An Art Shop in Greenwich Village
The little shop was dimly lighted—a lurid red glow at one side and a faint amber radiance from above. For a moment I stood looking around uncertainly—at the slovenly display-cases and tables, the unframed paintings on the walls, and the long shelves crowded with curios.
“Perhaps something in particular the señor would wish?” suggested the little old man ingratiatingly.
I glanced back into the black shadow that shrouded the farther end of the room, and then turned to meet the snakelike little eyes that were roving over my figure appraisingly.
I shook my head. “No,” I said; “nothing in particular.”
The little old man straightened his bent back with an effort, reaching a skinny hand toward the shelf above his head.
“The señor plays chess, perhaps?” His hand held a little white figure carved in ivory; he dusted it off against the faded black of his coat-sleeve. “A wonderful game, señor. This set is of the Moors—theycarve superb in ivory, the Moors. Perhaps in the London Museum of Victoria and Albert the señor has seen the work before?”
“No,” I said, and moved away down the length of the table. “I lived in Spain a year. Your place interests me.”
He laid aside the ivory figure and followed me down the room with feeble steps; I noticed then that one of his feet dragged as he walked. It was peculiarly unpleasant—indeed the whole personality of this decrepit little old man seemed unpleasant and repulsive. I stopped in the red glow of an iron lantern that hung from a bracket upon the wall.
“I lived in Spain a year,” I repeated. “That is why, when I saw your sign, I stopped in to look around.”
He stood beside me, looking up into my face, his head shaking with the palsy of old age, his eyes gleaming into mine.
“In España you have lived, eh?” The thin, cracked treble of his voice came from lips that parted in a toothless smile. “That is good—very good, señor.”
“In Granada,” I added briefly.
He put a shaking hand upon my arm; involuntarily I drew back from his touch.
“The señor has lived in Granada! My birthplace, señor—yet for fifteen years have I been here in your New York. Fifteen years, selling here the treasures of España. You have lived in Granada—ah, then, señor, the Alhambra you have seen?”
“Yes,” I said, “of course.”
He picked up a little vase from the table before us. The fire of patriotism that for an instant had lighted his face was gone; cupidity marked it instead.
“The señor perhaps is interested in ceramics?” His voice was almost a whine. “The great Alhambra vase—greatest example of the ceramic art of the Moors in all the world—here is its miniature, señor.See—gazelles in cream and golden luster upon a blue field.
“And there—over there you see a Moorish plate, painted with a luster of blue and copper. And there—the golden pottery of Malaga—you have heard of that, señor? Madre miu, what beautiful pottery they made—those Musselmen of Malaga!” He pointed at the lower shelf. “See it gleam, señor like purest gold. But to you, señor, you who have been to España—because we understand these things, you and I—will I sacrifice my treasure.”
“No,” I said. “The price does not matter.”
On the wall, above the red glow of the lantern, hung an unframed canvas. In the amber light that shone on it from above I could see its