Chapter THE FIRST: Which Introduces Our Hero

Beyond that the novel did not seem to have progressed.

With the dexterity of long-established usage Bobby made tea and produced plum-bread and butter. Meanwhile he kept a wary eye on Susan who had sat down by the waste-paper basket and was tearing up paper, and attended to the remarks and attitudes of his remarkable visitor.

Sargon already liked this young man enormously. It was extremely reassuring and encouraging to meet such kindly acceptance and understanding after the chill and doubt and ugliness of the previous hour’s experiences. And it was nice and refreshing to have tea. A sort of grey insecurity, a threat of suppression that had come over his mind, vanished in this genial atmosphere. The shrivelled incognito expanded. The hidden mystery beneath it grew rich and full once more. This young man--he seemed ready to believe anything. Sargon walked up and down with his hands behind his back as if in the profoundest meditation. He would have muttered a few phrases in Sumerian, but for some reason he had quite forgotten that forgotten tongue.

“And so you write books?” he said regally.

“Not books,” Bobby answered over his shoulder; he was now toasting a circle of plum-bread. “Not books _yet_. But--it _is_ ridiculous, isn’t it?--I am a bit of a poet and all that sort of thing, and a journalist of sorts. Just answers to correspondents--laborious, but a living.” He indicated the piles of letters on the deal table. “As for books--I have as a matter of fact _started_ a novel--it’s on that desk--but that’s only in the last few days. And it’s so difficult to get a lot of time to oneself to really let oneself go with it.”

“Inspiration,” said Sargon understandingly.

“Well, one must let oneself go a bit, I suppose; particularly at first. But there’s always something one must do cropping up to prevent it.”

“With me also.”

“No doubt.”

“That is why,” said Sargon, “I am withdrawing into this solitude. To collect my forces. In Sumeria it was always the practice, before any great undertaking, to go out into the wilderness for a certain tale of days.”

“If I go out into the wilderness I get so lonely in the evenings,” said Bobby. “_Ssh!_ That was the front door.”

He went out upon the staircase and stood listening.

“Mrs. Richman,” Sargon heard him call.

“S’me,” said a lady’s voice.

“Here’s a lodger for the second-floor front.”

“I bin to the pictures,” said the voice outside. “Mary and Doug--a fair treat.”

A corpulent lady in a black bonnet appeared breathing heavily. She panted a few obvious questions and Bobby hovered helpfully at Sargon’s elbow to prevent him making any mistakes. “He’ll pay in advance,” said Bobby.

“That’s awright,” said Mrs. Richman. “When will he move in?”

“He’s getting his luggage right away,” said Bobby.

“I suppose it’s all right,” said Mrs. Richman.

“I know his people. At least I know about them. I’ve been in his part of the country. You can be quite sure he’s all right,” said Bobby.

“Well, if _you_ say so,” said Mrs. Richman. “’Ope you’ll be comfortable, Mr.----”

“Mr. Sargon.”

“Mr. Sargon.”

And after a few rather vague comments on the weather Mrs. Richman withdrew. “And now,” said Bobby, “I’ll just unload Susan on her and come with you for that bag. It’s extraordinary how people lose their way in London at times.”

§ 7

“I’ve let the second-floor front to a lunatic,” said Bobby, breaking the news to his ground-floor friends, Mr. and Mrs. Malmesbury.

“Oh, _Bobby_! and with Susan about!” cried Mrs. Malmesbury reproachfully.

“But he’s a quite _harmless_ lunatic, Tessy--and he had to be taken in somewhere.”

“But a lunatic!” said Mrs. Malmesbury.

“I only said that for effect,” said Bobby. “He’s really morbidly sane. I wouldn’t have let him go for anything. Some day when I really get to work on that novel I’ll put him in. I _must_ have material, Tessy. And he’s wonderful.”

