Last night it was very late and I grew tired, so I broke off my
letter. Perhaps I was really afraid of seeing that mouse again. Those
minute superstitions are curious things. I noticed, when I looked at
the enumeration of these pages to-night, I began to write upon the
thirteenth sheet--and that gives me a vague dissatisfaction. I read,
by-the-bye, a paragraph in a newspaper: it dealt with half-mad authors.
One of these, the writer said, was Zola; he was stated to be half mad
because he added together the numbers on the backs of cabs passing him
in the street. Personally, I do that again and again--and I know very
well that I do it in order to dull my mind. It is a sort of narcotic.
Johnson, we know, touched his street-posts in a certain order: that,
too, was to escape from miserable thoughts. And we all know how, as
children, we have obeyed mysterious promptings to step upon the lines
between the paving-stones in the street.... But the children have
their futures: it is well that they should propitiate the mysterious
Omnipotent One. In their day, too, Johnson and Zola had their futures.
It was well that Johnson should “touch” against the evil chance; that
Zola should rest his mind against new problems. In me it is mere
imbecility. For I have no future.
Do you find it difficult to believe that? You know the Burdens, of
course. But I think you do not know that, for the last nine years,
I have administered the Burden estates all by myself. The original
trustees were old Lady Burden and I; but nine years ago Lady Burden
gave me a power of attorney and since then I have acted alone. It was
just before then that I had bought the houses in Gordon Square--the one
I live in, the one you live in, and the seven others. Well, rightly
speaking, those houses have been bought with Burden money, and all my
pictures, all my prints, all my books, my furniture, my reputation as
a connoisseur, my governorship of the two charities--all the me that
people envy--have been bought with the Burden money. I assure you that
at times I have found it a pleasurable excitement.... You see, I have
wanted you sometimes so terribly--so terribly that the juggling with
the Burden accounts has been as engrossing a narcotic as to Zola was
the adding up of the numbers upon the backs of cabs. Mere ordinary work
would never have held my thoughts.
Under old Burden’s will young Edward Burden comes of age when he
reaches the age of twenty-five or when he marries with my consent.
Well, he will reach the age of twenty-five and he will marry on April
5. On that day the solicitors of his future wife will make their
scrutiny of my accounts. It is regarded, you understand, as a mere
formality. But it amuses me to think of the faces of Coke and Coke
when they come to certain figures! It was an outlaw of some sort, was
it not, who danced and sang beneath the gallows? I wonder, now, what
sort of traitor, outlaw, or stealthy politician I should have made in
the Middle Ages. It is certain that, save for this one particular of
property, I should be in very truth illustrious. No doubt the state
shall come at last in which there shall no more be any property. I was
born before my time.
For it is certain that I am illustrious save in that one respect.
To-day young Edward Burden came here to the office to introduce me
to his _fiancée_. You observe that I have robbed her. The Burden
property is really crippled. They came, this bright young couple, to
get a cheque from me with which to purchase a motor-car. They are to
try several cars in the next three weeks. On the day before the wedding
they are to choose one that will suit them best--and on the wedding-day
in the evening they are to start for Italy. They will be coming towards
you.... Then no doubt, too, a telegram will reach them, to say that
in all probability motor-cars will be things not for them for several
years to come. What a crumbling of their lives!
It was odd how I felt towards _her_. You know his pompous, high
forehead, the shine all over him, the grave, weighty manner. He held
his hat--a wonderful shiny, “good” hat--before his mouth, for all
the world as if he had been in church. He made, even, a speech in
introducing Miss Averies to me. You see, in a sense, he was in a
temple. My office enshrined a deity, a divinity: the law, property,
the rights of man as maintained by an august constitution. I am for
him such a wonderfully “safe” man. My dear one, you cannot imagine how
I feel towards him: a little like a deity, a little like an avenging
Providence. I imagine that the real Deity must feel towards some of His
worshippers much as I feel towards this phœnix of the divines.
The Deity is after all the supreme Artist--and the supreme quality of
Art is surprise.
Imagine then the feeling of the Deity towards some of those who most
confidently enter His temple. Just imagine His attitude towards
those who deal in the obvious platitudes that “honesty is the best
policy,” or “genius the capacity for taking pains.” So for days the
world appears to them. Then suddenly: honesty no longer pays; the
creature, amassing with his infinite pains, data for his Great Work,
is discovered to have produced a work of an Infinite Dulness. That is
the all-suffering Deity manifesting Himself to His worshippers. For
assuredly a day comes when two added to two no longer results in four.
That day will come on April 5 for Edward Burden.
After all he has done nothing to make two and two become four. He has
not even checked his accounts: well: for some years now I have been
doing as much as that. But with his _fiancée_ it is different. She is
a fair, slight girl with eyes that dilate under all sorts of emotion.
In my office she appears not a confident worshipper but a rather
frightened fawn led before an Anthropomorphic Deity. And, strangely
enough, though young Burden who trusts me inspires me with a sardonic
dislike, I felt myself saying to this poor little thing that faced me:
“Why: I have wronged you!” And I regretted it.
She, you see, has after all given something towards a right to enjoy
the Burden estates and the Burden wealth; she has given her fragile
beauty, her amiability, her worship, no doubt, of the intolerable
Edward. And all this payment in the proper coin: so she has in a sense
a right....
Good-night, dear one, I think you have it in your power--you _might_
have it in your power--to atone to this little creature. To-morrow I
will tell you why and how.