I went to see him late one evening and found him at it. He had been all through them once, he said, and he was going through them again. I asked him what they were like. He said nothing.
"Worse than you thought?" I asked.
Far worse. Worse than anything I could imagine. It was inconceivable, he said, what they were like. I said I supposed they were like him. I gathered from his silence that it was inconceivable what he was. That Wrackham should have no conception of where he really stood was conceivable; we knew he was like that, heaps of people were, and you didn't think a bit the worse of them; you could present a quite respectable "Life" of them with "Letters" by simply suppressing [Pg 206] a few salient details and softening3 the egoism all round. But what Burton supposed he was going to do with Wrackham, short of destroying him! You couldn't soften2 him, you couldn't tone him down; he wore thin in the process and vanished under your touch.
But oh, he was immense! The reminiscences were the best. Burton showed us some of them. This was one:
"It was the savage4 aspects of Nature that appealed to me. One of my earliest recollections is of a thunderstorm among the mountains. My nursery looked out upon the mountainside where the storm broke. My mother has told me that I cried till I made the nurse carry me to the window, and that I literally5 leaped in her arms for joy. I laughed at the lightning and clapped my hands at the thunder. The Genius of the Storm was my brother. I could not have been more than eleven months old."
And there was another bit that Burton said was even better.
"I have been a fighter all my life. I have had many enemies. What man who has ever done anything worth doing has not had them? But our accounts are separate, and I am willing to leave the ultimate reckoning to time." There were lots of things like that. Burton said it was like that cloak he used to wear. It would have been so noble if only he had been a little bigger.
And there was an entry in his diary that I think beat everything he'd ever done. "May 3, 1905. Lankester died. Finished the last chapter of 'A Son of Thunder.' Ave Frater, atque vale."
I thought there was a fine audacity6 about it, but Burton said there wasn't. Audacity implied a consciousness [Pg 207] of danger, and Wrackham had none. Burton was in despair.
"Come," I said, "there must be something in the Letters."
No, the Letters were all about himself, and there wasn't anything in him. You couldn't conceive the futility7, the fatuity8, the vanity—it was a disease with him.
"I couldn't have believed it, Simpson, if I hadn't seen him empty himself."
"But the hinterland?" I said. "How about the hinterland? That was what you were to have opened up."
"There wasn't any hinterland. He's opened himself up. You can see all there was of him. It's lamentable9, Simpson, lamentable."
I said it seemed to me to be supremely10 funny. And he said I wouldn't think it funny if I were responsible for it.
"But you aren't," I said. "You must drop it. You can't be mixed up with that. The thing's absurd."
"Absurd? Absurdity11 isn't in it. It's infernal, Simpson, what this business will mean to me."
"Look here," I said. "This is all rot. You can't go on with it."
He groaned12. "I must go on with it. If I don't——"
"Antigone will hang herself?"
"No. She won't hang herself. She'll chuck me. That's how she has me, it's how I'm fixed13. Can you conceive a beastlier position?"
I said I couldn't, and that if a girl of mine put me in it, by heaven, I'd chuck her.
He smiled. "You can't chuck Antigone," he said.
I said Antigone's attitude was what I didn't understand. It was inconceivable she didn't know what the [Pg 208] things were like. "What do you suppose she really thinks of them?"
That was it. She had never committed herself to an opinion. "You know," he said, "she never did."
"But," I argued, "you told me yourself she said they'd represent him. And they do, don't they?"
"Represent him?" He grinned in his agony. "I should think they did."
"But," I persisted, because he seemed to me to be shirking the issue, "it was her idea, wasn't it? that they'd justify14 him, give him his chance to speak, to put himself straight with us?"
"She seems," he said meditatively15, "to have taken that for granted."
"Taken it for granted? Skittles!" I said. "She must have seen they were impossible. I'm convinced, Burton, that she's seen it all along; she's merely testing you to see how you'd behave, how far you'd go for her. You needn't worry. You've gone far enough. She'll let you off."
"No," he said, "she's not testing me. I'd have seen through her if it had been that. It's deadly serious. It's a sacred madness with her. She'll never let me off. She'll never let herself off. I've told you a hundred times it's expiation16. We can't get round that."
"She must be mad, indeed," I said, "not to see."
"See? See?" he cried. "It's my belief, Simpson, that she hasn't seen. She's been hiding her dear little head in the sand."
"How do you mean?"
"I mean," he said, "she hasn't looked. She's been afraid to."
"Hasn't looked?"
"Hasn't read the damned things. She doesn't know how they expose him." [Pg 209]
"Then, my dear fellow," I said, "you've got to tell her."
"Tell her?" he cried. "If I told her she would go and hang herself. No. I'm not to tell her. I'm not to tell anybody. She's got an idea that he's pretty well exposed himself, and, don't you see, I'm to wrap him up."
"Wrap him up——"
"Wrap him up, so that she can't see, so that nobody can see. That's what I'm here for—to edit him, Simpson, edit him out of all recognition. She hasn't put it to herself that way, but that's what she means. I'm to do my best for him. She's left it to me with boundless17 trust in my—my constructive18 imagination. Do you see?"
