Chapter IV

In the morning Will awoke with a strange sense of something. This feeling of something is not uncommon with young gentlemen who go to bed about three. He got up and dressed. A cup of tea made him remember but imperfectly what had happened. "I must have had too much whisky," he murmured. "I saw myself--actually myself--hard at work." Here his eyes fell upon the table. There were the books--books on Political Economy--with a note-book and every indication of work. More; he knew, he remembered, the contents of these books. He sat down bewildered. Then it seemed as if there was a struggle within him as of two who strove for mastery. "Work!" cried one. "I won't," said the other. "You shall." "I won't." A most ignoble quarrel, yet it pulled him this way and that towards the table or back in the long easy chair. Finally the struggle ended: he fell back; he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the room was cleared of the breakfast things, and he saw himself sitting at the table hard at work.

"Good gracious!" he cried, springing to his feet. "Is what I remember of last night real? Not a dream!"

"Not a dream at all. I will no longer have my career blasted at the outset by your confounded laziness. I think you understand me perfectly. I am clear of you whenever I please. I join you when I please."

"Oh! And have I the same power?"

"You? Certainly not. You are only the Half that won't work. You have got no power at all."

"Oh! Well--I shall not stand that."

"You can't help yourself. I am the Intellectual Principle; mine is the Will: mine is the clear head and the authority."

"What am I, then?"

"You? I don't know. You are me--yourself--without the Intellectual Principle. That is what you are. I must define you by negatives. You cannot argue, or reason, or create, or invent: you remember like an animal from assistance: you behave nicely because you have been trained: you are--in short--you are the Animal Part."

"Oh!" He was angry: he did not know what to reply: he was humiliated.

"Don't fall into a rage. Go away and amuse yourself. You can do anything you please. Come back, however, in time for Hall."

The Animal Part obeyed. He went out leaving the other Part over his books. He spent the morning with other men as industriously disposed as himself. He found a strange lightness of spirits. There was no remonstrating voice within him reproaching him for his laziness, urging him to get up and go to work. Not at all; that voice was silent; he was left quite undisturbed. He talked with these men over tobacco; he played billiards with them; he lay in a chair and looked at a novel. He had luncheon and beer, and more tobacco. He went down the river in the college boat; he had an hour or two of whist before Hall. Then he returned to his room.

His other Half looked up, surprised.

"Already? The day has flown."

"One moment," said Will, "before we go in. You're a serious sort, you know, and I'm one of the--the lighter ornaments of the College, and I sit among them. It would be awkward breaking off all at once. Besides----"

"I understand. Continue to sit with them for awhile, and talk as much idiotic stuff as you please. Presently you will find that a change of companions and of conversation has become necessary."

Nobody noticed any change; the two in one sat at table and ate like one; they talked like one; they talked frivolously, telling stories like one. After Hall they went back to their chambers.

"You can leave me," said the student. "I shall rest for an hour or so. Then I shall go on again."

This very remarkable arrangement went on undisturbed for some time. No one suspected it. No one discovered it. It became quite natural for Challice to go out of his room in the morning and to leave himself at work; it became natural to go down to Hall at seven with a mingled recollection of work and amusements. The reproaching voice was silent, the Animal Part was left at peace, and the Intellectual Part went on reading at peace.

One evening, however, going across the court at midnight, Will met the tutor.

"Challice," he said, "is it wise to burn the candle at both ends? Come--you told me this morning that you were working hard. What do you call this? You cannot serve two masters."

"It is quite true," said the Reading Half on being questioned. "I have foreseen this difficulty for some time. I called on the tutor this morning, and I told him of my intention to work. He laughed aloud. I insisted. Then he pointed out the absurdity of pretending to work while one was idling about all day. This is awkward."

"What do you propose then?"

"I propose that you stay indoors all the morning until two o'clock, locked in."

"What? And look on while you are mugging?"

"Exactly. You may read French novels: you may go to sleep. You must be quiet. Only, you must be here--all the morning. In the afternoon you may do what you please. I may quite trust you to avoid any effort of the brain. Oh! And you will avoid anything stronger than tea before Hall. No more beer for lunch. It makes me heavy."

"No more beer? But this is tyranny."

"No. It is ambition. In the evening you may go out and play cards. I shall stay here."

They went to bed. It seemed to Will as if the other Part of him--the Intellectual Part--ordered him to go to sleep without further thought.

This curious life of separation and of partial union continued, in fact, for the whole of the undergraduate time. Gradually, however, a great change came over the lazy Half--the Animal Half. It--he--perceived that the whole of his reasoning powers had become absorbed by the Intellectual Half. He became really incapable of reasoning. He could not follow out a thought; he had no thoughts. This made him seem dull, because even the most indolent person likes to think that he has some powers of argument. This moiety of Challice had none. He became quite dull; his old wit deserted him; he was heavy; he drifted gradually out of the society which he had formerly frequented; he perceived that his old friends not only found him dull, but regarded him as a traitor. He had become, they believed, that contemptible person, the man who reads. He was no longer a dweller in the Castle of Indolence; he had gone over to the other side.

