Part 4

“Oh! Ah! That’s all right. You come down to my place”--he handed me a card: “Mr. Cyril Porteus Jackson, Ultima Thule, Wimbledon”--“and see how I fix ’em up. But if he’s really going to kick it, I’d like to have a look at the little old chap, just for old times’ sake.”

We went, as quietly as Mr. Jackson’s bright boots would permit, into his room, where the landlady was sitting gazing angrily at the cats. She went out without noise, flouncing her head as much as to say: “Well, now you can see what I have to go through, sitting up here. I never get out.”

Our little old friend was still in that curious stupor. He seemed unconscious, but his blue eyes were not closed, staring brightly out before them at things we did not see. With his silvery hair and his flushed frailty, he had an unearthly look. After standing perhaps three minutes at the foot of the bed, Mr. Jackson whispered:

“Well, he does look queer. Poor little old chap! You tell him from me I’ll look after his cats and birds; he needn’t worry. And now, I think I won’t keep the car. Makes me feel a bit throaty, you know. Don’t move; he might come to.”

And, leaning all the weight of his substantial form on those bright and creaking toes, he made his way to the door, flashed at me a diamond ring, whispered hoarsely: “So long! That’ll be all right!” and vanished. And soon I heard the whirring of his car and just saw the top of his shiny hat travelling down the little street.

Some time I sat on there, wanting to deliver that message. An uncanny vigil in the failing light, with those five cats--yes, five at least--lying or sitting against the walls, staring like sphinxes at their motionless protector. I could not make out whether it was he in his stupor with his bright eyes that fascinated them, or the bullfinch perched on his pillow, whom they knew perhaps might soon be in their power. I was glad when the landlady came up and I could leave the message with her.

When she opened the door to me next day at six o’clock I knew that he was gone. There was about her that sorrowful, unmistakable importance, that peculiar mournful excitement, which hovers over houses where death has entered.

“Yes,” she said, “he went this morning. Never came round after you left. Would you like to see him?”

We went up.

He lay, covered with a sheet, in the darkened room. The landlady pulled the window-curtains apart. His face, as white now almost as his silvery head, had in the sunlight a radiance like that of a small, bright angel gone to sleep. No growth of hair, such as comes on most dead faces, showed on those frail cheeks that were now smooth and lineless as porcelain. And on the sheet above his chest the bullfinch sat, looking into his face.

The landlady let the curtains fall, and we went out.

“I’ve got the cats in here”--she pointed to the room where Mr. Jackson and I had talked--“all ready for that gentleman when he sends. But that little bird, I don’t know what to do; he won’t let me catch him, and there he sits. It makes me feel all funny.”

It had made me feel all funny, too.

“He hasn’t left the money for his funeral. Dreadful, the way he never thought about himself. I’m glad I kept him, though.” And, not to my astonishment, she suddenly began to cry.

A wire was sent to Mr. Jackson, and on the day of the funeral I went down to ‘Ultima Thule,’ Wimbledon, to see if he had carried out his promise.

He had. In the grounds, past the vinery, an outhouse had been cleaned and sanded, with cushions placed at intervals against the wall, and a little trough of milk. Nothing could have been more suitable or luxurious.

“How’s that?” he said. “I’ve done it thoroughly.” But I noticed that he looked a little glum.

“The only thing,” he said, “is the cats. First night they seemed all right; and the second, there were three of ’em left. But to-day the gardener tells me there’s not the ghost of one anywhere. It’s not for want of feeding. They’ve had tripe, and liver, and milk--as much as ever they liked. And cod’s heads, you know--they’re very fond of them. I must say it’s a bit of a disappointment to me.”

As he spoke, a sandy cat which I perfectly remembered, for it had only half its left ear, appeared in the doorway, and stood, crouching, with its green eyes turned on us; then, hearing Mr. Jackson murmur, “Puss, puss!” it ran for its life, slinking almost into the ground, and vanished among some shrubs.

Mr. Jackson sighed. “Perversity of the brutes!” he said. He led me back to the house through a conservatory full of choice orchids. A gilt bird-cage was hanging there, one of the largest I had ever seen, replete with every luxury the heart of bird could want.

“Is that for the bullfinch?” I asked him.

“Oh!” he said; “didn’t you know? The little beggar wouldn’t let himself be caught, and the second morning, when they went up, there he lay on the old chap’s body, dead. I thought it was very touchin’. But I kept the cage hung up for you to see that I should have given him a good time here. Oh, yes, ‘Ultima Thule’ would have done him well!”

