James Tauber (97:31)
This is obviously just an extract, but I think it illustrates the point. Now, the nickel case said a voice, a severe voice, more severe than the Doctor's. What was the matter with him? Said a second voice, a voice that you might have called gentle, though it was not soft. It was a voice of authority, and it sounded at once hopeful and sad. What was the matter with Niggle? His heart was in the right place. Yes, but it did not function properly, said the first voice, and his head was not screwed on tight enough. He hardly ever thought at all. Look at all the time he wasted, not even amusing himself. He never got ready for his journey. He was moderately well off. And yet he arrived here almost destitute and had to be put in the pauper's wing. A bad case, I'm afraid. I think he should stay some time yet. It would not do him any harm. Perhaps, said the second voice, but of course, he is only a little man. He was never meant to be anything very much, and he was never very strong. Let us look at the records. Yes, there are some favourable points, you know, perhaps, said the first voice, but very few that will really bear examination. Well, said the second voice, there are these. He was a painter by nature, in a minor way, of course. Still, a leaf by Nigger has a charm of its own. He took a great deal of pains with leaves just for their own sake, but he never thought that that made him important. There is no note in the records of his pretending even to himself, that it excused his neglect of things ordered by the law. Then he should not have neglected so many, said the first voice. All the same, he did answer a good many calls, a small percentage, mostly of the easier sort. And he called those interruptions. The records are full of the word, together with a lot of complaints and silly imprecations. True, but they looked like interruptions to him, of course. Poor little man. And there is this. He never expected any return, as so many of his sort call it. There is the Parish case, the one that came in later. He was Niggle's neighbour, never did a stroke for him, and seldom showed any gratitude at all. But there is no note in the records that Niggle expected Parish's gratitude. He does not seem to have thought about it. Yes, that is a point, said the first voice, but rather small. I think you will find Niggle often merely forgotten. Things he had to do for Parish he put out of his mind as a nuisance he had done with. Still there is this last report, said the second voice. That wet bicycle ride. I rather lay stress on that. It seems plain that this was a genuine sacrifice. Nigel guessed that he was throwing away his last chance with his picture. And he guessed too that Parish was worrying unnecessarily. I think you put it too strongly, said the first voice, but you have the last word. It is your task, of course, to put the best interpretation on the facts. Sometimes they will bear it. What do you propose? I think it is a Case for a little gentle treatment now, said the second voice. Niggle thought that he had never heard anything so generous as that voice. It made gentle treatment sound like a load of rich gifts and the summons to a king's feast. Then suddenly Niggle felt ashamed to hear that he was considered a case for gentle treatment overwhelmed him and made him blush in the dark. It was like being publicly praised when you and all the audience knew that the praise was not deserved. Niggle hid his blushes in the rough blanket. There was silence. Then the first voice spoke to Niggle, quite close. You have been listening, it said. Yes, said Niggle. Well, what have you to say? Could you tell me about Parish? Said Niggle. I should like to see him again. I hope he's not very ill. Can you cure his leg? It used to give him a wretched time. And please don't worry about him and me. He was a very good neighbor and let me have excellent potatoes, very cheap, which saved me a lot of time. Did he? Said the first voice. I am glad to hear it. There was another silence. Niggle heard the voices receding. Well, I agree, he heard the first voice say in the distance. Let him go on to the next stage. Tomorrow if you like. Niggle woke up to find that his blinds were drawn and his little cell was full of sunshine. He got up and found that some comfortable clothes had been put out for him, not hospital uniform. After breakfast the doctor treated his sore hands, putting some salve on them that healed them at once. He gave Niggle some good advice and a bottle of tonic in case he needed it in the middle of the morning. They gave Niggle a biscuit and a glass of wine, and then they gave him a ticket. You can go to the railway station now, said the doctor. The porter will look after you. Goodbye. Nichols slipped out of the main door and blinked a little. The sun was very bright also. He had expected to walk out into a large town to match the size of the station, but he did not. He was on the top of a hill, green, bare, swept by a keen, invigorating wind. Nobody else was about away. Down under the hill he could see the roof of the station shining. He walked downhill to the station, briskly but without hurry. The porter spotted him at once. This way, he said, and led Niggle to a bay in which there was a very pleasant little local train standing, one coach and a small engine, both very bright, clean, and newly painted. It looked as if this was their first run. Even the track that lay in front of the engine looked new. The Rails shone, the chairs were painted green, and the sleepers gave off a delicious smell of fresh tar in the warm sunshine. The coach was empty. Where does this train go, porter? Asked Niggle. I don't think they've fixed its name yet, said the porter, but you'll find it all right. He shut the door. The train moved off at once. Niggle lay back in his seat. The little engine puffed along in a deep cutting with high green banks roofed with blue sky. It did not seem very long before the engine gave a whistle, the brakes were put