The little ends of thread leading nowhere that govern our lives can suddenly plait themselves together into a cord strong enough to hang a dog by. Dick wanted to eat his sandwich. He hadn’t really wanted the sandwich, and certainly not in that smelly snackbar, but he had some kind of nervous hunger which was making his stomach rumble. Nor did he want to eat it in the crowded street, and this was a good place, a privileged position, for the jewellers’ sat back in a sort of bay where the pavement was broader, where the window-gazer was not bumped by the restless eddy of people passing by, privileged because most of Amsterdam’s shopping streets are narrow and noisy, but this was not a place for zircon engagement rings and little plated charms, where you go for an alarm-clock. A sanctum all dim light and ash-grey velvet, and when you go inside valuable but useless antiques like sedan chairs or inlaid chess-tables are scattered casually about. There was not really much to see: the shop was deep but narrow, and the thick armour glass masked by baroque wrought-iron grilles, themselves masking sophisticated alarm systems.
