Читать книгу The Constant Nymph - Margaret Kennedy Kennedy - Страница 8

Lewis found the journey up to Weissau better than he had expected. His companion was indeed horribly talkative, making intelligent comments upon the grandeur of the scenery all the way, but in the choice of his topics he showed a certain respect for Mr Dodd’s nervous sensibility. They agreed that the chestnut and oak of the valley had now given way to pine woods, and discussed the names of some of the peaks towering above them. As the little train panted its way into the Alpine pastures, Lewis was even so affable as to point out several waterfalls to his companion.

After a stiff ascent the line ended by a lake and they found a little steamer waiting for them. Mr Trigorin said that the expanse of water lent an agreeable perspective to the mountains rising sharply on the other side. Mr Dodd said that it was so, and that when they got across they would find the same thing to be true of the mountains on this side. Mr Trigorin said he supposed so, and became a little silent and unhappy. They crossed the lake without further conversation.

When they had almost reached the hamlet of Weissau, Lewis exclaimed suddenly:

‘There they are, some of them!’

‘Please?’ said Trigorin anxiously.

‘Two of Sanger’s children. On the landing-stage.’

He pointed to the little group of peasants waiting for the boat. Two young girls, standing rather apart from the crowd, had already recognised him and were waving vehemently. As soon as he got off the boat they flung themselves upon his neck, kissing him with eager delight.

‘Oh, Lewis!’ exclaimed the smaller. ‘We never expected to see you at all. Only some one is probably coming by this boat so we thought we’d come in and buy some sweets and get a ride back.’

‘Yes,’ said the other. ‘Sanger got a letter to say this person was coming. And you should hear how he goes on about it. He says he never …’

‘I expect it was Trigorin,’ interrupted Lewis.

‘O—oh, yes! That was the name Sanger said, wasn’t it Lina?’

‘Well then, this is your man. Mr Trigorin. Miss Teresa Sanger; Miss Paulina Sanger.’

Trigorin put down his suitcases and bowed low, beginning:

‘I am most delighted …’

But Teresa cut him short.

‘Lewis! Have you got … you know what?’

‘What? Oh, I know. Yes. I have it in my knapsack.’

‘That’s all right. We’d have lynched you if you’d forgotten. But you’ve been the hell of a time fetching it We’ve only got three days; his birthday’s on Thursday. And he won’t like it unless it’s properly done.’

‘Three days will do if we work hard,’ Lewis assured her. ‘Look! Have you ordered a cart or anything? Because, if not, one of you must leg it up to the hotel and ask for one.’

‘Oh, we’ve got it It’s just behind the shop. It’s got a pig in it that Kate told us to bring up. It’s quite a quiet pig. It’s dead.’

Teresa looked at her sister and they both giggled.

‘Can he eat bacon?’ whispered Paulina in an audible aside, with a glance at Trigorin, who was waiting patiently beside his suitcases until somebody should take notice of him. ‘He looks a little like a Jew. We had an awful time once when Ikey Mo’s uncle was staying with us and we had nothing in the house …’

‘If he can’t eat bacon, there’ll be nothing else for him to eat,’ said Teresa, She turned to Trigorin and enquired baldly: ‘Are you a Jew?’

‘No,’ he said, a little stiffly. ‘I am from Russia.’

‘Well, there are Jews in Russia, aren’t there?’ she argued.

‘They are not as I,’ Trigorin told her.

‘Really?’ she said derisively. ‘We’ve all got something to be thankful for, haven’t we? You have got a lot of luggage. I hope there’ll be room for us all in the cart as well as the pig.’

‘It’s a very heavy pig,’ supplemented Paulina, exploding again into suppressed laughter. ‘Tessa and I had to drag it all the way from the slaughter-house.’

They turned towards the little village shop which stood close to the landing-stage. Lewis walked in front with a girl hanging lovingly on either arm; Trigorin toiled in the rear with his suitcases. Behind the shop they found a very small carriage shaped something like a victoria, and, at the sight of it, the mirth of the children became almost hysterical. They had hoisted the gutted carcase of the pig into an upright position on the back seat Draped in a tartan rug and crowned with Teresa’s straw hat, it was a horrible object but not unlike a stout German lady, when seen from a distance. The children, who thought it irresistibly funny, demanded eagerly if Lewis did not see a resemblance to Fräulein Brandt, the celebrated contralto.

‘Perhaps,’ said Lewis. ‘But do you expect us to sit on these cushions? They are all over pig.’

