Скачать книгу

to take their meals seated. Murphy’s rocking-chair trembled by the hearth, facing the window. The vast floor area was covered all over by a linoleum of exquisite design, a dim geometry of blue, grey and brown that delighted Murphy because it called Braque to his mind, and Celia because it delighted Murphy. Murphy was one of the elect, who require everything to remind them of something else. The walls were distempered a vivid lemon, Murphy’s lucky colour. This was so far in excess of the squeeze prescribed by Suk that he could not feel quite easy in his mind about it. The ceiling was lost in the shadows, yes, really lost in the shadows.

      Here they entered upon what Celia called the new life. Murphy was inclined to think that the new life, if it came at all, came later, and then to one of them only. But Celia was so set on computing it from the hegira to the heights of Islington that he left it so. He did not want to gainsay her any more.

      An immediate flaw in the new life was the landlady, a small thin worrier called Miss Carridge, a woman of such astute rectitude that she not only refused to cook the bill for Mr. Quigley, but threatened to inform that poor gentleman of how she had been tempted.

      “A lady,” said Murphy bitterly, “not a landlady. Thin lips and a Doric pelvis. We are P.G.s.”

      “All the more reason to find work,” said Celia.

      Everything that happened became with Celia yet another reason for Murphy’s finding work. She exhibited a morbid ingenuity in this matter. From such antagonistic occasions as a new arrival at Pentonville and a fence sold out in the Market she drew the same text. The antinomies of unmarried love can seldom have appeared to better advantage. They persuaded Murphy that his engagement at even a small salary could not fail to annihilate, for a time at least, the visible universe for his beloved. She would have to learn what it stood for all over again. And was she not rather too old for such a feat of readaptation?

      He kept these forebodings to himself, and indeed tried to suppress them, so genuine was his anxiety that for him henceforward there should be no willing and no nilling but with her, or at least as little as possible. Also he knew her retort in advance: “Then there will be nothing to distract me from you.” This was the kind of Joe Miller that Murphy simply could not bear to hear revived. It had never been a good joke.

      Not the least remarkable of Murphy’s innumerable classifications of experience was that into jokes that had once been good jokes and jokes that had never been good jokes. What but an imperfect sense of humour could have made such a mess of chaos. In the beginning was the pun. And so on.

