Fleurs du Mal Magazine
Or see the index
Regret
Mamzelle Aurelie possessed a good strong figure, ruddy cheeks, hair that was changing from brown to gray, and a determined eye. She wore a man’s hat about the farm, and an old blue army overcoat when it was cold, and sometimes top-boots.
Mamzelle Aurélie had never thought of marrying. She had never been in love. At the age of twenty she had received a proposal, which she had promptly declined, and at the age of fifty she had not yet lived to regret it.
So she was quite alone in the world, except for her dog Ponto, and the negroes who lived in her cabins and worked her crops, and the fowls, a few cows, a couple of mules, her gun (with which she shot chicken-hawks), and her religion.
One morning Mamzelle Aurélie stood upon her gallery, contemplating, with arms akimbo, a small band of very small children who, to all intents and purposes, might have fallen from the clouds, so unexpected and bewildering was their coming, and so unwelcome. They were the children of her nearest neighbor, Odile, who was not such a near neighbor, after all.
The young woman had appeared but five minutes before, accompanied by these four children. In her arms she carried little Élodie; she dragged Ti Nomme by an unwilling hand; while Marcéline and Marcélette followed with irresolute steps.
Her face was red and disfigured from tears and excitement. She had been summoned to a neighboring parish by the dangerous illness of her mother; her husband was away in Texas — it seemed to her a million miles away; and Valsin was waiting with the mule-cart to drive her to the station.
“It’s no question, Mamzelle Aurélie; you jus’ got to keep those youngsters fo’ me tell I come back. Dieu sait, I wouldn’ botha you with ’em if it was any otha way to do! Make ’em mine you, Mamzelle Aurélie; don’ spare ’em. Me, there, I’m half crazy between the chil’ren, an’ Léon not home, an’ maybe not even to fine po’ maman alive encore!” — a harrowing possibility which drove Odile to take a final hasty and convulsive leave of her disconsolate family.
She left them crowded into the narrow strip of shade on the porch of the long, low house; the white sunlight was beating in on the white old boards; some chickens were scratching in the grass at the foot of the steps, and one had boldly mounted, and was stepping heavily, solemnly, and aimlessly across the gallery. There was a pleasant odor of pinks in the air, and the sound of negroes’ laughter was coming across the flowering cotton-field.
Mamzelle Aurélie stood contemplating the children. She looked with a critical eye upon Marcéline, who had been left staggering beneath the weight of the chubby Élodie. She surveyed with the same calculating air Marcélette mingling her silent tears with the audible grief and rebellion of Ti Nomme. During those few contemplative moments she was collecting herself, determining upon a line of action which should be identical with a line of duty. She began by feeding them.
If Mamzelle Aurélie’s responsibilities might have begun and ended there, they could easily have been dismissed; for her larder was amply provided against an emergency of this nature. But little children are not little pigs: they require and demand attentions which were wholly unexpected by Mamzelle Aurélie, and which she was ill prepared to give.
She was, indeed, very inapt in her management of Odile’s children during the first few days. How could she know that Marcélette always wept when spoken to in a loud and commanding tone of voice? It was a peculiarity of Marcélette’s. She became acquainted with Ti Nomme’s passion for flowers only when he had plucked all the choicest gardenias and pinks for the apparent purpose of critically studying their botanical construction.
“‘T ain’t enough to tell ‘im, Mamzelle Aurélie,” Marcéline instructed her; “you got to tie ‘im in a chair. It’s w’at maman all time do w’en he’s bad: she tie ‘im in a chair.” The chair in which Mamzelle Aurélie tied Ti Nomme was roomy and comfortable, and he seized the opportunity to take a nap in it, the afternoon being warm.
At night, when she ordered them one and all to bed as she would have shooed the chickens into the hen-house, they stayed uncomprehending before her. What about the little white nightgowns that had to be taken from the pillow-slip in which they were brought over, and shaken by some strong hand till they snapped like ox-whips? What about the tub of water which had to be brought and set in the middle of the floor, in which the little tired, dusty, sun-browned feet had every one to be washed sweet and clean? And it made Marcéline and Marcélette laugh merrily — the idea that Mamzelle Aurélie should for a moment have believed that Ti Nomme could fall asleep without being told the story of Croque-mitaine or Loup-garou, or both; or that Élodie could fall asleep at all without being rocked and sung to.
“I tell you, Aunt Ruby,” Mamzelle Aurélie informed her cook in confidence; “me, I’d rather manage a dozen plantation’ than fo’ chil’ren. It’s terrassent! Bonté! don’t talk to me about chil’ren!”
“T ain’ ispected sich as you would know airy thing ’bout ’em, Mamzelle Aurélie. I see dat plainly yistiddy w’en I spy dat li’le chile playin’ wid yo’ baskit o’ keys. You don’ know dat makes chillun grow up hard-headed, to play wid keys? Des like it make ’em teeth hard to look in a lookin’-glass. Them’s the things you got to know in the raisin’ an’ manigement o’ chillun.”
Mamzelle Aurélie certainly did not pretend or aspire to such subtle and far-reaching knowledge on the subject as Aunt Ruby possessed, who had “raised five an’ buried six” in her day. She was glad enough to learn a few little mother-tricks to serve the moment’s need.
Ti Nomme’s sticky fingers compelled her to unearth white aprons that she had not worn for years, and she had to accustom herself to his moist kisses — the expressions of an affectionate and exuberant nature. She got down her sewing-basket, which she seldom used, from the top shelf of the armoire, and placed it within the ready and easy reach which torn slips and buttonless waists demanded. It took her some days to become accustomed to the laughing, the crying, the chattering that echoed through the house and around it all day long. And it was not the first or the second night that she could sleep comfortably with little Élodie’s hot, plump body pressed close against her, and the little one’s warm breath beating her cheek like the fanning of a bird’s wing.
But at the end of two weeks Mamzelle Aurélie had grown quite used to these things, and she no longer complained.
It was also at the end of two weeks that Mamzelle Aurélie, one evening, looking away toward the crib where the cattle were being fed, saw Valsin’s blue cart turning the bend of the road. Odile sat beside the mulatto, upright and alert. As they drew near, the young woman’s beaming face indicated that her home-coming was a happy one.
But this coming, unannounced and unexpected, threw Mamzelle Aurélie into a flutter that was almost agitation. The children had to be gathered. Where was Ti Nomme? Yonder in the shed, putting an edge on his knife at the grindstone. And Marcéline and Marcélette? Cutting and fashioning doll-rags in the corner of the gallery. As for Élodie, she was safe enough in Mamzelle Aurélie’s arms; and she had screamed with delight at sight of the familiar blue cart which was bringing her mother back to her.
The excitement was all over, and they were gone. How still it was when they were gone! Mamzelle Aurélie stood upon the gallery, looking and listening. She could no longer see the cart; the red sunset and the blue-gray twilight had together flung a purple mist across the fields and road that hid it from her view. She could no longer hear the wheezing and creaking of its wheels. But she could still faintly hear the shrill, glad voices of the children.
