A man, calling himself Castillion Rodkin, passed through one Summer, selling Carlyle’s “French Revolution.” Among the houses where he had left a copy was the house of Otto Silverstaff.
Katrina had opened the door, the maid was down with the measles, and the doctor was busy with a patient, a Jew much revered for his poetry.
She never bought anything of peddlers, and she seldom said more than “No, thank you.” In this case she neither said “Thank you,” nor closed the door—instead she held it open, standing a little aside for him to pass, and, utterly astonished, he did pass, waiting behind her in the hall for orders.
“We will go into the study,” she said, “my husband is busy.”
“I was selling Bibles last year,” he remarked, “but they do not go down in this section.”
“Yes,” she answered, “I see,” and she moved before him into the heavy damp parlour which was never unshuttered and which was never used. She reached up and turned on one solitary electric light.
Castillion Rodkin might have been of any nationality in the world; this was partly from having travelled in all countries, and also from a fluid temperament—little was fixed or firm in him, a necessary quality in a salesman.
Castillion Rodkin was below medium height, thin and bearded with a pale, almost white growth of hair. He was peculiarly colourless, his eyes were only a shade darker than his temples, and very restless.
She said simply, “We must talk about religion.”
And with an awkwardness unusual to him he asked “Why?”