And from a bright leather case Mr. Jackson offered me a cigar.

The question I had long been wishing to ask him slipped out of me then:

“Do you mind telling me why you called your house ‘Ultima Thule’?”

“Why?” he said. “Found it on the gate. Think it’s rather distingué, don’t you?” and he uttered his profound chuckle.

“First-rate. The whole place is the last word in comfort.”

“Very good of you to say so,” he said. “I’ve laid out a goodish bit on it. A man must have a warm corner to end his days in. ‘Ultima Thule,’ as you say--it isn’t bad. There’s success about it, somehow.”

And with that word in my ears, and in my eyes a vision of the little old fellow in _his_ ‘Ultima Thule,’ with the bullfinch lying dead on a heart that had never known success, I travelled back to town.

STUDIES OF EXTRAVAGANCE

I.--THE WRITER

Every morning when he awoke his first thought was: How am I? For it was extremely important that he should be well, seeing that when he was not well he could neither produce what he knew he ought, nor contemplate that lack of production with equanimity. Having discovered that he did not ache anywhere, he would say to his wife: “Are you all right?” and, while she was answering, he would think: “Yes--if I make that last chapter pass subjectively through Blank’s personality, then I had better----” and so on. Not having heard whether his wife were all right, he would get out of bed and do that which he facetiously called “abdominable cult,” for it was necessary that he should digest his food and preserve his figure, and while he was doing it he would partly think: “I am doing this well,” and partly he would think: “That fellow in _The Parnassus_ is quite wrong--he simply doesn’t see----” And pausing for a moment with nothing on, and his toes level with the top of a chest of drawers, he would say to his wife: “What I think about that _Parnassus_ fellow is that he doesn’t grasp the fact that my books----” And he would not fail to hear her answer warmly: “Of course he doesn’t; he’s a perfect idiot.” He would then shave. This was his most creative moment, and he would soon cut himself and utter a little groan, for it would be needful now to find to find his special cotton wool and stop the bleeding, which was a paltry business and not favourable to the flight of genius. And if his wife, taking advantage of the incident, said something which she had long been waiting to say, he would answer, wondering a little what it was she had said, and thinking: “There it is, I get no time for steady thought.”

Having finished shaving he would bathe, and a philosophical conclusion would almost invariably come to him just before he douched himself with cold--so that he would pause, and call out through the door: “You know, I think the supreme principle----” And while his wife was answering, he would resume the drowning of her words, having fortunately remembered just in time that his circulation would suffer if he did not douse himself with cold while he was still warm. He would dry himself, dreamily developing that theory of the universe and imparting it to his wife in sentences that seldom had an end, so that it was not necessary for her to answer them. While dressing he would stray a little, thinking: “Why can’t I concentrate myself on my work; it’s awful!” And if he had by any chance a button off, he would present himself rather unwillingly, feeling that it was a waste of his time. Watching her frown from sheer self-effacement over her button-sewing, he would think: “She is wonderful! How can she put up with doing things for me all day long?” And he would fidget a little, feeling in his bones that the postman had already come.

He went down always thinking: “Oh, hang it! this infernal post taking up all my time!” And as he neared the breakfast-room, he would quicken his pace; seeing a large pile of letters on the table, he would say automatically: “Curse!” and his eyes would brighten. If--as seldom happened--there were not a green-coloured wrapper enclosing mentions of him in the press, he would murmur: “Thank God!” and his face would fall.

It was his custom to eat feverishly, walking a good deal and reading about himself, and when his wife tried to bring him to a sense of his disorder he would tighten his lips without a word and think: “I have a good deal of self-control.”

He seldom commenced work before eleven, for, though he always intended to, he found it practically impossible not to dictate to his wife things about himself, such as how he could not lecture here; or where he had been born; or how much he would take for this; and why he would not consider that; together with those letters which began:

“MY DEAR ----,

“Thanks tremendously for your letter about my book, and its valuable criticism. Of course, I think you are quite wrong.... You don’t seem to have grasped.... In fact, I don’t think you ever quite do me justice.... “Yours affectionately, “----.”

When his wife had copied those that might be valuable after he was dead, he would stamp the envelopes and, exclaiming: “Nearly eleven--my God!” would go somewhere where they think.