She turned into the house. There was much work awaiting her, for the children had left a sad disorder behind them; but she did not at once set about the task of righting it. Mamzelle Aurélie seated herself beside the table. She gave one slow glance through the room, into which the evening shadows were creeping and deepening around her solitary figure. She let her head fall down upon her bended arm, and began to cry. Oh, but she cried! Not softly, as women often do. She cried like a man, with sobs that seemed to tear her very soul. She did not notice Ponto licking her hand.
Kate Chopin (1850 – 1904)
Regret
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Chopin, Kate
A hardcover omnibus edition of the French writer’s most famous novel alongside her fascinating wartime writings and a collection of searingly honest and intimate autobiographical essays.
Marguerite Duras was one of the leading intellectuals and novelists of post-war France, but her wartime writings were not published in full until after her death. The Wartime Notebooks trace Duras’s formative experiences–including her difficult childhood in Indochina and her harrowing wait for her husband’s return from Nazi internment–revealing the personal history behind her bestselling novels.
The Lover is the best known of these; set in prewar Indochina, its haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her wealthy Chinese lover is based on her own life. In spare and luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins in the waning days of France’s colonial empire, and the passionate relationship between two unforgettable outcasts.
Practicalities is a collection of small and intensely personal pieces Duras dictated near the end of her life. These deceptively simple meditations on motherhood, domesticity, sex, love, alcohol, writing, and more are witty, earthy, outspoken, and surprisingly fresh and relevant today.
Marguerite Duras is the author of many acclaimed novels and screenplays, including The Lover, The Ravishing of Lol Stein, and the film script for Hiroshima, Mon Amour. One of France’s most important literary figures, Duras died in Paris in 1996.
The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities
By Marguerite Duras
Introduction by Rachel Kushner
Part of Everyman’s Library Contemporary Classics Series
Category: Historical- Literary- Fiction
Hardcover,
Nov 14, 2017,
504 Pages
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Bookstores, Archive C-D, Art & Literature News, Marguerite Duras
Wide-ranging interviews on war, power, and politics with Noam Chomsky, the world’s leading critic of US foreign policy.
This volume offers readers a concise and accessible introduction to the ideas of Noam Chomsky, described by the New York Times as “arguably the most important intellectual alive.”
In these recent, wide-ranging interviews, conducted for Truthout by C. J. Polychroniou, Chomsky discusses his views on the “war on terror” and the rise of neoliberalism, the refugee crisis and cracks in the European Union, prospects for a just peace in Israel/Palestine, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, the dysfunctional US electoral system, the grave danger posed to humanity by the climate crisis, and the hopes, prospects, and challenges of building a movement for radical change.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. His work is widely credited with having revolutionized the field of modern linguistics. He is the author of numerous best-selling political works, which have been translated into scores of languages worldwide.
C. J. Polychroniou is a regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project. He has published several books and his articles have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers, and popular news websites.
“This fascinating series of interviews convincingly covers an astonishing range of fundamental and urgent issues of societal concern, demonstrating anew that Noam Chomsky is the world’s most humane, philosophically sophisticated, and knowledgeable public intellectual. I cannot imagine a better primer for anyone seeking a better, safer, fairer future.” —Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University
Optimism over Despair
On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change
by Noam Chomsky and C.J. Polychroniou
Paperback,
180 pages
Haymarket Books
ISBN: 9781608467990
August 2017
$16.95
new books
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Book Stories, Archive C-D, Archive O-P, Art & Literature News, MONTAIGNE, Noam Chomsky
Manche Geheimnisse sind so groß, dass wir sie nicht nur vor der Welt, sondern auch vor uns selbst verstecken müssen. Es beginnt als Liebesgeschichte.
Im New York der frühen 70er Jahre werden Lili und Duke ein Paar: Sie, die Tochter einer weißen Intellektuellen-Familie, mit allen Möglichkeiten aufgewachsen, die sich jedoch für die Arbeit als Krankenschwester entschieden hat und er, der schwarze junge Mann aus dem Süden. Sie leben eine Liebe, die verheerende Zerstörung in Kauf nimmt und doch alles zu verzeihen scheint. Während Duke zu einem gefeierten Weinexperten avanciert, wird die verträumte Lili als Model entdeckt. Ihr gemeinsames Leben entwickelt sich schnell zu einem rasanten Auf und Ab, voller Möglichkeiten, Verführungen, Rückschläge. Ihre Liebe scheint jedoch unzerbrechlich. Erkennt Duke jede noch so kleine Facette eines besonderen Weines, so entgehen ihm meist die Hintergedanken und Manipulationen der Menschen.
Ganz anders Lili, die wie gemacht scheint für das Spiel mit der Oberfläche, das die Mode- und Werbewelt beherrscht. Beide verlassen sich aufeinander, doch hinter Lilis Schönheit, ihrem Charme, ihrer Klugheit und Raffinesse, verbirgt sich nicht zuletzt eine mörderische Wut, die alles und jeden zu verschlingen droht.
Mit Schwarz und Weiß durchschreitet Irene Dische die letzten drei Jahrzehnte des letzten Jahrtausends, um nichts weniger als unsere Gegenwart auszuleuchten. Was als großartiger, scharfsinniger wie auch scharfzüngiger New York-Roman beginnt, entwickelt sich nach und nach zu einer brillanten Auseinandersetzung mit Projektionen und Heilsversprechen, mit individuellen Träumen und sozialen Realitäten. Ein Roman, der große Fragen stellt, ohne sich der Illusion auf Antworten hinzugeben.
Irene Dische wurde in New York geboren. Heute lebt sie in Berlin und Rhinebeck. Bei Hoffmann und Campe erschienen unter anderem der Romanerfolg Großmama packt aus (2005), der Erzählungsband Lieben (2006) sowie die Neuausgaben ihres gefeierten Debüts Fromme Lügen (2007) und Veränderungen über einen Deutschen oder Ein fremdes Gefühl (2008). 2017 erscheinen ihre sämtlichen Erzählungen in dem Sammelband Zum Lügen ist es nie zu spät und der lang erwartete neue Roman Schwarz auf Weiß.
Irene Dische
Schwarz auf Weiß
EAN: 9783455404777
ISBN: 3455404774
Übersetzt von Elisabeth Plessen
Hoffmann u Campe Vlg GmbH
Oktober 2017
496 Seiten
Buch gebunden
€26,00
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Bookstores, Archive C-D, Art & Literature News
Met De lenige liefde (1969) werd Herman de Coninck op slag de populairste dichter van Vlaanderen, ‘de man die zijn volk poëzie leerde lezen’.
Ook als leraar, journalist en geëngageerd hoofdredacteur van het Nieuw Wereldtijdschrift was hij van grote betekenis.
