IV

The first check I experienced in the hitherto so easy flow of the "Life"

came at the chapter that dealt with Andriaovsky's attitude towards

"professionalism" in Art. He was inflexible on this point; there ought

not to be professional artists. When it was pointed out that his position

involved a premium upon the rich amateur, he merely replied that riches

had nothing to do with the question, and that the starver in the garret

was not excused for his poverty's sake from the observance of the

implacable conditions. He spoke literally of the "need" to create,

usually in the French term, _besogne_; and he was inclined to regard the

imposition of this need on a man rather as a curse laid upon him than as

a privilege and a pleasure. But I must not enlarge upon this further than

to observe that this portion of his "Life" which I was approaching

coincided in point of time with that period of my own life at which I had

been confronted with the alternative of starving for Art's sake or

becoming rich by supplying a clamorous trade demand.

It came, this check I have spoken of, one night, as I was in the very

middle of a sentence; and though I have cudgelled my brains in seeking

how best I can describe it, I am reduced to the simple statement that it

was as arresting, as sharp, actual and impossible to resist, as if my

hand had been seized and pinned down in its passage across the paper. I

can even see again the fragment of the sentence I had written: "... _and

the mere contemplation of a betrayal so essential--_" Then came that

abrupt and remarkable stop. It was such an experience as I had formerly

known only in nightmare.

I sat there looking blankly and stupidly at my own hand. And not only was

my hand arrested, but my brain also had completely ceased to work. For

the life of me I could not recall the conclusion of the sentence I had

planned a moment before.

I looked at my hand, and looked again; and as I looked I remembered

something I had been reading only a few days before--a profoundly

unsettling description of an experiment in auto-suggestion. The

experiment had consisted of the placing of a hand upon a table, and the

laying upon it the conjuration that, the Will notwithstanding, it should

not move. And as I watched my own hand, pale on the paper in the pearly

light, I knew that, by some consent to the nullification of the Will that

did not proceed from, the Self I was accustomed to regard as my own, that

injunction was already placed upon it. My conscious and deliberate Will

was powerless. I could only sit there and wait until whatever inhibition

had arrested my writing hand should permit it to move forward again.

It must have been several minutes before such a tingling of the nerves as

announces that the blood is once more returning to a cramped member

warned me that I was about to be released. Warily I awaited my moment;

then I plucked my hand to myself again with a suddenness that caused a

little blot of ink to spurt from my fountain-pen on to the surface of the

paper. I drew a deep breath. I was free again. And with the freedom came

a resolve--that whatever portion of myself had been responsible for this

prank should not repeat it if I could possibly prevent it.

But scarcely had I come, as I may say (and not without a little gush of

alarm now that it was over), to myself, when I was struck by a thought.

It was a queer wild sort of thought. It fetched me out of my chair and

set me striding across the library to a lower shelf in the farthest

corner. This shelf was the shelf on which I kept my letter-files. I

stooped and ran my fingers along the backs of the dusty row. I drew out

the file for 1900, and brought it back to my writing-table. My contracts,

I ought to say, reposed in a deed-box at my agent's office; but my files

contained, in the form of my agent's letters, a sufficient record of my

business transactions.

I opened the file concertina-wise, and turned to the section lettered

"R." I drew out the correspondence that related to the sale of the first

series of the _Martin Renards_. As I did so I glanced at the movable

calendar on my table. The date was January 20th.

The file contained no letters for January of any significance whatever.

The thought that had half formed in my brain immediately became nonsense.

I replaced the letters in their compartment, and took the file back to

its shelf again. For some minutes I paced the library irresolutely; then

I decided I would work no more that night. When I gathered together my

papers I was careful to place that with the half-finished sentence on the

top, so that with the first resting of my eyes upon it on the morrow my

memory might haply be refreshed.

I tried again to finish that sentence on the morrow. With certain

modifications that I need not particularise here, my experience was the

same as on the previous night.

It was the same when I made the attempt on the day after that.

At ten o'clock of the night of the fourth day I completed the sentence

without difficulty. I just sat down in my chair and wrote it.

With equal ease I finished the chapter on professional artists.

It was not likely that Schofield would have refrained from telling

Maschka of our little difference on our last meeting; and within a week

of the date I have just mentioned I learned that she knew all about it.

And, as the circumstances of my learning this were in a high degree

unusual, I will relate them with such clearness as I am able.

