other portion of the shop, and I would, continue to rest in the wooden
chair, inhaling the incense of his trade. Soon he would come back,
holding in his thin, veined hand a piece of gold-brown leather. With
eyes fixed on it, he would remark: “What a beaudiful biece!” When I,
too, had admired it, he would speak again. “When do you wand dem?” And
I would answer: “Oh! As soon as you conveniently can.” And he would say:
“To-morrow fordnighd?” Or if he were his elder brother: “I will ask my
brudder!”
Then I would murmur: “Thank you! Good-morning, Mr. Gessler.”
“Goot-morning!” he would reply, still looking at the leather in his
hand. And as I moved to the door, I would hear the tip-tap of his bast
slippers restoring him, up the stairs, to his dream of boots. But if it
were some new kind of foot-gear that he had not yet made me, then indeed
he would observe ceremony—divesting me of my boot and holding it long
in his hand, looking at it with eyes at once critical and loving, as if
recalling the glow with which he had created it, and rebuking the way in
which one had disorganized this masterpiece. Then, placing my foot on a
piece of paper, he would two or three times tickle the outer edges with
a pencil and pass his nervous fingers over my toes, feeling himself into
the heart of my requirements.
I cannot forget that day on which I had occasion to say to him; “Mr.
Gessler, that last pair of town walking-boots creaked, you know.”
He looked at me for a time without replying, as if expecting me to
withdraw or qualify the statement, then said:
“Id shouldn'd 'ave greaked.”
“It did, I'm afraid.”
“You goddem wed before dey found demselves?”
“I don't think so.”
At that he lowered his eyes, as if hunting for memory of those boots,
and I felt sorry I had mentioned this grave thing.
“Zend dem back!” he said; “I will look at dem.”
A feeling of compassion for my creaking boots surged up in me, so well
could I imagine the sorrowful long curiosity of regard which he would
bend on them.
“Zome boods,” he said slowly, “are bad from birdt. If I can do noding
wid dem, I dake dem off your bill.”
Once (once only) I went absent-mindedly into his shop in a pair of boots
bought in an emergency at some large firm's. He took my order without
showing me any leather, and I could feel his eyes penetrating the
inferior integument of my foot. At last he said:
“Dose are nod my boods.”
The tone was not one of anger, nor of sorrow, not even of contempt, but
there was in it something quiet that froze the blood. He put his hand
down and pressed a finger on the place where the left boot, endeavouring
to be fashionable, was not quite comfortable.
“Id 'urds you dere,”, he said. “Dose big virms 'ave no self-respect.
Drash!” And then, as if something had given way within him, he spoke
long and bitterly. It was the only time I ever heard him discuss the
conditions and hardships of his trade.
“Dey get id all,” he said, “dey get id by adverdisement, nod by
work. Dey dake it away from us, who lofe our boods. Id gomes to this
—bresently I haf no work. Every year id gets less you will see.” And
looking at his lined face I saw things I had never noticed before,
bitter things and bitter struggle—and what a lot of grey hairs there
seemed suddenly in his red beard!
As best I could, I explained the circumstances of the purchase of those
ill-omened boots. But his face and voice made so deep impression that
during the next few minutes I ordered many pairs. Nemesis fell! They
lasted more terribly than ever. And I was not able conscientiously to go
to him for nearly two years.
When at last I went I was surprised to find that outside one of the
two little windows of his shop another name was painted, also that of
a bootmaker-making, of course, for the Royal Family. The old familiar
boots, no longer in dignified isolation, were huddled in the single
window. Inside, the now contracted well of the one little shop was more
scented and darker than ever. And it was longer than usual, too, before
a face peered down, and the tip-tap of the bast slippers began. At last
he stood before me, and, gazing through those rusty iron spectacles,
said:
“Mr.——-, isn'd it?”
“Ah! Mr. Gessler,” I stammered, “but your boots are really too good, you
know! See, these are quite decent still!” And I stretched out to him my
foot. He looked at it.
“Yes,” he said, “beople do nod wand good hoods, id seems.”
To get away from his reproachful eyes and voice I hastily remarked:
“What have you done to your shop?”