He was preparing supper for the Malmesburys and himself. He was frying some sausages and potatoes over a gas-ring. Previously Bobby had done most of the putting of Susan to bed, and he had sat and told her stories according to custom until she was fast asleep. Tessy Malmesbury was out of sorts; she had a neuralgic headache, Billy Malmesbury had taken her for a walk in Regent’s Park and she had come home exhausted; things would have gone to pieces badly if Bobby had not taken them in hand.

Tessy was never very well nowadays; she was a slight and fragile little thing and Susan had been a violent and aggressive child long before she was born. In the long-lost days before the war when Bobby had seen Tessy first she had been the lightest, daintiest, most perfect thing imaginable; he had compared her to a white petal drifting down through sunlight, and almost written a poem about her; he had loved her tremendously. But it had seemed to him impossible to make love to so exquisite a being, and Billy Malmesbury, who was less scrupulous, had slipped in front of him and married her; she had not appreciated the delicacy of not making love to her. And then came the war and wounds and here they all were again, fagged and near the thirties, in a world where their small annuities brought them far less than they had promised to do. Billy was the junior partner of an architect and much encumbered with drawing-boards. He was a large-framed young man with a big, round, good-looking, slightly astonished face, pleasantly dappled with freckles. He had a great protective affection for Bobby. He sat now and designed a new sort of labour-saving pantry and, with a sense of infinite protection, let Bobby get the meal.

“And now I can tell you,” said Bobby, when at last all three of them were sitting at table.

“It’s a little dear of a lunatic,” he said. “If it’s a lunatic at all.”

“I hope it isn’t,” said Tessy.

“He’s quite tidy in his person and he hangs together--mentally he hangs together--and his eyes aren’t in the least wild. A leetle too bright and open perhaps. But he _does_ think the world belongs to him.”

“Well, Susan does that,” said Billy.

“And so does Billy,” said Tessy.

“But not quite with the same air of magnificent responsibility. You see he thinks he’s a certain Mesopotamian monarch called Sargon--I’ve heard of him because we had a little dust-up with the Turks round and about his stamping ground--he thinks he’s this Sargon come again and come somehow--that bit’s a little difficult--into the empire of the whole earth. It was Sargon, you know, who started all these British Lions and Imperial Eagles in the world. And so he proposes to take possession of the planet, which is in such a frightful mess----”

“Hear, hear!” said Billy.

“And put it in order.”

“What more simple?” cried Tessy.

“Exactly. Why haven’t we _all_ thought of that?” said Billy.

“But where does he come from?” asked Tessy.

“Not a sign. He might be a suburban nurseryman or a small draper or something of that sort. I can’t place him. One or two phrases he used suggested a house-agent. But he may have picked them up from advertisements. And his first proceeding--perfectly rational--was to buy a map of the world. Naturally if you are going to rule the world, you ought to have a map of it handy.”

“Has he any money?”

“Enough to pay his way. He’s got a small note-case. That seems to be all right. After we’d got a bag for him--he hadn’t any luggage, and I thought he’d better buy a bag to satisfy Mrs. Richman--we sat down upstairs and had a simple straightforward talk about the world and what had to be done with it. Most instructive.”

Bobby helped himself to some more fried potatoes.

“And what _is_ going to be done with it?”

“Let me see,” said Bobby; “it’s quite an attractive little programme. Rather I think on the lines of the Labour programme. Only simpler and more thorough. The Distinction of Rich and Poor is to be Abolished Altogether. Women are to be Freed from all Disadvantages. There is to be No More War. He gets at the roots of things every time.”

“If those are the roots,” said Billy.

“But isn’t the real question how to do it?” asked Tessy, “Aren’t we all agreed about those things--in theory?”

“In theory, yes,” said Bobby. “But not in reality. If every one really wanted to abolish the difference of rich and poor it would be as easy as pie to find a way. There’s always a way to everything if you want to do it enough. But nobody really wants to do these things. Not as we want meals. All sorts of other things people want, but wanting to have no rich and poor any more isn’t real wanting; it is just a matter of pious sentiment. And so it is about war. We don’t want to be poor and we don’t want to be hurt or worried by war, but that’s not wanting to end those things. _He_ wants to end them.”

