Suddenly he felt an irresistible compassion for his companion; it seemed to him that his beautiful faculty of production was a double-edged instrument, susceptible of being dealt in back-handed blows at its possessor.
Genius was priceless, inspired, divine; but it was also, at its hours, capricious, sinister, cruel; and men of genius, accordingly, were alternately very enviable and very helpless.It was not the first time he had had a sense of Roderick's standing helpless in the grasp of his temperament.
It had shaken him, as yet, but with a half good-humored wantonness;but, henceforth, possibly, it meant to handle him more roughly.
These were not times, therefore, for a friend to have a short patience.
"When you err, you say, the fault 's your own," he said at last.
"It is because your faults are your own that I care about them."Rowland's voice, when he spoke with feeling, had an extraordinary amenity.
Roderick sat staring a moment longer at the floor, then he sprang up and laid his hand affectionately on his friend's shoulder.
"You are the best man in the world," he said, "and I am a vile brute.
Only," he added in a moment, "you don't understand me!" And he looked at him with eyes of such radiant lucidity that one might have said (and Rowland did almost say so, himself) that it was the fault of one's own grossness if one failed to read to the bottom of that beautiful soul.
Rowland smiled sadly."What is it now? Explain.""Oh, I can't explain!" cried Roderick impatiently, returning to his work.
"I have only one way of expressing my deepest feelings--it 's this!"And he swung his tool.He stood looking at the half-wrought clay for a moment, and then flung the instrument down."And even this half the time plays me false!"Rowland felt that his irritation had not subsided, and he himself had no taste for saying disagreeable things.
Nevertheless he saw no sufficient reason to forbear uttering the words he had had on his conscience from the beginning.
"We must do what we can and be thankful," he said.
"And let me assure you of this--that it won't help you to become entangled with Miss Light."Roderick pressed his hand to his forehead with vehemence and then shook it in the air, despairingly; a gesture that had become frequent with him since he had been in Italy."No, no, it 's no use; you don't understand me!
But I don't blame you.You can't!"
"You think it will help you, then?" said Rowland, wondering.
"I think that when you expect a man to produce beautiful and wonderful works of art, you ought to allow him a certain ******* of action, you ought to give him a long rope, you ought to let him follow his fancy and look for his material wherever he thinks he may find it!
A mother can't nurse her child unless she follows a certain diet; an artist can't bring his visions to maturity unless he has a certain experience.
You demand of us to be imaginative, and you deny us that which feeds the imagination.In labor we must be as passionate as the inspired sibyl;in life we must be mere machines.It won't do.When you have got an artist to deal with, you must take him as he is, good and bad together.
I don't say they are pleasant fellows to know or easy fellows to live with;I don't say they satisfy themselves any better than other people.
I only say that if you want them to produce, you must let them conceive.
If you want a bird to sing, you must not cover up its cage.
Shoot them, the poor devils, drown them, exterminate them, if you will, in the interest of public morality; it may be morality would gain--I dare say it would! But if you suffer them to live, let them live on their own terms and according to their own inexorable needs!"Rowland burst out laughing."I have no wish whatever either to shoot you or to drown you!" he said."Why launch such a tirade against a warning offered you altogether in the interest of your freest development? Do you really mean that you have an inexorable need of embarking on a flirtation with Miss Light?--a flirtation as to the felicity of which there may be differences of opinion, but which cannot at best, under the circumstances, be called innocent.Your last summer's adventures were more so!
As for the terms on which you are to live, I had an idea you had arranged them otherwise!""I have arranged nothing--thank God! I don't pretend to arrange.
I am young and ardent and inquisitive, and I admire Miss Light.
That 's enough.I shall go as far as admiration leads me.
I am not afraid.Your genuine artist may be sometimes half a madman, but he 's not a coward!""Suppose that in your speculation you should come to grief, not only sentimentally but artistically?""Come what come will! If I 'm to fizzle out, the sooner I know it the better.Sometimes I half suspect it.
But let me at least go out and reconnoitre for the enemy, and not sit here waiting for him, cudgeling my brains for ideas that won't come!"Do what he would, Rowland could not think of Roderick's theory of unlimited experimentation, especially as applied in the case under discussion, as anything but a pernicious illusion.
But he saw it was vain to combat longer, for inclination was powerfully on Roderick's side.He laid his hand on Roderick's shoulder, looked at him a moment with troubled eyes, then shook his head mournfully and turned away.
"I can't work any more," said Roderick."You have upset me!
I 'll go and stroll on the Pincian." And he tossed aside his working-jacket and prepared himself for the street.
As he was arranging his cravat before the glass, something occurred to him which made him thoughtful.
He stopped a few moments afterward, as they were going out, with his hand on the door-knob."You did, from your own point of view, an indiscreet thing," he said, "to tell Miss Light of my engagement."Rowland looked at him with a glance which was partly an interrogation, but partly, also, an admission.
"If she 's the coquette you say," Roderick added, "you have given her a reason the more.""And that 's the girl you propose to devote yourself to?" cried Rowland.