Mendes

“ Now you are afraid.”
“Mendez not ’fraid! white man lie!” the warrior thundered as he laid his hand on his knife.
“I am not afraid of you, Mendez, but you have been too good a friend of the white people for any of them to wish to harm you. But I repeat your own words. Shall I tell you what is the matter with you?”
“No matter wi’ Mendez! He brave—he strong—he fight.”
“There is much the matter with you; you have been drinking tiswin; you are not yourself; but for the tiswin you would be the true, brave, noble Mendez.” ”

“ Jehoram.
"I'm afraid you're rash," said Mrs. Mendham. "Geniuses and people of that kind are all very well in London. But here—at the Vicarage."
"We are going to educate the folks. I love originality. At any rate I mean to see him."
"Take care you don't see too much of him," said Mrs. Mendham. "I've heard the fashion is quite changing. I understand that some of the very best people have decided that genius is not to be encouraged any more. ”

“ Not lightly do men let their occupation go; small, then, would be our wonder, did we find the established prophet unconvinced. Yet, is it from misgiving that Mendel had the truth, or merely from indifference, that no naturalist of repute, save Professor Weldon, has risen against him? ”

“ Unless some people love knowledge for its own sake, quite independently of its possible uses, the new discoveries will only concern the working out of ideas inherited from disinterested investigators. Mendelism is now studied by hosts of agriculturists and stock-breeders, but Mendel was a monk who spent his leisure enjoying his peas-blossoms. A million years of practical agriculturists would never have discovered Mendelism. ”

“ She herself had a love of flowers and of moonlight and the stars shining through the smoky sky, and she would sometimes find herself being urged to the use of strange words, which would make Mendel raise his head and cock his ears as though he were listening to the very beat of her heart. ”

“ Mendel waited outside and paced up and down, oppressed with the idea that his friendship with Mitchell was at an end. He was left helpless and exposed, for all that had been built on the friendship had come toppling down, and with it came the extra personality he had developed for dealing with the Detmold and the polite world—the Kühler who had assiduously learned manners and phrases, vices and enthusiasms, as a part to be played at the Paris Café and in the drawing-rooms of the languid ladies who were interested in art and artists. ”

“ It makes me sick to think of all the dabbling in paint that goes on, not to speak of all the dabbling in love. Love? The word has become foolish and empty. I don’t wish to hear it uttered ever again. . . . I swear that if it doesn’t come out in paint I shall write poetry. Oh! I can feel the marrow in my bones again, and my veins are full of sap. . . . But I want to talk business.”
“Business?” said Mendel, who had been upset and bewildered by this outburst.
“Yes. I want you to approve my programme, [Pg 222] for you must have a programme. It is all very well to work by the light of inspiration. ”

“ In Mendel, too, this desire for God became active and kindled his creative will. He plunged into his work with a frenzy, but soon recognized that he was committing the old offence and was “overseen.” . . . Yet how shall a man approach his God if not through art?
“Something is lacking!” cried Mendel desperately. “Something is lacking!”
His imagination flew back to that last sublime moment of friendship with Logan, but it lacked warmth. It seemed that he could not take it back into life with him, or that until he had established contact with life its force could not be kindled. ”

“ There are several ways of reaching this little-known corner of France, but the best is undoubtedly by way of Mende, a fine town 157 434 miles south of Paris, "chief place" of the Department of the Lozère. Mende, although one of the cleanest and brightest of the French towns, with a population of less than 10,000, and pleasantly situated in a wide green valley, with low and sparsely-timbered hills billowing on every side under a sky so blue and in atmosphere so clear that the eye seems to acquire an unusual power of vision, would scarcely be worth the journey for itself alone. ”

“ It was a hard and tedious task and progress was necessarily slow, but Mendel possessed two great essentials to progress, indomitable perseverance and an active intellect, and his teacher displayed the painstaking care and patience with which love for his pupil inspired him. ”

