I listened with intense interest; it grew in-tenser as he talked. You a failureheavens! What then may your little point happen to be?
Have I got to tell you, after all these years and labours? There was something in the friendly reproach of thisjocosely exaggeratedthat made me, as an ardent young seeker for truth, blush to the roots of my hair. Im as much in the dark as ever, though Ive grown used in a sense to my obtuseness; at that moment, however, Verekers happy accent made me appear to myself, and probably to him, a rare donkey. I was on the point of exclaiming, Ah, yes, dont tell me: for my honour, for that of the craft, dont! when he went on in a manner that showed he had read my thought and had his own idea of the probability of our some day redeeming ourselves. By my little point I meanwhat shall I call it?the particular thing Ive written my books most for. Isnt there for every writer a particular thing of that sort, the thing that most makes him apply himself, the thing without the effort to achieve which he wouldnt write at all, the very passion of his passion, the part of the business in which, for him, the flame of art burns most intensely? Well, its that!
I considered a moment. I was fascinatedeasily, youll say; but I wasnt going after all to be put off my guard. Your descriptions certainly beautiful, but it doesnt make what you describe very distinct.
I promise you it would be distinct if it should dawn on you at all. I saw that the charm of our topic overflowed for my companion into an emotion as lively as my own. At any rate, he went on, I can speak for myself: theres an idea in my work without which I wouldnt have given a straw for the whole job. Its the finest, fullest intention of the lot, and the application of it has been, I think, a triumph of patience, of ingenuity. I ought to leave that to somebody else to say; but that nobody does say it is precisely what were talking about. It stretches, this little trick of mine, from book to book, and everything else, comparatively, plays over the surface of it. The order, the form, the texture of my books will perhaps some day constitute for the initiated a complete representation of it. So its naturally the thing for the critic to look for. It strikes me, my visitor added, smiling, even as the thing for the critic to find.
This seemed a responsibility indeed. You call it a little trick?
Thats only my little modesty. Its really an exquisite scheme.
And you hold that youve carried the scheme out?
The way Ive carried it out is the thing in life I think a bit well of myself for.
I was silent a moment. Dont you think you oughtjust a trifleto assist the critic?
Assist him? What else have I done with every stroke of my pen? Ive shouted my intention in his great blank face! At this, laughing out again, Vereker laid his hand on my shoulder to show that the allusion was not to my personal appearance.
But you talk about the initiated. There must therefore, you see, be initiation.
What else in heavens name is criticism supposed to be? Im afraid I coloured at this too; but I took refuge in repeating that his account of his silver lining was poor in something or other that a plain man knows things by. Thats only because youve never had a glimpse of it, he replied. If you had had one the element in question would soon have become practically all youd see. To me its exactly as palpable as the marble of this chimney. Besides, the critic just isnt a plain man: if he were, pray, what would he be doing in his neighbours garden? Youre anything but a plain man yourself, and the very raison dêtre of you all is that youre little demons of subtlety. If my great affairs a secret, thats only because its a secret in spite of itselfthe amazing event has made it one. I not only never took the smallest precaution to do so, but never dreamed of any such accident. If I had I shouldnt in advance have had the heart to go on. As it was I only became aware little by little, and meanwhile I had done my work.
And now you quite like it? I risked.
My work?
Your secret. Its the same thing.
Your guessing that, Vereker replied, is a proof that youre as clever as I say! I was encouraged by this to remark that he would clearly be pained to part with it, and he confessed that it was indeed with him now the great amusement of life. I live almost to see if it will ever be detected. He looked at me for a jesting challenge; something at the back of his eyes seemed to peep out. But I neednt worryit wont!
You fire me as Ive never been fired, I returned; you make me determined to do or die. Then I asked: Is it a kind of esoteric message?
His countenance fell at thishe put out his hand as if to bid me good-night. Ah, my dear fellow, it cant be described in cheap journalese!
