"It is quite true," said the Reading Half on being questioned. "I have foreseen this difficulty for some time. I called on the tutor this morning, and I told him of my intention to work. He laughed aloud. I insisted. Then he pointed out the absurdity of pretending to work while one was idling about all day. This is awkward."
"What do you propose then?"
"I propose that you stay indoors all the morning until two o'clock, locked in."
"What? And look on while you are mugging?"
"Exactly. You may read French novels: you may go to sleep. You must be quiet. Only, you must be here—all the morning. In the afternoon you may do what you please. I may quite trust you to avoid any effort of the brain. Oh! And you will avoid anything stronger than tea before Hall. No more beer for lunch. It makes me heavy."
"No more beer? But this is tyranny."
"No. It is ambition. In the evening you may go out and play cards. I shall stay here."
They went to bed. It seemed to Will as if the other Part of him—the Intellectual Part—ordered him to go to sleep without further thought.
This curious life of separation and of partial union continued, in fact, for the whole of the undergraduate time. Gradually, however, a great change came over the lazy Half—the Animal Half. It—he—perceived that the whole of his reasoning powers had become absorbed by the Intellectual Half. He became really incapable of reasoning. He could not follow out a thought; he had no thoughts. This made him seem dull, because even the most indolent person likes to think that he has some powers of argument. This moiety of Challice had none. He became quite dull; his old wit deserted him; he was heavy; he drifted gradually out of the society which he had formerly frequented; he perceived that his old friends not only found him dull, but regarded him as a traitor. He had become, they believed, that contemptible person, the man who reads. He was no longer a dweller in the Castle of Indolence; he had gone over to the other side.
Life became very dull indeed to this Half. He got into the habit of lying on a sofa, watching the other Half who sat at the table tearing the heart out of books. He admired the energy of that Half; for himself, he could do nothing; if he read at all it was a novel of the lowest kind; he even bought the penny novelette and read that with interest; if he came to a passage which contained a thought or a reflection he passed it over. He had ceased to think; he no longer even troubled himself about losing the power of thought.