PART III
THE STRAPHANGER
I
He was not far from the end of the row, and in reaching him I had not todisturb more than three or four people. Though it is inadequate, I havedecided that the single word that best expresses the way in which hespoke is the word "careful." He spoke slowly, and, it seemed to me, withextreme care.
"Interesting idea that last, isn't it? Restful. Things go at such adeuce of a rate nowadays that it's a comfort to see anything slow. Well,how are you, George? I haven't seen you for--some little time."
It was precisely three weeks since he had last seen me, and I noted thatslight, that very slight hesitation before his last words.
"Do you often come here? I--I rather keep away from these places myself;they put everything through much too quickly; but I rather like this onebecause of the organ. Of course they only play 'effects'--'Ora ProNobis' and the 'Wedding March'--but there's something about anorgan.... I say, George," he said a little uncomfortably, "I've a sortof feeling I owe you an apology."
"Well, this is hardly the place for it. We can't talk here. If you'veseen all you want suppose we go outside?"
The thing I wanted first of all was to have a good look at him. AlreadyI could see that he no longer had a beard. But my surreptitious glanceat him as we passed out into the lighted vestibule and past thebox-office told me little. On the pavement of Shaftesbury Avenue heslipped his arm into mine.
"Yes, I fancy I talked an awful lot of rubbish that night--bit of an assof myself--you remember----"
I did not reply. The important thing was, not whether I remembered, butwhether his memory was all that it should have been, for he wasforgetting something even as he spoke. He remembered that other night,he had remembered my name; but if he remembered that he had rooms andbelongings in Cambridge Circus he was very deliberately turning downShaftesbury Avenue instead of up it. But I went where he led me. I wasresolved, however, that the moment his arm left mine, mine should gointo his. I was not going to let him disappear again.
The typical Soho mixture thronged the pavements: Hebrew physiognomies,Italian, Greek; dark chins, bold eyes, bold noses; rings and scarfpins,fancy socks, the double-heeled silk stockings of women. As I could notvery well scrutinise his face at that short range I did the next bestthing; I watched the faces that advanced towards us. As if he had been apretty woman, so heads turned as he passed. They turned as they turn forBilly Wells. It was not so much his size and proportions as his wholepersonal aura. He stood out among all that flashy cosmopolitanism as ifa special and inherent light attended him.
"Which way are we going? Where do you live?" I suddenly asked him. Itwas not the question I was burning to ask him. That question was,"_When_ do you live?" I felt the slight movement of the muscles underhis sleeve, but he answered steadily enough--carefully enough.
"Oh, I've been rather lucky about that," he said. "I happened to be inthe wine-bar of an hotel in Gloucester Road one night, and I got talkingto a fellow. I fancied I'd come across him somewhere in France--as amatter of fact I had, though he didn't remember me. Anyway, we'd startedtalking, and we went on. Rather an amusing crowd there, George. If Iwere asked to put in one word the basic domestic factor of their lives,do you know what it would be? A pint of methylated spirits. They don'tpay half a crown for it at the chemist's; they pay one-and-twopence atthe oilshop. To boil their kettles, of course. They all fought, they'reall gentlemen, and they're all doing damn-all to make a living. So theytake garrets and rooms over garages, and cook their breakfasts withmethylated spirits. This fellow was called Trenchard. Got all messed upat the Brick Stacks, La Bassee way. He had to go out of town for amonth, and said I could have his place for the bare rent, twenty-fivebob a week, and the use of his furniture for nothing. So that's where Iam. This way----"
We turned into Leicester Square Tube Station.
In the train I sat opposite to him; and, now that he had taken his beardoff, I couldn't see that he had changed very remarkably in outwardappearance after all. Nevertheless I distrusted my own impression. Iknew that I was full of pre-conceptions about him, knew too much of hisastonishing case to observe impartially and reliably. There are somethings--some scents for example--that you have to make up your mindimmediately about or else to remain in indecision. The longer you delaythe less sure you become. So I found it with his face in theelectric-lighted Tube. It was, of course, astoundingly young for a manin the middle forties; but call him thirty-five and much of the wonderdisappeared. The most that a casual acquaintance would have been likelyto remark was, "How the deuce does Rose manage to keep soextraordinarily young-looking?" True, his friend Trenchard had failed torecognise the man with whom he had fought at La Bassee, but that meantlittle. There were millions of men in France, each the spit of the restfor mud and momentariness of acquaintance. To-day, by mere associationof times and places and battles, these men are in fact resumingacquaintances they have no recollection of ever having begun. "Oh, I'vea rotten memory for faces--seen So-and-so lately? And I say, do you knowanybody who wants to take a quiet place for a month?" That, no doubt,had been the substance of that conversation in the Gloucester Roadwine-bar.... And there was another thing of which I shall have more tosay by and by. I began to suspect that whatever strange element inDerwent Rose had brought him to this pass, that element reacted on thoseof us who knew his secret. He probably became less extraordinary in oureyes as contemplation of him made us not quite ordinary ourselves.Julia Oliphant (it seemed to me) he had already influenced, constrained,isolated. We were getting used to him. But I shall return to this.
In the meantime I was considerably cheered. He remembered that othernight; he wanted to apologise for the lunacy of it; he had given aperfectly coherent account of his present whereabouts and how he came tobe there, and his summing-up of the fellows whose basic domestic factorwas a pint of methylated spirits had given me a clear andstraightforward picture. As for the rest--why he had left CambridgeCircus, what it was that he found restful in those slowed-down films,and especially the measured carefulness of his speech--for the presentthese things could wait.
We left Gloucester Road Station, turned up towards Princes Gate, andthen crossed the road and entered a dark gardened Square. Three minutesfurther walking brought us to a high stone archway with a heavily carvedand moulded entablature, beneath which a cobbled way sloped slightlydown into a mews. To right and left were garage-doors, some closed,others open and flinging shafts of orange light across the way.Somewhere an engine was being allowed to "race"; somewhere else a hosewas being turned on to the body of a car. High over the roofs of themews, as if suspended at random in the sky, the oblongs of light of theSouth Kensington backs showed. One unshaded incandescent burned on a toplanding like a star.
"Let me go first; I've got a torch," said Derry, stopping at a narrowside-door next to where the car was being washed. "You'll find the ropeon the right."
The moon of his electric torch shone on the broad treads of asteep-pitched ladder that rose to a loft above. Up one side of it ran ahand-rope. He preceded me, and on the upper landing lighted a wire-cagedgas-jet. Then I followed him into Trenchard's abode.
He had described the place admirably well when he had spoken of themethylated spirits, adding that Trenchard was a gentleman. A few piecesof furniture--notably a tall walnut hanging-cupboard and a handsomelacquered cabinet--were evidently family possessions; the rest--hiscretonne curtains, floor-mats, the blue-and-white check tablecloth onthe thick-legged Victorian table and the glimpse into hiskitchen--probably represented the greater part of his gratuity-money.Every ledge and angle and cheap bracket was crowded with photographs,and there were trees in his long row of boots. His central incandescentmantle was unshaded. Two deep basket chairs stood one on either side ofwhere the hearth should have been. The portable oil-burning stove wastucked away in a corner.
