FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166  
167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   >>   >|  
nestness of purpose, I can tell you; but these later honours, my dear, came to me in the shape of a very loyal and very scrupulous gentleman. For he is all that. And as a matter of fact I was touched." "I know. Even to tears," I said provokingly. But she wasn't provoked, she only shook her head in negation (which was absurd) and pursued the trend of her spoken thoughts. "That was yesterday," she said. "And yesterday he was extremely correct and very full of extreme self-esteem which expressed itself in the exaggerated delicacy with which he talked. But I know him in all his moods. I have known him even playful. I didn't listen to him. I was thinking of something else. Of things that were neither correct nor playful and that had to be looked at steadily with all the best that was in me. And that was why, in the end--I cried--yesterday." "I saw it yesterday and I had the weakness of being moved by those tears for a time." "If you want to make me cry again I warn you you won't succeed." "No, I know. He has been here to-day and the dry season has set in." "Yes, he has been here. I assure you it was perfectly unexpected. Yesterday he was railing at the world at large, at me who certainly have not made it, at himself and even at his mother. All this rather in parrot language, in the words of tradition and morality as understood by the members of that exclusive club to which he belongs. And yet when I thought that all this, those poor hackneyed words, expressed a sincere passion I could have found in my heart to be sorry for him. But he ended by telling me that one couldn't believe a single word I said, or something like that. You were here then, you heard it yourself." "And it cut you to the quick," I said. "It made you depart from your dignity to the point of weeping on any shoulder that happened to be there. And considering that it was some more parrot talk after all (men have been saying that sort of thing to women from the beginning of the world) this sensibility seems to me childish." "What perspicacity," she observed, with an indulgent, mocking smile, then changed her tone. "Therefore he wasn't expected to-day when he turned up, whereas you, who were expected, remained subject to the charms of conversation in that studio. It never occurred to you . . . did it? No! What had become of your perspicacity?" "I tell you I was weary of life," I said in a passion. She had another faint
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166  
167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
yesterday
 

correct

 

passion

 

playful

 

expressed

 
perspicacity
 
parrot
 

expected

 
single
 

understood


tradition

 

couldn

 
morality
 

telling

 
sincere
 

thought

 
hackneyed
 
exclusive
 

members

 

belongs


dignity

 

childish

 

observed

 

conversation

 

sensibility

 

beginning

 

indulgent

 

charms

 

Therefore

 

remained


subject

 
mocking
 

changed

 

occurred

 

weeping

 
turned
 

depart

 
shoulder
 

studio

 
happened

succeed
 

spoken

 
thoughts
 
pursued
 

absurd

 

negation

 
extremely
 

delicacy

 
talked
 

exaggerated