 Chapter 9, Part 2 of Widershins. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Fanny. Widershins by Oliver Onions. Hick Jaceit. A Tale of Artistic Conscience. 4. The first check I experienced in the hitherto so easy flow of the life came at the chapter that dealt with Andriovsky's attitude towards professionalism in art. He was inflexible on this point. There ought not to be professional artists. When it was pointed out that his position involved the premium upon the rich amateur, he merely replied that riches had nothing to do with the question, and that the starver in the garret was not excused for his poverty's sake from the observance of the implacable conditions. He spoke literally of the need to create, usually in the French term, and he was inclined to regard the imposition of this need on a man rather as a curse laid upon him than as a privilege and a pleasure. But I must not enlarge upon this further than to observe that this portion of his life which I was approaching coincided in point of time with that period of my own life at which I had been confronted with the alternative of starving for art's sake or becoming rich by supplying a clamorous trade demand. It came this check I have spoken of one night as I was in the very middle of a sentence. And though I have cajoled my brain since seeking how best I can describe it, I am reduced to the simple statement that it was as arresting as sharp, actual and impossible to resist as if my hand had been seized and pinned down in its passage across the paper. I can even see again the fragment of the sentence I had written and the mere contemplation of a betrayal so essential, then came that abrupt and remarkable stop. It was such an experience as I had formerly known only nightmare. I sat there looking blankly and stupidly at my own hand, and not only was my hand arrested, but my brain also had completely ceased to work. For the life of me, I could not recall the conclusion of the sentence I had planned a moment before. I looked at my hand and looked again, and as I looked, I remembered something I had been reading only a few days before, a profoundly unsettling description of an experiment in bottle suggestion. The experiment had consisted of the placing of a hand up on a table and the laying upon it the conjuration that the will not withstanding, it should not move. And as I watched my own hand, pale on the paper in the pearly light, I knew that by some consent to the nullification of the will that did not proceed from the self, I was accustomed to regard as my own, that injunction was already placed upon it. My conscious and deliberate will was powerless. I could only sit there and wait until whatever inhibition had arrested my writing hand but permitted to move forward again. It must have been several minutes before such a tingling of the nerves as announces that the blood is once more returning to a cramped member warned me that I was about to be released. Where really I awaited my moment. Then I plucked my hand to myself again with a suddenness that caused a little blot of ink to spurt from my fountain pen onto the surface of the paper. I drew a deep breath. I was free again. And with a freedom came a resolve that whatever portion of myself had been responsible for this prank should not repeat it if I could possibly prevent it. But scarcely had I come, as I may say, and not without the little gush of alarm now that it was over to myself when I was struck by a thought. It was a queer white sort of thought. It fetched me out of my chair and set me striding across a library to a lower shelf in the farthest corner. This shelf was the shelf on which I kept my letter files. I stooped and ran my fingers along the backs of the dusty row. I drew out the file for 1900 and brought it back to my writing table. My contracts I owed to say reposed in a deed box at my agent's office. But my files contained in the form of my agent's letters a sufficient record of my business transactions. I opened the file concertina-wise and turned to the section lettered R. I drew out the correspondence that related to the sale of the first series of the Martin-Renard's. As I did so, I glanced at the movable calendar on my table. The date was January 20th. The file contained no letters for January of any significance whatever. The thought that had half formed in my brain immediately became nonsense. I replaced the letters in their compartments and took the file back to its shelf again. For some minutes I paced the library resolutely. Then I decided I would work no more that night. When I gathered together my papers I was careful to place that with the half-finished sentence on the top so that with the first resting of my eyes upon it on the morrow my memory might happily be refreshed. I tried again to finish that sentence on the morrow. With certain modifications that I need not particularize here my experience was the same as on the previous night. It was the same when I made the attempt on the day after that. At ten o'clock of the night of the fourth day I completed the sentence without difficulty. I just sat down in my chair and wrote it. With equal ease I finished the chapter on professional artists. It was not likely that Scoffield would have refrained from telling much of our little difference on our last meeting. And within a week of the date I have just mentioned I learned that she knew all about it. And that the circumstances of my learning this were in a high degree unusual I will relate them with such clearness as I am able. I ought first to say, however, that the selection of the drawings that were to illustrate the book having been made, the drawings for which my own text was to serve as commentary would be the better expression, the superintendence of their production had been left to Scoffield. Mashka