aine came to the Two Rivers. "Even if it means she does become an Aes Sedai!" The corner of his eye caught Lan's raised eyebrow, and he flushed.
"And that is all the reason? You want to spend as much time as you can with your friends from home before they go? That's why you're dragging your feet? You know what's sniffing at your heels,jordans for sale."
Rand surged angrily to his feet. "All right, it's Moiraine! I wouldn't even be here if not for her, and she won't as much as talk to me."
"You'd be dead if not for her, sheepherder," Lan said flatly, but Rand rushed on.
"She tells me . . . tells me horrible things about myself"-his knuckles whitened on the sword. That I'm going to go mad and die! - "and then suddenly she won't even say two words to me. She acts as if I'm no different than the day she found me, and that smells wrong, too,http://www.rolexsubmarinerreplicausa.com/."
"You want her to treat you like what you are?"
"No,rolex submariner replica! I don't mean that. Burn me, I don't know what I mean half the time. I don't want that, and I'm scared of the other. Now she's gone off somewhere, vanished . . ."
"I told you she needs to be alone sometimes. It isn't for you, or anyone else, to question her actions."
". . . without telling anybody where she was going, or when she'd be back, or even if she would be back. She has to be able to tell me something to help me, Lan. Something. She has to. If she ever comes back."
"She's back, sheepherder. Last night. But I think she has told you all she can. Be satisfied. You've learned what you can from her." With a shake of his head, Lan's voice became brisk. "You certainly aren't learning anything standing there. Time for a little balance work. Go through Parting the Silk, beginning from Heron Wading in the Rushes. Remember that that Heron form is only for practicing balance. Anywhere but doing forms,chanel, it leaves you wide open; you can strike home from it, if you wait for the other man to move first, but you'll never avoid his blade."
"She has to be able to tell me something, Lan. That wind. It wasn't natural, and I don't care how close to th
2012年12月30日星期日
2012年12月18日星期二
鍒鎴戣蛋 Never let me go_016
t of picture a kid three years younger might have done. It took him no more than twenty minutes and it got a laugh,montblanc ballpoint pen, sure enough, though not quite the sort he'd expected. Even so, it might not have led to anything--and this is a big irony, I suppose--if Miss Geraldine hadn't been taking the class that day.
Miss Geraldine was everyone's favourite guardian when we were that age. She was gentle, soft-spoken, and always comforted you when you needed it, even when you'd done something bad, or been told off by another guardian. If she ever had to tell you off herself, then for days afterwards she'd give you lots of extra attention, like she owed you something. It was unlucky for Tommy that it was Miss Geraldine taking art that day and not, say, Mr. Robert or Miss Emily herself--the head guardian--who often took art. Had it been either of those two, Tommy would have got a bit of a telling off, he could have done his smirk, and the worst the others would have thought was that it was a feeble joke,chanel. He might even have had some students think him a right clown. But Miss Geraldine being Miss Geraldine, it didn't go that way. Instead, she did her best to look at the picture with kindness and understanding. And probably guessing Tommy was in danger of getting stick from the others, she went too far the other way, actually finding things to praise, pointing them out to the class. That was how the resentment started.
"After we left the room," Tommy remembered,http://www.nikehighheels.biz/, "that's when I first heard them talking. And they didn't care I could hear."
My guess is that from some time before he did that elephant,http://www.cheapfoampositesone.us/, Tommy had had the feeling he wasn't keeping up--that his painting in particular was like that of students much younger than him--and he'd been covering up the best he could by doing deliberately childish pictures. But after the elephant painting, the whole thing had been brought into the open, and now everyone was watching to see what he did next. It seems he did make an effort for a while, but he'd no sooner have started on something,
Miss Geraldine was everyone's favourite guardian when we were that age. She was gentle, soft-spoken, and always comforted you when you needed it, even when you'd done something bad, or been told off by another guardian. If she ever had to tell you off herself, then for days afterwards she'd give you lots of extra attention, like she owed you something. It was unlucky for Tommy that it was Miss Geraldine taking art that day and not, say, Mr. Robert or Miss Emily herself--the head guardian--who often took art. Had it been either of those two, Tommy would have got a bit of a telling off, he could have done his smirk, and the worst the others would have thought was that it was a feeble joke,chanel. He might even have had some students think him a right clown. But Miss Geraldine being Miss Geraldine, it didn't go that way. Instead, she did her best to look at the picture with kindness and understanding. And probably guessing Tommy was in danger of getting stick from the others, she went too far the other way, actually finding things to praise, pointing them out to the class. That was how the resentment started.
"After we left the room," Tommy remembered,http://www.nikehighheels.biz/, "that's when I first heard them talking. And they didn't care I could hear."
My guess is that from some time before he did that elephant,http://www.cheapfoampositesone.us/, Tommy had had the feeling he wasn't keeping up--that his painting in particular was like that of students much younger than him--and he'd been covering up the best he could by doing deliberately childish pictures. But after the elephant painting, the whole thing had been brought into the open, and now everyone was watching to see what he did next. It seems he did make an effort for a while, but he'd no sooner have started on something,
娴峰簳涓や竾閲_Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea_147
鑹查矞鑹筹紝鍏ㄨ韩闀跨潃妫樺埡锛屾槸娆ф床鍗氱墿棣嗕腑缃曟湁鐨勫搧绉嶏級鎴戜及璁″畠鐨勪环鍊间负涓や竾娉曢儙銆傚叾娆★紝鏂拌嵎鍏板矝娴蜂腑鐨勬櫘閫氱硻璐濓紝杩欑璐濆緢涓嶅鏄撴崟鑾枫�傚叾娆★紝濉炲唴鍔犲皵宀涚殑濂囧紓鍞囪礉锛岃繖璐濈殑涓ょ墖鑴嗛叆鐧藉３濂藉儚鏄偉鐨傛场锛屼竴鍚瑰氨瑕佹秷鏁ｄ技鐨勩�傚叾娆★紝鍑犵鐖搰浼柗姘村６褰㈣礉锛岃繖绉嶈礉鍍忔槸杈圭紭鏈夊彾鐘剁毐绾圭殑鐭崇伆璐ㄧ殑绠″瓙锛屾渶涓虹埍濂借礉澹崇殑浜烘墍娆㈣繋銆傚叾娆★紝鏁存暣涓�缁勭殑娲艰礉锛屾湁浜涙槸闈掗粍鑹诧紝浠庣編娲叉捣涓墦鏉ョ殑,http://www.nikehighheels.biz/, 鍙︿竴浜涙槸妫曞偍鑹诧紝鏄柊鑽峰叞宀涙捣涓箒娈栫殑锛屽悗涓�绉嶄骇鑷ⅷ瑗垮摜婀撅紝澹充綔槌炴鏌挎瘮褰�,replica rolex watches, 鏈�涓虹獊鍑猴紝鍓嶄竴绉嶆槸浠庡崡鍐版磱涓噰鍙栫殑鏄熺姸璐濄�傝繖缁勪腑鏈�绋�缃曠殑銆佹渶濂界湅鐨勬槸鏂拌タ鍏扮殑椹埡褰㈣礉銆傚張鍏舵锛屽ソ鐪嬬殑甯︾～纾鸿川鐨勭増褰㈣礉锛岀弽璐电殑瑗垮痉鍒楀拰缁寸撼鏂紭缇庤礉锛屼笂闃戞牸宸存部娴风殑鏍煎瓙鑺辩洏璐濓紝铻洪捒鍏夎緣鐨勭粏绾硅箘璐濓紝涓浗娴风殑缁胯壊甯嗚礉锛岄敟褰㈣礉绫讳腑宸笉澶氭病浜虹煡閬撶殑鍦嗛敟璐濓紝鍗板害鍜岄潪娲蹭綔涓鸿揣甯佷娇鐢ㄧ殑鍚勭鍚勭被鐨勭璐濓紝涓滃嵃搴︾兢宀涙渶鐝嶈吹鐨勮礉澹斥�斺�斺�滄捣鐨勫厜鑽ｂ�欌�欍�傛渶鍚庢槸绾戒笣铻恒�佺嚂瀛愯灪銆侀噾瀛楀褰㈣灪銆佹捣浠嬭洡銆佸嵉褰㈣礉銆佽灪鏃嬭礉銆佸儳甯借礉銆侀搧鐩旇礉銆佹湵绾㈣礉銆佹补铻恒�佺珫鐞磋灪銆佸博鐭宠灪銆佹硶铻恒�佸寲鐭宠灪銆佺汉閿よ灪銆佽褰㈣礉銆佸甫缈艰礉銆佺瑺褰㈣礉銆佺瀛愯礉銆佹１褰㈣礉锛岃繖浜涚簿缇庤剢閰ョ殑鐑疯礉锛岀瀛﹀鎶婃渶缇庝附鐨勫悕璇嶄綔涓哄畠浠殑鍚嶅瓧銆�
鍙﹀锛屽湪鐗规畩鐨勬牸瀛愪腑锛屾憜鐫�鏈�缇庝附鐨勪覆鐝狅紝琚數鍏夌収寰楀彂鍑烘槦鏄熺殑鐏姳锛屽叾涓湁浠庣孩娴风殑灏栬铻轰腑鍙栧嚭鏉ョ殑鐜懓绾㈣壊鐝狅紝鏈夎澏褰㈡捣鑰宠灪鐨勯潚鑹茬彔锛屾湁榛勮壊鐝狅紝钃濊壊鐝狅紝榛戣壊鐝狅紝浠ュ強鍚勬捣娲嬩腑鍚勭杞綋鍔ㄧ墿锛屽寳鏂规捣涓殞铔ょ被鐨勬柊濂囦骇鍝併�傛渶鍚庢槸浠峰�间笉鍙及璁＄殑瀹濈彔锛岄偅鏄粠鏈�绋�缃曠殑鐝嶇彔璐濅腑鍙栧嚭鏉ョ殑銆傚叾涓湁鐨勬瘮楦借泲澶э紝瀹冧滑鐨勪环鍊艰瓒呰繃鏃呰瀹惰揪鎴愬凹鍩冣憼鍗栫粰娉㈡柉鍥界帇寰椾环涓夌櫨涓囩殑閭ｉ鐝嶇彔锛屽氨鏄拰鎴戣涓轰笘鐣屼笂鐙竴鏃犱簩鐨勩�侀┈鏂姞鎻愨憽鏁欓暱
鍙﹀锛屽湪鐗规畩鐨勬牸瀛愪腑锛屾憜鐫�鏈�缇庝附鐨勪覆鐝狅紝琚數鍏夌収寰楀彂鍑烘槦鏄熺殑鐏姳锛屽叾涓湁浠庣孩娴风殑灏栬铻轰腑鍙栧嚭鏉ョ殑鐜懓绾㈣壊鐝狅紝鏈夎澏褰㈡捣鑰宠灪鐨勯潚鑹茬彔锛屾湁榛勮壊鐝狅紝钃濊壊鐝狅紝榛戣壊鐝狅紝浠ュ強鍚勬捣娲嬩腑鍚勭杞綋鍔ㄧ墿锛屽寳鏂规捣涓殞铔ょ被鐨勬柊濂囦骇鍝併�傛渶鍚庢槸浠峰�间笉鍙及璁＄殑瀹濈彔锛岄偅鏄粠鏈�绋�缃曠殑鐝嶇彔璐濅腑鍙栧嚭鏉ョ殑銆傚叾涓湁鐨勬瘮楦借泲澶э紝瀹冧滑鐨勪环鍊艰瓒呰繃鏃呰瀹惰揪鎴愬凹鍩冣憼鍗栫粰娉㈡柉鍥界帇寰椾环涓夌櫨涓囩殑閭ｉ鐝嶇彔锛屽氨鏄拰鎴戣涓轰笘鐣屼笂鐙竴鏃犱簩鐨勩�侀┈鏂姞鎻愨憽鏁欓暱
2012年12月8日星期六
Most of the day he sat with open eyes
Most of the day he sat with open eyes, as if looking into the Valley he had left. It was all so plain now. He had lied. He phrased it "been fed upon lies," but lies are the natural food of boyhood, and he had eaten greedily. His first resolve was to be more careful in the future. He would live straight, not because it mattered to anyone now, but for the sake of the game. He would not deceive himself so much. He would not—and this was the test—pretend to care about women when the only sex that attracted him was his own. He loved men and always had loved them. He longed to embrace them and mingle his being with theirs. Now that the man who returned his love had been lost, he admitted this.
像莫瑞斯这样本性迟钝的人，看上去感觉不灵敏，因为任何事物他都需要花费时间去感受。这样的性子有一种本能，装作好事坏事均未发生的样子，以抗拒侵犯者。一旦被攫住，会有剧烈的感觉，恋爱使这种性子迸发出的激情格外强烈。假以时日，它有能力进入忘我的境界，并传授旁人这样的特性。假以时日，它能堕入地狱的无底深渊。就这样，莫瑞斯的苦恼是从些微的懊悔开始的。失眠的夜晚与孤寂的白昼必然加剧这种苦恼，以致使他陷入狂乱状态，不断受折磨。这种苦恼侵入内心深处，最后触及肉身与灵魂的根源——也就是他曾在昏睡中训练自己予以埋没的那个“我”。终于有所领悟，力量倍增，成长为超人,fake louis vuitton bags。一个个新世界在他的内部瓦解了，废墟堆积如山，他这才发现自己所失掉的是什么样的狂喜，是什么样的心灵交流。
这之后，他们足足有两天没交谈，德拉姆希望越长越好。如今他们所交往的大多是共同的朋友，所以两个人相会是在所难免的。德拉姆了解这一点，就给莫瑞斯写了封冷冰冰的短笺，提出倘若他们的举止让人觉得什么事都不曾发生，对大家都有好处。他补充道：“假若你不向任何人谈起我那恶劣的病态言行，我将感激不尽。我确信你会以听到我的自白时的那种明智态度这么做的,link。”莫瑞斯没有写回信。起初他把这封短笺与假期中收到的那一摞信放在一起，随后将它们一古脑儿烧掉了。
莫瑞斯以为这是苦恼的顶点，然而现世的任何一种真正的苦难才刚刚开始。他们仍得见面。第二天下午打网球的时候，他们发现二人均被列在参加比赛的四个人当中，于是痛苦得难以忍受。莫瑞斯几乎站不住，也不能看了。当他接德拉姆的大力发球时，震得胳膊发麻。后来他们被安排成球场上的搭档。有一次他们的身体相撞了，德拉姆退缩了一下，然而成功地照老样子笑了笑。
此外，德拉姆被认为为了方便起见，应该坐在莫瑞斯那辆摩托车的挎斗里返回学院。德拉姆二话不说就坐进去了。莫瑞斯已经两宿没睡觉了，头昏眼花地驾驶摩托车，转入小巷，用全速急驰而去。前方有一辆满载妇女的四轮运货马车。他径直朝她们猛冲，她们尖声喊叫。他来个急刹车，及时避免了一场惨祸。德拉姆一言未发。正如他在短笺中所表示的，而今他只有当着旁人的面才跟莫瑞斯说话，其他一切交往都得结束。
那天晚上莫瑞斯像往常一样上了床。然而他的头刚一挨枕头，就泪如泉涌。他感到震惊，一个男人在哭！费瑟斯顿豪可能会听见。他用被单抑制着哭泣，并且又踢又跳。他把脑袋往墙上撞，陶器被震碎了。不知是什么人，沿着楼梯走了上来。他立即安静下来，脚步声消失后，也没再出声音。他点燃一支蜡烛，惊讶地看着自己那件撕破了的睡衣和发颤的四肢。他继续哭下去，因为抑制不住。但是倾向于自杀的那一瞬间已经过去了，他把床重新铺了铺，躺下来。当他睁开眼睛的时候，工友正在清理杯盘的碎片。莫瑞斯觉得太奇怪了，连工友都受了牵连。他想知道这位工友是否觉察到了什么，随后又入睡了。第二次醒来，发现地板上有几封信。一封是他的外祖父——格雷斯老先生写来的，谈及当他成年之际举办宴会一事。另一封是学监的妻子邀请他共进午餐（“德拉姆先生也来，所以你用不着害臊。”）。还有一封信是艾达写的，提到了格拉迪斯•奥尔科特小姐。接着，他又进入了梦乡。
并不是人人都会发疯。但是就莫瑞斯而言，疯狂的霹雳将乌云驱散了。他以为风暴是三天之内酝酿成的，其实已经酝酿了六年之久,shox torch 2。它是在任何肉眼都无法看穿的生命的晦暗中孕育出来的，环境使它膨胀。它爆裂了，他却没有死掉。四周充满了白昼的灿烂光辉，他站在朝青春期投下阴影的山脉上，他明白了。
这一天，绝大部分时间他都睁大眼睛坐着，仿佛在俯瞰自己撇下的那个幽谷。如今一切都洞若观火。原来他是在虚伪中生活过来的。他称之为“靠虚伪喂大的”。然而虚伪是少年时代的天然养料，他曾狼吞虎咽过。他首先打定主意今后要谨小慎微。从此他将正正经经地做人，并非因为这样一来会对什么人有好处，而是为了能光明正大地行事。再也不要那么欺骗自己了，既然惟一能够吸引他的是同性人，他就别装出一副对女性有兴趣的样子了——对他来说，这可是个考验。他爱的是男人，一向如此。他希望拥抱男性。将自己的人生跟他们的打成一片。如今已失掉那个曾经回报他那份眷爱的男子，他才肯承认这一点。
Chapter 11
After this crisis Maurice became a man. Hitherto—if human beings can be estimated—he had not been worth anyone's affection, but conventional, petty, treacherous to others, because to himself. Now he had the highest gift to offer. The idealism and the brutality that ran through boyhood had joined at last, and twined into love. No one might want such love, but he could not feel ashamed of it, because it was "he," neither body or soul, nor body and soul, but "he" working through both,nike heels. He still suffered, yet a sense of triumph had come elsewhere. Pain had shown him a niche behind the world's judge-ments, whither he could withdraw.