‘Your clothes won’t spoil, darling Lewis.’

‘They are all I have, darling Tessa. And what about Trigorin? He’s a gentleman.’

‘I shall go on high with the driver,’ stated the gentleman firmly.

‘Then,’ said Paulina, ‘Lewis and Tessa can sit on the back seat, and I on Lewis’s knee, and we’ll put the suitcases in front of us with Fräulein Brandt on top.’

With some difficulty they were all packed in, and the little cart started off up the valley at a great pace. Soon the village was left behind and their way lay through pine woods, along a rough, green track. In front of them a straight wall of stony mountain shut out the sky, and they seemed to be driving to the very foot of the barrier.

Teresa and Paulina Sanger were at this time about fourteen and twelve years of age. They were the children of Sanger’s second wife, who had been of gentle birth; from her they had inherited quick wits and considerable nervous instability. Both these qualities were betrayed in their eager, stammering speech and in the delicate impudence of their bearing. They had pale faces and small-boned, thin little bodies, fragile but intrepid. They had high, benevolent foreheads from which their long hair was pushed back and hung in an untended tangle down their backs. Teresa was the fairer and the plainer; her greenish eyes had in them a kind of secret hilarity as though she privately found life a very diverting affair. But she had begun lately to grow out of everything, especially jokes and clothes, and she really saw no prospect of getting new ones. Still, she laughed pretty often. Paulina was less inclined for compromise, a brilliant child, sometimes tempestuous, sometimes vividly gay, never sensible and always incurably wild. She had an extravagant and untutored taste in dress, and wore on this occasion a ragged gown of a brilliant red and green tartan which she had somehow managed to acquire. It was much too long for her, so she had kilted it up at intervals with pins, and in front it hung in vast folds over her flat little chest, being cut to fit a full bust. She used the space as a sort of pocket, stuffing in apples, sweets and handkerchiefs, which gave her figure a very lumpy look. Teresa wore the peasant dress of the country, a yellow frock, brief and full, with a square cut bodice and short sleeves. This she had touched up with a magenta apron. Both girls were barefoot. Both contrived to have, at unexpected moments and in spite of their rags, a certain arrogance of demeanour which proclaimed them the daughters of Evelyn Sanger, who had been a Churchill.

They chattered, incessantly all the way up the valley, and Paulina, producing peppermints from the bosom of her bright gown, refreshed the whole party, including Trigorin on the box.

‘You heard about Sebastian getting lost on the way up?’ she said. ‘You know at the place where he got left behind he met some Americans. And he told them he’d been kidnapped by anarchists and that he was really a Russian prince. I don’t expect they believed him. But they liked him. He said they kept telling each other how cute he was. They brought him on with them to Innsbruck, and he had a lovely time stopping with them at their hotel. When he got tired of it, he went to the manager of the Opera House, who’s a friend of Sanger’s, and borrowed enough money to get on here.’

‘And what did the Americans say?’

‘Oh, he left a note behind to say he’d made a mistake about who he was, but he’d had a blow on the head when quite a child which confused his memory. He said it had come to him all of a sudden that he was the son of Albert Sanger, and that he’d gone home. Bv the way, you didn’t see Tony anywhere in the town did you?’

‘Antonia? No I didn’t. Is she there?’

‘We don’t know where she is,’ said Teresa. ‘She’s been gone nearly a week now. She left a note to say she was going to stay a bit with a friend, but she’d be back for Sanger’s birthday.’

‘We can’t think what friend she can have gone to,’ added Paulina. ‘Sanger is quite annoyed about it He says he’ll belt her soundly when she gets back.’

‘And Linda says that if Tony gets into the habit of going off like this, it’s odds she’ll be bringing him home a grandchild one of these days,’ pursued Teresa. ‘And Sanger says she can take herself off for good if she does as there’s quite enough to support in our family as it is.’

‘He doesn’t mean half he says,’ commented Lewis.

‘I know,’ said Teresa, in a slightly lower voice. ‘He says he won’t stir out of his room while that fellow up there,’ she nodded at Trigorin’s broad back, ‘is in the house. He says that he never thought the fool would be such a fool as to come.’

‘Linda may like to talk to him,’ suggested Lewis.

‘I do hope she won’t,’ whispered Teresa. ‘Because that might make him stay. But if nobody takes any notice of him he might go away pretty soon. Why ever did Sanger invite him?’