and I passed the proofs in consultation. The blocks were almost ready. And the reason for they call that evening was to consider the possibility of having all ready for production in the early spring. A possibility which was contingent on the state of advancement of my own share of the book. That evening I had experienced my second check. I omitted those that had immediately succeeded the first one as resembling that one so closely in the manner they're coming. It had not come by any means so completely and definitely as a former one but it had sufficed to make my progress both mentally and mechanically so sluggish and struggling a performance that for the time being I had given up the attempt and was once more regarding with a sort of perturbed stupor in my hand that held the pen. Andriovsky's portrait stood in its usual place on the chair at the end of my writing table but I had eyes for nothing but that refractory hand of mine. Now it is true that during the past weeks I had studied Andriovsky's portrait thoroughly enough to be able to call up the vivid mental image of it at will but that did not entirely account for the changed aspect with which it now presented itself to that uncomprehended sense within us that makes of these shadows such startling realities. Flushing and lifelike as was the presentation on the canvas mind you I was not looking at it but all the time at my own hand it was dead paint by comparison with that mental image which I saw if I may so use a term of which custom has restricted the meaning to one kind of seeing as plainly as I ever saw Andriovsky in his life. I know now that it was by virtue of that essential essence that bound us heart and brain and soul together that I so saw him, eyes glittering, head sardonically wagging fine mouth shaping phrases of insight and irony. And the strange thing was that I could not have located this soul living image by confining it to any portion of the space within the four walls of my library. It was before me, behind me, within my head, about me, was me invading and possessing the me that sat at the table. At one moment the eyes mockingly invited me to go on with my work the next a frown had seated itself on that massive pylon of his forehead and then suddenly his continents changed entirely. A wave of horror broke over me. He was suddenly as I had seen him that last time in the hamstered home sitting up on his pillow, looking into my eyes with that terrible look of profanity and familiarity and asking me who I was. Harrison, ha ha, you shall very soon know that I know you if. It is back by the accidents of our limited experience that sounds are loud or soft to that inner ear of us. These words were at one and the same time a dreadful thunder and a voice interstellarly inaccessible and withdrawn. They too were before, behind, without and within and incorporated, I know not how else to express it, with these words were other words in the English I knew in the Hebrew in which he had quoted them from the sacred books of his people in no language say that essential communication of which languages are but the inessential husk and medium. Words that told me that though I took the wings of the morning and fled into the uttermost parts of the earth, yeah, though I made my bed in hell, I could not escape him. He had kept his word. I did know that he knew who and what I was. I cannot tell whether my lips actually shaped the question that even in that moment burst from me, but form informs it is then true that all things are bad aspects of one thing. Yes, in death, the voice seemed to reply. My next words I know were actually spoken aloud. Then tell me, tell me, do you not wish me to write it? Suddenly I leapt out of my chair with a gulping cry. A voice had spoken. Of course we wish you to write it. For an instant of time my vision seemed to fold on itself like smoke. Then it was gone. The face into which I was wildly staring was moshkas and behind her stood Scofield. They had been announced, but I had heard nothing of it. Were you thinking of not writing it? She demanded well Scofield scowled at me. No, no, I stammered as I got up and tardily placed them chairs. Scofield did not speak, but she did not remove his eyes from me. Somehow I could not meet them. Well, she said, Jack had already told me that you seemed in two minds about it. That's what we've called about to know definitely what it is you propose to do. I saw that she had had also called it necessary to quarrel. I began to recover a little. Did you tell her that I demanded of Scofield? If you did, you misinterpreted me. In my house he ignored the fact that I was in the room. He replied to moshka. I understood Mr. Harrison to say definitely and in those words that if I didn't like the way in which she was writing Michael's life I might write and publish one myself, he said. I did say that I admitted, but I never said that whatever you did I should not go on with mine. Yours cried moshka. What right have you in my brother's life? I quickly told her. I have the right to write my recollections of him and subject to certain provisions of the law to base anything on them I think fit, I replied. But she cried aghast. There can't be two lives. It's news to me that two were contemplated I returned. The point is that I can get mine published and you can't. Scofield's harsh voice sounded suddenly but again to moshka not to me. You might remind Mr. Harrison that others have capabilities in business besides himself. Beyond a doubt our sales will be comparatively small but they'll be to such as have not made the great refusal. Think of it I almost laughed. All been trying it I inquired. He made no reply. Well those who have made the refusal have at least had something to refuse I said mildly. Then realizing that this was mere quarreling