There was still much to learn, and years passed before he ex-plored certain abysses in his being—horrible enough they were. But he discovered the method and looked no more at scratches in the sand. He had awoken too late for happiness, but not for strength, and could feel an austere joy, as of a warrior who is homeless but stands fully armed.
像莫瑞斯这样本性迟钝的人，看上去感觉不灵敏，因为任何事物他都需要花费时间去感受。这样的性子有一种本能，装作好事坏事均未发生的样子，以抗拒侵犯者。一旦被攫住，会有剧烈的感觉，恋爱使这种性子迸发出的激情格外强烈。假以时日，它有能力进入忘我的境界，并传授旁人这样的特性。假以时日，它能堕入地狱的无底深渊。就这样，莫瑞斯的苦恼是从些微的懊悔开始的。失眠的夜晚与孤寂的白昼必然加剧这种苦恼，以致使他陷入狂乱状态，不断受折磨。这种苦恼侵入内心深处，最后触及肉身与灵魂的根源——也就是他曾在昏睡中训练自己予以埋没的那个“我”。终于有所领悟，力量倍增，成长为超人,fake louis vuitton bags。一个个新世界在他的内部瓦解了，废墟堆积如山，他这才发现自己所失掉的是什么样的狂喜，是什么样的心灵交流。
这之后，他们足足有两天没交谈，德拉姆希望越长越好。如今他们所交往的大多是共同的朋友，所以两个人相会是在所难免的。德拉姆了解这一点，就给莫瑞斯写了封冷冰冰的短笺，提出倘若他们的举止让人觉得什么事都不曾发生，对大家都有好处。他补充道：“假若你不向任何人谈起我那恶劣的病态言行，我将感激不尽。我确信你会以听到我的自白时的那种明智态度这么做的,link。”莫瑞斯没有写回信。起初他把这封短笺与假期中收到的那一摞信放在一起，随后将它们一古脑儿烧掉了。
莫瑞斯以为这是苦恼的顶点，然而现世的任何一种真正的苦难才刚刚开始。他们仍得见面。第二天下午打网球的时候，他们发现二人均被列在参加比赛的四个人当中，于是痛苦得难以忍受。莫瑞斯几乎站不住，也不能看了。当他接德拉姆的大力发球时，震得胳膊发麻。后来他们被安排成球场上的搭档。有一次他们的身体相撞了，德拉姆退缩了一下，然而成功地照老样子笑了笑。
此外，德拉姆被认为为了方便起见，应该坐在莫瑞斯那辆摩托车的挎斗里返回学院。德拉姆二话不说就坐进去了。莫瑞斯已经两宿没睡觉了，头昏眼花地驾驶摩托车，转入小巷，用全速急驰而去。前方有一辆满载妇女的四轮运货马车。他径直朝她们猛冲，她们尖声喊叫。他来个急刹车，及时避免了一场惨祸。德拉姆一言未发。正如他在短笺中所表示的，而今他只有当着旁人的面才跟莫瑞斯说话，其他一切交往都得结束。
那天晚上莫瑞斯像往常一样上了床。然而他的头刚一挨枕头，就泪如泉涌。他感到震惊，一个男人在哭！费瑟斯顿豪可能会听见。他用被单抑制着哭泣，并且又踢又跳。他把脑袋往墙上撞，陶器被震碎了。不知是什么人，沿着楼梯走了上来。他立即安静下来，脚步声消失后，也没再出声音。他点燃一支蜡烛，惊讶地看着自己那件撕破了的睡衣和发颤的四肢。他继续哭下去，因为抑制不住。但是倾向于自杀的那一瞬间已经过去了，他把床重新铺了铺，躺下来。当他睁开眼睛的时候，工友正在清理杯盘的碎片。莫瑞斯觉得太奇怪了，连工友都受了牵连。他想知道这位工友是否觉察到了什么，随后又入睡了。第二次醒来，发现地板上有几封信。一封是他的外祖父——格雷斯老先生写来的，谈及当他成年之际举办宴会一事。另一封是学监的妻子邀请他共进午餐（“德拉姆先生也来，所以你用不着害臊。”）。还有一封信是艾达写的，提到了格拉迪斯•奥尔科特小姐。接着，他又进入了梦乡。
并不是人人都会发疯。但是就莫瑞斯而言，疯狂的霹雳将乌云驱散了。他以为风暴是三天之内酝酿成的，其实已经酝酿了六年之久,shox torch 2。它是在任何肉眼都无法看穿的生命的晦暗中孕育出来的，环境使它膨胀。它爆裂了，他却没有死掉。四周充满了白昼的灿烂光辉，他站在朝青春期投下阴影的山脉上，他明白了。
这一天，绝大部分时间他都睁大眼睛坐着，仿佛在俯瞰自己撇下的那个幽谷。如今一切都洞若观火。原来他是在虚伪中生活过来的。他称之为“靠虚伪喂大的”。然而虚伪是少年时代的天然养料，他曾狼吞虎咽过。他首先打定主意今后要谨小慎微。从此他将正正经经地做人，并非因为这样一来会对什么人有好处，而是为了能光明正大地行事。再也不要那么欺骗自己了，既然惟一能够吸引他的是同性人，他就别装出一副对女性有兴趣的样子了——对他来说，这可是个考验。他爱的是男人，一向如此。他希望拥抱男性。将自己的人生跟他们的打成一片。如今已失掉那个曾经回报他那份眷爱的男子，他才肯承认这一点。
Chapter 11
After this crisis Maurice became a man. Hitherto—if human beings can be estimated—he had not been worth anyone's affection, but conventional, petty, treacherous to others, because to himself. Now he had the highest gift to offer. The idealism and the brutality that ran through boyhood had joined at last, and twined into love. No one might want such love, but he could not feel ashamed of it, because it was "he," neither body or soul, nor body and soul, but "he" working through both,nike heels. He still suffered, yet a sense of triumph had come elsewhere. Pain had shown him a niche behind the world's judge-ments, whither he could withdraw.
There was still much to learn, and years passed before he ex-plored certain abysses in his being—horrible enough they were. But he discovered the method and looked no more at scratches in the sand. He had awoken too late for happiness, but not for strength, and could feel an austere joy, as of a warrior who is homeless but stands fully armed.
It would have been wholly inconsistent with my father's ideas of duty
It would have been wholly inconsistent with my father's ideas of duty, to allow me to acquire impressions contrary to his convictions and feelings respecting religion: and he impressed upon me from the first,Moncler outlet online store, that the manner in which the world came into existence was a subject on which nothing was known: that the question, "Who made me?" cannot be answered, because we have no experience or authentic information from which to answer it; and that any answer only throws the difficulty a step further back, since the question immediately presents itself, Who made God? He, at the same time,mont blanc pens, took care that I should be acquainted with what had been thought by mankind on these impenetrable problems. I have mentioned at how early an age he made me a reader of ecclesiastical history; and he taught me to take the strongest interest in the Reformation,replica gucci bags, as the great and decisive contest against priestly tyranny for liberty of thought.
I am thus one of the very few examples, in this country, of one who has, not thrown off religious belief, but never had it: I grew up in a negative state with regard to it. I looked upon the modern exactly as I did upon the ancient religion, as something which in no way concerned me. It did not seem to me more strange that English people should believe what I did not, than that the men I read of in Herodotus should have done so. History had made the variety of opinions among mankind a fact familiar to me, and this was but a prolongation of that fact. This point in my early education had, however, incidentally One bad consequence deserving notice. In giving me an opinion contrary to that of the world, my father thought it necessary to give it as one which could not prudently be avowed to the world. This lesson of keeping my thoughts to myself, at that early age, was attended with some moral disadvantages; though my limited intercourse with strangers, especially such as were likely to speak to me on religion, prevented me from being placed in the alternative of avowal or hypocrisy. I remember two occasions in my boyhood, on which I felt myself in this alternative, and in both cases I avowed my disbelief and defended it. My opponents were boys, considerably older than myself: one of them I certainly staggered at the time, but the subject was never renewed between us: the other who was surprised, and somewhat shocked, did his best to convince me for some time, without effect.
The great advance in liberty of discussion, which is one of the most important differences between the present time and that of my childhood, has greatly altered the moralities of this question; and I think that few men of my father's intellect and public spirit, holding with such intensity of moral conviction as he did, unpopular opinions on religion, or on any other of the great subjects of thought, would now either practise or inculcate the withholding of them from the world, unless in the cases, becoming fewer every day, in which frankness on these subjects would either risk the loss of means of subsistence, or would amount to exclusion from some sphere of usefulness peculiarly suitable to the capacities of the individual. On religion in particular the time appears to me to have come, when it is the duty of all who being qualified in point of knowledge, have on mature consideration satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false but hurtful, to make their dissent known; at least, if they are among those whose station or reputation, gives their opinion a chance of being attended to. Such an avowal would put an end,link, at once and for ever, to the vulgar prejudice, that what is called, very improperly, unbelief, is connected with any bad qualities either of mind or heart. The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments — of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue — are complete sceptics in religion; many of them refraining from avowal, less from personal considerations, than from a conscientious, though now in my opinion a most mistaken apprehension, lest by speaking out what would tend to weaken existing beliefs, and by consequence (as they suppose) existing restraints, they should do harm instead of good.
I am thus one of the very few examples, in this country, of one who has, not thrown off religious belief, but never had it: I grew up in a negative state with regard to it. I looked upon the modern exactly as I did upon the ancient religion, as something which in no way concerned me. It did not seem to me more strange that English people should believe what I did not, than that the men I read of in Herodotus should have done so. History had made the variety of opinions among mankind a fact familiar to me, and this was but a prolongation of that fact. This point in my early education had, however, incidentally One bad consequence deserving notice. In giving me an opinion contrary to that of the world, my father thought it necessary to give it as one which could not prudently be avowed to the world. This lesson of keeping my thoughts to myself, at that early age, was attended with some moral disadvantages; though my limited intercourse with strangers, especially such as were likely to speak to me on religion, prevented me from being placed in the alternative of avowal or hypocrisy. I remember two occasions in my boyhood, on which I felt myself in this alternative, and in both cases I avowed my disbelief and defended it. My opponents were boys, considerably older than myself: one of them I certainly staggered at the time, but the subject was never renewed between us: the other who was surprised, and somewhat shocked, did his best to convince me for some time, without effect.
The great advance in liberty of discussion, which is one of the most important differences between the present time and that of my childhood, has greatly altered the moralities of this question; and I think that few men of my father's intellect and public spirit, holding with such intensity of moral conviction as he did, unpopular opinions on religion, or on any other of the great subjects of thought, would now either practise or inculcate the withholding of them from the world, unless in the cases, becoming fewer every day, in which frankness on these subjects would either risk the loss of means of subsistence, or would amount to exclusion from some sphere of usefulness peculiarly suitable to the capacities of the individual. On religion in particular the time appears to me to have come, when it is the duty of all who being qualified in point of knowledge, have on mature consideration satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false but hurtful, to make their dissent known; at least, if they are among those whose station or reputation, gives their opinion a chance of being attended to. Such an avowal would put an end,link, at once and for ever, to the vulgar prejudice, that what is called, very improperly, unbelief, is connected with any bad qualities either of mind or heart. The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments — of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue — are complete sceptics in religion; many of them refraining from avowal, less from personal considerations, than from a conscientious, though now in my opinion a most mistaken apprehension, lest by speaking out what would tend to weaken existing beliefs, and by consequence (as they suppose) existing restraints, they should do harm instead of good.
2012年12月5日星期三
Required reading
"Required reading," I said, smiling, embarrassed, "for the serial killer with a bang."
She was dressed in a stylish red pantsuit and a Burberry summer raincoat, a pile of briefs squeezed into her leather satchel. "I figured you could use a drink."
"I could," I said, tapping the book against the desk, "but I'm still on duty." I offered her a bag of Szechuan soybeans instead.
"What are you doing," she snickered, "heading up the department's new Subversive Authors wing?"
"Very cute," I said. "Here's a fact I bet you didn't know. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Warren Buffet made more money last year than the thirty poorest countries, a quarter of the world's population."
Jill smiled. "It's good to see you developing a social con-sciousness, given your line of work."
"There's something bothering me, Jill. The fake secondary device outside Lightower's town house. The note on the company form balled up in Bengosian's mouth. These people have made their motive clear. But they're trying to taunt us. Why play the game?"
She balanced a red shoe on the edge of my desk. "I don't know. You're the one who catches 'em, honey. I just put 'em away."
There was a bit of a pause. A stiff one. "You mind if I change the subject?"
"Your soybeans," she said with a shrug,replica louis vuitton handbags, popping one in her mouth.
"I don't know if this'll sound silly. I was a little worried the other day. Sunday. After we ran. Those marks, Jill. On your arms. Something got me thinking."
"Thinking about what?" she asked.
I looked into her eyes. "I know you didn't get those marks from a shower door. I know what it's like, Jill,fake uggs for sale, when you have to admit you're human, like the rest of us. I know how you wanted that baby. Then your dad died. I know you pretend that you can work everything out. But maybe you can't some-times. You won't talk about it with anyone, even us. So the answer is, I don't know about those marks. You tell me."
There was stubbornness in her eyes that suddenly turned fragile, something about to give. I didn't know if I had gone too far, but to hell with it, she was my friend. All I wanted was for her to be happy.
"Maybe you're right about one thing," Jill finally said. "Maybe those marks didn't come from a shower door."
Chapter 32
THERE ARE CRIMES that are brutal and inexcusable,link. Some-times they make me sick, but their motives are open. Now and then, I even understand. Then there are the hidden crimes,Replica Designer Handbags. The ones you are never meant to see. The kind of cruelty that barely breaks the skin but crushes what's inside, the little voice that is human in all of us.
These are the ones that really make me wonder about what I do for a living.
After Jill told me what had been going on between her and Steve, after I wiped her tears and cried with her like a little sister, I drove home in a daze. A pall had clung to her face, a whitewash of shame I will never forget. Jill, my Jill.
My first instinct was to drive over there that night and slap a charge on Steve. All along, the slick, self-righteous prick had been bullying her, hitting her.
All I could think of was Jill, the face I saw on her, that of a little girl. Not the Chief Assistant D.A., top of her class at Stanford, who seemed to breeze through life. Who put mur-derers away with that icy stare. My friend.
She was dressed in a stylish red pantsuit and a Burberry summer raincoat, a pile of briefs squeezed into her leather satchel. "I figured you could use a drink."
"I could," I said, tapping the book against the desk, "but I'm still on duty." I offered her a bag of Szechuan soybeans instead.
"What are you doing," she snickered, "heading up the department's new Subversive Authors wing?"
"Very cute," I said. "Here's a fact I bet you didn't know. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Warren Buffet made more money last year than the thirty poorest countries, a quarter of the world's population."
Jill smiled. "It's good to see you developing a social con-sciousness, given your line of work."
"There's something bothering me, Jill. The fake secondary device outside Lightower's town house. The note on the company form balled up in Bengosian's mouth. These people have made their motive clear. But they're trying to taunt us. Why play the game?"
She balanced a red shoe on the edge of my desk. "I don't know. You're the one who catches 'em, honey. I just put 'em away."
There was a bit of a pause. A stiff one. "You mind if I change the subject?"
"Your soybeans," she said with a shrug,replica louis vuitton handbags, popping one in her mouth.
"I don't know if this'll sound silly. I was a little worried the other day. Sunday. After we ran. Those marks, Jill. On your arms. Something got me thinking."
"Thinking about what?" she asked.
I looked into her eyes. "I know you didn't get those marks from a shower door. I know what it's like, Jill,fake uggs for sale, when you have to admit you're human, like the rest of us. I know how you wanted that baby. Then your dad died. I know you pretend that you can work everything out. But maybe you can't some-times. You won't talk about it with anyone, even us. So the answer is, I don't know about those marks. You tell me."
There was stubbornness in her eyes that suddenly turned fragile, something about to give. I didn't know if I had gone too far, but to hell with it, she was my friend. All I wanted was for her to be happy.
"Maybe you're right about one thing," Jill finally said. "Maybe those marks didn't come from a shower door."
Chapter 32
THERE ARE CRIMES that are brutal and inexcusable,link. Some-times they make me sick, but their motives are open. Now and then, I even understand. Then there are the hidden crimes,Replica Designer Handbags. The ones you are never meant to see. The kind of cruelty that barely breaks the skin but crushes what's inside, the little voice that is human in all of us.
These are the ones that really make me wonder about what I do for a living.
After Jill told me what had been going on between her and Steve, after I wiped her tears and cried with her like a little sister, I drove home in a daze. A pall had clung to her face, a whitewash of shame I will never forget. Jill, my Jill.
