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He laid the book down and made the pages stay open, cleared a working surface on the second of the modeling tables—the first one still held models for the dome—and opened the vat by the tableside, scooped out large handfuls of wet clay, flung them onto the surface, lidded the vat and straightened, his hands already at it. He should stop, should change to his working garments—there was already clay on his black clothes—but the vision was there, now. He worked, feverish in his application, blinded by what he saw it should become if he could only get it in time.
It became. He watched it happen and loathed what he was creating, but it went on becoming, a face, features contracted as if it stared into something unapprehended, a force, which itself radiated and got nothing back. There was despair within it; there was—hate. It was citizen Harfeld’s look, and his sister Perrin’s; it was that of Leona Pace, that hunger which never filled itself, which stared at lost things and never-had things and ached and got nothing back.
XXI
Waden Jenks: You’ve taught me something.
Master Law: What, I?
Waden Jenks. That duration itself is worth the risk; and that’s my choice as well, Artist.
He stopped, when his shoulders had stiffened and his arms ached from the extension and his hands hurt from working the clay. He looked at it; he had not the strength to work to completion at one sitting. That would take days and months to do as he had done the other, but the concept wanted out of him, refusing patience, promising months of effort if he lacked the stamina to go on now, in hours, to finish what vision he had. It sat rough and half-born, the essence of it there. He touched the wet clay, brushed at it tentatively and finally surrendered, dropped his hand and folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them and slept where he sat, fitfully, until he gained the strength to walk over and fall into the unmade bed—to waken finally with hands and arms painfully dry and caked thick with clay, to open his eyes and stare across the room at the creature on the table as if it were some new lover that had come into the room last night and stayed for morning. He had feared it was a dream which might fade out of reach; but it was there, and demanded, unfinished as it was, an attention he presently could not give it.
He washed, stiff-muscled and shivering in the unheated studio; dressed, because he had not taken all his clothes away to the Residency, against some time that he would want this place. He paused time and time again to stare at what he had done in the fit of last night, and it no more let him go than before, except that he had spent all his vision and was drained for the time. He knew better than to lay hands on it now, when nothing would come out true, when his hands and his eye would betray him and warp what he remembered. The vision was retreated into the distance and hands alone could not produce it or impatience force it. It was waiting. It would come back and gather force and break out in him again when he had rested. He had only to think about it and wait.
Never—he was sure—never exactly as it had been last night; those impulses, once faded, could not be recovered. He mourned over that, and paused in his intention to go downstairs to breakfast, just to look toward that disturbing face.
He laughed then at his own doubt. It had more in it than the work he had just finished, more of potential. It could be greater than what was in Jenks Square. It could become ... far greater. He suffered another impulse to work on it, which was not an impulse he ought to follow. After breakfast; after rest; then.
People approached the door; classes were starting, he reckoned. It was daybreak; maybe someone was starting early.
The door opened. It was Waden.
“Well,” Herrin said, because Waden’s visits to University were normally limited to the dining hall. Outsiders were with him. Evidently that was going to be a permanent attachment. “ Iwas headed downstairs.”
“You’ve been working.” Waden walked to the table, touched the clay, walked around it. Frowned and touched it again. “That’s what you’re doing next.”
“It’s far from finished.”
“McWilliams. He’s not like that. He’s a narrow, narrow man. You make him a god.”
“I’ve only borrowed his features. It’s not McWilliams; just the shell of him.”
“This is good.”
“Of course it is.”
“Did you have this in mind all along?”
“Started it last night.... Do you have a point, Waden? Come down to breakfast with me.”
“I don’t want you to do any more statues.”
Herrin stood still and looked at him. “Am I to take you seriously?”
“Absolutely.”
“First Citizen, you’re given to bizarre humor, but this—whatever it demonstrates—is not for discussion at breakfast.”
“It has rational explanation, Herrin. I’m sure you even understand it.”
He thought about it. The best thing to do, he thought, was to walk out the door on the spot and give Waden’s absurdity the treatment it deserved; but the doorway was occupied: invisibles stood there, Waden’s escort, large men with foreign weapons. And he did see them and Waden knew that he saw them.
“You were useful,” Waden said, “in creating what you did. Art’s the more valuable while it’s unique. If you go on creating such things, you’ll eventually overshadow it. I’m telling you ... there’ll not be another. You’ve created something unique. Protect it,you said; time is your enemy,you said; and I believe you, Herrin.”
He was cold inside and out. It was very difficult to relax and laugh, but he did so. “I recall what your art is; but do you fancy years of Keye alone? You need me more than ever, First Citizen. Look at your allies and imagine dialogue with them.”
“I know,” Waden said. “I agree with you on all of that. I don’t want to lose you. You’ve accomplished a great deal. You’re a powerful force; you’ve swallowed up Kierkegaard itself; you have people doing strange things and Kierkegaard will never be the same. But, Herrin, you’ve done as much as I want you to do. As much as I wantyou to do. Enjoy everything you have. Bask in your success. Knowthat you’ve warped a great many things about your influence, and that you’ll have your duration. Look, they’ll say for ages to come, lookat the work of Herrin Law; he only made one, and laid down his tools and stopped, because it was a masterwork, and it was perfect. Quit while your reputation is whole. Stop at this apex of your career, and you’ll challenge ages to come with what you’ve done; you’ll have accomplished everything you ever said you wanted. Paint, if it suits you. Painting’s not the same kind of art; your sketches are brilliant. Be rich. Teach others. Continue here as a Master. Do anything in the world you like. You want comfort—have it. You want influence—I’ll give you control of the whole University. Just don’t do another sculpture.”
“At your asking.”
“I ask this,” Waden said quietly, “I pleadwith you—which I have never done with anyone and never shall again.”
“Meaning that you’re threatened; meaning that my art has to give way to yours, and you mean I should admit that.”
“Mine is the more important, Herrin. My art guides and governs, but yours is Dionysian and dangerous. It provokes emotion; it gathers irrational responses about it; it touches and it moves, like energy itself. While your energy serves me I use it, but you’ve done enough. It’s time to stop, Herrin, because if you go further you put yourself in conflict with me. You threaten order. And you threaten other things. I asked you to lend me duration; and now I have to be sure you don’t lend it to anyone else. Like that—” He gestured toward the sculpture. “That, a man hunted by agencies friendly to us—”