ACT I

SEVEN MEN

by Max Beerbohm

Transcriber’s Note:

From the version of “Seven Men” published in 1919 by William

Heinemann (London). Two of the stories have been omitted

(“James Pethel” and “A.V. Laider”) since they are available

separately from Project Gutenberg.

In this plain ASCII version, emphasis and syllable

stress italics have been converted to capitals; foreign italics and accents

have been removed

In “Enoch Soames:”

I added a missing closing quotation mark in the following

phrase: ‘Ten past two,’ he said.

In “Hilary Maltby and Stephen Braxton:”

I changed the opening double quote to a single quote in:

‘I wondered what old Mr. Abraham Hayward...

and

‘I knew that if I leaned forward...

ENOCH SOAMES

When a book about the literature of the eighteen-nineties was given by

Mr. Holbrook Jackson to the world, I looked eagerly in the index for

SOAMES, ENOCH. I had feared he would not be there. He was not there.

But everybody else was. Many writers whom I had quite forgotten, or

remembered but faintly, lived again for me, they and their work, in Mr.

Holbrook Jackson’s pages. The book was as thorough as it was brilliantly

written. And thus the omission found by me was an all the deadlier

record of poor Soames’ failure to impress himself on his decade.

I daresay I am the only person who noticed the omission. Soames had

failed so piteously as all that! Nor is there a counterpoise in the

thought that if he had had some measure of success he might have passed,

like those others, out of my mind, to return only at the historian’s

beck. It is true that had his gifts, such as they were, been

acknowledged in his life-time, he would never have made the bargain I

saw him make--that strange bargain whose results have kept him always in

the foreground of my memory. But it is from those very results that the

full piteousness of him glares out.

Not my compassion, however, impels me to write of him. For his sake,

poor fellow, I should be inclined to keep my pen out of the ink. It is

ill to deride the dead. And how can I write about Enoch Soames without

making him ridiculous? Or rather, how am I to hush up the horrid fact

that he WAS ridiculous? I shall not be able to do that. Yet, sooner or

later, write about him I must. You will see, in due course, that I have

no option. And I may as well get the thing done now.

In the Summer Term of ‘93 a bolt from the blue flashed down on Oxford.

It drove deep, it hurtlingly embedded itself in the soil. Dons and

undergraduates stood around, rather pale, discussing nothing but it.

Whence came it, this meteorite? From Paris. Its name? Will Rothenstein.

Its aim? To do a series of twenty-four portraits in lithograph. These

were to be published from the Bodley Head, London. The matter was

urgent. Already the Warden of A, and the Master of B, and the Regius

Professor of C, had meekly ‘sat.’ Dignified and doddering old men, who

had never consented to sit to any one, could not withstand this dynamic

little stranger. He did not sue: he invited; he did not invite: he

commanded. He was twenty-one years old. He wore spectacles that flashed

more than any other pair ever seen. He was a wit. He was brimful of

ideas. He knew Whistler. He knew Edmond de Goncourt. He knew every one

in Paris. He knew them all by heart. He was Paris in Oxford. It was

whispered that, so soon as he had polished off his selection of dons,

he was going to include a few undergraduates. It was a proud day for me

when I--I--was included. I liked Rothenstein not less than I feared him;

and there arose between us a friendship that has grown ever warmer, and

been more and more valued by me, with every passing year.

At the end of Term he settled in--or rather, meteoritically

into--London. It was to him I owed my first knowledge of that forever

enchanting little world-in-itself, Chelsea, and my first acquaintance

with Walter Sickert and other august elders who dwelt there. It was

Rothenstein that took me to see, in Cambridge Street, Pimlico, a young

man whose drawings were already famous among the few--Aubrey Beardsley,

by name. With Rothenstein I paid my first visit to the Bodley Head.

By him I was inducted into another haunt of intellect and daring, the

domino room of the Cafe Royal.

There, on that October evening--there, in that exuberant vista of

gilding and crimson velvet set amidst all those opposing mirrors and

upholding caryatids, with fumes of tobacco ever rising to the painted

and pagan ceiling, and with the hum of presumably cynical conversation

broken into so sharply now and again by the clatter of dominoes shuffled

on marble tables, I drew a deep breath, and ‘This indeed,’ said I to

myself, ‘is life!’

It was the hour before dinner. We drank vermouth. Those who knew

Rothenstein were pointing him out to those who knew him only by name.

Men were constantly coming in through the swing-doors and wandering

slowly up and down in search of vacant tables, or of tables occupied by

friends. One of these rovers interested me because I was sure he wanted

to catch Rothenstein’s eye. He had twice passed our table, with a

hesitating look; but Rothenstein, in the thick of a disquisition on

Puvis de Chavannes, had not seen him. He was a stooping, shambling

person, rather tall, very pale, with longish and brownish hair. He had

a thin vague beard--or rather, he had a chin on which a large number

of hairs weakly curled and clustered to cover its retreat. He was an

odd-looking person; but in the ‘nineties odd apparitions were more

frequent, I think, than they are now. The young writers of that era--and

I was sure this man was a writer--strove earnestly to be distinct in

aspect. This man had striven unsuccessfully. He wore a soft black hat

of clerical kind but of Bohemian intention, and a grey waterproof cape

which, perhaps because it was waterproof, failed to be romantic. I

decided that ‘dim’ was the mot juste for him. I had already essayed to

write, and was immensely keen on the mot juste, that Holy Grail of the

period.

The dim man was now again approaching our table, and this time he made

up his mind to pause in front of it. ‘You don’t remember me,’ he said in

a toneless voice.

Rothenstein brightly focussed him. ‘Yes, I do,’ he replied after a

moment, with pride rather than effusion--pride in a retentive memory.

‘Edwin Soames.’

‘Enoch Soames,’ said Enoch.

‘Enoch Soames,’ repeated Rothenstein in a tone implying that it was

enough to have hit on the surname. ‘We met in Paris two or three times

when you were living there. We met at the Cafe Groche.’

‘And I came to your studio once.’

‘Oh yes; I was sorry I was out.’

‘But you were in. You showed me some of your paintings, you know.... I

hear you’re in Chelsea now.’

‘Yes.’

I almost wondered that Mr. Soames did not, after this monosyllable, pass

along. He stood patiently there, rather like a dumb animal, rather like

a donkey looking over a gate. A sad figure, his. It occurred to me that

‘hungry’ was perhaps the mot juste for him; but--hungry for what? He

looked as if he had little appetite for anything. I was sorry for him;

and Rothenstein, though he had not invited him to Chelsea, did ask him

to sit down and have something to drink.

Seated, he was more self-assertive. He flung back the wings of his cape

with a gesture which--had not those wings been waterproof--might

have seemed to hurl defiance at things in general. And he ordered an

absinthe. ‘Je me tiens toujours fidele,’ he told Rothenstein, ‘a la

sorciere glauque.’

‘It is bad for you,’ said Rothenstein dryly.

‘Nothing is bad for one,’ answered Soames. ‘Dans ce monde il n’y a ni de

bien ni de mal.’

‘Nothing good and nothing bad? How do you mean?’

‘I explained it all in the preface to “Negations.”’

‘“Negations”?’

‘Yes; I gave you a copy of it.’

‘Oh yes, of course. But did you explain--for instance--that there was no

such thing as bad or good grammar?’

‘N-no,’ said Soames. ‘Of course in Art there is the good and the evil.

But in Life--no.’ He was rolling a cigarette. He had weak white hands,

not well washed, and with finger-tips much stained by nicotine. ‘In Life

there are illusions of good and evil, but’--his voice trailed away to a

murmur in which the words ‘vieux jeu’ and ‘rococo’ were faintly audible.

I think he felt he was not doing himself justice, and feared that

Rothenstein was going to point out fallacies. Anyhow, he cleared his

throat and said ‘Parlons d’autre chose.’

It occurs to you that he was a fool? It didn’t to me. I was young, and

had not the clarity of judgment that Rothenstein already had. Soames was

quite five or six years older than either of us. Also, he had written a

book.

It was wonderful to have written a book.

If Rothenstein had not been there, I should have revered Soames. Even as

it was, I respected him. And I was very near indeed to reverence when

he said he had another book coming out soon. I asked if I might ask what

kind of book it was to be.

‘My poems,’ he answered. Rothenstein asked if this was to be the title

of the book. The poet meditated on this suggestion, but said he rather

thought of giving the book no title at all. ‘If a book is good in

itself--’ he murmured, waving his cigarette.

Rothenstein objected that absence of title might be bad for the sale

of a book. ‘If,’ he urged, ‘I went into a bookseller’s and said simply

“Have you got?” or “Have you a copy of?” how would they know what I

wanted?’

‘Oh, of course I should have my name on the cover,’ Soames answered

earnestly. ‘And I rather want,’ he added, looking hard at Rothenstein,

‘to have a drawing of myself as frontispiece.’ Rothenstein admitted

that this was a capital idea, and mentioned that he was going into the

country and would be there for some time. He then looked at his watch,

exclaimed at the hour, paid the waiter, and went away with me to dinner.

Soames remained at his post of fidelity to the glaucous witch.

‘Why were you so determined not to draw him?’ I asked.

‘Draw him? Him? How can one draw a man who doesn’t exist?’

‘He is dim,’ I admitted. But my mot juste fell flat. Rothenstein

repeated that Soames was non-existent.

Still, Soames had written a book. I asked if Rothenstein had read

‘Negations.’ He said he had looked into it, ‘but,’ he added crisply,

‘I don’t profess to know anything about writing.’ A reservation very

characteristic of the period! Painters would not then allow that any one

outside their own order had a right to any opinion about painting. This

law (graven on the tablets brought down by Whistler from the summit of

Fujiyama) imposed certain limitations. If other arts than painting were

not utterly unintelligible to all but the men who practised them,

the law tottered--the Monroe Doctrine, as it were, did not hold good.

Therefore no painter would offer an opinion of a book without warning

you at any rate that his opinion was worthless. No one is a better judge

of literature than Rothenstein; but it wouldn’t have done to tell him

so in those days; and I knew that I must form an unaided judgment on

‘Negations.’

Not to buy a book of which I had met the author face to face would

have been for me in those days an impossible act of self-denial. When

I returned to Oxford for the Christmas Term I had duly secured

‘Negations.’ I used to keep it lying carelessly on the table in my room,

and whenever a friend took it up and asked what it was about I would

say ‘Oh, it’s rather a remarkable book. It’s by a man whom I know.’ Just

‘what it was about’ I never was able to say. Head or tail was just what

I hadn’t made of that slim green volume. I found in the preface no clue

to the exiguous labyrinth of contents, and in that labyrinth nothing to

explain the preface.

‘Lean near to life. Lean very near--nearer.

‘Life is web, and therein nor warp nor woof is, but web only.

‘It is for this I am Catholick in church and in thought, yet do let

swift Mood weave there what the shuttle of Mood wills.’

These were the opening phrases of the preface, but those which followed

were less easy to understand. Then came ‘Stark: A Conte,’ about a

midinette who, so far as I could gather, murdered, or was about to

murder, a mannequin. It was rather like a story by Catulle Mendes in

which the translator had either skipped or cut out every alternate

sentence. Next, a dialogue between Pan and St. Ursula--lacking, I felt,

in ‘snap.’ Next, some aphorisms (entitled ‘Aphorismata’ [spelled in

Greek]). Throughout, in fact, there was a great variety of form; and

the forms had evidently been wrought with much care. It was rather the

substance that eluded me. Was there, I wondered, any substance at all?

It did now occur to me: suppose Enoch Soames was a fool! Up cropped a

rival hypothesis: suppose _I_ was! I inclined to give Soames the benefit

of the doubt. I had read ‘L’Apres-midi d’un Faune’ without extracting a

glimmer of meaning. Yet Mallarme--of course--was a Master. How was I to

know that Soames wasn’t another? There was a sort of music in his

prose, not indeed arresting, but perhaps, I thought, haunting, and laden

perhaps with meanings as deep as Mallarme’s own. I awaited his poems

with an open mind.

And I looked forward to them with positive impatience after I had had a

second meeting with him. This was on an evening in January. Going into

the aforesaid domino room, I passed a table at which sat a pale man with

an open book before him. He looked from his book to me, and I looked

back over my shoulder with a vague sense that I ought to have recognised

him. I returned to pay my respects. After exchanging a few words, I said

with a glance to the open book, ‘I see I am interrupting you,’ and was

about to pass on, but ‘I prefer,’ Soames replied in his toneless voice,

‘to be interrupted,’ and I obeyed his gesture that I should sit down.

I asked him if he often read here. ‘Yes; things of this kind I read

here,’ he answered, indicating the title of his book--‘The Poems of

Shelley.’

‘Anything that you really’--and I was going to say ‘admire?’ But I

cautiously left my sentence unfinished, and was glad that I had done so,

for he said, with unwonted emphasis, ‘Anything second-rate.’

I had read little of Shelley, but ‘Of course,’ I murmured, ‘he’s very

uneven.’

‘I should have thought evenness was just what was wrong with him. A

deadly evenness. That’s why I read him here. The noise of this place

breaks the rhythm. He’s tolerable here.’ Soames took up the book and

glanced through the pages. He laughed. Soames’ laugh was a short, single

and mirthless sound from the throat, unaccompanied by any movement of

the face or brightening of the eyes. ‘What a period!’ he uttered, laying

the book down. And ‘What a country!’ he added.

I asked rather nervously if he didn’t think Keats had more or less held

his own against the drawbacks of time and place. He admitted that there

were ‘passages in Keats,’ but did not specify them. Of ‘the older men,’

as he called them, he seemed to like only Milton. ‘Milton,’ he said,

‘wasn’t sentimental.’ Also, ‘Milton had a dark insight.’ And again, ‘I

can always read Milton in the reading-room.’

‘The reading-room?’

‘Of the British Museum. I go there every day.’

‘You do? I’ve only been there once. I’m afraid I found it rather a

depressing place. It--it seemed to sap one’s vitality.’

‘It does. That’s why I go there. The lower one’s vitality, the more

sensitive one is to great art. I live near the Museum. I have rooms in

Dyott Street.’

‘And you go round to the reading-room to read Milton?’

‘Usually Milton.’ He looked at me. ‘It was Milton,’ he certificatively

added, ‘who converted me to Diabolism.’

‘Diabolism? Oh yes? Really?’ said I, with that vague discomfort and that

intense desire to be polite which one feels when a man speaks of his own

religion. ‘You--worship the Devil?’

Soames shook his head. ‘It’s not exactly worship,’ he qualified, sipping

his absinthe. ‘It’s more a matter of trusting and encouraging.’

‘Ah, yes.... But I had rather gathered from the preface to “Negations”

that you were a--a Catholic.’

‘Je l’etais a cette epoque. Perhaps I still am. Yes, I’m a Catholic

Diabolist.’

This profession he made in an almost cursory tone. I could see that what

was upmost in his mind was the fact that I had read ‘Negations.’ His

pale eyes had for the first time gleamed. I felt as one who is about to

be examined, viva voce, on the very subject in which he is shakiest. I

hastily asked him how soon his poems were to be published. ‘Next week,’

he told me.

‘And are they to be published without a title?’

‘No. I found a title, at last. But I shan’t tell you what it is,’ as

though I had been so impertinent as to inquire. ‘I am not sure that

it wholly satisfies me. But it is the best I can find. It suggests

something of the quality of the poems.... Strange growths, natural and

wild, yet exquisite,’ he added, ‘and many-hued, and full of poisons.’

I asked him what he thought of Baudelaire. He uttered the snort that

was his laugh, and ‘Baudelaire,’ he said, ‘was a bourgeois malgre lui.’

France had had only one poet: Villon; ‘and two-thirds of Villon were

sheer journalism.’ Verlaine was ‘an epicier malgre lui.’ Altogether,

rather to my surprise, he rated French literature lower than English.

There were ‘passages’ in Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. But ‘I,’ he summed up,

‘owe nothing to France.’ He nodded at me. ‘You’ll see,’ he predicted.

I did not, when the time came, quite see that. I thought the author of

‘Fungoids’ did--unconsciously, of course--owe something to the young

Parisian decadents, or to the young English ones who owed something to

THEM. I still think so. The little book--bought by me in Oxford--lies

before me as I write. Its pale grey buckram cover and silver lettering

have not worn well. Nor have its contents. Through these, with a

melancholy interest, I have again been looking. They are not much. But

at the time of their publication I had a vague suspicion that they MIGHT

be. I suppose it is my capacity for faith, not poor Soames’ work, that

is weaker than it once was....

TO A YOUNG WOMAN.

Thou art, who hast not been!

Pale tunes irresolute

And traceries of old sounds

Blown from a rotted flute

Mingle with noise of cymbals rouged with rust,

Nor not strange forms and epicene

Lie bleeding in the dust,

Being wounded with wounds.

For this it is

That in thy counterpart

Of age-long mockeries

Thou hast not been nor art!

