Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  His steps echoed hollow on the old pavement. Full of shadow the roofs of the square church swept across the sky; the triple lancet windows caught a little light from the gaslight on the buildings; and he wondered what was the meaning of the little gold lamb standing over one doorway, and then remembered that in various forms the same symbolic lamb is repeated through the Temple. He passed under the dining-hall by the tunnel, and roamed through the spaces beneath the plane-trees of King’s Bench Walk. “My friends think my life was a perfect gift, but a burning cinder was placed in my breast, and time has blown it into flame.”

  In the soporific scent of the lilies and the stocks, the night drowsed in the darkness of the garden; Mike unlocked the gate and passed into the shadows, and hypnotized by the heavenly spaces, in which there were a few stars; by the earth and the many emanations of the earth; by the darkness which covered all things, hiding the little miseries of human existence, he threw himself upon the sward crying, “Oh, take me, mother, hide me in thy infinite bosom, give me forgetfulness of the day. Take and hide me away. We leave behind a corpse that men will touch. Sooner would I give myself to the filthy beaks of vultures, than to their more defiling sympathies. Why were we born? Why are we taught to love our parents? It is they whom we should hate, for it was they who, careless of our sufferings, inflicted upon us the evil of life. We are taught to love them because the world is mad; there is nothing but madness in the world. Night, do not leave me; I cannot bear with the day. Ah, the day will come; nothing can retard the coming of the day, and I can bear no longer with the day.”

  Hearing footsteps, he sprang to his feet, and walking in the direction whence the sound came, he found himself face to face with the policeman.

  “Not able to get to sleep sir?”

  “No, I couldn’t sleep, the night is so hot; I shall sleep presently though.”

  They had not walked far before the officer, pointing to one of the gables of the Temple gardens, said —

  “That’s where Mr. Williamson threw himself over, sir; he got out on the roof, on to the highest point he could reach.”

  “He wanted,” said Mike, “to do the job effectually.”

  “He did so; he made a hole two feet deep.”

  “They put him into a deeper one.”

  The officer laughed; and they walked round the gardens, passing by the Embankment to King’s Bench Walk. Opening the gate there, the policeman asked Mike if he were coming out, but he said he would return across the gardens, and let himself out by the opposite gate. He walked, thinking of what he and the policeman had been saying — the proposed reduction in the rents of the chambers, the late innovation of throwing open the gardens to the poor children of the neighbourhood, and it was not until he stooped to unlock the gate that he remembered that he was alive.

  Then the voice that had been counselling him so long, drew strangely near, and said “Die.” The voice sounded strangely clear in the void of a great brain silence. Earth ties seemed severed, and then quite naturally, without any effort of mind, he went up-stairs to shoot himself. No effort of mind was needed, it seemed the natural and inevitable course for him to take, and he was only conscious of a certain faint surprise that he had so long delayed. There was no trace of fear or doubt in him; he walked up the long staircase without embarrassment, and in a heavenly calm of mind hastened to put his project into execution, dreading the passing of the happiness of his present mood, and the return of the fever of living. He stopped for a moment to see himself in the glass, and looking into the depths of his eyes, he strove to read there the story of his triumph over life. Then seeing the disorder of his dress, and the untidy appearance of his unshaven chin, he smiled, conceiving in that moment that it would be consistent to make as careful a toilette to meet death, as he had often done to meet a love.

  He was anxious for the world to know that it was not after a drunken bout he had shot himself, but after philosophic deliberation and judicious reflection. And he could far better affirm his state of mind by his dress, than by any written words. Lying on the bed, cleanly shaved, wearing evening clothes, silk socks, patent leather shoes and white gloves? No, that would be vulgar, and all taint of vulgarity must be avoided. He must represent, even in a state of symbol, the young man, who having drunk of life to repletion, and finding that he can but repeat the same love draughts, says: “It is far too great a bore, I will go,” and he goes out of life just as if he were leaving a fashionable soirée in Piccadilly. That was exactly the impression he wished to convey. Yes, he would have out his opera hat and light overcoat. He was a little uncertain whether he should die in the night, or wait for the day, and considering the question, he lathered his face. “Curious it is,” he thought, “I never was so happy, so joyous in life before…. These walls, all that I see, will in a few minutes disappear; it is this I, this Ego, which creates them; in destroying myself I destroy the world…. How hard this beard is! I never can shave properly without hot water!”

  As he pulled on a pair of silk socks and tied his white necktie he thought of Lady Helen. Going to bed was not a bad notion — particularly for a woman, and a woman in love, but it would be ridiculous for a man. He looked at himself again in the long glass in the door of his carved mahogany wardrobe, and was pleased to see that, although a little jaded and worn, he was still handsome. Having brushed his hair carefully, he looked out the revolver; he did not remember exactly where he had put it, and in turning out his drawers he came upon a bundle of old letters. They were mostly from Frank and Lizzie, and in recalling old times they reminded him that if he died without making a will, his property would go to the Crown. It displeased him to think that his property should pass away in so impersonal a manner. But his mind was now full of death; like a gourmet he longed to taste of the dark fruit of oblivion; and the delay involved in making out a will exasperated him, and it was with difficulty that he conquered his selfishness and sat down to write. Fretful he threw aside the pen; this little delay had destroyed all his happiness. To dispose of his property in money and land would take some time; the day would surprise him still in the world. After a few moments’ reflection he decided that he would leave Belthorpe Park to Frank Escott.

