Day after day I strove at my work, begrudging myself the short time it took to swallow my food before I sat down again to write. At this time both the bed and the little rickety table were strewn over with notes and written pages, upon which I worked turn about, added any new ideas which might have occurred to me during the day, erased, or quickened here and there the dull points by a word full of colour—fagged, and toiled at sentence after sentence, with the greatest pains. One afternoon, one of my articles being at length finished, I thrust it, contented and happy, into my pocket, and betook myself to the “Commander.” It was high time I made some arrangement towards getting a little money again; I had only a few pence left.
The “Commander” requested me to sit down for a moment; he would be disengaged immediately, and he continued writing.
I looked about the little office—busts, prints, cuttings, and an enormous paper-basket, that looked as if it might swallow a man, bones and all. I felt sad at heart at the sight of this monstrous chasm, this dragon’s mouth, that always stood open, always ready to receive rejected work, newly crushed hopes.
“What day of the month is it?” queried the “Commander” from the table.
“The 28th,” I reply, pleased that I can be of service to him, “the 28th,” and he continues writing. At last he encloses a couple of letters in their envelopes, tosses some papers into the basket, and lays down his pen. Then he swings round on his chair, and looks at me. Observing that I am still standing near the door, he makes a half-serious, half-playful motion with his hand, and points to a chair.
I turn aside, so that he may not see that I have no waistcoat on, when I open my coat to take the manuscript out of my pocket.
“It is only a little character sketch of Correggio,” I say; “but perhaps it is, worse luck, not written in such a way that …”
He takes the papers out of my hand, and commences to go through them. His face is turned towards me.
And so it is thus he looks at close quarters, this man, whose name I had already heard in my earliest youth, and whose paper had exercised the greatest influence upon me as the years advanced? His hair is curly, and his beautiful brown eyes are a little restless. He has a habit of tweaking his nose now and then. No Scotch minister could look milder than this truculent writer, whose pen always left bleeding scars wherever it attacked. A peculiar feeling of awe and admiration comes over me in the presence of this man. The tears are on the point of coming to my eyes, and I advanced a step to tell him how heartily I appreciated him, for all he had taught me, and to beg him not to hurt me; I was only a poor bungling wretch, who had had a sorry enough time of it as it was. …
He looked up, and placed my manuscript slowly together, whilst he sat and considered. To make it easier for him to give me a refusal, I stretch out my hand a little, and say:
“Ah, well, of course, it is not of any use to you,” and I smile to give him the impression that I take it easily.
“Everything has to be of such a popular nature to be of any use to us,” he replies; “you know the kind of public we have. But can’t you try and write something a little more commonplace, or hit upon something that people understand better?”
His forbearance astonishes me. I understand that my article is rejected, and yet I could not have received a prettier refusal. Not to take up his time any longer, I reply:
“Oh yes, I daresay I can.”
I go towards the door. Hem—he must pray forgive me for having taken up his time with this … I bow, and turn the door handle.
“If you need it,” he says, “you are welcome to draw a little in advance; you can write for it, you know.”
Now, as he had just seen that I was not capable of writing, this offer humiliated me somewhat, and I answered:
“No, thanks; I can pull through yet a while, thanking you very much, all the same. Good day!”
“Good day!” replies the “Commander,” turning at the same time to his desk again.
He had none the less treated me with undeserved kindness, and I was grateful to him for it—and I would know how to appreciate it too. I made a resolution not to return to him until I could take something with me, that satisfied me perfectly; something that would astonish the “Commander” a bit, and make him order me to be paid half-a-sovereign without a moment’s hesitation. I went home, and tackled my writing once more.
During the following evenings, as soon as it got near eight o’clock and the gas was lit, the following thing happened regularly to me.
As I come out of my room to take a walk in the streets after the labour and troubles of the day, a lady, dressed in black, stands under the lamppost exactly opposite my door.
She turns her face towards me and follows me with her eyes when I pass her by—I remark that she always has the same dress on, always the same thick veil that conceals her face and falls over her breast, and that she carries in her hand a small umbrella with an ivory ring in the handle. This was already the third evening I had seen her there, always in the same
