“Don’t go away!” pleaded Logan.
“I’ll wait,” said Mendel, patting his hand to reassure him.
“Half-past two,” said the nurse as she followed Mendel out. “What a remarkable man!” she added. “What a tragedy! I suppose the girl was to blame too.”
“Blame?” said Mendel, rather dazed at being brought back to customary values. “Blame?”
He went down to the dingy waiting-room and sat there subdued, cowering, exhausted. He felt very cold and miserable. It was so terrible waiting for a thing that had happened. The physical fact could make no difference. . . . Logan had made an end, a very complete and thorough end. . . . Oh! the relief of it, the relief of having Logan for his friend at last, of having seen him freely and fully tasting at last his heart’s desire, of being himself brought up to that level, that pure contact with another human being, for which he had always longed. . . . That desire in both of them had been violated and despoiled, God knows how. Lies? Lust? Profanation of the holy spirit of art? . . . What words could describe the evil that everywhere in life lay in wait for the adventurous, letting the foolish and the timid, the faint of heart and the blind of soul, go by, and waiting for strong men who walked with purpose and a single mind?
At half-past two the nurse came to fetch him.
“He is very weak now,” she said.
Logan’s face wore a noble gathering serenity. He was too weak to talk much, and only wanted Mendel to hold his hand and to talk to him about art, about pictures “they” were going to paint, and about pictures they had both loved: Cranach, Dürer, Uccello, Giotto, Blake, Cézanne.
“Good men, those,” said Logan. “Good company.”