The Strand Magazine/Volume 5/Issue 25/One and Two
One and Two.
By Walter Besant.
I.
ELL!" cried the boy, jumping about, unable to stand still for excitement. "It is splendid! He has told me such things as I never dreamed. Oh! splendid things! Wonderful things!"
"Tell me, Will."
"It is splendid!"
"I am ashamed. Well, then, he says—he says—" the boy's face became crimson—"he says that I can become whatever I please, if I please. It is all in me—all—all! If I want to be a statesman—I may. If I want to become judge—I may. If I should like to be a bishop—I may. If a great scholar—a great writer—I may. All, he says, is possible for me, if I choose to work—all—if I choose to work. Oh! Nell—isn't it—isn't it wonderful?" He dropped his voice, and his eyes glistened his large dreamy eyes—and his cheeks glowed. "If I choose to work. As if I should not choose to work! Only those fellows who have got no such glorious prospects are lazy. Work? Why, I am mad to work. I grudge every hour. Work? You shall see how I will work!"
He was a lad of seventeen, handsome, tall and straight; his eyes were full and limpid; his face was a long oval, his mouth delicate and fine, but perhaps not quite so firm as might have been desired. At this moment he had just held a conference with his private tutor. It took the form of a remonstrance and an explanation. The remonstrance pointed out that his work was desultory and liable to be interrupted at any moment, for any caprice: that steady grind was incompatible with the giving away of whole mornings to musical dreams at the piano, or to rambles in the woods, a book of poetry in hand. The explanation was to the effect that the great prizes of the world are all within the reach of every clever lad who starts with a sufficiency of means and is not afraid of work; and that he himself—none other—possessed abilities which would justify him in aiming at the very highest. But he must work: he must work: he had been to no school and knew nothing of competitions with other fellows: he must make up for that by hard grind. Think what it may mean to a young fellow of imagination and of dreams, this throwing open of the gates of the Temple of Ambition—this invitation to mount the steps and enter that great and glittering dome. The temple, within, is all glorious with crowns of gold set with precious stones and with crowns of bay and laurel. Day and night ascends a hymn in praise of the living; they themselves—the living who have succeeded—sit on thrones of carved woodwork precious beyond price, and hear and receive this homage all day long. This lad, only by looking in at the open doors, gasped, and blushed, and panted; his colour came and went, his heart beat; he could not stand still.
His companion—they were in a country garden, and it was the spring of the year—was a girl of fifteen, who hung upon his words and adored him. Some women begin the voluntary servitude to the man they love at a very early age indeed. Nelly at fifteen loved this boy of seventeen as much as if they had both been ten years older.
"Yes," she said, timidly, and the manner of her saying it betrayed certain things. "And you will work, Will, won't you?"
"Work? Nell, since your father has spoken those words of encouragement, I feel that there is nothing but work left in me—regular work-methodical, systematic work, you know. Grind, grind, grind! No more music, no more singing, no more making rhymes—grind, grind, grind! I say, Nell, I've always dreamed, you know———"
"You have, Will."
"And to find that things may actually come true—actually—the finest things that ever I dared to dream—oh!"
"It is wonderful, Will!" Both of them Both of them began to think that the finest things had already been achieved.
"It is like having your fortune doubled—trebled—multiplied by ten. Better. If my fortune were multiplied by fifty I could spend no more, I could eat no more, I believe I could do no more with it."
"Genius," said the girl, blushing, because it really did seem an original thing to say, "is better than riches."
"It is, it is," the possessor of genius replied, with conviction. "To have enough is to have all. I can, if I please, become a bishop, a judge, a statesman—anything, anything. Nell," his voice dropped, "the thought makes me tremble. I feel as if I shall not be equal to the position. There is personal dignity, you know."
The girl laughed. "You not equal, Will? Why, you are strong enough for anything."
"I have made up my mind what to do first of all. When I go to Cambridge I shall take up classics. Of course I must take the highest classical honours. I shall carry off all the University scholarships, and the medals, and the prizes. Oh! and I must speak at the Union. I must lead at the Union, and I must be an athlete." He was tall and thin, and he stretched out his long arms. "I shall row in the boat—the 'Varsity boat, of course. I shall play in the Eleven."
