"I cannot advise you the one way or the other. I am merely forewarning you that, if you insist upon writing books, you will get what you wanted."
He smiled now, brightly, intimately, strangely. "I see: but isn't that also in the one way which matters," he demanded of me, "true?"
And I smiled back at him. "Yes," I admitted, "it seems true in the one way which matters, also."
"Why, then," said he, "I reckon I had better keep right on with The Eagle's Shadow."
And after that he went quite suddenly away. He returned, I imagine, to 1902 or thereabouts.
I hope he did, for his sake. There was a rather nice girl awaiting him, back there in 1902. Then, in addition to her, he would have the facile, false inspirations of The Eagle's Shadow to play with, I reflected, as I went back, a little saddened somehow, to concocting the needed epilogue for the long Biography of Dom Manuel's life....
§ 97
But that queer boy's brief visit had quite broken my train of thought. His passing seemed, indeed, to have disproved my train of thought. For the instant I had proved, to my own satisfaction, that what I, in common with all creative writers, got out of writing was, exactly, nothing,—at that same moment he had appeared with his mild, bleated, so respectful question, "Would you advise me, sir, to become a writer—now?"
And I had answered his question. I had failed, at least, to advise him not to become "a regular writer." I had, virtually, admitted that were my youth restored to me, as Jurgen's was, and had I my life to muddle through all over again, I would, still somewhat in the Jurgenic manner, repeat its unprofitable dedication. I could not deny to him, I could not truthfully deny to anybody, that, in the one way which really seemed to count, I had in the end got what I wanted.
§ 98