The Strand Magazine, Vol. 05, Issue 25, January 1893: An Illustrated MonthlyVarious
General
The Strand Magazine, Vol. 05, Issue 25, January 1893: An Illustrated Monthly
Various
English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
He changed colour. "I have times when I--I--lose
myself--thinking--thinking of things, you know."
They passed a delightful evening. But when Will went away, the girl
became meditative. For, although he had talked without stopping, on
every kind of subject, there was no hungry look in his eye, such as she
had perceived with natural satisfaction in the morning. Every maiden
likes that look of hunger, outward sign and indication of respect to her
charms.
They were up in town for a month. Every morning Will called and sat glum
but hungry-eyed, gazing on the girl and saying nothing. Every evening he
called again and talked scholarship and politics with her father, his
face changed, his whole manner different, and without any look of
hunger in his eyes.
[Illustration: "WILL SAT GAZING ON THE GIRL."]
One day after a fortnight or so of this, Will the Animal stood up after
breakfast and spoke.
"There has got to be a change."
"You are changing, in fact," replied the other with a sneer.
"I am in love. I am going to marry a girl. Now hold your tongue," for
the Intellectual Half bounded in his chair. "You have left me very
little power of speech. Let me try to explain what I--I want to say." He
spoke painfully and slowly. "Let me--try--I have lost, bit by bit,
almost everything. I don't want to read--I can't play any more. I don't
care about anything much. But this girl I do care about. I have always
loved her, and you--you with your deuced intellect--cannot kill that
part of me. Be quiet--let me try to think. She loves me, too. She loves
me for myself, and not on account of you and your success. She is sorry
for me. She has given me--I don't know how--the power of thinking a
little. When I am married to her, she will give me more. Let us part
absolutely. Take all my intellect and go. Nell will marry a stupid man,
but he will get something from her--something I am sure. I feel
different already; I said something to-day which made her laugh. What
are you glaring at me for?"
"I am not glaring. I am thinking. Go on."
"This has got to stop. Now find some way of stopping it, or--or--"
"What can you do?"
"I can drink," he said, with awful meaning. "I can ruin you. And I will,
unless you agree to part."
The Intellectual Half was looking at him with a strangely softened face.
There was neither scorn nor hatred in that face. "Dimidium Animæ," he
said, "Half of my Soul, I have something to say as well. Confess,
however, first of all, that I was right. Had it not been for this
step--the most severe measure possible, I admit--nothing would have been
achieved. Eh?"
"Perhaps. You _would_ work, you see."
"Yes. Well--I have made a discovery. It is that I have been too
thorough. I don't quite understand how, logically and naturally,
anything else was possible. I wanted, heaven knows, all the intellect
there was; you were, therefore, bound to become the Animal, pure and
simple. Well, you see, we are not really two, but one. Can't we hit upon
an agreement?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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