Na een leven vol poëzie bezweek hij in 1997 op een literair congres in Lissabon aan een hartaanval.
Nu is er dan eindelijk een biografie van de hand van Thomas Eyskens op basis van vele gesprekken met familie, vrienden en collega’s, nooit eerder gepubliceerd fotomateriaal en nagelaten correspondentie. Een rijk portret van ‘leven en werken, schrijven en liefhebben’.
Thomas Eyskens
Toen met een lijst van nu errond
Herman de Coninck biografie
Hardcover
ISBN: 9789029511407
Prijs: € 34,99
Publicatiedatum: 03-10-2017
Herman de Coninck biografie
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Book Stories, Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Art & Literature News, BIOGRAPHY, Coninck, Herman de, DEAD POETS CORNER
Chroniqueur judiciaire, Jack McEvoy ne peut croire au suicide de son frère jumeau.
Si Sean, inspecteur de police, s’est bien tiré une balle dans la bouche, que vient faire ce Hors de l’espace, hors du temps d’Edgar Allan Poe écrit sur le pare-brise de sa voiture ? Et pourquoi Rusher, un indic qu’il devait voir ce jour-là, reste-t-il introuvable ? En s’immisçant dans une base de données du FBI pour les besoins d’un article, McEvoy découvre avec stupéfaction que beaucoup de policiers se suicident et que le FBI mène l’enquête sur la mort de son frère. Il comprend alors que cette affaire est en passe de lui fournir son plus gros scoop sur des meurtres en série. Mais il pressent aussi qu’il est devenu la prochaine cible du suspect…
Le classique absolu pour les fans de romans policiers.
Un livre au suspense implacable qui [a placé] Connelly au même niveau que Raymond Chandler ou James Ellroy, et l’[a fait] connaître dans le monde entier. François Busnel, Lire.
Prix Mystère de la critique en 1998.
Le Livre de Poche
Le Poète
Michael Connelly
Polar
Paru le: 06 Septembre 2017
Format: 112 x 178 mm
768 pages
Ean: 9782253085867
Prix: € 9.10
new books
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book Lovers, - Book News, Archive C-D, Art & Literature News, Tales of Mystery & Imagination
Ceci n’est pas un livre d’histoire, et pourtant tout y est avéré. C’est le roman vrai des derniers feux de la monarchie, la chronique d’une civilisation au raffinement inégalé, et que 1789 emportera à jamais.
Le roman vrai de sept destins, chacun emblématique et unique à la fois. Des aristocrates de haut lignage, dotés des vertus dont tout noble doit s’enorgueillir : fierté, courage, raffinement, culture, esprit, art de plaire.
Ils se connaissent, sont cousins ou rivaux, libertins dans une société où l’on veut aimer à sa guise, puisque le mariage y est de convenance. Maîtresses officielles ou secrètes, liaisons épistolaires et enflammées, dépit, faveur, puis disgrâce… Jamais l’art de conquérir ne fut porté à cette incandescence.
Chacun d’eux, en même temps, veut se forger un destin. Prétendant aux plus hautes fonctions au service du Roi, ils devront composer avec la cour où les alliances se font et se défont au gré d’intrigues savantes et souvent cruelles. On croisera Talleyrand, Laclos, Marie-Antoinette dans la légèreté de ses vingt ans, les chroniques savoureuses du prince de Ligne ou de la comtesse de Boigne, les billets, les poèmes que cette élite lettrée et cosmopolite s’échange à chaque heure du jour.
Ils sont aussi les enfants des Lumières, et accueillent avec d’autant plus d’intérêt les idées nouvelles qu’ils croient possible de les concilier avec leurs propres privilèges. Mais la Révolution balayera cet espoir. Certains prendront les armes, d’autres le chemin de l’exil ; ce sera la ruine, la guillotine pour deux d’entre eux. Pour tous, la fin d’un monde.
Avec une plume enjouée et complice qui rappelle les meilleurs mémorialistes, Benedetta Craveri a composé ici un magnifique hommage à cette génération perdue qui incarna, plus qu’aucune autre, une certaine douceur de vivre.
Benedetta Craveri
Les Derniers Libertins
Traduction (Italien): Dominique Vittoz
2016
Editeur Flammarion
Collection ESSAIS
640 pages
155 x 240 cm
Couleur – Broché
EAN : 9782081249318
ISBN : 9782081249318
26,00€
new books
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Book Stories, Archive C-D, Art & Literature News, MONTAIGNE
Global Discontents is a compelling set of interviews with Noam Chomsky, who identifies the “dry kindling” of discontent around the world that could soon catch fire.
In wide-ranging interviews with David Barsamian, his longtime interlocutor, Noam Chomsky asks us to consider “the world we are leaving to our grandchildren”: one imperiled by the escalation of climate change and the growing potential for nuclear war. If the current system is incapable of dealing with these threats, he argues, it’s up to us to radically change it.
These ten interviews, conducted from 2013 to 2016, examine the latest developments around the globe: the devastation of Syria, the reach of state surveillance, growing anger over economic inequality, the place of religion in American political culture, and the bitterly contested 2016 U.S. presidential election. In accompanying personal reflections on his Philadelphia childhood and his eighty-seventh birthday, Chomsky also describes his own intellectual journey and the development of his uncompromising stance as America’s premier dissident intellectual.
Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political works, including Hegemony or Survival and Failed States. A professor emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, he is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.
David Barsamian, director of the award-winning and widely syndicated Alternative Radio, is a winner of the Lannan Foundation’s Cultural Freedom Fellowship and the ACLU’s Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Global Discontents
Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy
Noam Chomsky: Interviews with David Barsamian
Trade Paperback
$18.00
Metropolitan Books
Henry Holt and Co.
12/05/2017
ISBN: 9781250146182
240 Pages
new books
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Book Stories, Archive A-B, Archive C-D, Art & Literature News, MONTAIGNE, Noam Chomsky
In popular imagination, London is a city of fog. The classic London fogs, the thick yellow “pea-soupers,” were born in the industrial age of the early nineteenth century.
The first globally notorious instance of air pollution, they remained a constant feature of cold, windless winter days until clean air legislation in the 1960s brought about their demise. Christine L. Corton tells the story of these epic London fogs, their dangers and beauty, and their lasting effects on our culture and imagination.
As the city grew, smoke from millions of domestic fires, combined with industrial emissions and naturally occurring mists, seeped into homes, shops, and public buildings in dark yellow clouds of water droplets, soot, and sulphur dioxide. The fogs were sometimes so thick that people could not see their own feet.
By the time London’s fogs lifted in the second half of the twentieth century, they had changed urban life. Fogs had created worlds of anonymity that shaped social relations, providing a cover for crime, and blurring moral and social boundaries.
They had been a gift to writers, appearing famously in the works of Charles Dickens, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, and T. S. Eliot. Whistler and Monet painted London fogs with a fascination other artists reserved for the clear light of the Mediterranean.