I knew of course he would be awfully fastidious, but our talk had made me feel how much his nerves were exposed. I was unsatisfiedI kept hold of his hand. I wont make use of the expression then, I said, in the article in which I shall eventually announce my discovery, though I daresay I shall have hard work to do without it. But meanwhile, just to hasten that difficult birth, cant you give a fellow a clue? I felt much more at my ease.
My whole lucid effort gives him a clueevery page and line and letter. The things as concrete there as a bird in a cage, a bait on a hook, a piece of cheese in a mouse-trap. Its stuck into every volume as your foot is stuck into your shoe. It governs every line, it chooses every word, it dots every i, it places every comma.
I scratched my head. Is it something in the style or something in the thought? An element of form or an element of feeling?
He indulgently shook my hand again, and I felt my questions to be crude and my distinctions pitiful. Good-night, my dear boydont bother about it. After all, you do like a fellow.
And a little intelligence might spoil it? I still detained him.
He hesitated. Well, youve got a heart in your body. Is that an element of form or an element of feeling? What I contend that nobody has ever mentioned in my work is the organ of life.
I seeits some idea about life, some sort of philosophy. Unless it be, I added with the eagerness of a thought perhaps still happier, some kind of game youre up to with your style, something youre after in the language. Perhaps its a preference for the letter P! I ventured profanely to break out. Papa, potatoes, prunesthat sort of thing? He was suitably indulgent: he only said I hadnt got the right letter. But his amusement was over; I could see he was bored. There was nevertheless something else I had absolutely to learn. Should you be able, pen in hand, to state it clearly yourselfto name it, phrase it, formulate it?
Oh, he almost passionately sighed, if I were only, pen in hand, one of you chaps!
That would be a great chance for you of course. But why should you despise us chaps for not doing what you cant do yourself?
Cant do? He opened his eyes. Havent I done it in twenty volumes? I do it in my way, he continued. You dont do it in yours.
Ours is so devilish difficult, I weakly observed.
So is mine. We each choose our own. Theres no compulsion. You wont come down and smoke?
That would be a great chance for you of course. But why should you despise us chaps for not doing what you cant do yourself?
Cant do? He opened his eyes. Havent I done it in twenty volumes? I do it in my way, he continued. You dont do it in yours.
Ours is so devilish difficult, I weakly observed.
So is mine. We each choose our own. Theres no compulsion. You wont come down and smoke?
No. I want to think this thing out.
Youll tell me then in the morning that youve laid me bare?
Ill see what I can do; Ill sleep on it. But just one word more, I added. We had left the roomI walked again with him a few steps along the passage. This extraordinary general intention, as you call itfor thats the most vivid description I can induce you to make of itis then generally a sort of buried treasure?
His face lighted. Yes, call it that, though its perhaps not for me to do so.
Nonsense! I laughed. You know youre hugely proud of it.
Well, I didnt propose to tell you so; but it is the joy of my soul!
You mean its a beauty so rare, so great?
He hesitated a moment. The loveliest thing in the world! We had stopped, and on these words he left me; but at the end of the corridor, while I looked after him rather yearningly, he turned and caught sight of my puzzled face. It made him earnestly, indeed I thought quite anxiously, shake his head and wave his finger. Give it upgive it up!
This wasnt a challengeit was fatherly advice. If I had had one of his books at hand I would have repeated my recent act of faithI would have spent half the night with him. At three oclock in the morning, not sleeping, remembering moreover how indispensable he was to Lady Jane, I stole down to the library with a candle. There wasnt, so far as I could discover, a line of his writing in the house.