My first instinct was to drive over there that night and slap a charge on Steve. All along, the slick, self-righteous prick had been bullying her, hitting her.
All I could think of was Jill, the face I saw on her, that of a little girl. Not the Chief Assistant D.A., top of her class at Stanford, who seemed to breeze through life. Who put mur-derers away with that icy stare. My friend.
Amina and Mary vied for my attention
Amina and Mary vied for my attention,replica montblanc pens; but in every house on the Estate, there were people who wanted to know me; and eventually Amina, allowing her pride in my popularity to overcome her reluctance to let me out of her sight, agreed to lend me, on a kind of rota basis, to the various families on the hill. Pushed by Mary Pereira in a sky-blue pram, I began a triumphal progress around the red-tiled palaces, gracing each in turn with my presence, and making them seem real to their owners. And so, looking back now through the eyes of Baby Saleem, I can reveal most of the secrets of my neighbourhood, because the grown-ups lived their lives in my presence without fear of being observed, not knowing that, years later, someone would look back through baby-eyes and decide to let the cats out of their bags.
So here is old man Ibrahim, dying with worry because, back in Africa, governments are nationalizing his sisal plantations; here is his elder son Ishaq fretting over Ms hotel business, which is running into debt, so that he is obliged to borrow money from local gangsters; here are Ishaq's eyes,replica louis vuitton handbags, coveting his brother's wife, though why Nussie-the-duck should have aroused sexual interest in anyone is a mystery to me; and here is Nussie's husband, Ismail the lawyer, who has learned an important lesson from Ms son's forcep-birth: 'Nothing comes out right in life,' he tells his duck of a wife, 'unless it's forced out.'
Applying this philosophy to his legal career, he embarks on a career of bribing judges and fixing juries; all children have the power to change their parents, and Sonny turned Ms father into a highly successful crook. And, moving across to Versailles Villa, here is Mrs Dubash with her shrine to the god Ganesh, stuck in the corner of an apartment of such supernatural untidiness that, in our house, the word 'dubash' became a verb meaning 'to make a mess' ... 'Oh, Saleem, you've dubashed your room again, you black man!' Mary would cry. And now the cause of the mess, leaning over the hood of my pram to chuck me under the chin: Adi Dubash, the physicist, genius of atoms and litter,ugg bailey button triplet 1873 boots. His wife, who is already carrying Cyrus-the-great within her, hangs back, growing her child, with something fanatical gleaming in the inner corners of her eyes, biding its time; it will not emerge until Mr Dubash, whose daily life was spent working with the most dangerous substances in the world, dies by choking on an orange from which his wife forgot to remove the pips. I was never invited into the flat of Dr Narlikar, the child-hating gynaecologist; but in the homes of Lila Sabarmati and Homi Catrack I became a voyeur, a tiny party to Lila's thousand and one infidelities, and eventually a witness to the beginnings of the liaison between the naval officer's wife and the film-magnate-and-racehorse-owner; which, all in good time, would serve me well when I planned a certain act of revenge.
Even a baby is faced with the problem of defining itself; and I'm bound to say that my early popularity had its problematic aspects, because I was bombarded with a confusing multiplicity of views on the subject, being a Blessed One to a guru under a tap, a voyeur to Lola Sabarmati; in the eyes of Nussie-the-duck I was a rival, and a more successful rival, to her own Sonny (although, to her credit, she never showed her resentment, and asked to borrow me just like everyone else); to my two-headed mother I was all kinds of babyish things - they called me joonoo-moonoo,cheap foamposites, and putch-putch, and little-piece-of-the-moon.
So here is old man Ibrahim, dying with worry because, back in Africa, governments are nationalizing his sisal plantations; here is his elder son Ishaq fretting over Ms hotel business, which is running into debt, so that he is obliged to borrow money from local gangsters; here are Ishaq's eyes,replica louis vuitton handbags, coveting his brother's wife, though why Nussie-the-duck should have aroused sexual interest in anyone is a mystery to me; and here is Nussie's husband, Ismail the lawyer, who has learned an important lesson from Ms son's forcep-birth: 'Nothing comes out right in life,' he tells his duck of a wife, 'unless it's forced out.'
Applying this philosophy to his legal career, he embarks on a career of bribing judges and fixing juries; all children have the power to change their parents, and Sonny turned Ms father into a highly successful crook. And, moving across to Versailles Villa, here is Mrs Dubash with her shrine to the god Ganesh, stuck in the corner of an apartment of such supernatural untidiness that, in our house, the word 'dubash' became a verb meaning 'to make a mess' ... 'Oh, Saleem, you've dubashed your room again, you black man!' Mary would cry. And now the cause of the mess, leaning over the hood of my pram to chuck me under the chin: Adi Dubash, the physicist, genius of atoms and litter,ugg bailey button triplet 1873 boots. His wife, who is already carrying Cyrus-the-great within her, hangs back, growing her child, with something fanatical gleaming in the inner corners of her eyes, biding its time; it will not emerge until Mr Dubash, whose daily life was spent working with the most dangerous substances in the world, dies by choking on an orange from which his wife forgot to remove the pips. I was never invited into the flat of Dr Narlikar, the child-hating gynaecologist; but in the homes of Lila Sabarmati and Homi Catrack I became a voyeur, a tiny party to Lila's thousand and one infidelities, and eventually a witness to the beginnings of the liaison between the naval officer's wife and the film-magnate-and-racehorse-owner; which, all in good time, would serve me well when I planned a certain act of revenge.
Even a baby is faced with the problem of defining itself; and I'm bound to say that my early popularity had its problematic aspects, because I was bombarded with a confusing multiplicity of views on the subject, being a Blessed One to a guru under a tap, a voyeur to Lola Sabarmati; in the eyes of Nussie-the-duck I was a rival, and a more successful rival, to her own Sonny (although, to her credit, she never showed her resentment, and asked to borrow me just like everyone else); to my two-headed mother I was all kinds of babyish things - they called me joonoo-moonoo,cheap foamposites, and putch-putch, and little-piece-of-the-moon.
2012年12月4日星期二
So into it and then on Prairie followed
So into it and then on Prairie followed, a girl in a haunted mansion, led room to room, sheet to sheet, by the peripheral whiteness, the earnest whisper, of her mother's ghost. She already knew about how literal computers could be — even spaces between characters mattered. She had wondered if ghosts were only literal in the same way. Could a ghost think for herself, or was she responsive totally to the needs of the still-living, needs like keystrokes entered into her world, lines of sorrow, loss, justice denied? . . . But to be of any use, to be "real," a ghost would have to be more than only that kind of elaborate pretending. . . .
Prairie found that she could also summon to the screen photographs, some personal, some from papers and magazines, images of her mom, most of the time holding a movie camera, at demonstrations, getting arrested, posing with various dimly recognizable Movement figures of the sixties, beaming a significant look at a cop in riot gear beside a chain-link fence someplace while one hand (Prairie would learn her mother's hands, read each gesture a dozen ways, imagine how they would have moved at other, unphotographed times) appeared to brush with its fingertips the underside of the barrel of his assault rifle. Gross! Her Mom? This girl with the old-fashioned hair and makeup, always wearing either miniskirts or those weird-looking bell-bottoms they had back then? In a few years Prairie would almost be that age, and she had an eerie feeling miniskirts would be back.
She paused at a shot of DL and Frenesi together. They were walking along on what might have been a college campus. In the distance was a pedestrian overpass,ugg bailey button triplet 1873 boots, where tiny figures could be seen heading both ways, suggesting, at least for a moment, social tranquillity. The women's shadows were long, lapping up over curbs, across grass, between the spokes of cyclists. Catching the late or early sun were palm trees, flights of distant steps, a volleyball court, few if any glass windows. Frenesi's face was turned or turning toward her partner, perhaps her friend, a suspicious or withheld smile seeming to begin. . . . DL was talking. Her lower teeth flashed. It wasn't politics — Prairie could feel in the bright California colors, sharpened up pixel by pixel into deathlessness, the lilt of bodies, the unlined relaxation of faces that didn't have to be put on for each other, liberated from their authorized versions for a free, everyday breath of air. Yeah, Prairie thought at them, go ahead, you guys. Go ahead....
"Who was that boy," DL was asking, or "that 'dude,' at the protest rally? With the long hair and love beads, and the joint in his mouth?"
"You mean in the flowered bell-bottoms and the paisley shirt?"
"Right on, sister!"
"Psychedelic!" Slapping hands back and forth. Prairie wondered who'd taken the picture — one of the film collective, the FBI,homepage? Before the stained deep crystalline view she fell into a hyp-nagogic gaze, which the unit promptly sensed, beginning to blink, following this with a sound chip playing the hook from the Everlys' "Wake Up,nike foamposites, Little Susie," over and over. Prairie remembered that she had to be up before sunrise, to prep for breakfast,foamposite for cheap. As she reached toward the power button, she said good night to the machine.
Prairie found that she could also summon to the screen photographs, some personal, some from papers and magazines, images of her mom, most of the time holding a movie camera, at demonstrations, getting arrested, posing with various dimly recognizable Movement figures of the sixties, beaming a significant look at a cop in riot gear beside a chain-link fence someplace while one hand (Prairie would learn her mother's hands, read each gesture a dozen ways, imagine how they would have moved at other, unphotographed times) appeared to brush with its fingertips the underside of the barrel of his assault rifle. Gross! Her Mom? This girl with the old-fashioned hair and makeup, always wearing either miniskirts or those weird-looking bell-bottoms they had back then? In a few years Prairie would almost be that age, and she had an eerie feeling miniskirts would be back.
She paused at a shot of DL and Frenesi together. They were walking along on what might have been a college campus. In the distance was a pedestrian overpass,ugg bailey button triplet 1873 boots, where tiny figures could be seen heading both ways, suggesting, at least for a moment, social tranquillity. The women's shadows were long, lapping up over curbs, across grass, between the spokes of cyclists. Catching the late or early sun were palm trees, flights of distant steps, a volleyball court, few if any glass windows. Frenesi's face was turned or turning toward her partner, perhaps her friend, a suspicious or withheld smile seeming to begin. . . . DL was talking. Her lower teeth flashed. It wasn't politics — Prairie could feel in the bright California colors, sharpened up pixel by pixel into deathlessness, the lilt of bodies, the unlined relaxation of faces that didn't have to be put on for each other, liberated from their authorized versions for a free, everyday breath of air. Yeah, Prairie thought at them, go ahead, you guys. Go ahead....
"Who was that boy," DL was asking, or "that 'dude,' at the protest rally? With the long hair and love beads, and the joint in his mouth?"
"You mean in the flowered bell-bottoms and the paisley shirt?"
"Right on, sister!"
"Psychedelic!" Slapping hands back and forth. Prairie wondered who'd taken the picture — one of the film collective, the FBI,homepage? Before the stained deep crystalline view she fell into a hyp-nagogic gaze, which the unit promptly sensed, beginning to blink, following this with a sound chip playing the hook from the Everlys' "Wake Up,nike foamposites, Little Susie," over and over. Prairie remembered that she had to be up before sunrise, to prep for breakfast,foamposite for cheap. As she reached toward the power button, she said good night to the machine.
But the chief thing at Cypher's was Milly
But the chief thing at Cypher's was Milly. Milly was a waitress. She was a grand example of Kraft's theory of the artistic adjustment of nature. She belonged, largely, to waiting,Fake Designer Handbags, as Minerva did to the art of scrapping, or Venus to the science of serious flirtation. Pedestalled and in bronze she might have stood with the noblest of her heroic sisters as "Liver-and-Bacon Enlivening the World." She belonged to Cypher's. You expected to see her colossal figure loom through that reeking blue cloud of smoke from frying fat just as you expect the Palisades to appear through a drifting Hudson River fog. There amid the steam of vegetables and the vapours of acres of "ham and," the crash of crockery, the clatter of steel, the screaming of "short orders," the cries of the hungering and all the horrid tumult of feeding man, surrounded by swarms of the buzzing winged beasts bequeathed us by Pharaoh, Milly steered her magnificent way like some great liner cleaving among the canoes of howling savages.
Our Goddess of Grub was built on lines so majestic that they could be followed only with awe. Her sleeves were always rolled above her elbows. She could have taken us three musketeers in her two hands and dropped us out of the window. She had seen fewer years than any of us, but she was of such superb Evehood and simplicity that she mothered us from the beginning. Cypher's store of eatables she poured out upon us with royal indifference to price and quantity,moncler jackets men, as from a cornucopia that knew no exhaustion. Her voice rang like a great silver bell; her smile was many-toothed and frequent; she seemed like a yellow sunrise on mountain tops. I never saw her but I thought of the Yosemite. And yet, somehow, I could never think of her as existing outside of Cypher's. There nature had placed her, and she had taken root and grown mightily. She seemed happy, and took her few poor dollars on Saturday nights with the flushed pleasure of a child that receives an unexpected donation.
It was Kraft who first voiced the fear that each of us must have held latently. It came up apropos, of course, of certain questions of art at which we were hammering.
One of us compared the harmony existing between a Haydn symphony and pistache ice cream to the exquisite congruity between Milly and Cypher's.
"There is a certain fate hanging over Milly," said Kraft, "and if it overtakes her she is lost to Cypher's and to us,replica montblanc pens."
"She will grow fat? "asked Judkins, fearsomely.
"She will go to night school and become refined?" I ventured anxiously.
"It is this," said Kraft, punctuating in a puddle of spilled coffee with a stiff forefinger. "Caesar had his Brutus--the cotton has its boliworm, the chorus girl has her Pittsburger, the summer boarder has his poison ivy, the hero has his Carnegie medal, art has its Morgan, the rose has its--"
"Speak," I interrupted, much perturbed. "You do not think that Milly will begin to lace?"
"One day," concluded Kraft, solemnly,fake louis vuitton bags, "there will come to Cypher's for a plate of beans a millionaire lumberman from Wisconsin, and he will marry Milly."
Our Goddess of Grub was built on lines so majestic that they could be followed only with awe. Her sleeves were always rolled above her elbows. She could have taken us three musketeers in her two hands and dropped us out of the window. She had seen fewer years than any of us, but she was of such superb Evehood and simplicity that she mothered us from the beginning. Cypher's store of eatables she poured out upon us with royal indifference to price and quantity,moncler jackets men, as from a cornucopia that knew no exhaustion. Her voice rang like a great silver bell; her smile was many-toothed and frequent; she seemed like a yellow sunrise on mountain tops. I never saw her but I thought of the Yosemite. And yet, somehow, I could never think of her as existing outside of Cypher's. There nature had placed her, and she had taken root and grown mightily. She seemed happy, and took her few poor dollars on Saturday nights with the flushed pleasure of a child that receives an unexpected donation.
It was Kraft who first voiced the fear that each of us must have held latently. It came up apropos, of course, of certain questions of art at which we were hammering.
One of us compared the harmony existing between a Haydn symphony and pistache ice cream to the exquisite congruity between Milly and Cypher's.
"There is a certain fate hanging over Milly," said Kraft, "and if it overtakes her she is lost to Cypher's and to us,replica montblanc pens."
"She will grow fat? "asked Judkins, fearsomely.
"She will go to night school and become refined?" I ventured anxiously.
"It is this," said Kraft, punctuating in a puddle of spilled coffee with a stiff forefinger. "Caesar had his Brutus--the cotton has its boliworm, the chorus girl has her Pittsburger, the summer boarder has his poison ivy, the hero has his Carnegie medal, art has its Morgan, the rose has its--"
"Speak," I interrupted, much perturbed. "You do not think that Milly will begin to lace?"
"One day," concluded Kraft, solemnly,fake louis vuitton bags, "there will come to Cypher's for a plate of beans a millionaire lumberman from Wisconsin, and he will marry Milly."
2012年12月2日星期日
Emily sat in the rocking chair by the window of the pleasant room
Emily sat in the rocking chair by the window of the pleasant room. She had been drinking something from a tumbler and as he entered she put the glass hurriedly on the floor behind the chair. In her attitude there was confusion and guilt which she tried to hide by a show of spurious vivacity.
"Oh, Marty! You home already? The time slipped up on me,fake uggs boots. I was just going down --" She lurched to him and her kiss was strong with sherry. When he stood unresponsive she stepped back a pace and giggled nervously.
"What's the matter with you? Standing there like a barber pole. Is anything wrong with you?"
"Wrong with me?" Martin bent over the rocking chair and picked up the tumbler from the floor. "If you could only realize how sick I am -- how bad it is for all of us."
Emily spoke in a false, airy voice that had become too familiar to him. Often at such times she affected a slight English accent, copying perhaps some actress she admired, "I haven't the vaguest idea what you mean. Unless you are referring to the glass I used for a spot of sherry. I had a finger of sherry -- maybe two. But what is the crime in that, pray tell me? I'm quite all right. Quite all right."
"So anyone can see."
As she went into the bathroom Emily walked with careful gravity. She turned on the cold water and dashed some on her face with her cupped hands, then patted herself dry with the corner of a bath towel,moncler jackets men. Her face was delicately featured and young, unblemished.
"I was just going down to make dinner." She tottered and balanced herself by holding to the door frame.
"I'll take care of dinner. You stay up here. I'll bring it up."
"I'll do nothing of the sort. Why, whoever heard of such a thing?"
"Please," Martin said.
"Leave me alone. I'm quite all right. I was just on the way down --"
"Mind what I say."
"Mind your grandmother."
