LI
Dodsonpromised bravely, recklessly, despairingly that the next time he entered the little room he would bring the first printed sheets of the book. For the poet’s insistence that each line must undergo a rigorous scrutiny before it was given to the world was reiterated again and again that evening with an imperiousness that, in one formerly so gentle and timid, astonished its witness beyond measure.
“Luney, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson in a rather bewildered manner after several of these austere reminders, “I am not accustomed to move in royal circles, I have never been spoken to by a king, but if ever I was, old boy, I should expect him to speak to me just like that. You make me feel, old boy, that I have no right to call you Luney any longer—it seems almost like an act of presumption—you make me feel, old boy, that I ought to address you as ‘my lord,’ or as ‘sire’.”
The poet laughed a strange, rarefied note of laughter.
“Ah, dear Jimmy,” he said, “in the presence of the faithful we will not insist on our royalty too much.”
Dodson could frame no reply. Such words appeared to transcend those bounds indicated by human intelligence which the speaker had seemed to overstep so many times already. But, to the amazement of the beholder, the white-haired old man, who all this time had sat at the table with his eyes pressed devoutly to the Book of the Ages, rose at these words of the dying poet, and with a grave deliberation sank upon his knees before him who was blind.
“My liege,” said the old man humbly, “I would not have you consider your servants to be insensible of your quality if they do not address you in thefashion which it would seem to demand. Sire, your servants do not esteem your royalty to be the less because they do not wear its livery upon their lips.”
Smiling his secret and beautiful smile, the dying poet extended his right hand, so white, so fragile, and so transparent towards the aged man, his father, with the sweet air of a great prince, and the old man, still kneeling, bore it to his lips.
Ever smiling in the same manner, the dying poet then extended the fragile hand again, this time towards the astonished Jimmy Dodson, whose every faculty seemed to be atrophied by so strange a situation.
“We would have thee also make obeisance, faithful servant,” said the poet gently. “It is not for this insignificant flesh that we seek thy homage; it is not to appease an unworthy pride, which too often devours princes, that we would crave thy vassalage. Rather it is that we would have all who are gentle and simple offer their devotion to that which alone makes the life of man comprehensible, of which this broken clay is the too frail custodian.”
With a shamefaced trepidation, which only recently he had been taught to feel, James Dodson sank to his knees before his dying friend, and, in the fashion of the white-haired old man, he bore the fragile hand to his lips. He then rose, and, without venturing to give a look to either of the occupants of the little room, he made a headlong flight through the shop into the all-enfolding, ever-welcome darkness of the streets.