I ought first to say, however, that the selection of the drawings that

were to illustrate the book having been made (the drawings for which my

own text was to serve as commentary would be the better expression), the

superintendence of their production had been left to Schofield. He,

Maschka, and I passed the proofs in consultation. The blocks were almost

ready; and the reason for their call that evening was to consider the

possibility of having all ready for production in the early spring--a

possibility which was contingent on the state of advancement of my own

share of the book.

That evening I had experienced my second check. (I omit those that had

immediately succeeded the first one, as resembling that one so closely in

the manner of their coming.) It had not come by any means so completely

and definitively as the former one, but it had sufficed to make my

progress, both mentally and mechanically, so sluggish and struggling

a performance that for the time being I had given up the attempt, and was

once more regarding with a sort of perturbed stupor my hand that held the

pen. Andriaovsky's portrait stood in its usual place, on the chair at the

end of my writing-table; but I had eyes for nothing but that refractory

hand of mine.

Now it is true that during the past weeks I had studied Andriaovsky's

portrait thoroughly enough to be able to call up the vivid mental image

of it at will; but that did not entirely account for the changed aspect

with which it now presented itself to that uncomprehended sense within

us that makes of these shadows such startling realities. Flashing and

life-like as was the presentation on the canvas (mind you, I was not

looking at it, but all the time at my own hand), it was dead paint by

comparison with that _mental image_ which I saw (if I may so use a term

of which custom has restricted the meaning to one kind of seeing) as

plainly as I ever saw Andriaovsky in his life. I know now that it was

by virtue of that essential essence that bound us heart and brain and

soul together that I so saw him, eyes glittering, head sardonically

wagging, fine mouth shaping phrases of insight and irony. And the strange

thing was, that I could not have located this so living image by

confining it to any portion of the space within the four walls of my

library. It was before me, behind me, within my head, about me, _was me_,

invading and possessing the "me" that sat at the table. At one moment

the eyes mockingly invited me to go on with my work; the next, a frown

had seated itself on that massive pylon of his forehead; and then

suddenly his countenance changed entirely.... A wave of horror broke

over me. He was suddenly as I had seen him that last time in the

Hampstead "Home"--sitting up on his pillow, looking into my eyes with

that terrible look of profundity and familiarity, and asking me who I

was.... _"Harrison--ha ha!... You shall very soon know that I know you,

if ..."_

It is but by the accidence of our limited experience that sounds are loud

or soft to that inner ear of us; these words were at one and the same

time a dreadful thunder and a voice interstellarly inaccessible and

withdrawn. They, too, were before, behind, without, and within. And

incorporated (I know not how else to express it) with these words were

other words, in the English I knew, in the Hebrew in which he had quoted

them from the sacred Books of his People, in all languages, in no

language save that essential communication of which languages are but the

inessential husk and medium--words that told me that though I took the

Wings of the Morning and fled into the uttermost parts of the earth, yea,

though I made my bed in Hell, I could not escape him....

He had kept his word. I _did_ know that he knew who and what I was....

I cannot tell whether my lips actually shaped the question that even in

that moment burst from me.

"But Form--and Forms? It _is_ then true that all things are but aspects

of One thing?..."

"Yes--in death," the voice seemed to reply.

My next words, I know, were actually spoken aloud.

"Then tell me--tell me--_do you not wish me to write it?"_

Suddenly I leapt out of my chair with a gulping cry. A voice _had_

spoken....

"Of course we wish you to write it...."

For one instant of time my vision seemed to fold on itself like smoke;

then it was gone. The face into which I was wildly staring was Maschka's,

and behind her stood Schofield. They had been announced, but I had heard

nothing of it.

"Were you thinking of _not_ writing it?" she demanded, while Schofield

scowled at me.

"No--no--," I stammered, as I got up and tardily placed them chairs.

Schofield did not speak, but he did not remove his eyes from me. Somehow

I could not meet them.

"Well," she said, "Jack had already told me that you seemed in two minds

about it. That's what we've called about--to know definitely what it is

you propose to do."

I saw that she had also called, if necessary, to quarrel. I began to

recover a little.

"Did you tell her that?" I demanded of Schofield. "If you did,

you--misinterpreted me."

In my house, he ignored the fact that I was in the room. He replied to

Maschka.

"I understood Mr. Harrison to say definitely, and in those words, that if

I didn't like the way in which he was writing Michael's 'Life,' I might

write and publish one myself," he said.

"I did say that," I admitted; "but I never said that whatever _you_ did I

should not go on with mine."

"Yours!" cried Maschka. "What right have _you_ in my brother's 'Life'?"