s eagerness.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it funny Thompson being back in London? I don’t like him a bit now. You have -spoiled me for everybody else. Do you want me to come on Friday as usual?”</p> - -<p>“Do be quiet.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter? You aren’t dancing at all nicely and you haven’t looked at me once -this evening.”</p> - -<p>“No; don’t come on Friday.”</p> - -<p>“Not——?”</p> - -<p>Her voice was shrill with pain.</p> - -<p>“No. That’s all over.”</p> - -<p>She hung limp in his arms and her face was a ghastly yellow. She muttered:—</p> - -<p>“Take me out. . . . I think I’m going to faint.”</p> - -<p>He half-carried her into the passage, where she sat on the stairs and began to cry. -Neither of them noticed Clowes and the young man from the Detmold sitting above them.</p> - -<p>“Don’t cry!” he said roughly; “what have you got to cry about?”</p> - -<p>“I never thought you only wanted me for that.”</p> - -<p>“You came to me. I didn’t ask you to come.”</p> - -<p>“But I do love you so. I only want you to love me a little.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know how to love a little. When I love it is with the whole of me, and it is -for always.”</p> - -<p>“But can’t we be pals, just pals? We’ve been such pals.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sick to death of it all,” he said violently,<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-343">[Pg 343]</a></span> “sick to death. You’re the best girl in -London, Jessie, but it’s no good—it’s no good.”</p> - -<p>Clowes and the young man ostentatiously and with a great clatter went higher up the -stairs, but neither Jessie nor Mendel heard them. The pain and the shame they were -suffering absorbed them.</p> - -<p>“I never thought,” said Jessie, “it was near the end. I’ve always known when it was -near the end before. It is like being struck by lightning.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was silent. He could do nothing. There was nothing to be said. Jessie had -consoled him, comforted him, but she had only made his suffering worse. By the side of -Morrison she simply did not exist, and it had been a lie to pretend that she did. That lie -must be cut out.</p> - -<p>“I never thought you only wanted me for that,” she repeated, and began to move slowly -down the stairs. At the bend she stopped and looked up at him, gave a little muffled cry, -and moved slowly down into the dim lobby of the house.</p> - -<p>Mendel gripped the banisters with both hands and shook them until they cracked.</p> - -<p>“How horrible!” he muttered to himself; “how horrible!”</p> - -<p>Upstairs, Clowes was boiling with rage. She lost all interest in her young man, and as -soon as Mendel had returned to the room she raced downstairs, almost sobbing, and saying -to herself:—</p> - -<p>“That settles you, Master Kühler! That settles you!”</p> - -<p>She darted across to Morrison, who had taken refuge in a corner, seized her by the hand -and whispered:—</p> - -<p>“Greta! Greta! I’ve just heard the most frightful thing. I couldn’t help overhearing it -and I ought not to tell anybody, but you ought to know. Kühler and Petrie! It must have -been going on for months. He broke with her in the most cold-blooded way. It was -heart-rending. I can’t bear it. Oh! these men, these men!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p> - -<p>Morrison clenched her fists and her eyes blazed.</p> - -<p>“Don’t tell me any more!” she said. “Don’t tell me any more!”</p> - -<p>“I want to go home,” whispered Clowes. “It is a dreadful party. That awful green woman -spoils everything. It is like a nightmare to me now.</p> - -<p>“It wouldn’t be fair to go without telling him,” said Morrison. “It wouldn’t be -fair.”</p> - -<p>“But you can’t think of him after that,” protested Clowes. “Oh! good gracious! There’s -Calthrop coming in. It is getting worse and worse.”</p> - -<p>Calthrop swung into the room with his magnificent stride. As usual, his entrance -created a dramatic sensation. Logan, who had always decried his work, leaped to meet him -and Mendel stood shyly waiting for his nod. . . . Whom would the great man speak -to? That was the question. . . . He fixed his eyes on Oliver and strode up to -her.</p> - -<p>“You’re the best-looking woman in the room,” he said. “Do you like cinemas?”</p> - -<p>“I adore them,” said Oliver, with an excited giggle.</p> - -<p>“Now, now’s the chance!” whispered Clowes. “We can slip away now, before they begin -drinking.”</p> - -<p>“I must tell him,” replied Morrison, and, summoning up all her courage, she went up to -Mendel and asked if she could speak to him. He went out with her, trembling in every -limb.</p> - -<p>“I am going,” she said. “I have just heard something. Clowes overheard you and Jessie -Petrie. She ought not to have told me. I don’t know what I feel about it. Very wretched, -chiefly. Please don’t try to see me.”</p> - -<p>“I have told you what I am again and again,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Yes. You are very honest, but it is hard for<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-345">[Pg 345]</a></span> a girl to imagine these things. Please, please see how -hard it is and let me be.”</p> - -<p>“Very well,” he answered, feeling that the whole world had come to an end. “Very -well.”</p> - -<p>She called Clowes, who had stayed just inside the door, and together, like little -frightened children, they crept downstairs.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye love!” said Mendel. “My God, what rubbish, what folly, what nonsense! Love -and a Christian girl! That’s over. That’s finished. I am outside it all—outside, outside, -outside. Oh! Dark and vile and bitter, and no sweetness anywhere but in my own -thoughts!”</p> - -<p>Inside the room someone began to sing:—</p> - -<blockquote class="verse"> -<p class="i3">I want to be, I want to be,</p> - -<p class="i3">I want to be down home in Dixie. . . .</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>Oh! the mad folly of these Christians, with their childish songs, their idiotic -pleasures, their preposterous belief in happiness. . . . Happiness! They ruin -the world to satisfy their childish longing, and all their happiness lies in words and -foolish songs. . . . The rhythm of the pianola tunes began to beat in his head, -and another deeper rhythm came up from the depths of his soul and tried to break through -them. It was the same rhythm that always came up when he had reached the lowest depths of -misery. It came gushing forth like water from the rock of Moses, and crept through his -being like ice, up, up into his thoughts, bringing him to an intolerable agony.</p> - -<p>In the room glasses clinked. He turned towards the light and plunged into the -carouse.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter306"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter306_hdg"><a href="#Chapter306_toc">VI<br /> -<span class="chap_title">REVELATION</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">T<small>HREE</small> weeks later the exhibition of Modern French Art -was opened in an important gallery in the West End. It roused indignation, laughter, -scorn, and made such a stir in the papers that public interest was excited and the -exhibition was an unparalleled success. People from the suburbs, people who had never been -to a picture gallery in their lives, flocked to see the show, and most of them, when they -left, said: “Well, at any rate we’ve had a good laugh.”</p> - -<p>Mendel never read the papers and knew nothing at all about it. These three weeks had -been a time of blank misery for him. He could not work. His people set his teeth on edge. -He could not bear to see a soul, for he could not talk. When he met friends and -acquaintances, not a word could he find to say to them. There was nothing to say. They -were living in a world from which he had been expelled. More than once he was on the point -of going to his father and asking to be taken into the workshop, since the only possible, -the only bearable life was one of hard manual labour, which left no room for spiritual -activity, none for happiness, and very little for unhappiness.</p> - -<p>He found some consolation in going to the synagogue. His mother was delighted, but the -religion was no comfort to him. What pleased him was to see the old Jews in their shawls -and the women in their beaded gowns, praying each in their separate parts of the -building—praying until they<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-347">[Pg -347]</a></span> wept, and abasing themselves before the Lord. What woe, what misery they -expressed! All the year round was this dismal wailing, and there was only happiness on the -day that Haman was hanged. . . . It seemed good and decent to him that the sexes -should be separate before the Lord, as they should be separate before the holy spirit that -was in them. They should meet in holiness, hover for a moment above life, then sink back -into it again to gather new strength. So love would be in its place. It could be gathered -up and distilled. It would not be allowed to spread like a flood of muddy water over life, -which had other passions, other delights, other glorious flowerings.</p> - -<p>It had been a great day for him when, in a little shop near his home, he had come on a -pair of wooden figures rudely carved by savages—African, the shopman said they were. -Rudely carved, they were not at all realistic, but admirably simplified, the man and the -woman sitting side by side, naked. The man was wearing a little round bowler hat, while -the woman was uncovered. They had the spirit and the idea that he most loved—the idea of -man and woman sitting side by side, bound in love, unfathomably deep and unimaginably -high, until one should follow the other to the grave.</p> - -<p>He showed them to Golda, and told her they were she and his father.</p> - -<p>“What next will you be up to?” she said. “Why, they are blackamoors.”</p> - -<p>“They are you and my father,” he said, caressing the figures lovingly.</p> - -<p>“I wish you would put the thought of that girl out of your head,” she said tenderly. -“It is making you so ill and so thin, and I dare not think what your father will say when -he knows you are drinking again.”</p> - -<p>“Mother,” he said, “when did you begin to love me?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p> - -<p>“When you were born,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes. I know, as a cow loves its calf. But I mean <i>love</i>, for you do not love -the others the same as me.”</p> - -<p>“You were not so very old when it came to me that you were different.”</p> - -<p>“But it is more now that I am a man?”</p> - -<p>“Of course.”</p> - -<p>That settled his mind on the point that had been bothering him. Everywhere among the -Christians love—the love that he knew and honoured—seemed to be lost in a soft, spongy -worship of the mother’s love for her child. The woman seemed to be wiped out of account -altogether except as a mother. It seemed that she was not expected to love, and she was -left by herself with the child, with the man looking rather foolish all by himself, seeing -his strong, beautiful masculine love absorbed and given to the senseless little lump of -flesh in the woman’s arms. It was like discarding the flower for the seed, like denying -the wonder of spring for the autumn fruit.</p> - -<p>“If that is your Christian love,” he said to himself, “I will have none of it.”</p> - -<p>He studied the Madonnas in the National Gallery, and they confirmed his impression of -the weakness of Christian love, that left out the strong, vital love of a man for a woman, -of a woman for a man. He characterized it as womanish, and could not see that the ideal -had served to save women from male tyranny. Moreover, most of the pictures struck him as -shockingly bad, which confirmed his notion that the ideal that inspired them was -rotten.</p> - -<p>He could not test his ideas by his experience with Morrison, for he dared not think of -her at all. When his mother spoke of her, it had been like a sharp knife through his -heart. . . . Yes. <i>That</i> was love, and it could not be bothered with<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-349">[Pg 349]</a></span> the idea of children. -If they came, it would make room for them, but it was not going to be robbed by them. Its -object was the woman, and it detested any idea that got between it and her. -. . . Yet when this love for Morrison stood between himself and his love for -art, he hated her almost as violently. Sometimes he thought that he would kill her, -because she stood there smiling. She was always smiling. She could be happy; she could so -easily be happy. . . .</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Logan came to fetch him to go to the exhibition.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to go to the exhibition. I don’t want to see other people’s pictures. I -want to paint my own.”</p> - -<p>“What are you working at?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter?”</p> - -<p>“Sex.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! That’s always the matter with everybody.”</p> - -<p>“But I’ve thought of something.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Women don’t love their children.”</p> - -<p>Logan roared with laughter, and he went on laughing because he enjoyed it. It was long -since he had laughed so easily.</p> - -<p>“Most of them do,” he said. “Even if they’ve hated having them.”</p> - -<p>“They don’t,” said Mendel. “It’s instinct just to gloat over them, just as one gloats -over a picture one has just finished, however bad it may be. It has cost you something, -and there is something to show for it. It is quite blind and stupid, like an animal. It is -like lust. It is neither true nor false. It just <i>is</i>, chaotic and half-created. Love -is a human thing. Love is the most human thing there is. When a clerk marries a girl -because he wants a woman, I don’t call that love. He is only making himself<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-350">[Pg 350]</a></span> comfortable. There is -a little more dirt in the world, that is all.”</p> - -<p>Logan laughed uncomfortably.</p> - -<p>“Please listen,” said Mendel. “I have been nearly mad this last fortnight, ever since -the party. All my life seems to have broken its way into my mind, and I don’t know when I -shall be able to get it out again. It is very important that I should talk, and I have no -one really to talk to except you. I am very lonely because I am a Jew and people do not -understand me, or rather they think they understand me because I am a Jew. They think all -Jews are the same. It is very rarely that I feel I am accepted as a man with thoughts, -feelings, tears, laughter, tastes, bowels, senses like any other man.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” said Logan sympathetically.</p> - -<p>“How can you know? You have only to live in a world that is ready-made for you. I have -to make mine as I go, step by step.”</p> - -<p>“That isn’t because you are a Jew, but because you are an artist. It is the same for -all of us.”</p> - -<p>“It can’t be the same, for the ordinary world is not utterly foreign to you. You do not -find that which you were brought up to believe, the wisdom you sucked in with your -mother’s milk, completely denied. . . . I tell you, love is all wrong, and -because love is all wrong, art is all wrong, everything is wrong, and so is everybody. -Everybody is living with only a part of himself, so that the cleverest people are the -worst and most mischievous fools. I tell you, there are times in your West End when I can -hardly breathe because people are such fools. If you are successful, they smile at you. If -you are not successful, they look the other way. . . . Oh! I know it does not -matter, but it makes success a paltry thing, and when you have lived for it and hungered -for it, what then? What are you to do when it is like sand trickling through your -fingers?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You can’t stop it,” said Logan. “You can’t throw it away. You can only go on working, -come what may.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” replied Mendel dubiously, and grievously disappointed. He had so hoped to -squeeze out his twisted, tortured feelings into words, but at a certain point Logan failed -him and seemed to shy at his thought. To a certain quality of passion in himself Logan was -insensible. Where his own passion began to gain in clear force and momentum, swinging from -the depths of life to the highest imagination, only gaining in strength as the ascent grew -more arduous, Logan’s remained in an exasperated intensity.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry,” said Mendel. “Talking is no use. I’ve found my way out of as bad times as -this, and shall again. It is no good talking. I will sit as silent as the little figures -there, and in time I shall know what I must do.”</p> - -<p>“You want taking out of yourself,” muttered Logan irritably. “Come and see Thompson’s -show.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>As successful artists they entered the gallery self-consciously and rather -contemptuously. That did not last long. There were many people sniggering at the Van Goghs -and the Picassos, but Mendel’s thoughts flew back to a still-life he had painted of a blue -enamel teapot and a yellow matchbox years ago. He had painted them as he had seen them, in -raw, crude colour, but the picture had been so derided, and he had been so scornfully -reminded that there were no brilliant colours in nature, that he had painted the same -subject over again with a very careful rendering of what was called “atmosphere.”</p> - -<p>Here were crude colours indeed—almost, in many cases, as they came from the tubes, and -as for drawing, there was hardly a trace of it, yet in the majority of the pictures there -was a riotous freedom which rushed like a cleansing wind<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-352">[Pg 352]</a></span> through Mendel’s mind, and it seemed to -him that here was the answer to many of his doubts—not a clear vision of art, but a -roughly indicated road to it. It was absurd to sit cramping over rules and difficult -technicalities when the starting-point of art lay so far beyond them. There was much -rubbish in the show, but the works of Cézanne and Picasso were undeniably pictures. They -were not flooded with a clear loveliness, like the pictures of Botticelli or Uccello, but -they had beauty, and lured the mind on to seek another more mysterious beauty beyond -them.</p> - -<p>The two friends went through the exhibition in silence. As they left, Mendel -asked:—</p> - -<p>“Well! what did you think of it?”</p> - -<p>“We’re snuffed out,” replied Logan despondently.</p> - -<p>“Not I!” cried Mendel. “I’m only just beginning.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand it yet. It has made my eyes and my head ache. At first it seemed to -me too cerebral to be art at all, but there’s no denying it, and it has to be digested. In -a way it is what I have always been talking about. It has to do with the life we are -living, which may not be much of a life, but it is ours and we find it good. It has not -been a plunge into another world, like a visit to the National Gallery, but into some -reality a little beyond this extraordinary jumble and hotch-potch of metropolitan -life.”</p> - -<p>“It is painting,” said Mendel. “That is enough for me. And they are not afraid of -colour. Why should they be? The colours are there: why not use them? I’m going to.”</p> - -<p>And he went home and dashed off a savage mother with a green face thrusting a -straw-coloured breast into the gaping red lips of a child.</p> - -<p>So much for maternity and the Madonnas! He knew how a man loved his mother, and it was -not in that milky way, setting her above nature, she who was tied and bound to natural, -instinctive,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-353">[Pg 353]</a></span> -animal life. If a man loved his mother, it was because with her it was the easiest thing -in the world to be intimate and frank and honest and without pretence of any kind.</p> - -<p>His mother was marvellous to him because she was his dearest friend, not because she -had given him suck. That was a fact like any other, and facts were not marvellous until -more and more light was thrown on them from the mind, for in the murk and muddle of human -life they were distorted.