The Shop Of Ghosts
G. K. Chesterton
The Shop Of Ghosts first appeared in London’s Daily News. It was later collected into the book of essays Tremendous Trifles.
Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get them for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, which I am not allowed to mention in this paper, and of which the lowest price is a penny halfpenny. But the general principle will be at once apparent. In the street behind me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an electric tram for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram is to be on a flying castle in a fairy tale. You can get quite a large number of brightly coloured sweets for a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of reading this article for a halfpenny; along, of course, with other and irrelevant matter.
But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array of valuable things you can get at a halfpenny each you should do as I was doing last night. I was gluing my nose against the glass of a very small and dimly lit toy shop in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets of Battersea. But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a child once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. Those toys of the poor were like the children who buy them; they were all dirty; but they were all bright. For my part, I think brightness more important than cleanliness; since the first is of the soul, and the second of the body. You must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion in the modern world.
As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small green omnibuses, at small blue elephants, at small black dolls, and small red Noah’s arks, I must have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance. That lit shop-window became like the brilliantly lit stage when one is watching some highly coloured comedy. I forgot the grey houses and the grimy people behind me as one forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds at a theatre. It seemed as if the little objects behind the glass were small, not because they were toys, but because they were objects far away. The green omnibus was really a green omnibus, a green Bayswater omnibus, passing across some huge desert on its ordinary way to Bayswater. The blue elephant was no longer blue with paint; he was blue with distance. The black doll was really a negro relieved against passionate tropic foliage in the land where every weed is flaming and only man is black. The red Noah’s ark was really the enormous ship of earthly salvation riding on the rain-swollen sea, red in the first morning of hope.
Every one, I suppose, knows such stunning instants of abstraction, such brilliant blanks in the mind. In such moments one can see the face of one’s own best friend as an unmeaning pattern of spectacles or moustaches. They are commonly marked by the two signs of the slowness of their growth and the suddenness of their termination. The return to real thinking is often as abrupt as bumping into a man. Very often indeed (in my case) it is bumping into a man. But in any case the awakening is always emphatic and, generally speaking, it is always complete. Now, in this case, I did come back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness that I was, after all, only staring into a dingy little toy-shop; but in some strange way the mental cure did not seem to be final. There was still in my mind an unmanageable something that told me that I had strayed into some odd atmosphere, or that I had already done some odd thing. I felt as if I had worked a miracle or committed a sin. It was as if I had at any rate, stepped across some border in the soul.
To shake off this dangerous and dreamy sense I went into the shop and tried to buy wooden soldiers. The man in the shop was very old and broken, with confused white hair covering his head and half his face, hair so startlingly white that it looked almost artificial. Yet though he was senile and even sick, there was nothing of suffering in his eyes; he looked rather as if he were gradually falling asleep in a not unkindly decay. He gave me the wooden soldiers, but when I put down the money he did not at first seem to see it; then he blinked at it feebly, and then he pushed it feebly away.
“No, no,” he said vaguely. “I never have. I never have. We are rather old-fashioned here.”
“Not taking money,” I replied, “seems to me more like an uncommonly new fashion than an old one.”
“I never have,” said the old man, blinking and blowing his nose; “I’ve always given presents. I’m too old to stop.”
“Good heavens!” I said. “What can you mean? Why, you might be Father Christmas.”
“I am Father Christmas,” he said apologetically, and blew his nose again.
The lamps could not have been lighted yet in the street outside. At any rate, I could see nothing against the darkness but the shining shop-window. There were no sounds of steps or voices in the street; I might have strayed into some new and sunless world. But something had cut the chords of common sense, and I could not feel even surprise except sleepily. Something made me say, “You look ill, Father Christmas.”
“I am dying,” he said.
I did not speak, and it was he who spoke again.
