Bazzard had never been much inclined for celebration on any account, but he wasn't in Norfolk any longer, and that alone would be reason to rejoice. He'd read much of Christmas as a time for poetry recitations and ghost stories, for a perceptible thinness of the veil between this world and the next -- and as an opportunity for guests with a flair for storytelling to entertain themselves with their less literary hosts as a captive audience. It was difficult to imagine anyone less literary than Mr. Grewgious -- not that he was entirely unlettered, but he lacked the sort of sensitivity required for creative tasks, and was wholly unrepentant about such deficiencies. And he seldom had guests to entertain, no matter what they cared to impart.

Like his employer, Bazzard did not operate smoothly in social circles, but he at least had the excuse of being a young man and new to London, as of yet only established in literary circles of like-minded men. He'd often envied the kind of fraternity shared by long-dead dramatists -- coming to meet with their greatest competitors but their only living peers, in intellectually fertile olive groves or the bustling taverns of Elizabethan England, sharing news of their most recent achievements and the state of their art. He would have liked that, he'd thought, some access to peers of like mind. But the modern-day theatrical establishment was not so welcoming, and the thought of venturing forth again (earnest as a May morning) to expose his works to the uncharitable scrutiny of men who styled themselves superior artists was not one he cared to linger over. His only fellows before coming to London had been the very greats he admired -- whose works he possessed in various mismatched editions, and pored over at length -- and the state of affairs among many of his contemporaries was both dull and hostile in comparison.

But there were other men like him in London, men of sensitivity -- their society met infrequently and talked at length, exchanged ideas and curses, drank heavily, and parted again -- all of them existing in the same twilit realm of artistic frustration, of sleepwalking through life and existing solely to create works that might never see stage-light. His fellow playwrights were having a celebration of their own, to which by some omission he did not seem to have been invited. A dozen or so of them must be gathering now, snug together somewhere warm for mulled wine and poetry recitations. There would have been no place for Bazzard there without having to jostle for it. But it was difficult to think of it as a direct snub when invitation or no he would not have been able to attend. He was destined to dine with his employer and to partake of his uniquely graceless hospitality, to join him at Furnival's Inn the way he might any other night of the year.

In Queen Elizabeth's day, he might have had a patron; Mr. Grewgious was a shabby example of such, but provided adequately in most respects. Bazzard's employer was wholly apologetic about keeping him from his other engagements, and seemed surprised to learn that he had none. There was a decent fire in the grate, a boiled turkey of unknown origin and a generous allotment of good wine.

Talk was of business, or domestic concerns of little import, carrying on in the same limping way as during the rest of the year. Mr. Grewgious was dwelling on a ward of his, and what her circumstances might be at this sacred time of year. Privately, Bazzard dwelled on his own family as little as possible. While Grewgious stared away intently at some spot just above the fireplace, or into his cup of wine, Bazzard made the best of the situation and demolished what was on his plate with workmanlike thoroughness. The old man did not expect him to say much.

As the night went on, he found himself increasingly bold as well as personable. Perhaps it was a combination of the spirits they'd both partaken in, and the customary sense of charity that accompanied the season -- or the realization that he'd survived another year of having not been at home, not languishing in the old village with half-a-dozen older and younger brothers for company -- not shivering by the draughty old fireplace and listening to the interminable singing of hymns. By comparison, his seat at the table in Furnival's Inn and Mr. Grewgious' businesslike approach to observing the holiday were very comfortable indeed. Positively jolly. Merry, even.

Just as he found himself on the verge of dozing off, carried away by the heat and certain that he'd had quite enough, another waiter would appear on the horizon with another bottle. Grewgious' face would light up; he'd prepare another stiffly delivered toast to such-and-such a person or to such-and-such cause, and Bazzard would spring up from his chair with a hand clapped to his coat pocket to make another bold pronouncement of gratitude. And so on, with each new variety of refreshment or log added to the fire, deep into the evening.

*

When he awoke the next morning, still fully-dressed in his alcove at Grewgious' offices, it was with a heavy tongue and a less than festive pain in the head. At least he'd saved himself the delay of doing more than wash and straighten himself up; his employer must have half-carried him there, but as he strained to remember how exactly it had transpired, it all grew more and more muddled in his memory.

He could dimly recall a series of increasingly lengthy and elaborate toasts, delivered by himself -- to Mr. Grewgious' good-humored reception -- and some inquiry on how he had come to extemporize such toasts, or whether he had memorized them beforehand, and a heartfelt confession of his poetic enterprises as a schoolboy (the fruits of which he hadn't dared commit to paper for fear of scorn; it had been a test of the faculties of memory as much as his peers' patience with a sullen younger boy with large dark eyes and a disposition inclined to verse--)

-- and from then, he assumed, to his current endeavors. Grewgious knew him to be a playwright, and Bazzard was certain that he held him in scorn for it, or would have if he were a creature capable of retaining strong displeasures for more than the span of a week. But there could be no harm in him knowing that Bazzard did write, and that he hadn't disclosed the painful secret of his vocation merely to bluff the man into employing him.

