The Tower of Oblivion Part 23

Emotion or pa.s.sion might become He might become comparative, predominant characteristics, critical, philosophic, at the expense of but at the cost of intensity intellectual comparisons. of emotional experience.

He certainly would not succeed He might be in danger of in any task that demanded including so much that he width of outlook first of all. would become diffuse and pointless.

He might concentrate so brilliantly The speculative man might get as to perform a momentary and the upper hand of the practical sensational feat--say to one and he would fail in a knockout Carpentier. supreme momentary effort--in other words, Carpentier would knock him out.

A summer's day in the country It would be merely a matter might be almost unbearably of fresh air and exercise, to beautiful to him. be set off against the working hours lost and the cost of two railway tickets.

I am anxious not to go beyond my brief. I knew that for the purpose of his book he was attempting to manipulate himself, but what his success had so far been I did not know. Nevertheless all the possibilities had to be considered, and the more I thought of this one the more it impressed me. For practical purposes, these differences of memory-intensity might turn out to be the pivot on which all else turned.

For suppose that he had no choice but to go back and reopen the closed book of his life, and that nothing that Julia or I could do would stop him. Whether in that case was the better: to live as it were day by day and hour and hour, with joy and grief experienced at their highest pitch, or to continue to possess to the full this unique and double knowledge, of a past that had been a future and of a future that was once more a past?

To put it in another form, since he must do this Widders.h.i.+ns Walk, was it better for him to know he was doing it, or to do it knowing as little as possible about it?

Or, in its simplest form of all, would he be happier with or without a memory of any kind?

I said good night to him at the door of his room and closed it behind me. I had not taken more than a couple of steps when I heard him softly lock it. I went down to Julia in the drawing-room.

Even on a warm summer's evening, when the windows stand wide open, I like a wood fire. Outside the heavens were a beauteous pink glow, with one amber star. The trout were rising for their evening meal, and a sedge-warbler sang short sweet phrases. From time to time a moorhen scuttered along the surface of the pond, and the smell of night-flowering tobacco floated into the quiet room. But Julia had no wish to go out. Into a pair of my sister's slippers she had thrust her worsted-clad feet, and she was toasting her toes and smiling into the fire.

"Is that window too much for you?" I asked.

"No."

"Then put this shawl over your shoulders. You'll have hot milk to go to bed with."

"Thank you, George."

"And now," I said, drawing up my chair opposite to her, "tell me what's happened since Wednesday."

She mused. "Happened to him?"

"I want to know _all_ that you did. Did you go to him?"

"No. He turned up at the Boltons this morning and dragged me out, exactly as he said."

"But----"

"Oh, I'd sent him a note."

"Ah! I wondered.... What did you say?"

"It was only a couple of lines. I forget what the exact words were. I merely said that I shouldn't be in the least afraid of anything, and that anyway I hadn't a dog to set at him. Just that. Nothing else. I wrote it in the Museum after you'd gone."

"And that fetched him round?"

"Yes."

"Well, what did he say?"

She hesitated. "That's just it, George. He hasn't even referred to it."

"What, not in any way?"

"Not in any way."

"He just came into the Boltons as if nothing had happened, and he's talked all day as if nothing had happened?"

"That's exactly it."

"He's not mentioned his book?"

"Only what you heard at lunch."

"He is writing it?"

"One would gather so. You know as much about it as I do."

I gazed into the fire. A louder splash came from the pond--one of the three-pound rainbows. Julia resumed of her own accord.

"You see, when you left me in the Museum I really didn't know what to do. After what you'd told me I didn't want to risk upsetting him by simply walking in to his place unannounced. So I wrote that note, and he'd get it last night. And he was round early this morning. But he hasn't even mentioned the note. I suppose he got it, but things aren't in the least like what you told me. You told me he was pa.s.sionately grateful at finding you. Well, that doesn't at all describe his manner to me. He's jolly, keen, full of enjoyment and zest at everything that comes along--and that's all. He _must_ have understood my note; that's why I put in that bit about the dog; if he didn't understand he'd have to ask what _that_ meant. But not one single word. What do you suppose has happened?"

A little disingenuously I asked her what she meant by "happened."

"To him of course. I've told you all _I_ did. It must have been rather heartrending between you two; so why this perfect composure now that there are three of us?"

I didn't know. I was a little afraid to guess. But again I pondered that distance of the torch from the table's edge.... Julia was still gazing into the fire, her long hands between her knees, so that her walking-skirt shaped them. Then suddenly she looked from the fire to me.

"How many things has he talked about to-day, since he's been here?" she asked abruptly.

I moved uneasily. "Oh--how many things does one talk about in a day?

Hundreds," I replied.

"But--at such a _pitch_!" She threw the word at me with almost accusatory energy. "Top-note all the time--birds' nests, punts, athletics, incinerators, those boys bathing----"

Less and less at my ease, I could only urge that a holiday was a holiday, and that Derry might as well have stayed at home as bring his cares with him.

"You think it's just that?" she demanded, looking me full in the face.

"I should say so."

"Hm!"

But in spite of that rather critical "Hm!" she seemed rea.s.sured.

Suddenly she gave a soft chuckle.

"He was rather wonderful with those boys," she said.