“All the new people have left my shop. I cannot understand it. They seem to object to me on such curious and inconsistent sort of grounds, these scientific men, and these innovators. They say that I give people superstitions and make them too visionary; they say I give people sausages and make them too coarse. They say my heavenly parts are too heavenly; they say my earthly parts are too earthly; I donÕt know what they want, I’m sure. How can heavenly things be too heavenly, or earthly things too earthly? How can one be too good, or too jolly? I don’t understand. But I understand one thing well enough. These modern people are living and I am dead.”
“You may be dead,” I replied. “You ought to know. But as for what they are doing, do not call it living.”
A silence fell suddenly between us which I somehow expected to be unbroken. But it had not fallen for more than a few seconds when, in the utter stillness, I distinctly heard a very rapid step coming nearer and nearer along the street. The next moment a figure flung itself into the shop and stood framed in the doorway. He wore a large white hat tilted back as if in impatience; he had tight black old-fashioned pantaloons, a gaudy old-fashioned stock and waistcoat, and an old fantastic coat. He had large, wide-open, luminous eyes like those of an arresting actor; he had a pale, nervous face, and a fringe of beard. He took in the shop and the old man in a look that seemed literally a flash and uttered the exclamation of a man utterly staggered.
“Good lord!” he cried out; “it can’t be you! It isn’t you! I came to ask where your grave was.”
“I’m not dead yet, Mr. Dickens,” said the old gentleman, with a feeble smile; “but I’m dying,” he hastened to add reassuringly.
“But, dash it all, you were dying in my time,” said Mr. Charles Dickens with animation; “and you don’t look a day older.”
“I’ve felt like this for a long time,” said Father Christmas.
Mr. Dickens turned his back and put his head out of the door into the darkness.
“Dick,” he roared at the top of his voice; “he’s still alive.”
Another shadow darkened the doorway, and a much larger and more full-blooded gentleman in an enormous periwig came in, fanning his flushed face with a military hat of the cut of Queen Anne. He carried his head well back like a soldier, and his hot face had even a look of arrogance, which was suddenly contradicted by his eyes, which were literally as humble as a dog’s. His sword made a great clatter, as if the shop were too small for it.
“Indeed,” said Sir Richard Steele, “‘tis a most prodigious matter, for the man was dying when I wrote about Sir Roger de Coverley and his Christmas Day.”
My senses were growing dimmer and the room darker. It seemed to be filled with newcomers.
“It hath ever been understood,” said a burly man, who carried his head humorously and obstinately a little on one side (I think he was Ben Jonson) “It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, under our King James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty customs were fallen sick, and like to pass from the world. This grey beard most surely was no lustier when I knew him than now.”
And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, say in some mixed Norman French, “But I saw the man dying.”
“I have felt like this a long time,” said Father Christmas, in his feeble way again.
Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him.
“Since when?” he asked. “Since you were born?”
“Yes,” said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. “I have been always dying.”
Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling a mob to rise.
”I understand it now,” he cried, “you will never die.”
The Shop Of Ghosts
G. K. Chesterton
The Shop Of Ghosts first appeared in London’s Daily News. It was later collected into the book of essays Tremendous Trifles.
Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get them for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, which I am not allowed to mention in this paper, and of which the lowest price is a penny halfpenny. But the general principle will be at once apparent. In the street behind me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an electric tram for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram is to be on a flying castle in a fairy tale. You can get quite a large number of brightly coloured sweets for a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of reading this article for a halfpenny; along, of course, with other and irrelevant matter.
But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array of valuable things you can get at a halfpenny each you should do as I was doing last night. I was gluing my nose against the glass of a very small and dimly lit toy shop in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets of Battersea. But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a child once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. Those toys of the poor were like the children who buy them; they were all dirty; but they were all bright. For my part, I think brightness more important than cleanliness; since the first is of the soul, and the second of the body. You must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion in the modern world.
