New Grub Street, George Gissing [10 best books of all time TXT] 📗

dressing for dinner, he had not thought it worth while to lower the blind; in another, some people were playing billiards. The higher windows reflected a rich glow from the western sky.

For two or three hours Reardon had been seated in much the same attitude. Occasionally he dipped his pen into the ink and seemed about to write: but each time the effort was abortive. At the head of the paper was inscribed “Chapter III,” but that was all.

And now the sky was dusking over; darkness would soon fall.

He looked something older than his years, which were two-and-thirty; on his face was the pallor of mental suffering. Often he fell into a fit of absence, and gazed at vacancy with wide, miserable eyes. Returning to consciousness, he fidgeted nervously on his chair, dipped his pen for the hundredth time, bent forward in feverish determination to work. Useless; he scarcely knew what he wished to put into words, and his brain refused to construct the simplest sentence.

The colours faded from the sky, and night came quickly. Reardon threw his arms upon the desk, let his head fall forward, and remained so, as if asleep.

Presently the door opened, and a young, clear voice made inquiry:

“Don’t you want the lamp, Edwin?”

The man roused himself, turned his chair a little, and looked towards the open door.

“Come here, Amy.”

His wife approached. It was not quite dark in the room, for a glimmer came from the opposite houses.

“What’s the matter? Can’t you do anything?”

“I haven’t written a word today. At this rate, one goes crazy. Come and sit by me a minute, dearest.”

“I’ll get the lamp.”

“No; come and talk to me; we can understand each other better.”

“Nonsense; you have such morbid ideas. I can’t bear to sit in the gloom.”

At once she went away, and quickly reappeared with a reading-lamp, which she placed on the square table in the middle of the room.

“Draw down the blind, Edwin.”

She was a slender girl, but not very tall; her shoulders seemed rather broad in proportion to her waist and the part of her figure below it. The hue of her hair was ruddy gold; loosely arranged tresses made a superb crown to the beauty of her small, refined head. Yet the face was not of distinctly feminine type; with short hair and appropriate clothing, she would have passed unquestioned as a handsome boy of seventeen, a spirited boy too, and one much in the habit of giving orders to inferiors. Her nose would have been perfect but for ever so slight a crook which made it preferable to view her in full face than in profile; her lips curved sharply out, and when she straightened them of a sudden, the effect was not reassuring to anyone who had counted upon her for facile humour. In harmony with the broad shoulders, she had a strong neck; as she bore the lamp into the room a slight turn of her head showed splendid muscles from the ear downward. It was a magnificently clear-cut bust; one thought, in looking at her, of the newly-finished head which some honest sculptor has wrought with his own hand from the marble block; there was a suggestion of planes and of the chisel. The atmosphere was cold; ruddiness would have been quite out of place on her cheeks, and a flush must have been the rarest thing there.

Her age was not quite two-and-twenty; she had been wedded nearly two years, and had a child ten months old.

As for her dress, it was unpretending in fashion and colour, but of admirable fit. Every detail of her appearance denoted scrupulous personal refinement. She walked well; you saw that the foot, however gently, was firmly planted. When she seated herself her posture was instantly graceful, and that of one who is indifferent about support for the back.

“What is the matter?” she began. “Why can’t you get on with the story?”

It was the tone of friendly remonstrance, not exactly of affection, not at all of tender solicitude.

Reardon had risen and wished to approach her, but could not do so directly. He moved to another part of the room, then came round to the back of her chair, and bent his face upon her shoulder.

“Amy⁠—”

“Well.”

“I think it’s all over with me. I don’t think I shall write any more.”

“Don’t be so foolish, dear. What is to prevent your writing?”

“Perhaps I am only out of sorts. But I begin to be horribly afraid. My will seems to be fatally weakened. I can’t see my way to the end of anything; if I get hold of an idea which seems good, all the sap has gone out of it before I have got it into working shape. In these last few months, I must have begun a dozen different books; I have been ashamed to tell you of each new beginning. I write twenty pages, perhaps, and then my courage fails. I am disgusted with the thing, and can’t go on with it⁠—can’t! My fingers refuse to hold the pen. In mere writing, I have done enough to make much more than three volumes; but it’s all destroyed.”

“Because of your morbid conscientiousness. There was no need to destroy what you had written. It was all good enough for the market.”

“Don’t use that word, Amy. I hate it!”

“You can’t afford to hate it,” was her rejoinder, in very practical tones. “However it was before, you must write for the market now. You have admitted that yourself.”

He kept silence.

“Where are you?” she went on to ask. “What have you actually done?”

“Two short chapters of a story I can’t go on with. The three volumes lie before me like an interminable desert. Impossible to get through them. The idea is stupidly artificial, and I haven’t a living character in it.”

“The public don’t care whether the characters are living or not.⁠—Don’t stand behind me, like that; it’s such an awkward way of talking. Come and sit down.”

He drew away, and came to a position whence he