This Was Ivor Trent полностью

“That’s my life, more or less. And if I have told it as if it were something that is over, it is because it is over. I shall go on, of course, but I shall never be able to surrender myself wholly to any experience. I didn’t—when you gave yourself to me. Something in me was watching. I know I’ve a certain type of strength, but it’s paralysed. There’s nothing for me to do.”

Then she said:

“Why don’t you write a book?”

“What about?”

“What you’ve just told me.”

“What’s the use of that?”

“Well, an artist I sat to last week was telling a friend that if you give expression to thoughts, or emotions, or memories, you become free of them.”

“I wonder. Well, if I wrote a book, what should I call it?”

She was silent for a minute, then suggested:

“Two Lives and a Third.”

“No! Two Lives and a Destiny.”

That’s how my first novel was conceived. It was written in this room. Often, when I was working, Elsa sat reading, or stood looking out of the window, or rested on the bed. Usually, however, I forgot she was there.

A dæmonic energy surged through me. I was slinging my life at the world. Yet, oddly enough, I ceased to be myself. I discovered that writing is a form of possession. Something drove through me, marshalled the book into parts and chapters, snatched words and phrases out of the air. I ceased to be Ivor Trent. I became as anonymous as a medium in a trance. Although the book was derived wholly from my own experience, that experience ceased to be mine. The events I recorded had not happened to me—they were happening to the man in the book. His father was not my father. I understood his father. I became him. I was each of my characters in turn. And I was all of them simultaneously. I was never Ivor Trent.

This was escape, this was deliverance—to be possessed! To inhabit the psychic realm of thought and emotion! Not to know who one is, or where one is, or what is happening in the actual world! Then, at last, to look at one’s watch and so rediscover oneself! To count the pages, and go to bed—not a man, but a crowd!

This is deliverance—the only deliverance I have ever known.

Two Lives and a Destiny took a year to write and revise. I had not read a line of it to Elsa, but, now, I read all of it to her. When I had finished, she said:

“I never imagined it would be like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not like that. Not as good as that, not nearly as good.”

But I discounted her opinion, for I knew she was in love with me. I decided to find out whether anyone would publish it. That would be the book’s first test.

So I went to see Nietzsche. I knew one or two of his books had been published.

I found him in his room, lying on a sofa, reading.

“Look here,” I burst out, “I’ve written a novel, and——”

“You’ve not got it with you?”

“No.”

“Right! Sit down and tell me what you want.”

“I want to know which publisher to send it to.”

“Don’t send it to any. Send it to my agent, Voyce. If it’s any good, he’ll handle it. If it isn’t, he’ll send it back. But don’t tell him I’m living here, because I owe him money. If he should place the book, then tell him that I recommended you to go to him. But mind you also say that I’m on a walking tour through the Black Forest.”

I sent the book to Voyce. A fortnight later he wrote asking me to see him. A month after, the novel was accepted by Polsons. Four months later it was published.

It was a great and an instantaneous success.

This cannot be a connected narrative. I am like a man besieged. Letters and telegrams keep arriving; Marsden is demanding to see me; Captain Frazer has discovered that no one knows that I have had rooms here for years. Every hour someone comes to the house to inquire.

It is Wednesday night. The doctor has just gone. He is suspicious about me, that is evident, but—fortunately—I do not look well, as I spent all last night writing. I wrote page after page in feverish haste.

Still, he has agreed that the nurse is to go. She leaves on Friday, and Mrs. Frazer will attend to me. I had a long talk with her after the doctor had gone. I have arranged everything. She is sending her husband to Ramsgate. Also, she is getting rid of the undesirable lodgers. Someone is to be found to take her place in the house. I gave her a hundred pounds and told her to make these changes as quickly as possible.

Above all, I emphasised that Captain Frazer must have gone by Saturday. That is essential. He has discovered my secret, and now he insists on dealing with visitors. I must get rid of him. There is nothing he would not do to make money.

Marsden does not worry me. He called on Rendell yesterday and found Vera with him. Marsden and Vera! They met once at my flat, and I saw he was attracted by her. Wrayburn, too, was here yesterday. And Rosalie will probably come again.

They are meeting in the labyrinth. But, of them, later. First, I must show here how I became the man they met.