As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small green omnibuses, at small blue elephants, at small black dolls, and small red Noah’s arks, I must have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance. That lit shop-window became like the brilliantly lit stage when one is watching some highly coloured comedy. I forgot the grey houses and the grimy people behind me as one forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds at a theatre. It seemed as if the little objects behind the glass were small, not because they were toys, but because they were objects far away. The green omnibus was really a green omnibus, a green Bayswater omnibus, passing across some huge desert on its ordinary way to Bayswater. The blue elephant was no longer blue with paint; he was blue with distance. The black doll was really a negro relieved against passionate tropic foliage in the land where every weed is flaming and only man is black. The red Noah’s ark was really the enormous ship of earthly salvation riding on the rain-swollen sea, red in the first morning of hope.
Every one, I suppose, knows such stunning instants of abstraction, such brilliant blanks in the mind. In such moments one can see the face of one’s own best friend as an unmeaning pattern of spectacles or moustaches. They are commonly marked by the two signs of the slowness of their growth and the suddenness of their termination. The return to real thinking is often as abrupt as bumping into a man. Very often indeed (in my case) it is bumping into a man. But in any case the awakening is always emphatic and, generally speaking, it is always complete. Now, in this case, I did come back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness that I was, after all, only staring into a dingy little toy-shop; but in some strange way the mental cure did not seem to be final. There was still in my mind an unmanageable something that told me that I had strayed into some odd atmosphere, or that I had already done some odd thing. I felt as if I had worked a miracle or committed a sin. It was as if I had at any rate, stepped across some border in the soul.
To shake off this dangerous and dreamy sense I went into the shop and tried to buy wooden soldiers. The man in the shop was very old and broken, with confused white hair covering his head and half his face, hair so startlingly white that it looked almost artificial. Yet though he was senile and even sick, there was nothing of suffering in his eyes; he looked rather as if he were gradually falling asleep in a not unkindly decay. He gave me the wooden soldiers, but when I put down the money he did not at first seem to see it; then he blinked at it feebly, and then he pushed it feebly away.
“No, no,” he said vaguely. “I never have. I never have. We are rather old-fashioned here.”
“Not taking money,” I replied, “seems to me more like an uncommonly new fashion than an old one.”
“I never have,” said the old man, blinking and blowing his nose; “I’ve always given presents. I’m too old to stop.”
“Good heavens!” I said. “What can you mean? Why, you might be Father Christmas.”
“I am Father Christmas,” he said apologetically, and blew his nose again.
The lamps could not have been lighted yet in the street outside. At any rate, I could see nothing against the darkness but the shining shop-window. There were no sounds of steps or voices in the street; I might have strayed into some new and sunless world. But something had cut the chords of common sense, and I could not feel even surprise except sleepily. Something made me say, “You look ill, Father Christmas.”
“I am dying,” he said.
I did not speak, and it was he who spoke again.
Il negozio di fantasmi
G. K. Chesterton
La bottega dei fantasmi fu pubblicata per la prima volta sul Daily News di Londra. In seguito venne raccolta nel libro di saggi Tremendous Trifles.
Quasi tutte le cose migliori e più preziose dell’universo si possono avere per mezzo penny. Faccio un’eccezione, naturalmente, per il sole, la luna, la terra, gli uomini, le stelle, i temporali e simili bagattelle. Si possono ottenere gratis. Faccio anche un’altra eccezione per una cosa che non mi è permesso menzionare in questo articolo e il cui prezzo minimo è di un penny mezzo. Ma il principio generale appare subito evidente. Nella strada dietro di me, ad esempio, si può fare un giro su un tram elettrico per mezzo penny. Essere su un tram elettrico equivale a essere su un castello volante in una fiaba. Si possono ottenere parecchie caramelle colorate per mezzo penny. Si può anche avere la possibilità di leggere questo articolo per mezzo penny; insieme, naturalmente, ad altre cose irrilevanti.
