Personal Pleasures (6 page)

But will there come a day when he does not come, when, though his door springs back, his gold bed holds him still asleep and stirless beneath its starry mesh? Or a day when he cannot get back, when, his song ended, he still stands poised as for flight, lacking power to fall sideways and sink into the floor, so that the little door shuts on him and crushes him as he stands? For at times he seems weaker, more tardy in his retreat, and you may glimpse him lying half sunk
in gold, with the china lakescape resting lightly on his folded blue wing. Are he and the spell that bids him come and go immortal, or will the enchantment one day end, and leave only a box of dark and shining shell, with china door closed tightly over a golden mesh and a buried, songless bird?

Come, press the spring once more; make sure that he will come. Rustle, flutter, tirra lirra sweet!

It is a singular scene. Around the room sit and stand inner and outer circles of impassive men; each holds a catalogue, each a pencil. Another and still more impassive man enters, every few minutes, into the middle of the circle, holding up, for their critical, sophisticated and supercilious stare, a book. None of them, it is apparent, think much of this book; it is, in each case, to judge from their expressions, a book that ought to go pretty cheap, a defective book, a book that, if they purchase it, will stand on their shelves unsold for ever. Sometimes it is several books; a lot: all poor.

Only one man in the room admires and likes these books; he is the presiding god, raised above the rest on a dais. He thinks very well of all the books; he likes books; he is a bibliophile, a bibliolater, even a bibliomaniac. He is, in brief, a bibliopole. He too, has an impassive face, but you can tell by his voice and his utterances that he likes books. He must feel lonely, presiding over this gathering of bored bibliophobes. Yet he conceals it; he addresses them in dulcet, persuasive accents, though not infrequently his tone gently conveys admonition and reproof, a kindly but shocked, “Come, come, my dear sirs! Only five pounds
for this admirable work! Come now, we all know better than that!” But he does not say it; except by the inflexions of his admirably modulated voice. Ever so slightly turning towards some unresponsive gentleman in the circle, he says, “Guineas. Five guineas bid.” After that, with other slight glances round, “Five ten. I am bid five pounds ten. Fifteen. Six Pounds. Guineas. Six ten, I am bid. …”

As he speaks, his eyes turn to and fro, from one to another, as if he watched tennis. But none but he has spoken; none but he, one would say, has moved. By what silent telepathy has he divined from them their offers of these shillings of which he makes mention? Or does he invent them? Is he hypnotising these hard bibliophobes with his gentle, even tones, uttering his own hopes and counsels, like the still small voice of conscience in their ears, so that when at length he pauses, (why he ever stops, is not known; since he never gets any response, it cannot be that the moment arrives when he gets less response than before) when he at last breaks off, and murmurs that the book in question has been sold to such an one, for such a price, the individual mentioned accepts his destiny, half believing that he has indeed offered this preposterous sum for a book which he dislikes and despises. That little motion he made with his catalogue; the time he sucked his pencil; scratched his chin; blew his nose; twirled his moustache; jerked his head; crossed his legs; winked his eyes; performed any one of those thousand little actions by which humankind reacts to
the encompassing universe; these must have committed him to this purchase, involved him in the payment of this sum so far in excess of the value of the book, or the lot of books, which seems to have passed into his possession.

Very well. Life is like that. He must accept his portion, and sell it, if he can, at a price a little more than that which he has given, if only he can meet a fool.

Thus (I imagine) these silent book merchants cogitate, as the books are, one after another, inexplicably knocked down to them.

Alternatively, have they actually intended, by the trifling nods and becks that have escaped them, to convey to him who can read their very thoughts the little advances which have mounted to such a sum? If so, it shows once more the perils of competition. The delirious excitement of rivalry which stimulates the horse to run ahead of the horse in front of him, stirs in the blood of these hard-bitten men, egging them on to offer, in emulous rage, sums which they never in cold blood would have paid over any counter. “Ten shillings,” says (or indicates) Mr. Robinson; “fifteen,” the prompt repartee is hurled back by the flirt of Mr. Smith's catalogue; “twenty,” Mr. Robinson, now roused, tilts his chair to convey; and “guinea,” replies Mr. Smith's tilted hat. And so on and higher, in dumb but heated emulation, until one or other of the agonists comes to himself shaking his head as one who emerges from some strange delirious dream, and the disappointed,
though calm, agonarch awards the prize to his rival.