"Oh, Will, you are too ambitious."
"No man," he said, severely, "can be too ambitious. I would grasp all. I must sweep the board."
"And then?"
"Ah! There, I have not yet decided. The Church, to raise the world. The Law, to maintain the social order. The House, to rule the nation. Literature, Science, Art —which?"
"In whatever you do, Will, you are certain to rise to the front rank."
"Certain. Your father says so. I feel as if I was already Leader of the House. Oh! It is a splendid thing to rule the House. I feel as if I was Lord Chancellor in my robes—on the woolsack. Nothing so grand as to be Lord Chancellor. I feel as if I was Archbishop of Canterbury. It is a most splendid thing, mind you, to be Archbishop of Canterbury. What could be more splendid? He wears lawn sleeves, and he sits in the House of Lords. But I must work. The road to all these splendid things, as your father says, is through work. It wants an hour yet to dinner. I will give that hour to Euripides. No more waste of time for me, Nell."
He nodded his head and ran into the house, eager not to lose a moment.
The girl looked after him admiringly and fondly. "Oh!" she murmured; "what a splendid thing to be a man and to become Archbishop, and Lord Chancellor, and Leader of the House! Oh! how clever he is, and how great he will become!"
"I've had a serious talk with Challice to-day," said the private tutor to his wife in the evening.
"Will is such a nice boy," said the wife. "What a pity that he won't work!"
"He's got enough money to begin with, and he has never been to a public school. I have been firing his imagination, however, with the rich and varied prospect before a boy who really will work and has brains. He is a dreamer; he has vague ambitions; perhaps I may have succeeded in fixing them. But who knows? He is a dreamer. He plays the piano and listens to the music. Sometimes he makes verses. Who knows what such a lad may do?"
II.
Two years later, the same pair stood in the same place at the same season of the year. Term was over—the third term of the first year at Cambridge.
"I haven't pleased your father," said the young man—he was slight and boyish-looking still, but on his face there was a new stamp—he had eaten of the tree of knowledge. "I have won no scholarships and taken no prizes. My grand ideas about University laurels are changed. You see, Nell, I have discovered that unless one goes into the Church a good degree helps nobody. And, of course, it ruins a man in other ways to put in all the time working for a degree."
"You know," said Nell, "we don't think so here."
"I know. Then you see I had to make the acquaintance of the men and to show them that I was a person of of some importance. A man who can play and sing is always useful. We are an extremely social College, and the—the friction of mind with mind, you know—it is the best education possible for a man—I'm sure it is—much better than poring over Plato. Then I found so many things in which I was deficient. French fiction, for example—and I knew so very little about Art—oh! I have passed a most busy and useful time."
He forgot to mention such little things as nap, écarté, loo, billiards, Paris, and London, as forming part of his education. Yet everybody will own that these are important elements in the forming of a man.
"I see," said Nell.
"But your father won't. He is all for the Senate House. You do take a little interest in me still, Nell? Just a little interest—in an old friend?"
"Of course I do, Will." She blushed and dropped her eyes. Their fingers touched, but only for a moment. The touching of fingers is very innocent. Perhaps it was accidental.
"Nell," said the young man, with deep feeling and earnestness, "whatever I do—to whatever height I rise, I shall always feel—" here he stopped because he could hardly say that she had stimulated him or inspired him—"always feel, Nell, that it began here—it began here." He looked about the garden. "On this spot I first resolved to become a great man. It was on the very day when your father told me that I might be great if I chose; of course, I knew so much before, but it pleased me; it stimulated me. I told you here, on this spot, and you approved and cheered me on. Well, I don't, of course, tell any of the men about my ambitions. Mostly, I suppose, they have got their own. Some of them, I know, don't soar above a country living—I laugh in my sleeve, Nell, when I listen to their confessions—a country living—a house and a garden and a church; that is a noble ambition, truly! I laugh, Nell, when I think of what I could tell them; the rapid upward climb; the dizzy height, the grasp of power and of authority!"