Life became very dull indeed to this Half. He got into the habit of lying on a sofa, watching the other Half who sat at the table tearing the heart out of books. He admired the energy of that Half; for himself, he could do nothing; if he read at all it was a novel of the lowest kind; he even bought the penny novelette and read that with interest; if he came to a passage which contained a thought or a reflection he passed it over. He had ceased to think; he no longer even troubled himself about losing the power of thought.

Another thing came upon him; not suddenly, but gradually, so that he was not alarmed at it. He began to care no longer about the games of which he had formerly been so fond. Billiards, racquets, cards, all require, you see, a certain amount of reasoning, of quick intelligence and rapid action. This unfortunate young man had no rapidity of intelligence left. He was too stupid to play games. He became too stupid even to row.

He ceased to be a dreamer; all his dreams were gone; he ceased to make music at the piano; he ceased to sing; he could neither play nor sing: these things gave him no pleasure. He ceased, in short, to take interest in anything, cared for nothing, and hoped for nothing.

In Hall the two in one sat now with the reading set. Their talk was all of books and "subjects," and so forth. The Intellectual Half held his own with the rest: nay, he became a person to be considered. It was remarked, however, that any who met Challice out walking found him stupid and dull beyond belief. This was put down to preoccupation. The man was full of his work; he was meditating, they said, his brain was working all the while; he was making up for lost time.

In the evening the lazy Half sat in an easy chair and took tobacco, while the other Half worked. At eleven the Industrious Half disappeared. Then the Whole went to bed.

They seldom spoke except when Industry had some more orders to give. It was no longer advice, or suggestion, or a wish, or a prayer: it was an order. Indolence was a servant. "You took more wine than is good for me at dinner to-day," said Industry. "Restrict yourself to a pint of claret, and that of the lightest, for the future." Or, "You are not taking exercise enough. If you have no longer brain power enough even for the sliding seat, walk--walk fast--go out to the top of the Gogs and back again. I want all my energies." Once Indolence caught a cold: it was a month before the May examinations. The wrath and reproaches of Industry, compelled to give up a whole day to nursing that cold, were very hard to bear. Yet Indolence could not resist; he could not even remonstrate; he was now a mere slave.

When the examinations came it was necessary to observe precautions of a severer kind. To begin with, Indolence had to get up at six and go for an hour's run, for the better bracing of the nerves; he had to stay hidden indoors all day, while his ambitious twin sat in the Hall, flooring papers. He had to give up tobacco in order to keep the other Half's head clear. "Courage," said Intellect, "a day or two more and you shall plunge again into the sensuality of your pipe and your beer. Heavens! When I look at you, and think of what I was becoming!"

Industry got a scholarship; Intellect got a University medal; Ambition received the congratulations of the tutor.

"How long," asked the Animal, "is this kind of thing going to continue?"

"How long? Do you suppose," replied the other Half, "that I have given up my ambition? Remember what you said two years ago. You were younger then. You would sweep the board; you would row in the University boat; you would play in the Eleven; you would be a Leader--in all, all! You would then take up with something--you knew not what--and you would step to the front. You remember?"

"A dream--a dream. I was younger then."

"No longer a dream. It is a settled purpose. Hear me. I am going to be a statesman. I shall play the highest game of all. I shall go into the House. I shall rise--slowly at first, but steadily."

"And I?"

"You are a log tied to my heel, but you shall be an obedient log. If you were not--"

Indolence shivered and crouched. "Am I then--all my life--to be your servant?"

"Your life? No--my life." The two glared at each other. "Silence, Log. Let me work."

"I shall not be silent," cried Indolence, roused to momentary self-assertion. "I have no enjoyment left in life. You have taken all--all--"

"You have left what you loved best of all--your sloth. Lie down--and take your rest. Why, you do nothing all day. A stalled ox is not more lazy. You eat and drink and take exercise and sleep. What more, for such as you, has life to give? You are now an animal. My half has absorbed all the intellectual part of you. Lie down, I say--lie down, and let me work."

The Animal could not lie down. He was restless. He walked about the room. He was discontented. He was jealous. The other Half, he saw plainly, was getting the better share of things. That Half was admired and envied. By accident, as he paced the room, he looked in the glass; and he started, for his face had grown heavy: there was a bovine look about the cheeks: the eyes were dull: the mouth full. Then the other Half rose and stood beside him. Together they looked at their own faces. "Ha!" cried Ambition, well satisfied at the contrast. "It works already. Mine is the face intended for me: yours is the face into which this degenerate mould might sink. Mine contains the soul; yours--the animal. You have got what you wanted, Sloth. Your dreams are gone from you. I have got them, though, and I am turning them into action. As time goes on, your face will become more bovine, your eyes duller. What will be the end?" His brow darkened. "I don't know. We are like the Siamese twins."

"One of them took to drink," murmured the inferior Half. "What if I were to follow his example?"

"You will not. You do not dare?" But his blanched face showed his terror at the very thought.