Corton combines historical and literary sensitivity with an eye for visual drama—generously illustrated here—to reveal London fog as one of the great urban spectacles of the industrial age.
Christine L. Corton is a Senior Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and a freelance writer. She worked for many years at publishing houses in London.
London Fog
The Biography
Christine L. Corton
Paperback – 2017
408 pages
28 color illustrations, 63 halftones
Belknap Press / Harvard University Press
ISBN 9780674979819
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Book Stories, Archive C-D, Art & Literature News, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Eliot, T. S., FDM in London, Natural history, Tales of Mystery & Imagination
Louis Couperus en Marius Bauer woonden allebei lange tijd in Den Haag, maar kwamen elkaar daar nooit tegen.
Toch waren zij zielsverwanten: zij smachtten beiden naar de pracht en praal van het betoverende Oosten, de sprookjeswereld van Duizend-en-één-nacht. Ter gelegenheid van de honderdvijftigste geboortedag van Marius Bauer organiseert het Louis Couperus Museum alsnog een adembenemende ontmoeting, op de tentoonstelling De Oriënt verkend. Op reis met Louis Couperus en Marius Bauer, van 21 mei t/m 8 oktober 2017.
Marius Bauer (1867-1932) werd al in zijn eigen tijd gezien als een formidabel kunstenaar. Op zijn reizen door India, Egypte, Turkije, Rusland, Noord-Afrika en Palestina maakte hij vele schetsen en tekeningen. Die werkte hij thuis uit tot oriëntaalse olieverfschilderijen, etsen en aquarellen die bij het publiek zeer in de smaak vielen. Drie keer bezocht Bauer Algerije, de laatste twee keren begin jaren twintig. Rond diezelfde tijd heeft Louis Couperus (1863-1923) ook in Algerije een half jaar rondgereisd. Hij schreef over de Franse kolonie eenentwintig reisbrieven, die in het weekblad Haagsche Post (en later in boekvorm) zijn verschenen. Net als Bauer zag hij in Algerije veel van zijn oosterse dromen terug. Maar was zijn droom ook bestand tegen de harde realiteit?
Op de tentoonstelling volgen we de reizigers Couperus en Bauer aan de hand van manuscripten, unieke reisdocumenten en oude foto’s, afgewisseld met schetsen, aquarellen en schilderijen van Marius Bauer. In de vitrines liggen ook reisverslagen van tijdgenoten, oude reisgidsen, ansichtkaarten, sieraden en andere kostbare voorwerpen uit de Oriënt, uit zowel museale als particuliere collecties. In de tuinkamer van het museum is een ware Oriëntaalse kamer ingericht.
De Oriënt verkend. Op reis met Louis Couperus en Marius Bauer wordt samengesteld door José Buschman en Willemien de Vlieger-Moll. Bij de tentoonstelling verscheen het boek Couperus in de Oriënt van José Buschman
De oriënt verkend.
Op reis met Louis Couperus en Marius Bauer
21 mei 2017 – 8 oktober 2017
Louis Couperus Museum
Javastraat 17
2585 AB Den Haag
070-3640653
Openingstijden
Woensdag t/m zondag 12.00-17.00 uur
Voor groepen ook op afspraak
# meer info op website louis couperus museum
Nieuwe publicatie door José Buschman:
Couperus in de Oriënt
Ter gelegenheid van de tentoonstelling De Oriënt verkend. Op reis met Louis Couperus en Marius Bauer in het Louis Couperus Museum heeft José Buschman haar eerdere, veelgeprezen onderzoek Een dandy in de Oriënt. Louis Couperus in Afrika hernieuwd. Met vele onbekende foto’s, recente vondsten en verrassende citaten reconstrueert zij Couperus’ lange tocht door de woestijn.
Door hun levendigheid hebben de reisboeken van Louis Couperus altijd de aandacht getrokken maar het curieuze Met Louis Couperus in Afrika uit 1921 vormt hierop de uitzondering. Couperus reisde zes maanden rond in Algerije en Tunesië, de Haagse schilder Marius Bauer bezocht Noord-Afrika een jaar later. Zijn schetsen ademen de oosterse schoonheid die ook Couperus zo kon bekoren. Anders dan bij Bauer lijkt bij Couperus de oriëntaalse vervoering gaandeweg te zijn verdwenen. Was zijn esthetische kijk wel opgewassen tegen de realiteit van de Franse overheersing, de islam en de armoede?
José Buschman is historica. Zij was medeoprichtster van het Louis Couperus Genootschap. Naast literaire gidsen door het Den Haag van Couperus en F. Bordewijk publiceerde zij Couperus Culinair, de lievelingsgerechten van Louis Couperus.
192 pagina’s
16,8 X 22 cm
ca. 80 afbeeldingen
gebonden met stofomslag
geheel in kleur
vormgeving Bart van den Tooren
Uitg. Bas Lubberhuizen
ISBN 9789059375017
2017, € 19,99
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Book Stories, Archive C-D, Art & Literature News, Exhibition Archive, Illustrators, Illustration, Louis Couperus, Tales of Mystery & Imagination
Refreshing, witty, and absolutely close to the heart, Core’s twenty stories, set in and around New York City, have an other-worldly quality along with a deep seriousness—even a moral seriousness.
What we know of identity is smashed and in its place, true individuals emerge, each bristling with a unique sexuality, a belief-system all their own. Reminiscent of Jane Bowles, William Burroughs, and Colette, her writing glows with an authenticity that is intoxicating and rare.
When Watched
Stories (2016)
By Leopoldine Core
Paperback
Aug 2016
240 Pages
ISBN10 0143128698
Penguin Books
Literary Awards:
Whiting Award Winner
PEN/Hemingway Award Finalist
Lambda Literary Award Finalist
Longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction & The Story Prize
“Core’s stories have a voyeuristic quality, like peering through the windows of a groundfloor apartment as you walk by. . . . Core’s narrative voice has earned her comparisons to Mary Gaitskill, Jane Bowles and even William Burroughs, but these references don’t do justice to the intimacy and relative gentleness with which the author treats her group of modern, often millennial drifters. . . . Core captures a precious slice of what it is to be human. . . . She reaches moments of extraordinary grace.”
—Alexandra Kleeman, The New York Times Book Review
“Core’s prose isn’t fancy, but it’s gemstone smooth, and that’s its most important quality: the writing is a seamless, nearly translucent vehicle that connects us to the tangled brushwork of her characters—their sorrows and desires and their so many attempts at striving for human intimacy more profound than strained conversations.”
—The Paris Review Daily
Leopoldine Core was born and raised in New York’s East Village and graduated from Hunter College. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in The Paris Review Daily, Open City, PEN America and Apology Magazine, among others. She is the recipient of a 2015 Whiting Award for fiction, as well as fellowships from The Center for Fiction and The Fine Arts Work Center. Author of the poetry collection Veronica Bench, Core lives in New York.
(. . .)