I did. There was no doubt that he had hit it.
"This thing" (he brought his fist down on it), "when I've finished with it, won't be Wrackham: it'll be all me."
"That's to say you'll be identified with him?"
"Identified—crucified—scarified with him. You don't suppose they'd spare me? I shall be every bit as—as impossible as he is."
"You can see all that, and yet you're going through with it?"
"I can see all that, and yet I'm going through with it."
"And they say," I remarked gently, "that the days of chivalry19 are dead."
"Oh, rot," he said. "It's simply that—she's worth it."
Well, he was at it for weeks. He says he never worked at anything as he worked at his Charles Wrackham. I don't know what he made of him, he [Pg 210] wouldn't let me see. There was no need, he said, to anticipate damnation.
In the meantime, while it pended, publishers, with a dreadful eagerness, were approaching him from every side. For Wrackham (what was left of him) was still a valuable property, and Burton's name, known as it was, had sent him up considerably20, so that you can see what they might have done with him. There had been a lot of correspondence, owing to the incredible competition, for, as this was the last of him, there was nothing to be said against the open market; still, it was considered that his own publishers, if they "rose" properly, should have the first claim. The sum, if you'll believe me, of five thousand had been mentioned. It was indecently large, but Burton said he meant to screw them up to it. He didn't mind how high he screwed them; he wasn't going to touch a penny of it. That was his attitude. You see the poor fellow couldn't get it out of his head that he was doing something unclean.
It was in a fair way of being made public; but as yet, beyond an obscure paragraph in the Publishers' Circular, nothing had appeared about it in print. It remained an open secret.
Then Furnival got hold of it.
Whether it was simply his diabolic humor, or whether he had a subtler and profounder motive21 (he says himself he was entirely22 serious; he meant to make Burton drop it); anyhow, he put a paragraph in his paper, in several papers, announcing that Grevill Burton was engaged simultaneously23 on the "Life and Letters of Ford24 Lankester" and the "Personal Reminiscences" of Mr. Wrackham.
Furnival did nothing more than that. He left the juxtaposition25 to speak for itself, and his paragraph [Pg 211] was to all appearances most innocent and decorous. But it revived the old irresistible26 comedy of Charles Wrackham; it let loose the young demons27 of the press. They were funnier about him than ever (as funny, that is, as decency28 allowed), having held themselves in so long over the obituary29 notices.
And Furnival (there I think his fine motive was apparent) took care to bring their ribald remarks under Burton's notice. Furny's idea evidently was to point out to Burton that his position was untenable, that it was not fitting that the same man should deal with Mr. Wrackham and with Ford Lankester. He had to keep himself clean for him. If he didn't see it he must be made to see.
He did see it. It didn't need Furnival to make him. He came to me one evening and told me that it was impossible. He had given it up.
"Thank God," I said.
He smiled grimly. "God doesn't come into it," he said. "It's Lankester I've given up."
"You haven't!" I said.
He said he had.
He was very cool and calm about it, but I saw in his face the marks of secret agitation30. He had given Lankester up, but not without a struggle. I didn't suppose he was wriggling31 out of the other thing, he said. He couldn't touch Lankester after Wrackham. It was impossible for the same man to do them both. It wouldn't be fair to Lankester or his widow. He had made himself unclean.
I assured him that he hadn't, that his motive purged32 him utterly33, that the only people who really mattered were all in the secret; they knew that it was Antigone who had let him in for Wrackham; they wouldn't take him and his Wrackham seriously; and he might be [Pg 212] sure that Ford Lankester would absolve34 him. It was high comedy after Lankester's own heart, and so on. But nothing I said could move him. He stuck to it that the people in the secret, the people I said mattered, didn't matter in the least, that his duty was to the big outside public for whom Lives were written, who knew no secrets and allowed for no motives35; and when I urged on him, as a final consideration, that he'd be all right with them, they wouldn't understand the difference between Charles Wrackham and Ford Lankester, he cried out that that was what he meant. It was his business to make them understand. And how could they if he identified himself with Wrackham? It was almost as if he identified Lankester——
Then I said that, if that was the way he looked at it, his duty was clear. He must give Wrackham up.
"Give up Antigone, you mean," he said.
He couldn't.
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1
overhauling
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| n.大修；拆修；卸修；翻修v.彻底检查( overhaul的现在分词 )；大修；赶上；超越 | |
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2
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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3
softening
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| 变软，软化 | |
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4
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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5
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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6
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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7
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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8
fatuity
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| n.愚蠢，愚昧 | |
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9
lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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10
supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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12
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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13
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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14
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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15
meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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16
expiation
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| n.赎罪，补偿 | |
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17
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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18
constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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19
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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20
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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21
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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22
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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23
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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24
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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25
juxtaposition
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| n.毗邻，并置，并列 | |
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26
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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27
demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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28
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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29
obituary
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| n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的 | |
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30
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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31
wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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32
purged
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| 清除（政敌等）( purge的过去式和过去分词 )； 涤除（罪恶等）； 净化（心灵、风气等）； 消除（错事等）的不良影响 | |
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33
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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34
absolve
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| v.赦免，解除（责任等） | |
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35
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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