"You soon get used to the noises," said Rose with a downward nod of hishead. "I scarcely hear 'em now.--Lemonade? It's bottled, but not bad;t
astes of lemons anyway. There's a siphon behind you there."
He put me into one of the basket chairs and himself took the other.Then, without the least warning, but still with that marked effort atsteadiness and care, he said:
"Well, what price the world-political state, George? Not home-politics,but the whole thing--democracy--civilisation if you like----"
If he had asked me what I thought of the theory of relativity I shouldhave been readier with an answer. As it was I looked askance at him andasked him what made him so suddenly ask me that.
"Oh, same old reason," he replied. "I expect it's a subject I shall haveto tackle. In a book. I wonder if it's too big! It pulls me enormously.I don't know whether we're in for a general smash-up or not. SometimesI've the feeling we are."
Something within me, I don't know what, warned me that here it might bewell to be as careful as he. The safest thing to do appeared to be tolet him run on, and I did so.
"Yes," he continued, his fine smooth brow gathered in thought, "I knowit's enormous; perhaps too staggering altogether for one man. But do youknow," he laughed a little as if at himself, "I wonder whether it _is_so enormous after all! There might be quite a simple idea underlying it,I mean. What's more enormous than human nature? Yet every wretchedlittle novelist tackles that every time he writes a book. It all dependson how much you see in a thing. I'm not so sure that I wouldn't as soontackle one day of the whole world's life as one single hour of a humanbeing's heart."
I spoke warily. "You haven't tackled it yet?"
He hesitated. "N--o," he said slowly. Then, quickening a little, "Thefact is, George, a job like that would have to be rather speciallyapproached. I mean unless you were at the very top of your form you'd bebound to come a cropper. No good starting a thing till you know yourtools are sharp--in this case your faculties. I'm--I'm sharpening myselfnow, if you know what I mean."
At this point I became incautious. I ceased to listen to the voice thatwarned me too to be careful.
"Well, that's what I want to ask you," I said. "I want to know whatyou're doing here and why you left Cambridge Circus like that."
I was instantly sorry I had said it. Just as wrestlers on a mat lielocked, with little apparent movement, yet in the fiercest intensity ofprolonged strain, so I felt that something struggled in him. I heard itin his voice, I saw it in the boyish grey-blue eyes that sought mine.
"Don't, please, old fellow," he pleaded anxiously. "If you mean the rotI talked that other night, I apologise now once for all. I've beenhoping for months and mon--for a long time, I mean, that I might runacross you. You're so magnificently steady. That other place stoppedbeing steady.... This is the place to write that book. I want to writeit. I've never wanted anything so much. It would be on _Vicarage_ lines,I suppose, but oh--immensely bigger! Freedom, scope! The _Vicarage_ waswell enough in its way, but fussy and niggly and scratchy. I can do thislargely, grandly--I _know_ so much more, you see--and as long as I don'ttake any risks----"
Then, in spite of his own last words, he swung suddenly round, and theyouthful grey-blue eyes were all a-sparkle. They sparkled with daring,as if, though a risk was a risk, there was sometimes prudence in takingit. The wicker of his chair began to creak under the working of hishand.
"One little talk can't make much difference," he muttered. "Do me goodprobably--magnificently steady----" Then he flashed brightly round onme--an artist at the height of his power confronting a stupendous andmagnificent task.
"You see, don't you, George? You see how I'm placed, don't you?" hedemanded.
"Not very clearly."
"Then I'll tell you. I _want_ to write this book. I want to write it asCheops made his Pyramid, as Moses made his Decalogue--to last for ever.If I can't write it no living man can. Why? Because no living mancombines in himself what I combine--the ripest and fullest store ofknowledge and experience and all the irresistible recklessness andbelief of youth at the same time. Here I stand, between the two, and ifI can only stay so I shall write--I shall write--oh, such a book asnever was dreamed of! So I've got to stand still just where I am now. Ihaven't got to budge from thirty-three--that, as nearly as I can tellfrom myself, is the age I am now. You see----"
Uneasily I began to wish myself elsewhere. I knew that I began to beafraid in his presence; it is an eerie thing to hear a man deliberatelyproposing to manipulate his age. The man down below continued to washthe car; I heard the clank of his bucket, the rushing of his hose.
"Thirty-three," he continued, his eyes still glittering with theexcitement of it. "If I can only stay so for six months nothing mattersafter that! God, just for six months!... But it's not so easy as itsounds, George. You've got to be on the watch every moment. As long asyou're moving the thing's simple enough; it's when you try to stop thatit's like trying to stand still on a bicycle. Wait, I'll show you. Pushthat table over. And if you don't mind I'll turn down the gas."
It was not the heavy-legged Victorian table he wanted me to push over,but the one on which our glasses of lemonade stood, a flimsy affair ofbamboo and wicker, hardly more than eighteen inches square. He rose,turned the yellow incandescent down to a glimmer, drew the table upbefore us, and brought the electric torch from his pocket. He began tospeak with very much more volubility, very much less care.
"The line of that table-edge is what I want you to keep your mind on,"he began. "Never mind any other dimension. You'll get the ideapresently. I want you to imagine that edge a scale of years, with thehigher numbers at your end and the lower ones at mine. You're to imaginethat, and then you're to imagine that this lamp's my mind, me, myfaculties, whatever you like to call it. You'll get on to it presently.Now watch."
The torch was not of the stick-pattern, but of the flask type with awider angle. In the middle of the table's edge he made a minute notchwith his nail. A foot or so of the split-bamboo edge was illuminated,with this notch in the middle of it.
"Now," he said. "You see that notch I've made. That's my presentage--thirty-three--dead in the middle of the lighted portion. Now let'sstart. First of all I've got two memories. I've got one in eachdirection. I'm the only man who has. And this part of the edge that thetorch lights up is my total range both ways. Now watch me move thetorch. If I move it your way"--he did so--"I get more of memory 'A' ('A'for Age) and less of memory 'B' ('B' for Boyhood). And if I move it myway"--he moved it his way--"I get less of 'A' and more of 'B.' See?"
I saw. I began to wish I didn't.
"Very well," he went on. "Obviously it's for me to decide where I wantto stop, and then--to do so if I can. And now the bother begins.If--that--scale--could be numbered properly"--he divided the words as Ihave divided them, and I felt cold at the intensity of his emphasis--"ifit could be divided as I want it divided, with thirty-three dead in themiddle--then forty-five would come _here_." He crossed his left handover the one that held the torch, as a pianist picks out a single treblenote, and dug another nick at my end of the illuminated portion. "Now,"he continued, "let's see what the figure would be at my end. Forty-fiveless thirty-three is twelve, and twelve from thirty-three's twenty-one.It would be twenty-one." He registered another notch, this time at hisown end. "But"--swiftly he slid the torch his way--"twenty-one's no goodto me at all. No more good than a sick headache. I've got to be youngerthan that. You see what I've got to do. I've got to combine the twomaximum phases of myself if I'm to write that book. But at the same timeI've got to write it when I _did_ write that kind of thing before. Whatdoes that mean? Where's a bit of paper?"
He set the torch down on the table, where it made a vivid flat parabolaof light, and took an envelope from his pocket. In the semi-darkness hebegan to jot down figures.
