Читать книгу The Plumed Serpent. Historical Novel - Life and Love after the Mexico Revolution онлайн

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‘Oh, quite!’ said Owen vaguely. ‘Exactly. But still there was some very skilful work, very pretty. Really very plucky.’

‘Yah!’ snarled Kate. ‘Plucky! They with all their knives and their spears and cloaks and darts — and they know just how a bull will behave. It’s just a performance of human beings torturing animals, with those common fellows showing off, how smart they are at hurting a bull. Dirty little boys maiming flies — that’s what they are. Only grown-up, they are bastards, not boys. Oh, I wish I could be a bull, just for five minutes. Bastard, that’s what I call it!’

‘Well!’ laughed Owen uneasily, ‘it is rather.’

‘Call that manliness!’ cried Kate. ‘Then thank God a million times that I’m a woman, and know poltroonery and dirty-mindedness when I see it.’

Again Owen laughed uncomfortably.

‘Go upstairs and change,’ she said. ‘You’ll die.’

‘I think I’d better. I feel I might die any minute, as a matter of fact. Well, till dinner then. I’ll tap at your door in half an hour.’

Kate sat trying to sew, but her hand trembled. She could not get the bull-ring out of her mind, and something felt damaged in her inside.