The Man Who Was Thursday

The sub­urb of Saf­fron Park lay on the sun­set side of Lon­don, as red and ragged as a cloud of sun­set. It was built of a bright brick through­out; its sky-line was fan­tas­tic, and even its ground plan was wild. It had been the out­burst of a spec­u­la­tive builder, faint­ly tinged with art, who called its ar­chi­tec­ture some­times Eliz­a­bethan and some­times Queen Anne, ap­par­ent­ly under the im­pres­sion that the two sov­er­eigns were iden­ti­cal. It was de­scribed with some jus­tice as an artis­tic colony, though it never in any de­fin­able way pro­duced any art. But al­though its pre­ten­sions to be an in­tel­lec­tu­al cen­tre were a lit­tle vague, its pre­ten­sions to be a pleas­ant place were quite in­dis­putable. The stranger who looked for the first time at the quaint red hous­es could only think how very oddly shaped the peo­ple must be who could fit in to them. Nor when he met the peo­ple was he dis­ap­point­ed in this re­spect. The place was not only pleas­ant, but per­fect, if once he could re­gard it not as a de­cep­tion but rather as a dream. Even if the peo­ple were not “artists,” the whole was nev­er­the­less artis­tic. That young man with the long, auburn hair and the im­pu­dent face—that young man was not re­al­ly a poet; but sure­ly he was a poem. That old gen­tle­man with the wild, white beard and the wild, white hat—that ven­er­a­ble hum­bug was not re­al­ly a philoso­pher; but at least he was the cause of phi­los­o­phy in oth­ers. That sci­en­tif­ic gen­tle­man with the bald, egg-like head and the bare, bird-like neck had no real right to the airs of sci­ence that he as­sumed. He had not dis­cov­ered any­thing new in bi­ol­o­gy; but what bi­o­log­i­cal crea­ture could he have dis­cov­ered more sin­gu­lar than him­self? Thus, and thus only, the whole place had prop­er­ly to be re­gard­ed; it had to be con­sid­ered not so much as a work­shop for artists, but as a frail but fin­ished work of art. A man who stepped into its so­cial at­mos­phere felt as if he had stepped into a writ­ten com­e­dy.

More es­pe­cial­ly this at­trac­tive un­re­al­i­ty fell upon it about night­fall, when the ex­trav­a­gant roofs were dark against the af­ter­glow and the whole in­sane vil­lage seemed as sep­a­rate as a drift­ing cloud. This again was more strong­ly true of the many nights of local fes­tiv­i­ty, when the lit­tle gar­dens were often il­lu­mi­nat­ed, and the big Chi­nese lanterns glowed in the dwarfish trees like some fierce and mon­strous fruit. And this was strongest of all on one par­tic­u­lar evening, still vague­ly re­mem­bered in the lo­cal­i­ty, of which the auburn-haired poet was the hero. It was not by any means the only evening of which he was the hero. On many nights those pass­ing by his lit­tle back gar­den might hear his high, di­dac­tic voice lay­ing down the law to men and par­tic­u­lar­ly to women. The at­ti­tude of women in such cases was in­deed one of the para­dox­es of the place. Most of the women were of the kind vague­ly called eman­ci­pat­ed, and pro­fessed some protest against male su­prema­cy. Yet these new women would al­ways pay to a man the ex­trav­a­gant com­pli­ment which no or­di­nary woman ever pays to him, that of lis­ten­ing while he is talk­ing. And Mr. Lu­cian Gre­go­ry, the red-haired poet, was re­al­ly (in some sense) a man worth lis­ten­ing to, even if one only laughed at the end of it. He put the old cant of the law­less­ness of art and the art of law­less­ness with a cer­tain im­pu­dent fresh­ness which gave at least a mo­men­tary plea­sure. He was helped in some de­gree by the ar­rest­ing odd­i­ty of his ap­pear­ance, which he worked, as the phrase goes, for all it was worth. His dark red hair part­ed in the mid­dle was lit­er­al­ly like a woman’s, and curved into the slow curls of a vir­gin in a pre-Raphaelite pic­ture. From with­in this al­most saint­ly oval, how­ev­er, his face pro­ject­ed sud­den­ly broad and bru­tal, the chin car­ried for­ward with a look of cock­ney con­tempt. This com­bi­na­tion at once tick­led and ter­ri­fied the nerves of a neu­rot­ic pop­u­la­tion. He seemed like a walk­ing blas­phe­my, a blend of the angel and the ape.

