Ferroll was an intellectual, and he prided himself on the fact. At
Cambridge he had narrowly missed being a Senior Wrangler, and his
principal study there had been Lunar Theory. But when he went down from
Cambridge for good, being a man of some means, he travelled. For a
year he was an honorary Attache at one of the big Embassies. He finally
settled in London with a vague idea of some day writing a _magnum opus_
about the stupidity of mankind; for he had come to the conclusion by the
age of twenty-five that all men were stupid, irreclaimably, irredeemably
stupid; that everything was wrong; that all literature was really bad,
all art much overrated, and all music tedious in the long run.
The years slipped by and he never began his _magnum opus_; he joined
a literary club instead and discussed the current topic of the day.
Sometimes he wrote a short article; never in the daily Press, which he
despised, nor in the reviews (for he never wrote anything as long as a
magazine article), but in a literary weekly he would express in weary
and polished phrases the unemphatic boredom or the mitigated approval
with which the works of his fellow-men inspired him. He was the kind of
man who had nothing in him you could positively dislike, but to whom
you could not talk for five minutes without having a vague sensation of
blight. Things seemed to shrivel up in his presence as though they had
been touched by an insidious east wind, a subtle frost, a secret chill.
He never praised anything, though he sometimes condescended to approve.
The faint puffs of blame in which he more generally indulged were never
sharp or heavy, but were like the smoke rings of a cigarette which a man
indolently smoking blows from time to time up to the ceiling.
He lived in rooms in the Temple. They were comfortably, not luxuriously
furnished; a great many French books--French was the only modern
language worth reading he used to say--a few modern German etchings, a
low Turkish divan, and some Egyptian antiquities, made up the furniture
of his two sitting-rooms. Above all things he despised Greek art;
it was, he said decadent. The Egyptians and the Germans were, in his
opinion, the only people who knew anything about the plastic arts,
whereas the only music he could endure was that of the modern French
School. Over his chimney-piece there was a large German landscape
in oils, called “Im Walde”; it represented a wood at twilight in the
autumn, and if you looked at it carefully and for a long time you saw
that the objects depicted were meant to be trees from which the leaves
were falling; but if you looked at the picture carelessly and from a
distance, it looked like a man-of-war on a rough sea, for which it was
frequently taken, much to Ferrol’s annoyance.
One day an artist friend of his presented him with a small Chinese god
made of crystal; he put this on his chimney-piece. It was on the evening
of the day on which he received this gift that he dined, together with a
friend named Sledge who had travelled much in Eastern countries, at his
club. After dinner they went to Ferrol’s rooms to smoke and to talk. He
wanted to show Sledge his antiquities, which consisted of three large
Egyptian statuettes, a small green Egyptian god, and the Chinese idol
which he had lately been given. Sledge, who was a middle-aged, bearded
man, frank and unconventional, examined the antiquities with care,
pronounced them to be genuine, and singled out for special praise the
crystal god.
“Your things are very good,” he said, “very good. But don’t you really
mind having all these things about you?”
“Why should I mind?” asked Ferrol.
“Well, you have travelled a good deal, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” said Ferrol, “I have travelled; I have been as far east as
Nijni-Novgorod to see the Fair, and as far west as Lisbon.”
“I suppose,” said Sledge, “you were a long time in Greece and Italy?”
“No,” said Ferrol, “I have never been to Greece. Greek art distresses
me. All classical art is a mistake and a superstition.”
“Talking of superstition,” said Sledge, “you have never been to the Far
East, have you?”
“No,” Ferrol answered, “Egypt is Eastern enough for me, and cannot be
bettered.”
“Well,” said Sledge, “I have been in the Far East. I have lived there
many years. I am not a superstitious man; but there is one thing I
would not do in any circumstances whatsoever, and that is to keep in my
sitting-room the things you have got there.”
“But why?” asked Ferrol.
“Well,” said Sledge, “nearly all of them have come from the tombs of the
dead, and some of them are gods. Such things may have attached to them
heaven knows what spooks and spirits.”
Ferrol shut his eyes and smiled, a faint, seraphic smile. “My dear boy,”
he said, “you forget. This is the Twentieth Century.”
“And you,” answered Sledge, “forget that the things you have here were
made before the Twentieth Century. B.C.”
“You don’t seriously mean,” said Ferrol, “that you attach any importance
to these--” he hesitated.
“Children’s stories?” suggested Sledge.
Ferrol nodded.
“I have lived long enough in the East,” said Sledge, “to know that the
sooner you learn to believe children’s stories the better.”
“I am afraid, then,” said Ferrol, with civil tolerance, “that our points
of view are too different for us to discuss the matter.” And they talked
of other things until late into the night.
Just as Sledge was leaving Ferrol’s rooms and had said “Good-night,” he
paused by the chimney-piece, and, pointing to the tiny Ikon which was
lying on it, asked: “What is that?”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Ferrol, “only a small Ikon I bought for
twopence at the Fair of Nijni-Novgorod.”
