And they let the young Teuton vanish in the vision of mixed lives.ĭown the lane of music and chatter and drink he passed slowly, like a "German, that chap," drawled the captain of the Tsuen-Chau, lazily, noticing the uncertain military walk of the young man's clumsy legs, his uncouth clothes, his pale visage winged by blushing ears of coral pink. But presently, studying his face, they cried in a loud voice, "Nix! Alles!" and left him, as one not desiring polish. He passed unnoticed, except by the filthy little Arabīootblacks who swarmed about him, trotting, capering, yelpingĬheerfully: "Mista Ferguson!-polish, finish!-can-can-see nice Frencha girl-Mista McKenzie, Scotcha fella from Dublin-smotta picture-polish, finish!"-undertoned by a squabbling chorus. Through the inky files of the coaling-coolies burst an alien andīewildered figure. Tables, under the thin acacias, on a high tide of Amer Picon. It was mail-day, and gayety flowed among the Soldiers, khaki-clad for India, raced galloping donkeys through theĬrowded and dusty street. Hugging whiskey bottles, baskets of oranges, baskets of dates British Gowns floated past on stout Italian forms hulking third-classĪustralians, in shirtsleeves, slouched along toward their mail-boat, The sounds contended with a thin, scattered strumming of cafe mandolins, the tinkle of glasses, the steady click of dominoes and backgammon then were drowned in the harsh chatter of Arab coolies who, all grimed as black as Nubians, and shouldering spear-headed shovels, tramped inland, their long tunics stiff with coal-dust, like a band of chain-mailed Crusaders latelyĬaught in a hurricane of powdered charcoal. From the Bar la Poste came orchestral strains-"Ai nostri monti"-performed by a piano indoors and two violins on the pavement. They sat on the coolest corner in Port Said, their table commanding both the cross-way of Chareh Sultan el Osman, and the short, glaring vista of desert dust and starved young acacias which led to the black hulks of shipping in the Canal. It was "about first-drink time," as the captain of the Tsuen-Chau, bound for Shanghai and Japan ports, observed to his friend Cesare Domenico, a good British subject born at Malta. He went leaping from sight over the crest He let the inverted cup dangle from his hands Rudolph was aware of crowded bodies, of yellow faces grinning Many of us, growing older in various places, remember well your friendship, and are glad that you are there, urging our successors to look backward into good books, and forward into life. Peachey Carnehan, when he returned from Kafiristan, in bad shape but with a king's head in a bag, exclaimed to the man in the newspaper office, "And you've been sitting there ever since!" There is only a pig in the following poke and yet in giving you the string toĬut and the bag to open, I feel something of Peachey's wonder to think of you, across all this distance and change, as still sitting in your great chair by the green lamp, while past a dim background of books moves the procession of youth.
0 kommentar(er)
