“Simplicity and directness of feeling does not necessarily indicate a less highly organised psychological temperament.”
“I know what he meant. Andrayeff does try deliberately to work on your feelings. I felt that when I was writing. But the pathos of those little boys and the man with the Chinese mask is his subject. What he does is artistic exaggeration. That is Art. Light and shade;” ...... a ‘masterly study’ of a little boy ....?
“Very well then. What is the matter?”
“No, but I’m just thinking the whole trouble is that life is not pathetic. People don’t feel pathetic; or never altogether pathetic. There is something else; that’s the worst of novels, something that has to be left out. Tragedy; curtain. But there never is a curtain and even if there were, the astounding thing is that there is anything to let down a curtain on; so astounding that you can’t feel really, completely, things like “happiness” or “tragedy”; they are both the same, a half-statement. Everybody is the same really, inside, under all circumstances. There’s a dead-level of astounding .... something.”
“I cannot follow you in all this. But you may not thus lightly deny tragedy.”
“He also said that the translation was as good as it could be.” ..... You’ve brought it off. That’s the way a translation ought to be done. It’s slick and clean and extraordinarily well Englished......
“Well? Well? Are you not satisfied?”
“Then he said in a contemptuous sort of way, ‘you could make from two to three hundred a year at this sort of thing.’”
“But that is most excellent. You should most certainly try this.”
“I don’t believe it. He says that kind of thing.”