Personal Pleasures by Rose Macaulay Read Free Book Online Page B

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
. …
    â€œFifteen. 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.
    â€œ640.” 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