Ma se volete vedere quale vasta e sconcertante varietà di cose preziose si possono ottenere al prezzo di mezzo penny l’una, dovreste fare come facevo io la scorsa notte. Stavo incollando il naso contro il vetro di un negozio di giocattoli molto piccolo e debolmente illuminato in una delle strade più grigie e squallide di Battersea. Ma fioco come era quel quadrato di luce, era pieno (come mi disse una bambina) di tutti i colori che Dio abbia mai creato. Quei giocattoli dei poveri erano come i bambini che li compravano; erano tutti sporchi; ma erano tutti luminosi. Per quanto mi riguarda, ritengo la luminosità più importante della pulizia; poiché la prima è dell’anima, e la seconda del corpo. Dovete scusarmi; sono un democratico; so di essere fuori moda nel mondo moderno.
Mentre guardavo quel palazzo di meraviglie pigmee, gli omnibus verdi, gli elefanti blu, le bambole nere e le arche di Noè rosse, devo essere caduto in una specie di trance innaturale. Quella vetrina illuminata divenne come il palcoscenico brillantemente illuminato quando si sta guardando una commedia dai colori vivaci. Dimenticai le case grigie e la gente sudicia alle mie spalle, così come si dimenticano i corridoi bui e le folle indistinte in un teatro. Sembrava che gli oggetti dietro il vetro fossero piccoli, non perché erano giocattoli, ma perché erano oggetti lontani. L’omnibus verde era davvero un omnibus verde, un omnibus verde di Bayswater, che passava attraverso qualche enorme deserto sulla sua strada ordinaria verso Bayswater. L’elefante blu non era più blu di vernice; era blu per la distanza. La bambola nera era davvero un negro in risalto contro il fogliame tropicale appassionato nella terra dove ogni erba è fiammeggiante e solo l’uomo è nero. L’arca di Noè rossa era davvero la enorme nave della salvezza terrena che naviga sul mare gonfio di pioggia, rosso nella prima mattina di speranza.
Suppongo che tutti conoscano quegli istanti sbalorditivi di astrazione, quelle brillanti lacune nella mente. In tali momenti si può vedere il volto del proprio migliore amico come un insensato disegno di occhiali o baffi. Sono comunemente caratterizzati dai due segni della lentezza della loro crescita e dell’improvvisità della loro fine. Il ritorno al pensiero reale è spesso brusco quanto scontrarsi con una persona. Molto spesso, infatti (nel mio caso), è proprio questo che accade. Ma in ogni caso il risveglio è sempre enfatico e, generalmente parlando, è sempre completo. Ora, in questo caso, sono tornato con uno shock di sanità alla consapevolezza che stavo, dopotutto, solo fissando una squallida bottega di giocattoli; ma per qualche strana ragione la cura mentale non sembrava essere definitiva. C’era ancora nella mia mente qualcosa di incontrollabile che mi diceva che ero incappato in un’atmosfera strana, o che avevo già fatto qualcosa di strano. Mi sentivo come se avessi compiuto un miracolo o commesso un peccato. Era come se fossi comunque passato oltre qualche confine nell’anima.
Per scuotermi da questa sensazione pericolosa e sognante sono entrato nel negozio e ho cercato di comprare dei soldatini di legno. L’uomo del negozio era molto vecchio e malandato, con i capelli bianchi confusi che gli coprivano la testa e metà del viso, capelli così sbalorditivamente bianchi da sembrare quasi artificiali. Eppure, sebbene fosse senile e persino malato, non c’era nulla di sofferenza nei suoi occhi; sembrava piuttosto che stesse gradualmente addormentandosi in un declino non del tutto ostile. Mi ha dato i soldatini di legno, ma quando ho posato il denaro lui all’inizio non sembrava vederlo; poi lo ha fissato debolmente, e poi l’ha spinto debolmente via.
«No, no», disse vagamente. «Non l’ho mai fatto. Non l’ho mai fatto. Qui siamo piuttosto vecchio stile».
«Non prendere denaro», risposi «mi sembra più una moda insolitamente nuova che antica.»
«Non l’ho mai fatto», disse il vecchio, sbattendo le palpebre e soffiandosi il naso, «Ho sempre dato regali. Sono troppo vecchio per smettere».
«Buon Dio!» dissi «Cosa vuoi dire? Ma potresti essere Babbo Natale».
