“Surely, surely, now,” he thought, “all is perfect now. No more disturbances, no more Mitchells, no more Hettys, and I shall do only what I really wish to do.”
He stole out into his studio, which was faintly lit from the street below, and it was as though it were filled with some vast spiritual presence, and he imagined how he would work, urged on by this new energy that came welling up through all that he could see, all that he could know, all that he could remember.
[III
LOGAN SETS TO WORK]
IN the morning he was awakened by his sister-in-law, Rosa, shaking him and saying:—
“Mendel! Mendel! What are you doing on the sofa? Wake up! Wake up! There is some one in your studio.”
The house was ringing with Logan’s voice chanting the Magnificat. Mendel ran upstairs and found him in bed with a box of cigarettes and the New Testament, that fatal book, on his knees.
“Hello!” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake you up. I have been awake for a couple of hours looking at your work. I hope you don’t mind. There’s a still-life there that’s a gem, as good as Chardin, and even better, for there’s always something sentimental about Chardin—always the suggestion of the old folks at home, the false dramatic touch, the idea of the hard-working French peasant coming in presently to eat the bread and drink the wine. I think it’s time you were written up in the papers. It’s absurd for a man like you to have to wait for success. There’s no artistic public in England, so you can’t be successful in your own way. The British public must have its touch of melodrama. To accept a man’s work it must first have him shrouded in legend. He must be a myth. His work must seem to come from some supernatural source.”
“I’ll just run over and tell my mother you are here,” said Mendel. “I always have breakfast there, and then go for a walk while the studio is dusted.”
“Right you are! I’ll be up in half a jiffy. Can I have a bath?”