There seemed to me a certain inconsistency as between the first and last

lines of this. I tried, with bent brows, to resolve the discord. But I

did not take my failure as wholly incompatible with a meaning in Soames’

mind. Might it not rather indicate the depth of his meaning? As for the

craftsmanship, ‘rouged with rust’ seemed to me a fine stroke, and ‘nor

not’ instead of ‘and’ had a curious felicity. I wondered who the Young

Woman was, and what she had made of it all. I sadly suspect that Soames

could not have made more of it than she. Yet, even now, if one doesn’t

try to make any sense at all of the poem, and reads it just for the

sound, there is a certain grace of cadence. Soames was an artist--in so

far as he was anything, poor fellow!

It seemed to me, when first I read ‘Fungoids,’ that, oddly enough, the

Diabolistic side of him was the best. Diabolism seemed to be a cheerful,

even a wholesome, influence in his life.

NOCTURNE.

Round and round the shutter’d Square

I stroll’d with the Devil’s arm in mine.

No sound but the scrape of his hoofs was there

And the ring of his laughter and mine.

We had drunk black wine.

I scream’d, ‘I will race you, Master!’

‘What matter,’ he shriek’d, ‘to-night

Which of us runs the faster?

There is nothing to fear to-night

In the foul moon’s light!’

Then I look’d him in the eyes,

And I laugh’d full shrill at the lie he told

And the gnawing fear he would fain disguise.

It was true, what I’d time and again been told:

He was old--old.

There was, I felt, quite a swing about that first stanza--a joyous

and rollicking note of comradeship. The second was slightly hysterical

perhaps. But I liked the third: it was so bracingly unorthodox, even

according to the tenets of Soames’ peculiar sect in the faith. Not much

‘trusting and encouraging’ here! Soames triumphantly exposing the Devil

as a liar, and laughing ‘full shrill,’ cut a quite heartening figure,

I thought--then! Now, in the light of what befell, none of his poems

depresses me so much as ‘Nocturne.’

I looked out for what the metropolitan reviewers would have to say. They

seemed to fall into two classes: those who had little to say and those

who had nothing. The second class was the larger, and the words of the

first were cold; insomuch that

Strikes a note of modernity throughout.... These tripping

numbers.--Preston Telegraph

was the only lure offered in advertisements by Soames’ publisher. I had

hopes that when next I met the poet I could congratulate him on having

made a stir; for I fancied he was not so sure of his intrinsic greatness

as he seemed. I was but able to say, rather coarsely, when next I did

see him, that I hoped ‘Fungoids’ was ‘selling splendidly.’ He looked at

me across his glass of absinthe and asked if I had bought a copy. His

publisher had told him that three had been sold. I laughed, as at a

jest.

‘You don’t suppose I CARE, do you?’ he said, with something like a

snarl. I disclaimed the notion. He added that he was not a tradesman. I

said mildly that I wasn’t, either, and murmured that an artist who gave

truly new and great things to the world had always to wait long for

recognition. He said he cared not a sou for recognition. I agreed that

the act of creation was its own reward.

His moroseness might have alienated me if I had regarded myself as a

nobody. But ah! hadn’t both John Lane and Aubrey Beardsley suggested

that I should write an essay for the great new venture that was

afoot--‘The Yellow Book’? And hadn’t Henry Harland, as editor, accepted

my essay? And wasn’t it to be in the very first number? At Oxford I

was still in statu pupillari. In London I regarded myself as very much

indeed a graduate now--one whom no Soames could ruffle. Partly to show

off, partly in sheer good-will, I told Soames he ought to contribute to

‘The Yellow Book.’ He uttered from the throat a sound of scorn for that

publication.

Nevertheless, I did, a day or two later, tentatively ask Harland if he

knew anything of the work of a man called Enoch Soames. Harland paused

in the midst of his characteristic stride around the room, threw up his

hands towards the ceiling, and groaned aloud: he had often met ‘that

absurd creature’ in Paris, and this very morning had received some poems

in manuscript from him.

‘Has he NO talent?’ I asked.

‘He has an income. He’s all right.’ Harland was the most joyous of men

and most generous of critics, and he hated to talk of anything about

which he couldn’t be enthusiastic. So I dropped the subject of Soames.

The news that Soames had an income did take the edge off solicitude. I

learned afterwards that he was the son of an unsuccessful and deceased

bookseller in Preston, but had inherited an annuity of 300 pounds from

a married aunt, and had no surviving relatives of any kind. Materially,

then, he was ‘all right.’ But there was still a spiritual pathos about

him, sharpened for me now by the possibility that even the praises of

The Preston Telegraph might not have been forthcoming had he not been

the son of a Preston man. He had a sort of weak doggedness which I

could not but admire. Neither he nor his work received the slightest

encouragement; but he persisted in behaving as a personage: always

he kept his dingy little flag flying. Wherever congregated the

jeunes feroces of the arts, in whatever Soho restaurant they had just

discovered, in whatever music-hall they were most frequenting, there was

Soames in the midst of them, or rather on the fringe of them, a dim but

inevitable figure. He never sought to propitiate his fellow-writers,

never bated a jot of his arrogance about his own work or of his contempt

for theirs. To the painters he was respectful, even humble; but for the

poets and prosaists of ‘The Yellow Book,’ and later of ‘The Savoy,’ he

had never a word but of scorn. He wasn’t resented. It didn’t occur to

anybody that he or his Catholic Diabolism mattered. When, in the autumn

of ‘96, he brought out (at his own expense, this time) a third book, his

last book, nobody said a word for or against it. I meant, but forgot, to

buy it. I never saw it, and am ashamed to say I don’t even remember

what it was called. But I did, at the time of its publication, say to

Rothenstein that I thought poor old Soames was really a rather

tragic figure, and that I believed he would literally die for want of

recognition. Rothenstein scoffed. He said I was trying to get credit for

a kind heart which I didn’t possess; and perhaps this was so. But at the

private view of the New English Art Club, a few weeks later, I beheld a

pastel portrait of ‘Enoch Soames, Esq.’ It was very like him, and very

like Rothenstein to have done it. Soames was standing near it, in his

soft hat and his waterproof cape, all through the afternoon. Anybody who

knew him would have recognised the portrait at a glance, but nobody who

didn’t know him would have recognised the portrait from its bystander:

it ‘existed’ so much more than he; it was bound to. Also, it had not

that expression of faint happiness which on this day was discernible,

yes, in Soames’ countenance. Fame had breathed on him. Twice again in

the course of the month I went to the New English, and on both occasions

Soames himself was on view there. Looking back, I regard the close of

that exhibition as having been virtually the close of his career. He had

felt the breath of Fame against his cheek--so late, for such a little

while; and at its withdrawal he gave in, gave up, gave out. He, who had

never looked strong or well, looked ghastly now--a shadow of the shade

he had once been. He still frequented the domino room, but, having lost

all wish to excite curiosity, he no longer read books there. ‘You read

only at the Museum now?’ asked I, with attempted cheerfulness. He said

he never went there now. ‘No absinthe there,’ he muttered. It was the

sort of thing that in the old days he would have said for effect; but it

carried conviction now. Absinthe, erst but a point in the ‘personality’

he had striven so hard to build up, was solace and necessity now. He no

longer called it ‘la sorciere glauque.’ He had shed away all his French

phrases. He had become a plain, unvarnished, Preston man.

Failure, if it be a plain, unvarnished, complete failure, and even

though it be a squalid failure, has always a certain dignity. I avoided

Soames because he made me feel rather vulgar. John Lane had published,

by this time, two little books of mine, and they had had a pleasant

little success of esteem. I was a--slight but definite--‘personality.’

Frank Harris had engaged me to kick up my heels in The Saturday Review,

Alfred Harmsworth was letting me do likewise in The Daily Mail. I was

just what Soames wasn’t. And he shamed my gloss. Had I known that he

really and firmly believed in the greatness of what he as an artist

had achieved, I might not have shunned him. No man who hasn’t lost his

vanity can be held to have altogether failed. Soames’ dignity was an

illusion of mine. One day in the first week of June, 1897, that illusion

went. But on the evening of that day Soames went too.

I had been out most of the morning, and, as it was too late to reach

home in time for luncheon, I sought ‘the Vingtieme.’ This little

place--Restaurant du Vingtieme Siecle, to give it its full title--had

been discovered in ‘96 by the poets and prosaists, but had now been more

or less abandoned in favour of some later find. I don’t think it lived

long enough to justify its name; but at that time there it still was, in

Greek Street, a few doors from Soho Square, and almost opposite to that

house where, in the first years of the century, a little girl, and with

her a boy named De Quincey, made nightly encampment in darkness and

hunger among dust and rats and old legal parchments. The Vingtieme was

but a small whitewashed room, leading out into the street at one end and

into a kitchen at the other. The proprietor and cook was a Frenchman,

known to us as Monsieur Vingtieme; the waiters were his two daughters,

Rose and Berthe; and the food, according to faith, was good. The tables

were so narrow, and were set so close together, that there was space for

twelve of them, six jutting from either wall.

Only the two nearest to the door, as I went in, were occupied. On one

side sat a tall, flashy, rather Mephistophelian man whom I had seen from

time to time in the domino room and elsewhere. On the other side sat

Soames. They made a queer contrast in that sunlit room--Soames sitting

haggard in that hat and cape which nowhere at any season had I seen him

doff, and this other, this keenly vital man, at sight of whom I more

than ever wondered whether he were a diamond merchant, a conjurer, or

the head of a private detective agency. I was sure Soames didn’t want my

company; but I asked, as it would have seemed brutal not to, whether

I might join him, and took the chair opposite to his. He was smoking

a cigarette, with an untasted salmi of something on his plate and a

half-empty bottle of Sauterne before him; and he was quite silent. I

said that the preparations for the Jubilee made London impossible. (I

rather liked them, really.) I professed a wish to go right away till

the whole thing was over. In vain did I attune myself to his gloom. He

seemed not to hear me nor even to see me. I felt that his behaviour made

me ridiculous in the eyes of the other man. The gangway between the two

rows of tables at the Vingtieme was hardly more than two feet wide (Rose

and Berthe, in their ministrations, had always to edge past each other,

quarrelling in whispers as they did so), and any one at the table

abreast of yours was practically at yours. I thought our neighbour was

amused at my failure to interest Soames, and so, as I could not explain

to him that my insistence was merely charitable, I became silent.

Without turning my head, I had him well within my range of vision. I

hoped I looked less vulgar than he in contrast with Soames. I was sure

he was not an Englishman, but what WAS his nationality? Though his

jet-black hair was en brosse, I did not think he was French. To Berthe,

who waited on him, he spoke French fluently, but with a hardly native

idiom and accent. I gathered that this was his first visit to the

Vingtieme; but Berthe was off-hand in her manner to him: he had not made

a good impression. His eyes were handsome, but--like the Vingtieme’s

tables--too narrow and set too close together. His nose was predatory,

and the points of his moustache, waxed up beyond his nostrils, gave

a fixity to his smile. Decidedly, he was sinister. And my sense of

discomfort in his presence was intensified by the scarlet waistcoat

which tightly, and so unseasonably in June, sheathed his ample chest.

This waistcoat wasn’t wrong merely because of the heat, either. It was

somehow all wrong in itself. It wouldn’t have done on Christmas morning.

It would have struck a jarring note at the first night of ‘Hernani.’

I was trying to account for its wrongness when Soames suddenly and

strangely broke silence. ‘A hundred years hence!’ he murmured, as in a

trance.

‘We shall not be here!’ I briskly but fatuously added.

‘We shall not be here. No,’ he droned, ‘but the Museum will still be

just where it is. And the reading-room, just where it is. And people

will be able to go and read there.’ He inhaled sharply, and a spasm as

of actual pain contorted his features.

I wondered what train of thought poor Soames had been following. He did

not enlighten me when he said, after a long pause, ‘You think I haven’t

minded.’

‘Minded what, Soames?’

‘Neglect. Failure.’

‘FAILURE?’ I said heartily. ‘Failure?’ I repeated vaguely.

‘Neglect--yes, perhaps; but that’s quite another matter. Of course you

haven’t been--appreciated. But what then? Any artist who--who gives--’

What I wanted to say was, ‘Any artist who gives truly new and great

things to the world has always to wait long for recognition’; but the

flattery would not out: in the face of his misery, a misery so genuine

and so unmasked, my lips would not say the words.

And then--he said them for me. I flushed. ‘That’s what you were going to

say, isn’t it?’ he asked.

‘How did you know?’

‘It’s what you said to me three years ago, when “Fungoids” was

published.’ I flushed the more. I need not have done so at all, for

‘It’s the only important thing I ever heard you say,’ he continued.

‘And I’ve never forgotten it. It’s a true thing. It’s a horrible truth.

But--d’you remember what I answered? I said “I don’t care a sou for

recognition.” And you believed me. You’ve gone on believing I’m above

that sort of thing. You’re shallow. What should YOU know of the feelings

of a man like me? You imagine that a great artist’s faith in himself and

in the verdict of posterity is enough to keep him happy.... You’ve never

guessed at the bitterness and loneliness, the’--his voice broke; but

presently he resumed, speaking with a force that I had never known in

him. ‘Posterity! What use is it to ME? A dead man doesn’t know that

people are visiting his grave--visiting his birthplace--putting up

tablets to him--unveiling statues of him. A dead man can’t read the

books that are written about him. A hundred years hence! Think of it!

If I could come back to life then--just for a few hours--and go to the

reading-room, and READ! Or better still: if I could be projected, now,

at this moment, into that future, into that reading-room, just for this

one afternoon! I’d sell myself body and soul to the devil, for

that! Think of the pages and pages in the catalogue: “SOAMES,

ENOCH” endlessly--endless editions, commentaries, prolegomena,

biographies’--but here he was interrupted by a sudden loud creak of the

chair at the next table. Our neighbour had half risen from his place. He

was leaning towards us, apologetically intrusive.

‘Excuse--permit me,’ he said softly. ‘I have been unable not to hear.

Might I take a liberty? In this little restaurant-sans-facon’--he spread

wide his hands--‘might I, as the phrase is, “cut in”?’

I could but signify our acquiescence. Berthe had appeared at the kitchen

door, thinking the stranger wanted his bill. He waved her away with his

cigar, and in another moment had seated himself beside me, commanding a

full view of Soames.

‘Though not an Englishman,’ he explained, ‘I know my London well, Mr.

Soames. Your name and fame--Mr. Beerbohm’s too--very known to me. Your

point is: who am _I_?’ He glanced quickly over his shoulder, and in a

lowered voice said ‘I am the Devil.’

I couldn’t help it: I laughed. I tried not to, I knew there was nothing

to laugh at, my rudeness shamed me, but--I laughed with increasing

volume. The Devil’s quiet dignity, the surprise and disgust of his

raised eyebrows, did but the more dissolve me. I rocked to and fro, I

lay back aching. I behaved deplorably.

‘I am a gentleman, and,’ he said with intense emphasis, ‘I thought I was

in the company of GENTLEMEN.’

‘Don’t!’ I gasped faintly. ‘Oh, don’t!’

‘Curious, nicht wahr?’ I heard him say to Soames. ‘There is a type of

person to whom the very mention of my name is--oh-so-awfully-funny! In

your theatres the dullest comedian needs only to say “The Devil!” and

right away they give him “the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.”

Is it not so?’

I had now just breath enough to offer my apologies. He accepted them,

but coldly, and re-addressed himself to Soames.

‘I am a man of business,’ he said, ‘and always I would put things

through “right now,” as they say in the States. You are a poet. Les

affaires--you detest them. So be it. But with me you will deal, eh? What

you have said just now gives me furiously to hope.’

Soames had not moved, except to light a fresh cigarette. He sat crouched

forward, with his elbows squared on the table, and his head just above

the level of his hands, staring up at the Devil. ‘Go on,’ he nodded. I

had no remnant of laughter in me now.

‘It will be the more pleasant, our little deal,’ the Devil went on,

‘because you are--I mistake not?--a Diabolist.’

‘A Catholic Diabolist,’ said Soames.

The Devil accepted the reservation genially. ‘You wish,’ he resumed, ‘to

visit now--this afternoon as-ever-is--the reading-room of the British

Museum, yes? but of a hundred years hence, yes? Parfaitement. Time--an

illusion. Past and future--they are as ever-present as the present, or

at any rate only what you call “just-round-the-corner.” I switch you

on to any date. I project you--pouf! You wish to be in the reading-room

just as it will be on the afternoon of June 3, 1997? You wish to find

yourself standing in that room, just past the swing-doors, this very

minute, yes? and to stay there till closing time? Am I right?’

Soames nodded.

The Devil looked at his watch. ‘Ten past two,’ he said. ‘Closing time in

summer same then as now: seven o’clock. That will give you almost five

hours. At seven o’clock--pouf!--you find yourself again here, sitting

at this table. I am dining to-night dans le monde--dans le higlif. That

concludes my present visit to your great city. I come and fetch you

here, Mr. Soames, on my way home.’

‘Home?’ I echoed.

‘Be it never so humble!’ said the Devil lightly.

‘All right,’ said Soames.

‘Soames!’ I entreated. But my friend moved not a muscle.

The Devil had made as though to stretch forth his hand across the table

and touch Soames’ forearm; but he paused in his gesture.

‘A hundred years hence, as now,’ he smiled, ‘no smoking allowed in the

reading-room. You would better therefore----’

Soames removed the cigarette from his mouth and dropped it into his

glass of Sauterne.

