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This page intentionally left blank
Foreign Investment and Political Regimes

Political democratization and economic globalization have been two of

the most important global trends of the past few decades. But, how are
they connected? Do the domestic political institutions affect a coun-
try’s attractiveness to foreign investors? Can countries that democratize
attract relatively more foreign investments? Drawing on three in-depth
case studies of oil-rich countries and statistical analyses of 132 coun-
tries over three decades, Oksan Bayulgen demonstrates that the link
between democratization and FDI is nonlinear. Both authoritarian
regimes and consolidated democracies have institutional capabilities
that, though different, are attractive to foreign investors. Democracies
can provide long-term stability, and authoritarian regimes can offer
considerable flexibility. The regimes that have started on the road to
democracy, but have not yet completed it, tend to have political institu-
tions that provide neither flexibility nor stability. These hybrid regimes,
then, also find it relatively more difficult to construct a policy environ-
ment that is attractive to foreign investments. These findings have deep
implications for the link between democratization and globalization,
but also for how globalization may affect political, social, and eco-
nomic development.

Oksan Bayulgen is an assistant professor of political science at the

University of Connecticut. Bayulgen has published numerous articles
on foreign investment, oil politics, democratization, and microfinance.
She has received research grants from the Ford Foundation, University
of Texas at Austin, and University of Connecticut to conduct extensive
field work in Azerbaijan, Russia, Norway, Kazakhstan, and Turkey.
Foreign Investment and Political
Regimes
The Oil Sector in Azerbaijan, Russia, and
Norway

Oksan Bayulgen
University of Connecticut
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore,
São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521425889
© Oksan Bayulgen 2010

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the

provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part
may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2010

ISBN-13 978-0-511-67678-9 eBook (NetLibrary)

ISBN-13 978-0-521-42588-9 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy

of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
To my parents, Dogudan and Umit Bayulgen
Contents

List of Figures and Tables page ix

Acknowledgments xi

1 Introduction 1
2 Political Risks in Oil Investments: A History of Antagonistic
Interdependence Between Companies
and Host-Governments  16
3 With or Without Democracy? The Political
Economy of Foreign Direct Investments 41
4 Curse or Blessing? Effects of FDI on Development 72
5 Azerbaijan: One-Stop Shopping 87
6 Russia: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back 122
7 Norway: Icon of Stability 183
8 Beyond Three Cases and Oil 216
9 Conclusion 236

References 243
Index 265

vii
List of Figures and Tables

Figures
2.1 Types of Modern Oil Agreements page 27
3.1 Determinants of FDI 42

Tables
1.1 FDI Statistics for Azerbaijan, Russia, and Norway 8
2.1 Effects of Oil Price on Investment Environment 19
3.1 Effects of Institutions on Investment
Environment and FDI Flows 52
8.1 Polarizing Constraints and Competition (PCC) and
FDI Net Inflows, Random-Effects GLS 229
8.2 Polarizing Constraints and Competition (PCC) and
FDI Net Inflows, Fixed-Effects GLS 231
8.3 Polarizing Regime Type (PRT) and FDI Net Inflows,
Random-Effects GLS 233
8.4 Polarizing Regime Type (PRT) and FDI Net Inflows,
Fixed-Effects GLS 234

ix
Acknowledgments

This book is a culmination of many years of work, more than I dare to

admit. It could not have been what it is today if it was not for the assis-
tance, enthusiasm, and friendship I received along the way from mentors,
colleagues, friends, and family.
This research began as my dissertation, written at the University of
Texas, Department of Government. My committee members Robert
Moser, Catherine Boone, John Higley, Clement Henry, and Cynthia
Buckley were the first to introduce me to academic life in the United
States, and they set a high standard of scholarship toward which I con-
tinue to strive. John Higley and Robert Moser, in particular, spent count-
less hours listening to my ideas and problems related to this project, while
also providing guidance and detailed feedback – Prof Higley with his
famous red pen! I feel extremely privileged to have been under their tute-
lage and to have received their unwavering support. My fellow gradu-
ate students and now colleagues were by far the most “exposed” to the
birth pains of this project. I am grateful to Rob Barr, Oya Dursun, Julie
George, Darin Foster, Sunila Kale, Anna Law, Dennis Plane, Brent and
Liesl Riddle, Jennifer Suchland, Frank Thames, and Sultan Tepe among
many others for sharing the intellectual and trying experience of graduate
school and for making my life in Austin, Texas, an unforgettable one.
Being an international scholar, I had very few funding opportuni-
ties for this research project. So, I am especially thankful for a Ford
Foundation Area Studies research grant and multiple University of Texas
research grants and fellowships that made my field work in Azerbaijan,
Russia, and Norway possible over the course of three years. Anyone who
has done field work knows that one of the biggest challenges facing the

xi
xii Acknowledgement

researcher is finding people who are willing to open their homes, provide
a work space, connect you to the right people, and, most importantly,
offer their friendship and support. I have been extremely lucky in all three
of these countries to have found such individuals. I owe a particular debt
to Trygve Gulbrandsen, Anton Steen, Knut and Berit Groholt, Kristan
and Beaty Higley, Jamaal and Nihal Quadir, Alexander Levshov, Robin
Matthews, the staff of the Moscow CERA office, Anisa Nagaria, Okan
and Ozan Ozerdem, Betul Peksen, and Orhan Gurbuz. My home is theirs
anytime they want to come and visit!
During the transformation of this work from a dissertation into
a book, I have also been inspired and mentored by Pauline Jones
Luong, Peter Rutland, Quan Li, and my colleagues at the University
of Connecticut: Sam Best, Mark Boyer, Larry Bowman, Betty Hanson,
Shareen Hertel, Richard Hiskes, Kristin Kelly, Peter Kingstone, Monika
McDermott, Lyle Scruggs, Donna Lee Van Cott, and Ernie Zirakzadeh.
They have read parts of the manuscript, given me valuable insights, or
taught me a thing or two about navigating the publishing process. I am
very grateful to all of them. I was able to complete the manuscript thanks
to the generous faculty grants I received at UConn. I also feel extremely
lucky to have had Eric Crahan as my editor. He has, since day one, shown
genuine enthusiasm for this project and given me sage advice, as well as
unwavering support and friendship during the final stages of the book
preparation. I also greatly appreciate the deep reading and insightful
comments offered by the anonymous reviewers.
Just like every long, multiyear project in life, no manuscript can be
completed without an extensive support network of friends and fam-
ily. Over the years, my life-long friends in Turkey as well as those that I
acquired in the United States have given me a sense of balance, helped me
focus on the most valuable things in life, and, perhaps more importantly,
kept me “sane.” I especially thank Hande Paker, Baran Uncu, Emre Temiz,
Alper Onder, Kaan Aktolug, Bertan Gurkan, Carmen Wesson, Ben Liu,
Monika McDermott, Dave Jones, Sam Best, Kristin Kelly, and Aysegul
Budak for always being there for me. Their friendship has sustained me
all these years and made my life more meaningful and fun.
Finally, I am also extremely lucky to have a wonderful family that has
given me unconditional love and support throughout the writing of this
manuscript – no matter how much that meant being away from them. I
am deeply thankful to Carol Ladewig, Bruce Ladewig, and Renee, Shane,
Griffin, and Oliver Lathrop for opening their homes and hearts to me
and allowing me to become part of their family in Wisconsin. Who would
Acknowledgment xiii