Meanwhile, while these contests of giants rage about me, I sit rigid and stirless, benumbed, beclumpsed and dull. I dare not move nor breathe, nor lift my eye to encounter, perhaps, that roving eye which is so extreme to mark the least motion, so alert to interpret it. There is a book I should like to buy, but it is not due yet; we are only at number 532, which is called
Coleoptera of the British Islands
, and should I but uncross my knees, it would be mine, in five volumes, with coloured plates. They have reached twelve and sixpence. “Anyone bid fifteen?” That commanding, probing glance passes over me.

My nerves are all chain'd up in Alabaster
,

And I a statue; or as
Daphne
was

Root-bound, that fled
Apollo.

Fool, do not boast
,

Thou canst not touch the freedom of my minde

With all thy charms
. …

“Fifteen. I am bid fifteen” … By me? Quite possibly … no, he looks elsewhere; the
Coleoptera
are knocked down to a booseller on whose shelves I shall triumphantly see its five volumes, its coloured plates, reposing in unwanted redundance, because that unguarded bookseller coughed at the crucial moment.

Off they go again. “Five shillings bid. … Seven and six.” … What is this? The enquiring eye is on me;
I realise that I have hiccupped. “Ten … twelve and six.” … Someone else must have hiccupped too, for the eye passes to and fro between me and another; the thing has become a rally. I have hiccupped again; that makes fifteen shillings. Seventeen and six, twenty … my colleague in distress must be cured, for he does not raise my last. “Twenty. I am bid twenty shillings.” … I shake my head, in denial of this assertion; it is useless. “Twenty shillings I am bid. … Sold for twenty shillings.” The book is mine; I look at my catalogue and see that it is a French book about Venus. … Yes, and about Eunuchs too. … Quite definitely I cannot, no, I will not take it home; I will explain to the clerk afterwards.…

The auction proceeds. Soon it will reach my book—the
Bucaniers of America
, 3rd edition, 1704. How greatly I desire it! Surely I can win it, seeing that, despite all my struggles not to do so, I won Venus and the Eunuchs.

“640.” It is held up before us; I see its stained title page; felix culpa, fortunate stain, that will keep it within my means. “Fifteen shillings,” says the auctioneer. My hiccup was cured, apparently, by the shock of acquiring Venus, but I flick my catalogue, meaning “Seventeen and six.” What is this? He does not see me; he looks towards some haggling bookseller who has blown his nose; he says, “seventeen and six,” but not to me. I too blow my nose; the word is now “One pound,” but it is the word of the dumb Mr. Robinson, who has tilted his bowler hat to the left.
“Guinea,” I mutely cry, flapping my catalogue like a signal of distress. He will not look, he passes by; he observes Mr. Jones to scratch his cheek, and says “Twenty-five.” I am as a desperate castaway on a lone island, signalling vainly to ships that steam unheeding by, picking up other castaways from other islands, but never me. In vain I flap my catalogue, cough, clear my throat, cross and uncross my legs, jerk my chin. The
Bucaniers
are flung to and from between Mr. Jones and Mr. Robinson in mute, tense rally and return. “Thirty. I am bid thirty …” Mr. Jones is slackening; he performs no more little actions; he slumps in his chair; the game is to Mr. Robinson. I cannot endure it; I spring to my feet. That chaste and muted hall is rent by a cry. “Two pounds.”

The crude and raucous vocality of my bid shocks the mute multitude to surprise. The auctioneer at last looks my way; impassively he murmurs, “I am bid two pounds. Going for two pounds.” He rakes Messrs. Robinson and Jones with enquiring eyes; he decides that their gestures are those of bored negation; they have lost interest in the
Bucaniers
, and are thinking about something else.

“Sold for two pounds.”

The
Bucaniers
are mine.

But I should have said thirty-five. The
Bucaniers
were not mounting by ten shilling steps. The delirium of auctions turns the brain.

How lightly, softly, insinuatingly, they arrive, flipping through the letterbox, alighting like leaves on the passage floor; green like leaves of spring, red or brown or orange like leaves of autumn, or white like drifts of snow; but each folded neatly and precisely in a wrapper of thin or stout dun-coloured paper. I will not open them; I will not slit that concealing jacket that protects me from the song of these luring sirens; like Odysseus and his sailors, I will be deaf and blind. I will cast them, as I cast without a pang all the other catalogues of merchandise that arrive in my home, unopened into the waste-paper basket.

