The Wedding Party Read Online Free PDF Page A

the desire for a little limelight too.
    Instead of speaking he sipped at his wine and looked at her, first at her bare arms, then at her face. Her skin was shining, golden and incredibly smooth. The arms were quite hairless. Her very light yellow hair was very smooth too and she wore it piled up, the effect being to make her seem taller than she really was. Her eyes were an extraordinarily pale transparent blue and reminded him very much of a big-belled campanula he had seen growing high up between the lake and the snows.
    Suddenly she said, rather absently:
    â€˜What is that sound I can hear all the time?’
    â€˜Oh! that? The waterfalls. There are nine or ten of them.’
    â€˜Oh! yes, of course. I remember now.’
    â€˜Do you know the valley up there? I walk up there every day. It’s a favourite walk of mine. For a time it’s all crash and bang and excitement with the water rushing down andthen gradually it’s wonderfully quiet. Absolutely still. Nothing but trees and masses of meadow flowers and crowds of butterflies.’
    She laughed. ‘Just like getting away from the menagerie.’
    â€˜Just like that.’
    She drank rather deeply at her wine, said how good she thought it was and then asked:
    â€˜How long have you been here?’
    â€˜Ten days.’
    â€˜And after this? Back to England?’
    He said no, he didn’t think so. He thought of going first to Salzburg, then Vienna and then, at the very last, to Venice.
    â€˜Venice.’
    â€˜You know it?’
    â€˜I’m afraid not.’
    â€˜All that expensive education but no Venice.’
    â€˜It was a very dull education.’ She again gave him that brief, rather twisted smile. ‘Excitements like Venice were not in the curriculum.’
    â€˜Yes, it’s exciting, Venice.’
    â€˜I always wanted to go there.’
    By now it was getting dark. Already lights were on in the
Stube
and now they also began to come on in the street outside. Little chains of them began to break out on the hillsides.
    He then noticed that her glass was almost empty. He at once said he would order more wine – that was unless she felt she should get back to the party now?
    â€˜Are you so anxious I should get back to the party?’
    â€˜No. It wasn’t that. It was just that I thought they might think it odd—’
    â€˜They know how I feel.’
    He ordered more wine. It came again in the big goblet-like glasses. He picked up his, raised it, looking straight at her, and said:
    â€˜Well, since you are not going to the party may I at least toast the bride and bridegroom?’
    â€˜The bride, but not the bridegroom.’
    So this, he said, was the reason for it all?
    â€˜Partly. But it isn’t quite so simple as that.’
    He now recalled the image of the bridegroom: the gay, gross, champagne-waving German of stentorian voice, part of the coarse triplet brotherhood on the bridge of the steamer.
    â€˜So it’s him you don’t like? I could understand that—’
    â€˜Like him? Heinrich? That monster? God above, I hate him.’ A flurry of anger rushed through her face; the restless eyes actually seemed to darken a shade or two, quite bruised. ‘Oh! for Heaven’s sake don’t let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about something decent. Those butterflies or something. Are you very fond of that sort of thing? – butterflies – flowers—’
    â€˜I’m sorry I spoke about the bridegroom. I apologise. I didn’t intend to upset you.’
    â€˜Oh! please don’t keep apologising.’
    He sipped, in silence, at his wine. He suddenly felt the intrusion on her privacy, painful as it was, to be far more ofan embarrassment to himself than to her. He felt caught in a deadlock, wretched, completely at a loss for anything to say, but a moment later she gave the most embalming of smiles, quite without bitterness, and