Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (154 page)

The
Past Revisited

From
Many Inventions,
copyright
1893,
by
Rudyard
Kipling; re« printed by
permission of Doubleday & Company, Inc., Macmillaq & Co. Ltd., and Mrs.
George Bambridge.

"The Finest Story in the World"

By RUDYARD
KIPLING

"Or
ever
the
knightly
years
were
gone With
the
old
world
to
the
grave, I
was
a
king
in
Babylon And
you
were
a
Christian
slave."

—W.
E.
Henley

His
name
was
charlie
mears;
he
was
the
only
son
of
his
mother
who
was
a
widow,
and
he
lived
in
the
north
of
London,
coming
into the
City
every
day
to
work
in
a
bank.
He
was
twenty
years
old
and suffered
from
aspirations.
I
met
him
in
a
public
billiard-saloon
where the
marker
called
him
by
his
given
name,
and
he
called
the
marker "Bullseyes."
Charlie
explained,
a
little
nervously,
that
he
had
only come
to
the
place
to
look
on,
and
since
looking
on
at
games
of
skill is
not
a
cheap
amusement
for
the
young,
I
suggested
that
Charlie should
go
back
to
his
mother.

That
was
our
first
step
toward
better
acquaintance.
He
would
call on
me
sometimes
in
the
evenings
instead
of
running
about
London with
his
fellow-clerks;
and
before
long,
speaking
of
himself
as
a
young man
must,
he
told
me
of
his
aspirations,
which
were
all
literary.
He desired
to
make
himself
an
undying
name
chiefly
through
verse, though
he
was
not
above
sending
stories
of
love
and
death
to
the
drop-a-penny-in-the-slot
journals.
It
was
my
fate
to
sit
still
while Charlie
read
me
poems
of
many
hundred
lines,
and
bulky
fragments of
plays
that
would
surely
shake
the
world.
My
reward
was
his
un
reserved confidence, and the self-revelations and troubles of a young
man are almost as holy as those of a maiden. Charlie had never fallen in love,
but was anxious to do so on the first opportunity; he believed in all things
good and all things honorable, but, at the same time, was curiously careful to
let me see that he knew his way about the world as befitted a bank clerk on
twenty-five shillings a week. He rhymed "dove" with "love"
and "moon" with "June," and devoutly believed that they had
never so been rhymed before. The long lame gaps in his plays he filled up with
hasty words of apology and description and swept on, seeing all that he
intended to do so clearly that he esteemed it already done, and turned to me
for applause.

I fancy that his mother did not encourage his aspirations, and I know
that his writing-table at home was the edge of his washstand. This he told me
almost at the outset of our acquaintance; when he was ravaging my bookshelves,
and a little before I was implored to speak the truth as to his chances of
"writing something really great, you know." Maybe I encouraged him
too much, for, one night, he called on me, his eyes flaming with excitement,
and said breathlessly:

"Do you mind—can you let me stay here
and write all this evening? I won't interrupt you, I won't really. There's no
place for me to write in at my mother's."

"What's the trouble?" I said, knowing well what that trouble
was.

"I've a notion in my head that would
make the most splendid story that was ever written. Do let me write it out
here. It's such a notion!"

There was no resisting the appeal. I set him
a table; he hardly thanked me, but plunged into the work at once. For half an
hour the pen scratched without stopping. Then Charlie sighed and tugged his
hair. The scratching grew slower, there were more erasures, and at last ceased.
The finest story in the world would not come forth.

"It looks such awful rot now," he said, mournfully. "And
yet it seemed so good when I was thinking about it. What's wrong?"

I could not dishearten him by saying the
truth. So I answered: "Perhaps you don't feel in the mood for
writing."

"Yes I do—except when I look at this stuff. Ugh!"

"Read me what you've done," I said.

He read, and it was wondrous bad, and he
paused at all the specially turgid sentences, expecting a little approval; for
he was proud of those sentences, as I knew he would be.

"It
needs
compression,"
I
suggested,
cautiously.

"I
hate
cutting
my
things
down.
I
don't
think
you
could
alter
a word
here
without
spoiling
the
sense.
It
reads
better
aloud
than
when
I
was
writing
it."

"Charlie,
you're
suffering
from
an
alarming
disease
afflicting
a
numerous
class.
Put
the
thing
by,
and
tackle
it
again
in
a
week."

"I
want
to
do
it
at
once.
What
do
you
think
of
it?"

"How
can
I
judge
from
a
half-written
tale?
Tell
me
the
story
as
it lies
in
your
head."

Charlie
told,
and
in
the
telling
there
was
everything
that
his
ignorance
had
so
carefully
prevented
from
escaping
into
the
written
word. I
looked
at
him,
wondering
whether
it
were
possible
that
he
did not
know
the
originality,
the
power
of
the
notion
that
had
come
in his
way.
It
was
distinctly
a
Notion
among
notions.
Men
had
been puffed
up
with
pride
by
notions
not
a
tithe
as
excellent
and
practicable.
But
Charlie
babbled
on
serenely,
interrupting
the
current
of pure
fancy
with
samples
of
horrible
sentences
that
he
purposed
to use.
I
heard
him
out
to
the
end.
It
would
be
folly
to
allow
his
idea
to remain
in
his
own
inept
hands,
when
I
could
do
so
much
with
it.
Not all
that
could
be
done
indeed;
but,
oh
so
much!