“But how’s he going to set about it?” said Billy.

“That is still a little vague. I think there is to be a sort of Proclamation. He’s thinking that out upstairs now. He seems to think that he has to call up some sort of disciples. Then I think he will go down to Westminster and take the Speaker’s place on the Woolsack or something of that sort. It _is_ the Speaker sits on the Woolsack, isn’t it? Or is it the Lord Chancellor? Anyhow, there are to be demonstrations--on a large and dignified scale. The people have forgotten the ancient simple laws, he says. He himself had forgotten them. But he has remembered them now; they have come back to him, and presently every one will remember them, all the great old things, justice, faith, obedience, mutual service. As it was in Ancient Sumeria. Dreamland Ancient Sumeria, you know. The dear old Golden Age. He has come to remind people of the true things in life--which every one has forgotten. And when he has reminded them every one will remember. And be good. And there you are, Tessy! I hope it will affect Susan--but I don’t feel at all sure. I have a sort of feeling that Susan could stash up any golden age they started in about five minutes, but then perhaps I’m a bit prejudiced about her.”

“It’s rather wonderful all the same,” said Billy.

“He _is_ rather wonderful. He sits up there and looks at you with his little round innocent face and tells you all these things. And, assuming he’s Lord of the World, they’re perfectly right and proper. He sits with the map of the world unrolled on the table. I ventured to suggest that he would require a lot of subordinate rulers and directors. ‘They will come,’ he said. ‘No office, no duty shall be done henceforth except by the Proper People. That has been neglected too long. Let every man do that he is best fitted to do. Then everything will be well.’”

“And when’s all this to begin?” asked Billy.

“Any time. I don’t think--” Bobby’s expression became profoundly judicial. “I don’t think he’ll do anything for a day or so. I pointed out to him that he ought to consider his demonstrations very carefully before he makes them, and he seemed inclined to agree. Some mistake, he says, has occurred already--I couldn’t find out what. Apparently to-morrow he is just going to look at London, quietly but firmly, from the Monument and from the Dome of Saint Paul’s. And also he wants to observe the manners of his subjects in the streets and railway stations, and wherever there is a concourse of people. The scales have fallen from his eyes, he explains, and now that he knows that he is Lord of the World he realizes how distressed and unsatisfactory everybody’s life is--even when they don’t know it’s unsatisfactory. His own life was terribly unsatisfactory he says, unreal and frustrated, until he awoke and realized the greatness of his destiny.”

“And what was that life of his?” asked Tessy.

“I tried to get that. And he caught the eager note in my voice I suppose, and shut up like an oyster. The draper’s shop perhaps. Or a milk-round. I wonder.”

“But, Bobby,” cried Billy in the expostulatory tone of one who remonstrates with wild unreason; “he must come from _somewhere_!”

“Exactly,” said Bobby. “And somewhere must be looking for him. But you can’t always hurry these things. And meanwhile I take it it’s our bounden duty to keep an eye on him and see that he doesn’t bump himself too hard or fall into the wrong hands.... Until some one comes along.... Don’t you get up, Tessy, you’re tired.”

And Bobby jumped to his feet and proceeded to change the plates and dishes while Billy fell into a profound meditation upon the problem of the new neighbour upstairs.

Presently he smiled and shook his head in kindly disapproval.

“This will suit Bobby all right,” he said to Tessy. “Whenever he ought to be upstairs in his own room getting on with that novel of his he will be up on the second floor talking to--what is it?--Sargon.”

“Accumulating material,” corrected Bobby from the Welsh dresser where he was turning a tin of peaches out into a glass dish. “Accumulating evidence.... Not even a spider could spin a yarn out of an empty stomach. Tessy, have you just simply _lost_ the cream or have you put it away in a new place very carefully for me to guess? Oh, right-o! I’ve got it.”

§ 8

Let us be frank about it; Sargon had his doubts.