It was during those hours when he sat in a certain chair with a pen in his hand that he was able to rest from thought about himself; save, indeed, in those moments, not too frequent, when he could not help reflecting: “That’s a fine page--I have seldom written anything better”; or in those moments, too frequent, when he sighed deeply and thought: “I am not the man I was.” About half-past one, he would get up, with the pages in his hand, and, seeking out his wife, would give them to her to read, remarking: “Here’s the wretched stuff, no good at all”; and, taking a position where he thought she could not see him, would do such things as did not prevent his knowing what effect the pages made on her. If the effect were good he would often feel how wonderful she was; if it were not good he had at once a chilly sensation in the pit of his stomach, and ate very little lunch.

When, in the afternoons, he took his walks abroad, he passed great quantities of things and people without noticing, because he was thinking deeply on such questions as whether he were more of an observer or more of an imaginative artist; whether he were properly appreciated in Germany; and particularly whether one were not in danger of thinking too much about oneself. But every now and then he would stop and say to himself: “I really must see more of life, I really must take in more fuel”; and he would passionately fix his eyes on a cloud, or a flower, or a man walking, and there would instantly come into his mind the thought: “I have written twenty books--ten more will make thirty--that cloud is grey”; or: “That fellow X---- is jealous of me! This flower is blue”; or: “This man is walking very--very---- D--n _The Morning Muff_, it always runs me down!” And he would have a sort of sore, beaten feeling, knowing that he had not observed those things as accurately as he would have wished to.

During these excursions, too, he would often reflect impersonally upon matters of the day, large questions of art, public policy, and the human soul; and would almost instantly find that he had always thought this or that; and at once see the necessity for putting his conclusion forward in his book or in the press, phrasing it, of course, in a way that no one else could; and there would start up before him little bits of newspaper with these words on them: “No one, perhaps, save Mr. ----, could have so ably set forth the case for Baluchistan”; or, “In _The Daily Miracle_ there is a noble letter from that eminent writer, Mr. ----, pleading against the hyperspiritualism of our age.”

Very often he would say to himself, as he walked with eyes fixed on things that he did not see: “This existence is not healthy. I really must get away and take a complete holiday, and not think at all about my work; I am getting too self-centred.” And he would go home and say to his wife: “Let’s go to Sicily, or Spain, or somewhere. Let’s get away from all this, and just live.” And when she answered: “How jolly!” he would repeat, a little absently: “How jolly!” considering what would be the best arrangement for forwarding his letters. And if, as sometimes happened, they _did_ go, he would spend almost a whole morning living, and thinking how jolly it was to be away from everything; but toward the afternoon he would feel a sensation as though he were a sofa that had been sat on too much, a sort of subsidence very deep within him. This would be followed in the evening by a disinclination to live; and that feeling would grow until on the third day he received his letters, together with a green-coloured wrapper enclosing some mentions of himself, and he would say: “Those fellows--no getting away from them!” and feel irresistibly impelled to sit down. Having done so he would take up his pen, not writing anything, indeed--because of the determination to “live,” as yet not quite extinct--but comparatively easy in his mind. On the following day he would say to his wife: “I believe I can work here.” And she would answer, smiling: “That’s splendid”; and he would think: “She’s wonderful!” and begin to write.

On other occasions, while walking the streets or about the countryside, he would suddenly be appalled at his own ignorance, and would say to himself: “I know simply nothing--I must read.” And going home he would dictate to his wife the names of a number of books to be procured from the library. When they arrived he would look at them a little gravely and think: “By Jove! Have I got to read those?” and the same evening he would take one up. He would not, however, get beyond the fourth page, if it were a novel, before he would say: “Muck! He can’t write!” and would feel absolutely stimulated to take up his own pen and write something that was worth reading. Sometimes, on the other hand, he would put the novel down after the third page, exclaiming: “By Jove! He can write!” And there would rise within him such a sense of dejection at his own inferiority that he would feel simply compelled to try to see whether he really was inferior.

But if the book were not a novel he sometimes finished the first chapter before one or two feelings came over him: Either that what he had just read was what he had himself long thought--that, of course, would be when the book was a good one; or that what he had just read was not true, or at all events debatable. In each of these events he found it impossible to go on reading, but would remark to his wife: “This fellow says what I’ve always said”; or, “This fellow says so and so, now I say----” and he would argue the matter with her, taking both sides of the question, so as to save her all unnecessary speech.