«Sono Babbo Natale», disse scusandosi e si soffiò di nuovo il naso.
Le lampade non potevano essere ancora accese nella strada esterna. In ogni caso, non riuscivo a vedere nulla contro l’oscurità se non la vetrina luminosa. Non c’erano suoni di passi o voci per la strada; avrei potuto vagare in un mondo nuovo e senza sole. Ma qualcosa aveva reciso i legami del senso comune, e non potevo provare nemmeno sorpresa se non con sonnolenza. Qualcosa mi fece dire: “Sembri malato, Babbo Natale.”
«Sto morendo», disse.
Non parlai e fu lui a riprendere la parola.
“All the new people have left my shop. I cannot understand it. They seem to object to me on such curious and inconsistent sort of grounds, these scientific men, and these innovators. They say that I give people superstitions and make them too visionary; they say I give people sausages and make them too coarse. They say my heavenly parts are too heavenly; they say my earthly parts are too earthly; I donÕt know what they want, I’m sure. How can heavenly things be too heavenly, or earthly things too earthly? How can one be too good, or too jolly? I don’t understand. But I understand one thing well enough. These modern people are living and I am dead.”
“You may be dead,” I replied. “You ought to know. But as for what they are doing, do not call it living.”
A silence fell suddenly between us which I somehow expected to be unbroken. But it had not fallen for more than a few seconds when, in the utter stillness, I distinctly heard a very rapid step coming nearer and nearer along the street. The next moment a figure flung itself into the shop and stood framed in the doorway. He wore a large white hat tilted back as if in impatience; he had tight black old-fashioned pantaloons, a gaudy old-fashioned stock and waistcoat, and an old fantastic coat. He had large, wide-open, luminous eyes like those of an arresting actor; he had a pale, nervous face, and a fringe of beard. He took in the shop and the old man in a look that seemed literally a flash and uttered the exclamation of a man utterly staggered.
“Good lord!” he cried out; “it can’t be you! It isn’t you! I came to ask where your grave was.”
“I’m not dead yet, Mr. Dickens,” said the old gentleman, with a feeble smile; “but I’m dying,” he hastened to add reassuringly.
“But, dash it all, you were dying in my time,” said Mr. Charles Dickens with animation; “and you don’t look a day older.”
“I’ve felt like this for a long time,” said Father Christmas.
Mr. Dickens turned his back and put his head out of the door into the darkness.
“Dick,” he roared at the top of his voice; “he’s still alive.”
Another shadow darkened the doorway, and a much larger and more full-blooded gentleman in an enormous periwig came in, fanning his flushed face with a military hat of the cut of Queen Anne. He carried his head well back like a soldier, and his hot face had even a look of arrogance, which was suddenly contradicted by his eyes, which were literally as humble as a dog’s. His sword made a great clatter, as if the shop were too small for it.
“Indeed,” said Sir Richard Steele, “‘tis a most prodigious matter, for the man was dying when I wrote about Sir Roger de Coverley and his Christmas Day.”
My senses were growing dimmer and the room darker. It seemed to be filled with newcomers.
“It hath ever been understood,” said a burly man, who carried his head humorously and obstinately a little on one side (I think he was Ben Jonson) “It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, under our King James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty customs were fallen sick, and like to pass from the world. This grey beard most surely was no lustier when I knew him than now.”
And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, say in some mixed Norman French, “But I saw the man dying.”
“I have felt like this a long time,” said Father Christmas, in his feeble way again.
Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him.
“Since when?” he asked. “Since you were born?”
“Yes,” said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. “I have been always dying.”
Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling a mob to rise.
”I understand it now,” he cried, “you will never die.”