</p> - -<p>For Mendel this was the wildest and rarest adventure yet. It was a flinging of his cap -over the windmills, and with it he had the sense of losing all his troubles, all his -perplexities. Nothing for the time being seemed to matter very much. He had always been -denied colour, and here he had the right to use it because it had been used by other men -rightly. In the world of art, or rather of artists, he had always been a sort of Ishmael, -ever since he had outgrown being a prodigy, and here was a new world of art where he could -be free. . . . True, he had seen the same things in Paris and had not thought -much of them, but so much had happened since then, and he had passed through the greatest -crisis of his life.</p> - -<p>Always after his crises he expected to find himself, and now he thought he had surely -done so. He would be entirely free, completely independent.</p> - -<p>For three weeks he lived between his studio and the gallery, studying these strange new -vibrant pictures and experimenting with their manners as now this, now that painter -influenced him. Picasso baffled him altogether. These queer, violent, angular patterns -actually hurt him, and he was repelled by their intellectual intensity. Gauguin he found -too easy, Van Gogh too incoherent. It was when he came to Cézanne that he was bowled out -and reduced to impotence and all the egoistic excitement oozed out of him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-354">[Pg 354]</a></span></p> - -<p>He was not so free then. Here was an art before which he must be humbled and subdued if -he was to understand it at all. He abandoned his experiments and made no attempt to work -at all, but bought a reproduction of Cézanne’s portrait of his wife and spent many days -poring over it. It held him and fascinated him, and yet it looked almost like the -unfinished work of an amateur who could not draw. Of psychological interest the picture -was bare. It was just a portrait of a woman at peace, with her hands folded in her lap, -bathed in a serenity beyond mortal understanding, though not beyond mortal perception, -since a man had rendered it in paint. It released directly the swift, soaring emotion -which, though it was roused in him by many pictures and by some poetry—passages in the -Bible, for instance—was quickly entangled in sensual pleasure and never properly set free. -Here, the more he gazed the more that emotion, pure, disinterested, unearthly, rushed -through him, exploring all the caverns in his imagination and delivering from them new -powers of perception. He felt, as he told Logan afterwards, like a tree putting out its -leaves in the spring.</p> - -<p>And yet he could not tell how this miracle was accomplished. No words could explain -it—abstraction, composition, design, none of these words helped at all. It was not so much -the doing of the thing, the art of the painter, as the setting out of the woman on the -canvas without reference to anything in heaven or earth, or any idea, or any emotion or -desire. It was enough that she was a woman, not especially beautiful, not particularly -remarkable. So perfect a vision had no need to be tender or affectionate or sensual, or to -call in aid any of the emotions of life. It needed no force but the rare religious ecstasy -which has no need of ideas or common human feelings, and this vision of a woman gave -Mendel<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-355">[Pg 355]</a></span> a new -appreciation of life and love and art. It gave human beings a new value. It was enough -that they were alive and upon the earth with all that they contained of good and evil. -They were in themselves wonderful, and there was no need to worry about whence they came -or whither they were going, or what was their relation to God and the universe. In each -man, each woman was enough of God and of the universe to keep them poised for their little -hour.</p> - -<p>What, then, was love? What but the sense of being poised, of being borne up by God, an -intimation that could only be won through contact with life at its purest. And beyond that -again lay a further degree of purity which could only find expression in art, since life, -even at its rarest, was too gross.</p> - -<p>Often Mendel kissed his reproduction reverently and hugged it to his bosom, thinking -childishly that some of its spirit could enter into him by contact. He whispered to -it:—</p> - -<p>“I love you. You are my truth and my joy rising up through life, even from its very -depths, and shaking free of it at last into pure, serene beauty. You weigh neither upon my -senses nor upon my thoughts, but, following you, they are joined together to become a high -sense which can know deliverance.”</p> - -<p>Followed days of a supreme delight. He wandered through the streets seeing all men and -all women and all things as wonderful, since through them all flowed this lovely spirit -which in the few men here and there could find its freedom and its expression in form.</p> - -<p>Through Thompson he met a journalist who was writing a book about the new painting, and -from him he learned the little that was known about Cézanne: how he worked away -experimenting unsuccessfully until he was middle-aged, and then withdrew from the world of -artists in Paris, to<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-356">[Pg -356]</a></span> live the life of a simple country bourgeois and to paint the vision which -he had begun to divine: and how he painted out in the fields, leaving his canvases in the -hedges and by the wayside, because not the painting but the expression of his spirit and -the solution of his problem mattered to him: and how he never sold a single picture, never -attempted to sell them.</p> - -<p>Such, thought Mendel, should the life of an artist be. But how was it possible if life -would not let him alone, but was perpetually dragging him down into the mud? What mud, -what filth he had had to flounder through to get even so far as he had!</p> - -<p>And already he began to feel that he was slipping back. He could not accept that -knowledge of the spirit vicariously, but must fight for his own knowledge of it in direct -contact with life. To endeavour to escape from life was to isolate himself, to lose the -driving force of life from darkness into the light, to dwell in the twilight of solitude -armed only with his puny egoism and the paltry tricks of professional painting. He felt -that at last he knew his desire, but in no wise how to attain it. Cézanne had had a wife: -that had settled one of the torments of life. He had had ample means: that had absolved -him from the ever-present difficulty of money.</p> - -<p>These considerations relieved Mendel from another weighty puzzle. Perhaps if Cézanne -had had to please other people and not only his own spirit, he would have cared more for -his craft and for the quality of his paint. . . . All the same, it was good to -have pictures reduced to their bare essentials, relieved of ornament and trickery, and yet -retaining their full pictorial quality.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Shortly after the party Logan and Oliver had moved to a little cottage on Hampstead -Heath, just below Jack Straw’s Castle. Mendel went to<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-357">[Pg 357]</a></span> see them there and met Logan on the -Spaniard’s Road. He was in a deplorable condition. His right eye was blackened, his nose -was bloody and scratched, the lobe of his ear was torn and his forehead was purple with -bruises.</p> - -<p>“What on earth have you been doing to yourself!” asked Mendel.</p> - -<p>“I’ve had a fight,” said Logan glibly. “The other night on the Heath I came on a man -beating a girl. I went for him. He was a huge lout of a man. We had a terrific tussle, and -just as I was getting him down the girl went for me and scratched my face.”</p> - -<p>“If you lived where I do,” said Mendel, “you would know better than to interfere.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! I enjoyed it,” said Logan. “I couldn’t stand by and see it done.”</p> - -<p>They ran down the grassy slope to the cottage, where they found Oliver entertaining -Thompson and her critic. She had a slight bruise over her right eye, and Mendel -thought:—</p> - -<p>“Why does he lie? Why should he lie to me? I should think no worse of him for beating -her. If I could not shake her off I should kill her.”</p> - -<p>He was filled with a sudden disgust at the household, which in his eyes had become an -obscene profanation.</p> - -<p>The talk was excited, and formerly he would have found it interesting. Thompson was -full of the triumph of the exhibition and its success in forcing art upon the public. He -spoke glibly of abstraction and cubing, and it was clear that they only delighted him as -new tricks.</p> - -<p>Oliver took part in the conversation. She had picked up the jargon of painters and made -great play with the names of the new masters. To hear her talking glibly of Cézanne and -saying how he had shown the object of pictorial art to be pattern filled Mendel’s soul -with loathing. He could not protest. What was the good of protesting<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-358">[Pg 358]</a></span> to such people? -. . . If only Logan had not been among them! He wanted to talk to Logan, to tell -him what this new thing meant, to make him see that he must give up all thought of turning -art back upon life, because life did not matter so very much. It could look after itself, -while the integrity of art must at all costs be maintained.</p> - -<p>However, when Thompson said that the artist was now free to make up a picture out of -any shapes he liked, Mendel could not contain himself, and said:—</p> - -<p>“The artist is no more free than ever he was. He does not become free by burking -representation. He is not free merely to work by caprice and fantasy. He is rather more -strictly bound than ever, because he is working through his imagination and cannot get out -of it merely by using his eyes and imitating charming things. If he tries to get out of it -by impudent invention, then pictures will be just as dull and degraded as before.”</p> - -<p>“‘I am Sir Oracle,’” said the critic, “‘and when I ope my lips let no dog bark.’”</p> - -<p>“You can bark away,” cried Mendel, “but you must not complain if a man loses patience -with you and kicks you back into your kennel.”</p> - -<p>“Just listen to the boy!” cried Oliver. “Success has turned his pretty little head. -Just listen to him teaching the critics their business!”</p> - -<p>Mendel gave her a furious look of contempt and left the room and the house. Logan came -running after him.</p> - -<p>“I say, old man,” he said, “you mustn’t mind what she says. Those damn fools have -stuffed her head up with their nonsense and she hasn’t the brains of a louse.”</p> - -<p>“If it was my house, I would kick them out.”</p> - -<p>“They are good fellows enough.”</p> - -<p>“Good fellows! When they make her more idiotic and blatant than she is!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-359">[Pg 359]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I can’t think what made you so angry. There was nothing to flare up about. You are so -touchy.”</p> - -<p>Mendel was walking at a furious pace. Logan was out of condition and had to beg him to -go more slowly.</p> - -<p>“I’m all to bits,” said Logan. “That row——”</p> - -<p>“Why do you tell lies? It was she who mauled you. Why do you tell lies to me? I have -never told lies to you about anything. You have always jeered at women and said they can -know nothing about art, and yet you let her talk. . . . Why don’t you leave -her?”</p> - -<p>“We’re very fond of each other,” replied Logan. “It has gone too deep. We hate each -other like poison sometimes, but that only makes it—the real thing—go deeper.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t bear it,” said Mendel; “I can’t bear it. It was bad enough when she kept -quiet, but now that she gives herself airs and talks, I can’t stand it. I hate her so that -I feel as if the top of my head would blow off. . . . Perhaps there was nothing -much in what she said. Perhaps it was only a slow growing detestation coming to a head. -But there it is. It is final. I have tried to like her, to be decent to her, to make -allowances for her, but it is impossible.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean you are not going to come to see us again?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. That is what I do mean. She doesn’t exist for me any longer. If I met her in a -café or in the streets she would be all right. She would be in her place. There would be -some truth in her. In connection with you she is a festering lie.”</p> - -<p>“She can’t settle down to it,” replied Logan lamely, ashamed of his inability to defend -Oliver from this onslaught. Defence would be quite useless, for he knew that Mendel would -detect his untruth. If only Mendel were a little older, if only he could have grown out of -youth’s dreadful inability to compromise.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p> - -<p>“She can’t settle down,” Logan continued. “She is a creature of enormous vitality and -she has no life outside herself, no imagination. Can’t you see that her vitality has no -outlet? I don’t know, but it seems to me appalling to think of these modern women with -their independence, and nothing at all to do with it. They won’t admit the authority of -the male, and they have broken out of the home. A lot of them refuse to have children. I -feel sorry for them.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t go on talking round and round the subject,” cried Mendel wrathfully. He was -really alarmed and pained as he saw himself being carried nearer and nearer to a breach -with his friend. “I can’t feel sorry for her and I don’t. She is ruining you. You never -laugh nowadays. You are always more dead than alive, and I cannot bear to see you with -her. I cannot bear even to think of you with her.”</p> - -<p>“For God’s sake, don’t talk like that!” muttered Logan, quickening his pace to keep up, -for Mendel was flying along.</p> - -<p>“You must either give her up or me,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“Don’t say that!” pleaded Logan; “don’t say that! I can’t get on without you. I don’t -see how I can get on without you. All the happiness I have ever had has come through you. -Every hope I have is centred in you. If you go, life will become nothing but work, work, -work, with nobody to understand. Nobody. . . . And I have been so full of hope. -All this new business has made such a stir and has brought such life into painting that I -had begun to feel that anything was possible. There might be even a stirring of the spirit -to stem the tide of commercialism. You know what my life has been—one long struggle to -find a way out of the pressure of vulgarity and sordid money-making, out of sentimentality -and pretty lying fantasy, out of the corruption that<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-361">[Pg 361]</a></span> from top to bottom is eating up the life -of the country. You know that when I met you I had almost given up the struggle in -despair. One man alone could not do it. But two men could—two men who trusted and believed -in each other. . . . You were very young when I first met you, but you have come -on wonderfully. It has been thrilling for me to watch the growth of your mind and the -strengthening of your character. You are the only man I ever met who could really stand by -himself. . . . It isn’t easy for me to say all this, but I must tell you what -your friendship has meant to me.”</p> - -<p>The more Logan talked, the more he divulged his feelings, his very real affection, the -more Mendel’s mind was concentrated on the one purpose, to get him away from Oliver.</p> - -<p>“You must give her up,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I can’t,” gasped Logan.</p> - -<p>They stood facing each other, Mendel staring into his friend’s eyes that looked -piteously, wearily, miserably out of his haggard, battered face. He could not endure it, -and he could not yield to the entreaty in Logan’s eyes.</p> - -<p>He turned quickly and ran to a bus which had stopped a few yards in front. He rushed up -the steps and was whirled away. Unable to resist turning round, he saw Logan standing -where he had left him, with his head bowed, his shoulders hunched up, a figure of shameful -misery.</p> - -<p>After some minutes of numbness, of trying to gather up the threads snapped off by his -astonishment at the quickness of the affair, Mendel began to tremble. His hands and his -knees shook, and he could not control them. It was only gradually that he began to realize -how strong his feelings had been, and how great the horror and the shock of knowing -through and through, without blinking a single fact, the terrible relationship that bound -Logan and Oliver—tied together in an<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-362">[Pg 362]</a></span> insatiable sensuality, locked in a deadly embrace, like -beasts of prey fighting over carrion: a furious, evil conflict over a dead lust. -. . . At the same time he knew that he was bound with them, that in their life -together he had his share, and that it was dragging him down, down from the ecstatic -exaltation he had perceived in his new friend, Cézanne, a friend who could never fail, a -friend upon whom no devastation could alight, a friend through whom he could never be -clawed back into life.</p> - -<p>By the time he reached home he was completely exhausted, and begged his mother to make -him a cup of strong tea.</p> - -<p>“What is it now?” Golda asked. “What is the trouble? There is always something new, and -I think you will never be a man. For a man expects trouble and does not make himself ill -over it.”</p> - -<p>“I have quarrelled with Logan,” said Mendel, dropping with relief into Yiddish as a -barrier against the outer world, in which terrible things were always happening.</p> - -<p>“A good job too!” said Golda; “a good job too! He was no good to you. He only made -you do the work that nobody likes. Now you can go back to the old way, and Mr. Froitzheim -and Mr. Birnbaum will be pleased with you again. . . . You had better give up -your friends. You are like a woman, the way you must always be in love with your friends. -. . . But it is no good. Men will always fall in love, and then it is over with -friendship. . . . Friends are only for moments. They come and disappear and come -again. It is foolish to think you can keep them. . . . Is your head bad?”</p> - -<p>“Pretty bad.”</p> - -<p>“You have not been drinking again?”</p> - -<p>“No. I’ve been leading a decent life. I expect it doesn’t suit me.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Rubbish. . . . Rosa says the Christian girl has been to see you.”</p> - -<p>He leaped to his feet.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t she stay? Didn’t you make her stay? What did she say? How did she look? Did she -leave no message?”</p> - -<p>Golda smiled at him.</p> - -<p>“You had better go and see,” she said.</p> - -<p>He darted from the room and across to his studio panting with excitement, persuading -himself at every step that she was there, waiting for him, perhaps hiding to tease him, -for she was a terrible tease.</p> - -<p>By the time he reached his studio he was so convinced that she was there that he hardly -dared open the door. He pushed it open very gently and peered in. The room was empty, but -he felt sure that she was there. He peeped round the corner into his bedroom. She was not -there. He had to believe it, and came dejectedly back into the studio.</p> - -<p>On his painting-table were autumn flowers daintily arranged in the old jug he used for -a vase. He buried his face in them. She was there! She was there in the sweetness and -fragrance of the flowers.