| Finding somewhere affordable to live in Britain is hard. Some parts of the country are cheaper than others, of course, but the cost of renting a home is horrendous, especially in London and the South. Normally, the only answer is to share a house or a flat: you get a room of your own, but you have to share the kitchen and bathroom. In cities like Oxford and Cambridge, where rooms are scarce, prices will make your eyes water: more than 500 a month. In London, they're even higher – not far off |
| Oxford already seemed expensive when I lived there, and that was almost 40 years ago. When I started work after university, my room cost a month – almost 15 per cent of my salary. With today's rents in Oxford, you'd need to earn a year if you didn't want to spend more than 15 per cent on your room. But when you finish university, starting salaries are usually between and. |
| Apart from the cost, shared flats and houses are often in poor condition. Landlords are slow to spend their profits on repairs. I was fairly lucky with mine. The house I lived in was scruffy, but the landlord took action when needed — like the time the bathroom ceiling fell in. I'd just run a bath and had returned to my room to get something, when I heard a loud crash. I went back to find the bathtub full of wet plaster. I had the ceiling repaired and took the bill to my landlord. |
| Are you ready for this, Amy" David asked his daughter. The girl finished tying the laces of her old walking boots, looked up and nodded slowly. "I think so." They walked along a lane out of the village until they reached a gently winding path that led to the river. After crossing a wooden bridge, they followed the line of the riverbank, where tall trees kept the hot sun off their heads. David listened to the chatter of the fast-flowing river. The last time they had come this way, he had listened to a chattering stream of words from his daughter, who had told him about endless adventures and the scandals of friends and classmates. Today, as they had crossed the bridge, a little grey and yellow bird had caught her eye. Amy's face had brightened, and the start of a story almost reached her lips, but then she remained silent. The path became steeper, leaving the river and splitting into two parts as they came closer to Kinder Reservoir. Looking at his map, David pointed to the route that climbed above the reservoir. They followed it to the start of a narrow valley, where another steep path ran beside a fast-moving stream. As they climbed higher, Amy began to notice the changing landscape. The stream was a series of little waterfalls that fell through green ferns and purple heather. |
| When people ask me how I learned to speak German, I tell them it was simple: I met a German man at the Oktoberfest, married him, and stayed in Munich for 20 years. But there's a bit of a backstory, too. In 1973, my friend Sally and I decided to quit our jobs and travel through Europe. We boarded a plane in early September, determined to stay abroad as long as possible — stretching our money by hitchhiking and staying in youth hostels. Over the next eight months, we covered a lot of ground, from Greece and Turkey to Finland, managing to limit our costs to an average of $5 a day. It all started in Luxembourg, when we walked to the edge of town and stuck out our thumbs. It wasn't long before a group of US soldiers on motorcycles stopped. They were on their way to a wine festival on the Moselle River and were thrilled to have female companionship. |
| As 24-year-old American girls with backpacks, Sally and I rarely had to wait long for a ride. And although we often couldn't understand the drivers, it didn't matter. Wherever they were going was fine with us. Other than our plans to visit the Oktoberfest in Munich, we had absolutely no itinerary. The advantage of this easygoing lifestyle was that we visited many villages that were far off the beaten path. |
| Recently, I've been flying quite a lot — for the usual reasons, like holidays, weddings, milestone birthdays and, sadly, the odd funeral. Since I live in Perth, Western Australia — a very isolated state capital – a flight to the east coast means at least four hours in the air for me. To put that into a European perspective, a flight to Sydney is about the same as flying from Dublin to Istanbul. Then there's the time difference of two to three hours, so that a whole day is lost crossing the country. When I'm sky-high, I'm captive to what I call "cardboard-box cuisine". Recent experiences with our major carriers Qantas and Virgin suggest that there may be more flavour in the box itself than its contents. |
| Sure, Australian airlines have a long tradition of offering free food and drinks, including beer and wine, especially on longer flights. And flying is relatively inexpensive in economy class. Even on the good airlines, I can usually get to and from Sydney for less than A$ 700. Budget carriers will cost you half of that. Back to airline food, though. On a flight to Perth some weeks ago, I was given a "Chinese chicken salad" for my evening meal. In the box, I found a mound of dry purple cabbage and a dozen small pieces of equally dry chicken. There was no dressing, so the only parts of this meal I could eat were two cracker biscuits and a piece of cheese that came on the side. I washed them down with a tiny bottle of red wine and thought, "This meal isn't free: it's worthless." Some time later, I wandered down to the flight attendants' quarters at the back of the plane to see if I could get some more cheese and crackers and another small bottle of wine. The staff were helpful, but what surprised me were the meals they were eating, including a steaming plate of grilled pork medallions in cream sauce with rice and fresh vegetables. |
