II

Of course I did see him again, or I shouldn't be telling you all this. He

came to my door, just as he had done before, and at about the same time

in the evening. He hadn't come to be photographed this time, but for all

that it was something about a camera--something he wanted to know. He'd

brought two books with him, big books, printed in German. They were on

Light, he said, and Physics (or else it was Psychics--I always get those

two words wrong). They were full of diagrams and equations and figures;

and, of course, it was all miles above my head.

He talked a lot about "hyper-space," whatever that is; and at first I

nodded, as if I knew all about it. But he very soon saw that I didn't,

and he came down to my level again. What he'd come to ask me was this:

Did I know anything, of my own experience, about things "photographing

through"? (You know the kind of thing: a name that's been painted out on

a board, say, comes up in the plate.)

Well, as it happened, I _had_ once photographed a drawing for a fellow,

and the easel I had stood it on had come up through the picture; and I

knew by the way Benlian nodded that that was the kind of thing he meant.

"More," he said.

I told him I'd once seen a photograph of a man with a bowler hat on, and

the shape of his crown had showed through the hat.

"Yes, yes," he said, musing; and then he asked: "Have you ever heard of

things not photographing at all?"

But I couldn't tell him anything about that; and off he started again,

about Light and Physics and so on. Then, as soon as I could get a word

in, I said, "But, of course, the camera isn't Art." (Some of my

miniatures, you understand, were jolly nice little things.)

"No--no," he murmured absently; and then abruptly he said: "Eh? What's

that? And what the devil do _you_ know about it?"

"Well," said I, in a dignified sort of way, "considering that for ten

years I've been--"

"Chut!... Hold your tongue," he said, turning away.

There he was, talking to me again, just as if I'd asked him in to bully

me. But you've got to be decent to a fellow when he's in your own place;

and by-and-by I asked him, but in a cold, off-hand sort of way, how his

own work was going on. He turned to me again.

"Would you like to see it?" he asked.

"_Aha_!" thought I, "he's got to a sticking-point with his work! It's all

very well," I thought, "for you to sniff at my miniatures, my friend, but

we all get stale on our work sometimes, and the fresh eye, even of a

miniature-painter ..."

"I shall be glad if I can be of any help to you," I answered, still a bit

huffish, but bearing no malice.

"Then come," he said.

We descended and crossed the timber-yard, and he held his door open for

me to pass in.

It was an enormous great place, his studio, and all full of mist; and the

gallery that was his bedroom was up a little staircase at the farther

end. In the middle of the floor was a tall structure of scaffolding, with

a stage or two to stand on; and I could see the dim ghostly marble figure

in the gloom. It had been jacked up on a heavy base; and as it would have

taken three or four men to put it into position, and scarcely a stranger

had entered the yard since I had been there, I knew that the figure must

have stood for a long time. Sculpture's weary, slow work.

Benlian was pottering about with a taper at the end of a long rod; and

suddenly the overhead gas-ring burst into light. I placed myself before

the statue--to criticise, you know.

Well, it didn't seem to me that he needed to have turned up his nose at

my ivories, for I didn't think much of his statue--except that it was a

great, lumping, extraordinary piece of work. It had an outstretched arm

that, I remember thinking, was absolutely misshapen--disproportioned,

big enough for a giant, ridiculously out of drawing. And as I looked at

the thing this way and that, I knew that his eyes in their deep cellars

never left my face for a moment.

"It's a god," he said by-and-by.

Then I began to tell him about that monstrous arm; but he cut me very

short.

"I say it's a god," he interrupted, looking at me as if he would have

eaten me. "Even you, child as you are, have seen the gods men have made

for themselves before this. Half-gods they've made, all good or all evil

(and then they've called them the Devil). This is _my_ god--the god of

good and of evil also."

"Er--I see," I said, rather taken aback (but quite sure he was off his

head for all that). Then I looked at the arm again; a child could have

seen how wrong it was....

But suddenly, to my amazement, he took me by the shoulders and turned me

away.

"That'll do," he said curtly. "I didn't ask you to come in here with a

view to learning anything from you. I wanted to see how it struck you. I

shall send for you again--and again--"

Then he began to jabber, half to himself.

"Bah!" he muttered. "'Is that all?' they ask before a stupendous thing.

Show them the ocean, the heavens, infinity, and they ask, 'Is that all?'

If they saw their God face to face they'd ask it!... There's only one

Cause, that works now in good and now in evil, but show It to them and

they put their heads on one side and begin to appraise and patronise

It!... I tell you, what's seen at a glance flies away at a glance. Gods

come slowly over you, but presently, ah! they begin to grip you, and at

the end there's no fleeing from them! You'll tell me more about my statue

by-and-by!... What was that you said?" he demanded, facing swiftly round

on me. "That arm? Ah, yes; but we'll see what you say about that arm six

months from now! Yes, the arm.... Now be off!" he ordered me. "I'll send

for you again when I want you!"

He thrust me out.

"An asylum, Mr. Benlian," I thought as I crossed the yard, "is the place

for you!" You see, I didn't know him then, and that he wasn't to be

judged as an ordinary man is. Just you wait till you see....

And straight away, I found myself vowing that I'd have nothing more to do

with him. I found myself resolving that, as if I were making up my mind

not to smoke or drink--and (I don't know why) with a similar sense that I

was depriving myself of something. But, somehow, I forgot, and within a

month he'd been in several times to see me, and once or twice had fetched

me in to see his statue.