"Here you are. Just a few specimen numbers for trial and error. I'massuming that the scale's capable of regular division, which it isn't,for many reasons; but let's take it in its simplest form.
16:33:50--21:33:45--30:33:36
We needn't bother about the last one; I only put it in to show thatthirty-three's got to come
in the middle by hook or by crook. Now do yousee what I'm up against? I _must_ have sixteen at one end, I _must_ haveforty-five at the other, and I _must_ if possible have thirty-three inthe middle, because if I don't write this as I wrote _The Vicarage ofBray_, only infinitely more so, I shan't write it at all. Butthirty-three's a false middle. Thirty's the true middle, and thirty'sperfectly useless to me. I was doing quite other things when I wasthirty before.... But as matters stand, if I'm thirty-three I can onlyremember forty-five and twenty-one. If I'm thirty-three and remembersixteen, which is what I'm after, then ... God knows what would happenat your end; I should have to remember fifty, I suppose, and I've neverbeen fifty to remember. So something's wrong, and I'm trying to fakeit."
"Derry!" I choked. "For the love of God turn up that light!"
"Eh? Certainly. Then I can show you my diagrams. This is all elementarystuff, but I thought it would give you a faint idea of the problem. Nowthe most important factor of all----"
But I didn't want to see the hideous thing in diagram form. It evenadded to my horror that he didn't seem to see it as hideous at all. Hewas perplexed, impatient, angry even, but for the rest he had approachedhis problem as methodically and dispassionately as if he had merely beentaking the reading of his gas-meter. Just so in the past he hadapproached that sufficiently-enormous work, _The Vicarage of Bray_--andin the intervals had taken Julia Oliphant to Chalfont, jumpedfive-barred gates, and had posed for her, stripped to the waist with hersewing-machine held above his head.
He had turned up the gas again, and was hunting in a corner--for hisdiagrams, I supposed. Suddenly I rose, crossed over to him, and put myhand on his shoulder.
"Leave it alone, old man," I said in a shocked voice. "I don't want tosee them. I won't look at them. I'm too afraid. Give that book up now.We aren't meant to write books of that kind. Give it up, clear out ofhere, and let's go away together somewhere."
I don't think I altered his resolution in the least. He merely patted myshoulder, humouring me.
"Oh, we'll start it anyway, George. Once I get fairly going I don't mindtaking a day or two or a week off with you. I always enjoyed stealing afew days when I was busiest. No, the thing's got hold of me, and it willhave to run its course, like measles. I may possibly be able to splitthe difference between thirty and thirty-three. I'm doing my veryutmost."
"How?"
It seemed to me that he became evasive. "Oh--just little dodges----"
"Like watching slowed-down pictures?"
He became still more evasive. "If I hadn't spoken to you to-night you'dnever have seen me, you know," he reproached me.
"I've been looking for you though. And I did see you once."
"Where was that?" he asked quickly.
"In a hansom, in Piccadilly Circus."
He winced. "Don't, George," he begged me.
"And you weren't alone."
"George--I say, George--you see how I'm trying to keep steady. Must youthrow me all over the shop again like this?"
But somehow I was no longer afraid of him. It seemed to me that it mightbe no ill thing to anger him. Anger was at least a more human feelingthan those hideous speculations of his.
"What have you been doing since you left Cambridge Circus?" I demanded.
My plan looked like working. He confronted me.
"And what's that got to do with you?" he said.
"I think I could tell you what you've been doing. Naturally I shan't."
He looked coldly down on me. "No," he said slowly, "I don't think Iwould if I were you.... And if you've seen me, I've seen you too," headded menacingly.
"Before to-night?"
"Yes, before to-night."
"Where was that?"
There was contempt in his tone. "Oh, nowhere discreditable. You're toomagnificently steady for that."
I cannot tell you why we were standing together in one corner of theroom, body to body, with all the rest of the room empty. I only knowthat I was not afraid of him, and that my intention to provoke him wasnow fixed. Quite apart from those inhuman figures and graphs, this bookthat he was contemplating approached--I will risk saying it--theimpious.
"Well, where was it?" I asked again.
His eyes were unwinkingly on mine. "You were coming out of my place, ifyou must know. And I imagine my place is still mine. Since we'refriends, I haven't asked you what you were doing there."
"Then I'll tell you without asking. I've been staying there, on thechance of your coming back for something you'd forgotten. I've got yourkey in my pocket now, and I'm going back there to-night."
He muttered, his eyes now removed from mine. "Damned good guess. I didcome back. But I saw you across the road and turned away again."
"What did you come back for?"
"That Gland book. But I got a copy somewhere else."
"I hope you found it useful."
Then, all in a moment, the thing for which I was longing happened. Hebroke down completely. Instead of a man trying to maintain an insanetight-rope-balance on an indeterminable moment of time, there pitchedagainst me, crushing me against the wall and bringing down a shower ofTrenchard's photographs, a man who could be met on common ground ofnormal experience. His arms were folded over his face. I heard his groanwithin them.
"Lord have mercy upon me!... I oughtn't to have talked--I oughtn't tohave talked ... all unsettled again ... but I _can't_ let sixteen go ...perhaps it won't let me go...."
"For heaven's sake forget that nightmare!"
But he mumbled despairingly on. "Shall have to be thirty ... no way outof it ... why did I let myself talk!... Give us a hand, there's a goodfellow----"
I got him into his chair again. I soothed him. I talked to him as if hehad been a child. I told him he should be whatever age he wished, shouldwrite any kind of book he pleased, should come abroad with me. Then fora minute or so he seemed to go to sleep. I watched him. The sounds ofcar-washing had ceased, up the yard somebody whistled, and I heard avoice call "Good night." Past Trenchard's cretonne curtains that star ofan incandescent on the upper landing went suddenly out. It must havebeen half-past eleven. A more peaceful beauty stole over and possessedhis face.
But he was not asleep. He opened his eyes. He smiled faintly at me.
"Well, George----" he said with a heavy sigh.
Then he told me the history of his past three weeks.
II
Of his past three weeks or his past two or three years, whichever youlike; for it was both. And now that he was in comparative peace I wishedto spare him questions. That illustration with the flash-lamp on thetable's edge had scared me half out of my wits; and if the determinationof "ratios" or what not meant much of that kind of thing, for thepresent we were as well without them.
He had gone back to the point where, returning that afternoon toCambridge Circus to fetch a book, he had seen me coming out of his houseand had turned tail again.
"The Gland book, you said?" I asked. "But I thought you'd decided thatthat road led nowhere."
"So I had," he replied, "but in the meantime I'd seen a doctor."
"Ah! You've seen a doctor? When was that?"
"Not quite a fortnight ago. I'd been in here just two days; I've nowbeen fourteen in all; I've got every day and hour down in my diary; asyou may imagine, I've studied myself with the greatest care and triedall sorts of things by way of experiment. I simply must know how much isexact repetition, and if it isn't where the variations come in, you see.But it all ends the same way. There's always an unaccountable 'x' that'sconstantly shifting, I suppose," he sighed.
"But tell me about the doctor. I thought you'd decided that this wasquite out of their line."
"So I had, and so it is," he replied promptly. "I didn't go to a doctorto ask him to cure me."
"Then why----?"