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter307"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter307_hdg"><a href="#Chapter307_toc">VII<br /> -<span class="chap_title">CONFLICT</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">M<small>ORRISON</small> had fought bravely through her storms and -difficulties. She frightened Clowes with the violence of her efforts and the terrible -strain she inflicted on her vitality. There were times when she thought the simplest way -would be to cut adrift from all her old associations and to throw in her lot with Mendel, -to give him his desire and so save him from the terrible life he was leading. But that was -too drastic, too simple. She could only have done it on a great impulse, but always her -deepest feelings shrank from it, and without her deepest feelings she could not go to him, -for they were engaged most of all. . . . She felt cramped and confined, as -though her love were a cord wound round and round her limbs, and she could not, she would -not go to him bound. He must release her; she must compel him to release her. If it took -half her lifetime she would so compel him. Her will was concentrated upon him. She would -not have their love droop from the high sympathy it had known, nor should it be torn from -it by his savage strength and the adorable violence of his passion. Neither, on the other -hand, would she turn back from him. That would be to deny her freedom which she had bought -so dearly. She had thought her freedom would give her the easy joy of flowers and clouds -and birds, and she still believed in that easy joy, but it lay beyond the tangled web of -this love for the strange, dark, faunlike creature whom<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-365"> [Pg 365]</a></span> she had -found in the woods. If she turned back, if she denied the urgent emotions that drove her -on, she had nothing to turn to but the old captivity, the life where all difficulties were -arranged for, where all roads led to marriage, where men could only talk to women in a -half-patronizing, half-flirtatious way that led to a ridiculous meeting of the senses, -then to an engagement, and so to church. To that she would never, never return. She had -fought her way out of it. She had learned to live by herself, within herself, to wrestle -with her thoughts and emotions and to get them into shape. (It had been at a great cost to -her external tidiness and orderliness, but that too she hoped to tackle in time.) She had -won all this, and she had found a glorious outlet in work. So far as she had gone she had -been successful, and she was ambitious, terribly ambitious, to show that a woman could do -good work.</p> - -<p>And then there was the dark side of Mendel’s life—Logan, Oliver, Jessie Petrie. At the -thought of it she shuddered, but her honesty made her confess that it made no difference -to her central feeling. It had shocked her, outraged her, roused her to a fury of -jealousy, but that she would not have. She fought it down inch by inch until she had it so -well in control that, whenever it reared its head, she could crush it down.</p> - -<p>Many a tear had it cost her, but she insisted that she must understand.</p> - -<p>When she cut her hair short, she found, to her horror, that it was taken by many men as -a sign that she was open to their advances, and all sorts and conditions of men had found -to their astonishment that, although she was an artist and lived an independent life, she -was immovable, and when it came to argument she was more than a match for them.</p> - -<p>Again, she had had the confidence of more than one of the models, and she knew how they -courted<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-366">[Pg 366]</a></span> their -own disasters. If there was to be any question of blame, the women must share it with the -men.</p> - -<p>She had no thought of blaming Mendel, but she hated to have that underworld in contact -with the world which it was her whole desire to keep beautiful. It was no good pretending -that the underworld was not there, but if she could have her way she would keep a tight -control over it, and suppress it as she suppressed her jealousy, that other source of -ugliness. If she could only, somehow, find an entrance to Mendel’s life, not only to his -rare moments, but to the life that went on from day to day, she would suppress it, she -would cut it out and throw it away. She thought of it almost as a surgical operation, or -as cutting a bruise out of an apple, for all her thoughts of life were as simple as -herself, and life too was simple in her eyes. Anything that threatened to complicate it -she expunged.</p> - -<p>After a time she discovered that it was no good hoping to understand so long as she -regarded the dark aspect of Mendel from outside his life. She must find her way inside it -and see how it looked there. That was hard.</p> - -<p>Clowes could not help her at all. To Clowes it was simply unintelligible that men could -do these things. They bewildered her, and her only way out of it was to suppose that men -were like that, and the less said about it the better. She was really very annoyed with -Morrison for worrying over it, and she was disappointed. She had hoped that the -unfortunate adventure would be over and that Morrison would wait tranquilly for her -affections to be engaged by someone who was—presentable. . . . Still, there was -no accounting for this strange, impulsive creature, though it was a pity she should throw -away her growing popularity with people who were, after all, important, both in themselves -and by their position; for<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-367">[Pg -367]</a></span> Morrison’s frank charm carried her to places where Clowes would have given -her eyes to be seen. Clowes was baffled by her friend, but she would not abandon her. She -was often bored with her, often exasperated, and more than once she said:—</p> - -<p>“Well, if you like these wild people so much, why don’t you take the plunge and join -them? You are wild enough yourself.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not wild in that way,” replied Morrison. “And I know that if I did do it it would -be wrong.”</p> - -<p>And she returned to her task of labouring to understand Mendel. She carried the idea of -him wherever she went, and was sometimes able to call up a clear image of him, and she was -fearful for him because he seemed to her so helpless, so much a stranger in a strange -land, so easily caught up in any strong current of feeling or enthusiasm. . . . -She, too, often felt outside things, but she so much enjoyed being a looker-on. She loved -to watch the race among the young artists, and she longed for Mendel to win. It was right -that he should win, because he was so much the best of them all. He had taken the lead. It -had looked as though he must infallibly win, and then Logan had appeared and he had -stumbled in his stride.</p> - -<p>Yet this had never been satisfying. She had no right to turn Mendel into a figure on a -frieze, to see him in the flat, as it were, and it was in revolt against this conception -that she had agreed to go with him to Logan’s party, which had been so disastrous. -. . . Had she not been cowardly to run away? But what could she do, what else -could she do, when confronted so suddenly with the appalling fact?</p> - -<p>A week before the party Mendel had insisted on lending her “Jean Christophe” volume by -volume. She had read the first without great interest. The friendship between the two boys -struck her as<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-368">[Pg 368]</a></span> -silly and sentimental and not worth writing about, and she had read no further. However, -when she found that Mendel was becoming a fixed idea, to escape from it she took up the -second volume, and was enthralled by the tale of Christophe’s love for Ada, thrilled by -the sudden scene of his assault on the peasant girl in the field, and with a growing sense -of illumination followed his life as it passed from woman to woman, finding consolation -with one, relief with another, comfort with another, comradeship with yet another, and the -physical relationship slipped into its place and was never dominant. And Christophe, too, -had had women of passage because his vitality was so abundant that it could not be -contained in his being. It must be always flowing out into art or into life, taking from -life more and more power to give to art. . . . With Gratia she was out of -patience. Gratia was altogether too complacent an Egeria. Morrison thought she could have -given Christophe more than that.</p> - -<p>She made Clowes read the book, but Clowes found it no help. That was in a story, this -was actually happening in London; and besides, the book had a rhapsodic, dreamlike quality -that smoothed away all ugliness, all difficulties. In life things were definitely ugly, -and it was no good pretending they were anything else.</p> - -<p>“Anyhow,” said Morrison, “I’m going on.”</p> - -<p>“You are going to see him again?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I will not be beaten. If I were married to him I should put up with everything, -and I don’t see why not being married should make any difference.”</p> - -<p>Clowes threw up her hands and said:—</p> - -<p>“Well, if you come to grief, don’t blame me.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not going to come to grief,” said Morrison. “I’m going to win—I’m going to -win.”</p> - -<p>It was then that she went out and bought the flowers. Her courage nearly failed her as -she<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-369">[Pg 369]</a></span> approached -the door in the little slummy street. Suppose he should be angry with her for running -away, and contemptuous of her cowardice! His anger and contempt were not easy things to -face.</p> - -<p>She was relieved, therefore, when the dirty little Jewish servant opened the door and -told her Mendel was out. She handed in the flowers shyly and went away without a word.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Mendel wrote to thank her for the flowers, but said nothing about going to see her or -about what he was doing. She thought he must be contemptuous of her, though it was not -like him to be so stupid as not to respond to a direct impulse. On the other hand, he had -always tried to impose his authority on her, and she was not going to do his bidding. -Either he must take her on her own level or not at all. She would make him understand that -she too was driving at something, and that love was to her not an end in itself, much -though she might desire love and its freedom. He had always made her feel that he regarded -love as sufficient for her. She must curl up in it and be happy while he went on with his -work. Against that all the free instinct in her cried out. A woman was not a mere embryo -to be incubated in a man’s passion, hatched out into a wife and a helpmate. -. . . When she tried to imagine what life with him would be like, she shivered -until she thought what life with him might be if she could bring to it all her force and -all her freedom.</p> - -<p>At last she began to think that perhaps it was her own fault for not having left a note -or a message with the flowers, which might be regarded only as a token of sentimental -forgiveness. She knew how easily he was sickened by any sign of Christian -sentimentality—“filthy gush” as he called it. . . . To safeguard against that -and to<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-370">[Pg 370]</a></span> have done -with it once and for all, she wrote to him and told him that she had been reading “Jean -Christophe,” and that it had helped her to understand both his sufferings and his need of -what in an ordinary foolish vain man would have to be condemned.</p> - -<p>To this letter he did not reply, and she determined that she would go and see him. She -would take Clowes, in case things had become impossible and their sympathy had somehow -been undermined and destroyed. Even if it were, she would not accept or believe it, and -she would fight to restore it. A vague intuition took possession of her by which she -surely knew that something strange, perhaps even terrible, was happening to him, and she -felt that he needed her but did not know his need.</p> - -<p>It required some persuasion to take Clowes down to Whitechapel. She declared that she -would stand by her friend whatever happened, but that she did not wish to be personally -mixed up in it. It would, she said, make her in part responsible for whatever happened, -and she did not think she could bear it. However, Morrison explained that she only wanted -her there in case things were impossible, and that, if they were not, she could make good -her escape as soon as she liked. On that Clowes consented and they journeyed to the East -End.</p> - -<p>The little Jewish servant said that Mr. Mendel was engaged. Would she go up and see if -he would soon be disengaged? She ran upstairs and came down in a moment to ask if they -would wait, and to their surprise, darted past them, along the street, beckoned to them to -follow, and led them to Golda’s kitchen. Golda bobbed to them, dusted chairs for them to -sit on, and, not knowing enough English to be able to talk to them, went on with her -ironing. When she had finished that, she shyly produced an album and showed them<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-371">[Pg 371]</a></span> all the photographs -of Mendel since he was a baby.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Meanwhile, in his studio Mendel was in agitated conversation with Mr. Tilney Tysoe, who -had arrived half an hour before, wagging his hands, rolling his enormous eyes, almost -demented by the lamentable news he had to tell. Logan had left Oliver!</p> - -<p>“When?” asked Mendel.</p> - -<p>“A few days ago,” said Tysoe. “The poor fellow came round to me one night after dinner. -You know, he often drops in in the evening. Such a splendid fellow, so sincere, such a -force! And his admiration for you is very touching. He came in and raved like a madman and -said terrible things—oh, terrible things! He told me that I was a fool and did not know a -picture from my foot, and he denounced himself as a scoundrel and a thief and a liar. He -wanted me to destroy all the pictures I had bought from him, and said they were not worth -the stretchers of the canvas they were painted on. . . . Oh! it was terrible, -terrible! He said that for years he had been pulling my leg, and had got such a taste for -it that he had begun to pull his own leg, and he went on to say that his soul was rotten -with lies; and then he broke into a torrent of wild, splendid stuff that made my spine -tingle. I assure you, I could not contain my enthusiasm. . . . Oh! he is a -splendid fellow. . . . I can’t remember it all very well, but he said that love -is impossible in the world as it is, and that everybody is living in hate. It sounded most -true—most true—though you know I adore my wife. . . . He said that humanity has -tried aristocracy and failed, and it has tried democracy and failed. It has swung from one -extreme to the other and found satisfaction in neither, and now it must bend the two -extremes together so as to get the electric spark which can illumine life, and also<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-372">[Pg 372]</a></span> to create a circle in -which life can be contained. Of course, I haven’t got it at all clear, but it was most -inspiring—most inspiring. Certainly life is very unsatisfactory, and it must be maddening -for artists, maddening, though of course it should drive them on to make a mighty effort. -We are all looking to the artists nowadays, especially since that wonderful -exhibition.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” said Mendel impatiently; “but what about Logan?”</p> - -<p>“He told me you had quarrelled with him. Such a pity! Dear me! dear me! You were such a -splendid pair, so sincere. He said it was irrevocable. But, you know, ‘The falling out of -faithful friends renewing is of love.’ Have you read the Oxford ‘Book of Verse’? A -storehouse of poetry. . . . I came to see you for that reason. Quarrels ought -not to be irrevocable. . . . I have been to see Oliver too. Poor girl! poor -girl! I am keeping their little nest at Hampstead for them. . . . I told Logan -he ought to marry her. Of course, I know, artists have their own view on that subject, but -there is a great deal to be said for marriage. Most people are married, you know, and a -woman who is not married must feel out of it. Nothing to do with morality, of course, but -you know what women are. They can’t bear even their clothes to be different, and, after -all, marriage is only a garment which we wear for decency’s sake.”</p> - -<p>“But where is Logan?”</p> - -<p>“That I don’t know,” said Tysoe. “Oliver said he would be here. She said it was your -fault that they had quarrelled. . . . Poor girl! So pretty too! . . . -I thought if you made it up with Logan, then he could make it up with her and we should -all be happy again. We might have a nice little dinner of reconciliation at my house.”</p> - -<p>“It is no use, no use whatever,” said Mendel.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-373">[Pg 373]</a></span> “Logan might go back to her, but he will never come back -to me. We have gone different ways, not only in life, but in our work.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t make it up?” asked Tysoe plaintively.</p> - -<p>“No,” answered Mendel. “I should like to, but it is impossible. It is very good of you -to try to intervene. Logan was my friend. He is no longer the same man. He is altered, he -is changed, he is done for.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing could ruin a man like that. It is disastrous, it is terrible that he should -lose his friend and the girl he loves at one stroke. Kühler, I implore you, I entreat you, -if he comes to see you, you will not refuse him.”</p> - -<p>“If he comes I will see him, certainly,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“Ah! That is all I want,” said Tysoe, beaming hopefully.</p> - -<p>“But he will not come.”</p> - -<p>“We shall find a way. We shall find a way. . . . Ah! superb!” he added, -catching sight of Mendel’s green-faced <i>Mother.</i> “Ah! The new spirit at work in your -art. Colour! What you have always wanted! . . . How—how much?”</p> - -<p>“Ten pounds,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“May I take it with me? I will send you my cheque.”</p> - -<p>Mendel wrapped the picture up in brown paper and gave it him, told him he must go, -thanked him for his kindness, and with unutterable relief watched him go shambling down -the stairs.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>It was very certain that Logan would not come. There could be nothing but futile -suffering for both of them, and Logan would know that as well as he. Logan knew himself -better than most men, and he must have felt the finality of that parting in the street. -The breach was final and irrevocable, for Oliver was definitely a part of Logan, as<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-374">[Pg 374]</a></span> much a part of him as -his hand or his eyes, and Mendel hated Oliver with a pure, simple, immovable passion. He -saw in her embodied the natural enemy of all that he loved: order, decency, honesty, art, -and beauty. He would have liked to blot out all trace of her everywhere, but she lived -most intensely in his mind. She existed for him hardly at all as a person, but as an evil, -fixed will set on the destruction of Logan, of friendship, of art, of love, of beauty, of -everything that lived distinctly and clearly and with a flame-like energy. She existed to -drag all down into the glowing ashes of lust and lies. There were times when she became -symbolical of that Christian world that had made him suffer so intensely. In her was the -only discernible will of that world in which everything was losing shape and form, every -flame was dying down, and everything, good and bad, was being reduced to ashes.</p> - -<p>“Good and bad?” thought Mendel. “I don’t know what they mean. I know what is false and -what is true. What is false I hate. What is true I love. That woman is a lie and I hate -her, and I wish she were dead.”</p> - -<p>Logan might hate her too, but he would always try, always hope to love her, always -waste himself in trying to kindle her lust into a passion. The fool, the weak fool! Let -her rot; let her drop down to her own level, where she could be decently a beast of prey, -marked out to be shunned except by those who were her natural victims. Logan was too good: -but if there was so much good in him, might not something be done? . . . No. -Only Logan’s own will could save him. Nothing could be done for him except out of pity: -and who wants pity? Leave that to men like Tysoe, the kindly, emasculate fools of the -world.</p> - -<p>Yet Mendel knew that he was bound to Logan. At first he thought it must be by pity, but -it was deeper than that. There was not much capacity<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-375">[Pg 375]</a></span> for pity in Mendel. Ruthless with -himself, he could see no reason why others should be spared what he himself was ready to -endure. He had never thought that others might be weaker than he. Logan, for instance, -with ten years’ more experience behind him, had always seemed infinitely stronger.