Oh, that's all right, she answered. Vittorio's out waiting for me in the
car now.
So it was that when Blair and I presented ourselves before Miss Grier to
take our leave, she drew me aside with an irresistible vehemence and
standing against my ear said: You are to come back here tonight. There
will be some people in to a late supper whom I want you to meet. You
can, can't you?
I made some show of protest, and the effect was appalling. But, my dear
young man, she cried. I'll have to ask you to trust me. There is
something of the first importance that I want to put to you. The fact is
I have already telephoned a very dear friend of mine.... Please now,
just as a favor to me, put off what you had planned. There's a very
great service we want to ask you.
Of course with that I fairly folded up, as much with surprise as
compliance. Apparently the whole Cabala wanted me to do favors.
Thank you, thank you so much. About twelve.
It was then about ten. Two hours to kill. We were about to go to the
Circus, when Blair exclaimed:
Say, do you mind if I drop in and see a friend of mine for a minute. If
I'm going Tuesday I ought to say goodbye and see how he is. Do you hate
sick people?
No.
He's a nice fellow, but he hasn't long to live. He's published some
verse in England; one of the thousand, you know. It got an awful rap.
Maybe he's quite a poet, but he can't get over that diction. He's
awfully adjectival.
We climbed down the Spanish Steps and turned in at the left. On the
stairs Blair stopped and whispered: I forgot to tell you that he's
watched over by a friend, a sort of water-colourist. They're dead-poor
and it's all they can do to get a doctor. I meant to lend them some more
money--what have you with you?
We assembled a hundred lire and knocked at the door. Receiving no answer
we pushed it open. There was a lamp burning in the further of two mean
rooms. It stood beside a bed and cast its light on the remorseless
details of a barricade built during the last stages of consumption
against a light vaulter; bowls and bottles and stained cloths. The
sleeping invalid was sitting high in bed, his head turned away from us.
The artist must have gone out for a minute to look for some money, said
Blair. Let's stay around a bit.
We went into the other room and sat in the dark looking at the moonlight
that filled the Fountain of the Boat. There were fireworks on the
Pincian Hill in memory of some battle on the Piave and the tender green
of the sky seemed to tremble behind the Chinese blooms that climbed the
night. A friendly tram entered the square at intervals, stopped
inquiringly, and bustled out again. I tried to remember whether Virgil
had died in Rome ... no, buried near Naples. Tasso? Some piercing-sweet
pages of Goethe, the particular triumph of Moissi who brings to them his
wide-open eyes and elegiac voice. Presently we heard a call from the
next room: Francis. Francis.
Blair went in: I guess he's gone out a minute. Can I do something for
you? I'm going in a day or two and I called around to see how much
better you are. Would it tire you if we sat with you a bit? ... Come on
in, say!
For the moment Blair had forgotten the poet's name and our introduction
was slurred over. The sick man looked his extremity, but his fever gave
to his eyes an eager and excited air; he seemed willing to listen or to
talk for hours. My eye fell upon a rough pencilled note that lay on the
table beyond the invalid's reach: Dear Dr. Clarke: he spat up about two
cupfuls of blood at 2 P.M. He complained so of hunger that I had to give
him more than you said. Be back at once. F. S.
Have you been able to write anything lately? Blair began.
No.
Do you read much?
Francis reads to me. He pointed to a Jeremy Taylor on his feet. You're
Americans, aren't you? I have a brother in America. In New Jersey. I was
to have gone over there.
The conversation lapsed, but he kept staring at us, smiling and
bright-eyed, as though it were swift and rare.
By the way, are there any books you'd like us to lend you?
Thank you. That would be fine.
What, for instance?
Anything.
Think of one you'd like especially.
Oh, anything. I'm not particular. Only I suppose it would be hard to
find any translations from the Greek?
Here I offered to bring in a Homer in the original and stammer out an
improvised translation.
Oh, I should like that most of all, he cried. I know Chapman's well.
I replied, unthinking, that Chapman's was scarcely Homer at all, and
suddenly beheld a look of pain, as of a mortal wound, appear upon his
face. To regain control of himself he bit his finger and tried to smile.
I hastened to add that in its way it was very beautiful, but I could not
recall my cruelty; his heart seemed to have commenced bleeding within
him.
Blair asked him if he had almost enough poems for a new book.
I don't think about books any more, he said. I just write to please
myself.
But the insult to Chapman had been working in him; he now turned his
face away and great tears fell upon his hands. Excuse me. Excuse me, he
said. I'm not well, and I seem to ... to do this about nothing.
There was a search for a handkerchief, but none being found he was
persuaded to use mine.
I don't want to go away without seeing Francis, said Blair. Do you know
where I might find him?
Yes, yes. He's around the corner at the Café Greco. I begged him to go
and get some coffee; he'd been here all day.
So Blair left me with the poet, who seemed to have forgiven me and was
ready for the hazards of further conversation. Feeling it was better I
did the talking, I began to discourse upon everything, on the fireworks,
on the wildflowers of Lake Albano, on Pizzetti's sonata, on a theft in
the Vatican library. His face showed dearly what matter pleased him; I
experimented on it, and discovered that he was hungry for hearing things
praised. He was beyond feeling indignant at abuses, beyond humor, beyond
sentiment, beyond interest in any bits of antiquarian lore. Apparently
for weeks together in the wretched atmosphere of the sick-room Francis
had neglected to speak highly of anything and the poet wanted before he
left the strange world to hear some portion of it praised. Oh, I laid it
on. His eyes glowed and his hands trembled. Most of all he desired the
praise of poetry. I launched upon a history of poetry, calling the
singers by name, getting them wrong, assigning them to the wrong ages
and languages, characterizing them with the worn epithets of an
encyclopœdist, and drawing upon what anecdotage I could,--all bad, but
somehow marshalling the glorious throng. I spoke of Sappho; of how a
line of Euripides drove mad the citizens of Abdera; of Terence pleading
with audiences to come to him rather than to the tight-rope walkers; of
Villon writing his mother's prayers before the great picture-book of a
cathedral wall; of Milton in his old age, holding a few olives in his
hand to remind himself of his golden year in Italy.
Quite suddenly in the middle of the catalogue he burst out fiercely: I
was meant to be among those names. I was.
The boast must have revolted me a little and my face have shown it, for
he cried again: I was. I was. But now it's too late. I want every copy
of my books destroyed. Let every word die, die. When I'm dead I don't
want a soul to remember me.