The auction room

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

I went to the auction intending to observe rather than buy, a distinction I repeated to myself at the entrance. The catalogue listed furniture, clocks and the contents of several houses. Each object had a number and a brief description, as if a dining table could be adequately introduced through its wood and measurements. I sat near the back with a pencil. Ahead of me, a woman examined the underside of a chair while a man wound a watch he had not yet decided to want.

When bidding began, the room changed its breathing. The auctioneer's voice ran ahead of us, nimble and polished, leaving just enough space for a lifted finger to become money. Numbers climbed in small obedient steps, then suddenly leapt. A wardrobe that had seemed merely large acquired the heat of a contest. Two bidders watched the front without looking at each other, conducting an argument through a third person's mouth. When the hammer fell, the silence was brief but exact, like a door closing on a sentence somebody still wished to finish.

The next lot was a chipped bowl. It waited under the light with none of the wardrobe's new importance. The auctioneer offered it, lowered his opening figure and offered it again. Nobody moved. A hundred interested eyes found other things to examine. Then a woman near the aisle raised her card. The bowl was hers before the room had time to become excited. Watching her wrap it in a scarf afterwards, I realised that the noisy competition had not supplied the only possible measure of wanting something.

Outside, she told me that the bowl matched one her father had broken years earlier. She had not come for a bargain so much as for a resemblance. I crossed out the price I had written beside it and added her explanation, then restored the price because that was part of the event too. The catalogue had not lied about the chip. It had simply had no column for the reason a stranger might carry a damaged object home with exceptional care.

Refer only to the second and third paragraphs of Source A. Analyse how the writer uses language to present the changing atmosphere of the auction. Support your answer with evidence from these paragraphs.