“Tutta la gente nuova ha abbandonato la mia bottega. Non riesco a spiegarmelo. Sembrano avercela con me per motivi tanto curiosi e contraddittori, questi uomini di scienza, questi innovatori. Dicono che riempio la gente di superstizioni e la rendo troppo visionaria; dicono che riempio la gente di salsicce e la rendo troppo grossolana. Dicono che le mie parti celesti sono troppo celesti; dicono che le mie parti terrene sono troppo terrene; non so proprio che cosa vogliano, davvero. Come possono le cose celesti essere troppo celesti, o le cose terrene troppo terrene? Come si può essere troppo buoni, o troppo allegri? Non capisco. Ma una cosa la capisco bene abbastanza. Questa gente moderna vive, e io sono morto.”
“Sarai anche morto,” risposi. “Dovresti saperlo tu. Ma quanto a ciò che fanno loro, non chiamarlo vivere.”
Un silenzio cadde d’improvviso fra noi, che in qualche modo mi aspettavo restasse ininterrotto. Ma non era caduto da più di pochi secondi quando, nell’assoluta quiete, udii distintamente un passo rapidissimo avvicinarsi sempre più lungo la strada. Un istante dopo una figura si precipitò nella bottega e restò incorniciata sulla soglia. Portava un grande cappello bianco spinto all’indietro come per impazienza; aveva attillati calzoni neri all’antica, un vistoso sparato e panciotto d’altri tempi, e una vecchia giacca stravagante. Aveva occhi grandi, spalancati, luminosi come quelli di un attore che avvince; aveva un volto pallido, nervoso, e una frangia di barba. Abbracciò la bottega e il vecchio in uno sguardo che parve letteralmente un lampo e proferì l’esclamazione di un uomo del tutto sbalordito.
“Santo cielo!” gridò; “non può essere lei! Non è lei! Ero venuto a chiedere dov’era la sua tomba.”
“Non sono ancora morto, signor Dickens,” disse il vecchio gentiluomo, con un debole sorriso; “ma sto morendo,” si affrettò ad aggiungere per rassicurarlo.
“Ma, diamine, lei stava morendo già ai miei tempi,” disse il signor Charles Dickens con vivacità; “e non è invecchiato di un giorno.”
“Mi sento così da molto tempo,” disse Babbo Natale.
Il signor Dickens si voltò e sporse la testa dalla porta nel buio.
“Dick,” ruggì a squarciagola; “è ancora vivo.”
Un’altra ombra oscurò la soglia, ed entrò un gentiluomo assai più grande e più sanguigno, con un’enorme parrucca, sventolandosi il volto acceso con un cappello militare del taglio della regina Anna. Portava la testa ben eretta come un soldato, e il suo volto infuocato aveva persino un’aria di arroganza, subito smentita dagli occhi, che erano letteralmente umili come quelli di un cane. La sua spada faceva un gran fracasso, come se la bottega fosse troppo piccola per essa.
“In verità,” disse Sir Richard Steele, “è cosa quanto mai prodigiosa, giacché quell’uomo stava morendo quando scrissi di Sir Roger de Coverley e del suo giorno di Natale.”
I miei sensi si facevano più fiochi e la stanza più buia. Pareva riempirsi di nuovi venuti.
“È sempre stato inteso,” disse un uomo robusto, che portava la testa con umorismo e ostinazione un po’ inclinata da un lato (credo fosse Ben Jonson) “è sempre stato inteso, consule Jacobo, sotto il nostro re Giacomo e la sua defunta Maestà, che tali buone e cordiali usanze fossero cadute inferme, e prossime a scomparire dal mondo. Questa barba grigia di certo non era più gagliarda quando lo conobbi di quanto lo sia adesso.”
E mi parve anche di udire un uomo vestito di verde, come Robin Hood, dire in un francese normanno un po’ confuso: “Ma io vidi quell’uomo morire.”
“Mi sento così da molto tempo,” disse Babbo Natale, di nuovo nel suo modo fievole.
Il signor Charles Dickens d’improvviso si sporse verso di lui.
“Da quando?” chiese. “Da quando è nato?”
“Sì,” disse il vecchio, e sprofondò tremante in una sedia. “Sono sempre stato morente.”
Il signor Dickens si tolse il cappello con un ampio gesto come chi chiama una folla a insorgere.