have thought a Turkish girl could one day become a Packers fan? I will
forever be grateful to my grandparents, Nemika and Kenan Dagdeviren,
as well as ciciannem Sehvar Turel for giving me a beautiful childhood and
for teaching me the value of learning. I also thank my brothers Ozan and
Okan Bayulgen, and my nieces Beliz and now baby Istanbul for remind-
ing me about the importance of family. But, my greatest debt and admira-
tion go to my parents Dogudan and Umit Bayulgen, to whom this book is
dedicated. They have done everything they could to make sure I had the
best possible education. And, with their wisdom, honesty, and integrity,
they set the best example for my academic and personal growth. If there
is one thing that I regret about this journey, it is the years that I spent
away from them.
Last but not the least, I could not have written this book if it was not
for the intellectual contribution and enthusiasm of my best friend, col-
league, and husband Jeff Ladewig. More than anyone else, he has gone
through the ups and downs of this process and has shared the sacri-
fices as well as the accomplishments with me. During the writing of this
manuscript, we also had two wonderful boys, Aidan Kaan and Leo Batu.
Despite the many hours I spent away from them to be able to complete
this manuscript, I hope one day they will realize that none of this would
have meant the same without them. They are the best thing that has ever
happened to me. And I am forever grateful for that.
1

Introduction

In today’s global economy, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is an ­­essential

link among national economies as well as a catalyst for economic
growth.1 The benefits that FDI brings, such as capital, knowledge, tech-
nology, skills, management know-how, market access, and employment
opportunities are important for development as complements to domes-
tic resources in host countries.2 As such, it is aggressively sought by many
countries.3 FDI does not, however, flow evenly to all. Particularly in the
developing world, only a handful of countries are able to attract invest-
ments that are commensurate with their market potential. Even when the
necessary firm-level incentives and host-country economic conditions are
present, some countries fail to provide a welcoming investment environ-
ment in the form of policy incentives, guarantees, and stability. Why are
some countries able to offer investor-friendly policies and some are not?
Which political institutions produce the policies that prove beneficial

1
FDI is an investment involving a lasting interest by a home-economy entity in an enterprise
in a host economy. It is defined as involving an equity stake of 10 percent or more in a
foreign enterprise. According to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development –
UNCTAD (2005) – since 1993, FDI has consistently surpassed other private capital flows
as well as flows of official development assistance to developing countries.
2
According to UNCTAD (2001) empirical evidence suggests that for emerging economies a
1 percent point increase in FDI (measured as a proportion of GDP) leads, ceteris paribus,
to an extra 0.8 percent increase in per capita income.
3
UNCTAD (2005) reports that the number of countries that adopted measures intended
to improve their investment climates almost tripled, from 35 in 1991 to 102 in 2004.
Moreover, of the national regulatory changes that have been made to attract investment,
changes that are favorable to FDI have been between 90 and 100 percent on average
since 1991.

1
2 Foreign Investment and Political Regimes

to multinational operations? Does democracy matter in attracting FDI?

These are the central questions of this book.
There is an extensive literature on economic and policy determinants
of FDI flows, yet much less attention has been devoted to the role of
political institutions in producing a favorable investment environment to
attract foreign capital.4 Foreign companies undertake significant political
risks when they invest in a host country. Conditional upon the ease with
which they can withdraw their assets, they fear the risk of government
interference, be it nationalization, shifting tax burdens, or new regulatory
requirements. Before they invest in a country, they ascertain the nature
of FDI policies and the likelihood that such policies will remain in place
over the course of their involvement in the host market.
This is where political institutions come in. Investment policies are not
created in a vacuum. Some groups clearly benefit from the infusion of
foreign capital and the new business opportunities that are created, while
others are disadvantaged by the competition and/or the various ways
foreign-company operations affect taxation, job opportunities, environ-
ment, and the like in the host country. The potential losers and winners
from foreign capital use the political institutions available to them to
shape investment policies according to their particular interests. Political
institutions not only become a platform to exert pressure on decision
makers but also determine how the struggle between stakeholders plays
out and how various interests are reconciled or outweighed.
Recently, scholars have started looking more systematically at the rela-
tionship between democracy and FDI.5 Their findings, however, have been
mixed and thus inconclusive about the relative merits of political regimes
in attracting FDI. Some find a significant positive relationship between
democracy and the ability to attract FDI, others argue that authoritar-
ian regimes can provide better entry deals for foreign investors, and still
others argue that there is no significant relationship between regime type
and FDI.
I argue that the existing literature oversimplifies the relationship
between FDI and regime type, and underappreciates the complexities of
host country politics. The exclusive use of readily available numerical

4
See Hymer 1960, Kindleberger 1969, Buckley and Casson 1976, Graham 1978, Rugman
1981, 1985, Schneider and Frey 1985, Crenshaw 1991, Brewer 1991, 1992, Dunning
1993, Markusen 1995.
5
See O’Neal 1994, Henisz 2000, Harms and Ursprung 2002, Jensen 2003, 2006, Li and
Resnick 2003, Busse 2003, Busse and Hefeker 2005, Li 2006, Jakobsen and De Soysa
2006.
Introduction 3

indices and generic regime labels, oftentimes by itself, does not capture
the intricacies of relations between investors and host governments. To
overcome this problem, I make extensive use of both the qualitative
method and the rich theoretical insights from comparative democratiza-
tion literature. I analyze the decision-making process inside a number of
countries to show that the institutional structure that defines and shapes
the relationship between the opponents and proponents of FDI is much
more complex and intriguing than previously thought.
This book contributes to the literature in two principal ways. First, I
provide an in-depth analysis of a single sector of FDI – the oil sector –
across a small number of cases to control for possible differences among
foreign investors in terms of their sector-specific risk calculations and
expectations. Of all the possible sectors, I focus on oil because it provides
a hard case for the relationship between political regimes and FDI. It is
generally assumed that oil investors do not have any regime preferences
as long as some level of stability is attained and that the political risks
they encounter depend on their relative market power and bargaining
position vis-à-vis the host governments rather than the political insti-
tutions in place. According to one well-known theory (the obsolescing
bargaining theory), in the early stages of the relationship between foreign
oil companies and the host government, the former are in a dominant
position and able to extract highly favorable terms from the latter.6 This
suggests that in the beginning oil companies face few, if any, political risks
and can work with whomever is in power. As the industry matures and
the host government becomes more competent, the relative bargaining
power of the firm obsolesces, changing the terms of the initial agree-
ment and increasing the degree of political risk. However, at this stage,
given the large up-front expenditures they make and the strategic need
for ongoing access to resources that generate high rents, investors have
very few choices but to work with host governments regardless of the
political regime in place. Hence, according to this logic in either stage of
the relationship, political institutions do not seem to matter in investment
decisions.
Similar systemic theories also assert that market fluctuations in the
price of oil, more so than the intricacies of political institutions, affect
the relative bargaining position of investors vis-à-vis the host govern-
ments. When the price of oil is high, potential returns from an investment

