nd so unseasonably in June, sheathed his ample chest.
This waistcoat wasn't wrong merely because of the heat, either. It was
somehow all wrong in itself. It wouldn't have done on Christmas morning.
It would have struck a jarring note at the first night of 'Hernani.'
I was trying to account for its wrongness when Soames suddenly and
strangely broke silence. 'A hundred years hence!' he murmured, as in a
trance.

'We shall not be here!' I briskly but fatuously added.

'We shall not be here. No,' he droned, 'but the Museum will still be
just where it is. And the reading-room, just where it is. And people
will be able to go and read there.' He inhaled sharply, and a spasm as
of actual pain contorted his features.

I wondered what train of thought poor Soames had been following. He did
not enlighten me when he said, after a long pause, 'You think I haven't
minded.'

'Minded what, Soames?'

'Neglect. Failure.'

'FAILURE?' I said heartily. 'Failure?' I repeated vaguely.
'Neglect--yes, perhaps; but that's quite another matter. Of course you
haven't been--appreciated. But what then? Any artist who--who gives--'
What I wanted to say was, 'Any artist who gives truly new and great
things to the world has always to wait long for recognition'; but the
flattery would not out: in the face of his misery, a misery so genuine
and so unmasked, my lips would not say the words.

And then--he said them for me. I flushed. 'That's what you were going to
say, isn't it?' he asked.

'How did you know?'

'It's what you said to me three years ago, when "Fungoids" was
published.' I flushed the more. I need not have done so at all, for
'It's the only important thing I ever heard you say,' he continued.
'And I've never forgotten it. It's a true thing. It's a horrible truth.
But--d'you remember what I answered? I said "I don't care a sou for
recognition." And you believed me. You've gone on believing I'm above
that sort of thing. You're shallow. What should YOU know of the feelings
of a man like me? You imagine that a great artist's faith in himself and
in the verdict of posterity is enough to keep him happy.... You've never
guessed at the bitterness and loneliness, the'--his voice broke; but
presently he resumed, speaking with a force that I had never known in
him. 'Posterity! What use is it to ME? A dead man doesn't know that
people are visiting his grave--visiting his birthplace--putting up
tablets to him--unveiling statues of him. A dead