In two months I was in an extraordinary state of mind about him. I was

familiar with him in a way, but at the same time I didn't know one scrap

more about him. Because I'm a fool (oh, yes, I know quite well, now, what

I am) you'll think I'm talking folly if I even begin to tell you what

sort of a man he was. I don't mean just his knowledge (though I think he

knew everything--sciences, languages, and all that) for it was far more

than that. Somehow, when he was there, he had me all restless and uneasy;

and when he wasn't there I was (there's only the one word for it)

jealous--as jealous as if he'd been a girl! Even yet I can't make it

out....

And he knew how unsettled he'd got me; and I'll tell you how I found that

out.

Straight out one night, when he was sitting up in my place, he asked me:

"Do you like me, Pudgie?" (I forgot to say that I'd told him they used to

call me Pudgie at home, because I was little and fat; it was odd, the

number of things I told him that I wouldn't have told anybody else.)

"Do you like me, Pudgie?" he said.

As for my answer, I don't know how it spurted out. I was much more

surprised than he was, for I really didn't intend it. It was for all the

world as if somebody else was talking with my mouth.

"_I loathe and adore you!_" it came; and then I looked round, awfully

startled to hear myself saying that.

But he didn't look at me. He only nodded.

"Yes. Of good and evil too--" he muttered to himself. And then all of a

sudden he got up and went out.

I didn't sleep for ever so long after that, thinking how odd it was I

should have said that.

Well (to get on), after that something I couldn't account for began to

come over me sometimes as I worked. It began to come over me, without any

warning, that he was thinking of me down there across the yard. I used to

_know_ (this must sound awfully silly to you) that he was down yonder,

thinking of me and doing something to me. And one night I was so sure

that it wasn't fancy that I jumped straight up from my work, and I'm not

quite sure what happened then, until I found myself in his studio, just

as if I'd walked there in my sleep.

And he seemed to be waiting for me, for there was a chair by his own, in

front of the statue.

"What is it, Benlian?" I burst out.

"Ah!" he said.... "Well, it's about that arm, Pudgie; I want you to tell

me about the arm. Does it look so strange as it did?"

"No," I said.

"I thought it wouldn't," he observed. "But I haven't touched it,

Pudgie--"

So I stayed the evening there.

But you must not think he was always doing that thing--whatever it

was--to me. On the other hand, I sometimes felt the oddest sort of

release (I don't know how else to put it) ... like when, on one of these

muggy, earthy-smelling days, when everything's melancholy, the wind

freshens up suddenly and you breathe again. And that (I'm trying to take

it in order, you see, so that it will be plain to you) brings me to the

time I found out that _he_ did that too, and knew when he was doing it.

I'd gone into his place one night to have a look at his statue. It was

surprising what a lot I was finding out about that statue. It was still

all out of proportion (that is to say, I knew it must be--remembered I'd

thought so--though it didn't annoy me now quite so much. I suppose I'd

lost _my_ fresh eye by that time). Somehow, too, my own miniatures had

begun to look a bit kiddish; they made me impatient; and that's horrible,

to be discontented with things that once seemed jolly good to you.

Well, he'd been looking at me in the hungriest sort of way, and I looking

at the statue, when all at once that feeling of release and lightness

came over me. The first I knew of it was that I found myself thinking of

some rather important letters my firm had written to me, wanting to know

when a job I was doing was going to be finished. I thought myself it was

time I got it finished; I thought I'd better set about it at once; and I

sat suddenly up in my chair, as if I'd just come out of a sleep. And,

looking at the statue, I saw it as it had seemed at first--all misshapen

and out of drawing.

The very next moment, as I was rising, I sat down again as suddenly as if

somebody had pulled me back.

Now a chap doesn't like to be changed about like that; so, without

looking at Benlian, I muttered a bit testily, "Don't, Benlian!"

Then I heard him get up and knock his chair away. He was standing behind

me.

"Pudgie," he said, in a moved sort of voice, "I'm no good to you. Get out

of this. Get out--"

"No, no, Benlian!" I pleaded.

"Get out, do you hear, and don't come again! Go and live somewhere

else--go away from London--don't let me know where you go--"

"Oh, what have I done?" I asked unhappily; and he was muttering again.

"Perhaps it would be better for me too," he muttered; and then he added,

"Come, bundle out!"

So in home I went, and finished my ivory for the firm; but I can't tell

you how friendless and unhappy I felt.

Now I used to know in those days a little girl--a nice, warm-hearted

little thing, just friendly you know, who used to come to me sometimes in

another place I lived at and mend for me and so on. It was an awful long

time since I'd seen her; but she found me out one night--came to that

yard, walked straight in, went straight to my linen-bag, and began to

look over my things to see what wanted mending, just as she used to. I

don't mind confessing that I was a bit sweet on her at one time; and it

made me feel awfully mean, the way she came in, without asking any

questions, and took up my mending.

So she sat doing my things, and I sat at my work, glad of a bit of

company; and she chatted as she worked, just jolly and gentle and not at

all reproaching me.

But as suddenly as a shot, right in the middle of it all, I found myself

wondering about Benlian again. And I wasn't only wondering; somehow I was

horribly uneasy about him. It came to me that he might be ill or

something. And all the fun of her having come to see me was gone. I found

myself doing all sorts of stupid things to my work, and glancing at my

watch that was lying on the table before me.

At last I couldn't stand it any longer. I got up.

"Daisy," I said, "I've got to go out now."

She seemed surprised.

"Oh, why didn't you tell me I'd been keeping you!" she said, getting up

at once.