back.’
‘They’re gone, they’re dead!’
‘What? Oh, that’s a shame— I didn’t think he’d kill them. But nevermind, I’ll get you some more, how’s that?’
‘More? You’ll just replace them, I suppose?’ Elias seemed incredulous.
‘Yes— Elias, come here, what’s the matter? They were only goldfish.’
‘Only! Only forgettable. Is that how you really feel?’
Furnival stood up and approached him. ‘Why are you so upset?’
Elias flinched back. ‘What does matter to you, if he doesn’t, if the things he treasured can just be thrown away without a thought? Can you forget him so easily, Matthew? Will you forget me as quickly?’
Furnival’s face clouded. ‘Don’t be foolish,’ he admonished. ‘Cool down.’
‘I’m quite cool,’ Elias replied, suitably icily. ‘As cool as you are when you discard your own memories, the pieces of the man you loved. Will you be as cold when you cast off your love for me?’
‘I’ll be glad enough when I forget this little scene,’ came the response. ‘I took away those goldfish for you, Elias, to make you feel more comfortable. I wish I’d left them alone now.’
‘I wish you had too. But I don’t understand how you could remove them? They were a part of the garden, they meant something— to him and to you. That garden he created is inspired, exceptional— and to attack anything of his is to attack him— why would you do it? Why would you want to put him behind you?’
‘Elias, he’s dead,’ Furnival interrupted, shaking his head in bewilderment.
‘But his personality is alive— in that garden, in the beauty of it.’
‘His personality? Elias, you never met him.’
‘I know what he must have been like,’ he returned defiantly, raising his chin. ‘I know how vibrant, how vivid he must have been.’
‘Vibrant! Vivid!’ He sighed. ‘Elias, he was a quiet man— rather like you are— or like you are usually.’
Elias turned his face aside. ‘All the easier to forget, I suppose. Did you appreciate him as you should have done, Matthew? Do you appreciate him now?’
Furnival began to lose his temper at last, and answered: ‘You’ve no right to say that to me.’
‘I have if I measure your love for me by how quickly you lost your love for him.’
That was enough— Furnival gave up arguing then and there. ‘If that’s how you think, there’s nothing I can say to it,’ was his rejoinder, and he turned on his heel, sat back at his desk, and ignored the closing door as Elias departed.
This was no bout of pique, however, on Elias’s part— no mere symptom of insecurity. He was genuinely upset, but for a whole new reason that Furnival did not consider. The young man had meditated long and thoroughly on Belamis, and studied his horticultural masterpiece for every trace of motive, every hint of where the ideas had originated. He had even explored an antique trousseau chest in a spare room of the house, which contained old photographs, letters and such— every scrap of Belamis that remained. He alighted on a handwritten letter (so seldom produced nowadays), and pored over it for hours— not for its content, but for the shapes and lines of Belamis’s script, his autograph. They spoke to Elias aesthetically, and suggested tones, colours of character, hints of what this departed man must have been like, how it felt to know him.
Elias drew the conclusion that Belamis must have been brilliant, intriguing, invigorating— a vehement spirit, wielding beauty with earth and living flora. And, when he realised this, he could not help but admire, and wonder at such a prodigy. He wished he might somehow know him better, really taste his presence. He spent long days in the garden, ruminating in the arbour, gazing deeply into the pool, resting his head against the statues, immersed in the atmosphere of the place, absorbed with the chimera of its creator.
It was this reverence, of course, that produced his outrage when he found that the flourishing relic of Belamis’s mind had been interfered with. It amazed him, too, that Furnival would dare or even desire to desecrate that sacred, circular grove. When the widower claimed that his first husband had in fact been something other than the lambent, arresting genius Elias imagined, the young idealist felt stung— but not because his idol was undermined. Rather, because he supposed that Belamis must have hidden his virtues from Furnival, that they went unappreciated. Belamis had surely died believing that his gifts would be forever unknown.
