H.E. Bates Companion

A laid-off tannery worker, now dependent on the wages of his independent and fun-loving daughter, questions his identity and purpose in life. While strolling the shops, he finds himself drawn to a "small pink and white fuchsia in a pot" called Ballet Girl, "his eyes alight for a moment with happiness, with a momentary illusion it was clear they could not sustain." In The Spectator (December 22, 1939), The Beauty of the Dead and Other Stories (1940), Thirty-One Selected Tales (1947).