"Well, I'd several reasons. One was that I'd met this man just oncebefore, and for that reason alone he was part of my investigations. Sofar I'd experimented on people who'd met me twice, or three or fourtimes b
efore. I'm still experimenting, but at present the result seemsto be that the better people know me the less they recognise me, andthose who only knew me slightly take me for granted, I suppose."
"And did this doctor recognise you?"
"Well--there you are. I simply couldn't tell. I waited for him in thefull light of a window; I gave him every chance; but--well, I'd had tosend my name up, and he was expecting me, you see. He simply said 'Howd'you do, Mr Rose' and shook hands. Probably he never looked at me. Heknew that Mr Rose was waiting, and therefore the person who was waitingmust be Mr Rose."
"So that was a wash-out. What else did you want to see him about?"
"Next, I wanted to be thoroughly vetted--as a man of thirty-three, youunderstand. It's all very well looking young, but you want to knowwhether you're really as young inside as you look. So I told him somesort of a yarn about an insurance policy and wanting to be overhauledfor my own satisfaction before going to the company's doctor. So heasked me my age--thirty-three, I said--and ran all over me; and he wasgood enough to say that I was a very fine man and needn't worry aboutnot being passed as a first-class life."
"And then?"
"Then I told him another cock-and-bull story. It was as an author thathe'd met me before, you see, so I told him I was writing some fantasticsort of a book, and wanted one or two medical facts right. I had to gorather carefully here, of course, but I gave him, as nearly as I dared,an outline of what had happened, and asked him what about it."
"And what did he say?"
"He saw nothing very extraordinary in it," said Derwent Rose.
I jumped half out of my chair. "_What!_ What madman was this?"
Then I saw the faint flicker of his smile, and sat down again.
"Quite a distinguished madman, George; incidentally he's a Knight....But I don't want to pull your leg, old fellow. He didn't put it quitethat way. What he actually did say was that the more a man studied thesethings the less he would swear that anything was an impossibility. Andhe's a remarkable man, mind you. I've not much use for the averagedoctor, but this fellow's big enough to use plain English and when hedoesn't know a thing to say so. His knowledge isn't just how to concealhis ignorance. And he might have been a novelist himself from the way heinstantly grasped what I wanted to know."
Not an impossibility!... I couldn't have spoken. I waited enthralled.Derry continued.
"So he began to talk about the ductless glands. Not just the thyroid.Everybody's got thyroid on the brain nowadays, but the thyroid's onlyone of them. There are a dozen others. And then he told me thatpractically nothing was known about them."
As I hadn't the faintest idea what a ductless gland was I continuedsilent.
"'Well, Mr Rose,' he said at last, 'if you want something of that sortto happen to one of your characters I should put him through the War andlet him get a bash over the pineal gland.'
"'Where's that situated?' I asked.
"'Here,' he said."
And Rose tapped the middle of the back of his head with his forefinger.
"'And what would the effect of that be?' I asked; and he laughed.
"'Heaven above knows. You can say whatever you like. It might beanything.'
"'Would it account for actual morphological changes of tissue?' Iasked.
"'I wouldn't say it wouldn't; that would depend on the changes; but Ishould be very pleased to look through those portions of your proofs, MrRose,' he said....
"So that was that. I went straight off to Cambridge Circus to get theBlair-Bell book, but, as I say, I saw you across the road, so I got thebook somewhere else."
"The pineal gland!" I murmured, dazed.
"Yes. One name for it's The Third Eye. Don't ask me to explain it. Butif I understand my doctor-man the idea's something like this: There arethese degenerated organs that man in his present stage of developmenthas outgrown. A lizard's got what they call The Third Eye, and so has alamprey, and lots of creatures. And the whole thing's the wildestnightmare imaginable. Takes you right back to fecund mud and the firstseminal atom. One fellow, I forget his name, has a most hair-raisingtheory. He says that what they call the 'ancestral type' lived in thesea, rolling about like a log I suppose--anyway it doesn't seem to havemattered whether he was upside-down or not. So its back and front wereboth alike. But as time went on it was more often one way up thananother, and the creature began to adapt itself. It grew new eyes whereit found them most convenient and stopped using the old one. Very likelythe old one's the pineal gland. Or words to that effect.... So if you'renow a 'bilaterally symmetrical animal with forward progression,' andyour front's where you back used to be, and anything goes wrong, you'rea sort of Mr Facing-Both-Ways, with two memories like me and all therest of it.... And a whole philosophy's been built up on it. Roughly, aman's spirit and matter interpenetrate throughout every particle of himso that there's no dividing them--everywhere except in one place. Therethey exist independently and side by side. All the mystery of life anddeath's supposed to be located there. And that place is the pinealgland."
Remember, please, that this conversation took place, not in Bedlam, butin South Kensington. We were sitting in a commonplace loft over agarage, on ordinary chairs, with two half-emptied glasses of everydaylemonade before us. A gas-jet in an incandescent mantle hung from theceiling, and in the neighbouring houses average people were beginning tothink of their accustomed beds. They had pineal glands too, and might"get a bash over them," or fall downstairs, or collide with something,or meet with a street accident. Would they, respectable ratepayers ofSouth Kensington, revert to that dim time before the waters were dividedfrom the dry land, when they had rolled about like logs, slumbering andamorphous and unspecialised types, creation's first blind gropingstowards the glory that at present is man? Would they develop an "A"memory and a "B"? Would these "bilaterally symmetrical animals withforward progression" resuscitate that degenerated Third Eye in the backsof their heads and do this Widdershins-Walk back to their beginnings?Rose's friend the doctor had said that nobody knew anything about thesethings. Man was only on the verge of this knowledge. It belonged toto-morrow and the days to come.
And for the first time in my life I found myself wondering whether I didwant to know so very much about those morrows after all.
At last I found my voice. "Then you accept that explanation?" I said.
"No," he replied.
"Thank God for something! Why not?"
"Oh, for various reasons. In the first place I only got it as a sort offiction-stunt, remember. He merely said that nobody could contradictme."
"And in the second place?"
"In the second place, I still think yours is the better explanation--notbiology at all, but simple right and wrong, good and evil. Nothing ofthat kind ever did happen to me in the War that I know of--I never gotany whack over the head--and there's one other thing that seems to me toprove it."
"What's that?"
"That I do know the difference between the better and the worse, andwant the better all the time."
"In other words--God?"
"I think God comes before a gland," he replied.
* * * * *
Quite apart from his extraordinary interview with his doctor, the pastfew weeks had been a series of the commonest everyday incidents mixed upwith sheer impossibilities in the most bewildering fashion. As I stoutlyrefused to see his diagrams and the details of his diary (though I sawthem later), I could only touch the fringe of his experience at thattime. I gathered, however, that in those slowed-down pictures he hadfound a certain relief, as also in some music, particularly organ-music;and he had other alleviations of a similar nature. But I noticed thatobstinately (as it seemed to me) he chose to regard the interval of timesince I had last seen him, not as the three weeks it really was, but asthe fortnight he had spent in that loft over the garage. Of the first ofthe three weeks he spoke not one single word. I need hardly mention thereason. He was looking farther back still. As he had been atthirty-five, so
he had been in the twenties. Those "A" memories, sorecent, were "B" memories too.... But that was a long way off yet.
