While Still We Live Read Online Free PDF Page B

path round the edge of the garden to the doorway in the courtyard which led to Professor Korytowski’s staircase.
    “Once a week. About. There’s always a good party on Sunday nights. Just men, and a lot of talking.”
    The night in the city seemed warm. It hadn’t the edge of the air at Korytów. But inside this courtyard, there was the sweet perfume of flowers and leaves, strangely remote from the busy streets only a hundred yards away. Sheila stepped carefully round another pail of sand at the foot of the staircase. There was still another one on the landing outside Professor Korytowski’s door.
    As they waited for the door to be opened, Sheila said, “You know, I have rather a strange feeling...” She ignored Stevens’ grin. “I should either have gone home two weeks ago—”
    “You’re dead right, there.”
    “—or,” Sheila finished, “I shouldn’t go at all. Not just now, anyway.”
    “Just when, then?”
    Sheila was thinking, what is it that he finds so funny about me? She said, “Oh, after some weeks, once the war has settled down. After all, people stayed in Paris during the last war, and did what they could to help.”
    Russell Stevens looked at her in alarm. “You are leaving, tonight!” he said determinedly. “Personally, I don’t care whether you go or stay. You are old enough to take care of yourself. But Andrew Aleksander happens to be a friend of mine, and he has asked me to see you leave. So leave you do. Even if it kills me, or what is more important, even if it loses me my job.” He glanced at his watch, and pressed the doorbell once more.
    “You have work to do?” That might explain Mr. Stevens’ impatience.
    “A mere detail of broadcasting at one o’clock in themorning.” The voice was acid, and justifiably so. Sheila felt more of a nuisance than ever. She gave Professor Korytowski a very subdued greeting. The look of worry and strain on his face didn’t ease her conscience.
    * * *
    The apartment had three rooms and a very small kitchen. There was the living-room in which Uncle Edward ate and worked and received his students, there was his small bedroom, and there was the slightly larger one which Barbara used during the University term. Before Barbara, Andrew had occupied it, and before Andrew, Stanislaw. For Uncle Edward, foreseeing the needs of numerous relatives whom he intended to set firmly into the professions, had provided the extra bedroom as a necessary economy for the family purse. Aunt Marta alone opposed him. “Someone has got to look after the land,” she had said in protest to a family of professional men; and she had registered stony disbelief when her brother replied, “By the time the children are all grown up, the State will look after that.” A more effective silencing was the way in which he transferred the Korytowski house and lands to his two widowed sisters, so that they were freed of dependence on him. For himself, he had his work. The little money which he earned was sufficient for his ideas of how a man should live. Barbara had once said, “Uncle Edward thinks that a good review of one of his articles in a University publication is more important than a bank account.” Now Sheila, standing in the bare “guest room,” with its two couches, simple furniture (she smiled as she noticed that the most important article was a bookcase, filled with an excellent choice in novels and poetry), remembered the pride in Barbara’s voice. It was easy to understand Barbara and JanReska when you remembered that.
    Sheila searched for the jug of water standing in its basin under the table. Its coldness, splashed vigorously over her face, made her feel, as well as look, better. Outside, in the narrow hall, the American was phoning. From the living-room came the sound of men’s voices. She hurriedly combed the wind tangles out of her hair. (“I’m afraid we don’t have much time left, Miss Matthews,” Professor Korytowski had said, which was his polite