He answered quietly: “Id was too exbensif. Do you wand some boods?”
I ordered three pairs, though I had only wanted two, and quickly left.
I had, I do not know quite what feeling of being part, in his mind, of
a conspiracy against him; or not perhaps so much against him as against
his idea of boot. One does not, I suppose, care to feel like that;
for it was again many months before my next visit to his shop, paid, I
remember, with the feeling: “Oh! well, I can't leave the old boy—so here
goes! Perhaps it'll be his elder brother!”
For his elder brother, I knew, had not character enough to reproach me,
even dumbly.
And, to my relief, in the shop there did appear to be his elder brother,
handling a piece of leather.
“Well, Mr. Gessler,” I said, “how are you?”
He came close, and peered at me.
“I am breddy well,” he said slowly “but my elder brudder is dead.”
And I saw that it was indeed himself—but how aged and wan! And never
before had I heard him mention his brother. Much shocked; I murmured:
“Oh! I am sorry!”
“Yes,” he answered, “he was a good man, he made a good bood; but he is
dead.” And he touched the top of his head, where the hair had suddenly
gone as thin as it had been on that of his poor brother, to indicate, I
suppose, the cause of death. “He could nod ged over losing de oder shop.
Do you wand any hoods?” And he held up the leather in his hand: “Id's a
beaudiful biece.”
I ordered several pairs. It was very long before they came—but they were
better than ever. One simply could not wear them out. And soon after
that I went abroad.
It was over a year before I was again in London. And the first shop I
went to was my old friend's. I had left a man of sixty, I came back to
one of seventy-five, pinched and worn and tremulous, who genuinely, this
time, did not at first know me.
“Oh! Mr. Gessler,” I said, sick at heart; “how splendid your boots are!
See, I've been wearing this pair nearly all the time I've been abroad;
and they're not half worn out, are they?”
He looked long at my boots—a pair of Russia leather, and his face seemed
to regain steadiness. Putting his hand on my instep, he said:
“Do dey vid you here? I 'ad drouble wid dat bair, I remember.”
I assured him that they had fitted beautifully.
“Do you wand any boods?” he said. “I can make dem quickly; id is a slack
dime.”
I answered: “Please, please! I want boots all round—every kind!”
“I will make a vresh model. Your food must be bigger.” And with utter
slowness, he traced round my foot, and felt my toes, only once looking
up to say:
“Did I dell you my brudder was dead?”
To watch him was painful, so feeble had he grown; I was glad to get
away.
I had given those boots up, when one evening they came. Opening the
parcel, I set the four pairs out in a row. Then one by one I tried them
on. There was no doubt about it. In shape and fit, in finish and quality
of leather, they were the best he had ever made me. And in the mouth of
one of the Town walking-boots I found his bill.
The amount was the same as usual, but it gave me quite a shock. He had
never before sent it in till quarter day. I flew down-stairs, and wrote
a cheque, and posted it at once with my own hand.
A week later, passing the little street, I thought I would go in and
tell him how splendidly the new boots fitted. But when I came to where
his shop had been, his name was gone. Still there, in the window, were
the slim pumps, the patent leathers with cloth tops, the sooty riding
boots.
I went in, very much disturbed. In the two little shops—again made into
one—was a young man with an English face.
“Mr. Gessler in?” I said.
He gave me a strange, ingratiating look.
“No, sir,” he said, “no. But we can attend to anything with pleasure.
We've taken the shop over. You've seen our name, no doubt, next door. We
make for some very good people.”
“Yes, Yes,” I said; “but Mr. Gessler?”
“Oh!” he answered; “dead.”
“Dead! But I only received these boots from him last Wednesday week.”
“Ah!” he said; “a shockin' go. Poor old man starved 'imself.”
“Good God!”
“Slow starvation, the doctor called it! You see he went to work in such
a way! Would keep the shop on; wouldn't have a soul touch his boots
except himself. When he got an order, it took him such a time. People
won't wait. He lost everybody. And there he'd sit, goin' on and on—I
will say that for him not a man in London made a better boot! But look
at the competition! He never advertised! Would 'ave the best leather,
too, and do it all 'imself. Well, there it is. What could you expect
with his ideas?”
