Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (95 page)

there
now.
"No
absinthe
there,"
he
muttered.
It
was the
sort
of
thing
that
in
the
old
days
he
would
have
said
for
effect; but
it
carried
conviction
now.
Absinthe,
erst
but
a
point
in
the
"personality"
he
had
striven
so
hard
to
build
up,
was
solace
and
necessity now.
He
no
longer
called
it
"la
sorcière
glauque."
He
had
shed
away all his French phrases. He had become a
plain, unvarnished, Preston man.

Failure,
if it be a plain, unvarnished, complete failure, and even though it be a
squalid failure, has always a certain dignity. I avoided Soames because he made
me feel rather vulgar. John Lane had published, by this time, two little books
of mine, and they had had a pleasant little success of esteem. I was a—slight
but definite—"personality." Frank Harris had engaged me to kick up
my heels in The Saturday Review, Alfred Harmsworth was letting me do likewise
in The Daily Mail. I was just what Soames wasn't. And he shamed my gloss. Had I
known that he really and firmly believed in the greatness of what he as an
artist had achieved, I might not have shunned him. No man who hasn't lost his
vanity can be held to have altogether failed. Soames' dignity was an illusion
of mine. One day in the first week of June,
1897,
that illusion went. But on the evening of that day Soames went too.

I
had been out most of the morning, and, as it was too late to reach home in time
for luncheon, I sought "the
Vingtième."
This little
place—Restaurant
du
Vingtième Siècle,
to
give it its full title —had been discovered in
'96
by the poets and prosaists, but had now been more or less abandoned in
favour of some later find. I don't think it lived long enough to justify its
name; but at that time there it still was, in Greek Street, a few doors from
Soho Square, and almost opposite to that house where, in the first years of the
century, a little girl, and with her a boy named
De
Quincey, made nightly encampment in darkness and hunger among dust and
rats and old legal parchments. The
Vingtième
was but a small whitewashed
room, leading out into the street at one end and into a kitchen at the other.
The proprietor and cook was a Frenchman, known to us as Monsieur
Vingtième;
the waiters were his two daughters, Rose and Berthe; and the food,
according to faith, was good. The tables were so narrow, and were set so close
together, that there was space for twelve of them, six jutting from either
wall.

Only
the two nearest to the door, as I went in, were occupied. On one side sat a
tall, flashy, rather Mephistophelian man whom I had seen from time to time in
the domino room and elsewhere. On the other side sat Soames. They made a queer
contrast in that sunlit room —Soames sitting haggard in that hat and cape which
nowhere at any season had I seen him doff, and this other, this keenly vital
man, at sight of whom I more than ever wondered whether he were a diamond
merchant, a conjurer, or the head of a private detective agency. I was sure
Soames didn't want my company; but
I
asked,
as it would have seemed brutal not to, whether I might join him, and took the
chair opposite to his. He was smoking a cigarette, with an untasted salmi of
something on his plate and a half-empty bottle of Sauteme before him; and he
was quite silent. I said that the preparations for the Jubilee made London
impossible. (I rather liked them, really.) I professed a wish to go right away
till the whole thing was over. In vain did I attune myself to his gloom. He
seemed not to hear me nor even to see me. I felt that his behaviour made me
ridiculous in the eyes of the other man. The gangway between the two rows of
tables at the
Vingtième
was hardly more than two
feet wide (Rose and Bertlie, in their ministrations, had always to edge past
each other, quarrelling in whispers as they did so), and any one at the table
abreast of yours was practically at yours. I thought our neighbour was amused
at my failure to interest Soames, and so, as I could not explain to him that my
insistence was merely charitable, I became silent. Without turning my head, I
had him well within my range of vision. I hoped I looked less vulgar than he in
contrast with Soames. I was sure he was not an Englishman, but what was his
nationality? Though his jet-black hair was enbrosse, I did not think he was
French. To Berthe, who waited on him, he spoke French fluently, but with a
hardly native idiom and accent. I gathered that this was his first visit to the
Vingtième;
but Berthe was offhand in her manner to him:
he had not made a good impression. His eyes were handsome, but—like the
Vingtième's
tables—too narrow and set too close together. His nose was predatory,
and the points of his moustache, waxed up beyond his nostrils, gave a fixity to
his smile. Decidedly, he was sinister. And my sense of discomfort in his
presence was intensified by the scarlet waistcoat which tightly, and so
unseasonably in June, sheathed his ample chest. This waistcoat wasn't wrong
merely because of the heat, cither. It was somehow all wrong in itself. It
wouldn't have done on Christmas morning. It would have struck a jarring note at
the first night of "Hernani." I was trying to account for its
wrongness when Soames suddenly and strangely broke silence. "A hundred
years hence!" he murmured, as in a trance.

