41

Nothing Goes On Forever

There was something that Madge had never been able to understand, or Minot Roberts, either, or any people like them. When Jeffrey had tried to explain it to them, they would listen and say that of course they understood, but he always knew that they did not. After all, it was difficult to explain to anyone the vagaries of literary creation, and “creation” was a pompous, inaccurate name for it. He did not mean to offer his work as an excuse for eccentricity or laziness. He did not like to think that he was different from other people when he was writing. He did not want to ask for special consideration, he only wanted to explain why he was more vague at such times than he was ordinarily and why he was less patient with detail and why he seemed oblivious to the ordinary facts of life. You were living in two worlds when you were writing. You were trying, very unsuccessfully, to be omnipotent in the region of the imagination. You had delusions not so very unlike those of some man in an asylum who thought he was Napoleon Bonaparte. The main difference was that you never possessed the inmate’s sublime conviction. If you had any modesty at all—a very bad thing for a writer—you lived in a little hell of your own uncertainty. Without any help, and out of thin air, you were obliged to create an imaginary world and to people it with what were known as “Characters.” Jeffrey had often explained to Madge that you had to live two lives at once at such a time, to exist with ordinary people and at the same time to adjust yourself to the people of your imagination. They were with you all the time and you could not get away from them. They were there when you were talking to someone else. They were there when you read the newspaper or paid the bills, or went out to dinner. Madge always said that she understood, but there was no reason why she should have. He had often tried to tell her that this process was not agreeable. He simply wanted her to see why he was not good company in the weeks when he was working and why he sometimes did not seem interested in what was going on and why he liked to sit alone, doing nothing, when she thought he should be working. The thing had some of the elements of a nervous malady, except that you knew you would get over it eventually.

When he was there in California working on that play, he had those same distractions. He could remember the sun and the sea. He could remember Marianna, but it was all like something in the pages of the script. He had that old urge to get on with it, because he knew that there was always a moment at the end, very transient, but a moment of complete relief when everything was finished.

He wrote most of that play in Marianna’s living room on a card table, but it might have been anywhere at all because the present was away, somewhere, just behind him. When it was finished, he knew the present would all come back—Madge and Jim and Marianna, everything would come back. It was like going to the dentist and taking gas. There was that same lapse into unconsciousness and all at once you were there again.

When Jeffrey finished the play it was very late in the evening and Marianna was reading. She had said she liked to be there when he was working and she did not disturb him. When he pulled the last sheet from the typewriter the sound was so loud that he was markedly aware of it. He could see the bridge lamp above the table and he could see Marianna with her book. He felt very tired, as he always did at such a time. There was the usual moment of pause and then he knew that he could think of something else—of anything. He would not have to sit in front of that typewriter any longer, he would not have to worry about it any longer, because the thing was finished.

“Well,” he said, “that’s that.”

Marianna put down her book.

“You mean you’re through for the night?” Marianna asked. “You should be—you look tired.”

“No,” he said, “I mean it’s finished.”

He was very glad that she was there, because she understood that sort of thing.

“The last part went very fast,” she said.

“Yes,” he answered, “as soon as I got hold of the beginning.”

You had to have the beginning right, and the end would fit almost inevitably.

“It’s queer,” he said, “isn’t it? No matter how much you’ve worked on these things, you can’t be sure; but I think the first act is right.”

That sense of relief was leaving him already. He was going over the first act again in his mind.

“I can tell you,” Marianna said.

“Yes,” he answered, “I know you can,” and the knowledge made him feel doubtful. “That’s why I’ve waited, so that I could read it all to you. You’ll know whether it’s lousy or not, you’ll know better than anyone else.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

“You’ll know,” he said. “We’ll both know, and I want you to tell me the truth. Promise to tell me the truth.”

“It’s going to be all right, Jeff,” she said, “of course it’s going to be.”

“Will you tell me the truth?” he asked her.

“I can’t do that,” she said, “because I’ll think it’s good, whether it is or not.” And then she smiled at him, and he smiled back.

“Anyway,” he said, “I’ll know.”

He looked at the pages on the table and picked them up and gathered them together.

“You see, I’ve got to know,” he said. “If it isn’t any good, I’ll know I can’t write a play. That’s something.”

“Jeff,” she said, “everyone feels just the way you do—everyone. It’s the reaction.”

“Maybe it’s too late,” he said. “Maybe I’ve done too much else too long.”

“Jeff,” she said, “Jeff, don’t say that.”

“It’s what I told you,” he said. “It’s like doing something that I should have quite a while ago. No matter what happens, I can’t thank you enough for it. You know that.”

“No matter what happens?” she repeated.

“I don’t mean that exactly,” he answered. And he repeated what he had said before. “It’s like doing something that I should have done and there’s been so much else.”

There had been so much else without her—so many years, so many other people, so much of life, and the words seemed to stand between them. She must have known what he meant because suddenly there was a queer sort of suspense. It would have been better—he was always sure of it later—if he had spoken of it definitely.

“Jeff,” she said.

“What?” he asked her.

“Do you want to read it now?”

“No,” he said, “not now. Tomorrow morning.”

He could tell himself that he was tired, but his anxiety to put it off came from something much deeper.

“Suppose,” he said, “that we just think I’ve read it and that we both know it’s good. Let’s forget it. Let’s think of it that way until tomorrow.”

He could hear the waves on the beach. It was still all right to think of it that way because he had not read the play aloud and he could tell nothing about it himself until he had. He could still live for a little while in that world with Marianna which was so far away from everything and believe that it might be possible to stay in it, but he did not have much time.…