There were times when he felt that he absolutely must hear music, and he would enter the concert-hall with his wife in the pleasurable certainty that he was going to lose himself. Toward the middle of the second number, especially if it happened to be music that he liked, he would begin to nod; and presently, on waking up, would get a feeling that he really was an artist. From that moment on he was conscious of certain noises being made somewhere in his neighbourhood causing a titillation of his nerves favourable to deep and earnest thoughts about his work. On going out his wife would ask him: “Wasn’t the Mozart lovely?” or, “How did you like the Strauss?” and he would answer: “Rather!” wondering a little which was which; or he would look at her out of the corner of his eye and glance secretly at the programme to see whether he had really heard them, and which Strauss it might be.

He was extremely averse to being interviewed, or photographed, and all that sort of publicity, and only made exceptions in most cases because his wife would say to him: “Oh! I think you ought”; or because he could not bear to refuse anybody anything; together, perhaps, with a sort of latent dislike of waste, deep down in his soul. When he saw the results he never failed to ejaculate: “Never again! No, really--never again! The whole thing is wrong and stupid!” And he would order a few copies.

For he dreaded nothing so much as the thought that he might become an egoist, and, knowing the dangers of his profession, fought continually against it. Often he would complain to his wife: “I don’t think of you enough.” And she would smile and say: “Don’t you?” And he would feel better, having confessed his soul. Sometimes for an hour at a time he would make really heroic efforts not to answer her before having really grasped what she had said; and to check a tendency, that he sometimes feared was growing on him, to say: “What?” whether he had heard or no. In truth, he was not (as he often said) constitutionally given to small talk. Conversation that did not promise a chance of dialectic victory was hardly to his liking; so that he felt bound in sincerity to eschew it, which sometimes caused him to sit silent for “quite a while,” as the Americans have phrased it. But once committed to an argument he found it difficult to leave off, having a natural, if somewhat sacred, belief in his own convictions.

His attitude to his creations was, perhaps, peculiar. He either did not mention them, or touched on them, if absolutely obliged, with a light and somewhat disparaging tongue; this did not, indeed, come from any real distrust of them, but rather from a superstitious feeling that one must not tempt Providence in the solemn things of life. If other people touched on them in the same way, he had, not unnaturally, a feeling of real pain, such as comes to a man when he sees an instance of cruelty or injustice. And, though something always told him that it was neither wise nor dignified to notice outrages of this order, he would mutter to his wife: “Well, I suppose it _is_ true--I can’t write”; feeling, perhaps, that--if _he_ could not with decency notice such injuries, she might. And, indeed, she did, using warmer words than even he felt justified, which was soothing.

After tea it was his habit to sit down a second time, pen in hand; not infrequently he would spend those hours divided between the feeling that it was his duty to write something and the feeling that it was his duty not to write anything if he had nothing to say; and he generally wrote a good deal; for deep down he was convinced that if he did not write he would gradually fade away till there would be nothing left for him to read and think about, and, though he was often tempted to believe and even to tell his wife that fame was an unworthy thing, he always deferred that pleasure, afraid, perhaps, of too much happiness.

In regard to the society of his fellows he liked almost anybody, though a little impatient with those, especially authors, who took themselves too seriously; and there were just one or two that he really could not stand, they were so obviously full of jealousy, a passion of which he was naturally intolerant and had, of course, no need to indulge in. And he would speak of them with extreme dryness--nothing more, disdaining to disparage. It was, perhaps, a weakness in him that he found it difficult to accept adverse criticism as anything but an expression of that same yellow sickness; and yet there were moments when no words would adequately convey his low opinion of his own powers. At such times he would seek out his wife and confide to her his conviction that he was a poor thing, no good at all, without a thought in his head; and while she was replying: “Rubbish! You know there’s nobody to hold a candle to you,” or words to that effect, he would look at her tragically, and murmur: “Ah! you’re prejudiced!” Only at such supreme moments of dejection, indeed, did he feel it a pity that he had married her, seeing how much more convincing her words would have been if he had not.

He never read the papers till the evening, partly because he had not time, and partly because he so seldom found anything in them. This was not remarkable, for he turned their leaves quickly, pausing, indeed, naturally, if there were any mention of his name; and if his wife asked him whether he had read this or that he would answer: “No,” surprised at the funny things that seemed to interest her.

Before going up to bed he would sit and smoke. And sometimes fancies would come to him, and sometimes none. Once in a way he would look up at the stars, and think: “What a worm I am! This wonderful Infinity! I must get more of it--more of it into my work; more of the feeling that the whole is marvellous and great, and man a little clutch of breath and dust, an atom, a straw, a nothing!”