‘Soames!’ again I cried. ‘Can’t you’--but the Devil had now stretched

forth his hand across the table. He brought it slowly down on--the

tablecloth. Soames’ chair was empty. His cigarette floated sodden in his

wine-glass. There was no other trace of him.

For a few moments the Devil let his hand rest where it lay, gazing at me

out of the corners of his eyes, vulgarly triumphant.

A shudder shook me. With an effort I controlled myself and rose from my

chair. ‘Very clever,’ I said condescendingly. ‘But--“The Time Machine”

is a delightful book, don’t you think? So entirely original!’

‘You are pleased to sneer,’ said the Devil, who had also risen, ‘but it

is one thing to write about an impossible machine; it is a quite other

thing to be a Supernatural Power.’ All the same, I had scored.

Berthe had come forth at the sound of our rising. I explained to her

that Mr. Soames had been called away, and that both he and I would be

dining here. It was not until I was out in the open air that I began to

feel giddy. I have but the haziest recollection of what I did, where I

wandered, in the glaring sunshine of that endless afternoon. I remember

the sound of carpenters’ hammers all along Piccadilly, and the bare

chaotic look of the half-erected ‘stands.’ Was it in the Green Park, or

in Kensington Gardens, or WHERE was it that I sat on a chair beneath a

tree, trying to read an evening paper? There was a phrase in the leading

article that went on repeating itself in my fagged mind--‘Little is

hidden from this august Lady full of the garnered wisdom of sixty years

of Sovereignty.’ I remember wildly conceiving a letter (to reach Windsor

by express messenger told to await answer):

‘MADAM,--Well knowing that your Majesty is full of the garnered wisdom

of sixty years of Sovereignty, I venture to ask your advice in the

following delicate matter. Mr. Enoch Soames, whose poems you may or may

not know,’....

Was there NO way of helping him--saving him? A bargain was a bargain,

and I was the last man to aid or abet any one in wriggling out of a

reasonable obligation. I wouldn’t have lifted a little finger to save

Faust. But poor Soames!--doomed to pay without respite an eternal price

for nothing but a fruitless search and a bitter disillusioning....

Odd and uncanny it seemed to me that he, Soames, in the flesh, in the

waterproof cape, was at this moment living in the last decade of the

next century, poring over books not yet written, and seeing and seen by

men not yet born. Uncannier and odder still, that to-night and evermore

he would be in Hell. Assuredly, truth was stranger than fiction.

Endless that afternoon was. Almost I wished I had gone with Soames--not

indeed to stay in the reading-room, but to sally forth for a brisk

sight-seeing walk around a new London. I wandered restlessly out of the

Park I had sat in. Vainly I tried to imagine myself an ardent tourist

from the eighteenth century. Intolerable was the strain of the

slow-passing and empty minutes. Long before seven o’clock I was back at

the Vingtieme.

I sat there just where I had sat for luncheon. Air came in listlessly

through the open door behind me. Now and again Rose or Berthe appeared

for a moment. I had told them I would not order any dinner till Mr.

Soames came. A hurdy-gurdy began to play, abruptly drowning the noise

of a quarrel between some Frenchmen further up the street. Whenever the

tune was changed I heard the quarrel still raging. I had bought another

evening paper on my way. I unfolded it. My eyes gazed ever away from it

to the clock over the kitchen door....

Five minutes, now, to the hour! I remembered that clocks in restaurants

are kept five minutes fast. I concentrated my eyes on the paper. I vowed

I would not look away from it again. I held it upright, at its full

width, close to my face, so that I had no view of anything but it....

Rather a tremulous sheet? Only because of the draught, I told myself.

My arms gradually became stiff; they ached; but I could not drop

them--now. I had a suspicion, I had a certainty. Well, what then?...

What else had I come for? Yet I held tight that barrier of newspaper.

Only the sound of Berthe’s brisk footstep from the kitchen enabled me,

forced me, to drop it, and to utter:

‘What shall we have to eat, Soames?’

‘Il est souffrant, ce pauvre Monsieur Soames?’ asked Berthe.

‘He’s only--tired.’ I asked her to get some wine--Burgundy--and whatever

food might be ready. Soames sat crouched forward against the table,

exactly as when last I had seen him. It was as though he had never

moved--he who had moved so unimaginably far. Once or twice in the

afternoon it had for an instant occurred to me that perhaps his journey

was not to be fruitless--that perhaps we had all been wrong in our

estimate of the works of Enoch Soames. That we had been horribly right

was horribly clear from the look of him. But ‘Don’t be discouraged,’ I

falteringly said. ‘Perhaps it’s only that you--didn’t leave enough time.

Two, three centuries hence, perhaps--’

‘Yes,’ his voice came. ‘I’ve thought of that.’

‘And now--now for the more immediate future! Where are you going to

hide? How would it be if you caught the Paris express from Charing

Cross? Almost an hour to spare. Don’t go on to Paris. Stop at Calais.

Live in Calais. He’d never think of looking for you in Calais.’

‘It’s like my luck,’ he said, ‘to spend my last hours on earth with

an ass.’ But I was not offended. ‘And a treacherous ass,’ he strangely

added, tossing across to me a crumpled bit of paper which he had been

holding in his hand. I glanced at the writing on it--some sort of

gibberish, apparently. I laid it impatiently aside.

‘Come, Soames! pull yourself together! This isn’t a mere matter of life

and death. It’s a question of eternal torment, mind you! You don’t mean

to say you’re going to wait limply here till the Devil comes to fetch

you?’

‘I can’t do anything else. I’ve no choice.’

‘Come! This is “trusting and encouraging” with a vengeance! This is

Diabolism run mad!’ I filled his glass with wine. ‘Surely, now that

you’ve SEEN the brute--’

‘It’s no good abusing him.’

‘You must admit there’s nothing Miltonic about him, Soames.’

‘I don’t say he’s not rather different from what I expected.’

‘He’s a vulgarian, he’s a swell-mobsman, he’s the sort of man who hangs

about the corridors of trains going to the Riviera and steals ladies’

jewel-cases. Imagine eternal torment presided over by HIM!’

‘You don’t suppose I look forward to it, do you?’

‘Then why not slip quietly out of the way?’

Again and again I filled his glass, and always, mechanically, he emptied

it; but the wine kindled no spark of enterprise in him. He did not eat,

and I myself ate hardly at all. I did not in my heart believe that any

dash for freedom could save him. The chase would be swift, the capture

certain. But better anything than this passive, meek, miserable waiting.

I told Soames that for the honour of the human race he ought to make

some show of resistance. He asked what the human race had ever done for

him. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘can’t you understand that I’m in his power?

You saw him touch me, didn’t you? There’s an end of it. I’ve no will.

I’m sealed.’

I made a gesture of despair. He went on repeating the word ‘sealed.’

I began to realise that the wine had clouded his brain. No wonder!

Foodless he had gone into futurity, foodless he still was. I urged him

to eat at any rate some bread. It was maddening to think that he, who

had so much to tell, might tell nothing. ‘How was it all,’ I asked,

‘yonder? Come! Tell me your adventures.’

‘They’d make first-rate “copy,” wouldn’t they?’

‘I’m awfully sorry for you, Soames, and I make all possible allowances;

but what earthly right have you to insinuate that I should make “copy,”

as you call it, out of you?’

The poor fellow pressed his hands to his forehead. ‘I don’t know,’ he

said. ‘I had some reason, I know.... I’ll try to remember.’

‘That’s right. Try to remember everything. Eat a little more bread. What

did the reading-room look like?’

‘Much as usual,’ he at length muttered.

‘Many people there?’

‘Usual sort of number.’

‘What did they look like?’

Soames tried to visualise them. ‘They all,’ he presently remembered,

‘looked very like one another.’

My mind took a fearsome leap. ‘All dressed in Jaeger?’

‘Yes. I think so. Greyish-yellowish stuff.’

‘A sort of uniform?’ He nodded. ‘With a number on it, perhaps?--a number

on a large disc of metal sewn on to the left sleeve? DKF 78,910--that

sort of thing?’ It was even so. ‘And all of them--men and women

alike--looking very well-cared-for? very Utopian? and smelling rather

strongly of carbolic? and all of them quite hairless?’ I was right every

time. Soames was only not sure whether the men and women were hairless

or shorn. ‘I hadn’t time to look at them very closely,’ he explained.

‘No, of course not. But----’

‘They stared at ME, I can tell you. I attracted a great deal of

attention.’ At last he had done that! ‘I think I rather scared them.

They moved away whenever I came near. They followed me about at a

distance, wherever I went. The men at the round desk in the middle

seemed to have a sort of panic whenever I went to make inquiries.’

‘What did you do when you arrived?’

Well, he had gone straight to the catalogue, of course--to the S

volumes, and had stood long before SN--SOF, unable to take this volume

out of the shelf, because his heart was beating so.... At first,

he said, he wasn’t disappointed--he only thought there was some new

arrangement. He went to the middle desk and asked where the catalogue of

TWENTIETH-century books was kept. He gathered that there was still only

one catalogue. Again he looked up his name, stared at the three little

pasted slips he had known so well. Then he went and sat down for a long

time....

‘And then,’ he droned, ‘I looked up the “Dictionary of National

Biography” and some encyclopedias.... I went back to the middle desk

and asked what was the best modern book on late nineteenth-century

literature. They told me Mr. T. K. Nupton’s book was considered the

best. I looked it up in the catalogue and filled in a form for it. It

was brought to me. My name wasn’t in the index, but--Yes!’ he said with

a sudden change of tone. ‘That’s what I’d forgotten. Where’s that bit of

paper? Give it me back.’

I, too, had forgotten that cryptic screed. I found it fallen on the

floor, and handed it to him.

He smoothed it out, nodding and smiling at me disagreeably. ‘I found

myself glancing through Nupton’s book,’ he resumed. ‘Not very easy

reading. Some sort of phonetic spelling.... All the modern books I saw

were phonetic.’

‘Then I don’t want to hear any more, Soames, please.’

‘The proper names seemed all to be spelt in the old way. But for that, I

mightn’t have noticed my own name.’

‘Your own name? Really? Soames, I’m VERY glad.’

‘And yours.’

‘No!’

‘I thought I should find you waiting here to-night. So I took the

trouble to copy out the passage. Read it.’

I snatched the paper. Soames’ handwriting was characteristically dim.

It, and the noisome spelling, and my excitement, made me all the slower

to grasp what T. K. Nupton was driving at.

The document lies before me at this moment. Strange that the words

I here copy out for you were copied out for me by poor Soames just

seventy-eight years hence....

From p. 234 of ‘Inglish Littracher 1890-1900’ bi T. K. Nupton, publishd

bi th Stait, 1992:

‘Fr egzarmpl, a riter ov th time, naimd Max Beerbohm, hoo woz stil alive

in th twentieth senchri, rote a stauri in wich e pautraid an immajnari

karrakter kauld “Enoch Soames”--a thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself

a grate jeneus an maix a bargin with th Devvl in auder ter no wot

posterriti thinx ov im! It iz a sumwot labud sattire but not without

vallu az showing hou seriusli the yung men ov th aiteen-ninetiz took

themselvz. Nou that the littreri profeshn haz bin auganized az a

departmnt of publik servis, our riters hav found their levvl an hav

lernt ter doo their duti without thort ov th morro. “Th laibrer iz

werthi ov hiz hire,” an that iz aul. Thank hevvn we hav no Enoch

Soameses amung us to-dai!’

I found that by murmuring the words aloud (a device which I commend to

my reader) I was able to master them, little by little. The clearer they

became, the greater was my bewilderment, my distress and horror. The

whole thing was a nightmare. Afar, the great grisly background of what

was in store for the poor dear art of letters; here, at the table,

fixing on me a gaze that made me hot all over, the poor fellow

whom--whom evidently... but no: whatever down-grade my character might

take in coming years, I should never be such a brute as to----

Again I examined the screed. ‘Immajnari’--but here Soames was, no more

imaginary, alas! than I. And ‘labud’--what on earth was that? (To this

day, I have never made out that word.) ‘It’s all very--baffling,’ I at

length stammered.

Soames said nothing, but cruelly did not cease to look at me.

‘Are you sure,’ I temporised, ‘quite sure you copied the thing out

correctly?’

‘Quite.’

‘Well, then it’s this wretched Nupton who must have made--must be going

to make--some idiotic mistake.... Look here, Soames! you know me better

than to suppose that I.... After all, the name “Max Beerbohm” is not at

all an uncommon one, and there must be several Enoch Soameses running

around--or rather, “Enoch Soames” is a name that might occur to any

one writing a story. And I don’t write stories: I’m an essayist, an

observer, a recorder.... I admit that it’s an extraordinary coincidence.

But you must see----’

‘I see the whole thing,’ said Soames quietly. And he added, with a touch

of his old manner, but with more dignity than I had ever known in him,

‘Parlons d’autre chose.’

I accepted that suggestion very promptly. I returned straight to the

more immediate future. I spent most of the long evening in renewed

appeals to Soames to slip away and seek refuge somewhere. I remember

saying at last that if indeed I was destined to write about him, the

supposed ‘stauri’ had better have at least a happy ending. Soames

repeated those last three words in a tone of intense scorn. ‘In Life and

in Art,’ he said, ‘all that matters is an INEVITABLE ending.’

‘But,’ I urged, more hopefully than I felt, ‘an ending that can be

avoided ISN’T inevitable.’

‘You aren’t an artist,’ he rasped. ‘And you’re so hopelessly not an

artist that, so far from being able to imagine a thing and make it seem

true, you’re going to make even a true thing seem as if you’d made it

up. You’re a miserable bungler. And it’s like my luck.’

I protested that the miserable bungler was not I--was not going to be

I--but T. K. Nupton; and we had a rather heated argument, in the thick

of which it suddenly seemed to me that Soames saw he was in the wrong:

he had quite physically cowered. But I wondered why--and now I guessed

with a cold throb just why--he stared so, past me. The bringer of that

‘inevitable ending’ filled the doorway.

I managed to turn in my chair and to say, not without a semblance of

lightness, ‘Aha, come in!’ Dread was indeed rather blunted in me by

his looking so absurdly like a villain in a melodrama. The sheen of his

tilted hat and of his shirt-front, the repeated twists he was giving to

his moustache, and most of all the magnificence of his sneer, gave token

that he was there only to be foiled.

He was at our table in a stride. ‘I am sorry,’ he sneered witheringly,

‘to break up your pleasant party, but--’

‘You don’t: you complete it,’ I assured him. ‘Mr. Soames and I want

to have a little talk with you. Won’t you sit? Mr. Soames got

nothing--frankly nothing--by his journey this afternoon. We don’t wish

to say that the whole thing was a swindle--a common swindle. On the

contrary, we believe you meant well. But of course the bargain, such as

it was, is off.’

The Devil gave no verbal answer. He merely looked at Soames and pointed

with rigid forefinger to the door. Soames was wretchedly rising from

his chair when, with a desperate quick gesture, I swept together two

dinner-knives that were on the table, and laid their blades across

each other. The Devil stepped sharp back against the table behind him,

averting his face and shuddering.

‘You are not superstitious!’ he hissed.

‘Not at all,’ I smiled.

‘Soames!’ he said as to an underling, but without turning his face, ‘put

those knives straight!’

With an inhibitive gesture to my friend, ‘Mr. Soames,’ I said

emphatically to the Devil, ‘is a CATHOLIC Diabolist’; but my poor friend

did the Devil’s bidding, not mine; and now, with his master’s eyes again

fixed on him, he arose, he shuffled past me. I tried to speak. It was

he that spoke. ‘Try,’ was the prayer he threw back at me as the Devil

pushed him roughly out through the door, ‘TRY to make them know that I

did exist!’

In another instant I too was through that door. I stood staring all

ways--up the street, across it, down it. There was moonlight and

lamplight, but there was not Soames nor that other.

Dazed, I stood there. Dazed, I turned back, at length, into the little

room; and I suppose I paid Berthe or Rose for my dinner and luncheon,

and for Soames’: I hope so, for I never went to the Vingtieme again.

Ever since that night I have avoided Greek Street altogether. And for

years I did not set foot even in Soho Square, because on that same night

it was there that I paced and loitered, long and long, with some such

dull sense of hope as a man has in not straying far from the place where

he has lost something.... ‘Round and round the shutter’d Square’--that

line came back to me on my lonely beat, and with it the whole stanza,

ringing in my brain and bearing in on me how tragically different from

the happy scene imagined by him was the poet’s actual experience of that

prince in whom of all princes we should put not our trust.

But--strange how the mind of an essayist, be it never so stricken, roves

and ranges!--I remember pausing before a wide doorstep and wondering if

perchance it was on this very one that the young De Quincey lay ill and

faint while poor Ann flew as fast as her feet would carry her to Oxford

Street, the ‘stony-hearted stepmother’ of them both, and came back

bearing that ‘glass of port wine and spices’ but for which he might, so

he thought, actually have died. Was this the very doorstep that the old

De Quincey used to revisit in homage? I pondered Ann’s fate, the cause

of her sudden vanishing from the ken of her boy-friend; and presently I

blamed myself for letting the past over-ride the present. Poor vanished

Soames!