"He spoke very grandly."
He spoke very grandly, and waved his hand and threw his head back and looked every inch a leader—one round whom the soldiers of a holy cause would rally. The girl's eyes brightened and her cheek glowed, even though she remembered what at that moment she would rather have forgotten: the words of her father at breakfast. "Challice has done nothing," he said, "he has attempted nothing; now he will never do anything. It is just as I expected. A dreamer! A dreamer!"
"It was here," Will continued, "that I resolved on greatness. It was on this spot that I imparted my ambition to you. Nell, on this spot I again impart to you my choice. I will become a great statesman. I have money to start me—most fellows have to spend the best part of their lives in getting money enough to give them a start. I shall be the Leader of the House. Mind, to anyone but you this ambition would seem presumptuous. It is my secret which I trust with you, Nell." He caught her hands, drew her gently, and kissed her on the forehead. "Dear Nell," he said, "long before my ambition is realized, you will be by my side, encouraging, and advising, and consoling."
He spoke as a young man should; and tenderly, as a lover should; but there was something not right—a secret thorn—something jarred. In the brave words—in the tender tones—there was a touch, a tone, a look, out of harmony. Will Challice could not tell his mistress that all day long there was a voice within him crying: "Work, work! Get up and work! All this is folly! Work! Nothing can be done without work—work—work!"
III.
It was about the beginning of the Michaelmas term that the very remarkable occurrences or series of occurrences began which are the cause and origin of this history. Many men have failed and many have succeeded. Will Challice is, perhaps, the only man who has ever done both, and in the same line and at the same time. The thing came upon him quite suddenly and unexpectedly. It was at two in the morning; he had spent the evening quietly in the society of three other men and two packs of cards. His own rooms, he observed as he crossed the court, were lit up—he wondered how his "gyp" could have been so careless. He opened his door and entered his room. Heavens! At the table, on which the lamp was burning, sat before a pile of books—himself! Challice rubbed his eyes; he was not frightened; there is nothing to alarm a man in the sight of himself, though sometimes a good deal to disgust; but if you saw, in a looking-glass, your own face and figure doing something else, you would be astonished: you might even be alarmed. Challice had heard of men seeing rats, circles, triangles, even—he thought of his misspent evenings which were by no means innocent of whisky and potash: he concluded that this must be an Appearance, to be referred, like the rats and circles, to strong drink. He thought that it would vanish as he gazed.
"What does this mean?"
It did not: on the contrary, it became, if anything, clearer. There was a reading lamp on the table which threw a strong circle of light upon the bent head of the reader. Then Will Challice began to tremble and his knees gave way. The clock ticked on the mantelshelf: else there was no sound: the College was wrapped and lapped in the silence of sleep.
He nerved himself: he stepped forwards. "Speak," he cried, and the sound of his own voice terrified him. Who ever heard of a man questioning himself in the dead of night? "Speak—What does this mean?"
Then the reader lifted his head, placed a book-mark to keep his place, and turned slowly in his chair one of those wooden chairs the seat of which turns round. Yes—it was himself—his own face that met the face of the returned reveller. But there was no terror in that face—a serious resolve, rather—a set purpose—grave eyes. He, the reader, leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.
"Yes," he said, and the voice again startled the other man. "You have a right—a complete right—to an explanation. I have felt for a long time that something would have to be done; I've been going on in a most uncomfortable manner. In spite of my continual remonstrances, I could not persuade you to work. You must have recognised that you contained two men: the one indolent, dreamy, always carried away by the pleasures or caprice of the moment a feather-brain. The other: ambitious, clear-headed, and eager for work. Your part would give my part no chance. Very well; we are partly separated. That is all. Partly separated."
The dreamer sat down and stared. I don't understand," he said.
"No more time will be lost," the worker went on. "I have begun to work. For some time past I have been working at night—I am not going to stand it any longer."
"That's what made me so heavy in the morning, then?"