‘Oh, you know what he is! He’d invite the Pope if he met him after dinner.’

‘Yes, I know. But the Pope wouldn’t come.’

‘What is this guy anyway?’ asked Paulina.

‘He dances in a ballet,’ Lewis told them.

This they took as a tremendous joke, but he assured them with gravity that it was so.

‘Well! I’ve heard of dancing elephants,’ declared Paulina at last.

She poked Trigorin in the back and he turned round, smiling benignantly down at her.

‘He says,’ she pointed at Lewis, ‘he says that you dance in a ballet. Do you?’

‘Ach no! I cannot dance.’

Both children turned indignantly on Lewis, crying:

‘Liar!’

But he, quite unabashed, declared that he had confused Trigorin with La Zhigalova, conveying an impression that Sanger’s unwelcome guest had been invited solely upon her account and could lay no other claim to distinction. Trigorin said nothing and turned away from the group in the carriage, not without a certain grotesque dignity. The children, aware that Lewis had scored in some way, and regarding this as the first step in the routing of an interloper, exchanged gleeful glances. Teresa’s mirth, however, was a little forced; she found herself wishing, absurdly, that Lewis had been kind to the poor fat person on the box. As if Lewis was ever kind to anybody!

With a sudden spasm of alarm she stole a look at him, and saw that he was smiling sleepily to himself. Paulina, tranquilly sucking a peppermint lozenge, was curled up on his knee. Thus often, in thoughtless security, had Teresa sat, when she was a little girl; when, with a child’s hardness, she found his cruelty funny and saw nothing sinister in his perversities.

Now she was afraid of him, apprehending dimly all that he might have it in his power to make her feel. And yet she loved him very completely – better than anyone else in the whole world. An odd state of things! She was inclined to regard these uneasy qualms as peculiar to her age, like the frequent growing pains in her legs which made her quite lame sometimes.

They drove out of the pine woods into an open meadow which formed the end of the valley. It was an almost circular space of short grass enamelled all over with little brilliant flowers. Many cows strayed across it, and the clear, sunny spaces were full of the music of their bells. An amphitheatre of mountains rose upon every side, shutting out the world behind stony walls. At the further end of the meadow a low ridge with a faint bridle track zigzagging across it marked the pass.

The Karindehütte was just visible about half-way up; a long, low chalet built upon a flat shelf which caught more sun than fell to the share of the valley meadow.

They drew up at the foot of the pass beside a little group of herdmen’s huts. Lewis and the girls jumped out at once and began to climb the mountain track, leaving Trigorin to pay for the carriage and arrange with a cowherd for the transport of his suitcases and the pig. He then followed pantingly, finding the sun very hot, his clothes very heavy and his boots very tight. As he toiled round each bend of the zigzag path he saw the others well in front of him, the little girls skipping over the rough stones on their hard, bare feet, and Lewis swinging steadily forward with his knapsack hitched up on his shoulders. They got past the good shade of the trees into a region of scorching, blue air where the wind blew warm upon them, smelling of myrtle and Alpine rose.

At length the party in front, rounding the last corner, reached the ledge of meadow where the Karindehütte was built. They paused for a moment to look over the valley and saw empty air in front of them, and, far below, the tops of trees and little cows and their carriage crawling back along the valley road. Cow bells rose very faintly like single drops of music distilled into this upper silence,

‘I suppose,’ ventured Teresa, ‘that we ought to wait.’

‘He’s getting very blown,’ said Lewis, going to the edge to look over at Trigorin on the path below.

Teresa halloed kindly to the labouring figure and told him that he was very nearly at the top. Her brother Sebastian, who had joined them from the house, added encouraging shouts and besought the stranger to take it easily.

‘Is he this person Sanger said was coming?’ he asked his sisters.

Teresa nodded.

‘His name’s Trigorin,’ she said.

Sebastian was the youngest of Evelyn Sanger’s four children, and possessed the largest measure of good breeding. Though entirely graceless, he was often very gentlemanly in his manners. He was ten years old, but looked younger, being very small and fair, like his sister Teresa, with grave, green eyes and a great mop of hair. He now thought it his duty to go down the hill a little way and welcome his father’s guest.

‘How do you do,’ he said politely. ‘We are all so pleased that you have been able to come.’

Trigorin stopped and wiped his forehead with a silk handkerchief. He perceived that this courteous urchin must be another of Sanger’s children. It looked more propitious than the other two.

‘This hill,’ he gasped, ‘is terrible!’