“ MR. TILNEY TYSOE LOGAN with Oliver was more startling and exhilarating than before. He was filled with a ferocious energy, and his programme was distended with it.
He said to Mendel:—
“She’s an inspiration. I have found what I was seeking. You have given me the inspiration of art. Through you I shall reach the heights of the spirit. She has given me the inspiration of life, and through her I shall plumb the very depths of humanity. She is marvellous. All the exasperation of modern life is in her, all the impatient brooding on the threshold of new marvels. ”

“ Recha felt the truth of her husband's words and dried her eyes.
"I look into the year just begun with great hopes," continued Mendel. "Among our own people the greatest harmony prevails. The sorrows we have suffered in common have served to knit our souls more closely together, and the little quarrels and petty jealousies that formerly agitated our community have ceased. ”

“ The Angel smiled faintly at his note of anger and his sudden attitude of determination—arms tightly folded.
"I am rather new to the world," the Angel began.
"Nineteen at least," said Mendham. "Old enough to know better. That's a poor excuse."
"May I ask one question first?" said the Angel.
"Well?"
"Do you think I am a Man—like yourself? As the chequered man did."
"If you are not a man⸻"
"One other question. Have you never heard of an Angel?"
"I warn you not to try that story upon me," said Mendham, now back at his familiar crescendo.
The Vicar interrupted: "But Mendham—he has wings!" ”

“ It's only God you must think about when you're davenning, no?
"He finished when it was already day in his hut. His beard—it was a small beard, only a young man's beard—was grey, like the snow in Angel Street. He did his accounts so well, did Mendel, the Red One—they always called him the Red One, even after that night, and strangers wondered why Red One—so well, that the merchant he worked for increased his wages by a rouble a month soon after. Oh, a Russia it was! What say you?" ”

“ He had thrown off the spell of the horrible stuff, as a Roman warrior might fling off his cloak to give his limbs freer play.
“Mendez is brave: he is a great warrior; he is greater than Geronimo or Cochise; he is not afraid of them; he will bring back the child to his white brother; let his white brother wait here and soon his heart shall be made glad; he shall sing with joy like the birds in the trees. Mendez will soon return; let my brother have patience.”
Maurice Freeman was amazed. ”

“ Has he become old and weak?”
“Mendez not old—Mendez not weak! He great warrior!”
Any reflection upon the courage or skill of the friendly Apache roused his resentment, which was the reason why Freeman pressed him.
“Where is your greatness? You come and tell me that you cannot get my boy away from your people, and yet it is not long ago that you set out to do so. You did not say then you could not take him from them, for you were the brave Mendez that [226] the white people praise and that is not afraid of any one, whether he be white man or red man. ”

“ If you don’t mind we’ll have our names bracketed,—Kühler and Logan. People will believe in two men when they won’t in one. As for three, you’ve only got to look at the Trinity to see what they’ll believe when they get three working together. . . . Oh! I forgot you were a Jew and brought up to believe in One is One and all alone.”
He laughed and gave a fat chuckle as he mimicked the little man in Cluny’s cocking his head on one side and pretending to take in the beauties of Mendel’s work as they were pointed out to him. ”

“ Mendez came down the black passage evidently in rare good humour, humming a tune, with one hand pressed upon the wall to better guide his movements. So dark it was, even the outlines of his form were indistinguishable, yet, as he felt no need for caution, it was easy enough to trace his forward progress. The girl stood erect, the revolver gripped in one hand, the other pressing back her companion into the recess. She had lost all sense of fear in the determination to act; better risk all than surrender without a struggle. ”

“ Oliver came in with a bottle of wine under each arm. She was in very good spirits and looking remarkably handsome.
“Hello, Kühler!” she cried. “How do you like being a success? We’re full of beans. We’re going to take a house. Did Logan tell you?”
“No,” said Mendel. “I hadn’t heard of it.”
[Pg 334]
“Well, it’s true. We’ve done with the slums and being poor and all that. We’re going to have a house and I’m going to have a servant, and I shall have nothing to do all day but eat chocolates and read novels and have people to tea.” ”