</p> - -<p>And so Logan had left Oliver! There must have been a terrible row. . . . Oh, -well, he would go back to her. There would be no end to the affair, there could be no end -unless Logan were strong enough to stand by himself. But when had he ever tried to do -that? Even in his work he borrowed here and there. Mendel was sure now that all Logan’s -work had grown out of his own, and was often, by some amazing sleight of mind, an -anticipation of his own ideas. That explained a good deal: his growing sense that Logan -was really his enemy, and was cramping and thwarting him, a sense that endured even after -the quarrel. It was strong upon him now. Tysoe had brought Logan vividly to his mind and -made him feel impotent, possessed by a vision of art but unable to move a step towards it, -rather dragged further and further away from it. He was ashamed when he thought of how -often he had excitedly followed Logan’s lead, only to come now to this discovery that he -was brought back to his own inchoate ideas. . . . He was reminded oddly of the -journalist who had interviewed him after his first success and had produced so grotesque a -parody of his innocently conceited remarks.</p> - -<p>A tap at the door reminded him of the “two young ladies” who were waiting to see him. -He rushed eagerly to the door and flung it open, thinking to find healing and refreshment -in the sight of Morrison. Only Clowes was standing there, and in his disappointment her -face seemed to him so foolish and flabby and idiotic that his impulse was to shut the -door. . . . He would bang<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-376">[Pg 376]</a></span> the door in her face and it would shut out the Christian -world for ever. It did not want him, and he did not want it, for it was full of lies. -. . . Then he heard a footstep on the stairs and Morrison appeared.</p> - -<p>“Come in,” he said. “Come in.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t stay long,” said Clowes nervously.</p> - -<p>“All right,” he replied.</p> - -<p>Morrison reached the top of the stairs, and he stood looking at her.</p> - -<p>“How are you?”</p> - -<p>“I’m very well.”</p> - -<p>She was horrified at the change in him. He looked so tragic and drawn.</p> - -<p>“Clowes can’t stop long,” she said. “But I’ll stop, if I may. I should like to.”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid I haven’t got anything to show you. I haven’t been working lately.”</p> - -<p>“It seems to be a pretty general complaint,” said Clowes. “Everybody is so upset by the -French pictures. I should like to shake that Thompson until his teeth rattled. He is so -pleased with himself.”</p> - -<p>“He’s an awful man,” muttered Mendel. “He seems to think he told Cézanne and Van Gogh -how to do it. There seems to be a whole army of men ready to take the credit of a thing -when someone else has done it. I suppose they are all talking like mad.”</p> - -<p>“What is so astonishing is that these things are actually selling, and people who never -sold a picture in their lives dab a few straight lines on a picture and off it goes.”</p> - -<p>Mendel laughed.</p> - -<p>“I’ve just sold one,” he said. “I came straight back from the exhibition and painted -it. They sell just as if they were a new kind of toy that is all the rage.”</p> - -<p>So they kept up a cheerful rattle of conversation until Clowes said she really must go. -No;<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-377">[Pg 377]</a></span> she would -not have tea, but she hoped Mendel would come to tea with her one day.</p> - -<p>He saw her to the front door and ran upstairs again, three steps at a time.</p> - -<p>“Now, then,” he said, “what have you come for, and why did you bring her?”</p> - -<p>“In case there was nothing to be said and this visit was another failure. I’m sick of -failure; aren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t answer your letter. I thought it was all over.”</p> - -<p>“But I told you what had made me change.”</p> - -<p>“It was nothing to do with that. Everything seemed all over, and I’m not sure even now -that it isn’t.”</p> - -<p>“I knew something was happening to you. What is it?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve quarrelled with Logan.”</p> - -<p>She was silent for a moment or two, and then she said:—</p> - -<p>“I’m so glad.”</p> - -<p>“You didn’t like him. Why?”</p> - -<p>“I thought him second-rate.”</p> - -<p>“He isn’t that. He has a good mind, and he was a good friend.”</p> - -<p>“Are you so sure of that?”</p> - -<p>“Of some things in him—of his affection, for instance—I am as sure as I am of -myself.”</p> - -<p>She smiled at him.</p> - -<p>“Yes. That is saying a good deal. But why did you quarrel?”</p> - -<p>“It was over his woman.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes!”</p> - -<p>“He has left her.”</p> - -<p>“Has he been to see you?”</p> - -<p>“No. It was a friend of his. I don’t know what will happen. They are bound to come -together again. Perhaps they will go through life like that—parting and coming together -again. I can’t get it out of my head. I shall never<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-378">[Pg 378]</a></span> forget it. It is like my father knocking -a drunken soldier down with a glass. I never forget that, though it was different. That -was just something that I saw. This is in my own life. I feel as though it had somehow -happened through me. I was with him when he met her, you know, and his whole life changed -when he met me. Perhaps he wasn’t meant to take things seriously. . . . I didn’t -write to you because I didn’t want to drag you into it. But I’m glad you’ve come. I’m glad -you’ve come. . . . You know, it was beginning to be a horror with me that Logan -would come in at that door, looking like a poor, battered, broken little Napoleon, and I -should have to tell him that I was not his friend. . . . You know, he was -something vital and living in my work, but Cézanne has kicked him out. He was only my -friend really in my work, and if that goes everything goes. I couldn’t explain it to him, -for he wouldn’t understand. He used to laugh at me for talking about my work to you. I’m -afraid I told him more about you than I ought to have done, but, you see, he was my -friend. He laughed at everything. He ought to have been a very happy man, the way he -laughed at everything.”</p> - -<p>He placed in her hands his reproduction of Cézanne’s portrait of his wife.</p> - -<p>“That’s better than Cranach,” he said.</p> - -<p>“But why is her mouth crooked?” asked Morrison, puzzled by the picture and by his -setting it above Cranach.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” replied Mendel, “but Cézanne knew when he did it.”</p> - -<p>And he tried to explain the making of the picture, but she could not understand it. -However, she could understand and love his enthusiasm, and they were both happy, talking -rather aimlessly and often relapsing into silence.</p> - -<p>“I never can make out,” he said, “why you are<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-379">[Pg 379]</a></span> more wonderful to me than anybody else. Directly I am -with you, I am not so much happy as free. Even if I am miserable and you don’t make me any -happier, I want you with me. . . . You mustn’t go away again.”</p> - -<p>“No. I don’t want to go away.”</p> - -<p>“Why need you actually go? Why shouldn’t you stay here now? Stay with me. Don’t go. -Don’t think of going. I want you always with me. . . . If you don’t like the -place we will find another studio and go there. And if you want to be married we can get -married at once. I have nearly a hundred pounds in the bank.”</p> - -<p>He knelt by her side and held her knees in his two hands. She took his face in her -hands and said gently:—</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t talk like that, Mendel. Please don’t think I don’t love you because I -don’t want you to talk like that. It is the first thing to come into your mind, but with -me it is almost the last thing. I want love to be very, very beautiful before it comes to -me. I want love to be as beautiful to me as that picture of Cézanne’s is to you. Do you -understand me?”</p> - -<p>He sprang to his feet and turned away from her.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t!” he shouted; “no, I don’t!”</p> - -<p>He was wildly angry. Her words had acted like salt upon his raw feelings.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t understand you. You want love to be like art. You want to mix love up with -art. Love belongs to life. Love is rich and ripe and warm. You want it to be like the dew -on the grass. It can’t be!—it can’t be! Love bursts out of a man’s body into his soul, and -you want it to live in his soul and to leave him with an impotent, cold body. You want me -to bend to your woman’s will, for you know I cannot break away from you. You are with your -soul like Oliver with her body. You are with your love like Oliver with her lust,<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-380">[Pg 380]</a></span> and Logan and I are a -pair—a miserable, broken pair.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” she cried, hiding her face in her hands. “You are wrong, wrong, hideously wrong. -You have understood nothing at all. Your mind has rushed away with you. For God’s sake be -quiet for a little, to see if we can’t get it straight.”</p> - -<p>His desire was to batter down her opposition, yet he could not but realize that she was -too strong, and that he would only do grievous and useless harm. He controlled himself, -therefore, and was silent. At last he grunted:—</p> - -<p>“Can’t you make me see what you mean?”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t a thing I could say in cold blood,” she said.</p> - -<p>He moved towards her, but she held up her hands to ward him off.</p> - -<p>“No, no!’” she almost whispered. “That only makes my heart grow colder and colder until -it aches.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean that you—don’t—want me?”</p> - -<p>“Foolish, foolish, foolish!” she said. “If you loved me one tenth part as much as I -love you, you would know what I mean.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t,” he said simply. “I don’t, honestly I don’t. Perhaps you are so beautiful to -me that I am blinded with it.”</p> - -<p>Of the truth of her feeling against him he had no doubt, but though he laboured -bitterly to understand it, he could make nothing of it. He was driven back on his simple -need for her.</p> - -<p>“Very well,” he said; “if it makes you feel like that for me to touch you, I never -will. Only don’t talk of loving me more than I love you. It isn’t true.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. It was silly of me to say that,” she agreed. “It isn’t true.”</p> - -<p>“What do you want, then?”</p> - -<p>“I want to share as much of your life as I can.”</p> - -<p>“It is a bleak, grimy business, a good deal of it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I want to share it.”</p> - -<p>“There is a good deal in it that will horrify you.”</p> - -<p>“I must get used to that. . . . When I am in London I want you to promise -that you will see me at least once a week.”</p> - -<p>“There are seven days in the week. Let it be seven times.”</p> - -<p>She laughed at that.</p> - -<p>“And some day,” she went on, “I want to take you down into the country.”</p> - -<p>He began to suspect her of wanting to meddle with his work.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want the country,” he rapped out. “I am a Londoner. All the life I care about -is in the streets and in the houses, in the restaurants and the shops, and the costers’ -barrows and the cinemas and the picture galleries. That is why I live here, because I love -the coarse, thrumming vitality all round me.”</p> - -<p>“But <i>I</i> want the country,” she said, “and you should know the life <i>I</i> -love.”</p> - -<p>For a moment it seemed to him that the key to the mystery she talked of was in his -hands. He clutched at it and it evaded him, but his idolatry of her was shaken, and he -began dimly to see her as a creature like himself, with feelings, thoughts, desires, and a -will. There was no doubt at all about the will, and he had to recognize it.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter308"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter308_hdg"><a href="#Chapter308_toc">VIII<br /> -<span class="chap_title">OLIVER</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">T<small>HEN</small> began a period of quiet, happy friendship for them -both. Mendel was astonishingly amenable to many of her disciplinary suggestions and -allowed her to cut his hair (though not without thinking of Delilah), and when she ordered -him to get some new clothes he went off obediently to a friend of Issy’s and had a suit -made—West End style at East End prices.</p> - -<p>“You will soon have me looking like a Public School gentleman,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Never!” she replied. “You will never move like one—thank goodness.”</p> - -<p>“Why thank goodness?”</p> - -<p>“Because they walk about as though they owned the earth and the fatness thereof, as -though the earth existed for them to walk about on it without their needing even to look -at it to see how beautiful it is.”</p> - -<p>“That’s like Logan,” he said. “He used always to be railing against the English. He -said they had no eyes, only stomachs. But I think the English must be the nicest people in -the world, for there is no place like London for living in.”</p> - -<p>Indeed, they both thought there could be no place like London. Once or twice a week -they dined together at the Pot-au-Feu and went on to a party or to a music-hall or to the -cinema, which he adored. He said it gave him ideas for pictures and that there were often -wonderful momentary pictures thrown on the screen.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p> - -<p>“The cinema does what the bad artists have been trying to do for generations. It is a -great relief to have it done by a machine. The artist need not any more try to be a -machine. There is no need for him now to please the public. He can leave all that to the -machine and go straight for art. The few decent people will follow him, and what more does -he want? Art is not for the fools. . . . Logan was wrong. He wanted art to go to -the people. That is all wrong. The people must come up to art. When they are sick of the -machine, art is there, ready for them.” He added naïvely, “I shall be there, waiting for -them.”</p> - -<p>He loved especially the dramas, when they were not clogged and obscured with -sentimentality. The simple values that governed them, the triumph of virtue and the -downfall of evil, appealed to him as solid, as related to a process, a drama, that went on -in himself, and, he supposed, in everybody else. It worried and annoyed him when Morrison -made fun of these values and jeered at them.</p> - -<p>“But things don’t work like that,” she protested.</p> - -<p>“I think they do,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Good people are often crushed,” she replied, “and bad people often have things all -their own way.”</p> - -<p>“But it is inside people that it happens like that. False people have their souls eaten -away with lies, and true people have free, happy souls like yours. Being rich or poor, or -what you call good or bad, has nothing to do with it. Yes. It is inside people that it -happens like that, and I am more often the villain than the hero inside myself.”</p> - -<p>“It seems absurd to me, and I can’t think why you should take it seriously.”</p> - -<p>“It is because you are so idiotically good. You have only one side to your nature. You -are like a heroine in your Dickens.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’m not. I’m sure I’m not. I’m bad-tempered and mean and unjust.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t even know how bad I am. You have no more idea of what my life is like than a -rose has of an onion’s.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like onions.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the trouble. You don’t like the smell of onions, and so you don’t eat them. -Very poor people live on bread and onions and they find them good. I have no patience with -you. You want to be a rose growing in a sheltered English garden.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t. I don’t want anything of the kind.”</p> - -<p>“A wild rose, then; and you have no right to want such a life. You are not a flower. -You are a human being, and you can’t have a sheltered life, or a summer hedgerow life, -because you have truth and falsehood in you, and if you will not live for the truth you -will die for the falsehood. That is why cinemas are good and theatres are rotten. All the -plays are false, because they have forgotten truth and falsehood and are all about being -rich or poor, or old or young, or married or unmarried, and in the worst plays of all they -are about people pretending to be children so as to get out of the whole thing. I hate you -sometimes when you seem to be trying that game of refusing to be grown up, denying your -own feelings and letting men love you and pretending you don’t know what it is all -about.”</p> - -<p>“I never do that,” she cried indignantly.</p> - -<p>“I’m not so sure,” he said, unable to resist the temptation to press home the advantage -he had won in rousing her out of her placid happiness. “I’m not so sure. There are too -many girls do that.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t. I may have done it. But I have never done it with you. It is a wicked lie to -say anything of the kind.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t blame me if I catch at any idea that will help me to understand you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You never will, if you go grubbing about with your mind.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! my mind is no good, is it? Then take your hands off my feelings. They’ll -understand you right enough.”</p> - -<p>“No. They won’t.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“Because they’re blind.”</p> - -<p>“Good God! What am I to do, then?”</p> - -<p>“Wait.”</p> - -<p>“How long?”</p> - -<p>“Till you can see.”</p> - -<p>“I never shall see more than I do now. If you love me, why don’t you love me as I -am?”</p> - -<p>“I do. But you don’t know what you are—yet, and you don’t know what I am.”</p> - -<p>“I know what I want.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t what I want.”</p> - -<p>“If you knew at all what I wanted, you would want it too.”</p> - -<p>“What is it?”</p> - -<p>“Love.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve got it.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t call this love?”</p> - -<p>“I do.”</p> - -<p>“Then I don’t. It is just playing the fool—wasting time.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t wasting time. We are much better friends than we were.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to be friends. I’ve had enough of friends. They have never done me any -good. It’s a silly, thin kind of happiness at best.”</p> - -<p>“It is better than no happiness at all, which the other would be.”</p> - -<p>“How can you say that?” he cried, revolted. “How can you say that? Every thought, every -dream I have is centred on it. It is such happiness that my imagination, is baffled by -it.”</p> - -<p>“Please let us stop talking about it. We are only getting horribly at -cross-purposes.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p> - -<p>He had learned when it was wise to stop, but he needed every now and then the assurance -that her serene confidence was shot with doubt. Once or twice when he had tried to thrust -her back on her doubts she had flared up, and had fought tooth and nail, declaring that -she would never see him again. And, as he knew she meant it, he yielded, and said that any -sacrifice was better than that.</p> - -<p>On her part, as she came more nearly to see his point of view, she was often shaken and -tempted to admit that he was right. There was no looseness or formlessness about his -ideas. He lived in a world that apparently made room for everything, a world in which he -stood solidly on his feet while the waves of life broke upon him, and he only absorbed -into himself that which his passions needed. It was a plain, simple world, where good and -evil were equally true, and, apparently, largely a matter of chance—a world in which he -was gloriously independent. But was he free? Sometimes she thought that he was amazingly -free. His only prejudice seemed to be against pink, fleshy young men who had to do nothing -for a living—young men like her brothers, for instance, of whom she had drawn an amusing -series of caricatures showing the effect of introducing Mendel to them. . . . -Sometimes she wondered if her own longing for freedom was not just her ignorance, just a -craven desire to escape from knowing anything about life, to remain an amused but -fundamentally indifferent onlooker. And when she had to face the suffering she inflicted -on him, then she was often moved to cry out within herself:—</p> - -<p>“Oh! Take me, take me! Have your will. It will make an end of it all, and you will pass -on and forget me, but you will no longer suffer through me.”