Читать книгу Katherine Mansfield, The Woman Behind The Books (Including Letters, Journals, Essays & Articles) - Katherine Mansfield - Страница 115

Table of Contents

Sunday evening

May 23, 1915

INSTEAD of having dinner to-day I ate some bread and drank some wine at home and went to a cinema. It was almost too good. A detective drama, so well acted and so sharp and cruel, with a horrible décor—the environs of Calais. Wickedness triumphed to everyone's great relief, for the hero, an apache called ‘l'Fantôme,’ was an admirable actor. And there was a girl there, mistress of ‘Bébé’ and ‘le faux curé,’ two other apaches. I wish you could have seen that girl act. She was very still, and then her gestures sprang from her. Pale, you know. A little round head and a black dress. All the while the orchestra played a tango that we have heard before, a very ‘troubling’ tune.

Before going in I walked up to the Luxembourg Gardens. But the Sunday crowd … the women mincing in their high boots like fowls in the wet, and the shopwalker men, and the “Ah, c'est beau!” “Dis—c'est joli,” “C'est très, très joli,” “Tout à fait beau.” I felt exactly as if I were dead.

It is very beautiful outside the window this afternoon. The wind shakes the trees so.

There was a great excitement a few minutes ago. I saw the policeman before the station below suddenly stiffen, and then at the bottom of the steps that lead on to the quai—you know where I mean, below here?—there came a grey little frog squirming in the grip of two gendarmes. They were evidently hurting him, but my policeman flew to their aid. He got behind the man and suddenly thrust his hand between the man's legs. You should have heard the yell he gave and you should have seen the jerk that sent him forward. Life is a funny business.

Now there are birds wheeling and flying in the air and the sky is pink. It is evening. I have not spoken to anyone since Wednesday except to say “Combien ça fait?” or to say “Oui, c'est bien terrible,” to the concierge. It is curious for one who has been much alone—this sinking back into silence.