This par­tic­u­lar evening, if it is re­mem­bered for noth­ing else, will be re­mem­bered in that place for its strange sun­set. It looked like the end of the world. All the heav­en seemed cov­ered with a quite vivid and pal­pa­ble plumage; you could only say that the sky was full of feath­ers, and of feath­ers that al­most brushed the face. Across the great part of the dome they were grey, with the strangest tints of vi­o­let and mauve and an un­nat­ur­al pink or pale green; but to­wards the west the whole grew past de­scrip­tion, trans­par­ent and pas­sion­ate, and the last red-hot plumes of it cov­ered up the sun like some­thing too good to be seen. The whole was so close about the earth, as to ex­press noth­ing but a vi­o­lent se­cre­cy. The very empyre­an seemed to be a se­cret. It ex­pressed that splen­did small­ness which is the soul of local pa­tri­o­tism. The very sky seemed small.

I say that there are some in­hab­i­tants who may re­mem­ber the evening if only by that op­pres­sive sky. There are oth­ers who may re­mem­ber it be­cause it marked the first ap­pear­ance in the place of the sec­ond poet of Saf­fron Park. For a long time the red-haired rev­o­lu­tion­ary had reigned with­out a rival; it was upon the night of the sun­set that his soli­tude sud­den­ly ended. The new poet, who in­tro­duced him­self by the name of Gabriel Syme was a very mild-look­ing mor­tal, with a fair, point­ed beard and faint, yel­low hair. But an im­pres­sion grew that he was less meek than he looked. He sig­nalised his en­trance by dif­fer­ing with the es­tab­lished poet, Gre­go­ry, upon the whole na­ture of po­et­ry. He said that he (Syme) was poet of law, a poet of order; nay, he said he was a poet of re­spectabil­i­ty. So all the Saf­fron Park­ers looked at him as if he had that mo­ment fall­en out of that im­pos­si­ble sky.

In fact, Mr. Lu­cian Gre­go­ry, the an­ar­chic poet, con­nect­ed the two events.

“It may well be,” he said, in his sud­den lyri­cal man­ner, “it may well be on such a night of clouds and cruel colours that there is brought forth upon the earth such a por­tent as a re­spectable poet. You say you are a poet of law; I say you are a con­tra­dic­tion in terms. I only won­der there were not comets and earth­quakes on the night you ap­peared in this gar­den.”

The man with the meek blue eyes and the pale, point­ed beard en­dured these thun­ders with a cer­tain sub­mis­sive solem­ni­ty. The third party of the group, Gre­go­ry’s sis­ter Rosa­mond, who had her broth­er’s braids of red hair, but a kind­lier face un­der­neath them, laughed with such mix­ture of ad­mi­ra­tion and dis­ap­proval as she gave com­mon­ly to the fam­i­ly or­a­cle.

Gre­go­ry re­sumed in high or­a­tor­i­cal good hu­mour.

“An artist is iden­ti­cal with an an­ar­chist,” he cried. “You might trans­pose the words any­where. An an­ar­chist is an artist. The man who throws a bomb is an artist, be­cause he prefers a great mo­ment to every­thing. He sees how much more valu­able is one burst of blaz­ing light, one peal of per­fect thun­der, than the mere com­mon bod­ies of a few shape­less po­lice­men. An artist dis­re­gards all gov­ern­ments, abol­ish­es all con­ven­tions. The poet de­lights in dis­or­der only. If it were not so, the most po­et­i­cal thing in the world would be the Un­der­ground Rail­way.”

“So it is,” said Mr. Syme.

“Non­sense!” said Gre­go­ry, who was very ra­tio­nal when any­one else at­tempt­ed para­dox. “Why do all the clerks and navvies in the rail­way trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will tell you. It is be­cause they know that the train is going right. It is be­cause they know that what­ev­er place they have taken a tick­et for that place they will reach. It is be­cause after they have passed Sloane Square they know that the next sta­tion must be Vic­to­ria, and noth­ing but Vic­to­ria. Oh, their wild rap­ture! oh, their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next sta­tion were un­ac­count­ably Baker Street!”

