326 PRÆTERITA-II

or his son-or his partner-or anyhow the Ruling power-at his desk beside the back window. You told what you wanted: it was necessary to know your mind, and to be sure you did want it; there was no showing of things for temptation at Bautte’s. You wanted a bracelet, a brooch, a watch-plain or enamelled. Choice of what was wanted was quietly given. There were no big stones, nor blinding galaxies of wealth. Entirely sound workmanship in the purest gold that could be worked; fine enamel for the most part, for colour, rather than jewels; and a certain Bauttesque subtlety of linked and wreathed design, which the experienced eye recognized when worn in Paris or London. Absolutely just and moderate price; wear,-to the end of your days. You came away with a sense of duty fulfilled, of treasure possessed, and of a new foundation to the respectability of your family.

You returned into the light of the open street with a blissful sense of a parcel being made up to be sent after you, and in the consequently calm expatiation of mind, went usually to watch the Rhone.

Bautte’s was in the main street, out of which one caught glimpses, down the short cross ones, of the passing water; as at Sandgate, or the like fishing towns, one got peeps of the sea. With twenty steps you were beside it.

90. For all other rivers there is a surface, and an underneath, and a vaguely displeasing idea of the bottom. But the Rhone flows like one lambent jewel; its surface is nowhere, its ethereal self is everywhere, the iridescent rush and translucent strength of it blue to the shore, and radiant to the depth.

Fifteen feet thick, of not flowing, but flying water; not water, neither,-melted glacier, rather, one should call it; the force of the ice is with it, and the wreathing of the clouds, the gladness of the sky, and the continuance of Time.

Waves of clear sea are, indeed, lovely to watch, but they are always coming or gone, never in any taken shape

[Version 0.04: March 2008]