"Gaskell, Jane - Atlan Saga (Cija) 05 - Some Summer Lands UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gaskell Jane)

dom, hawking and honking like filthy old men flapping at
private windows.) (But most of all the screens were to deflect
eyes.)

Say she was near a window. Then in the dark shadowed
apertures of honeycomb wails of the barracks opposite, across
the square, a flash of red cloak or of weaponry was seen; as
some officer talking with fellow commanders over there turned
before some window, caught one moment in the omnivorous
sunЧthen, then she would dart away from our own window.

She would put a hand over each breast in a typical personal
gesture, as though eyes could bruise her tenderest nicest
places. Holding her little breastsЧshe had a soprano bosom,
high and sweetЧshe would hurry away as if to be seen
herself could be some ultimate terror. I knew what had
happened. He had arrived.

He had ridden at last over the hill.

He was here in my grandmother's barracks. And my mother,
she was terrified.

Even at that eariy age, I found it pretty clear that my
cautious, sensible mother was an extremely silly lady. She
was always either very happy or very unhappy. She was very
brave about being unhappy, desperately hiding the fact. even
from herself, which involved effort and some drastic chronic
resignation. She was unhappy only about situations which did
not exist. As, for instance, this man she didn't love had not
appeared in the window. Or, on the other hand, for instance,
this man she didn't love had now appeared after all in our
kingdom.

She thought she had herself almost under control, but the
giveaway, even to one of my tender age, came when she
insisted that from now on she would not be leaving her
apartments at all.

"Not coming down to dine?" my grandmother asks.

"You can say," my mother explained in what she thought
a cool voice, "that I have taken a Vow of Silence, a religious
thing, with which no one dare argue."

MY GRANDMOTHER'S HYGIENIC PALACE 17

"You can eat without speaking a word. if only he could
see you."