None whatever?
None whatever.
Trust me then to try to be good at any price! I laughed as I went with him to the door. I declare I will be, if I have to be horrible!
III
If that first night was one of the liveliest, or at any rate was the freshest, of my exaltations, there was another, four years later, that was one of my great discomposures. Repetition, I well knew by this time, was the secret of Saltrams power to alienate, and of course one would never have seen him at his finest if one hadnt seen him in his remorses. They set in mainly at this season and were magnificent, elemental, orchestral. I was quite aware that one of these atmospheric disturbances was now due; but none the less, in our arduous attempt to set him on his feet as a lecturer, it was impossible not to feel that two failures were a large order, as we said, for a short course of five. This was the second time, and it was past nine oclock; the audience, a muster unprecedented and really encouraging, had fortunately the attitude of blandness that might have been looked for in persons whom the promise of (if Im not mistaken) An Analysis of Primary Ideas had drawn to the neighbourhood of Upper Baker Street. There was in those days in that region a petty lecture-hall to be secured on terms as moderate as the funds left at our disposal by the irrepressible question of the maintenance of five small SaltramsI include the motherand one large one. By the time the Saltrams, of different sizes, were all maintained we had pretty well poured out the oil that might have lubricated the machinery for enabling the most original of men to appear to maintain them.
It was I, the other time, who had been forced into the breach, standing up there for an odious lamplit moment to explain to half a dozen thin benches, where earnest brows were virtuously void of anything so cynical as a suspicion, that we couldnt so much as put a finger on Mr. Saltram. There was nothing to plead but that our scouts had been out from the early hours and that we were afraid that on one of his walks abroadhe took one, for meditation, whenever he was to address such a companysome accident had disabled or delayed him. The meditative walks were a fiction, for he never, that any one could discover, prepared anything but a magnificent prospectus; hence his circulars and programmes, of which I possess an almost complete collection, are the solemn ghosts of generations never born. I put the case, as it seemed to me, at the best; but I admit I had been angry, and Kent Mulville was shocked at my want of public optimism. This time therefore I left the excuses to his more practised patience, only relieving myself in response to a direct appeal from a young lady next whom, in the hall, I found myself sitting. My position was an accident, but if it had been calculated the reason would scarce have eluded an observer of the fact that no one else in the room had an approach to an appearance. Our philosophers tail was deplorably limp. This visitor was the only person who looked at her ease, who had come a little in the spirit of adventure. She seemed to carry amusement in her handsome young head, and her presence spoke, a little mystifyingly, of a sudden extension of Saltrams sphere of influence. He was doing better than we hoped, and he had chosen such an occasion, of all occasions, to succumb to heaven knew which of his fond infirmities. The young lady produced an impression of auburn hair and black velvet, and had on her other hand a companion of obscurer type, presumably a waiting-maid. She herself might perhaps have been a foreign countess, and before she addressed me I had beguiled our sorry interval by finding in her a vague recall of the opening of some novel of Madame Sand. It didnt make her more fathomable to pass in a few minutes from this to the certitude that she was American; it simply engendered depressing reflexions as to the possible check to contributions from Boston. She asked me if, as a person apparently more initiated, I would recommend further waiting, and I answered that if she considered I was on my honour I would privately deprecate it. Perhaps she didnt; at any rate our talk took a turn that prolonged it till she became aware we were left almost alone. I presently ascertained she knew Mrs. Saltram, and this explained in a manner the miracle. The brotherhood of the friends of the husband was as nothing to the brotherhood, or perhaps I should say the sisterhood, of the friends of the wife. Like the Kent Mulvilles I belonged to both fraternities, and even better than they I think I had sounded the abyss of Mrs. Saltrams wrongs. She bored me to extinction, and I knew but too well how she had bored her husband; but there were those who stood by her, the most efficient of whom were indeed the handful of poor Saltrams backers. They did her liberal justice, whereas her mere patrons and partisans had nothing but hatred for our philosopher. Im bound to say it was we, howeverwe of both camps, as it werewho had always done most for her.
