第15章

"Sit down, John," she said calmly. Then, in her sweet, clear voice, she said: "Did it ever occur to you, dearest, that a more ridiculous, unconvincing, purposeless, insane, God-forsaken idiot than you never existed?That you eclipse the wildest dreams of insanity?That you are a mental and moral 'What-is-it?'""It has occurred to me," he replied simply."I began life with vast asinine possibilities which fall to the lot of few men; yet I cannot say that I have carried even THEM to a logical conclusion! But YOU, love! YOU, darling! conceived in extravagance, born to impossibility, a challenge to credulity, a problem to the intellect, a 'missing word' for all ages,--are you aware of any one as utterly unsympathetic, unreal, and untrue to nature as you are, existing on the face of the earth, or in the waters under the earth?" "You are right, dearest; there are none," she returned with the same calm, level voice."It is true that I have at times tried to do something real and womanly, and not, you know, merely to complicate a--a"--her voice faltered--"theatrical situation--but I couldn't!Something impelled me otherwise.Now you know why I became an actress!But even there I fail!THEY are allowed reasoning power off the stage--I have none at any time!I laugh in the wrong place--I do the unnecessary, extravagant thing.Endowed by some strange power with extraordinary attributes, Iam supposed to make everybody love me, but I don't--I satisfy nobody; I convince none! I have no idea what will happen to me next. I am doomed to--I know not what.""And I," he groaned bitterly, "I, in some rare and lucid moments, have had a glimpse of this too. We are in the hands of some inscrutable but awful power. Tell me, Golly, tell me, darling, who is it?"Again that gleam of Common or Ordinary Horse Sense came in her eye.

"I have found out who," she whispered. "I have found out who has created us, and made us as puppets in his hands.""Is it the Almighty?" he asked.

"No; it is"--she said, with a burst of real laughter--"it is--The 'All Caine!""What! our countryman the Manxman? The only great Novelist? The beloved of Gladstone?" he gasped.

"Yes--and he intends to kill YOU--and we're only to be married at your deathbed!"John Gale arose with a look of stern determination. "I have suffered much and idiotically--but I draw a line at this. I shall kick!"Golly clapped her hands joyfully."We will!" "And we'll chuck him.""We will."

They were choking with laughter.

"And go and get married in a natural, simple way like anybody else-- and try--to do our duty--to God--to each other--and to our fellow- beings-- and quit this--damned--nonsense--and in-fer-nal idiocy forever!""Amen!"

PUBLISHER'S NOTE.--"In that supreme work of my life, 'The Christian,'" said the gifted novelist to a reporter in speaking of his methods, "I had endowed the characters of Golly and John Gale with such superhuman vitality and absolute reality that--as is well known in the experience of great writers--they became thinking beings, and actually criticised my work, and even INTERFERED and REBELLED to the point of altering my climax and the end!"The present edition gives thatending, which of course is the only real one.

THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN LONGBOWE, YEOMAN BEING A MODERN-ANTIQUE REALISTIC ROMANCE (COMPILED FROM SEVERAL EMINENT SOURCES)It seemeth but fair that I, John Longbowe, should set down this account of such hap and adventure as hath befallen me, without flourish, vaporing, or cozening of speech, but as becometh one who, not being a ready writer, goeth straight to the matter in hand in few words. So, though I offend some, I shall yet convince all, the which lieth closer to my purpose. Thus, it was in the year 1560, or 1650, or mayhap 1710--for my memory is not what it hath been and I ever cared little for monkish calendars or such dry-as-dust matter, being active as becometh one who hath to make his way in the world--yet I wot well it was after the Great Plague, which I have great cause to remember, lying at my cozen's in Wardour Street, London, in that lamentable year, eating of gilly flowers, sulphur, hartes tongue and many stynking herbes; touching neither man nor mayd, save with a great tongs steept in pitch; wearing a fine maske of silk with a mouth piece of aromatic stuff--by reason of which acts of hardihood and courage I was miraculously preserved. This much I shall say as to the time of these happenings, and no more. I am a plain, blunt man--mayhap rude of speech should occasion warrant---so let them who require the exactness of a scrivener or a pedagogue go elsewhere for their entertainment and be hanged to them!

Howbeit, though no scholar, I am not one of those who misuse the English speech, and, being foolishly led by the hasty custom of scriveners and printers to write the letters "T" and "H" joined together, which resembleth a "Y," do incontinently jump to the conclusion the THE is pronounced "Ye,"--the like of which I never heard in all England. And though this be little toward those great enterprises and happenings I shall presently shew, I set it down for the behoof of such malapert wights as must needs gird at a man of spirit and action--and yet, in sooth, know not their own letters.