“But I find the air here is most-evil. Let us rather go have tea.”
Astonishment melted into her pride in leading him down through the great hall and along the beloved corridor of her solitary pacings, out into the gigantic granite smile of the Egyptian gallery, to the always sudden door of the refreshment room.
“If I got locked into the Museum at night I should stay in this gallery,” she said unable to bear companionship in her sanctuary without extorting some recognition of its never-failing quality.
“It is certainly impressive, in a crude way,” admitted Mr. Shatov.
“They are so absolutely peaceful,” said Miriam struggling on behalf of her friends with her fury at this extraordinary judgment. It had not before occurred to her that they were peaceful and that was not enough. She gazed down the vista to discover the nature of the spell they cast. “You can see them in clear light in the desert!” she exclaimed in a moment. The charm grew as she spoke. She looked forward to being alone with them again in the light of this discovery. The chill of Mr. Shatov’s indifferent response to her explanation was buried in her private acknowledgment that it was he who had forced her to discover something of the reason of her enchantment. He forced her to think. She reflected that solitude was too easy. It was necessary for certainties. Nothing could be known except in solitude. But the struggle to communicate certainties gave them new life; even if the explanation were only a small piece of the truth. … “Excuse me I leave you a moment,” he said, turning off through the maze of little figures near the door. The extraordinary new thing was that she could think, untroubled, in his company. She gratefully blessed his disappearing form.
“I’m going to have toast and jam,” she announced expansively when the waitress appeared.
“Bring me just a large pot of tea and some kind of sweetmeat,” said Mr. Shatov reproachfully.
“Pastries,” murmured Miriam.
“What is pastries” he asked mournfully.
“Pâtisseries” beamed Miriam.
“Ah no,” he explained patiently, “it is not that at all; I will have simply some small things in sugar.”
“No pastries; cake,” said the waitress, watching herself in the mirror.
“Ach bring me just tea,” bellowed Mr. Shatov.
Several people looked round, but he did not appear to notice them and sat hunched, his overcoat coming up behind beyond his collar, his arms thrust out over the table, ending in grubby clasped hands. In a moment he was talking. Miriam sat taking in the change in the feeling of the familiar place under the influence of his unconcerned presence. There were the usual strangers strayed in from the galleries, little parties, sitting exposed at the central tables near the door; not quite at home, their eyes still filled with the puzzled preoccupation with which they had wandered and gazed, the relief of their customary conversation held back until they should have paid, out of their weary bewilderment some tribute of suitable comment; looking about the room, watching in separate uneasiness for material to carry them past the insoluble problem. They were unchanged. But the readers stood out anew; the world they had made for her was broken up. Those who came in twos and sat at the more sequestered tables, maddening her with endless conversations at cross purposes from unconsidered assumptions, were defeated. Their voices were covered by Mr. Shatov’s fluent monologue, and though her own voice, sounding startlingly in the room, seemed at once only an exclamatory unpractised reproduction of these accustomed voices, changing already their aspect and making her judgment of them rock insecurely in her mind, it was threaded into his unconcerned reality and would presently be real.
But the solitary readers, sitting in corners over books, or perched, thoughtfully munching and sipping, with their backs to the room, on the high stools at the refreshment counter, and presently getting down to escape untouched and free, through the swing door, their unlifted eyes recovering already, through its long glass panels, the living dream of the hugely moving galleries, reproached her for her lost state.
Mr. Shatov’s dreaming face woke to prevent her adding milk to his tea, and settled again, dwelling with his far off theme. She began listening in detail to screen her base interest in her extravagant fare. “It is a remarkable fact,” he was saying and she looked up, astonished at the sudden indistinctness of his voice. His eyes met hers severely, above the rim of his cup, “but of almost universal application,” he proceeded thickly, and paused to produce between his lips a saturated lump of sugar. She stared, horrified. Very gravely, unattained by her disgust, he drew in his tea in neat noiseless sips till the sugar disappeared … when he deftly extracted another lump from the basin and went on with his story.
The series of lumps, passing one by one without accident through their shocking task, softened in some remarkable way the history of Tourgainyeff and Madame Viardot. The protest that struggled in her to rise and express itself was held in check by his peculiar serenity. The frequent filling of his cup and the selection of his long series of lumps brought no break in his concentration. … Above the propped elbows and the cup held always at the level of his lips, his talking face was turned to hers. Expressions moved untroubled through his eyes.
When they left the tearoom he plunged rapidly along as if unaware of his surroundings. The whole Museum was there, unexplored, and this was his first visit. He assented indifferently to her suggestion that they should just look at the Elgin Marbles, and stood unmoved before the groups,