“It is you who are un­po­et­i­cal,” replied the poet Syme. “If what you say of clerks is true, they can only be as pro­sa­ic as your po­et­ry. The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, ob­vi­ous thing is to miss it. We feel it is epi­cal when man with one wild arrow strikes a dis­tant bird. Is it not also epi­cal when man with one wild en­gine strikes a dis­tant sta­tion? Chaos is dull; be­cause in chaos the train might in­deed go any­where, to Baker Street or to Bag­dad. But man is a ma­gi­cian, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Vic­to­ria, and lo! it is Vic­to­ria. No, take your books of mere po­et­ry and prose; let me read a time table, with tears of pride. Take your Byron, who com­mem­o­rates the de­feats of man; give me Brad­shaw, who com­mem­o­rates his vic­to­ries. Give me Brad­shaw, I say!”

“Must you go?” in­quired Gre­go­ry sar­cas­ti­cal­ly.

“I tell you,” went on Syme with pas­sion, “that every time a train comes in I feel that it has bro­ken past bat­ter­ies of be­siegers, and that man has won a bat­tle against chaos. You say con­temp­tu­ous­ly that when one has left Sloane Square one must come to Vic­to­ria. I say that one might do a thou­sand things in­stead, and that when­ev­er I re­al­ly come there I have the sense of hair­breadth es­cape. And when I hear the guard shout out the word ‘Vic­to­ria,’ it is not an un­mean­ing word. It is to me the cry of a her­ald an­nounc­ing con­quest. It is to me in­deed ‘Vic­to­ria;’ it is the vic­to­ry of Adam.”

Gre­go­ry wagged his heavy, red head with a slow and sad smile.

“And even then,” he said, “we poets al­ways ask the ques­tion, ‘And what is Vic­to­ria now that you have got there?’ You think Vic­to­ria is like the New Jerusalem. We know that the New Jerusalem will only be like Vic­to­ria. Yes, the poet will be dis­con­tent­ed even in the streets of heav­en. The poet is al­ways in re­volt.”

“There again,” said Syme ir­ri­ta­bly, “what is there po­et­i­cal about being in re­volt? You might as well say that it is po­et­i­cal to be sea-sick. Being sick is a re­volt. Both being sick and being re­bel­lious may be the whole­some thing on cer­tain des­per­ate oc­ca­sions; but I’m hanged if I can see why they are po­et­i­cal. Re­volt in the ab­stract is—re­volt­ing. It’s mere vom­it­ing.”

The girl winced for a flash at the un­pleas­ant word, but Syme was too hot to heed her.

“It is things going right,” he cried, “that is po­et­i­cal I Our di­ges­tions, for in­stance, going sa­cred­ly and silent­ly right, that is the foun­da­tion of all po­et­ry. Yes, the most po­et­i­cal thing, more po­et­i­cal than the flow­ers, more po­et­i­cal than the stars—the most po­et­i­cal thing in the world is not being sick.”

“Re­al­ly,” said Gre­go­ry su­per­cil­ious­ly, “the ex­am­ples you choose—”

“I beg your par­don,” said Syme grim­ly, “I for­got we had abol­ished all con­ven­tions.”

For the first time a red patch ap­peared on Gre­go­ry’s fore­head.

“You don’t ex­pect me,” he said, “to rev­o­lu­tionise so­ci­ety on this lawn?”

Syme looked straight into his eyes and smiled sweet­ly.

“No, I don’t,” he said; “but I sup­pose that if you were se­ri­ous about your an­ar­chism, that is ex­act­ly what you would do.”

Gre­go­ry’s big bull’s eyes blinked sud­den­ly like those of an angry lion, and one could al­most fancy that his red mane rose.

“Don’t you think, then,” he said in a dan­ger­ous voice, “that I am se­ri­ous about my an­ar­chism?”

“I beg your par­don?” said Syme.

“Am I not se­ri­ous about my an­ar­chism?” cried Gre­go­ry, with knot­ted fists.

“My dear fel­low!” said Syme, and strolled away.

With sur­prise, but with a cu­ri­ous plea­sure, he found Rosa­mond Gre­go­ry still in his com­pa­ny.

“Mr. Syme,” she said, “do the peo­ple who talk like you and my broth­er often mean what they say? Do you mean what you say now?”

Syme smiled.

“Do you?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” asked the girl, with grave eyes.

