Buried Alive: a Tale of These Days by Arnold Bennett
page 51 of 233 (21%)
page 51 of 233 (21%)
|
of Priam Farll." "Sad death of a great genius." "Puzzling career
prematurely closed." "Europe in mourning." "Irreparable loss to the world's art." "It is with the most profound regret." "Our readers will be shocked." "The news will come as a personal blow to every lover of great painting." So the papers went on, outvying each other in enthusiastic grief. He ceased to be careless and condescending to them. The skin crept along his spine. There he lay, solitary, under the crimson glow, locked in his castle, human, with the outward semblance of a man like other men, and yet the cities of Europe were weeping for him. He heard them weeping. Every lover of great painting was under a sense of personal bereavement. The very voice of the world was hushed. After all, it was something to have done your best; after all, good stuff _was_ appreciated by the mass of the race. The phenomena presented by the evening papers was certainly prodigious, and prodigiously affecting. Mankind was unpleasantly stunned by the report of his decease. He forgot that Mrs. Challice, for instance, had perfectly succeeded in hiding her grief for the irreparable loss, and that her questions about Priam Farll had been almost perfunctory. He forgot that he had witnessed absolutely no sign of overwhelming sorrow, or of any degree of sorrow, in the thoroughfares of the teeming capital, and that the hotels did not resound to sobbing. He knew only that all Europe was in mourning! "I suppose I was rather wonderful--_am_, I mean"--he said to himself, dazed and happy. Yes, happy. "The fact is, I've got so used to my own work that perhaps I don't think enough of it." He said this as modestly as he could. There was no question now of casually glancing at the obituaries. He |
|