I thought my young lady looked richI scarcely knew why; and I hoped she had put her hand in her pocket. I soon made her out, however, not at all a fine fanaticshe was but a generous, irresponsible enquirer. She had come to England to see her aunt, and it was at her aunts she had met the dreary lady we had all so much on our mind. I saw shed help to pass the time when she observed that it was a pity this lady wasnt intrinsically more interesting. That was refreshing, for it was an article of faith in Mrs. Saltrams circleat least among those who scorned to know her horrid husbandthat she was attractive on her merits. She was in truth a most ordinary person, as Saltram himself would have been if he hadnt been a prodigy. The question of vulgarity had no application to him, but it was a measure his wife kept challenging you to apply. I hasten to add that the consequences of your doing so were no sufficient reason for his having left her to starve. He doesnt seem to have much force of character, said my young lady; at which I laughed out so loud that my departing friends looked back at me over their shoulders as if I were making a joke of their discomfiture. My joke probably cost Saltram a subscription or two, but it helped me on with my interlocutress. She says he drinks like a fish, she sociably continued, and yet she allows that his minds wonderfully clear. It was amusing to converse with a pretty girl who could talk of the clearness of Saltrams mind. I expected next to hear she had been assured he was awfully clever. I tried to tell herI had it almost on my consciencewhat was the proper way to regard him; an effort attended perhaps more than ever on this occasion with the usual effect of my feeling that I wasnt after all very sure of it. She had come to-night out of high curiosityshe had wanted to learn this proper way for herself. She had read some of his papers and hadnt understood them; but it was at home, at her aunts, that her curiosity had been kindledkindled mainly by his wifes remarkable stories of his want of virtue. I suppose they ought to have kept me away, my companion dropped, and I suppose theyd have done so if I hadnt somehow got an idea that hes fascinating. In fact Mrs. Saltram herself says he is.
So you came to see where the fascination resides? Well, youve seen!
My young lady raised fine eyebrows. Do you mean in his bad faith?
In the extraordinary effects of it; his possession, that is, of some quality or other that condemns us in advance to forgive him the humiliation, as I may call it, to which he has subjected us.
So you came to see where the fascination resides? Well, youve seen!
My young lady raised fine eyebrows. Do you mean in his bad faith?
In the extraordinary effects of it; his possession, that is, of some quality or other that condemns us in advance to forgive him the humiliation, as I may call it, to which he has subjected us.
The humiliation?
Why mine, for instance, as one of his guarantors, before you as the purchaser of a ticket.
She let her charming gay eyes rest on me. You dont look humiliated a bit, and if you did I should let you off, disappointed as I am; for the mysterious quality you speak of is just the quality I came to see.
Oh, you cant see it! I cried.
How then do you get at it?
You dont! You mustnt suppose hes good-looking, I added.
Why his wife says hes lovely!
My hilarity may have struck her as excessive, but I confess it broke out afresh. Had she acted only in obedience to this singular plea, so characteristic, on Mrs. Saltrams part, of what was irritating in the narrowness of that ladys point of view? Mrs. Saltram, I explained, undervalues him where hes strongest, so that, to make up for it perhaps, she overpraises him where hes weak. Hes not, assuredly, superficially attractive; hes middle-aged, fat, featureless save for his great eyes.
Yes, his great eyes, said my young lady attentively. She had evidently heard all about his great eyesthe beaux yeux for which alone we had really done it all.
Theyre tragic and splendidlights on a dangerous coast. But he moves badly and dresses worse, and altogether hes anything but smart.
My companion, who appeared to reflect on this, after a moment appealed. Do you call him a real gentleman?
I started slightly at the question, for I had a sense of recognising it: George Gravener, years before, that first flushed night, had put me face to face with it. It had embarrassed me then, but it didnt embarrass me now, for I had lived with it and overcome it and disposed of it. A real gentleman? Emphatically not!
My promptitude surprised her a little, but I quickly felt how little it was to Gravener I was now talking. Do you say that because heswhat do you call it in England?of humble extraction?
Not a bit. His father was a country school-master and his mother the widow of a sexton, but that has nothing to do with it. I say it simply because I know him well.
But isnt it an awful drawback?
Awfulquite awful.
I mean isnt it positively fatal?
Fatal to what? Not to his magnificent vitality.
Again she had a meditative moment. And is his magnificent vitality the cause of his vices?
Your questions are formidable, but Im glad you put them. I was thinking of his noble intellect. His vices, as you say, have been much exaggerated: they consist mainly after all in one comprehensive defect.
A want of will?
A want of dignity.
He doesnt recognise his obligations?