That small, orange-red being, the colour of a street beacon, in its stout paper jacket—I gather it up to fling it into the basket. Two inches of orange-hued catalogue protrude from each end of the wrapper, closely printed; odd, how booksellers seem always short of paper, so that they have to use every inch of even the covers of their catalogues for their lists of wares. What shows on the two inches of double column visible above the wrapper is:

1063 [Utterson (E. N.)] Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry: re-published principally from Early Printed Copies, in the Black Letter,
with woodcuts
, 2 vols in one, 8vo,
half morocco, t.e.g., uncut
, 8s 6d [J.6] 1817

1065 Vergil (Polydore) English History, from an early translation, Vol. I., containing the first eight books, comprising the period prior to the Norman Conquest, edited by Sir Henry Ellis, sq. 8vo, 4s 6d [J.1] 1846

1066 Viccars (Joanne) Decapla in Psalmos, sive Commentarius ex decem Linguis MSS. et impressis Hebr. Arab., Syriac, Chald. Rabbin., Graec., Roman, Ital., Hispan.

1076 Weekly Entertainer (The); or Agreeable and Instructive Repository, containing a Collection of Select Pieces both in Prose and Verse; Curious Anecdotes, Instructive Tales and Ingenious Essays on different subjects, Vol 41-42, 2 vols in 1, 8vo,
old boards, calf back (two pp. torn)
, 12S 6d [G.16]

Sherborne
, 1803

With Index to Vol. 41. Short accounts of Ancient English Sports, Balloons, Cockfighting, Origin of War, Rebellion in Ireland, etc.

1077 –––Ditto, Vols 43-44, 2 vols in 1, 8vo,
old boards, calf back (no index)
, 10s [G.16]

Sherborne
, 1804

Late Rebellion in Ireland (continued), Origin of April Fool'sday, Trial for Bigamy, Ceylon, St. Domingo, etc.

be another habitable World in the Moon, with a Discourse concerning the possibility of a Passage thither. Unto which is added a Discourse concerning a new Planet, tending to prove that 'tis probable our Earth is one of the Planets, 8vo,
fourth edition, old calf, binding stained and wormed
, 7s 6d 1684

1083. Zoology. — Moufet (Thomas). Insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum. Fol. First Edition.
Old Calf, badly broken, titlepage missing, £
1 1Os 1634

1084 ––– The Silkewormes, and their flies: lively described in verse, by T. M. a Countrie Farmer. 4to. First Edition,
rebound in calf. Pages stained, £
1 5s 1599

My dear Bishop Wilkins and my dear Dr. Moufet, looking up at me from parallel columns. It is apparent that I cannot waste-paper them without a look; I have the greatest regard for them both, the insectophile French physician, and the mathematical, ingenious, speculative Bishop of Chester, who so happily
pursued his mechanical, astronomical and philosophical researches throughout wars and tumults, and got so prosperously, so discreetly, through the Civil War, Commonwealth, Protectorate, and Restoration, ending a Bishop and a member of the Royal Society; who, after the Restoration, “stood up for the Church of England, but dislik'd Vehemence in little and unnecessary Things, and freely censur'd it as Fanaticism on both sides”; for, in truth, his mind was up among the moon and planets, or speculating on how men might best fly, or thinking out levers, screws, wheels, pulleys and wedges. This book here will be, of course,
The Discovery of a New World in the Moon
.

The wrapper is slit and cast off. One may as well mark the
New World in the Moon;
no harm can come of marking it. And, now that the catalogue is opened, it would be foolish not to run an eye over the rest of it, just to see what is here. There may be another Bishop Wilkins.

There
is
another Bishop Wilkins—
Mathematicall Magick
, 1680 edition. How fortunate that I opened this catalogue, for I have been wanting a cheap
Mathematicall Magick
for months. And here is a modern reprint of John Maplet's
Greene Forest
. As I know of no other edition since the sixteenth century, I may as well mark it, though I remember its introduction to be foolish and sentimental, and of the “quaint old Maplet” type. Better is Burnet's
Sacred Theory of the Earth
, Third Edition, review'd by the Author, broken back and damaged boards, 1697. And William Shipway's
Campanalogia; or, Universal Instruction in the Art of Ringing, in Three Parts: to which is prefixed an Account of the Origin of Bells in Churches, with the Principal Peals in England
, cr. 8vo, orig. boards, nice copy, uncut, 1816. Not that I need it: quite definitely, I do not need it at all; still, I will put a tick against it, in case I wish to refer to its title again.