Yet among so much vagueness and fluctuation one thing was abundantlyclear. He had left behind him the last vestige of the man who hadwritten _An Ape in Hell_. At the very least he was now the man who hadwritten _The Vicarage of Bray_, and not impossibly he was an earlier manstill. And here I had better say a word or two about the _Vicarage_, notas describing the book itself, but as isolating the stage he had reachedand differentiating between his former and his present experiences ofit.
It was, of course, the "Tite Barnacle" portions of the book that hadpleased the public, supposing the public to have been pleased at all.Yet, witty as these were, they were the least essential parts of thework. The book had to be classed as Political, Social, Economic, or somewelding of all three descriptions; and Rose was never the man toapproach a subject of this kind with his mind already made up. Herecognised frankly (for example) that the mere mechanism of a Ministryor a Department is a gigantic thing, the men with the habit of runningit necessarily few, and that to give control to an unpractised handwould be fatal. Thus his book was no mere slap at what it was thefashion some little time ago to call The Old Gang. He refrained from thecommon gibe that the surest qualification for success in one departmentis to have failed in another. Instead, he examined, first the machine,and then the man in charge of it. Between these two an accommodation hasalways to be found. No system of government will prove altogether afailure if it is in the hands of the right men, and equally none willwork if it is in the hands of the wrong ones. So he sought theequilibrium between the two.
Not one reader in a million, laughing over that merciless and iridescentbook that Julia Oliphant said he had written in little more than threemonths, had the faintest idea of the sheer burden of merely intellectualwork that lay behind it. Piece by piece he had dissected the whole ofour national economy before setting pen to paper at all. Bear with mefor a moment if I take one little piece only--Shipping. It will give anidea of the scale, not so much of the _Vicarage_ only as of that farvaster thing--the book he now projected and for the sake of which heclung so desperately to his "false middle" of thirty-three.
Men (he argued) need ships; but, over and above those who actuallyhandle them, ships need men no less. From one standpoint ships exist inorder that men may be carried from one place to another; but from theopposite standpoint a ship is merely a hungry belly that must beconstantly fed with its human food--passengers. Without its meal ofpassengers it cannot live for a week. Thus, the Thing must move the Manfrom one place to another whether he wishes it or not, whether in itselfit is desirable that he should be moved or not. The ships of one nationsnarl at those of another for this sustenance. Where then is thebalance? Where does blind force get the upper hand, and where wisecontrol? What happens if the power is usurped by a "Vicar" who can by nomeans be dislodged?... I need say no more. You see the yawningimmensities of it.
And that was only Shipping. There were a hundred other things. He hadapplied his brilliant intellect to them all in turn, and had (as I maysay) so "orchestrated" the whole that in the result it seemed theeasiest of improvisations.
And now think what his present plan was!
He contemplated, not an analysis of one system, _but a welding ofanalyses of all systems_!
That was why he sought to juggle with his own years--that he mightcombine the enthusiasm of sixteen with the grasp and certainty and powerof forty-five, and at the same time assure the coincidence between hispast and his present impulses to create.
Montesquieu had never dreamed of such a work--Moses' task had beensimpler.
Therefore I saw the position as follows:
He was thirty-three. But thirty-three was a falsemiddle.
He was in a rage to attempt a But the dazzling endeavour might work for which no man had ever elude him at any moment. been equipped as he was equipped.
He would make that python-meal But he might be thirty again of material and produce a before he digested it. super-_Vicarage_.
He was still hanging on, his But he was hanging on as a enthusiasm at its keenest, straphanger hangs on--totteringly, his experience at its richest. insecurely.
Once he had got going he would But not until he got going. take a week off with me, a day with Julia Oliphant.
One thing was clear. He would have to give it up. If necessary he wouldhave to be made to give it up. If I couldn't persuade him, Julia must.But already I saw the cost to him. He was an artist, with a passionateneed to create. He was an artist so highly specialised that the creationof a small thing merely irritated him. But see where he was placed! Soclose to the dreamed splendour that he brushed it with his fingertips,and then perhaps to see it recede, diminish, go out! To be conscious ofthat inordinate power, and to have the agony of knowing that it couldnot last long enough for the task to be completed! To be unique, as hewas unique, and yet to be forced to share the common bitterness andhumiliation and despair!... A few moments ago I risked the word"impious." To my way of thinking it was impiety. If it was not impiety Ido not see why Prometheus was bound.
For what was this monstrous right that Derwent Rose claimed, to put allthe rest of us into the shadow of his own overweening and presumptuousglory? Who was he, to seize on immortality like this? Not satin slipperswith poor little feet inside them that would soon, too soon be dust--notthis was the sin. It was this other that is not forgiven. And man isforbidden to call his brother by the name that fitted Derwent Rose.
Poor Derry! Apparently he could do nothing right. As Julia had said, hiswhole life had been one marvellous mistake after another.
Suddenly I introduced Julia's name.
He had not moved since his last words some minutes ago--that he thoughtGod was more than a gland. The mews outside had come to life again. Carswere returning from suppers and the theatres; the glare of theirheadlights played palely about the upper part of his window-frame. Henow turned his head and smiled.
"Good sort, Julia. But she's forgotten all about me long ago."
"What makes you think that?"
But instead of answering my question he went musingly on. "Funny, that.Dashed funny. I forgot all about Julia when I was making those notes."
"What notes?"
"Why, of the way I strike people. Those who remember me and those whodon't. I remembered that doctor, who'd only seen me once, but Julia,who's known me practically all my life, I go and forget all about. Infact there's only about one other person who's known me as long as Juliahas, and she absolutely failed to recognise me when I spoke to her ayear or so ago."
My nerves became all jangled again. "Derry--_how_ long ago?"
"About a year.... As you were. What am I talking about? Must stick toone scale of time, I suppose. I ought to have said about ten days ago."
"What was all this?" I asked, though I knew well enough; and he becamegrave as he unfolded another aspect of his singular case to me.
"It's difficult to explain to you, George, because you know the wholething--though how you kept your reason when I told you I can't imagine;magnificently steady!... As a matter of fact this other person I meanwas Mrs Bassett; you remember I'd been looking for her. Well, I met herone day and spoke to her"--he coloured a little at the memory of thedetails he suppressed; "and by Jove, it was a lesson to me! A perfectlyhideous risk! I was on the point of telling her who I was when I drewback, just in time. God, how I sweated! I'm cold now when I think she_might_ have recognised me.... Imagine the scene, George; womanscreaming and falling down in a fit in the street because she thinks aghost's spoken to her. And the ghost himself--this ghost"--he tapped hissolid chest--"a ghost marched off between a couple of policemen--if twocould hold me--I don't believe ten could--my strength'simmense--immense----"
"But--but--then haven't you even a _name_ to anybody who sees you morethan once or twice?"
Slowly he shook his head. "Yo
u see. You see as well as I do. It seems tome that to everybody but you I'm simply dead. I can't go about givingpeople fits like that. That was a lesson to me, speaking to DaphneBassett. I'll never do such a thing again.... So that cuts out JuliaOliphant. Pity, because she was a good sort. Always the same to me; justa pal. She used to give me expensive paste-sandwiches for tea when Iknew she couldn't afford it; I used sometimes to stop away on thataccount. That was when she lived in Chelsea. Then I lost sight of herfor a bit, but I've thought a good deal of her lately. I never had asister.... Don't mind my running on like this, old fellow. I've nobodybut you to talk to, nobody at all. Funny sort of situation, isn't it--aghost like me mourning for living people? That's practically what itamounts to."