| Read the text and say if you have illusions towards this profession. |
| She is a photographer's model, high fashion. Her face is familiar one in magazine ads and on television commercials. She has been engaged in this work for eight years. She earns the city's top rate: $ 50 an hour. |
| At first you work very hard to try to discover different looks and hairdos. After a while you know them all. Someone once asked me, "Why do high-fashion models pose with their mouths open They look like they're catching flies." This look has been accepted for a long time. They want everything to be sexy, subtle or overt. It's automatic. |
| They want you natural but posed. How can you feel natural with three pounds of make-up, in some ridiculous costume, standing there and looking pretty |
| Someone will call you at seven in the morning and say be ready at eight thirty. Can you be there in 40 minutesYou're trying to get your wardrobe together and be there in time. It's terrible. Somehow you manage to make it on time. I'm very seldom late, I'm amazed at myself. |
| You go out of your house with your closetful on your arm. Different colors and shoes to match and purses and wigs. So I've developed these strong muscles with one shoulder lower than the other from carrying all the wardrobe about. |
| In the middle of the winter you're fighting all the people to get a taxi. You're supposed to look fresh and your hair is supposed to be sparkling. By the time you get there, you're perspiring like crazy, and it's difficult to feel fresh under all those hot lights when you've had such a struggle to get there. |
| Most people have strange feeling about standing before a camera. You have to learn to move and make different designs with your body. |
| You feel like you're a clothes hanger. One day someone will say you're great. In the next studio they will say you're terrible. It changes from minute to minute: acceptance, rejection. |
| My feelings are ambivalent. I like my life because it does give me freedom. |
| I usually don't tell people that I am a model. I say I'm an actuary or something. |
| I don't like to look at my pictures. I don't like to ride by and see some advertisement and tell everyone that's me. |
| Most models, after one or two years, can't be very interested in it. But they get involved with money, so it's difficult for them to quit. And there's always the possibility of the commercial that's going to make you twenty thousand dollars at one crack. You can work very hard all year on photos and not make as much as you can on two television commercials. |
| Male models are even worse. They're usually ex-beach boys or ex-policemen or ex-waiters. |
| They think they're going to get rich fast. Money and sex are big things in their life. They talk about these two things constantly. Money more than sex, but sex a lot. Dirty jokes and the fast buck. You see this handsome frame and you find it empty. |
| Certainly the progress of science is a wonderful thing. Naturally one feels' proud of it. I must say that I do. Whenever I get talking to anyone — that is, to anyone, who knows even less about it than I do — about the surprising development of electricity for instance, I feel as if I had been personally responsible for it. |
| However, that is not the point I am going to discuss. What I want to speak about is progress of medicine. There, if you like, is something really surprising. |
| Just think of it. A hundred years ago there were no bacilli , no diphtheria and no appendicitis . All of these we have thanks to medical science. |
| Or consider the achievements of medical science on its practical side. The modern doctor's business is a very simple one. This is the way it is done. |
| The patient enters the consulting room. "Doctor," he says, "I have a bad pain." "Where is it" "Here." "Stand up," says the doctor, "and put your arms up above your head." Then the doctor goes behind the patient and strikes him a powerful blow in the back. "Do you feel that" he says. "I do," says the patient. Then the doctor turns suddenly and lets him have a left hook under the heart. "Can you feel that" he says, as the patient falls over on the sofa nearly fainting . "Get up," says the doctor, and counts ten. The patient rises. The doctor looks him over very carefully without speaking, and then walks over to the window and reads the morning paper for a while. Then he turns and begins speaking in a low voice more to himself than to the patient. "Hum!" he says, "there's a slight anaesthesia of the tympanum ." "Is that so" says the frightened patient. "What can I do about it, doctor" "Well," says the doctor, "I want you to keep very quiet-, you'll have to go to bed and stay there and keep quiet." In fact the doctor hasn't the least idea what's wrong with the man; but he does know that if he goes to bed and keeps quiet, really very quiet, he'll either get quietly well again or else die a quiet death. |