And for myself, too, I began to be troubled. What had I better do? Would

there be a hue and cry--Mysterious Disappearance of an Author, and all

that? He had last been seen lunching and dining in my company. Hadn’t I

better get a hansom and drive straight to Scotland Yard?... They would

think I was a lunatic. After all, I reassured myself, London was a

very large place, and one very dim figure might easily drop out of it

unobserved--now especially, in the blinding glare of the near Jubilee.

Better say nothing at all, I thought.

And I was right. Soames’ disappearance made no stir at all. He was

utterly forgotten before any one, so far as I am aware, noticed that he

was no longer hanging around. Now and again some poet or prosaist may

have said to another, ‘What has become of that man Soames?’ but I never

heard any such question asked. The solicitor through whom he was paid

his annuity may be presumed to have made inquiries, but no echo of

these resounded. There was something rather ghastly to me in the general

unconsciousness that Soames had existed, and more than once I caught

myself wondering whether Nupton, that babe unborn, were going to be

right in thinking him a figment of my brain.

In that extract from Nupton’s repulsive book there is one point which

perhaps puzzles you. How is it that the author, though I have here

mentioned him by name and have quoted the exact words he is going to

write, is not going to grasp the obvious corollary that I have invented

nothing? The answer can be only this: Nupton will not have read the

later passages of this memoir. Such lack of thoroughness is a serious

fault in any one who undertakes to do scholar’s work. And I hope these

words will meet the eye of some contemporary rival to Nupton and be the

undoing of Nupton.

I like to think that some time between 1992 and 1997 somebody will have

looked up this memoir, and will have forced on the world his inevitable

and startling conclusions. And I have reasons for believing that this

will be so. You realise that the reading-room into which Soames was

projected by the Devil was in all respects precisely as it will be on

the afternoon of June 3, 1997. You realise, therefore, that on that

afternoon, when it comes round, there the self-same crowd will be, and

there Soames too will be, punctually, he and they doing precisely what

they did before. Recall now Soames’ account of the sensation he made.

You may say that the mere difference of his costume was enough to make

him sensational in that uniformed crowd. You wouldn’t say so if you had

ever seen him. I assure you that in no period could Soames be anything

but dim. The fact that people are going to stare at him, and follow him

around, and seem afraid of him, can be explained only on the hypothesis

that they will somehow have been prepared for his ghostly visitation.

They will have been awfully waiting to see whether he really would come.

And when he does come the effect will of course be--awful.

An authentic, guaranteed, proven ghost, but--only a ghost, alas! Only

that. In his first visit, Soames was a creature of flesh and blood,

whereas the creatures into whose midst he was projected were but ghosts,

I take it--solid, palpable, vocal, but unconscious and automatic ghosts,

in a building that was itself an illusion. Next time, that building and

those creatures will be real. It is of Soames that there will be but

the semblance. I wish I could think him destined to revisit the world

actually, physically, consciously. I wish he had this one brief escape,

this one small treat, to look forward to. I never forget him for long.

He is where he is, and forever. The more rigid moralists among you may

say he has only himself to blame. For my part, I think he has been

very hardly used. It is well that vanity should be chastened; and Enoch

Soames’ vanity was, I admit, above the average, and called for special

treatment. But there was no need for vindictiveness. You say he

contracted to pay the price he is paying; yes; but I maintain that he

was induced to do so by fraud. Well-informed in all things, the Devil

must have known that my friend would gain nothing by his visit to

futurity. The whole thing was a very shabby trick. The more I think of

it, the more detestable the Devil seems to me.

Of him I have caught sight several times, here and there, since that day

at the Vingtieme. Only once, however, have I seen him at close quarters.

This was in Paris. I was walking, one afternoon, along the Rue d’Antin,

when I saw him advancing from the opposite direction--over-dressed as

ever, and swinging an ebony cane, and altogether behaving as though

the whole pavement belonged to him. At thought of Enoch Soames and the

myriads of other sufferers eternally in this brute’s dominion, a great

cold wrath filled me, and I drew myself up to my full height. But--well,

one is so used to nodding and smiling in the street to anybody whom one

knows that the action becomes almost independent of oneself: to prevent

it requires a very sharp effort and great presence of mind. I was

miserably aware, as I passed the Devil, that I nodded and smiled to him.

And my shame was the deeper and hotter because he, if you please, stared

straight at me with the utmost haughtiness.

To be cut--deliberately cut--by HIM! I was, I still am, furious at

having had that happen to me.

HILARY MALTBY AND STEPHEN BRAXTON

People still go on comparing Thackeray and Dickens, quite cheerfully.

But the fashion of comparing Maltby and Braxton went out so long ago as

1795. No, I am wrong. But anything that happened in the bland old days

before the war does seem to be a hundred more years ago than actually

it is. The year I mean is the one in whose spring-time we all went

bicycling (O thrill!) in Battersea Park, and ladies wore sleeves that

billowed enormously out from their shoulders, and Lord Rosebery was

Prime Minister.

In that Park, in that spring-time, in that sea of sleeves, there was

almost as much talk about the respective merits of Braxton and Maltby as

there was about those of Rudge and Humber. For the benefit of my younger

readers, and perhaps, so feeble is human memory, for the benefit of

their elders too, let me state that Rudge and Humber were rival makers

of bicycles, that Hilary Maltby was the author of ‘Ariel in Mayfair,’

and Stephen Braxton of ‘A Faun on the Cotswolds.’

‘Which do you think is REALLY the best--“Ariel” or “A Faun”?’ Ladies

were always asking one that question. ‘Oh, well, you know, the two are

so different. It’s really very hard to compare them.’ One was always

giving that answer. One was not very brilliant perhaps.

The vogue of the two novels lasted throughout the summer. As both were

‘firstlings,’ and Great Britain had therefore nothing else of Braxton’s

or Maltby’s to fall back on, the horizon was much scanned for what

Maltby, and what Braxton, would give us next. In the autumn Braxton

gave us his secondling. It was an instantaneous failure. No more was he

compared with Maltby. In the spring of ‘96 came Maltby’s secondling.

Its failure was instantaneous. Maltby might once more have been compared

with Braxton. But Braxton was now forgotten. So was Maltby.

This was not kind. This was not just. Maltby’s first novel, and

Braxton’s, had brought delight into many thousands of homes. People

should have paused to say of Braxton “Perhaps his third novel will be

better than his second,” and to say as much for Maltby. I blame people

for having given no sign of wanting a third from either; and I blame

them with the more zest because neither ‘A Faun on the Cotswolds’ nor

‘Ariel in Mayfair’ was a merely popular book: each, I maintain, was a

good book. I don’t go so far as to say that the one had ‘more of natural

magic, more of British woodland glamour, more of the sheer joy of life

in it than anything since “As You Like It,”’ though Higsby went so far

as this in the Daily Chronicle; nor can I allow the claim made for the

other by Grigsby in the Globe that ‘for pungency of satire there has

been nothing like it since Swift laid down his pen, and for sheer

sweetness and tenderness of feeling--ex forti dulcedo--nothing to be

mentioned in the same breath with it since the lute fell from the tired

hand of Theocritus.’ These were foolish exaggerations. But one must not

condemn a thing because it has been over-praised. Maltby’s ‘Ariel’ was

a delicate, brilliant work; and Braxton’s ‘Faun,’ crude though it was

in many ways, had yet a genuine power and beauty. This is not a mere

impression remembered from early youth. It is the reasoned and seasoned

judgment of middle age. Both books have been out of print for many

years; but I secured a second-hand copy of each not long ago, and found

them well worth reading again.

From the time of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the outbreak of the war, current

literature did not suffer from any lack of fauns. But when Braxton’s

first book appeared fauns had still an air of novelty about them. We had

not yet tired of them and their hoofs and their slanting eyes and their

way of coming suddenly out of woods to wean quiet English villages from

respectability. We did tire later. But Braxton’s faun, even now, seems

to me an admirable specimen of his class--wild and weird, earthy,

goat-like, almost convincing. And I find myself convinced altogether by

Braxton’s rustics. I admit that I do not know much about rustics,

except from novels. But I plead that the little I do know about them by

personal observation does not confirm much of what the many novelists

have taught me. I plead also that Braxton may well have been right about

the rustics of Gloucestershire because he was (as so many interviewers

recorded of him in his brief heyday) the son of a yeoman farmer at Far

Oakridge, and his boyhood had been divided between that village and the

Grammar School at Stroud. Not long ago I happened to be staying in the

neighbourhood, and came across several villagers who might, I assure

you, have stepped straight out of Braxton’s pages. For that matter,

Braxton himself, whom I met often in the spring of ‘95, might have

stepped straight out of his own pages.

I am guilty of having wished he would step straight back into them. He

was a very surly fellow, very rugged and gruff. He was the antithesis of

pleasant little Maltby. I used to think that perhaps he would have been

less unamiable if success had come to him earlier. He was thirty years

old when his book was published, and had had a very hard time since

coming to London at the age of sixteen. Little Maltby was a year

older, and so had waited a year longer; but then, he had waited under

a comfortable roof at Twickenham, emerging into the metropolis for no

grimmer purpose than to sit and watch the fashionable riders and

walkers in Rotten Row, and then going home to write a little, or to play

lawn-tennis with the young ladies of Twickenham. He had been the only

child of his parents (neither of whom, alas, survived to take pleasure

in their darling’s sudden fame). He had now migrated from Twickenham and

taken rooms in Ryder Street. Had he ever shared with Braxton the bread

of adversity--but no, I think he would in any case have been pleasant.

And conversely I cannot imagine that Braxton would in any case have been

so.

No one seeing the two rivals together, no one meeting them at Mr.

Hookworth’s famous luncheon parties in the Authors’ Club, or at Mrs.

Foster-Dugdale’s not less famous garden parties in Greville Place,

would have supposed off-hand that the pair had a single point in common.

Dapper little Maltby--blond, bland, diminutive Maltby, with his monocle

and his gardenia; big black Braxton, with his lanky hair and his square

blue jaw and his square sallow forehead. Canary and crow. Maltby had a

perpetual chirrup of amusing small-talk. Braxton was usually silent, but

very well worth listening to whenever he did croak. He had distinction,

I admit it; the distinction of one who steadfastly refuses to adapt

himself to surroundings. He stood out. He awed Mr. Hookworth. Ladies

were always asking one another, rather intently, what they thought of

him. One could imagine that Mr. Foster-Dugdale, had he come home from

the City to attend the garden parties, might have regarded him as

one from whom Mrs. Foster-Dugdale should be shielded. But the casual

observer of Braxton and Maltby at Mrs. Foster-Dugdale’s or elsewhere was

wrong in supposing that the two were totally unlike. He overlooked one

simple and obvious point. This was that he had met them both at Mrs.

Foster-Dugdale’s or elsewhere. Wherever they were invited, there

certainly, there punctually, they would be. They were both of them

gluttons for the fruits and signs of their success.

Interviewers and photographers had as little reason as had hostesses to

complain of two men so earnestly and assiduously ‘on the make’ as Maltby

and Braxton. Maltby, for all his sparkle, was earnest; Braxton, for all

his arrogance, assiduous.

‘A Faun on the Cotswolds’ had no more eager eulogist than the author of

‘Ariel in Mayfair.’ When any one praised his work, Maltby would lightly

disparage it in comparison with Braxton’s--‘Ah, if I could write like

THAT!’ Maltby won golden opinions in this way. Braxton, on the

other hand, would let slip no opportunity for sneering at Maltby’s

work--‘gimcrack,’ as he called it. This was not good for Maltby.

Different men, different methods.

‘The Rape of the Lock’ was ‘gimcrack,’ if you care to call it so; but it

was a delicate, brilliant work; and so, I repeat, was Maltby’s ‘Ariel.’

Absurd to compare Maltby with Pope? I am not so sure. I have read

‘Ariel,’ but have never read ‘The Rape of the Lock.’ Braxton’s

opprobrious term for ‘Ariel’ may not, however, have been due to jealousy

alone. Braxton had imagination, and his rival did not soar above fancy.

But the point is that Maltby’s fancifulness went far and well. In

telling how Ariel re-embodied himself from thin air, leased a small

house in Chesterfield Street, was presented at a Levee, played the part

of good fairy in a matter of true love not running smooth, and worked

meanwhile all manner of amusing changes among the aristocracy before he

vanished again, Maltby showed a very pretty range of ingenuity. In one

respect, his work was a more surprising achievement than Braxton’s. For

whereas Braxton had been born and bred among his rustics, Maltby knew

his aristocrats only through Thackeray, through the photographs and

paragraphs in the newspapers, and through those passionate excursions

of his to Rotten Row. Yet I found his aristocrats as convincing as

Braxton’s rustics. It is true that I may have been convinced wrongly.

That is a point which I could settle only by experience. I shift my

ground, claiming for Maltby’s aristocrats just this: that they pleased

me very much.

Aristocrats, when they are presented solely through a novelist’s sense

of beauty, do not satisfy us. They may be as beautiful as all that,

but, for fear of thinking ourselves snobbish, we won’t believe it. We do

believe it, however, and revel in it, when the novelist saves his face

and ours by a pervading irony in the treatment of what he loves. The

irony must, mark you, be pervading and obvious. Disraeli’s great ladies

and lords won’t do, for his irony was but latent in his homage, and

thus the reader feels himself called on to worship and in duty bound

to scoff. All’s well, though, when the homage is latent in the irony.

Thackeray, inviting us to laugh and frown over the follies of Mayfair,

enables us to reel with him in a secret orgy of veneration for those

fools.

Maltby, too, in his measure, enabled us to reel thus. That is mainly

why, before the end of April, his publisher was in a position to state

that ‘the Seventh Large Impression of “Ariel in Mayfair” is almost

exhausted.’ Let it be put to our credit, however, that at the same

moment Braxton’s publisher had ‘the honour to inform the public that

an Eighth Large Impression of “A Faun on the Cotswolds” is in instant

preparation.’

Indeed, it seemed impossible for either author to outvie the other in

success and glory. Week in, week out, you saw cancelled either’s every

momentary advantage. A neck-and-neck race. As thus:--Maltby appears as

a Celebrity At Home in the World (Tuesday). Ha! No, Vanity

Fair (Wednesday) has a perfect presentment of Braxton by ‘Spy.’

Neck-and-neck! No, Vanity Fair says ‘the subject of next week’s cartoon

will be Mr. Hilary Maltby.’ Maltby wins! No, next week Braxton’s in the

World.

Throughout May I kept, as it were, my eyes glued to my field-glasses.

On the first Monday in June I saw that which drew from me a hoarse

ejaculation.

Let me explain that always on Monday mornings at this time of year, when

I opened my daily paper, I looked with respectful interest to see what

bevy of the great world had been entertained since Saturday at Keeb

Hall. The list was always august and inspiring. Statecraft and Diplomacy

were well threaded there with mere Lineage and mere Beauty, with Royalty

sometimes, with mere Wealth never, with privileged Genius now and then.

A noble composition always. It was said that the Duke of Hertfordshire

cared for nothing but his collection of birds’ eggs, and that the

collections of guests at Keeb were formed entirely by his young

Duchess. It was said that he had climbed trees in every corner of every

continent. The Duchess’ hobby was easier. She sat aloft and beckoned

desirable specimens up.

The list published on that first Monday in June began ordinarily enough,

began with the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador and the Portuguese Minister.

Then came the Duke and Duchess of Mull, followed by four lesser Peers

(two of them Proconsuls, however) with their Peeresses, three Peers

without their Peeresses, four Peeresses without their Peers, and a dozen

bearers of courtesy-titles with or without their wives or husbands. The

rear was brought up by ‘Mr. A. J. Balfour, Mr. Henry Chaplin, and Mr.

Hilary Maltby.’

Youth tends to look at the darker side of things. I confess that my

first thought was for Braxton.

I forgave and forgot his faults of manner. Youth is generous. It does

not criticise a strong man stricken.

And anon, so habituated was I to the parity of those two strivers, I

conceived that there might be some mistake. Daily newspapers are printed

in a hurry. Might not ‘Henry Chaplin’ be a typographical error for

‘Stephen Braxton’? I went out and bought another newspaper. But Mr.

Chaplin’s name was in that too.

‘Patience!’ I said to myself. ‘Braxton crouches only to spring. He will

be at Keeb Hall on Saturday next.’

My mind was free now to dwell with pleasure on Maltby’s great

achievement. I thought of writing to congratulate him, but feared this

might be in bad taste. I did, however, write asking him to lunch with

me. He did not answer my letter. I was, therefore, all the more sorry,

next Monday, at not finding ‘and Mr. Stephen Braxton’ in Keeb’s week-end

catalogue.

A few days later I met Mr. Hookworth. He mentioned that Stephen Braxton

had left town. ‘He has taken,’ said Hookworth, ‘a delightful bungalow on

the east coast. He has gone there to WORK.’ He added that he had a great

liking for Braxton--‘a man utterly UNSPOILT.’ I inferred that he, too,

had written to Maltby and received no answer.

That butterfly did not, however, appear to be hovering from flower

to flower in the parterres of rank and fashion. In the daily lists of

guests at dinners, receptions, dances, balls, the name of Maltby figured

never. Maltby had not caught on.