I’ve thought hard about this.
I’ve dug a dirt hole in my own
bedroom and lived there
rubbing my clit with a penny
under my blanket
there’s an old sandwich
and a jewel.
(from poem: ITS NOT SILENCE)
Veronica Bench
Poems (2015)
By Leopoldine Core
“I like that Leopoldine’s last name is Core because that is what her poems are: essential (like heaven on earth) and ephemeral (as in apple core). Her talent’s in world-making, conjuring dialogic, chimeric moods that dust up an effet-monde only to let it drop casually, a strip-club curtain. Her zen-archery ease with poetry almost lets you forget how hard it really is to write like this: to be ‘gutting with text’ one’s visions—writing not *about* God & sex but simply writing them. Her fluctuating registers and the sweet, cocky, somewhat lapidary sense of space on the page make me think of Han Shan or St. Giraud of the Naomi Poems. Core should write forever.” —Ana Božičević
“It’s hard to read these poems without falling in love—at least for an afternoon—with Leopoldine. She isn’t speaking so much as flying.” —Sparrow
# More information on website Penguin Books
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, Archive C-D, Archive C-D, EDITOR'S CHOICE
The Red-headed League
by Arthur Conan Doyle
I had called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn of last year, and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman, with fiery red hair. With an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw, when Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room, and closed the door behind me.
“You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson,” he said cordially.
“I was afraid that you were engaged.”
“So I am. Very much so.”
“Then I can wait in the next room.”
“Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no doubt that he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also.”
The stout gentleman half rose from his chair, and gave a bob of greeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small, fat-encircled eyes.
“Try the settee,” said Holmes, relapsing into his armchair, and putting his fingertips together, as was his custom when in judicial moods. “I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of every-day life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures.”
“Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me,” I observed.
“You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.”
“A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting.”
“You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right. Now, Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to be one of the most singular which I have listened to for some time. You have heard me remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes, and occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any positive crime has been committed. As far as I have heard, it is impossible for me to say whether the present case is an instance of crime or not, but the course of events is certainly among the most singular that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you would have the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask you, not merely because my friend Dr. Watson has not heard the opening part, but also because the peculiar nature of the story makes me anxious to have every possible detail from your lips. As a rule, when I have heard some slight indication of the course of events, I am able to guide myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to my memory. In the present instance I am forced to admit that the facts are, to the best of my belief, unique.”
The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some little pride, and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the inside pocket of his greatcoat. As he glanced down the advertisement column, with his head thrust forward, and the paper flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the man, and endeavoured, after the fashion of my companion, to read the indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance.
I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy gray shepherd’s check trousers, a not overclean black frockcoat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed top hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head, and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features.
Sherlock Holmes’ quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. “Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.”
Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.
“How, in the name of good fortune, did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?” he asked. “How did you know, for example, that I did manual labour. It’s as true as gospel, for I began as a ship’s carpenter.”
“Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more developed.”
“Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?”
“I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that, especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use an arc and compass breastpin.”
“Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?”
“What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk.”
“Well, but China?”
“The fish which you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks, and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes’ scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple.”
Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. “Well, I never!” said he. “I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it after all.”
“I begin to think, Watson,” said Holmes, “that I make a mistake in explaining. ‘Omne ignotum pro magnifico,’ you know, and my poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid. Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?”
“Yes, I have got it now,” he answered, with his thick, red finger planted half-way down the column. “Here it is. This is what began it all. You just read it for yourself, sir.”
I took the paper from him, and read as follows:—
“To the Red-Headed League. On account of the bequest of the late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Penn., U.S.A., there is now another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League to a salary of four pounds a week for purely nominal services. All red-headed men who are sound in body and mind, and above the age of twenty-one years, are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at eleven o’clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League, 7, Pope’s-court, Fleet-street.”
“What on earth does this mean?” I ejaculated, after I had twice read over the extraordinary announcement.
Holmes chuckled, and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in high spirits. “It is a little off the beaten track, isn’t it?” said he. “And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch, and tell us all about yourself, your household, and the effect which this advertisement had upon your fortunes. You will first make a note, Doctor, of the paper and the date.”
“It is The Morning Chronicle, of April 27, 1890. Just two months ago.”
“Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson?”
“Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead, “I have a small pawnbroker’s business at Coburg-square, near the City. It’s not a very large affair, and of late years it has not done more than just give me a living. I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now I only keep one; and I would have a job to pay him, but that he is willing to come for half wages, so as to learn the business.”
“What is the name of this obliging youth?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
“His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he’s not such a youth either. It’s hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter assistant, Mr. Holmes; and I know very well that he could better himself, and earn twice what I am able to give him. But after all, if he is satisfied, why should I put ideas in his head?”
“Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an employé who comes under the full market price. It is not a common experience among employers in this age. I don’t know that your assistant is not as remarkable as your advertisement.”
“Oh, he has his faults, too,” said Mr. Wilson. “Never was such a fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main fault; but, on the whole, he’s a good worker. There’s no vice in him.”
“He is still with you, I presume?”
“Yes, sir. He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple cooking, and keeps the place clean—that’s all I have in the house, for I am a widower, and never had any family. We live very quietly, sir, the three of us; and we keep a roof over our heads, and pay our debts, if we do nothing more.
“The first thing that put us out was that advertisement. Spaulding, he came down into the office just this day eight weeks with this very paper in his hand, and he says:—
“‘I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.’
“‘Why that?’ I asks.
“‘Why,’ says he, ‘here’s another vacancy on the League of the Red-headed Men. It’s worth quite a little fortune to any man who gets it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than there are men, so that the trustees are at their wits’ end what to do with the money. If my hair would only change colour, here’s a nice little crib all ready for me to step into.’
“‘Why, what is it, then?’ I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a very stay-at-home man, and, as my business came to me instead of my having to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting my foot over the door-mat. In that way I didn’t know much of what was going on outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news.
“‘Have you never heard of the League of the Red-headed Men?’ he asked, with his eyes open.
“‘Never.’
“‘Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one of the vacancies.’
“‘And what are they worth?’ I asked.
“‘Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight, and it need not interfere very much with one’s other occupations.’
“Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, for the business has not been over good for some years, and an extra couple of hundred would have been very handy.
“‘Tell me all about it,’ said I.
“‘Well,’ said he, showing me the advertisement, ‘you can see for yourself that the League has a vacancy, and there is the address where you should apply for particulars. As far as I can make out, the League was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah Hopkins, who was very peculiar in his ways. He was himself red-headed, and he had a great sympathy for all red-headed men; so, when he died, it was found that he had left his enormous fortune in the hands of trustees, with instructions to apply the interest to the providing of easy berths to men whose hair is of that colour. From all I hear it is splendid pay, and very little to do.’
“‘But,’ said I, ‘there would be millions of red-headed men who would apply.’
