Or perhaps it is only my fancy: for that I have fancies I
know.
But what to write? The history of those seventeen years could not be put
down, my good God: at least, it would take me seventeen more to do it.
If I were to detail the building of the palace alone, and how it killed
me nearly, and how I twice fled from it, and had to return, and became
its bounden slave, and dreamed of it, and grovelled before it, and
prayed, and raved, and rolled; and how I forgot to make provision on the
west side for the contraction and expansion of the gold in the colder
weather and the heats of summer, and had to break down nine months'
work, and how I cursed Thee, how I cursed Thee; and how the lake of wine
evaporated faster than the conduits replenished it, and the three
journeys which I had to take to Constantinople for shiploads of wine,
and my frothing despairs, till I had the thought of placing the
reservoir in the platform; and how I had then to break down the south
side of the platform to the very bottom, and of the month-long nightmare
of terror that I had lest the south side of the palace would undergo
subsidence; and how the petrol failed, and of the three-weeks' search
for petrol along the coast; and how, after list-rubbing all the jet, I
found that I had forgotten the necessary rouge for polishing; and how,
in the third year, I found the fluate, which I had for water-proofing
the pores of the platform-stone, nearly all leaked away in the
_Speranza's_ hold, and I had to get silicate of soda at Gallipoli; and
how, after two years' observation, I had to come to the conclusion that
the lake was leaking, and discovered that this Imbros sand was not
suitable for mixing with the skin of Portland cement which covered the
cement concrete, and had to substitute sheet-bitumen in three places;
and how I did all, all for the sake of God, thinking: 'I will work, and
be a good man, and cast Hell from me: and when I see it stand finished,
it will be an Altar and a Testimony to me, and I shall find peace, and
be well': and how I have been cheated--seventeen years, long years of my
life--for there is no God; and how my plasterers'-hair failed me, and I
had to use flock, hessian, scrym, wadding, wood-street paving-blocks,
and whatever I could find, for filling the interspaces between the
platform cross-walls; and of the espagnolette bolts, how a number of
them mysteriously disappeared, as if snatched to Hell by harpies, and I
had to make them; and how the crane-chain would not reach two of the
silver-panel castings when they were finished, and they were too heavy
for me to lift, and the wringing of the hands of my despair, and my
biting of the earth, and the transport of my fury; and how, for a whole
wild week, I searched in vain for the text-book which describes the
ambering process; and how, when all was nearly over, in the blasting
away of the forge and crane with dynamite, a long crack appeared down
the gold of the east platform-steps, and how I would not be consoled,
but mourned and mourned; and how, in spite of all my tribulations, it
was sweetly interesting to watch my power slowly grow from the first
feeble beginnings of the landing of materials and unloading them from
the motor, a hundred-weight at a time, till I could swing four tons--see
the solid metals flow--enjoy the gliding sounds of the handle,
crank-shaft, and system of levers, forcing inwards the mould-end, and
the upper and lower plungers, for pressing the material--build at ease
in a travelling-cage--and watch from my hut-door through sleepless
hours, under the electric moonlight of this land, the three piles of
gold stones, the silver panels, the two-foot squares of jet, and be
comforted; and how the putty-wash--but it is past, it is past: and not
to live over again that vulgar nightmare of means and ends have I taken
to this writing again--but to put down something else, if I dare.
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