</p> - -<p>But she could not bend her own will, which<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-387">[Pg 387]</a></span> insisted that the treasure she desired lay through him, -and that he needed it even more than she. It was because of his need that he clung to her -through all his suffering and exasperation. . . . Why, why was he so blind that -he could not see it? Why could he, who was so sure and so strong, not see what was to her -so clear through all her vacillation and all the confusion of her idealism? -. . . She tried to make him read English poetry, but he could make little of it, -and said none of it was worth the Bible. He declared that Shelley wrote romantical -nonsense, because men could never be made perfect, and it was cruelly absurd to try -it—like dressing a monkey up in human clothes. And he countered by making her read -“Candide.”</p> - -<p>“When you have been through as much as Cunegonde,” he said, “I’ll believe in your -purity.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t purity that I’m fussing about.”</p> - -<p>“What is it, then?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t let us begin it all over again.”</p> - -<p>They found common ground in Blake, whom Mendel consented to read because Blake was the -only English painter who had had any idea of art at all.</p> - -<p>Blake brought them much closer together, and their tussles were sharper, but less -futile and exasperating.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you take a lesson from Mrs. Blake?” he asked, after they had read the -Life.</p> - -<p>“What? And sit and hold your hand? You’d turn round and hit me.”</p> - -<p>“I believe I would,” he laughed. “By Jove! I believe I would.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>He was not easy for her to handle. It was like playing with high explosives, save that -she was not playing.</p> - -<p>She said to him once, when they had come very near the intimacy she desired:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-388">[Pg 388]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I believe you would understand me if only you could let go.”</p> - -<p>“How can I let go,” he roared, “when I feel that you are weighing and judging and -criticizing every word I say, every thing I do?”</p> - -<p>And she was silent for a long time. It was a new and dreadful idea, that she was -hemming him in by making him feel that she was judging him. It was so far from her -intention that she protested:—</p> - -<p>“I am not judging you. I accept you just as you are.”</p> - -<p>“Accept!” he grumbled. “Accept! When you keep me at arm’s-length!”</p> - -<p>“I go as far as we can, then it breaks down.”</p> - -<p>“What breaks down?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what to call it. Sympathy, if you like.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! then if it breaks down it isn’t any good, and we may as well give it up for ever. -I will learn to shuffle along without you.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t shuffle. I refuse to hear of your shuffling.”</p> - -<p>“Then you want to know what to do?”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Take your place by my side, walk along with me like a sober, decent woman.”</p> - -<p>“But I want to fly with you, hand in hand.”</p> - -<p>She was elated, exalted. Her eyes shone and she glowed with excitement and hope. Surely -he would understand now! Surely she had found words for it at last!</p> - -<p>“That’s rubbish,” he said. “Men aren’t birds, and they are not angels. If you want to -fly, go up in an airyoplane. That’s another machine like the cinema. It relieves human -beings of another mania.”</p> - -<p>She turned away to hide the tears that had gushed to her eyes. Why did he waste his -strength? Why did he keep his force from entering into his imagination?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-389">[Pg 389]</a></span></p> - -<p>That evening was most miserable for her, and she was glad when it came to an end.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>To add to her difficulties he was making himself ill over his work, which, as he said, -had gone completely rotten, and he did not scruple to ascribe it to her. He would spend a -delightful happy evening with her and feel that his difficulties were over, that in the -morning he would be able to make a beginning upon all the ideas that were so jumbled and -close-packed in his head. But in the morning he would be dull and nerveless, and though he -might work himself up into a frenzy, yet he could produce nothing that was any good. His -work was easier, and even a little better, after the evenings when they almost -quarrelled.</p> - -<p>Again and again he told himself that he could not go on, that life was as thick and -heavy as the air before a thunderstorm. Often he thought that this density, this -opaqueness, with which he was surrounded, meant that he must quarrel and break with her -once and for all. It would nearly kill him to do it, but if it must be done, the sooner -the better. Perhaps it was wrong for him to have anything to do with the Christian world -at all. No single friendship or relationship that he had had in it had been successful or -of any profit to him. Little by little his peace of mind had been taken from him. -Everything had been taken from him, even, now, his work. . . . That he would not -have. He set his teeth and stuck to it, every day and all day, but the few pictures he -turned out did not sell. Cluny would not have them, and they were rejected by the -exhibitions, even by the club of which he was a member.</p> - -<p>Of all this he said not a word to a soul, not even to Morrison, not even to Golda. His -money was dwindling. That put marriage out of the question. Fate, or the ominous pressure -of life, or whatever it was, played into Morrison’s hands.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-390">[Pg 390]</a></span></p> - -<p>Every now and then, unable to endure this pressure, he plunged into excesses. There -seemed to be no other way out. The Christian world refused him. He no longer belonged to -his own people. Their poverty disgusted him. People had no right to be so poor as that, to -have no relief from the joyless daily grind for bread. . . . It was the fault of -the Christians who prayed to the Lord for their daily bread and stole it from each other -because they had forgotten that it was not given them except in return for daily work.</p> - -<p>That was the one strand of sympathy he had left with his father—Jacob’s absolute -refusal to receive his daily bread from any other hands than his own, and his almost crazy -refusal to let Issy and Harry go out and work for other masters. They could work for their -father because he had authority over them, but other masters had no authority except what -they bought or stole.</p> - -<p>But a talk with Harry decided Mendel that his people’s way, the Jewish way, was no -longer his.</p> - -<p>Harry was bored. He had bouts of boredom when he could not endure the workshop and -refused to go near it, however great the pressure of business might be. Like his father, -he said:—</p> - -<p>“I want nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Very well then,” said Mendel; “you’ve got nothing. What are you grumbling at?”</p> - -<p>“But there <i>is</i> nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Then it is easy to want nothing and you should be satisfied.”</p> - -<p>“That’s it. It is too easy. Work, work, work. Play, play, play. How disgusting it all -is!”</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you stay in Paris?”</p> - -<p>“I could not bear to be away from the people.”</p> - -<p>“But if they give you nothing?”</p> - -<p>“They have nothing to give. Nothing but old Jews who believe and young Jews who cannot -believe and are nothing.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-391">[Pg 391]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It is the same everywhere. The Christians do not believe either.”</p> - -<p>“But they are fools and can make themselves happy with their cinemas and their -newspapers and their forward women.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you liked women, Harry.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like women who like me. . . . I don’t want to marry, I don’t want -anything. I shall see the old people into their graves, and then I don’t know what I shall -do. You are the only one I know who has anything to live for or any life in him.”</p> - -<p>“I have little enough.”</p> - -<p>“Oh God! don’t you start talking like me, or we shall all go to the cemetery at -once.”</p> - -<p>“All right, Harry. I’ll keep you going. I’ll keep you astonished.”</p> - -<p>His brother’s despondency helped Mendel on a little, but what a mean incentive to work, -to astonish his poor ignorant family!</p> - -<p>Very soon there came a terrible day when he had to tell them that he had not a penny in -the world and that he was a failure. It would have gone hardly with him but for Harry, who -espoused his cause, saying dramatically that he believed in his young brother as he -believed in God, and that Mendel should not be stopped for want of money. And he went -upstairs and came down with his savings, nearly thirty pounds.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be a fool!” said Jacob. “He will only spend it on drink and women.”</p> - -<p>“He is a genius,” said Harry simply, and Issy, fired by his brother’s example, said he -had saved ten pounds and he would add that. Together they shouted Jacob down when he tried -to raise his voice, until at last he produced his cash-box and gave Mendel a ten-pound -note, saying:—</p> - -<p>“If the Christians are liars when they say they believe in you, we are not. You must -learn that the Christians are all liars and you must show<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-392">[Pg 392]</a></span> them that you are the greatest artist in -the world.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll show them,” mumbled Mendel. “Yes, I’ll show them.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>He returned to his work with a better determination to succeed, but he felt more barren -than ever, and had nothing to work with but his will. Into that he gathered all his force -and determined to go back and pick up the thread of his work at the point where Logan had -broken into the weaving of it. He would paint yet another portrait of his mother, and then -he would choose a subject from among the life of the Jews. He would start again. The Jews -believed in him; he would glorify them, although he no longer believed in but only admired -them. When he came to look at them clearly, they were squat and stunted, because he could -only look at them from a superior height. . . . He turned over his early work, -and studied it carefully, but he could not recover his childish acceptance of that -existence.</p> - -<p>For some weeks he did not go near Morrison and frequented the Paris Café, where he felt -hopelessly out of it. No one spoke to him. Hardly a soul nodded to him. Night after night -he sat there despondently, conjuring up the exciting evenings he had spent there. They -were like ashes in his mouth.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>One night, to his amazement and almost fear, someone slipped into the seat at his side. -It was Oliver. She laid her hand on his knee and said:—</p> - -<p>“You look pretty bad, Kühler. Anything wrong?”</p> - -<p>“Much as usual. How are you? What’ll you drink?”</p> - -<p>“Kümmel’s mine,” she said.</p> - -<p>He ordered two Kümmels.</p> - -<p>“I’m all right. How are you?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’ve told you how I am,” he said testily.</p> - -<p>“All right, all right!” she said, “I haven’t been here for a long time. I wish you’d -come and see me, Kühler. We never did get on, but I’d like to have a talk about old -times.”</p> - -<p>“Old times!” he said. “It seems only yesterday.”</p> - -<p>“It’s nearly a year since I saw you. Logan came back, you know. Mr. Tysoe was so good. -He kept on the house for me. Wasn’t it good of him?”</p> - -<p>The waiter brought the Kümmel. She drank hers off at a gulp, and said:—</p> - -<p>“It is like old times to see you, Kühler. I <i>am</i> glad.”</p> - -<p>“Go on about Logan.”</p> - -<p>“He went back to that Camden Town place, you know, and we didn’t see each other for -nearly two months. It was awful. I couldn’t sleep at nights, and I knew he wouldn’t be -able to sleep. He never slept, you know, when we had had one of our hells and I wouldn’t -speak to him. He! he!” she gasped and giggled nervously at the memory.</p> - -<p>“Go on,” said Mendel. He was icy cold. All the strange oppression that was brooding in -his life seemed to gather into a thick snowy cloud about his head and to fit it like a cap -of ice. “Go on.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Tysoe gave me money. Wasn’t it good of him? He used to see Logan. Not very -often—just occasionally. Logan was painting a wonderful portrait of me, in my green dress -and the corals he gave me. . . . See: I always wear them, even now.”</p> - -<p>She thrust her hand into her bosom and produced the string of corals.</p> - -<p>“I lived all alone and refused to see anyone. I got so thin, all my skirts had to be -taken in. I knew Logan was jealous, so I didn’t see anyone, and when I heard about the -portrait I knew he would come back. So I used to wear the green<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-394">[Pg 394]</a></span> dress every evening and wait for him -till twelve, one, two, three in the morning, all alone, in that little cottage on the -Heath. . . . My, I <i>was</i> tired, I can tell you. But I never was one for -getting up in the morning. . . . At last, one night, he came. He walked in quite -quietly, as though nothing had happened. He had brought the picture with him. My word, it -<i>is</i> good. You’d love it. He had offers for it, but he wouldn’t sell it. He said a -funny thing about it. He said: ‘It’s literature. It isn’t art.’ So he wouldn’t sell it. -. . . We had a glorious time—a glorious time! It was better even than the -beginning.”</p> - -<p>She stopped to linger over the memory, and she drew her hand caressingly along her -thigh.</p> - -<p>“Go on,” said Mendel, to break in upon her heavy silence.</p> - -<p>“He had plenty of money. He sold everything he did. There were one or two society -ladies, the cats! Common property, I call them.”</p> - -<p>“So it broke down again,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“Yes. He got—— You know what he could be like. Sometimes I thought he was going off his -head, and I often wonder if he wasn’t a bit touched. . . . I haven’t seen him -since. I wondered if you had seen him.”</p> - -<p>“No. I haven’t seen him. He doesn’t come back to me.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Tysoe hasn’t seen him. Cluny has some of his things, but won’t say a word. I think -he must have left London.”</p> - -<p>“I should think so,” said Mendel wearily, suddenly losing all interest. “I should think -so.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve left Hampstead. I’m living over the Pot-au-Feu, I’m working as a model. Don’t -forget me, and if you hear of Logan, do let me know, and come and have a talk over old -times.”</p> - -<p>She had caught sight of an acquaintance smiling at her and went over to him, for all -the world, as Mendel thought, like a fly-by-night.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-395">[Pg 395]</a></span></p> - -<p>He half ran, half staggered out of the place, saying to himself:—</p> - -<p>“I must see Morrison. I must see her at once.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>He tried to see her next day, but Clowes told him she had gone to the country.</p> - -<p>“I insisted on her going, she was looking so pale. You know when she feels lonely she -won’t eat. When she is miserable she gets so shy that she can’t even go into a shop. -. . . I have taken a cottage in the country, just outside London. Two rooms, two -shillings a week. Isn’t it cheap? So I packed her off there two days ago.”</p> - -<p>“When will she be back?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. When she is tired of being alone. She said she wanted to be alone.”</p> - -<p>“I want to see her. It is a very important for me to see her.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t have you making her ill,” said Clowes.</p> - -<p>“I must see her. Will you give me her address, so that I can write to her?”</p> - -<p>Clowes gave him the address, and he wrote saying that life was intolerable without -her.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Morrison did not need his letter, and, indeed, it only reached the cottage after she -had left. She knew he needed her. Never for an instant was his image absent from her mind, -and at night, when she lay awake, she could have sworn she heard a moaning cry from him. -No wind ever made a sound like that.</p> - -<p>There was a pouring rain and a howling wind, but she walked the four miles to the -station and sent him a wire telling him to meet her at the station in London. He received -it just in time and was on the platform.</p> - -<p>He took her in his arms and kissed her.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter?”</p> - -<p>“Did you get my letter?”</p> - -<p>“No. But I knew. What is it?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I don’t know. My work, I think. I met Oliver last night. It upset me. But I wanted you -for my work. It is like a knife stuck through my brain. I wanted to be with you, just to -see you and to hear your voice. Nothing else. That part of me feels dead. . . . -Oliver is living over the Pot-au-Feu, where Hetty Finch used to be. I wonder what’s become -of her. I expect she has found a millionaire by now. . . . We’ll have the -evening together. We’ll dine at the Pot-au-Feu. We might meet Oliver, but I can’t think of -any other place.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll dine with Clowes, if you like.”</p> - -<p>“No; I want to go to the Pot-au-Feu.”</p> - -<p>“Very well. Are you very tired? Your voice sounds tired.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll be all right now I am with you. Mr. Sivwright asked me to go to the Merlin’s Cave -to-night. He has to shut it up. I thought I wouldn’t go, but I want to go, if you will -come with me.”</p> - -<p>“It might cheer us up, and you love dancing.”</p> - -<p>They both thought of the night when he had danced with Jessie Petrie.</p> - -<p>“I’m painting a picture of a Jewish market. I want you to see it.”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad you’ve gone back. I’m sure it is right.”</p> - -<p>“What are you doing?”</p> - -<p>It was the first time he had asked after her work and a glow of happiness overcame -her.</p> - -<p>“Oh! I . . . I’m doing a landscape—just a road running up a hill with some -houses on top.”</p> - -<p>“Like Rousseau. He was good at roads.”</p> - -<p>“Mine’s just painting. It isn’t abstract.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t paint without being abstract,” he said irritably. “Even Academicians can’t -really imitate, but they abstract without using their brains. You can’t really copy -nature, so what’s the good of trying?”</p> - -<p>“You can suggest.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Then it’s a sketch and not a picture.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps mine is only a sketch,” she said rather forlornly, because she had been rather -hopeful of her work.</p> - -<p>They went back to his studio, where he showed her his studies and drawings for the new -picture. She saw that he was working again with his old love of his craft.</p> - -<p>They dined at the Pot-au-Feu, and had it all to themselves because the weather was so -bad. There were only the goggle-eyed man in the corner with his green evening paper and -Madame Feydeau and Gustave, the waiter.</p> - -<p>Over the dinner Mendel waxed very gay and gave her a very comic description of the -scene when he had gone to his family to confess his failure. He had a wonderful power of -making them comic without laughing at them.</p> - -<p>“They are wonderful people,” he said. “They know what is sense and what is nonsense. If -you gave them the biggest problem in the world they would know what was true in it and -what was false. They are always right about politics and public men. But when it comes to -art, they are hopeless.”