| "What about diet, doctor" says the patient, quite frightened. |
| The answer to this question varies a great deal. It depends on how the doctor is feeling and whether it is a long time since he had a meal himself. |
| Of course, this treatment in itself would fail to give the patient proper confidence. But nowadays this element is supplied by the work of the analytical laboratory. Whatever is wrong with the patient the doctor insists on cutting off parts and pieces and extracts of him and sending them away to be analyzed. He cuts off some of the patient's hair, marks it "Mr Smith's Hair, October, 1910." Then he cuts off the lower part of the ear, and wraps it in paper and labels it "Part of Mr Smith's Ear, October, 1910." Then he looks the patient up and down with the scissors in his hand, and if he sees any likely part of him he cuts it off and wraps it up. Now this, strangely enough, is the very thing that fills the patient with that sense of personal importance which is worth paying for. "Imagine", says the bandaged (nepeBH3bi-Baib) patient later in the day to a group of friends obviously impressed, "the doctor thinks there my be a slight anaesthesia of the prognosis, but he's sent my ear to New York and my appendix to Baltimore and some of my hair to the editor of all the medical journals, and meantime I am to keep very quiet and not strain myself. "With that he falls back in the armchair quite happy. |
| And yet, isn't it funny |
| You and I and the rest of us — even if we know all this — as soon as we have a pain inside us, run for a doctor as fast as a taxi can take us. Yes, personally, I even prefer an ambulance with a bell on it. It's more comforting. |
| Over the centuries Ukrainian people have developed their own arts of music, theatre, and painting. Some Ukrainian artists and their masterpieces are famous not only in Ukraine but also all over the world. |
| Ukrainian music has a long history. Folk traditions have preserved to this day original songs, lyrical, humorous, and patriotic and others. «Kobza», «bandura», «sopilka» are among most famous national musical instruments. «Kobza» is a unique musical instrument. The one who plays it is called «kobzar». One of the most famous kobzars was Hnat Honcharenko. Blind from childhood, he learned to play kobza at 20—22 and wandered singing and playing dumas, psalms, and humorous songs and teaching other kobzars. He spent the last part of his life mostly in Sevastopol. In 1908 Lesia Ukrainka took Honcharenko to Yalta and, with her husband K.Kvitka recorded his dumas. Speaking about Ukrainian composers, we must mention I. Stravinsky and S. Prokofiev, who were born in Ukraine. M. Lysenko, a pianist, composer, conductor and folklorist was an important figure of the Ukrainian musical renaissance. Among his operas there are the well-known «Taras Bulba» and «Natalka Poltavka». |
| In Ukraine the oldest surviving paintings are frescoes found on the northern Black Sea coast. Famous frescoes of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and of the Armenian Cathedral in Lvov are one of the oldest and attract many tourists from Ukraine and abroad. After the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg was established, many talented painters moved to Russia. This emigration deprived Ukrainian painting of its most creative talents. But there were several exceptions that devoted most of their painting to Ukrainian interests. Among such painters was T. Shevchenko, who is considered the father of modern Ukrainian painting. One more famous representative of the Ukrainian art was Ilia Repin. He was an outstanding painter, full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Many of his works show Ukraine, its people and its history. Among them there are the most famous painting "The Zhaporozhian Cossacks Write a Letter to the Turkish Sultan", "Evening Party", "Haidamakys", "Cossack in the Steppe", and "Hopak". He also painted many portraits of Russian and Ukrainian cultural figures. Among them were M. Kostomarov, I. Kramskoi, T. Shevchenko and others. |
| The history of Ukrainian theatre also goes back to the ancient times. We may find their traces in pre-Christian traditions and rituals. They are evident even today in the summer Kupalo festival, the winter carols and above all in the ceremony of the Ukrainian wedding. The further development of Ukrainian theatre was influenced by European medieval theatre traditions. The first Ukrainian language plays of I. Kotliarevsky and H. Kvitka-Osnovianenko were staged by Poltava Free Theatre in 1819. Many Ukrainian landlords organized serf theatres at their estates. In their theatres Ukrainian plays were performed. In Russian-ruled Ukraine many amateur and touring theatre groups were active. The leaders in organizing them were M. Starytsky and I. Karpenko-Kary. The first professional Ukrainian theatre was a touring troupe in Austrian-ruled Galicia and Bukovina. It was directed by O. Bachynsky. The times of the Soviet rule were not easy for Ukrainian theatre. Over the past few years the Ukrainian theatre is on the wave of national revival. Many youth theatres, musical comedies and theatre stars have appeared. |
