Читать книгу The Oaken Heart онлайн

34 страница из 73

In Auburn we don't care for drama very much. Certain of our good ladies have a flair for it, and generations of them presiding over illnesses and accidents have brought the whole thing into disrepute; so it happened that when real drama appeared it shocked and irritated us before it stimulated us.

The first thing that happened was the change in the wireless. It gave up being dull and became frankly hysterical, bursting into news bulletins every forty-five minutes or so, a phenomenon which reminded us of the death of the King and the Abdication. The painfully nervous light entertainment between the announcements was a change from the slow music of the other occasions, but if it was meant to be comfortingly normal it was a mistake, because we were inclined to be confused by it rather than soothed.

As I have said, few of us ordinary people in Auburn tended to be students of foreign affairs at that time, although most of us have done a little studying since; but, as Sam pointed out, we could at least read, and the bare facts, which we have a gift for seizing among the verbiage, suddenly resolved themselves into a path to disaster as clear as if we had suddenly seen it appearing across the marsh.