Outside the stage door, in the alley leading to the street, several idlers waited idly for an opportunity for outrage. In the street itself a crowd had gathered at the theatre entrance. A mob of vacant faces stood under the light, staring at the doors. They stared without noise and without intelligence, under the spell of that mesmerism which binds common intellects so easily. Policemen moved through the mob, moving little parts of it, more by example than by precept. The starers moved because others moved. In the road was a glare of cab lights. Light gleamed on harness, on the satin of cloaks, on the hats of footmen.
"When did the age of polish begin?" said Roger.
"When the age of gilt ended," said John. "It's a base age; you can't even be a decent corpse without polish on your coffin. Here we are at the Masquers; shall we sup here, or at the Petits Soupers?"
II
What, do we nod? Sound music, and let us startle our spirits...
Ay, this has waked us. The Poetaster.
The act of sitting to table changed John's mood. The lightness and gaiety passed from him. It seemed to Roger that he grew visibly very old and haggard, as the merry mood, stimulated by the excitement of the theatre, faded away. At times, during supper, John gave his friend the impression that the spiritual John was on a journey, or withdrawn into another world. He spoke little, chiefly in monosyllables, making no allusion to the play. He was become a shell, almost an unreal person. He gave no sign of possessing that intellectual energy which made his talk so attractive to young men interested in the arts. Roger's fancy suggested that John was a kind of John the Baptist, a torch-bearer, sent to set other people on fire, but without real fire of his own. He felt that John had lighted an entire city, by some obscure heap of shavings in a suburb, and had now dashed out his torch, so that the night hid him. He realised how little he knew this man, intimate as they had been.
Nobody knew him. Nobody knew what he was. There were some who held that John was the Wandering Jew, others that he was a Nihilist, a Carlist, a Balmacedist, a Jacobite, the heir to France, King Arthur, anti-Christ, or Parnell. All had felt the mystery, but none had solved it. Here was this strange, enigmatic, brilliant man, an influence in art, in many arts, though he practised none with supreme devotion. He had wandered over most of the world; he spoke many tongues; he had friends in strange Asian cities, in Western mining towns, in rubber camps, in ships, in senates. No one had ever received a letter from him. But his rooms were always thronged with outlandish guests from all parts of the world. Looking at him across the table, Roger felt small suddenly, as though John really were a spirit now suddenly lapsing back into the night, after a spectral moment of glowing. He felt the man's extraordinary personality, and his own terrible pettiness in apprehending so little of it. Something was wrong with him, something was the matter with the night. Or had the whole unreal evening been a dream? Or were they all dead, and was this heaven or hell? for life seemed charged with all manner of new realities. He had never felt like this before. Something was changing in his brain. He was realising his own spiritual advances, in one of those rare moments in which one apprehends truth. It occurred to him, with a sudden impulse to violent laughter, that John, sitting back in his chair, mesmerised by the fantasy of the smoke from his cigarette, was also in a mood of spiritual crisis, attaining long-desired peace.
John watched his cigarette till the ash fell, when the truth seemed fully attained, the soul's step upward made good. He glanced up at Roger like a man just waking from a dream, like a man, long puzzled, at last made certain.
"What are your plans?" he asked suddenly. "You'll go on writing?"