Suddenly my ears were shocked with a sharp argument between two young fellows at the poker table. No, it was not about the game. One said something; the other shrieked his answer; the first shouted back; the second in a violent burst that had a finality about it slammed down his cards and said something curt, with a solemn rolling of his eyes.
To my amazement, the odd old fish across from me boomed out with equal violence: “Ben trovato!” None of them paid any attention to him.
I may have shown some of my surprise at his action, for he turned suddenly to me, and asked: “Did you understand what he said?”
I replied that I did not.
“He said, roughly translated: ‘Sufficient unto eternity is the glory of the hour.’ Yes. And it is true. Sufficient unto eternity is the glory of the hour, young man. There’s many an artist who must—” he stopped short and began biting his finger ends.
My mind reverted to Bernhardt’s film and the question about the moth. “Who must—what?” I prodded. “Content himself with this catch phrase?”
“Content himself? Damnation, no! Must feel the keener triumph in a piece of work, young man, just because it is perishable.” He thumped the table and breathed hard. I got the full paregoric reek of his drink. “What is this stork-legged Verlaine going to say?” I thought to myself. But he contented himself with breathing for a few moments and that odd film dropped over his eyes. “Just because the thing is ended, and dies out of men’s minds almost as soon as it is ended”—he seemed to be feeling slowly for the words—“if the work was right, was masterly done, there’s a sort of higher joy in knowing that it triumphed—and was suddenly gone—like a sunset, like a light on the water, like a summer.” He asked abruptly: “You think I have ‘spiders on my ceiling’—you think I am crazy?”
“On the contrary. Can you make this clearer to me, this—?”
“My agreement that sufficient unto eternity is the glory of the hour?” He sipped his absinthe. “With your patience. Let me see. I can give you a favorite example of mine, about a friend of mine named Andy Gordon—something like a story?” Now in his eyes there was an eager shine.
“Go on.”