Part 6

"He's got enough money to begin with, and he has never been to a public school. I have been firing his imagination, however, with the rich and varied prospect before a boy who really will work and has brains. He is a dreamer; he has vague ambitions; perhaps I may have succeeded in fixing them. But who knows? He is a dreamer. He plays the piano and listens to the music. Sometimes he makes verses. Who knows what such a lad may do?"

II.

Two years later, the same pair stood in the same place at the same season of the year. Term was over--the third term of the first year at Cambridge.

"I haven't pleased your father," said the young man--he was slight and boyish-looking still, but on his face there was a new stamp--he had eaten of the tree of knowledge. "I have won no scholarships and taken no prizes. My grand ideas about University laurels are changed. You see, Nell, I have discovered that unless one goes into the Church a good degree helps nobody. And, of course, it ruins a man in other ways to put in all the time working for a degree."

"You know," said Nell, "we don't think so here."

"I know. Then you see I had to make the acquaintance of the men and to show them that I was a person of--of some importance. A man who can play and sing is always useful. We are an extremely social College, and the--the friction of mind with mind, you know--it is the best education possible for a man--I'm sure it is--much better than poring over Plato. Then I found so many things in which I was deficient. French fiction, for example; and I knew so very little about Art--oh! I have passed a most busy and useful time."

He forgot to mention such little things as nap, _écarté_, loo, billiards, Paris, and London, as forming part of his education. Yet everybody will own that these are important elements in the forming of a man.

"I see," said Nell.

"But your father won't. He is all for the Senate House. You do take a little interest in me still, Nell? Just a little interest--in an old friend?"

"Of course I do, Will." She blushed and dropped her eyes. Their fingers touched, but only for a moment. The touching of fingers is very innocent. Perhaps it was accidental.

"Nell," said the young man, with deep feeling and earnestness, "whatever I do--to whatever height I rise, I shall always feel"--here he stopped because he could hardly say that she had stimulated him or inspired him--"always feel, Nell, that it began here--it began here." He looked about the garden. "On this spot I first resolved to become a great man. It was on the very day when your father told me that I might be great if I chose; of course, I knew so much before, but it pleased me; it stimulated me. I told you here, on this spot, and you approved and cheered me on. Well, I don't, of course, tell any of the men about my ambitions. Mostly, I suppose, they have got their own. Some of them, I know, don't soar above a country living--I laugh in my sleeve, Nell, when I listen to their confessions--a country living--a house and a garden and a church; that is a noble ambition, truly! I laugh, Nell, when I think of what I could tell them; the rapid upward climb; the dizzy height, the grasp of power and of authority!"

He spoke very grandly, and waved his hand and threw his head back and looked every inch a leader--one round whom the soldiers of a holy cause would rally. The girl's eyes brightened and her cheek glowed, even though she remembered what at that moment she would rather have forgotten: the words of her father at breakfast. "Challice has done nothing," he said, "he has attempted nothing; now he will never do anything. It is just as I expected. A dreamer! A dreamer!"

"It was here," Will continued, "that I resolved on greatness. It was on this spot that I imparted my ambition to you. Nell, on this spot I again impart to you my choice. I will become a great statesman. I have money to start me--most fellows have to spend the best part of their lives in getting money enough to give them a start. I shall be the Leader of the House. Mind, to anyone but you this ambition would seem presumptuous. It is my secret which I trust with you, Nell." He caught her hands, drew her gently, and kissed her on the forehead. "Dear Nell," he said, "long before my ambition is realized, you will be by my side, encouraging, and advising, and consoling."

He spoke as a young man should; and tenderly, as a lover should; but there was something not right--a secret thorn--something jarred. In the brave words--in the tender tones--there was a touch, a tone, a look, out of harmony. Will Challice could not tell his mistress that all day long there was a voice within him crying: "Work, work! Get up and work! All this is folly! Work! Nothing can be done without work--work--work!"

III.

It was about the beginning of the Michaelmas term that the very remarkable occurrences or series of occurrences began which are the cause and origin of this history. Many men have failed and many have succeeded. Will Challice is, perhaps, the only man who has ever done both, and in the same line and at the same time. The thing came upon him quite suddenly and unexpectedly. It was at two in the morning; he had spent the evening quietly in the society of three other men and two packs of cards. His own rooms, he observed as he crossed the court, were lit up--he wondered how his "gyp" could have been so careless. He opened his door and entered his room. Heavens! At the table, on which the lamp was burning, sat before a pile of books--himself! Challice rubbed his eyes; he was not frightened; there is nothing to alarm a man in the sight of himself, though sometimes a good deal to disgust; but if you saw, in a looking-glass, your own face and figure doing _something else_, you would be astonished: you might even be alarmed. Challice had heard of men seeing rats, circles, triangles, even--he thought of his misspent evenings which were by no means innocent of whisky and potash: he concluded that this must be an Appearance, to be referred, like the rats and circles, to strong drink. He thought that it would vanish as he gazed.