“But starvation——!”
“That may be a bit flowery, as the sayin' is—but I know myself he was
sittin' over his boots day and night, to the very last. You see I used
to watch him. Never gave 'imself time to eat; never had a penny in the
house. All went in rent and leather. How he lived so long I don't know.
He regular let his fire go out. He was a character. But he made good
boots.”
“Yes,” I said, “he made good boots.”
And I turned and went out quickly, for I did not want that youth to know
that I could hardly see.
1911
THE GRAND JURY—IN TWO PANELS AND A FRAME
Read that piece of paper, which summoned me to sit on the Grand Jury
at the approaching Sessions, lying in a scoop of the shore close to the
great rollers of the sea—that span of eternal freedom, deprived just
there of too great liberty by the word “Atlantic.” And I remember
thinking, as I read, that in each breaking wave was some particle which
had visited every shore in all the world—that in each sparkle of hot
sunlight stealing that bright water up into the sky, was the microcosm
of all change, and of all unity.
PANEL I
In answer to that piece of paper, I presented myself at the proper place
in due course and with a certain trepidation. What was it that I was
about to do? For I had no experience of these things. And, being too
early, I walked a little to and fro, looking at all those my partners
in this matter of the purification of Society. Prosecutors, witnesses,
officials, policemen, detectives, undetected, pressmen, barristers,
loafers, clerks, cadgers, jurymen. And I remember having something of
the feeling that one has when one looks into a sink without holding
one's nose. There was such uneasy hurry, so strange a disenchanted look,
a sort of spiritual dirt, about all that place, and there were—faces!
And I thought: To them my face must seem as their faces seem to me!
Soon I was taken with my accomplices to have my name called, and to
be sworn. I do not remember much about that process, too occupied with
wondering what these companions of mine were like; but presently we
all came to a long room with a long table, where nineteen lists of
indictments and nineteen pieces of blotting paper were set alongside
nineteen pens. We did not, I recollect, speak much to one another, but
sat down, and studied those nineteen lists. We had eighty-seven cases
on which to pronounce whether the bill was true or no; and the clerk
assured us we should get through them in two days at most. Over the top
of these indictments I regarded my eighteen fellows. There was in me a
hunger of inquiry, as to what they thought about this business; and a
sort of sorrowful affection for them, as if we were all a ship's company
bound on some strange and awkward expedition. I wondered, till I thought
my wonder must be coming through my eyes, whether they had the same
curious sensation that I was feeling, of doing something illegitimate,
which I had not been born to do, together with a sense of
self-importance, a sort of unholy interest in thus dealing with the
lives of my fellow men. And slowly, watching them, I came to the
conclusion that I need not wonder. All with the exception perhaps of
two, a painter and a Jew looked such good citizens. I became gradually
sure that they were not troubled with the lap and wash of speculation;
unclogged by any devastating sense of unity; pure of doubt, and
undefiled by an uneasy conscience.
But now they began to bring us in the evidence. They brought it quickly.
And at first we looked at it, whatever it was, with a sort of solemn
excitement. Were we not arbiters of men's fates, purifiers of Society,
more important by far than Judge or Common Jury? For if we did not bring
in a true bill there was an end; the accused would be discharged.
We set to work, slowly at first, then faster and still faster, bringing
in true bills; and after every one making a mark in our lists so that
we might know where we were. We brought in true bills for burglary,
and false pretences, larceny, and fraud; we brought them in for
manslaughter, rape, and arson. When we had ten or so, two of us would
get up and bear them away down to the Court below and lay them before
the Judge. “Thank you, gentlemen!” he would say, or words to that
effect; and we would go up again, and go on bringing in true bills. I
noticed that at the evidence of each fresh bill we looked with a little
less excitement, and a little less solemnity, making every time a
shorter tick and a shorter note in the margin of our lists. All the
bills we had—fifty-seven—we brought in true. And the morning and the
afternoon made that day, till we rested and went to our homes.
