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Back The Memorial
Chapters (26)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Notice
  4. Dedication
  5. Book One
  6. Chapter I
  7. Chapter II
  8. Chapter III
  9. Chapter IV
  10. Chapter V
  11. Book Two
  12. Chapter I
  13. Chapter II
  14. Chapter III
  15. Chapter IV
  16. Book Three
  17. Chapter I
  18. Chapter II
  19. Chapter III
  20. Book Four
  21. Chapter I
  22. Chapter II
  23. Chapter III
  24. Chapter IV
  25. Chapter V
  26. Also by Christopher Isherwood

“I’m afraid you find it pretty slow, spending the evening here?” he had asked, with an anxiety which would have been rather pathetic were it not so irritating, as he stood in the hall, ready to show Edward out.

To escape from those two houses, he had travelled. China. South Africa. Brazil. Twice round the world. Had shot big game, climbed in the Alps, been round the coasts of Europe in a small sailing-boat. At any rate, he could afford to risk his life expensively. And he was happier away from England.

And then the War. And that last afternoon with Richard, sitting talking by the side of a muddy road. Edward was glad to be able to remember that afternoon. He’d taken a good deal of trouble to procure it, wangling things at the aerodrome, getting a fifty-kilometre lift, bribing the telephonist to put through a private message to Richard’s mess. He hadn’t expected anything but a sentimental pleasure from the meeting. And, after all, it had been a success. For Richard, away from Earl’s Court and his office, had seemed again the Richard of their schooldays. He was busy knitting. He offered Edward a pair of mittens. And Edward had been wearing them when he crashed. They must have been cut off him at the hospital with his other clothes and thrown away or burnt. It was a pity, because he had nothing, absolutely nothing to remind him of Richard as he used to be, as he was when he died.

*   *   *

Ramsbotham had finished his story about the jute and was beginning another, also not new, about an accident with the transformer. Mary beckoned to them to make haste. Two men, said Ramsbotham, had been killed. Richard had been killed. Richard, who had said that everything would go on much the same. Richard is dead. And this is what remains, said Edward to himself, seeing the doll in her black, the slobbering old man, the gawky boy getting into the carriage. This is what we’ve got left of Richard.

Chapter IV

IV

ERIC jumped into the victoria, nearly treading on his mother’s foot. Squatting down on the back seat, with his knees sticking out, he felt clumsy and huge—all bones.

His clumsiness was loathsome to him. He put his hands round his knees to make himself more compact in the narrow space. But his hands were as bony as his knee-joints, and always either too hot or too cold.