It did not: on the contrary, it became, if anything, clearer. There was a reading lamp on the table which threw a strong circle of light upon the bent head of the reader. Then Will Challice began to tremble and his knees gave way. The clock ticked on the mantel-shelf: else there was no sound: the College was wrapped and lapped in the silence of sleep.

He nerved himself: he stepped forwards. "Speak," he cried, and the sound of his own voice terrified him. Who ever heard of a man questioning himself in the dead of night? "Speak--What does this mean?"

Then the reader lifted his head, placed a book-mark to keep his place, and turned slowly in his chair--one of those wooden chairs the seat of which turns round. Yes--it was himself--his own face that met the face of the returned reveller. But there was no terror in that face--a serious resolve, rather--a set purpose--grave eyes. He, the reader, leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.

"Yes," he said, and the voice again startled the other man. "You have a right--a complete right--to an explanation. I have felt for a long time that something would have to be done; I've been going on in a most uncomfortable manner. In spite of my continual remonstrances, I _could_ not persuade you to work. You must have recognised that you contained two men: the one indolent, dreamy, always carried away by the pleasures or caprice of the moment--a feather-brain. The other: ambitious, clear-headed, and eager for work. Your part would give my part no chance. Very well; we are partly separated. That is all. Partly separated."

The dreamer sat down and stared. "I don't understand," he said.

"No more time will be lost," the worker went on. "I have begun to work. For some time past I have been working at night--I am not going to stand it any longer."

"That's what made me so heavy in the morning, then?"

"That was the cause. Now, however, I am going to work in earnest, and all day long."

"I don't care, if it's real; but this is a dream. I don't care so long as I needn't work with you. But, I say, what will the men say? I can't pretend to have a twin, all of a sudden."

"N--no. Besides, there are other difficulties. We belong to each other, you see. We must share these rooms. Listen, I have quite thought it out. At night we shall be one; at breakfast and in the Hall we will be one; you shall give me the entire use of these rooms all day and all the evening for work. In examinations of course you will remain here locked in, while I go to the Senate House. You will go to chapel for both."

"N--no. Chapel must belong to you."

"I say you will go to chapel for both." This with resolution.

"Oh!" the other Half gave way, "But what am I to do all day?"

"I'm sure I don't know. Do what you like. If you like to stay here you can. You may play or sing. You may read your French novels; you will not disturb me. But if you bring any of your friends here it will be awkward, because they will perceive that you are double. Now we will go to bed. It is half-past two."

IV.

In the morning Will awoke with a strange sense of something. This feeling of something is not uncommon with young gentlemen who go to bed about three. He got up and dressed. A cup of tea made him remember but imperfectly what had happened. "I must have had too much whisky," he murmured. "I saw myself--actually myself--hard at work." Here his eyes fell upon the table. There were the books--books on Political Economy--with a note-book and every indication of work. More; he knew, he remembered, the contents of these books. He sat down bewildered. Then it seemed as if there was a struggle within him as of two who strove for mastery. "Work!" cried one. "I won't," said the other. "You shall." "I won't." A most ignoble quarrel, yet it pulled him this way and that towards the table or back in the long easy chair. Finally the struggle ended: he fell back; he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the room was cleared of the breakfast things, and he saw himself sitting at the table hard at work.

"Good gracious!" he cried, springing to his feet. "Is what I remember of last night real? Not a dream!"

"Not a dream at all. I will no longer have my career blasted at the outset by your confounded laziness. I think you understand me perfectly. I am clear of you whenever I please. I join you when I please."

"Oh! And have I the same power?"

"You? Certainly not. You are only the Half that won't work. You have got no power at all."

"Oh! Well--I shall not stand that."

"You can't help yourself. I am the Intellectual Principle; mine is the Will: mine is the clear head and the authority."

"What am I, then?"

"You? I don't know. You are me--yourself--without the Intellectual Principle. That is what you are. I must define you by negatives. You cannot argue, or reason, or create, or invent: you remember like an animal from assistance: you behave nicely because you have been trained: you are--in short--you are the Animal Part."

"Oh!" He was angry: he did not know what to reply: he was humiliated.

"Don't fall into a rage. Go away and amuse yourself. You can do anything you please. Come back, however, in time for Hall."

The Animal Part obeyed. He went out leaving the other Part over his books. He spent the morning with other men as industriously disposed as himself. He found a strange lightness of spirits. There was no remonstrating voice within him reproaching him for his laziness, urging him to get up and go to work. Not at all; that voice was silent; he was left quite undisturbed. He talked with these men over tobacco; he played billiards with them; he lay in a chair and looked at a novel. He had luncheon and beer, and more tobacco. He went down the river in the college boat; he had an hour or two of whist before Hall. Then he returned to his room.

