DOI article:
Dowie, Ménie Muriel: Wladlislaw's Advent
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21805#0113
By Menie Muriel Dowie 109
a cigarette was not to be denied. Also he was late for his
appointment, and this annoyed him. He picked up the lamp
when he had taken coat and cap off, and searched for the costume
he was to wear.
A row of pegs upon the wall offered encouragement. With a
certain awkwardness, which was the result of his shyness of touch-
ing unfamiliar garments, he knocked down two hats—women’s
hats : one a great scooped thing with red roses below the rim ;
the other like a dish, with green locusts, horribly lifelike (and no
wonder, since they were the real insects), crawling over it. He
hastily replaced these, and took up a white thing on another nail,
which might have been the scant robe he was to wear.
It was a fine and soft to his hand ; it exhaled an ineffable
perfume of a sort of sweetness which belonged to no three-franc
bottle, and had loose lace upon it and ribbons. He dropped this
upon the ground, thinking shudderingly of the woman in the
unbuttoned boots. At last he came upon the garment he was to
wear ; it seemed to him that he knew it at once when he touched
it ; it was of a thick, coarse, resistant woollen fabric, perhaps
mohair, with a dull shine in the rather unwilling folds ; there was
very little stuff in it—just a narrow, poor garment, and of course
white ; wool-white. Wladislaw wondered vaguely where Dufour
could have come by this wonderfully archaic material, ascetic
even to the touch. Then he sat down upon a small disused stove
and took off his boots and socks. Still hanging upon the nail was
a rope cord, frayed rather, and of hemp, hand-twisted. That was
the whole costume : the robe and the cord.
He was out of his shirt and ready to put on the He'brew dress,
when he was arrested again by some half-thought in his mind,
and stood looking at it as it lay thrown across a heap of dusty
tolles. It seemed so supremely real a thing—just what The Man
must
a cigarette was not to be denied. Also he was late for his
appointment, and this annoyed him. He picked up the lamp
when he had taken coat and cap off, and searched for the costume
he was to wear.
A row of pegs upon the wall offered encouragement. With a
certain awkwardness, which was the result of his shyness of touch-
ing unfamiliar garments, he knocked down two hats—women’s
hats : one a great scooped thing with red roses below the rim ;
the other like a dish, with green locusts, horribly lifelike (and no
wonder, since they were the real insects), crawling over it. He
hastily replaced these, and took up a white thing on another nail,
which might have been the scant robe he was to wear.
It was a fine and soft to his hand ; it exhaled an ineffable
perfume of a sort of sweetness which belonged to no three-franc
bottle, and had loose lace upon it and ribbons. He dropped this
upon the ground, thinking shudderingly of the woman in the
unbuttoned boots. At last he came upon the garment he was to
wear ; it seemed to him that he knew it at once when he touched
it ; it was of a thick, coarse, resistant woollen fabric, perhaps
mohair, with a dull shine in the rather unwilling folds ; there was
very little stuff in it—just a narrow, poor garment, and of course
white ; wool-white. Wladislaw wondered vaguely where Dufour
could have come by this wonderfully archaic material, ascetic
even to the touch. Then he sat down upon a small disused stove
and took off his boots and socks. Still hanging upon the nail was
a rope cord, frayed rather, and of hemp, hand-twisted. That was
the whole costume : the robe and the cord.
He was out of his shirt and ready to put on the He'brew dress,
when he was arrested again by some half-thought in his mind,
and stood looking at it as it lay thrown across a heap of dusty
tolles. It seemed so supremely real a thing—just what The Man
must