She lurched toward the door, but Martin caught her by the arm. "I don't want the children to see you in this condition. Be reasonable."
"Condition!" Emily jerked her arm. Her voice rose angrily. "Why, because I drink a couple of sherries in the afternoon you're trying to make me out a drunkard. Condition! Why,UGG Clerance, I don't even touch whiskey. As well you know. I don't swill liquor at bars. And that's more than you can say. I don't even have a cocktail at dinnertime. I only sometimes have a glass of sherry. What, I ask you, is the disgrace of that? Condition!"
Martin sought words to calm his wife. "We'll have a quiet supper by ourselves up here. That's a good girl." Emily sat on the side of the bed and he opened the door for a quick departure. "I'll be back in a jiffy."
As he busied himself with the dinner downstairs he was lost in the familiar question as to how this problem had come upon his home. He himself had always enjoyed a good drink. When they were still living in Alabama they had served long drinks or cocktails as a matter of course. For years they had drunk one or two -- possibly three drinks before dinner, and at bedtime a long nightcap. Evenings before holidays they might get a buzz on, might even become a little tight. But alcohol had never seemed a problem to him, only a bothersome expense that with the increase in the family they could scarcely afford,fake louis vuitton bags. It was only after his company had transferred him to New York that Martin was aware that certainly his wife was drinking too much. She was tippling, he noticed, during the day.
"Oh, Marty! You home already? The time slipped up on me,fake uggs boots. I was just going down --" She lurched to him and her kiss was strong with sherry. When he stood unresponsive she stepped back a pace and giggled nervously.
"What's the matter with you? Standing there like a barber pole. Is anything wrong with you?"
"Wrong with me?" Martin bent over the rocking chair and picked up the tumbler from the floor. "If you could only realize how sick I am -- how bad it is for all of us."
Emily spoke in a false, airy voice that had become too familiar to him. Often at such times she affected a slight English accent, copying perhaps some actress she admired, "I haven't the vaguest idea what you mean. Unless you are referring to the glass I used for a spot of sherry. I had a finger of sherry -- maybe two. But what is the crime in that, pray tell me? I'm quite all right. Quite all right."
"So anyone can see."
As she went into the bathroom Emily walked with careful gravity. She turned on the cold water and dashed some on her face with her cupped hands, then patted herself dry with the corner of a bath towel,moncler jackets men. Her face was delicately featured and young, unblemished.
"I was just going down to make dinner." She tottered and balanced herself by holding to the door frame.
"I'll take care of dinner. You stay up here. I'll bring it up."
"I'll do nothing of the sort. Why, whoever heard of such a thing?"
"Please," Martin said.
"Leave me alone. I'm quite all right. I was just on the way down --"
"Mind what I say."
"Mind your grandmother."
She lurched toward the door, but Martin caught her by the arm. "I don't want the children to see you in this condition. Be reasonable."
"Condition!" Emily jerked her arm. Her voice rose angrily. "Why, because I drink a couple of sherries in the afternoon you're trying to make me out a drunkard. Condition! Why,UGG Clerance, I don't even touch whiskey. As well you know. I don't swill liquor at bars. And that's more than you can say. I don't even have a cocktail at dinnertime. I only sometimes have a glass of sherry. What, I ask you, is the disgrace of that? Condition!"
Martin sought words to calm his wife. "We'll have a quiet supper by ourselves up here. That's a good girl." Emily sat on the side of the bed and he opened the door for a quick departure. "I'll be back in a jiffy."
As he busied himself with the dinner downstairs he was lost in the familiar question as to how this problem had come upon his home. He himself had always enjoyed a good drink. When they were still living in Alabama they had served long drinks or cocktails as a matter of course. For years they had drunk one or two -- possibly three drinks before dinner, and at bedtime a long nightcap. Evenings before holidays they might get a buzz on, might even become a little tight. But alcohol had never seemed a problem to him, only a bothersome expense that with the increase in the family they could scarcely afford,fake louis vuitton bags. It was only after his company had transferred him to New York that Martin was aware that certainly his wife was drinking too much. She was tippling, he noticed, during the day.
What you say certainly sounds plausible
"What you say certainly sounds plausible."
"So we have contracted our field of search to a large book, printed in double columns and in common use."
"The Bible!" I cried triumphantly.
"Good, Watson, good! But not, if I may say so, quite good enough! Even if I accepted the compliment for myself I could hardly name any volume which would be less likely to lie at the elbow of one of Moriarty's associates. Besides, the editions of Holy Writ are so numerous that he could hardly suppose that two copies would have the same pagination. This is clearly a book which is standardized. He knows for certain that his page 534 will exactly agree with my page 534."
"But very few books would correspond with that."
"Exactly. Therein lies our salvation. Our search is narrowed down to standardized books which anyone may be supposed to possess."
"Bradshaw!"
"There are difficulties, Watson. The vocabulary of Bradshaw is nervous and terse, but limited. The selection of words would hardly lend itself to the sending of general messages. We will eliminate Bradshaw. The dictionary is, I fear, inadmissible for the same reason. What then is left?"
"An almanac!"
"Excellent,UGG Clerance, Watson! I am very much mistaken if you have not touched the spot. An almanac! Let us consider the claims of Whitaker's Almanac. It is in common use. It has the requisite number of pages. It is in double column. Though reserved in its earlier vocabulary, it becomes, if I remember right, quite garrulous towards the end." He picked the volume from his desk. "Here is page 534, column two, a substantial block of print dealing, I perceive,Replica Designer Handbags, with the trade and resources of British India. Jot down the words, Watson! Number thirteen is 'Mahratta.' Not, I fear, a very auspicious beginning. Number one hundred and twenty-seven is 'Government'; which at least makes sense, though somewhat irrelevant to ourselves and Professor Moriarty. Now let us try again. What does the Mahratta government do? Alas! the next word is 'pig's-bristles.' We are undone, my good Watson! It is finished!"
He had spoken in jesting vein, but the twitching of his bushy eyebrows bespoke his disappointment and irritation. I sat helpless and unhappy, staring into the fire. A long silence was broken by a sudden exclamation from Holmes, who dashed at a cupboard, from which he emerged with a second yellow-covered volume in his hand.
"We pay the price, Watson, for being too up-to-date!" he cried. "We are before our time, and suffer the usual penalties. Being the seventh of January,replica gucci bags, we have very properly laid in the new almanac. It is more than likely that Porlock took his message from the old one. No doubt he would have told us so had his letter of explanation been written. Now let us see what page 534 has in store for us. Number thirteen is 'There,' which is much more promising. Number one hundred and twenty-seven is 'is'--'There is' "--Holmes's eyes were gleaming with excitement, and his thin, nervous fingers twitched as he counted the words-- "'danger.' Ha! Ha! Capital! Put that down, Watson. 'There is danger--may--come--very--soon--one.' Then we have the name 'Douglas'--'rich--country--now--at--Birlstone--House--Birlstone-- confidence--is--pressing.' There,replica montblanc pens, Watson! What do you think of pure reason and its fruit? If the green-grocer had such a thing as a laurel wreath, I should send Billy round for it."
"So we have contracted our field of search to a large book, printed in double columns and in common use."
"The Bible!" I cried triumphantly.
"Good, Watson, good! But not, if I may say so, quite good enough! Even if I accepted the compliment for myself I could hardly name any volume which would be less likely to lie at the elbow of one of Moriarty's associates. Besides, the editions of Holy Writ are so numerous that he could hardly suppose that two copies would have the same pagination. This is clearly a book which is standardized. He knows for certain that his page 534 will exactly agree with my page 534."
"But very few books would correspond with that."
"Exactly. Therein lies our salvation. Our search is narrowed down to standardized books which anyone may be supposed to possess."
"Bradshaw!"
"There are difficulties, Watson. The vocabulary of Bradshaw is nervous and terse, but limited. The selection of words would hardly lend itself to the sending of general messages. We will eliminate Bradshaw. The dictionary is, I fear, inadmissible for the same reason. What then is left?"
"An almanac!"
"Excellent,UGG Clerance, Watson! I am very much mistaken if you have not touched the spot. An almanac! Let us consider the claims of Whitaker's Almanac. It is in common use. It has the requisite number of pages. It is in double column. Though reserved in its earlier vocabulary, it becomes, if I remember right, quite garrulous towards the end." He picked the volume from his desk. "Here is page 534, column two, a substantial block of print dealing, I perceive,Replica Designer Handbags, with the trade and resources of British India. Jot down the words, Watson! Number thirteen is 'Mahratta.' Not, I fear, a very auspicious beginning. Number one hundred and twenty-seven is 'Government'; which at least makes sense, though somewhat irrelevant to ourselves and Professor Moriarty. Now let us try again. What does the Mahratta government do? Alas! the next word is 'pig's-bristles.' We are undone, my good Watson! It is finished!"
He had spoken in jesting vein, but the twitching of his bushy eyebrows bespoke his disappointment and irritation. I sat helpless and unhappy, staring into the fire. A long silence was broken by a sudden exclamation from Holmes, who dashed at a cupboard, from which he emerged with a second yellow-covered volume in his hand.
"We pay the price, Watson, for being too up-to-date!" he cried. "We are before our time, and suffer the usual penalties. Being the seventh of January,replica gucci bags, we have very properly laid in the new almanac. It is more than likely that Porlock took his message from the old one. No doubt he would have told us so had his letter of explanation been written. Now let us see what page 534 has in store for us. Number thirteen is 'There,' which is much more promising. Number one hundred and twenty-seven is 'is'--'There is' "--Holmes's eyes were gleaming with excitement, and his thin, nervous fingers twitched as he counted the words-- "'danger.' Ha! Ha! Capital! Put that down, Watson. 'There is danger--may--come--very--soon--one.' Then we have the name 'Douglas'--'rich--country--now--at--Birlstone--House--Birlstone-- confidence--is--pressing.' There,replica montblanc pens, Watson! What do you think of pure reason and its fruit? If the green-grocer had such a thing as a laurel wreath, I should send Billy round for it."
2012年11月27日星期二
The three then turned into the Rue Vineuse
The three then turned into the Rue Vineuse,Replica Designer Handbags, while Mother Fetu crept down the steps of the Passage des Eaux, busy completing her rosary,replica montblanc pens.
The month slipped away. Two or three more services were attended by Madame Deberle. One Sunday, the last one, Henri once more ventured to wait for Helene and Jeanne. The walk home thrilled them with joy. The month had been one long spell of wondrous bliss. The little church seemed to have entered into their lives to soothe their love and render its way pleasant. At first a great peace had settled on Helene's soul; she had found happiness in this sanctuary where she imagined she could without shame dwell on her love; however, the undermining had continued, and when her holy rapture passed away she was again in the grip of her passion, held by bonds that would have plucked at her heartstrings had she sought to break them asunder. Henri still preserved his respectful demeanor, but she could not do otherwise than see the passion burning in his face. She dreaded some outburst, and even grew afraid of herself.
One afternoon, going homewards after a walk with Jeanne, she passed along the Rue de l'Annonciation and entered the church. The child was complaining of feeling very tired. Until the last day she had been unwilling to admit that the evening services exhausted her, so intense was the pleasure she derived from them,nike shox torch 2; but her cheeks had grown waxy-pale, and the doctor advised that she should take long walks.
"Sit down here," said her mother. "It will rest you; we'll only stay ten minutes."
She herself walked towards some chairs a short way off, and knelt down. She had placed Jeanne close to a pillar. Workmen were busy at the other end of the nave, taking down the hangings and removing the flowers, the ceremonials attending the month of Mary having come to an end the evening before. With her face buried in her hands Helene saw nothing and heard nothing; she was eagerly catechising her heart, asking whether she ought not to confess to Abbe Jouve what an awful life had come upon her. He would advise her, perhaps restore her lost peace. Still, within her there arose, out of her very anguish, a fierce flood of joy. She hugged her sorrow, dreading lest the priest might succeed in finding a cure for it. Ten minutes slipped away, then an hour. She was overwhelmed by the strife raging within her heart.
At last she raised her head, her eyes glistening with tears, and saw Abbe Jouve gazing at her sorrowfully. It was he who was directing the workmen,Discount UGG Boots. Having recognized Jeanne, he had just come forward.
"Why, what is the matter, my child?" he asked of Helene, who hastened to rise to her feet and wipe away her tears.
She was at a loss what answer to give; she was afraid lest she should once more fall on her knees and burst into sobs. He approached still nearer, and gently resumed:
"I do not wish to cross-question you, but why do you not confide in me? Confide in the priest and forget the friend."
"Some other day," she said brokenly, "some other day, I promise you."
He had risen
He had risen, as his father had before him, in the course of life and death, from Son to Dombey, and for nearly twenty years had been the sole representative of the Firm. Of those years he had been married, ten - married, as some said, to a lady with no heart to give him; whose happiness was in the past, and who was content to bind her broken spirit to the dutiful and meek endurance of the present,moncler jackets women. Such idle talk was little likely to reach the ears of Mr Dombey, whom it nearly concerned; and probably no one in the world would have received it with such utter incredulity as he, if it had reached him. Dombey and Son had often dealt in hides, but never in hearts. They left that fancy ware to boys and girls, and boarding-schools and books. Mr Dombey would have reasoned: That a matrimonial alliance with himself must, in the nature of things, be gratifying and honourable to any woman of common sense. That the hope of giving birth to a new partner in such a House, could not fail to awaken a glorious and stirring ambition in the breast of the least ambitious of her sex. That Mrs Dombey had entered on that social contract of matrimony: almost necessarily part of a genteel and wealthy station, even without reference to the perpetuation of family Firms: with her eyes fully open to these advantages. That Mrs Dombey had had daily practical knowledge of his position in society,replica montblanc pens. That Mrs Dombey had always sat at the head of his table, and done the honours of his house in a remarkably lady-like and becoming manner. That Mrs Dombey must have been happy. That she couldn't help it.
Or, at all events, with one drawback. Yes. That he would have allowed. With only one; but that one certainly involving much. With the drawback of hope deferred. That hope deferred, which, (as the Scripture very correctly tells us, Mr Dombey would have added in a patronising way; for his highest distinct idea even of Scripture, if examined, would have been found to be; that as forming part of a general whole, of which Dombey and Son formed another part, it was therefore to be commended and upheld) maketh the heart sick. They had been married ten years, and until this present day on which Mr Dombey sat jingling and jingling his heavy gold watch-chain in the great arm-chair by the side of the bed, had had no issue.
- To speak of; none worth mentioning. There had been a girl some six years before, and the child, who had stolen into the chamber unobserved, was now crouching timidly, in a corner whence she could see her mother's face. But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the capital of the House's name and dignity, such a child was merely a piece of base coin that couldn't be invested - a bad Boy - nothing more.
Mr Dombey's cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment, however, that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents, even to sprinkle on the dust in the by-path of his little daughter.
So he said, 'Florence, you may go and look at your pretty brother, if you lIke, I daresay. Don't touch him!'
The child glanced keenly at the blue coat and stiff white cravat, which,replica gucci handbags, with a pair of creaking boots and a very loud ticking watch,mont blanc pens, embodied her idea of a father; but her eyes returned to her mother's face immediately, and she neither moved nor answered.
Or, at all events, with one drawback. Yes. That he would have allowed. With only one; but that one certainly involving much. With the drawback of hope deferred. That hope deferred, which, (as the Scripture very correctly tells us, Mr Dombey would have added in a patronising way; for his highest distinct idea even of Scripture, if examined, would have been found to be; that as forming part of a general whole, of which Dombey and Son formed another part, it was therefore to be commended and upheld) maketh the heart sick. They had been married ten years, and until this present day on which Mr Dombey sat jingling and jingling his heavy gold watch-chain in the great arm-chair by the side of the bed, had had no issue.
- To speak of; none worth mentioning. There had been a girl some six years before, and the child, who had stolen into the chamber unobserved, was now crouching timidly, in a corner whence she could see her mother's face. But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the capital of the House's name and dignity, such a child was merely a piece of base coin that couldn't be invested - a bad Boy - nothing more.
Mr Dombey's cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment, however, that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents, even to sprinkle on the dust in the by-path of his little daughter.
So he said, 'Florence, you may go and look at your pretty brother, if you lIke, I daresay. Don't touch him!'
The child glanced keenly at the blue coat and stiff white cravat, which,replica gucci handbags, with a pair of creaking boots and a very loud ticking watch,mont blanc pens, embodied her idea of a father; but her eyes returned to her mother's face immediately, and she neither moved nor answered.
2012年11月25日星期日
'My poor boy
'My poor boy, how you have suffered all this year,ugg bailey button triplet 1873 boots, when we thoughtyou free as air! Why didn't you tell us, Dan, and let us help you?
Did you doubt your friends?' asked Mrs Jo, forgetting all otheremotions in sympathy, as she lifted up the hidden face, and lookedreproachfully into the great hollow eyes that met her own franklynow.
'I was ashamed. I tried to bear it alone rather than shock anddisappoint you, as I know I have, though you try not to show it.
Don't mind; I must get used to it'; and Dan's eyes dropped again asif they could not bear to see the trouble and dismay his confessionpainted on his best friend's face.
'I am shocked and disappointed by the sin, but I am also very gladand proud and grateful that my sinner has repented, atoned, and isready to profit by the bitter lesson. No one but Fritz and Laurieneed ever know the truth; we owe it to them, and they will feel as Ido,' answered Mrs Jo, wisely thinking that entire frankness would bea better tonic than too much sympathy.
