'Either of two things: I must alter the architecture of this house, or
I must return to Stanton College.'
'Don't talk nonsense, do you think I don't know you; you are boring
yourself because Kitty is upstairs in bed and cannot walk about with
you.'
'I do not know how you contrive, mother, always to say the most
disagreeable things; the marvellous way in which you pitch on what
will, at the moment, wound me most, is truly wonderful. I compliment
you on your skill, but I confess I am at a loss to understand why you
should, as if by right, expect me to remain here to serve as a target
for the arrows of your scorn.'
John walked out of the room. During dinner mother and son spoke very
little, and he retired early, about ten o'clock, to his room. He was
in high dudgeon, but the white walls, the _prie-dieu,_ the straight,
narrow bed, were pleasant to see. His room was the first agreeable
impression of the day. He picked up a drawing from the table, it
seemed to him awkward and slovenly. He sharpened his pencil, cleared
his crow-quill pens, got out his tracing-paper, and sat down to
execute a better. But he had not finished his outline sketch before
he leaned back in his chair, and as if overcome by the insidious
warmth of the fire, lapsed into firelight attitudes and meditations.
Nibbling his pencil's point, he looked into the glare. Wavering light
and wavering shade flickered fast over the Roman profile, flowed
fitfully--fitfully as his thoughts. Now his thoughts pursued
architectural dreams, and now he thought of himself, of his unhappy
youth, of how he had been misunderstood, of his solitary life; a
bitter, unsatisfactory life, and yet a life not wanting in an ideal--a
glorious ideal. He thought how his projects had always met with
failure, with disapproval, above all, failure... and yet, and yet he
felt, he almost knew, there was something great and noble in him. His
eyes brightened, he slipped into thinking of schemes for a monastic
life; and then he thought of his mother's hard disposition and how she
misunderstood him. What would the end be? Would he succeed in creating
the monastery he dreamed of so fondly? To reconstruct the ascetic life
of the Middle Ages, that would be something worth doing, that would be
a great ideal--that would make meaning in his life. If he failed...
what should he do then? His life as it was, was unbearable... he must
come to terms with life....
That central tower! how could he manage it and that built-out front?
Was it true, as the architect said, that it would throw all the front
rooms into darkness? Without this front his design would be worthless.
What a difference it made! Kitty had approved of it.
For a woman she was strangely beautiful. She appealed to him as no
other woman ever had. Other women, with their gross display of sex,
disgusted him; but Kitty, with her strange, enigmatic eyes, appealed
to him like--well, like an antique statuette.
That was how she appealed to him--as an exquisite work of art. His
mother had said that he found Thornby Place dull when she was ill,
that he missed her, that--that it was because she was not there that
he had found the day so wearisome. But this was because his mother
could only understand men and women in one relation; she had no
feeling for art, for that remoteness from life which is art, and which
was everything to him. His thoughts paused, and returned slowly to his
architectural projects. But Kitty was in them all; he saw her in
decorations for the light timber lantern roof, and she flitted through
the ambulatory which was to be constructed at the back of the house.
Soon he was absorbed in remembrance of her looks and laughter, of
their long talks of the monastery, the neighbours, the pet rooks,
Sammy the great yellow cat, and the greenhouses. He remembered the
pleasure he had taken in these conversations.
Was it then true that he thought of her as men think of women, was
there some alloy of animal passion in his admiration for her beauty?
He asked himself this question, and remembered with shame some
involuntary thoughts which had sprung upon him, and which, when he
listened, he still could hear in the background of his mind; and,
listening, he grew frightened and fled, like a lonely traveller from
the sound of wolves.
Pausing in his mental flight he asked himself what this must lead to?
To a coarse affection, to marriage, to children, to general
domesticity.
And contrasted with this...
The dignified and grave life of the cloister, the constant sensation
of lofty and elevating thought, a high ideal, the communion of learned
men, the charm of headship.
Could he abandon this? No, a thousand times no. This was what was real
in him, this was what was true to his nature. The thoughts he deplored
were accidental. He could not be held accountable for them. He had
repulsed them; and trembling and pale with passion, John fell on his
knees and prayed for grace. But prayer was thin upon his lips, and he
could only beg that the temptation might pass from him....
'In the morning' he said, 'I shall be strong.'