IV
Returning to town I feverishly collected them all; I picked out each in its order and held it up to the light. This gave me a maddening month, in the course of which several things took place. One of these, the last, I may as well immediately mention, was that I acted on Verekers advice: I renounced my ridiculous attempt. I could really make nothing of the business; it proved a dead loss. After all, before, as he had himself observed, I liked him; and what now occurred was simply that my new intelligence and vain preoccupation damaged my liking. I not only failed to find his general intentionI found myself missing the subordinate intentions I had formerly found. His books didnt even remain the charming things they had been for me; the exasperation of my search put me out of conceit of them. Instead of being a pleasure the more they became a resource the less; for from the moment I was unable to follow up the authors hint I of course felt it a point of honour not to make use professionally of my knowledge of them. I had no knowledgenobody had any. It was humiliating, but I could bear itthey only annoyed me now. At last they even bored me, and I accounted for my confusionperversely, I confessby the idea that Vereker had made a fool of me. The buried treasure was a bad joke, the general intention a monstrous pose.
The great incident of the time however was that I told George Corvick all about the matter and that my information had an immense effect upon him. He had at last come back, but so, unfortunately, had Mrs. Erme, and there was as yet, I could see, no question of his nuptials. He was immensely stirred up by the anecdote I had brought from Bridges; it fell in so completely with the sense he had had from the first that there was more in Vereker than met the eye. When I remarked that the eye seemed what the printed page had been expressly invented to meet he immediately accused me of being spiteful because I had been foiled. Our commerce had always that pleasant latitude. The thing Vereker had mentioned to me was exactly the thing he, Corvick, had wanted me to speak of in my review. On my suggesting at last that with the assistance I had now given him he would doubtless be prepared to speak of it himself he admitted freely that before doing this there was more he must understand. What he would have said, had he reviewed the new book, was that there was evidently in the writers inmost art something to be understood. I hadnt so much as hinted at that: no wonder the writer hadnt been flattered! I asked Corvick what he really considered he meant by his own supersubtlety, and, unmistakably kindled, he replied: It isnt for the vulgarit isnt for the vulgar! He had hold of the tail of something; he would pull hard, pull it right out. He pumped me dry on Verekers strange confidence and, pronouncing me the luckiest of mortals, mentioned half a dozen questions he wished to goodness I had had the gumption to put. Yet on the other hand he didnt want to be told too muchit would spoil the fun of seeing what would come. The failure of my fun was at the moment of our meeting not complete, but I saw it ahead, and Corvick saw that I saw it. I, on my side, saw likewise that one of the first things he would do would be to rush off with my story to Gwendolen.
On the very day after my talk with him I was surprised by the receipt of a note from Hugh Vereker, to whom our encounter at Bridges had been recalled, as he mentioned, by his falling, in a magazine, on some article to which my signature was appended. I read it with great pleasure, he wrote, and remembered under its influence our lively conversation by your bedroom fire. The consequence of this has been that I begin to measure the temerity of my having saddled you with a knowledge that you may find something of a burden. Now that the fits over I cant imagine how I came to be moved so much beyond my wont. I had never before related, no matter in what expansion, the history of my little secret, and I shall never speak of the business again. I was accidentally so much more explicit with you than it had ever entered into my game to be, that I find this gameI mean the pleasure of playing itsuffers considerably. In short, if you can understand it, Ive spoiled a part of my fun. I really dont want to give anybody what I believe you clever young men call the tip. Thats of course a selfish solicitude, and I name it to you for what it may be worth to you. If youre disposed to humour me, dont repeat my revelation. Think me dementedits your right; but dont tell anybody why.
The sequel to this communication was that as early on the morrow as I dared I drove straight to Mr. Verekers door. He occupied in those years one of the honest old houses in Kensington-square. He received me immediately, and as soon as I came in I saw I had not lost my power to minister to his mirth. He laughed out at the sight of my face, which doubtless expressed my perturbation. I had been indiscreetmy compunction was great. I have told somebody, I panted, and Im sure that, person will by this time have told somebody else! Its a woman, into the bargain.
The person youve told?
No, the other person. Im quite sure he must have told her.
For all the good it will do heror do me! A woman will never find out.
No, but shell talk all over the place: shell do just what you dont want.
Vereker thought a moment, but he was not so disconcerted as I had feared: he felt that if the harm was done it only served him right. It doesnt matterdont worry.
Ill do my best, I promise you, that your talk with me shall go no further.