At something in his tone I interposed abruptly.
"Derry," I said, "you haven't been thinking of putting an end toyourself, have you?"
He stared at me for a moment.
"Eh?" he said. "Why not? Of course I have. One of the first things I didthink of. I've been pretty near it, and if I find I can't write thatbook I shall be near it again. And"--he bent the grey-blue eyes solemnlyon mine--"shall I tell you what _would_ completely settle it? If anybodyshould see that ghost and scream!... I've got a most fearful power,George. A man who can make people scream as I could oughtn't to be atlarge. Ghosts ought to get where they belong--off the map altogether. MyGod, if it slipped out one day when I didn't mean it--just these threewords--'I'm Derwent Rose'----"
Then suddenly his voice shook pitiably. He spread out his hands.
"George, old fellow, you can't imagine what a joy it was to see you atthat place to-night! You haven't realised it yet--you don't know what Iwent through before I plucked up courage to speak to you. You're theonly living creature I used to know that I _can_ know now--the onlyone--the only one on earth. I know them, but I daren't--daren't--letthem know me. It gets very, very, very lonely sometimes----"
Lonely sometimes! My heart ached for him. It seemed to me that thatloneliness was a gulf that all the pity in the universe could not fill.No, I had not realised. I had thought I had, but I hadn't. It now camequite home to me that, while he was free to make a new acquaintance atany moment he pleased, that acquaintance could hardly last longer thanthe moment in which it was made. For say it lasted for three weeks. Atthe end of those three weeks the hand he had taken would be three weeksolder, but his own hand might be a hundred weeks younger. And so it mustgo on: hail--and farewell. He, beyond measure gifted, was denied thisgift. He could not stop by the way to make a single friend. For othersthe calm and gentle progress to age, the greetings among themselves, theaccosting by the loved familiar name; but Derwent Rose had no name.Without a name Daphne Bassett had set a dog on him; what would she haveset on him had he said "I'm Derwent Rose"? Lightning was safer to handlethan that name of his. It might miss--but it might hit, make mad, kill.
Sooner or later, I supposed, I should have to tell him that JuliaOliphant knew as much about his state as I knew myself. I had had noshadow of right to betray him to her thus. But in the meantime he wasresolved that he would not turn that voltage of his identity either onto her or anybody else.
III
In its way, one of the most singular portions of our conversationoccurred when I asked him how he was placed as regards money. After allhe must have money. Even a man who lives his life backwards must eat andhave his boots soled, and pay twenty-five shillings a week for a loftover a garage. At first he seemed reluctant to answer me.
"I'm afraid I ran through rather a lot just at first," he saidhesitatingly--his first admission that he had not inhabited Trenchard'sgarret for the whole of the time since I had last seen him. "But thatwill be all right. I can make lots of money."
"How?" ("Not by that book of yours," I said emphatically to myself.)
"Oh, you needn't worry about that. I assure you I can. I've thought itall out most carefully."
"I wish you'd tell me."
Then, eagerly, jerkily, he unfolded his maddest idea yet.
"I told you you hadn't grasped it. Nobody grasps it till they've got tolive it. You see, it's all a question of time. Now look at itcarefully.... I'm not fixed. I'm a constantly moving quantity. For thatreason I can't take an ordinary job like anybody else. Oh, I could getone all right. It would be the simplest thing in the world for me towalk into one of these Sandow places, Ince's or Jones's or any of 'em,and say, 'Just pass me a few of those two hundred pound weights,' andscare 'em alive with what I could do. In fact that's the wholesituation--I _should_ scare 'em alive. You can't show pupils one man oneday and perhaps a different one altogether the next; it isn't decent.Here's a nut for you to crack, George: I'm dead, a ghost. But myappearance is one of the most conspicuous things you ever saw. A manlike me can't hide himself. The King or the Prince of Wales might walkdown Piccadilly unrecognised, but not an athletic phenomenon like me. Soas well as being the loneliest, I'm also one of the most public menliving."
"So you propose to make money out of athletics?"
"Steady; let's take it as it comes. I've thought it all out, and I don'tsee a single flaw in it. Here's the problem: I want a large sum ofmoney, I want to make it honestly, and if possible instantaneously, thatis to say while I'm still stationary. Now how am I to do it?"
"You can't do it."
"Well, I say I can."
"How?"
You wouldn't guess in a hundred years what it was he proposed to do.
He intended to fight Carpentier.
"All in the fraction of a second, George," he said, appealing for myapproval. "Knock-out punch for one of these mammoth purses, fix yourselfup for life, and then disappear. It's absolutely sound reasoning."
"It's the craziest thing I ever heard."
"Why?" he asked, his eyes innocently on mine. "It's perfectly feasible."
"How would you get the match? Do you suppose any promoter would look atyou? Would any champion? Would his manager let him? Remember thatchampionship's a business. Champions make money as long as they'rechampions and no longer. They take no risks. And part of their businessis to sidestep dangerous matches."
But he had an answer to that that evidently seemed to him conclusive.His eyes sparkled.
"Exactly! That's the very reason I picked Carpentier. Carpentier, man,Georges Carpentier! _He_ isn't a sidestepper! He's the mostthoroughgoing sportsman alive! Look at the way he gave that Yorkshirelad his match! Sidestep, that Frenchman? Look here. You know I speakFrench like a native. Well, I shouldn't in the least mind going straightup to him and putting the whole proposition before him."
"That you were out after his championship and incidentally his living?"
"Yes, and I jolly well know what he'd do."
"So do I. He'd turn you over to Descamps and the negotiations would lasta couple of years. That isn't instantaneous."
"He'd do nothing of the sort. _That_ great fellow?... Kiss me. He'd kissme on both cheeks, shout '_C'est ca!_' and tell Descamps to fix it upstraight away. Of course I wouldn't hurt him."
I stared. "_Could_ you put Carpentier out?"
He laughed. A laugh was his reply.
"But suppose--an accident can always happen--suppose he put _you_ out?"
This time I had not even a laugh for a reply.
He was fast asleep.
Asleep, dead off, and in that moment of time! The instant before hiseyes had kindled at the thought of what a lark it would be to take onthat peerless Frenchman and put him out; now, between a question and ananswer, those eyes were closed and he slept profoundly.
With immense profundity. I bent over him and spoke his name in his ear.I shook him by the shoulder. He was unconscious of either action. Hiscolour was blooming, his breathing deep and easy; else his sleep seemedto have the immensity of death itself. Under the glaring incandescentmantle he was theatrical in his beauty, superb in the relaxation of hisstrength. I could not take my eyes off him. It was almost frightening tosee that complete annihilation of so much physical and mental power.
To write that book--and to fight Carpentier! He had worked it coolly andimpudently out. The analytical faculties he would have brought to theone task he had merely applied to the other, and he had arrived at theperfectly logical answer that the way to make the maximum of money asnearly instantaneously as possible was to knock out Carpentier.
I could only gaze spellbound at him as he slept.
What to do now?
