The Summer Before the Dark by Doris Lessing

Author:Doris Lessing [Lessing, Doris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: cookie429, Extratorrents, Kat
ISBN: 0394710959
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2010-11-17T00:00:00+00:00

The Hotel

Paying off the taxi man, she paid herself in at the hotel and was asked if she were well enough to sit in the foyer and wait. The question, the solicitude, were delightful, but of course she had to go on sitting there, unless she took herself to hospital, which alternative had been turned down by the taxi man and the desk, in their consultations—which must have taken place—about infection, epidemics, that sort of thing. No, the desk, the taxi man, and herself, had decided she was sick rather than ill, and so she sat weakly in the foyer trying to make her mind steady itself by concentrating it on the scene around her. Surely, looked at from a geographical vantage point—a pair of particularly strong binoculars on top of the Alps, for instance?—it must seem as if in August all of Europe swaps populations, exchanges blocks of populace? In this foyer, set off by banks of flowers—artificial, but trumping nature so magnificently that real flowers would have seemed puny and out of place—the uniforms of the many attendants, the holiday clothes of the visitors, at first disguised the really interesting fact: that she was probably the only British person there. The couriers and porters that ran about, the nannies, of the kind she had recently been herself, smiling and sympathetic behind their desks, the waiters, as well as the guests, were from every part of Europe. She might as well still be in Istanbul, she might be in Málaga or Alicante—she might be anywhere, though not, of course, the village which she had left yesterday. And her ears were still attempting to make amenable lumps of sound to which she did not have the key, while they absorbed other sequences of sound which sank easily into her brain. A young couple near her were speaking German; they turned to stare at her, and Kate wondered why they did. They kept on her a steady, quite friendly, but attentive gaze. They were very attractive and obviously rich. He wore, although it was a muggy London summer’s day, a full-length fur, like moleskin, in a soft mauveish colour. Or perhaps it was a very supple suede. It was buttoned up all the way, but open at the collar, showing a gleam of white silk. His eyes were dark and affectionate, his hair cut like a page’s, in supple black locks. The girl was himself, his double. Her hair was dark, and cut like his. Her eyes and smile were equally delightful. She wore long white crêpe de Chine that was fastened with a couple of hundred minute covered buttons along the sleeves and up the front. She wore very long glittering crystal beads, and white lace-up boots. Their hands, which looked capable and quick and intelligent, had rings on every finger. Even in this well-fed, well-tuned crowd, these two stood out, radiating a harmony of sensual fulfilment. They had only to walk into a room, these two, and everyone must know that their eating, their love-making, their conversation, their sleep, must be a feast.

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