Next day we were all back in our places at the appointed hour, and, not
greeting each other much, at once began to bring in bills. We brought
them in, not quite so fast, as though some lurking megrim, some microbe
of dissatisfaction with ourselves was at work within us. It was as if
we wanted to throw one out, as if we felt our work too perfect. And
presently it came. A case of defrauding one Sophie Liebermann, or
Laubermann, or some such foreign name, by giving her one of those
five-pound Christmas-card banknotes just then in fashion, and receiving
from her, as she alleged, three real sovereigns change. There was a
certain piquancy about the matter, and I well remember noticing how we
sat a little forward and turned in our seats when they brought in the
prosecutrix to give evidence. Pale, self-possessed, dressed in black,
and rather comely, neither brazen nor furtive, speaking but poor
English, her broad, matter-of-fact face, with its wide-set grey eyes and
thickish nose and lips, made on me, I recollect, an impression of rather
stupid honesty. I do not think they had told us in so many words what
her calling was, nor do I remember whether she actually disclosed it,
but by our demeanour I could tell that we had all realized what was the
nature of the service rendered to the accused, in return for which he
had given her this worthless note. In her rather guttural but pleasant
voice she answered all our questions—not very far from tears, I think,
but saved by native stolidity, and perhaps a little by the fear that
purifiers of Society might not be the proper audience for emotion.
When she had left us we recalled the detective, and still, as it were,
touching the delicate matter with the tips of our tongues, so as not,
being men of the world, to seem biassed against anything, we definitely
elicited from him her profession and these words: “If she's speaking
the truth, gentlemen; but, as you know, these women, they don't always,
specially the foreign ones!” When he, too, had gone, we looked at each
other in unwonted silence. None of us quite liked, it seemed, to be
first to speak. Then our foreman said: “There's no doubt, I think, that
he gave her the note—mean trick, of course, but we can't have him on
that alone—bit too irregular—no consideration in law, I take it.”
He smiled a little at our smiles, and then went on: “The question,
gentlemen, really seems to be, are we to take her word that she actually
gave him change?” Again, for quite half a minute; we were silent, and
then, the fattest one of us said, suddenly: “Very dangerous—goin' on the
word of these women.”
And at once, as if he had released something in our souls, we all (save
two or three) broke out. It wouldn't do! It wasn't safe! Seeing what
these women were! It was exactly as if, without word said, we had each
been swearing the other to some secret compact to protect Society. As
if we had been whispering to each other something like this: “These
women—of course, we need them, but for all that we can't possibly
recognise them as within the Law; we can't do that without endangering
the safety of every one of us. In this matter we are trustees for all
men—indeed, even for ourselves, for who knows at what moment we might
not ourselves require their services, and it would be exceedingly
awkward if their word were considered the equal of our own!” Not one of
us, certainly said anything so crude as this; none the less did many
of us feel it. Then the foreman, looking slowly round the table, said:
“Well, gentlemen, I think we are all agreed to throw out this bill”; and
all, except the painter, the Jew, and one other, murmured: “Yes.” And,
as though, in throwing out this bill we had cast some trouble off our
minds, we went on with the greater speed, bringing in true bills. About
two o'clock we finished, and trooped down to the Court to be released.
On the stairway the Jew came close, and, having examined me a little
sharply with his velvety slits of eyes, as if to see that he was not
making a mistake, said: “Ith fonny—we bring in eighty thix bills true,
and one we throw out, and the one we throw out we know it to be true,
and the dirtieth job of the whole lot. Ith fonny!” “Yes,” I answered
him, “our sense of respectability does seem excessive.” But just then
we reached the Court, where, in his red robe and grey wig, with his
clear-cut, handsome face, the judge seemed to shine and radiate,
like sun through gloom. “I thank you, gentlemen,” he said, in a voice
courteous and a little mocking, as though he had somewhere seen us
before: “I thank you for the way in which you have performed your
duties. I have not the pleasure of assigning to you anything for your
services except the privilege of going over a prison, where you will be
able to see what sort of existence awaits many of those to whose cases
you have devoted so much of your valuable time. You are released,
gentlemen.”
Looking at each, other a little hurriedly, and not taking too much
farewell, for fear of having to meet again, we separated.
