I asked a warder what was doing.
"Nothing," he replied. "It's always like this on free days."
"You see," said Pat. "There are still lots of people who are interested in such things."
The warder pushed his cap back on his head.
"It's not quite that way, lady.
They are mostly unemployed.
They don't come for the art, but because there's nothing else they can do.
Here they do at least have something to look at."
"That is an explanation I understand better," said I.
"This is nothing yet," replied the warder. "You should come in the winter, though.
It's jam full everywhere then.
On account of the heating."
We went to the gallery where the carpets were hanging. It was a quieter room, off the beaten track.
Through the tall windows you could look out into a garden, where there was an immense plane tree.
It was quite yellow, and even the light in the room had a subdued yellow glow because of it.
The carpets looked wonderful.
There were two animal carpets of the sixteenth century, some Ispahans, and a few silk, lacquerlike Polish carpets with emerald-green borders.
Age and the sun had lent to their tones a soft patina, so that they resembled great, fairylike pastels.
They gave to the room a timelessness and a harmony, such as pictures could never have given.
The window with the autumn foliage of the plane tree and the pearl-grey sky behind joined in, as if it also were an old carpet.
We remained there some time, then went back into the other galleries of the museum.
In the interval more people had arrived, and it was now obvious that they did not really belong here.
With pale faces and threadbare clothes, they wandered, hands behind their backs, rather diffidently through the rooms, with eyes that were seeing something far other than the Renaissance pictures and the still, marble antique figures.
Many were sitting on the red upholstered seats that were placed around.
They sat wearily there, as if prepared to stand up at once, should anyone come to move them on.
You could see in their attitudes that upholstered seats were something which it was quite incredible it should cost nothing to sit on.
They were used to receiving nothing for nothing.
It was very quiet in all the rooms, and despite all the visitors one hardly heard a word; and yet it seemed to me as if I were looking on at an enormous struggle—the soundless struggle of men who were stricken down, but did not mean to give in yet.
They had been thrown out from the fields of their work, their striving, their callings; now they had pome into the quiet rooms of Art, in order not to fall into paralysis and despair.
They were thinking of bread, always and only of bread and occupation; but they came here to escape from their thoughts for a few hours—and amongst the clean-cut Roman heads and the imperishable grace of white, Greek female figures they wandered around with the dragging gait, the bowed shoulders of men who have no purpose—a shocking contrast, a cheerless picture of what humanity had been able, and unable, to achieve in a thousand years—the summit of eternal works of art, but not even bread enough for each of their brothers.
In the afternoon we went to a movie.
When we came out the sky had cleared.
It was apple-green and very bright.
In the streets and shops, lights were already burning.
We walked slowly home, looking in the windows as we went.
Before the brightly lit window of a big furrier's I halted.
It was already cool in the evenings, and here were displayed thick bundles of silver fox and warm coats for the winter.
I looked at Pat; she was still wearing her short fur jacket and was altogether much too lightly clad.
"If I were the hero in the film," said I, "I would go in there and choose a coat for you."
She smiled.
"Which then?"
"That one." I pointed to the one that looked warmest.
She laughed.
"You've good taste, Robby.
That is a very lovely Canadian mink."
"Would you like to have it?"
She looked at me.
"Do you know what a coat like that costs, darling?"
"No," said I, "and I don't want to know.
I would sooner think I could give you whatever I like.