| Mark Twain is the pen-name of Samuel Clemens, America's greatest humorist. |
| He was born in the family of a small town lawyer in 1835. When Sam was twelve years old, his father died, and the boy had to earn a living for himself. So he began to work at a print shop in his home town. Later on he became a pilot on the Mississippi. Mark Twain always thought that his days on the Mississippi were the happiest in his life. |
| As a writer he was successful from the very start. |
| Mark Twain's story of Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog made him famous all over America. This story was followed by a number of short stories and novels. |
| Most of Mark Twain's early writings sparkle with gay humour. As he advanced in years, however, all the evils of capitalist America became obvious to him. This brought a pessimistic note into his later works. |
| Mark Twain died in 1910. |
| Years ago I arrived one day at Salamanca, New York, where I was to change trains and take the sleeper. There were crowds of people on the platform, and they were all trying to get into the long sleeper train which was already packed. I asked the young man in the booking-office if I could have a sleeping-berth and he answered: "No." I went off and asked another local official if I could have some poor little corner somewhere in a sleeping-car, but he interrupted me angrily saying, "No, you can't, every corner is full. Now, don't bother me any more," and he turned his back and walked off. I felt so hurt that I said to my companion, "If these people knew who I was, they..."1 But my companion stopped me there,— "Don't talk such nonsense, we'll have to put up with this," he said, "If they knew who you were, do you think it would help you to get a vacant seat1 in a train which has no vacant seats in it" |
| This did not improve my condition at all, but just then I noticed that the porter of a sleeping-car had his eye on me. I saw the expression of his face suddenly change. He whispered to the uniformed conductor, pointing to me, and I realized I was being talked about. Then the conductor came forward, his face all politeness. |
| "Can I be of any service to you" he asked. "Do you want a place in a sleeping-car" |
| "Yes," I said, "I'll be grateful to you if you can give me a place, anything will do." |
| "We have nothing left except the big family compartment," he continued, "with two berths and a couple of armchairs in it, but it is entirely at your disposal. Here, Tom, take these suitcases aboard!" |
| Then he touched his hat, and we moved along.3 I was eager to say a few words to my companion, but I changed my mind. The porter made us comfortable in the compartment, and then said, with many bows and smiles: |
| "Now, is there anything you want, sir Because you can have just anything you want." |
| "Can I have some hot water" I asked. |
| "Yes, sir, I'll get it myself." |
| "Good! Now, that lamp is hung too high above the berth. Can I have a better lamp fixed just at the head of my bed below the luggage rack, so that I can read comfortably" |
| "Yes, sir. The lamp you want is just being fixed in the next compartment. I'll get it from there and fix it here. It'll burn all night. Yes, sir, you can ask for anything you want, the whole railroad will be turned inside out to please you." And he disappeared. |
| I smiled at my companion, and said: |
| "Well, what do you say now Didn't their attitude change the moment they understood I was Mark Twain You see the result, don't you" My companion did not answer. So I added, "Don't you like the way you are being served And all for the same fare." |
| As I was saying this, the porter's smiling face appeared in the doorway and this speech followed: |
| "Oh, sir, I recognized you the minute I set my eyes on you. I told the conductor so." |
| "Is that so, my boy" I said handing him a good tip. "Who am I" |
| "Mr McCleilan, Mayor of New York", he said and disappeared again. |
| I am a painter. I like painting more than anything else, except obvious things like food and drink, that all sensible people like. As a painter, I have quite a lot of talent — I'm not sure yet how much — and a fairly complete mastery of most of the technical requirements; that is, I am an instinctive colourist, and my composition is interesting. |
| I have my difficulties, but who does not I get on fairly well with people, and I ought to be quite as successful as a dozen other painters — but I am not. I never have been since my very first one-man show, when I was discovered by the critics, taken up — and very quickly put down again — and sold out. |
| "Sold out" is the just phrase. I was twenty-two after that show. Apart from quite a lot of money, the way I understand it, I had one oil painting left, three drawings, and very little common sense, my most valuable remaining possession. The common sense prevented me from believing what the critics said and considering myself a genius, and not only a genius but a painter who would always be able to live by painting exactly what he wanted to paint when he wanted to paint it. |
