"I do not mean that I see the plot. But I see the prospects."
"Ah, yes, that is how it is with me," he said. "The prospects are magnificent, aren't they? What delight I shall take in this! I may not be capable of handling it as well as it deserves, but you are going to see the best short story I have ever done, mon vieux."
Well, changes in the staff transferred me abruptly to London soon after that, and I had no further conversation on the subject with Jacques till nearly five months had passed. The interval had threatened to be longer still, but one must eat. Why can't you cut an English cook's throat? If you don't know the answer you are unaware that in England they placidly consume anything that is put on their plates. Because there are no English cooks. I should like frequently to sojourn in the beautiful countryside of England, if it were not so painful to see vegetables growing there. When I looked at those verdant young things, so full of flavour and nutriment, and thought of the fate before them—reflected that they were destined to be drowned in hogsheads of water, and served as an unpalatable pulp, the sight of them used to wring my heart. I overtook Jacques in the Champs Élysées one day, as I was on my way to call on Henri and Elise, and we strolled along together. I said: "I rather thought you would send me a copy of that story you were speaking of before I went. What paper was it published in?"
To my amazement, he replied gloomily: "It is not written. I am seeking the plot for it."
"What?" I exclaimed. "Not written? After five months? If you could turn out other stories in the meantime, why not that one?"
"I have not turned out other stories in the meantime," he told me. "I am concentrating my imagination on the pot of pansies."
I stopped and stared at him. "Ah, ça! Are you in earnest? Mon Dieu! It looked very promising, but if you mean to spend the rest of your life trying to write it, the promise will cost you dear."
"I know it is unpractical of me," he owned distressfully. "I have eaten up a pretty penny. I reproach myself. But the fascination is overwhelming. I cannot withstand it. The thing has become an obsession. I have been back a dozen times, in all weathers, to look at the house again. But the course has not advanced me. In desperation, I even rang the bell and asked to see the occupant of that room, but the crone who opened the street-door was either so deaf, or so artful, that it was impossible to make her understand what I said. Let us talk about it! There are only three points to resolve. Who, in a house like that, has still the sensibility to tend a pot of pansies? What does it say to her? By what circumstances is she there?"
"I remember, I remember," I said. "I am not provided with answers to such conundrums at any moment of the day. But I could have answered them in less than five months, I'll swear." I added, "If you like, I will find the plot for you, in a quarter of an hour, some time, when I have nothing else to do." I did not mean it very seriously, and, of course, I am a busy man.
At this juncture, we saw Henri approaching—a deuce of a swell in his frock-overcoat and chamois gloves, though his figure was more protruberant than it had been in the period when he was among the Great Unacted. He hailed us with: "You rascals, you negligent knaves! If you greet me once in a century, it is by chance. How are you, darlings?"