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In A London Garden
by
And then he realised his blessedness. There was absolutely nothing for him to do in the garden. It was all quite good. The drought had not brought down the leaves nor cracked the surface. The strong winds had not dishevelled and laid low the sunflowers. He noticed, moreover, that things were tied up now with green bast to green sticks. He had always wanted green bast and green sticks, but had used the other kind because it was the only kind that the man round the corner sold.
He put on his coat and stretched himself on a deck-chair on the lawn in the evening sunlight in a great state of contentment. When it grew dusk, from the shrubbery at the end of the garden came beyond mistake the voice of the nightingale. He had always wanted nightingales, but so far he had put up with imitative blackbirds. Blessedness had come to him indeed.
He lit a cigarette and reflected how he would show his garden to Smith, and how much Smith would be annoyed about it. Smith had a garden of his own, and was a toilsome amateur with a certain amount of knowledge. Smith would undoubtedly be green with jealousy. He would ask Smith to luncheon, and afterwards they would have coffee in the garden. He would carefully abstain from calling Smith’s attention to anything; but he would watch him, as he slowly drank it all in and meditated suicide.
On the day that Smith was to come to luncheon, the blessed artist rose early in order that he might mow the lawn before breakfast. But when he went out, he found that it did not require to be mown. The grass grew to just the right height and then stopped. At luncheon Smith was inflated with pride, and talked freely about begonias. He mentioned other things which he had in his garden–things that that artist ought to come and see. The artist sat quite meekly, and was very polite until luncheon was over. Then he said: “I think we might have coffee in the garden, Smith, if you call that backyard of mine a garden.”
“Ah,” said Smith, “you should give a little more time and attention to it.”
Then they passed out into the garden, and Smith was struck dumb. At last he said: “How do you manage to get those fine dark wallflowers in full bloom at the end of June?”
“Takes a bit of management,” said the blessed artist complacently.
Smith began to walk round the garden. He admired exceedingly. The confession that he had got nothing like that escaped him frequently; and when he had seen it all, he pulled from one pocket an old envelope and from another a short stubb of a pencil.
“Look here,” he said, “you might just give me the name of the chap who does your garden for you.”
“The angels do my garden for me,” said the blessed artist.
“Oh, all right,” said Smith, “if you don’t want to tell me, you needn’t.”
And he put back the old envelope and the pencil in their respective pockets, and he went away in a very bad temper. But this incident reminded the blessed artist to countermand the jobbing gardener–a man of intemperate habits and quite unfit to collaborate with angels.
The next day the artist went into his garden and enjoyed it extremely.
The day after he enjoyed it less.
The day after that he began to be dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction began to settle like a cloud upon him. He wondered why. It came to him slowly that he felt like a man who had stolen the Victoria Cross and was wearing it ostentatiously. He was exhibiting a perfection for which he had never worked; and there was no savour in it.
“Better,” he cried, “imperfection towards which one has contributed something. Better even the sickly wilderness that this garden once was.”
The sound of his own voice woke him.
He found that he was sitting in a deck-chair on the lawn. It was a decayed chair, having been left out in many rains. The lawn was just as bad as ever it had been. He could almost hear the caterpillars crunching up the surrounding vegetation. One glance showed him that his rose trees were still a shame and a reproach. And down the steps from the house came his old friend Smith, smiling and rubicund.