I was, then, free—free of the injunction of that piece of paper reposing
in my pocket. Yet its influence was still upon me. I did not hurry away,
but lingered in the courts, fascinated by the notion that the fate
of each prisoner had first passed through my hands. At last I made an
effort, and went out into the corridor. There I passed a woman whose
figure seemed familiar. She was sitting with her hands in her lap
looking straight before her, pale-faced and not uncomely, with thickish
mouth and nose—the woman whose bill we had thrown out. Why was she
sitting there? Had she not then realised that we had quashed her claim;
or was she, like myself, kept here by mere attraction of the Law?
Following I know not what impulse, I said: “Your case was dismissed,
wasn't it?” She looked up at me stolidly, and a tear, which had
evidently been long gathering, dropped at the movement. “I do nod know;
I waid to see,” she said in her thick voice; “I tink there has been
mistake.” My face, no doubt, betrayed something of my sentiments about
her case, for the thick tears began rolling fast down her pasty cheeks,
and her pent-up feeling suddenly flowed forth in words: “I work 'ard;
Gott! how I work hard! And there gomes dis liddle beastly man, and
rob me. And they say: 'Ah! yes; but you are a bad woman, we don' trust
you—you speak lie.' But I speak druth, I am nod a bad woman—I gome
from Hamburg.” “Yes, yes,” I murmured; “yes, yes.” “I do not know this
country well, sir. I speak bad English. Is that why they do not drust
my word?” She was silent for a moment, searching my face, then broke
out again: “It is all 'ard work in my profession, I make very liddle, I
cannot afford to be rob. Without the men I cannod make my living, I
must drust them—and they rob me like this, it is too 'ard.” And the slow
tears rolled faster and faster from her eyes on to her hands and her
black lap. Then quietly, and looking for a moment singularly like a big,
unhappy child, she asked: “Will you blease dell me, sir, why they will
not give me the law of that dirty little man?”
I knew—and too well; but I could not tell her.
“You see,” I said, “it's just a case of your word against his.” “Oh! no;
but,” she said eagerly, “he give me the note—I would not have taken it
if I 'ad not thought it good, would I? That is sure, isn't it? But
five pounds it is not my price. It must that I give 'im change! Those
gentlemen that heard my case, they are men of business, they must know
that it is not my price. If I could tell the judge—I think he is a man
of business too he would know that too, for sure. I am not so young. I
am not so veree beautiful as all that; he must see, mustn't he, sir?”
At my wits' end how to answer that most strange question, I stammered
out: “But, you know, your profession is outside the law.”
At that a slow anger dyed her face. She looked down; then, suddenly
lifting one of her dirty, ungloved hands, she laid it on her breast with
the gesture of one baring to me the truth in her heart. “I am not a bad
woman,” she said: “Dat beastly little man, he do the same as me—I am
free-woman, I am not a slave bound to do the same to-morrow night, no
more than he. Such like him make me what I am; he have all the pleasure,
I have all the work. He give me noding—he rob my poor money, and he make
me seem to strangers a bad woman. Oh, dear! I am not happy!”
The impulse I had been having to press on her the money, died within
me; I felt suddenly it would be another insult. From the movement of her
fingers about her heart I could not but see that this grief of hers was
not about the money. It was the inarticulate outburst of a bitter sense
of deep injustice; of all the dumb wondering at her own fate that went
about with her behind that broad stolid face and bosom. This loss of
the money was but a symbol of the furtive, hopeless insecurity she lived
with day and night, now forced into the light, for herself and all the
world to see. She felt it suddenly a bitter, unfair thing. This beastly
little man did not share her insecurity. None of us shared it—none of
us, who had brought her down to this. And, quite unable to explain to
her how natural and proper it all was, I only murmured: “I am sorry,
awfully sorry,” and fled away.
PANEL II
It was just a week later when, having for passport my Grand Jury
summons, I presented myself at that prison where we had the privilege of
seeing the existence to which we had assisted so many of the eighty-six.
“I'm afraid,” I said to the guardian of the gate, “that I am rather late
in availing myself—the others, no doubt——?”
“Not at all, sir,” he said, smiling. “You're the first, and if you'll
excuse me, I think you'll be the last. Will you wait in here while I
send for the chief warder to take you over?”