</p> - -<p>“But they believe in you.”</p> - -<p>“Because I belong to them. They believe in themselves. . . . My mother was -quite sound about Logan. She said it could not go on. I thought it was for ever. I’ve been -thinking about Logan. He could never be himself. He was always wanting to be -something—something big. I thought he was big for a long time. But he’s just a man. I -don’t think Cézanne was ever anything but just a man. It makes one think, doesn’t it? All -these people who are written about as though they were something terrific, all trying to -be something more than they are—just men. And then a quiet little man comes along and he -is bigger than the lot of them, because he has never<span class="pagenum"><a -class="newpage" id="page-398">[Pg 398]</a></span> tried to blow himself out, but has given -himself room to grow.”</p> - -<p>She had never known him so gentle and tender and wise, and if he had wanted to love her -she would not have denied him. She trusted him so completely. And he looked so ill and -tired. But he only wanted to be with her, and to talk to her and to hear her voice.</p> - -<p>After dinner they went to a cinema to fill in time, and he shouted with laughter like a -boy, threw himself about, and stamped his feet at the comic film. And she laughed too, and -took his hand in hers and held it in her lap.</p> - -<p>“That was good!” he said. “I think I should like to be a cinema actor. If I get really -hard up I shall try it. I might be a star, if I could learn to wear my clothes properly -and could get my hair to lie down in a solid shiny block.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll go with you. I’m sure I could roll my eyes properly.”</p> - -<p>“Come along,” he said.</p> - -<p>It was still raining hard, so they took a taxi to the Merlin’s Cave, though it was not -half a mile away.</p> - -<p>Everything was the same, even to the two rich young men who entered just after them. -They signed the book, and then, hearing the music, Mendel seized Morrison by the wrist and -dragged her down the stairs.</p> - -<p>The place was astonishingly full. Nearly all the tables were occupied, and they had to -take one between the orchestra and the door. Calthrop, Mitchell, Weldon, Jessie Petrie, -everybody from the Paris Café was there. Oliver was sitting with Thompson and the critic. -In a far corner Clowes was sitting with the young man from the Detmold. There were models, -male and female, all the strange people who for one reason or another had lived in or on -the Calthrop tradition. In the middle of the room were two large tables<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-399">[Pg 399]</a></span> which Sivwright had -packed with celebrities—authors, journalists, editors, actors, and music-hall comedians. -They were being fed royally, as became lions, and there were champagne bottles gleaming on -the tables. Tall young soldiers in mufti began to arrive with chorus-girls who had not -troubled to remove their make-up.</p> - -<p>“It’s a gala!” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>Oliver saw him, and beamed and raised her glass. He rose and bowed with mock -solemnity.</p> - -<p>Dancing had not begun. Apparently the lions were to sing for their supper.</p> - -<p>An author read a short play, which he explained had been suppressed by the censor. To -Mendel it sounded very mild and foolish. It was a tragedy, but no one was moved; the -audience much preferred the music-hall comedian, who followed with a song about a series -of mishaps to his trousers.</p> - -<p>The same reedy-voiced poet recited the same poem as before, and the same foolish girl -sang the same foolish song, and it looked as though the programme would never end.</p> - -<p>Mendel was irritated and bored, and called for champagne.</p> - -<p>“Waiter!”</p> - -<p>But the waiter did not hear him.</p> - -<p>“You don’t want any champagne,” said Morrison.</p> - -<p>“Waiter!”</p> - -<p>The door by them opened and Logan slipped in. He was almost a shadow of his old self. -The plump flesh had gone from his face, which was all eyes and bones. He looked famished. -His eyes swept round the room, and, fastening on Oliver, lit up with a gleam of -satisfaction. He was like a starving man looking at a nice pink ham in a shop window. He -moved swiftly towards her, but stopped on seeing the men she was with and swerved to a -table a few yards behind her. From where Mendel was sitting it looked as though he<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-400">[Pg 400]</a></span> were peering over her -shoulder, an evil, menacing face.</p> - -<p>Mendel shivered, and his eyes suddenly felt dry and hot, as though they were being -pushed out of his face. His throat went dry, and when he tried to call the waiter he could -make no sound. The waiter met his eyes and came.</p> - -<p>“Champagne!” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>“Very good, sir. One bottle?”</p> - -<p>“Half-a-bottle,” said Morrison.</p> - -<p>“One bottle,” roared Mendel.</p> - -<p>A young artist, who knew them both slightly, hearing the order, came and sat with -them.</p> - -<p>The dancing began.</p> - -<p>“Come and dance,” said Morrison.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t want to dance. That was Logan who came in. He hasn’t seen me yet.”</p> - -<p>“Which is Logan?” asked the young artist. “He’s done some good things. Someone told me -the other day he had softening of the brain.”</p> - -<p>“Rubbish!” said Mendel. “They say that of every man who makes a success, as though it -needed something strange to account for it. It’s either softening of the brain, or -consumption, or three wives, or he is killing himself with drink. They talk as though art -itself were some kind of disease.”</p> - -<p>Logan had seen Mendel, and their eyes met. Mendel felt that Logan was looking clean -through him, looking at him as a ghost might look at a man whom he had known in life, -fondly, tenderly, icily through him, without expecting him to be aware of the terrible -scrutiny. But Mendel was aware of it, and it chilled him to the marrow. Logan gave no -sign, but stared and stared, and presently turned his eyes away without a sign, without a -tremor. It was like turning away the light of a lantern. He turned his eyes from Mendel to -Oliver in one sweep. No one else but those two seemed to exist for him, and Mendel felt -that he<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-401">[Pg 401]</a></span> no -longer existed. And more than ever Logan looked as if he were peering over Oliver’s -shoulder with those staring, piercing eyes of his from which the soul had gone out. Only -the glowing spark of a fixed will was left in them to keep them sane and human.</p> - -<p>Mendel began to drink. The orchestra behind him sent the rhythm of a waltz thumping -through him. But it went heavily, without music or tune. One—two—three. It was like having -molten lead poured on the nape of his neck, threatening to jerk his head off his spine. -From where he sat he could not see the dancing-floor, except reflected in a mirror -opposite him. . . . Oh! it was a gay sight and a silly It had nothing to do with -him. He could see nothing but Oliver with the grim, haggard face looking over her -shoulder. He gulped down a glass of wine. That was better. It made things bearable. He -poured out another glass of wine.</p> - -<p>“I think there is more in the Futurists than the Cubists,” said the young artist.</p> - -<p>“In art,” said Mendel, turning on him savagely, “there is neither past nor present nor -future; there is only eternity. You try to make a group out of that, and see how you will -get on. You can put that at the head of your manifesto and your group would melt away -under it like the fat on a basted pigeon.”</p> - -<p>He put out his hand for his glass, but Morrison had taken it and was drinking.</p> - -<p>“You’ll make yourself drunk,” he said, taking it from her gently.</p> - -<p>“I finished it all,” she said, with an unhappy smile. “I didn’t want you to drink it, -and you looked so tragic I knew it would be bad for you.”</p> - -<p>The young artist crept away. Mendel took Morrison’s hand and gripped it.</p> - -<p>“I’m glad you are with me,” he said. “Look at Logan!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p> - -<p>Never taking his eyes off Oliver, Logan had begun to move towards her with his hand in -his breast pocket. He had nearly reached her, with his eyes glowing almost yellow under -the electric light, when he changed his mind, swung round, and went to another table and -sat with his head down, biting his nails.</p> - -<p>The dancing was fast and furious, and this time it was the flute which played an -obbligato, thin, fantastic, and comic, real silvery fun, like a trickle of water down a -crag into a pool in sunshine.</p> - -<p>Thompson went to the dancing-floor with a girl in fancy dress—a columbine’s costume. -That seemed to relieve Logan, who jumped to his feet, walked quickly round to Oliver, bent -over her, and spoke to her. Her face wore an expression of amazed delight. Her eyes were -drawn to his, and though she shrank under them, she seemed to go soft and flabby: she -could not resist them. There was no menace in Logan now, only an attitude of fixed -mastery, an air of taking possession of her once and for all, of knowing that at last he -would get the longed-for satisfaction.</p> - -<p>They spoke together for a little longer, then she rose and put her hand up and caressed -his cheek and neck as though it hurt her to see them so thin—as though, indeed, she -refused to believe what her eyes told her.</p> - -<p>They walked past Mendel and Morrison without seeing them. Mendel gripped Morrison’s -hand until she felt that the blood must gush out of her nails. Logan opened the swing-door -for Oliver, devouring her with his burning eyes, in which there was a desperate set -purpose of which he seemed to be almost weary. So frail he looked, as if but a little more -and he would loose his hold even on that to which he clung. And Oliver smiled at him with -a malicious promise in her eyes that he should have his will, that his hold should be -loosened and his weariness come to an end.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-403">[Pg 403]</a></span> Clearly she knew that he had no thought outside -herself.</p> - -<p>And outside the two of them Mendel had no thought. His mind became as a tunnel down -which they were moving, and soon they were lost to his sight and he was left to wait. -There his thoughts stopped, while he waited.</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter309"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-404">[Pg 404]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter309_hdg"><a href="#Chapter309_toc">IX<br /> -<span class="chap_title">LOGAN MAKES AN END</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">A<small>LL</small> night long he paced up and down his studio. His -thoughts would not move, but went over and over the scene in the Cave, and probed vainly -in the darkness for the next move. When he heard footsteps in the street he hung out of -the window, making sure that it must be Logan come for him. But no one stopped at the -door, and soon within himself and without was complete silence, save for his footsteps on -the floor and the matches he struck to light cigarette after cigarette, though he could -not keep one of them alight.</p> - -<p>His imagination rejected the facts and refused to work on them. The scene in the Cave -had left an impression upon his retina, like that of the cinema—just a plain flat -impression containing no material for his imagination. And yet he knew that he was deeply -engaged in whatever was happening.</p> - -<p>With his chin in his hands he leaned out of his window and watched the dawn paint the -eastern sky and the day wipe out the colours. Doors were opened in the street. Windows -were lit with the glow of the fires, and the day’s activity had begun, but he had no share -in it, for he knew that this day was like no other. For him it was a day lost in -impenetrable shadow, and he could not tell what should take him out of it. And still he -expected Logan would come.</p> - -<p>He heard Rosa get up and go downstairs and light the fire and bawl up to Issy to jump -out of<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-405">[Pg 405]</a></span> his bed, -filthy snoring sluggard that he was. He heard the voices of the children and the baby -yelling. . . . How indecent, how abominable it was to cram so many people into -one small house!</p> - -<p>At the usual time he went over to his mother’s kitchen for breakfast, and gulped down -his tea, but made no attempt to eat. Golda looked at him reproachfully, but said nothing, -for she saw that he was in some deep trouble.</p> - -<p>After breakfast, as usual, he went for his walk down through Whitechapel almost as far -as Bow Church and back.</p> - -<p>In his studio when he returned he found a policeman, who said:—</p> - -<p>“Mr. Mendel Kühler?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>The policeman handed him a letter from Logan who had scrawled:—</p> - -<p>“I believe in you to the end.”</p> - -<p>To the end?</p> - -<p>“Is he dead?” asked Mendel.</p> - -<p>“Next door to it,” said the policeman. “The woman’s done in.”</p> - -<p>“Where?”</p> - -<p>“At the Pot-au-Feu, Soho.”</p> - -<p>“Where is he now?”</p> - -<p>“Workhouse infirmary. If you want to see him the police will raise no objection.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” said Mendel.</p> - -<p>He asked the direction and set out at once.</p> - -<p>The workhouse was a dull grey mass of buildings, rising out of a dull grey district -like an inevitable creation of its dullness, and it seemed an inevitable contrast to the -Merlin’s Cave, so that it was right that Logan should walk out of the glitter into it. -This was the very contrast that Mendel’s imagination had been vainly seeking, and now, -with the violence of a sudden release, his thoughts began to work again. . . . -Oliver was dead. That was inevitable too. But why?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-406">[Pg 406]</a></span></p> - -<p>Logan had surrendered to her. They would go home from the Merlin’s Cave to the -Pot-au-Feu, to Hetty Finch’s room. He would surrender to her absolutely, because she had -willed his destruction and could not see that his destruction meant her own. She wanted -recognition, acknowledgment that her vitality was more important than anything else in the -world, and she had brought Logan to it. There had been a cold, set purpose in his eyes -last night—an intellectual purpose. The equation was worked out. She could have what she -wanted, at a price. She could destroy the will and the desire of a man, but not his mind, -not his spirit, which would still be obedient to a higher will, and that would break her -as she had broken.</p> - -<p>Very bare and grim was the waiting-room in which Mendel had to bide until the nurse -came for him. Its walls were of a faded green, dim and grimy, and when the door was opened -as people went in or out, there was wafted in a smell of antiseptics. But as his thoughts -gathered force the room seemed to be filled with a great light, which revealed beauty in -the poor people waiting patiently to see their sick. They became detached and pictorial, -but he could not think of them in terms of paint. His mind had begun to work in a new way, -and he felt more solid, more human, more firmly planted on the ground, as though at last -he was admitted to a place in life. It mattered to him no more that he was a Jew and -strange and foreign to the Christian world. There were neither Jews nor Christians now. -There were only people—tragic, wonderful people . . . He even forgot that he was -in love. All his mind was concentrated upon Logan, who was now also tragic and wonderful, -a source of tragedy and wonder, and his whole effort was to discover and to make plain to -himself his share in the tragedy: not to weigh and measure and to wonder whether at one -point<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-407">[Pg 407]</a></span> or another -he could have stopped it. Nothing could have stopped it.</p> - -<p>There was no room for judgment in this tragic world.</p> - -<p>A nurse came to fetch him.</p> - -<p>She said:—</p> - -<p>“He is very weak, but he will be strong enough to know you. Don’t excite him.”</p> - -<p>She led him into the bare, white ward, across which the sun threw great shafts of -light, to Logan’s bedside. At the head of the bed a policeman was sitting with his helmet -on his knees, staring straight in front of him. He turned his eyes on Mendel, who thought -he looked a very nice man, something amusingly imperturbable in this racking world of -tragedy.</p> - -<p>He stood by the bedside and looked down at Logan, in whose face there was at last the -noble, conquering expression at which, through all his foolish striving, he had always -aimed. His brow was strong and massive, his mouth relentless as Beethoven’s, his nose -sharp and stubborn, and there was something exquisite and sensitive in the drawn skin -about his eyes. From his white brow his shock of black hair fell back on the pillow.</p> - -<p>His hand was outside the grey coverlet. Mendel took it in his. Logan opened his eyes, -and into them came an expression of almost incredulous surprise, of ecstatic, intolerable -happiness. He had wakened out of his dream into his dream, to be with Mendel, to have gone -through the very depths to be with Mendel. His hand closed tight on his friend’s and his -lids drooped over his eyes.</p> - -<p>He opened them again after a few moments and said:—</p> - -<p>“You!”</p> - -<p>The nurse placed a chair for Mendel, and he sat down and said:—</p> - -<p>“How are you feeling?”</p> - -<p>“Pretty weak. I dreamed of your coming, but<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-408">[Pg 408]</a></span> I didn’t really believe it. . . . I’ve done -it, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“What are you doing?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve painted another portrait of my mother. A good one, this time. She is sitting in a -wooden chair as she always sits, with her hands folded on her stomach. And I am planning a -picture of a Jewish market, something bigger than I have attempted yet.”</p> - -<p>“I see. Good—good. . . . We must work together. We can do it now.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mendel, rather mystified. It was very strange to have Logan talking like -that, as though he were going back to the first days of their friendship.</p> - -<p>“It is such peace,” said Logan; and indeed he looked as if he were at peace, lying -there so still and white, with the hard strain gone from his eyes, in which there was none -of the old roguish twinkle, but an expression of pain through which there shone a -penetrating and most tender light.</p> - -<p>“Peace,” murmured Logan again. “Tell me more. There is only art.”</p> - -<p>“There is nothing else,” answered Mendel, carried away on the impulse of Logan’s spirit -and understanding what he meant when he said “we.” Life, the turbulent life of every day, -the life of desire, was broken and had fallen away from him, so that he was living without -desire, only in his enduring will, which had lost patience with his desires and had -destroyed them.</p> - -<p>Through Mendel trembled a new and strange elation. He recognized that his friendship -with Logan was just beginning, and that he was absolved from all share in the catastrophe, -if such there had been. And from him too the turbulent life of desire fell away, and he -could be at one with his friend. There was no need to talk of the past—it was as though it -had never been.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-409">[Pg 409]</a></span></p> - -<p>He described the design he had made for his picture: two fat old women bargaining, and -a strong man carrying a basket of fruit on his head.</p> - -<p>“A good beginning,” said Logan. “I . . . I could never get going. I was -always overseen in my work.”</p> - -<p>“Overseen!” said Mendel, puzzled by the word.</p> - -<p>“Yes. I was always outside the picture, working at it. . . . Too -. . . too much brains, too little force.”</p> - -<p>“I see,” said Mendel, for whom a cold finger had been put on one of his own outstanding -offences against art. For a moment it brought him to an ashamed silence, but Logan’s words -slipped so easily into his understanding and took up their habitation there, that he was -powerless to resent or to attempt to dislodge them.