Not always. There were times when his fantasy was bravely alive and carried him high above any shadow of uncertainty, and he was all that he could have ever wished to be. Then Mr. Preemby was almost forgotten. But there were moments, there were phases, when he became aware of a cold undertow of conviction that he was after all just Mr. Preemby, Mr. Preemby, formerly of the Limpid Stream Laundry, making believe, carrying it off and perhaps presently failing to carry it off. This chill flow of doubt could even oblige him to reason with himself, force him into a definite reassurance of himself. He would debate the whole question, candidly, fairly. Surely there was no deception, could have been no deception, about that séance. “Told me things no one but I could have known,” he would repeat. “I pin my faith to that.”

He knew that Christina Alberta had not really believed. It was just because of her revealing scepticism that he had fled from her. She had asked questions, tearing, rending questions, and she had said “Um.” It is not proper to say “Um” to world emperors. If presently he fasted or went into a trance, he felt sure that she would come and stand about beside him and say “Um,” and spoil everything. Well, anyhow, he was away from that for a bit. But to be away from doubt was not enough. The great discovery threatened to evaporate. He wanted the comfort of the disciple. He wanted help and reassurance.

Bobby had comforted him greatly. While Sargon had been going from one suspicious lodging-house keeper to another, the faith of the new Saviour of mankind had weakened dreadfully. But Bobby from the first had had something deferential in his manner, had seemed to understand. His questions had grown more and more intelligent. Perhaps he was to be the first of the reawakened adherents. Perhaps presently he would be recognizable as some faithful servant in that still so largely forgotten past, a trusted general perhaps or some intimate court official.

Yet even when Sargon doubted he believed. It is a very comprehensible paradox. He knew clearly that to be Sargon was to be real, was to signify and make all the world signify, was to go back into the past and reach right out into the future, was to escape altogether from the shrivelled insignificance of the Preemby life. To be Sargon was to achieve not only greatness but goodness. Sargon could give and Sargon could dare. Sargon could face lions and die for his people, but Preemby could go round three fields, had been known to go round three fields, to evade the hostility of a barking terrier. Preemby’s world was dust and dirt, a mud speck in infinite space, and there was no life on it but abjection. Preemby was death; Sargon was rebirth into a world of spacious things. Not very clearly did Sargon achieve these realizations, but he felt them throughout his being. Something had happened to him of inestimable value and truth; he had to cling to this gift and hold it and keep it or be for ever fallen. Christina Alberta notwithstanding, the whole world notwithstanding.

So he walked up and down his little upper room in Midgard Street and elaborated his conception of his new rôle as lord and protector of the whole world. Twilight gave place to night but he did not turn on the light. He liked the friendly darkness. All visible things are limiting things, but the darkness goes out and beyond everything to God. “I must look,” he said. “I must watch and observe. But not for too long. There is action. Action gives life. That fellow Preemby, poor soul, he could look at things, but dared he lift a finger? No! Everywhere suffering, everywhere injustice and disorder, the desert and the wilderness breaking back in on us and he did nothing. If one does not call and call aloud, how can one expect an answer? In this world, vast, terrible--strikes--hoardings--adulteration--profiteers.... Nevertheless men who once lived bravely and did their duty.... Who may do it again.... Once they hear the call. Awake! Remember! The High Path. Simple Honour. Sargon calls you.... H’rrmp....”

He came to a halt at his uncurtained window and looked out on the plain, flat face of the opposite houses, pierced here and there by a lit window. Most had the blinds drawn, but just opposite a woman worked by lamp-light at a table, sewing something, her needle hand flew out perpetually and the book and one hand and the cuff of a reader came also into the picture, the rest of him hidden behind the curtain. At a bedroom window there was a looking-glass, and a girl tried on a hat and looked at it this way and that; then suddenly she vanished, and after a little interval the light went out.

“All their scattered lives,” said Sargon, holding out his arms with a benevolent gesture, “knitted--drawn together by wisdom and love. A rudder put on the drifting world.”

Came a knock at the door. “Come in,” said Sargon.