| I did, however, think that I could probably afford to marry Leila, rent my own studio, and stop being a student. |
| But I have never had another show which sold like that first one, although I am a better painter than I was then. My work is as contemporary as any; of course it is; how can anyone intelligent and honest paint behind his time, deliberately or by accident But more and more critics support what is called Action Painting and Other Art, when a painter is trying to be as different from anyone else as he can. Anyway, it has been clear ever since that first sell-out show that I have an old way of seeing things and am really an academic. |
| My second show went fairly well because Other Art had not then got very far. But ever since. Not that I don't sell a certain amount privately. I do. To the uneducated and even the half-educated my work seems to give a good deal of pleasure. |
| However, in the last two years things have got very tight. |
| We can't pay the quarter's rent and we can't afford not to, so something had to be done. So my applying for a most unpleasant job which my uncle could give me. I got it. Start next Monday. |
| When I got back from the interview, Leila was sitting in the studio, which she seldom does, as it was a working-room entirely. She said, "Hi, Bill. You'll never guess what's happened." |
| I thought it was something awful because she hadn't even asked me about the job. I said, "What" |
| "Garrard came — just before lunch." Garrard is my dealer, and I'd been trying to get him to come and look at my work and arrange for a show for the last year. Dealers! |
| I sat down and asked Leila what he wanted. |
| "He came because there's a Mrs. Spencer Thompson who's interested in having you paint a small portrait of her daughter. She's American and very rich and she wants you to paint it." |
| "Very nice of her. She must have seen one of the early portraits. Did you make Garrard look at the work Did he say anything about a show" |
| Leila went bright pink and opened her eyes much too wide as she does when she's surprised. She said, "It's the most extraordinary thing. It's really awfully funny, I suppose, but I think you'll be furious. I was just cleaning up in here a bit as you were out". |
| I said, "I wish you wouldn't. The still life on the easel's wet — it doesn't want a lot of dust sticking to the surface." |
| This is what I always say when Leila cleans the studio, and while I was saying it I looked round for the first time. The studio has a parquet floor, and to protect it I have a large piece of hardboard in front of my easel to catch the worst drips of paint. |
| Now the piece was on the easel and my still life was leaning against the wall. |
| I said, "Good God! What on earth Leila!" and jumped up to take it off the easel and throw it on the floor again and make sure my Jars in a Window — which was coming along rather well — was all right. |
| Leila jumped up too and stood between me and the easel. |
| "Bill, listen a minute. It's Garrard. Not me. Of course I wouldn't." |
| "Garrard What do you mean" |
| "He was looking at the pictures explaining how the gallery was booked up for a year and how he couldn't really promise you a show till next year and saying, "Mm," to each picture instead of "Ah," like he does when he likes them, and suddenly he saw the hardboard leaning against the wall." |
| "What was it doing there" |
| "I told you, I was cleaning. I'd picked it up to sweep underneath it." He said, "Ah," at once, and then he stepped back and said, "Ah ha!" with his head on one side. |
| "And then he turned to me and said, "Leila, my dear, I'm very glad to have this opportunity to talk to you with Bill not here. I thought — I felt — that there must be something like this. Tell me — why is he holding out on us" |
| I saw it all, but I couldn't really believe it. |
| "He didn't really think it was an abstract" |
| "He did. He not only thought it was an abstract, he thought it was wonderful. He said he'd always known you had it in you, as soon as you caught up with contemporary thought. That was why he'd never worried you, and always tried to help us keep going. You can't hurry genius. And he'd known you were that ever since he gave you your first show." |
| We rocked with laughter. I moved to take the board off the easel again. |
| Leila held my arm. "Listen, Bill. He wants to buy it." |
| "Buy it Didn't you tell him" |
| She opened her eyes again. "No, I didn't. I couldn't really. I suppose I should have, but it would have made him look too silly. He'd have hated us for ever after." I just said I didn't think you'd sell it." |
| "I sure won't. It's top absurd." |
| She began to dance, quoting Garrard. "And now, Leila, my dear, show me the rest. Is there enough for a full show When did this start" |
| "No!" |
| "Yes, I tell you. So I said — I'm sorry, Bill, but I couldn't think what to do — that you did not want to talk about them and had told me not to let anyone see them, but I'd tell you what he said." 110 |
| He said, "I'll ring him up this afternoon. Leila, my dear, I must go now, but I want you to know how splendid, how really splendid, this development is in your husband's work, I'm sure you do know, because you're one of the intelligent wives. Tell me, how many paintings are there" |