I returned to the point. Anyhow there's no question of refusing to write the life. I admit that during the last fortnight I've met with certain difficulties but the task isn't so easy as perhaps it looks. I'm making progress. I suppose she said hesitatingly after a pause that you don't care to show it as far as it is written. For a moment I also hesitated. I thought I saw where she was. Next to that Lancashire Jackanabes there was division between us and I had pretty well made up my mind not only that she thought himself quite capable of writing Andropovsky's life himself but that he had actually made an attempt in that direction. They had come in the suspicion that I was throwing them over and though that suspicion was removed Moshka wished if there was any throwing over to be done to do it herself. In a word she wanted to compare me with Schofield. To see that as far as it is written I repeated slowly well you may, that is you Michael's sister may but on the conditions that you neither show it to anybody else nor speak of it to anybody else. Oh she said and only on those conditions, only on those conditions. I saw a quick glance between them. Shall we tell him it seemed to say including the man Michael's sister is going to marry she said abruptly. My attitude was deeply apologetic but including anybody whom so ever I answered. Then she said rising we won't bother but will you at least let us know soon when we may expect your text? I will let you know I replied slowly one week from today. On that assurance they left and when they had gone I crossed once more to the lower shelf that contained my letter files. I turned up the file for 1900 once more during the visit I had had an idea. I ran through the letters and then replaced them. Yes I ought to be able to let them know within the week. Five Against the day when I myself shall come to die there are in the pigeonholes of the newspaper libraries certain biographical records that deal roughly with the outward facts of my life. And these supplemented by documents I shall place in the hands of my executors will tell the story of how I eloped at a bound into wealth and fame with a publication of the cases of Martin Renard. I will sit down as much of that story as has its bearing on my present tale. Martin Renard was not immediately accepted by the first editor to whom it was offered. It does not suffice that in order to be popular a thing shall be merely good or bad. It must be bad or good in a particular way. For taking the responsibility when they happen to miss that particular way editors are paid their salaries when they happen to hit it they grow fat on circulation money. Since it becomes me ill to quarrel with a way in which any man earns his money I content myself with merely stating the fact. By the time the fourth editor had refused my series I was about at my last gasp to write the things at all I had had to sink four months in time and debts, reeds and pawn shops were my familiars. I was little better off than Andrew Opsky at his very worst. I had read the first of the Martin Renards to him by the way. The gigantic outburst of mirth with which he had received it had not encouraged me to read him a second. I wrote the others in secret. I wrote the things in the spring and summer of 1900 and by the last day of September I was confident that I had at last sold them except by a flagrant breach of faith the editor in whose desk the repose could hardly decline them as it subsequently happened I have now nothing but gratitude for him that he did after all decline them for I had a duplicate copy on offer in another quarter. He declined them I say and I was free to possess my soul again among my reeds, debts and pawn shops. But four days later I received the alternative offer it was from the falchion the falchion as you may remember has since run no less than five complete series of Martin Renards. It bought both sides that is to say both British and American serial rights. Of the 12 Martin Renards I had written my wise agent had offered the falchion six only. On his advice I accepted the offer. Instantaneously with the publication of those six stories came my success. In two continents I was home home in the hearts of the public. I had my small check it was not much more than a hundred pounds but wait said my agent let's see what we can do with the other six. Precisely what he did with them only he and I know but I don't mind my saying that three thousand pounds did not buy my first serial rights then came second and third rights and after them the book rights British American and colonial that came the translation rights. In French my creation is of course as in English Martin Renard. In German he is Martin Fuchs and by a similar process you can put him my translators have put him into Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian and three-fourths of the tongues of Europe. And this was the first series only. It was only with the second series that the full splendor of my success appeared. My very imitators grew rich. My agent's income from his comparatively small percentage on my royalties was handsome and he chuckled and made me wait for the dramatic rights and the day when the touring companies should get to business. I had got there and I remember sadly enough now my first resolution when the day came when I was able to survey the situation with anything approaching calm. It was enough for the rest of my days I need not no poverty again. Then forward I need not unless I chose do any but worthy work. Martin Renard had set his purpose handsomely and I intended to have nothing more to do with him. Then came that dazzling offer for the second series. I accepted it. I accepted the third likewise and I have told you about the fourth. I have tried to kill Martin Renard. He was killing