The Pawnbroker by Edward Lewis Wallant Page B

brought a token article for pawn, and Sol Nazerman had been unable to deny him that, had, in spite of a deep exasperation, played the strange, sad game with the frail Negro, as though it were some unwelcome yet necessary tribute he paid.
    "I might go to two dollars, tops," he said tiredly.
    "Well..." George allowed a decent interval and then gave a smile of casual reminiscence. "Say there, Sol, just in passing," he said with offhand ease, "I just happened to be reading that 'Genesis of Science'—Herbert Spencer. You probably know it."
    "I read it in the German when I was in Paris, while I was waiting for a visa," Sol said thoughtfully, leaning hard upon his hands for patience. "A good book, as I remember it."
    "I'll say
good,
" George emphasized with too much enthusiasm. "I particularly got a kick out of what he says when he points out that science arose from art. He says, 'It is impossible to say when art ends and science begins.' Now to me that is a very refreshing thing to come from a man whom a lot of modern thinkers find old-fashioned." His thin-skinned, self-scored face pressed close to the barred cage. "That supports what we were talking about last time. You remember how you said the scientists try to make themselves so aloof, so far above the so-called
soft-headed
artists?"
    "Spencer did not come up with anything really new. Thinking people knew of that a good six centuries before Christ," Sol said, tinkering with the hurricane lamp, the symbol of the transaction that made their exchange tolerable. The lamp only glowed dimly each time he switched it on. "You may know that Pythagoras was a great lover of music. In fact, he made the discovery that the pitch of sound depends on the length of the vibrating string."
    "It goes without saying. All the great scientists have had imagination and emotion. I mean, they are not mechanics." George chuckled with the mellow exultation of someone responding to a glass of wine. "Particularly in philosophy—there you see where the two fields overlap."
    "Socrates was really on the borderline of drama," Sol said, running his eyes over the ledger for appearance's sake. Appearance for whom? For George Smith or Sol Nazerman? What was the difference? So he gave the poor beast a few minutes of talk!
    "I wouldn't be at all surprised if his philosophy wasn't an outgrowth of the Greek drama, a direct outgrowth. Why Herbert Spencer goes on to say..."
    The Greek drama! What was all this, a madhouse? And yet he let himself form words that made brilliant sense to the incubus-ridden creature before him.
    And in spite of everything, their talk created a small, faintly warming buzz in the pawnshop. It did nothing to disturb or alleviate the abandoned wreckage of the stock; nothing profound or original was arrived at, no conclusions were even dared. Just so might the conversation of two prisoners talking late at night in their cell ease the talkers; because of nothing more than the sounds of another voice that did not importune or demand. Only, perhaps, the burned spirit of the colored man was warmed in the bright, myriad reflections of the big names and words, and possibly also, in some lesser, more remote way, the consciousness of the rock-colored Pawnbroker, who put a proper face on their vagary all the while by thumbing in a businesslike fashion through the big ledger.
    Until finally a point was reached beyond the Pawnbroker's discretion. Someone outside studied the assortment of cameras and musical instruments in the window, threatened to come in to buy. Sol, all business again, wrote out the record of their transaction, put the lamp under the counter, and solemnly gave George Smith the ticket. George studied the little piece of cardboard with a regretful yet hopeful sigh, knowing his visit was over beyond appeal; but knowing, too, that he had at least the rain check for another time.
    Some minutes after he had gone, a curse of anger and pain erupted from the lips of the Pawnbroker. "That