Seven Days in New Crete (Penguin Modern Classics) Read Online Free Page B

the policeman pulls us up for breaking some traffic rule we don’t study his face; and we know nothing of the ticket collector, unless he questions the validity of our ticket.’ Here it took me a long time to explain policemen and ticket-collectors.
    ‘But if a beautiful woman goes by?’
    ‘The impression is as transitory as a picture in the fire. Women go by with their faces set in the same sightless mask as men: no true beauty is apparent.’
    ‘This self-protective habit of not-seeing must blunt your poetic sensibilities and impair your memory.’
    ‘Perhaps it does. Little poetry worth the name has been written in London ever since it ceased to be a country town; but Londoners are in general long-lived, and they keep their memories in notebooks and ledgers. For me, the worst is the noise.’
    ‘What sort of noise?’
    ‘I don’t mean the incidental noise of traffic – throbbing of motors, rumbling of buses and trains. One gets as inured to that as the Sudanese who live near the Cataracts get to the noise of falling water. It’s the distractive ringing of the telephone, and the music blared out by a million radios from early morning till late at night. One can never escape that for long.’
    ‘Do you mean to say that anyone can play what music he likes at any hour of the day he likes?’
    ‘Anyone who has a gramophone or can strum on a musical instrument. Otherwise he has to rely on the radio programmes. Most Londoners like to listen to music while they work, and don’t much care what sort of music it is. When they have to live in a village for more than a week or two, they get desperately bored and lonely without the noise of traffic and the interminable stream of faces and the constant summons of the telephone. So they keep the radio going all the time.’
    They all looked very grave and for a long time asked no more questions. Then Sapphire asked: ‘Would you like to go to bed now?’
    ‘Will it be safe for me to go to sleep? Shan’t I slip back into my own age?’
    ‘No. You’ll be quite safe.’
    Sally said: ‘You’ve been looking at me most of the time, and making me do all the talking. But you’re in love with Sapphire, whom you’ve hardly looked at.’
    I blushed at the suddenness of her challenge, but made no denial.
    ‘Then what are you waiting for?’ she went on. ‘You are you, not a wraith. Sapphire is Sapphire, not a vision. What holds you back?’
    ‘Compunctions of custom,’ I mumbled with an appealing glance at Sapphire, and then felt cross and stood on my dignity: ‘I don’t think you have a right to talk to me like that, Sally!’
    The effect of my words on everyone present was painful. A sort of spasm shook Sally, and her eyes filled with tears; I saw a couple of them trickle down her cheeks, though she neither sobbed nor cried. Starfish gave a little groan, and I think Fig-bread and See-a-Bird were almost equally affected. What a queer mixture of brutal frankness and sensitivity these people were!
    I dared not look at Sapphire, but I heard her say in a fairly calm voice to the rest: ‘Leave us two alone. We have a lot to say to each other.’

Chapter III
Love in New Crete
    I found it hard to face Sapphire when we were alone, but I made the effort at last. My heart was beating loudly and there was a wild singing in the air. Her eyes were grey and clear and steady. She did not seem to be embarrassed by the situation but studied me closely, her chin propped on both hands, her elbows on the table. I know women who affect this attitude when they want to appear profound and attentive and at the same time show off the manicured elegance of their hands; but Sapphire was no actress and after a time I felt like some low form of life under the microscope. She looked little more than half Sally’s age, say seventeen, and her magical responsibilities seemed to weigh so heavily on her that she could not have been in practice for more than a short time.
    ‘I’m ever so sorry,’ I