I was aware that this question had been waiting for an answer ever sincewe had left that picture-house in Shaftesbury Avenue. I had now foundhim, or he me; but what next? Let him go again? But apparently he didnot want to go; he clung to me pathetically, as to the single companionhe had in the world. Take him away somewhere? But he had refused tocome, had urged that monstrous book. Was I to stay here with him, tostay all night, to stay till Trenchard's return? That was, to say theleast, inconvenient. Should I put him to bed? Somehow I hesitated todisturb that vast unconsciousness. Poor fellow, he richly earned all therest he got.
I went into the bedroom, brought out Trenchard's quilt, and spread itover him. I moved his head gently to the padded portion of the wickerchair. I made him as comfortable as I could. Then once more I stoodirresolute.
It was now after one o'clock, and that powerful sleep had cut us cleanoff in the middle of things. I had much, much more to ask him. I wantedto know his intentions about his rooms in Cambridge Circus, whether hethought of returning there, whether he wanted his furniture stored orsold. If to myself and Trenchard and possibly a few others he was stillknown as Derwent Rose, I wanted to know what his name was to the rest ofmankind. Merely as a means of communication with people he did not wishto meet face to face, I wanted to know whether his handwriting hadchanged, whether he used a typewriter, what his signature was like.
And above all I wanted to know what steps I must now take with regard toJulia Oliphant.
Of course I intended to tell her everything, and to tell him that I haddone so. The worst I should risk would be his momentary anger that I hadbetrayed him. He had wished to spare her a meeting with himself, but hehad not known that she was unsparable. More than that, she wasindissuadable. I should not be able to keep her from him. And, if heclung so touchingly to me, found me so "magnificently steady," whatcomfort would he not find in that unvarying constancy of hers? He mightbreak out on me for the moment, but he would bless me for it by and by.
I sat down in the other chair. I was very tired. I dozed.
In perhaps a quarter of an hour I opened my eyes again. He had notmoved. It was a mild night, the deep chair was not uncomfortable, and Idozed again and again woke. Still he slept. I muttered a "Good night,poor old chap." I was too drowsy even to get up and turn down theincandescent light.
This time I slept as soundly as he.
Afterwards he blamed himself that he had not sent me away; but thatsleep had dropped on him like a falling beam. All his sleep, heexplained, was like that. Immeasurable chasms of time seemed to havepassed away between his closing his eyes and his opening them again.
So this is what came next:
A light creaking of his chair brought me suddenly wide awake and sittingup. A peep of grey daylight showed in the upper portion of thewindow-frame, but the incandescent mantle still glared yellowly abovehis head. He had moved, but without waking. He turned his head andslumbered on.
But the turn of his head had brought his face into the light....
He only shaved once a day, in the morning; and on the following morninghe shaved again. But it was his whole beard that he thus shaved offdaily, thirty days' growth in a night. He had had no set intention ofgrowing that beard that I had seen in the hansom. A few days beforecoming to Trenchard's place he had woke up one morning, stroked hisface, and found it there.
There he slept--in his golden beard.
IV
"Most certainly he shall write his book," Julia declared.
"Not if I can prevent it," I replied.
"We'll see about that. You don't think he'll give us the slip again?"
"I don't think so--I mean he doesn't seem to want to at present."
"And he was all right when you left him? Is he comfortable there? Had hea good breakfast? Was his bed made? Does anybody go in and clear up forhim? Had he any flowers?"
"He's quite all right there. He wants to see me as much as he can. He'dask me to stay with him, but he's determined to get ahead with thatbook."
I did not tell her of any other reason why he might wish to be alonewhen he woke up in the morning. I assumed that a man's shavingoperations could have no interest for her. But this is what had takenplace:
On seeing his first signs of stirring I had slipped quietly into hisbedroom. There, lying on his bed, I had pretended to be asleep. I hadheard his tiptoe approach, the slight creaking of the door as he hadpeeped in, his stealthy crossing to the dressing-table, where his razorswere. Then he had stolen out again, and I had heard a kettle filled andother preparations. A quarter of an hour later he had (as he supposed)woke me. He stood there by the bedside with a cup of tea in his hand.His chin was smooth. I wondered about that other morning when, passinghis hand over his face, he had first found the beard there. And Iwondered what his companion, if he had had one, had thought of it.
"But he shall write his book, poor darling," Julia repeated.
This was at half-past ten in the morning, in her studio, whither I hadwalked straight from Derry's loft over the mews.
"He ought to be locked up for life if he does," I answered.
But she was very obstinate. Derry (she said) should do whatever he had amind to do. More than that (and a crafty light stole into her dark eyesas she said it), she intended to help him.
"To write his book? And what do you know about writing books?"
"I didn't say to write his book. You say he's--what d'you callit?--sharpening his tools, getting himself fit. Well, I can help him todo that."
"How?"
"I'll leave the door open so you can hear."
She ran out of the studio to the little cabinet where her telephone was.I heard the following, her side of the conversation that ensued.
"Is that 9199? Miss Oliphant would like to speak to Mrs Aird, please....Is that you, Madge? Yes, this is my dinner-call.... Oh, like a top, andI know your phone's by your bed. Madge, my dear, I want to know who thatlearned person was I was talking to last night: yes, the bibliomaniacperson.... Who?" Then, with a jump of her voice, "What, he's stayingwith you? He's in the house _now_? Do send for him immediately.... Ofcourse not, you goose, but you have an extension, haven't you?..."
And then this:
"Oh, good morning! Miss Oliphant speaking.... Ah, you've forgotten!...Most frightfully excited about our conversation last night. Will youtell me again the title of that book and whether I can see it in theBritish Museum? Wait a minute, I want to write it down...."
Then, carefully and as it were a letter at a time:
"_Manuel--du--Repertoire--Bibliographique--Universel...._ Yes, I've gotthat.... _Paris, 44, Rue de Rennes...._ Now the other book, please...._Decimal Classification and Relative Index...._ Yes.... _MelvilDewey...._ Is that enough to identify them?"
Then a rapid perfunctory gush, a "Thank you _so_ much," the receiverclapped on again, and re-enter Julia, her face ashine with triumph.
"Well, did you hear all that?" she said. "You can take me along to theBritish Museum as soon as you like. You'll have to get me into thereading-room, because I haven't a ticket. Then if I were you I shouldtrot away off to Haslemere."
"Who's that you were talking to?"
"A most fearful bore I met at the Airds' at dinner last night. At leastI thought he was a bore then. Now he's a duck and an angel and I couldkiss him all over his bald old head. Goodness is _always_ rewarded,George, but not often the next morning like this." She clapped herhands.
"You're less comprehensible than ever I knew you, which is saying a gooddeal."
"Dear old George! When you're bald I'll kiss you too. And Derry _shall_write
his book."
"And fight Carpentier?"
"Poodledoodle!"
And she flitted out again, unfastening her painting-blouse at the backas she went.
I knew enough of Miss Oliphant by this time to treat her apparentirresponsibilities with respect. I had never heard of either ofthe books of which she had spoken over the telephone, but Irisked a guess at their nature--_Bibliographique Universel_--_DecimalClassification_--evidently the subject was indexing, and she had metsomebody at dinner the night before who had led her into these aridfields. Naturally she had been bored. But now she was in a rapture ofplotting and machination. She intended to assist and encourage Derry inthat inordinate plan of his. She came in again, dressed for walking,humming a blithe tune.