His other Half looked up, surprised.

"Already? The day has flown."

"One moment," said Will, "before we go in. You're a serious sort, you know, and I'm one of the--the lighter ornaments of the College, and I sit among them. It would be awkward breaking off all at once. Besides----"

"I understand. Continue to sit with them for awhile, and talk as much idiotic stuff as you please. Presently you will find that a change of companions and of conversation has become necessary."

Nobody noticed any change; the two in one sat at table and ate like one; they talked like one; they talked frivolously, telling stories like one. After Hall they went back to their chambers.

"You can leave me," said the student. "I shall rest for an hour or so. Then I shall go on again."

This very remarkable arrangement went on undisturbed for some time. No one suspected it. No one discovered it. It became quite natural for Challice to go out of his room in the morning and to leave himself at work; it became natural to go down to Hall at seven with a mingled recollection of work and amusements. The reproaching voice was silent, the Animal Part was left at peace, and the Intellectual Part went on reading at peace.

One evening, however, going across the court at midnight, Will met the tutor.

"Challice," he said, "is it wise to burn the candle at both ends? Come--you told me this morning that you were working hard. What do you call this? You cannot serve two masters."

"It is quite true," said the Reading Half on being questioned. "I have foreseen this difficulty for some time. I called on the tutor this morning, and I told him of my intention to work. He laughed aloud. I insisted. Then he pointed out the absurdity of pretending to work while one was idling about all day. This is awkward."

"What do you propose then?"

"I propose that you stay indoors all the morning until two o'clock, locked in."

"What? And look on while you are mugging?"

"Exactly. You may read French novels: you may go to sleep. You must be quiet. Only, you must be here--all the morning. In the afternoon you may do what you please. I may quite trust you to avoid any effort of the brain. Oh! And you will avoid anything stronger than tea before Hall. No more beer for lunch. It makes me heavy."

"No more beer? But this is tyranny."

"No. It is ambition. In the evening you may go out and play cards. I shall stay here."

They went to bed. It seemed to Will as if the other Part of him--the Intellectual Part--ordered him to go to sleep without further thought.

This curious life of separation and of partial union continued, in fact, for the whole of the undergraduate time. Gradually, however, a great change came over the lazy Half--the Animal Half. It--he--perceived that the whole of his reasoning powers had become absorbed by the Intellectual Half. He became really incapable of reasoning. He could not follow out a thought; he had no thoughts. This made him seem dull, because even the most indolent person likes to think that he has some powers of argument. This moiety of Challice had none. He became quite dull; his old wit deserted him; he was heavy; he drifted gradually out of the society which he had formerly frequented; he perceived that his old friends not only found him dull, but regarded him as a traitor. He had become, they believed, that contemptible person, the man who reads. He was no longer a dweller in the Castle of Indolence; he had gone over to the other side.

Life became very dull indeed to this Half. He got into the habit of lying on a sofa, watching the other Half who sat at the table tearing the heart out of books. He admired the energy of that Half; for himself, he could do nothing; if he read at all it was a novel of the lowest kind; he even bought the penny novelette and read that with interest; if he came to a passage which contained a thought or a reflection he passed it over. He had ceased to think; he no longer even troubled himself about losing the power of thought.

Another thing came upon him; not suddenly, but gradually, so that he was not alarmed at it. He began to care no longer about the games of which he had formerly been so fond. Billiards, racquets, cards, all require, you see, a certain amount of reasoning, of quick intelligence and rapid action. This unfortunate young man had no rapidity of intelligence left. He was too stupid to play games. He became too stupid even to row.

He ceased to be a dreamer; all his dreams were gone; he ceased to make music at the piano; he ceased to sing; he could neither play nor sing: these things gave him no pleasure. He ceased, in short, to take interest in anything, cared for nothing, and hoped for nothing.

In Hall the two in one sat now with the reading set. Their talk was all of books and "subjects," and so forth. The Intellectual Half held his own with the rest: nay, he became a person to be considered. It was remarked, however, that any who met Challice out walking found him stupid and dull beyond belief. This was put down to preoccupation. The man was full of his work; he was meditating, they said, his brain was working all the while; he was making up for lost time.

In the evening the lazy Half sat in an easy chair and took tobacco, while the other Half worked. At eleven the Industrious Half disappeared. Then the Whole went to bed.

They seldom spoke except when Industry had some more orders to give. It was no longer advice, or suggestion, or a wish, or a prayer: it was an order. Indolence was a servant. "You took more wine than is good for me at dinner to-day," said Industry. "Restrict yourself to a pint of claret, and that of the lightest, for the future." Or, "You are not taking exercise enough. If you have no longer brain power enough even for the sliding seat, walk--walk fast--go out to the top of the Gogs and back again. I want all my energies." Once Indolence caught a cold: it was a month before the May examinations. The wrath and reproaches of Industry, compelled to give up a whole day to nursing that cold, were very hard to bear. Yet Indolence could not resist; he could not even remonstrate; he was now a mere slave.

