It had been on this hazardous calculation that I had made my promise to Maschka.

I passed that week in a state of constantly increasing apprehension.  True, I worked at the “Life,” even assiduously; but it was plain sailing, mere cataloguing of certain of Andriaovsky’s works, a chapter I had deliberately planned pour mieux sauter—­to enhance the value of the penultimate and final chapters.  These were the real crux of the “Life.”  These were what I was reserving myself for.  These were to show that only his body was dead, and that his spirit still lived and his work was still being done wherever a man could be found whose soul burned within him with the same divine ardour.

But I was now realising, day by day, hour by hour more clearly, what I was incurring.  I was penning nothing less than my own artistic damnation.  Self-condemned, indeed, I had been this long time; but I was now making the world a party to the sentence.  The crowning of Andriaovsky involved my own annihilation; his “Life” would be my “Hic Jacet.”  And yet I was prepared, nay, resolved, to write it.  I had started, and I would go forward.  I would not be spewed with the lukewarm out of the mouth of that Spirit from which proceeds all that is bright and pure and true.  The vehemence with which I had rejected its divine bidding should at least be correspondent with my adoration of it.  The snivelling claims of the Schofields I spurned.  If, as they urged, “an artist must live,” he must live royally or starve with a tight mouth.  No complaining....

And one other claim I urged in the teeth of this Spirit, which, if it was a human Spirit at all, it could not disregard.  Those pigeon-holed obituaries of mine will proclaim to the world, one and all, the virtues of my public life.  In spite of my royal earnings, I am not a rich man.  I have not accepted wealth without accepting the personal responsibility for it.  Sick men and women in more than one hospital lie in wards provided by Martin Renard and myself; and I am not dishonoured in my Institution at Poplar.  Those vagrant wanderings with Andriaovsky have enabled me to know the poor and those who help the poor.  My personal labours in the administration of the Institute are great, for outside the necessary routine I leave little to subordinates.  I have declined honours offered to me for my “services to Literature,” and I have never encouraged a youth, of parts or lacking them, to make of Literature a profession.  And so on and so forth.  All this, and more, you will read when the day comes; and I don’t doubt the Falchion will publish my memoir in mourning borders...

But to resume.

I finished the chapter I have mentioned.  Maschka and her fiance kept punctiliously away.  Then, before sitting down to the penultimate chapter, I permitted myself the relaxation of a day in the country.