MARION. I’m sure the Dean would have been only——
ISOBEL. Impossible because he had done nothing to make him worthy of that honour.
WILLIAM. Well!
OLIVER. Oh no, Aunt Isobel, you’re wrong there. I mean when you think of some of the people——
ISOBEL. Will you listen to me, please? And ask any questions afterwards. You may think I’m mad; I’m not.... I wish I were.
WILLIAM. Well, what is it?
(She tells them; it is almost as if she were repeating a lesson which she had learnt by heart. BLAYDS, you may be sure, made a story of it when he told her—we seem to hear snatches of that story now.)
ISOBEL. Nearly seventy years ago there were two young men, boys almost, twenty-three, perhaps, living together in rooms in Islington. Both poor, both eager, ambitious, certain of themselves, very certain of their destiny. But only one of them was a genius. He was a poet, this one; perhaps the greater poet because he knew that he had not long to live. The poetry came bubbling out of him, and he wrote it down feverishly, quick, quick before the hand became cold and the fingers could no longer write. That was all his ambition. He had no thoughts of present fame; there was no time for [227]it. He was content to live unknown, so that when dead he might live for ever. His friend was ambitious in a different way. He wanted the present delights of fame. So they lived together there, one writing and writing, always writing; the other writing and then stopping to think how famous he was going to be, and envying those who were already famous, and then regretfully writing again. A time came when the poet grew very ill, and lay in bed, but still writing, but still hurrying, hurrying to keep pace with the divine music in his brain. Then one day there was no more writing, no more music. The poet was dead. (She is silent for a little.)
WILLIAM (as her meaning slowly comes to him). Isobel, what are you saying?
MARION. I don’t understand. Who was it?