The Wonderful Year. William John Locke
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Название: The Wonderful Year
Автор: William John Locke
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4057664110930
isbn:
Then silence fell upon them; their minds drifted apart and they lost themselves in their separate dreams.
At last, Polydore coming to remove the coffee tray and to enquire as to their further wants, broke the spell. When he had gone, Corinna leaned her elbow on the little iron table and asked in her direct fashion:
“What have you been thinking of, Martin?”
He drew his hand across his eyes, and it was a moment or two before he answered.
“When I was in London,” said he, “I seem to have lived in a tiny provincial town. Now that I come to a tiny provincial town I have an odd feeling that the deep life of a great city is before me. That’s the best I can do by way of explanation. Thoughts like that are a bit formless and elusive, you know.”
“What do you think you’re going to find here?”
“I don’t know. Why not happiness in some form or other?”
“You expect a lot for five francs,” she laughed.
“And you?”
“I——?”
“Yes, what have you been thinking of?”
She pointed, and in the gloom he followed the direction of white-bloused arm and white hand.
“Do you see that little house on the quay? The one with the lights and the loggia. You can just get a glimpse of the interior. See? There’s a picture and below a woman sitting at a piano. If you listen you can catch the sound. It’s Schubert’s ‘Moment Musical.’ Well, I’ve been wishing I were that woman with her life full of her home and husband and children. Sheltered—protected—love all around her—nothing more to ask of God. It was a beautiful dream.”
“You too,” said Martin, “feel about this place somewhat as I do.”
“I suppose it’s the night. It turns one into a sentimental lunatic. Fancy living here for the rest of one’s days and concentrating one’s soul on human stomachs.”
“What do you mean, Corinna?”
“Isn’t that what woman’s domestic life comes to? She must fill her husband’s stomach properly or he’ll beat her or run off with somebody else, and she must fill her babies’ stomachs properly or they’ll get cramps and convulsions and bilious attacks and die. It was a beautiful dream. But the reality would drive me stick, stark, staring mad.”
“My ideas of married life,” said Martin sagely, “are quite different.”
“Of course!” she cried. “You’re one of the creatures with the stomach.”
“I’ve never been aware of it,” said Martin.
“It strikes me you’re too good for this world,” said Corinna.
Martin rolled a cigarette from a brown packet of Maryland tobacco—his supply of English ‘Woodbines’ had long since given out.
“I have my ideals as to love—and so forth,” said he.
“And so have I. ‘All for Love and the World Well Lost.’ That’s the title of an old play, isn’t it? I can understand it. I would give my soul for it. But it happens once in a blue moon. Meanwhile one has to live. And connubiality and maternity in a little lost hole in Nowhere like this aren’t life.”
“What the dickens is life?” asked Martin.
But her definition he did not hear, for the vast figure of Bigourdin loomed in the doorway of the salle-à-manger.
“I wish you good night,” said he.
Martin rose and looked at his watch. “I think it’s time to go to bed.”
“So do I,” yawned Corinna.
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