DOI Artikel:
Harland, Henry: Merely Players
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25499#0048
44 Merely Players
have the same features, organs, dimensions, with but a hair’s-
breadth variation ; the same needs, instincts, propensities ; the
same hopes, fears, ideas. One man’s meat is another man’s meat;
one man’s poison is another man’s poison. We are as like to one
another as the leaves on the same tree. Skin us, and (save for
your fat) the most skilled anatomist could never distingush you
from me. Women are a pack of samenesses ; but, hang it all,
one has got to make the best of a monotonous universe. And
this particular woman, with her red hair and her eyes, strikes me
as attractive. She has some fire in her composition, some fire
and flavour. Anyhow, she attracts me; and—I think I shall try
my luck.”
“Oh, Nunky, Nunky,” murmured Hilary, shaking his head,
“ I am shocked by your lack of principle. Have you forgotten
that you are a married man ? ”
“ That will be my safeguard. I can make love to her with a
clear conscience. If I were single, she might, justifiably enough,
form matrimonial expectations for herself.”
“ Not if she knew you,” said Hilary.
“Ah, but she doesn’t know me—and shan’t,” said Ferdinand
Augustus. “ I will take care of that.”
VI
And then, for what seemed to him an eternity, he never once
encountered her. Morning and afternoon, day after day, he
roamed the park of Bellefontaine from end to end, in all direc-
tions, but never once caught sight of so much as the flutter of her
garments. And the result was that he began to grow seriously
sentimental. “ Im wunderschonen Monat Mai ! ” It was June,
to
have the same features, organs, dimensions, with but a hair’s-
breadth variation ; the same needs, instincts, propensities ; the
same hopes, fears, ideas. One man’s meat is another man’s meat;
one man’s poison is another man’s poison. We are as like to one
another as the leaves on the same tree. Skin us, and (save for
your fat) the most skilled anatomist could never distingush you
from me. Women are a pack of samenesses ; but, hang it all,
one has got to make the best of a monotonous universe. And
this particular woman, with her red hair and her eyes, strikes me
as attractive. She has some fire in her composition, some fire
and flavour. Anyhow, she attracts me; and—I think I shall try
my luck.”
“Oh, Nunky, Nunky,” murmured Hilary, shaking his head,
“ I am shocked by your lack of principle. Have you forgotten
that you are a married man ? ”
“ That will be my safeguard. I can make love to her with a
clear conscience. If I were single, she might, justifiably enough,
form matrimonial expectations for herself.”
“ Not if she knew you,” said Hilary.
“Ah, but she doesn’t know me—and shan’t,” said Ferdinand
Augustus. “ I will take care of that.”
VI
And then, for what seemed to him an eternity, he never once
encountered her. Morning and afternoon, day after day, he
roamed the park of Bellefontaine from end to end, in all direc-
tions, but never once caught sight of so much as the flutter of her
garments. And the result was that he began to grow seriously
sentimental. “ Im wunderschonen Monat Mai ! ” It was June,
to