“This has been going on for a very long time,” he said. “If he would only use breadth of mind and forget things there would be some hope for him.”
“What else is there to think about?” I asked.
“Nothing.” And he walked to the door, and after we had gone out locked it once more.
From there he went on to the next cell. I was surprised on entering to find it much higher and larger than any of the rest had been. A sculptor stood beside a block of marble, and he was transforming it into a very beautiful piece of work. He worked at marvellous speed, or at least so it appeared to me, but time there is often deceptive.
His pleasure and absorption were very evident, as indeed were mine, for his sure touch and exact precision were well worth watching.
He had built up a marvellous statue, but as he stood back, with all an artist’s keen criticism, to view the work, it suddenly vanished more quickly than it had come, and left only the spiritless stone. I turned at last to look at him. He was staring at it with a heartbreaking look of fear and dull despair. He went towards it and passed his trembling hands over the surface. Then he came back, and I heard the same heavy gasps, which seemed somehow as if they sent their pain into everything around.
“I—I—it’s all a dream,” he muttered huskily, passing his hand before his eyes. “But it keeps coming, and the more beautiful I make it, the quicker it fades away.”
“It’s your imagination,” suggested Vestasian. “There’s no beauty in it, or if there was, try again. This time you may be more successful.”
But he sat down and shook his head.
“When I awake,” he said, “I’ll try again. I am tired, and the dream is too, too real. It has been going on all the night, and the night is one endless spell of blackness and false, fierce hope.”