The Figure in the Carpet | Page 6

or die." Then I asked: "Is it a kind of esoteric
message?"
His countenance fell at this--he put out his hand as if to bid me
good-night. "Ah my dear fellow, it can't be described in cheap

journalese!"
I knew of course he'd be awfully fastidious, but our talk had made me
feel how much his nerves were exposed. I was unsatisfied--I kept hold
of his hand. "I won't make use of the expression then," I said, "in the
article in which I shall eventually announce my discovery, though I
dare say I shall have hard work to do without it. But meanwhile, just to
hasten that difficult birth, can't you give a fellow a clue?" I felt much
more at my ease.
"My whole lucid effort gives him the clue--every page and line and
letter. The thing's as concrete there as a bird in a cage, a bait on a hook,
a piece of cheese in a mouse-trap. It's 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 boy--don't
bother about it. After all, you do like a fellow."
"And a little intelligence might spoil it?" I still detained him.
He hesitated. "Well, you've 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 see--it's 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 you're up to with your style, something you're after
in the language. Perhaps it's a preference for the letter P!" I ventured
profanely to break out. "Papa, potatoes, prunes--that sort of thing?" He
was suitably indulgent: he only said I hadn't 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 yourself--to 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 can't do yourself?"
"Can't do?" He opened his eyes. "Haven't I done it in twenty volumes?
I do it in my way," he continued. "Go YOU and don't do it in yours."

"Ours is so devilish difficult," I weakly observed.
"So's mine. We each choose our own. There's no compulsion. You
won't come down and smoke?"
"No. I want to think this thing out."
"You'll tell me then in the morning that you've laid me bare?"
"I'll see what I can do; I'll sleep on it. But just one word more," I added.
We had left the room--I walked again with him a few steps along the
passage. "This extraordinary 'general intention,' as you call it--for that's
the most vivid description I can induce you to make of it--is then,
generally, a sort of buried treasure?"
His face lighted. "Yes, call it that, though it's perhaps not for me to do
so."
"Nonsense!" I laughed. "You know you're hugely proud of it."
"Well, I didn't propose to tell you so; but it IS the joy of my soul!"
"You mean it's a beauty so rare, so great?"
He waited a little again. "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 up--give it up!"
This wasn't a challenge--it was fatherly advice. If I had had one of his
books at hand I'd have repeated my recent act of faith--I'd have spent
half the night with him. At three o'clock in the morning, not sleeping,
remembering moreover how indispensable he was to Lady Jane, I stole
down to the library with a candle. There wasn't, so far as I could
discover, a line of his writing in the house.

CHAPTER 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