'No, they won't; men never forgive like women. But it's right.
Please tell 'em for me, and get it over. Mr Laurence knows it, Iguess. I blabbed when my wits were gone; but he was very kind all thesame,moncler jackets men. I can bear their knowing; but oh, not Ted and the girls!' Danclutched her arm with such an imploring face that she hastened toassure him no one should know except the two old friends, and hecalmed down as if ashamed of his sudden panic.
'It wasn't murder, mind you, it was in self-defence; he drew first,and I had to hit him. Didn't mean to kill him; but it doesn't worryme as much as it ought, I'm afraid,Replica Designer Handbags. I've more than paid for it, andsuch a rascal is better out of the world than in it, showing boys theway to hell. Yes, I know you think that's awful in me; but I can'thelp it. I hate a scamp as I do a skulking coyote, and always want toget a shot at 'em. Perhaps it would have been better if he had killedme; my life is spoilt.'
All the old prison gloom seemed to settle like a black cloud on Dan'sface as he spoke, and Mrs Jo was frightened at the glimpse it gaveher of the fire through which he had passed to come out alive, butscarred for life. Hoping to turn his mind to happier things, she saidcheerfully:
'No, it isn't; you have learned to value it more and use it betterfor this trial. It is not a lost year, but one that may prove themost helpful of any you ever know. Try to think so, and begin again;we will help, and have all the more confidence in you for thisfailure. We all do the same and struggle on.'
'I never can be what I was. I feel about sixty, and don't care foranything now I've got here. Let me stay till I'm on my legs, thenI'll clear out and never trouble you any more,' said Dandespondently.
'You are weak and low in your mind; that will pass, and by and by youwill go to your missionary work among the Indians with all the oldenergy and the new patience,Discount UGG Boots, self-control, and knowledge you havegained. Tell me more about that good chaplain and Mary Mason and thelady whose chance word helped you so much. I want to know all aboutthe trials of my poor boy.'
To think that neither of his daughters should come
"To think that neither of his daughters should come!" exclaimed Rastignac. "I will write to them both."
"Neither of them!" cried the old man, sitting upright in bed. "They are busy, they are asleep, they will not come! I knew that they would not. Not until you are dying do you know your children. . . . Oh! my friend,Moncler outlet online store, do not marry; do not have children! You give them life; they give you your deathblow. You bring them into the world, and they send you out of it. No, they will not come. I have known that these ten years. Sometimes I have told myself so, but I did not dare to believe it."
The tears gathered and stood without overflowing the red sockets.
"Ah! if I were rich still, if I had kept my money, if I had not given all to them, they would be with me now; they would fawn on me and cover my cheeks with their kisses! I should be living in a great mansion; I should have grand apartments and servants and a fire in my room; and THEY would be about me all in tears, and their husbands and their children. I should have had all that; now--I have nothing. Money brings everything to you; even your daughters. My money. Oh,nike shox torch ii! where is my money? If I had plenty of money to leave behind me, they would nurse me and tend me; I should hear their voices, I should see their faces. Ah, God! who knows? They both of them have hearts of stone. I loved them too much; it was not likely that they should love me. A father ought always to be rich; he ought to keep his children well in hand, like unruly horses. I have gone down on my knees to them. Wretches! this is the crowning act that brings the last ten years to a proper close. If you but knew how much they made of me just after they were married. (Oh! this is cruel torture!) I had just given them each eight hundred thousand francs; they were bound to be civil to me after that, and their husbands too were civil. I used to go to their houses: it was 'My kind father' here, 'My dear father' there. There was always a place for me at their tables. I used to dine with their husbands now and then, and they were very respectful to me. I was still worth something, they thought. How should they know? I had not said anything about my affairs. It is worth while to be civil to a man who has given his daughters eight hundred thousand francs apiece; and they showed me every attention then--but it was all for my money. Grand people are not great. I found that out by experience! I went to the theatre with them in their carriage; I might stay as long as I cared to stay at their evening parties. In fact, they acknowleged me their father; publicly they owned that they were my daughters. But I was always a shrewd one, you see, and nothing was lost upon
me. Everything went straight to the mark and pierced my heart. I saw quite well that it was all cham and pretence, but there is no help for such things as these,Replica Designer Handbags. I felt less at my ease at their dinner-table than I did downstairs here. I had nothing to say for myself. So these grand folks would ask in my son-in-law's ear, 'Who may that gentleman be?'--'The father-in-law with the money bags; he is very rich.'--'The devil,link, e is!' they would say, and look again at me with the respect due to my money. Well, if I was in the way sometimes, I paid dearly for my mistakes. And besides, who is perfect? (My head is one sore!) Dear Monsieur Eugene, I am suffering so now, that a man might die of the pain; but it is nothing to be compared with the pain I endured when Anastasie made me feel, for the first time, that I had said something stupid. She looked at me, and that glance of hers opened all my veins. I used to want to know everything, to be learned; and one thing I did learn thoroughly --I knew that I was not wanted here on earth.
"Neither of them!" cried the old man, sitting upright in bed. "They are busy, they are asleep, they will not come! I knew that they would not. Not until you are dying do you know your children. . . . Oh! my friend,Moncler outlet online store, do not marry; do not have children! You give them life; they give you your deathblow. You bring them into the world, and they send you out of it. No, they will not come. I have known that these ten years. Sometimes I have told myself so, but I did not dare to believe it."
The tears gathered and stood without overflowing the red sockets.
"Ah! if I were rich still, if I had kept my money, if I had not given all to them, they would be with me now; they would fawn on me and cover my cheeks with their kisses! I should be living in a great mansion; I should have grand apartments and servants and a fire in my room; and THEY would be about me all in tears, and their husbands and their children. I should have had all that; now--I have nothing. Money brings everything to you; even your daughters. My money. Oh,nike shox torch ii! where is my money? If I had plenty of money to leave behind me, they would nurse me and tend me; I should hear their voices, I should see their faces. Ah, God! who knows? They both of them have hearts of stone. I loved them too much; it was not likely that they should love me. A father ought always to be rich; he ought to keep his children well in hand, like unruly horses. I have gone down on my knees to them. Wretches! this is the crowning act that brings the last ten years to a proper close. If you but knew how much they made of me just after they were married. (Oh! this is cruel torture!) I had just given them each eight hundred thousand francs; they were bound to be civil to me after that, and their husbands too were civil. I used to go to their houses: it was 'My kind father' here, 'My dear father' there. There was always a place for me at their tables. I used to dine with their husbands now and then, and they were very respectful to me. I was still worth something, they thought. How should they know? I had not said anything about my affairs. It is worth while to be civil to a man who has given his daughters eight hundred thousand francs apiece; and they showed me every attention then--but it was all for my money. Grand people are not great. I found that out by experience! I went to the theatre with them in their carriage; I might stay as long as I cared to stay at their evening parties. In fact, they acknowleged me their father; publicly they owned that they were my daughters. But I was always a shrewd one, you see, and nothing was lost upon
me. Everything went straight to the mark and pierced my heart. I saw quite well that it was all cham and pretence, but there is no help for such things as these,Replica Designer Handbags. I felt less at my ease at their dinner-table than I did downstairs here. I had nothing to say for myself. So these grand folks would ask in my son-in-law's ear, 'Who may that gentleman be?'--'The father-in-law with the money bags; he is very rich.'--'The devil,link, e is!' they would say, and look again at me with the respect due to my money. Well, if I was in the way sometimes, I paid dearly for my mistakes. And besides, who is perfect? (My head is one sore!) Dear Monsieur Eugene, I am suffering so now, that a man might die of the pain; but it is nothing to be compared with the pain I endured when Anastasie made me feel, for the first time, that I had said something stupid. She looked at me, and that glance of hers opened all my veins. I used to want to know everything, to be learned; and one thing I did learn thoroughly --I knew that I was not wanted here on earth.
2012年11月22日星期四
Zela gestured Eve and Peabody over to the bar while the young redhead led Natty Bow Tie to the cente
Zela gestured Eve and Peabody over to the bar while the young redhead led Natty Bow Tie to the center of the floor. The redhead beamed enthusiastically. “All right! Positions, everyone.”
There was a single bartender. He wore black-tie, and set a glass of bubbly water with a slice of lemon in front of Zela without asking her preference. “What can I get you, ladies?”
“Could I have a virgin cherry foam?” Peabody asked before Eve could glare at her.
“I’m good,” Eve told him, then drew out the sketch, laid it on the counter. “Do you recognize this man?”
Zela stared at it. “Is this…” She shook her head. She lifted her water, drank deeply, set it down again. Then, picking up the sketch, she angled it toward the lights. “I’m sorry. He just doesn’t look familiar. We get so many men of a certain age through here. I think if I’d worked with him—in a class—I’d remember.”
“How about you?” Eve took the sketch, nudged it across the bar.
The bartender stopped mixing Peabody’s drink to frown over the sketch. “Is this the fucker—sorry, Zela.” She only shook her head, waved the obscenity away. “This the one who killed Sari?”
“He’s a guy we want to talk to.”
“I’m good with faces, part of the trade. I don’t remember him sitting at my bar.”
“You work days?”
“Yeah. We—me and my lady—had a kid six months ago. Sari switched me to days so I could be home with my family at night. She was good about things like that. Her memorial’s tomorrow.” He looked over at Zela. “It’s not right.”
“No.” Zela laid a hand over his for a moment. “It’s not right.”
There was grief in his eyes when he moved away to finish mixing the drink.
“We’re all taking it pretty hard,” Zela said quietly. “Trying to work through it, because what can you do? But it’s hard, like trying to swallow past something that’s stuck in your throat.”
“It says a lot about her,” Peabody offered, “that she mattered to so many people.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it does. I talked to Sari’s sister yesterday,” Zela continued. “She asked if I’d pick the music. What Sari liked. It’s hard. Harder than anything I imagined.”
“I’m sure it is. What about her?” Eve glanced toward the redhead. “Did she work with Sari on any of the classes?”
“No. Actually, this is Loni’s first class. We’ve had to do some…well, some internal shuffling. Loni worked coat check and revolving hostessing. I just bumped her up to hostess/instructor.”
“I’d like to talk to her.”
“Sure, I’ll send her over.” Zela rose, smiled wanly. “Pity my feet. Mr. Buttons is as cute as, well, a button, but he’s a complete klutz.”
The dancers made the switch with Loni giving her klutzy partner a quick peck on the cheek before she dashed over to the bar on three-inch heels.
“Hi! I’m Loni.”
“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody.”
Peabody swallowed her slurp of cherry foam and tried to look more official.
“I talked to those other detectives? I have to say mmmm on both. I guess they’re not coming back?”
“Couldn’t say. Do you recognize this man?”
Loni looked at the sketch as the bartender set down beside her something pink and fizzy with a cherry garnish. “I don’t know. Hmmm. Not really. Sort of. I don’t know.”
There was a single bartender. He wore black-tie, and set a glass of bubbly water with a slice of lemon in front of Zela without asking her preference. “What can I get you, ladies?”
“Could I have a virgin cherry foam?” Peabody asked before Eve could glare at her.
“I’m good,” Eve told him, then drew out the sketch, laid it on the counter. “Do you recognize this man?”
Zela stared at it. “Is this…” She shook her head. She lifted her water, drank deeply, set it down again. Then, picking up the sketch, she angled it toward the lights. “I’m sorry. He just doesn’t look familiar. We get so many men of a certain age through here. I think if I’d worked with him—in a class—I’d remember.”
“How about you?” Eve took the sketch, nudged it across the bar.
The bartender stopped mixing Peabody’s drink to frown over the sketch. “Is this the fucker—sorry, Zela.” She only shook her head, waved the obscenity away. “This the one who killed Sari?”
“He’s a guy we want to talk to.”
“I’m good with faces, part of the trade. I don’t remember him sitting at my bar.”
“You work days?”
“Yeah. We—me and my lady—had a kid six months ago. Sari switched me to days so I could be home with my family at night. She was good about things like that. Her memorial’s tomorrow.” He looked over at Zela. “It’s not right.”
“No.” Zela laid a hand over his for a moment. “It’s not right.”
There was grief in his eyes when he moved away to finish mixing the drink.
“We’re all taking it pretty hard,” Zela said quietly. “Trying to work through it, because what can you do? But it’s hard, like trying to swallow past something that’s stuck in your throat.”
“It says a lot about her,” Peabody offered, “that she mattered to so many people.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it does. I talked to Sari’s sister yesterday,” Zela continued. “She asked if I’d pick the music. What Sari liked. It’s hard. Harder than anything I imagined.”
“I’m sure it is. What about her?” Eve glanced toward the redhead. “Did she work with Sari on any of the classes?”
“No. Actually, this is Loni’s first class. We’ve had to do some…well, some internal shuffling. Loni worked coat check and revolving hostessing. I just bumped her up to hostess/instructor.”
“I’d like to talk to her.”
“Sure, I’ll send her over.” Zela rose, smiled wanly. “Pity my feet. Mr. Buttons is as cute as, well, a button, but he’s a complete klutz.”
The dancers made the switch with Loni giving her klutzy partner a quick peck on the cheek before she dashed over to the bar on three-inch heels.
“Hi! I’m Loni.”
“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody.”
Peabody swallowed her slurp of cherry foam and tried to look more official.
“I talked to those other detectives? I have to say mmmm on both. I guess they’re not coming back?”
“Couldn’t say. Do you recognize this man?”
Loni looked at the sketch as the bartender set down beside her something pink and fizzy with a cherry garnish. “I don’t know. Hmmm. Not really. Sort of. I don’t know.”
The elders did their best
The elders did their best, but Uncle Mac was a busy man, AuntJane's reading was of a funereal sort, impossible to listen to long,and the other aunties were all absorbed in their own cares, thoughthey supplied the boy with every delicacy they could invent.
Uncle Alec was a host in himself, but he could not give all his timeto the invalid; and if it had not been for Rose, the afflicted Wormwould have fared ill. Her pleasant voice suited him, her patiencewas unfailing, her time of no apparent value, and her eagergood-will was very comforting.
The womanly power of self-devotion was strong in the child, andshe remained faithfully at her post when all the rest dropped away.
Hour after hour she sat in the dusky room, with one ray of light onher book, reading to the boy, who lay with shaded eyes silentlyenjoying the only pleasure that lightened the weary days.
Sometimes he was peevish and hard to please, sometimes hegrowled because his reader could not manage the dry books hewished to hear, and sometimes he was so despondent that her heartached to see him. Through all these trials Rose persevered, usingall her little arts to please him. When he fretted, she was patient;when he growled, she ploughed bravely through the hard pages notdry to her in one sense, for quiet tears dropped on them now andthen; and when Mac fell into a despairing mood, she comfortedhim with every hopeful word she dared to offer.
He said little, but she knew he was grateful, for she suited himbetter than anyone else. If she was late, he was impatient; whenshe had to go, he seemed forlorn; and when the tired head achedworst, she could always soothe him to sleep, crooning the oldsongs her father used to love.
"I don't know what I should do without that child," Aunt Jane oftensaid.
"She's worth all those racketing fellows put together," Mac wouldadd, fumbling about to discover if the little chair was ready for hercoming.
That was the sort of reward Rose liked, the thanks that cheeredher; and whenever she grew very tired, one look at the greenshade, the curly head so restless on the pillow, and the poorgroping hands, touched her tender heart and put new spirit into theweary voice.
She did not know how much she was learning, both from thebooks she read and the daily sacrifices she made. Stories andpoetry were her delight, but Mac did not care for them; and sincehis favourite Greeks and Romans were forbidden, he satisfiedhimself with travels, biographies, and the history of greatinventions or discoveries. Rose despised this taste at first, but soongot interested in Livingstone's adventures, Hobson's stirring life inIndia, and the brave trials and triumphs of Watt and Arkwright,Fulton, and "Palissy, the Potter." The true, strong books helped thedreamy girl; her faithful service and sweet patience touched andwon the boy; and long afterward both learned to see how usefulthose seemingly hard and weary hours had been to them.
One bright morning, as Rose sat down to begin a fat volumeentitled "History of the French Revolution," expecting to come togreat grief over the long names, Mac, who was lumbering aboutthe room like a blind bear, stopped her by asking abruptly"What day of the month is it?""The seventh of August, I believe.""More than half my vacation gone, and I've only had a week of it! Icall that hard," and he groaned dismally.
Uncle Alec was a host in himself, but he could not give all his timeto the invalid; and if it had not been for Rose, the afflicted Wormwould have fared ill. Her pleasant voice suited him, her patiencewas unfailing, her time of no apparent value, and her eagergood-will was very comforting.
The womanly power of self-devotion was strong in the child, andshe remained faithfully at her post when all the rest dropped away.
Hour after hour she sat in the dusky room, with one ray of light onher book, reading to the boy, who lay with shaded eyes silentlyenjoying the only pleasure that lightened the weary days.
Sometimes he was peevish and hard to please, sometimes hegrowled because his reader could not manage the dry books hewished to hear, and sometimes he was so despondent that her heartached to see him. Through all these trials Rose persevered, usingall her little arts to please him. When he fretted, she was patient;when he growled, she ploughed bravely through the hard pages notdry to her in one sense, for quiet tears dropped on them now andthen; and when Mac fell into a despairing mood, she comfortedhim with every hopeful word she dared to offer.
