To the Dark Tower by Francis King

Author:Francis King [King, Francis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

A note:

MY DEAREST SHIRLEY,—I always find it easier to write than to say things.

In case you misunderstood me this morning, I meant only that I was sorry for my behaviour and wished that we could be friends once more.

May we?

E. T.

As she read it Shirley found her face growing hot and cold. Each of these incidents disquieted her profoundly. But she could not tell for what reason. Something was wrong, it was all jerking out of control. She knew this, but was powerless to stop it.

This life which had seemed so fertile in promise was a disappointment. She felt its emptiness each morning as she and two other mistresses wrangled over who should go into the bathroom first. In chapel she felt it, and when she sat at the top of a long table at meals, and heard, rising and ebbing around her, the chatter of twenty shrill voices. It was nothing, nothing; and she was nothing, a shell, a husk.

Each incident with Miss Tree intensified this feeling to an unbearable degree. We are damned, she thought, we are doomed. We hunger for life, but it evades us. We are gesticulating shadows. We are Homer’s ghosts, who long to drink the blood of the living. But there is no blood to drink, and we wander, interminably.

One little happening, of no ostensible importance, disquieted her more than all others. It was customary for her and Miss Tree to change over their French classes half-way through the lesson, so that Shirley could do the oral training and Miss Tree could manage the literature.

One morning Miss Tree was late. Shirley, arriving at the classroom, could still hear her talking to the class. The voice rattled dryly, and for no reason, instead of going in she stood outside and listened, her mark-book under her arm.

Miss Tree was doing unseen translation. "Now, girls," she was saying. "What does this word mean? Mamelon. Roland est venu au mamelon. Who knows?" Someone said mammal, someone suggested house. "Wrong, wrong!" Miss Tree snapped. "Well—who knows the word mamelle?" No answer. "Oh, come, come! Mamelle means a breast. You must all know that. And from mamelle we get this word mamelon." She went to the blackboard. "Look!" With a quick stroke of the chalk she drew in a breast, with nipple "Now! There’s a breast. Well—what does it remind you of? ... A hill, of course! A hill!"

The duster erased the diagram. The class was over.

An intonation, an emphasis—what was it that made the whole scene intolerable?

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.