</p> - -<p>“Overseen,” Logan repeated, with an obvious pleasure in plucking out the weeds from -their friendship, in the fair promise of which he found peace and joy. “That was the -trouble. It couldn’t go on. . . . City life, I think. Too much for us. Things -too much our own way. . . . Egoism. . . .”</p> - -<p>“I know that I am feeling my way towards something and that it is no good forcing it,” -said Mendel.</p> - -<p>An acute attack of pain seized Logan, and he closed his eyes and was silent for a long -time, with his brows knit in a kind of impatient boredom at having to submit to such a -thing as pain.</p> - -<p>“They’ve been very good to me,” he said. “Given me everything as if I were really -ill.”</p> - -<p>He sank back into pain again.</p> - -<p>Mendel looked across at the policeman with a feeling of irritation that he should be -there, a typical figure of the absurd chaotic life which had fallen away, a symbol of the -factitious pretence of order which could only deceive a child.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-410">[Pg 410]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Can’t you leave me alone with him?” he whispered.</p> - -<p>The policeman shook his head.</p> - -<p>“No, sir.”</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t worry about outside things,” said Logan, with an effort. “We <i>are</i> -alone. . . . Have you found a new friend?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“You will. Better men than I have been. . . . Do you see that girl -still?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“She was the strongest of us.”</p> - -<p>“How?”</p> - -<p>Logan made no answer, and gave a slight shake of impatience at Mendel’s not -understanding him.</p> - -<p>“Something,” he said, “that I never got anywhere near. . . . I -. . . I was overseen in that too.”</p> - -<p>The blood drummed in Mendel’s temples. Logan’s cold finger went probing into his life -too, and showed him always casting his own shadow over his passions. In love it was the -same as in art. . . . It was very odd that, with every nerve at stretch to -understand Logan and how he had been brought to smash the clotted passion of his life, it -should only be important to understand himself, and that he should be able to understand -so coldly, so clearly, so easily.</p> - -<p>And now the presence of the policeman became a relief. It was a guarantee that the -whole visible world would not be swept away by the frozen will in Logan, which was like a -floe of ice bearing everything with it, nipping at Mendel’s life, squeezing it up high and -dry and bearing it along. He felt that if the policeman were to go away he would be drawn -down into the doom that was upon Logan, into the valley of the shadow, even while the good -sun came streaming in through the tall windows. . . . He had lost all the -emotional interest which had kept him awake through the night. . . . It had been -simple enough. There had<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-411">[Pg -411]</a></span> been himself, Logan and Oliver, three people, living in London the gay, -reckless life of artists in London, a city so huge that men and women could do in it as -they pleased. Oliver and he had hated each other, and Logan had had to choose between -them. He had chosen wrongly and had put an end to his misery in the only possible way.</p> - -<p>Mendel fought back out of the shadow—back to the policeman, and the sick men lying in -the rows of beds, and the dead man lying in the bed which had just been surrounded by a -screen, and the simple, wonderful people in the waiting-room downstairs, and the sun -streaming through the windows, and the teeming life outside in London—wonderful, splendid -London, the very heart of the world. . . . It was well for Logan to lose sight -of these things. He was a dying man. But Mendel was alive, never more alive than now, in -face of the shadow of death, and he would not think the thoughts of a dying man unless -they could be shaped in the likeness of life. He gathered together all his forces, -summoned up everything that urged him towards life and towards art, and of his own strong -living will plunged after Logan, no longer in obedience to Logan’s frozen purpose, but as -a friend giving to his friend the meed that was due to him.</p> - -<p>He took Logan’s hand and pressed it, and chafed it gently to make it warm, and Logan -smiled at him, and an expression of anguish came into his face as the warmth of his friend -wrapped him round, penetrated him, thawed and melted his purpose, with which he had lived -for so many empty, solitary days until it had driven him to make an end. The coldness in -his friend touched Mendel’s heart and was like a stab through it, and he felt soon a -marvellous release, as if his blood were flowing again, and it seemed that the weaknesses -on which Logan had laid his finger were borne down with him into the shadow.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-412">[Pg 412]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mendel remembered Cézanne’s portrait of his wife, and how he had intended to tell Logan -that it had made him feel like a tree with the sap running through it to the budding -leaves in spring.</p> - -<p>He told him now, and added:—</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t matter that I did not understand you in life.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Logan. “Don’t go away!”</p> - -<p>“I’ll stay,” replied Mendel; “I’ll stay.”</p> - -<p>Then he was in a horrible agony again, as the marvellous clarity he had just won -disappeared. Logan knew what he was doing, that he was taking with him all the weaknesses -and vain follies which had so nearly brought them both to baseness, and Mendel knew that -Logan must continue as a powerful force in his work; but he crushed the rising revolt in -himself, the last despairing effort of his weakness, and gave himself up to feeding the -extraordinary delight it was to the poor wretch, lying there with his force ebbing away, -to give himself up to a pure artistic purpose such as had been denied him in his tangled -life. Through this artistic purpose Logan could rise above the natural ebbing process of -his vitality, which sucked away with it the baseness and the folly he had brought into his -friend’s life. He could rejoice in the contact of their minds, the mingling of their -souls, the proud salute of this meeting and farewell. It was nothing to him that he was -dying, little enough that he had lived, for he knew that he had never lived until now.</p> - -<p>The nurse came and said the patient must rest.</p> - -<p>“Don’t go away!” pleaded Logan.</p> - -<p>“I’ll wait,” said Mendel, patting his hand to reassure him.</p> - -<p>“Half-past two,” said the nurse as she followed Mendel out. “What a remarkable man!” -she added. “What a tragedy! I suppose the girl was to blame too.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-413">[Pg 413]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Blame?” said Mendel, rather dazed at being brought back to customary values. -“Blame?”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>He went down to the dingy waiting-room and sat there subdued, cowering, exhausted. He -felt very cold and miserable. It was so terrible waiting for a thing that had happened. -The physical fact could make no difference. . . . Logan had made an end, a very -complete and thorough end. . . . Oh! the relief of it, the relief of having -Logan for his friend at last, of having seen him freely and fully tasting at last his -heart’s desire, of being himself brought up to that level, that pure contact with another -human being, for which he had always longed. . . . That desire in both of them -had been violated and despoiled, God knows how. Lies? Lust? Profanation of the holy spirit -of art? . . . What words could describe the evil that everywhere in life lay in -wait for the adventurous, letting the foolish and the timid, the faint of heart and the -blind of soul, go by, and waiting for strong men who walked with purpose and a single -mind?</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>At half-past two the nurse came to fetch him.</p> - -<p>“He is very weak now,” she said.</p> - -<p>Logan’s face wore a noble gathering serenity. He was too weak to talk much, and only -wanted Mendel to hold his hand and to talk to him about art, about pictures “they” were -going to paint, and about pictures they had both loved: Cranach, Dürer, Uccello, Giotto, -Blake, Cézanne.</p> - -<p>“Good men, those,” said Logan. “Good company.”</p> - -<p>“Good, decent, quiet little men.”</p> - -<p>“We shall do good things.”</p> - -<p>His hand closed more tightly on Mendel’s, who surrendered himself to the force of the -ebb in his friend, felt the cold, salt waves of death close about him and drag him out, -out until Logan was lost, and<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-414">[Pg -414]</a></span> with a frightful wrench all that was dead in himself was torn away, and he -was left prostrate upon the fringes of his life. . . . He became conscious to -find himself leaning over Logan, gazing at his lips, with his own lips near them, waiting -for the breath that would come no more.</p> - -<p>It was finished. Logan had made an end.</p> - -<p>Turning away, Mendel saw through the window the lovely grey-blue sky, fleecy with -mauve-grey clouds heaped up by the driving wind—beautiful, beautiful. . . .</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter" id="Chapter310"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-415">[Pg 415]</a></span></p> - -<h4 id="Chapter310_hdg"><a href="#Chapter310_toc">X<br /> -<span class="chap_title">PASSOVER</span></a></h4> - -<p class="noindent">I<small>T</small> was many days before Mendel could take up his work -again. His mind simply could not express itself in paint.</p> - -<p>His first clear thought as he emerged from the numbness of the crisis was for Morrison, -and to her he wrote, telling her what had happened, describing in minute detail his -experience in the hospital, and adding that he was without the least wish to see her, and -would write to her if his life ever became again what it had been before Logan’s violent -end.</p> - -<p>It seemed to him that Logan had claimed him, that he was destined to go through life -with Logan, a dead man, for sole companion, and always behind Logan was the ominous and -dreadful shadow of Oliver, from whom he had thought to escape those many months ago.</p> - -<p>His isolation was complete. It seemed that he had not a friend in the world, and there -was not a soul towards whom he could move or wished to move. He could only rake over the -ashes of the dead past and marvel that there had ever been a flame stirring in them. And -as he raked them, he thrust into them much that only a short while ago had been living and -delightful.</p> - -<p>What had happened? Youth could not be gone while he was yet so young, but he felt -immeasurably old, and, in his worst condition, outside Time, which took shape as a stream -flowing past him, bearing with it all his dreams, loves, aspirations,<span -class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-416">[Pg 416]</a></span> hopes, thoughts. When -he tried to cast himself into it, to rescue these treasured possessions, he was clutched -back, thrown down, and left prostrate with his eyes darkened and the smell of death in his -nostrils.</p> - -<p>Sometimes he thought with terror that he had plunged too far, had given too much to -Logan, had committed some obscure blasphemy, had been perhaps “overseen” even in that -moment when the weakness and all that was dead in him had been wrenched away. And he said -to himself:—</p> - -<p>“No. This is much worse than death. It is foolish to seek any meaning in death, for -death is not the worst.”</p> - -<p>It was no good turning to his people, for he knew that he was cut off from them. They -were confined in their Judaism, from which he had broken free. That was one of the dead -things which had been taken from him.</p> - -<p>His mother could not help him, because she could not endure his unhappiness. The pain -of it was too great for her, and he had to invent a spurious happiness, to pretend that he -was working as usual, though with great difficulty, and that, as usual, he was out and -about, seeing his friends. And in a way this pretence gave him relief, though he suffered -for it afterwards. He suffered so cruelly that he was forced by it into making an effort -to grope back into life.</p> - -<p>He was able to take up his work again, and the exercise of his craft soothed him, -though it gave him no escape. The conception of his market picture was dead. It was -enclosed in Judaism, from which he was free. Yet he had no other conception in his mind, -and he knew that any picture he might paint must spring from it. So he clung to the dead -conception and made studies and drawings for its execution.</p> - -<p>Some of these drawings he was able to sell to Tysoe, who worried him by coming to talk -about<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-417">[Pg 417]</a></span> Logan and -was nearly always ashamed to leave the studio without buying. Mendel was saved from -borrowing of his people, which had become repugnant to him now that he no longer belonged -to them.</p> - -<p>It was through Tysoe’s talk that he was able to push his way through the tragedy of -Logan and Oliver back to life. Tysoe insisted that the cause of it was jealousy, but -Mendel knew that Logan was beyond jealousy, and, piecing the story together, he saw how -Oliver had set herself to smash their friendship because it fortified in her lover what -she detested, his intellect, which, because she could not satisfy it, stood between him -and his passion for her. If anyone was responsible it was she, for she had tried to smash -a spiritual thing and had herself been smashed. . . . And Mendel saw that had he -tried to smash the relationship between Logan and Oliver he too would have been broken, -for that also was a spiritual thing, though an evil. And he saw that, but for Morrison, he -must have tried to smash it. His obligation to her had given him the strength to resist, -to make his escape. Oliver had triumphed, evil had triumphed, and she and Logan were dead -and he had to grope his way back to life, and if he could not succeed in doing that, then -she and evil would have triumphed indeed, and what was left of him would have to follow -the dead that had gone with Logan.</p> - -<p>He sought the society of his father and of the old Jews, the friends of the family, and -was left marvelling at their indifference to good and evil. They knew neither joy nor -despair. They had yielded up their will to God, upon Whom, through fair weather and foul, -their thoughts were centred. They lived in a complete stagnation which made him shudder. -Their lives were like stale water, like unmoved puddles, from which every now and then -their passions broke in bubbles, broke vainly,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-418">[Pg 418]</a></span> in bubbles. Nothing brought them any nearer to the God -upon Whom their thoughts were centred, and only Time brought them any nearer to the -earth.</p> - -<p>And yet Mendel loved them in their simple dignity. They had a quality which he had -found nowhere in the Christian world, where men and women had their thoughts centred on -the good, leaving evil to triumph as it had triumphed in Oliver. . . . She had -wanted good. With all the power of her insensate passion, her blind sensuality, she had -wanted love, the highest good she could conceive. . . . But these old Jews were -wiser: they wanted God, Whom they knew not how to attain. Yet God was ever present to -them.</p> - -<p>In Mendel, too, this desire for God became active and kindled his creative will. He -plunged into his work with a frenzy, but soon recognized that he was committing the old -offence and was “overseen.” . . . Yet how shall a man approach his God if not -through art?</p> - -<p>“Something is lacking!” cried Mendel desperately. “Something is lacking!”</p> - -<p>His imagination flew back to that last sublime moment of friendship with Logan, but it -lacked warmth. It seemed that he could not take it back into life with him, or that until -he had established contact with life its force could not be kindled. . . . Oh! -for sweet, comfortable things—flowers, and rare music, a white, gleaming tablecloth, and -good meats!</p> - -<p>He thought, with envy, of Edward Tufnell and his wife going along the road on either -side smiling at each other, so happily smiling. And then he thought with more satisfaction -of the old Jews. They were the wiser and the more solid. They walked in the middle of the -way, and good and evil went on either side and neither could attain them. . . . -His thoughts swung between<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-419">[Pg -419]</a></span> those two extremes like a pendulum, and out of the momentum thus created -grew a force in his mind which began to find its way towards the God he was seeking. But -it was only in his mind. His force, his passion, were left slumbering in the hypnotic -sleep imposed on them by the tragedy.</p> - -<p>Yet the mental impulse kept him working in a serene ecstasy. He could make the design -for his picture, and simplify his figures into a form in which he knew there was some -beauty, or at least that it could hold beauty and let no drop of it escape.</p> - -<p>He could return then to his normal life, and made Golda very happy by joking with her -and spending many evenings in her kitchen.</p> - -<p>“You should take a holiday,” she said. “You look tired out.”</p> - -<p>“I will,” he said, “when the spring comes. I am going to be an artist, but I am afraid -it will not mean carriages and horses and the King commanding his portrait to be -painted.”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>He had the very great joy of beginning to understand Cézanne’s delight in the -intellectual craft of painting and to see why he had neglected the easier delights of -handicraft and the mere pleasure of the eye. But the more he understood, the harder it -became to finish his picture. He slaved at it, but there was still no beauty in it.</p> - -<p>He would not surrender. It would have been so easy to slip back to fake a pictorial -quality. He had only to go to the National Gallery to come out with his head buzzing with -ideas and impressions. He had only to go into the street to have a thousand mental notes -from which to give his work a human and dramatic quality.</p> - -<p>He stuck to it and slaved away until he was forced to give in.</p> - -<p>“You devil!” he said, as he shook his fist at the picture. “You empty jug!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-420">[Pg 420]</a></span></p> - -<p>But there was some satisfaction in it, unfinished failure as it was, and he wanted -Morrison to see it.</p> - -<p>He wrote and asked her to come.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>She and Clowes were in the country, painting, and they wired to him to come and stay -with them for a week. Clowes wrote to tell him that she could put him up in the farm of -which her cottage was a part.</p> - -<p>With her letter he went racing over to see his mother.</p> - -<p>“I’m going away,” he said, “I’m going away to the country. The Christian girl has a -house in the country and I am going to stay in it.”</p> - -<p>“You will have fresh air and new milk to make you well again,” cried Golda, scarcely -able to contain her joy at seeing him once more his happy, elated, robustious self. “You -will be well again, but you should have done with that nonsense about the Christian girl. -A sparrow does not mate with a robin, and a cock robin is what you are.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. I’m a robin,” said Mendel, and he whistled blithely, “Tit-a-weet! tit-a-weet! -tit-a-weet! I shall go on the halls as a whistler. Tit-a-weet! and I shall make three -hundred pounds a week. Tit-a-weet! tit-a-weet!”</p> - -<p>Golda laughed at him till the tears ran, so happy was she to have him come back to -her.</p> - -<p>“It is not nonsense about the Christian girl,” he said. “She is going to turn me into a -Public School gentleman, and I shall bring her to see you, so that you can know for -yourself that it is not nonsense.”</p> - -<p>“It is not the girl who is nonsensical, but you.”</p> - -<p>“Tit-a-weet!”</p> - -<p>“I will bake her a Jewish bread and you shall take it to her. Yes. Bring her to me and -I will thank her for bearing with you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-421">[Pg 421]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Tit-a-weet! Tit-a-weet!”</p> - -<p>“Cock robin!”</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>His luggage consisted of a brown-paper parcel, a paint-box and two canvases.