‘It’s a bit steep when you aren’t used to it,’ agreed Sebastian. ‘But we’ve got a nice view at the top. I’m afraid my sisters came up too fast for you. Women, you know,’ he added confidentially, ‘are inclined to run up hills. I’ve noticed it.’

When they reached the level sward where the others waited for them he handed the guest over to his sisters with a great air, explaining:

‘I’m afraid I can’t come in just now. I have an engagement with this fellow.’

And he pointed to a small peasant boy, rather younger than himself, who had been lurking in the shadow of the house. It appeared that they were going to look at some badger holes and the girls immediately demanded to be taken too. All the children set off hastily down the hill again, leaving Lewis and Trigorin alone on the Karinde Alp. Lewis said sulkily:

‘Well, I suppose we’d better go in, as there seems to be no one about.’

They went round to the front of the house, which had a long veranda looking over the valley. Here they came upon a massive but very beautiful woman fast asleep in a hammock.

‘Madame,’ murmured Lewis, and they stood looking at her, uncertain what to do.

Linda Cowlard, for she had no real right to Sanger’s name, was an exceptionally lovely creature, a vast dazzling blonde. Her origins were obscure, but it was believed that she had once been the daughter of a tobacconist at Ipswich. She had a magnificent constitution, no nerves and very few ideas; was, indeed, splendidly stupid. Sanger could not have found a more suitable companion. She had lived with him for eight years and showed, as yet, no signs of exhaustion. Her placid animal poise was, if anything, nourished by his insane jealousy and the violent quarrels which occasionally broke out between them. She was incapable of sustaining any severe shock, having the rudimentary nervous organisation which relieves itself in distress by loud, immediate outcries. Her indolence was terrific; she lay dozing all day and seldom finished her toilet before the afternoon. The management of the house she left to Sanger’s daughters.

One child of her own she had, a little girl of seven years, whom Sanger had insisted upon calling Susan. Linda had modified this to Suzanne as being less common. The rest of the family derisively nicknamed their sister ‘Soo-zanne’ in order to show their contempt for her. It was a wholesome, plebeian-looking brat, pink and formless as a wax doll, garnished about the head with tight clusters of yellow curls. Linda was very fond of it, dressed it in white with pink ribbons, and defended it sourly against the animosity of Sanger, who declared that Susan was a posturing little monkey and should have been trained for a tight-rope dancer. The child did, in fact, look something of a stranger among the others; her healthy inferiority especially distinguished her beside the brood of the ill-starred Evelyn, with their intermittent manifestations of intelligence and race.

The two young men looked at Linda and listened to a series of repeated hoots, going on inside the house, which Lewis identified as Kate practising her head notes. A full morning sun blazed upon the woman in the hammock but could hardly outshine her beauty. She wore a white dressing-gown, flung carelessly about her, and beneath it some flimsy under-garment all lace and ribbons. Trigorin, always susceptible, gaped at her, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. Her superb bulk was entirely to his taste, but he had not expected somehow to find anything like her at the Karindehütte. Part of his nature resented her intrusion there; he suspected that she might disturb him when he wanted to talk about music to Sanger. Still he could not but feel that she was the most desirable woman he had ever set eyes on.

Lewis also stared down at her, with a wry smile, as if he had swallowed vinegar. Then he looked away, looked at the blue static mountains across the valley, and looked back again at Sanger’s mistress, and finally, catching sight of the perspiring Trigorin, burst into loud laughter.

Linda opened her eyes, which were the colour of the gentians in the grass. She yawned, stretched her supple limbs like a large cat, and sat up.

‘If it isn’t Lewis,’ she exclaimed. ‘Well, you are a stranger. Albert never said you were coming. Have you brought a friend?’

The blue eyes slid round to Trigorin.

‘Mr Trigorin, Mrs Sanger,’ muttered Lewis.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Linda, offering a large cold hand. ‘We knew you were coming. Kate’s been getting a room ready. Sit down won’t you, Mr Trigorin. And you too, Lewis.’

They sat down and she took leisurely stock of the stranger. Usually she found the Karindehütte very dull. Albert’s guests were not always amusing. Too often they were like Lewis, whom she detested. This one, however, might have possibilities. He wore expensive clothes and his bulging eyes proclaimed him a conquest. She began, in her sleepy voice, to make remarks to him, punctuated by slow, evasive smiles. Trigorin, lost in the flame of those blue eyes, stammered replies in English which emotion had made almost unintelligible. He was as helpless as a swimmer swept away in a strong current. Lewis, nursing his knapsack on his knee, observed them and smiled to himself. Occasionally he got from the lady a glance which was by no means friendly and which hinted that he might remove himself.