6
See Vernon 1971, 1980, Smith and Wells 1975, Mikesell 1971, Moran 1974, Rothgeb
1990, 1991.
4 Foreign Investment and Political Regimes

increase, making oil development projects more attractive. With increased

competition among investors for access to oil resources, the bargaining
position of the host government increases and that of the investor ebbs.
Conversely, when the price of oil goes down, costs and risks of invest-
ment increase and investors gain the upper hand in setting the terms of
the investment relationship. Therefore, given these persuasive theories,
oil provides a hard case because if political institutions turn out to be
significant for investors in this sector, it is most likely that they will have
some influence on investors in other sectors as well.
Second, I refine the theoretical debate on the merits of political regimes
by reclassifying them in terms of the amount of institutional constraints
and competition they provide in policy making. This approach captures
the political dynamics behind investment policies more systematically.
Simply put, I argue that the level of executive constraints in the state as
well as the degree of political competition in society determines the stabil-
ity and/or flexibility of investment terms, and thus, the attractiveness of
the investment environment. I operationalize and measure these two vari-
ables in terms of the strength of state-veto players and the number and
organizational capacity of political parties and interest groups, respec-
tively. I argue that the low, partial, and high levels of constraints and
competition in an institutional setting produce different incentives and
opportunities for the proponents and opponents of FDI as they design the
terms of the relationship between investors and governments.
I discuss and empirically test the impact of these institutional vari-
ables on the ability to attract FDI into the oil sectors of three oil-rich
countries: Azerbaijan, a post-communist authoritarian regime; Russia, a
post-communist “hybrid” regime; and Norway, an industrialized mature
democracy. Although all three countries have had similar needs and
attractiveness for foreign capital, during the initial phase of their resource
development Azerbaijan and Norway received significant amounts of FDI,
whereas Russia received very little. The purpose of this book is to explain
this empirical puzzle and formulate a broader theory in our understand-
ing of the political conditions under which an investment environment is
shaped and why investors flock to certain countries and not to others.
An in-depth comparative analysis of investment environments in these
countries reveals an important rejoinder to the existing literature that
finds foreign capital to be compatible with either democracy or authori-
tarianism. I argue that, in fact, both democracies and authoritarian
regimes can be attractive to foreign investors. With high levels of execu-
tive constraints in the state and open and institutionalized competition
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
father because he had authority over them, but other masters had
no authority except what they bought or stole.
But a talk with Harry decided Mendel that his people’s way, the
Jewish way, was no longer his.
Harry was bored. He had bouts of boredom when he could not
endure the workshop and refused to go near it, however great the
pressure of business might be. Like his father, he said:—
“I want nothing.”
“Very well then,” said Mendel; “you’ve got nothing. What are you
grumbling at?”
“But there is nothing.”
“Then it is easy to want nothing and you should be satisfied.”
“That’s it. It is too easy. Work, work, work. Play, play, play. How
disgusting it all is!”
“Why didn’t you stay in Paris?”
“I could not bear to be away from the people.”
“But if they give you nothing?”
“They have nothing to give. Nothing but old Jews who believe and
young Jews who cannot believe and are nothing.”
“It is the same everywhere. The Christians do not believe either.”
“But they are fools and can make themselves happy with their
cinemas and their newspapers and their forward women.”
“I thought you liked women, Harry.”
“I don’t like women who like me. . . . I don’t want to marry, I
don’t want anything. I shall see the old people into their graves, and
then I don’t know what I shall do. You are the only one I know who
has anything to live for or any life in him.”
“I have little enough.”
“Oh God! don’t you start talking like me, or we shall all go to the
cemetery at once.”
 “All right, Harry. I’ll keep you going. I’ll keep you astonished.”
His brother’s despondency helped Mendel on a little, but what a
mean incentive to work, to astonish his poor ignorant family!
Very soon there came a terrible day when he had to tell them that
he had not a penny in the world and that he was a failure. It would
have gone hardly with him but for Harry, who espoused his cause,
saying dramatically that he believed in his young brother as he
believed in God, and that Mendel should not be stopped for want of
money. And he went upstairs and came down with his savings,
nearly thirty pounds.
“Don’t be a fool!” said Jacob. “He will only spend it on drink and
women.”
“He is a genius,” said Harry simply, and Issy, fired by his brother’s
example, said he had saved ten pounds and he would add that.
Together they shouted Jacob down when he tried to raise his voice,
until at last he produced his cash-box and gave Mendel a ten-pound
note, saying:—
“If the Christians are liars when they say they believe in you, we
are not. You must learn that the Christians are all liars and you must
show them that you are the greatest artist in the world.”
“I’ll show them,” mumbled Mendel. “Yes, I’ll show them.”

He returned to his work with a better determination to succeed,

but he felt more barren than ever, and had nothing to work with but
his will. Into that he gathered all his force and determined to go
back and pick up the thread of his work at the point where Logan
had broken into the weaving of it. He would paint yet another
portrait of his mother, and then he would choose a subject from
among the life of the Jews. He would start again. The Jews believed
in him; he would glorify them, although he no longer believed in but
only admired them. When he came to look at them clearly, they
were squat and stunted, because he could only look at them from a
superior height. . . . He turned over his early work, and studied it
carefully, but he could not recover his childish acceptance of that
existence.
For some weeks he did not go near Morrison and frequented the
Paris Café, where he felt hopelessly out of it. No one spoke to him.
Hardly a soul nodded to him. Night after night he sat there
despondently, conjuring up the exciting evenings he had spent
there. They were like ashes in his mouth.