“‘Not so many as you might think,’ he answered. ‘You see it is really confined to Londoners, and to grown men. This American had started from London when he was young, and he wanted to do the old town a good turn. Then, again, I have heard it is no use your applying if your hair is light red, or dark red, or anything but real, bright, blazing, fiery red. Now, if you cared to apply, Mr. Wilson, you would just walk in; but perhaps it would hardly be worth your while to put yourself out of the way for the sake of a few hundred pounds.’
“Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, that my hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed to me that, if there was to be any competition in the matter, I stood as good a chance as any man that I had ever met. Vincent Spaulding seemed to know so much about it that I thought he might prove useful, so I just ordered him to put up the shutters for the day, and to come right away with me. He was very willing to have a holiday, so we shut the business up, and started off for the address that was given us in the advertisement.
“I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From north, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in his hair had tramped into the City to answer the advertisement. Fleet-street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope’s-court looked like a coster’s orange barrow. I should not have thought there were so many in the whole country as were brought together by that single advertisement. Every shade of colour they were—straw, lemon, orange, brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but, as Spaulding said, there were not many who had the real vivid flame-coloured tint. When I saw how many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding would not hear of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right up to the steps which led to the office. There was a double stream upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back dejected; but we wedged in as well as we could, and soon found ourselves in the office.”
“Your experience has been a most entertaining one,” remarked Holmes, as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge pinch of snuff. “Pray continue your very interesting statement.”
“There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs and a deal table, behind which sat a small man, with a head that was even redder than mine. He said a few words to each candidate as he came up, and then he always managed to find some fault in them which would disqualify them. Getting a vacancy did not seem to be such a very easy matter after all. However, when our turn came, the little man was much more favourable to me than to any of the others, and he closed the door as we entered, so that he might have a private word with us.
“‘This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,’ said my assistant, ‘and he is willing to fill a vacancy in the League.’
“‘And he is admirably suited for it,’ the other answered. ‘He has every requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen anything so fine.’ He took a step backwards, cocked his head on one side, and gazed at my hair until I felt quite bashful. Then suddenly he plunged forward, wrung my hand, and congratulated me warmly on my success.
“‘It would be injustice to hesitate,’ said he. ‘You will, however, I am sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.’ With that he seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I yelled with the pain. ‘There is water in your eyes,’ said he, as he released me. ‘I perceive that all is as it should be. But we have to be careful, for we have twice been deceived by wigs and once by paint. I could tell you tales of cobbler’s wax which would disgust you with human nature.’ He stepped over to the window, and shouted through it at the top of his voice that the vacancy was filled. A groan of disappointment came up from below, and the folk all trooped away in different directions, until there was not a red head to be seen except my own and that of the manager.
“‘My name,’ said he, ‘is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of the pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. Are you a married man, Mr. Wilson? Have you a family?’
“I answered that I had not.
“His face fell immediately.
“‘Dear me!’ he said, gravely, ‘that is very serious indeed! I am sorry to hear you say that. The fund was, of course, for the propagation and spread of the red-heads as well as for their maintenance. It is exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a bachelor.’
“My face lengthened at this, Mr. Holmes, for I thought that I was not to have the vacancy after all; but, after thinking it over for a few minutes, he said that it would be all right.
“‘In the case of another,’ said he, ‘the objection might be fatal, but we must stretch a point in favour of a man with such a head of hair as yours. When shall you be able to enter upon your new duties?’
“‘Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,’ said I.
“‘Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!’ said Vincent Spaulding. ‘I shall be able to look after that for you.’
“‘What would be the hours?’ I asked.
“‘Ten to two.’
“Now a pawnbroker’s business is mostly done of an evening, Mr. Holmes, especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is just before pay-day; so it would suit me very well to earn a little in the mornings. Besides, I knew that my assistant was a good man, and that he would see to anything that turned up.
“‘That would suit me very well,’ said I. ‘And the pay?’
“‘Is four pounds a week.’
“‘And the work?’
“‘Is purely nominal.’
“‘What do you call purely nominal?’
“‘Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building, the whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole position for ever. The will is very clear upon that point. You don’t comply with the conditions if you budge from the office during that time.’
“‘It’s only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,’ said I.
“‘No excuse will avail,’ said Mr. Duncan Ross, ‘neither sickness, nor business, nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose your billet.’
“‘And the work?’
“‘Is to copy out the “Encyclopædia Britannica.” There is the first volume of it in that press. You must find your own ink, pens, and blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be ready to-morrow?’
“‘Certainly,’ I answered.
“‘Then, good-bye, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you once more on the important position which you have been fortunate enough to gain.’ He bowed me out of the room, and I went home with my assistant, hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased at my own good fortune.
“Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in low spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I could not imagine. It seemed altogether past belief that anyone could make such a will, or that they would pay such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying out the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’ Vincent Spaulding did what he could to cheer me up, but by bedtime I had reasoned myself out of the whole thing. However, in the morning I determined to have a look at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of ink, and with a quill pen, and seven sheets of foolscap paper, I started off for Pope’s-court.
“Well, to my surprise and delight everything was as right as possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross was there to see that I got fairly to work. He started me off upon the letter A, and then he left me; but he would drop in from time to time to see that all was right with me. At two o’clock he bade me good-day, complimented me upon the amount that I had written, and locked the door of the office after me.
“This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the manager came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week’s work. It was the same next week, and the same the week after. Every morning I was there at ten, and every afternoon I left at two. By degrees Mr. Duncan Ross took to coming in only once of a morning, and then, after a time, he did not come in at all. Still, of course, I never dared to leave the room for an instant, for I was not sure when he might come, and the billet was such a good one, and suited me so well, that I would not risk the loss of it.
“Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots, and Archery, and Armour, and Architecture, and Attica, and hoped with diligence that I might get on to the Bs before very long. It cost me something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly filled a shelf with my writings. And then suddenly the whole business came to an end.”
“To an end?”
“Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my work as usual at ten o’clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a little square of cardboard hammered on to the middle of the panel with a tack. Here it is, and you can read for yourself.”
He held up a piece of white cardboard, about the size of a sheet of notepaper. It read in this fashion:—
“The Red-Headed League
is
Dissolved.
Oct. 9, 1890.”
Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter.
“I cannot see that there is anything very funny,” cried our client, flushing up to the roots of his flaming head. “If you can do nothing better than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere.”
“No, no,” cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from which he had half risen. “I really wouldn’t miss your case for the world. It is most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you will excuse my saying so, something just a little funny about it. Pray what steps did you take when you found the card upon the door?”
“I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at the offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it. Finally, I went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the ground floor, and I asked him if he could tell me what had become of the Red-headed League. He said that he had never heard of any such body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan Ross was. He answered that the name was new to him.
“‘Well,’ said I, ‘the gentleman at No. 4.’
“‘What, the red-headed man?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Oh,’ said he, ‘his name was William Morris. He was a solicitor, and was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new premises were ready. He moved out yesterday.’
