FullReads

Then a delightful thing happened to me. I was but a young fellow trying to get a foothold in literature, who had never been out of his own country, and who spoke no tongue but his own; he was a man of the world, a traveller over the globe and speaking five languages.

“If you’re not going out,” he said, that same night, “come and have a smoke with me.” This in his heartiest manner, laying his hand on my shoulder as he spoke. “You’ll find me in my room. I’ve some books that may interest you, and we can continue our talk by my coal-fire. Come with me now.”

We had had no special talk–none that I could remember. I recalled that I had asked him an irrelevant question after the flash had vanished, and that he had answered me in return–but no talk followed.

“I never invite any one up here,” he began when we reached his room; “the place is so small” Here he closed the door, drew up the only armchair in the room and placed me in it–“but it is large enough for a place to crawl into and sleep–much larger, I can tell you, than I have had in many other parts of the world. I can write here, too, without interruption. What else do we want, really?–To be warm, to be fed and then to have some congenial spirits about us! I am quite happy, I assure you, with all those dear, good people downstairs. They are so kind, and they are so human, and they are all honest, each in his way, which is always refreshing to me. Most people, you know, are not honest.” And he looked me over curiously.

I made no answer except to nod my assent. My eyes were wandering over the room in the endeavor to find something to confirm my suspicions–over the two trunks with their labels; over a desk littered, piled, crammed with papers; over the mantel, on which was spread a row of photographs, among them the portrait of a distinguished-looking woman with a child resting in her lap, and next to it that of a man in uniform.

“Yes–some of my friends across the sea.” I had not asked him–he had read my mind. “This one you did not see–I keep it behind the others–three of them, like a little pair of steps–all I have left. The oldest is named Olga, and that little one in the middle, with the cap on her head–that is Pauline.”

“Your children?”

“Yes.”

“Where are they?”

“Oh, many thousand miles from here! But we won’t talk about it. They are well and happy. And this one”–here he took down the photograph of the man in full uniform–“is the Grand Duke Vladimir. Yes, a soldierly-looking man–none of the others are like him. But come now, tell me of yourself–you have some one at home, too?”

I nodded my head and mentioned my mother and the others at home.

“No sweetheart yet? No?–You needn’t answer–we all have sweethearts at your age–at mine it is all over. But why did you leave her? It is so hard to do that. Ah, yes, I see–to make your bread. And how do you do it?”

“I write.”

He lowered his brows and looked at me under his lids.

“What sort of writing? Books? What is called a novel?”

“No–not yet. I work on special articles for the newspapers, and now and then I get a short story or an essay into one of the magazines.”

He was replacing the pictures as I talked, his back to me. He turned suddenly and again sought my eye.

“Don’t waste your time on essays or statistics. You will not succeed as a machine. You have imagination, which is a real gift. You also dream, which is another way of saying that you can invent. If you can add construction to your invention, you will come quite close to what they call genius. I saw all this in your face to-night; that is why I wanted to talk to you. So many young men go astray for want of a word dropped into their minds at the right time. As for me, all I know is statistics, and so I will never be a genius.” And a light laugh broke from his lips. “Worse luck, too. I must exchange them for money. Look at this–I have been all day correcting the proofs.”