One night, to his amazement and almost fear, someone slipped

into the seat at his side. It was Oliver. She laid her hand on his knee
and said:—
“You look pretty bad, Kühler. Anything wrong?”
“Much as usual. How are you? What’ll you drink?”
“Kümmel’s mine,” she said.
He ordered two Kümmels.
“I’m all right. How are you?”
“I’ve told you how I am,” he said testily.
“All right, all right!” she said, “I haven’t been here for a long time.
I wish you’d come and see me, Kühler. We never did get on, but I’d
like to have a talk about old times.”
“Old times!” he said. “It seems only yesterday.”
“It’s nearly a year since I saw you. Logan came back, you know.
Mr. Tysoe was so good. He kept on the house for me. Wasn’t it good
of him?”
The waiter brought the Kümmel. She drank hers off at a gulp, and
said:—
“It is like old times to see you, Kühler. I am glad.”
“Go on about Logan.”
“He went back to that Camden Town place, you know, and we
didn’t see each other for nearly two months. It was awful. I couldn’t
sleep at nights, and I knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He never
slept, you know, when we had had one of our hells and I wouldn’t
speak to him. He! he!” she gasped and giggled nervously at the
memory.
“Go on,” said Mendel. He was icy cold. All the strange oppression
that was brooding in his life seemed to gather into a thick snowy
cloud about his head and to fit it like a cap of ice. “Go on.”
“Mr. Tysoe gave me money. Wasn’t it good of him? He used to see
Logan. Not very often—just occasionally. Logan was painting a
wonderful portrait of me, in my green dress and the corals he gave
me. . . . See: I always wear them, even now.”
She thrust her hand into her bosom and produced the string of
corals.
“I lived all alone and refused to see anyone. I got so thin, all my
skirts had to be taken in. I knew Logan was jealous, so I didn’t see
anyone, and when I heard about the portrait I knew he would come
back. So I used to wear the green dress every evening and wait for
him till twelve, one, two, three in the morning, all alone, in that little
cottage on the Heath. . . . My, I was tired, I can tell you. But I never
was one for getting up in the morning. . . . At last, one night, he
came. He walked in quite quietly, as though nothing had happened.
He had brought the picture with him. My word, it is good. You’d love
it. He had offers for it, but he wouldn’t sell it. He said a funny thing
about it. He said: ‘It’s literature. It isn’t art.’ So he wouldn’t sell it.
. . . We had a glorious time—a glorious time! It was better even than
the beginning.”
She stopped to linger over the memory, and she drew her hand
caressingly along her thigh.
“Go on,” said Mendel, to break in upon her heavy silence.
“He had plenty of money. He sold everything he did. There were
one or two society ladies, the cats! Common property, I call them.”
“So it broke down again,” said Mendel.
 “Yes. He got—— You know what he could be like. Sometimes I
thought he was going off his head, and I often wonder if he wasn’t a
bit touched. . . . I haven’t seen him since. I wondered if you had
seen him.”
“No. I haven’t seen him. He doesn’t come back to me.”
“Mr. Tysoe hasn’t seen him. Cluny has some of his things, but
won’t say a word. I think he must have left London.”
“I should think so,” said Mendel wearily, suddenly losing all
interest. “I should think so.”
“I’ve left Hampstead. I’m living over the Pot-au-Feu, I’m working
as a model. Don’t forget me, and if you hear of Logan, do let me
know, and come and have a talk over old times.”
She had caught sight of an acquaintance smiling at her and went
over to him, for all the world, as Mendel thought, like a fly-by-night.
He half ran, half staggered out of the place, saying to himself:—
“I must see Morrison. I must see her at once.”

He tried to see her next day, but Clowes told him she had gone to
the country.
“I insisted on her going, she was looking so pale. You know when
she feels lonely she won’t eat. When she is miserable she gets so
shy that she can’t even go into a shop. . . . I have taken a cottage in
the country, just outside London. Two rooms, two shillings a week.
Isn’t it cheap? So I packed her off there two days ago.”
“When will she be back?”
“I don’t know. When she is tired of being alone. She said she
wanted to be alone.”
“I want to see her. It is a very important for me to see her.”
“I won’t have you making her ill,” said Clowes.
 “I must see her. Will you give me her address, so that I can write
to her?”
Clowes gave him the address, and he wrote saying that life was
intolerable without her.

