"Sit down and finish your soup."
"Oh, hang the soup!" I said, resuming my seat. "Shall I sound the
gong? I have not told you my way yet, but I'm coming to it when the
man's gone." I sounded the gong, and the butler came in with the
next course.
There was no carving ever done at our table, so my father had only
to tranquilly continue eating while I talked. He had forced me into
the discussion, and now he should hear it to the end.
"Of course, if you do write the death of Tomkins like that you can
keep your scenes orthodox, or whatever word you have in view. But,
supposing my MS. is lying incomplete;--I have a conviction that I am
going to write of death, but the method of the man's death is at
present unknown to me, unthought of.--Then, some afternoon, I happen
to be sitting smoking, and just perhaps wondering whether I shall go
round to the club or not, when suddenly a scene, a death scene, the
scene I have been waiting for, comes rushing through my head. It
comes upon me with tremendous impetus; mechanically, almost
unconsciously, I take up a pen and write. Space opens before me and
I see a hospital ward. A blaze of light floods it. Rows of narrow
beds are there, and on one I see Tomkins--dying. I make my way to
him: now I am by his bed. I see him stretched beneath my eyes. I see
the pillow dark with the sweat of his death agony--the night-shirt
torn at his throat to get air.
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