"How did you know?"
"It's what you said to me three years ago, when 'Fungoids' was
published." I flushed the more. I need not have flushed at all. "It's the
only important thing I ever heard you say," he continued. "And I've
never forgotten it. It's a true thing. It's a horrible truth. But--d'you
remember what I answered? I said, 'I don't care a sou for recognition.'
And you believed me. You've gone on believing I'm above that sort of
thing. You're shallow. What should YOU know of the feelings of
a man like me? You imagine that a great artist's faith in himself and in
the verdict of posterity is enough to keep him happy. You've never
guessed at the bitterness and loneliness, the"--his voice broke; but
presently he resumed, speaking with a force that I had never known in
him. "Posterity! What use is it to ME? A dead man doesn't know
that people are visiting his grave, visiting his birthplace, putting up
tablets to him, unveiling statues of him. A dead man can't read the books
that are written about him. A hundred years hence! Think of it! If I
could come back to life THEN--just for a few hours--and go to the
reading-room and READ! Or, better still, if I could be projected
now, at this moment, into that future, into that reading-room, just for this
one afternoon! I'd sell myself body and soul to the devil for that! Think
of the pages and pages in the catalogue: 'Soames, Enoch'
endlessly--endless editions, commentaries, prolegomena, biographies"--
But here he was interrupted by a sudden loud crack of the chair at the
next table.
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