Читать книгу The Lost Weekend онлайн

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There was a small Longines traveling clock on the ledge of the bookshelf at his elbow and it said 1:32. He picked it up and wound it, remembering the generous Dutchman who had given it to him that winter in Gstaad and how the Dutchman's feelings had been hurt because he hadn't got around to thanking him for two days. He set it back on the shelf and looked about the room.

Now that he was alone, with five hours staring him in the face, he began to sense the first pricks of panic; then knew at once it was something he only imagined. "What to do, Mac, what to do?" The dog opened its eyes, lifted its head from the cushion, and relapsed into sleep again. "I get it," he said. "Bored!" He spoke up sharply, not even thinking of the dog now. "What the hell have you got to be bored with!" His eye fell on the gramophone. He walked over to it and lifted the cover. The last record of a Beethoven sonata was on, the Waldstein. He turned the switch and set it going; but before the record was halfway through, its jubilant energy and hammering clanging rhythm oppressed him, and he reached to shut it off. As he lifted the arm of the pickup, the trembling of his hand caused the needle to scrape across the record with a strident squawk that brought the Scottie to its feet. "Relax, dog," he said, and came back to his chair.