</p> - -<p>Morrison met him at the station. She was glowing with health and good spirits and began -to tease him at once about his luggage, of which she insisted on taking charge.</p> - -<p>“It’s the loveliest little cottage!” she said; “only two rooms. . . . I hope -you don’t mind walking along the road. There is another way through the fields, but I -daren’t try to find it; besides, it goes through the woods, and I don’t want you to see -any woods before you have been to mine. I don’t believe there’ll be room for you in the -cottage. You’ll have to sit in the garden and have your meals handed out to you, among the -chickens and the pigs.”</p> - -<p>“Pigs?” said Mendel, “I want to draw pigs. Marvellous animals!”</p> - -<p>“These are the most marvellous pigs that ever were.”</p> - -<p>So they chattered in a growing glee as they walked along the winding road up into the -hills. They were unwilling to let their deep thoughts emerge until they had been caught up -in the beauty of the place, the serene lines of the comfortable folding hills, the -farmsteads tucked in the hollows, the rich velvet plough-lands, the blue masses of woods, -the gorse-grown common, and the single sentinels the trees, and the hedges where the birds -sang and twittered, Tit-a-weet! tit-a-weet! . . . And over the hills hung the -wide sky, vast and open, with great clouds that seemed to be drawn from the edge of the -earth and sent floating up and up to show how limitless was the space above the earth.</p> - -<p>For the first time Mendel had no sting of anger at the exhilaration in the English -girl, no desire<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-422">[Pg 422]</a></span> -to pluck her out from the surroundings of the lovely English country in which it seemed to -be her desire to lose herself. She was one with the rich fields and the mighty trees and -the singing birds in the hedges, and when his heart sang Tit-a-weet, he knew it for a -comic Cockney note. It was he who was at fault, not she, and she was the very comfort he -had come to seek.</p> - -<p>The farmer’s wife received him with a kindly pity—the poor, pale London foreigner—and -told him he must have plenty of good plain country food, plenty of milk, plenty of fresh -air.</p> - -<p>“I do the cooking for Miss Clowes,” she said, “and if you’ll excuse my saying so, the -young ladies take a deal of tempting.”</p> - -<p>Mendel thought her a wonderful woman, his room a wonderful room, the cottage a -wonderful cottage, and the place the finest in the world. The air was rare and buoyant and -he had never felt so free and so strong. His life in London looked to him like a bubble -which he could break with a touch or with a puff of his breath. But he was reluctant to -break it yet, for the time had not come.</p> - -<p>The girls showed him their work and he praised it, and began to talk of his own -picture. Clowes led him on to explain what she called the modern movement, which she could -not pretend to understand.</p> - -<p>Conversation that first evening was all between Clowes and Mendel, while Morrison sat -silent, curled up on the floor by the fire, gazing into it, sometimes listening, sometimes -dreaming, sometimes shaking with a happy dread as she thought how near she was to her -heart’s desire. It had been for so long her central thought that she would take him down -to the country and get him away from the terrible pressure of London upon his spirit, so -that she could see released in him, perhaps slowly, perhaps painfully, what she -loved—the<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-423">[Pg 423]</a></span> vivid, -clear vitality. And now she had won. She had him sitting there within reach, with good, -faithful Clowes, and already she could feel the new glow of health in him. Almost she -could detect a new tone in his lovely rich voice. . . . Sometimes, as she gazed -into the fire, her eyes were clouded with tears. It seemed so incredible that she could -have won against the innumerable enemies, invisible and intangible, against whom action -had been impossible, even if she had known what to do.</p> - -<p>She had been happy enough with Clowes in this place, but now she could not help a -wickedly ungrateful desire that Clowes should be spirited away.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>Clowes absented herself in the day-time, but Mendel had very little energy, and for the -most part of the day sat by the fire brooding over the bubble of his London life, which he -knew he must break with a touch. Often Morrison sat with him, and neither spoke a word for -hours together.</p> - -<p>On the fifth day, when the sun shone so that it was wicked to be indoors, Morrison -suggested lunch in the woods. Clowes excused herself, but Mendel agreed to go with her, -and the farmer’s wife packed them a basket of food. They set out gaily, over the common, -up the rolling field green with winter corn, down through the jolly farm-yard full of -gobbling turkeys and strutting guinea-fowl, under the wild cherry-trees to the woods, -where in a clearing they made a fire, and Morrison, declaring that she was a gipsy, sang -the only song she could remember, “God Save the King,” and told his fortune by his hand. -He was to meet a dark woman who would make a great change in his life, and money would -come his way, but he must beware of the Knave of Clubs.</p> - -<p>Entering into her mood, he insisted that they must act a Wild West cinema drama, and -he<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-424">[Pg 424]</a></span> rescued her -from Indians and a Dago ravisher, and in the end claimed her hand from a grateful father; -and so hilarious did they become that the cinema drama turned into an opera, and he was -Caruso to her Melba. In the end they laughed until they were exhausted, and decided that -it was time for lunch.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>After they had eaten they were silent for a long time, and at last, rather to her -surprise, she found herself beginning to explain to him that this was love, this the -heaven at which she had been aiming, the full song whereof they had played the first few -notes as boy and girl at the picnic and again in the dewy grass on the Heath. And she told -him quite simply that she had loved him always, from the time when they had met on the -stairs at the Detmold, and even before that, though she could not remember clearly. And -she told him that love dwelt in the woods and the hedgerows, in the sweet air and the song -of the birds, not only in the springtime but in the harsh winter weather and in the summer -heat of the sun. . . .</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mendel,” she said, “I have been wanting you to know, but it seemed that you would -never know while you looked for love in the heat and the dust of London.”</p> - -<p>And he as simply believed her. It was lovely there in the woods, among the tall -grey-green pillars of the trees, with the pale yellow sunlight falling on the emerald of -the moss and the russet of the dead bracken, and the brilliant enamel of the blackberry -leaves. He was overcome with his exquisite delight, and she, to comfort him, held him in -her arms, her weary shaggy faun, so bitterly conscious of his own ugliness. She soothed -him and caressed him, and won him over to her own serene joy, which passed from her to him -in wave upon wave of flooding warmth,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" -id="page-425">[Pg 425]</a></span> melting the last coldness in his soul, healing the last -wounds upon his spirit.</p> - -<p>He roused himself, flung up his head, and began to whistle:—</p> - -<p>“Tit-a-weet!”</p> - -<p>And he looked so comical that she laughed.</p> - -<p>“That isn’t anything like a bird,” she said.</p> - -<p>“It is. It is very like cock robin.”</p> - -<p>To their mutual amazement it seemed entirely unnecessary to discuss the future or the -past, and the present demanded only happy silence. Here in the enchantment of the woods -was love, and it was enough.</p> - -<p>While they stayed in the woods they hardly talked at all, but as they walked home he -became solemn and said, as though it pained and puzzled him:—</p> - -<p>“We are no longer young.”</p> - -<p>“We shall never be anything else,” she protested, for she was pained by the change in -his mood.</p> - -<p>“Youth passes,” he said.</p> - -<p>And her exhilaration died in her, for she knew she had touched his obstinacy. He saw -her droop and was sorry, and began to whistle and to laugh, but she could not be revived. -She had thought to have secured him, to have made him safe with the charm of love for -ever, but she was sure now that the hardest of all was yet to come.</p> - -<p>In the evening, as they sat by the fire in the little white room, Mendel and Clowes -talking and Morrison curled up on the floor gazing into the coals, he suddenly ceased to -hear Clowes’ voice, and saw very clearly the bubble of his life in London before him—Mr. -Kuit, Issy, Hetty Finch, Mitchell, Logan and Oliver—Logan and Oliver leaving the Merlin’s -Cave and going out into the street and walking home to the Pot-au-Feu, up the narrow, dark -stairs to Hetty Finch’s room.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-426">[Pg -426]</a></span> . . . He put out his hand to touch the bubble and it broke, and -with a shuddering, gasping cry he heard Clowes saying:—</p> - -<p>“On the whole I don’t think all this modern stuff can be good for anything but -decoration.”</p> - -<p>And he began to think of his own picture, which was full of life. Wherever he picked up -the design he could follow it all round the picture, and through and through it, beyond it -into the mystery of art, and out of it back into life. It was poised, a wonderful, lovely -created thing, with a complete, unaccountable, serene life of its own. The harsh, gloomy -background of London fell away, and in its place shone green hills and a clear blue sky, -fleecy with mauve-grey clouds. . . .</p> - -<p>Following the clouds, he came easily back to life again, to the two girls sitting in -this wonderful snug cottage, and he was overwhelmed by a feeling that he was sharing their -comfortable happiness on false pretences. It was not to him the perfectly satisfying -wonder they so obviously wished it to be for him, and at last he could not contain -himself, and burst out:—</p> - -<p>“You must not expect me to be happy. I cannot be happy. I will swing up to it as high -as ever you like, but I must swing back again. Happiness is not life, love is not life, -any more than misery is life. If I stay in happiness I die as surely as if I stay in -misery. I must be like a pendulum. I must swing to and fro or the clock will stop. -. . . I can’t make it clear to you, but it is so. What matters is that the clock -should go. Jews understand, but they forget that they are the pendulum and they do not -live at all. Jews are wonderful people. They know that what matters is the impulse of the -soul. It matters so much to them that they have forgotten everything else. And those who -are not<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-427">[Pg 427]</a></span> Jews -think of everything else and forget the impulse of the soul. But I know that when I swing -from happiness to unhappiness, from good to bad, from light to dark, then a force comes -into my soul and it can move up to art, and beyond art, into that place where it can be -free. . . . Don’t, please, misunderstand me.” He addressed himself frankly to -Morrison, who dropped her head a little lower. “In love I can no more be free than I can -in misery. I will swing as high on one side as I will on the other, and then I can be -free.”</p> - -<p>Morrison folded her hands in her lap and her hair fell over her face. Mendel got up, -said good-night, and went over to the farm.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Clowes uneasily, “I really think he must be a genius.”</p> - -<p>Morrison made no reply, and presently Clowes went upstairs to bed, leaving her with her -hair drooping over her face, staring into the glowing fire.</p> - -<p>“I must learn my lesson,” said Morrison to herself. “I must learn my lesson.”</p> - -<p>She was so little trained for misery, but this was misery enough. But she sat and -brooded over it, and summoned up all her strength for the supreme effort of her will, not -to be broken and cast down in the swing back from love. She had taught him to surrender -himself to love; she must learn to surrender herself to misery, to swing as high on one -side as on the other.</p> - -<p>For many, many hours she wrestled with herself and broke down fear after fear, weakness -after weakness, until she was utterly exposed to the enemies of love and knew that she -could be with Mendel through everything. She took out from her paint-box his letter -describing the scene in the hospital, which had shocked and horrified her before, and now -read and re-read it until she<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-428">[Pg -428]</a></span> had lived through all the story and could understand both Logan and -Oliver.</p> - -<p>At last, when she could endure no more, relief came, a new vision of love, no longer -lost in the woods or in any earthly beauty, but a clear light illuminating men and women -and the earth upon which they dwell. And in her soul, too, the upward impulse began to -thrill, and with a sob of thankfulness she lay on her bed fully clothed and went to -sleep.</p> - -<p class="transition"> </p> - -<p>She was not at all disturbed when Mendel said in the morning that he must go back to -London to work on his picture. It was right. Their happiness was too tremulous. There was -plenty of time for them to take up their ordinary jolly human lives, plenty of time now -that they were no longer young.</p> - -<p>She walked with him to the station, and on the way they laughed and sang, and he -whistled and talked breathlessly about his picture.</p> - -<p>“My mother says a cock robin can never mate with a sparrow,” he said. “I promised I -would take you to see her.”</p> - -<p>“I should love to come, for I love your mother.”</p> - -<p>“I would like you to see the Jews as they are,” he said, “so simply serving God that -their souls have gone to sleep.”</p> - -<p>As they stood on the platform she said:—</p> - -<p>“Mendel, I did . . . begin to understand last night, and it has made you and -your work more important than anything else in my life.”</p> - -<p>He gripped her fiercely by the arm.</p> - -<p>“Come to London, now,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Not now.”</p> - -<p>“Soon.”</p> - -<p>“Very soon.”</p> - -<p>He got into the train, and as it carried him off she could not bear him to go, and, -forgetting all<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-429">[Pg 429]</a></span> -the other people, she ran as hard as she could along the platform, and stood at its -extremity until the train disappeared round the corner of the embankment, and even then -she called after him:—</p> - -<p>“Mendel! Mendel!”</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter tnote"> -<h3 class="tnote" id="tnote">Transcriber’s Note</h3> - -<p>This transcription is based on the British edition published by T. Fisher Unwin in -1916. Scans of this edition are available through the Hathi Trust Digital Library at:</p> - -<p class="link"><a -href="http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100597585"> -catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100597585</a></p> - -<p class="noindent">As an additional resource, the American edition published by George H. -Doran in 1916 was also used. Scans of this edition are posted by the Internet Archive -at:</p> - -<p class="link"><a -href="https://archive.org/details/mendelstoryofyou00canniala"> -archive.org/details/mendelstoryofyou00canniala</a></p> - -<p>The right margins of several page scans of the Unwin edition available through the -Hathi Trust were cut off, so the Doran edition was used to correct for the missing text. -No attempt was made to list all these corrections.</p> - -<p>The following changes to the text were noted:</p> - -<ul> -<li>Cover: The cover image is from the Doran edition.</li> - -<li>p. 20: what you want, that you shall have. . .—Added an additional period at -the end of the sentence in keeping with the Doran edition.</li> - -<li>p. 20: “These children have only to go out into London and all will be given to -them,”—Changed the comma to a period.</li> - -<li>p. 42: their voices seemed to him to come from very far away, The unheaval had stunned -him, had destroyed his volition and paralysed his dreams.—Changed the comma after “away” -to a period and “unheaval” to “upheaval” in keeping with the Doran edition.</li> - -<li>p. 48: “That’ll do. That’ll do,” said Moscowitch.—Changed “Moscowitch” to -“Moscowitsch” for consistency.</li> - -<li>p. 84: “No,” said the Professor.” I don’t know what that is. It certainly isn’t -drawing.”—Changed the closing quotation mark after “Professor” to an opening quotation -mark before “I”.</li> - -<li>p. 84: and he says: “I mean to say, that isn’t drawing.—Changed the opening double -quotation mark to an opening single quotation mark.</li> - -<li>p. 116: You may renember her—glorious chestnut hair, big blue eyes, but as shy as a -little mouse.—Changed “renember” to “remember”.</li> - -<li>p. 139: And then when I get home and it is just a house and I am just a girl living it -it—Changed the first “it” after “living” to “in”.</li> - -<li>p. 158: hair brushed back from a round, well shaped brow.—Inserted a hyphen between -“well” and “shaped”.</li> - -<li>p. 184: as they went through their Public Schools and were more and compressed into -type—Inserted the word “more” between “and” and “compressed” in keeping with the Doran -edition.</li> - -<li>p. 189: “But he cares for poetry and the Bible and he loves -pictures. . .”—Added an additional period at the end of the sentence in keeping -with the Doran edition.</li> - -<li>p. 216: finding some dam fool to take you to a music-hall—For consistency and in -keeping with the Doran edition, changed “dam” to “damn”.</li> - -<li>p. 217: When you’re starving you don’t want chocolates. . .—Added an -additional period at the end of the sentence in keeping with the Doran edition.</li> - -<li>p. 234: He says its something deeper—Changed “its” to “it’s”.</li> - -<li>p. 245: No, no, no! . . . .—Deleted the fourth period in keeping with the -Doran edition.</li> - -<li>p. 266: “What has happened?” Does he knock her about?”—Deleted the closing quotation -mark after “happened?”</li> - -<li>p. 271: “That is all very well while you are young ” said Logan—Inserted a comma -between “young” and the closing quotation mark.</li> - -<li>p. 290: the furniture was old and exquisite. . .—Added an additional period -at the end of the sentence in keeping with the Doran edition.</li> - -<li>p. 297: and through that love his passion for art—Added a period at the end of the -sentence.</li> - -<li>p. 298: Cluny.”—Inserted an opening double quotation mark at the beginning of the -sentence.</li> - -<li>p. 316: “O God! O God! O God!’—Changed the closing single quotation mark to a closing -double quotation mark.</li> - -<li>p. 341: You said you were’nt going to dance.—Changed “were’nt” to “weren’t”.</li> - -<li>p. 344: “Yes You are very honest—Added a period after “Yes”.</li> - -<li>p. 351: “You can’t stop it,” said Logan—Added a period at the end of the -sentence.</li> - -<li>p. 358: “If it was my house, I would kick them out.’—Changed the closing single -quotation mark to a closing double quotation mark.</li> - -<li>p. 380: “What do you want, then?—Added a closing double quotation mark at the end of -the sentence.</li> - -<li>p. 397: “Then it’s a sketch and not a picture.’—Changed the closing single quotation -mark to a closing double quotation mark.</li> - -<li>p. 414: clouds heaped up by the driving wind—beautiful, beautiful. . .—Added -a fourth period at the end of the sentence.</li> -</ul> - -<p class="noindent">In the original text, section breaks within a chapter are indicated -with space between paragraphs. This convention has been retained in the html-based files. -For clarity, section breaks in the text file are indicated with a row of asterisks.</p> -</div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mendel, by Gilbert Cannan - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MENDEL *** - -***** This file should be named 54931-h.htm or 54931-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/9/3/54931/ - -Produced by Paul Haxo with special thanks to the University -of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Hathi Trust Digital -Library, the University of California, and the Internet -Archive. - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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