| "I said I didn't know." And he sighed and said, "Ah, well. He ought to be able to manage a show next spring at the latest. Tell him I'll be ringing him, and tell him not to waste time with the portrait. It's not worth his while. And this one — if he wants to part with it, I'll buy it myself. That'll show him what I think of the new work. That's absolutely accurate word for word reporting, Bill. I've been sitting here going over it to make sure I wasn't mad or anything." |
| We were both quite silent and serious for a minute as we thought about it. I stood in front of the easel and looked at the board carefully. |
| I remembered that I'd been reading something about Action Painting in America at breakfast yesterday and when I came in to the studio I was, I thought, in the necessary emotional condition, it was anger and a sort of despair. |
| So I threw a lump of crimson, the colour of anger, down on to the board. And then I threw down a lump of lemon chrome and stamped on it. |
| And then I was ashamed of myself for being so childish, and anyway that is not the way one wastes good paint, which is expensive. So I went on with my Jars in a Window, feeling tired and sad. |
| But you see, it meant that the board on the floor wasn't entirely an accident. Some kind of emotional purpose had gone into it. Which is what the action painters claim. And perhaps Garrard had felt it — perhaps it does communicate... |
| Leila doesn't know about this. |
| So now what shall I do What a thing to find lying in wait for you on your return from taking a white-collar job at eleven pounds a week. Because this board is big, forty inches by fifty. Even at my present prices, I shouldn't sell for under three hundred, Garrard knows that. I could probably get four out of him. And I can't paint him thirty more for an exhibition. |
| I could, of course. I could paint six by this evening and show them to him tomorrow. |
| And they might be very interesting and surprising if they conveyed the mixture of emotions I feel at this moment. |
| It is a dangerous thing to order the lives of others and I have often wondered at the self-confidence of the politicians, reformers and suchlike who are prepared to force upon their fellows measures that must alter their manners, habits, and points of view. I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one advise another how to act unless one knows that other as well as one knows himself Heaven knows. I know little enough of myself: I know nothing of others. We can only guess at the thoughts and emotions of our neighbours. Each one of us is a prisoner in a solitary tower and he communicates with the other prisoners, who form mankind, by conventional signs that have not quite the same meaning for them as for himself. |
| And life, unfortunately, is something that you can lead but once; mistakes are often irreparable and who am I that I should tell this one and that how he should lead it Life is a difficult business and I have found it hard enough to make my own a complete and rounded thing; I have not been tempted to teach my neighbour what he should do with his. But there are men who flounder at the journey's start, the way before them is confused and hazardous and on occasion, however unwillingly, I have been forced to point the finger of fate. Sometimes men have said to me, what shall I do with my life and I have seen myself for a moment wrapped in the dark cloak of Destiny. |
| Once I know that I advised well. |
| I was a young man, and 1 lived in a modest apartment in London near Victoria Station. Late one afternoon, when I was beginning to think that I had worked enough for that day, I heard a ring at the bell. I opened the door to a total stranger. He asked me my name; I told him. He asked if he might come in. |
| "Certainly." 130 |
| I led him into my sitting-room and begged him to sit down. He seemed a trifle embarrassed. I offered him a cigarette and he had some difficulty in lighting it without letting go off his hat. When he had satisfactorily achieved this feat I asked him if I should not put it on a chair for him. He quickly did this and while doing it dropped his umbrella. |
| "I hope you don't mind my coming to see you like this," he said. "My name is Stephens and I am a doctor. You're in the medical, I believe" |
| "Yes, but I don't practise." |
| "No, I know. I've just read a book of yours about Spain and I wanted to ask you about it." |
| "It's not a very good book, I'm afraid." "The fact remains that you know something about Spain and there's no one else I know who does. And I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me some information." "I shall be very glad." |
| He was silent for a moment. He reached out for his hat and holding it in one hand absent-mindedly stroked it with the other. I surmised that it gave him confidence. |
| "I hope you won't think it very odd for a perfect stranger to talk to you like this." He gave an apologetic laugh. "I'm not going to tell you the story of my life." |
| When people say this to me I always know that it is precisely what they are going to do. I do not mind. In fact I rather like it. |