Presently I heard that he, too, had left town. I gathered that he had

gone quite early in June--quite soon after Keeb. Nobody seemed to know

where he was. My own theory was that he had taken a delightful bungalow

on the west coast, to balance Braxton. Anyhow, the parity of the two

strivers was now somewhat re-established.

In point of fact, the disparity had been less than I supposed. While

Maltby was at Keeb, there Braxton was also--in a sense.... It was a

strange story. I did not hear it at the time. Nobody did. I heard it

seventeen years later. I heard it in Lucca.

Little Lucca I found so enchanting that, though I had only a day or two

to spare, I stayed there a whole month. I formed the habit of walking,

every morning, round that high-pitched path which girdles Lucca, that

wide and tree-shaded path from which one looks down over the city wall

at the fertile plains beneath Lucca. There were never many people there;

but the few who did come came daily, so that I grew to like seeing them

and took a mild personal interest in them.

One of them was an old lady in a wheeled chair. She was not less than

seventy years old, and might or might not have once been beautiful.

Her chair was slowly propelled by an Italian woman. She herself was

obviously Italian. Not so, however, the little gentleman who walked

assiduously beside her. Him I guessed to be English. He was a very stout

little gentleman, with gleaming spectacles and a full blond beard, and

he seemed to radiate cheerfulness. I thought at first that he might be

the old lady’s resident physician; but no, there was something subtly

un-professional about him: I became sure that his constancy was

gratuitous, and his radiance real. And one day, I know not how, there

dawned on me a suspicion that he was--who?--some one I had known--some

writer--what’s-his-name--something with an M--Maltby--Hilary Maltby of

the long-ago!

At sight of him on the morrow this suspicion hardened almost to

certainty. I wished I could meet him alone and ask him if I were not

right, and what he had been doing all these years, and why he had left

England. He was always with the old lady. It was only on my last day in

Lucca that my chance came.

I had just lunched, and was seated on a comfortable bench outside my

hotel, with a cup of coffee on the table before me, gazing across the

faded old sunny piazza and wondering what to do with my last afternoon.

It was then that I espied yonder the back of the putative Maltby. I

hastened forth to him. He was buying some pink roses, a great bunch of

them, from a market-woman under an umbrella. He looked very blank, he

flushed greatly, when I ventured to accost him. He admitted that his

name was Hilary Maltby. I told him my own name, and by degrees he

remembered me. He apologised for his confusion. He explained that he had

not talked English, had not talked to an Englishman, ‘for--oh, hundreds

of years.’ He said that he had, in the course of his long residence in

Lucca, seen two or three people whom he had known in England, but that

none of them had recognised him. He accepted (but as though he were

embarking on the oddest adventure in the world) my invitation that

he should come and sit down and take coffee with me. He laughed with

pleasure and surprise at finding that he could still speak his native

tongue quite fluently and idiomatically. ‘I know absolutely nothing,’ he

said, ‘about England nowadays--except from stray references to it in the

Corriere della Sera; nor did he show the faintest desire that I should

enlighten him. ‘England,’ he mused, ‘--how it all comes back to me!’

‘But not you to it?’

‘Ah, no indeed,’ he said gravely, looking at the roses which he had laid

carefully on the marble table. ‘I am the happiest of men.’

He sipped his coffee, and stared out across the piazza, out beyond it

into the past.

‘I am the happiest of men,’ he repeated. I plied him with the spur of

silence.

‘And I owe it all to having once yielded to a bad impulse. Absurd, the

threads our destinies hang on!’

Again I plied him with that spur. As it seemed not to prick him, I

repeated the words he had last spoken. ‘For instance?’ I added.

‘Take,’ he said, ‘a certain evening in the spring of ‘95. If, on that

evening, the Duchess of Hertfordshire had had a bad cold; or if she

had decided that it WOULDN’T be rather interesting to go on to that

party--that Annual Soiree, I think it was--of the Inkwomen’s Club; or

again--to go a step further back--if she hadn’t ever written that one

little poem, and if it HADN’T been printed in “The Gentlewoman,” and if

the Inkwomen’s committee HADN’T instantly and unanimously elected her an

Honorary Vice-President because of that one little poem; or if--well,

if a million-and-one utterly irrelevant things hadn’t happened,

don’t-you-know, I shouldn’t be here.... I might be THERE,’ he smiled,

with a vague gesture indicating England.

‘Suppose,’ he went on, ‘I hadn’t been invited to that Annual Soiree; or

suppose that other fellow,--

‘Braxton?’ I suggested. I had remembered Braxton at the moment of

recognising Maltby.

‘Suppose HE hadn’t been asked.... But of course we both were. It

happened that I was the first to be presented to the Duchess.... It was

a great moment. I hoped I should keep my head. She wore a tiara. I had

often seen women in tiaras, at the Opera. But I had never talked to

a woman in a tiara. Tiaras were symbols to me. Eyes are just a human

feature. I fixed mine on the Duchess’s. I kept my head by not looking

at hers. I behaved as one human being to another. She seemed very

intelligent. We got on very well. Presently she asked whether I should

think her VERY bold if she said how PERFECTLY divine she thought my

book. I said something about doing my best, and asked with animation

whether she had read “A Faun on the Cotswolds.” She had. She said it was

TOO wonderful, she said it was TOO great. If she hadn’t been a Duchess,

I might have thought her slightly hysterical. Her innate good-sense

quickly reasserted itself. She used her great power. With a wave of her

magic wand she turned into a fact the glittering possibility that had

haunted me. She asked me down to Keeb.

‘She seemed very pleased that I would come. Was I, by any chance, free

on Saturday week? She hoped there would be some amusing people to meet

me. Could I come by the 3.30? It was only an hour-and-a-quarter from

Victoria. On Saturday there were always compartments reserved for people

coming to Keeb by the 3.30. She hoped I would bring my bicycle with me.

She hoped I wouldn’t find it very dull. She hoped I wouldn’t forget to

come. She said how lovely it must be to spend one’s life among clever

people. She supposed I knew everybody here to-night. She asked me to

tell her who everybody was. She asked who was the tall, dark man, over

there. I told her it was Stephen Braxton. She said they had promised to

introduce her to him. She added that he looked rather wonderful. “Oh, he

is, very,” I assured her. She turned to me with a sudden appeal: “DO you

think, if I took my courage in both hands and asked him, he’d care to

come to Keeb?”

‘I hesitated. It would be easy to say that Satan answered FOR me; easy

but untrue; it was I that babbled: “Well--as a matter of fact--since you

ask me--if I were you--really I think you’d better not. He’s very odd in

some ways. He has an extraordinary hatred of sleeping out of London. He

has the real Gloucestershire LOVE of London. At the same time, he’s very

shy; and if you asked him he wouldn’t very well know how to refuse. I

think it would be KINDER not to ask him.”

‘At that moment, Mrs. Wilpham--the President--loomed up to us, bringing

Braxton. He bore himself well. Rough dignity with a touch of mellowness.

I daresay you never saw him smile. He smiled gravely down at the

Duchess, while she talked in her pretty little quick humble way. He made

a great impression.

‘What I had done was not merely base: it was very dangerous. I was in

terror that she might rally him on his devotion to London. I didn’t dare

to move away. I was immensely relieved when at length she said she must

be going.

‘Braxton seemed loth to relax his grip on her hand at parting. I feared

she wouldn’t escape without uttering that invitation. But all was

well.... In saying good night to me, she added in a murmur, “Don’t

forget Keeb--Saturday week--the 3.30.” Merely an exquisite murmur.

But Braxton heard it. I knew, by the diabolical look he gave me, that

Braxton had heard it.... If he hadn’t, I shouldn’t be here.

‘Was I a prey to remorse? Well, in the days between that Soiree and that

Saturday, remorse often claimed me, but rapture wouldn’t give me up.

Arcady, Olympus, the right people, at last! I hadn’t realised how good

my book was--not till it got me this guerdon; not till I got it this

huge advertisement. I foresaw how pleased my publisher would be. In some

great houses, I knew, it was possible to stay without any one knowing

you had been there. But the Duchess of Hertfordshire hid her light under

no bushel. Exclusive she was, but not of publicity. Next to Windsor

Castle, Keeb Hall was the most advertised house in all England.

‘Meanwhile, I had plenty to do. I rather thought of engaging a valet,

but decided that this wasn’t necessary. On the other hand, I felt a need

for three new summer suits, and a new evening suit, and some new white

waistcoats. Also a smoking suit. And had any man ever stayed at Keeb

without a dressing-case? Hitherto I had been content with a pair of

wooden brushes, and so forth. I was afraid these would appal the footman

who unpacked my things. I ordered, for his sake, a large dressing-case,

with my initials engraved throughout it. It looked compromisingly new

when it came to me from the shop. I had to kick it industriously, and

throw it about and scratch it, so as to avert possible suspicion. The

tailor did not send my things home till the Friday evening. I had to sit

up late, wearing the new suits in rotation.

‘Next day, at Victoria, I saw strolling on the platform many people,

male and female, who looked as if they were going to Keeb--tall,

cool, ornate people who hadn’t packed their own things and had reached

Victoria in broughams. I was ornate, but not tall nor cool. My porter

was rather off-hand in his manner as he wheeled my things along to

the 3.30. I asked severely if there were any compartments reserved for

people going to stay with the Duke of Hertfordshire. This worked an

instant change in him. Having set me in one of those shrines, he seemed

almost loth to accept a tip. A snob, I am afraid.

‘A selection of the tall, the cool, the ornate, the intimately

acquainted with one another, soon filled the compartment. There I

was, and I think they felt they ought to try to bring me into the

conversation. As they were all talking about a cotillion of the previous

night, I shouldn’t have been able to shine. I gazed out of the window,

with middle-class aloofness. Presently the talk drifted on to the topic

of bicycles. But by this time it was too late for me to come in.

‘I gazed at the squalid outskirts of London as they flew by. I doubted,

as I listened to my fellow-passengers, whether I should be able to shine

at Keeb. I rather wished I were going to spend the week-end at one of

those little houses with back-gardens beneath the railway-line. I was

filled with fears.

‘For shame! thought I. Was I nobody? Was the author of “Ariel in

Mayfair” nobody?

‘I reminded myself how glad Braxton would be if he knew of my

faint-heartedness. I thought of Braxton sitting, at this moment, in his

room in Clifford’s Inn and glowering with envy of his hated rival in the

3.30. And after all, how enviable I was! My spirits rose. I would acquit

myself well....

‘I much admired the scene at the little railway station where we

alighted. It was like a fete by Lancret. I knew from the talk of my

fellow-passengers that some people had been going down by an earlier

train, and that others were coming by a later. But the 3.30 had brought

a full score of us. Us! That was the final touch of beauty.

‘Outside there were two broughams, a landau, dog-carts, a phaeton, a

wagonette, I know not what. But almost everybody, it seemed, was going

to bicycle. Lady Rodfitten said SHE was going to bicycle. Year after

year, I had seen that famous Countess riding or driving in the Park.

I had been told at fourth hand that she had a masculine intellect and

could make and unmake Ministries. She was nearly sixty now, a trifle

dyed and stout and weather-beaten, but still tremendously handsome, and

hard as nails. One would not have said she had grown older, but merely

that she belonged now to a rather later period of the Roman Empire. I

had never dreamed of a time when one roof would shelter Lady Rodfitten

and me. Somehow, she struck my imagination more than any of these

others--more than Count Deym, more than Mr. Balfour, more than the

lovely Lady Thisbe Crowborough.

‘I might have had a ducal vehicle all to myself, and should have liked

that; but it seemed more correct that I should use my bicycle. On the

other hand, I didn’t want to ride with all these people--a stranger in

their midst. I lingered around the luggage till they were off, and then

followed at a long distance.

‘The sun had gone behind clouds. But I rode slowly, so as to be sure not

to arrive hot. I passed, not without a thrill, through the massive

open gates into the Duke’s park. A massive man with a cockade saluted

me--hearteningly--from the door of the lodge. The park seemed endless.

I came, at length, to a long straight avenue of elms that were almost

blatantly immemorial. At the end of it was--well, I felt like a gnat

going to stay in a public building.

‘If there had been turnstiles--IN and OUT--and a shilling to pay,

I should have felt easier as I passed into that hall--that

Palladio-Gargantuan hall. Some one, some butler or groom-of-the-chamber,

murmured that her Grace was in the garden. I passed out through the

great opposite doorway on to a wide spectacular terrace with lawns

beyond. Tea was on the nearest of these lawns. In the central group of

people--some standing, others sitting--I espied the Duchess. She sat

pouring out tea, a deft and animated little figure. I advanced firmly

down the steps from the terrace, feeling that all would be well so soon

as I had reported myself to the Duchess.

‘But I had a staggering surprise on my way to her. I espied in one of

the smaller groups--whom d’you think? Braxton.

‘I had no time to wonder how he had got there--time merely to grasp the

black fact that he WAS there.

‘The Duchess seemed really pleased to see me. She said it was TOO

splendid of me to come. “You know Mr. Maltby?” she asked Lady Rodfitten,

who exclaimed “Not Mr. HILARY Maltby?” with a vigorous grace that

was overwhelming. Lady Rodfitten declared she was the greatest of my

admirers; and I could well believe that in whatever she did she excelled

all competitors. On the other hand, I found it hard to believe she was

afraid of me. Yet I had her word for it that she was.

‘Her womanly charm gave place now to her masculine grip. She

eulogised me in the language of a seasoned reviewer on the staff of a

long-established journal--wordy perhaps, but sound. I revered and loved

her. I wished I could give her my undivided attention. But, whilst I sat

there, teacup, in hand, between her and the Duchess, part of my brain

was fearfully concerned with that glimpse I had had of Braxton. It

didn’t so much matter that he was here to halve my triumph. But suppose

he knew what I had told the Duchess! And suppose he had--no, surely if

he HAD shown me up in all my meanness she wouldn’t have received me

so very cordially. I wondered where she could have met him since that

evening of the Inkwomen. I heard Lady Rodfitten concluding her review

of “Ariel” with two or three sentences that might have been framed

specially to give the publisher an easy “quote.” And then I heard myself

asking mechanically whether she had read “A Faun on the Cotswolds.” The

Duchess heard me too. She turned from talking to other people and said

“I did like Mr. Braxton so VERY much.”

‘“Yes,” I threw out with a sickly smile, “I’m so glad you asked him to

come.”

‘“But I didn’t ask him. I didn’t DARE.”

‘“But--but--surely he wouldn’t be--be HERE if--” We stared at each other

blankly. “Here?” she echoed, glancing at the scattered little groups of

people on the lawn. I glanced too. I was much embarrassed. I explained

that I had seen Braxton “standing just over there” when I arrived, and

had supposed he was one of the people who came by the earlier train.

“Well,” she said with a slightly irritated laugh, “you must have

mistaken some one else for him.” She dropped the subject, talked to

other people, and presently moved away.

‘Surely, thought I, she didn’t suspect me of trying to make fun of her?

On the other hand, surely she hadn’t conspired with Braxton to make a

fool of ME? And yet, how could Braxton be here without an invitation,

and without her knowledge? My brain whirled. One thing only was clear.

I could NOT have mistaken anybody for Braxton. There Braxton had

stood--Stephen Braxton, in that old pepper-and-salt suit of his, with

his red tie all askew, and without a hat--his hair hanging over his

forehead. All this I had seen sharp and clean-cut. There he had stood,

just beside one of the women who travelled down in the same compartment

as I; a very pretty woman in a pale blue dress; a tall woman--but I had

noticed how small she looked beside Braxton. This woman was now walking

to and fro, yonder, with M. de Soveral. I had seen Braxton beside her as

clearly as I now saw M. de Soveral.

‘Lady Rodfitten was talking about India to a recent Viceroy. She seemed

to have as firm a grip of India as of “Ariel.” I sat forgotten. I wanted

to arise and wander off--in a vague search for Braxton. But I feared

this might look as if I were angry at being ignored. Presently Lady

Rodfitten herself arose, to have what she called her “annual look

round.” She bade me come too, and strode off between me and the

recent Viceroy, noting improvements that had been made in the grounds,

suggesting improvements that might be made, indicating improvements that

MUST be made. She was great on landscape-gardening. The recent Viceroy

was less great on it, but great enough. I don’t say I walked forgotten:

the eminent woman constantly asked my opinion; but my opinion, though of

course it always coincided with hers, sounded quite worthless, somehow.

I longed to shine. I could only bother about Braxton.

‘Lady Rodfitten’s voice sounded over-strong for the stillness of

evening. The shadows lengthened. My spirits sank lower and lower, with

the sun. I was a naturally cheerful person, but always, towards sunset,

I had a vague sense of melancholy: I seemed always to have grown weaker;

morbid misgivings would come to me. On this particular evening there was

one such misgiving that crept in and out of me again and again... a very

horrible misgiving as to the NATURE of what I had seen.

‘Well, dressing for dinner is a great tonic. Especially if one shaves.

My spirits rose as I lathered my face. I smiled to my reflection in

the mirror. The afterglow of the sun came through the window behind

the dressing-table, but I had switched on all the lights. My new

silver-topped bottles and things made a fine array. To-night _I_ was

going to shine, too. I felt I might yet be the life and soul of the

party. Anyway, my new evening suit was without a fault. And meanwhile

this new razor was perfect. Having shaved “down,” I lathered myself

again and proceeded to shave “up.” It was then that I uttered a sharp

sound and swung round on my heel.