"That was the cause. Now, however, I am going to work in earnest, and all day long."
"I don't care, if it's real; but this is a dream. I don't care so long as I needn't work with you. But, I say, what will the men say? I can't pretend to have a twin, all of a sudden."
"N—no. Besides, there are other difficulties. We belong to each other, you see. We must share these rooms. Listen, I have quite thought it out. At night we shall be one; at breakfast and in the Hall we will be one; you shall give me the entire use of these rooms all day and all the evening for work. In examinations of course you will remain here locked in, while I go to the Senate House. You will go to chapel for both."
"N—no. Chapel must belong to you."
"I say you will go to chapel for both." This with resolution.
"Oh!" the other Half gave way. "But what am I to do all day?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Do what you like. If you like to stay here you can. You may play or sing. You may read your French novels; you will not disturb me. But if you bring any of your friends here it will be awkward, because they will perceive that you are double. Now we will go to bed. It is half-past two."
IV.
In the morning Will awoke with a strange sense of something. This feeling of something is not uncommon with young gentlemen who go to bed about three. He got up and dressed. A cup of tea made him remember but imperfectly what had happened. "I must have had too much whisky," he murmured. "I saw myself—actually myself—hard at work." Here his eyes fell upon the table. There were the books—books on Political Economy—with a note-book and every indication of work. More; he knew, he remembered, the contents of these books. He sat down bewildered. Then it seemed as if there was a struggle within him as of two who strove for mastery. "Work!" cried one. "I won't," said the other. "You shall." "I won't." A most ignoble quarrel, yet it pulled him this way and that towards the table or back in the long easy chair. Finally the struggle ended: he fell back; he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the room was cleared of the breakfast things, and he saw himself sitting at the table hard at work.
"Good gracious!" he cried, springing to his feet. "Is what I remember of last night real? Not a dream!"
"Not a dream at all. I will no longer have my career blasted at the outset by your confounded laziness. I think you understand me perfectly. I am clear of you whenever I please. I join you when I please."
"Oh! And have I the same power?"
"You? Certainly not. You are only the Half that won't work. You have got no power at all."
"Oh! Well—I shall not stand that."
"You can't help yourself. I am the Intellectual Principle; mine is the Will: mine is the clear head and the authority."
"What am I, then?"
"You? I don't know. You are me—yourself without the Intellectual Principle. That is what you are. I must define you by negatives. You cannot argue, or reason, or create, or invent: you remember like an animal from assistance: you behave nicely because you have been trained: you are—in short—you are the Animal Part."
"Oh!" He was angry he did not know what to reply: he was humiliated.
"Don't fall into a rage. Go away and amuse yourself. You can do anything you please. Come back, however, in time for Hall."
The Animal Part obeyed. He went out leaving the other Part over his books. He spent the morning with other men as industriously disposed as himself. He found a strange lightness of spirits. There was no remonstrating voice within him reproaching him for his laziness, urging him to get up and go to work. Not at all; that voice was silent; he was left quite undisturbed. He talked with these men over tobacco; he played billiards with them; he lay in a chair and looked at a novel. He had luncheon and beer, and more tobacco. He went down the river in the college boat; he had an hour or two of whist before Hall. Then he returned to his room.
His other Half looked up, surprised.
"Already? The day has flown."
"One moment," said Will, "before we go in. You're a serious sort, you know, and I'm one of the—the lighter ornaments of the College, and I sit among them. It would be awkward breaking off all at once. Besides———"
"I understand. Continue to sit with them for awhile, and talk as much idiotic stuff as you please. Presently you will find that a change of companions and of conversation has become necessary."
Nobody noticed any change; the two in one sat at table and ate like one; they talked like one; they talked frivolously, telling stories like one. After Hall they went back to their chambers.
"You can leave me," said the student. "I shall rest for an hour or so. Then I shall go on again."
This very remarkable arrangement went on undisturbed for some time. No one suspected it. No one discovered it. It became quite natural for Challice to go out of his room in the morning and to leave himself at work; it became natural to go down to Hall at seven with a mingled recollection of work and amusements. The reproaching voice was silent, the Animal Part was left at peace, and the Intellectual Part went on reading at peace.
