as always aware
of his power. Knew that he had only to rise to assume gigantic stature.
And then, just because he was very stiff, and the pain of stiffness and
stretching made him uncouth, he grew angry. He resented his captivity,
chafed at his being limited like that, did not understand how it had
come about. It had come about through love, through sheer sheltering
love. She had placed a crystal cup above him to keep him safe, and he
had sat safe beneath it all these years, fearing to stir, because she
liked him so.

"It came to a choice at last: his life of happiness with her or his
work. Poor fool, to have made the choice at that late day! So he broke
his wine-glass, and his heart and her heart, too, and came away. And
then he found that he could not work, after all. Years of sitting still
had done it.

"At first he tried to recover himself by going over again the paths of
his youth, a garret in London, a studio off Montparnasse, shabby,
hungry; all no use. He was done for, futile. Done himself in for no
purpose, for he had lost her, too. For, you see, he planned, when he
left her to come back shortly, crowned anew; to come back in triumph,
for she was all his life. Nothing else mattered. He just wanted to lay
something at her feet in exchange for all she had given him. Said he
would. So they parted, heart-broken, crushed, neither one understanding.
But he promised to come back with his laurels.

"That parting was long ago. He could not regain himself. After his
failure along the paths of his youth, his garrets and studios, he tried
to recover his genius by visiting again all the parts of the world he
had visited with her. Only this time, humbly. Standing on the outside of
palaces and embassies, recollecting the times when he had been a guest
within. Rubbing shoulders with the crowd outside, shabby, poor, a
derelict. Seeking always to recover that lost thing.

"And he was getting so impatient to rejoin her. Longing for her always.
Coming to see that she meant more to him than all the world beside.
Eating his heart out, craving her. Longing to return, to reseat himself
under his bell. Only now he was no longer gilded. He must gild himself
anew, just as she had found him. Then he could go back.

"But it could not be done. He could not work. Somewhere in the world, he
told me, was a spot where he could work, ... Where there were no
memories. Somewhere in the seven seas lay the place. He would know it
when he saw i