Morrison did not need his letter, and, indeed, it only reached the
cottage after she had left. She knew he needed her. Never for an
instant was his image absent from her mind, and at night, when she
lay awake, she could have sworn she heard a moaning cry from him.
No wind ever made a sound like that.
There was a pouring rain and a howling wind, but she walked the
four miles to the station and sent him a wire telling him to meet her
at the station in London. He received it just in time and was on the
platform.
He took her in his arms and kissed her.
“What is the matter?”
“Did you get my letter?”
“No. But I knew. What is it?”
“I don’t know. My work, I think. I met Oliver last night. It upset
me. But I wanted you for my work. It is like a knife stuck through
my brain. I wanted to be with you, just to see you and to hear your
voice. Nothing else. That part of me feels dead. . . . Oliver is living
over the Pot-au-Feu, where Hetty Finch used to be. I wonder what’s
become of her. I expect she has found a millionaire by now. . . .
We’ll have the evening together. We’ll dine at the Pot-au-Feu. We
might meet Oliver, but I can’t think of any other place.”
“We’ll dine with Clowes, if you like.”
“No; I want to go to the Pot-au-Feu.”
“Very well. Are you very tired? Your voice sounds tired.”
“I’ll be all right now I am with you. Mr. Sivwright asked me to go
to the Merlin’s Cave to-night. He has to shut it up. I thought I
wouldn’t go, but I want to go, if you will come with me.”
“It might cheer us up, and you love dancing.”
They both thought of the night when he had danced with Jessie
Petrie.
“I’m painting a picture of a Jewish market. I want you to see it.”
“I’m glad you’ve gone back. I’m sure it is right.”
“What are you doing?”
It was the first time he had asked after her work and a glow of
happiness overcame her.
“Oh! I . . . I’m doing a landscape—just a road running up a hill
with some houses on top.”
“Like Rousseau. He was good at roads.”
“Mine’s just painting. It isn’t abstract.”
“You can’t paint without being abstract,” he said irritably. “Even
Academicians can’t really imitate, but they abstract without using
their brains. You can’t really copy nature, so what’s the good of
trying?”
“You can suggest.”
“Then it’s a sketch and not a picture.”
“Perhaps mine is only a sketch,” she said rather forlornly, because
she had been rather hopeful of her work.
They went back to his studio, where he showed her his studies
and drawings for the new picture. She saw that he was working
again with his old love of his craft.
They dined at the Pot-au-Feu, and had it all to themselves
because the weather was so bad. There were only the goggle-eyed
man in the corner with his green evening paper and Madame
Feydeau and Gustave, the waiter.
Over the dinner Mendel waxed very gay and gave her a very
comic description of the scene when he had gone to his family to
confess his failure. He had a wonderful power of making them comic
without laughing at them.
“They are wonderful people,” he said. “They know what is sense
and what is nonsense. If you gave them the biggest problem in the
world they would know what was true in it and what was false. They
are always right about politics and public men. But when it comes to
art, they are hopeless.”
“But they believe in you.”
“Because I belong to them. They believe in themselves. . . . My
mother was quite sound about Logan. She said it could not go on. I
thought it was for ever. I’ve been thinking about Logan. He could
never be himself. He was always wanting to be something—
something big. I thought he was big for a long time. But he’s just a
man. I don’t think Cézanne was ever anything but just a man. It
makes one think, doesn’t it? All these people who are written about
as though they were something terrific, all trying to be something
more than they are—just men. And then a quiet little man comes
along and he is bigger than the lot of them, because he has never
tried to blow himself out, but has given himself room to grow.”
She had never known him so gentle and tender and wise, and if
he had wanted to love her she would not have denied him. She
trusted him so completely. And he looked so ill and tired. But he only
wanted to be with her, and to talk to her and to hear her voice.
After dinner they went to a cinema to fill in time, and he shouted
with laughter like a boy, threw himself about, and stamped his feet
at the comic film. And she laughed too, and took his hand in hers
and held it in her lap.
“That was good!” he said. “I think I should like to be a cinema
actor. If I get really hard up I shall try it. I might be a star, if I could
learn to wear my clothes properly and could get my hair to lie down
in a solid shiny block.”
“I’ll go with you. I’m sure I could roll my eyes properly.”
“Come along,” he said.
 It was still raining hard, so they took a taxi to the Merlin’s Cave,
though it was not half a mile away.
Everything was the same, even to the two rich young men who
entered just after them. They signed the book, and then, hearing
the music, Mendel seized Morrison by the wrist and dragged her
down the stairs.
The place was astonishingly full. Nearly all the tables were
occupied, and they had to take one between the orchestra and the
door. Calthrop, Mitchell, Weldon, Jessie Petrie, everybody from the
Paris Café was there. Oliver was sitting with Thompson and the
critic. In a far corner Clowes was sitting with the young man from
the Detmold. There were models, male and female, all the strange
people who for one reason or another had lived in or on the Calthrop
tradition. In the middle of the room were two large tables which
Sivwright had packed with celebrities—authors, journalists, editors,
actors, and music-hall comedians. They were being fed royally, as
became lions, and there were champagne bottles gleaming on the
tables. Tall young soldiers in mufti began to arrive with chorus-girls
who had not troubled to remove their make-up.
“It’s a gala!” said Mendel.
Oliver saw him, and beamed and raised her glass. He rose and
bowed with mock solemnity.
Dancing had not begun. Apparently the lions were to sing for their
supper.
An author read a short play, which he explained had been
suppressed by the censor. To Mendel it sounded very mild and
foolish. It was a tragedy, but no one was moved; the audience much
preferred the music-hall comedian, who followed with a song about
a series of mishaps to his trousers.
The same reedy-voiced poet recited the same poem as before,
and the same foolish girl sang the same foolish song, and it looked
as though the programme would never end.
Mendel was irritated and bored, and called for champagne.
 “Waiter!”
But the waiter did not hear him.
“You don’t want any champagne,” said Morrison.
“Waiter!”
The door by them opened and Logan slipped in. He was almost a
shadow of his old self. The plump flesh had gone from his face,
which was all eyes and bones. He looked famished. His eyes swept
round the room, and, fastening on Oliver, lit up with a gleam of
satisfaction. He was like a starving man looking at a nice pink ham in
a shop window. He moved swiftly towards her, but stopped on
seeing the men she was with and swerved to a table a few yards
behind her. From where Mendel was sitting it looked as though he
were peering over her shoulder, an evil, menacing face.
Mendel shivered, and his eyes suddenly felt dry and hot, as
though they were being pushed out of his face. His throat went dry,
and when he tried to call the waiter he could make no sound. The
waiter met his eyes and came.
“Champagne!” said Mendel.
“Very good, sir. One bottle?”
“Half-a-bottle,” said Morrison.
“One bottle,” roared Mendel.
A young artist, who knew them both slightly, hearing the order,
came and sat with them.
The dancing began.
“Come and dance,” said Morrison.
“No, I don’t want to dance. That was Logan who came in. He
hasn’t seen me yet.”
“Which is Logan?” asked the young artist. “He’s done some good
things. Someone told me the other day he had softening of the
brain.”
 “Rubbish!” said Mendel. “They say that of every man who makes a
success, as though it needed something strange to account for it.
It’s either softening of the brain, or consumption, or three wives, or
he is killing himself with drink. They talk as though art itself were
some kind of disease.”
Logan had seen Mendel, and their eyes met. Mendel felt that
Logan was looking clean through him, looking at him as a ghost
might look at a man whom he had known in life, fondly, tenderly,
icily through him, without expecting him to be aware of the terrible
scrutiny. But Mendel was aware of it, and it chilled him to the
marrow. Logan gave no sign, but stared and stared, and presently
turned his eyes away without a sign, without a tremor. It was like
turning away the light of a lantern. He turned his eyes from Mendel
to Oliver in one sweep. No one else but those two seemed to exist
for him, and Mendel felt that he no longer existed. And more than
ever Logan looked as if he were peering over Oliver’s shoulder with
those staring, piercing eyes of his from which the soul had gone out.
Only the glowing spark of a fixed will was left in them to keep them
sane and human.
Mendel began to drink. The orchestra behind him sent the rhythm
of a waltz thumping through him. But it went heavily, without music
or tune. One—two—three. It was like having molten lead poured on
the nape of his neck, threatening to jerk his head off his spine. From
where he sat he could not see the dancing-floor, except reflected in
a mirror opposite him. . . . Oh! it was a gay sight and a silly It had
nothing to do with him. 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. You can put that at
the head of your manifesto and your group would melt away under
it like the fat on a basted pigeon.”
He put out his hand for his glass, but Morrison had taken it and
was drinking.
“You’ll make yourself drunk,” he said, taking it from her gently.
“I finished it all,” she said, with an unhappy smile. “I didn’t want
you to drink it, and you looked so tragic I knew it would be bad for
you.”
The young artist crept away. Mendel took Morrison’s hand and
gripped it.
“I’m glad you are with me,” he said. “Look at Logan!”
Never taking his eyes off Oliver, Logan had begun to move
towards her with his hand in his breast pocket. He had nearly
reached her, with his eyes glowing almost yellow under the electric
light, when he changed his mind, swung round, and went to another
table and sat with his head down, biting his nails.
The dancing was fast and furious, and this time it was the flute
which played an obbligato, thin, fantastic, and comic, real silvery
fun, like a trickle of water down a crag into a pool in sunshine.
Thompson went to the dancing-floor with a girl in fancy dress—a
columbine’s costume. That seemed to relieve Logan, who jumped to
his feet, walked quickly round to Oliver, bent over her, and spoke to
her. Her face wore an expression of amazed delight. Her eyes were
drawn to his, and though she shrank under them, she seemed to go
soft and flabby: she could not resist them. There was no menace in
Logan now, only an attitude of fixed mastery, an air of taking
possession of her once and for all, of knowing that at last he would
get the longed-for satisfaction.
They spoke together for a little longer, then she rose and put her
hand up and caressed his cheek and neck as though it hurt her to
see them so thin—as though, indeed, she refused to believe what
her eyes told her.
 They walked past Mendel and Morrison without seeing them.
Mendel gripped Morrison’s hand until she felt that the blood must
gush out of her nails. Logan opened the swing-door for Oliver,
devouring her with his burning eyes, in which there was a desperate
set purpose of which he seemed to be almost weary. So frail he
looked, as if but a little more and he would loose his hold even on
that to which he clung. And Oliver smiled at him with a malicious
promise in her eyes that he should have his will, that his hold should
be loosened and his weariness come to an end. Clearly she knew
that he had no thought outside herself.
And outside the two of them Mendel had no thought. His mind
became as a tunnel down which they were moving, and soon they
were lost to his sight and he was left to wait. There his thoughts
stopped, while he waited.
 IX
LOGAN MAKES AN END