      Celia was conscious of two equally important reasons for insisting as she did. The first was her desire to make a man of Murphy! Yes, June to October, counting in the blockade she had almost five months’ experience of Murphy, yet the image of him as a man of the world continued to beckon her on. The second was her aversion to resuming her own work, as would certainly be necessary if Murphy did not find a job before her savings, scraped together during the blockade, were exhausted. What she shrank from was not merely an occupation that she had always found dull (Mr. Kelly was mistaken in thinking her made for the life) but also the effect its resumption must have on her relations with Murphy.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAgEBLAEsAAD/4RNHRXhpZgAATU0AKgAAAAgABwESAAMAAAABAAEAAAEaAAUA AAABAAAAYgEbAAUAAAABAAAAagEoAAMAAAABAAIAAAExAAIAAAAeAAAAcgEyAAIAAAAUAAAAkIdp AAQAAAABAAAApAAAANAALbsIAAAnEAAtuwgAACcQQWRvYmUgUGhvdG9zaG9wIENTNCBNYWNpbnRv c2gAMjAxMDowNzowNyAxNDo1NDozNQAAA6ABAAMAAAABAAEAAKACAAQAAAABAAAGbaADAAQAAAAB AAAJnwAAAAAAAAAGAQMAAwAAAAEABgAAARoABQAAAAEAAAEeARsABQAAAAEAAAEmASgAAwAAAAEA AgAAAgEABAAAAAEAAAEuAgIABAAAAAEAABIRAAAAAAAAAEgAAAABAAAASAAAAAH/2P/gABBKRklG AAECAABIAEgAAP/tAAxBZG9iZV9DTQAB/+4ADkFkb2JlAGSAAAAAAf/bAIQADAgICAkIDAkJDBEL CgsRFQ8MDA8VGBMTFRMTGBEMDAwMDAwRDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAENCwsN Dg0QDg4QFA4ODhQUDg4ODhQRDAwMDAwREQwMDAwMDBEMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwM DAwM/8AAEQgAoABrAwEiAAIRAQMRAf/dAAQAB//EAT8AAAEFAQEBAQEBAAAAAAAAAAMAAQIEBQYH CAkKCwEAAQUBAQEBAQEAAAAAAAAAAQACAwQFBgcICQoLEAABBAEDAgQCBQcGCAUDDDMBAAIRAwQh EjEFQVFhEyJxgTIGFJGhsUIjJBVSwWIzNHKC0UMHJZJT8OHxY3M1FqKygyZEk1RkRcKjdDYX0lXi ZfKzhMPTdePzRieUpIW0lcTU5PSltcXV5fVWZnaGlqa2xtbm9jdHV2d3h5ent8fX5/cRAAICAQIE BAMEBQYHBwYFNQEAAhEDITESBEFRYXEiEwUygZEUobFCI8FS0fAzJGLhcoKSQ1MVY3M08SUGFqKy gwcmNcLSRJNUoxdkRVU2dGXi8rOEw9N14/NGlKSFtJXE1OT0pbXF1eX1VmZ2hpamtsbW5vYnN0dX Z3eHl6e3x//aAAwDAQACEQMRAD8A4CSmk+KnSWB8viNp2lw3NDvzHPYN25v9lFDXOLC9jLfcf0jC 1rSA0v2XFnp7du31P0np2en6qSDKjt/LwQSfFKT4qzW1tgix9by11ZArbBgvbW8e2upnp7XfQUW2 Nc62a2FjGudWzaPaWkbPdG+zn9J6jv0v+ESRxnXTbf8As4mvPmnkozIsYXvALm+oJDQJHpPsbu2B rf0b2+xRx6xa81nTcGgHuN1tNe4f2XpJ4wLvpV/VHJ8U72PYWh35zWvEGfa8bmo7Cx7w1zqG0uMb WxLQfzmP2es6xn9f9KoZX0qf/C9P/UJIEyZAV0tFJ8U0lJJJevr4ppPikkkpfVKT4pkklP8A/9Dh GB1dQu0c17nVOrM6gCu380t/eZs2/n1pC/aIYxoYZ3tJc7dILIe6R9Fr37PT2I1VQswQ57/Tqrue bHxuIllIaxjJbvts/wAGzd/4GxDBwXHaW3Vj/SbmPI83UCqrd/VZeixiQN2DKieKtvD+9L/xxZmS awW11ta10EyS4ktO9nvJ/N/cQ2uLd0R7wWn4HX+CIcW4ZIxhtc8kbXA+wtI9Rt290fofS/Teo7/B Jz9hYdoFt8c2tc2pp/4up9V79n/Gv/63UgkGP6I4jICWn7v6MjKX/NRstcwANjR27USDp6bmu/kO Y5SF5a1zamirfG5wLi72ubY3a9x9u17Er6WVtbbW/fQ+driNrg5sepXaz3e9m5rvZ7LK3/8AW652 U0Y52X77Lh9OutzWCs/6Oyx7Lt9zf8Ixlf6L6HqJKJgaIBkTsO/B+8P6n+sYevDvUbW1lpk7xMAn 8+uudjH/APnv/BbEsjdur3EH9DVESPbsGyZ/P/fUnVVPqddjlw9OPVqsILg0nY21ljGsbbXvLWWf o631+pX/ADn5jZX06v8AwvT/AOe2oqiRxCuxBvcVw+lCkjNoaKvVvJY1wJpYPp2dt7Z+hj7v8O/6 f83R6v6T0n9Kmqtj7y51lgDm01kNIafcx9tr227PUb766m1fzf6T9Ggu4xsNda07oFLY41myPYHB hP8AKIc8af1WORvRotre7HLmWVtLzTYQ6WtG576rWNq3em33vqfV/N/4REacP7E6W3R61cw5k7tl v0fZ9FKlsslDQG7AI7W1QxxY6wD2sLWuPm/ds/8APb1FW6zh/Y7p

Скачать книгу