“‘Where could I find him?’
“‘Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes, 17, King Edward-street, near St. Paul’s.’
“I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a manufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever heard of either Mr. William Morris, or Mr. Duncan Ross.”
“And what did you do then?” asked Holmes.
“I went home to Saxe-Coburg-square, and I took the advice of my assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He could only say that if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite good enough, Mr. Holmes. I did not wish to lose such a place without a struggle, so, as I had heard that you were good enough to give advice to poor folk who were in need of it, I came right away to you.”
“And you did very wisely,” said Holmes. “Your case is an exceedingly remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. From what you have told me I think that it is possible that graver issues hang from it than might at first sight appear.”
“Grave enough!” said Mr. Jabez Wilson. “Why, I have lost four pound a week.”
“As far as you are personally concerned,” remarked Holmes, “I do not see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league. On the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some thirty pounds, to say nothing of the minute knowledge which you have gained on every subject which comes under the letter A. You have lost nothing by them.”
“No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two and thirty pounds.”
“We shall endeavor to clear up these points for you. And, first, one or two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who first called your attention to the advertisement—how long had he been with you?”
“About a month then.”
“How did he come?”
“In answer to an advertisement.”
“Was he the only applicant?”
“No, I had a dozen.”
“Why did you pick him?”
“Because he was handy, and would come cheap.”
“At half wages, in fact.”
“Yes.”
“What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?”
“Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face, though he’s not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon his forehead.”
Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. “I thought as much,” said he. “Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for earrings?”
“Yes, sir. He told me that a gypsy had done it for him when he was a lad.”
“Hum!” said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. “He is still with you?”
“Oh, yes, sir; I have only just left him.”
“And has your business been attended to in your absence?”
“Nothing to complain of, sir. There’s never very much to do of a morning.”
“That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion upon the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is Saturday, and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion.”
“Well, Watson,” said Holmes, when our visitor had left us, “what do you make of it all?”
“I make nothing of it,” I answered, frankly. “It is a most mysterious business.”
“As a rule,” said Holmes, “the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this matter.”
“What are you going to do then?” I asked.
“To smoke,” he answered. “It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes.” He curled himself up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose, and there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird. I had come to the conclusion that he had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his chair withArthur Conan Doyle the gesture of a man who has made up his mind, and put his pipe down upon the mantelpiece.
“Sarasate plays at the St. James’s Hall this afternoon,” he remarked. “What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few hours?”
“I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing.”
“Then, put on your hat, and come. I am going through the City first, and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good deal of German music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste than Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to introspect. Come along!”
We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk took us to Saxe-Coburg-square, the scene of the singular story which we had listened to in the morning. It was a poky, little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass, and a few clumps of faded laurel bushes made a hard fight against a smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls and a brown board with “Jabez Wilson” in white letters, upon a corner house, announced the place where our red-headed client carried on his business. Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with his head on one side, and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly between puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and then down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses. Finally he returned to the pawnbroker’s, and, having thumped vigorously upon the pavement with his stick two or three times, he went up to the door and knocked. It was instantly opened by a bright-looking, clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to step in.
“Thank you,” said Holmes, “I only wished to ask you how you would go from here to the Strand.”
“Third right, fourth left,” answered the assistant promptly, closing the door.
“Smart fellow, that,” observed Holmes, as we walked away. “He is, in my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring I am not sure that he has not a claim to be third. I have known something of him before.”
“Evidently,” said I, “Mr. Wilson’s assistant counts for a good deal in this mystery of the Red-headed League. I am sure that you inquired your way merely in order that you might see him.”
“Not him.”
“What then?”
“The knees of his trousers.”
“And what did you see?”
“What I expected to see.”
“Why did you beat the pavement?”
“My dear Doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We are spies in an enemy’s country. We know something of Saxe-Coburg-square. Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it.”
The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner from the retired Saxe-Coburg-square presented as great a contrast to it as the front of a picture does to the back. It was one of the main arteries which convey the traffic of the City to the north and west. The roadway was blocked with the immense stream of commerce flowing in a double tide inwards and outwards, while the footpaths were black with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians. It was difficult to realize as we looked at the line of fine shops and stately business premises that they really abutted on the other side upon the faded and stagnant square which we had just quitted.
“Let me see,” said Holmes, standing at the corner, and glancing along the line, “I should like just to remember the order of the houses here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London. There is Mortimer’s, the tobacconist, the little newspaper shop, the Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane’s carriage-building depôt. That carries us right on to the other block. And now, Doctor, we’ve done our work, so it’s time we had some play. A sandwich, and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness, and delicacy, and harmony, and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums.”
My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer, but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound; Holmes the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the music at St. James’s Hall I felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom he had set himself to hunt down.
“You want to go home, no doubt, Doctor,” he remarked, as we emerged.
“Yes, it would be as well.”
“And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This business at Coburg-square is serious.”
“Why serious?”
“A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But to-day being Saturday rather complicates matters. I shall want your help to-night.”
“At what time?”
“Ten will be early enough.”
“I shall be at Baker-street at ten.”
“Very well. And, I say, Doctor! there may be some little danger, so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket.” He waved his hand, turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant among the crowd.
I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly not only what had happened, but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque. As I drove home to my house in Kensington I thought over it all, from the extraordinary story of the red-headed copier of the “Encyclopædia” down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg-square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me. What was this nocturnal expedition, and why should I go armed? Where were we going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker’s assistant was a formidable man—a man who might play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair, and set the matter aside until night should bring an explanation.
It was a quarter past nine when I started from home and made my way across the Park, and so through Oxford-street to Baker-street. Two hansoms were standing at the door, and, as I entered the passage, I heard the sound of voices from above. On entering his room, I found Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I recognized as Peter Jones, the official police agent; while the other was a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a very shiny hat and oppressively respectable frock-coat.
“Ha! our party is complete,” said Holmes, buttoning up his pea-jacket, and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack. “Watson, I think you know Mr. Jones, of Scotland-yard? Let me introduce you to Mr. Merryweather, who is to be our companion in to-night’s adventure.”
“We’re hunting in couples again, Doctor, you see,” said Jones, in his consequential way. “Our friend here is a wonderful man for starting a chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him to do the running down.”
“I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase,” observed Mr. Merryweather, gloomily.
“You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir,” said the police agent, loftily. “He has his own little methods, which are, if he won’t mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It is not too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct than the official force.”
“Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right!” said the stranger, with deference. “Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my rubber.”
“I think you will find,” said Sherlock Holmes, “that you will play for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the play will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake will be some thirty thousand pounds; and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon whom you wish to lay your hands.”
“John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher and forger. He’s a young man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and I would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London. He’s a remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather was a Royal Duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. His brain is as cunning as his fingers, and though we meet signs of him at every turn, we never know where to find the man himself. He’ll crack a crib in Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in Cornwall the next. I’ve been on his track for years, and have never set eyes on him yet.”
