Henri Castang 10 Lady Macbeth by Nicolas Freeling

Author:Nicolas Freeling [Freeling, Nicolas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0233981896
Google: f7ClswEACAAJ
Amazon: 184232862X
Barnesnoble: 184232862X
Publisher: Ipso Books
Published: 1987-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

VERA CASTANG. . .

Man came home, from what he called a wild-goose chase. A phrase sounding odd to our ears. I can't remember seeing wild geese since I was a child. I suppose one might see them still in Scotland? Norway? As a child I saw storks. That country is now the land where the forests have died. I get very depressed. What birds will my children see? Every day brings new word; the merciless greed of man. The farmers have saturated the land with artificial fertilizers. These have now polluted all the water-tables. This is the country of rain, and what is in the rain? My children drink water and what is it doing to them?

I am being silly as usual. I have been trying to remember what I thought while Henri was away. I got upset. I get upset when he is away. I am supposed to control this. I do not get any better at self-control. I think I get sillier. He was away upon a silly errand, I thought. I was reading about a small town in Florida. They have twice as many cases of AIDs, and why? They are bitten by mosquitoes from Lake Okeechobee: they are poor and have no air-conditioners. Twice as much malaria and tuberculosis and twenty more vile things. Lake Okie-what-is-it sounds a silly place and typically Florida. Far away and don't worry. But it's all around us here too. There are many more plagues waiting for us. It is childish being like this. It only happens to me when Henri is away.

The people are driven, worse than geese, intoxicated by toys, given no chance of any second for rest and thought, harried towards death.

Henri laughs. He is right. For we eat the bread of the government, and without it…

I am sorry: it is finished now. It was only a cafard, a depression. The sheer stupidity, hideous and purposeless, of this existence we are tied to.

Henri got back after jogtrot hours in the train: it is a slow train because it comes from Italy and is always full of poor people with cardboard suitcases, lashed with string. I have been through Strasbourg but know nothing of it. Oh, says Henri vaguely, it's part of the Empire. The English lost their empire, got pushed back on to their island and still feel grievances about this. France still lives surrounded by colonies. Less noticeable since the peoples' skins are the same colour.

I remember: the man who killed his wife. Or didn't. It was official business but no part of Henri's. He got himself tangled in it by the Davidson woman. Arlette: I rather like her. And after all this nobody has still the remotest notion whether he killed her or didn't.

I got interested: it is a grave mistake. I take things much too seriously. Henri is a professional; by that I mean that he deals with serious things by treating them unseriously. 'Get rid of the scenario,' he says. It's a standing joke.

Because there exists a ridiculous libretto somewhere.

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