She had not always disliked him so bitterly. Once, some years ago, she had felt very kindly towards him and as good as told him so. But he, in spite of her conspicuous attractions, of which he was fully sensible, rejected her advances with some brutality. He did not think her worth a breach with Sanger. She concealed her fury as best she could and continued to treat him civilly, at least in public, in the hope that Sanger might one day become jealous and forbid him the house. Sanger saw through her manoeuvres and, in his turn, did not consider her worth a quarrel with Lewis, whom he valued beyond any woman in the world. But she persisted in the stratagem, being too stupid to devise any other method of attack.

Presently Lewis bethought himself that he had better see Kate soon, if he wished to secure a bedroom to himself. He got up and was moving into the house when Linda called to him, over her shoulder:

‘Oh, Lewis!’

He waited.

‘You didn’t see Antonier anywhere on the way up, did you?’

‘No.’

‘God knows where she can have got to,’ piously commented Linda. ‘Albert seems to think it’s my fault, if you please! I tell him if he wants those girls looked after he’d better put them to school somewhere. Not that any decent school would keep them a week; but that’s another matter.’

‘A young lady is lost?’ enquired Trigorin, who was a little fogged. ‘One of your family?’

‘One of Albert’s children,’ replied the lady. ‘Not mine, you’ll please to remember, Mr Trigorin.’

‘She’ll turn up,’ said Lewis at the door. ‘These children all fall on their feet. Look at Sebastian!’

‘She’s not a child; that’s just where it is. She’s sixteen past,’ retorted Linda, adding ruminatively: ‘Dirty little cat!’

Lewis left them and went into the large open hall which served the family as dining-room. Through it a door led into the music-room, an almost empty chamber with a dais at one end and a grand piano. Here Kate stood before an open window, her hands held out before her and lightly clasped, while she took in deep breaths and let them out in long, high notes. They were full, clear, honest notes, very like Kate herself, who was the most honest thing alive. Her mother, Sanger’s first wife, had been Australian – clean, respectable, middle class, hard working and kind. Kate persisted in being all these things, in spite of her upbringing. She had none of the wildness of her half-brothers and sisters. She had rosy cheeks and neat, brown hair, was trim and comely, and wore shirt blouses. Her voice was promising and she worked strenuously, hoping, with her father’s backing, to succeed some day upon the operatic stage. She also ran the household and did all the work which the single manservant could not do. Every one respected and liked her. She was a little obtuse, but this was probably the salvation of her, since it enabled her to disregard the inconsistencies of her own life. A more perceptive young woman could hardly have gone on being so modest, sensible and affectionate without a little encouragement from her surroundings.

Lewis listened for a few seconds and called down the room: ‘Very nice indeed, Kate.’

‘Oh, it’s you? We’d given up expecting you. Have you got the thing for us to act on Father’s birthday?’

Kate and her brother Caryl gave their father his proper title. It was only Evelyn’s children who referred to him carelessly as Sanger.

‘I finished it this morning,’ said Lewis. ‘We can begin rehearsing after lunch.’

‘But the tiresome thing is that we can’t begin without Tony, and we don’t know where she is. Didn’t you hear?’

‘I heard she was off somewhere.’

‘I hope she’s all right,’ observed Kate, looking anxious. ‘I don’t like it. You know, she’s awfully silly sometimes.’

Lewis did know, and secretly thought that Antonia was bound to get into a scrape sooner or later. But he did not wish to distress Kate by saying so, and, to change the topic, remarked:

‘By the way, I brought a fat Russian ballet dancer up with me. I picked him up in the inn at Erfurt.’

‘Mr Trigorin? Yes, I know. Father invited him in the way he does, you know. I do hope he’ll be civil to him. He’s so furious with him for coming. He couldn’t remember who he was at first, when we got the letter. Where is he now?’

‘On the veranda.’

‘Oh! Is Linda there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh.’

Kate grew pink, but all she said was:

‘Then I needn’t bother about him. What is he like?’

‘He looks,’ said Lewis viciously, ‘like one of those men who exhibit performing fleas. And that’s all he is; on a wider scale of course. He’s done well out of it Linda likes his clothes.’

