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Authors: Patrick Hamilton
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measure, to popularized great literature. He even began to read tabulated outlines of it and to acquire what may be called the Great-Short-Story-Of-The-World mentality. Like an idle playgoer with the drama, he became, with literature, even more interested in the names and picturesque personalities than in the actual achievements thereof. He familiarized himself with the Love Stories (rather than the greatness) of the Great.
And then he began to write short stories, and to send them in to magazines, and to have them sent back. And then he gave up doing that, and took to dreaming again – dreaming about a great novel that he would one day write. This would take the form mostly employed by young novelists who have never written any novels. That is to say, it would hardly be a novel at all, but all novels in one, life itself – its mystery, its beauty, its grotesquerie, its humour, its sadness,its terror. And it would take, possibly, years and years to write, and it would put you in a class with Hugo, Tolstoy, and Dreiser.
C HAPTER X
T HIS, THEN, WAS Bob’s secret, which he took, this cold, sunny afternoon, first of all into Regent’s Park by the South entrance, and then up and all along by the Zoological Gardens, and at last out again by Camden Town. And then he went down Mount Street, and took it to tea with him at a small and crowded Lyons in the Hampstead Road.
He spent over an hour in here, smoking three cigarettes, and strangely enjoying the electric-lit, spoon-clinking liveliness of the place; and when he came out the world was transfigured by dusk. Bob identified and adored this transfiguration. All day long the Hampstead Road is a thing of sluggish grey litter and rumbling trams. But at dusk it glitters. Glitters, and gleams, and twinkles, and is phosphorescent – and the very noises of the trams are like romantic thunders from the hoofs of approaching night. In exultant spirits he strolled down towards the West End.
It was half-past five by the time he reached the Charing Cross Road, and he spent half an hour amongst the books. He then had a drink at a corner near the Palace Theatre, and came out, and strolled along Shaftesbury Avenue.
There was a little red yet in the high clouds of the glowing sky, and in this inspiring light, and amid the winking illuminations of a mauve metropolis, Bob’s high spirits reached a peak of pure contentment and peace. The scene was, for indescribable reasons, so magnificent, and life was so indescribably fine. Or at least life could be so indescribably fine, and he was going to make it so.
Bob was not susceptible to the faintest glimmering of the fact that the people he was passing in the street really existed.He observed their faces, he even caught their eyes, but he had no notion of their entity other than as inexplicable objects moving about in that vast disporting-place of his own soul – London. It is doubtful, of course, whether anybody, save in rare divining and emotional moments, suspects the true existence of the souls of anybody else: but Bob to-night, in his vainglory, exceeded this human rule.
And because he was so happy he went and had another drink at a bar at the corner of Wardour Street, where the lights were bright and they were already doing a brisk trade. And because the barmaid was affable, and because he had a kind of beautiful pity for the barmaid for not existing, and not being about to make her life indescribably fine, but being affable all the same, he had an extraordinary pleasant and forgiving chat with her about nothing in particular. And then he came out and walked down Wardour Street.
And then, because his heart was, after all, youthful and frivolous, and this was his evening off, he cast his high thoughts aside (or rather tucked them deliciously away on his person, knowing that he might resume them whenever he willed) and began to interest himself in the shops, and the sights, and the shoplit people, and to wonder what to do with his evening.
And then he began to write short stories, and to send them in to magazines, and to have them sent back. And then he gave up doing that, and took to dreaming again – dreaming about a great novel that he would one day write. This would take the form mostly employed by young novelists who have never written any novels. That is to say, it would hardly be a novel at all, but all novels in one, life itself – its mystery, its beauty, its grotesquerie, its humour, its sadness,its terror. And it would take, possibly, years and years to write, and it would put you in a class with Hugo, Tolstoy, and Dreiser.
C HAPTER X
T HIS, THEN, WAS Bob’s secret, which he took, this cold, sunny afternoon, first of all into Regent’s Park by the South entrance, and then up and all along by the Zoological Gardens, and at last out again by Camden Town. And then he went down Mount Street, and took it to tea with him at a small and crowded Lyons in the Hampstead Road.
He spent over an hour in here, smoking three cigarettes, and strangely enjoying the electric-lit, spoon-clinking liveliness of the place; and when he came out the world was transfigured by dusk. Bob identified and adored this transfiguration. All day long the Hampstead Road is a thing of sluggish grey litter and rumbling trams. But at dusk it glitters. Glitters, and gleams, and twinkles, and is phosphorescent – and the very noises of the trams are like romantic thunders from the hoofs of approaching night. In exultant spirits he strolled down towards the West End.
It was half-past five by the time he reached the Charing Cross Road, and he spent half an hour amongst the books. He then had a drink at a corner near the Palace Theatre, and came out, and strolled along Shaftesbury Avenue.
There was a little red yet in the high clouds of the glowing sky, and in this inspiring light, and amid the winking illuminations of a mauve metropolis, Bob’s high spirits reached a peak of pure contentment and peace. The scene was, for indescribable reasons, so magnificent, and life was so indescribably fine. Or at least life could be so indescribably fine, and he was going to make it so.
Bob was not susceptible to the faintest glimmering of the fact that the people he was passing in the street really existed.He observed their faces, he even caught their eyes, but he had no notion of their entity other than as inexplicable objects moving about in that vast disporting-place of his own soul – London. It is doubtful, of course, whether anybody, save in rare divining and emotional moments, suspects the true existence of the souls of anybody else: but Bob to-night, in his vainglory, exceeded this human rule.
And because he was so happy he went and had another drink at a bar at the corner of Wardour Street, where the lights were bright and they were already doing a brisk trade. And because the barmaid was affable, and because he had a kind of beautiful pity for the barmaid for not existing, and not being about to make her life indescribably fine, but being affable all the same, he had an extraordinary pleasant and forgiving chat with her about nothing in particular. And then he came out and walked down Wardour Street.
And then, because his heart was, after all, youthful and frivolous, and this was his evening off, he cast his high thoughts aside (or rather tucked them deliciously away on his person, knowing that he might resume them whenever he willed) and began to interest himself in the shops, and the sights, and the shoplit people, and to wonder what to do with his evening.
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