"Dear, dear Providence! There was I ready to snap Madge's head off forseizing quite a nice man herself and giving me old Drybones, but now I'mgoing to send her some flowers. See the idea, George?"
"What are these books?"
"The very latest thing in the way of indexing. It lasted nearly thewhole of dinner. Oh, I _love_ myself for being so good! He drooledalong, and I said 'How thrilling' and things like that, thinking ofsomething else all the time, and now _this_ gorgeous piece of luck!"
"A Universal Index?"
"Yes, of the whole of human knowledge. It's all done with decimals--ordo they call them semicolons? Dots anyway. You can turn up anything fromthe solar system to a packet of pins at a moment's notice. If Derrydoesn't know about it he'll dance with joy.... But come along. I mustsee those books. Let's go by bus. You can get me a reader's ticket,can't you?"
She pushed me out in front of her and closed the door with a recklessbang. All the way to the bus she talked as delightedly as if it had beenher birthday.
"So I shall mug up those decimals and things and then go and be hissecretary. I know more or less how he wrote his _Vicarage_. He used tostride up and down my room, thinking aloud about it. And this will bethe same, only enormous! He says he wants to make it as Moses made hisDecalogue? He shall, bless his heart. Why shouldn't he? I don't see yourstuffy old objections, George."
"One of them is that Moses didn't 'make' the Decalogue. He went up intoSinai for it."
"Well, leave Moses out then. Any other reason?"
"I've told you. If it isn't exactly blasphemous, it's getting on thatway."
"Why?" she said with heat. "Was the _Vicarage_ blasphemous? He's simplygoing to do the _Vicarage_ again, but on a huger scale. If he can writea gigantic book why should you say to him 'No, you mustn't writethat--write a littler one instead'? He's perfectly entitled to write thebiggest book he can. He's just as much entitled to it as you or anyother writer. You only call it those names because it's bigger thanyours."
She glowed with jealousy for his fame. He was her demi-god, and shewould have had all the world bow down before him. She would _not_ havehim second to Homer--she would _not_ have him second to Shakespeare. Atleast so it struck me, and I could only shake my head again and againand repeat that in my opinion it was not a legitimate ambition.
We had mounted to the top of a motor-bus, where we occupied a back seat.For some minutes she did not speak. Then, as she still continued silent,I looked at her face. At the same moment her face turned to mine.
What worlds away from the truth I was that clear look told me. His fame?She didn't care twopence for his fame, except that it might amuse him.His book? She didn't care whether he wrote his book or whether hedidn't. To her, fame and books were the vanities with which men soincomprehensibly amuse themselves when they might be thinking ofsomething that mattered. It was enormously more than that that her eyestold me on the top of that east-bound bus that morning.
For if he wished to remain thirty-three, she too as intensely wished andwilled it. He should write any book he wanted, do anything on earth heliked, so long as that loft in a South Kensington mews became an upperroom in Cremorne Road all over again. She would flutter about,pretending to be indexing the whole mass of human knowledge for him,clipping and pasting and filing within sound of his voice; but what shewould really be doing would be to cut Patum Peperium sandwiches for him,to see that he fed himself properly, opened his windows, made his bed,had his washing and mending properly done. That former _Vicarage_ periodhad been the summer of her life; she would now thrust herself in the wayof it once more. That she might do so with some sort of countenance shewas on her way to read those thorny books in the British Museum. Thelatest thing in indexing was the bait with which she set the trap of heradoration. She would humour, encourage, wheedle, praise. But she toowould have her summer twice.
We did not speak again until we descended in Tottenham Court Road andwalked along Great Russell Street. Then as we approached the Museumrailings she turned abruptly to me. She wanted her final confirmation ofthe facts.
"You've told me all that he said about me?"
"Yes." (This was untrue. I had suppressed one thing. I had not told herthat he had sometimes stayed away from Cremorne Road because she boughtthings for him she could not afford.)
"And he's no idea at all that I know anything whatever about it?"
"None whatever."
"Tell me again about his having sometimes thought of me lately."
I did so. "For all I know he might even have come to see you but for thefear of giving you that shock."
"Well, you didn't die of the shock, so why should I? Come and get me myticket."
We passed through the glazed doors and along the Roman Gallery. I rangat the closed door where the temporary tickets are obtained. There wasno difficulty, and slowly we walked past the double row of Caesars andEmperors again. I had taken her arm. Somehow I suddenly felt as though Iwere about to lose her, perhaps for a long time, perhaps for an evenlonger one. I spoke in a low voice.
"Do you think it will be--safe? Just to walk in on him, I mean. Wouldn'tit be better to prepare him first?"
"No, no--that's the one thing I _am_ sure of."
"Are you sure you can trust yourself?"
"I don't know. If I can't there's an end of everything, so I must."
"What about our going together?"
"No, nor that either." She flushed a little as she said it.
I think, though I am not sure, that there was jealousy in that flush. Inthat unspeakable solitude of his Derry had so far only a singlefriend--myself. She was prepared, if she could, to steal my share ofhim, to have him all to herself.
"But I've got to see him to-day; I promised it," I said.
"Then off you go now, while I'm here. But you're not to say a word aboutmy coming. Then if I were you I should get off to Haslemere."
She meant I had better get out of the way altogether. I sighed...."Well, come and get your books."
We sought the reading-room, and I put her into a seat and passed to thecatalogue counter. I took her slips to her for signature, dropped theminto the basket, and then returned to her. It was early, and few readershad yet arrived. We were in the "N" bay, which we had to ourselves. Isaw her look up at the million books, dingy and misty in the pale lightof the high rotunda. I saw her dark eyes travel along the frieze ofnames in tarnished gold--Carlyle, Tennyson, Browning. In the past I havespent a good deal of time in the reading-room; now it is a place I getout of as quickly as I can. It crushes me, annihilates my spirit withthe weight of the vanity of vanities. Of the makers, as well as of themaking of books, there is no end. They are born, they lisp, they spell,they write; and then they die. The eager heart, the busy brain, are afew tarnished letters on a frieze, a strip of paper gummed into thecasualty-list of a catalogue. We think, write, and to-morrow we die.Only one man was not going to think, write, and die to-morrow. He wasgoing to be different from all men who had gone before him. Because ofsomething that had happened to him, he was going to blazon his name, notin that circular cemetery of dead books, but across the whole width ofthe heavens outside.
And this tired woman trifling with the tips of her long fingers againstthe book-rest as she waited for her bo
oks was going to be hisaccomplice. She was going, by means of something called love, to keephim at that acme of his powers where innocence and wisdom met and in thepast he had thrown her a friendly word from time to time. She was going,single-handed, to arrest that backward drift of his life. Whatever hadcaused it should be thwarted in her. He should _not_ be thirty. He_should_ remain, if she could compass it, thirty-three for as long as hewanted--for the rest of his life and hers.
I wondered the dome did not fall on her.
Presently she turned her head and smiled in my eyes.
"Well, don't you wait, George. Thanks so much. Good-bye."
I left her sitting there, in that vast and brown-hued well, stillwaiting for her books.
The Tower of Oblivion Page 3
