{"product_id":"2940013773998","title":"Jeremy and Hamlet","description":"There was a certain window between the kitchen and the pantry that\u003cbr\u003ewas Hamlet's favourite.  Thirty years ago--these chronicles are of\u003cbr\u003ethe year 1894--the basements of houses in provincial English towns,\u003cbr\u003eeven of large houses owned by rich people, were dark, chill, odour-\u003cbr\u003efull caverns hissing with ill-burning gas and smelling of ill-\u003cbr\u003ecooked cabbage.  The basement of the Coles' house in Polchester was\u003cbr\u003eas bad as any other, but this little window between the kitchen and\u003cbr\u003ethe pantry was higher in the wall than the other basement windows,\u003cbr\u003ealmost on a level with the iron railings beyond it, and offering a\u003cbr\u003eview down over Orange Street and, obliquely, sharp to the right and\u003cbr\u003epast the Polchester High School, a glimpse of the Cathedral Towers\u003cbr\u003ethemselves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInside the window was a shelf, and on this shelf Hamlet would sit\u003cbr\u003efor hours, his peaked beard interrogatively a-tilt, his leg\u003cbr\u003esticking out from his square body as though it were a joint-leg and\u003cbr\u003eworked like the limb of a wooden toy, his eyes, sad and mysterious,\u003cbr\u003estaring into Life. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was not, of course, of Life that he was thinking; only very high-\u003cbr\u003ebred and in-bred dogs are conscious philosophers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis ears were stretched for a sound of the movements of Mrs.\u003cbr\u003eHounslow the cook, his nostrils distended for a whiff of the food\u003cbr\u003ethat she was manipulating, but his eyes were fixed upon the passing\u003cbr\u003eshow, the pageantry, the rough-and-tumble of the world, and every\u003cbr\u003eonce and again the twitch of his Christmas-tree tail would show\u003cbr\u003ethat something was occurring in this life beyond the window that\u003cbr\u003ecould supervene, for a moment at any rate, over the lust of the\u003cbr\u003estomach and the lure of the clattering pan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was an older dog than he had been on that snowy occasion of his\u003cbr\u003efirst meeting with the Cole family--two years older in fact.  Older\u003cbr\u003eand fatter.  He had now a round belly.  His hair hung as wildly as\u003cbr\u003eever it had done around his eyes, but beneath the peaked and\u003cbr\u003earistocratic beard there was a sad suspicion of a double chin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHE HAD SOLD HIS SOUL TO THE COOK.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen we sell our souls we are ourselves, of course, in the main\u003cbr\u003eresponsible.  But others have often had more to do with our\u003cbr\u003ecatastrophe than the world in general can know.  Had Jeremy, his\u003cbr\u003emaster, not gone to school, Hamlet's soul would yet have been his\u003cbr\u003eown; Jeremy gone, Hamlet's spiritual life was nobody's concern.  He\u003cbr\u003efell down, deep down, into the very heart of the basement, and\u003cbr\u003enobody minded.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe himself did not mind; he was very glad.  He loved the basement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt had happened that during the last holidays Jeremy had gone into\u003cbr\u003ethe country to stay with the parents of a school friend--Hamlet had\u003cbr\u003ehad therefore nearly nine months' freedom from his master's\u003cbr\u003einfluence.  Mr. and Mrs. Cole did not care for him very deeply.\u003cbr\u003eHelen hated him.  Mary loved him but was so jealous of Jeremy's\u003cbr\u003eaffection for him that she was not sorry to see him banished, and\u003cbr\u003eBarbara, only two and a half, had as yet very tenuous ideas on this\u003cbr\u003esubject.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Hounslow, a very fat, sentimental woman, liked to have\u003cbr\u003esomething or someone at her side to give her rich but transient\u003cbr\u003eemotions--emotions evoked by a passing band, the reading of an\u003cbr\u003eaccident in the newspaper, or some account of an event in the Royal\u003cbr\u003efamily.  The kitchen-maid, a girl of no home and very tender years,\u003cbr\u003elonged for affection from somebody, but Mrs. Hounslow disliked all\u003cbr\u003ekitchen-maids on principle--therefore Hamlet received what the\u003cbr\u003ekitchen-maid needed, and that is the way of the world.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083244224752,"sku":"2940013773998","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013773998_p0.jpg?v=1763590083","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013773998","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}