Every morning when he awoke his first thought was: How am I? For it
was extremely important that he should be well, seeing that when he
was not well he could neither produce what he knew he ought, nor
contemplate that lack of production with equanimity. Having discovered
that he did not ache anywhere, he would say to his wife: “Are you all
right?” and, while she was answering, he would think: “Yes--if I make
that last chapter pass subjectively through Blank’s personality, then
I had better----” and so on. Not having heard whether his wife were
all right, he would get out of bed and do that which he facetiously
called “abdominable cult,” for it was necessary that he should digest
his food and preserve his figure, and while he was doing it he would
partly think: “I am doing this well,” and partly he would think: “That
fellow in _The Parnassus_ is quite wrong--he simply doesn’t see----”
And pausing for a moment with nothing on, and his toes level with the
top of a chest of drawers, he would say to his wife: “What I think
about that _Parnassus_ fellow is that he doesn’t grasp the fact that
my books----” And he would not fail to hear her answer warmly: “Of
course he doesn’t; he’s a perfect idiot.” He would then shave. This was
his most creative moment, and he would soon cut himself and utter a
little groan, for it would be needful now to find to find his special
cotton wool and stop the bleeding, which was a paltry business and not
favourable to the flight of genius. And if his wife, taking advantage
of the incident, said something which she had long been waiting to
say, he would answer, wondering a little what it was she had said, and
thinking: “There it is, I get no time for steady thought.”
Having finished shaving he would bathe, and a philosophical conclusion
would almost invariably come to him just before he douched himself with
cold--so that he would pause, and call out through the door: “You know,
I think the supreme principle----” And while his wife was answering, he
would resume the drowning of her words, having fortunately remembered
just in time that his circulation would suffer if he did not douse
himself with cold while he was still warm. He would dry himself,
dreamily developing that theory of the universe and imparting it to his
wife in sentences that seldom had an end, so that it was not necessary
for her to answer them. While dressing he would stray a little,
thinking: “Why can’t I concentrate myself on my work; it’s awful!”
And if he had by any chance a button off, he would present himself
rather unwillingly, feeling that it was a waste of his time. Watching
her frown from sheer self-effacement over her button-sewing, he would
think: “She is wonderful! How can she put up with doing things for me
all day long?” And he would fidget a little, feeling in his bones that
the postman had already come.
He went down always thinking: “Oh, hang it! this infernal post taking
up all my time!” And as he neared the breakfast-room, he would quicken
his pace; seeing a large pile of letters on the table, he would say
automatically: “Curse!” and his eyes would brighten. If--as seldom
happened--there were not a green-coloured wrapper enclosing mentions of
him in the press, he would murmur: “Thank God!” and his face would fall.
It was his custom to eat feverishly, walking a good deal and reading
about himself, and when his wife tried to bring him to a sense of his
disorder he would tighten his lips without a word and think: “I have a
good deal of self-control.”
He seldom commenced work before eleven, for, though he always intended
to, he found it practically impossible not to dictate to his wife
things about himself, such as how he could not lecture here; or where
he had been born; or how much he would take for this; and why he would
not consider that; together with those letters which began:
“MY DEAR ----,
“Thanks tremendously for your letter about my book, and its valuable
criticism. Of course, I think you are quite wrong.... You don’t seem
to have grasped.... In fact, I don’t think you ever quite do me
justice....
“Yours affectionately,
“----.”
When his wife had copied those that might be valuable after he was
dead, he would stamp the envelopes and, exclaiming: “Nearly eleven--my
God!” would go somewhere where they think.
It was during those hours when he sat in a certain chair with a pen
in his hand that he was able to rest from thought about himself;
save, indeed, in those moments, not too frequent, when he could not
help reflecting: “That’s a fine page--I have seldom written anything
better”; or in those moments, too frequent, when he sighed deeply and
thought: “I am not the man I was.” About half-past one, he would get
up, with the pages in his hand, and, seeking out his wife, would give
them to her to read, remarking: “Here’s the wretched stuff, no good
at all”; and, taking a position where he thought she could not see
him, would do such things as did not prevent his knowing what effect
the pages made on her. If the effect were good he would often feel
how wonderful she was; if it were not good he had at once a chilly
sensation in the pit of his stomach, and ate very little lunch.