“I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night. I’ve had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I agree with you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two will take the first hansom, Watson and I will follow in the second.”
Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive, and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets until we emerged into Farringdon-street.
“We are close there now,” my friend remarked. “This fellow Merryweather is a bank director and personally interested in the matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog, and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone. Here we are, and they are waiting for us.”
We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and, following the guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage, and through a side door, which he opened for us. Within there was a small corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also was opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which terminated at another formidable gate. Mr. Merryweather stopped to light a lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling passage, and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which was piled all round with crates and massive boxes.
“You are not very vulnerable from above,” Holmes remarked, as he held up the lantern, and gazed about him.
“Nor from below,” said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon the flags which lined the floor. “Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!” he remarked, looking up in surprise.
“I must really ask you to be a little more quiet,” said Holmes, severely. “You have already imperilled the whole success of our expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?”
The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a very injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his knees upon the floor, and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens, began to examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few seconds sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again, and put his glass in his pocket.
“We have at least an hour before us,” he remarked, “for they can hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed. Then they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work the longer time they will have for their escape. We are at present, Doctor—as no doubt you have divined—in the cellar of the City branch of one of the principal London banks. Mr. Merryweather is the chairman of directors, and he will explain to you that there are reasons why the more daring criminals of London should take a considerable interest in this cellar at present.”
“It is our French gold,” whispered the director. “We have had several warnings that an attempt might be made upon it.”
“Your French gold?”
“Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources, and borrowed, for that purpose, thirty thousand napoleons from the Bank of France. It has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The crate upon which I sit contains two thousand napoleons packed between layers of lead foil. Our reserve of bullion is much larger at present than is usually kept in a single branch office, and the directors have had misgivings upon the subject.”
“Which were very well justified,” observed Holmes. “And now it is time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an hour matters will come to a head. In the meantime, Mr. Merryweather, we must put the screen over that dark lantern.”
“And sit in the dark?”
“I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and I thought that, as we were a partie carrée, you might have your rubber after all. But I see that the enemy’s preparations have gone so far that we cannot risk the presence of a light. And, first of all, we must choose our positions. These are daring men, and, though we shall take them at a disadvantage they may do us some harm, unless we are careful. I shall stand behind this crate, and do you conceal yourselves behind those. Then, when I flash a light upon them, close in swiftly. If they fire, Watson, have no compunction about shooting them down.”
I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front of his lantern, and left us in pitch darkness—such an absolute darkness as I have never before experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a moment’s notice. To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold, dank air of the vault.
“They have but one retreat,” whispered Holmes. “That is back through the house into Saxe-Coburg-square. I hope that you have done what I asked you, Jones?”
“l have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door.”
“Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent and wait.”
What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it was but an hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have almost gone, and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs were weary and stiff, for I feared to change my position, yet my nerves were worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so acute that I could not only hear the gentle breathing of my companions, but I could distinguish the deeper, heavier in-breath of the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note of the bank director. From my position I could look over the case in the direction of the floor. Suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light.
At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared, a white, almost womanly hand, which felt about in the centre of the little area of light. For a minute or more the hand, with its writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor. Then it was withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark again save the single lurid spark, which marked a chink between the stones.
Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending, tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon its side and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the light of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face, which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either side of the aperture, drew itself shoulder high and waist high, until one knee rested upon the edge. In another instant he stood at the side of the hole, and was hauling after him a companion, lithe and small like himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair.
“It’s all clear,” he whispered. “Have you the chisel and the bags. Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I’ll swing for it!”
Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes’s hunting crop came down on the man’s wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.
“It’s no use, John Clay,” said Holmes blandly, “You have no chance at all.”
“So I see,” the other answered, with the utmost coolness. “I fancy that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails.”
“There are three men waiting for him at the door,” said Holmes.
“Oh, indeed. You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must compliment you.”
“And I you,” Holmes answered. “Your red-headed idea was very new and effective.”
“You’ll see your pal again presently,” said Jones. “He’s quicker at climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out while I fix the derbies.”
“I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands,” remarked our prisoner, as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. “You may not be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness also when you address me always to say ‘sir’ and ‘please.’”
“All right,” said Jones, with a stare and a snigger. “Well, would you please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry your highness to the police-station.”
“That is better,” said John Clay, serenely. He made a sweeping bow to the three of us, and walked quietly off in the custody of the detective.
“Really, Mr. Holmes,” said Mr. Merryweather, as we followed them from the cellar, “I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you. There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most complete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery that have ever come within my experience.”
“I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. John Clay,” said Holmes, “I have been at some small expense over this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond that I am amply repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways unique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the Red-headed League.”
“You see, Watson,” he explained, in the early hours of the morning, as we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker-street, “it was perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League, and the copying of the ‘Encyclopædia,’ must be to get this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day. It was a curious way of managing it, but really it would be difficult to suggest a better. The method was no doubt suggested to Clay’s ingenious mind by the colour of his accomplice’s hair. The four pounds a week was a lure which must draw him, and what was it to them, who were playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue has the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it, and together they manage to secure his absence every morning in the week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come for half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive for securing the situation.”
“But how could you guess what the motive was?”
“Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The man’s business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which could account for such elaborate preparations, and such an expenditure as they were at. It must then be something out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant’s fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious assistant, and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and most daring criminals in London. He was doing something in the cellar—something which took many hours a day for months on end. What could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save that he was running a tunnel to some other building.
“So far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. It was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and, as I hoped, the assistant answered it. We have had some skirmishes, but we had never set eyes upon each other before. I hardly looked at his face. His knees were what I wished to see. You must yourself have remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of those hours of burrowing. The only remaining point was what they were burrowing for. I walked round the corner, saw that the City and Suburban Bank abutted on our friend’s premises, and felt that I had solved my problem. When you drove home after the concert I called upon Scotland Yard and upon the chairman of the bank directors, with the result that you have seen.”
“And how could you tell that they would make their attempt to-night?” I asked.
“Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign that they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson’s presence, in other words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the bullion might be removed. Saturday would suit them better than any other day, as it would give them two days for their escape. For all these reasons I expected them to come to-night.”
“You reasoned it out beautifully,” I exclaimed in unfeigned admiration. “It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true.”
“It saved me from ennui,” he answered, yawning. “Alas! I already feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so.”
“And you are a benefactor of the race,” said I.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some little use,” he remarked. “‘L’homme c’est rien—l’œuvre c’est tout,’ as Gustave Flaubert wrote to Georges Sand.”[1]
Notes (not in the original source):
Flaubert actually wrote “L’homme n’est rien, l’œuvre tout!” (“The man is nothing, the work is everything!”)
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930)
The Red-headed League
(from: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Arthur Conan Doyle, Doyle, Arthur Conan
Thank you for reading Fleurs du Mal - magazine for art & literature