me. I have in the pages of the fortune actually killed him but I have had to resuscitate him. I cannot escape from him. I am not setting down one word more of this than bears directly on my tale of Andriovsky's life. For those days when my whole future had hung in the balance were the very days covered by that portion of Andriovsky's life at which I had now arrived. I had reached and was hesitating at our point of divergence. Those checks and releases which I had at first found so unaccountable corresponded with the vicissitudes of the Martin Renard negotiations. The actual dates did not of course coincide. I had quickly discovered the falsity of that scent. Neither did the intervals between them with the exception of those few days in which I had been unable to complete that half written sentence the few days immediately prior to my parallel acceptance by the fortune. But by that other reckoning of time of mental and spiritual experience they tell it exactly. The gambling chances of five years ago meant present stumblings and holdings. The breach of faith of an editor long since meant a present respite and another week should bring me to that point of my so strangely redeplicated experience that allowing for the furious mental rate at which I was now living would make another note with that other point in the more slowly lived past that had marked my acceptance of the offer for the second half dozen of the Martin Renard's. It had been on this hazardous calculation that I had made my promise to Mashka. I passed that week in a state of constantly increasing apprehension. True, I worked at the life, even assiduously but it was plain sailing, mere cataloguing of certain Vanderovsky's works a chapter I had deliberately planned to enhance the value of the penultimate and final chapters. These were the real crux of the life. These were what I was reserving myself for. These were to show that only his body was dead and that his spirit still lived and his work was still being done wherever a man could be found whose soul burned within him with the same divine ardour. But I was now realizing day by day, hour by hour, more clearly what I was incurring. I was paying nothing less than my own artistic domination. Self-contempt indeed, I had been this long time but I was now making the world a party to the sentence that crowning of Vanderovsky involved my own annihilation. His life would be my hic chasted and yet I was prepared, nay, resolved to write it. I had started and I would go forward. I would not be spewed with a lukewarm out of the mouth of that spirit from which proceeds all that is bright and pure and true. The vehemence with which I had rejected its divine bidding should at least be correspondent with my adoration of it. The sniveling claims of the scoffals I spurned. If as they urged an artist must leave, he must leave royally or stab with a tight mouth. No complaining. And one other claim I urged in the teeth of this spirit which if it was a human spirit at all it could not disregard. Those pitch and hold obituaries of mine will proclaim to the world one and all the virtues of my public life. In spite of my royal earnings I am not a rich man. I have accepted wealth without accepting the personal responsibility for it. Sick men and women in more than one hospital lie in words provided by Martin Renard and myself. And I am not dishonored in my institution at Poplar. Those vagrant wanderings with Andriovsky have enabled me to know the poor and those who help the poor. My personal labors in the administration of the institute are great. For outside of my military routine I leave little to subordinate. I have declined honors offered to me for my services to literature and I have never encouraged the youth of parts or lacking them to make of literature a profession and so on and so forth. All this and more you will read when the day comes and I don't doubt the fortune will publish my memoir and morning Borders. But to resume I have finished the chapter I have mentioned. Moshka and Hefienzi kept punctiliously away. Then, before sitting down to the penultimate chapter I permitted myself the relaxation of a day in the country. I can't tell you precisely where I went. I only know it was somewhere in the Buckingham share and that ordering the car to await me a dozen miles farther on I set out to walk. Nor can I tell you what I saw during that walk. I don't think I saw anything. There was a red wintry disc of a sun I remember and a land gray with rhyme. And that is all. I was entirely occupied with the attempt I was about to make. I think that even then I had the sense of doom, for I know not how otherwise I should have found myself several times making little husbandings of my force as if conscious that I should need it all, for I was determined as never in my life have I been determined to write that life. And I intended not to wait to be challenged, but to challenge. I met the car returning in search of me and I dined at a restaurant, went home to bed and slept dreamlessly. On the morrow I deliberately refrained from work until the evening. My challenge to Andriovsky as he represented should be boldly delivered at the very gates of their own hour. Not until half past eight with a curtain strong, the doors locked and orders given that on no account whatever was I to be disturbed did I switch on the pearly light, place Andriovsky's porter in its own accustomed place and draw my chair up to my writing table. 