He said little, but she knew he was grateful, for she suited himbetter than anyone else. If she was late, he was impatient; whenshe had to go, he seemed forlorn; and when the tired head achedworst, she could always soothe him to sleep, crooning the oldsongs her father used to love.
"I don't know what I should do without that child," Aunt Jane oftensaid.
"She's worth all those racketing fellows put together," Mac wouldadd, fumbling about to discover if the little chair was ready for hercoming.
That was the sort of reward Rose liked, the thanks that cheeredher; and whenever she grew very tired, one look at the greenshade, the curly head so restless on the pillow, and the poorgroping hands, touched her tender heart and put new spirit into theweary voice.
She did not know how much she was learning, both from thebooks she read and the daily sacrifices she made. Stories andpoetry were her delight, but Mac did not care for them; and sincehis favourite Greeks and Romans were forbidden, he satisfiedhimself with travels, biographies, and the history of greatinventions or discoveries. Rose despised this taste at first, but soongot interested in Livingstone's adventures, Hobson's stirring life inIndia, and the brave trials and triumphs of Watt and Arkwright,Fulton, and "Palissy, the Potter." The true, strong books helped thedreamy girl; her faithful service and sweet patience touched andwon the boy; and long afterward both learned to see how usefulthose seemingly hard and weary hours had been to them.
One bright morning, as Rose sat down to begin a fat volumeentitled "History of the French Revolution," expecting to come togreat grief over the long names, Mac, who was lumbering aboutthe room like a blind bear, stopped her by asking abruptly"What day of the month is it?""The seventh of August, I believe.""More than half my vacation gone, and I've only had a week of it! Icall that hard," and he groaned dismally.
2012年11月21日星期三
A month before his death Augustus had suddenly appeared at the door of my study-he had been visiting
A month before his death Augustus had suddenly appeared at the door of my study-he had been visiting my mother who was just convalescent after a long illness-and after dismissing his attendants had begun to talk to me in a rambling way, not looking directly at me, but behaving as shyly as though he were Claudius and I were Augustus. He picked up a book of my history and read a passage. "Excellent writing!" he said. "And how soon will the work be finished?"
I told him, "In a month or less," and he congratulated me and said that he would then give orders to have a pub lie reading of it at his own expense, inviting his friends to attend. I was perfectly astonished at this but he went on in a friendly way to ask if I would not prefer a professional reciter to do justice to it rather than read myself: he said that public reading of one's own work must always be very embarrassing-even tough old Pollio had confessed that he was always nervous on such occasions. I thanked him most sincerely and heartily and said that a professional would obviously be more suitable, if my work indeed deserved such an honour.
Then he suddenly held out his hand to me: "Claudius, do you bear me any ill-will?"
What could I say to that? Tears came to my eyes and I muttered that I reverenced him and that he had never done anything to deserve my ill-will. He said with a sign: "No, but on the other hand little to earn your love. Wait a few months longer, Claudius, and I hope to be able to earn both your love and your gratitude. Germanicus has told me about you. He says that you are loyal to three things-to your friends, to Rome, and to the truth. I would be very proud if Germanicus thought the same of me."
"Gennanicus's love for you falls only a little short of outright worship," I said. "He has often told me so."
His face brightened. "You swear it? I am very happy. So now, Claudius, there's a strong bond between us-the good opinion of Germanicus. And what I came to tell you was this: I have treated you very badly all these years and I'm sincerely sorry and from now on you'll see that things will change." He quoted in Greek: "Who wounded thee, shall make thee whole" and with that he embraced me. As he turned to go he said over his shoulder: "I have just paid a visit to the Vestal Virgins and made some important alterations in a document of mine in their charge: and since you yourself are partly responsible for these I have given your name greater prominence there than it had before. But not a word!"
"You can trust me," I said.
He could only have meant one thing by this: that he had believed Postumus's story as I had reported it to Germanicus and was now restoring him in his will (which was in charge of the Vestals) as his heir; and that I was to benefit too as a reward for my loyalty to him. I did not then, of course, know of Augustus's visit to Planasia but confidently expected that Postumus would be brought back and treated with honour. Well, I was disappointed. Since Augustus had been so secretive about the new will, which had been witnessed by Fabius Maximus and a few decrepit old priests, it was easy to suppress it in favour of one which had been made six years before at the time of the disinheriting of Postumus. The opening sentence was:
I told him, "In a month or less," and he congratulated me and said that he would then give orders to have a pub lie reading of it at his own expense, inviting his friends to attend. I was perfectly astonished at this but he went on in a friendly way to ask if I would not prefer a professional reciter to do justice to it rather than read myself: he said that public reading of one's own work must always be very embarrassing-even tough old Pollio had confessed that he was always nervous on such occasions. I thanked him most sincerely and heartily and said that a professional would obviously be more suitable, if my work indeed deserved such an honour.
Then he suddenly held out his hand to me: "Claudius, do you bear me any ill-will?"
What could I say to that? Tears came to my eyes and I muttered that I reverenced him and that he had never done anything to deserve my ill-will. He said with a sign: "No, but on the other hand little to earn your love. Wait a few months longer, Claudius, and I hope to be able to earn both your love and your gratitude. Germanicus has told me about you. He says that you are loyal to three things-to your friends, to Rome, and to the truth. I would be very proud if Germanicus thought the same of me."
"Gennanicus's love for you falls only a little short of outright worship," I said. "He has often told me so."
His face brightened. "You swear it? I am very happy. So now, Claudius, there's a strong bond between us-the good opinion of Germanicus. And what I came to tell you was this: I have treated you very badly all these years and I'm sincerely sorry and from now on you'll see that things will change." He quoted in Greek: "Who wounded thee, shall make thee whole" and with that he embraced me. As he turned to go he said over his shoulder: "I have just paid a visit to the Vestal Virgins and made some important alterations in a document of mine in their charge: and since you yourself are partly responsible for these I have given your name greater prominence there than it had before. But not a word!"
"You can trust me," I said.
He could only have meant one thing by this: that he had believed Postumus's story as I had reported it to Germanicus and was now restoring him in his will (which was in charge of the Vestals) as his heir; and that I was to benefit too as a reward for my loyalty to him. I did not then, of course, know of Augustus's visit to Planasia but confidently expected that Postumus would be brought back and treated with honour. Well, I was disappointed. Since Augustus had been so secretive about the new will, which had been witnessed by Fabius Maximus and a few decrepit old priests, it was easy to suppress it in favour of one which had been made six years before at the time of the disinheriting of Postumus. The opening sentence was:
He stopped
He stopped, making sure that Miles was listening to him. “I wouldn’t have believed the first story that came my way that promised an answer, especially if it was from a guy like Sims Addison. Think about who you’re talking about here.Sims Addison. That guy would turn on his own mother if he could get money for it. When his own freedom is at stake, how far do you think he’d be willing to go?”
“This isn’t about Sims—”
“Of course it is. He didn’t want to go back to prison,homepage, and he was willing to say anything to ensure that. Doesn’t that make more sense than what you’re telling me?”
“He wouldn’t lie to me about this.”
Charlie met Miles’s gaze. “And why not? Because it’s too personal? Because it means too much? Because it’s too important? Did you ever stop to think that he knew what it would take to get you to let him out of here? He’s not stupid, despite his boozing habit. He’d say anything to get himself out of trouble, and from the looks of it, that’s exactly what happened.”
“You weren’t there when he told me. You didn’t see his face.” “No? To tell you the truth, I don’t think I had to be there. I can imagine exactly how it went. But let’s just say you’re right,Moncler Outlet, okay? Say Sims was telling you the truth—and let’s totally disregard the fact that you were wrong in letting him go without talking to me or to Harvey, okay? Then what? You said that he overheard people talking. That he wasn’t even a witness.” “He doesn’t have to be.”
“Oh, come on, Miles. You know the rules. In court, that’s nothing more than hearsay. You don’t have a case.”
“Earl Getlin can testify.”
“Earl Getlin? Who’s gonna believe him? One look at his tattoos and his rap sheet and there goes half the jury. Throw in the deal I’m sure he’ll want, and there goes the other half.” He paused. “But you’re forgetting something important,fake uggs for sale, Miles.”
“What’s that?”
“What if Earl doesn’t back it up?”
“He will.”
“But what if he doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll have to get Otis to confess.”
“And you think he’ll do that?”
“He’ll confess.”
“You mean if you lean on him hard enough . . .”
Miles stood up, not wanting to listen anymore. “Look, Charlie—Otis killed Missy,UGG Clerance, it’s as simple as that. You might not want to believe it, but maybe you guys did overlook something back then, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it go now.” He reached for the door. “I’ve got a prisoner to interrogate—” With a swing, Charlie caught the door, closing it.
“I don’t think so, Miles. Right now, I think it would be best if you stay out of this for a little while.”
“Stay out of it?”
“Yeah.Stay. Out. Of. It. That’s an order. I’ll take it from here.”
“We’re talking about Missy, Charlie.”
“No. We’re talking about a deputy who overstepped his bounds and shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place.”
They stood eye to eye for a long moment before Charlie finally shook his head.
“Look, Miles, I understand what you’re going through, but you’re out of it now. I’ll talk to Otis, I’ll find Sims and talk to him, too. And I’ll make a trip up to see Earl. And as for you, I think you should probably head on home. Take the rest of the day off.”
“This isn’t about Sims—”
“Of course it is. He didn’t want to go back to prison,homepage, and he was willing to say anything to ensure that. Doesn’t that make more sense than what you’re telling me?”
“He wouldn’t lie to me about this.”
Charlie met Miles’s gaze. “And why not? Because it’s too personal? Because it means too much? Because it’s too important? Did you ever stop to think that he knew what it would take to get you to let him out of here? He’s not stupid, despite his boozing habit. He’d say anything to get himself out of trouble, and from the looks of it, that’s exactly what happened.”
“You weren’t there when he told me. You didn’t see his face.” “No? To tell you the truth, I don’t think I had to be there. I can imagine exactly how it went. But let’s just say you’re right,Moncler Outlet, okay? Say Sims was telling you the truth—and let’s totally disregard the fact that you were wrong in letting him go without talking to me or to Harvey, okay? Then what? You said that he overheard people talking. That he wasn’t even a witness.” “He doesn’t have to be.”
“Oh, come on, Miles. You know the rules. In court, that’s nothing more than hearsay. You don’t have a case.”
“Earl Getlin can testify.”
“Earl Getlin? Who’s gonna believe him? One look at his tattoos and his rap sheet and there goes half the jury. Throw in the deal I’m sure he’ll want, and there goes the other half.” He paused. “But you’re forgetting something important,fake uggs for sale, Miles.”
“What’s that?”
“What if Earl doesn’t back it up?”
“He will.”
“But what if he doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll have to get Otis to confess.”
“And you think he’ll do that?”
“He’ll confess.”
“You mean if you lean on him hard enough . . .”
Miles stood up, not wanting to listen anymore. “Look, Charlie—Otis killed Missy,UGG Clerance, it’s as simple as that. You might not want to believe it, but maybe you guys did overlook something back then, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it go now.” He reached for the door. “I’ve got a prisoner to interrogate—” With a swing, Charlie caught the door, closing it.
“I don’t think so, Miles. Right now, I think it would be best if you stay out of this for a little while.”
“Stay out of it?”
“Yeah.Stay. Out. Of. It. That’s an order. I’ll take it from here.”
“We’re talking about Missy, Charlie.”
“No. We’re talking about a deputy who overstepped his bounds and shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place.”
They stood eye to eye for a long moment before Charlie finally shook his head.
“Look, Miles, I understand what you’re going through, but you’re out of it now. I’ll talk to Otis, I’ll find Sims and talk to him, too. And I’ll make a trip up to see Earl. And as for you, I think you should probably head on home. Take the rest of the day off.”
Yet no one will share these feelings with her
Yet no one will share these feelings with her. Not Harry, not Pru. Pru comes back not at noon but after one o'clock. She says traffic was worse than anyone would imagine, miles of the Turnpike reduced to one lane, North Philadelphia enormous, block after block of row houses. And then the rehab place took its own sweet time about signing Nelson in; when she complained, they let her know that they turned down three for every one they admitted. Pru seems a semi?stranger, taller in stature and fiercer in expression than Janice remembered as a mother?in?law. The link between them has been removed.
"How did he seem?" Janice asks her.
"Angry but sane. Full of practical instructions about the lot he wanted me to pass on to his father,cheap designer handbags. He made me write them all down. It's as if he doesn't realize he's not running the show any more."
"I feel so terrible about it all I couldn't eat any lunch. Roy fell asleep in the TV chair and I didn't know if I should wake him or not."
Pru pokes back her hair wearily. "Nelson kept the kids up too late last night, running around kissing them, wanting them to play card games. He gets manicky on the stuff, so he can't let anybody alone. Roy has his play group at one, I better quick take him."
"I'm sorry, I knew he had the play group but didn't know where it was or if Wednesday was one of the days."
"I should have told you, but who would have thought driving to Philadelphia and back would be such a big deal? In Ohio you just zip up to Cleveland and back without any trouble." She doesn't directly blame Janice for missing Roy's play group, but her triangular brow expresses irritation nevertheless.
Janice still seeks absolution from this younger woman, asking, "Do you think I should feel so terrible?"
Pru, whose eyes have been shuttling from detail to detail of what is, after all, as far as use and occupancy go, her house, now for a moment focuses on Janice a look of full cold clarity. "Of course not," she says. "This is the only chance Nelson has. And you're the only one who could make him do it,ugg bailey button triplet 1873 boots. Thank God you did. You're doing exactly the right thing."
Yet the words are so harshly stated Janice finds herself unreassured. She licks the center of her upper lip, which feels dry. There is a little crack in the center of it that never quite heals. "But I feel so ? what's the word? ?mercenary. As if I care more about the company than my son."
Pru shrugs. "It's the way things are structured,replica mont blanc pens. You have the clout. Me, Harry, the kids ? Nelson just laughs at us. To him we're negligible. He's sick, Janice. He's not your son,replica gucci wallets, he's a monster con artist who used to be your son."
And this seems so harsh that Janice starts to cry; but her daughter?in?law, instead of offering to lend comfort, turns and sets about, with her air of irritated efficiency, waking up Roy and putting him in clean corduroy pants for play school.
"I'm late too. We'll be back," Janice says, feeling dismissed. She and Pru have previously agreed that, rather than risk leaving Harry alone in the Penn Park house while she does her three hours at the Penn State extension, she will bring him back here for his first night out of the hospital. As she drives into Brewer she looks forward to seeing him on his feet again, and to sharing with him her guilt over Nelson.
How about a beer
"How about a beer?" I asked. The more I resolved not to show my alarm -- alarm was the last thing I wanted to suggest was called for -- the more plainly I could see it in my voice and manner.
"All right. Rennie? Want one?"
"No thanks," Rennie said, in a voice something like mine.
She sat in the overstuffed chair by the front window, and Joe on the edge of my monstrous bed, so that when I opened the beer bottles and took the only remaining seat, my rocking chair, we formed most embarrassingly a perfect equilateral triangle, with the gun in the center. Joe observed this at the same instant I did, and though I can't vouch for his grin, my own was not jovial.
"Well, what's up?" I asked him.
Joe pushed his spectacles back on his nose and crossed his legs.
"Rennie's pregnant," he said calmly.
When a man has been sleeping with a woman, no matter under what circumstances, this news always comes like the kick of a horse. The pistol loomed more conspicuous than ever, and it took me several seconds to collect my wits enough to realize that I had nothing to be concerned about.
"No kidding! Congratulations!"
Joe kept smiling, not cordially, and Rennie fixed her eyes on the rug. Nobody spoke for a while.
"What's wrong?" I asked, not knowing for certain what to be afraid of.
"Well, we're not sure who to congratulate, I guess," Joe said.
"Why not?" My face burned,Discount UGG Boots. "You're not afraidI'm the father, are you?"
"I'm not particularly afraid of anything," Joe said. "But you might be the father."
"You don't have to worry about that, Joe,homepage; believe me." I looked a little wonderingly at Rennie,moncler jackets women, who I thought should have known better than to complicate things unnecessarily.
"You mean because you used contraceptives every time. I know that. I even know how many times you had to use them and what brand you use, Jacob."
"What the hell's the trouble, then,fake uggs boots?" I demanded, getting a little irritated.
"The trouble is that I used them every time too -- and the same brand, as a matter of fact."
I was stunned. There was the pistol.
"So," Joe went on, "if, as my friend Rennie tells me, this triangle was never a rectangle, and if her obstetrician isn't lying when he says rubbers are about eighty per cent efficient, the congratulations should be pretty much mutual. In fact, other things being equal, there's about one chance in four that you actually are the father."
Neither Joe's voice nor his forehead indicated how he felt about this possibility. I wasn't terribly anxious to find out.
"How sure are you that you're pregnant?" I asked Rennie. To my chagrin my voice was unsteady.
"I'm -- I'm pretty late," Rennie said, clearing her throat two or three times. "And I've been vomiting a lot for the last two days."
"Well, you know, you thought you were pregnant once before."
She shook her head. "That was wishful thinking."
She had to wait a second before she said anything else. "I wanted to be pregnant that time."
"There's not much doubt," Joe said. "No use to hope along those lines. The obstetricians never commit themselves for a month or so, just to be safe, but Rennie knows her symptoms."
