The Golden Bowl - Henry James (top fiction books of all time .TXT) š
- Author: Henry James
Book online Ā«The Golden Bowl - Henry James (top fiction books of all time .TXT) šĀ». Author Henry James
āYes, thatās what it comes to,ā said Charlotte Stant.
āAnd why,ā he asked, almost soothingly, āshould it be terrible?ā He couldnāt, at the worst, see that.
āBecause itās always soā āthe idea of having to pity people.ā
āNot when thereās also, with it, the idea of helping them.ā
āYes, but if we canāt help them?ā
āWe canā āwe always can. That is,ā he competently added, āif we care for them. And thatās what weāre talking about.ā
āYesāā āshe on the whole assented. āIt comes back then to our absolutely refusing to be spoiled.ā
āCertainly. But everything,ā the Prince laughed as they went onā āāall your ādecency,ā I meanā ācomes back to that.ā
She walked beside him a moment. āItās just what I meant,ā she then reasonably said.
VIThe man in the little shop in which, well after this, they lingered longest, the small but interesting dealer in the Bloomsbury street who was remarkable for an insistence not importunate, inasmuch as it was mainly mute, but singularly, intensely coerciveā āthis personage fixed on his visitors an extraordinary pair of eyes and looked from one to the other while they considered the object with which he appeared mainly to hope to tempt them. They had come to him last, for their time was nearly up; an hour of it at least, from the moment of their getting into a hansom at the Marble Arch, having yielded no better result than the amusement invoked from the first. The amusement, of course, was to have consisted in seeking, but it had also involved the idea of finding; which latter necessity would have been obtrusive only if they had found too soon. The question at present was if they were finding, and they put it to each other, in the Bloomsbury shop, while they enjoyed the undiverted attention of the shopman. He was clearly the master, and devoted to his businessā āthe essence of which, in his conception, might precisely have been this particular secret that he possessed for worrying the customer so little that it fairly made for their relations a sort of solemnity. He had not many things, none of the redundancy of ārotā they had elsewhere seen, and our friends had, on entering, even had the sense of a muster so scant that, as high values obviously wouldnāt reign, the effect might be almost pitiful. Then their impression had changed; for, though the show was of small pieces, several taken from the little window and others extracted from a cupboard behind the counterā ādusky, in the rather low-browed place, despite its glass doorsā āeach bid for their attention spoke, however modestly, for itself, and the pitch of their entertainerās pretensions was promptly enough given. His array was heterogeneous and not at all imposing; still, it differed agreeably from what they had hitherto seen.
Charlotte, after the incident, was to be full of impressions, of several of which, later on, she gave her companionā āalways in the interest of their amusementā āthe benefit; and one of the impressions had been that the man himself was the greatest curiosity they had looked at. The Prince was to reply to this that he himself hadnāt looked at him; as, precisely, in the general connection, Charlotte had more than once, from other days, noted, for his advantage, her consciousness of how, below a certain social plane, he never saw. One kind of shopman was just like another to himā āwhich was oddly inconsequent on the part of a mind that, where it did notice, noticed so much. He took throughout, always, the meaner sort for grantedā āthe night of their meanness, or whatever name one might give it for him, made all his cats grey. He didnāt, no doubt, want to hurt them, but he imaged them no more than if his eyes acted only for the level of his own high head. Her own vision acted for every relationā āthis he had seen for himself: she remarked beggars, she remembered servants, she recognised cabmen; she had often distinguished beauty, when out with him, in dirty children; she had admired ātypeā in faces at huckstersā stalls. Therefore, on this occasion, she had found their antiquario interesting; partly because he cared so for his things, and partly because he caredā āwell, so for them. āHe likes his thingsā āhe loves them,ā she was to say; āand it isnāt onlyā āit isnāt perhaps even at allā āthat he loves to sell them. I think he would love to keep them if he could; and he prefers, at any rate, to sell them to right people. We, clearly, were right peopleā āhe knows them when he sees them; and thatās why, as I say, you could make out, or at least I could, that he cared for us. Didnāt you seeāā āshe was to ask it with an insistenceā āāthe way he looked at us and took us in? I doubt if either of us have ever been so well looked at before. Yes, heāll remember usāā āshe was to profess herself convinced of that almost to uneasiness. āBut it was after allāā āthis was perhaps reassuringā āābecause, given his taste, since he has taste, he was pleased with us, he was struckā āhe had ideas about us. Well, I should think people might; weāre beautifulā āarenāt we?ā āand he knows. Then, also, he has his way; for that way of saying nothing with his lips when heās all the while pressing you so with his face, which shows how he knows you feel itā āthat is a regular way.ā
Of decent old gold, old silver, old bronze, of old chased and jewelled artistry, were the objects that, successively produced, had ended by numerously dotting the counter, where the shopmanās slim, light fingers, with neat nails, touched them at moments, briefly, nervously, tenderly, as those of a chess-player rest, a few seconds, over the board, on a figure he thinks he may move and then may not: small florid ancientries, ornaments, pendants, lockets, brooches, buckles, pretexts for dim brilliants, bloodless rubies, pearls either
Comments (0)