6. But before I could resume the life at the point at which I had left it I felt that there were certain preliminaries to be settled. It was not that I wished to sound apparently with any view of coming to terms. I had determined what the terms were to be as a boxer who leaps from his corner the moment the signal is given astounding with suddenness his less prompt antagonist so I should be ready when the moment came. But I wished the issue to be defined I did not propose to submit the whole of my manhood to the trial. I was merely a setting my right to speak of certain things which if one chose to exaggerate the importance by a too narrow and exclusive consideration of them I might conceivably be thought to have betrayed. I drew a sheet of paper towards me and formally made out my claim. It occupied not more than a dozen lines and its nature has already been sufficiently indicated. I put my pen down again linked back in my chair and waited. I waited but nothing happened. It seemed that if this was my attempt to justify myself the plea was certainly not disallowed. But neither had I any sign that it was allowed and presently it occurred to me that possibly I had couched it in terms too general. Perhaps a more particular claim would meet with a different reception. During the earlier stages of the book's progress I had many times deliberated on the desirability of a preface that should state succinctly what I considered to be my qualifications for the task. Though I had finally decided against any such statement the form of the preface might nevertheless serve for the present occasion. I took another sheet of paper headed it preface and began once more to write. I covered the page. I covered a second and halfway down the third I judged my statement to be sufficient. Again I laid down my pen, linked back and waited. The preface also produced no result whatsoever. Again I considered and then I saw more clearly. It came to me that both in the first statement and in the preface I was merely talking to myself. I was convincing myself and losing both time and strength in doing so. The power with which I sought to come to grips was treating my vaporings with hideous regard. To be snapped thus by headquarters would never, never do. Then I saw more clearly still. It seemed that my right to challenge was denied. I was not an adversary with the rights and honors of an adversary. But a transgressor whose transgression had already several times been sharply visited and would be visited once more the moment it was repeated. I might in a sense please myself whether I brought myself into court. But once there I was not the arena in the box but the arena in the dock. And I rebelled totally. Did I sit there ready for the struggle only to be told that there could be no struggle? Did that vengeful angel of the arts ignore my very existence? By ye and me I swore that he should take notice of me. Once before immortal had wrestled the whole night with an angel and though he had been worsted it had not been before he had compared the angel to reveal himself. And so would I. Challenge, title to challenge, tentatives, preliminaries I suddenly cast them all aside. We would have it indeed not in further words. I opened the drawer, took out the whole of the life so far written and began to read. I wanted to grasp once more the plan of it in its entirety. Page after page I read on with deepening attention. Quickly I ran through half of it. Then I began to concentrate myself still more closely. There would come a point at which I would flush with the stream of it again. Again feel the force of its current. I felt myself drawn nearer to that point. When I should reach it I would go ahead without a pause. I read to the end of Chapter 15 the last completed chapter. Then instantly I took my pen and wrote Chapter 16 I felt the change at the very first word. I will not reverse any ground I have covered before. If I have not already made clear my former sensations of the petrification of hand and brain I despair of being able to do so any better now. Suffice it that once more I felt that inhibition and that once more I was aware of the ubiquitous presence of the image of the dead artist. Once more I heard those voices nearer as thunder and yet interstellarly remote crying that solemn warning that though I took of the morning made my bed in hell or cried aloud upon the darkness to cover me there was one spirit from which I could not hope to escape. I felt the slight crawling of my flesh and my bones as I listened but there was now a difference on the former occasion to hear again those last horrible words of his you shall very soon know I know who you are if had been the signal for the total unnerving of me and for that uncontrollable cry don't you then want me to ride it but now I intended to ride it if I could in order that I may tell him so I was now seeking him out in what height or depth I knew not at what peril to myself I cared not I cared not since I now felt that I could not continue to live unless I pressed to the utter most attempt and I must repeat and repeat again and yet repeat that that our Andriovsky was imminent about me in the whole of me in the last vibrant cell of me in all my thoughts from my consciousness that I was sitting there at my own writing table to my conception of God himself it may seem strange whether it does so or not will depend on the kind of man you yourself are that as long as I was content to recognize this imminence of Andriovsky's enlarged and liberated spirit and not to dispute with it I found nothing but mildness and benignity in my hazardous experience more I felt that in that clear region to which in my intensified state of consciousness I was lifted I was able to move I must trust you to understand the word arrived without restraint nay with an amplitude and freedom of movement past sitting down as long as I was satisfied to possess my soul essence the state itself was inimical neither to my safety nor to my sanity I was conscious of it as a transposition into another register of the scale of life and as in this life we move in ignorance and safety only by accepting the hair balance of