"All right. Rennie? Want one?"
"No thanks," Rennie said, in a voice something like mine.
She sat in the overstuffed chair by the front window, and Joe on the edge of my monstrous bed, so that when I opened the beer bottles and took the only remaining seat, my rocking chair, we formed most embarrassingly a perfect equilateral triangle, with the gun in the center. Joe observed this at the same instant I did, and though I can't vouch for his grin, my own was not jovial.
"Well, what's up?" I asked him.
Joe pushed his spectacles back on his nose and crossed his legs.
"Rennie's pregnant," he said calmly.
When a man has been sleeping with a woman, no matter under what circumstances, this news always comes like the kick of a horse. The pistol loomed more conspicuous than ever, and it took me several seconds to collect my wits enough to realize that I had nothing to be concerned about.
"No kidding! Congratulations!"
Joe kept smiling, not cordially, and Rennie fixed her eyes on the rug. Nobody spoke for a while.
"What's wrong?" I asked, not knowing for certain what to be afraid of.
"Well, we're not sure who to congratulate, I guess," Joe said.
"Why not?" My face burned,Discount UGG Boots. "You're not afraidI'm the father, are you?"
"I'm not particularly afraid of anything," Joe said. "But you might be the father."
"You don't have to worry about that, Joe,homepage; believe me." I looked a little wonderingly at Rennie,moncler jackets women, who I thought should have known better than to complicate things unnecessarily.
"You mean because you used contraceptives every time. I know that. I even know how many times you had to use them and what brand you use, Jacob."
"What the hell's the trouble, then,fake uggs boots?" I demanded, getting a little irritated.
"The trouble is that I used them every time too -- and the same brand, as a matter of fact."
I was stunned. There was the pistol.
"So," Joe went on, "if, as my friend Rennie tells me, this triangle was never a rectangle, and if her obstetrician isn't lying when he says rubbers are about eighty per cent efficient, the congratulations should be pretty much mutual. In fact, other things being equal, there's about one chance in four that you actually are the father."
Neither Joe's voice nor his forehead indicated how he felt about this possibility. I wasn't terribly anxious to find out.
"How sure are you that you're pregnant?" I asked Rennie. To my chagrin my voice was unsteady.
"I'm -- I'm pretty late," Rennie said, clearing her throat two or three times. "And I've been vomiting a lot for the last two days."
"Well, you know, you thought you were pregnant once before."
She shook her head. "That was wishful thinking."
She had to wait a second before she said anything else. "I wanted to be pregnant that time."
"There's not much doubt," Joe said. "No use to hope along those lines. The obstetricians never commit themselves for a month or so, just to be safe, but Rennie knows her symptoms."
They ordered salad with light dressing and pasta with tomato sauce
They ordered salad with light dressing and pasta with tomato sauce, no meat, no wine, no bread. Nora had tanned for the seventh time, Luther for the tenth, and as they sipped their sparkling water they admired their weathered looks and chuckled at all the pale faces around them. One of Luther's grandmothers had been half-Italian, and his Mediterranean genes were proving quite conducive to tanning. He was several shades darker than Nora, and his friends were noticing. He couldn't have cared less. By now, everybody knew they were headed for the islands.
"It's starting now," Nora said, looking at her watch.
Luther looked at his. Seven P.M.
The Christmas parade was launched every year from Veteran's Park, in midtown. With floats and fire trucks and marching bands, it never changed. Santa always brought up the rear in a sleigh built by the Rotarians and escorted by eight fat Shriners on mini-bikes. The parade looped through the west side and came close to Hemlock. Every year for the past eighteen,fake uggs boots, the Kranks and their neighbors had camped along the parade route and made an event out of it. It was a festive evening, one Luther and Nora wished to avoid this year.
Hemlock would be wild with kids and carolers and who knew what else. Probably bicycle gangs chanting "Free Frosty" and little terrorists planting signs on their front lawn.
"How was the firm's Christmas dinner?" Nora asked.
"Sounded like the usual. Same room, same waiters, same tenderloin, same soufflé. Slader said Stanley got drunk as a skunk during cocktails."
"I've never seen him sober during cocktails."
"He made the same speech-great effort, billings up, we'll knock 'em dead next year, Wiley & Beck is Family, thanks to all. That sort of stuff. I'm glad we missed it."
"Anybody else skip it?"
"Slader said Maupin from auditing was a no-show."
"I wonder what Jayne wore,Discount UGG Boots?"
"I'll ask Slader. I'm sure he took notes."
Their salads arrived and they gawked at the baby spinach like famine refugees. But they slowly and properly applied the dressing, a little salt and pepper, then began eating as if they were completely disinterested in food.
The Island Princess served nonstop food. Luther planned to eat until he popped.
At a table not far away, a pretty young lady with dark hair was eating with her date,moncler jackets men. Nora saw her and laid down her fork.
"Do you think she's okay, Luther?" Luther glanced around the room and said, "Who?"
"Blair."
He finished chewing and pondered the question that she now asked only three times a day,UGG Clerance. "She's fine, Nora. She's having a great time."
"Is she safe?" Another standard question, posed as if Luther should know for certain whether their daughter was safe or not at that precise moment.
"The Peace Corps hasn't lost a volunteer in thirty years. Yes, trust me, they're very careful, Nora. Now eat."
She pushed her greens around, took a bite, lost interest. Luther wiped his plate clean and honed in on hers. "You gonna eat that?" he asked.
She swapped plates, and in a flash Luther had cleaned the second one. The pasta arrived and she guarded her bowl. After a few measured bites, she stopped suddenly, her fork halfway to her face. Then she laid it down again and said, "I forgot."
"It's starting now," Nora said, looking at her watch.
Luther looked at his. Seven P.M.
The Christmas parade was launched every year from Veteran's Park, in midtown. With floats and fire trucks and marching bands, it never changed. Santa always brought up the rear in a sleigh built by the Rotarians and escorted by eight fat Shriners on mini-bikes. The parade looped through the west side and came close to Hemlock. Every year for the past eighteen,fake uggs boots, the Kranks and their neighbors had camped along the parade route and made an event out of it. It was a festive evening, one Luther and Nora wished to avoid this year.
Hemlock would be wild with kids and carolers and who knew what else. Probably bicycle gangs chanting "Free Frosty" and little terrorists planting signs on their front lawn.
"How was the firm's Christmas dinner?" Nora asked.
"Sounded like the usual. Same room, same waiters, same tenderloin, same soufflé. Slader said Stanley got drunk as a skunk during cocktails."
"I've never seen him sober during cocktails."
"He made the same speech-great effort, billings up, we'll knock 'em dead next year, Wiley & Beck is Family, thanks to all. That sort of stuff. I'm glad we missed it."
"Anybody else skip it?"
"Slader said Maupin from auditing was a no-show."
"I wonder what Jayne wore,Discount UGG Boots?"
"I'll ask Slader. I'm sure he took notes."
Their salads arrived and they gawked at the baby spinach like famine refugees. But they slowly and properly applied the dressing, a little salt and pepper, then began eating as if they were completely disinterested in food.
The Island Princess served nonstop food. Luther planned to eat until he popped.
At a table not far away, a pretty young lady with dark hair was eating with her date,moncler jackets men. Nora saw her and laid down her fork.
"Do you think she's okay, Luther?" Luther glanced around the room and said, "Who?"
"Blair."
He finished chewing and pondered the question that she now asked only three times a day,UGG Clerance. "She's fine, Nora. She's having a great time."
"Is she safe?" Another standard question, posed as if Luther should know for certain whether their daughter was safe or not at that precise moment.
"The Peace Corps hasn't lost a volunteer in thirty years. Yes, trust me, they're very careful, Nora. Now eat."
She pushed her greens around, took a bite, lost interest. Luther wiped his plate clean and honed in on hers. "You gonna eat that?" he asked.
She swapped plates, and in a flash Luther had cleaned the second one. The pasta arrived and she guarded her bowl. After a few measured bites, she stopped suddenly, her fork halfway to her face. Then she laid it down again and said, "I forgot."
She presses the button
She presses the button. "Yes, ma'am?"
"Has the motherfucker called?" a woman's voice crackles out of the wall.
"No, ma'am."
"Goddammit! Ever since he froze my fucking cards I'm supposed to get a fucking check. How hard is that? I mean, how am I supposed to feed Alex? Fucker. Did you pick up my La Mer?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Murnel picks up the tray and we follow her silently down to Alex's room. I am the last one in. Half the room is completely bare, a line of model cars down the middle serving as impromptu duct tape, and Alex, shirtless and shoeless, paces in front of a stockpile of all his earthly possessions. He halts and looks up at us.
"I told the fucker he has to bring his own toys."
Nanny,
Please call the caterers and double-check what kind of utensils and linens they'll be bringing for Mr X party. Please see that they drop off all the linens in advance so Connie can rewash them.
Grayer has his St David's interview today, after which I'll be running to a meeting with the florist,Designer Handbags. So Mr X will drive by and drop Grayer off to you at precisely 1:45 on the North-West corner of Ninety-fifth and Park.
Please be sure to be standing as close to the curb as possible so that the driver can see you. Please get there by 1:30 just in case they're early. I'm sure this goes without saying, but Mr X should not have to get out of the car.
In the meantime, I'll need you to start assemblying the following items for the gift bags.
Except for the champagne, you should be able to find most of these at Gracious Home.
Annick Goutal Soap
Piper Heidsieck, small bottle
Morrocco leathter travel picture frame, red or green
Mont Blanc pen - small
LAVENDeR WATER
See you at 6!
I reread the note, wondering if I'm supposed to pull out my magic decoder ring to figure out how many of each item she wants me to buy.
She doesn't answer her cell, so I decide to call Mr. X's office after getting his number off the phone list posted inside the pantry door.
"What?" he answers after one ring.
"Urn,fake uggs, Mr. X, it's Nanny-"
"Who? How did you get this number?"
"Nanny. I look after Grayer-"
"Who?"
Unsure how to clarify without seeming impertinent, I barrel on. "Your wife wants me to pick up the stuff for the gift baskets for the party-"
"What party? What the hell are you talking about? Who is this?"
"On the twenty-eighth? For the Chicago people?"
"My wife told you to call me?" He sounds angry.
"No. I just needed to know how many people are coming and I couldn't-"
"Oh,cheap designer handbags, for crissake."
My ear fills with dial tone,fake uggs for sale.
Right.
I walk over to Third, trying to figure out how many of each thing I'm I supposed to buy, as if it were a logic puzzle. It's a sit-down dinner, so it ) can't be a ton of people, but it must be more than, say, eight, or so, if| she's having caterers and renting tables. I think she's renting three tables j and they probably seat six or eight each, so that'll be eighteen or twenty-four, either I show up empty-handed tonight or I pick a number.
Twelve.
I stop in front of the liquor store. Twelve. That feels right.
"Has the motherfucker called?" a woman's voice crackles out of the wall.
"No, ma'am."
"Goddammit! Ever since he froze my fucking cards I'm supposed to get a fucking check. How hard is that? I mean, how am I supposed to feed Alex? Fucker. Did you pick up my La Mer?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Murnel picks up the tray and we follow her silently down to Alex's room. I am the last one in. Half the room is completely bare, a line of model cars down the middle serving as impromptu duct tape, and Alex, shirtless and shoeless, paces in front of a stockpile of all his earthly possessions. He halts and looks up at us.
"I told the fucker he has to bring his own toys."
Nanny,
Please call the caterers and double-check what kind of utensils and linens they'll be bringing for Mr X party. Please see that they drop off all the linens in advance so Connie can rewash them.
Grayer has his St David's interview today, after which I'll be running to a meeting with the florist,Designer Handbags. So Mr X will drive by and drop Grayer off to you at precisely 1:45 on the North-West corner of Ninety-fifth and Park.
Please be sure to be standing as close to the curb as possible so that the driver can see you. Please get there by 1:30 just in case they're early. I'm sure this goes without saying, but Mr X should not have to get out of the car.
In the meantime, I'll need you to start assemblying the following items for the gift bags.
Except for the champagne, you should be able to find most of these at Gracious Home.
Annick Goutal Soap
Piper Heidsieck, small bottle
Morrocco leathter travel picture frame, red or green
Mont Blanc pen - small
LAVENDeR WATER
See you at 6!
I reread the note, wondering if I'm supposed to pull out my magic decoder ring to figure out how many of each item she wants me to buy.
She doesn't answer her cell, so I decide to call Mr. X's office after getting his number off the phone list posted inside the pantry door.
"What?" he answers after one ring.
"Urn,fake uggs, Mr. X, it's Nanny-"
"Who? How did you get this number?"
"Nanny. I look after Grayer-"
"Who?"
Unsure how to clarify without seeming impertinent, I barrel on. "Your wife wants me to pick up the stuff for the gift baskets for the party-"
"What party? What the hell are you talking about? Who is this?"
"On the twenty-eighth? For the Chicago people?"
"My wife told you to call me?" He sounds angry.
"No. I just needed to know how many people are coming and I couldn't-"
"Oh,cheap designer handbags, for crissake."
My ear fills with dial tone,fake uggs for sale.
Right.
I walk over to Third, trying to figure out how many of each thing I'm I supposed to buy, as if it were a logic puzzle. It's a sit-down dinner, so it ) can't be a ton of people, but it must be more than, say, eight, or so, if| she's having caterers and renting tables. I think she's renting three tables j and they probably seat six or eight each, so that'll be eighteen or twenty-four, either I show up empty-handed tonight or I pick a number.
Twelve.
I stop in front of the liquor store. Twelve. That feels right.
‘You’ve never told me about your husband
‘You’ve never told me about your husband,’ Scobie said.
‘No.’
‘It’s not really much good tearing out a page because you can see the place where it’s been torn?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s easier to get over a thing,’ Scobie said, ‘if you talk about it.’
‘That’s not the trouble,’ she said. ‘The trouble is - it’s so terribly easy to get over.’ She took him by surprise; he hadn’t believed she was old enough to have reached that stage in her lessons, that particular turn of the screw. She said, ‘He’s been dead - how long - is it eight weeks yet? and he’s so dead, so completely dead. What a little bitch I must be.’
Scobie said, ‘You needn’t feel that. It’s the same with everybody, I think. When we say to someone, ‘I can’t live without you,’ what we really mean is, ‘I can’t live feeling you may be in pain, unhappy, in want.’ That’s all it is. When they are dead our responsibility ends. There’s nothing more we can do about it. We can rest in peace.’
‘I didn’t know I was so tough,’ Helen said. ‘Horribly tough.’
‘I had a child,Moncler Outlet,’ Scobie said, ‘who died. I was out here. My wife sent me two cables from Bexhill, one at five in the evening and one at six, but they mixed up the order. You see she meant to break the thing gently. I got one cable just after breakfast. It was eight o’clock in the morning - a dead time of day for any news.’ He had never mentioned this before to anyone, not even to Louise. Now he brought out the exact words of each cable, carefully. ‘The cable said, Catherine died this afternoon no pain God bless you. The second cable came at lunch-time. It said, Catherine seriously ill. Doctor has hope my diving. That was the one sent off at five. ‘Diving’ was a mutilation - I suppose for ‘darling’. You see there was nothing more hopeless she could have put to break the news than “doctor has hope”.’
‘How terrible for you,’ Helen said.
‘No, the terrible thing was that when I got the second telegram, I was so muddled in my head, I thought, there’s been a mistake. She must be still alive. For a moment until I realized what had happened, I was - disappointed. That was the terrible thing. I thought ‘now the anxiety begins, and the pain’, but when I realized what had happened, then it was all right, she was dead,nike shox torch 2, I could begin to forget her.’
‘Have you forgotten her?’
‘I don’t remember her often. You see, I escaped seeing her die. My wife had that.’
It was astonishing to him how easily and quickly they had become friends. They came together over two deaths without reserve. She said, ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
‘Everybody would have looked after you.’
‘I think they are scared of me, she said.
He laughed.
‘They are. Flight-Lieutenant Bagster took me to the beach this afternoon but he was scared. Because I’m not happy and because of my husband. Everybody on the beach was pretending to be happy about something and I sat there grinning and it didn’t work,Discount UGG Boots. Do you remember when you went to your first party and coming up the stairs you heard all the voices and you didn’t know how to talk to people,replica gucci wallets? That’s how I felt so I sat and grinned in Mrs Carter’s bathing-dress and Bagster stroked my leg and I wanted to go home.’
‘No.’
‘It’s not really much good tearing out a page because you can see the place where it’s been torn?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s easier to get over a thing,’ Scobie said, ‘if you talk about it.’
‘That’s not the trouble,’ she said. ‘The trouble is - it’s so terribly easy to get over.’ She took him by surprise; he hadn’t believed she was old enough to have reached that stage in her lessons, that particular turn of the screw. She said, ‘He’s been dead - how long - is it eight weeks yet? and he’s so dead, so completely dead. What a little bitch I must be.’
Scobie said, ‘You needn’t feel that. It’s the same with everybody, I think. When we say to someone, ‘I can’t live without you,’ what we really mean is, ‘I can’t live feeling you may be in pain, unhappy, in want.’ That’s all it is. When they are dead our responsibility ends. There’s nothing more we can do about it. We can rest in peace.’
‘I didn’t know I was so tough,’ Helen said. ‘Horribly tough.’