"Will met the tutor."
One evening, however, going across the court at midnight, Will met the tutor.
"Challice," he said, "is it wise to burn the candle at both ends? Come—you told me this morning that you were working hard. What do you call this? You cannot serve two masters."
"It is quite true," said the Reading Half on being questioned. "I have foreseen this difficulty for some time. I called on the tutor this morning, and I told him of my intention to work. He laughed aloud. I insisted. Then he pointed out the absurdity of pretending to work while one was idling about all day. This is awkward."
"What do you propose then?"
"I propose that you stay indoors all the morning until two o'clock, locked in."
"What? And look on while you are mugging?"
"Exactly. You may read French novels: you may go to sleep. You must be quiet. Only, you must be here—all the morning. In the afternoon you may do what you please. I may quite trust you to avoid any effort of the brain. Oh! And you will avoid anything stronger than tea before Hall. No more beer for lunch. It makes me heavy."
"No more beer? But this is tyranny."
"No. It is ambition. In the evening you may go out and play cards. I shall stay here."
They went to bed. It seemed to Will as if the other Part of him—the Intellectual Part—ordered him to go to sleep without further thought.
This curious life of separation and of partial union continued, in fact, for the whole of the undergraduate time. Gradually, however, a great change came over the lazy Half —the Animal Half. It—he—perceived that the whole of his reasoning powers had become absorbed by the Intellectual Half. He became really incapable of reasoning. He could not follow out a thought; he had no thoughts. This made him seem dull, because even the most indolent person likes to think that he has some powers of argument. This moiety of Challice had none. He became quite dull; his old wit deserted him; he was heavy; he drifted gradually out of the society which he had formerly frequented; he perceived that his old friends not only found him dull, but regarded him as a traitor. He had become, they believed, that contemptible person, the man who reads. He was no longer a dweller in the Castle of Indolence; he had gone over to the other side.
Life became very dull indeed to this Half. He got into the habit of lying on a sofa, watching the other Half who sat at the table tearing the heart out of books. He admired the energy of that Half; for himself, he could do nothing; if he read at all it was a novel of the lowest kind; he even bought the penny novelette and read that with interest; if he came to a passage which contained a thought or a reflection he passed it over. He had ceased to think; he no longer even troubled himself about losing the power of thought.
Another thing came upon him; not suddenly, but gradually, so that he was not alarmed at it. He began to care no longer about the games of which he had formerly been so fond. Billiards, racquets, cards, all require, you see a certain amount of reasoning, of quick intelligence and rapid action. This unfortunate young man had no rapidity of intelligence left. He was too stupid to play games. He became too stupid even to row.
He ceased to be a dreamer; all his dreams were gone; he ceased to make music at the piano; he ceased to sing; he could neither play nor sing: these things gave him no pleasure. He ceased, in short, to take interest in anything, cared for nothing, and hoped for nothing.
In Hall the two in one sat now with the reading set. Their talk was all of books and "subjects," and so forth. The Intellectual Half held his own with the rest: nay, he became a person to be considered. It was remarked, however, that any who met met Challice out walking found him stupid and dull beyond belief. This was put down to preoccupation. The man was full of his work; he was meditating, they said; his brain was working all the while; he was making up for lost time.
In the evening the lazy Half sat in an easy chair and took tobacco, while the other Half worked. At eleven the Industrious Half disappeared. Then the Whole went to bed.
They seldom spoke except when Industry had some more orders to give. It was no longer advice, or suggestion, or a wish, or a prayer: it was an order. Indolence was a servant. "You took more wine than is good for me at dinner to-day," said Industry. "Restrict yourself to a pint of claret, and that of the lightest, for the future." Or, "You are not taking exercise enough. If you have no longer brain power enough even for the sliding seat, walk—walk fast—go out to the top of the Gogs and back again. I want all my energies." Once Indolence caught a cold: it was a month before the May examinations. The wrath and reproaches of Industry, compelled to give up a whole day to nursing that cold, were very hard to bear. Yet Indolence could not resist; he could not even remonstrate; he was now a mere slave.