When, in the afternoons, he took his walks abroad, he passed great
quantities of things and people without noticing, because he was
thinking deeply on such questions as whether he were more of an
observer or more of an imaginative artist; whether he were properly
appreciated in Germany; and particularly whether one were not in danger
of thinking too much about oneself. But every now and then he would
stop and say to himself: “I really must see more of life, I really must
take in more fuel”; and he would passionately fix his eyes on a cloud,
or a flower, or a man walking, and there would instantly come into his
mind the thought: “I have written twenty books--ten more will make
thirty--that cloud is grey”; or: “That fellow X---- is jealous of me!
This flower is blue”; or: “This man is walking very--very---- D--n _The
Morning Muff_, it always runs me down!” And he would have a sort of
sore, beaten feeling, knowing that he had not observed those things as
accurately as he would have wished to.
During these excursions, too, he would often reflect impersonally upon
matters of the day, large questions of art, public policy, and the
human soul; and would almost instantly find that he had always thought
this or that; and at once see the necessity for putting his conclusion
forward in his book or in the press, phrasing it, of course, in a way
that no one else could; and there would start up before him little bits
of newspaper with these words on them: “No one, perhaps, save Mr. ----,
could have so ably set forth the case for Baluchistan”; or, “In _The
Daily Miracle_ there is a noble letter from that eminent writer, Mr.
----, pleading against the hyperspiritualism of our age.”
Very often he would say to himself, as he walked with eyes fixed on
things that he did not see: “This existence is not healthy. I really
must get away and take a complete holiday, and not think at all about
my work; I am getting too self-centred.” And he would go home and
say to his wife: “Let’s go to Sicily, or Spain, or somewhere. Let’s
get away from all this, and just live.” And when she answered: “How
jolly!” he would repeat, a little absently: “How jolly!” considering
what would be the best arrangement for forwarding his letters. And
if, as sometimes happened, they _did_ go, he would spend almost
a whole morning living, and thinking how jolly it was to be away
from everything; but toward the afternoon he would feel a sensation
as though he were a sofa that had been sat on too much, a sort of
subsidence very deep within him. This would be followed in the evening
by a disinclination to live; and that feeling would grow until on the
third day he received his letters, together with a green-coloured
wrapper enclosing some mentions of himself, and he would say: “Those
fellows--no getting away from them!” and feel irresistibly impelled
to sit down. Having done so he would take up his pen, not writing
anything, indeed--because of the determination to “live,” as yet not
quite extinct--but comparatively easy in his mind. On the following
day he would say to his wife: “I believe I can work here.” And she
would answer, smiling: “That’s splendid”; and he would think: “She’s
wonderful!” and begin to write.
On other occasions, while walking the streets or about the countryside,
he would suddenly be appalled at his own ignorance, and would say to
himself: “I know simply nothing--I must read.” And going home he would
dictate to his wife the names of a number of books to be procured from
the library. When they arrived he would look at them a little gravely
and think: “By Jove! Have I got to read those?” and the same evening
he would take one up. He would not, however, get beyond the fourth
page, if it were a novel, before he would say: “Muck! He can’t write!”
and would feel absolutely stimulated to take up his own pen and write
something that was worth reading. Sometimes, on the other hand, he
would put the novel down after the third page, exclaiming: “By Jove! He
can write!” And there would rise within him such a sense of dejection
at his own inferiority that he would feel simply compelled to try to
see whether he really was inferior.
But if the book were not a novel he sometimes finished the first
chapter before one or two feelings came over him: Either that what he
had just read was what he had himself long thought--that, of course,
would be when the book was a good one; or that what he had just read
was not true, or at all events debatable. In each of these events he
found it impossible to go on reading, but would remark to his wife:
“This fellow says what I’ve always said”; or, “This fellow says so and
so, now I say----” and he would argue the matter with her, taking both
sides of the question, so as to save her all unnecessary speech.
There were times when he felt that he absolutely must hear music,
and he would enter the concert-hall with his wife in the pleasurable
certainty that he was going to lose himself. Toward the middle of the
second number, especially if it happened to be music that he liked, he
would begin to nod; and presently, on waking up, would get a feeling
that he really was an artist. From that moment on he was conscious
of certain noises being made somewhere in his neighbourhood causing
a titillation of his nerves favourable to deep and earnest thoughts
about his work. On going out his wife would ask him: “Wasn’t the Mozart
lovely?” or, “How did you like the Strauss?” and he would answer:
“Rather!” wondering a little which was which; or he would look at her
out of the corner of his eye and glance secretly at the programme to
see whether he had really heard them, and which Strauss it might be.
