‘It is a wonderful piece, Mr. Joshaghan,’ he said. ‘In all our experience we have never had one like it. This gentleman would be well advised to buy it, if only as an investment.’
‘You see?’ said Mr. Joshaghan. ‘Come here, Mr. Solstice, and tell this gentleman what you think about this vase.’
Dark-browed and aquiline like his predecessor, Mr. Solstice joined them and stared down at the vase.
‘It is a bargain, indeed it is, sir,’ he said earnestly. ‘You would not find a vase like this wherever you looked. It is a piece of extraordinary good fortune that we are able to offer it to you.’
Mr. Joshaghan raised his eyebrows at Timothy and gave his hands a half-turn outwards. ‘You hear? He agrees with the other. We will ask again. Come here, Mr. Doverman, and tell this gentleman——’
‘No, no, please don’t bother,’ cried Timothy, forestalling almost rudely Mr. Doverman’s testimony. ‘I couldn’t possibly——’ He stopped and looked with distaste at the vase, its lustre dimmed by all the exudations of commerce that so thickly smeared it. How could he have dreamed? . . .
Into the moody silence round the vase came the sound of the shop door opening, and a shadow moved along the carpet.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Mr. Joshaghan. ‘What a good chance! Here is Mr. Smith of Manchester, in the nick of time. Mr. Smith, if you will be so kind, tell this gentleman what you think about this vase.’
Sharp-featured, sandy-haired and very English-looking, Mr. Smith seemed embarrassed. He stroked his chin, cleared his throat and said with an effort, ‘Well, it speaks for itself, doesn’t it?’
At once Timothy’s mood changed. The others had all spoken for the vase. Mr. Smith, more perceptive, had said the vase spoke for itself. It did; it needed no recommendation from anyone. It had perfection; it was perfection; the Absolute in terms of a vase. If Timothy possessed it he would have the Absolute always at his command. Had his life been a quest, it would have ended here.
But the price was totally disproportionate to his capital, his income, his way of life and his prospects. To pay it would be a step towards madness. Worried by the pressure of the wills around him, he shook his head.
‘Mr.——?’ said Mr. Joshaghan softly. ‘I do not have the pleasure of knowing your name.’
‘Carswell,’ said Timothy.
‘Mr. Carswell,’ said Mr. Joshaghan, as reverently as if the name was a benediction, ‘do you know that Lord Mountbatten will soon be leaving India?’
Timothy stared at him. He had been so deeply absorbed in the vase that he could not get India into focus.
‘I suppose so,’ he said, doubtfully.
‘Mr. Carswell,’ repeated Mr. Joshaghan, ‘India is a very large place.’
‘Very large,’ Timothy agreed, hoping he was not going to get drawn into a political argument.
‘What would you say was the population of India?’ Mr. Joshaghan eyed him closely.
Timothy was fond of statistics. ‘Four hundred million,’ he replied with unkind promptness. But to his surprise Mr. Joshaghan was not in the least put out.
‘Four hundred and fifteen million, to be exact,’ he said. ‘And what fraction would that be of the total population of the world?’
‘About a fifth.’
Again Mr. Joshaghan did not seem to mind having his aces trumped.
‘You are quite right, Mr. Carswell,’ he said, slowly and impressively. ‘There are two thousand million people in the world, and not one of them could make this vase!’
The onlookers stood with downcast eyes, like donors in a picture. But to Timothy they had multiplied, multiplied into the two thousand million people of the world, for whom the making of this vase must for ever remain an unattainable ideal. The poetry of the idea swept over him, loosening his heart-strings.
‘I’ll have it,’ he said.
‘I congratulate you,’ said Mr. Joshaghan.
Immediately the knot of tension broke; the cloud of witnesses, their faces indifferent now, melted away; even Mr. Joshaghan, still murmuring compliments, withdrew into his office. Timothy was left alone with his prize. How could he bear to be separated from it?
‘But there is no need,’ said Mr. Joshaghan, when consulted about payment. ‘We will gladly accept your cheque and you can take the vase away with you.’
Joy surged up in Timothy again, and he could hardly refrain from embracing Mr. Joshaghan.
‘I will arrange for it to be packed,’ said Timothy’s benefactor, pocketing his cheque and bowing himself away. ‘Meanwhile, perhaps, you would like to have another look round. We may have other vases. . .’
Timothy smiled, for of course there were no other vases in the world. But there was plenty to look at, and plenty of reason, every time he looked, to congratulate himself that bis vase was not as these.
His mind had travelled far before the assistant returned, bearing an immense square box which he respectfully tendered to Timothy. How solid beauty was! Clasping it, almost eclipsed by it, Timothy moved towards the door. Another customer had come in; another vase was being displayed; and as Timothy passed by he heard Mr. Joshaghan say ‘There are two thousand million people in the world, Mr. Gainfoot and not one of them——’
But Timothy did not care, for before him, like a buckler against all those millions, he was carrying the Absolute.
A REWARDING EXPERIENCE
Henry Tarrant had been asked to write a short story but he couldn’t think of one.
He tried all sorts of devices. He studied the ornaments in his room (and they were many, for he was an inveterate collector); he recalled the circumstances in which he had inherited or acquired them. How many good stories had been written about objects!—The Tinder Box, Le Peau de Chagrin, The Golden Bowl. But his had nothing to tell him. They had risen above context, they were complete in themselves, they did not want to be questioned about their pasts.
Well, what about Nature? Many admirable stories had been written about Nature. Was not the sea the chief character in most of Conrad’s novels? Did not the moors dominate The Return of the Native? Could Green Mansions have been written without trees?
Henry Tarrant knew about Nature, of course. Nature had made discreet appearances in his novels. He knew when flowers came out; he would never have committed Emily Brontë’s blunder of making wallflowers blossom in September. But Nature had always come to him in his study. He did not have to go out in search of it, it was there when he took out his botany book. And if he wanted a more direct view he had only to go to his window, which commanded both the moors and the sea. What was Nature doing? He looked out. A September drizzle shrouded moors and sea, reducing the one to a pinkish, the other to a greyish monochrome. So much for Nature. He turned back with relief to his well-ordered room.
The date for the delivery of the story drew nearer, but Henry was no nearer to writing it. Art had failed him, Nature had failed him; they would not dramatize themselves in his mind.
There remained the human race. At the thought of the human race Henry’s face, could he have seen it, lengthened. As a novelist he had written a lot about the human race, of course; he had even been complimented on his knowledge of it. And he did, he felt, know a lot about it, quite enough, too much. Sitting in his study he had paraded it before him. The human race had its apologists but Henry Tarrant was not among them. He was not going to say smooth things about it. It was a wonder that his public went on reading him, but from a sort of masochism, which was one of their less endearing traits, they did. They took their medicine and came back for more. Surely it should be easy to pour out another little dose?
Henry Tarrant was a bachelor and fiction-writing had confirmed him in the single state. The more he wrote about human beings the less he wanted to have anything to do with them. He had got them where he wanted them, and that was outside. Outside, they obeyed the rules—his rules. Critics had remarked on his aloofness, but it was perfectly in order for an artist to be aloof. A portrait-painter does not embrace his subject, at least he is under no obligation to; he stands away from it at whatever distance he finds convenient—in Henry’s case, the range of a good pair of field glasses. But when he peered into the distance, once so thickly populated with unprepossessing figures, he could see nothing.