Читать книгу The Lost Weekend онлайн

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The time. Four o'clock. Mrs. Foley would be there now but to hell with that! This was more important. But caution, slow. Good thing there was no paper handy, no chance to begin impulsively what later must be composed--when, tonight maybe, certainly tomorrow--with all the calm and wise control needed for such an undertaking. A tour de force? Critics would call it that, they'd be bound to, but what the hell was the matter with a tour de force for Christ's sake that the term should have come to be a sneer? Didn't it mean a brilliant performance and is "brilliance" something to snoot at? His mind raced on. But how about "As Through a Glass Darkly"?--or "Through a Glass Darkly"? No, it had been done to death; trite; every lady-writer in the land had used it at one time or another, or if they hadn't, it was a wonder. "In a Glass" was perfect--he saw stacks of copies in bookshop windows, piled in tricky pyramids (he would drop in and address the bookseller with some prepared witticism, like, "I appreciate the compliment you pay my book by piling it up in the window like a staple that should be in every home; but couldn't you add a card saying 'Send in ten wrappers and get a free illustrated life of the author'?"--hell, that was too long for wit, he'd have to cut it down), he glanced over people's shoulders in the subway and smiled to himself as he heard one girl say to another "I can't make head or tail of this"--(she had something if she meant "tale"), he read with amusement an embarrassed letter from his mother regretting the fact that he hadn't published a book she could show the neighbors and why didn't he write something that had "human interest"? With a careful glance about him he picked up his glass, offered a silent rueful toast to human interest, and drank.