‘No one was there. Yet this I knew: Stephen Braxton had just looked over

my shoulder. I had seen the reflection of his face beside mine--craned

forward to the mirror. I had met his eyes.

‘He had been with me. This I knew.

‘I turned to look again at that mirror. One of my cheeks was all covered

with blood. I stanched it with a towel. Three long cuts where the razor

had slipped and skipped. I plunged the towel into cold water and held it

to my cheek. The bleeding went on--alarmingly. I rang the bell. No one

came. I vowed I wouldn’t bleed to death for Braxton. I rang again. At

last a very tall powdered footman appeared--more reproachful-looking

than sympathetic, as though I hadn’t ordered that dressing-case

specially on his behalf. He said he thought one of the housemaids would

have some sticking-plaster. He was very sorry he was needed downstairs,

but he would tell one of the housemaids. I continued to dab and to

curse. The blood flowed less. I showed great spirit. I vowed Braxton

should not prevent me from going down to dinner.

‘But--a pretty sight I was when I did go down. Pale but determined, with

three long strips of black sticking-plaster forming a sort of Z on my

left cheek. Mr. Hilary Maltby at Keeb. Literature’s Ambassador.

‘I don’t know how late I was. Dinner was in full swing. Some servant

piloted me to my place. I sat down unobserved. The woman on either side

of me was talking to her other neighbour. I was near the Duchess’ end of

the table. Soup was served to me--that dark-red soup that you pour cream

into--Bortsch. I felt it would steady me. I raised the first spoonful to

my lips, and--my hand gave a sudden jerk.

‘I was aware of two separate horrors--a horror that had been, a horror

that was. Braxton had vanished. Not for more than an instant had he

stood scowling at me from behind the opposite diners. Not for more than

the fraction of an instant. But he had left his mark on me. I gazed down

with a frozen stare at my shirtfront, at my white waistcoat, both dark

with Bortsch. I rubbed them with a napkin. I made them worse.

‘I looked at my glass of champagne. I raised it carefully and drained

it at one draught. It nerved me. But behind that shirtfront was a broken

heart.

‘The woman on my left was Lady Thisbe Crowborough. I don’t know who was

the woman on my right. She was the first to turn and see me. I thought

it best to say something about my shirtfront at once. I said it to her

sideways, without showing my left cheek. Her handsome eyes rested on the

splashes. She said, after a moment’s thought, that they looked “rather

gay.” She said she thought the eternal black and white of men’s

evening clothes was “so very dreary.” She did her best.... Lady Thisbe

Crowborough did her best, too, I suppose; but breeding isn’t proof

against all possible shocks: she visibly started at sight of me and my

Z. I explained that I had cut myself shaving. I said, with an attempt at

lightness, that shy men ought always to cut themselves shaving: it

made such a good conversational opening. “But surely,” she said after a

pause, “you don’t cut yourself on purpose?” She was an abysmal fool. I

didn’t think so at the time. She was Lady Thisbe Crowborough. This fact

hallowed her. That we didn’t get on at all well was a misfortune

for which I blamed only myself and my repulsive appearance and--the

unforgettable horror that distracted me. Nor did I blame Lady Thisbe for

turning rather soon to the man on her other side.

‘The woman on my right was talking to the man on HER other side; so that

I was left a prey to secret memory and dread. I wasn’t wondering, wasn’t

attempting to explain; I was merely remembering--and dreading. And--how

odd one is!--on the top-layer of my consciousness I hated to be seen

talking to no one. Mr. Maltby at Keeb. I caught the Duchess’ eye once

or twice, and she nodded encouragingly, as who should say “You do look

rather awful, and you do seem rather out of it, but I don’t for a moment

regret having asked you to come.” Presently I had another chance of

talking. I heard myself talk. My feverish anxiety to please rather

touched ME. But I noticed that the eyes of my listener wandered. And

yet I was sorry when the ladies went away. I had a sense of greater

exposure. Men who hadn’t seen me saw me now. The Duke, as he came round

to the Duchess’ end of the table, must have wondered who I was. But he

shyly offered me his hand as he passed, and said it was so good of me

to come. I had thought of slipping away to put on another shirt and

waistcoat, but had decided that this would make me the more ridiculous.

I sat drinking port--poison to me after champagne, but a lulling

poison--and listened to noblemen with unstained shirtfronts talking

about the Australian cricket match....

‘Is Rubicon Bezique still played in England? There was a mania for it at

that time. The floor of Keeb’s Palladio-Gargantuan hall was dotted with

innumerable little tables. I didn’t know how to play. My hostess told me

I must “come and amuse the dear old Duke and Duchess of Mull,” and led

me to a remote sofa on which an old gentleman had just sat down beside

an old lady. They looked at me with a dim kind interest. My hostess had

set me and left me on a small gilt chair in front of them. Before going

she had conveyed to them loudly--one of them was very deaf--that I was

“the famous writer.” It was a long time before they understood that I

was not a political writer. The Duke asked me, after a troubled pause,

whether I had known “old Mr. Abraham Hayward.” The Duchess said I was

too young to have known Mr. Hayward, and asked if I knew her “clever

friend Mr. Mallock.” I said I had just been reading Mr. Mallock’s new

novel. I heard myself shouting a confused precis of the plot. The place

where we were sitting was near the foot of the great marble staircase.

I said how beautiful the staircase was. The Duchess of Mull said she had

never cared very much for that staircase. The Duke, after a pause, said

he had “often heard old Mr. Abraham Hayward hold a whole dinner table.”

There were long and frequent pauses--between which I heard myself

talking loudly, frantically, sinking lower and lower in the esteem of my

small audience. I felt like a man drowning under the eyes of an elderly

couple who sit on the bank regretting that they can offer NO assistance.

Presently the Duke looked at his watch and said to the Duchess that it

was “time to be thinking of bed.”

‘They rose, as it were from the bank, and left me, so to speak, under

water. I watched them as they passed slowly out of sight up the marble

staircase which I had mispraised. I turned and surveyed the brilliant,

silent scene presented by the card-players.

‘I wondered what old Mr. Abraham Hayward would have done in my place.

Would he have just darted in among those tables and “held” them? I

presumed that he would not have stolen silently away, quickly and

cravenly away, up the marble staircase--as _I_ did.

‘I don’t know which was the greater, the relief or the humiliation of

finding myself in my bedroom. Perhaps the humiliation was the greater.

There, on a chair, was my grand new smoking-suit, laid out for me--what

a mockery! Once I had foreseen myself wearing it in the smoking-room

at a late hour--the centre of a group of eminent men entranced by the

brilliancy of my conversation. And now--! I was nothing but a small,

dull, soup-stained, sticking-plastered, nerve-racked recluse. Nerves,

yes. I assured myself that I had not seen--what I had seemed to see. All

very odd, of course, and very unpleasant, but easily explained. Nerves.

Excitement of coming to Keeb too much for me. A good night’s rest: that

was all I needed. To-morrow I should laugh at myself.

‘I wondered that I wasn’t tired physically. There my grand new silk

pyjamas were, yet I felt no desire to go to bed... none while it was

still possible for me to go. The little writing-table at the foot of my

bed seemed to invite me. I had brought with me in my portmanteau a sheaf

of letters, letters that I had purposely left unanswered in order that I

might answer them on KEEB HALL note-paper. These the footman had neatly

laid beside the blotting-pad on that little writing-table at the foot

of the bed. I regretted that the notepaper stacked there had no ducal

coronet on it. What matter? The address sufficed. If I hadn’t yet made a

good impression on the people who were staying here, I could at any rate

make one on the people who weren’t. I sat down. I set to work. I wrote a

prodigious number of fluent and graceful notes.

‘Some of these were to strangers who wanted my autograph. I was always

delighted to send my autograph, and never perfunctory in the manner of

sending it.... “Dear Madam,” I remember writing to somebody that night,

“were it not that you make your request for it so charmingly, I should

hesitate to send you that which rarity alone can render valuable.--Yours

truly, Hilary Maltby.” I remember reading this over and wondering

whether the word “render” looked rather commercial. It was in the act

of wondering thus that I raised my eyes from the note-paper and saw,

through the bars of the brass bedstead, the naked sole of a large human

foot--saw beyond it the calf of a great leg; a nightshirt; and the face

of Stephen Braxton. I did not move.

‘I thought of making a dash for the door, dashing out into the corridor,

shouting at the top of my voice for help. I sat quite still.

‘What kept me to my chair was the fear that if I tried to reach the door

Braxton would spring off the bed to intercept me. If I sat quite still

perhaps he wouldn’t move. I felt that if he moved I should collapse

utterly.

‘I watched him, and he watched me. He lay there with his body

half-raised, one elbow propped on the pillow, his jaw sunk on his

breast; and from under his black brows he watched me steadily.

‘No question of mere nerves now. That hope was gone. No mere optical

delusion, this abiding presence. Here Braxton was. He and I were

together in the bright, silent room. How long would he be content to

watch me?

‘Eleven nights ago he had given me one horrible look. It was this look

that I had to meet, in infinite prolongation, now, not daring to shift

my eyes. He lay as motionless as I sat. I did not hear him breathing,

but I knew, by the rise and fall of his chest under his nightshirt,

that he was breathing heavily. Suddenly I started to my feet. For he had

moved. He had raised one hand slowly. He was stroking his chin. And

as he did so, and as he watched me, his mouth gradually slackened to a

grin. It was worse, it was more malign, this grin, than the scowl that

remained with it; and its immediate effect on me was an impulse that was

as hard to resist as it was hateful. The window was open. It was nearer

to me than the door. I could have reached it in time....

‘Well, I live to tell the tale. I stood my ground. And there dawned on

me now a new fact in regard to my companion. I had all the while been

conscious of something abnormal in his attitude--a lack of ease in his

gross possessiveness. I saw now the reason for this effect. The pillow

on which his elbow rested was still uniformly puffed and convex; like

a pillow untouched. His elbow rested but on the very surface of it,

not changing the shape of it at all. His body made not the least furrow

along the bed.... He had no weight.

‘I knew that if I leaned forward and thrust my hand between those brass

rails, to clutch his foot, I should clutch--nothing. He wasn’t tangible.

He was realistic. He wasn’t real. He was opaque. He wasn’t solid.

‘Odd as it may seem to you, these certainties took the edge off my

horror. During that walk with Lady Rodfitten, I had been appalled by the

doubt that haunted me. But now the very confirmation of that doubt gave

me a sort of courage: I could cope better with anything to-night than

with actual Braxton. And the measure of the relief I felt is that I sat

down again on my chair.

‘More than once there came to me a wild hope that the thing might be an

optical delusion, after all. Then would I shut my eyes tightly, shaking

my head sharply; but, when I looked again, there the presence was, of

course. It--he--not actual Braxton but, roughly speaking, Braxton--had

come to stay. I was conscious of intense fatigue, taut and alert though

every particle of me was; so that I became, in the course of that

ghastly night, conscious of a great envy also. For some time before the

dawn came in through the window, Braxton’s eyes had been closed; little

by little now his head drooped sideways, then fell on his forearm and

rested there. He was asleep.

‘Cut off from sleep, I had a great longing for smoke. I had cigarettes

on me, I had matches on me. But I didn’t dare to strike a match. The

sound might have waked Braxton up. In slumber he was less terrible,

though perhaps more odious. I wasn’t so much afraid now as indignant.

“It’s intolerable,” I sat saying to myself, “utterly intolerable!”

‘I had to bear it, nevertheless. I was aware that I had, in some degree,

brought it on myself. If I hadn’t interfered and lied, actual Braxton

would have been here at Keeb, and I at this moment sleeping soundly. But

this was no excuse for Braxton. Braxton didn’t know what I had done. He

was merely envious of me. And--wanly I puzzled it out in the dawn--by

very force of the envy, hatred, and malice in him he had projected

hither into my presence this simulacrum of himself. I had known that he

would be thinking of me. I had known that the thought of me at Keeb Hall

would be of the last bitterness to his most sacred feelings. But--I had

reckoned without the passionate force and intensity of the man’s nature.

‘If by this same strength and intensity he had merely projected himself

as an invisible guest under the Duchess’ roof--if his feat had been

wholly, as perhaps it was in part, a feat of mere wistfulness and

longing--then I should have felt really sorry for him; and my conscience

would have soundly rated me in his behalf. But no; if the wretched

creature HAD been invisible to me, I shouldn’t have thought of Braxton

at all--except with gladness that he wasn’t here. That he was visible to

me, and to me alone, wasn’t any sign of proper remorse within me. It was

but the gauge of his incredible ill-will.

‘Well, it seemed to me that he was avenged--with a vengeance. There I

sat, hot-browed from sleeplessness, cold in the feet, stiff in the legs,

cowed and indignant all through--sat there in the broadening daylight,

and in that new evening suit of mine with the Braxtonised shirtfront

and waistcoat that by day were more than ever loathsome. Literature’s

Ambassador at Keeb.... I rose gingerly from my chair, and caught

sight of my face, of my Braxtonised cheek, in the mirror. I heard

the twittering of birds in distant trees. I saw through my window the

elaborate landscape of the Duke’s grounds, all soft in the grey bloom of

early morning. I think I was nearer to tears than I had ever been since

I was a child. But the weakness passed. I turned towards the personage

on my bed, and, summoning all such power as was in me, WILLED him to be

gone. My effort was not without result--an inadequate result. Braxton

turned in his sleep.

‘I resumed my seat, and... and... sat up staring and blinking, at a tall

man with red hair. “I must have fallen asleep,” I said. “Yessir,” he

replied; and his toneless voice touched in me one or two springs

of memory: I was at Keeb; this was the footman who looked after me.

But--why wasn’t I in bed? Had I--no, surely it had been no nightmare.

Surely I had SEEN Braxton on that white bed.

‘The footman was impassively putting away my smoking-suit. I was too

dazed to wonder what he thought of me. Nor did I attempt to stifle a

cry when, a moment later, turning in my chair, I beheld Braxton leaning

moodily against the mantelpiece. “Are you unwell sir?” asked the footman.

“No,” I said faintly, “I’m quite well.”--“Yessir. Will you wear the blue

suit or the grey?”--“The grey.”--“Yessir.”--It seemed almost incredible

that HE didn’t see Braxton; HE didn’t appear to me one whit more solid

than the night-shirted brute who stood against the mantelpiece and

watched him lay out my things.--“Shall I let your bath-water run

now sir?”--“Please, yes.”--“Your bathroom’s the second door to the left

sir.”--He went out with my bath-towel and sponge, leaving me alone with

Braxton.

‘I rose to my feet, mustering once more all the strength that was in

me. Hoping against hope, with set teeth and clenched hands, I faced him,

thrust forth my will at him, with everything but words commanded him to

vanish--to cease to be.

‘Suddenly, utterly, he vanished. And you can imagine the truly exquisite

sense of triumph that thrilled me and continued to thrill me till I went

into the bathroom and found him in my bath.

‘Quivering with rage, I returned to my bedroom. “Intolerable,” I heard

myself repeating like a parrot that knew no other word. A bath was just

what I had needed. Could I have lain for a long time basking in very

hot water, and then have sponged myself with cold water, I should have

emerged calm and brave; comparatively so, at any rate. I should have

looked less ghastly, and have had less of a headache, and something of

an appetite, when I went down to breakfast. Also, I shouldn’t have been

the very first guest to appear on the scene. There were five or six

round tables, instead of last night’s long table. At the further end

of the room the butler and two other servants were lighting the little

lamps under the hot dishes. I didn’t like to make myself ridiculous by

running away. On the other hand, was it right for me to begin breakfast

all by myself at one of these round tables? I supposed it was. But

I dreaded to be found eating, alone in that vast room, by the first

downcomer. I sat dallying with dry toast and watching the door. It

occurred to me that Braxton might occur at any moment. Should I be able

to ignore him?

‘Some man and wife--a very handsome couple--were the first to appear.

They nodded and said “good morning” when they noticed me on their way to

the hot dishes. I rose--uncomfortably, guiltily--and sat down again. I

rose again when the wife drifted to my table, followed by the husband

with two steaming plates. She asked me if it wasn’t a heavenly morning,

and I replied with nervous enthusiasm that it was. She then ate kedgeree

in silence. “You just finishing, what?” the husband asked, looking at

my plate. “Oh, no--no--only just beginning,” I assured him, and helped

myself to butter. He then ate kedgeree in silence. He looked like some

splendid bull, and she like some splendid cow, grazing. I envied them

their eupeptic calm. I surmised that ten thousand Braxtons would not

have prevented THEM from sleeping soundly by night and grazing steadily

by day. Perhaps their stolidity infected me a little. Or perhaps what

braced me was the great quantity of strong tea that I consumed. Anyhow

I had begun to feel that if Braxton came in now I shouldn’t blench nor

falter.

‘Well, I wasn’t put to the test. Plenty of people drifted in, but

Braxton wasn’t one of them. Lady Rodfitten--no, she didn’t drift, she

marched, in; and presently, at an adjacent table, she was drawing a

comparison, in clarion tones, between Jean and Edouard de Reszke. It

seemed to me that her own voice had much in common with Edouard’s. Even

more was it akin to a military band. I found myself beating time to it

with my foot. Decidedly, my spirits had risen. I was in a mood to face

and outface anything. When I rose from the table and made my way to the

door, I walked with something of a swing--to the tune of Lady Rodfitten.

