A writing life cut short by poverty

Abstract

His clothes were dirty and threadbare. His eyes, bulging and blood streaked seemed overbig in his bearded face ... ‘My hands are the wheel that is steering the Universe’, he declaimed. ‘One twist and I can destroy mankind, and all these people passing.’ The other man patted his shoulder. ‘That wouldn’t do you much good’, he said. ‘You’d destroy yourself as well.’ The pianist’s face set. ‘You’re wrong, friend’, he declared. ‘I am the indestructible. I am in control.’ The tram-driver clanged his bell. The pianist had to be led on to the pavement and left there, his hands still gripping the imaginary wheel that was keeping the Universe from disaster.