“ Delighted!” he said as he coiled his long white hand round Mendel’s workmanlike paw. “My wife, I regret to say, is away. She will be so sorry to have missed you. Like me, she is tired of the shallow, artificial people we live among. We both adore sincere, real people. I adore sincerity. Sincerity is genius.”
“That is true,” said Logan in a sepulchral voice that made Mendel jump. “At least, where you find sincerity, you may be sure that genius is not far behind.”
“I bought a picture of yours the other day, Mr. Kühler,” said Tysoe. ”

“ Mendez was a half-breed, whose mentality was hardly up to par, but whose pistol ability and cold-blooded nerve were seldom equaled.
“We tak’ care of de yong man, eh?” queried Mendez, his voice like the purring of a cat. “Dat be easy, eh, Beel?” ”

“ Mendel has travelled pretty much all over the world, and has acquired in the course of his wanderings the knowledge of a dozen or more languages and of at least three trades. But what he most prides himself on is his menschenkenntniss, that is, his ability to recognize at a glance the origin of strangers whom he sees for the first time, and to classify them according to the racial, religious, and social elements or subdivisions thereof to which they belong. ”

“ The art students looked bizarre and almost theatrical in the woods, with the long-haired young men and the short-haired girls, many of them wearing the brightest colours. Mendel hated the lot of them, giggling girls and bouncing boys, [Pg 192] and he recognized how inappropriate they all were and how he himself was the most inappropriate of them all. He felt ashamed, and wanted to go away and hide, to crawl away to some hole and gaze with his eyes at the beauty he could not feel. There were too many trees, as there were too many people. ”

“ He could see nothing but Oliver with the grim, haggard face looking over her shoulder. He gulped down a glass of wine. That was better. It made things bearable. He poured out another glass of wine.
“I think there is more in the Futurists than the Cubists,” said the young artist.
“In art,” said Mendel, turning on him savagely, “there is neither past nor present nor future; there is only eternity. You try to make a group out of that, and see how you will get on. ”

“ In the glitter and the excitement, the brilliance, the colour, the women with their painted faces, the white marble-topped tables, the mirrors along the walls, the blue wreathing tobacco-smoke, Calthrop’s personality was magnified and concentrated as in a theatre. The café without him was Denmark without the Prince, and Mendel found the hours before he came or the evenings when he did not come almost insupportable. Yet it was not the man’s success or his fame or his notoriety that fascinated the boy, whose instinct went straight to the immense vitality which was the cause of all. ”

“ So perfect a vision had no need to be tender or affectionate or sensual, or to call in aid any of the emotions of life. It needed no force but the rare religious ecstasy which has no need of ideas or common human feelings, and this vision of a woman gave Mendel [Pg 355] a new appreciation of life and love and art. It gave human beings a new value. It was enough that they were alive and upon the earth with all that they contained of good and evil. ”

“ There was a strange dignity in them, yet not a trace of the fine quality of the old faces he loved that looked so sorrowfully out on the world, and through their eyes and through every line seemed to absorb from the world all its suffering, all its vileness, and to transmute [Pg 82] it into strong human beauty. There were some women present, but they made no impression whatever on Mendel, who was entirely occupied with Sir Julius and with resisting the feeling of helplessness with which he was inspired in his presence. ”

“ Such, thought Mendel, should the life of an artist be. But how was it possible if life would not let him alone, but was perpetually dragging him down into the mud? What mud, what filth he had had to flounder through to get even so far as he had! ”

“ Never had Mendel seen anything so glorious, so rich, so dream-like, so clearly corresponding to that marvellous region where all his thoughts ended, passed out of his reach, and took on a brilliant and mighty life of their own, a glory greater than that of the Emperor at home. ”

“ Perhaps Gregor Mendel, in the opinion of those who saw him pottering over his peas, would have done better to devote more time still to the affairs of his extraordinarily well-run abbey, yet upon his careful, thoughtful and beautiful observations rests the modern science of heredity, and the hope for the betterment, not only of our plants and animals, but of our very selves. ”