The Solid Mandala by Patrick White

Author:Patrick White
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446434956
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2015-06-09T16:00:00+00:00

1 She jumped into the sea.

2 He noticed it and saved her.

3 I have saved money to buy a present for my sister.

III. Arthur

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS THE SEA OF SLEEP OF SUCH blue in which they lay together with iced cakes and the fragments of glass nesting in each other’s arms the furry waves of sleep nuzzling at them like animals.

Dreaming and dozing.

The voices of passengers after Capetown promised icebergs to the south, two-thirds submerged.

He looked but only saw the sea in varying depths of light and blue. Sometimes in the stillness of a wave he heard a seabird mewing which might have accounted for his sad stomach. He wasn’t sick. He hadn’t been sick. Waldo was the sick one, they said, Arthur has always been strong. So he must continue to be.

Then suddenly he noticed for the first time without strain, it seemed, the red gold disc of the sun. He was so happy, he ran to reach, to climb on the rails, reaching up. His hands seemed to flutter his breath mewing with the willing effort.

Voices screaming lifted him back, and he noticed he had been scratched by ladies.

“You must never never climb on the rails at sea!” said Mother. “You might fall over, and then you would be lost for ever.”

He looked at her and said: “Yes. I might. For ever.”

Feeling the cold circles eddying out and away from him.

Mother was soon calm again, sitting talking to the lady who, arranged from head to toe in veils, became always more of a silkworm the tighter the better she arranged her veils.

“Yes, he is very different,” Mother agreed, and laughed. “But they are honestly twins. I can vouch for it! The other one – Waldo – has gone with his father to make friends with someone – the Chief Engineer, I believe. Neither George nor Waldo likes engines, but perhaps they feel it is manly to try.”

The Silkworm said she could not bear the ship, there were cockroaches in the Ladies, she could not bear the passengers, they were so common, she could not bear the voyage, it was too unnecessarily long.

“Never again round the Cape!” The Silkworm shuddered inside her cocoon. “All the nicer people travel via the Canal. But Mr Viney-Smith – my husband says we wouldn’t stand up to tropical heat.”

“Yes,” Mother said, and sighed, “it is long. But we have come this way because it is cheap. And I don’t expect we shall ever travel by any other route. When we arrive, we shall have to stay where we are put.”

That night there was to be a ball. So presently the Silkworm went, to get herself up as the Primrose Pompadour, and win the prize.

Arthur was glad to be alone with Mother. He held the back of her hand to his cheek and rubbed it with the only ring she wore.

But Mother ignored him, or at least half. She half-spoke to the setting sun.

“We mustn’t exhibit ourselves,” she said.

“We mustn’t what?”

“We mustn’t show off.

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.