ALL night long he paced up and down his studio. His thoughts would
not move, but went over and over the scene in the Cave, and
probed vainly in the darkness for the next move. When he heard
footsteps in the street he hung out of the window, making sure that
it must be Logan come for him. But no one stopped at the door, and
soon within himself and without was complete silence, save for his
footsteps on the floor and the matches he struck to light cigarette
after cigarette, though he could not keep one of them alight.
His imagination rejected the facts and refused to work on them.
The scene in the Cave had left an impression upon his retina, like
that of the cinema—just a plain flat impression containing no
material for his imagination. And yet he knew that he was deeply
engaged in whatever was happening.
With his chin in his hands he leaned out of his window and
watched the dawn paint the eastern sky and the day wipe out the
colours. Doors were opened in the street. Windows were lit with the
glow of the fires, and the day’s activity had begun, but he had no
share in it, for he knew that this day was like no other. For him it
was a day lost in impenetrable shadow, and he could not tell what
should take him out of it. And still he expected Logan would come.
He heard Rosa get up and go downstairs and light the fire and
bawl up to Issy to jump out of his bed, filthy snoring sluggard that
he was. He heard the voices of the children and the baby yelling.
. . . How indecent, how abominable it was to cram so many people
into one small house!
At the usual time he went over to his mother’s kitchen for
breakfast, and gulped down his tea, but made no attempt to eat.
Golda looked at him reproachfully, but said nothing, for she saw that
he was in some deep trouble.
After breakfast, as usual, he went for his walk down through
Whitechapel almost as far as Bow Church and back.
In his studio when he returned he found a policeman, who said:—
“Mr. Mendel Kühler?”
“Yes.”
The policeman handed him a letter from Logan who had scrawled:
—
“I believe in you to the end.”
To the end?
“Is he dead?” asked Mendel.
“Next door to it,” said the policeman. “The woman’s done in.”
“Where?”
“At the Pot-au-Feu, Soho.”
“Where is he now?”
“Workhouse infirmary. If you want to see him the police will raise
no objection.”
“Thank you,” said Mendel.
He asked the direction and set out at once.
The workhouse was a dull grey mass of buildings, rising out of a
dull grey district like an inevitable creation of its dullness, and it
seemed an inevitable contrast to the Merlin’s Cave, so that it was
right that Logan should walk out of the glitter into it. This was the
very contrast that Mendel’s imagination had been vainly seeking, and
now, with the violence of a sudden release, his thoughts began to
work again. . . . Oliver was dead. That was inevitable too. But why?
Logan had surrendered to her. They would go home from the
Merlin’s Cave to the Pot-au-Feu, to Hetty Finch’s room. He would
surrender to her absolutely, because she had willed his destruction
and could not see that his destruction meant her own. She wanted
recognition, acknowledgment that her vitality was more important
than anything else in the world, and she had brought Logan to it.
There had been a cold, set purpose in his eyes last night—an
intellectual purpose. The equation was worked out. She could have
what she wanted, at a price. She could destroy the will and the
desire of a man, but not his mind, not his spirit, which would still be
obedient to a higher will, and that would break her as she had
broken.
Very bare and grim was the waiting-room in which Mendel had to
bide until the nurse came for him. Its walls were of a faded green,
dim and grimy, and when the door was opened as people went in or
out, there was wafted in a smell of antiseptics. But as his thoughts
gathered force the room seemed to be filled with a great light, which
revealed beauty in the poor people waiting patiently to see their
sick. They became detached and pictorial, but he could not think of
them in terms of paint. His mind had begun to work in a new way,
and he felt more solid, more human, more firmly planted on the
ground, as though at last he was admitted to a place in life. It
mattered to him no more that he was a Jew and strange and foreign
to the Christian world. There were neither Jews nor Christians now.
There were only people—tragic, wonderful people . . . He even
forgot that he was in love. All his mind was concentrated upon
Logan, who was now also tragic and wonderful, a source of tragedy
and wonder, and his whole effort was to discover and to make plain
to himself his share in the tragedy: not to weigh and measure and to
wonder whether at one point or another he could have stopped it.
Nothing could have stopped it.
There was no room for judgment in this tragic world.
A nurse came to fetch him.
She said:—
“He is very weak, but he will be strong enough to know you. Don’t
excite him.”
 She led him into the bare, white ward, across which the sun threw
great shafts of light, to Logan’s bedside. At the head of the bed a
policeman was sitting with his helmet on his knees, staring straight
in front of him. He turned his eyes on Mendel, who thought he
looked a very nice man, something amusingly imperturbable in this
racking world of tragedy.
He stood by the bedside and looked down at Logan, in whose face
there was at last the noble, conquering expression at which, through
all his foolish striving, he had always aimed. His brow was strong
and massive, his mouth relentless as Beethoven’s, his nose sharp
and stubborn, and there was something exquisite and sensitive in
the drawn skin about his eyes. From his white brow his shock of
black hair fell back on the pillow.
His hand was outside the grey coverlet. Mendel took it in his.
Logan opened his eyes, and into them came an expression of almost
incredulous surprise, of ecstatic, intolerable happiness. He had
wakened out of his dream into his dream, to be with Mendel, to
have gone through the very depths to be with Mendel. His hand
closed tight on his friend’s and his lids drooped over his eyes.
He opened them again after a few moments and said:—
“You!”
The nurse placed a chair for Mendel, and he sat down and said:—
“How are you feeling?”
“Pretty weak. I dreamed of your coming, but I didn’t really believe
it. . . . I’ve done it, you know.”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve painted another portrait of my mother. A good one, this time.
She is sitting in a wooden chair as she always sits, with her hands
folded on her stomach. And I am planning a picture of a Jewish
market, something bigger than I have attempted yet.”
 “I see. Good—good. . . . We must work together. We can do it
now.”
“Yes,” said Mendel, rather mystified. It was very strange to have
Logan talking like that, as though he were going back to the first
days of their friendship.
“It is such peace,” said Logan; and indeed he looked as if he were
at peace, lying there so still and white, with the hard strain gone
from his eyes, in which there was none of the old roguish twinkle,
but an expression of pain through which there shone a penetrating
and most tender light.
“Peace,” murmured Logan again. “Tell me more. There is only art.”
“There is nothing else,” answered Mendel, carried away on the
impulse of Logan’s spirit and understanding what he meant when he
said “we.” Life, the turbulent life of every day, the life of desire, was