Bobby appeared. “Getting on all right, sir?” he said in his engaging subaltern manner. He clicked on the electric light and came into the room. (Cadaverous and pleasant face he had; surely one would remember presently what he had been.) “Wondered if you were eating anything to-night?” he asked.

“I quite forgot eating,” said Sargon. “Quite. My mind--troubled by many grave matters. I have much to think of, much to plan. The hour grows late. The time is near. I wonder if the serving woman here----?”

“Only breakfasts,” said Bobby. “Here we are on bed and breakfast terms strictly. The rest is with ourselves. For an emergency like this there is nothing so good as the Rubicon Restaurant. The Grill Room keeps open quite late. They will do you a chop or a cutlet. Or ham and eggs. Very good ham and eggs--crisp ham. You go out from here, turn to the left at the second corner, and go right down Hampshire Street until you come to it. You’ll have no difficulty in finding it.”

The word “crisp” had settled it.

“I will avail myself,” said Sargon.

“And it’s equally easy to find your way back,” said Bobby with a faint flavour of anxiety in his voice.

“Have no fear, young man,” said Sargon in a tone of jolly reassurance. “Have no fear. I’ve found my way in many climes and under many conditions--the wild mountains--the trackless desert. Time and space.”

“Of course,” said Bobby. “I forgot that.

“Still--London is different,” said Bobby.

§ 9

The next day at about half-past four in the afternoon a small but heavily moustached figure, with eyes full of blue determination, emerged from Saint Paul’s Cathedral and stood at the top of the steps before the great doors, surveying the jostling traffic of Ludgate Hill and the Churchyard. There was a sort of valiant uncertainty in the figure’s pose, as though it was equally resolved to be up to something, and uncertain about what it meant to do. London had been looked at from the top of the Monument and from the Cathedral dome on a crystal-clear October day, and it had betrayed an unusual loveliness and greatness under the golden sunshine. But it had shown itself, too, as a vast dreamy multitudinousness in which none but those who are resolute and powerful in action can hope to escape being swallowed up. It had stretched away to wide sunlit stretches that seemed to be the horizon, and then up in the leaden-blue other stretches had been visible of houses, of shipping, of distant hills. The vans and carts in the shadowed streets below had looked like toys; the people were hats and hurrying legs and feet, curiously proportioned. And over all an immense dome of kindly cloud-flecked sky.

He had walked round the little gallery under the ball, muttering: “A wilderness. A city that has forgotten....

“How fair it might be. How great it might be!

“How fair and great it _shall_ be!”

And now he had come down again from these high places and the time had come for him to gather together his disciples and ministers and inaugurate the New World. He had to call them. Followers would not come to him unless he called them; they would wait for him to act, not know even of what awaited them until he called them, but when he called them they would surely come.

It was with an extraordinary sense of power over men’s destinies that he stood now upon Saint Paul’s steps and reflected that even now men and women might be passing by, among these busy men thronging the pavement, among the people in omnibuses, among the girls clattering away at their typewriters behind the upstairs windows, over whose busy, petty, undistinguished lives hung the challenge of his summons. Yonder perhaps was his Abu Bekr, his right-hand man, his Peter. Let them wait a little longer. He waved the traffic onward with a gesture of kindly encouragement. “Soon now,” he said, “very soon. Go on while ye may. Even now the sorting of the lots begins.”

Yet a moment more he stood still and silent, a statuette of destiny. “And now,” he whispered; “and now....

“And first----”

He was no longer troubled by his oblivion of the Sumerian tongue. In the night he had recovered the gift of tongues; he had muttered strange words in the darkness, and understood.

“H’rrmp,” he said, a word common to many tongues, clearing the way after five thousand years for the return of the forgotten sounds to a renewed use in the world of men. “Dadendo Fizzoggo Grandioso Magnificendodidodo--yes,” he whispered. “The Unveiling of the Countenance. The First Revelation. Then perhaps they will see.”

And slowly he descended the steps, his eyes searching the convergent frontages of the Churchyard for some intimations of a barber’s shop.