Читать книгу Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters - Daniel Stashower, Исмаил Шихлы - Страница 37

you would have heard from me some time ago, only I lately got my finger hurt so that it rendered it very painful for me to write, it was the last football match this year, and everyone was playing very hard. I was rushing after the ball, when suddenly I tripped up, and fell with outstretched hands. before I could get up someone, not being able to stop himself, stood on my hand, with such violence that for every nail in his shoe, there was left a little hole in my hand, my forefinger also was hurt and the nail came off. I have however had a lot of remedies applied to my hand and it is much better now.*

I send you a playbill, you will see my name at the bottom. I used up several burnt corks to make my face dirty enough. I got cheered greatly, not because I did well, but because the main point in my part was to look foolish, and I feel that I did that to perfection. both plays were relished extremely by the rest of the college. we had the good supper a week afterwards, and it fully justified it’s epithet. songs were sung as usual, I sang mine, everyone declared it was capital and that they must have another. I declared I did not know one, a master however brought me ‘the best of wives’ which I sang with the same success.

The other day Mr Splaine read us a jolly story, translated from the German, perhaps you have read it, it was called ‘The Avenger’ about a lot of horrible murders.

My lessons are getting on in first straight stile. I am much higher in my class now than last term.

Excuse the blot at the beginning

With stories like ‘The Avenger’, and plays like Macbeth and The Attack on the Mail, Conan Doyle was developing a robust taste for ‘jolly’ murder tales. The world of theatre, too, proved to be an enduring interest, and the youngster’s insistence on getting his face ‘dirty enough’ through the use of burnt corks showed a passion for realism.*