  “I dare say I’m doing him an injury … but no, there’s no time for paradoxes — I’ll leave Belthorpe Park to Frank Escott. The aristocrat shall not return to the people. But to whom shall I leave all my money in the funds? To a hospital? No. To a woman? I must leave it to a woman; I hardly know any one but women; but to whom? Suppose I were to leave it to be divided among those who could advance irrefutable proof that they had loved me! What a throwing over of reputation there would be.” Then a sudden memory of the girl by whom he had had a child sprang upon him like something out of the dark. He wondered for a moment what the child was like, and then he wrote leaving the interest of his money to her, until his son, the child born in such a year — he had some difficulty in fixing the date — came of age. She should retain the use of the interest of twelve thousand pounds, and at her death that sum should revert to the said child born in —— , and if the said child were not living, his mother should become possessor of the entire monies now invested in funds, to do with as she pleased.

  “That will do,” he thought; “I dare say it isn’t very legal, but it is common sense and will be difficult to upset. Yes, and I will leave all my books and furniture in Temple Gardens to Frank; I don’t care much about the fellow, but I had better leave it to him. And now, what about witnesses? The policemen will do.”

  He found one in King’s Bench Walk, another he met a little further on, talking to a belated harlot, whom he willingly relinquished on being invited to drink. Mike led the way at a run up the high steps, the burly officers followed more leisurely.

  “Come in,” he cried, and they advanced into the room, their helmets in their hands. “What will you take, whiskey or brandy?”

  After some indecision both decided, as Mike knew they would, for the former beverage. He offered them soda-
water; but they preferred a little plain water, and drank to his very good health. They were, as before, garrulous to excess. Mike listened for some few minutes, so as to avoid suspicion, and then said —

  “Oh, by the way, I wrote out my will a night or two ago — not that I want to die yet, but one never knows. Would you mind witnessing it?”

  The policemen saw no objection; in a few moments the thing was done, and they retired bowing, and the door closed on solitude and death.

  Mike lay back in his chair reading the document. The fumes of the whiskey he had drunk obscured his sense of purpose, and he allowed his thoughts to wander; his eyes closed and he dozed, his head leaned a little on one side. He dreamed, or rather he thought, for it was hardly sleep, of the dear good women who had loved him; and he mused over his folly in not taking one to wife and accepting life in its plain naturalness.

  Then as sleep deepened the dream changed, becoming hyperbolical and fantastic, until he saw himself descending into hell. The numerous women he had betrayed awaited him and pursued him with blazing lamps of intense and blinding electric fire. And he fled from the light, seeking darkness like some nocturnal animal. His head was leaned slightly on one side, the thin, weary face lying in the shadow of the chair, and the hair that fell thickly on the moist forehead. As he dreamed the sky grew ghastly as the dead. The night crouched as if in terror along the edges of the river, beneath the bridges and among the masonry and the barges aground, and in the ebbing water a lurid reflection trailed ominously. And as the day ascended, the lamps dwindled from red to white, and beyond the dark night of the river, spires appeared upon faint roseate gray.

  Then, as the sparrows commenced their shrilling in the garden, another veil was lifted, and angles and shapes on the warehouses appeared, and boats laden with newly-cut planks; then the lights that seemed to lead along the river turned short over the iron girders, and in white whiffs a train sped across the bridge. The clouds lifted and cleared away, changing from dark gray to undecided purple, and in the blank silver of the east, the spaces flushed, and the dawn appeared in her first veil of rose. And as if the light had penetrated and moved the brain, the lips murmured —

  “False fascination in which we are blinded. Night! shelter and save me from the day, and in thy opiate arms bear me across the world.”

  He turned uneasily as if he were about to awake, and then his eyes opened and he gazed on the spectral pallor of the dawn in the windows, his brain rousing from dreams slowly into comprehension of the change that had come. Then collecting his thoughts he rose and stood facing the dawn. He stood for a moment like one in combat, and then like one overwhelmed retreated through the folding doors, seeking his pistol.

  “Another day begun! Twelve more hours of consciousness and horror! I must go!”

  * * * * * *

  None had heard the report of the pistol, and while the pomp of gold and crimson faded, and the sun rose into the blueness of morning, Mike lay still grasping the revolver, the blood flowing down his face, where he had fallen across the low bed, raised upon lions’ claws and hung with heavy curtains. Receiving no answer, the servant had opened the door. A look of horror passed over her face; she lifted his hand, let it fall, and burst into tears.