Sledge said “Good-night” again, but when he was on the stairs he called
back: “In any case remember one thing, that East is East and West is
West. Don’t mix your deities.”
Ferrol had not the slightest idea what he was alluding to, nor did he
care. He dismissed the matter from his mind.
The next day he spent in the country, returning to London late in the
evening. As he entered his rooms the first thing which met his eye was
that his great picture, “Im Walde,” which he considered to be one of the
few products of modern art that a man who respected himself could look
at without positive pain in the eyes, had fallen from its place over
the chimney-piece to the floor in front of the fender, and the glass was
shattered into a thousand fragments. He was much vexed. He sought the
cause of the accident. The nail was a strong one, and it was still in
its place. The picture had been hung by a wire; the wire seemed strong
also and was not broken. He concluded that the picture must have been
badly balanced and that a sudden shock such a door banging had thrown
it over. He had no servant in his rooms, and when he had gone out that
morning he had locked the door, so no one could have entered his rooms
during his absence.
Next morning he sent for a framemaker and told him to mend the frame as
soon as possible, to make the wire strong, and to see that the picture
was firmly fixed on the wall. In two or three days’ time the picture
returned and was once more hung on the wall over the chimney-piece
immediately above the little crystal Chinese god. Ferrol supervised the
hanging of the picture in person. He saw that the nail was strong, and
firmly fixed in the wall; he took care that the wire left nothing to be
desired and was properly attached to the rings of the picture.
The picture was hung early one morning. That day he went to play golf.
He returned at five o’clock, and again the first thing which met his eye
was the picture. It had again fallen down, and this time it had brought
with it in its fall the small Chinese god, which was broken in two.
The glass had again been shattered to bits, and the picture itself was
somewhat damaged. Everything else on the chimney-piece, that is to say,
a few matchboxes and two candle-sticks, had also been thrown to the
ground--everything with the exception of the little Ikon he had bought
at Nijni-Novgorod, a small object about two inches square on which two
Saints were pictured. This still rested in its place against the wall.
Ferrol investigated the disaster. The nail was in its place in the wall;
the wire at the back of the picture was not broken or damaged in any
way. The accident seemed to him quite inexplicable. He was greatly
annoyed. The Chinese god was a valuable thing. He stood in front of the
chimney-piece contemplating the damage with a sense of great irritation.
“To think that everything should have been broken except this beastly
little Ikon!” he said to himself. “I wonder whether that was what Sledge
meant when he said I should not mix my deities.”
Next morning he sent again for the framemaker, and abused him roundly.
The framemaker said he could not understand how the accident had
happened. The nail was an excellent nail, the picture, Mr. Ferrol must
admit, had been hung with great care before his very eyes and under his
own direct and personal supervision. What more could be done?
“It’s something to do with the balance,” said Ferrol. “I told you that
before. The picture is half spoiled now.”
The framemaker said the damage would not show once the glass was
repaired, and took the picture away again to mend it. A few days later
it was brought back. Two men came to fix it this time; steps were
brought and the hanging lasted about twenty minutes. Nails were put
under the picture; it was hung by a double wire. All accidents in the
future seemed guarded against.
The following morning Ferrol telephoned to Sledge and asked him to dine
with him. Sledge was engaged to dine out that evening, but said that he
would look in at the Temple late after dinner.
Ferrol dined alone at the Club; he reached his rooms about half-past
nine; he made up a blazing fire and drew an armchair near it. He lit a
cigarette, made some Turkish coffee, and took down a French novel. Every
now and then he looked up at his picture. No damage was visible; it
looked, he thought, as well as ever. In the place of the Chinese idol
he had put his little green Egyptian god on the chimney-piece. The
candlesticks and the Ikon were still in their places.
“After all,” thought Ferrol, “I did wrong to have any Chinese art in the
place at all. Egyptian things are the only things worth having. It is a
lesson to me not to dabble with things out of my period.”
After he had read for about a quarter of an hour he fell into a doze.
* * * * *
Sledge arrived at the rooms about half-past ten, and an ugly sight met
his eyes. There had been an accident. The picture over the chimney-piece
had fallen down right on Ferrol. His face was badly cut. They put Ferrol
to bed, and his wounds were seen to and everything that was necessary
was done. A nurse was sent for to look after him, and Sledge decided to
stay in the house all night. After all the arrangements had been made,
the doctor, before he went away, said to Sledge: “He will recover all
right, he is not in the slightest danger; but I don’t know who is to
break the news to him.”
“What is that?” asked Sledge.
“He will be quite blind,” said the doctor.
Then the doctor went away, and Sledge sat down in front of the fire.
The broken glass had been swept up. The picture had been placed on the
Oriental divan, and as Sledge looked at the chimney-piece he noticed
that the little Ikon was still in its place. Something caught his eye
just under the low fender in front of the fireplace. He bent forward and
picked up the object.
It was Ferrol’s green Egyptian god, which had been broken into two
pieces.