When the examinations came it was necessary to observe precautions of a severer kind. To begin with, Indolence had to get up at six and go for an hour's run, for the better bracing of the nerves; he had to stay hidden indoors all day, while his ambitious twin sat in the Hall, flooring papers. He had to give up tobacco in order to keep the other Half's head clear. "Courage," said Intellect, "a day or two more and you shall plunge again into the sensuality of your pipe and your beer. Heavens! When I look at you, and think of what I was becoming!"
Industry got a scholarship; Intellect got a University medal; Ambition received the congratulations of the tutor.
"How long," asked the Animal, is this kind of thing going to continue?"
"How long? Do you suppose," replied the other Half, "that I have given up my ambition? Remember what you said two years ago. You were younger then. You would sweep the board; you would row in the University boat; you would play in the Eleven; you would be a Leader—in all, all! You would then take up with something—you knew not what—and you would step to the front. You remember?"
"A dream—a dream. I was younger then."
"No longer a dream. It is a settled pur"Your life? No—my life." The two glared at each other. "Silence, Log. Let me work."
"I shall not be silent," cried Indolence, roused to momentary self-assertion. "I have no enjoyment left in life. You have taken all—all—"
"You have left what you loved best of all—your sloth. Lie down—and take your rest. Why, you do nothing all day. A stalled ox is not more lazy. You eat and drink and take exercise and sleep. What more, for such as you, has life to give? You are now an animal. My half has absorbed all the intellectual part of you. Lie down, I say—lie down, and let me work."
"Indolence shivered."
The Animal could not lie down. He was restless. He walked about the room. He was discontented. He was jealous. The other Half, he saw plainly, was getting the better share of things. That Half was admired and envied. By accident, as he paced the room, he looked in the glass; and he started, for his face had grown heavy: there was a bovine look about the cheeks: the eyes were dull: the mouth full. Then the other Half rose and stood beside him. Together they looked at their own faces. "Ha!" cried Ambition, well satisfied at the contrast. "It works already. Mine is the face intended for me: yours is the face into which this degenerate mould might sink. Mine contains the soul; yours—the animal. You have got what you wanted, Sloth. Your dreams are gone from you. I have got them, though, and I am turning them into action. As time goes on, your face will become more bovine, your eyes duller. What will be the end?" His brow darkened. "I don't know. We are like the Siamese twins."
"One of them took to drink," murmured the inferior Half. "What if I were to follow his example?"
"You will not. You do not dare?" But his blanched face showed his terror at the very thought.
V.
The first step was achieved. The first class was gained. Challice of Pembroke was second classic; he might have been senior but for the unaccountable laziness of his first year. He was University scholar, medallist, prizeman; he was one of the best speakers at the Union. He was known to be ambitious. He was not popular, however, because he was liable to strange fits of dulness; those who met him wandering about the banks of the river found him apparently unable to understand things; at such times he looked heavy and dull; it was supposed supposed that he was abstracted; men respected his moods, but these things do not increase friendships. Challice the Animal and Challice the Intellect weighed each other down.
They left Cambridge, they went to London, they took lodgings. "You are now so different from me in appearance," said the Intellect, "that I think we may leave off the usual precautions. Go about without troubling what I am and what I am doing. Go about and amuse yourself, but be careful."
The victim of sloth obeyed; he went about all day long in heavy, meaningless fashion; he looked at things in shops; he sat in museums, and dropped off to sleep. He strolled round squares. At luncheon and dinner time he found out restaurants where he could feed—in reality, the only pleasure left to him was to eat, drink, and sleep.
One day he was in Kensington Gardens, sitting half asleep in the sun. People walked up and down the walk before him; beautiful women gaily dressed; sprightly women gaily talking; the world of wealth, fashion, extravagance, and youth. He was no more than three-and-twenty himself. He ought to have been fired by the sight of all this beauty, and all this happiness. Nobody in the world can look half so happy as a lovely girl finely dressed. But he sat there like a clod, dull and insensate.