on and the train stopped. There was no station and no signboard, only a flight of steps up the green embankment. At the top of the steps there was a wicket gate and a trim hedge. By the gate stood his bicycle. At least it looked like his. And there was a yellow label tied to the bars with Niggle written on it in large black letters. Niggle pushed open the gate, jumped on the bicycle and. And went bowling downhill in the spring sunshine. Before long he found that the path on which he had started had disappeared and the bicycle was rolling along over a marvellous turf. It was green and close, yet he could see every blade distinctly. He seemed to remember having seen or dreamed of that sweep of grass somewhere or other. The curves of the land were familiar somehow. Yes, the ground was becoming level, as it should. And now, of course, it was beginning to rise again. A great green shadow came between him and the sun. Niggle looked up and fell off his bicycle. Before him stood the tree, his tree. Finished, if you could say that, of a tree that was alive, its leaves opening, its branches growing and bending in the wind that Niggle had so often felt or guessed and had so often failed to catch. He gazed at the tree and slowly he lifted his arms and opened them wide. It is a gift, he said. He was referring to his art, and also to the result. But he was using the word quite literally. He went on looking at the tree. All the leaves he had ever laboured at were there as he had imagined them, rather than as he had made them. And there were others that had only budded in his mind, and many that might have budded if only he had had time. Nothing was written on them. They were just exquisite leaves. Yet they were dated, as clear as a calendar. Some of the most beautiful and the most characteristic, the most perfect examples of the Niggle style was seen to have been produced in collaboration with Mr. Parish. There was no other way of putting it. The birds were building in the tree. Astonishing birds. How they sang. They were mating hatching growing wings and flying away, singing into the forest, even while he looked at them. For now he saw that the forest was there too, opening out on either side and marching away into the distance. The mountains were glimmering far away. After a time, Niggle turned towards the forest, not because he was tired of the tree, but he seemed to have got it all clear in his mind now and was aware of it and of its growth even when he was not looking at it. As he walked away, he discovered an odd thing. The forest, of course, was a distant forest. Yet he could approach it, even enter it, without losing that particular charm. He had never before been able to walk into the distance without turning it into mere surroundings. It really added a considerable attraction to walking in the country, because as you walked, new distances opened out, so that you now had double, treble and quadruple distances, doubly trebly and quadruply enchanting. You could go on and on and have a whole country in a garden, or in a picture, if you preferred to call it that. You could go on and on, but not perhaps forever. There were the mountains in the background. They did get nearer very slowly. They did not seem to belong to the picture, or only as a link to something else, a glimpse through the trees of something different, a further stage, another picture. Niggle walked about, but he was not merely pottering, he was looking round carefully. The tree was finished, though not finished with just the other way. About to what it used to be, he thought. But in the forest there were a number of inconclusive regions that still needed work and thought nothing needed altering any longer. Nothing was wrong as far as it had gone, but it needed continuing up to a definite point. Niggle saw the point precisely in each case. He sat down under a very beautiful distant tree, a variation of the great tree, but quite individual, or it would be with a little more attention. And he considered where to begin work and where to end it, and how much time was required. He could not quite work out his scheme. Of course, he said, what I need is parish. There are lots of things about earth, plants and trees that he knows that I don't. This place cannot be left just as my private park. I need help and advice. I ought to have got it sooner. He got up and walked to the place where he had decided to begin work. He took off his coat, then down a little sheltered hollow, hidden from a further view. He saw a man looking round, rather bewildered. He was leaning on a spade, but plainly did not know what to do. Niggle hailed him. Parrish he called. Parrish shouldered his spade and came up to him. He still limped a little. They did not speak, just nodded, as they used to do, passing in the lane. But now they walked about together, arm in arm, without talking. Niggle and Parrish agreed exactly where to make the small house and garden, which seemed to be required. As they worked together, it became plain that Niggle was now the better of the two at ordering his time and getting things done. Oddly enough, it was Niggle who became most absorbed in building and gardening, while Parish often wandered about looking at trees and especially at the tree. One day, Nigger was busy planting a quick set hedge, and Parrish was lying on the grass nearby, looking attentively at a beautiful and shapely little yellow flower growing in the green turf. Niggle had put a lot of them among the roots of his tree long ago. Suddenly, Parrish looked up. His face was glistening in the sun, and he was smiling. This is grand, he said. I oughtn't to be here, really. Thank you for putting in a word for me. Nonsense, said Niggle. I don't remember what I said, but anyway, it was not nearly enough. Oh, yes, it was, said Parish. It got me out a lot sooner, that second voice. You know, he had me sent here. He said you had asked to see me. I owe it to you. No, you owe it to the second voice, Sid Nicholl. We both do.
