The Thinking Reed by Rebecca West

Author:Rebecca West
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2010-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

VIII

“SHALL WE leave this infected place and go home?” Marc had asked Isabelle as he was dressing next morning. But she had shaken her head. She felt too tired to face the drive back at once; indeed she found herself more ill at ease in her body than ever before, and she had had bad dreams. Even if they did go, they would only let themselves in for two days of discomfort, as she had sent both the chef and the maître d’hôtel off on a holiday. Still, she was sorry for her decision several times that day, and on the afternoon of the next day it seemed to her that she had been monstrously imprudent. They were sitting in the lounge of the Guillaume-le-Conquérant while lashes of rain striped the great windows almost horizontally, and they were obliged to converse about unpleasant subjects, since so many unpleasant things, and those vitally affecting their friends, had happened to them during the last forty-eight hours.

“I suppose you will insist on our child being taught English,” said Marc.

“Do not be absurd, my love,” said Isabelle. “Poots is not the entire English-speaking world.”

“No, but with the Lauristons she makes up the majority,” said Marc. “My God, my God, how I pray that she has got separated from the party, and that the rain will drench her to the skin, and that she will catch pneumonia, and die like an animal.”

“She has perfect health,” said Isabelle, “she will outlive us all.”

“There you are both right and wrong,” said Marc. “She has superb health, I know. When I prayed that she should be stricken with sudden death, I had no real hope that this would occur, I was merely expressing a desire that for once destiny might act exquisitely and directly instead of clumsily and circuitously, as is its habit. But though she is so marvellously healthy, she will not outlive us. One day she will be found dead in a small hotel near the Gare du Nord, either strangled or with her throat cut from ear to ear. Later it will be proved that a garcon de café left the hotel between three and four that morning, carrying a suitcase. That will happen a long time before we are dead, in ten or twelve years. Though, my God, my God, that is a long time to wait.”

“You attach far too much importance to Poots,” said Isabelle. “If it were not that she is trying to take from Luba the husband we hoped for her, we need never think of her.”

“You are an optimist,” said Marc. “You show it by saying, ‘trying to take.’ She has taken him. Yesterday and this morning have showed that. The idiot is infatuated. He is plucking up his courage to kiss her. I could see that this morning on the golf-course.”

“It cannot be!” exclaimed Isabelle.

“You mean, ‘it should not be,’ ” said Marc. “The two things are not the same.” She shuddered, and was displeased to realize that she was now so changed that she required words not of truth but of comfort.

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.