light now.
—You must always switch on the light as soon as the darkness comes.
Dorset’s voice was very loud. He had drunk three glasses of wine. His face was pink, turning red. He had a moustache, greying. He was small, dressed in a grey suit. I knew that he had been a teacher mostly of children from eight years to twelve years. He sometimes used words which only children from eight years to twelve years use. He was familiar with children’s games, too. That evening he described a game of marbles while Elizabeth and I listened. But that was later, after we had eaten.
We sat at the table. I served the meal. We ate it. Dorset smacked his lips. Elizabeth sighed when it was over. Then we sat on the sofa once again and continued to drink the large bottle of wine until it was empty and I put it on the kitchen table and returned with another bottle which I had kept in the cupboard by the bathroom where I kept other items of food and drink as the cupboards in the kitchen did not hold everything.
When three hours had passed Dorset’s voice was very loud, Elizabeth’s too, and Elizabeth began to talk of Rose and of how she and Rose had both written poems while they were young and hers, Elizabeth’s, were longer with more words and had more titles.
—She had a love affair with a garage mechanic. His mother took care of her son Eric, adopted him, so she had no legal claim.
Dorset began to talk about the French and the English and the French revolution.
Suddenly I said goodnight to them. They finished drinking their glass of wine, said goodnight to me, and went home. They were laughing as they went up the path to their house.
When they had gone I sat alone in the room and looked at the light bulbs and the heater and the desk with its six drawers and the red curtains over the windows and the orange marigolds, five, in a small earthenware vase, which Elizabeth had brought in from the garden and put on my table. As the curtains were not yet drawn I could see the objects in the room reflected in the darkness of the windows. I could hear the palm trees rustling as a wind sprang up among them.
Then I went down the stairs to the bedroom and after washing and cleaning my teeth and going to the lavatory I went to bed. Once in bed I closed my eyes to stop seeing what was outside, but I could not stop seeing it. I slept.
9
Each day the patterns of light in the room were different. If the sun did not shine there were no light-patterns. When the sun shone, window-shapes patterned themselves on the rust-red rug of which there were two, of equal size, square, on the polished wooden floor. The light fell also on the table by the window, on the orange cotton tablecloth printed with white petalled flowers with green and red centres, each whole flower measuring nineteen centimetres in diameter. I looked at these patterns from time to time during the day to observe their changing positions and to note, when the sun had moved out of range of the room where I worked, the moment when the yellow light was withdrawn and there was no longer window-shaped yellow light lying on the carpet. Night came then. The sky was grey with crescents of darker grey. The mountains of Italy always reflected from their white rocks a white light, although in the daytime large dark shadows, unmoving, lay upon the slopes.
From time to time the trains passed, the brakes squealing as the train prepared to enter the region of the station; trains from Nice to Ventimiglia or Vintimille as it is known in France, from Strasbourg through Mulhouse, with the words WELTEN SCHAFFT written on some of the carriages, and at night the Rome Express. Through the night the trains pounded more heavily on the rails and by their pounding one knew that they were long trains filled with people asleep in the first class Wagons-Lit , which are comfortable, or in the second class couchettes which had six in a compartment, three on one side, three on the other, each narrow, though I do not
—You must always switch on the light as soon as the darkness comes.
Dorset’s voice was very loud. He had drunk three glasses of wine. His face was pink, turning red. He had a moustache, greying. He was small, dressed in a grey suit. I knew that he had been a teacher mostly of children from eight years to twelve years. He sometimes used words which only children from eight years to twelve years use. He was familiar with children’s games, too. That evening he described a game of marbles while Elizabeth and I listened. But that was later, after we had eaten.
We sat at the table. I served the meal. We ate it. Dorset smacked his lips. Elizabeth sighed when it was over. Then we sat on the sofa once again and continued to drink the large bottle of wine until it was empty and I put it on the kitchen table and returned with another bottle which I had kept in the cupboard by the bathroom where I kept other items of food and drink as the cupboards in the kitchen did not hold everything.
When three hours had passed Dorset’s voice was very loud, Elizabeth’s too, and Elizabeth began to talk of Rose and of how she and Rose had both written poems while they were young and hers, Elizabeth’s, were longer with more words and had more titles.
—She had a love affair with a garage mechanic. His mother took care of her son Eric, adopted him, so she had no legal claim.
Dorset began to talk about the French and the English and the French revolution.
Suddenly I said goodnight to them. They finished drinking their glass of wine, said goodnight to me, and went home. They were laughing as they went up the path to their house.
When they had gone I sat alone in the room and looked at the light bulbs and the heater and the desk with its six drawers and the red curtains over the windows and the orange marigolds, five, in a small earthenware vase, which Elizabeth had brought in from the garden and put on my table. As the curtains were not yet drawn I could see the objects in the room reflected in the darkness of the windows. I could hear the palm trees rustling as a wind sprang up among them.
Then I went down the stairs to the bedroom and after washing and cleaning my teeth and going to the lavatory I went to bed. Once in bed I closed my eyes to stop seeing what was outside, but I could not stop seeing it. I slept.
9
Each day the patterns of light in the room were different. If the sun did not shine there were no light-patterns. When the sun shone, window-shapes patterned themselves on the rust-red rug of which there were two, of equal size, square, on the polished wooden floor. The light fell also on the table by the window, on the orange cotton tablecloth printed with white petalled flowers with green and red centres, each whole flower measuring nineteen centimetres in diameter. I looked at these patterns from time to time during the day to observe their changing positions and to note, when the sun had moved out of range of the room where I worked, the moment when the yellow light was withdrawn and there was no longer window-shaped yellow light lying on the carpet. Night came then. The sky was grey with crescents of darker grey. The mountains of Italy always reflected from their white rocks a white light, although in the daytime large dark shadows, unmoving, lay upon the slopes.
From time to time the trains passed, the brakes squealing as the train prepared to enter the region of the station; trains from Nice to Ventimiglia or Vintimille as it is known in France, from Strasbourg through Mulhouse, with the words WELTEN SCHAFFT written on some of the carriages, and at night the Rome Express. Through the night the trains pounded more heavily on the rails and by their pounding one knew that they were long trains filled with people asleep in the first class Wagons-Lit , which are comfortable, or in the second class couchettes which had six in a compartment, three on one side, three on the other, each narrow, though I do not
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