The light waned as with tense fingers he turned the round,
bevelled-edge screw of the lamp. Darkness, immitigable,
profound, and soft, must soon succeed yellow radiance. To
face this gloom, to live in it and breathe of it, set his
heart harshly beating. Yet he slowly turned with tense
fingers the bevelled-edge screw of the lamp. He would
presently be forced to a criticism of the day, that day,
which must brilliantly flame when night closed upon him. As
in the vivid agony endured between two bell-strokes of a
clock, he strove to answer the oppressing shape threatening
him. And his fingers lingeringly revolved the lamp-screw
with its brass and bevelled-edge. If only some gust of
resolution would arise like the sudden scud of the squall
that whitens far-away level summer seas, and drive forth
pampered procrastinations! Then might his fingers become
flexile, his mind untied. Poor, drab seconds that fooled
with eternity and supped on vain courage as they went
trooping by. Could not one keen point of consciousness
abide? Why must all go humming into oblivion like untuned
values? He grasped at a single strand of recollection; he
saw her parted lips, the passionate reproach of her eyes and
felt her strenuous tacit acquiescence; he sensed the
richness of her love. So he stood, unstable, vacillating and
a treacherous groper amidst cruel shards of an ineluctable
memory, powerless to stay the fair phantom and fearful of
looking night squarely in the front. And he remained a
dweller in the shadows, as he faintly fingered the
bevelled-edge screw of the lamp....
"If Maeterlinck would feed on Henry James and write a dream fugue on
your affected title, this might be the result," muttered Berkeley.
"Hush!" whispered Merville; "can't you see that it is his own life he is
unconsciously relating in this sequence of short stories; the tale of
his own pampered procrastinations? If he had only made up his mind
perhaps he could have kept her by his side and been happy but"--"But
instead," said Berkeley sourly "he wrote queer impossible things about
bevelled-edge lamp screws and she couldn't stand it. I don't blame her.
I say, nature before art every time." ... Then Hodson shouted,
dispelling dangerous reveries:
"Cintras, why don't you finish that book of yours? Ten years ago you
told me that you had finished it nearly one-half." "Yes, and in ten
years more he will finish the other," remarked Berkeley.
"If you knew how I worked you would not ask why I work slowly."
"Flaubert again!" interjected Berkeley.
"The title cost me much pain, and the first two lines infinite travail.
I really write with great facility. I once wrote a novel in three weeks
for a sensation monger of a publisher; but because of this ease I
suspect every sentence, every word, aye, every letter that drops from my
pen."
"Hire a typewriter and you'll suspect nobody," suggested Hodson....
The party began to break up; Cintras pressed hands and went first. There
was some desultory conversation, during which Berkeley endeavored to
persuade Hodson to buy him his dinner. Then they left Merville and Pauch
alone. The musician looked at the sculptor.
"And these makers of words think they have the secret of art; as if
form, as if music, is not infinitely greater and nearer the core of
life." Pauch grunted.
"There's a man, that Brahms, you played, Merville; his is great art
which will girdle the centuries. The man built solidly for the future.
He reminds me of Rodin's Calais group: harsh but eternal; secret and
sweetly harsh. Brahms is the Bonze of his art; his music has often the
immobility of the Orient--I think the 'Vibrationists' would describe it
as 'kinetic stability.' ... Cintras is done. He never did anything; he
never will. He theorizes too much. If you talk too often of the
beautiful things you are going to execute they will go sailing into the
air for some other fellow to catch. Mark my words! No man may play tag
with his soul and win the game. He is a study in temperament, or, rather
the need of one, is Cintras. He must have received a black eye some
time. Was he ever in love?"
"Yes, but she went off with another fellow."
"That explains all." Pauch stolidly asked for beer, and getting none
strolled home....
Cintras died. Among his effects was found a bulky mass of manuscript;
almost trembling with joy and expectation Berkeley carried the treasure
to Merville's room. On the title-page was read: "The Corridor of Time: A
Novel. By George Cintras."
Frantic with curiosity the friends found on the next page the following
lines:
"And the insistent clamor of her name at my heart is like the sonorous
roll of the sea on a savage shore."
The other pages were virginal of ink....