Consolations

 But how strange the chat between artist and sitter became the long shadow of Pat's death, he couldn't describe it, it seemed a molecular change in the material of life itself. He knew his role so well, thirty years In the business, part servant, part entertainer, the visiting artisan with his humble superiority, his gift, and now and then the air of inspiration with which he leased them, reassured them, and kept his distance. He followed the familiar pattern of talk, nothing serious or sequential; he agreed, made brief distracted demurral, eyes focused on detail; he kept things away from himself, an inveterate habit with new force. Everything in their talk was somehow of having (however fretful and spoilt and blind), as if having was their right, and unending. They hadn't started to imagine his condition, where everything was crystallized in the aching cold of having lost.