‘My buoyancy didn’t last long, though. There was no swing in my walk

when, a little later, I passed out on to the spectacular terrace. I had

seen my enemy again, and had beaten a furious retreat. No doubt I should

see him yet again soon--here, perhaps, on this terrace. Two of the

guests were bicycling slowly up and down the long paven expanse, both of

them smiling with pride in the new delicious form of locomotion. There

was a great array of bicycles propped neatly along the balustrade. I

recognised my own among them. I wondered whether Braxton had projected

from Clifford’s Inn an image of his own bicycle. He may have done so;

but I’ve no evidence that he did. I myself was bicycling when next I saw

him; but he, I remember, was on foot.

‘This was a few minutes later. I was bicycling with dear Lady Rodfitten.

She seemed really to like me. She had come out and accosted me heartily

on the terrace, asking me, because of my sticking-plaster, with whom I

had fought a duel since yesterday. I did not tell her with whom, and

she had already branched off on the subject of duelling in general. She

regretted the extinction of duelling in England, and gave cogent

reasons for her regret. Then she asked me what my next book was to be.

I confided that I was writing a sort of sequel--“Ariel Returns to

Mayfair.” She shook her head, said with her usual soundness that sequels

were very dangerous things, and asked me to tell her “briefly” the lines

along which I was working. I did so. She pointed out two or three weak

points in my scheme. She said she could judge better if I would let

her see my manuscript. She asked me to come and lunch with her next

Friday--“just our two selves”--at Rodfitten House, and to bring my

manuscript with me. Need I say that I walked on air?

‘“And now,” she said strenuously, “let us take a turn on our bicycles.”

By this time there were a dozen riders on the terrace, all of them

smiling with pride and rapture. We mounted and rode along together. The

terrace ran round two sides of the house, and before we came to the end

of it these words had provisionally marshalled themselves in my mind:

TO

ELEANOR

COUNTESS OF RODFITTEN

THIS BOOK WHICH OWES ALL

TO HER WISE COUNSEL

AND UNWEARYING SUPERVISION

IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED

BY HER FRIEND

THE AUTHOR

‘Smiled to masonically by the passing bicyclists, and smiling

masonically to them in return, I began to feel that the rest of my visit

would run smooth, if only--

‘“Let’s go a little faster. Let’s race!” said Lady Rodfitten; and we did

so--“just our two selves.” I was on the side nearer to the balustrade,

and it was on that side that Braxton suddenly appeared from nowhere,

solid-looking as a rock, his arms akimbo, less than three yards ahead

of me, so that I swerved involuntarily, sharply, striking broadside the

front wheel of Lady Rodfitten and collapsing with her, and with a crash

of machinery, to the ground.

‘I wasn’t hurt. She had broken my fall. I wished I was dead. She

was furious. She sat speechless with fury. A crowd had quickly

collected--just as in the case of a street accident. She accused me now

to the crowd. She said I had done it on purpose. She said such terrible

things of me that I think the crowd’s sympathy must have veered towards

me. She was assisted to her feet. I tried to be one of the assistants.

“Don’t let him come near me!” she thundered. I caught sight of Braxton

on the fringe of the crowd, grinning at me. “It was all HIS fault,”

I madly cried, pointing at him. Everybody looked at Mr. Balfour,

just behind whom Braxton was standing. There was a general murmur

of surprise, in which I have no doubt Mr. Balfour joined. He gave a

charming, blank, deprecating smile. “I mean--I can’t explain what I

mean,” I groaned. Lady Rodfitten moved away, refusing support, limping

terribly, towards the house. The crowd followed her, solicitous. I stood

helplessly, desperately, where I was.

‘I stood an outlaw, a speck on the now empty terrace. Mechanically

I picked up my straw hat, and wheeled the two bent bicycles to the

balustrade. I suppose Mr. Balfour has a charming nature. For he

presently came out again--on purpose, I am sure, to alleviate my misery.

He told me that Lady Rodfitten had suffered no harm. He took me for a

stroll up and down the terrace, talking thoughtfully and enchantingly

about things in general. Then, having done his deed of mercy, this Good

Samaritan went back into the house. My eyes followed him with gratitude;

but I was still bleeding from wounds beyond his skill. I escaped down

into the gardens. I wanted to see no one. Still more did I want to be

seen by no one. I dreaded in every nerve of me my reappearance among

those people. I walked ever faster and faster, to stifle thought; but in

vain. Why hadn’t I simply ridden THROUGH Braxton? I was aware of being

now in the park, among great trees and undulations of wild green ground.

But Nature did not achieve the task that Mr. Balfour had attempted; and

my anguish was unassuaged.

‘I paused to lean against a tree in the huge avenue that led to the huge

hateful house. I leaned wondering whether the thought of re-entering

that house were the more hateful because I should have to face my

fellow-guests or because I should probably have to face Braxton. A

church bell began ringing somewhere. And anon I was aware of another

sound--a twitter of voices. A consignment of hatted and parasoled ladies

was coming fast adown the avenue. My first impulse was to dodge behind

my tree. But I feared that I had been observed; so that what was left to

me of self-respect compelled me to meet these ladies.

‘The Duchess was among them. I had seen her from afar at breakfast,

but not since. She carried a prayer-book, which she waved to me as I

approached. I was a disastrous guest, but still a guest, and nothing

could have been prettier than her smile. “Most of my men this week,”

she said, “are Pagans, and all the others have dispatch-boxes to go

through--except the dear old Duke of Mull, who’s a member of the Free

Kirk. You’re Pagan, of course?”

‘I said--and indeed it was a heart-cry--that I should like very much to

come to church. “If I shan’t be in the way,” I rather abjectly added.

It didn’t strike me that Braxton would try to intercept me. I don’t know

why, but it never occurred to me, as I walked briskly along beside the

Duchess, that I should meet him so far from the house. The church was in

a corner of the park, and the way to it was by a side path that branched

off from the end of the avenue. A little way along, casting its shadow

across the path, was a large oak. It was from behind this tree, when we

came to it, that Braxton sprang suddenly forth and tripped me up with

his foot.

‘Absurd to be tripped up by the mere semblance of a foot? But remember,

I was walking quickly, and the whole thing happened in a flash of

time. It was inevitable that I should throw out my hands and come down

headlong--just as though the obstacle had been as real as it looked.

Down I came on palms and knee-caps, and up I scrambled, very much hurt

and shaken and apologetic. “POOR Mr. Maltby! REALLY--!” the Duchess

wailed for me in this latest of my mishaps. Some other lady chased my

straw hat, which had bowled far ahead. Two others helped to brush me.

They were all very kind, with a quaver of mirth in their concern for me.

I looked furtively around for Braxton, but he was gone. The palms of my

hands were abraded with gravel. The Duchess said I must on no account

come to church NOW. I was utterly determined to reach that sanctuary. I

marched firmly on with the Duchess. Come what might on the way, I wasn’t

going to be left out here. I was utterly bent on winning at least one

respite.

‘Well, I reached the little church without further molestation. To be

there seemed almost too good to be true. The organ, just as we entered,

sounded its first notes. The ladies rustled into the front pew. I,

being the one male of the party, sat at the end of the pew, beside the

Duchess. I couldn’t help feeling that my position was a proud one. But I

had gone through too much to take instant pleasure in it, and was beset

by thoughts of what new horror might await me on the way back to

the house. I hoped the Service would not be brief. The swelling and

dwindling strains of the “voluntary” on the small organ were strangely

soothing. I turned to give an almost feudal glance to the simple

villagers in the pews behind, and saw a sight that cowed my soul.

‘Braxton was coming up the aisle. He came slowly, casting a tourist’s

eye at the stained-glass windows on either side. Walking heavily, yet

with no sound of boots on the pavement, he reached our pew. There,

towering and glowering, he halted, as though demanding that we should

make room for him. A moment later he edged sullenly into the pew.

Instinctively I had sat tight back, drawing my knees aside, in a shudder

of revulsion against contact. But Braxton did not push past me. What he

did was to sit slowly and fully down on me.

‘No, not down ON me. Down THROUGH me--and around me. What befell me

was not mere ghastly contact with the intangible. It was inclusion,

envelopment, eclipse. What Braxton sat down on was not I, but the seat

of the pew; and what he sat back against was not my face and chest, but

the back of the pew. I didn’t realise this at the moment. All I knew was

a sudden black blotting-out of all things; an infinite and impenetrable

darkness. I dimly conjectured that I was dead. What was wrong with me,

in point of fact, was that my eyes, with the rest of me, were inside

Braxton. You remember what a great hulking fellow Braxton was. I

calculate that as we sat there my eyes were just beneath the roof of his

mouth. Horrible!

‘Out of the unfathomable depths of that pitch darkness, I could yet hear

the “voluntary” swelling and dwindling, just as before. It was by this

I knew now that I wasn’t dead. And I suppose I must have craned my head

forward, for I had a sudden glimpse of things--a close quick downward

glimpse of a pepper-and-salt waistcoat and of two great hairy hands

clasped across it. Then darkness again. Either I had drawn back my head,

or Braxton had thrust his forward; I don’t know which. “Are you all

right?” the Duchess’ voice whispered, and no doubt my face was ashen.

“Quite,” whispered my voice. But this pathetic monosyllable was the last

gasp of the social instinct in me. Suddenly, as the “voluntary” swelled

to its close, there was a great sharp shuffling noise. The congregation

had risen to its feet, at the entry of choir and vicar. Braxton had

risen, leaving me in daylight. I beheld his towering back. The Duchess,

beside him, glanced round at me. But I could not, dared not, stand up

into that presented back, into that great waiting darkness. I did but

clutch my hat from beneath the seat and hurry distraught down the aisle,

out through the porch, into the open air.

‘Whither? To what goal? I didn’t reason. I merely fled--like Orestes;

fled like an automaton along the path we had come by. And was followed?

Yes, yes. Glancing back across my shoulder, I saw that brute some

twenty yards behind me, gaining on me. I broke into a sharper run. A few

sickening moments later, he was beside me, scowling down into my face.

‘I swerved, dodged, doubled on my tracks, but he was always at me. Now

and again, for lack of breath, I halted, and he halted with me. And

then, when I had got my wind, I would start running again, in the insane

hope of escaping him. We came, by what twisting and turning course

I know not, to the great avenue, and as I stood there in an agony of

panting I had a dazed vision of the distant Hall. Really I had quite

forgotten I was staying at the Duke of Hertfordshire’s. But Braxton

hadn’t forgotten. He planted himself in front of me. He stood between me

and the house.

‘Faint though I was, I could almost have laughed. Good heavens! was THAT

all he wanted: that I shouldn’t go back there? Did he suppose I wanted

to go back there--with HIM? Was I the Duke’s prisoner on parole? What

was there to prevent me from just walking off to the railway station? I

turned to do so.

‘He accompanied me on my way. I thought that when once I had passed

through the lodge gates he might vanish, satisfied. But no, he didn’t

vanish. It was as though he suspected that if he let me out of his

sight I should sneak back to the house. He arrived with me, this quiet

companion of mine, at the little railway station. Evidently he meant to

see me off. I learned from an elderly and solitary porter that the next

train to London was the 4.3.

‘Well, Braxton saw me off by the 4.3. I reflected, as I stepped up into

an empty compartment, that it wasn’t yet twenty-four hours ago since I,

or some one like me, had alighted at that station.

‘The guard blew his whistle; the engine shrieked, and the train jolted

forward and away; but I did not lean out of the window to see the last

of my attentive friend.

‘Really not twenty-four hours ago? Not twenty-four years?’

Maltby paused in his narrative. ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘I don’t want you

to think I overrate the ordeal of my visit to Keeb. A man of stronger

nerve than mine, and of greater resourcefulness, might have coped

successfully with Braxton from first to last--might have stayed on till

Monday, making a very favourable impression on every one all the while.

Even as it was, even after my manifold failures and sudden flight, I

don’t say my position was impossible. I only say it seemed so to me. A

man less sensitive than I, and less vain, might have cheered up after

writing a letter of apology to his hostess, and have resumed his normal

existence as though nothing very terrible had happened, after all. I

wrote a few lines to the Duchess that night; but I wrote amidst the

preparations for my departure from England: I crossed the Channel next

morning. Throughout that Sunday afternoon with Braxton at the Keeb

railway station, pacing the desolate platform with him, waiting in

the desolating waiting-room with him, I was numb to regrets, and was

thinking of nothing but the 4.3. On the way to Victoria my brain worked

and my soul wilted. Every incident in my stay at Keeb stood out clear

to me; a dreadful, a hideous pattern. I had done for myself, so far as

THOSE people were concerned. And now that I had sampled THEM, what cared

I for others? “Too low for a hawk, too high for a buzzard.” That homely

old saying seemed to sum me up. And suppose I COULD still take pleasure

in the company of my own old upper-middle class, how would that class

regard me now? Gossip percolates. Little by little, I was sure, the

story of my Keeb fiasco would leak down into the drawing-room of Mrs.

Foster-Dugdale. I felt I could never hold up my head in any company

where anything of that story was known. Are you quite sure you never

heard anything?’

I assured Maltby that all I had known was the great bare fact of his

having stayed at Keeb Hall.

‘It’s curious,’ he reflected. ‘It’s a fine illustration of the loyalty

of those people to one another. I suppose there was a general agreement

for the Duchess’ sake that nothing should be said about her queer guest.

But even if I had dared hope to be so efficiently hushed up, I couldn’t

have not fled. I wanted to forget. I wanted to leap into some void,

far away from all reminders. I leapt straight from Ryder Street into

Vaule-la-Rochette, a place of which I had once heard that it was

the least frequented seaside-resort in Europe. I leapt leaving no

address--leapt telling my landlord that if a suit-case and a portmanteau

arrived for me he could regard them, them and their contents, as his own

for ever. I daresay the Duchess wrote me a kind little letter, forcing

herself to express a vague hope that I would come again “some other

time.” I daresay Lady Rodfitten did NOT write reminding me of my promise

to lunch on Friday and bring “Ariel Returns to Mayfair” with me. I

left that manuscript at Ryder Street; in my bedroom grate; a shuffle of

ashes. Not that I’d yet given up all thought of writing. But I certainly

wasn’t going to write now about the two things I most needed to forget.

I wasn’t going to write about the British aristocracy, nor about any

kind of supernatural presence.... I did write a novel--my last--while I

was at Vaule. “Mr. and Mrs. Robinson.” Did you ever come across a copy

of it?

I nodded gravely.

‘Ah; I wasn’t sure,’ said Maltby, ‘whether it was ever published. A

dreary affair, wasn’t it? I knew a great deal about suburban life.

But--well, I suppose one can’t really understand what one doesn’t love,

and one can’t make good fun without real understanding. Besides, what

chance of virtue is there for a book written merely to distract

the author’s mind? I had hoped to be healed by sea and sunshine and

solitude. These things were useless. The labour of “Mr. and Mrs.

Robinson” did help, a little. When I had finished it, I thought I might

as well send it off to my publisher. He had given me a large sum of

money, down, after “Ariel,” for my next book--so large that I was rather

loth to disgorge. In the note I sent with the manuscript, I gave no

address, and asked that the proofs should be read in the office. I

didn’t care whether the thing were published or not. I knew it would be

a dead failure if it were. What mattered one more drop in the foaming

cup of my humiliation? I knew Braxton would grin and gloat. I didn’t

mind even that.’

‘Oh, well,’ I said, ‘Braxton was in no mood for grinning and gloating.

“The Drones” had already appeared.’

Maltby had never heard of ‘The Drones’--which I myself had remembered

only in the course of his disclosures. I explained to him that it was

Braxton’s second novel, and was by way of being a savage indictment

of the British aristocracy; that it was written in the worst possible

taste, but was so very dull that it fell utterly flat; that Braxton

had forthwith taken, with all of what Maltby had called ‘the passionate

force and intensity of his nature,’ to drink, and had presently gone

under and not re-emerged.

Maltby gave signs of genuine, though not deep, emotion, and cited two

or three of the finest passages from ‘A Faun on the Cotswolds.’ He even

expressed a conviction that ‘The Drones’ must have been misjudged. He

said he blamed himself more than ever for yielding to that bad impulse

at that Soiree.

‘And yet,’ he mused, ‘and yet, honestly, I can’t find it in my heart

to regret that I did yield. I can only wish that all had turned out as

well, in the end, for Braxton as for me. I wish he could have won out,

as I did, into a great and lasting felicity. For about a year after I

had finished “Mr. and Mrs. Robinson” I wandered from place to place,

trying to kill memory, shunning all places frequented by the English.

At last I found myself in Lucca. Here, if anywhere, I thought, might a

bruised and tormented spirit find gradual peace. I determined to move

out of my hotel into some permanent lodging. Not for felicity, not for

any complete restoration of self-respect, was I hoping; only for peace.

