Part 2 (1/2)
THE POET AND THE EMPORIUM
”I am beginning life,” he said, with a sigh. ”Great Heavens! I have spent a day--_a day!_--in a shop. Three bedroom suites and a sideboard are among the unantic.i.p.ated pledges of our affection. Have you lithia?
For a man of twelve limited editions this has been a terrible day.”
I saw to his creature comforts. His tie was hanging outside his waistcoat, and his complexion was like white pasteboard that has got wet. ”Courage,” said I. ”It will not occur again----”
”It will,” said he. ”We have to get there again tomorrow. We have--what is it?--carpets, curtains----”
He produced his tablets. I was amazed. Those receptacles of choice thoughts!
”The amber sunlight splas.h.i.+ng through the leaky--leafy interlacing green,” he read. ”No!--that's not it. Ah, here! Curtains!
Drawing-room--not to cost more than thirty s.h.i.+llings! And there's all the Kitchen Hardware! (Thanks.) Dining-room chairs--query--rush bottoms?
What's this? G.L.I.S.--ah! ”Glistering thro' deeps of glaucophane”--that's nothing. Mem. to see can we afford Indian needlework chairs--57s. 6d.? It's dreadful, Bellows!”
He helped himself to a cigarette.
”Find the salesman pleasant?” said I.
”Delightful. a.s.sumed I was a spendthrift millionaire at first. Produced in an off-hand way an eighty-guinea bedroom suite--we're trying to do the entire business, you know, on about two hundred pounds. Well--that's ten editions, you know. Came down, with evidently dwindling respect, to things that were still ruinously expensive. I told him we wanted an idyll--love in a cottage, and all that kind of thing. He brushed that on one side, said idols were upstairs in the j.a.panese Department, and that perhaps we might _do_ with a servant's set of bedroom furniture. Do with a set! He was a gloomy man with (I should judge) some internal pain. I tried to tell him that there was quite a lot of middle-cla.s.s people like myself in the country, people of limited or precarious means, whose existence he seemed to ignore; a.s.sured him some of them led quite beautiful lives. But he had no ideas beyond wardrobes. I quite forgot the business of shopping in an attempt to kindle a little human enthusiasm in his heart. We were in a great vast place full of wardrobes, with a remote glittering vista of bra.s.s bedsteads--skeleton beds, you know--and I tried to inspire him with some of the poetry of his emporium; tried to make him imagine these beds and things going east and west, north and south, to take sorrow, servitude, joy, worry, failing strength, restless ambition in their impartial embraces. He only turned round to Annie, and asked her if she thought she could _do_ with 'enamelled.' But I was quite taken with my idea----Where is it? I left Annie to settle with this misanthrope, amidst his raw frameworks of the Homes of the Future.”
He fumbled with his tablets. ”Mats for hall--not to exceed 3s. 9d....
Kerbs ... inquire tiled hearth ... Ah! Here we are: 'Ballade of the Bedroom Suite':--
”'n.o.ble the oak you are now displaying, Subtly the hazel's grainings go, Walnut's charm there is no gainsaying, Red as red wine is your rosewood's glow; Brave and brilliant the ash you show, Rich your mahogany's hepat.i.te s.h.i.+ne, Cool and sweet your enamel: But oh!
_Where are the wardrobes of Painted Pine?_'
”They have 'em in the catalogue at five guineas, with a picture--quite as good they are as the more expensive ones. To judge by the picture.”
”But that's scarcely the idea you started with,” I began.
”Not; it went wrong--ballades often do. The preoccupation of the 'Painted Pine' was too much for me. What's this? 'N.B.--Sludge sells music stools at--' No. Here we are (first half unwritten):--
”'White enamelled, like driven snow, Picked with just one delicate line.
Price you were saying is? Fourteen!--No!
_Where are the wardrobes of Painted Pine?_'
”Comes round again, you see! Then _L'Envoy_:--
”'Salesman, sad is the truth I trow: Winsome walnut can never be mine.
Poets are cheap. And their poetry. So _Where are the wardrobes of Painted Pine?_'
”Prosaic! As all true poetry is, nowadays. But, how I tired as the afternoon moved on! At first I was interested in the shopman's amazing lack of imagination, and the glory of that fond dream of mine--love in a cottage, you know--still hung about me. I had ideas come--like that Ballade--and every now and then Annie told me to write notes. I think my last gleam of pleasure was in choosing the drawing-room chairs. There is scope for fantasy in chairs. Then----”
He took some more whisky.
”A kind of grey horror came upon me. I don't know if I can describe it.