DOI article:
Dowie, Ménie Muriel: Wladlislaw's Advent
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21805#0115
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By Menie Muriel Dowie
hair, smoothed the soft flow of his moustache and beard, knotted
the rope cord round his waist, and stood there only a second or
two longer. Then, nerved by the startling simplicity, the con-
vincing faithfulness of his whole appearanee, he opened the door
and went down the passage to the Studio, frowning and stepping
gingerly on the cold boards.
* * * •* *
The curious murmur of sounds that Struck his ear ; voices, the
music of glasses and silver, the slap, as it might have been a hand
upon a cheek, and the vagrant notes of some untuned musical
instrument—these all he barely noticed, or supposed they came
from the sculptor’s adjacent Studio.
He opened the door and brushed aside the dark portiere thatscreened
out draughts ; he stepped into the Studio, into a hot, overcharged air,
thick with the flat smell of poured wines and fruit rind, coloured
with smoke, poisoned with scent, ringing harshly to voices—an air
that of itself, and if he had seen nothing, would have nauseated him.
He saw dimly, confusedly ; orange and yellow blobs of light
seemed to be swinging behind grey-blue mists that rolled and
eddied round the heads of people so wild, he did not know if he
looked at a dream-picture, a picture in a bad dream. If he made
another Step or two and stood, his arms straight at his sides, his
head up, his long eyes glaring beneath drawn perplexed brows, he
did not know it. There was a sudden pause, as though by a
Chemical process the air had been purged of sounds. Then a
confused yell burst from among the smoke clouds, mixed with
the harsh scrape of chairs shot back upon the floor ; that, too,
ceased, and out of the frozen horror of those halted people,
some incoherent, hysteric whimpering broke out, and a few faint
interrupted exclamations.
At a table heaped with the debris of a careless feast he saw
Dufour,
By Menie Muriel Dowie
hair, smoothed the soft flow of his moustache and beard, knotted
the rope cord round his waist, and stood there only a second or
two longer. Then, nerved by the startling simplicity, the con-
vincing faithfulness of his whole appearanee, he opened the door
and went down the passage to the Studio, frowning and stepping
gingerly on the cold boards.
* * * •* *
The curious murmur of sounds that Struck his ear ; voices, the
music of glasses and silver, the slap, as it might have been a hand
upon a cheek, and the vagrant notes of some untuned musical
instrument—these all he barely noticed, or supposed they came
from the sculptor’s adjacent Studio.
He opened the door and brushed aside the dark portiere thatscreened
out draughts ; he stepped into the Studio, into a hot, overcharged air,
thick with the flat smell of poured wines and fruit rind, coloured
with smoke, poisoned with scent, ringing harshly to voices—an air
that of itself, and if he had seen nothing, would have nauseated him.
He saw dimly, confusedly ; orange and yellow blobs of light
seemed to be swinging behind grey-blue mists that rolled and
eddied round the heads of people so wild, he did not know if he
looked at a dream-picture, a picture in a bad dream. If he made
another Step or two and stood, his arms straight at his sides, his
head up, his long eyes glaring beneath drawn perplexed brows, he
did not know it. There was a sudden pause, as though by a
Chemical process the air had been purged of sounds. Then a
confused yell burst from among the smoke clouds, mixed with
the harsh scrape of chairs shot back upon the floor ; that, too,
ceased, and out of the frozen horror of those halted people,
some incoherent, hysteric whimpering broke out, and a few faint
interrupted exclamations.
At a table heaped with the debris of a careless feast he saw
Dufour,