stupendous forces so now I felt that my safety depended on my observation of the conditions that govern that region of light and clarity and law of clarity and law saving the terms of the great abstractions I may not speak of it and that is well nigh equal to saying that I may not speak of it at all the hand that would have written of it lay I never for one moment cease to be conscious heavy a stone on a writing table in some spot quite accidental in my new sense of locality the tongue that would have spoken of it seemed to slumber half and I knew that both dumbness and stillness were proper their opposites would have convicted me the flat and death the comparison must be allowed of intrusion into some place of beauty and serenity for which the soilier of my birth disqualified me for beauty and serenity austerity and benignity and peace were the conditions of that place to other places belonged the wingy and robed and starry golden things that made the heavens of other lives and that which I had shared with Andriovsky here white and shapely truth alone reigned none questioned for all new none seen for seen was already judged and punished in its committal none demonstrated for all things were evident and those eager to justify themselves were permitted no farther than the threshold and it was to justify to challenge to maintain a right that I was there I was there to wrestle if needs be with the angel of that place to vanquish him or to compare him to reveal himself I had not been summoned I had thrust myself there unbeaten there was a moment in which I noticed that my writing table was a little more than ordinarily removed from me but very little not more than if I had been looking over the shoulder of another writer at it and I saw my chapter heading at the site of it something of the egotism that had prompted me to write had stood in me again everywhere was Andriovsky's calm face priest and the angel himself and I became conscious that I was trying to write the phrase I also became conscious that I was being pitifully warned not to do so suddenly my whole being was flooded with a frightful pang of pain it was not local it was no more to be located than the other immanences of which I have spoken it was pain pure essential dissociated and with the coming of it that fair place had grown suddenly horrible and black and I knew that the shock came of my own resistance and that it would cease to afflict me the moment I ceased to resist I did cease instantly the pain passed but as with the knife is plucked from a wound so only with it's passing did I shriek aloud for I know not how many minutes I said in stupefaction then as with earthly pains that I aged with the passing of accidental time the memory of it softened a little blunderingly and only half consciously I cast about to my dispersed force for already I was conscious of it there still remained one claim that even in thought I had not advanced I would where I permitted still write that life but since it was decreed so I would no longer urge that in writing it I justified myself so I might bad write it I would embrace my own portion the portion of doom yeah though it should be a pressing of the searing iron to my lips I would embrace it my name should not appear for the mere sake of the man I had loved I would write it in self-score and abasement humbly craving to be denied oh let me but do for love of you what a sinful man can I grunt a moment later I had against driven to do so so do we all when we think that out of a poor human love we can alter the laws by which our state exists and with such a hideous anguish as was again mine are revisited and I knew now what that anguish was it was a twining of body from spirit that is called the bitterness of death for not all of the body are the pangs of that severance with that terrible sword of impersonal pain the god of peace makes sorrowful war that peace may come again with its flame he reached the bastions of heaven when Satan made assault only on the gorgon image of that pain in the shield may weak man look and its blaze and dial had permeated with deadly nearness the everywhere where I was oh not for love not even for love broke the agonized question from me the next moment I had ceased and ceased forever to resist instantaneously the terrible flashing of that sword became no more than the play of lightning one sees far away in the wild cloud fields on the peaceful summer's twilight I felt the gentle and overpowering sleep coming over me and as it folded me about I saw the last look of my eyes my own figure busily writing at the table had I then prevailed had pain so purged to me that I was permitted to finish my task and had my tortured cry not even for love being heard I did not know I came to myself to find that my head had fallen on my desk the light still shone within its pearly shade and in the pen number of its shadow the portrait of Andriovsky occupied its custom place about me where my papers and my pen lay where it had fallen from my hand at first I did not look at my papers I merely saw that the upper most of them was written on but presently I took a tap and looked at it stupidly then with no memory at all of how I had come to write what was upon it I put it down again it was indeed a completion but it was not of Andriovsky's life that it was the completion as you may or may not know Andriovsky's life is written by his friend John Scoffield I had been allowed to write but it was my own condemnation that in sadness and obedience in the absence of wrath but also in the absence of mercy I had written by the law I had broken I was broken in my turn it was a draft of the fifth series of the cases of Martin Renard not for love not even for love end of chapter 9 part 2 recording by Fanny Thessaloniki-Griss End of Withershins by Oliver Onions