In Elias, however, he had found a faithful devotee, and the indignation that the argument aroused did not subside; no, instead it brought about a great freeze between the spouses. Elias was distant and stubborn— Furnival short tempered and impatient. The latter attempted sallies of teasing, flirtation, tantrums— the former maintained a frigid, absolute stand-off. This rankled with Furnival extremely, as he was naturally hot-blooded, and felt the whole force of Elias’s refusals, without understanding why he was being denied. Whereas Elias, on the other hand, was rather pleased with his stance of abstinence; he reinterpreted it as chastity, and dedicated the purity of his body to the memory of Belamis. There was something divine about Belamis, after all, and celibacy seemed a fitting tribute to that divinity. Besides, he did not feel inclined to reward Furnival for his brashness— an insensitivity that Belamis too, perhaps, had felt the brunt of, and which could not now be atoned for. So he sealed himself within the ring of that garden wall and the sanctity of his own body, full of the absent Belamis.
The situation grew worse and worse, and lengthened through the summer, until Furnival elected to break the deadlock with a retreat.
‘I have to go abroad,’ he said, ‘for at least three weeks, maybe a month.’
Elias blanched slightly. His husband’s manner was matter-of-fact, and it frightened him with a sense that, maybe, he had offended too much in his adherence to romantic principle.
‘What for?’ he asked. ‘You want to get away from me, is that it?’
Furnival snorted. ‘No, I need to be on the spot to handle an important acquisition.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He felt more comfortable again.
‘I may be gone for a month, Elias.’
‘Yes, so you said.’
‘Well— we’ve never been apart for so long.’
‘No, that’s true.’
Furnival studied him intently, with rising frustration. ‘I’ll be in Japan,’ he prompted. ‘Perhaps I’ll take some time to explore the country.’
Elias regarded him blankly. Furnival ground his teeth. He could conjure no interest, no enthusiasm whatsoever.
‘I suppose you’ll stay here?’ he tried at last.
‘Of course.’
He knew he could press him to go too, if he wanted; he could whip them both to the far east by exerting his will, and overpowering any objections— but after the coldness of their stalemate he wanted to feel some flicker of heat, some desire on Elias’s behalf; and there was none.
‘Of course,’ he echoed flatly, and left the next morning.
Elias blithely continued his usual routine as if nothing had altered in his domestic circumstances, but by the end of the first week he began to feel the sense of absence keenly; and by the end of the second he was downright lonely. However, he chose to construe his longing for Furnival’s company as a wistful nostalgia for Belamis— if it is possible to feel nostalgic about something never known.
He caught a feverish cold at the start of the third week, and felt extremely low, until a vivid dream revitalised him. He imagined himself in the garden at night time, beneath a clear sky full of stars, which glittered so brightly that the birds began to twitter and sing in fine chorus all together, as if it were midday— though not piping sunshine notes, as they usually would, but nocturnes instead, and strange madrigals in minor keys. A brilliant full moon shone on the surface of the pond, and he approached with floating steps to look into the water. Then something caught his eye, away to the right, and he held his breath in astonishment. The moonbeams illuminated the niche where the sta
tue of Venus usually reposed, but now the figure was transformed. The silvery gleam was so dazzling that Elias could hardly look directly, but he realised, with the intuition of a dreamer, that the graceful form irradiated there was the image of Belamis.
With a spring of excitement he made to approach, but found himself fixed and immobile, helpless to draw near his beloved and discern his features more clearly. This paralysis agonised him for some moments, while he bathed in the glow of the white blaze; but his feelings changed to delight when the statue began to gently breathe, and stir. It stepped down from its pedestal, and walked towards Elias along the path, moving effortlessly in the aura of moonlight. Elias was mesmerised by the angelic vision, though the closer it came, the less he was able to see for its glare. He soon understood, with another pang, that he was invisible to Belamis, who passed heedlessly by and crossed to the opposite path. At the point where they almost met, just by the pond, Elias suddenly apprehended that, for all his apparent composure, Belamis was neither calm, nor benign— he was full of wrath, and an imperfect glimpse of his sparkling eyes convinced Elias that this apparition was as dreadful as portentous.
Belamis drew near to the opposite niche, and his light revealed the statue of Mars— but this too was altered somehow. Elias peered intently. Mars seemed much taller, and more distinctly defined than usual; and though washed with milky luminescence, he was clearly no