On the contrary, he recognises them with effusion, especially in public: he smiles and bows and beckons across the street to them. But when they pass over he turns away, and he speedily loses them in the crowd. The recognitions purely spiritualit isnt in the least social. So he leaves all his belongings to other people to take care of. He accepts favours, loans, sacrificesall with nothing more deterrent than an agony of shame. Fortunately were a little faithful band, and we do what we can. I held my tongue about the natural children, engendered, to the number of three, in the wantonness of his youth. I only remarked that he did make effortsoften tremendous ones. But the efforts, I said, never come to much: the only things that come to much are the abandonments, the surrenders.
And how much do they come to?
Youre right to put it as if we had a big bill to pay, but, as Ive told you before, your questions are rather terrible. They come, these mere exercises of genius, to a great sum total of poetry, of philosophy, a mighty mass of speculation, notation, quotation. The genius is there, you see, to meet the surrender; but theres no genius to support the defence.
But what is there, after all, at his age, to show?
In the way of achievement recognised and reputation established? I asked. To show if you will, there isnt much, since his writing, mostly, isnt as fine, isnt certainly as showy, as his talk. Moreover two-thirds of his work are merely colossal projects and announcements. Showing Frank Saltram is often a poor business, I went on: we endeavoured, youll have observed, to show him to-night! However, if he had lectured hed have lectured divinely. It would just have been his talk.
And what would his talk just have been?
I was conscious of some ineffectiveness, as well perhaps as of a little impatience, as I replied: The exhibition of a splendid intellect. My young lady looked not quite satisfied at this, but as I wasnt prepared for another question I hastily pursued: The sight of a great suspended swinging crystalhuge lucid lustrous, a block of lightflashing back every impression of life and every possibility of thought!
This gave her something to turn over till we had passed out to the dusky porch of the hall, in front of which the lamps of a quiet brougham were almost the only thing Saltrams treachery hadnt extinguished. I went with her to the door of her carriage, out of which she leaned a moment after she had thanked me and taken her seat. Her smile even in the darkness was pretty. I do want to see that crystal!
Youve only to come to the next lecture.
I go abroad in a day or two with my aunt.
Wait over till next week, I suggested. Its quite worth it.
She became grave. Not unless he really comes! At which the brougham started off, carrying her away too fast, fortunately for my manners, to allow me to exclaim Ingratitude!
IV
Mrs. Saltram made a great affair of her right to be informed where her husband had been the second evening he failed to meet his audience. She came to me to ascertain, but I couldnt satisfy her, for in spite of my ingenuity I remained in ignorance. It wasnt till much later that I found this had not been the case with Kent Mulville, whose hope for the best never twirled the thumbs of him more placidly than when he happened to know the worst. He had known it on the occasion I speak ofthat is immediately after. He was impenetrable then, but ultimately confessed. What he confessed was more than I shall now venture to make public. It was of course familiar to me that Saltram was incapable of keeping the engagements which, after their separation, he had entered into with regard to his wife, a deeply wronged, justly resentful, quite irreproachable and insufferable person. She often appeared at my chambers to talk over his lapses; for if, as she declared, she had washed her hands of him, she had carefully preserved the water of this ablution, which she handed about for analysis. She had arts of her own of exciting ones impatience, the most infallible of which was perhaps her assumption that we were kind to her because we liked her. In reality her personal fall had been a sort of social risesince I had seen the moment when, in our little conscientious circle, her desolation almost made her the fashion. Her voice was grating and her children ugly; moreover she hated the good Mulvilles, whom I more and more loved. They were the people who by doing most for her husband had in the long run done most for herself; and the warm confidence with which he had laid his length upon them was a pressure gentle compared with her stiffer persuadability. Im bound to say he didnt criticise his benefactors, though practically he got tired of them; she, however, had the highest standards about eleemosynary forms. She offered the odd spectacle of a spirit puffed up by dependence, and indeed it had introduced her to some excellent society. She pitied me for not knowing certain people who aided her and whom she doubtless patronised in turn for their luck in not knowing me. I dare say I should have got on with her better if she had had a ray of imaginationif it had occasionally seemed to occur to her to regard Saltrams expressions of his nature in any other manner than as separate subjects of woe. They were all flowers of his character, pearls strung on an endless thread; but she had a stubborn little way of challenging them one after the other, as if she never suspected that he had a character, such as it was, or that deficiencies might be organic; the irritating effect of a mind incapable of a generalisation. One might doubtless have overdone the idea that there was a general licence for such a man; but if this had happened it would have been through ones feeling that there could be none for such a woman.