| "I was brought up by two old aunts. I've never been anywhere. I've never done anything. I've been married for six years. I have no children. I'm a medical officer at the Camberwell Infirmary. I can't stick it any more." |
| There was something very striking in the short, sharp sentences he used. They had a forcible ring. I had not given him more than a cursory glance, but now I looked at him with curiosity. He was a little man, thick-set and stout, of thirty perhaps; with a round red face from which shone small, dark and very bright eyes. His black hair was cropped close to a bullet-shaped head. He was dressed in a blue suit a good deal the worse for wear. It was baggy at the knees and the pockets bulged untidily. |
| "You know what the duties are of a medical officer in an infirmary. One day is pretty much like another. And that's all I've got to look forward to for the rest of my life. Do you think it's worth it" |
| "It's a means of livelihood," I answered. |
| "Yes. I know. The money's pretty good." |
| "I don't exactly know why you've come to me." |
| "Well, I wanted to know whether you thought there would be any chance for an English doctor in Spain" |
| "Why Spain" |
| "I don't know, I just have a fancy for it." |
| "It's not like Carmen, you know." |
| "But there's sunshine there, and there's good wine, and there's colour, and there's air you can breathe. Let me say what I have to say straight out. I heard by accident that there was no English doctor in Seville. Do you think I could earn a living there Is it madness to give up a good safe job for an uncertainty" |
| "What does your wife think about it" |
| "She's willing." |
| "It's a great risk." |
| "I know. But if you say take it, I will; if you stay where you are, I'll stay." |
| He was looking at me intently with those bright dark eyes of his and I knew that he meant what he said I reflected for a moment. |
| "Your whole future is concerned: you must decide for yourself. But this I can tell you: if you don't want money but are content to earn just enough to keep body and soul together, then go. For you will lead a wonderful life." |
| He left me, I thought about him for a day or two, and then forgot. The episode passed completely from my memory. |
| Part 3 Many years later, fifteen at least, I happened to be in Seville and having some trifling; indisposition asked the hotel porter whether there was an English doctor in the town. He said there was and gave me the address. I took a cab and as I drove up to 132 |
| the house a little fat man came out of it. He hesitated when he caught sight of me. |
| "Have you come to see me" he said. "I'm the English |
| doctor." |
| I explained my errand and he asked me to come in. He lived in an ordinary Spanish house, with a patio, and his consulting room which led out of it littered with papers, books, medical appliances, and lumber. The sight of it would have startled a squeamish patient. We did our business and then I asked the doctor what his fee was. He shook his head and smiled. |
| "There's no fee." |
| "Why on earth not" |
| "Don't you remember me Why, I'm here because of something you said to me. You changed my whole life for me. I'm Stephens." |
| I had not the least notion what he was talking about. He reminded me of our interview, he repeated to me what we had said, and gradually, out of the night, a dim recollection of the incident came back to me. |
| "I was wondering if I'd ever see you again," he said, "I was wondering if ever I'd have a chance of thanking you for all you've done for me." |
| "It's been a success then" |
| I looked at him. He was very fat now and bald, but his eyes twinkled gaily and his fleshy, red face bore an expression of perfect good-humour. The clothes he wore, terribly shabby they were, had been made obviously by a Spanish tailor and his hat was the wide-brimmed sombrero of the Spaniard. He looked to me as though he knew a good bottle of wine when he saw it. He had a dissipated though entirely sympathetic, appearance. You might have hesitated to let him remove your appendix, but you could not have imagined a more delightful creature to drink a glass of wine with. |
| "Surely you were married" I asked. |
| "Yes. My wife didn't like Spain, she went back to Camberwell, she was more at home there." |
| "Oh, I'm sorry for that." |
| His black eyes flashed a bacchanalian smile. He really had somewhat the look of a young Silenus. |
| "Life is full of compensations", he murmured. |
| The words were hardly out of his mouth when a Spanish woman, no longer in her first youth, but still boldly and voluptuously beautiful, appeared at the door. She spoke to him in Spanish, and I could not fail to perceive that she was the mistress of the house. |
| As he stood at the door to let me out he said to me: "You told me when last I saw you that if I came here I should earn just enough money to keep body and soul together, but that I should lead a wonderful life. Well, I want to tell you that you were right. Poor I have been and poor I shall always be, but by heaven I've enjoyed myself. I wouldn't exchange the life I've had with that of any king in the world." |
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