“My dear Miss Gre­go­ry,” said Syme gen­tly, “there are many kinds of sin­cer­i­ty and in­sin­cer­i­ty. When you say ‘thank you’ for the salt, do you mean what you say? No. When you say ‘the world is round,’ do you mean what you say? No. It is true, but you don’t mean it. Now, some­times a man like your broth­er re­al­ly finds a thing he does mean. It may be only a half-truth, quar­ter-truth, tenth-truth; but then he says more than he means—from sheer force of mean­ing it.”

She was look­ing at him from under level brows; her face was grave and open, and there had fall­en upon it the shad­ow of that un­rea­son­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty which is at the bot­tom of the most friv­o­lous woman, the ma­ter­nal watch which is as old as the world.

“Is he re­al­ly an an­ar­chist, then?” she asked.

“Only in that sense I speak of,” replied Syme; “or if you pre­fer it, in that non­sense.”

She drew her broad brows to­geth­er and said abrupt­ly:

“He wouldn’t re­al­ly use—bombs or that sort of thing?”

Syme broke into a great laugh, that seemed too large for his slight and some­what dan­di­fied fig­ure.

“Good Lord, no!” he said, “that has to be done anony­mous­ly.”

And at that the cor­ners of her own mouth broke into a smile, and she thought with a si­mul­ta­ne­ous plea­sure of Gre­go­ry’s ab­sur­di­ty and of his safe­ty.

Syme strolled with her to a seat in the cor­ner of the gar­den, and con­tin­ued to pour out his opin­ions. For he was a sin­cere man, and in spite of his su­per­fi­cial airs and graces, at root a hum­ble one. And it is al­ways the hum­ble man who talks too much; the proud man watch­es him­self too close­ly. He de­fend­ed re­spectabil­i­ty with vi­o­lence and ex­ag­ger­a­tion. He grew pas­sion­ate in his praise of tidi­ness and pro­pri­ety. All the time there was a smell of lilac all round him. Once he heard very faint­ly in some dis­tant street a bar­rel-or­gan begin to play, and it seemed to him that his hero­ic words were mov­ing to a tiny tune from under or be­yond the world.

He stared and talked at the girl’s red hair and amused face for what seemed to be a few min­utes; and then, feel­ing that the groups in such a place should mix, rose to his feet. To his as­ton­ish­ment, he dis­cov­ered the whole gar­den empty. Every­one had gone long ago, and he went him­self with a rather hur­ried apol­o­gy. He left with a sense of cham­pagne in his head, which he could not af­ter­wards ex­plain. In the wild events which were to fol­low this girl had no part at all; he never saw her again until all his tale was over. And yet, in some in­de­scrib­able way, she kept re­cur­ring like a mo­tive in music through all his mad ad­ven­tures af­ter­wards, and the glory of her strange hair ran like a red thread through those dark and ill-drawn ta­pes­tries of the night. For what fol­lowed was so im­prob­a­ble, that it might well have been a dream.

When Syme went out into the star­lit street, he found it for the mo­ment empty. Then he re­alised (in some odd way) that the si­lence was rather a liv­ing si­lence than a dead one. Di­rect­ly out­side the door stood a street lamp, whose gleam gild­ed the leaves of the tree that bent out over the fence be­hind him. About a foot from the lamp-post stood a fig­ure al­most as rigid and mo­tion­less as the lamp-post it­self. The tall hat and long frock coat were black; the face, in an abrupt shad­ow, was al­most as dark. Only a fringe of fiery hair against the light, and also some­thing ag­gres­sive in the at­ti­tude, pro­claimed that it was the poet Gre­go­ry. He had some­thing of the look of a masked bravo wait­ing sword in hand for his foe.

He made a sort of doubt­ful salute, which Syme some­what more for­mal­ly re­turned.

“I was wait­ing for you,” said Gre­go­ry. “Might I have a mo­ment’s con­ver­sa­tion?”

“Cer­tain­ly. About what?” asked Syme in a sort of weak won­der.

Gre­go­ry struck out with his stick at the lamp-post, and then at the tree. “About this and this,” he cried; “about order and an­ar­chy. There is your pre­cious order, that lean, iron lamp, ugly and bar­ren; and there is an­ar­chy, rich, liv­ing, re­pro­duc­ing it­self—there is an­ar­chy, splen­did in green and gold.”

“All the same,” replied Syme pa­tient­ly, “just at pre­sent you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I won­der when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree.” Then after a pause he said, “But may I ask if you have been stand­ing out here in the dark only to re­sume our lit­tle ar­gu­ment?”

