"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.
I muttered that I was awfully sorry....
I packed her off. I closed the door in the h.o.a.rding behind her. Then I walked straight across the yard to Benlian"s.
He was lying on a couch, not doing anything.
"I know I ought to have come sooner, Benlian," I said, "but I had somebody with me."
"Yes," he said, looking hard at me; and I got a bit red.
"She"s awfully nice," I stammered; "but you never bother with girls, and you don"t drink or smoke--"
"No," he said.
"Well," I continued, "you ought to have a little relaxation; you"re knocking yourself up." And, indeed, he looked awfully ill.
But he shook his head.
"A man"s only a definite amount of force in him, Pudgie," he said, "and if he spends it in one way he goes short in another. Mine goes--there."
He glanced at the statue. "I rarely sleep now," he added.
"Then you ought to see a doctor," I said, a bit alarmed. (I"d felt sure he was ill.)
"No, no, Pudgie. My force is all going there--all but the minimum that can"t be helped, you know.... You"ve heard artists talk about "putting their soul into their work," Pudgie?"
"Don"t rub it in about my rotten miniatures, Benlian," I asked him.
"You"ve heard them say that; but they"re charlatans, professional artists, all, Pudgie. They haven"t got any souls bigger than a sixpence to put into it.... You know, Pudgie, that Force and Matter are the same thing--that it"s decided nowadays that you can"t define matter otherwise than as "a point of Force"?"
"Yes," I found myself saying eagerly, as if I"d heard it dozens of times before.
"So that if they could put their souls into it, it would be just as easy for them to put their _bodies_ into it?..."
I had drawn very close to him, and again--it was not fancy--I felt as if somebody, not me, was using my mouth. A flash of comprehension seemed to come into my brain.
"_Not that, Benlian_?" I cried breathlessly.
He nodded three or four times, and whispered. I really don"t know why we both whispered.
"_Really that, Benlian_?" I whispered again.
"Shall I show you?... I tried my hardest not to, you know,..." he still whispered.
"Yes, show me!" I replied in a suppressed voice.
"Don"t breathe a sound then! I keep them up there...."
He put his finger to his lips as if we had been two conspirators; then he tiptoed across the studio and went up to his bedroom in the gallery.
Presently he tiptoed down again, with some rolled-up papers in his hand.
They were photographs, and we stooped together over a little table. His hand shook with excitement.
"You remember this?" he whispered, showing me a rough print.
It was one of the prints from the fogged plates that I"d taken after that first night.
"Come closer to me if you feel frightened, Pudgie," he said. "You said they were old plates, Pudgie. No no; the plates were all right; it"s _I_ who am wrong!"