The Golden Bowl

kable for an insistence not importunate, inasmuch as it was mainly mute, but singularly, intensely coercive — this personage fixed on his visitors a

hey enjoyed the undiverted attention of the shopman. He was clearly the master, and devoted to his business — the 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 “rot” they had elsewhere seen, and our friends had, on entering, even had the sense of a muster so scant that, as high values obviously wouldn’t reign, the ef

s grey. He didn’t, 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 relation — this 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 “type” in faces at hucksters’ stalls. Therefore, on this occasion, she had found their antiquario interesting; partly because he cared so for his things, and partly because he cared — well, so for them. “He likes his things — he loves them,” she was to say; “and it isn’t only — it isn’t perhaps even at all — that 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

the too-questionable great; cups, trays, taper-stands, suggestive of pawn-tickets, archaic and brown, that would themselves, if preserved, have been prized curiosities. A few commemorative medals, of neat outline but dull reference; a classic monument or two, things of the first years of the century; things consular, Napoleonic, temples, obelisks, arches, tinily re-embodied, completed the discreet cluster; in which, however, even after tentative reinforcement from several quaint rings, intaglios, amethysts, carbuncles, each of which had found a home in the ancient sallow satin of some weakly-snapping little box, there was, in spite of the due proportion of

ing of this sort, to take its little va

e — just triumphantly

rlotte had seen him open, so that her eyes found themselves resting on those he had

companion rejoined. “Is there anythi

events, look at the objects; she but looked

rince quiet

te asked, “your idea t

ot — as a sm

icordo o

you yourself say.

hat I don’t ask you to. Therefore,” she demanded

ogic —!” h

I feel it. A ricordo from you — from you to me

interested in her passage with her friend than in anything else, again met his gaze. It was a comfort to her that their foreign tongue covere

she went on to her

and he looked into it hard. “Do you mean

ree

r me som

oke again she might have seemed, oddly, to be

Prince into h

’t accept i

peated in t

“But you’ve touched an idea that HAS been mine. It’s w

He made nothing, clearly, of the little man’s

e,” she returned, “my own

t do, ca

imposs

And he took up on

If I were to accept from you one of these charming litt

even — as if HE might understand — looked vagu

please? Under

sn’t then, if you will,” he

reasonable — so that your idea may stand or fall by your answer to it. If I should pin one of these t

” It had been, as a pleasantry, in the other time, his explanation to her of everything; but nothing

would be impossible to give h

ext —?” H

t we shall have had together a

a moment “I remember w

And the one thing, you see, goes wi

h which he quite turned to her, a little wearily at

Then the shopman, for Charlotte, momentously broke silence. “You’ve seen, disgraziatamente, signora principessa,” he sadly said, “too much”— and it made the Prince face about. For the effect of the momentous came, if not from the sense, from the sound of his words; which was that of the suddenest, sharpest Italian. Charlotte exchanged with her friend a glance that matched it, and just for the minute

alian then

came in Englis

re En

cup, yet not of exorbitant size, and formed, to appearance, either of old fine gold or of some material once richly gilt. He handled it with tenderness, with ceremony, making a place for it on a small satin mat. “My Golden Bowl,” he observed — and it sounded, on his lips, as if it said everything. He left the important object — for as “important” it did somehow present itself — to produce its certain effect. Simple, but singularly elegant, it stood on a circular foot, a short pedestal with

ad thought. “Gold, really gold?

a little, and perh

turning it to the light. “It may be cheap for wh

t with it for less than its valu

ow muc

with his serene stare.

YOU like it?” He came no nearer; h

f you must know, it’s

aid the Prince. But he turned away a

was evidently taken. “Do you mean

omise you that you’ll never f

n if I were to scr

it off — it has been too well put on; put on I don’t know when and I don’t k

with the cup, smiled back

t a los

ime then is th

also of a

en if it’s so precious,

oke without irritation, he pointed his remark by passing immediately into the street, where, during the next minutes, the others saw him, his back to the shopwindow

on. “Ah, I’ve had it a long time without selling it.

e you’ve thought I mightn’t s

continued to appear to follow the play o

for you honestly to tell me. Of

can’t find out, isn’t it as

find out as soon as

ly insisted, “if you

ll,” she asked,

uld you say to

with the utmost promptitude,

madam — and if you admire the thing I think it really might be yours. It

ent over the bowl again. “Then it’s im

for one’s self.” He said it so coaxingly that she found herself going on without, as mi

ould be a

asked, “of an object that conta

nly to mention it. The good faith,”

whom one gives the thing,

r it — if you’re spe

f anyone in particu

He might know — and he might

cy for the bowl. “Not even if the thing should come to pieces?” And then as he w

e had his strangest smile. “Ah, if

little man’s expression. “You mean

perhaps even by dashing it with v

e palaces of his past, and, a little, of hers; with the possibilities of his future, with the sumptuosities of his marriage, with the wealth of the Ververs. All the same,

ystal. But its hardness is certainly, its safety. It doesn’t break

is a split.” And she looked down again at the bow

nd by laws

f there’s a

gain, holding it aloft and tapping it with a key. It rang

nk.” The Prince, on the other side of the shop-window, had finally faced about and, as to see if she hadn’t done, was trying

y, resigned himself. “We

mpared to the other effect that, before they had gone much further, she had, with her companion, to take account of. This latter was simply the effect of their having, by some tacit logic, some queer inevitability, quite dropped the idea of a continued pursuit. They didn’t say so, but it wa

I looked at it the more I liked it, and that if you weren’t so unaccommodating

looked all the morning. “Do you propose it se

“What trick

rder. “You mean you

know

er with it. You didn’

r, to stare. “How could yo

out. I didn’t want to have another scene with you, before tha

price is so moderate. She waited but a

e po

o look at her.

hering emphasis. “It would be dear — to make a gift of — at five shilli

sked, “what I

t has a

started, while her colour, at the word, rose. It was as if he had been right,

ect itself. It told its st

an interest in it now made even tenderer a

ht in which her friend suddenly and intensely showed. The reflection of it, as she smil

ous! A crack is a crack

be af

Bac

ur happ

y happ

our sa

my sa

sed. “For yo

riage. For

! But if we may perish by cracks in things that we don’t know —!” And she s

does know. I do, at least — and by instinct

ally, the more for it. They fell in for her with a general, or r

n will pr

nothing to fear,” he now quite amiably responded. “An

el

hall be

’s vain, after all, for you to talk of my accep

“You attach an impossible condition. That, I

She had a headshake of disenchantment — so far as the idea had appealed to her. It all appeared too dif

his made, he laughed

e now! I SHOULD have liked the Bowl.

ver again; but after a moment he qualified. “Y

ed at him.

you WILL marry. You mu

ds she was to have uttered, all the morning, that came out

onderfully —“it will. But her

he prepared to get in. Before she did so, however, she said what had been gathering whil