A “mezzano” conducted me to a noble and ancient house, of which, he

told me, the owner was anxious to let the first floor. It was in much

disrepair, but even so seemed to me very cheap. According to the simple

Luccan standard, I am rich. I took that first floor for a year, had it

repaired, and engaged two servants. My “padrona” inhabited the ground

floor. From time to time she allowed me to visit her there. She was

the Contessa Adriano-Rizzoli, the last of her line. She is the Contessa

Adriano-Rizzoli-Maltby. We have been married fifteen years.’

Maltby looked at his watch. He rose and took tenderly from the table

his great bunch of roses. ‘She is a lineal descendant,’ he said, ‘of the

Emperor Hadrian.’

‘SAVONAROLA’ BROWN

I like to remember that I was the first to call him so, for, though he

always deprecated the nickname, in his heart he was pleased by it, I

know, and encouraged to go on.

Quite apart from its significance, he had reason to welcome it. He had

been unfortunate at the font. His parents, at the time of his birth,

lived in Ladbroke Crescent, XV. They must have been an extraordinarily

unimaginative couple, for they could think of no better name for their

child than Ladbroke. This was all very well for him till he went to

school. But you can fancy the indignation and delight of us boys at

finding among us a newcomer who, on his own confession, had been named

after a Crescent. I don’t know how it is nowadays, but thirty-five years

ago, certainly, schoolboys regarded the possession of ANY Christian name

as rather unmanly. As we all had these encumbrances, we had to wreak our

scorn on any one who was cumbered in a queer fashion. I myself, bearer

of a Christian name adjudged eccentric though brief, had had much to put

up with in my first term. Brown’s arrival, therefore, at the beginning

of my second term, was a good thing for me, and I am afraid I was very

prominent among his persecutors. Trafalgar Brown, Tottenham Court Brown,

Bond Brown--what names did we little brutes NOT cull for him from

the London Directory? Except how miserable we made his life, I do not

remember much about him as he was at that time, and the only important

part of the little else that I do recall is that already he showed

a strong sense for literature. For the majority of us Carthusians,

literature was bounded on the north by Whyte Melville, on the south by

Hawley Smart, on the east by the former, and on the west by the latter.

Little Brown used to read Harrison Ainsworth, Wilkie Collins, and other

writers whom we, had we assayed them, would have dismissed as ‘deep.’ It

has been said by Mr. Arthur Symons that ‘all art is a mode of escape.’

The art of letters did not, however, enable Brown to escape so far from

us as he would have wished. In my third term he did not reappear among

us. His parents had in some sort atoned. Unimaginative though they

were, it seems they could understand a tale of woe laid before them

circumstantially, and had engaged a private tutor for their boy. Fifteen

years elapsed before I saw him again.

This was at the second night of some play. I was dramatic critic for the

Saturday Review, and, weary of meeting the same lot of people over and

over again at first nights, had recently sent a circular to the managers

asking that I might have seats for second nights instead. I found that

there existed as distinct and invariable a lot of second-nighters as of

first-nighters. The second-nighters were less ‘showy’; but then, they

came rather to see than to be seen, and there was an air, that I liked,

of earnestness and hopefulness about them. I used to write a great deal

about the future of the British drama, and they, for their part, used

to think and talk a great deal about it. People who care about books

and pictures find much to interest and please them in the present. It

is only the students of the theatre who always fall back, or rather

forward, on the future. Though second-nighters do come to see, they

remain rather to hope and pray. I should have known anywhere, by the

visionary look in his eyes, that Brown was a confirmed second-nighter.

What surprises me is that I knew he was Brown. It is true that he

had not grown much in those fifteen years: his brow was still

disproportionate to his body, and he looked young to have become

‘confirmed’ in any habit. But it is also true that not once in the past

ten years, at any rate, had he flitted through my mind and poised on my

conscience.

I hope that I and those other boys had long ago ceased from recurring to

him in nightmares. Cordial though the hand was that I offered him, and

highly civilised my whole demeanour, he seemed afraid that at any moment

I might begin to dance around him, shooting out my lips at him and

calling him Seven-Sisters Brown or something of that kind. It was only

after constant meetings at second nights, and innumerable entr’acte

talks about the future of the drama, that he began to trust me. In

course of time we formed the habit of walking home together as far as

Cumberland Place, at which point our ways diverged. I gathered that he

was still living with his parents, but he did not tell me where, for

they had not, as I learned by reference to the Red Book, moved from

Ladbroke Crescent.

I found his company restful rather than inspiring. His days were

spent in clerkship at one of the smaller Government Offices, his

evenings--except when there was a second night--in reading and writing.

He did not seem to know much, or to wish to know more, about life. Books

and plays, first editions and second nights, were what he cared for. On

matters of religion and ethics he was as little keen as he seemed to be

on human character in the raw; so that (though I had already suspected

him of writing, or meaning to write, a play) my eyebrows did rise when

he told me he meant to write a play about Savonarola.

He made me understand, however, that it was rather the name than the

man that had first attracted him. He said that the name was in itself a

great incentive to blank-verse. He uttered it to me slowly, in a voice

so much deeper than his usual voice, that I nearly laughed. For the

actual bearer of the name he had no hero-worship, and said it was by a

mere accident that he had chosen him as central figure. He had

thought of writing a tragedy about Sardanapalus; but the volume of the

“Encyclopedia Britannica” in which he was going to look up the main

facts about Sardanapalus happened to open at Savonarola. Hence a sudden

and complete peripety in the student’s mind. He told me he had read the

Encyclopedia’s article carefully, and had dipped into one or two of

the books there mentioned as authorities. He seemed almost to wish he

hadn’t. ‘Facts get in one’s way so,’ he complained. ‘History is one

thing, drama is another. Aristotle said drama was more philosophic than

history because it showed us what men WOULD do, not just what they DID.

I think that’s so true, don’t you? I want to show what Savonarola WOULD

have done if--’ He paused.

‘If what?’

‘Well, that’s just the point. I haven’t settled that yet. When I’ve

thought of a plot, I shall go straight ahead.’

I said I supposed he intended his tragedy rather for the study than for

the stage. This seemed to hurt him. I told him that what I meant was

that managers always shied at anything without ‘a strong feminine

interest.’ This seemed to worry him. I advised him not to think about

managers. He promised that he would think only about Savonarola.

I know now that this promise was not exactly kept by him; and he may

have felt slightly awkward when, some weeks later, he told me he had

begun the play. ‘I’ve hit on an initial idea,’ he said, ‘and that’s

enough to start with. I gave up my notion of inventing a plot in

advance. I thought it would be a mistake. I don’t want puppets on wires.

I want Savonarola to work out his destiny in his own way. Now that I

have the initial idea, what I’ve got to do is to make Savonarola LIVE.

I hope I shall be able to do this. Once he’s alive, I shan’t interfere

with him. I shall just watch him. Won’t it be interesting? He isn’t

alive yet. But there’s plenty of time. You see, he doesn’t come on at

the rise of the curtain. A Friar and a Sacristan come on and talk about

him. By the time they’ve finished, perhaps he’ll be alive. But they

won’t have finished yet. Not that they’re going to say very much. But I

write slowly.’

I remember the mild thrill I had when, one evening, he took me aside and

said in an undertone, ‘Savonarola has come on. Alive!’ For me the MS.

hereinafter printed has an interest that for you it cannot have, so

a-bristle am I with memories of the meetings I had with its author

throughout the nine years he took over it. He never saw me without

reporting progress, or lack of progress. Just what was going on, or

standing still, he did not divulge. After the entry of Savonarola,

he never told me what characters were appearing. ‘All sorts of people

appear,’ he would say rather helplessly. ‘They insist. I can’t prevent

them.’ I used to say it must be great fun to be a creative artist; but

at this he always shook his head: ‘I don’t create. THEY do. Savonarola

especially, of course. I just look on and record. I never know what’s

going to happen next.’ He had the advantage of me in knowing at any rate

what had happened last. But whenever I pled for a glimpse he would again

shake his head:

‘The thing MUST be judged as a whole. Wait till I’ve come to the end of

the Fifth Act.’

So impatient did I become that, as the years went by, I used rather to

resent his presence at second nights. I felt he ought to be at his

desk. His, I used to tell him, was the only drama whose future ought

to concern him now. And in point of fact he had, I think, lost the true

spirit of the second-nighter, and came rather to be seen than to see.

He liked the knowledge that here and there in the auditorium, when he

entered it, some one would be saying ‘Who is that?’ and receiving the

answer ‘Oh, don’t you know? That’s “Savonarola” Brown.’ This sort of

thing, however, did not make him cease to be the modest, unaffected

fellow I had known. He always listened to the advice I used to offer

him, though inwardly he must have chafed at it. Myself a fidgety and

uninspired person, unable to begin a piece of writing before I know just

how it shall end, I had always been afraid that sooner or later Brown

would take some turning that led nowhither--would lose himself and come

to grief. This fear crept into my gladness when, one evening in the

spring of 1909, he told me he had finished the Fourth Act. Would he win

out safely through the Fifth?

He himself was looking rather glum; and, as we walked away from the

theatre, I said to him, ‘I suppose you feel rather like Thackeray when

he’d “killed the Colonel”: you’ve got to kill the Monk.’

‘Not quite that,’ he answered. ‘But of course he’ll die very soon now. A

couple of years or so. And it does seem rather sad. It’s not merely that

he’s so full of life. He has been becoming much more HUMAN lately. At

first I only respected him. Now I have a real affection for him.’

This was an interesting glimpse at last, but I turned from it to my

besetting fear.

‘Haven’t you,’ I asked, ‘any notion of HOW he is to die?’

Brown shook his head.

‘But in a tragedy,’ I insisted, ‘the catastrophe MUST be led up to,

step by step. My dear Brown, the end of the hero MUST be logical and

rational.’

‘I don’t see that,’ he said, as we crossed Piccadilly Circus. ‘In actual

life it isn’t so. What is there to prevent a motor-omnibus from knocking

me over and killing me at this moment?’

At that moment, by what has always seemed to me the strangest of

coincidences, and just the sort of thing that playwrights ought to

avoid, a motor-omnibus knocked Brown over and killed him.

He had, as I afterwards learned, made a will in which he appointed me

his literary executor. Thus passed into my hands the unfinished play by

whose name he had become known to so many people.

I hate to say that I was disappointed in it, but I had better confess

quite frankly that, on the whole, I was. Had Brown written it quickly

and read it to me soon after our first talk about it, it might in some

ways have exceeded my hopes. But he had become for me, by reason of that

quiet and unhasting devotion to his work while the years came and went,

a sort of hero; and the very mystery involving just what he was about

had addicted me to those ideas of magnificence which the unknown is said

always to foster.

Even so, however, I am not blind to the great merits of the play as it

stands. It is well that the writer of poetic drama should be a dramatist

and a poet. Here is a play that abounds in striking situations, and I

have searched it vainly for one line that does not scan. What I nowhere

feel is that I have not elsewhere been thrilled or lulled by the same

kind of thing. I do not go so far as to say that Brown inherited his

parents’ deplorable lack of imagination. But I do wish he had been less

sensitive than he was to impressions, or else had seen and read fewer

poetic dramas ancient and modern. Remembering that visionary look in

his eyes, remembering that he was as displeased as I by the work of all

living playwrights, and as dissatisfied with the great efforts of the

Elizabethans, I wonder that he was not more immune from influences.

Also, I cannot but wish still that he had faltered in his decision

to make no scenario. There is much to be said for the theory that a

dramatist should first vitalise his characters and then leave them

unfettered; but I do feel that Brown’s misused the confidence he reposed

in them. The labour of so many years has somewhat the air of being

a mere improvisation. Savonarola himself, after the First Act or so,

strikes me as utterly inconsistent. It may be that he is just complex,

like Hamlet. He does in the Fourth Act show traces of that Prince. I

suppose this is why he struck Brown as having become ‘more human.’ To me

he seems merely a poorer creature.

But enough of these reservations. In my anxiety for poor Brown’s sake

that you should not be disappointed, perhaps I have been carrying

tactfulness too far and prejudicing you against that for which I

specially want your favour. Here, without more ado, is

SAVONAROLA

A TRAGEDY

By L. Brown

ACT I

SCENE: A Room in the Monastery of San Marco, Florence.

TIME: 1490, A.D. A summer morning.

Enter the SACRISTAN and a FRIAR.

SACR.

Savonarola looks more grim to-day

Than ever. Should I speak my mind, I’d say

That he was fashioning some new great scourge

To flay the backs of men.

FRI.

‘Tis even so.

Brother Filippo saw him stand last night

In solitary vigil till the dawn

Lept o’er the Arno, and his face was such

As men may wear in Purgatory--nay,

E’en in the inmost core of Hell’s own fires.

SACR.

I often wonder if some woman’s face,

Seen at some rout in his old worldling days,

Haunts him e’en now, e’en here, and urges him

To fierier fury ‘gainst the Florentines.

FRI.

Savonarola love-sick! Ha, ha, ha!

Love-sick? He, love-sick? ‘Tis a goodly jest!

The CONfirm’d misogyn a ladies’ man!

Thou must have eaten of some strange red herb

That takes the reason captive. I will swear

Savonarola never yet hath seen

A woman but he spurn’d her. Hist! He comes.

[Enter SAVONAROLA, rapt in thought.]

Give thee good morrow, Brother.

SACR.

And therewith

A multitude of morrows equal-good

Till thou, by Heaven’s grace, hast wrought the work

Nearest thine heart.

SAV.

I thank thee, Brother, yet

I thank thee not, for that my thankfulness

(An such there be) gives thanks to Heaven alone.

FRI. [To SACR.]

‘Tis a right answer he hath given thee.

Had Sav’narola spoken less than thus,

Methinks me, the less Sav’narola he.

As when the snow lies on yon Apennines,

White as the hem of Mary Mother’s robe,

And insusceptible to the sun’s rays,

Being harder to the touch than temper’d steel,

E’en so this great gaunt monk white-visaged

Upstands to Heaven and to Heav’n devotes

The scarped thoughts that crown the upper slopes

Of his abrupt and AUStere nature.

SACR.

Aye.

[Enter LUCREZIA BORGIA, ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, and LEONARDO

DA VINCI. LUC. is thickly veiled.]

ST. FRAN.

This is the place.

LUC. [Pointing at SAV.]

And this the man! [Aside.] And I--

By the hot blood that courses i’ my veins

I swear it ineluctably--the woman!

SAV.

Who is this wanton?

[LUC. throws back her hood, revealing her face. SAV. starts back,

gazing at her.]

ST. FRAN.

Hush, Sir! ‘Tis my little sister

The poisoner, right well-belov’d by all

Whom she as yet hath spared. Hither she came

Mounted upon another little sister of mine--

A mare, caparison’d in goodly wise.

She--I refer now to Lucrezia--

Desireth to have word of thee anent

Some matter that befrets her.

SAV. [To LUC.]

Hence! Begone!

Savonarola will not tempted be

By face of woman e’en tho’ ‘t be, tho’ ‘tis,

Surpassing fair. All hope abandon therefore.

I charge thee: Vade retro, Satanas.

LEONARDO

Sirrah, thou speakst in haste, as is the way

Of monkish men. The beauty of Lucrezia

Commends, not discommends, her to the eyes

Of keener thinkers than I take thee for.

I am an artist and an engineer,

Giv’n o’er to subtile dreams of what shall be

On this our planet. I foresee a day

When men shall skim the earth i’ certain chairs

Not drawn by horses but sped on by oil

Or other matter, and shall thread the sky

Birdlike.

LUC.

It may be as thou sayest, friend,

Or may be not. [To SAV.] As touching this our errand,

I crave of thee, Sir Monk, an audience

Instanter.

FRI.

Lo! Here Alighieri comes.

I had methought me he was still at Parma.

[Enter DANTE.]

ST. FRAN. [To DAN.]

How fares my little sister Beatrice?

DAN.

She died, alack, last sennight.

ST. FRAN.

Did she so?

If the condolences of men avail

Thee aught, take mine.

DAN.

They are of no avail.

SAV. [To LUC.]

I do refuse thee audience.

LUC.

Then why

Didst thou not say so promptly when I ask’d it?

SAV.

Full well thou knowst that I was interrupted

By Alighieri’s entry.

[Noise without. Enter Guelfs and Ghibellines fighting.]

What is this?

LUC.

I did not think that in this cloister’d spot

There would be so much doing. I had look’d

To find Savonarola all alone

And tempt him in his uneventful cell.

Instead o’ which--Spurn’d am I? I am I.

There was a time, Sir, look to ‘t! O damnation!

What is ‘t? Anon then! These my toys, my gauds,

That in the cradle--aye, ‘t my mother’s breast--

I puled and lisped at,--‘Tis impossible,

Tho’, faith, ‘tis not so, forasmuch as ‘tis.

And I a daughter of the Borgias!--

Or so they told me. Liars! Flatterers!

Currying lick-spoons! Where’s the Hell of ‘t then?

‘Tis time that I were going. Farewell, Monk,

But I’ll avenge me ere the sun has sunk.

[Exeunt LUC., ST. FRAN., and LEONARDO, followed by DAN. SAV., having

watched LUC. out of sight, sinks to his knees, sobbing. FRI. and SACR.

watch him in amazement. Guelfs and Ghibellines continue fighting as

the Curtain falls.]