"Papa, it is Will Challice!"
Presently, a voice which he remembered: "Papa, it is Will Challice!" He looked up heavily. "Why, Will," the girl stood before him, "don't you know me?"
It was Nell, the daughter of his tutor, now a comely maiden of one-and-twenty, who laughed and held out her hand to him. He rose, but not with alacrity. The shadow of a smile crossed his face. He took her hand.
"Challice!" his tutor clapped him on the shoulder. "I haven't seen you since you took your degree. Splendid, my boy! But it might have been better. I hear you are reading Law—good. With the House before you? Good again! Let me look at you. Humph!" He grunted a little disappointment. "You don't look quite so—quite so—what? Do you take exercise enough?"
"Plenty of exercise—plenty," replied the young scholar, who looked so curiously dull and heavy.
"Well, let us walk together. You are doing nothing for the moment."
They walked together; Nelly between them.
"Father," she said, when they arrived at their lodgings in Albemarle Street, "what has come over that poor man? He has gone stupid with his success. I could not get a word out of him. He kept staring at me without speaking."
Was he a lumpish log, or was he a man all nerves and electricity?
In the morning Will Challice partly solved the question, because he called and showed clearly that he was an insensible log and a lumpish log. He sat for an hour gazing at the girl as if he would devour her, but he said nothing.
In the evening Cousin Tom called, bringing Will Challice again—but how changed! Was such a change really due to evening dress? Keen of feature, bright of eye, full of animation. "Why, Will," said Nelly, "what is the matter with you sometimes? When you were here this morning, one could not get a word out of you. Your very face looked heavy."
He changed colour. "I have times when I—I—lose myself—thinking—thinking of things, you know."
They passed a delightful evening. But when Will went away, the girl became meditative. For, although he had talked without stopping, on every kind of subject, there was no hungry look in his eye, such as she had perceived with natural satisfaction in the morning. Every maiden likes that look of hunger, outward sign and indication of respect to her charms.
They were up in town for a month. Every morning Will called and sat glum but hungry-eyed, gazing on the girl and saying nothing. Every evening he called again and talked scholarship and politics with her father, his face changed, his whole manner different, and without any look of hunger in his eyes.
"Will sat gazing on the girl."
One day after a fortnight or so of this, Will the Animal stood up after breakfast and spoke.
"There has got to be a change."
"You are changing, in fact," replied the other with a sneer.
"I am in love. I am going to marry a girl. Now hold your tongue," for the Intellectual Half bounded in his chair. "You have left me very little power of speech. Let me try to explain what I—I want to say." He spoke painfully and slowly. "Let me—try—I have lost, bit by bit, almost everything. I don't want to read—I can't play any more. I don't care about anything much. But this girl I do care about. I have always loved her, and you—you with your deuced intellect cannot kill that part of me. Be quiet—let me try to think. She loves me, too. She loves me for myself, and not on account of you and your success. She is sorry for me. She has given me—I don't know how—the power of thinking a little. When I am married to her, she will give me more. Let us part absolutely. Take all my intellect and go. Nell will marry a stupid man, but he will get something from her—something I am sure. I feel different already; I said something to-day which made her laugh. What are you glaring at me for?"
'I am not glaring. I am thinking. Go on."
"This has got to stop. Now find some way of stopping it, or—or———"
"What can you do?"
"I can drink," he said, with awful meaning. "I can ruin you. And I will, unless you agree to part."
The Intellectual Half was looking at him with a strangely softened face. There was neither scorn nor hatred in that face. "Dimidium Animæ," he said, "Half of my Soul, I have something to say as well. Confess, however, first of all, that I was right. Had it not been for this step—the most severe measure possible, I admit—nothing would have been achieved. Eh?"
"Perhaps. You would work, you see."