"We
shall
not
be
here!"
I
briskly
but
fatuously
added.

"We
shall
not
be
here.
No,"
he
droned,
"but
the
Museum
will
still be
just
where
it
is.
And
the
reading-room,
just
where
it
is.
And
people will
be
able
to
go
and
read
there."
He
inhaled
sharply,
and
a
spasm as
of
actual
pain
contorted
his
features.

I
wondered
what
train
of
thought
poor
Soames
had
been
following. He
did
not
enlighten
me
when
he
said,
after
a
long
pause,
"You
think I
haven't
minded."

"Minded
what,
Soames?"

"Neglect.
Failure."

"Failure?"
I
said
heartily.
"Failure?"
I
repeated
vaguely.
"Neglect-yes,
perhaps;
but
that's
quite
another
matter.
Of
course
you
haven't

been—appreciated.
But
what
then?
Any
artist
who—who
gives
---
"

What
I
wanted
to
say
was,
"Any
artist
who
gives
truly
new
and
great things
to
the
world
has
always
to
wait
long
for
recognition";
but
the flattery
would
not
out:
in
the
face
of
his
misery,
a
misery
so
genuine and
so
unmasked,
my
lips
would
not
say
the
words.

And
then—he
said
them
for
me.
I
flushed.
"That's
what
you
were going
to
say,
isn't
it?"
he
asked.

"How
did
you
know?"

"It's
what
you
said
to
me
three
years
ago,
when
'Fungoids'
was
published."
I
flushed
the
more.
I
need
not
have
done
so
at
all,
for
"It's
the only
important
thing
I
ever
heard
you
say,"
he
continued.
"And
I've never
forgotten
it.
It's
a
true
thing.
It's
a
horrible
truth.
But—d'you remember
what
I
answered?
I
said
'I
don't
care
a
sou
for
recognition.' And
you
believed
me.
You've
gone
on
believing
I'm
above
that
sort of
thing.
You're
shallow.
What
should
you
know
of
the
feelings
of
a man
like
me?
You
imagine
that
a
great
artist's
faith
in
himself
and
in the
verdict
of
posterity
is
enough
to
keep
him
happy
.
.
.
You've never
guessed
at
the
bitterness
and
loneliness,
the"—his
voice
broke; but
presently
he
resumed,
speaking
with
a
force
that
I
had
never
known in
him.
"Posterity!
What
use
is
it
to
me?
A
dead
man
doesn't
know that
people
are
visiting
his
grave—visiting
his
birthplace—putting
up tablets
to
him—unveiling
statues
of
him.
A
dead
man
can't
read
the books
that
are
written
about
him.
A
hundred
years
hence!
Think
of it!
If
I
could
come
back
to
life
then—just
for
a
few
hours—and
go
to the
reading-room,
and
read.'
Or
better
still:
if
I
could
be
projected, now,
at
this
moment,
into
that
future,
into
that
reading-room,
just for
this
one
afternoon!
I'd
sell
myself
body
and
soul
to
the
devil,
for that!
Think
of
the
pages
and
pages
in
the
catalogue:
'
S
oames,
E
noch'
endlessly—endless
editions,
commentaries,
prolegomena,
biographies" —but
here
he
was
interrupted
by
a
sudden
loud
creak
of
the
chair
at the
next
table.
Our
neighbour
had
half
risen
from
his
place.
He
was leaning
towards
us,
apologetically
intrusive.