It occurred to Bazzard, partway through his morning routine while going about shaving as well as he could with the light his dwelling afforded him, that his fingers were still ink-stained from the day before. He did as little scribal work as possible in the course of his duties, finding it taxing -- but at some point in the proceedings with the wine both red and gold, and the heavy dinner, he'd run out across the street for pen and ink. He had desired to elaborate on something that would be better set down in writing, but memory failed him and he knew not what.

At the last stroke of his razor, he had a terrible thought, and dropped the blade with a start.

Bazzard patted at his coat pockets in an increasing state of panic, until he found what he'd sought -- and the relief of locating what he'd sought was swiftly scourged away by fear for what that might be. A page torn from the pocket-book he was accustomed to carry in imitation of his master, which was scarred all over with a series of barely-decipherable inky marks. His profession having accustomed him to a lot of squinting through headaches and miscellaneous other complaints, he peered closer, and-- God in Heaven, no. No, no, no--

Something uncomfortably familiar was laid out on that page: the cruel father, the officer's commission (suggested by a jumble of lines in the margin illustrating he knew not what) and the devoted friend. The wedding, the slander, the parting, and -- he can't go on. Good God.

He had attempted to deliver a brief summary of his most prized work, while deep in his cups, to his own employer. A man without any appreciable sense for the tragic whatsoever, who thought of his works and dispositions as a eccentricity merely tolerable in a clerk and not a vocation of great gravity. He had provided an outline of its major occurrences, and-- paging back in the pocket-book itself and finding fresh, inky thumbprints where none should be -- perhaps even declaimed to him choice passages.

Bazzard's Thorn Of Anxiety was, he had been anxious to stress to his fellow authors, a work in the old style that occupied itself with new concerns. There was a great deal in it which was modern -- perhaps too modern, but he refused to alter a jot of it. Themes that should be handled with a great deal of delicacy -- that must have given Grewgious the wrong impression of him entirely as the work's author. Grewgious must think him a perfect fool. He had spilled everything, punctured the veil of mystery he had so consciously cultivated around his own masterwork.

He felt as if he might faint, or be ill, or go mad. How stupid it looked in summary, a grotesque parody of how the story had first looked upon completion of the original -- everything that had been wonderful and profound in it, disfigured, and by his own hand.

Bazzard crumpled up the page, cheeks burning, and thrust it on the fire.

On top of his late rising this discovery added another hour or so of anxious delay, as he deliberated on whether to go out and face his shame as soon as possible, or to delay behind a closed door. He didn't even have the excuse of claiming a holiday. The manuscript of the tragedy itself lay at the bottom of a drawer, bound up in paper; its very existence in the same space as its creator cried out to him for shame. Perhaps he ought to burn that, too, and blot out any trace of his humiliation. It grew too much, knowing the completed work was so near; he had to flee, even if it meant rushing into the arms of an even greater humiliation.

Mr. Grewgious was at his desk, penning a letter. He looked remarkably hale for a man who had partaken of at least as much good wine as his clerk had the night before. This must have been one of the advantages of an angular constitution. His stock was crisp and his coat well-brushed; he gangled to great distinction.

Bazzard saw fit to nod to him sharply and retreat to his own desk. The pricklings of shame at his throat were certain only to get worse, as he went about his business of greeting and fetching and wondering all the while if his employer was inwardly laughing at him. It must have been a very poor show, indeed. It was difficult to imagine Grewgious having anyone sent away, no matter how dire the transgression, but perhaps he would make an exception for a second-rate playwright who couldn't hold his drink.

It was difficult to make much of Grewgious' odd indecipherable face. But at that moment he looked on him with great warmth; there could be no doubt.

"You have an enviable talent, Mr. Bazzard," he pronounced, with great gravity despite his customary lack of variation. "Even an Angular person such as myself must recognize this when he hears it. In sharing with me your tragedy, you have given me a thing of beauty. Is it too late in the proceedings to wish a man a merry Christmas?"

Bazzard had frozen to the spot, perched over his desk, but managed an indifferent shrug. That would have to do for him, and it had for the most part sufficed since the first few terrified months in his position here disabused him of the idea that Hiram Grewgious was any more socially adroit than himself.

"Why, then -- merry Christmas, Mr. Bazzard," he said.

Bazzard could scarcely bring himself to look up, but against his own better judgment, he smiled.

"The same to yourself, sir."

"And a happy new year, Mr. Bazzard."