  And all the while the sun rose, bringing work and sorrow to every living thing — filling the fields with labourers, filling the streets with clerks and journalists, authors and actors. And it was in the morning hubbub of the Strand that Lizzie Escott stopped to speak to Lottie, who was going to rehearsal.

  “How exactly like his father he is growing,” she said, speaking of the little boy by the actress’s side. “Frank saw Mike in Piccadilly about a month ago; he promised to come and see us, but he never did.”

  “Swine…. He never could keep a promise. I hope Willy won’t grow up like him.”

  “Who are you talking of, mother? of father?”

  The women exchanged glances.

  “He’s as sharp as a needle. And to think that that beast never gave me but one hundred pounds, and it was only an accident I got that — we happened to meet in the underground railway. He took a ticket for me — you know he could always be very nice if he liked; he told me a lady had left him five thousand a year, and if I wanted any money I had only to ask him for it. I asked him if he wouldn’t like to see the child, and he said I mustn’t be beastly; I never quite knew what he meant; but I know he thought it funny, for he laughed a great deal, and I got into such a rage. I said I didn’t want his dirty money, and got out at the next station. He sent me a hundred pounds next day. I haven’t heard of him since, and don’t want to.”

  “Suicide of a poet in the Temple!” shouted a little boy.

  “I wonder who that is,” said Lizzie.

  “Mike used to live in the Temple,” said Lottie.

  The women read the reporter’s account of the event, and then Lottie said —

  “Isn’t it awful! I wonder what he has done with his money?”

  “You may be sure he hasn’t thought of us. He ought to have thought of Frank. Frank was very good to him in old times.”

  “Well, I don’t care what he has done with his money. I never cared for any man but him. I could have forgiven him everything if he had only thought of the child. I hope he has left him something.”

  “Now I’m sure you are talking of father.”

  Vain Fortune

  CONTENTS

  Prefatory Note

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  An early frontispiece for the novel

  Prefatory Note

  I HOPE IT will not seem presumptuous to ask my critics to treat this new edition of Vain Fortune as a new book: for it is a new book. The first edition was kindly noticed, but it attracted little attention, and very rightly, for the story as told therein was thin and insipid; and when Messrs. Scribner proposed to print the book in America, I stipulated that I should be allowed to rewrite it. They consented, and I began the story with Emily Watson, making her the principal character instead of Hubert Price. Some months after I received a letter from Madam Couperus, offering to translate the English edition into Dutch. I sent her the American edition, and asked her which she would prefer to translate from. Madam Couperus replied that many things in the English edition, which she would like to retain, had been omitted from the American edition, that the hundred or more pages which I had written for the American edition seemed to her equally worthy of retention.

  She pointed out that, without the alteration of a sentence, the two versions could be combined. The idea had not occurred to me; I saw, however, that what she proposed was not only feasible but advantageous. I wrote, therefore, giving her the required permission, and thanking her for a suggestion which I should avail myself of when the time came for a new English edition.

  The union of the texts was no doubt accomplished by Madam Couperus, without the alteration of a sentence; but no such accomplished editing is possible to me; I am a victim to the disease of rewriting, and the inclusion of the hundred or more pages of new matter written for the American edition led me into a third revision of the story. But no more than in the second has the skeleton, or the attitude of the skeleton been altered in this third version, only flesh and muscle have been added, and, I think, a little life. Vain Fortune, even in its present form, is probably not my best book, but it certainly is far from being my worst. But my opinion regarding my own work is of no value; I do not write this Prefatory Note to express it, but to ask my critics and my readers to forget the original Vain Fortune, and to read this new book as if it were issued under another title.

  G.M.

  I

>   THE LAMP HAD not been wiped, and the room smelt slightly of paraffin. The old window-curtains, whose harsh green age had not softened, were drawn. The mahogany sideboard, the threadbare carpet, the small horsehair sofa, the gilt mirror, standing on a white marble chimney-piece, said clearly, ‘Furnished apartments in a house built about a hundred years ago.’ There were piles of newspapers, there were books on the mahogany sideboard and on the horsehair sofa, and on the table there were various manuscripts, — The Gipsy, Act I.; The Gipsy, Act III., Scenes iii. and iv.

  A sheet of foolscap paper, and upon it a long slender hand. The hand traced a few lines of fine, beautiful caligraphy, then it paused, correcting with extreme care what was already written, and in a hesitating, minute way, telling of a brain that delighted in the correction rather than in the creation of form.

  The shirt-cuff was frayed and dirty. The coat was thin and shiny. A half-length figure of a man drew out of the massed shadows between the window and sideboard. The red beard caught the light, and the wavy brown hair brightened. Then a look of weariness, of distress, passed over the face, and the man laid down the pen, and, taking some tobacco from a paper, rolled a cigarette. Rising, and leaning forward, he lighted it over the lamp. He was a man of about thirty — six feet, broad-shouldered, well-built, healthy, almost handsome.