“No,” cried out Gre­go­ry, in a voice that rang down the street, “I did not stand here to re­sume our ar­gu­ment, but to end it for ever.”

The si­lence fell again, and Syme, though he un­der­stood noth­ing, lis­tened in­stinc­tive­ly for some­thing se­ri­ous. Gre­go­ry began in a smooth voice and with a rather be­wil­der­ing smile.

“Mr. Syme,” he said, “this evening you suc­ceed­ed in doing some­thing rather re­mark­able. You did some­thing to me that no man born of woman has ever suc­ceed­ed in doing be­fore.”

“In­deed!”

“Now I re­mem­ber,” re­sumed Gre­go­ry re­flec­tive­ly, “one other per­son suc­ceed­ed in doing it. The cap­tain of a penny steam­er (if I re­mem­ber cor­rect­ly) at Southend. You have ir­ri­tat­ed me.”

“I am very sorry,” replied Syme with grav­i­ty.

“I am afraid my fury and your in­sult are too shock­ing to be wiped out even with an apol­o­gy,” said Gre­go­ry very calm­ly. “No duel could wipe it out. If I struck you dead I could not wipe it out. There is only one way by which that in­sult can be erased, and that way I choose. I am going, at the pos­si­ble sac­ri­fice of my life and ho­n­our, to prove to you that you were wrong in what you said.”

“In what I said?”

“You said I was not se­ri­ous about being an an­ar­chist.”

“There are de­grees of se­ri­ous­ness,” replied Syme. “I have never doubt­ed that you were per­fect­ly sin­cere in this sense, that you thought what you said well worth say­ing, that you thought a para­dox might wake men up to a ne­glect­ed truth.”

Gre­go­ry stared at him steadi­ly and painful­ly.

“And in no other sense,” he asked, “you think me se­ri­ous? You think me a flâneur who lets fall oc­ca­sion­al truths. You do not think that in a deep­er, a more dead­ly sense, I am se­ri­ous.”

Syme struck his stick vi­o­lent­ly on the stones of the road.

“Se­ri­ous!” he cried. “Good Lord! is this street se­ri­ous? Are these damned Chi­nese lanterns se­ri­ous? Is the whole ca­boo­dle se­ri­ous? One comes here and talks a pack of bosh, and per­haps some sense as well, but I should think very lit­tle of a man who didn’t keep some­thing in the back­ground of his life that was more se­ri­ous than all this talk­ing—some­thing more se­ri­ous, whether it was re­li­gion or only drink.”

“Very well,” said Gre­go­ry, his face dark­en­ing, “you shall see some­thing more se­ri­ous than ei­ther drink or re­li­gion.”

Syme stood wait­ing with his usual air of mild­ness until Gre­go­ry again opened his lips.

“You spoke just now of hav­ing a re­li­gion. Is it re­al­ly true that you have one?”

“Oh,” said Syme with a beam­ing smile, “we are all Catholics now.”

“Then may I ask you to swear by what­ev­er gods or saints your re­li­gion in­volves that you will not re­veal what I am now going to tell you to any son of Adam, and es­pe­cial­ly not to the po­lice? Will you swear that! If you will take upon your­self this awful ab­ne­ga­tions if you will con­sent to bur­den your soul with a vow that you should never make and a knowl­edge you should never dream about, I will promise you in re­turn—”

“You will promise me in re­turn?” in­quired Syme, as the other paused.

“I will promise you a very en­ter­tain­ing evening.” Syme sud­den­ly took off his hat.

“Your offer,” he said, “is far too id­i­ot­ic to be de­clined. You say that a poet is al­ways an an­ar­chist. I dis­agree; but I hope at least that he is al­ways a sports­man. Per­mit me, here and now, to swear as a Chris­t­ian, and promise as a good com­rade and a fel­low-artist, that I will not re­port any­thing of this, what­ev­er it is, to the po­lice. And now, in the name of Col­ney Hatch, what is it?”

“I think,” said Gre­go­ry, with placid ir­rel­e­van­cy, “that we will call a cab.”

He gave two long whis­tles, and a han­som came rat­tling down the road. The two got into it in si­lence. Gre­go­ry gave through the trap the ad­dress of an ob­scure pub­lic-house on the Chiswick bank of the river. The cab whisked it­self away again, and in it these two fan­tas­tics quit­ted their fan­tas­tic town.