Part 33 (2/2)
”Well, why shouldn't I?” he asked curiously.
”Why not, if you care to?” Her reply was as gentle as if she were a submissive object of his whims.
He felt that now was the time to speak, but he could not bring himself to the point. The thought of his blindness killed all confidence.
”Hang it all,” he broke out, quite as if it were a part of their previous talk, ”blindness certainly does rob one of his will!”
She looked at him apprehensively. ”I thought you had decided you were the master of that.”
”I had, but it seems I was mistaken.”
Claire laid her hand on his arm tenderly. Her eyes were dazzling.
”Lawrence, you must master that, you know.”
”Why?” he said thoughtfully. ”If I shouldn't, it would mean only one more human animal on the sc.r.a.p heap!”
”But you don't want to be there.”
”Of course not. No one does. I don't imagine any one chooses it.”
”If you go there it will be because you choose it.”
”I wish I saw things your way,” he observed. ”At times I feel as sure of success as if it were inevitable, and then suddenly down sweeps the black uncertainty, and I am afraid, timid, and unnerved.”
She looked at him sadly.
”Don't you believe in your work, Lawrence?”
”Yes, that is about all I do believe in.”
”Then what is the matter?”
”It is that, after all, thousands of men have believed in their work to no avail. One can never know whether he is a fad or a real artist. It isn't only that, either. One's work, when it is his life, requires so much besides to make it possible. It is that which gives me the blue fear you see. I always imagine that the thing I want just then is absolutely essential to my better work. Perhaps it is. I don't know. I know only that I am persuaded that it is. Then I set about to get that thing and I fail.”
”But do you always fail?” Claire was unconsciously pleading her own cause.
”Not always. Just often enough to scare me to death when the biggest need of my life seems just out of reach.”
”Nonsense, Lawrence,” she laughed. ”When you were sick you talked as if you could reach out and pull down the stars, if you needed them in an endeavor to complete your life.”
”Sometimes I think I could, then the reality of life comes cras.h.i.+ng through the walls of my dream-palace, and, behold, I am standing desolate and abandoned, grasping at lights which are even too far away to be seen! I am clawing darkness for something I fancied I could reach, while, as far as I am concerned, it is clear out of s.p.a.ce and time.”
She sat pensively looking across the lake.
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