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Authors: Christina Stead
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he could write them up.â She would say, listening to a conversation, âWhat is happening in the world? O, dear, who knows what will happen? The world is so mixed up: you would think I should know more than you, working in Geneva, but I know less than anybody else.â
After her thin, black figure, there entered late a stalwart young man with dark eyes and rubicund in a furred motoring-coat, who put his automobile behind the Cathedral. His self-possession and the professional glance he cast on the audience, drew glances. He greeted many people in the crowd, bowing from the waist to some, laughing heartily at others, shaking hands again. He had a bounding, healthy look and when he smiled, brilliant teeth made his dark face seem darker. He was the Viennese singer who played the part of âDon Juanâ. With him was a thin, sharp-nosed, thick-browed chap with thin hair, very much wrinkled, jealous and salty as a long-tongued woman; a T RANSLATOR he was, who translated all the modern books, flighty, scandalous and political, that were written. He was extremely laborious, verifying each word with a dozen notes at the foot of the page, and bitter, stinging with a thousand imagined affronts, and cruel, ready for a thousand expected attacks. He would run down even his dearest friends for the pleasure of saying something original on his own account, and he cried like a child, at home, if he was found out in a fault of grammar.
There was a P OLICE C OMMISSIONER , a lively, political journalist, a moke of all trades who worked ambitiously in any shifts offered him, thinking he would one day have a chance to sit on the driverâs seat and show a long head despite his assâs ears. He had been aMinister in a Government, but he drove one day into some too, too slippery mass of garbage, and he had been obliged to take a long rest in the country in the clover, biding his time. In the country, he had improved his manners, taken an eye-glass, studied fine eating, invented a few dishes, written two romances and a book of aphorisms and learned to seem wise by ignoring questions. He had a wife with whom he lived at times in hotels, and then the pair would quarrel so loudly that everyone would rap on the walls and the manager, red in face, would endeavour to silence the domestic ululations, pacifying madam, expostulating with the gentleman, bidding him remember the next elections. And when his wife was ill and went to a sanatorium in Switzerland, the Commissioner published in modern literary journals, post-dada-ist laments on his tubercular love. When he had put his finger successfully into several lucrative scandals in Persia, Thibet and China, he retired for a season again, but now to Biarritz, where he met the best people, including princes of the blood, cinema stars, champion Aberdeen terriers and bathing-suits by Patou, and distinguished himself at water-polo. His supporters then thought him groomed for another public appearance and he emerged as Police Commissioner and was given the Order of Merit by the king of his country. There, he revolutionised the police, introduced military discipline, gave military pay, studied machine-guns and tear-gas bombs and went on long voyages. During these, he visited America and studied their automatic prisons and the adroit way they broadcast robberies so that their police can give the burglar a fair avenue of escape; went to London, admired Dartmoor and crossed the crossing at the Bank; went to Paris to see how they provide one policeman for each citizen, and visited the Quai dâOrsay where they entertained him at dinner: went to Germany and learned how to turn recidivists into citizens by kindness, and how to discover non-existent documents. Then he returned home, made a secret report, was feted in the streets, received bouquets, an Order, and proposals of marriage from ladies, invented a new dish, appeared in the films, improved the munition factories and once more went
After her thin, black figure, there entered late a stalwart young man with dark eyes and rubicund in a furred motoring-coat, who put his automobile behind the Cathedral. His self-possession and the professional glance he cast on the audience, drew glances. He greeted many people in the crowd, bowing from the waist to some, laughing heartily at others, shaking hands again. He had a bounding, healthy look and when he smiled, brilliant teeth made his dark face seem darker. He was the Viennese singer who played the part of âDon Juanâ. With him was a thin, sharp-nosed, thick-browed chap with thin hair, very much wrinkled, jealous and salty as a long-tongued woman; a T RANSLATOR he was, who translated all the modern books, flighty, scandalous and political, that were written. He was extremely laborious, verifying each word with a dozen notes at the foot of the page, and bitter, stinging with a thousand imagined affronts, and cruel, ready for a thousand expected attacks. He would run down even his dearest friends for the pleasure of saying something original on his own account, and he cried like a child, at home, if he was found out in a fault of grammar.
There was a P OLICE C OMMISSIONER , a lively, political journalist, a moke of all trades who worked ambitiously in any shifts offered him, thinking he would one day have a chance to sit on the driverâs seat and show a long head despite his assâs ears. He had been aMinister in a Government, but he drove one day into some too, too slippery mass of garbage, and he had been obliged to take a long rest in the country in the clover, biding his time. In the country, he had improved his manners, taken an eye-glass, studied fine eating, invented a few dishes, written two romances and a book of aphorisms and learned to seem wise by ignoring questions. He had a wife with whom he lived at times in hotels, and then the pair would quarrel so loudly that everyone would rap on the walls and the manager, red in face, would endeavour to silence the domestic ululations, pacifying madam, expostulating with the gentleman, bidding him remember the next elections. And when his wife was ill and went to a sanatorium in Switzerland, the Commissioner published in modern literary journals, post-dada-ist laments on his tubercular love. When he had put his finger successfully into several lucrative scandals in Persia, Thibet and China, he retired for a season again, but now to Biarritz, where he met the best people, including princes of the blood, cinema stars, champion Aberdeen terriers and bathing-suits by Patou, and distinguished himself at water-polo. His supporters then thought him groomed for another public appearance and he emerged as Police Commissioner and was given the Order of Merit by the king of his country. There, he revolutionised the police, introduced military discipline, gave military pay, studied machine-guns and tear-gas bombs and went on long voyages. During these, he visited America and studied their automatic prisons and the adroit way they broadcast robberies so that their police can give the burglar a fair avenue of escape; went to London, admired Dartmoor and crossed the crossing at the Bank; went to Paris to see how they provide one policeman for each citizen, and visited the Quai dâOrsay where they entertained him at dinner: went to Germany and learned how to turn recidivists into citizens by kindness, and how to discover non-existent documents. Then he returned home, made a secret report, was feted in the streets, received bouquets, an Order, and proposals of marriage from ladies, invented a new dish, appeared in the films, improved the munition factories and once more went
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