第43章

He began to read again his technical works on the coal-mining industry,he studied the government reports,and he read with care the latest things on mining and the chemistry of coal and of shale which were written in German.Of course the most valuable discoveries were kept secret as far as possible.But once you started a sort of research in the field of coal-mining,a study of methods and means,a study of by-products and the chemical possibilities of coal,it was astounding the ingenuity and the almost uncanny cleverness of the modern technical mind,as if really the devil himself had lent fiend's wits to the technical scientists of industry.It was far more interesting than art,than literature,poor emotional half-witted stuff,was this technical science of industry.In this field,men were like gods,or demons,inspired to discoveries,and fighting to carry them out.In this activity,men were beyond atty mental age calculable.But Clifford knew that when it did come to the emotional and human life,these self-made men were of a mental age of about thirteen,feeble boys.The discrepancy was enormous and appalling.

But let that be.Let man slide down to general idiocy in the emotional and 'human'mind,Clifford did not care.Let all that go hang.He was interested in the technicalities of modern coal-mining,and in pulling Tevershall out of the hole.

He went down to the pit day after day,he studied,he put the general manager,and the overhead manager,and the underground manager,and the engineers through a mill they had never dreamed of.Power!He felt a new sense of power flowing through him:power over all these men,over the hundreds and hundreds of colliers.He was finding out:and he was getting things into his grip.

And he seemed verily to be re-born.Now life came into him!He had been gradually dying,with Connie,in the isolated private life of the artist and the conscious being.Now let all that go.Let it sleep.

He simply felt life rush into him out of the coal,out of the pit.The very stale air of the colliery was better than oxygen to him.It gave him a sense of power,power.He was doing something:and he was going to do something.He was going to win,to win:not as he had won with his stories,mere publicity,amid a whole sapping of energy and malice.But a man's victory.

At first he thought the solution lay in electricity:convert the coal into electric power.Then a new idea came.The Germans invented a new locomotive engine with a self feeder,that did not need a fireman.And it was to be fed with a new fuel,that burnt in small quantities at a great heat,under peculiar conditions.

The idea of a new concentrated fuel that burnt with a hard slowness at a fierce heat was what first attracted Clifford.There must be some sort of external stimulus of the burning of such fuel,not merely air supply.

He began to experiment,and got a clever young fellow,who had proved brilliant in chemistry,to help him.

And he felt triumphant.He had at last got out of himself.He had fulfilled his life-long secret yearning to get out of himself.Art had not done it for him.Art had only made it worse.But now,now he had done it.

He was not aware how much Mrs Bolton was behind him.He did not know how much he depended on her.But for all that,it was evident that when he was with her his voice dropped to an easy rhythm of intimacy,almost a trifle vulgar.

With Connie,he was a little stiff.He felt he owed her everything,and he showed her the utmost respect and consideration,so long as she gave him mere outward respect.But it was obvious he had a secret dread of her.The new Achilles in hint had a heel,and in this heel the woman,the woman like Connie,his wife,could lame him fatally.He went in a certain half-subservient dread of her,and was extremely nice to her.But his voice was a little tense when he spoke to her,and he began to be silent whenever she was present.

Only when he was alone with Mrs Bolton did he really feel a lord and a master,and his voice ran on with her almost as easily and garrulously as her own could run.And he let her shave him or sponge all his body as if he were a child,really as if he were a child.