The Complete Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield. Katherine Mansfield

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СКАЧАТЬ you, at that last bump.”

      “What? Where?”

      “My parasol. It’s gone. The parasol that belonged to my mother. The parasol that I prize more than—more than . . .” She was simply beside herself. The driver turned round, his gay, broad face smiling.

      “I, too, heard something,” said he, simply and gaily. “But I thought as Monsieur and Madame said nothing . . .”

      “There. You hear that. Then you must have heard it too. So that accounts for the extraordinary smile on your face. . . .”

      “Look here,” he said, “it can’t be gone. If it fell out it will be there still. Stay where you are. I’ll fetch it.”

      But she saw through that. Oh, how she saw through it! “No, thank you.” And she bent her spiteful, smiling eyes upon him, regardless of the driver. “I’ll go myself. I’ll walk back and find it, and trust you not to follow. For”—knowing the driver did not understand, she spoke softly, gently—“if I don’t escape from you for a minute I shall go mad.”

      She stepped out of the carriage. “My bag.” He handed it to her.

      “Madame prefers . . .”

      But the driver had already swung down from his seat, and was seated on the parapet reading a small newspaper. The horses stood with hanging heads. It was still. The man in the carriage stretched himself out, folded his arms. He felt the sun beat on his knees. His head was sunk on his breast. “Hish, hish,” sounded from the sea. The wind sighed in the valley and was quiet. He felt himself, lying there, a hollow man, a parched, withered man, as it were, of ashes. And the sea sounded, “Hish, hish.”

      It was then that he saw the tree, that he was conscious of its presence just inside a garden gate. It was an immense tree with a round, thick silver stem and a great arc of copper leaves that gave back the light and yet were sombre. There was something beyond the tree—a whiteness, a softness, an opaque mass, half-hidden—with delicate pillars. As he looked at the tree he felt his breathing die away and he became part of the silence. It seemed to grow, it seemed to expand in the quivering heat until the great carved leaves hid the sky, and yet it was motionless. Then from within its depths or from beyond there came the sound of a woman’s voice. A woman was singing. The warm untroubled voice floated upon the air, and it was all part of the silence as he was part of it. Suddenly, as the voice rose, soft, dreaming, gentle, he knew that it would come floating to him from the hidden leaves and his peace was shattered. What was happening to him? Something stirred in his breast. Something dark, something unbearable and dreadful pushed in his bosom, and like a great weed it floated, rocked . . . it was warm, stifling. He tried to struggle to tear at it, and at the same moment—all was over. Deep, deep, he sank into the silence, staring at the tree and waiting for the voice that came floating, falling, until he felt himself enfolded.

      . . . . .

      In the shaking corridor of the train. It was night. The train rushed and roared through the dark. He held on with both hands to the brass rail. The door of their carriage was open.

      “Do not disturb yourself, Monsieur. He will come in and sit down when he wants to. He likes—he likes—it is his habit. . . . Oui, Madame, je suis un peu souffrante. . . . Mes nerfs. Oh, but my husband is never so happy as when he is travelling. He likes roughing it. . . . My husband. . . . My husband. . . .”

      The voices murmured, murmured. They were never still. But so great was his heavenly happiness as he stood there he wished he might live for ever.

      THE GARDEN PARTY, AND OTHER STORIES

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