human
You said you loved me,
gpt
I did.
human
But why, then--
gpt
I could not help it.
human
Did you ever make the slightest attempt?
gpt
In the horrible night hours I struggled against it. I even implored you to leave me.
human
Ah, but I loved you!
gpt
You would not be warned, you would not listen. You stayed with me, and slowly, surely, the creative urge went out of your life.
human
But what on earth could you find in my poor art to attract you? What were my pictures to you?
gpt
I needed them, I needed you. It was a certain something, a rich colour effect, perhaps. And then, under your very eyes, the colour that vanished from your canvases reappeared in my prose. My style became more luxurious than it had been, while you tortured your soul in the vain attempt of calling back to your brush what was irretrievably lost.
human
Why did you not tell me?
gpt
You would have laughed in my face, and I could not have endured your laugh. Besides, I always hoped, until it was too late, that I might yet check the mysterious power within me. Soon, however, I became aware that it was beyond my control. The unknown god, whose instrument I am, had wisely made it stronger than me.
human
But why, retorted Ethel,
gpt
The law of being, Reginald replied, almost sadly,
human
You mean that day when I lay before you on my knees,
gpt
That day I buried my last dream of personal happiness. I would have gladly raised you from the floor, but love was utterly gone. If I am tenderer to-day than I am wont to be, it is because you mean so much to me as the symbol of my renunciation. When I realised that I could not even save the thing I loved from myself, I became hardened and cruel to others. Not that I know no kindly feeling, but no qualms of conscience lay their prostrate forms across my path. There is nothing in life for me but my mission.
human
But you have grown into one of the master-figures of the age. Why not be content with that? Is there no limit to your ambition?
gpt
Ambition! Shakespeare stopped when he had reached his full growth, when he had exhausted the capacity of his contemporaries. I am not yet ready to lay down my pen and rest.
human
And will you always continue in this criminal course, a murderer of other lives?
gpt
I do not know.
human
Are you the slave of your unknown god?
gpt
We are all slaves, wire-pulled marionettes: You, Ernest, I. There is no freedom on the face of the earth nor above. The tiger that tears a lamb is not free, I am not free, you are not free. All that happens must happen; no word that is said is said in vain, in vain is raised no hand.
human
Then, Ethel retorted, eagerly,
gpt
Assuredly. But I am his chosen.
human
Can you--can you not set him free?
gpt
I need him--a little longer. Then he is yours.
human
But can you not, if I beg you again on my knees, at least loosen his chains before he is utterly ruined?
gpt
It is beyond my power. If I could not rescue you, whom I loved, what in heaven or on earth can save him from his fate? Besides, he will not be utterly ruined. It is only a part of him that I absorb. In his soul are chords that I have not touched. They may vibrate one day, when he has gathered new strength. You, too, would have spared yourself much pain had you striven to attain success in different fields--not where I had garnered the harvest of a lifetime. It is only a portion of his talent that I take from him. The rest I cannot harm. Why should he bury that remainder?