When the examinations came it was necessary to observe precautions of a severer kind. To begin with, Indolence had to get up at six and go for an hour's run, for the better bracing of the nerves; he had to stay hidden indoors all day, while his ambitious twin sat in the Hall, flooring papers. He had to give up tobacco in order to keep the other Half's head clear. "Courage," said Intellect, "a day or two more and you shall plunge again into the sensuality of your pipe and your beer. Heavens! When I look at you, and think of what I was becoming!"

Industry got a scholarship; Intellect got a University medal; Ambition received the congratulations of the tutor.

"How long," asked the Animal, "is this kind of thing going to continue?"

"How long? Do you suppose," replied the other Half, "that I have given up my ambition? Remember what you said two years ago. You were younger then. You would sweep the board; you would row in the University boat; you would play in the Eleven; you would be a Leader--in all, all! You would then take up with something--you knew not what--and you would step to the front. You remember?"

"A dream--a dream. I was younger then."

"No longer a dream. It is a settled purpose. Hear me. I am going to be a statesman. I shall play the highest game of all. I shall go into the House. I shall rise--slowly at first, but steadily."

"And I?"

"You are a log tied to my heel, but you shall be an obedient log. If you were not--"

Indolence shivered and crouched. "Am I then--all my life--to be your servant?"

"Your life? No--my life." The two glared at each other. "Silence, Log. Let me work."

"I shall not be silent," cried Indolence, roused to momentary self-assertion. "I have no enjoyment left in life. You have taken all--all--"

"You have left what you loved best of all--your sloth. Lie down--and take your rest. Why, you do nothing all day. A stalled ox is not more lazy. You eat and drink and take exercise and sleep. What more, for such as you, has life to give? You are now an animal. My half has absorbed all the intellectual part of you. Lie down, I say--lie down, and let me work."

The Animal could not lie down. He was restless. He walked about the room. He was discontented. He was jealous. The other Half, he saw plainly, was getting the better share of things. That Half was admired and envied. By accident, as he paced the room, he looked in the glass; and he started, for his face had grown heavy: there was a bovine look about the cheeks: the eyes were dull: the mouth full. Then the other Half rose and stood beside him. Together they looked at their own faces. "Ha!" cried Ambition, well satisfied at the contrast. "It works already. Mine is the face intended for me: yours is the face into which this degenerate mould might sink. Mine contains the soul; yours--the animal. You have got what you wanted, Sloth. Your dreams are gone from you. I have got them, though, and I am turning them into action. As time goes on, your face will become more bovine, your eyes duller. What will be the end?" His brow darkened. "I don't know. We are like the Siamese twins."

"One of them took to drink," murmured the inferior Half. "What if I were to follow his example?"

"You will not. You do not dare?" But his blanched face showed his terror at the very thought.

V.

The first step was achieved. The first class was gained. Challice of Pembroke was second classic; he might have been senior but for the unaccountable laziness of his first year. He was University scholar, medallist, prizeman; he was one of the best speakers at the Union. He was known to be ambitious. He was not popular, however, because he was liable to strange fits of dulness; those who met him wandering about the banks of the river found him apparently unable to understand things; at such times he looked heavy and dull; it was supposed that he was abstracted; men respected his moods, but these things do not increase friendships. Challice the Animal and Challice the Intellect weighed each other down.

They left Cambridge, they went to London, they took lodgings. "You are now so different from me in appearance," said the Intellect, "that I think we may leave off the usual precautions. Go about without troubling what I am and what I am doing. Go about and amuse yourself, but be careful."

The victim of sloth obeyed; he went about all day long in heavy, meaningless fashion; he looked at things in shops; he sat in museums, and dropped off to sleep. He strolled round squares. At luncheon and dinner time he found out restaurants where he could feed--in reality, the only pleasure left to him was to eat, drink, and sleep.

One day he was in Kensington Gardens, sitting half asleep in the sun. People walked up and down the walk before him; beautiful women gaily dressed; sprightly women gaily talking; the world of wealth, fashion, extravagance, and youth. He was no more than three-and-twenty himself. He ought to have been fired by the sight of all this beauty, and all this happiness. Nobody in the world can look half so happy as a lovely girl finely dressed. But he sat there like a clod, dull and insensate.

Presently, a voice which he remembered: "Papa, it is Will Challice!" He looked up heavily. "Why, Will," the girl stood before him, "don't you know me?"

It was Nell, the daughter of his tutor, now a comely maiden of one-and-twenty, who laughed and held out her hand to him He rose, but not with alacrity. The shadow of a smile crossed his face. He took her hand.