broken and had fallen away from him, so that he was living without
desire, only in his enduring will, which had lost patience with his
desires and had destroyed them.
Through Mendel trembled a new and strange elation. He
recognized that his friendship with Logan was just beginning, and
that he was absolved from all share in the catastrophe, if such there
had been. And from him too the turbulent life of desire fell away,
and he could be at one with his friend. There was no need to talk of
the past—it was as though it had never been.
He described the design he had made for his picture: two fat old
women bargaining, and a strong man carrying a basket of fruit on
his head.
“A good beginning,” said Logan. “I . . . I could never get going. I
was always overseen in my work.”
“Overseen!” said Mendel, puzzled by the word.
“Yes. I was always outside the picture, working at it. . . . Too . . .
too much brains, too little force.”
 “I see,” said Mendel, for whom a cold finger had been put on one
of his own outstanding offences against art. For a moment it brought
him to an ashamed silence, but Logan’s words slipped so easily into
his understanding and took up their habitation there, that he was
powerless to resent or to attempt to dislodge them.
“Overseen,” Logan repeated, with an obvious pleasure in plucking
out the weeds from their friendship, in the fair promise of which he
found peace and joy. “That was the trouble. It couldn’t go on. . . .
City life, I think. Too much for us. Things too much our own way.
. . . Egoism. . . .”
“I know that I am feeling my way towards something and that it is
no good forcing it,” said Mendel.
An acute attack of pain seized Logan, and he closed his eyes and
was silent for a long time, with his brows knit in a kind of impatient
boredom at having to submit to such a thing as pain.
“They’ve been very good to me,” he said. “Given me everything as
if I were really ill.”
He sank back into pain again.
Mendel looked across at the policeman with a feeling of irritation
that he should be there, a typical figure of the absurd chaotic life
which had fallen away, a symbol of the factitious pretence of order
which could only deceive a child.
“Can’t you leave me alone with him?” he whispered.
The policeman shook his head.
“No, sir.”
“You mustn’t worry about outside things,” said Logan, with an
effort. “We are alone. . . . Have you found a new friend?”
“No.”
“You will. Better men than I have been. . . . Do you see that girl
still?”
“Yes.”
 “She was the strongest of us.”
“How?”
Logan made no answer, and gave a slight shake of impatience at
Mendel’s not understanding him.
“Something,” he said, “that I never got anywhere near. . . . I . . . I
was overseen in that too.”
The blood drummed in Mendel’s temples. Logan’s cold finger went
probing into his life too, and showed him always casting his own
shadow over his passions. In love it was the same as in art. . . . It
was very odd that, with every nerve at stretch to understand Logan
and how he had been brought to smash the clotted passion of his
life, it should only be important to understand himself, and that he
should be able to understand so coldly, so clearly, so easily.
And now the presence of the policeman became a relief. It was a
guarantee that the whole visible world would not be swept away by
the frozen will in Logan, which was like a floe of ice bearing
everything with it, nipping at Mendel’s life, squeezing it up high and
dry and bearing it along. He felt that if the policeman were to go
away he would be drawn down into the doom that was upon Logan,
into the valley of the shadow, even while the good sun came
streaming in through the tall windows. . . . He had lost all the
emotional interest which had kept him awake through the night. . . .
It had been simple enough. There had been himself, Logan and
Oliver, three people, living in London the gay, reckless life of artists
in London, a city so huge that men and women could do in it as they
pleased. Oliver and he had hated each other, and Logan had had to
choose between them. He had chosen wrongly and had put an end
to his misery in the only possible way.
Mendel fought back out of the shadow—back to the policeman,
and the sick men lying in the rows of beds, and the dead man lying
in the bed which had just been surrounded by a screen, and the
simple, wonderful people in the waiting-room downstairs, and the
sun streaming through the windows, and the teeming life outside in
London—wonderful, splendid London, the very heart of the world.
. . . It was well for Logan to lose sight of these things. He was a
dying man. But Mendel was alive, never more alive than now, in face
of the shadow of death, and he would not think the thoughts of a
dying man unless they could be shaped in the likeness of life. He
gathered together all his forces, summoned up everything that
urged him towards life and towards art, and of his own strong living
will plunged after Logan, no longer in obedience to Logan’s frozen
purpose, but as a friend giving to his friend the meed that was due
to him.
He took Logan’s hand and pressed it, and chafed it gently to make
it warm, and Logan smiled at him, and an expression of anguish
came into his face as the warmth of his friend wrapped him round,
penetrated him, thawed and melted his purpose, with which he had
lived for so many empty, solitary days until it had driven him to
make an end. The coldness in his friend touched Mendel’s heart and
was like a stab through it, and he felt soon a marvellous release, as
if his blood were flowing again, and it seemed that the weaknesses
on which Logan had laid his finger were borne down with him into
the shadow.
Mendel remembered Cézanne’s portrait of his wife, and how he
had intended to tell Logan that it had made him feel like a tree with
the sap running through it to the budding leaves in spring.
He told him now, and added:—
“It doesn’t matter that I did not understand you in life.”
“No,” said Logan. “Don’t go away!”
“I’ll stay,” replied Mendel; “I’ll stay.”
Then he was in a horrible agony again, as the marvellous clarity
he had just won disappeared. Logan knew what he was doing, that
he was taking with him all the weaknesses and vain follies which had
so nearly brought them both to baseness, and Mendel knew that
Logan must continue as a powerful force in his work; but he crushed
the rising revolt in himself, the last despairing effort of his weakness,
and gave himself up to feeding the extraordinary delight it was to
the poor wretch, lying there with his force ebbing away, to give
himself up to a pure artistic purpose such as had been denied him in
his tangled life. Through this artistic purpose Logan could rise above
the natural ebbing process of his vitality, which sucked away with it
the baseness and the folly he had brought into his friend’s life. He
could rejoice in the contact of their minds, the mingling of their
souls, the proud salute of this meeting and farewell. It was nothing
to him that he was dying, little enough that he had lived, for he
knew that he had never lived until now.
The nurse came and said the patient must rest.
“Don’t go away!” pleaded Logan.
“I’ll wait,” said Mendel, patting his hand to reassure him.
“Half-past two,” said the nurse as she followed Mendel out. “What
a remarkable man!” she added. “What a tragedy! I suppose the girl
was to blame too.”
“Blame?” said Mendel, rather dazed at being brought back to
customary values. “Blame?”

