He had no resolution to take up the pencil. Yet after the Male Glee
Party had sung "Loud Ocean's Roar," he remembered that he had had a most
clear and distinct impulse to begin drawing architecture at once, and to
do something grand and fine, as grand and fine as the singing, something
that would thrill people as the singing thrilled. If he had not rushed
home instantly it was solely because he had been held back by the
stronger desire to hear more music and by the hope of further novel and
exciting sensations. But Florence the clog-dancer had easily diverted
the seeming-powerful current of his mind. He wanted as much as ever to
do wondrous things, and to do them soon, but it appeared to him that he
must think out first the enigmatic subject of Florence. Never had he
seen any female creature as he saw her, and ephemeral images of her were
continually forming and dissolving before him. He could come to no
conclusion at all about the subject of Florence. Only his boyish pride
was gradually being beaten back by an oncoming idea that up to that very
evening he had been a sort of rather silly kid with no eyes in his head.
It was in order to ignore for a time this unsettling and humiliating
idea that, finally, he began to copy the outlines of the Parisian scene
on his cartridge-paper. He was in no way a skilled draughtsman, but he
had dabbled in pencils and colours, and he had lately picked up from a
handbook the hint that in blocking out a drawing the first thing to do
was to observe what points were vertically under what points, and what
points horizontal with what points. He seemed to see the whole secret
of draughtsmanship in this priceless counsel, which, indeed, with an
elementary knowledge of geometry acquired at school, and the familiarity
of his fingers with a pencil, constituted the whole of his technical
equipment. All the rest was mere desire. Happily the architectural
nature of the subject made it more amenable than, say, a rural landscape
to the use of a T-square and common sense. And Edwin considered that he
was doing rather well until, quitting measurements and rulings, he
arrived at the stage of drawing the detail of the towers. Then at once
the dream of perfect accomplishment began to fade at the edges, and the
crust of faith to yield ominously. Each stroke was a falling-away from
the ideal, a blow to hope.
And suddenly a yawn surprised him, and recalled him to the existence of
his body. He thought: "I can't really be tired. It would be absurd to
go to bed." For his theory had long been that the notions of parents
about bedtime were indeed absurd, and that he would be just as
thoroughly reposed after three hours sleep as after ten. And now that
he was a man he meant to practise his theory so far as circumstances
allowed. He looked at his watch. It was turned half-past eleven. A
delicious wave of joy and of satisfaction animated him. He had never
been up so late, within his recollection, save on a few occasions when
even infants were allowed to be up late. He was alone, secreted, master
of his time and his activity, his mind charged with novel impressions,
and a congenial work in progress. Alone? ... It was as if he was
spiritually alone in the vast solitude of the night. It was as if he
could behold the unconscious forms of all humanity, sleeping. This
feeling that only he had preserved consciousness and energy, that he was
the sole active possessor of the mysterious night, affected him in the
most exquisite manner. He had not been so nobly happy in his life. And
at the same time he was proud, in a childlike way, of being up so late.
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