Artists -- Fiction; English fiction -- 20th century; Jews -- England -- London -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
The door by them opened and Logan slipped in. He was almost a shadow
of his old self. The plump flesh had gone from his face, which was all
eyes and bones. He looked famished. His eyes swept round the room,
and, fastening on Oliver, lit up with a gleam of satisfaction. He was
like a starving man looking at a nice pink ham in a shop window. He
moved swiftly towards her, but stopped on seeing the men she was with
and swerved to a table a few yards behind her. From where Mendel was
sitting it looked as though he were peering over her shoulder, an
evil, menacing face.
Mendel shivered, and his eyes suddenly felt dry and hot, as though
they were being pushed out of his face. His throat went dry, and when
he tried to call the waiter he could make no sound. The waiter met his
eyes and came.
"Champagne!" said Mendel.
"Very good, sir. One bottle?"
"Half-a-bottle," said Morrison.
"One bottle," roared Mendel.
A young artist, who knew them both slightly, hearing the order, came
and sat with them.
The dancing began.
"Come and dance," said Morrison.
"No, I don't want to dance. That was Logan who came in. He hasn't seen
me yet."
"Which is Logan?" asked the young artist. "He's done some good things.
Someone told me the other day he had softening of the brain."
"Rubbish!" said Mendel. "They say that of every man who makes a
success, as though it needed something strange to account for it. It's
either softening of the brain, or consumption, or three wives, or he
is killing himself with drink. They talk as though art itself were
some kind of disease."
Logan had seen Mendel, and their eyes met. Mendel felt that Logan was
looking clean through him, looking at him as a ghost might look at a
man whom he had known in life, fondly, tenderly, icily through him,
without expecting him to be aware of the terrible scrutiny. But Mendel
was aware of it, and it chilled him to the marrow. Logan gave no sign,
but stared and stared, and presently turned his eyes away without a
sign, without a tremor. It was like turning away the light of a
lantern. He turned his eyes from Mendel to Oliver in one sweep. No one
else but those two seemed to exist for him, and Mendel felt that he no
longer existed. And more than ever Logan looked as if he were peering
over Oliver's shoulder with those staring, piercing eyes of his from
which the soul had gone out. Only the glowing spark of a fixed will
was left in them to keep them sane and human.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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