‘Oh, dear! Perhaps he won’t stay long! Father is fearfully busy writing a new last act to “The Mountains”. Often he’s up all night and Caryl too. Caryl’s had to put all his own work aside, poor dear. And the worst of it is, Father’s too ill to be working at all. I’m sure he is, and so is Caryl. You’ll be shocked when you see him. He looks all wasted and shrunken up sometimes, and his eyes so yellow and bloodshot. He gets queer, giddy turns, but he says it’s only because he’s thirsty!’

‘Can’t you make him see a doctor?’ asked Lewis anxiously.

‘No. He says perhaps he will when we leave here, if he isn’t better. He’s very difficult. Men are really perfectly impossible sometimes.’

‘Yes, aren’t they? I quite agree. But look here! Where am I going to sleep? Who else is here?’

‘Nobody. But the family is spread all over the house, and father turned Linda out of his room the other night and said she could go and sleep by herself until he had finished “The Mountains”. I’ve put Mr Trigorin in the spare room. Of course it’s got two beds in it …’

‘No, Kate. I’ll sleep on the doorstep, but not with the flea trainer. Is there nowhere else?’

‘Well, there’s the little room in the annexe. It’s very small and it’s never been disinfected since Tony and Tessa had scarlet fever there two years ago. I meant to burn a sulphur candle but I forgot. Do you mind?’

‘Not a bit. Germs are better than Trigorin any day.’

‘And it’s tiresome going out there if it rains. However, if you don’t mind … Let’s go across and have a look at it.’

They went out and climbed the hill at the back, a little way to a second hut. The lower part was used as a storehouse and the two bedrooms above were reached by an outer stair and balcony. Kate led him into a tiny room with two camp-beds in it and nothing else. Floor, walls and ceiling were of wooden planks and smelt of the forest. A dusty rosary hung from a nail by the door and the walls above the beds were covered with childish writing, for Teresa and Antonia had enlivened their scarlet fever by scribbling rude remarks about each other. Kate glanced at them and blushed. She did not like to think of Lewis reading these sisterly pleasantries, and determined to send Caryl at the first opportunity with a plane to plane them off.

‘This is very nice and quiet,’ said Lewis,

‘Of course it is that,’ agreed Kate. ‘I’ll bring in Roberto’s chair and table. Come and help me fetch them.’

They went into the larger room next door which belonged to Roberto, the Italian manservant. It had a bed, a table, a chair and a yellow tin trunk. On the trunk lay Roberto’s bowler hat, and on the chair, a cherished testimony to his peasant blood, Roberto’s umbrella, which, on the finest Sundays, went to Mass with him.

‘I don’t see why we should take the poor fellow’s only chair,’ observed Lewis.

‘Oh, he doesn’t sit on it. He has no time to sit. He only uses it for keeping his umbrella on. We always take it if we want it.’

They carried the furniture next door and Kate made up the least rickety of the camp-beds, saying:

‘You can use the other for putting things down on. Is that all, Lewis? Then I’ll be off as I’ve a lot to do. Father often has his meals upstairs, which gives extra trouble. You’re quite fixed? Mittagsessen will be … when I’ve cooked it … soon …’

She gave him an amiable smile and ran off. She was the only person in the family who had no positive feelings, one way or the other, towards Lewis. She just regarded him as one of the many people who depended upon her for comfort. He, for his part, liked her very much, was grateful to her, and was generally both obliging and civil in his dealings with her. She let him alone, and that was a thing which very few women could do, seemingly, in spite of his plain face and unmannerly ways.

When she was gone he threw himself down upon the newly made bed and pulled from his knapsack the MS score of a one-act opera called ‘Breakfast with the Borgias’, which he had promised the Sanger children to write for their father’s birthday. It was to be acted by the family, who could most of them sing in tune, and by any guests who happened to be about. He began to read it through, correcting it in places with a stubby pencil, and writing in fragments of libretto as a guide to the performers, who were to compose their own words when they had learnt their tunes and got the hang of the plot.

Presently he let the music slip to the ground and lay back on the hard little bed, smoking and dreaming. Through the window he could see the cloudless sky and a piece of bright pink mountain. Very far off a cow bell tinkled drowsily and he meditated upon the peculiar, unearthly quality of a sound that comes up from below. He felt so tremendously high up; almost half-way to heaven. Turning his head to the wall he read:

‘My sister Teresa is a little …’

And a half-hearted attempt at erasure, as though even Antonia could occasionally feel ashamed of herself.