"Yes. Well—I have made a discovery. It is that I have been too thorough. I don't quite understand how, logically and naturally, anything else was possible. I wanted, heaven knows, all the intellect there was; you were, therefore, bound to become the Animal, pure and simple. Well, you see, we are not really two, but one. Can't we hit upon an agreement?"
"What agreement?"
"Some agreement—some modus vivendi. I shall get, it is true, some of the Animal; you will get some of the Intellectual, but we shall be united again, and after all—" He looked very kindly upon himself, and held out his hand. So they stood with clasped hands looking at each other.
"I found it out through Nell," the Intellectual Half went on. "You went to see her every morning—I went every evening. You were always brimful of love for her; I, who knew this, was not moved in the slightest degree by her. Oh! I know that she is the best girl that the world, at this moment, has to show; I am fully persuaded of that: yet she has ceased to move me. I think of her Intellect, which is certainly much lower than my own, and I cannot even admire her. In other words, I cannot be moved by any woman. This terrifies me."
"Why?"
"It threatens my future. Don't you see? He who cannot be moved by woman is no longer man. But man can only be moved by brother man. If I cannot move men my career is at an end. What they call magnetism belongs to the animal within us. When that is gone, I now perceive, when the animal is killed, the rest of the man has no longer any charm, any attraction, any persuasion, any power of leading, teaching, compelling, or guiding. His success, whatever he does, is all glitter—evanescent glitter. He may sit down and hold his tongue, for he can do no more good."
"I only half understand."
"Intellect, in short, my lower Half, is of no use without human passion. That is what it means. We have gone too far. Let us end it."
"How? You despise the man who is only animal."
"No—no! The animal is part of man. I understand now. I have done wrong—brother Half—to separate myself so much from you. Only, you carried it too far. You would not work: you would not give me even a decent show. Suppose—I say suppose—we were united once more. Could I count on being allowed to work?"
"Yes," said the Animal, "I have had a lesson too. You shall work," he hesitated and shuddered, "in reason, of course—say all the morning, and, if you go into the House, all the evening."
"I would not be hard upon you. I would let you have a reasonable amount of indolence and rest. My success will be less rapid, on your account, but it will be more solid. Do you think that if we were to be lost again in each other, I should once more feel for that girl as—"
"Why," said the Animal, "you would be—Me; and what I feel for her is, I assure you, overwhelming."
That evening Will Challice sat at the open window in the dark, Nellie's hand in his. "My dear," he murmured, "tell me, do you love me more because I have realized some of our old dreams?"
"Will; how can I tell you? I love you, not your success. If you had not done so well, it would have made no difference. Your success is only an accidental part of you." Oh! the metaphysician! "You are not your success. Yet, of course, I don't love you for your fine degree, you conceited boy, and yet it is for yourself."
"He kissed her forehead."
He kissed her forehead. "The old dream time was pleasant, wasn't it? when we chose to be Archbishop of Canterbury one day and Lord Chancellor the next. To be Leader of the House of Commons is the present ambition. It is a most splendid thing"—the dreamer's eyes looked up into space with the old light in them—"a most splendid thing—to lead the House—to sway the House. But I don't know," he sighed, "it will take an awful lot of work. And the Cambridge business did take it out of one most tremendously. I didn't believe, Nell, that I had such an amount of work in me."
"You have been so gloomy lately, Will. Was that fatigue?"
"Ambition on the brain, Nell," he replied, lightly—as lightly as of old—success had not destroyed the old gaiety of heart. "I've consulted a learned physician, Dr. Sydenham Celsus Galen, Wimpole Street. He says that an engagement with the right girl—he is extremely particular on that point, so that I do hope, Nell, we have made no mistake—is a sovereign remedy for all mopey, glum, dumpsy, moody, broody, gloomy, sulky, conditioned vapours. It is, he confessed, the only medicine in his Pharmacopoeia. All his clients have to follow that prescription. You will very soon find that those glum, dumpsy moods have vanished quite away. You will charm them away. Oh! I live again—I breathe—I think—I don't work so infernally hard—I am once more human because I love, and because———" The girl's head rested upon his arm, and he kissed her forehead.