III
It's just silly—that's what it is—to say that something of a man doesn't go into his work.
Why, even those wretched little ivories of mine, the thick-headed fellows who paid for them knew my touch in them, and once spotted it instantly when I tried to slip in another chap's who was hard up. Benlian used to say that a man went about spreading himself over everything he came in contact with—diffusing some sort of influence (as far as I could make it out); and the mistake was, he said, that we went through the world just wasting it instead of directing it. And if Benlian didn't understand all about those things, I should jolly well like to know who does! A chap with a great abounding will and brain like him, it's only natural he should be able to pass himself on, to a statue or anything else, when he really tried—did without food and talk and sleep in order to save himself up for it!
"A man can't both do and be," I remember he said to me once. "He's so much force, no more, and he can either make himself with it or something else. If he tries to do both, he does both imperfectly. I'm going to do one perfect thing." Oh, he was a queer chap! Fancy, a fellow making a thing like that statue, out of himself, and then wanting somebody to adore him!
And I hadn't the faintest conception of how much I did adore him till yet again, as he had done before, he seemed to—you know—to take himself away from me again, leaving me all alone, and so wretched!… And I was angry at the same time, for he'd promised me he wouldn't do it again…. (This was one night, I don't remember when.)
I ran to my landing and shouted down into the yard.
"Benlian! Benlian!"
There was a light in his studio, and I heard a muffled shout come back.
"Keep away—keep away—keep away!"
He was struggling—I knew he was struggling as I stood there on my landing—struggling to let me go. And I could only run and throw myself on my bed and sob, while he tried to set me free, who didn't want to be set free … he was having a terrific struggle, all alone there….