He went down to the dingy waiting-room and sat there subdued,

cowering, exhausted. He felt very cold and miserable. It was so
terrible waiting for a thing that had happened. The physical fact
could make no difference. . . . Logan had made an end, a very
complete and thorough end. . . . Oh! the relief of it, the relief of
having Logan for his friend at last, of having seen him freely and
fully tasting at last his heart’s desire, of being himself brought up to
that level, that pure contact with another human being, for which he
had always longed. . . . That desire in both of them had been
violated and despoiled, God knows how. Lies? Lust? Profanation of
the holy spirit of art? . . . What words could describe the evil that
everywhere in life lay in wait for the adventurous, letting the foolish
and the timid, the faint of heart and the blind of soul, go by, and
waiting for strong men who walked with purpose and a single mind?
 At half-past two the nurse came to fetch him.
“He is very weak now,” she said.
Logan’s face wore a noble gathering serenity. He was too weak to
talk much, and only wanted Mendel to hold his hand and to talk to
him about art, about pictures “they” were going to paint, and about
pictures they had both loved: Cranach, Dürer, Uccello, Giotto, Blake,
Cézanne.
“Good men, those,” said Logan. “Good company.”
“Good, decent, quiet little men.”
“We shall do good things.”
His hand closed more tightly on Mendel’s, who surrendered
himself to the force of the ebb in his friend, felt the cold, salt waves
of death close about him and drag him out, out until Logan was lost,
and with a frightful wrench all that was dead in himself was torn
away, and he was left prostrate upon the fringes of his life. . . . He
became conscious to find himself leaning over Logan, gazing at his
lips, with his own lips near them, waiting for the breath that would
come no more.
It was finished. Logan had made an end.
Turning away, Mendel saw through the window the lovely grey-
blue sky, fleecy with mauve-grey clouds heaped up by the driving
wind—beautiful, beautiful. . . .
 X
PASSOVER

IT was many days before Mendel could take up his work again. His
mind simply could not express itself in paint.
His first clear thought as he emerged from the numbness of the
crisis was for Morrison, and to her he wrote, telling her what had
happened, describing in minute detail his experience in the hospital,
and adding that he was without the least wish to see her, and would
write to her if his life ever became again what it had been before
Logan’s violent end.
It seemed to him that Logan had claimed him, that he was
destined to go through life with Logan, a dead man, for sole
companion, and always behind Logan was the ominous and dreadful
shadow of Oliver, from whom he had thought to escape those many
months ago.
His isolation was complete. It seemed that he had not a friend in
the world, and there was not a soul towards whom he could move or
wished to move. He could only rake over the ashes of the dead past
and marvel that there had ever been a flame stirring in them. And as
he raked them, he thrust into them much that only a short while ago
had been living and delightful.
What had happened? Youth could not be gone while he was yet
so young, but he felt immeasurably old, and, in his worst condition,
outside Time, which took shape as a stream flowing past him,
bearing with it all his dreams, loves, aspirations, hopes, thoughts.
When he tried to cast himself into it, to rescue these treasured
possessions, he was clutched back, thrown down, and left prostrate
with his eyes darkened and the smell of death in his nostrils.
 Sometimes he thought with terror that he had plunged too far,
had given too much to Logan, had committed some obscure
blasphemy, had been perhaps “overseen” even in that moment when
the weakness and all that was dead in him had been wrenched
away. And he said to himself:—
“No. This is much worse than death. It is foolish to seek any
meaning in death, for death is not the worst.”
It was no good turning to his people, for he knew that he was cut
off from them. They were confined in their Judaism, from which he
had broken free. That was one of the dead things which had been
taken from him.
His mother could not help him, because she could not endure his
unhappiness. The pain of it was too great for her, and he had to
invent a spurious happiness, to pretend that he was working as
usual, though with great difficulty, and that, as usual, he was out
and about, seeing his friends. And in a way this pretence gave him
relief, though he suffered for it afterwards. He suffered so cruelly
that he was forced by it into making an effort to grope back into life.
He was able to take up his work again, and the exercise of his
craft soothed him, though it gave him no escape. The conception of
his market picture was dead. It was enclosed in Judaism, from which
he was free. Yet he had no other conception in his mind, and he
knew that any picture he might paint must spring from it. So he
clung to the dead conception and made studies and drawings for its
execution.
Some of these drawings he was able to sell to Tysoe, who worried
him by coming to talk about Logan and was nearly always ashamed
to leave the studio without buying. Mendel was saved from
borrowing of his people, which had become repugnant to him now
that he no longer belonged to them.
It was through Tysoe’s talk that he was able to push his way
through the tragedy of Logan and Oliver back to life. Tysoe insisted
that the cause of it was jealousy, but Mendel knew that Logan was
beyond jealousy, and, piecing the story together, he saw how Oliver
had set herself to smash their friendship because it fortified in her
lover what she detested, his intellect, which, because she could not
satisfy it, stood between him and his passion for her. If anyone was
responsible it was she, for she had tried to smash a spiritual thing
and had herself been smashed. . . . And Mendel saw that had he
tried to smash the relationship between Logan and Oliver he too
would have been broken, for that also was a spiritual thing, though
an evil. And he saw that, but for Morrison, he must have tried to
smash it. His obligation to her had given him the strength to resist,
to make his escape. Oliver had triumphed, evil had triumphed, and
she and Logan were dead and he had to grope his way back to life,
and if he could not succeed in doing that, then she and evil would
have triumphed indeed, and what was left of him would have to
follow the dead that had gone with Logan.
He sought the society of his father and of the old Jews, the
friends of the family, and was left marvelling at their indifference to
good and evil. They knew neither joy nor despair. They had yielded
up their will to God, upon Whom, through fair weather and foul,
their thoughts were centred. They lived in a complete stagnation
which made him shudder. Their lives were like stale water, like
unmoved puddles, from which every now and then their passions
broke in bubbles, broke vainly, in bubbles. Nothing brought them any
nearer to the God upon Whom their thoughts were centred, and only
Time brought them any nearer to the earth.
And yet Mendel loved them in their simple dignity. They had a
quality which he had found nowhere in the Christian world, where
men and women had their thoughts centred on the good, leaving
evil to triumph as it had triumphed in Oliver. . . . She had wanted
good. With all the power of her insensate passion, her blind
sensuality, she had wanted love, the highest good she could
conceive. . . . But these old Jews were wiser: they wanted God,
Whom they knew not how to attain. Yet God was ever present to
them.
In Mendel, too, this desire for God became active and kindled his
creative will. He plunged into his work with a frenzy, but soon
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