‘I had a child,Moncler Outlet,’ Scobie said, ‘who died. I was out here. My wife sent me two cables from Bexhill, one at five in the evening and one at six, but they mixed up the order. You see she meant to break the thing gently. I got one cable just after breakfast. It was eight o’clock in the morning - a dead time of day for any news.’ He had never mentioned this before to anyone, not even to Louise. Now he brought out the exact words of each cable, carefully. ‘The cable said, Catherine died this afternoon no pain God bless you. The second cable came at lunch-time. It said, Catherine seriously ill. Doctor has hope my diving. That was the one sent off at five. ‘Diving’ was a mutilation - I suppose for ‘darling’. You see there was nothing more hopeless she could have put to break the news than “doctor has hope”.’
‘How terrible for you,’ Helen said.
‘No, the terrible thing was that when I got the second telegram, I was so muddled in my head, I thought, there’s been a mistake. She must be still alive. For a moment until I realized what had happened, I was - disappointed. That was the terrible thing. I thought ‘now the anxiety begins, and the pain’, but when I realized what had happened, then it was all right, she was dead,nike shox torch 2, I could begin to forget her.’
‘Have you forgotten her?’
‘I don’t remember her often. You see, I escaped seeing her die. My wife had that.’
It was astonishing to him how easily and quickly they had become friends. They came together over two deaths without reserve. She said, ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
‘Everybody would have looked after you.’
‘I think they are scared of me, she said.
He laughed.
‘They are. Flight-Lieutenant Bagster took me to the beach this afternoon but he was scared. Because I’m not happy and because of my husband. Everybody on the beach was pretending to be happy about something and I sat there grinning and it didn’t work,Discount UGG Boots. Do you remember when you went to your first party and coming up the stairs you heard all the voices and you didn’t know how to talk to people,replica gucci wallets? That’s how I felt so I sat and grinned in Mrs Carter’s bathing-dress and Bagster stroked my leg and I wanted to go home.’
2012年11月19日星期一
“But is not the deprivation you describe one we all share in our different ways
“But is not the deprivation you describe one we all share in our different ways?” She shook her head with a surprising vehemence. He realized he had touched some deep emotion in her.
“I meant only to suggest that social privilege does not necessarily bring happiness.”
“There is no likeness between a situation where happiness is at least possible and one where ...” again she shook her head.
“But you surely can’t pretend that all governesses are unhappy—or remain unmarried?”
“All like myself.”
He left a silence, then said, “I interrupted your story. Forgive me.”
“And you will believe I speak not from envy?”
She turned then, her eyes intense, and he nodded. Plucking a little spray of milkwort from the bank beside her, blue flowers like microscopic cherubs’ genitals, she went on.
“Varguennes recovered. It came to within a week of the time when he should take his leave. By then he had declared his attachment to me.”
“He asked you to marry him?”
She found difficulty in answering. “There was talk of marriage. He told me he was to be promoted captain of a
wine ship when he returned to France. That he had expecta-tions of recovering the patrimony he and his brother had lost.” She hesitated, then came out with it. “He wished me to go with him back to France.”
“Mrs. Talbot was aware of this?”
“She is the kindest of women. And the most innocent. If Captain Talbot had been there ... but he was not. I was ashamed to tell her in the beginning. And afraid, at the end.” She added, “Afraid of the advice I knew she must give me.” She began to defoliate the milkwort. “Varguennes became insistent. He made me believe that his whole happiness de-pended on my accompanying him when he left—more than that, that my happiness depended on it as well. He had found out much about me. How my father had died in a lunatic asylum. How I was without means, without close relatives. How for many years I had felt myself in some mysterious way condemned—and I knew not why—to solitude.” She laid the milkwort aside, and clenched her fingers on her lap,Moncler outlet online store. “My life has been steeped in loneliness, Mr. Smithson. As if it has been ordained that I shall never form a friendship with an equal, never inhabit my own home, never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. Four years ago my father was declared bankrupt. All our possessions were sold. Ever since then I have suffered from the illusion that even things—mere chairs, tables, mirrors— conspire to increase my solitude. You will never own us, they say, we shall never be yours. But always someone else’s. I know this is madness, I know in the manufacturing cities poverties and solitude exist in comparison to which I live in comfort and luxury. But when I read of the Unionists’ wild acts of revenge,ugg bailey button triplet 1873 boots, part of me understands. Almost envies them,knockoff handbags, for they know where and how to wreak their revenge. And I am powerless,moncler jackets men.” Something new had crept into her voice, an intensity of feeling that in part denied her last sentence. She added, more quietly, “I fear I don’t explain myself well.”
“I meant only to suggest that social privilege does not necessarily bring happiness.”
“There is no likeness between a situation where happiness is at least possible and one where ...” again she shook her head.
“But you surely can’t pretend that all governesses are unhappy—or remain unmarried?”
“All like myself.”
He left a silence, then said, “I interrupted your story. Forgive me.”
“And you will believe I speak not from envy?”
She turned then, her eyes intense, and he nodded. Plucking a little spray of milkwort from the bank beside her, blue flowers like microscopic cherubs’ genitals, she went on.
“Varguennes recovered. It came to within a week of the time when he should take his leave. By then he had declared his attachment to me.”
“He asked you to marry him?”
She found difficulty in answering. “There was talk of marriage. He told me he was to be promoted captain of a
wine ship when he returned to France. That he had expecta-tions of recovering the patrimony he and his brother had lost.” She hesitated, then came out with it. “He wished me to go with him back to France.”
“Mrs. Talbot was aware of this?”
“She is the kindest of women. And the most innocent. If Captain Talbot had been there ... but he was not. I was ashamed to tell her in the beginning. And afraid, at the end.” She added, “Afraid of the advice I knew she must give me.” She began to defoliate the milkwort. “Varguennes became insistent. He made me believe that his whole happiness de-pended on my accompanying him when he left—more than that, that my happiness depended on it as well. He had found out much about me. How my father had died in a lunatic asylum. How I was without means, without close relatives. How for many years I had felt myself in some mysterious way condemned—and I knew not why—to solitude.” She laid the milkwort aside, and clenched her fingers on her lap,Moncler outlet online store. “My life has been steeped in loneliness, Mr. Smithson. As if it has been ordained that I shall never form a friendship with an equal, never inhabit my own home, never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. Four years ago my father was declared bankrupt. All our possessions were sold. Ever since then I have suffered from the illusion that even things—mere chairs, tables, mirrors— conspire to increase my solitude. You will never own us, they say, we shall never be yours. But always someone else’s. I know this is madness, I know in the manufacturing cities poverties and solitude exist in comparison to which I live in comfort and luxury. But when I read of the Unionists’ wild acts of revenge,ugg bailey button triplet 1873 boots, part of me understands. Almost envies them,knockoff handbags, for they know where and how to wreak their revenge. And I am powerless,moncler jackets men.” Something new had crept into her voice, an intensity of feeling that in part denied her last sentence. She added, more quietly, “I fear I don’t explain myself well.”
Prompted by a nod from his mother
Prompted by a nod from his mother, Leon muttered a short suspended grace—For what we are about to receive—to which the scrape of chairs was the amen. The silence that followed as they settled and unfolded their napkins would easily have been dispersed by Jack Tallis introducing some barely interesting topic while Betty went around with the beef. Instead, the diners watched and listened to her as she stooped murmuring at each place, scraping the serving spoon and fork across the silver platter. What else could they attend to, when the only other business in the room was their own silence? Emily Tallis had always been incapable of small talk and didn’t much care. Leon, entirely at one with himself, lolled in his chair, wine bottle in hand, studying its label. Cecilia was lost to the events of ten minutes before and could not have composed a simple sentence. Robbie was familiar with the household and would have started something off, but he too was in turmoil. It was enough that he could pretend to ignore Cecilia’s bare arm at his side—he could feel its heat—and the hostile gaze of Briony who sat diagonally across from him. And even if it had been considered proper for children to introduce a topic, they too would have been incapable: Briony could think only of what she had witnessed, Lola was subdued both by the shock of physical assault and an array of contradictory emotions, and the twins were absorbed in a plan.
It was Paul Marshall who broke more than three minutes of asphyxiating silence. He moved back in his chair to speak behind Cecilia’s head to Robbie.
“I say, are we still on for tennis tomorrow?”
There was a two-inch scratch, Robbie noticed, from the corner of Marshall’s eye, running parallel to his nose, drawing attention to the way his features were set high up in his face, bunched up under the eyes. Only fractions of an inch kept him from cruel good looks. Instead,fake uggs online store, his appearance was absurd—the empty tract of his chin was at the expense of a worried, overpopulated forehead. Out of politeness, Robbie too had moved back in his seat to hear the remark, but even in his state he flinched. It was inappropriate, at the beginning of the meal, for Marshall to turn away from his hostess and begin a private conversation.
Robbie said tersely, “I suppose we are,” and then,replica gucci handbags, to make amends for him, added for general consideration, “Has England ever been hotter?”
Leaning away from the field of Cecilia’s body warmth,replica mont blanc pens, and averting his eyes from Briony’s, he found himself pitching the end of his question into the frightened gaze of Pierrot diagonally to his left. The boy gaped, and struggled, as he might in the classroom, with a test in history. Or was it geography? Or science?
Briony leaned over Jackson to touch Pierrot’s shoulder, all the while keeping her eyes on Robbie. “Please leave him alone,” she said in a forceful whisper, and then to the little boy, softly, “You don’t have to answer.”
Emily spoke up from her end of the table,cheap designer handbags. “Briony, it was a perfectly bland remark about the weather. You’ll apologize, or go now to your room.”
It was Paul Marshall who broke more than three minutes of asphyxiating silence. He moved back in his chair to speak behind Cecilia’s head to Robbie.
“I say, are we still on for tennis tomorrow?”
There was a two-inch scratch, Robbie noticed, from the corner of Marshall’s eye, running parallel to his nose, drawing attention to the way his features were set high up in his face, bunched up under the eyes. Only fractions of an inch kept him from cruel good looks. Instead,fake uggs online store, his appearance was absurd—the empty tract of his chin was at the expense of a worried, overpopulated forehead. Out of politeness, Robbie too had moved back in his seat to hear the remark, but even in his state he flinched. It was inappropriate, at the beginning of the meal, for Marshall to turn away from his hostess and begin a private conversation.
Robbie said tersely, “I suppose we are,” and then,replica gucci handbags, to make amends for him, added for general consideration, “Has England ever been hotter?”
Leaning away from the field of Cecilia’s body warmth,replica mont blanc pens, and averting his eyes from Briony’s, he found himself pitching the end of his question into the frightened gaze of Pierrot diagonally to his left. The boy gaped, and struggled, as he might in the classroom, with a test in history. Or was it geography? Or science?
Briony leaned over Jackson to touch Pierrot’s shoulder, all the while keeping her eyes on Robbie. “Please leave him alone,” she said in a forceful whisper, and then to the little boy, softly, “You don’t have to answer.”
Emily spoke up from her end of the table,cheap designer handbags. “Briony, it was a perfectly bland remark about the weather. You’ll apologize, or go now to your room.”
2012年11月7日星期三
_Morituri te salutant
"_Morituri te salutant!_" he said. "Good-bye, Freddie, my boy."He turned away, gallant and upright, the old soldier.
"Where are you going?" asked Freddie.
"Over the top!" said Uncle Chris.
"What do you mean?""I am going," said Uncle Chris steadily, "to find Mrs Peagrim!""Good God!" cried Freddie. He followed him, protesting weakly, butthe other gave no sign that he had heard. Freddie saw him disappearinto the stage-box, and, turning, found Jill at his elbow,louis vuitton for womens.
"Where did Uncle Chris go?" asked Jill. "I want to speak to him.""He's in the stage-box,mont blanc pens, with Mrs Peagrim.""With Mrs Peagrim?""Proposing to her," said Freddie solemnly.
Jill stared.
"Proposing to Mrs Peagrim? What do you mean?"Freddie drew her aside, and began to explain.
4.
In the dimness of the stage-box, his eyes a little glassy and a dulldespair in his soul, Uncle Chris was wondering how to begin. In hishot youth he had been rather a devil of a fellow in between dances, acoo-er of soft phrases and a stealer of never very stoutly withheldkisses. He remembered one time in Bangalore . . . but that hadnothing to do with the case. The point was, how to begin with MrsPeagrim. The fact that twenty-five years ago he had crushed in hisarms beneath the shadows of the deodars a girl whose name he hadforgotten, though he remembered that she had worn a dress of somepink stuff, was immaterial and irrelevant. Was he to crush MrsPeagrim in his arms? Not, thought Uncle Chris to himself, on a bet.
He contented himself for the moment with bending an intense gaze uponher and asking if she was tired.
"A little," panted Mrs Peagrim, who, though she danced often andvigorously, was never in the best of condition, owing to her habit ofneutralizing the beneficient effects of exercise by surreptitiouscandy-eating. "I'm a little out of breath."Uncle Chris had observed this for himself, and it had not helped himto face his task,fake uggs for sale. Lovely woman loses something of her queenly dignitywhen she puffs. Inwardly,http://www.louisvuitton360.com/, he was thinking how exactly his hostessresembled the third from the left of a troupe of performing sea-lionswhich he had seen some years ago on one of his rare visits to avaudeville house.
"You ought not to tire yourself," he said with a difficulttenderness.
"I am so fond of dancing," pleaded Mrs Peagrim. Recovering some ofher breath, she gazed at her companion with a sort of short-windedarchness. "You are always so sympathetic, Major Selby.""Am I?" said Uncle Chris. "Am I?""You know you are!"Uncle Chris swallowed quickly.
"I wonder if you have ever wondered," he began, and stopped. He feltthat he was not putting it as well as he might. "I wonder if it hasever struck you that there's a reason." He stopped again. He seemedto remember reading something like that in an advertisement in amagazine, and he did not want to talk like an advertisement. "Iwonder if it has ever struck you, Mrs. Peagrim," he began again,"that any sympathy on my part might be due to some deeper emotionwhich . . . Have you never suspected that you have never suspected . . ."Uncle Chris began to feel that he must brace himself up. Usually a manof fluent speech, he was not at his best tonight. He was just about totry again, when he caught his hostess' eye, and the soft gleam in itsent him cowering back into the silence as if he wore taking coverfrom an enemy's shrapnel.
"Where are you going?" asked Freddie.
"Over the top!" said Uncle Chris.
"What do you mean?""I am going," said Uncle Chris steadily, "to find Mrs Peagrim!""Good God!" cried Freddie. He followed him, protesting weakly, butthe other gave no sign that he had heard. Freddie saw him disappearinto the stage-box, and, turning, found Jill at his elbow,louis vuitton for womens.
"Where did Uncle Chris go?" asked Jill. "I want to speak to him.""He's in the stage-box,mont blanc pens, with Mrs Peagrim.""With Mrs Peagrim?""Proposing to her," said Freddie solemnly.
Jill stared.
"Proposing to Mrs Peagrim? What do you mean?"Freddie drew her aside, and began to explain.
4.
In the dimness of the stage-box, his eyes a little glassy and a dulldespair in his soul, Uncle Chris was wondering how to begin. In hishot youth he had been rather a devil of a fellow in between dances, acoo-er of soft phrases and a stealer of never very stoutly withheldkisses. He remembered one time in Bangalore . . . but that hadnothing to do with the case. The point was, how to begin with MrsPeagrim. The fact that twenty-five years ago he had crushed in hisarms beneath the shadows of the deodars a girl whose name he hadforgotten, though he remembered that she had worn a dress of somepink stuff, was immaterial and irrelevant. Was he to crush MrsPeagrim in his arms? Not, thought Uncle Chris to himself, on a bet.
He contented himself for the moment with bending an intense gaze uponher and asking if she was tired.
"A little," panted Mrs Peagrim, who, though she danced often andvigorously, was never in the best of condition, owing to her habit ofneutralizing the beneficient effects of exercise by surreptitiouscandy-eating. "I'm a little out of breath."Uncle Chris had observed this for himself, and it had not helped himto face his task,fake uggs for sale. Lovely woman loses something of her queenly dignitywhen she puffs. Inwardly,http://www.louisvuitton360.com/, he was thinking how exactly his hostessresembled the third from the left of a troupe of performing sea-lionswhich he had seen some years ago on one of his rare visits to avaudeville house.
"You ought not to tire yourself," he said with a difficulttenderness.
"I am so fond of dancing," pleaded Mrs Peagrim. Recovering some ofher breath, she gazed at her companion with a sort of short-windedarchness. "You are always so sympathetic, Major Selby.""Am I?" said Uncle Chris. "Am I?""You know you are!"Uncle Chris swallowed quickly.
"I wonder if you have ever wondered," he began, and stopped. He feltthat he was not putting it as well as he might. "I wonder if it hasever struck you that there's a reason." He stopped again. He seemedto remember reading something like that in an advertisement in amagazine, and he did not want to talk like an advertisement. "Iwonder if it has ever struck you, Mrs. Peagrim," he began again,"that any sympathy on my part might be due to some deeper emotionwhich . . . Have you never suspected that you have never suspected . . ."Uncle Chris began to feel that he must brace himself up. Usually a manof fluent speech, he was not at his best tonight. He was just about totry again, when he caught his hostess' eye, and the soft gleam in itsent him cowering back into the silence as if he wore taking coverfrom an enemy's shrapnel.
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