Читать книгу Streets of Night онлайн

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Half an hour later Nancibel Taylor sat at the table beside the window in the livingroom sipping coffee and putting dabs of butter on the broken pieces of a sugared bun left over from tea. The sky had clouded over. Through the black tangle of twigs of the low trees in the Fenway here and there a slaty gleam of water flashed out. From a long way off came the unresonant tolling of a churchbell broken into occasionally by the shrill grind of a street car round a corner. Still chewing the last mouthful Nan picked up the cup and plate, absentmindedly brushing a few crumbs off the blue tablecover with one hand, and carried them into the kitchenette. Putting them in the sink she let the hot water run on them, and with her hand still on the tap, paused to think what she must do next. O, the garbage. She picked up the zinc pail a little gingerly, holding her face away from it, and put it on the dumbwaiter, then pulled on the grimy cord that made the dumbwaiter descend, past the kitchenettes of the apartments below into the lowest region of all where the janitor was and a smell of coalgas from the furnace. After that with a feeling of relief Nan washed her hands and put her hat on in front of the pierglass in her bedroom, a hat of fine black straw without trimming that seemed to her to go very well with her light grey tailored suit. Pulling on her gloves, with a faint glow in her of anticipation of streets and movement and faces, she walked down the stairs.