He was extremely averse to being interviewed, or photographed, and all
that sort of publicity, and only made exceptions in most cases because
his wife would say to him: “Oh! I think you ought”; or because he could
not bear to refuse anybody anything; together, perhaps, with a sort of
latent dislike of waste, deep down in his soul. When he saw the results
he never failed to ejaculate: “Never again! No, really--never again!
The whole thing is wrong and stupid!” And he would order a few copies.
For he dreaded nothing so much as the thought that he might become an
egoist, and, knowing the dangers of his profession, fought continually
against it. Often he would complain to his wife: “I don’t think of you
enough.” And she would smile and say: “Don’t you?” And he would feel
better, having confessed his soul. Sometimes for an hour at a time he
would make really heroic efforts not to answer her before having really
grasped what she had said; and to check a tendency, that he sometimes
feared was growing on him, to say: “What?” whether he had heard or no.
In truth, he was not (as he often said) constitutionally given to small
talk. Conversation that did not promise a chance of dialectic victory
was hardly to his liking; so that he felt bound in sincerity to eschew
it, which sometimes caused him to sit silent for “quite a while,” as
the Americans have phrased it. But once committed to an argument he
found it difficult to leave off, having a natural, if somewhat sacred,
belief in his own convictions.
His attitude to his creations was, perhaps, peculiar. He either did not
mention them, or touched on them, if absolutely obliged, with a light
and somewhat disparaging tongue; this did not, indeed, come from any
real distrust of them, but rather from a superstitious feeling that one
must not tempt Providence in the solemn things of life. If other people
touched on them in the same way, he had, not unnaturally, a feeling of
real pain, such as comes to a man when he sees an instance of cruelty
or injustice. And, though something always told him that it was neither
wise nor dignified to notice outrages of this order, he would mutter
to his wife: “Well, I suppose it _is_ true--I can’t write”; feeling,
perhaps, that--if _he_ could not with decency notice such injuries,
she might. And, indeed, she did, using warmer words than even he felt
justified, which was soothing.
After tea it was his habit to sit down a second time, pen in hand; not
infrequently he would spend those hours divided between the feeling
that it was his duty to write something and the feeling that it was his
duty not to write anything if he had nothing to say; and he generally
wrote a good deal; for deep down he was convinced that if he did not
write he would gradually fade away till there would be nothing left
for him to read and think about, and, though he was often tempted to
believe and even to tell his wife that fame was an unworthy thing, he
always deferred that pleasure, afraid, perhaps, of too much happiness.
In regard to the society of his fellows he liked almost anybody, though
a little impatient with those, especially authors, who took themselves
too seriously; and there were just one or two that he really could not
stand, they were so obviously full of jealousy, a passion of which he
was naturally intolerant and had, of course, no need to indulge in. And
he would speak of them with extreme dryness--nothing more, disdaining
to disparage. It was, perhaps, a weakness in him that he found it
difficult to accept adverse criticism as anything but an expression of
that same yellow sickness; and yet there were moments when no words
would adequately convey his low opinion of his own powers. At such
times he would seek out his wife and confide to her his conviction
that he was a poor thing, no good at all, without a thought in his
head; and while she was replying: “Rubbish! You know there’s nobody to
hold a candle to you,” or words to that effect, he would look at her
tragically, and murmur: “Ah! you’re prejudiced!” Only at such supreme
moments of dejection, indeed, did he feel it a pity that he had married
her, seeing how much more convincing her words would have been if he
had not.
He never read the papers till the evening, partly because he had not
time, and partly because he so seldom found anything in them. This was
not remarkable, for he turned their leaves quickly, pausing, indeed,
naturally, if there were any mention of his name; and if his wife asked
him whether he had read this or that he would answer: “No,” surprised
at the funny things that seemed to interest her.
Before going up to bed he would sit and smoke. And sometimes fancies
would come to him, and sometimes none. Once in a way he would look up
at the stars, and think: “What a worm I am! This wonderful Infinity! I
must get more of it--more of it into my work; more of the feeling that
the whole is marvellous and great, and man a little clutch of breath
and dust, an atom, a straw, a nothing!”
And a sort of exaltation would seize on him, so that he knew that if
only he did get that into his work, as he wished to, as he felt at
that moment that he could, he would be the greatest writer the world
had ever seen, the greatest man, almost greater than he wished to be,
almost too great to be mentioned in the press, greater than Infinity
itself--for would he not be Infinity’s creator? And suddenly he would
check himself with the thought: “I must be careful--I must be careful.
If I let my brain go at this time of night, I sha’n’t write a decent
word to-morrow!”
And he would drink some milk and go to bed.