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

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She straightened herself, and sighed. She was really very angry, too, with Owen. He was naturally so sensitive, and so kind. But he had the insidious modern disease of tolerance. He must tolerate everything, even a thing that revolted him. He would call it Life! He would feel he had LIVED this afternoon. Greedy even for the most sordid sensations.

Whereas SHE felt as if she had eaten something which was giving her ptomaine poisoning. If THAT was life!

Ah men, men! They all had this soft rottenness of the soul, a strange perversity which made even the squalid, repulsive things seem part of LIFE to them. Life! And what is life? A louse lying on its back and kicking? Ugh!

At about seven o’clock Villiers came tapping. He looked wan, peaked, but like a bird that had successfully pecked a bellyful of garbage.

‘Oh it was GREAT!’ he said, lounging on one hip. ‘GREAT! They killed SEVEN BULLS.’

‘No calves, unfortunately,’ said Kate, suddenly furious again.

He paused to consider the point, then laughed. Her anger was another slight sensational amusement to him.