The Kites by Romain Gary

Author:Romain Gary
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811226554
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2000-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

She is standing at the other end of the room in a shadowy corner; there, on the wall, is a clumsy kite with a pink and pale-yellow body, speckled with silvery white, painted and assembled in the workshop by a seven-year-old child. I cannot tell if it is a bird, a butterfly, or a lizard, for the childish imagination has been careful not to deprive it of any possibilities.

“I haven’t always been kind to you, Ludo. So now you’re getting back at me. You forgot me for hours yesterday. You know I’m at your mercy and you like to make me feel it. That’s so typically masculine. As if you were always expecting me to say, what would I become without you? You’re making a game of scaring me.”

I will admit that I enjoy her fears and worries: here she is, a girl from the oldest of noble families, dependent on a Norman hayseed, on his faithfulness and his memory. But I never abuse my power over her. I allow myself, at the very most, to take the license of infinitely prolonging certain of her motions — like brushing her hand through her hair: I need a few good minutes of that caress each morning. Or I lay hold of her arm to stop her putting on her brassiere.

“Ludo, come on! Will you cut it out?”

I like setting off that spark of anger in her eyes. Nothing comforts me more than the sight of her so unchanged, identical to herself.

“You think you’re allowed to do anything, because I depend on you. Yesterday you made me walk twelve miles through the countryside. And I didn’t like that stupid green sweater you made me wear either, not one bit.”

“It’s the only one I have, and it was cold.”

And then, slowly, she ebbs, returns to her clandestinity, and I keep my eyelids closed, the better to protect her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.